Everyone seems to think I have all the answers, but I’m just as lost as you are.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Current Date: June 27, 2059

Character: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Shifter – Panda
Age: 79, physically about 24
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

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Being a mother was a challenge. Let’s not lie to ourselves, I never imagined myself being a mother, but I have no regrets. Three beautiful children who have grown up into wonderful adults and who know that my door is always open to them. They visit often, of that I am very pleased, and when they visit, it is rarely because they do need this door of mine—ours—to be open for them out of necessity.

All the while with my stomach getting bigger and my thoughts going round and round, especially that first time, I often thought about all the women—the mothers, especially—I had crossed while I spent more time at the hospital than I did at home. I met more than my fair share of them and while all of them were wildly different from one another, quite a few of them had the same worries I found myself dealing with.

Or, more aptly on that front when I was pregnant with Katheryn, worries that I found myself going over again and again and again even before I had to deal with any of them.

Would I hold her right? Would I know when to feed her? How to burp her? When to change her? Would it be easy for me to tell when she needed to sleep and when I had to stop trying to mother her because she had to learn to sleep through her nights? A lot of the questions were some that I shouldn’t even have worried about. It came easily. Changing her when it was time, feeding her when it was time, holding her just so, to burp her. Little things, simple things.

That didn’t stop me from thinking about everything else and worrying that I would do it all absolutely wrong. Thankfully, Dominick was more than patient and I’d like to believe that we learned most of it together. Though to be fair, I was probably a little on the naive side of things back then too and I wouldn’t have been surprised that certain things I learned along the way were things he was already well aware of.

I don’t remember my own parents, maybe it has to do with my mindset back then. Not that it matters much at this point, I’d like to think we were good parents, and we did our very best for these kids of ours. I still don’t have the answers to everything. I don’t think I ever will. On that note, I’ve come to understand that believing that anyone has all the answers is foolish, no matter who they might have been.

Be that a mother of multiple kids or a new mother who is bringing her first child into the world, neither one of them will have all the answers and no one should think that they do. It feels as though it would put a certain amount of unpleasant stress on a person. This doesn’t only apply to mothers, parents, or anyone else in a family setting.

I’ve seen a lot while I was spending all that time in the hospital. It wasn’t just veteran mothers—so to speak—who were looked upon as though they had all the answers, some of them were just as lost as everyone else. But nurses that had been around a while, doctors with specific knowledge of things, people at times seemed to assume that these people would have all the answers as far as certain situations were concerned and while it could have been true at times, more often than not, it just wasn’t.

Stressed family members and friends of someone in an emergency situation turning to the first nurse that comes their way, demanding to know what’s going on when that nurse has no idea as to what anything is about because that very nurse is not the one overseeing the patient. I’ve seen that a lot back then. People who seemed to think that repeating themselves to a new person they were seeing in the hospital was moot because, clearly, all they’d already talked about had to have been told to them, right?

Not fully, notes are taken, sent in, and added to files but you’ll always have to repeat yourself a few times, at least, that was my experience and maybe it was just me. Maybe I was just the ditz who didn’t know any better, but I doubt it. Not that there are any hospitals left to check except ours and I know how ours works, since I do volunteer now and again.

There might be hospitals left out there, but I very much so doubt that they’re anything like what they used to be just before the world went dark.

Final Word Count: 793

I can’t believe you’re willing to go behind their back. Don’t you know who they are?

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: September 8, 2023

Character: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Human
Age: 37
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

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I suppose that mischief and troublemakers are not really gone from this world. There are still all sorts of people living here and some have changed with that change in our world. I think that all of us have changed in some way, but I still want to believe that fundamentally speaking, I am still the same woman I was before. I have just adapted to the best of my abilities to this world.

