I woke up and it was just there, at the foot of my bed.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Current Date: September 16, 2023

Character: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 26
Current residence: Warwick, New York
 

---

I’m not even sure how it happened. Yes, the night was chilly, yes, we’d kept all windows cracked open and the patio glass panes open to let in that chill since the previous days had still been uncomfortably hot for the season. Yes, we had means to regulate the indoor temperatures just fine but why go that way when Mother Nature offered us the means to cool down the whole house herself?

So, once we’d made sure that we weren’t expecting any rain, we opened up all the windows, and the patio doors, we made sure everything was locked and that was that.

Ash was shaking my shoulder to wake me up in the middle of the night. The room was dark—with just a bare hint of illumination coming from one of the windows that we didn’t always cover because it let the moonlight in beautifully but on that night, it was a nearly new moon—so it took me a moment to adjust to whatever it was that I was trying to see.

The moment he sensed I was awake enough, he shushed me, and he sounded awed more than terrified, so I kept quiet and just waited things out. I let my eyes adjust and eventually, I saw why he’d woken me up.

Standing at the foot of the bed, seeming to not quite be staring at us and yet so stupidly calmly standing there, a deer. It wasn’t quite old, not that I could tell. It was still slim enough that it didn’t feel as though it was an adult quite yet. That it was so calm while being in the house was eerie enough on its own; the whole scene felt surreal and for a bare moment, I think my brain tried to make me believe this was an apparition. I know better, but still.

I’m not sure how long it took either one of us to slip out of bed so we could try to do something about the situation. By the time we both were on our feet, the deer had actually walked back out of the bedroom and was elsewhere in the house. We hadn’t heard it clambering up the stairs and I can’t even imagine how it would do that. I’m sure it could but it had no real reason to, right? Right.

I found it in the kitchen and Ash had gone to check the living room. The patio screen doors were wide open. We both know for a fact that we’d locked those to keep them closed. So, with a gentleness born of alertness at that point as I was so far from sleepy that I doubted I could go back to bed after this, I managed to corral the deer carefully back towards those open doors and with a final bound once it had neared them, it was outside.

Needless to say, fresh air or no fresh air, we closed the patio doors altogether, locked those doors too, checked all of our windows and other doors, tried to remind ourselves to check our camera feeds come morning and we went back to bed.

Surprisingly, we both ended up dropping back off to sleep within minutes once we were back in bed.

When we woke up just a few hours later with the sun bright and warm in the bedroom, we went about our daily morning routine and once that was done, I sat down to review the overnight footage.

For some reason, the damned footage was corrupted. We had the couple of hours after we’d gone to bed but up until the deer was out of the house, and even a couple of hours later, the whole footage was corrupted. We checked the cameras, we fixed angles, and we went through the house carefully, but we didn’t find anything amiss.

We did have Alexandro give the whole system a quick look; I know that’s not what he specializes in but he’s the one that installed the systems in every house. He has no idea what happened to the footage. There was a brief blackout during the night but all of us have solar reserves and nothing on the system went down, so it’s hard to know. It hardly matters at this point, but I guess it does make for a story to tell. I mean, it’s not every night that you wake up to a deer just standing peacefully at the foot of your bed.

There was nothing broken around the house, as though he’d just somehow managed to open that door—or someone had opened it for him and didn’t trip the alarm system either—waltzed right in, roamed around in quiet curiosity, then shown the door again and made his exit. If I believed in the paranormal in any real way—this isn’t something I’m about to get into—I’d be tempted to say that something took over that deer for a while but what good would that do me, really?

I’m just glad that we’re all fine and that we haven’t found anything missing from anywhere.

Final Word Count: 849

Stop! Wait! You dropped your… um… are these crocs? You dropped your crocs!

