They’ve turned me into pure, primal rage. In this sweltering pitch-black holding cell, I only have my memories, and even those are starting to fade. I remember a fragmented moment of me standing amongst the crops, not yet time for harvest. The buzzing of pests out in the acres beyond. A cloudless sky where mage-engineered cargo ships flew large crates of produce and products. Then I looked down the hillside to see horses and carriages approaching from the road, sending an updraft of red earth in their wake. Crimson banners with a giant “JF” flew high via black drones. The Jacin-Fleu ravages found our chunk of peaceful land to pillage. I sprinted from the fields to the house, smashing through the front door to hide my wife and daughter. Yet, inside, the intruders were already there. Clad in rusted, greasy armor, beards and hair as disheveled as that of a wild beast. Two of them held my wife and daughter at knifepoint. “You wasted your breath, farmer,” one said. “Can’t outrun our teleporter mage-tech.” “Get away from my family!” I screamed, fighting and subduing several of them. “Calm yourself,” the one holding my wife captive said. “Why don’t you stop beating my men before I grip this knife a wee bit tighter?” But I couldn’t stop. I roared, grabbing one of the men trying to hold me down onto the kitchen table and backhanded him so hard that he flew across the kitchen. “Stop. They’ll just kill you!” my wife said. “Oh no, we won’t kill him,” the one holding my daughter captive said with a snake-like voice. “We gots a fighter here, boys. I say we sell him to the monster-makers.” They all howled in laughter as one of them blew a purple powder in my face and I fell into darkness. My memories shatter as the roaring of the crowds above rumble down to us in the chamber levels. The howls and cries of those in the other cells reverberate. I feel my heart’s pace quicken, my anger rising. I stand up, my legs scraping against the cement floor. “Who’s next?” I hear Murgush,The Bone Decimator says a few cells away. “There’s no rhyme or reason to who they pick. We’re just props for their entertainment,” Histhera, The Blood Boiler says. Double doors open on the other side of the chamber, a slit of harsh light spills inward. “Drentick! Time to shine!” Hurj the guard says my combatant name. I had long ago forgotten my real one. A pulse of fear ripples through me, yet I drown it with conviction and rage and purpose. “Eye Gouger! Eye Gouger!” My fellow combatants chant and my title, earned after my particularly bloody first battle. I was still acclimating to my horns. I didn’t know just how much damage they could do. How much damage I could do. Hurj walks up to me and grins. “You know,” he says. “Word is, that this fighter might know where the Jacin-Fleu took your family.” My blackened eyes widen and I growl deeply. He cracks up in laughter. “That’s my boy. See if you can get the information out of him!” My mind goes back to waking up in one of the Jacin-Fleu carriages. I was bloody, shackled and chained. I remember looking up at a twisted looking older man with sunken eyes and a muddied apron. In the coming days, I’d learn to hate him above all others. “You’re quite the specimen,” he said. I pounced at him until the chains that held me back went taught. “Where’s my family?” I screamed. He looked perplexed for a moment, but then began to nod. Then, he grinned. “How much do you love your family, man?” he said in a low tone. I paid no mind to his question. I only tried to throttle him. My anger was blinding me. It had a tendency to do that. “I’d say, with that anger and rage you have, that you’d be willing to do almost anything to be reunited with them. Is that true?” “Where are they?” I shouted, already losing breath. “We’re going to a place where there are people that know. The people you meet and, well, fight, will know where your family is. It’s up to you to get it out of them.” I didn’t say anything. Everything this man said sounded like a lie. “But, here’s the thing. They’re only accepting combatants of the most bestial kind. That’s where a man like me and some exceptional mage-tech step in.” Guards grunt as they heave the heavy chains that connect to my neck shackle. I buck with the pent up anger and aggression that’s spilling out of me. It’s more than just my outrage of this situation. A primal growl swirls within me like a trapped animal. They lead me through a widening corridor, the chanting of the crowd turning into thunder. I want to devour every one of them. “Our newcomer to the arena has his work cut out for him! Ladies and gentlemen, prepare for Grentick the Eye Gouger!” “Alright, let’s do this,” one of the guards says, sighing. Then one shocks me with something I don’t see, a jolt of pain rattles through my massive body. I let out a deep, guttural roar. “Oh, ho! Sounds like Grentick is hungry!” the announcer says, and the crowd booms once again. The gates swing open and the anger that’s now boiling over from the shock causes me to charge into the arena. The sun beams down onto the sandy ground where shards of armor and bone lay scattered. Above me, spectators sit in hovering seats that tower above the arena’s battleground. Behind me floats a mage-tech-powered widescreen that streams my entry. It broadcasts my gray, bull-like body heaving as I roar. My blood-stained horns sway. My oversized tiger-like paws pace back and forth. My armored armadillo-like shell is already steaming from the heat. About thirty feet away stands a single man in leather armor. He’s holding a short sword and a small