You beat me by a second, but I swear I’ll win next time.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: December 13, 2022

Character: Taliesin Callan
Race: Human
Age: 28
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

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How did I make it this far in life?

Fifteen years ago, I was losing my best friend and the only person I thought I would ever need in my life. It turned me into such a weird variant of a bully that I don’t think I would have deserved to have survived the snow, not really. I wasn’t so much a bully that I was going out of my way to bully others, but I was that one guy who kept other bullies from doing what they did best, but I wasn’t always nice about it to the people I was saving from the bullies if you would.

In a way, I think I was trying to stop people from having to go through what my friend had, I just wasn’t going at it from a very good direction, I guess. It’s one way of looking at it. It was a long time ago, anyway.

I think that while some of the credit for my survival of this whole thing goes to my sister, most of the credit needs to go to Thad. The way he wormed his way under my skin without properly even realizing it. Neither one of us really realized it until it was too late. Not that I think any of what happened is ‘too late’, nor is our relationship a bad thing. It’s probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

I struggled a lot with a nightmare last year. I’m still not sure where it came from, and I admit that I try to not think about it too much if I can help it. It made no sense to me. I was lucid through most of it; I knew that I was awake but unlike the other rare times I’d been lucid in dreams, I couldn’t wake myself up from the dream itself and it was a pretty horrifying nightmare. Thad had to deal with my being a clinging mess for a while.

I wish that the rare times I ever think about my childhood friend anymore brought back good memories but there were so many bad ones that whenever I think of him—and I don’t do so often, afraid that it’ll trigger more of that lucid and terrifying nightmare—all that does crop up are bad memories. Memories of things that truly should have been left behind.

One of the only memories I still have of him that is positive goes back so far into our childhood that there are times when I wonder if I didn’t make it up at all. We must have been seven or eight. I’m pretty sure we were already inseparable by then and he spent a lot of time with me. I didn’t understand why, not back then, but now that I know all I did about his situation, I do understand.

We were playing in the yard, just running laps that were less than straight all around and he’d always been faster than me. No amount of trying to outrun him made it possible for me. I remember claiming that he’d won each race by all of a second at the most—it was often more than that—and that I’d win next time. I never did win, and I always whined at him a bit for it but, you know, it was a good game for us to play. It helped me get rid of the extra energy I always had, and it kept him close to me and that felt important, back then.

I do recall that I would cheat fairly often as we were racing, too. I’d try to cut corners some, I’d jump over items that I didn’t want to detour around and, honestly, when I think back to this rare memory, I’m pretty sure that I only made things harder on myself and it’s possibly why I ended up losing to him every time. I mean, think about it, if you’re comparing running an obstacle course to a straight-up running track, you’ll take longer on the obstacle course. Not that it mattered in the end, did it? We were kids, we were having fun.

I don’t have many positive memories of my childhood, but this is one of the rare ones. I still don’t focus on those too much, I don’t think it would do me any good. I hate how easily they trigger nightmares, and I don’t need to be an emotional mess for anyone to deal with, least of all Thad, even though I know he’d probably roll my eyes at me and remind me that I’m human, like everyone else, most likely.

Final Word Count: 779

According to you, we’ll never stop running. If you ask me, I’m getting pretty tired.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Taliesin Callan
Race: Human
Age: 27
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 733 words
 

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No amount of trying to figure out why that particular memory surfaced has helped. I don’t even know what could have triggered it. It’s just been so long—fifteen years now—that I didn’t think it could even get triggered and yet, here it is. It was crawling all over my brain last night and no amount of trying to wake myself up worked.

Yeah, I was lucid during most of that dream. I knew I was in a dream. It took some work for me to realize but once I realize, I think it just made it all the more terrifying because I should have been able to will myself back to awareness, but I couldn’t.

There he was, my childhood friend, whole and healthy as I remembered him being before everything went to hell.

This version of him had already tried running away several times and this was part of what was brought up during the dream from which I couldn’t pull myself away. Thinking back, I know that if I had listened to him, we would have likely both run away. He would have run away to free himself from the hell that was his life, and I would have followed him not because I had a bad life of my own, furthest from, I would have followed him because he was my best friend, and I would have done anything for him. Even back then, I knew I loved him.

As time passed in the dream—it was a nightmare, truly—things deteriorated. We were constantly going over the same discussion but every time we looped back to the beginning, he would look worse and worse.

There was nothing I could do to stop the loop from starting all over again and no amount of begging him to listen to me did any good. I just wanted to wake up and leave everything behind. I’d been feeling pretty good about my life recently, I felt as though I’d finally allowed myself to properly move on and, hell, I’d even slowly started to manage to actually say those particular words to Thad, you know the ones. The ones I can never even utter.

