I will always hate how I can never tell when you’re lying to me. It’s probably safer to assume you are.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Current Date: June 13, 2024

Character: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 24
Current residence: Warwick, New York
 

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I had an ex-schoolmate, to not call him a classmate, on my chair just a few hours ago and I’m still wondering what happened to him. He used to be this ball of bouncing energy, he was always smiling, happy for the presence of everyone and he rarely ever said no to anyone. I know that a few people did try to take advantage of that while at school, but he had such a good circle of friends that they kept him safe from these very people.

I didn’t have as many interactions with him as I could have because he was a couple of years younger than I was, and let’s face it, I had more than enough on my plate to not really have that much time to devote to anyone else but the people in my own circle. It’s not that I’m full of myself, but I just had more than enough on my plate, and I never really had much of a reason to mingle with the younger groups, unless they were potentially causing issues for my family. Be it my blood-related family or my found family. For the most part, both are one and the same.

I did notice him, though. It was hard not to and once I graduated, that was mostly that. I mean, I’m not about to go out of my way to keep up with every single person out there. There were a lot of kids in that school, and it would have been folly to want to keep up with every single one that had ever stepped into the school while I was there. I’m no Superman, or whichever superhero you want to match with this foolish idea.

I don’t get that many ex-classmates or ex-schoolmates as clients. Which, you know, it’s just one of those things. I don’t mind, I know that the way I do things is fairly different from most other hairdressers out there, at least in terms of colouration, and that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

He came in with a pretty girl, she sat in the little waiting room that’s just a few very comfortable chairs near the one wall that’s behind the workstations. She looked a little sullen as she came in. Eyes down and arms crossed tightly over her chest. It was as though she didn’t want to be there, and I think her presence soured the general mood. He’d been mostly bright-eyed when he stepped in, but when she sat down in the chair nearly directly behind us, his face puckered as though he’d eaten more than just a single sour lemon.

I tried to make small talk with him, but every time he would manage a single word, she’d breathe these annoyed noises and he’d shut right up. It broke my heart, honestly. At one point, the pretty girl—who was seriously ugly on the inside from what little I got to see of whatever it was that was happening between them—opened her mouth and had I known him any better, I wouldn’t have held back and I’d have thrown her out of the salon. I nearly did. It was just the two of them in there with me at that point, had there been others, I suppose I might have reacted differently. At that point, I felt that it was possibly his decision to stay with her, but I did slip him a card with a number to call when I was done with him.

The thing is though is that what came out of her mouth wasn’t said in any way that was overly harsh, it wasn’t spoken with a sneer, but it was just the words themselves, the fact that they seemed to come out of that ugly mouth of hers just so easily. Had she stood up to get into our personal space, I think I would have punched her, I swear.

The little twat said that she hated how she could never tell when he was lying to her, and that it was probably safer to assume that he always was. I mean, what the fuck, lady? If you trust this man so little, don’t be around him. That reeked of gaslighting, and it just made me so mad. I can’t understand people like her who seem to thrive on that sort of thing.

This leads me back to asking myself about what happened to him. What happened to that circle of friends of his that he was never without? Did she somehow manage to push them all away? Did she find means to isolate him so she could break him, little by little? I know it’s none of my business. I know I can’t make it my business either, but that business card was burning a hole in my pocket, and I had to give it to him when he left. Whether or not he does anything with it is now out of my hands. I did what little I could do and if somehow, I’ve read the situation right, and he does reach out to that number—not that I’ll be made aware of it—I feel as though I’ll have at least done what little good deed I could manage in this situation.

Final Word Count: 881

We have three minutes to figure out what we need to do next.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Current Date: January 1, 2029

Character: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
 

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Securing a location for the business turned out to be a lot harder than I had first anticipated and I’d planned for a lot of things to go wrong during that time. Meds or no meds, I was still going to fuss a whole lot about this new thing in our lives. For a little while before our wedding, I was working for someone else in their little place. I rented a chair, I did cuts, I did dyes—with the chemical stuff—and I felt a little miserable. It was a job, though, and I managed to put plenty of money aside.

