“I know you’re watching me.” The figure in the mirror looks identical to me. But she’s not and she knows I know. “And?” My reflection finally says. When the thing speaks, I feel my lips move in unison with it, like I’m being controlled by a ventriloquist. But although my lips move, the voice comes from in front of me—inside the mirror. The glass vibrates when the creature speaks. It amplifies the sound. Making it whirl around my body like an acid tornado. “…And?” I ask my glass doppelgänger incredulously. I feel my eyes widening but hers don’t and uneasiness crawls over my entire body. Then the anger hits. “AND?!” She laughs, her head falling back to let the sound billow out of her chest more easily. My body stays still this time, but that does nothing to comfort me. My fucking reflection is alive and laughing at me. “What are you?” I ask even as she continues to laugh. I’m unsure if she hears me and her laughing continues, rising to damn near hysterical guffaws. CREEPY AS FUCK. __ _ _I don’t know what to do. Call 911? Obviously anything I say will most certainly guarantee me being psychiatrically evaluated, if not institutionalized. I’m starting to wonder If that might be a good idea. Obviously I’m not okay. Ha. Hahahah. I actuallly start laughing out loud. oh fuck what is happening? _ _ _ _My reflection smiles at me, but its sinister. Panic rises as I feel my face perfectly matching her expression. “Come find out,” she says. Then arms protrude from the glass I’m staring at and soft hands wrap around my throat, immediately squeezing hard enough that I feel bones in my neck pop. And then I’m yanked. My feet leave the floor, whipping upward and I’m pulled through what should have been solid glass and a solid wall behind it. Nothing is real. Nothing makes sense. Am I even alive? And if so, for how much longer?

Those are the last thoughts I have before I’m ripped from my world and stripped of every part of myself I ever thought I knew. I just never would have thought that once I found out what she was, I might want to become like her too…

Comment if you want a part 2!

**Starseed - **an entity of extraterrestrial origin that incarnates on earth to help humanity and heal the planet.

My grandmother always told me I’d die alone.
“It’s just the way it has to be,” she’d say. “Starseeds can’t afford to get stuck in the Wheel of Karma. Especially not right now.”
And in reference to Karma, my mom added with a giggle, “That bitch can hold a grudge.” 
According to her and Grams I had an obligation to help humanity. It was a slightly sad truth I took several years to accept, but this “life” of mine was essentially just a job. What is commonly known as a Soul Contract.
Destiny. Fate. Life Blueprint. There are many names for that thing inside each of us that drives and directs our journey through reality, no matter how inconsequential or mundane any one particular individual’s existence may seem. It’s all meticulously planned and orchestrated by beings of such vast energetic capacity and intellectual functioning that I dont even try to conceptualize it anymore. I don’t need to understand everything in order to fulfill my purpose. I know that— but fuck do I hate not understanding what the hell is going on inside me or around me.

My soul’s agenda in particular was of the highest nobility, according to Grams. An obligation only few would consider taking on and yet one I volunteered for eagerly and accepted with honor and gratitude. 
I feel compelled to make it known that these things I just shared are only things I’ve been told by the people who shaped me. I can’t say I _know_ all this to be fact because I haven’t yet developed the skill of believing in something without experiential evidence. Grams says that will come with time. “As your higher self settles into this vessel and your wisdom is more readily available to you,” she reminds me on days when my human emotions are heightened and my self-doubt is soaring.
For now, I function solely off the trust I put in mom and Grams and their— I mean _our _beliefs. Because that’s really all I have: their words and my ability to trust in them. The intensity in which I cling to what they claim to know is something that could be catastrophic for me. But only if they’re wrong. All they have to do is not be wrong.
Sometimes I sit up at night just blowing my own mind thinking about the fact that I have all this knowledge and wisdom locked somewhere deep inside me but I _purposefully_ made myself forget it, so that I could experience new things and grow. I’ve lived hundreds of lives on dozens of planets and I have no accessible memory to any of it. Just the words of the women that raised me and the tiniest little itch somewhere in the back of my mind — which I’m not even sure is real or right — that says “You feel the truth in what they claim.” 
From what I’ve been taught, I won’t remember who I was before I got here until I can fully integrate my shadow self. But I gotta figure out how to love that bitch first.

