Between them and you, I’d choose you every single time.

Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Terraphim – Lost and Found
Current Date: December 13, 2516

Character: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Demon – God of Chaos, Order, Wind
Age: 1 582, physically about 28
Current residence: Xiang Po, Terraphim
 

---

There are rare days when the merge of the powers becomes loose. Never to the point of truly needing anything done about it; the merge is final until I pass and that is for a very long time to come yet. By the point of my passing, it is highly likely that the gifts will come apart and three new souls will find themselves with this new gift of theirs as part of their new reality.

This, however, is a very long time down the road and there is nothing to even give thought to, on the subject about this right now.

I have felt the powers war somewhat inside of me. I have felt Chaos struggle for some sort of control when it knows that it cannot have that control. Order balances it out and my original gift of control over the Wind is ever present as well. Most of the time, the balance is present, but now and again, there seems to be a trigger that I fail to be able to pinpoint. In this case, I do what I can about it, and it passes.

Meditation seems to be the best method and it never truly takes long.

This whole thing has brought up strange thoughts to the front, however. I can hardly tell what might happen if Chaos were to take absolute control. It was already a very difficult gift to deal with for the young man who had it before it became mine. I have sworn to Mya, and our little one that no matter what happens, if the power comes to surge, my choice is simple and has been made. I would choose my family over the power.

I have means of removing the power from my life, but it would be a painful process that would leave little more than a shell behind. Not something I much care to imagine if I must. My primary goal is to keep Mya, and our little ones safe. If the power spikes and makes me a liability for their safety, I will take drastic measures to ensure that very safety.

In a way, however, I know that all will end well. I am old enough to know how to go about ensuring that control remains, even if I might feel it flicker every now and again. I am not perfect, my control is strong, and I have no fear, but I still understand that something might happen at one point, and I will have to make that choice.

If it happens, it will.

I take things a little easier when I feel the shift in the powers; I stay inside, I meditate, and I focus on things that I know are easy for the mind to think of so that the binds that keep all three powers together can be strengthened. I am well aware that to an outsider, the whole thing might sound confusing and even possibly make little to no sense but to this old demon, everything is clear as can be and makes all the sense it should.

Mya has been made aware of everything. The little one, at this point, I prefer to remain oblivious to the rare issue that crops up as it has only happened twice in the years since his birth. Perhaps, once he is older—though he is growing faster than I know humans would as he is neither human, nor truly mortal—I will tell him of the issues I face now and again but, until then, this is not something that is necessary for him to know about. He needs to focus on other things.

When the divergence settles again, it feels as though nothing happened at all. Always something of a relief on that front as I feel that being haunted by the fact that the powers are warring, in a certain way, would be undoubtedly absolutely exhausting and I cannot spend all of my time worrying about the binds that came into place so many, many years ago.

Though, to be fair, warring isn’t really the term that best fits this; putting it into words, like everything else, is not easy. It is not a war, it is not a struggle for power, it is merely a desire, I feel that Chaos, far more than Order, or Wind, seeks freedom that it should not have, not without some form of control. Since the merge, I have used the two extra powers very little. They balance one another in me and that is all there is to it, in the end.

Final Word Count: 766

Stop trying to protect me! You can’t even protect yourself.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Current Date: February 1, 2023

Character: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Human
Age: 47
Current residence: Urbana, Iowa
 

---

My knee has been acting up somewhat over the last week and after some discussion with the few other members left on the team, I was told to take time off. They would alternate who was on shift until my knee handled things better—if it got better. I really hope it hasn’t gotten to the point where I won’t be able to do anything productive anymore, I don’t know what I would do with myself if that were the case.

I’m not even sure what triggered it. As part of our new duties in this new, changed world that is now just so much smaller than it used to be, we do foot patrol—don’t you start in, on trying to tell me that I can’t do that anymore. I know how much walking my knee can handle and when I walk at a fairly sedate pace, it’s perfectly fine. As is, I tend to mostly walk the heart of our community and the others walk the longer perimeter. It was agreed upon once we tried to settle into a semblance of normalcy again and I agreed to the limits; I know myself well enough.