wooden shield, and he looks like he’s about to faint from fright. Is this the man that knows where my family has been relocated? That’s what they keep telling me. These fighters are the ones in my way, apparently. “Where is my family?” I say. Yet he doesn’t seem to hear me because he has no reaction. “Where are they?” I yell louder. He hears me this time, but must not understand me, because his only reaction is to shake worse. The crowd cheers again. “Shut up!” I yell, looking up at them. “Grentick’s always been known to hype up a crowd with his roaring! Let’s give him a round of applause!” the announcer says. “No, no. Shut up! I have to ask this man some questions!” I say, but it only riles them up more. The fighter lets the crowd get to him. He’s starting to hyperventilate. “Where is my family?” I say lower to try and cut out the crowd. Still, the fighter can’t understand me. He begins to grit his teeth and raise his sword. “Come on!” He shouts at me. “I need this!” I echo my question and run toward him. He strikes my plated back with his sword, a piercing pain rippling into me. I roar once more and paw at him, knocking him onto the ground. The crowd roars. “Stop cheering!” I scream. My claws had landed on his right arm and now, blood trickles down in a steady stream. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I say. “They say you know where my family is. Where are they?” “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. It was the first time any of them had ever said anything of the like to me. I think back to the countless others to which I’ve asked the whereabouts of my family. So many deaths. So many unanswered questions. I think back to when the monster-makers transformed me with their deranged magic. The all-encompassing pain of turning into this beast. In my endeavors, in my anger, my humanity fell to achieve my justice. Since then, I had lost count of the years, lost count of the bodies. Sometimes, most times, I lost why exactly I was so angry. This fighter stands up. “Don’t you understand?” He nearly cries. “I need to win this! They need me! If I get free, I can find them!” I stop my charge, then. I look at him and see that somehow, he has the same yearning, the same desperation to help someone out there, beyond the arena. That’s when I follow some force I cannot see. I look up, and through the sun-pierced clouds, I see my wife and daughter dancing in the sky. It’s something I’ve never seen before. If I could still cry, I’d flood the whole world. I know that the anger had clouded my vision, my judgement, my path. I see the truth finally. No one here ever knew where they were. They were gone the day the Jacin-Fleu came. I sigh, fake a roar and a side step, and I expose my underside, allowing the fighter to strike. A white hot blaze pierces me. “Unbelievable!” The announcer says. “I’m so sorry,” the fighter says, driving his blade further. I feel his sorrow, his anguish, but there’s a blossom of hope in him, and it’s enough. My massive body had seen enough, too. An overdose of rage has consumed me. Brutal rage has weakened my soul. But there’s something else, now. Perhaps, even completion.

A query for you When you say, “the end of the universe,” Do you mean an all-encompassing apocalypse Or a place where a sea of stars hits a wall Of cement and impenetrability? Which end do you see fit for me? Where did you hope I’d end up? Luckily, for you, I’ve found both I outran an apocalypse Of shrapnel and crashing crafts Then another Of microcosms and mutated air And another Of hunger so primal it drove people beyond reason Beyond fraternity Beyond humanity Creation evaporated at my tailcoat Wherever I landed my tiny red retro rundown ship Suns turned terminal Cores crumbled Skies sank And fuming, furious me Meeting those like you And seeing eyes like those set in your head Those tears I averted I was your cold traveler Moving too quickly, thinking too large To notice those little things The splinters and ricochets That my climbing catalyzed Leaving me in absence Balmy room-temp voids by my side Crowning me the last one standing Always awing astral ashes Always pushing and poisonously progressing Always striving to say a singular sentence I made it Until all din and discord swelled Blossoming into antithesis A red wave that enveloped stone and star Coming this way And all ways Always Now there are no more worlds to use as rungs No galaxies there to transcend No lives left to trivialize There are only the red wave and the wall it is destined to crash into The wall on which I now rest my livid laurels A wall endlessly high and low and wide A slightly protruding edge, acting as a dock Where stands a white-hot lantern The only light in the void-like surface It illuminates a titanic sign translated in all five million languages From Aramaic to Zyzyxian “No more left. Turn around to see creation.” And I turn, leaning against my ship’s hull To see the red Only two, three miles away I reminisce of destruction My destruction The actions needed to rise here So I can say I made it Not acts of catacombs and catastrophes But little slices and screams That composed of everyday micro-apocalypses I expel them like fine sand And I see those stressors of you and you and you And even the one here at the keyboard I breathe and pulse and become all of it Snide comments And spiking rents Schedule conflicts Familial rifts The silences between the compliments The judging without relent Slit gazes when leaving their house Passing over names we can’t pronounce Rotted, hollow promises Cyanide-like kisses He doesn’t know She doesn’t know They don’t need to know Don’t accept no Never let your weakness show Just keep your head low That’ll let me really glow Like the sunset Like the son’s set Of musical renditions You miss time and time again You’ll be better next time, though You’ll make it to his next show He doesn’t need to know That it all came down to this That it all turned to red And I can feel the heat of the wave I wonder what it will be like Collision A meeting After all this time of running, surviving To be pinned down is to reach a destination The humming, cold lifelessness of the wall And I sigh because as the sparks of the end singe my pocked face I can say at least one thing I made it I made it here And I made all that And I’m the last one to hear me say it