I wonder how many people are still focused on the life we’ve left behind. I know that I give thought to that life once every day, mostly as I begin to go about my daily tasks. I send a quick thought to my fathers, victims of the snow like so much of the population, and I go on with my day. It was much more difficult at first, I was in no way ready to let them be gone from my life, but I’ve learned. I had a good support system—we all helped one another as best as we could—and that’s where I’m at now.

We have safety here. We’re perhaps not quite thriving but we’re doing well enough that none of us are going hungry at night—that I know of. We’re surrounded by as much security as can be managed in this world and I think that all in all, we’re doing pretty well.

That’s not to say that everyone thinks the way I do, it would be foolish to imagine this to be the case. I don’t know that the world would go around as well as it does now if that was the case anyway. I digress.

What I do know is that my escape of sorts—books, but only once I know that I can let myself be swept into them—from the world around me is likely very different from methods used by others. I hardly know what others do to escape their own thoughts when they start going around and around but I’ve seen what sort of trouble some have gotten into, and I wonder if it wouldn’t do them some good to figure out some other means of distraction.

Though the number is possibly not so high, and I just so happen to end up at the possibly right time, and right place to catch these things, I have lost count of the number of young, and not so young, people who seem to think that the park is a good place to plot away whatever it is they’re about to do.

Now, making plans for your day is not a bad thing. When you make plans to create trouble or throw in some mischief somewhere, it can lead to a bad thing. Not all mischiefs are bad things, especially if we are talking about pranks that do end up being harmless but there are bigger things that do cause issues that have been done by bored individuals and I simply can’t understand it.

A few days ago, I was settled in a quiet spot at the park, I almost wish to call it mine as it seems to always be empty when I go there but I know that it hardly belongs to me, it’s all right. I had a book in my lap, and I was just reading away—a somewhat paranormal romance book because clearly, I have a preferred subject even now—but there was a pair, not very far, that was not being very subtle about whatever it was they were discussing.

I was not eavesdropping, not when one of them was talking loudly enough that I could hear them, even if I couldn’t actually see them. The other one spoke in more hushed tones, and I couldn’t fully understand them. The louder one of the two was going on about how they couldn’t believe that the other person they were speaking to would willingly go behind—a third—someone’s back. They sounded afraid of that third person, whoever they were.

Now, I don’t know what they were planning. I don’t know what they were thinking about, and I really did try to not focus on them too much. It is not my place to go talk to those who keep us safe about everything I hear, especially when I have so few details about, well, anything. All I know is that one of them was planning on doing something—which is stupidly vague—behind someone else’s back.

There are others out here who can take care of whatever this is if it does become a problem. I would rather just keep my attention on my book at this point, thank you. I do wish that people realized, however, that talking about whatever that was, in one of the bigger park areas, isn’t the best spot if you’re trying to keep things quiet. Pick a near-abandoned building next time. Not that I’m trying to give anyone any ideas.

Final Word Count: 827

You make it hard to tell when you’re being genuinely nice, you know that?

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Anthro – Panda
Age: 77, physically about 24
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 777 words
 

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Dreams come and go. Most of the time, I don’t know that I gave these dreams—that I only remembered for a few moments after waking up—much thought. They were dreams of things that I had possibly seen while I was younger. Things that I had briefly crossed paths with at some point in my past. Some might have been things merged together by my mind in an effort to do… something with everything that has ever happened to me. That, I don’t quite know how to explain it, but it is one of those things.

The nightmares, those darker counterparts to the dreams, they were different. Not that they were common. They stayed with me a little longer than dreams and while I tried not to pay them much mind either, at times it was a little more difficult. You never really know when a nightmare will hit; you might never really even be able to tell why it hit though I know that some have triggers, and they happen because of those. I don’t know that any of my rare nightmares have ever happened that way but I was never truly paying attention so I could possibly be wrong.

It doesn’t change much in the long run, however, does it? They are simply bits and pieces of what my daily life might have stashed away and that’s all there really is to it.