I’m more than aware that I could have done without the job, Dad had enough set aside for all of us and done it in such a way that we were set for life if we lived comfortably without spending over the top. I loved my father for this, and I still do, but I did want to make my own way and the money from that account has mostly been used now and again for big things.

Paying for everything we needed for our small wedding. The honeymoon. The down payment on this little building that has a first-floor storefront with huge windows and a second and third-floor open space for two apartments, or one very, very open-space one and, well, it wasn’t hard to decide on that front. We’ll be using the second apartment as a sort of artist’s work space or, in time, we might rent the place to someone else but I don’t know about that. I like the idea of just figuring out what we’ll do with all that space. I want plants anyway, plants and pets and so many things.

The one thing that now worries me, though, is that I haven’t told Kenley about this yet. Well, that’s a half-truth. We’d both been looking at places, both as a change to our apartment and as a front for both of us to make it a place to call home—heck, the front area of the second floor could be his own workspace and I’d be perfectly happy with that. The building is a little skinny but it’s deeper than it looks.

We’d taken a break for the holidays because it just made sense and none of the people, we wanted to reach were answering their phones which, just the same, made a lot of sense.

This building, though, we both came back to it often. Out of the handful of little buildings we’d found, this one was the one with the most appeal and we’d both spoken to the woman who was handling its sale. When we’d last spoken to her, we’d offered a price, she’d written everything out and she told us she’d get back to us right after the holidays.

Well, her definition of right after the holidays isn’t the same as either one of ours. She called me fairly late in the day on the thirtieth. At most, I had expected her to wait until the third or the fourth of this month and that was what she’d first told us to expect a call back on.

I don’t know why she called me first and not him since his number was the one that we’d given her first. With my pills and what I take them for, I don’t do all that great in stressful situations and KenKen is much better than I am, it’s why we’d let her have his number, then mine just in case she couldn’t get through to him.

When she called, Kenley had stepped out to pick a quick something up from the store and I let him since we didn’t need to both step out. I knew he’d taken his phone with him, he always does. Still, she called me, she told me that the sellers had accepted our offer but that the paperwork needed to be completed just about right this minute because she’d received a second offer that was a little higher, but we’d come first, and she thought we were just the sweetest couple ever.

Way to put pressure on the guy who doesn’t do great under pressure. That’s like telling me that I have to make a life-or-death decision in the next three minutes. It wasn’t that, but we’d set our heart on this building just so much that it did make me feel this way. Ken wasn’t going to be home fast enough to talk to him about it and I didn’t want to call him and then have to call her back.

So, I said go ahead, send me the files—electronic files for the win—I signed them since I had both his and my digital signature saved on this computer in a protected folder, and I sent them back. I don’t know how I managed to keep my excitement under wrap for the next day; I think the whole thing just so emotionally exhausted me that I half-forgot, in a way. The keys were dropped off late yesterday afternoon, but the weather wasn’t great, and we were set to just quietly celebrate together.

So today, I’m bundling us up and I’m taking him to our new place. I can’t wait to see his reaction.

Final Word Count: 882

Who I am and who I will be are vastly different in ways I don’t quite know yet.

Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Peculiar
Current Date: June 23, 1401

Character: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 23
Current residence: Peculiar, Erisia
 

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I don’t know that anyone can predict what they’ll grow up to be. Sure, some, from a young age, have possibly some sort of passion or otherwise but whether or not that passion grows into something depends vastly on their parents. I was one of the lucky ones, I know. If I’d shown signs of wanting to be something big—like learning from one of the doctors or being a scientist like Dad—both my parents would have supported me. If I just think about, say, Arlen, who’s just about my age, he’s got ridiculously good talent when it comes to woodworking, something that seems to have been discovered mainly while out here, and I know that his father would have scoffed at the idea.

How young is too young for someone to decide they absolutely want to be something when they grow up? Even if they do decide that from that young of an age, there’s no saying that they’ll still love that thing when they’re old enough to start to really learn the ropes. That’s part of growing up, isn’t it? Thinking you’d want to be one thing, then, as you got older, realizing you didn’t want that anymore?