Accorrding to starseed lore, all conscious life has a place of origin where it first manifested. The term Human doesn’t mean from Earth. “Human” only pertains to beings on earth that think they’re just the fleshy material that eats and sleeps and works. To any Star Race of importance, Earth’s name is Gaia and her children, the souls whose first carnation is from her flesh, are referred to as Gaians. My mother and grandmother are Gaians and although my soul is supposedly eons older than theirs, they are far ahead of me in terms of self-mastery. And yet they act like I am a child progidy. And they regard themselves so lowly it makes my eyes sting sometimes.
“Just wait,” they always tell me. “Once you awaken, you’ll see. We are blind compared to you. It’s just the Gaian condition.” 
And usually that triggers a quick circle back to why it’s so important that I stay lonely forever. 
“Staying grounded is important for your vitality but you can’t let your frequency adjust to this heavy dimension and that’s why you musn’t settle too deeply. Gaia needs _your_ light and _your_ energy right now — NOT the other way around. And you’ll need to take special care to keep your freedom. Entanglement with other souls here is so difficult to avoid but guarantees entrapment.”

Honestly, I was surprised they didn’t noticed the change in me. I guess they did a little too good of a job at teaching me how to shield my energy. Because my baby had already been fluttering excitedly around in my belly before they ever even caught on. In fact, one day I decided to just come clean and tell them.

“You’re… pregnant? Leaura, you’re pregnant. Pregnant? Leaura…”
My grandmother looked gray. With my heightened senses I could see her energy signature shift, like the life force was about to explode right out of her in a flash of luminous stardust. And although that description sounds like it’s not a bad thing, I promise I mean it in the worst way.
“Grams, I know.” Grabbing her hand and giving it a tight squeeze, I stared into her terrorized expression with my own look of desparation. “But I can _feel_ that this is okay. This was supposed to happen. I don’t know why. I don’t know if this means I’m going to be stuck here forever, but I just know that this is where I’m at right now and I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Please try to trust in my instincts. You’ve always told me they’re the best in this solar system.”  I lifted my mouth in a tentative smile and prayed to see something similar in her expression.
Her mouth split wide open in the biggest grin I’d ever seen. At her ripe age of 76 I didn’t understand how she had such perfect teeth and powerful energy, but I didn’t have long to ponder before I was being swept up into a crushing hug that felt strange and different now that I had something delicate growing inside me.
“Oh, honey,” she hiccupped. She was sobbing. In the span of one second she’d went from shocked to overjoyed. What in the world…? 
“I hoped. I really did. I just didn’t think… Leaura you’re pregnant! Does your mother know? OH GOD, VIVICA! Where are you?!” She had her head tipped back now, yelling at the ceiling. 
My eyes began to swell with moisture. Reaching out to steady Grams frame which was practically vibrating with excitement, I dipped my head to make eye contact with her.
“Grams,” I said, with a gentle but stern tone. “Aren’t you at least curious about who the father is?”
And just like that Grams went just one shade paler and I didn’t need to ask to know why. 
I uttered just one word: “Now.” 
And the man I knew she would love stepped from the foyer into our kitchen, into view of my wide-eyed grandmother. Her mouth was still open when my mother finally came barreling down the stairs, surely in distressed by the way Grams had screamed her name.
But once she saw the scene before her she dropped into a silent assessment. Her eyes flickered between me and then Grams, and then it darted to the man I was in love with whom they’d never even known of until this exact moment, and then her eyes whipped right back to Grams.
They locked eyes for several moments. To the point where my skin began to prickle and I had to shift my weight around to relief my sudden anxiousness. 
Finally, very slowly, my mothers eyes lowered to my stomach and her mouth slowly fell open.
“It’s okay,” I told her. I don’t know why. She seemed okay based on her expression. Maybe even… elated.
“Okay?” She replied. Her tone was surprisingly exasperated. “Leaura… you realize he’s a starseed too, right? Mom?” Her eyes shifted to my grandmother. “Didn’t you sense that?”

My gradmother gasped and covered her mouth. Me and the father of my unborn child couldn’t do anything but smile at each other.

Probably some editing issues. I will hopefully have the energy to fix them tomorrow lol. 

ALSO PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU CAN FOLLOW THE STORY OR IF THE INFORMATION TALKED ABOUT IS TOO HARD TO FOLLOW OR NOT EXPLAINED/SET UP THOROUGHLY ENOUGH.

Thanks so much, love yall!