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Current Date: September 10, 2027

Character: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 23
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
 

---

I’ve never understood the point behind crocs. These shoes are just, I don’t know. They’re the weirdest shoes around and while I’ve tried a pair once, I couldn’t understand why some people swear up and down by those. They’re not comfortable—not to me. They’re ugly—again, in my opinion. They might be quick-on-and-off but so are most sandals you’ll ever find and, stars forbid, flip-flops. Those are about as bad as crocs, in my opinion, but that’s because I have issues with the sound they make when you walk with them. Ash has a pair, but they’re only ever worn to run the trash out in the summer as far as I know.

At this point in my life, most of my general interaction with the people I work with is done online. I create music for video games, I’ve created some to accompany a play that was happening in the city too. I’ve written a few songs for shows or podcasts, but they were smaller things. I haven’t had a lot of face-to-face meetings with people I work with, and it might be one of the reasons why I tend to appreciate going out and doing the shopping with Ash at every chance I get. Not that I’m an extrovert and I need to be surrounded by people, but my mostly ambivert nature is happy with me when I do spend time around others.

A few weeks ago, someone sent me an offer for a job that I figured couldn’t hurt to look into. It was a short movie retelling of the story Cinderella. There have been quite a few of those, most of them musicals—at least as far as I’m aware. This one was a little different in that it seemed to be in a semi-dystopian setting, it seemed almost more medieval in general idea, but it still had common-day themes and clothing items and even a few rare electronics. It was confusing.

I’m not even sure I followed most of the story though I got the gist of it but the part that made me stop was that line where, in the original and the rest, Cinderella ends up losing—or dropping—one of her glass slippers. In this retelling, the shoe being left behind was, well yeah, a croc. It wasn’t at a ball, it was at a sort of dance-off and that only makes it all the more confusing since I can’t imagine people doing that sort of thing wearing crocs.

Now, adding to that confusion is the simple fact that, you know, in the original movie, the slipper was unique and there is nothing in this retelling that seems to state that crocs are not the one thing that makes everything else stand out. It’s just… there.

I think, though, that if I can set aside the fact that this is so very confusing, I should be able to manage to write a score for this. They’re not looking for a soundtrack, they really just want background music to add to certain parts of the short movie so that you can follow the story along. I know the general idea for the short movie, I know the type of musical themes they’re looking for, I think that I should be able to work something out for them.

I also figure that if I can ignore the fact that the whole movie confuses me with its mixed themes and focus on what I know of the basic story they’re retelling, I can possibly enjoy myself the way I usually do when I work. There is a reason why I’ve opted for this kind of thing, in the end. I love all things music—not half as much as I love and adore Ashford but that’s something else entirely—and working in this field makes me happy.

There’s this thing about doing a job you love and not working a day in your life ever. I think it’s only half-true. Yes, I love creating music, I love playing it, I love figuring out why something rings a little off to the ear, but it still is work. I still have to focus, there are days when I hate everything I do and that’s not going to change. I still consider what I do, to be work. I still work every weekday with the rare weekend because of potential musical emergencies but that’s once in a blue moon.

At this point, it has only happened twice and that was more than enough. What some people consider emergencies, I tend not to consider them emergencies and that’s the end of that, really. I’m not going to get out of bed earlier on a weekend because you think you’ve misplaced something in the files I’ve sent you, added to the cloud, sent you the links to that and just, no. I make doubly sure that there are multiple instances of all the files I create and they have access to all of them.

Final Word Count: 835

This is the last time I let you pick out my clothes for my dates. I look like the human embodiment of a curtain with too many patterns.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
Final Word Count: 775 words
 

---

When we were younger, and I’d just started dating Ashford—somewhat in secret—there were times when I would ask Sam to help me pick out clothes I would wear for my dates with Ash. Not that they really were dates back then, they were more like outings since it was just one of these things but, at times, I felt like asking my own adoring twin to help me pick some clothes was for the best.