It can’t hurt to be indecisive, or, well, back under the dome, I guess it couldn’t really hurt. You’d take generalized classes and end up working in a place that didn’t require specifications and that’d be that, right? Just about. Though out here, there’s no specialization anymore. We’re all helping one another and when we discover that one thing that we’re better at than not, for the most part, that’s where we head towards.

In my case, while I’ve always been a bit fruity—I’m sure you can ask Kenley about it, and he won’t deny it—I’ve always been interested in everything colour. We couldn’t exactly dye our hair or anything else but I still spent some time figuring out means of creating dyes, of trying to get the colours I really wanted and, well, now, I’ve somehow managed to create means for hair dyes—it doesn’t last forever but it still lasts—and even clothing dyes and I’ve made a few interesting things since that particular discovery.

While I was younger, I certainly never imagined myself hands deep in whatever I could find that could leave a colourful stain on things. I don’t think that a day goes by that my hands aren’t stained in some way. I’ve come to accept that part. I think it adds some charm really and Kenley has yet to complain.

But this is what I mean, in a way. Who I was back then and even who I am now are vastly different from one another. To me, this means that whoever I’ll be in the future will also be just as different and I don’t know what these differences will be. There’s no planning ahead for future me and I don’t know that I’d be happy if my future was all planned out by little old me who doesn’t know what future me might want.

It’s been a bit strange, giving this a thought. The days have been pretty hot, and a few people are heat sick and for the most part, we’ve managed to get through the necessary bare minimum every day until this heat wave passes. We’ve been here a year, and the summer heat wasn’t quite this oppressive last year. I figure we’re still adapting. To keep myself from focusing on the fact that most of us spend our afternoons in the water because it’s just too hot otherwise, I’ve been getting lost in my own thoughts.

Most of these thoughts flee the moment Kenley enters my line of sight, though. No matter if he’s sweaty, filthy, or freshly bathed, this man holds my heart in ways I don’t think I expected him to ever manage and I don’t want that one thing to change. It’s the one part of me that I’m really holding on to. I might forgive my future self if he changes his mind on that subject, but I don’t know that it will be easy.

I need Kenley like I need air in my lungs, and I don’t know that I can survive without him. It’s just like that and anyone else that might try to make me think I’m being dramatic on that subject can suck it. I’m as dramatic as they come when I’m given a chance. Give me all the colours, all the Kenley, a little shake of being a drama queen and I’ll be set for the rest of my life.

Final Word Count: 771

Is this what happens when I let you decide what I should do?

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Peculiar, Erisia
Final Word Count: 995 words
 

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From the moment that they allowed Peculiar to be open knowledge within those who were going, you can bet your arse that I was ready to hop in. Four years ago, during one of the grinders, someone fucked up my firearm so bad that it had taken six months for me to be able to get it back within properly working order and I’d had to ask Anatoly for help repeatedly.

Two years after that, I was still bitter as hell about it, but you can bet that I kept my firearm kept very, very close to my person whenever we had to have it on ourselves. I would conveniently forget to leave it with the others during the following grinders or just forget it altogether so as to not have to go through that again.

I remember when I finally got on the case of the two idiots that had screwed shit up almost beyond repairs; four years later and they still wouldn’t look me in the eye anymore. If I hadn’t been able to repair my gun, I could have possibly been able to file some paperwork but with my luck, I would have been without a weapon as they wouldn’t have replaced it and I’d have been penalized for it even though it wouldn’t have been my fault and just, yeah, four years later, I’m still bitter about it.

I still remember how they were bickering pretty bad by the time I was done with them. Each one of them accusing the other of being a bad influence on them and complaining that this was what happened when they let the other decide what they should be. By that point, it was good for me that they were scared of what I could do to them if I ever even just glimpsed them looking my way that I could leave feeling just a little bit better about things. Not wholly better, if I hadn’t known how screwed up my firearm had been and I’d tried to use it, I’m pretty sure it would have exploded in my face.

