She was bitterly cold as she lay on the wet leaves of the foreboding forest floor. The wicked grin of the pockmarked moon failed to shed any light on her plight. Why couldn’t she remember why she was here? Running her hands down her arms, she felt sticky liquid and touched her fingers to her lips to taste it. The salty, metallic taste of blood assailed her senses, bringing a wave of abject horror to the young woman.

“Help me, help me!” she moaned barely above a whisper through her cracked lips.

And then, she remembered that he said he was coming back. Desperately, she crawled to a softer patch of earth and frantically began to dig a hole with her hands until they bled. The driving rain made it almost impossible since the edges of the hole kept caving in. Reaching for some fallen branches, she laid them against the side of the widening hole to shore up the walls. She was just so tired and injured that she kept blacking out but finally was able to complete the next part of her plan. She threw jagged rocks into the pit before placing branches on top of the hole, and then scooped up wet leaves to make a covering over the cavity.

Crawling back behind the trap, she waited for him to return. Soon, she heard snapping twigs and heavy boots stomping toward her, knowing he was back. She saw the glint of a knife in his hand as he strode toward her. As he tramped angrily toward her, the roof of the trap caved in with his weight as he yelled in his surly voice, flailing arms attempting to break his fall.

Falling on the knife blade, he screamed in pain, “You bitch! Wait until I get out of here.” But of course, he couldn’t due to the severity of his injury as he thrashed in pain and died a slow death.

She smiled to herself in a sense of satisfaction as she dragged herself to the clearing where she finally remembered he had left her car. Pulling herself inside, she found the key on the floorboards, started the car and roared off. His death was no loss to the world. He was the worst husband she ever had!

If only he hadn’t discovered that she was spiking his iced tea with antifreeze!

The sun was going to explode, no one could deny it.

But what if, what if somehow, someway, we could save our world. What if there was a passage to the outside. 

A place away from this world.

A black hole.

Electrical currents pulsing through, it stands with a wooden door and a torch held by a torch holder clipped to the wall. 

It seems so innocent, too innocent.

But when you walk in, the electrical currents pulse through your body and eat you up. As if you were food to them.

And you are food to them.

We are slaves to the electrical currents. They rule our every move. 

But what if there was a way to turn these currents off. So that we could get to the other side. 

Doubtful, but worth a shot. 

The world's gonna end anyway. 

The girl ran frightened, from the monster running after her. Waiting to capture her into his arms and take her soul. She had to get to the door. The wooden door. 

She ran up staircases, ran left, ran to the right, ran downstairs. Finally she had reached it. The passage. 

Carefully she approached the torch. The torch that could either make it or break it. For everyone. 

She pulled the torch out of its holder and burned the door. 

The torch grew stronger as the wooden door disintegrated. 

She threw the torch into the currents. As far as she could. 

Slowly, but surely, the electrical currents ceased.

How could this be.. she mused. It actually worked.

Abruptly, she heard a growl. The monster had nearly approached her. 

She had to run. She had to leave.

She took a deep breath and stepped into the black hole. 

And the world was gone. 

Vivian awoke, breathing heavily.

She knew what she had to do.

She knew what she was going to do.

She needed to get to the passage. 

Less then a second, barely a tick of the hand on a clock. It was all he had and it took everything. He couldn't remember the thought that flashed through his mind in the moment, the train of logic rammed down the rails of his brain. And yet, he agreed. Whatever they were, those thoughts, those bits of logic and reason, were deemed sound and worthy of action. Thus he had acted, his anger flared, muscles tight with blood and rage, and he struck. 

Their was no booze to be blame, no drug ready to shoulder the burden, this was all him. Sound of mind, shamed to his soul. He looked at his son and felt his heart break. The boy cringed and cried, face red with tears and pain, and the mark of his father's hand. 

The man broke and fled. He had never done such before and fear doing more. He cried, his rage seemed recklessness now, his actions hideous. He didn't make it out of the room before he hit the ground sobbing. He hurt his boy, his son, and for what? A child that cowered from him in fear shock. 

Why, why was the anger easy to give into? Biting at his brain, ready to let slip? He struck his son in way he had never before because he fed that beast and he hated himself for it. 