Now, depending on their mood, Sam’s choice in clothing will vary greatly but one of the things I did learn from my twin’s playful nature is that, at times, mischievousness will take over and they’ll go out of their way to pick up things that are atrocious together. There hadn’t been any issues up until that point and I’d been doing this for years, so I didn’t even really know why it changed. Sam had only pulled this playful trick on me once or twice, but no more.

It also hadn’t been as bad as the last time I asked for help. On that particular night, it was a proper date, we were going out to eat and then we’d be stepping in to watch a movie. I can’t even remember what the movie was. I was more interested in watching his eyes and the way he’d light up at the screen. I know how he grew up. I know what his father was like. I’ve never had that kind of experience myself but watching him discover little things here and there always just made me fall more and more in love with him.

On that particular night, I can only figure that Sam had either had a terrible day or had been feeling ridiculously mischievous. The outfit that was picked up was atrocious, it looked like the human embodiment of a curtain with too many patterns. I kid you not, I’m sure I just gave them a long, suffering sigh and all I got in return was a quirked brow, but I swear there was a little twitch at the corner of their lips.

I didn’t wear the atrocious outfit. I’m not as good about putting together something that really does look good without being over the top as Sam is, I know that much. That’s why I used to ask for tidbits on outfits I figured would look good for me. It’s not that I dress badly, I think that my usual comfortable t-shirt and slightly hugging jeans just aren’t all that great for dates. I’ll wear what’s comfortable and at times I did want to be more than just comfortable, even if it was just for the two of us.

When I look back, I don’t know that Ash even really noticed that I was wearing my near usual jeans and t-shirt, though I’d swapped the t-shirt for a button-up shirt. It was clean, it wasn’t over the top and it suited me just fine.

How do I put into words how much this man means to me? I feel like I grew up knowing him and many people warn about marrying your high school sweetheart. That’s too bad on them, that’s exactly what I did, and nothing is going to change that. Our connection is still just so, so strong and I don’t think it’s going to change. If it does, we’ll work with that, but I don’t think it will.

I took Sam with me when it was time to pick up a suit for the little ceremony. We kept it simple though we ended up with a lot of people, nonetheless. Between my family and his alone, that’s just a lot of heads to take into account but that’s all right. The wedding itself took place at a Justice of Peace, the following celebration, still as quiet as we could manage it, was in his backyard with his family, mine and the partners of those who could make it. It was simple, beautiful and filled with memories that I cherish.

My life is perfect, even with those memories of Sam seeming to be going out of their way to make sure my outfits might have looked terrible. It was in their playful nature, possibly as payback for the times I teased them about possibly wearing a skirt that had been a smidge too long or a bit more makeup than was necessary but there were days when certain things did just seem to be necessary and high school is, well, high school. At times there’s no escaping whatever happens out there.

I’m glad all of that is behind us.

You’re not going to like the answer. I’m not sure that I like the answer.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 24
Current residence: Warwick, New York
Final Word Count: 757 words
 

---

The last year has been filled with more ups and downs than I expected it to. The band dismantling was received with very mixed feelings. Some of the fans who followed our music seemed to have been expecting it, as though the signs I was seeing clearly weren’t as subtle as they could have been. Some others were dismayed and no amount of trying to explain to them that it was for the best that we each went our own way made things any better.

The rest… well some could have hardly cared any less and others just hoped that something still would come to be, and I felt no remorse in telling them that I, as a soloist, was going to be finishing up the album that had been in the works. That seemed to appease a few of them.

It took work, the album presentation changed rather drastically as I refused to use pre-recorded music. So that left me with the piano that I could handle, the bass that I managed fairly well, and the vocals. I had no affinity for the drums and while it was a bit strange, and it took some figuring out, but I managed without.

When the album came out, Bruce called me, telling me that I owed him and the other the royalties from the CD I had just released. I almost laughed in his face but instead, I kept my cool and I actually told him to talk to my lawyer. It was a petty answer, but I had no desire to start arguing with him about, well, anything.