So yeah, when they set a tentative date for Peculiar, I was all for it. I made sure Kenley was ready too because I wasn’t going to leave him behind. I wouldn’t have forced him to come with me and I’m pretty sure I’d have been fairly broken if we’d had to be apart but that hasn’t been an issue and I’m more than a little grateful for it.

Life out here is really, really different. I think that all of us are just so used to the military routine of getting up early in the morning, training, schooling or work depending on the age and the rest, that this place really took some getting used to. I mean, I still get up relatively early in the morning because there are things that are just easier to take care of in the early mornings. Being able to look up and see the sky—the real sky—has been something else to get used to.

I’m pretty sure we all took our firearms. They’re just one of those things and we still don’t fully know what’s out there. That and, well, it’s just part of what we brought along. Every item of clothing was packed up in as tight a few different bags as possible. I don’t know if we’re the only ones that did that this way so as to not appear too suspicious, but I packed up my stuff into smaller bags, dropping them off every few days over the course of several weeks down underground to our transport. The bags were marked as mine and, that way, when we headed down that last time, we only had a small bag instead of possibly this huge one that could have attracted a lot more attention.

After all, plenty of people take overnight bags underground, right? Yep. Flawless plan.

One of the things I have a hard time wrapping my mind around is how clear the sky looks here. We can’t see the dome from Peculiar. The mountains on either side are just so ridiculously tall that most of their tops actually disappear behind cloud covers. The few tops we can see actually appear to have snow on them. I knew from schooling and books that the world out, beyond the domes is drab and mostly dead. We could see that much when we were travelling between the domes.

There never was any need for any of the fancy setups, after all. Not in the tubes. The domes all were set up with the technology to show a supposedly proper blue sky and all, a sky to match the weather and that, on all levels. It was the same for the farming dome and the drop dome, but it was clear when you were in the tube between the dome that the sky wasn’t what we’re all used to. It was more reddish than the blue we all could see with the technological setup.

Being here, though, that’s made me start to question myself a little. I mean, the sky can’t be reddish all over the world and then be blue in this little mountain-locked paradise, right? Is it possible that for so, so long, we’ve been lied to? I mean, I know the air is toxic outside of the domes though it clearly isn’t here. I’ve seen people be dropped outside of the domes for crimes punishable by death. They didn’t last much more than ten minutes out there.

Is it possible, though, that the skies are still mostly blue and that the reddish tint we used to see in the tubes was the one that was shown to us to keep us docile? Man, I don’t know. Not that it matters much at this point anymore. I’m so ready to keep up with this new life, you have no idea.

Every time I look into your eyes, I’m reminded how incredibly lucky I am to have you as my partner.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 20
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
Final Word Count: 790 words
 

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Wedding bells are on the horizon.

Is that even how you’re supposed to say it? I guess it doesn’t really matter. We’re not going to have a really big ceremony. It’s just going to be a quiet little thing and I don’t even want to step anywhere near a church, something simple with just those few important people and that’s going to be that. At first, I’m pretty sure that we both thought that getting married right out of high school was going to be our best option. I’m pretty sure everyone thought we’d get married then too.

We didn’t, though. Looking back, I’m not really sure why we didn’t but, you know, I don’t mind. It gave us time to actually get settled somewhere. It gave us time to move out, to save up money, to plan things. As is, since we’re so close in ages, we figured that we’d pick a date that was between either of our birthdays. As the number of days in between is odd-numbered, we picked up a date that was as much in the middle as possible.

It’s a date that, one way or another, falls on a week day. I think this is one of the reasons why we’re also set on doing just a small, quiet and short ceremony. I don’t care how it happens, I honestly just want it to happen and that’s all that matters to me. I want it to happen. I want us to be tied together forever and that’s that.

I have no words for how much I love him. Every time I look into his eyes, I’m reminded of how incredibly lucky I am to have him as my partner. He’s my world and my everything. It was different at first, sure. We were one another’s crutch and I’m sure that people thought it wasn’t a healthy relationship in any way, shape, or form. We certainly showed them otherwise. Not that I would have ever even changed anything if I could have. He’s my all, I don’t think I can go on another day without him if he’s not there.