I don’t know that I can even really call what we do patrolling; we do roam the streets, we check in on some of the residents, and we just make sure everyone is doing all right. We’re not on the lookout for possible bad guys and all; I don’t know that there really are any of those left, though we’ve seen bad people coming and going. They’re not common.

Nothing has changed in any of what I’ve been doing over the last week compared to the prior months; years really, by now. Though thinking back, I suppose I might have slipped coming down the main street since it has a bit of an angle. It had been cleared of most of the snow but we did have a few icy pathways. It’s the only thing I can figure; not that I’d felt anything shift when I’d slipped but what do I know at this point?

Being stuck at home, so to speak, hasn’t been a bad thing; I get to spend more time with Mya and that, in itself, is a good thing. Not that I worked endless hours every day but I was still gone every other day, give or take.

The issue isn’t so much the forced time off, though I’m not a fan. It’s the fact that when Mya isn’t home, my mind wanders. I fell into the traps of old dreams and memories I’ve had before and I don’t want to spend any more time than necessary in those moments. They are memories that are so much better left in the past that I shouldn’t even be remembering them.

One of the memories that seem to crawl its way right back up so much more often than not takes me back to a time when I was barely more than eight or nine. I have so few memories of my life back then that I can’t understand why I recall this one blip in time so clearly. There are days when I wonder if it isn’t just my mind making things up to make itself feel better about the fact that other memories are nearly all gone for some twisted reason. I know I was near that age because my sister was still around and let me tell you, we didn’t often get along; I wonder if that’s a normal trait between brothers and sisters. I never stopped to ask myself, it hardly seemed important. In that memory that might not even really be a proper memory, we’re playing outside, it’s chilly and my fingers are cold. My nose is runny and the tips of my ears have started burning from the cold though I refuse to go back inside because my sister refuses to go back inside.

I can’t even remember what we really were doing. We must have been playing but the before of this particular memory is as fuzzy as the rest of my childhood. What I really do remember is how chilled I felt and how betrayed I felt because I know I’d tried to help her with… something. She’d gotten on my case about how I had to stop trying to protect her because I couldn’t even protect myself. In a way, she hadn’t been wrong; of the faint, fuzzy memories I have, I know that I was one of those kids who was bullied often enough and she honestly took part in some of that but I don’t think that I ever let it get to me.

I mean, look at me now. The world might have changed in a forever way, but I ended up as a cop—a good cop, I want to believe. It might have been a cop in a small community but that doesn’t change anything.

This memory has to let go. I’ve protected those I’ve loved as best as I can for as long as I can and I’m still going to do that; no one’s going to stop me.

Final Word Count: 859

Magic exists in everything we do, but it especially exists in your eyes.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Current Date: November 12, 2057

Character: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Human – God of Wind
Age: 5 427, physically about 26
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

---

Love is a strange friend. As years pass, I find myself marvelling over the fact that there could have been dozens—hundreds, perhaps even—of souls to have entered my life in the way that his own has and yet, he is the only one. Does that make my life a lonely one? I don’t know that I would say as much. I was a loner, much preferring to live quite the secluded life until I did realize that it was time for me to step out into the world as a whole ago.

I didn’t stay in that one spot at all times. I wandered some, I headed down to check in on the village that was nestled at the base of the mountain where I had made my home, I mingled some, but it was on slightly distant terms if you would. I was there but not fully. I believe that, back then, I also was in no mindset to even allow myself the thought of letting someone in.

My nature, before I was handed this so-called gift, was attached to a very short clock, there had been someone, just briefly, in my youth and yet, I don’t know that I felt for them what I felt for Myakko when I truly got to get to know him. I adored my companion, so long, long ago. Life was different back then and I don’t know that people really did think these emotions through the same way we do now. I certainly didn’t.