Ambroise told me that Bruce got in touch with him and started complaining about how he and the others deserved their hard-earned royalties from the sales of the CD because of the music. I’m sure Ambroise had a field day pointing out to him that none of them had had anything to do with the CD and that they deserved nothing at all.

After all, I’m the one who’d written all the songs, they’d long since stopped even offering any sort of input or help. There was no drum to the songs, though it did sound as though there was, but it was a clever technique I’d learned with the bass, so that dropped Bruce out of the equation. The bass, well that was me and I’m still the one who’d written all of the music, so there went Carl’s part of the royalties too. Todd, well Todd hadn’t been part of the band for more than three years and I have no idea why Bruce even brought him up.

I can’t help but imagine Bruce just turning to Carl, muttering about how he wasn’t going to like the answer he’d just gotten as far as their potential royalties were concerned. He certainly couldn’t have liked the answer Ambroise gave him either.

I don’t understand why people do this. They’re the ones who walked away. They’re the ones who let their minds slowly be filled with ugly rot. They’re the ones who listened to Todd who somehow tried to twist things in his favour and what did that get them all? Nothing but a broken band.

Sure, they still get some slight royalties from the first and only album we’d worked on together, but beyond the first waves of sales, it never really got big. This one, though, this one, I have plans. I have the songs online, through one particular app and I get very meagre royalties from every play, but it can get shared with others and discovered by so many more people this way. I haven’t held my breath, I don’t know if this plan will work at all but I’m still hoping it does.

Mind you, it’s not because I desperately need the money, but I do want to be able to make my own money. In my free time, I’ve been helping at the conservatory with Aryan, and it’s been an interesting experience. My life has always been about music and if I had to recycle myself into something else, I don’t know what I would do. I’d feel pretty lost, and I don’t know that I like being lost.

It’s been a couple of months since the issues with the idiots, they’ve left me be for the most part though I keep on getting texts from unknown numbers. These, I save, in case I might need them later on, but I do hope that these idiots do grow up and just move on.

Let me give you some advice. Stay away from me and stay away from them.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 23
Current residence: Rockbourne Dome, Erisia
Final Word Count: 767 words
 

---

Of the two of us, Ashford has always been the mellower one. He might have been raised by his father to act as little more than a perfect soldier, but I’m the one people have to worry about, if you do anything that might harm someone that I am close to; it’s even worse for the poor sap if that person so happens to be Ashford.

I know I don’t look the part. Almost everyone in the family with their blond hair and their soft features, we look more like olden-time models or something. Cherubs, as some would claim both Scott and Seb look like if they knew what cherubs were. I only know from finding information in old books, but I admit that they both look the part with those curls. Scott far more than Seb but both fit the term.

Some still even believe that there is a third one of us, myself, Sam who some refer to as Samuel and Samantha, the elusive sister of the trio. It makes me shake my head when people ask about her. It’s not my place to say anything and they can keep on speculating.

A few weeks ago, I was underground, coming back with Ashford from a day trip to Peculiar. We’d gone on the evening of the day before, spent the night there—with others for safety since no one had really stayed out there after nightfall before—and we’d come back in the middle of the morning. The underground was mostly quiet but there still were a fair few people.

One of them approached us as Ashford excused himself to make use of the facilities. I watched him go a moment before the man slurred at me that he’d pay a pretty few credits—the currency here in the dome which is also used underground—for some time with the pretty boy at my side. It didn’t take very long before he was on the ground and his arm was broken. I don’t take well to anyone assuming that anyone might be up for grabs for a certain amount of credits. I’m aware that both men and women down here offer their services that way, but it’s not because we were coming back from a semi-hidden passageway that we’d been up to dirty things.

He squealed, even as I held his head to the ground, my knee into his back, and told him that I was willing to give him this one free piece of advice, but anything else would cost him a lot more if he tried again. I told him that he best stay away from me and stay away from my partner. I didn’t use names, I didn’t want to give him any more information than he had any need to have.