He’s listening, but he’s not listening. He’s looking through me, not at me. His silver name tag says “Scott, Cellular Expert,” but his unironed uniform gives him away. A polo shirt dyed the royal purple synonymous with CellUStar’s branding sits too tight on his frame. His fabric looks as uncomfortable as I feel. He strokes his well-manicured beard, his ratty eyes scanning the floor, searching for words. The silence irritates my patience like a cheap shirt tag against dry skin. I was itching for a reason to deck him right in the middle of the store. “So,” he says, eyes trained on Cat. “You get a phone call every day at 2:31 PM, and the caller ID has a different number every time?” “Incorrect,” I say, sighing loud enough to get the attention of several customers nearby, “As I’ve stated repeatedly, they’re glyphs, not numbers.” “Calm down,” whispered Cat. It’s just like her to try and placate me in public. Why can’t she take my side for once? I can feel her shifting her weight next to me. She’s embarrassed. Like always. “So,” the cellular “expert” says again. “So” seems to be his favorite word. “I don’t think U-Phones have, um, glyphs in their character library. Are you sure they weren’t just numbers? I mean, no offense but, your eyes seem–” I ball my fist. Cat grips my wrist and holds it tight. “I’ve seen them,” Cat says, her voice now harsh yet trepid. “They look like those.” She gestures with her chin to the markings on my face. The cellular “expert” follows her gaze. Once his eyes land on my face, they dart back over to Cat. He nods, fresh out of stupid things to say. Cat’s eyes drift. I follow where they land. She’s watching a couple looking at display phones — Jupiter 105 models, inferior to U-Phones if you ask me. They’re taking selfies. I see Cat desires that kind of odd scenario for us. Maybe it’s the spontaneity. Maybe it’s the non-freakish-looking man. Maybe it’s the happiness they share. “So,” says our resident erudite from behind the counter. “Have you subscribed to SpamStop Premium? It will stop 99% of spam.” “That’s what Heather recommended, remember, Tim?” said Cat. Cashco box wine Heather? Obsessed with reality TV Heather? Publicly loud and intrusive questions about my physical differences, Heather? She has asked me about my “strange tattoos” and my “wonky eye” twelve times since we first met— each time with a glass of red wine in hand. I tell her every time I don’t know what happened to me. She always responds with an eye roll. “I don’t think Heather’s advice applies here,” I say in a faux-pleasant tone. “I’ve read U-Phone X-Rs had an issue that caused them to receive random calls unintended for the user.” “So,” Scott says again, God, his voice is worse than his silence. “That was corrected. Have you updated your device, ma’am?” He answers me by answering Cat. No jury would find me guilty if I just clocked him right now. I hand him the cell phone. “It’s 2:26. Just enough time for you to ask a few more stupid questions before the call comes,” I say. “Tim,” Cat says, shushing me. I ignore her. The “expert” locks eyes with Cat and scoffs. Cat sighs, once again scanning the CellUStar retail shop. I feel the gap between us widen. If she finally leaves me, I wonder to whom she would go. Surely, there are people out there more suited for her. It must be agony to keep standing next to me day after day — being associated with a thing like me. It must be torture to keep ignoring Heather and the others when they say she could do better. It must be a living hell knowing they’re right. It’s not just my physical traits they hate. That would be too easy. My flaws lie somewhere deeper, woven in the fibers of my personality. I wish I could change for Cat’s sake. I really do. “The update is applied,” Scott, Cellular Expert, says. No “so” this time. How refreshing. I nod. “I’ve done four factory resets as well.” He hands the phone to Cat. “Well,” he says. “The phone is pretty new. Do you want to replace it?” “Would that be a hassle for you? “Cat asks him. “It looks like you’re pretty busy today.” “It shouldn’t be a hassle for him to do his job,” I say. He gives Cat a wry smile and says, “I’ll go get the paperwork.” I frown. Cat smiles at Scott in the same way she smiles at our creepy next door neighbor when he compliments her calf muscles. “I want a new number too, guy!” I shout at Scott’s back. “In case it’s not a device-related issue.” Scott turns to face us again. His smile vanishes. 