I was twenty-six when my life changed, a very respectable age, by all means. I’d already lived a long life and I had made my peace that I would not have children. I recall that there were plenty of women who were more than ready for that, however, so I know that I felt no shame in that decision. We were not a dying group and there was no desperate need for every available man to impregnate a woman.

When Wind was handed to me on nothing that resembled a silver platter, my life changed. It became a jumbled mess, and I lost track of all those that had ever been at my side, including the young man from then. Little by little, I pulled away from the life that I had known, trying both to make sense of it and to wrap my mind around the fact that unless I did something drastic, I would see many, many people come and go from my life.

It wasn’t something I was willing to deal with and thus, as it happened, I did become a recluse of sorts.

My place in Atheria was not a given one, I think that I was allowed entry mostly because there was nowhere else for me to really be without having to deal with the idea of watching more people die. This isn’t really a part of my past that I discuss much. I’ve always wondered how others whose lives had changed in ways like mine handled these changes.

I stopped even thinking about that or anything else that could have made me wish to go back to living all on my own on a mountaintop the first time I looked into his eyes. He’s so slight, I could break him if I wanted to but there was something in his eyes. Even by that point, trying to argue the presence of magic would have been futile, I had lived with it, in a way, for thousands of years but his eyes were that one final proof of things.

His eyes were and still are, at the source of the magic that changed my life and will continue to change it. It is through him that I learned to live my days as they happened and not look so far ahead in time that I couldn’t even remember what time it was, or even what year. Before him, I had lost track of these things. Remembering years was moot and it really is only while living here, with him, that I could ground myself into the present.

At times, I feel as though I might not remind him enough of all the good that he has done for me. I do tell him that I love, adore, and cherish him to absolutely no end. That he is my reason for being, that without him, I wouldn’t be here, and I know that we would never have had the life we have now. I tell him as much as I show him and I’m sure that he’d agree that there are days that I am far more show than tell; yet, there are other days when it is quite the opposite and while I will hold him close, I might spend who knows how long just whispering the sweetest of nothings in his ear.

There is magic everywhere indeed, but as far as the magic in my life is concerned, its source is deep, deep in his eyes.

Final Word Count: 836

How dare you accuse me of something I totally did even though you have no proof I did?

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Terraphim – Lost and Found
Characters: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Demon – God of Chaos, Order, Wind
Age: 1 580, physically about 28
Current residence: Xiang Po, Terraphim
Final Word Count: 817 words
 

---

I know that generalization is not something that should be done but, at times, I feel as though it is the only thing that makes anything, well, make sense. Every so often, I do go down to the village that sits at the foot of the mountain. It isn’t so much out of necessity as it is because it simply is one of these things. I much prefer to live my life as it is now, peaceful and out of sight but, as times will always change and people will evolve, I do need to keep up with said time and visiting that village to see how little or not things have changed every few months is merely a necessity.

I have considered taking Mya with me on these brief trips as I usually am gone for a few hours, usually part of the day, but the little one still is too young to be left on his own, though he’s growing up well and strong. There are days when the realization that I am a father still is strange, but I know that it has made me much more protective than I ever was before.

Most of the villagers are humans, that I can tell, in any case. The vast majority of them are also without gifts to their names. They are at the bottom of what some would claim to be the food chain, but I know plenty of giftless humans that can hold their own just fine. Certainly not against the likes of me, but against others with gifts that might not hold much to be beheld.

I wonder if my age makes me ramble more than it should. There are days when I have to ask myself the question, but Mya seems to not mind; not that words are much needed between us. Actions speak so much louder.

Once at the village, I tend to make my way to the same little inn I always stop at once I visit. The village might be small and a fair distance from other places, but the inn is a quaint little place, and they are always welcoming. I can only imagine that they have few visitors though there have been times when I’ve visited, and rooms were few to be had; it makes me smile.