I still have my meds, I still take them like clockwork and when I might forget, he reminds me. He keeps me focused and I’d like to think that I do the same for him. He’s a good chunk of my very broken soul and nothing will get in the way of the amount of glitter-glue we’ve dropped on there, by just being together.

Planning for that wedding has been a new experience. I don’t think that I’d want to do it a second time. We’re keeping things simple, but it still feels like so much that needs to be planned for. We do have a small honeymoon in the works, we have to keep in mind where we might be holding the little after-party. We have to get the food figured out, it’s all in the little things. It’s a lot to think about and I don’t think that we’d have gotten it all down and, well, figured out if we hadn’t been taking a lot of notes and if I hadn’t asked for a little outside help.

I’m pretty set on there not being any fancy suits, though I’m still going to be finding very, very clean clothes and I might honestly opt for white. I know that it’s supposed to mean purity and that it used to be seen as good for first-time brides because of tons of reasons and whatever but I still want to wear white. It’s my wedding and no one is going to stop me from doing what I want.

When I think about it, I know I’m going to end up fussing more about what my hair is going to be like, more than anything else. That’s one of those things but, the more I think about it, the more I feel like I might just be going natural. It’s going to have been a very, very long time since my hair hasn’t been dyed, but going back to my natural blond might just be one of those things that would add a little something special to the whole day.

I mean, here I am, thinking about wearing white, opening myself utterly and completely to him, showing him how I am deep down inside though he already knows all of these things. I think that staying with the pure theme is a good idea, honestly. Be as natural as I might have never truly been in years. Not that I dye my hair with anything chemical and all but still.

We still have a few months to get everything perfect, I know we’ll do just right.

Some of us are bad at math and going to bed when we’re supposed to.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Warwick, New York
Final Word Count: 753 words
 

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It’s a bit weird, when the client in your chair, is someone you went to school with. I don’t have bad memories of most of my classmates. For the most part, we all just did our own thing, we hung out with the people we wanted to, and the general sense and air of the school were safe. Bullying was strictly against plenty of rules and those who broke the ones didn’t get to stick around very long. I don’t know all of the details, I never really had to deal with any of them.

Still, the girl sitting in my chair yesterday afternoon had a friend with her, that friend was keeping a little boy—two, maybe three?—busy while I worked my colourful magic into my client’s hair.

The moment she walked in, her eyes brightened, and she greeted me like an old friend. It took me a bit longer than it did her to place her. She had changed fairly drastically. It was the mention of the name under which she’d booked the appointment that made me realize who I was dealing with, so to speak. Last I’d seen her—graduation—she’d been rather plump though it hadn’t been a bad look on her, and her hair had been pretty much black. She’d been one of the few at schools who went through that goth phase, I remember how much she would complain about not being able to put all of her pins on her uniforms the way she wanted to.

So, while I work on her hair and her little boy giggles away with her friend, we talk a little. We reminisce a bit about school days. We laugh a bit about how she used to be terrible at math and how she was always asking everyone for help and how she was just such a rebel that she refused to go to bed at any set time by her parents, even though she was always tired by then. She’d done it to spite them and deal with being tired. Which, in turn, you know, meant she was sleepy in class; thus, she napped, and thus she missed out on school work knowledge.

It was a circle that was fairly set in its ways. I’m honestly surprised that she managed to graduate. Barely so, but she did and well, looking at her now, especially since she’d moved out, it had done her good. I didn’t ask about her love life, it was clear that the little boy was hers, he looked so much like her.

By the time she was ready to go, I offered her a sealed little bag of gummies for the boy. I didn’t even need to tell her that they were the same gummies I’d always had with me while at school. I love Alisa’s gummies and I always keep fresh ones on hand. I have a box next to my desk and I bring out a small sealed bag—with maybe four or five, depending—homemade gummies in there and I give them out to new clients. The bag has the info on where to get more and it seems like something that just makes the most sense to me.