At times, however, it is the people in the dreams that will stay with me. It’s a little harder to explain why they do. At times, I believe that this is a leftover from the years I spent at the hospital, stretching myself thin and to the edge of too far while healing those patients who needed it—and, yes, the ones that would have been fine without.

I was a naive girl back then and I don’t think that anything I might say on the subject would really change things. The way I had grown up—before and possibly a little after my fathers had adopted me—had shaped me into that naive little slip of a thing and, well, the rest is history.

The dreams do, at times, bring back to the surface a person or two that I have come across before. I know that some would like to state that everyone that appears in a dream is someone that was crossed at least once before, and I don’t know how true or not that is. It isn’t really something I have much knowledge about and it’s fine. Not knowing whether that is true or not doesn’t change much in my life, in the end.

A few days ago, this one dream that bordered on nightmares brought back one of the nurses whose path I remember crossing so very, very often while I was at the hospital. Thinking about it, I honestly believe that she was the one who sort of swept me up into the life I ended up living at that point. Helping and healing others to the point of being completely empty.

I didn’t see it at first and maybe I’m still naive to believe that others wouldn’t have seen it either; she was smooth. It’s mostly now, so many years later, that I can look back and tell myself that I had a hard time telling when she was being genuinely nice to me and the others. She had these little habits, the way her smile would slip somewhat but just for an instant; it was in the way she said certain things.

There was a lot of acting to her personality and I never did get to understand why. Then again, I wasn’t consciously curious to know why she acted the way she did. It was only once I no longer healed these patients to no end that I started to realize these little things about her. It certainly didn’t please her that I wasn’t healing every single patient that came to the hospital in the end.

I still visited the hospital up until the end; my last visit was possibly just a few hours, up to possibly a day before the shield came down to keep us safe from the outside happenings. By that point, I wasn’t really healing anyone. I’d learned better—and I had some extras on me to keep me from using up too much energy as the healing at times happened without my control—and I really was just there to help brighten some of their days if I could, by that point. I was there to be a comforting presence for those who had no one else.

You’re a hero, right? So why aren’t you, like, stopping me?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Human
Age: 36
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 765 words
 

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Watching little ones playing is actually an odd sort of thing for me, I think. It might have been years now since I was swept away into this new world of mine—and a few extra years tacked onto that as I did meet Dom before the snow—but very possibly my sheltered upbringing has left me with some things that I still never fully know how to take.

My fathers were wonderful men, it is by no fault of theirs that I am as sheltered as I am. In a way, I don’t think they even tried to actually shelter me, it just sort of happened. They were busy doing their own things, though they had plenty of time for me, but they also simply just didn’t always have time for me when I got swept away into my own little worlds.

I just didn’t have many friends and I actually didn’t like going out there. I was more fascinated with spending time with the two men who had taken me out of that orphanage and adopted me. They showed me love, they gave me the very absolutely best life they could and that’s that. I still miss them, but the ache has faded, at least a little, over time.

While keeping that in mind, as I had little experience with other children my own age, other than while I was at school and even then, I was already very much so that one little girl who had a book in her hand and who was just reading away through it all, I didn’t get to really experience playing games with other kids.

Simple little games like touch and go, hide and seek were not so much foreign to me as I remember I watched kids play but had no interest in them, but bigger games like role-playing games were something else entirely. I think the term, back then, was possibly make-believe. I don’t know if that’s still it or not, but I guess that it doesn’t really matter all that much at this point.

With that all in the open, I suppose it should come as little to no surprise that when I came across two younger ones—preteens, I might have guessed—playing one of those make-believe games, I actually stopped to watch a little. Now, don’t think I just stood there, in the middle of the way, and gaped like an idiot. I’m not that out of touch with reality. They were in one of the areas that are mainly designated as parks and that had been my final destination anyway. So, I settled down in the nook of one tree with a book I had let myself be swept into borrowing from the growing collection.