I released him when Ashford came back out of the facilities. He looked at me with a quirked brow, but I only dusted my hands with a shrug. Things like these, they’re not common but they happen. I know he can defend himself but if it happens while I’m around, you can bet I’m going to be vicious about it.

The guy was holding his arm to himself pretty tight when he walked away. His pants were wet at the crotch and that was just another extra point in my favour, as far as I was concerned. He’d learned his lesson. At least as far as anyone that might have been near me when he tries to proposition someone.

It’s stuff like this that makes me glad we managed to install a door with a reader in front of the doorway that leads to the very long railway to Peculiar. I don’t know what we’d do if random people just cropped up. The door requires ID to open, the light rail transit that’s been settled also requires ID to start. It might seem as though we’re trying to keep this new place all to ourselves and, in a way, we are, but we’re not.

At this point, I think we’re mostly just trying to keep folks from heading there because there’s nothing that’s really ready. We have a few buildings, and the perimeter has been set to a safe zone but there’s still so much to work on before we can even just properly live there that it makes no sense to let anyone else but those who can help in. If we weren’t worried about people potentially just ruining it all, if you would, it wouldn’t be such a problem, in the long run. For now, though, this is fine.

Your love for someone has grown, but differently than what you expected. You now love them like a sibling more than a lover, and you have to explain it to them.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 724 words
 

---

This thing about life is that you’ll never truly know what it’s going to throw at you. Point made when I was hired by a small company to create a soundtrack for their short little choose-your-own-adventure game. There were supposed to be short little tunes throughout the game and a longer, basic background track for the general area of the game.

So when they first told me about it, I was curious. It wasn’t my first ‘gig’, so to speak, not that I was in a band or anything but I did offer my musical services to those who might need it. It was my first time writing music of any sort for that kind of thing. They sent me a barebones version of their game, mostly it was just the text with the game options. You pick X thing of a choice between X and Y, that happens, sort of thing. The game itself wasn’t even really made, all I had was straight-up text that was all jumbled because the options to head to X or Y hadn’t even really be defined. So one page I could be reading about the setup, the next I was reading about something five choices down.

It still gave me an idea of what I was working with and I did read through the whole thing though I paused at one particular page. It made me so uncomfortable just trying to imagine someone going through that particular scene that I know I stared at it for a really long time. The setup was simple, I assume this page was a follow-up to one where you had a bit of a fight with your significant other and you took a bit of time away—did I forget to mention it was a bit of an adult thing, that book? There were plenty of sexy scenes but some clearly sad ones.

The simple sentence wasn’t really hard to understand, either. It stated that the love you had for someone had grown, but differently than you’d expected. You—the reader—now loved that someone more like a sibling than a lover, and you had to explain it to them. I don’t even remember what the two bottom options were for that page if that tells you how weirded out I was by the thought.

I suppose it’s one of those things, I wouldn’t want this to happen with Ash. We’ve had years together at this point and I love him so much it hurts at times but waking up one morning and realizing that I didn’t love him as a lover but as a brother instead? I don’t think I would know what to do with that knowledge. Especially not years down the road.

Figuring out a little soundscape for that particular little scene came to me quite easily but I don’t know that the game developers will care for it much. It feels like I poured so much sorrow in such a short little moment but I had to. That’s all I could come up with as far as that scene is concerned.

I’m still working on the rest of the scenes. They didn’t ask for sounds to go with all of them but they had marked the ones they wanted stuff for and the sad one about the feel of the love you had changing had been one of them. Most of the steamier scenes are on a secondary soundtrack, not unlike the primary one but well, a little steamier if that can even be achieved. I’m still working on that too.

It would have been helpful if I could have talked to Ash about it. He’s always been great at listening to my music and giving me feedback in a way that made sense to me but I had to sign a contract about not sharing anything of the game until all was said and done and it was ready to be released. I don’t think that these guys understand what it’s like to create music without someone’s feedback to let me know what they think of it.

