I can grant wishes, but I’m not touching that one. No, thank you.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Project: Lucifer
Current Date: August 5, 2023

Character: Myriam Chantell
Race: Human
Age: 40
Current residence: Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
 

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I don’t know how far I travelled when I finally started to move. It was years ago at this point, though it doesn’t feel like it. Moot or otherwise, I like to try and keep track of time, though many others no longer seem interested in bothering with that at all. I mean, there were calendars to be had long before electricity was invented, so what’s keeping people from, well, keeping track?

To be fair, I know that the people who were closer to the orbs possibly had a much harder time keeping track of passing days and nights, from what little I’ve heard whispered here and there from the few people I’ve crossed who live in the same area I’ve found myself living in, the orbs were bright, if you were close enough to it, you pretty much just stopped having any day-to-night cycles and I can’t imagine how that must have been.

At the institute, I’d been somewhat far enough to not truly have to deal with constant daylight though the night didn’t get fully dark; it wasn’t much but I could tell that there was at least one orb in the distance and one way or another, I wanted nothing to do with it if I could help it.

Here, though, from what I hear of others, there was an orb near the centre of the city. I’ve been there—I went only a few weeks after I found a house that had looked to be in fairly good shape with a big, protected yard—and it didn’t really seem like much. The buildings were all there, but it felt like a dead zone. Everyone avoided that area as though their lives depended on it.

Even though I’ve been living here for a few years now—tending to the little garden I’ve managed to somehow miraculously grow, as I never imagined myself a green thumb—I’ve met a few people. A handful, perhaps more. I know there are more than just that living here but everyone seems to just be keeping to themselves. They’re doing what they can to survive in their own way and that’s about that. There are a few places that have canned goods still but they’re a somewhat rare thing and I can’t recall last I opened a can of anything, if I’m being honest.

That’s probably for the best, anyway.

I can’t claim to have gained any of the weight I’d lost before, maybe just a little from the fact that I get a lot more fresh air and I do eat more—greens and vegetables and the rest—but still. Of the people I’ve met, one is very delusional, and it makes me wonder if they weren’t in a particular hospital before the world went the way it did.

Though I know that it’s not right of me to judge them and claim they’re delusional, but the first time I walked up to them—and the subsequent ones—they told me they could grant wishes. However, whoever they’d been talking to before had asked them for one particular thing, but they weren’t touching that one wish at all, not one way, no one could make them.

Had it been a one-off, I would have let it go. But they like to remind every single person they cross—I’ve seen it any time I’ve been nearby—that they can grant wishes but that these wishes have a price and, just, as a whole, it feels like something I want absolutely no part of. I might have made it my mission to make sure that I avoid them altogether. Not because I think they could possibly turn violent—I want to believe I could handle myself—but because I just don’t want to have to spend the necessary brain power to deal with this. They can be someone else’s problem and they must be if they’re still around now.

I’m well aware that this does me no good as far as my loner status is concerned and I’ve been alone so long at this point that I’ve made my peace with it. I can see people now, at least. Glimpses of them, brief passing-by where we tentatively smile at one another but mostly mind our own business. The people around this place are not very outgoing, it feels like, and I find myself not minding all that much.

Maybe, years down the road—or at any point in the future—someone else will come along and will bring a bit more life into this place but even otherwise, that’s okay. Most people seem to still be afraid that the orbs might be coming back and I’m not sure that I can say I’m surprised at this. I think that there’s a part of me that believes that, too.

Final Word Count: 803

I refuse to go into haunted buildings just because you want pictures of them.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Project: Lucifer
Characters: Myriam Chantell
Race: Human
Age: 38
Current residence: Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Final Word Count: 770 words
 

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On certain days, I still find myself somewhat surprised that I was able to make myself walk away from where I’d been staying for the past two and a half years. The place was certainly secure. If I so much as forgot to put something in the doorway to keep it from closing completely whenever I stepped outside, though it was rare, the door would have locked behind me and that would have been the end of that. I would have been stuck outside with no way in. My orthopedic shoes, my clothes, everything would have been inside.

Still, on that one morning a bit more than two years ago, I made up my mind. The weather was certainly going to change before long and while the view from the floor I had picked as my own was beautiful, I thought that it was about time that I finally venture out and try to find elsewhere to live, maybe there were other survivors though I wasn’t holding my breath. This place had been fairly far enough removed that I knew I had a good chunk of distance to cover before I even made it anywhere near where proper civilization had been before.

From my room, I packed up what few changes of clothes I had that weren’t now falling off my body—I’d lost weight I couldn’t really have afforded to lose since the Silencers had landed—my shoes went in as well because I knew that they were all I had and finding other shoes—with the proper soles—was going to be impossible. Added to that were a couple of blankets, food, water and other bare-bones necessity. I’m grateful for the bike I’d had with me. I’d checked on it every few months, just to be sure it was in riding condition. It was, though I did worry about a potential flat.

The bike had saddle bags, those were used for the food I took along. I had my jacket on, in case the weather did change because everything looked like it would call for rain, and I left. I did leave something small jammed in the door at the back, just in case I had to backtrack, though I wasn’t holding much hope on that still being there if I ever did have to come back. It was all right, though. It was one of those things in the end.