Alisa is all local and the stuff she makes is just crazy good, so why not let other people enjoy these very same things? The boy’s face lit up completely when his mother agreed to the ‘candy’, which, you know, it’s not candy but that’s beside the point. He looked so happy at the promise of being able to chomp on candy. That was the point, in a way.

I waved her goodbye when the trio left. I like clients like these, the general air of the appointment had been light and comfortable, the memories hadn’t been painful to deal with and her hair—blond when she’d walked in—had taken stupidly well to the dye that I’d applied. Not that I was surprised on the latter but, at times, with hair a bit darker a shade of blond like hers tends to take more than one coat of the dye I prepare or a heavier concentration.

Her choice of colours reminded me that I do need to do something new with mine. I normally would have done it for the new year gathering but I’d been getting over a chest cold. I hadn’t been feeling great, though I’d been getting better by the day. Better enough to get back to work, in any case.

You can’t just assume this will work. I mean, have you seen most of our plans? They’re not good! At all!

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 20
Final Word Count: 738 words
 

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It happened two years ago but it still makes me angry. Whenever I think about it and the amount of work it took for me to get my firearm back into working order, I just get pissed off. I even had to ask Anatoly for help and he couldn’t even figure out how they’d fucked it up so bad. No amount of good planning would have resulted in what had happened to my firearm, it was that bad.

It took nearly two weeks steady of work on that firearm to get it back up to par, and even then, I still kept on finding minimal faults. It got to the point where I was almost ready to file all the necessary paperwork for a new one but I told myself that I would likely be refused, so I kept on working on it with some outside help and, about six months after the fact, it was as good as it was ever going to get. It wasn’t perfect but even Anatoly said that it now was nearly about as good as a simply well-used weapon and not a near-destroyed one. So I had to take it as was.

It only took me a few days to find the pair who’d done this to me, though. How they found out my serial number and that the firearm was mine, I still don’t know. They claim that they didn’t know what I was talking about and that I was crazy. In a way, I suppose they might not have known the firearm was mine but it still was the firearm of someone who’d gone before them and, most who had during that particular grinder had been from the two bigger houses and their selected partners. So I guess it could have fallen on any single one of us but I was the unlucky bastard.

The lesson I taught them about their fucking behaviour is one I know they’ll remember for a long time, they still avoid my gaze whenever we’re in the same area and they make sure they’re as far away from me as possible. Good. Fuckers better remember not to mess with me or anyone else. Not that I turned to violence but I have my means.

Now, I didn’t just jump down their throats without any proof, I was mindful while I looked for the culprits. I didn’t bother with trying to get prints off of the weapon, for one thing, we all wore gloves and well, so many others could have used it before them that prints would have been all over the place, so I just went private-detective mode. We don’t have those here, not really. I learned about what a PI did while reading a few books.

I stalked—from a distance—I paid attention to things, I asked a few innocent questions around and, eventually, I mostly just caught them red-handed as they were discussing something else that likely would have ended in tears for someone else. They were sitting near an empty building, working on I don’t know what since they were on their own and it was lunch time. One was scribbling on paper, planning who knows what but the other one clearly was not on board with it all. He was gesticulating and not keeping very quiet, which, the scribbler shushed him several times.

There was something about how they shouldn’t assume that the particular would work, because, let’s face it—their words, not mine—have they not noticed that with most of their plans? They weren’t good, not at all. To which, his counterpart said something about the last grinder and it made the first guy freeze, I think that, at that point, I knew I’d found my culprits.

They refused to admit to anything at first but the gesticulating guy—can you tell how much it pissed me off that I didn’t even register their names, even if it was on their uniforms?—eventually broke down about it and said that it had been the other guy’s idea and just, ugh. Even now it still frustrates me. I haven’t really had any issues with the firearm but I now have to make sure to clean it like nobody’s business every time it comes out of its casing, just to be on the safe side of things. I have done nothing to deserve this.