It wasn’t actually a romance book, for once in my life. It was a book on the general flora and fauna of the world. A brick of a book for certain but I figured that after living in this new world for so long now, I was curious to know what I might be able to learn of things, even if they might have changed some.

So, while I had the book out on my lap, I half-watched the pair. They were going on about heroes, villains and ending the world. At one point, one of the boys seemed to grow irritated with his friend, I remember him huffing out that the other was supposed to be a hero, so why wasn’t he stopping him, the villain, as he was about to end the world as we’d ever known it? This made me smile in part. These two were too young—at least in looks—to have ever known about the snow, but they must have heard about it from their parents.

The other boy, though, his only answer was to whine softly that he was bored with their game, and he wanted to play something else. That seemed to shatter what little world the first one had been settled in while they played. He huffed in turn but there was little else to it. They both simply walked to another area of the park then and possibly found other kids their age to play with. I don’t know for quite certain, they were out of my line of sight after a few moments.

Still, they looked to be quite deep in their game of make-believe when I first came across them, it was an interesting thing to witness; it really wasn’t something I’d ever properly seen before. It was strange but interesting.

Even if I could have chosen to do things differently, I wouldn’t. Not after everything else.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Anthro – Panda
Age: 75, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 649 words
 

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Looking back now, I am plenty aware that I could have done things differently. I know that I could have done something else with myself during those dark years; I know I could have been a stronger person. I know that I could have likely prevented the invasion that happened but all of those things, they shaped my future into what it is now and my life is just right as it is. It has its beautiful ups and small downs but I believe that everyone’s life is this way.

If given a chance to change my behaviour back then, would I do it?

I wouldn’t.

I still would heal these people at the hospital. Perhaps not to the point of stretching myself thin as I did but I still would help them. Just the same, I would visit these older folks at their residence, I would spend time with them, chat with them, see how they’re doing. These older people left there by their children, it still breaks my heart to this day. It just doesn’t feel right.

As my life changed and settled, I found myself visiting less often but I still made it my business to drop in to see these people every now and again, about as often as I could manage. It didn’t seem like much but just remembering how much their eyes would brighten up when I’d pop in to see them made it all worth it.

When the world came to its end, I almost wished that these people would have never had to suffer through that but, at the same time; I knew that it was somewhat inevitable. Most of them were so close to their own ends that it seemed almost a mercy that this was how they would go but, at the same time, I am a firm believer of happy final moments, if they can be had.

Drifting away to your death while you sleep isn’t a bad way to leave; it certainly is more pleasant than struggling with disease and, worst of all, dying with no one at your side. I’ve witnessed death often. While I healed those I could at the hospital, I didn’t heal those I knew should not have been healed. There were plenty of them. People whose lives had stretched on long enough; people who had struggled with disease and suffered so much that a renewal of life, only for a chance of that disease to come back, didn’t seem like something that should have been offered.

I still was at their sides when they passed on. Those who had no family that cared to be with them during their last moments had me at their sides as much as I could manage.

I wouldn’t change any of what I went through.

Would I hope to ease more of the suffering that others have struggled through? Sure but I still wouldn’t change where I spent my time. I would likely change how I acted at certain points but that might mostly be it.

All of this because I recently found old things that I thought had truly been lost. Things that had been mine to carry about before and during those dark years. It’s strange how you can be so certain that you’ve always managed to keep hold of everything you want and yet, when you find some down time for yourself with little to do but to go looking through old things, you find these little bits and pieces that send you right back to a time that was somewhat forgotten.

Somewhat, truly. Because I don’t know that any of us will ever forget what it was like during those dark years. We have lost some, we have found others. All in all, the world did what it wanted with us but we pulled through and came from it stronger than ever.

You serenaded the wrong window, but I still think it’s sweet of you. You might want to try three windows over.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Human
Age: 34
Final Word Count: 672 words
 

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As I grew up, I was very much engrossed into the thought of romance the way it is portrayed in books and movies. I thought that, as a teenager, this boy I would eventually fall head over heels for would bring my flowers, he would come to my window at night and serenade me—that always made me giggle—and he would just sweep me away on a white horse.