Would his son forgive him? Could he trust himself around him again? What was to happen to them? Was their family broken? 

Edward Apple leaped onto the back of the crocodile straddling as much of the beast as he could with his legs, all the while humming the tune "Salting Pork."

 Clutch McMurphy watched from behind the railing of the exhibit. He had his phone out and was recording the scene unraveling before him. 

"This is why I come around..." He said to himself, with a pleased little half smile.

The crowd of onlookers was doing the same. 

If someone is going to be an idiot, why not an idiot for posterity.

Clutch liked Apple's style, though. It was hard not to. The man did the most insane things and somehow managed to come out the other end unscathed. 

Insane? Undeniably.

Successful? Absurdly so. 

Entertaining? Absolutely.

 A potential hazard to himself and everyone else? Well, yes. Yes and no. But, mostly yes and somehow no.

There was no explaining it. You just had to be there to understand. 

And Clutch made sure he was.

A general gasp came from the spectators. Edward Apple, with his narwhale bone blade, a long and heartwarming story, cut into the shining waxy white underside of the aged crocodile. The croc went wild, thrashing and rolling with Apple clinging on to its back, blade still pushing, probing...

The large crocodile rolled onto its back submerging Apple under the shallow water of the zoo exhibit. With a final shudder, the scaled beast sagged, unmoving.

Sirens wailed their approach.

15 Hours Later

"I still don't get it," said Clutch, shaking his head as he lifted his pint of beer for a swig. "How did you convince them to let you go?"

"I told them of the blood debt Frugd as' Da owned to me. That was enough."

Apple knocked aside a tangle of his untamed brown hair  "The old as' Da honored himself in his death." He said with a solemn face. "I will wear his boots with pride."

I didn't intend to come upon it. It just happened. I was trimming the grass for my landlord.  She'd promised me 50 bucks off my rent if I did so.  I'm not much of a mower, so it was taking longer than you'd expect.

Anyway, there it was in the higher grass by the fence post -- dull as old snow and yet vivid enough to make the heart race.  I was sure it belonged to a puppy or a rabbit or maybe a small fox.  But my true self -- the doctor in me -- knew it wasn't so.  

This was the bone of a baby.

And I didn't have to stop to think for even an instant to know from whence it had come. Mirelda.  The 15-year-old punk girl liked to sit on the flat rock near the woods' edge and smoke her cigarettes.  The bad-crowd girl.  She always had a different boy around.

I took out my phone to call the authorities, but something made me hesitate.  I knew the Mirelda type -- bad genes, bad home, bad future.  You could say she made bad choices, but I know better.  Society had made them for her.  They had been determined for her long before she was even born.

She wasn't a killer.  She was doing what she could with what she had and what she knew. Can't punish a person for acting within their limitations.  Mistakes are made, condoms broken, parents resistant to unwelcome news.  

I put my phone back in my pocket, kicked open a small hole in the dirt at my feet, and buried that little bone in a shallow grave.  After all, no one would miss it, and who am I to ruin another life?  

The sun was hot that day. 

Slamming my desk drawer shut, I whirled around to see my friend gawking over another stupid football player at our dumb college. Who cares about the Rose Bowl anyways, we have to be studying right now! Frankly, I care about my degree for once in my life, not some stupid game where warm zombies slam their prone bodies into each other for sport, like some arena in ancient Rome! But, to each his own, I suppose. Either way, I vouch to leave the situation, exiting down and out of the lines of classrooms, going against the splintering grain of students, and out for lunch. There was a nearby Starbucks that my body demanded I go to all the time, which of course, I naturally flocked to, only to see more fans, more everything I hated. Sighing, I left back to the local Burger King, tossing my jacket over my shoulders for added protection, when it happened. Seemingly out of the concrete wall, a figure in a black hoodie appeared, near an alley to my left, and touched my shoulder. Flinching, I stepped back, as the hood unfurled, revealing stunning red hair, spiked up to the top, watching me with green eyes. 

"We need your help again," his gruff voice asked me, as I folded up into the fabric lining of my winter coat.