I know I can write and play beautifully, but a second listening by an outside party is always useful in situations like these. I’ll have to do without. It just doesn’t please me much.

I can show my appreciation without worshiping the dirt you walk on.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 23
Final Word Count: 719 words
 

---

After so many years, I never expected to see the day when the band would be dismantled. I mean, I guess I did somewhat expect it but at the same time, I had hoped it wouldn’t. I know I can continue solo, I’d started working on things to that effect last year, mostly during my downtime but it still hurts to watch them all pack their belongings and just walk away.

All of that because of one arsehole we’d dropped from the band three years ago because he was acting like a complete moron. I’m still hung up on that, I guess. The fact that he’d felt the need to ask me who ‘did it for me’ when we’d grown up together; when he’d seen my relationship with Ash develop. Though it wasn’t so much his question about who might have done it for me, it was his assumption that I was marrying Ash for money.

The other members of the band had sided with me on that one, though they’d still been pretty sad to see him go.

We saw him now and again since; it was clear he hadn’t tried to do anything musically based since dropping out of the band but, over the last three years, there were little things that kept on happening, they were small things but things I just knew would lead to something bigger, something like what happened today.

Thankfully, we had no concerts planned, though there had been one album in the works. We hadn’t started recording. It’s fine, I’ll work it out.

I’m pretty sure that the arsehole kept in touch with the other two in the band and slowly filled their head with nonsense. When Bruce came up to me last year and got in my face about how he could show his appreciation for all the hard work that I had been doing lately without worshipping the dirt I walked on, I knew we were on a downward slope. I’d never once asked him to worship the dirt I walked on.

I actually had never even asked either of them to show more appreciation for the work I did, though, since the arse had been booted off, I felt like I was handed more and more of the tasks to do. Neither one of them wanted to participate in song creation; not the lyrics part, and barely the musical part. They both would tell me that they liked what I came up with just fine.

Then, there was Bruce with the worshipping thing that just left me with my jaw hanging open a little because I still have no idea where that came from—besides the obvious.

After that, it was Carl’s turn to say I hadn’t added enough bass to the one song in the works. I think I gave him a look and told him that if he wanted the song to be played differently, he just had to be there for its creation. They were little things, small, minimal things but looking at the big picture, I felt like I had a mutiny on my hands. It had started when Todd had been kicked out of the band but it did get worse after I tied the knot with Ash.

It’s stupid, the things people will do because they don’t like something about you. These three were guys I’d grown up with. They were the boys I’d met while on that first day at school in first grade. We’d grown up together, had planned on being a band together. Sure, when Ash entered my life, I made time for him as well but I still juggled my time well. Conservatory once I was ten, my friends, Ashford. I believe I didn’t ‘abandon’ anyone.

At this point, I tell myself that it’s their loss. I’m not going to run around chasing them and begging them to come back. They didn’t want to stick around, well that’s that. Band’s no more, so I’m just going to try and keep to the solo thing. Otherwise, I’ll check with the conservatory and Aryan, see if they might not need an extra hand because, well, you always need extra people for things, right? Right. I’m pretty sure I’ll manage at least an album just fine on my own, though, we’ll see.

I’m two sides of a single coin; beast and myself. Interestingly enough, we are the same, aren’t we?

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 22
Final Word Count: 682 words
 

---

I’m not all that interested in paperwork. I’ve only picked my specialization because I had to and I didn’t want to just be told to get a bare-bones job. I don’t hate it but I don’t love it either. It gets me through the day and keeps me from worse manual labour. I know I’m not the only one of my siblings who has had to pick something a little random for a specialization because nothing seemed to appeal. It’s quite visible that most of us are rather artistically inclined and none of the jobs really require those kinds of things. Well, no. Most of the jobs don’t but some do. They’re rare, though.