2:31 PM. The phone goes off on the counter in front of us. We all hurry over and look down at the phone. Glyphs flash for all to see. I answer and tap the Speaker button. Like always, there is only silence. “Hello?” More silence. Finally, the call disconnects. “Well?” I ask. My eyes flick between Cat and Scott, daring them to mention the U-Phone’s character library again. Cat shakes her head and murmurs something under her breath. I read her lips and frown. “Yes, yes,” I say. “Of course, I would have this problem. It’s always me, right? It’s always, always me.” “So,” says Scott. I exhale through my nose. “I’ve never seen that before, but I assure you that SpamStop Premium will stop it.” “Now you listen–” “Just give him a new number,” says Cat. “He only talks to me, anyway.” Pushing past me, she says, “I’ll have the car ready when you’re done, Tim.” As I wait for Scott, I watch Cat from the display window. I should buy her flowers, but with what money? How would I get to the florist without her? I am a dependent. I am a hostage in this life. I try to remember the good between us. I feel warmth and safety and love when I stand next to her. When the panic attacks come at night. When I cry at the fact that I can’t remember why I look like a monster. When I can barely think at all. Through all of my pain, I still can’t figure out why Cat chooses to stay by my side. Maybe she stays because it’s just easier now. I can sense Scott’s presence through the return of my headache. He hands me a new cell phone. A transparent sheet of plastic still covers the black screen. “New phone. New phone number,” he says. I nod and sign the papers he hands me. Without Cat here, all pleasantries fade from him. “So, what’s with the tattoos? And the eye? It’s like a bright blue ball.” I try to escalate my inner panic to anger enough to strike him or curse him out. Yet his abrasiveness makes me stumble. I walk toward the front door in a rush. “But the biggest question is,” he says loud enough for the happy selfie-taking couple to hear. “How did a freak like you catch a girl like that?” On my way out, I kick over a display of phone cases. The crashing silences all patrons and employees alike. Cat looks up just in time to see my outburst through the store window. — Flurries fall from the white sky as Cat speeds down the old country road. “And another thing,” she says, red-faced, white-knuckling the steering wheel. “The theatrics? Really?” I watch the loading bar on my new phone. “Your appeasing air was theatrical enough for the both of us,” I say. She looks over to me, slack-jawed. “That’s not fair,” she says. “You two had something going on. I saw how he stared at you.” “And did I return the stare?” “No.” “No, I didn’t. I went to the car because I was going to slap him, or you, or both.” Bare trees speed by my car window. Snow sticks to nearby fields of dead vegetation. I feel like a deer trapped by hunters. “You don’t get it,” I say, my voice barely audible above the growling car engine. “What don’t I get, Tim? I know you hate being near people but you have a problem with everybody. Yes, he made you feel bad, but you don’t have to be an ass. People are always going to stare. Always.” The car accelerates. The phone’s loading bar nears its completion. “Take me home,” I snap. “Nope. You promised if I took you to the phone store, you’d come with me to my dad’s for dinner. That’s the plan!” she says. She hits each syllable like hands beat war drums. “He never makes anything I can eat,” I say. “You can drink water.” Tears fall down my face without me realizing it. “Tim,” Cat says. I remain silent. The phone flashes a bright welcome screen. It auto-populates all the information from my old phone. “Tim. Talk to me,” she says as my tears flow. “I don’t know why you bother to stay with me. You clearly hate me,” I say. Shock washes over her face. Then, her car’s speaker emits a loud chirp. “New Bluetooth device connected,” it says. Something is coming. I feel like I’m falling off a cliff right in my seat. With that, the phone goes off, sending a booming upbeat ringtone through the car. “The glyphs are back,” I sigh. “Great,” Cat says, slamming her steering wheel. “I can’t deal with this.” She pulls over in a patch of mud next to a field. She punches the green button on the car’s touchscreen. This time, the silence is different. There is a murmur underneath static. A language I can’t make out. “Who the hell is this?” Cat shouts. “What do you want from him?” Yet there’s something in the voices. Something familiar. Something… The words are scrambled, yet they sound eloquent. Musical. Mournful. “Who are you?” Cat shouts. “Come home,” a deep voice says. “We’ve found you. Come home.” “How?” I ask. Cat gasps and looks at me. “You can understand it?” I nod. “We’re here,” says the voice. My car door opens itself, revealing three people approaching the car about three hundred feet away. Their faces look like mine. Both my eyes explode with blue light and a heaviness I didn’t know was inside vanishes without warning. I look to Cat. She’s motionless, gawping at the beings approaching us. “What are you?” she whispers. I look down at my hands. More markings appear by the second. In a moment, they will cover me. “I don’t know,” I say. I look at the three others and smile. “Will you come with me to find out?” I ask. Cat closes her eyes, almost like she’s in pain. “Cat. We’ve known I was different for a long time. I - I love you-” “No,” she says, shaking, swaying. “No, no.” I get out of the car, closing the door behind me. There is hope and loss and light and love and solitude swirling within me. As dead as I felt before, I now feel twice as much alive. I know accepting myself will make me alone again, but I can’t go back to ignorant pain. In a new life, I could face my grief head-on. Yet then I hear another door close. She’s standing there, shaking but smiling by my side.