I like when my life feels small.

Just big enough for me and my thoughts. 

The people around me have their own lives too but they feel like dear friends as we sit here together in comfortable quietude. 

We never seem to catch eyes. 

I can’t help but gaze upon them and in moments when I am lost in my work, I suddenly feel the prickle of someone watching me as well. I don’t look up; I just let them stare. 

I feel protected in this warm corner, dimly lit by a golden chandelier. 

A vent blows warm air continuously over my skin. It has been recycled through the bakery so many times I can almost taste sugar and cinnamon in the wind. 

Looking out the bay windows I see the snow whipping across the street and I settle further into my plush scarf, grateful for this warmth and these moments of splendor.

It was going to be difficult to kill him. Not because he was well trained: he definitely was not. It’s because I’m in love with this god damn stupid psychopath idiot. Sobs racked my body because I was bound, gagged, and kidnapped by the psychopath I’d stupidly fall in love with. Despite my physical circumstances, the only part of me that felt tortured was my heart. My body was bruised and my joints were sore but that wasn’t pain to me. I’d been honed to endure so much physical pain I often had to check my own self for injuries because my pain tolerance was so high. Emotional pain? They never said shit about that in training. The tears just wouldn’t stop coming. Fuck man, I love him! How am I going to do this? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t! “I have to,” the words came out like wobbly sobs, not decipherable words at all. Suddenly the volume of the music increased considerably. He’s always hated when I cry. It was what gave him his first glimpse of human emotions, which came in the form of feeling protective and concerned over me. I still remember the way he made love to me that night… The sudden veering of my thoughts somehow brings me back to the matter at hand. In case you’re wondering, it’s not Stockholm syndrome. I’m not his captive or his victim. At least I wasn’t until approximately 36 hours ago, give or take 10 or so. (The time lost from the sedative he gave me makes it hard to be sure.) It’s crazy to think that less than two days ago we were just two people who were absolutely consumed by the love we created together who just so happened so also be living completely secret and separate double lives. And now we were both plotting the inevitable murder of the other. I hoped he’s at least hurting a little bit at the thought of killing me. But something tells me he’s managed to turn off that part of himself again. Which might be best. I’ll feel better knowing he’s emotionally numb when I end his life. The most fucked part about this situation, you ask? It’s not his secret — you know, the whole him being an absolute psychopath and serial killer. No, that’s not the worst part. It’s the fact that I’m a rogue detective who infiltrated this man’s life planning to ruin him, and I somehow grew to love the beautiful parts of him more than I hated the sinister pieces, even though there were wayyyy more of those than the former. I know he loves me too. In his own defective way. And I know you probably don’t want to hear that. But it needs to be said because that’s why this is so hard. It’s going to be ME that kills him. The only person that’s ever made him feel… _anything. _ A year ago this would have brought me unfathomable joy, knowing how utterly I’m about to destroy every morsel of this man. Now our beings are bonded, souls fused and hearts stitched together. Killing him will kill everything inside me and I’m not ready for the pain. He stopped killing when he met me, and if he loses me — especially by his own doing — I just know he’d lose the last bit of good left in him as well. I might already be going to hell for loving an evil man, but I’m not a monster. I CARE. Too damn much. That’s what got me into this mess. And that’s why I’m going to do the hard thing. If he killed me, then it will become open season for more innocent people. And as much as I love him, my soul just can’t carry the weight of that. So I cry into the bandana pulled tight into the corners of my mouth and he turns the music up louder.