There is no ill-will to be wished upon any of these villagers, while they know of my general nature—that of a born demon—they have never treated me with anything other than respect and I offer them that respect in return. We have made some sort of ritual through my visits, they know the general time at which I come and that when I do come, I never come empty-handed, it is a visit that is fruitful for both of us.

Watching humans, however, makes me wonder if, at times, they are not idiots. This is where the generalization of things comes. I know that what I witness is only a bare hint of what happens all around on this planet, or even just simply on this continent, but I have seen interactions that made no sense to me so often that it leads me to scratch my head in wonder.

Just this last visit, though I know the two men in question were inebriated so I only paid them half a mind, made a point very clear that, there are times when I hardly know what to make of the information that comes to be mine. They were by the fire, the winter was harsh at that point but I am fairly content in this weather though I much prefer the warmth of home.

One of them was clearly angrier than the other; it was hard to tell if they were truly as inebriated as I might have thought them to be, but the gesticulating certainly led to that thought. He was going on about how the other man with him had dared to accuse him of something, sure, he’d totally done, but there was no proof whatsoever he’d done it, so how could he be accused of it? It made no sense, or so the man claimed, to be accused of something he’d done if there was no proof. It didn’t matter that he’d done it; that clearly didn’t count for anything. The other man with him just looked so tired of the whole thing.

I admit, if someone tells me that yes, they have done this crime or that thing, but then get angry when I accuse them of doing it, as they tell me I have no proof… well I certainly would be fairly tired of the situation in a general sense. All I truly got from that particular trip was that humans—some, far more than others—are complete idiots and need not argue with, no matter what they wave their idiocy in your face.

Reality is not always as it seems, is it?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Human
Age: 29
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 799 words
 

---

There still is the rare day when I wake up and I wonder if I am not back home. It was more common when the snow was still a thing. When it was falling so much that it covered everything. We didn’t spend much time outside during that time, not once we had made it to the bunker and its safety but, for some reason, even though it has been years, my mind still latches onto memories of old.

Memories of a life that I was swept away from and even now, I’m still not wholly sure I understand why or how it all happened.

I do know that he came looking for me on my cousin’s behalf. I’m fairly certain that all he was after, were updates on my life so that she may know I was all right and yet, something happened, back then. Something that led to packed bags—what little I had—and travels that took far longer than I had ever travelled before in my life.

It was a drastic change in my life and using my inability to understand the language, at first, was a huge safety net. Especially when clients I couldn’t understand—or didn’t want to be nearby—would crop up. I learned quickly enough, I want to believe, but I had so little time between my departure from home, our arrival in New York and, then, the snow, that there still are a lot of nuances to the language that I don’t fully grasp.

I try my best, but perhaps it is why there just are things that I cannot understand. A bit like the pun, or joke, or whatever it was from the girl from some time last year. It feels like last year. Keeping track of time seems somewhat moot but I do still try, it feels like some shred of what-once-was. I like being aware of what date it is, or, as close to the date as possible. I’m fairly certain I’m a little off in my count.

Those old memories, they have no set triggers. Most of the time, they will come in the middle of the night, placed in the rare dream that I find myself remembering come morning. Dreams that hold little meaning but the blip from the memory. It possibly is why I remember them somewhat more clearly than the rest of my dreams. At the very least, that is how I see it.

The most recent dream was a mix of old and older life. It was a confusing rehash—I believe that is the word—of the first few days I spent in New York. I spoke not a word of the language back then, at least, not more than a few bare-bone things. I had lived in a small enough village that the learning of a second language had held no necessity. Mya was more than patient with me and this, I am immensely grateful for.

Then again, I feel as though he would not have swept me away, had there not been patience in him to deal with the fact that I would have to learn this new language from nothing.

In the dream, I find myself on the doorstep of the place where I used to work before he came and swept me away. Not very far from me, a few yards in the distance, there seems to be a sort of hovering doorway and it teases me with its presence. I do not claim to have ever truly been a child whose curiosity ever got the better of him.