The coffee was particularly good that morning at the diner. The rich aroma hit Terry's nose as he sipped the hot drink before he took a bite of boysenberry pie. He read the sports section to see the Sox lost again. It was a typical Saturday morning as his wife Donna volunteered at the senior center. This kids were off at school, studying to change the world in their own ways. All while he ate pie. Some days he loved the calm of life. Other times the mundaneness of his days was suffocating. But it was what it was. As Terry broke the dry crust with his fork, a man wearing a chartreuse sweater vest and blue paisley tie sat in the chair across from him. The heavy-set, balding man looked at him from behind thick-rimmed glasses and chuckled. "My God, whatever you did, you really stumped us, Hendricks. We've been watching and analyzing you since you never returned, but, honestly, we still can't figure it out," he said. "You found a way to get an extended stay." "I'm sorry, you're mistaking me for someone else," Terry said. He drank his coffee and began to smile, embarrassed for the stranger. The man scanned Terry's face as if he was trying to solve a math problem. "So, you're Terry Wilson, age 51, of 704 Dawson Avenue in Aweton, Ohio," said the man. That statement perked Terry up. "Now that is me. Why did you call me, what was it, Hendricks?" The man continued to stare, his lips quietly spouting calculations. "In that case," he murmured to himself. "He didn't break the consciousness programming. He must've built a tolerance for the return phrases over time." "What are you talking about?" Terry said, stirring in his seat. "You really don't know me, then?" the man said. As he did, he pulled out a tiny device resembling a bar of silver. "No, dammit. How the hell do you know me?" A green light flashed on the bar. "Holy cow, he isn't lying," the man muttered. "He burrowed in." Terry then stood up and began to walk toward the entrance of the diner. "Wait. I'll tell you everything. You already know, anyway." "You're trying to con me," Terry said, heading for the door. "You're allergic to scallops. Your first crush was Wendy Smith. You prefer paper over screens. Last night you dreamt of your childhood dog, Potato." Terry froze. He didn't want to listen to whatever this man was pulling, but if he knew this much, he probably knew much more, including everything about his family. He turned around and plopped back into the chair. "Who are you?" Terry said. "My name is Cameron. I'm a representative of Eyescape Ventures. This might sound a little odd, but we make it possible for people who live extraordinary lives to escape into the mundane for a short amount of time. You are actually one of our top clients that goes by the name of Hendricks. We don't really know your actual name." "You're wrong. My name is Terry Wilson." "That," said Cameron, now beginning to fumble in his words. "Is both true and untrue. 'Terry Wilson' is real, not a simulation. That's what makes Eyescape Ventures different from our competitors. We have 22 different hosts, like Terry, that our clients can live in for a time. The best part is, they don't even need to do anything to "pretend" to be the host. They actually meld subconsciously with them. So, you are Terry, but in reality, the person I'm talking to is Hendricks, inside Terry's body and mind." "You're insane. I'm calling the police," he finally said. "Before you do that, I'll use the killswitch phrase, and you'll wake up in our facility. Or maybe I'll just say a shock phrase so you know I'm serious." Terry pulled out his phone and dialed 9 and 1. Then, Cameron sighed. "Haberdashery, blackberry, Washington 5, chalk," he said. Suddenly, Terry felt a sharp pain down his spine. His vision went white, and for an instant, he was in a large bed, connected to a machine. Then, he faded back to the diner. "What the hell was that?" he said, getting a little too loud for the diner. Two nearby older women looked at the two men with suspicious eyes as they poked at egg white omelets. "We've installed a few phrases into the submersion programming to stop clients from going AWOL," Cameron said in a lowered voice. "We've had a few that have tried to do things outside the boundaries we've set. Some, like yourself, try to run away with the host's life. We must say, we are impressed, Hendricks. Nobody made it nearly as far as you did." "Do you want to order anything?" the waitress said, seeming to appear out of nowhere. "Actually, I'll take a cup of coffee. It smells great," Cameron said. The waitress nodded with a smile that could be mistaken for a grimace and walked away. Terry rubbed his temples and clamped his eyes closed. "I don't expect you to believe any of this. I wouldn't. A client, when submerged into a host's life, has no idea of their true selves. It's the memories of their vacation that they retain when they return that seems to be worth our premium price point," Terry said while