The one last thing I took with me, however, was a photo. The only photo I had of my years learning my trade. I was shoulder to shoulder with another young man, he’d been taller than me, a little bulkier but surprisingly not that much more so, he’d been wiry. He’d been the only person I could have called a friend while we both learned about the not-always wonderful world of nursing.

We were in front of an old house, a third friend—more his than mine—had managed to somehow drag us there on Halloween Night on our last year studying. I had made it abundantly clear to them that I wasn’t going to step into any haunted buildings because they might have wanted pictures of them. Thankfully, my friend had admitted to not being fond of the idea of anything paranormal and he just didn’t like insects and spiders anyway.

I’ve had this photo in my things since they gave me a copy of it. I knew that once schooling was done, it was highly likely he’d end up moving elsewhere and he did. I ended up staying not too far from the school for a while before I left, too. We kept in touch for a short span but not very long. Before the year apart was over, he’d stopped answering any of my tentative texts and I didn’t want to bother him. I also felt as though it wasn’t wholly fair that I was the one doing the reaching out to him all the time. Not that I ever told him that.

So, slightly bitter as I feel our parting was, he still is the only person I ever could really call a friend and that photo is all I have of my time in that school; it might seem like an odd memento, but I don’t know that I would want to leave it behind, it would feel like leaving a part of me behind that shouldn’t be left back there. An important side of me. A side of me that, yes, could somehow manage to make friends. I feel like that’s just an important piece of myself to keep close.

You aren’t being very subtle. You are literally shoving me into the direction of my crush.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Project: Lucifer
Characters: Myriam Chantell
Race: Human
Age: 37
Final Word Count: 747 words
 

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I can’t claim that my years of schooling were terrible ones. I was often made fun of for having orthopedic shoes since one of my legs is a little shorter than the other, sure, the difference is minimal and the sole of the one shoe was only a little thicker than the other, but it changed my gait some and I often felt unbalanced while I was growing up. I’m sure you can imagine how much I make sure to keep my three pairs of shoes very close to my things now, if I were to lose them or someone were to take them, I would have to learn to walk unbalanced again and it would be more than a little unpleasant.

I was the quiet little girl—as per my parent’s raising until I was a teenager when I realized I wasn’t a girl but that’s a story for another time—who just was so shy that she had no friends, not really. There were some others who spent some time around me but it was minimal, as though it was more out of pity than not that they did spend time with me. I didn’t mind, back then. I wasn’t outgoing and it suited me fine.

I started making perhaps a few more friends when I turned twelve or so. A few years later—when I was closer to fifteen and I finally realized that I wasn’t like all of the other girls since I just wasn’t a girl at all—I started losing the few friends I’d made because I was struggling with the conflicting thoughts and emotions that had surfaced from my discovering that I just wasn’t a late bloomer, I was ‘all wrong’.

Still, in the short period that was between my being twelve to fifteen, I had a few slight friends, though I think they mostly only spoke to me because I was relatively good with school things and I’d often done their homework for them. Not that I realized what was happening back then, I was just happy to have friends.

Looking back now, I can see the signs that make it clear that they weren’t really interested in my friendship and were using me more than not but I didn’t think about it much, back then. I remember when they started fawning over boys and, let me tell you as I’m not going to lie, I was fawning over those very same boys myself. Of course, learning about who I was also altered my view on my sexuality and that likely also didn’t help me in keeping my not-quite friends.

I remember how they would gently shove and giggle one another, never me, when one of the cuter boys in school would walk on by. They’d whisper back and forth about going to talk to him and making him theirs and all. They weren’t very subtle about it and I remember catching one boy’s eyes, he smiled, oh he’d smiled at me and something had warmed right up in me. I kissed that boy, the boy they were both trying to talk one another into talking to. Only once, of course, did I kiss him. I felt like it was wrong to want to kiss him when my friends wanted to be with him just as badly. Though I guess I should say that he kissed me but it’s all in the past.

Not long before I realized how different I was, I remember one of the two girls near literally shoving her friend—our friend?—towards one of the boys they’d pined for and crushed on. It really wasn’t subtle, that attempt but it was amusing to watch nonetheless. I don’t know if it worked out or not for them, it really was just a week or two before I finally realized—by an accidental walking in on a couple making out in one of the bathrooms, as they were not even in a stall—that I was no woman. I had a near-complete fallout with my so-called friends not long after that.

I haven’t really been with anyone, otherwise. I’ve had that first kiss and I suppose it does me fine. I still remember the taste of his lips, which I guess can be a little weird when you think about it but it’s one of the rare good memories I have of my past. It helps me survive out here, in this place.

I know we’ll find a way to get around this.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Project: Lucifer
Characters: Myriam Chantell
Race: Human
Age: 36
Final Word Count: 738 words
 

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Two and a half years now, almost going on three. It still was as hard to get up in the morning, or whenever it was that he got up. Unlike some of the others that had escaped further away from the orbs though nowhere was safe, Myriam hadn’t managed to find any sort of routine for his life yet.