Still, in that dream, the odd doorway calls to me. I understand from something in that dream that stepping through that doorway means I will never come back and, somehow, that is all right. There is a sense that the reality around me is not what it should be. Putting this thought into words is difficult, even in my native language. A sense, a whisper I could hear in the dream, there just is something that tells me that there is something different about whatever is about to happen.

As I step through the door, whatever it is I was hearing becomes just barely clearer, a teasing, hissed whisper about how reality was never going to be what it seemed, and those words echo as my foot finds no purchase on the other side of that doorway. No purchase for my feet and reaching out with hands left me flailing as nothing was left.

Even as I woke up with a startled reaction, I remember how I had seen things through the doorway and yet, there had been nothing, in the long run. Nothing at all. I still cannot put into words what it was all about.

There are some things that we should probably not discuss out here, in the open.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Human – God of Wind / Season Change
Age: 5 425, physically about 26
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 750 words
 

---

I am old. I would be foolish to ignore that. I have seen plenty that the world has to offer. Old as I am, there are others who are much, much older than I am and that, too, is something I am perfectly fine with. Of those here whose age still is defined by numbers, I am amongst the oldest. The third, if my memory serves right but that does nothing much in the end, does it? It merely proves that I am an old soul and have lived through quite a few different things.

I was there when the first discussions came about of things not feeling quite right. I’m sure I shouldn’t have heard those discussions. They had been walking, side by side. They were talking to one another quietly and they merely passed me. I barely heard more than a few words but, one thing that was truly clear was that they were not open to discussing with others whatever it was they were worried about.

When ageless, deathless—in a way—beings are worried about something, it is cause for, well, worrying. I suppose that is why they did not talk about it much. I can’t say I blame them for it.

It does bring to the surface the fact that I have been through several life-changing situations. Most of these life changes barely applied to me, not until the most recent ones while I lived here, in this haven. There have been others out there in the past, however. Earthquakes, tropical storms that have turned into something so much more, tsunamis though I’ve mostly only ever heard about them, never having lived close enough to big bodies of water to have to fear them.

One thing that I’ve realized, by living through these situations, is that those in power—or more aptly back then, those with the knowledge of these impending issues—usually much prefer to keep it quiet. I’ve never understood that. Why keep quiet about what you know is going to happen and will possibly change the lives of those around you when you could warn them, and they could prepare?

To be fair, a lot of the events I’m thinking of did happen before mass communication was an easy thing to manage. Thinking of this, one particular event remains clear in my mind but, trying to focus on the details, I hardly can tell whether or not it would have changed, had people been warned. I want to believe it would have and lives would have been saved but on that same note, it’s hard to know.

As destructive as any others, I have witnessed the eruption of more than one volcano. One of them, however, happened only a few years before I came into Atheria. It was a fairly big island, but its population was small for the very presence of that volcano. It was mostly dormant and sitting on the other end of the island, opposite from where the small town had settled.

The eruption was not unexpected, not in a way. There had been rumblings and signs, there had been smoke puffing up, I remember that they had sent a few scientists in. They were mostly present to study the volcano to figure out if it was becoming active again and when it became clear that it was… they only took their note, finished their reports and never mentioned anything to the people in the town.

The only ones that got away when the eruption started were the ones that had been by the water or getting on that water. The ones that were already on the water were spared as well. It was sudden but it happened within a few days of the scientists leaving. Had they warned the townsfolk, I think that more of them would have managed to escape as the volcano let its rage take over. Only a bare, small percentage of the residents survived. Most were surrounded by the lava and unable to escape, others, I’m sure, ended up much as those of Pompeii. It was on a smaller scale, in a way, but nothing was left of that island but a bigger footprint, once all was said and done.

Don’t give me that look. There was nothing I could have done to help these people. I’m fairly certain that I would have made things worse, had I tried to help. High winds through lava? Not a pretty thing, let me tell you.