pulling out his smartphone. "So, if I'm really this Hendricks guy," Terry said in an aggressive tone. "Does the real Terry, or his family, know about this? I can't imagine my wife, or his wife, is fine with this." "The details of whether a host or a host's family are compensated, willing, or knowing participants of our operations are confidential. But, it is important to know that his life is real. You're merely borrowing it, and you've disrupted it by staying beyond your allotted time." The waitress swung by and plopped the mug of black coffee onto the table with no grace, sending a small splash onto the off-white surface. "Am I hurting the real Terry?" Terry said. "Do you care?" Cameron said as he poured five sugar packets into his drink. "Why wouldn't I?" Cameron chuckled as he drank. "Well, frankly, I've never seen you care about anyone. But I digress. To answer your question, yes, you could conceivably be damaging Terry's ability to return smoothly. You usually stay as Terry for our maximum allowed time, three weeks. It's now been six. Typically, an agent approaches a client while in the host and recites a return phrase. It then triggers the programming to return the client to our facility, and the host then slides back into the captain's seat of consciousness without any hiccups. But for you, you managed to stay inside the host after five agents have tried five distinct return phrases. Even after watching your behavior this whole time, it's baffling." Now that he said this, he did remember several people approach him and say seemingly random words and stare at him as if waiting for a reaction. It happened at the grocery store, twice at work, at church, and while picking up takeout at Aweton Pizzeria. The thought of this other person, this narcissistic, parasitic Hendricks burrowing inside his mind, made Terry ill. Or, perhaps, he was the wrongdoer in this situation. Maybe some poor, mediocre man named Terry Wilson was slowly dissolving into subconscious mental goo thanks to a strange opulent thrill. "Why don't you just say the killswitch thing and ask Hendricks how he did it?" Terry said. Cameron smiled with a glint in his eye. "Hendricks wouldn't share such details with our team. He is, well, a private person. Distant observation seemed preferable." Terry looked down at what remained of his Boysenberry pie. Only a smear of purple glaze, a few berries, and a trace of crust remained. The smell of steak and eggs wafted through the busy diner. A man he recognized as a regular shuffled in. A woman wearing the same thing as Cameron spied into the restaurant outside the glass doors while speaking into a radio. "I'm breaking protocol by talking to you about all this in your current ignorant state. I apologize for the panic we must be causing. Maybe I should've just returned you without the conversation," Cameron said while stacking small jelly packets. "I don't believe anything you've been saying. I can't," Terry said. "Do you mind if I show you something?" Cameron said as he rotated his phone and showed Terry his screen. The video showed security footage of a large room where men and women laid in soft, luxurious beds. Terry recognized one as Jessica Nye, a famous movie star. IV machines were hooked up to their arms while other devices, resembling six-foot high black cartons of milk, connected to various parts of their bodies through wires and tubes. Monitors hung above and displayed live footage from first-person perspectives. Some showed people typing on keyboards. Others showed people stuck in traffic. Others still showed people eating lackluster dinners at kitchen tables—all ordinary, everyday activities. Terry then watched Cameron and two other men approach an empty bed. Cameron pulled out a tablet and hit a couple of buttons. Terry's face then appeared alongside a scrolling list of data points. One of the men took off his shirt and revealed a body covered in tattoos of birds. His hands had doves on them. His neck had a hawk. His back had a whole aviary's worth of birds. The third man pulled down the bed's covers and nodded toward the tattooed man and Cameron, then left. "Well then, Mr. Hendricks, your usual is all set up. We have you scheduled to return on August 24th, correct?" Cameron said. "Sure," Hendricks said while handing a tip to Cameron. His voice was deep and raspy, like a chain smoker of twenty years. "Hello, Terry," Hendricks said while staring at the screen. "It's good to see you again." After hooking up Hendricks to the machine and wires, Cameron pressed several buttons on the tablet. Hendricks closed his eyes, and soon, a live feed of Terry's life began on the monitor. Hendricks was now talking to a coworker outside of Terry's cubicle. The video then ended. Terry's head began to spin, and he felt the pie and coffee coming back up his throat. "I don't understand, though," he said, panting. "My life is nice and all, but it's nothing. It's just normal. It's anything