Looking around, I ducked down the alley, and sat on an old crate, watching him hand me a small notebook and pen. "What's the trouble, Victor?" I asked, folding the paper between my fingers.

"The C.I.A. needs to have you make sure a certain target," he handed me a slip of paper with an identity, "At the college doesn't make it to the game tomorrow."

"What,"I crossed my legs,"Is the mark a terrorist or something?"

Shaking his head, he explained. "No, to the contrary, he'll be killed tomorrow in the bathroom, if he uses it, at the stadium."

"This is new," I crossed my arms as well, "I'm not usually the type to protect, you know?"

"I do," my informant nodded, "But, you have to."

"How?"

"Well," he began to walk off into the distance behind me, "You do have a way about you. Bye for now, Alice."

Great, now I have to use my seductress skills to keep some jerk from dying tomorrow. Nice one, Victor, nice one. 

I have no idea what this is or where it is going, but I hope you enjoyed. 

He arrived, chased in by a storm. Drenched and chill with wild eyes staring from beneath the brim of his hat. My uncle, though I had never met him. A traveller. The black sheep. The mention of his name bringing chilled silence, bitter tightness to my Grandfather’s jaw and bright tears to my mother’s eyes.

Yet here he was, the man I had known only from letters with their return addresses scattered across the globe. I had found each and wondered at the distances between he and I, listened, rapt, as my mother read descriptions of strange people and animals that I never expected to see. Scribbled endless questions, and received patient answers.

‘You’re Amelia?’ he asked, stepping aside as our manservant carried in a trunk with the help of the coachman. ‘Upstairs,’ barked my Uncle, his watchful gaze on the men as they struggled to ascend, ‘and careful with that.’

‘I’m Amelia,’ I agreed. ‘Mother and Grandfather are…not here.’

‘No? Where are they then?’ Even his speech was full of action, not a second wasted to politeness.

‘Church.’

Snorting, my uncle threw off his hat and hung his coat, still dripping, from the stand.

‘They were expecting me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that why they’re praying?’

I swallowed, then shook my head. ‘They’re discussing the harvest fes-’

‘I’m teasing, child,’ he said, pushing past me and into the drawing room.

‘Would you like some tea?’

‘Brandy.’

I hesitated, catching the eye of the maid who had joined us. I could see her lips pressing hard against the telling of this tale, fuel for her gossips fire. The village would know by sundown.

‘Of course. You are chilled from your journey.’

My Uncle turned from his perusal of the room, his smile amused at the interaction, at my need to explain his appetites.

‘Do I frighten you, Amelia?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I lied.

‘I do. I should. I’ve come home to change your life.’

‘You have?’

He stalked to the globe, using one thick finger to locate England and turn it towards me. He waited, assuring himself he had my attention before he set the thing spinning, stopping it only when Australia was visible. The other side of the world.

‘Amelia, your letters reveal you to be a marvel, in this family. You have a mind of your own and you are willing to use it. If you stay here, you will rot. All your potential will come to naught. Have they begun to plot your marriage?’

Wide eyed, it was all I could manage to nod in earnest response.

‘Don’t do it. Don’t settle,’ this last word was execrable to him.

I stared. The prospect was terrifying, blood drummed in my ears.

‘Please?’

‘Yes,’ the word surprised even me, my Uncle stepped back with growing delight.

‘Yes?’

‘Yes!’

‘There will be a terrible row.’

‘Yes.’

‘You will be the black sheep.’

And suddenly we were both laughing, filled with the joy of an unknown future.

‘Yes. Yes I will.’

Have you ever wished for something so hard that when it actually happened, you thought you were magic? Well that happened to me, except I actually was magic. 

It all started last month. I went to sleep, wishing for food. When I woke up, I was surrounded by foods of all kind. Right on top of my lap, balanced perfectly, was a pile of pancakes. Let me tell you, those pancakes were heavenly.

I started wishing for everything. Money, found 50 bucks on the ground. Relationship, a boy came over and asked to a date. Happiness, my friends always came over and hung out. This happened for a month.

Until this weird dude from the government came to my house. He and my mom were talking in hushed voices, until he saw me. He started walking towards me, and said a few words that changed my life. 