He knows that he’s holding himself back from leaving. Food is so sparse now, beyond canned stuff, that he’s lost weight he couldn’t really afford to lose. The deaths of the patients in the nursing home still sit heavily with him, no matter that it’s been more than two years at this point. Most of them were taken right when the first Silencer came and landed with a life-shattering earthquake. The startled screams of those who no longer had all of their minds silenced within the blink of an eye.

He remembers seeing them just go poof, no more. Their clothes sitting there still in their bed, the sheets tangled. He remembers roaming the rooms, not finding a single resident left. Only a small handful of nurses, just like him, who were terrified but keeping their mouths shut.

Within the first week, after the Silencers had settled, the few other nurses who still had been within the walls of the residence took their chances and left. Myriam has no idea whether or not they made it alive to their destination. Not that it really matters. He’s been alone for the past years, living in silence, scavenging a little to find what he needs for food but still living on the uncomfortable amount of canned food that had been stashed in the deeper halls of the residence. He’d never expected so much food; it almost felt hoarded as though their residents mostly ate canned food and barely small amounts of fresh food. The thought saddened him when he first had started digging around to find food.

At times, he wonders if this is what it feels like to be deaf. The silence that surrounds him is, well, deafening but he’s grown so used to it that the smallest of noises otherwise terrify him. The Silencers still take victims but it doesn’t happen anywhere near as often as it used to in the beginning. He imagines it is a little bit like any zombie apocalypse where people panic at first, they all die and then the survivors somehow manage to band up together and stay alive, with much fewer deaths to be had.

He remembers the nurses, talking ever so softly between themselves, deep in the building, away from the outside. They were making plans, trying to decide on where they would go, which route they would take. They figured that there would be roadblocks or vehicles in the way of things but they would find means to get around them. He really does hope that they’ve made it to where they wanted to be and that their families are all right.

The thought of families brings a bitter smile to his lips and he shakes his head a little. It has been years since he’s had any news of his own flesh and blood and somehow, it doesn’t seem to matter, not really. They turned their backs on him once he started arguing with the way they were trying to raise him. He didn’t want to be a little girl. He didn’t care that they had expected, hoped and dreamed of having a little girl. He was all boy and that was all there was to it.

For a moment, Myriam looks outside, his third-floor window allowing him a view of the sun as it begins to set. Now that electricity is also completely gone, there is just so much that has failed. He’s surprised that there still is water going. Before long, even that would no longer be an option and maybe just then he’d be forced to leave.

Shaking his head, he moves away from the window and down the hallway, through a door he’s propped open with a chair—letting it slide shut would lock its mechanism and he’d no longer be able to open it—and moved off towards the room he has been calling his own for the last two and then some years.

Maybe, in the morning, he’d pack up and leave. What was it that was keeping him in this place, anyway?

It’s the fourth job I’ve gotten fired from this week, to be honest.

Timeline/World: Modern Monotony – Far From Home
Characters: Myriam Chantell
Race: Human
Age: 34
Final Word Count: 566 words

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He could only nod as he changed the bandages on his patient’s hand, listening to the old man rambling mindlessly. Working in this particular house was not pleasant, not in a way he would have liked but that was where he had landed recently and he didn’t want to chance landing back in the street and having to find another job.

Alzheimer patients were not all bad, this he knew from experience but he still couldn’t get his heart to agree that this was a job he wanted to keep. He loved the world of nursing, he’d spent years in it at this point but this last stint was wearing him thin and stretched to his limits. Some of his patients were dealing with the early phases of the disease and he was glad to be at their bedside, giving them a familiar face to rekindle with several times a day. These patients he could have spent a lot of time with but he was only one of many on that floor and most of his time was spent with those in the more advanced stages.

The one whose families have mostly stopped visiting, the ones who didn’t really recognize their surroundings or the people around them, the ones who seemed to almost be stuck in a loop.

A bit like Armand.

It broke Mimi’s heart to spend time with Armand but someone had to and nobody was willing to volunteer because Armand had almost violent mood swings that were hard to predict and while he could be an absolute sweetheart one moment, he could rave and rant the next, flinging around anything he could get his hands on. That last bit was why he’d been moved into a single room without anything he could readily grab onto. It was all there, in his room, but out of his immediate reach.

The old man was bed-bound at this stage in his life, so keeping him away from items to be thrown was easily but it meant a whole world of other things. Needing to bathe him, feed him most of the time, change him, change the sheets, all of it. Things Myriam had done before at a number of different places but this place really broke his tender heart to pieces.

When Armand started in on his recent story about how this was either the third or fourth job he’d gotten fired from and that he’d come back here just to see Mimi’s pretty face, it was hard to stay mad at him for anything else but Myriam knew better. This was just one of those things. He’d be saying that to any other nurse who came to take care of him in the way Mimi did. So while the words were sweet, they were just the rambling of an old, sick man who would have said those exact same words to whoever had been at his side.

Sure, for a few moments, Myriam let himself believe that this old man was just a nice old neighbour who was sweet on the somewhat effeminate young man who lived one door down, going on about how he was sure there was someone out there just waiting to snatch up such a pretty face and he would do it if he weren’t old enough to be the young man’s grandfather.

It was just all part of the job.