Of course, none of these things happened but life also got in the way. Do I regret the fact that I got none of these things? I don’t, actually. If things hadn’t happened the way they had, I never would have met Dom and, well, at this point in life, I wouldn’t be alive either. I miss my fathers but I think I’ll always miss my fathers, that’s inevitable and there’s nothing I can really do about it. The pain has lessened to a dull ache at this point but I’ll never forget them; they may not have been my flesh and blood but they loved me and spoiled me.

I’m not sure why I started thinking about childhood romance fantasies recently. That is, beyond the fact that someone has somehow managed to locate one of the second-hand bookshops that this city had so many of and has managed to bring back quite a few books that were in nearly pristine condition. For the number of years that have gone by and the fact that these books have survived the biting cold of temperatures dropping so low you’d freeze to death instantly if you were to get out, and then intense heat and humidity through the volcanoes and now jungle-life, it’s surprising that they’re still in such good condition but I can’t complain.

That might be why, though. I mean, one of the things I did love to do as a teen was read, no, devour, my way through historical—and more up to date—romance book. I’m not going to lie, I’ve read nearly all of the books by Barbara Cartland I could get my hands on and as she wrote more than 700, there were quite a few of those. I was honestly very sad to learn that she’d passed when she did. She’d had a long life, however, and I’m sure it was more than well-lived.

Did I go looking into the books that had been brought back? I haven’t, no. I’m a little afraid that if I were to fall back into the habit of reading these silly romantic novels, I would possibly be disappointed. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? I was young when I read these books, I was impressionable, I was adorably naive. I wasn’t ready for the world and it did me no favours when I made my way into it.

That and, well, the idea of someone now serenading my window seems a little creepy in this new, nature-like world. Though that might mostly have to do with the fact that the only one I need in my life is Dom and I can’t really imagine him doing the serenading thing. Mind you, that’s something I don’t mind. I love him as he is and he loves me the same, that’s what matters.

Even before the snow, I still was hanging on to a part of me that had been innocent and childish in a way, I was hanging onto my naivety until it was nearly too late and I almost paid that price. I want to say that it comes from the fact that I was somewhat sheltered and even sheltered ones have to come out at one point so I did. Life was little like I expected it but it did lead me to where I am now, so I certainly can’t complain about it, can I? No, I can’t and I’m quite fine with the idea of being alive and well so I have no reason whatsoever to want to make a fuss about things.

Only time will be able to tell us.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 2nd Generation
Characters: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Anthro – Panda
Age: 74, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 567 words
 

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Healing the sick during the times of darkness is the only thing that made me feel alive. The only thing that made me feel as though my life had some meaning. It wasn’t easy. Most of the time I felt completely useless and empty, most of the time I thought I was better off not even bothering and just letting myself waste away but I still was clinging on, I had a reason to believe I had to cling to life.

I have met a lot of people during that particular period. So many were just left there as though to die. Some dropped off by their children because they couldn’t take care of them anymore, others simply because the ‘state’ had decreed that this was where they were meant to be. When I wasn’t in the hospital, I was in a resting home for the elderly and spending time there just broke my heart.

So many were lonely. So lonely craved even just the presence of someone in their life, someone to tell them good morning, to ask them how they’re doing, someone to talk to for just a few minutes a day and that’s what I did when I wasn’t at the hospital.

Many wished for their children to come back, for someone to come and get them away from the place. Not that they were mistreated but being left in a place like these isn’t easy for anyone and all I could tell them is that only time would be able to tell us if they were going to go home or not to their loved one. It was a lie, in a way, I knew it. Those who came to drop the elderly into this place never came back for them, no. The only time they came was for rare visits or, most of the time, when the person in question had passed on.