You don’t need to spare my feelings. My attempts at romance are clumsy at best.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Human
Age: 45
Current residence: Urbana, Iowa
Final Word Count: 740 words
 

---

If I were to claim to be a romantic at heart, I’m sure I would be lying. Until Mya came into my life, I didn’t have much in the means of experience with relationships, age aside, because I was mostly always just focused on work and on keeping my head above the water. It might sound like a strange thing to say as those who know me some, but not deeply, would possibly think that I had everything figured out though that could not have been furthest from the truth.

I tend to ignore my own well-being for the sake of everyone else’s and this is something I’ve had to learn to do. If it weren’t for Mya’s patience, my knee likely would have given out on me long ago. I know not to push myself too far but there still were plenty of days when I need to be reminded to slow down. I’ve gotten better about things but it’s not always at the forefront of my mind.

Now romance… romance is a whole other thing. I do faintly remember my sister teasing me about how I just didn’t have any single romantic bone in my body, and she was right. I’ve had that much made very clear to me when I tried with Mya, and it was something akin to a disaster. With that being said, you could say that I’m a bit of a homebody, though. I like being at home, I feel at home in that kitchen of mine and while I might have not a single romantic bone in my body, I pamper with the best-prepared food I can manage.

So even though I might not be one to think about getting flowers or selecting a sweet card—not that this is really an option anymore—I suppose I can let the food I prepare speak for myself and it does the job.

That’s certainly to say that I don’t still need to learn plenty when it comes to the kitchen, but I can hold my own in ways that don’t leave much to be desired.

As she grew up at our sides, I’ve tried to teach Alexis all I knew about the kitchen, I’ve let Mya teach her the finer arts of things that I knew I had no right teaching her and, in the long run, I’d like to think that we’ve managed quite well. She turned out to be a wonderful young woman and I’m glad that she has Aimé at her side and had him with her through the fog.

I don’t know that I would have known what to do with myself if any single member of this little family of mine had been outside the barrier of the fog when it came down. It was bad enough that we all lost people we’d known, but if it had come down to these people that I wish to protect to the best of my abilities, I know I would have lost part of myself.

Thinking back, I don’t even really remember why I parted ways with my sister. I know we didn’t always get along. I know that she was a little eccentric and at times I really wondered if she had all of her head but it’s one of these things. There are days when I regret walking away. I know it was for the better but it’s never easy when you turn your back on someone who is your family, even when you believe they’ve wronged you.

It all came back like such a tsunami when I saw not-so-little Lexi at the door with the social service worker years ago. Not that I had much time to dwell back on all of those things I’d left behind when I had walked away, there was so much to do to make sure that she was all right and healthy and all. I never thought I’d get to raise a child and yet, look at that now.

Am I the greatest parent ever? Certainly not. Just as I know I’m not the best brother there ever was and I’m not the perfect partner though I try my hardest and Mya seems to certainly want to prove me otherwise when I point out that I still can get better as a partner.

I’m not about to argue with him, though. I love him far too much to argue with him.

You made a mistake, trusting me again. After the first time, I honestly hoped you had learned your lesson.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Terraphim – Lost and Found
Characters: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Demon – God of Wind, Chaos, Order
Age: 1 579, physically about 28
Final Word Count: 716 words
 

---

I am not a cruel soul.

I may be a mix of powers that are terrifying when put together, but I am not a cruel soul.

There are, however, a few rare ones that bring out something a little more primal in me, if that might be a way to look at it. Those rare ones know better than to come near my residence, or even the larger mountain range area.

One of these particular souls I had not seen in close to thirty years and it still was too soon for them to come back around. They knew that; they know just what kind of behaviour they bring out in me and yet, I think they still believe they can worm their way into my life and somehow sway me into believing they have changed and somehow trusting them.

I learned my lesson not on the first, but on the second time.