Well, I wouldn’t be myself if I weren’t annoying you, now, would I?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 18
Final Word Count: 697 words
 

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I still remember our first meeting. I think it would be stupid of me to forget that moment since it changed my life. For the longest of times, I’d just be puppy-following whoever was willing to pay me some attention, no matter that it did gather me some bad attention. I mean, the last guy—I don’t honestly even remember his name—he was planning on fucking me. I’m not even going to apologize for the language.

I learned that through Kenley, of course. I didn’t really know any better. I was just desperate to be someone’s friend and the arse took full advantage of that. Looking back now, it makes me shudder to think of all the things that nearly went wrong at that point in my life. I know that Sari was looking out for me as best as she could, but that particular guy, she couldn’t touch him, none of us could. His parents were stupidly important folks who had something to do with either the school or dad’s work and well, yeah.

It was a bit touch and go with Kenley at the start. I just wanted to please him; I didn’t want him to leave me behind. I wanted to be the person he wanted me to be as a friend. Of course, I did eventually learn that I only had to be myself and it was more than enough for him. That, alone, was more of a relief than anything else ever could have been.

In time, I managed to find myself and, in finding myself, I could tease him about how I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t annoy him now and again. It wasn’t meant in a bad way, I wasn’t being self-deprecating. Sure, the fact that I was taking my pills much more regularly was also helpful in that regard but that’s something else entirely.

Kenken? He’s the centre of my universe now. I don’t think I’d function without him near me. I remind him of that much pretty often and I just love the way his eyes soften just a little at the corner when I say those very words. It’s in the little things, some are so subtle you’d miss them if you were to blink but I think that we’ve gotten to know one another so well and so deeply—don’t get me started on how good that is, I wouldn’t be able to stop—that it’s hard for us to miss the little things in one another anymore.

He knows when I’m not at my best, he knows when it’s highly possible I’ve forgotten to take my pills—though he’s good at reminding me. I know when he hasn’t slept well or when there’s something bothering him, we just know.

I feel like I’ve found the other half of my very broken soul. I didn’t know it when he first came into my life but I know that now and I wouldn’t change that for a single thing in the world. No one could make me change that. If anyone were to try, I would probably hand them over to Kenley so he could do whatever he might want with them. That’s not as though I’m saying he’s got violent tendencies and I don’t, I just still don’t fully manage to handle confrontations really well and he’s just got that way about himself that make him the safest choice for me to turn to for things like that.

So to all of those stupid people who were taking advantage of me when I wasn’t at my best? You can go suck on a rusted one. I’m certainly not forgiving any of you but I’m not going to spend the rest of my life agonizing about what could have been and how things could have turned out. This is my life; I’m not going to let you ruin it. It’s just, I’m engaged, for goodness’ sake, I’m pretty sure that none of my tormentors ever imagined I’d get that far in life.

Hell, I’m pretty sure a few of them expected me to end a druggy or a whore, so fuck them all.

You tricked me! I thought I was walking into a party. Is this an intervention?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 20
Final Word Count: 629 words
 

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I’m not going to lie; I looked for the cameras when I first heard her. It was surreal.

There we were, quietly enjoying brunch at a quaint little restaurant, it had been quiet up until that moment and I certainly couldn’t complain about that. We’d both decided that we didn’t really want to bother with making breakfast of any sort and we’d tried this place a few times and it had always ended up with good results.

The thing is, this place is pretty small; I think it sits maybe twenty-five people at the most. I know they have a second floor but that’s usually meant for gatherings, or so I’ve been told. Anyway. There we were, settled at a corner table next to the huge front windows, it was a quiet mid-morning and there were maybe three others in there with us.

Over the span of maybe fifteen minutes, more people started trickling in and they all asked to move tables at the back together. By the end of those fifteen minutes, I’d say there were about fifteen people back there; I mean, at this point, it’s all fine, they’re quiet but, about five minutes later, a final group of three comes in, they’re talking happily until they make it into view of the rather sombre set of tables at the back. Then, the woman in the middle starts screeching—I kid you not—about how she had been tricked, how she thought she was walking into a party but this clearly was not. Then, she quieted slightly, eyes wide and almost deer-like and she asked if this was an intervention.