It made me realize that in that place, in particular, children were in a hurry to get rid of their parents, they were in a hurry to abandon them, to get away from them. It made me realize that I never could do this. Then again, both my parents were set to outlive me by some hundreds of years, so I suppose I shouldn’t have had to worry about that, in a way but I still did.

I promised myself that once I went back, I would make sure to visit every so often as they would want me to. I would offer the same to my children if I ever were to have children but I don’t really think that particular thought crossed my mind so much, not really. I didn’t expect to be a mother so I was more than pleasantly surprised to eventually have three beautiful babies of my own.

They grew up into wonderful adults and I feel blessed that I was given this chance. My door is always open to them much, as I know, my parents’ own is.

I don’t know that the world still has residences for the elderly now as it did before. I mean, with how it ended and how the vast majority of the population, it leaves one to wonder but I’d rather just not think about it too much. The life we have here is a peaceful one and I believe that this is all that truly matters.

If I have to suffer watching your favourite movie ten million times, you can watch mine at least once.

 
Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Human
Age: 33
Final Word Count: 579 words
 

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I miss my fathers. I know that I’m not the only one who has lost loved ones to the snow. It would be a lie to believe that. I know that everyone has lost at least one person to the snow. If some people out there have not lost a single loved one, they are truly the lucky ones to still be alive now and not have that weight upon them.

I used to spend a lot more time thinking about that loss in the first few years. It felt like such a hollow thing inside of me that if it had not been for Dominick at my side, I think I would have let it eat me whole. I was a naive young woman back then, the world was a big place and I had grown up maybe a little sheltered but not sheltered enough that I didn’t know anything. I still had a lot to learn.

For the longest of times, I blamed myself for not being with them when the snow started but they’d been out of the country, visiting someone out there and I had work to do here so I certainly couldn’t have gone. Truth be told, I don’t even know if they truly are dead or not. No one knows what happened on the other continents or much further south.

Sure, we’ve had some people who came up from way down south and the rare ones from up north and the situation was the same but was this world-ending snow storm a worldwide thing?

My fathers had this fairy-tale love thing going on. At least, that was how I saw it when I was still just a child. They never argued, at least not in front of me and they were always warm to one another. When it was time for movie night and when I’d had my choice of movie before them, they’d playfully banter back and forth about which movie to watch.

Dad would mention one movie because it was his favourite and Papa would roll his eyes, an amused smile on his face, eyes full of love and point out that if they had to suffer watching through that movie another time as it had already been watched again and again, surely they could watch one of his own instead. They would both laugh and I’d then end up being the one to pick up the movie. I loved these nights.

They liked Dominick when they briefly got to meet him. Papa was really well behaved though people used to think that the one they had to worry about was Papa when, to be honest, it was Dad they had to worry about. He looked to be the mild-mannered one but he was the protective one. I loved them both to bits.

I still love them both to bits and I send them a little prayer every day because they deserve that much.

The ache their loss has left behind still is there, the hole still hollow and empty but it’s not as big as it used to be. I know it will never truly be gone but that’s a good thing. I don’t want to forget about the two men who took me in when I was still just a babe, the two men who adopted, loved me, and raised me. I owe them everything and I will still miss them every day that they are gone.

This is important to me, so the least you could do is try.

Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Human
Age: 31
Final Word Count: 519 words

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I don’t know that I will ever be able to move on from the loss of my parents. I’m more than a little aware that I’m not the only one who suffered a loss of this kind. Most here have lost someone to the snow when it happened and if not the snow, then the struggle that came with surviving it afterwards.

I feel guilty on certain mornings that I’m still alive while my fathers are not. I’m sure that some would look at me and roll their eyes; they’d claim my bond to them was not as secure as that of others. My fathers were not so by blood but by adoption and I loved them endlessly nonetheless. They were mine; I was their daughter, their only one. They allowed me most things I desired while still keeping me aware of the world, aware that money did not grow on trees, that hard work was a necessity of life.

