The Tollivers were as dysfunctional as one could get, and Ann was often reminded of it at dinnertime. There was one time when dinner in the Tolliver household was peaceful. Ann would cook chicken marsala while her oldest, Sarrah, helped her. She would cut the mushrooms while Sarrah smacked the chicken with a hammer. It was her favorite part. Ann would watch as her then ten-year-old daughter beat the hell out of the chicken they had gutted and slaughtered with ravenously excited eyes. Ann thought it was cute. Down the hall, she would hear her younger daughter, Tahlia, playing with her wooden toys. Their brother, Ben, who was responsible for everything carved, would be in there with her, making horse noises.

When the window was open, Ann could hear her husband, Peter, chopping wood. The chit, chit of the ax, had always put her at ease but not anymore. Ann chopped wood with a vengeance, letting all her weight fall down on the ax. Occasionally, Sarrah would come out of the house while her mother was chopping wood, but not like before. The girl wasn't running in her denim dress, begging to help her mommy. The sixteen-year-old would brush by, a metal pail in hand, to milk the cows. Her mother would watch her waddle with disgust. Her daughters were known for running the streets now, and in a few months, Sarrah would be screaming, struggling to push the proof out.

A part of her mind was still happy that she saw Sarrah since Tahlia was almost never in town. Since her dad died and her stepbrother left to fight the Russians and never came back, the fourteen-year-old girl had made herself scarce. It had been three years since Ann had had both of her girls at her table. It had been Christmas, their first Christmas without Peter. The room was already tense since Ben announcing his enlistment had made his little sister cry and his stepmother mad.

"Why would you go do a fool thing like that?" Ann had yelled at her stepson over her daughter's crying.

"I have to fight for the country," he'd shot back. "President Lingard needs me. Uncle Sam needs me."

"Uncle Sam has been playing with Mother Russia since the Second World War and I will not sit around and watch my son get blown up or shattered in the third!"

"You're not my real mother!"

It was a low blow after Ann had raised Ben since he was a toddler. His mother had gotten hooked on pills and tried to drown them both when the city militia intervened. Ann was pregnant with a boy that she lost in the stress of trying to care for Ben and deal with the legal matter of how to remove him from the home and keep his mother from coming after them. Ben had thrown Ann not being his mother in her face one time, and after she and his father painted his back porch red, his father had explained to him why what he said hurt his mother and why he should never do it again. But Peter wasn't here anymore, and though Ben had stayed with the family, his patience for them had waned over the past few years.

"What about Bella," his sister had choked through her tears. "She needs her daddy."

"Rachel can care for Bella. I need to tend to this country."

"Don't go," Thalia had screamed.

Her mother lipsed the words as she was pulled back from her memory by the sound of Sarrah laughing. Bella, who often visited, was the only reason the table even got used at all. Her mother had gotten sick after she gave birth to a little boy a few months after Ben left, and now both Bella and her three-year-old brother were staying with them for most of the year while their mother struggled with her health. Ann gathered up the wood and carried it inside.

"Can we play horsies today?" Bella was asking Sarrah.

Sarrah mumbled a response to her niece as she carefully strained the milk and poured it into a saucepan. Bella and her brother had run into the parlor to ask Ann, who was stacking wood.

"Nana, can we play horsies?" Bella asked.

"What's the magic word?"

"Pretty pretty please?"

"After dinner?"

"What's for dinner?"

"Chicken marsala. It was your papa's favorite."

"Ooh! Okay! Can I help you make it?"

Ann smirked at the request. "Of course you can, darling."

She picked Gregory up and the three went into the kitchen where Sarrah was letting the milk cook and skimming off the fat. Her niece watched intensely as she tipped the milk and poured the remaining fat through a strainer into a measuring cup. Ann watched her, a glimmer of pride filling her belly. When Sarrah caught Ann looking at her, her attitude made the whole scene change. The seed of pride in seeing her daughter retaining what she'd taught her quickly turned into contempt, disgust, and pain.

"Let me know when you're cone so I can cook."

"I'm not eating here tonight, so don't make me any."

"Whatever."

Sarrah poured the milk into a few cleaned, empty bottles and capped them. She put them into the refrigerator and left. Ann glared at her as she left, but her grandson's squirming brought her back to reality. She turned to the kids and smiled.

"Okay, let's cook some dinner, so we can play horsie."

There's Stout Oakenbarrel, the half-giant Rowdy Brawler, who bested the Dead King alongside his goblin scoundrel companion

There's Rosie Revere, the Irons engineer, holding a crumbling railroad together in a dystopian future razed by mutants and zombies.