"I'm here to take you to a secret location and train you to become a trained assassin." Right when he said assassin, I ran out that door as fast as I could. Assassin? You would have to catch me first.

I looked behind me, not watching where I was going. That was a mistake. I hit something hard, I looked up to see the guy with a cloth.

Man, I wish this wasn't happening to me.  

It doesn't take much to explode, for the entire world to quiver for just one second. Just combine a few things, close your eyes, and let it blow. The feeling is wonderful and freeing, it makes you feel more alive than playing with knives. I know, I know I sound kind of insane and the truth is, I am. My mother and father admitted me maybe three months ago today, I don't know exactly I was kind of asleep. I'm not going to elaborate it's kind of embarrassing. Maybe I should explain to you how I made my first bomb. When I was younger my dad worked at this company, and this company had a lot of chemicals, openly available. You know little me wandered upon a few of this started combing them and then— BOOM! I might have permanently scarred my face, but it was worth it. I know what you're thinking, shouldn't I have died? The thing is the bomb was super tiny, minuscule tiny. It just happened to be big enough to explode my tiny face, get me rushed to the hospital, and locked in my room with nothing but a blanket for a few days. While I was in that room I began scouring for anything to get me out of my room. There was nothing, absolutely nothing. My room was completely bare of any readily available chemicals, I know such a surprise. Eventually my mom let me out. That's when I started really getting into chemistry, and well bombs. Overtime I developed several bombs and when my mom wasn't looking sneaked them to the secluded field to test them. Overtime I became weary of the occasional suspicious black car across the street. You know what, who cares about that, I'm still in this "mental" hospital. There will definitely be chemicals here.

    Incense always burned in the basement. Mom would light it and let the smoke pool into the living room through the vents. It stunk up the whole house, creating a smell that was half cigarette, half lavender. As much as we all hated it, it masked the scent of piss and vomit that always radiated off dad.

   He'd been sick for a while. Kidney failure. Taking care of him had only gotten harder. I didn't know why mom still bothered. He was dying. There was nothing anyone could do about it. He couldn't afford a new kidney. He'd practically begged Jo and me to kill him when we'd come to visit together. After all the hell he'd put us through, it was hard not to. 

    Jo had come late the day he died. "Think he'll croak this time?" He asked with a sad grin and dropped his gloves onto the kitchen counter. I sipped dark coffee and chuckled.

    "Let's hope so." It was only half a joke.

    Jo and Chris were too young to remember the first day he'd overdosed. He was supposed to be watching us. Mom had been at work, where she was most the time. "H-hand me that needle, Margey-girl." I was only seven when he'd begged it of me. Shy and scared, I'd handed the thin syringe to him and hugged my knees on the floor. Jo cried in his crib, Chris toddling around him. Next thing I remember was him erupting into a lake of his own vomit and mom making sure he was alive when she'd gotten home. I wished he hadn't been. 

    The first time he'd thrown Chris in the dryer, I was twelve. Making a sandwich for Jo when I heard the thumps and screams and ran into the laundry room. Pushing dad out of the way. I hit the cancel button. He was laughing. "Fuckin' boppin' around like an old pair a sneakers." I could have killed him. I was angry enough, but I didn't. I took Chris from the dryer, swore at him and finished making lunch.

    I wasn't sure how to feel seeing him on his death-couch. Though, I know what I felt when his last words actually hit me. I'd thought, naively so, that maybe it would be redeeming, that whatever he said to me, I'd accept, even if it was some pathetic apology. Chris came later. It was as though dad had been waiting for him to get there. Coughing hoarsely, he called us all over.

   "I'm--bout ready, Margaret," cough, "just wanna tell you--you did okay. For a bunch of," cough, "ungrateful," cough,"life suckers, you did okay. Sorry I'm leavin' y'all, this early, 'know you couldn't do it without me." My eyes stung as his closed. The cynical smile that graced my lips came, unbidden. If he wasn't already dead, I might've strangled him. 

   "Fuck you, dad." I hissed through gritted teeth. Half of it was filled with resentment, and half of it was filled with relief.