So yes, blood or not, they still were my family, they were the ones I turned to often while growing up, needing something, even if it was just a comforting hug and a head-pat. They had always been there for me.

I send them a little prayer every morning when I get up. I wish them a good day, wherever they are now. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really believe in heaven or hell but I’d like to believe that there is a chance at something more after death. I tell them about how I feel, about what I expect of my life now. Every other month or so, I’ve made it a point to head to a little clearing that was dedicated to the ones lost to the snow. There are people buried there, mostly those we’ve lost since but I like the place for what it is, it’s peaceful and quiet. I just wish that the people I’ve been teamed up to work with would understand this.

When they ask me what I’m doing after our work and gathering day is over and I tell them I’m dropping by to visit my parents, they snort and roll their eyes at me, they tell me I need to grow up and move on. Why should I do that? These two men shaped me into what I am now. Of course, without Dominick and the others I wouldn’t have survived long out in that snow but my fathers have still made me who I am now, they’ve given me life values to respect, made sure I had a mind of my own and wasn’t just another mindless working ant.

So yes, it’s important to me to visit the little spot I’ve set aside for them, just to let them know how I’m doing. Dead or not, they deserve to know about things and that’s just how I am. Everyone else who doesn’t agree with the way I think can just go back to doing whatever it is they think they should be doing that’s so much more important and leave me to my own things.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, remember?

Timeline/World: Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Shiyuri Hastur
Race: Anthro – Panda
Age: 72, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 644 words

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I think I’ll always remember the first time they let me into the ward. I’d still been young then but it had felt right to want to help others this way, it was part of my gift, so why not put it to good use? That was after the great break apart and that time hurt so many people that I desperately wanted to feel useful. I wanted to work so hard that the only time I could sleep was when exhaustion took over me.

It didn’t take much work, at first. I hadn’t used my gift that extensively before but as weeks turned to months, things changed. Everything changes in the end.

The first patient I’d been brought in to see had come from the mental ward. I wasn’t sure what to expect at first since I had been told he’d been dangerous but when I first stepped into his room, he looked harmless, just sitting on his bed, hands hanging loosely between his knees, his head low. Nevermind the shackle that was secured at his ankle from the floor. The sight of that made me shudder and yet it made me want to know more. It was a strange feeling.

His shoulder had been dislocated, it was mostly things like these they allowed me to help with, since most of them didn’t really believe in my gift, thought I was a fraud.

I ended up spending a lot of time with Ingvar. I was in his room at least every other day at first. After about a month of this, I sat down just out of his reach once I was done and I just looked at him, I waited. No one else was expecting me so I didn’t see the point in scurrying right out of his room in the way I’d been doing to that point.

I sat, waited and watched. I don’t know how much time passed before his head actually lifted and he looked at me. He had the darkest eyes I’d ever seen but I felt no fear from them, nothing that would bring me harm. I only smiled at him then and waited some more.

This became routine and after a few months, he was looking up towards the door by the time I was coming in to see him, of course, my visits had been cut down by then, he had miraculously stopped hurting himself so often but I still dropped by when I was done with other patients. He would just look at me and smile, his head tipped a little, his eyes following me as I moved to sit in my usual spot.

It took a year before we actually started to talk at all. Little, mindless things at first but by the end of that first year of mindless discussion, I knew where he was from, what he liked to read, why he was there, why he was hurt so often. He had told me a little about a few of his adventures and I had found myself, now and again, reminding him that two wrongs didn’t make a right. He’d stared at me at first, confused, not understanding my words before I explained them.

By the end of year three, we were discussing as though he was a friend and not a patient with his ankle chained to the floor.

But, one morning, as I was headed to his room to look in on him, I was told he’d been moved facilities, that somehow, for some reason, he’d had a breakdown. I had a hard time believing that but what could I do? His disappearance out of my life left a small little hole and even now I think about him, wonder what happened to him, where he was when the world ended. I guess he’s in a better place now.