There's Spike Mutt, the Free Dog, a loveable and sturdy mutt (if pregenerated)

There's Warbler Skullringer, the Orcish bard, who is completely deaf but doesn't let that stop him from striking fear into the hearts of his foes

There's Cher, the dwarven street samurai who loves cold beer, old cigars, Harley's, and sawed off's the best

There's Pom the half dark elf, half high elf monk who seeks balance in all things including his own alignment

.......................................................................................................................................

And then there's the poor Google calendar app, trying to sort through the various ad-hoc campaigns organized across cities, counties, and states via an amalgam of online servers and systems, as I flip through character sheets and inventory logs trying to remember if I'm meant to be killing, healing, or singing at something and which system uses the damn D10's........

my guy!

my guy?

my guy fancies grub that work him jaw - open wide

for flamin’ hot sliders with dustbin buns an’ a gooey slice of manhole pie

my guy blabs with his trap filled, nose in the filthy bushes, won’t temme why.

like he’s debatin’ with critters of the juvenile kind

ask him why. all he say is

yu gotta see dem belly buttons flail

lak a rogue skirt on a windy-ass day

my guy loves to slink silent, hitched to them calves like a cabooze -

he press snooze.

goin’ down sticky toy tracks, see a green light an’ he up like a kite

When I fall to my knees

feeling too hopeless to speak

it’s always him who opens his palms

ready for me to talk, even if I don’t want

he’ll be anxious to pick me

from the ground

back up.

Lila suddenly awoke she had a pounding headache and she had an awful dream ,she had come back home from her club when she saw her parents shot and dead on the marble floor. She ran outside and yelled for help. It all went black she tried to inhale but she couldn’t and that’s where it ended . As she got up expecting to see a gold trim room with black walls and a pair of fuzzy black slippers , but instead she saw a dark and moldy room made of rotting wood. Glad to see your awake . Said a tall man in a black suit. We’re am I what have you done whith my parents! Lila shouted at the man .First of all those were not your parents. You haven’t seen your parents in 10 years .What no that can’t be that would mean I have only ever seen my parents 1 year of my life . Yup that’s true. If the people in my house are not my parents then who are they. Those are Dr.Sean and Dr.cains they were sent to run test on you and get your blood sample . MY BLOOD SAMPLE!!!! Yes but lucky for you we haven’t let them do that. So many thoughts ran through her head . But she decided to ask this question first , why would they want my blood? The man sighed. Well Lila your .. you have abilities . What do you mean ? I mean you have powers. WHAT!!!

Each and every day, I live just to die. I'm always finding myself waking up in a cold sweat from the nightmarish death I'd experienced just yesterday. I know you probably think I'm just exaggerating my depression but that's not the case. I live in a world that continuely starts each day over again the moment I die.

Why? I'm not quite sure.

All I know is that every person in this town is my enemy, and they're all waiting for their own moment to kill me. Someday I'll have been killed by each and every one of them. Even my mother. She set this horrid thing into motion.

Every morning as I wake up from the day before, I have to rush out my window because I know if I don't, I'll be strangled to death right then and there by my mother's own hands. But as I run out onto the sidewalk to escape greeting my mother's tight grip, I must watch for my neighbor's car who will attempt to run me over. All the while, an eldery woman cutting hedges will pretend to reach out too far in order to snip off my head.

My mornings have become routine. Simply dodging and running, but as it turns to night, I ready my senses. So far I haven't made it past 7:33 p.m in this town.

I've tried running away. My first attempt was by a rental car which blew up the moment I started its engine. My second and third were by foot, which both ended in me fainting just before reaching the highway.

When I wake up in my bed on the beginning of cycle, I wish that I had really died. I can't even remember the day before. Had this town ever been kind to me? Even once?

I don't know what I'll find when I reach tomorrow but I hope it's better than today. That is all I can hope for.

I know this recording won't be here when this day starts back up again, but here's hoping.

I'll see you in the morning.

-end recording 7:33 p.m.

Her name was Charlie Anne and she was the cutest teenager I had ever met.

Don't tell her that or else I'd lose my head. *gulps*

All we know about her is that she' a very small human being who speaks like a war veteran and wears pigtails. She puts up a childlike facade but expects everyone to treat her like a serious adult.

She gets frustrated easily so if she's close to her period we all tread carefully. One wrong move and she'll explode worse than a post-dormant volcano.

She's a huge softie for some other things though. She melts for cute or gory comics. Her favorite thing to watch is probably Happy Tree Friends which gave me nightmares.

We didn't know where she was from or who her parents were. When we talk about getting to know each other she'd rudely stop us.

Her name was Charlie Anne and she will forever be remembered as the cutest teenager we all had ever met.