You could say that I was naive when I was just so much younger and they were a fair bit older than I was even back then. The first time they’d broken my trust, I had told myself that it simply had been an accident, that they hadn’t meant to and that it would be better the second time. I was, of course, wrong. I could not have been any more wrong and still, they taunted me about it. Telling me that I had made a mistake trusting them again. After that first time, I hadn’t learned my lesson, clearly not. After the second time, I did learn my lesson and I did not let the old saying about the third time being the charm be a reality.

I don’t know what they thought they were doing when they first entered the range. It is very difficult to hide how much power I have to deal with on a daily basis, at the very least, from other deities, it is very difficult to hide it, especially if they are older than I am. This particular soul, however, is no deity, they are simply a demon. One born of the same clan I had been.

They have always been able to read me as one would an open book and it was an endless source of childish frustration back then. I should have seen it then but I was indeed naive.

The first time they came within reach of the range, they quickly learned that I was not to be messed with, not anymore. I felt an unsettling desire to see their lives come to an end, after the hell they had made me endure but I feel the need to state again that I am not a cruel soul. I taught them a lesson they had most likely not expected from me and I truly thought they would never come back this way.

Except they have, and I feel as though the tables have turned, in a way. Did they not learn their lesson the first time around that coming here, to this area, where my energy signature is all over the place, is dangerous? Did they like being beaten so badly that it took them hours to get back up on their feet to leave? I would never dream of being such a masochist and I have no desire to go back out there and deal ‘justice’ again upon this visitor.

My life has changed, however. My life has changed and my purpose is to keep both my mate and our son safe. That is all there truly is to it and if that purpose requires that I go out there and make sure that they never come anywhere near the unseen entrance to the place I call home, I will.

The sight of blood on my hands—when it does not come from a necessary kill for food—is unsettling. Something I would rather not have to see at all if I can help it but I know that, at times, you have little choice but to get your hands dirty. I might hope that this time, they will learn their lesson and leave it be. A third time might be necessary but if I can learn my lessons in two tries, I might hope that they will too, at this point.

I didn’t think I’d get that write. Haha, get it? Right, write?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Human
Age: 28
Final Word Count: 711 words
 

---

Even now, years later, the written joke still flies right over his head. Being fluent in the language and being able to understand all of the nuances attached to the puns are two completely different things and the rolled-eyed look of exasperation thrown his way by the girl he believes was trying to flirt with him via what he sees as old means isn’t lost on him.

He’d rather she be exasperated with him and leave him alone than try to woo him by some random means when he has no desire to be wooed. The only person he wants in his life in that particular way is Mya and that’s more than enough for him.

Now, as he looks at the smudged lettering on his hand, Rafael rolls his eyes and rubs his hand over his hip, trying to wipe off what feels and acts like permanent marker. How the girl has managed to keep a permanent marker from drying out all of these years is beyond him, much like the joke she tried off on him. Though, was it a joke when it was two words that sounded near identical when spoken but were written in two completely different ways and meant two completely different things? He didn’t know what that was supposed to be seen as and it didn’t really matter.

What mattered was that he had the word ‘write’ printed out in blocky letters on his palm and it wasn’t wiping off.

At times, it just was easier to get his point across in writing and even now, years later, he still has a collection of pencils he carries around, though they are growing shorter and shorter by the rare use, and a good few pads of papers he keeps in a safe box in their apartment.

Somehow, the girl had taken to the sight of his pad of paper and pencil, as he’d tried to explain something to someone else, to be a cue that he wanted her to scribble all over the place. There had been marker stains on her arms, hands and even part of her collarbone that he’d seen from the neck of her shirt. That she’d joked on ‘getting this write’ had been lost on him. The hopeful look in her eyes hadn’t helped her case.

As he’d pointed out the clearly misspelled word, she rolled her eyes and took his pad of paper from him, writing the words ‘right’ and ‘write’ together and pointing to both, as though it explained everything. All he’d seen was that she’d ruined half a dozen pages with her pen as it had bled through and when it was still clear he couldn’t understand what she was going on about as she seemed to think him deaf and mute as he’d yet to say a single word in her presence, she’d then taken his palm to write in it.