but a place to vacation." "That's exactly the thing that makes our hosts' lives desirable to our clients. These people live insanely busy, stressful, and impactful lives. A normal life, at least the memories of a normal life, is Heaven to them." "Who would do such a thing?" Terry said. "Oh, we have a wide variety of clients. Some influential politicians, CEOs, mavericks of their industries. Some great people like artists and musicians and actors," Terry said. "And some, not so great. Mercenaries, drug lords." Then Cameron looked Terry directly in the eye and smirked. "And hitmen that keep track of their scores with bird tattoos," he said. "Ready to go back? We're even willing to waive the expenses you caused us." The diner's din swirled. Terry felt like he was already leaving his body. Without thinking twice, he rushed upward, sending the table flying, and ran toward the door. "Twelve, paperclip," Cameron said. With that, Terry's legs stopped working. He froze in the middle of the diner. "Giraffe, Swiss." He lost all feeling in his body. "Polyester, earwig 49." A ringing began in his ears. "Shepherd, and sunset." All went white. Then, it went black. When Hendricks awoke, he looked down and saw the doves on his hands and the smell of disinfectant. "Welcome back, Hendricks," Cameron said.

It happened too fast to focus on the details. Alex found himself running through a pine wood, chest hot and heaving. He gasped for breath as he sprinted through a shallow stream. The fierce cry of the Mogalacryn always right behind him — a blend of a buzzard’s shriek, the hissing of a viper and the scream of countless miserable people. Alex was just a boy when the Mogalacryn found him and began the chase. He was then youthful and hopeful that it would eventually go a different way, maybe chase some other poor soul. He still had plenty of energy as he leapt over roots and pits. That being said, he never had the gumption to look directly at the thing. He could only see its obsidian-shaded tentacles as they were just out of reach in his peripheral. As he ran he looked down at his hands — they were bigger, his clothes were tight, his head filled with half memories of school days and people he couldn’t rightfully identify. The sun of the day beamed down, making him angry. Still the Mogalacryn was just behind him. It was when he was a teenager that he first encountered the first village of Prem — smaller, meek people-like creatures, weak and trusting. They all wore plum hats and bonnets and lived in twig-crafted homes. He didn’t stop to speak or to learn his ways. Yet as he re-entered the woods on the other side of the village, he heard the Mogalacryn burst into the village and eat and destroy and obliterate. At first, Alex screamed with guilt. But he realized that as the Mogalacryn ate the Prem, he was able to catch his breath for the first time in years. After a few moments though, he heard the coming of the monster once more and he ran again. After the second or third village, his guilt faded and realized it was the only way for him to survive. He looked down and the veins of his hands began to come through. A beard now brushed against his sternum. His speed had slowed. He depended on the villages of Prem more and more. An image of a woman, of a house, of a dog sparked in his mind. But all that would have to wait until after the Mogalacryn left. At one point, he came across a village of Prem and saw they were armed. “The Harbinger comes! Doom is right behind him!” he heard one of their little voices cry. Yet he did what he needed to do to survive and soon enough he would hear their screams as the Mogalacryn consumed. The Prem then began to throw spears and rocks at him as he came, but he soon learned how to dodge them and evade and deliver the Mogalacryn right to them. At this point the wrinkles on his hands were significant, and any guilt or horror he had for using the Prem was gone and replaced with anger and raw instinct. There were images of people and places and children he may have known, or may not have, in his mind now, but he didn’t have time for any of that. It was only survival now. Years and years passed. His hair went gray. His running slowed, yet the Mogalacryn never caught him, but it consumed all the Prem. Finally, the woods ended and there was a massive, endless clearing before him. Behind him the trees burst into smithereens. He stopped running to face it, what was left of him totally consumed by fear. He had no more strength to run. It was bigger than he ever could have imagined, even after all those years. Pieces and shards of the Prem villages covered its true form, making a massive, shifting, oozing thing coming right for him. And to his right and left he saw the people he thought he might’ve noticed but didn’t have time for to to his left and to his right, some giving him pitying faces, others refusing to look at him directly as the Mogalacryn finally reached its destination.