I’d said them twice up to that point and now that dream. It’s as though part of my subconscious doesn’t want me to be happy and I hate myself for it.

Mind you, when I woke up that morning, I mostly just ended up huddling in a tight ball of myself and crying my heart out, I’m sure it was a pretty frightening scene because I don’t recall ever really doing that before in my life. At least, not since the whole world changed into what it is now.

It’s not like I wanted to cry my heart out and remember all I knew I’d tried to forget. I feel like it doesn’t make me a terrible person that I am finally trying to leave this part of myself behind. It was a long time ago, bringing it back to the surface constantly isn’t going to make things any better and it most certainly won’t bring him back.

Even now, I still remember the sight of his skin just sloughing right off of him by the end of that dream when the sun was even beginning to peek around the horizon. That vision of him was something I’d imagined plenty but never quite in the detail I could see of it then. It was terrifying to see how my brain somehow imagined him to look after spending so long in the water, likely in a lake somewhere downriver of where he’d died.

I spent my whole day in bed, and I admit that I was a clingy bastard about it. I couldn’t bring myself to let Thad out of my line of sight so whenever he did have to go somewhere in our apartment, you can bet I was right there with him. The only exception was the bathroom but even then, I was right by that door and I just kept on talking to him because I think that my brain was trying to hang onto the fact that he’d just disappear into nothingness if he was out of my line of sight or if I couldn’t hear him.

It hasn’t been pleasant, and I’ve tried to slowly work through the terror, but it’s been exhausting.

Please stop match making, especially when I’m involved in your plans. You never pick the right people.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Taliesin Callan
Race: Human
Age: 26
Final Word Count: 676 words
 

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People-watching is weird. I don’t think I ever really got into it but I suppose that’s because I was too busy being dead inside after my best friend had taken his life. I was too busy taking on the bullies and teaching them lessons they wouldn’t forget any time soon. I was too busy being a monster to bother with people watching.

I still don’t really get the point of people watching and I mostly end up doing it when I’m zoning out. Those rare times when I let myself have some down time while not working on something. I’ve come to realize that my brain doesn’t like to stay on the ‘bright’ path when I’m idle. No matter that it’s been so many years and that I have Thad with me, when I’m left to my own devices, I tend to think back to the childhood I’ve lost because of bullies and the death of my friend. It’s not all that common and thankfully these thoughts don’t invade my dreams but I don’t know that I’ll ever truly be able to let go. I think that if his body could have been buried or at least cremated, things might have been different.

That was years ago, though. I try not to, I really do. Some things just don’t go away easily, no matter what.

People-watching, though, it’s strange. You would think that when I zone out, I don’t pay attention to my surroundings. In a way, I don’t. My eyes are unfocused, my attention is on nothing in particular but it’s like my ears pick up everything that surrounds me. I’ll be able to somehow notice the sound of hummingbirds nearby and let me tell you, we have a lot of those. I’ll notice people walking by, the sounds of their footsteps on the ground. I’ll be able to hear the conversation of people around me but that part is the weirdest.

I do hear them, but while I’m zoned out, it’s like I don’t compute whatever they’re saying. It’s only when I focus again that my brain just brings in all that information and now I’m left to puzzle over things that were said while not very far from me, but those things were said minutes ago. Once, and this one still baffles me to this day, I zoned out for nearly ten minutes—or so I was told—and when I came back, my brain was telling me that someone was talking to whoever else was with them about no longer playing matchmaker because they were never picking the right people.

Even now, thinking back about that one, I have no idea who said it or how long into my staring-off mindset it was said. I suppose that it doesn’t really matter but it still marked me as being odd. When I snapped back into focus, I looked around and there really wasn’t anyone besides the girl who’d gotten my attention and when I asked her if she’d seen anyone walking by, she told me she hadn’t.

It’s weird.

My brain is weird.

I guess you could say I’m more brawn than brain but that’s just fine, isn’t it? Thad is more than brain enough for the both of us. Not that I can complain about it because he makes things make sense. Does that make sense? It sounds complicated when I put it this way but it’s just so clear in my mind, I don’t know how else to explain it. Doesn’t matter. So long as I know what I’m talking about, I guess that this is the only thing that really does matter so I’ll stick with that part of the story.

But yeah, watching people; it’s weird. I don’t think it’s good manners, as is. People don’t need other people listening in to their conversations so, folks, if I zone out and you walk by me, don’t expect to not have a listener who’ll have no idea what you were talking about. It’s just how I am.

You keep pushing me and you’re going to find out why everyone calls me a monster.