That had been the last straw and the glare he’d thrown her way had likely been enough to get her to scamper and him to slowly make his way back home so he could try to find something to clean off the clearly permanent marker stain on his hand.

That, of course, had been hours ago and he hadn’t managed much. The ink had looked somewhat more faded but it still was very starkly black against his forever pale skin—something he couldn’t understand for all the time he did spend in the sun—and he just wanted it gone. Mya hadn’t come back yet from his own wandering and errands and Rafael hoped that, just maybe, something could be done about it because he didn’t want to have to roam around with the word ‘write’, well, written on his palm.

He was in no mood to try and explain to anyone that might ask why that word was there at all and his day just wasn’t exactly going the way he had expected it when he’d first gotten up.

What was it with people’s invasive behaviour? It wasn’t quite right, not really. The ruined pad of paper hadn’t been thrown away, he was hoping that maybe Mya would be able to explain the whole thing to him some more. Maybe he’d understand it this time around.

Once you stop applying your logic to this town, things become clearer. Once you start seeing, well, there isn’t a way to go back to how you were before.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Rafael Schakowsky
Race: Human – God of Wind / Season Change
Age: 5 424, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 714 words
 

---

The first time I set foot in the city that surrounded the fabled haven; I knew that things were different. I didn’t land in Atheria for the sake of safety, not really. I suppose I landed there more because of the powers that were part of my make and I had been drawn to the area because it seemed like a good place as any and a potential power house; I was not wrong considering who keeps us safe and has done so for decades and how many deities of all sort have decided on calling this place home.

It was, of course, not always as it is now.

To most of us who had encountered the haven before it became so much bigger and then something else entirely, it was, beyond its protective shield, a quaint little Victorian house on a gated hill. Once past its gates, it was much the same but on a somewhat larger and taller scale, closer to a chateau than a simple house. As people began to flock, the sight from outside of shields rarely changed but from within, it was something else. What began as a chateau soon turned into a multi-level building to accommodate all that required its presence.

Not all who came understood its purpose and, for the most part, they were mundane. Most mundane do not believe in anything but what surrounds them and thus, when they first came past the shields and into the sanctuary they were afraid; some were simply confused; others baffled and a few actually turned away and ran.

The thing is, however, that once you stop applying your own brand of logic to this building and the neighbouring town because it was attracting non-humans and non-mortals alike, things do become clearer. Once you do start seeing what is really there, you can’t go back to how it all was before. If you know about the community you’ve set foot into, you’ll never again be able to look at others and not wonder if they’re fully human or not.

I thought we were at our highest numbers when the first baby boom happened. Not that I know whether or not I should call it a boom as it was staggered over some years unlike our second one but it still was a quite big increase in our numbers. The housing went through several changes during that time only to, well.

The dark years are things few wish to think about and fewer still wish to even bother talking about. The place was emptied. I don’t know if its size shifted down to accommodate but somehow, I don’t believe so.

When our second baby boom happened—this one much faster as people returned and reconnected with those they had thought they’d lost, the size didn’t quite change but, after a few years, we went from high-rise to a full-out town. Something I feel could have happened much earlier in our timeline but it is one of those things.

I’m aware that I’m not the only one who’s had to adapt to the change, it was odd to go from an apartment, potentially quite high up and to land in a large house—which had been built with everyone’s thoughts in mind—and an even larger yard. I think the yards were a good thing for most of the kids, it gave them more room to roam and learn and discover. Our world, which had been made vertically, had gone horizontal and it had expanded in ways I don’t think any of us had expected.

Once the world came to a screeching halt and even the town that had been ‘attached’ to us crumbled to pieces, our whole world truly separated itself from others. We are in a dimension all our own though the edges of the city are thin places. Those who do need our safety can still find us and while it took some time for the world to be a safe place again, it is about as good now as it was before.

No matter what, there will always possibly those who come to us, whose logic will need to be adapted to our way of life but that, my friend, is for another day.