After I’d made sure that I couldn’t see any cameras, I had to ask myself if this was real. Did people not just keep anything of their private lives private anymore? Why do an ‘intervention’—which, I thought was all televised bullshit—at a small little restaurant where it’s clear you’re going to be bothering the other customers instead of doing it at home? Thankfully, though, we were almost done with our meal and before any real drama started happening, we’d paid our tab and left.

The man who took care of our last few moments at the restaurant had this ‘get me out of here’ look in his eyes that just made me sad to see. He didn’t want to be there any more than we did but at least we had the luxury of being able to leave while he couldn’t. I did feel bad for him but there was nothing we could do, after all.

We left a little quicker than I wish we could have but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with whatever insanity this intervention of theirs was going to cook up. I would have liked to stay there a little longer and enjoy a steaming cup of tea but when we made it back home, we did just that. We settled with hot drinks—I like to fight the heat with heat and drinking hot teas on hot summer days actually helps me—and we just relaxed a little more.

Even now, some hours later, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that somehow, this group of people, thought it was a good idea to come into a small restaurant where they were other people to have an intervention of sorts for another woman, about whatever problems she was having with her life. It’s not her problems that are, well, the problem. It’s the fact that it makes no sense to do this in a public place.

Who the hell airs out their dirty laundry like this? Life should be private, don’t make a show of shit like that, seriously, just don’t.

Let’s just push the beds together.

 
Timeline/World: Urbana LaCrosse University – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Silvius Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 17
Final Word Count: 617 words
 

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I didn’t like my first few years at camp. At seven, I just wasn’t ready to go out there and spend two weeks away from home, sleeping in a strange bed and being around the school kids some more, some of these kids were people I didn’t want to be around at all. The hardest parts of camp life were the nights, though. I didn’t sleep well in the beds we were offered and I just missed home in a bad way.

It was only two years after I’d first come into camp, when the triplets were old enough to join in, that I realized that it wasn’t such a bad thing, at least now I was sharing a room with family but it was Santos and Skyler who opened up my eyes to a neat thing they were doing and I envied them their closeness. Then again, I knew that Skyler would have gone to the end of the world of Santos and so would I have.

They shared a bed.

I know that, at times, at home, we’d sleep out in the yard, either under the stars or in a tent, and they’d always have their sleeping bags either zipped up together or set up so they were touching. I know that even in the house, they shared. At least, while mom wasn’t roaming about or else she’d have thrown a fit.

At camp, I’d like to believe that if they’d been able to, they would have pushed the beds together but I don’t know that pushing these heavy wooden bunk beds together would have even been a possibility for them. These things were heavy and it was more complicated to try that than to just share the thin and slight mattress. They made it work, really.

In my case, the simple fact that they were in my cabin with me, sharing my room, was enough to help me sleep easier.

As the years passed, we eventually ended up in separated cabins and then back in the same cabins but habits didn’t really change and as time went by, I adapted to the idea of being at camp and of sleeping at camp. Of course, when Kenley came into my life, things changed and I found myself with someone to share that bed with.

Sure, on certain sticky nights, it was a little unpleasant but I still found myself sleeping just so much better when he was right there with me that I don’t think I would have been able to mind that sticky heat.

Eventually, that shared sleeping became a highlight because I admit to being a bit hands on with my boyfriend and I’ve never heard him complain. Sure, we have to really keep quiet but that’s not much of a problem, we can manage. Not that we were handsy often, not with other people sleeping in that room with us but we found little ways of relieving certain tensions if you catch my drift.

Now, well now camp is just one of those things. It’s a way to unwind after school, it’s a way to enjoy being out there in nature. It’s a way of getting eaten alive by mosquitoes but I must be one of the lucky ones because I don’t get bitten all that much, at least not compared to some of the other campers so I’ll take that too. It’s all in the little things and while I might never have been able to push my bed together with someone else’s, I don’t need to, not now, not anymore. I’d rather share my sleeping bag and my personal space with Kenley any day of the year if I can.