Handling tiny little items to place them in slightly bigger ones in hopes that it will make the bigger item work isn’t something I imagined myself doing; when I’d first heard of it, I was more than a little certain that it would be so repetitive it would bore me to tears but it’s not half as bad as I thought it would be. Surprisingly, Ashford has managed to find a specialization that’s not too far from his love of the stars and the skies, I’m happy for him. He studies what he can of the outside world without going outside but he spends a lot of time just roaming the edges of the domes. He gathers samples whenever he can. I’m not sure all he does but it seems to suit him so I don’t think either one of us can complain.

A few months ago, during one of those gatherings we still do with the family—every other week, give or take, we just all get together for a few hours—I was listening to Sari as she spoke of the patients she’s had to deal with. She is another who has had to pick a specialization to not simply end up on the list of bare-bones job in the small factories that we still have. It surprised us all when she told us she’d volunteered to work at the psychiatric ward, especially when we took into consideration that this was where Saoirse was.

On this recent adventure of hers, however, she told me that one of the newer patients—she never gave any names as was expected of her and we were fine with it—was something else entirely. Most of the time they were quite calm and collected but four times now in the four weeks they’d been there, that patient had lashed out and the orderlies had just barely managed to separate the patient from another before the damage done was unfixable. As they walked the patient to their solitary confinement room, they would go on about how they were two sides of a single coin; they were both beast and themselves and yet, everyone else was the same, they merely repressed the power that hid deep within them.

To say that this worried most of us on her safety was an understatement but, just the same, I know she is safe there. I know she’s not alone, I know there are others and so long as the safety protocols are followed, no one should get hurt. I know that there are potentials for harm in every single person and that those in the ward are even more likely to do that harm—as far as we know—but I still believe in the fact that she will be safe. That and while I know that Trevi isn’t always on the floor she’s on, they still are around one another as might be necessary.

I’m glad I don’t have any horror stories like that to share. The worst that happened recently was that I got a finger jammed between two pieces and I lost my fingernail in the process. It was painful but not something that would lead to further complications. I rinsed it off, applied whatever I had to it and wrapped it up. The nail has been slow but steady in growing back. That’s all there is to it.

I’ve written six pages nonstop since this morning. I can’t feel my fingers.

 
Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Birds of a Feather
Characters: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 22
Final Word Count: 714 words
 

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I was ten when I first entered the conservatory. I could have started younger, especially to better my skill with the guitar and I think Saoirse would have likely loved that idea if it had been brought up to her but from a young age, I’d mostly shown promise with singing and the conservatory only took singing students from the age of ten and up. I spent a lot of time there when I wasn’t at school and I loved every second of it.

Of course, as I grew older, my need to spend a bit more time outside of the conservatory changed but I still spent hours there every week. Once I graduated from high school, I told myself that perhaps this was going to be it, I was going to solely be focusing on the band and on our debut album but I learned I could stay so I did.

From that point on, though, I decided to add a little variety to things and I added musical history to my schedule, something I know I should have done much sooner but just hadn’t thought of. I registered myself for more piano lessons though I’d been playing with Aryan for years and, of course, I kept to my acoustic guitar lessons.

One thing I don’t think I had expected from the history class was the homework. I mean, it wasn’t really homework we had to do every day but one single project that was mentioned to us from the beginning of the classes, a written thing that we would have to bring in a few months in.

Being the very busy individual I am—you wouldn’t believe how many hours I spend writing out lyrics and figuring out the music to go with them, though thankfully Aryan has also helped some—I had completely forgotten about that little project until a week prior to when it was due.

At that point, I sat my arse down in a chair, I pulled up a few books for research and I started to write.

I’m pretty meticulous about my writing, it’s something we’ve all been forced to work on thanks to Saoirse but it comes pretty easily at this point in my life. Once I started writing, I didn’t even really pause. It was only when Ashford joined me in the little study at around ten or so that I stopped with a small wince. I’d been writing nonstop and I had some six pages written at that point, more than had been expected of it but this was a thing when you were passionate about what was being written out.