 
Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Taliesin Callan
Race: Human
Age: 24
Final Word Count: 614 words
 

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I wasn’t always like this and Aurore could likely pinpoint the exact day the change started but I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I just know that the change concluded around the time I lost my best friend and I think I was all of thirteen back then. The details are fuzzy and I’d like them to remain fuzzy since it’s not a time in my life I want to revisit.

My sister would tell you that I used to be outgoing, I was a somewhat shy child and largely an introvert but between all the bullying happening and the death of my then best friend, something crumbled inside of me and I turned into something of a bully myself.

Thing is, I didn’t bully the innocent. It was more the other way around. I picked on the other bullies, giving them a taste of their own medicine. Most everyone started avoiding me and I was fine with that. Some even called me a monster and I think that would have made me laugh if I hadn’t felt so dead inside. That’s the issue here. I felt so dead inside but I still was trying to make amends for not being able to keep my friend alive, to keep him from taking his own life.

It was a confusing time in my life.

Cue Thad.

I’m still not sure how he wormed his way under my skin but he did and I wouldn’t want things to be any other way. I wasn’t always nice to the people I ‘saved’ from the bullies. I might have been a bit of a jackass about it but it kept them from wanting to be nice to me and that’s the way I wanted things but Thad… there just was something about him and look at us now. I can’t be without him. I think I would die if he was gone. Did you know that it’s possible to die of a broken heart? It is. There’s even a name for the condition and all.

I have a hard time being open about my emotions but he understands that and he understands me. He never seems to need me to say anything as actions speak louder than words. That was always my motto as far as dealing with the bullies were concerned but I guess it works out well in this situation too.

There haven’t been quite as many bullies to deal with since the snow. There still are plenty and some are just doing all they can to get on my shit list. I’ve even warned one that if he kept on pushing, he’d find out why people called me a monster. Not that anyone’s called me that in a long time but there are just some things that don’t go away, no matter how long it’s been and I don’t mind reverting to that role if I have to. Innocent people shouldn’t be persecuted by those who think themselves above everything else.

I don’t want to be a monster, not in a permanent way. I think that’s why Thad’s so good for me. He balances me out, he keeps me feeling a lot calmer than I ever have and I know…

I know I…

I’ve never been able to say that one word. It makes me choke up.

I need him in my life. It hurts when he’s gone and I do all I can to let him see how much he means to me, even if I can’t just come up and say that one word. I wish I could, just to see how it would make him react but I just can’t.

It happened three years ago. Why are you still bringing it up?

Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Taliesin Callan
Race: Human
Age: 23
Final Word Count: 535 words

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There are people who refuse to just let go of things that have happened in the past and it’s exhausting. I’ve held onto a grudge, I know what it feels like. I’ve held onto my past for the longest of times, as well and it was exhausting, it made getting up in the morning something I wasn’t looking forward to.

Over the years, though, since I’ve met Teddy—not that I call him that to his face, I’ve never said out aloud—I’ve changed. I know I have. I’ve slowly started letting go of the past, letting myself move on, cling to the potential future that was ahead of me. It was different from everything I’d ever known and my tendencies for violence settled down somewhat. That is not to say I don’t feel like beating assholes up when they’re being assholes but I tend to not let that get to me and I leave them be with just a warning.

So when I come face to face with someone I know has been avoiding me since an incident some three years ago, I’m just a little surprised when they stop in my way and glare up to me because, well tiny asshole was tiny and he hasn’t grown a bit in the last three years. The first thing out of his mouth is an accusation about what happened three years ago. After it had been discussed by all parties who had been part of the issue, we’d come to the decision that it had been an accident, nothing more.

I hadn’t gone out of my way to clock him in the temple with the log and it certainly had been an accident, everyone had gone on their mostly merry way except for him. I tried to be nice, I checked in on him while he was under the doc’s care but he glared murder at me so I went on my way. Of course, I was a little pissed that he was obviously going to be holding a grudge but it was on him and I didn’t let it affect me.

I ended up just staring at him for a long, long time, trying to understand what had brought him out of what I considered to be hiding, three years later, to get in my face about an accident that nothing could be done about. Time certainly couldn’t be turned back and I did try to warn him when I saw what was going to happen but he’d already been set on ignoring me. What else could I have done?

What did I do? I turned and left. He followed me all the way back to the building but, thank goodness, he stayed outside when I stepped inside. I’d been scheduled to work today but I knew that if the idiot was going to follow me around all day the way he’d done as I came back to the apartment, I would have punched him and I’m pretty sure that’s what he would have wanted. Somehow he’d be trying to find ways to get me in trouble or something and just, ugh. I haven’t looked outside yet, just spent my day dozing in bed.