Amongst the whining motor of the skiff and the rolling seawater, they barely looked at each other, let alone try to speak. The heat was unforgiving and no clouds gave mercy. Elena watched as Santa del Luna’s main island shrank into the distance, the resort’s crystalline towers shimmering. “We shouldn’t have come out today,” Elena said. “It’s too hot.” “What?” Shane said. “I said it’s too hot to be doing this.” “You wanted to see the preserved islands, didn’t you?” She turned away and looked to the ocean. Twenty minutes of tension passed. Elena flicked her wrist and watched her wedding ring cascade shards of light onto the boat’s bottom. Finally, she reached into the cooler and grabbed two bottles of water, opened them, and handed one to Shane. He looked down at the drink then back up to her through polarized sunglasses without emotion. Her eyes were buried under her own pair of sunglasses that hung under a bright pink sun hat with an enamel sunflower pin. “A peace offering?” he said. “Take it if you want it.” He drank it quickly. Once done, he clasped Elena’s hand. “Are we going to talk about what happened, or are we starting this marriage with unsaid baggage?” She grabbed the two empty bottles and handed one back to her husband. “Whisper whatever angry things you want to say about me into the bottle,” she said, yelling above the motor and waves. Shane smiled and whispered into the container and Elena did the same with hers. Then she grabbed both bottles, twisted the caps back on, and tossed them overboard. They immediately drifted away into the restless blue. “Some fish will swallow those,” Shane said. “Well, then that fish will have a bunch of terrible words in its belly. As for us, we’re starting fresh.” The preserved islands were coming up now, an archipelago of sharp-peaked masses like tree-laden teeth jutting from the sea. Dozens of vessels traveled from one island to the other. One sped by close to the couple’s boat, causing it to rock in the wake. As Shane cursed, Elena pulled out a tourist map to study the chain, consisting of thirteen islands in a crescent-moon shape. Then they spotted an island that wasn’t on the map, one isolated from the others. They headed toward the lone land, where no boats followed. The lone island was larger than any of the others. A singular bare peak stood at the center with a thick jungle draping the land. Shane shifted the boat to idle and they drifted toward the empty shore. It was hotter than ever now, no wind went through that place. Waves of heat danced above the white sands. Elena began to run on the open beach as Shane laughed and watched while opening a beer. A hundred feet away she tripped and slammed onto the scalding sand. “We didn’t even break out the drinks yet,” he said, laughing as he came to her. “It’s this heat,” she said, her voice slurring. She began to stumble and sway. Shane brought her to the treeline and sat her down under a palm. Her breathing became faint and her skin that landed on the sand was getting redder by the second. As Shane panicked, he started to feel lightheaded himself. Soon, the scent of incense was in the air and shadows appeared behind them. People looked down at them with blank expressions. Each one bald, their skin was the color of paper and eyes were black as coal. They wore black toga-like garments and some were armed with spears while one held a censer emanating a black smoke. Shane drug Elena away who screamed when she finally saw them. She tried to stand, yet she collapsed again, causing her to yelp with pain. Shane picked her up and turned to run, yet he saw others had closed in behind them. “Let us leave,” Shane said. A man then approached, holding a net. Inside was a large, gray dead and bloated fish. He pulled it out and began to gut it. He then extended the fish carcass to them. He had sliced open its belly and now a gaping and bloody hole was there. “Reach inside,” the man said in perfect English. Trembling, Shane set down Elena and did so. He pulled out a water bottle, empty and closed. “Now you,” the fisherman said, gesturing to Elena. Struggling to breathe, she did so and found another. “You killed this fish,” the fisherman said. “We are so sorry,” Elena said. “Switch bottles,” he said. Two from the tribe untwisted the caps and placed the bottles against Shane and Elena’s ears. A whispering was heard, and as the words spilled from their containers the plastic crinkled as if there was a vacuum. Shane and Elena stared at each other, eyes raw and red and deflated. The fisherman then said something in a language the couple did not know. The words were guttural and sharp. The tribe began to move together toward the jungle, taking Shane and Elena with them. “Where are you taking us?” Shane said. “My wife is sick. Just let us go back.” “Back to where?” the fisherman said. The crowd stopped and allowed the two to look out at the ocean. No other islands could be seen. No boats. Nothing but a vast, empty sheet of water. “You are now removed from the world,” one of the others said. “You now belong to Santa del Luna, the real Santa del Luna.” They entered into the jungle as the tribe hummed something in the foreign tongue. “Elena,” Shane said, panting. “Elena, honey, we’ll get through this. I will get us out of this.” Yet she didn’t look at him. Instead she turned and looked away into the jungle, sobbing. The people bound the two with coarse rope and as they did, they wrenched their wedding rings off and their voices rose in elation through the jungle’s heat.