I couldn’t feel my fingers, not really. A fact that amused my ever wonderful significant other and there wasn’t much I could do beyond pout at him so I did that and, of course, it only amused him some more.

He offered to read my text back over and he even offered to type it up for me. I love that man, you have no idea how much I love him. It’s in the simple things he does.

Now, I bet you’re wondering why I didn’t just type it up myself as I go but I’m not that fast with a computer keyboard and at times I have to look at the keys. I think I would have lost track of what I was writing if I’d had to focus on something else beyond the books in front of me and the paper I was writing on. I had been more than ready to type it up—something I knew would have taken me longer than I wanted—but with Ashford offering, I let him.

The whole thing wasn’t quite as long once typed up but it still was longer than the project asked for so I know I was in the clear. I don’t know that I’ve learned my lesson; I admit I was this way as well in high school as far as most school projects were concerned. It’s not that I was procrastinating, it’s just that I had a tendency to forget about them if they were set out for something a bit more long-term than, say, ‘this is due in a week’s time’.

It’s just how I am.

We haven’t tested it yet.

 
Timeline/World: Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Seraiah Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 651 words
 

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“Are you fucking crazy?”

“Keep your voice down!”

“I’m not going to keep my voice down; you’re trying to pass off new medication to people without having run any tests beforehand to see how these worked at all, to begin with. You haven’t done any testing to find out if they’re even safe to use, you haven’t done any testing at all, period!”

Seraiah shook his head, feeling disgust welling up in an ugly bubble inside of him. He had no need for medication most of the time, except for this very moment. He cursed the grinder a moment and looked down to his wrapped wrist. Had it just been his arm, he would have been fine to deal with the break while it healed but his wrist was something else entirely and it made a lot of things difficult to handle. He did have Ashford to help him with most things but the throbbing pain still was present most of the time and while he hated having to take painkillers, Sera knew where his own limits sat.

However, the same could be said about knowing where his limits on stupidity sat. He still was staring at the doctor in training. He knew the man in question, someone he’d shared classes with but hadn’t spent much time with since they were in different drop zones and on different levels. He did know that this one fancied himself a scientist but it was hard to believe that someone had given the okay for the wannabe scientist to create new medication with no prior medical knowledge.

“So fuck you but no. I’d rather be in pain than take shit that hasn’t been tested for side effects or even regular effects.” Who knew if the pills in question were made with things that would even work on the pain? Who knew if it wouldn’t give him a heart attack, make him go bald or even blind? It was going a little overboard with the ideas attached to the ‘what if’, but it was true. Who knew what was in those pills, in the end.

Sighing, Sera took a step away from the slightly gaping man, kept his mouth shut to keep himself from uttering ugly words he could feel needing to escape him.

It only took a few moments to navigate his way out of the building and back into the still too hot summer day. They’d had rain on and off for the past two days but it still hadn’t chased away the humidity of the late-summer season setup. He squinted into the sunlight a moment, aware that it was nothing but a virtualization since only the top level had proper sunlight but it still looked and felt real.

He was careful to keep his arm, and thus his wrist, close to his person as he walked away. He’d get on the closest lift and head back up top. From there, he’d ask Ash if he could get a small one-on-one with Erland. At least, that way, he knew that he wouldn’t be given bullshit painkillers since the little they could get over the counter just wasn’t cutting it and it was making sleep near impossible. The brace was keeping his wrist set and immobile but bare little brushes while he slept made that very sleep more than a little difficult and he was becoming irritable, something even his twin had told him.

Being irritable was the last thing he wanted to be and Ash didn’t deserve his anger. He was, in no way at all, at the source of that pain and that meant that he had to make more efforts to keep that crankiness under control. Talking with Erland would also save him from having to file paperwork five times, the quack had to go and no better than the head of the dome to deal with it.