“Baby, please. Don’t do this,” I plead through my sobs as he extracts me from the back of his van. I can’t see anything. I don’t know how long we traveled but a frigid wind whips against my exposed skin, indicating we must have driven several hours north. I expect him to set me on my feet but he doesn’t. He carries me bridal style and says nothing. I hear leaves crunching beneath his boots, and leaves rustling about our heads. Other than that and a few sounds from nearby animals, all is quiet. We’re in a forest. 
I wonder, Is this where he took his other victims?
“I love you, Jason.” I start up again with the crying. “Please. I don’t care what you are! You’re mine and I love every single fucked up part of you. All of it. You know I make you feel happy, baby. Don’t take that away from yourself because you’re scared. I love you and you can trust me with this. I won’t tell.”
“Shut the fuck up! Shut up!”
His arms vanish and I drop. The ground comes up to meet my spine fast and hard. It knocks the breath out of me and I roll onto my side wheezing and groaning and sobbing even harder.
He did it. He really shut it off. There was no piece of _my _Jason anywhere to be found. Just the hollow vessel of the killer he’d been when we first crossed paths.
I made the sudden decision that it was time for radical truth. 
These were his final moments and I’d be damned if I didn’t use them trying one last futile time to reach the good man I knew was lurking behind his cruel eyes and broken mind.
As if I were a sociopath just like him, my blubbering stopped abruptly. My breathing had already evened out and I wrangled myself into a sitting position, angling myself towards the sounds of his heavy breathing and tilting my head up to hopefully appear to be looking at him even though I couldn’t see a damn thing.
“I’m going to kill you tonight,” I told him. “I want you to know that you’re the love of my life and if I knew of any other way to keep you here with me and ensure you won’t harm anyone else, I would do it. You’re my person, Jason. Every hideous part of you belongs to me and I just want you to know that I see you, I accept you, and I’m going to miss you.”
I listened to the sound of his breathing which had grown faster and louder as I spoke.
Even though I could feel something there, like a smell in the air — fear, maybe? Or dread? I’m not sure but either way his voice held nothing but anger. 
“Whatever you’re trying to do isn’t going to work, bab— Melanie.” I hear the unmistakable _pop_ of his jaw as he clenches it. He is struggling with this. Some piece of him, buried somewhere deep, isn’t happy about murdering me. I know it’s insane but I find quite a bit of comfort in that. It’s strange the way I can know him so deeply in some ways, and be nothing but a stranger to other parts of him. 
Jason continues talking and I silence my mental chatter. “I wanted to keep you for longer but our time is up. What I feel for you is… strange and heavy and unpleasantly pleasant. But I won’t abandon my path for gratifying distractions. I’ll pass a message along to your family for you, though. I know you care about your mother’s mental state and I know it’s a fragile thing. If that will give you some sense of peace I’m willing to do that for you.”
The way he talked was so confusing. Even when he was his authentic, closeted psycho self, he still expressed emotion. Now he was acting like a normal caring person but it was obvious there wasn’t nothing inside him but rotten emptiness. He didn’t even seem real right now. Like he was on autopilot, reciting a script that had been programmed into him. 
My Jason truly wasn’t anywhere to be found. That helped me somehow. This person I was about to kill was just a vicious murder. Not the person who made the sun seem dim in my shining world. My Jason was already dead, I told myself. And the person in front of me was the one who killed _him_. I owe it to the man I loved and who loves me, to kill him.
….My mind did something. It finally clicked and my entire being went still with resolution. 
I tilted my head up again and this time I could feel that I was staring right at him.
“At least tell me how you’re going to do it,” I demanded with an eerily steady tone. Was he catching on? Did he sense his soon his life would be over?
The only answer he gave to my question was the sound of him retracting the hammer on a revolver. His guard was completely down. Perfect.
A sob racked my body again, but this time it was just for dramatic effect. 
“Can you at least tell me you love me? Even if it’s a lie. Let me die believing the person I love, loved me back.”
Two beats of silence passed while he drew in a slow breath. These were our last moments together. Did that mean anything to him? I tried to convince myself that it didn’t matter either way.
“I love yo-“
My hands shot out from behind my back, flying forward blindly and thankfully finding purchase on the cold metal of his gun. I yanked as hard as I could. It happened so quick his body hadn’t even reacted. The gun slipped from his grip as if he were willingly handing it over and the momentum from snatching it sent me somersaulting backwards. I sank into the motion, letting my body roll over itself. I landed on my knees and had the pistol trained on him before I even pulled the blindfold off.
In a single moment, I released the blindfold, gripped the handle of my boyfriends pistol firmly with both hands, squeezed one eye shut, adjusted my aim delicately so the crosshairs lined up with the center of his forehead.
I stared at that spot only, trying not to perceive the shock and fear in the eyes of the man that I love.
I pulled the trigger first, watched him hit the ground, and then said, “I love you, too”

THE END

	Lots of editing mistakes, especially the sporadic switching of tenses. But I am simply too tired and impatient to fix it.

	Oh and I think I need to chill out on all the dark romance novels I’ve been reading 😂. Let me know how you feel about this concept. I think the human capacity for love is interesting. We really don’t care how messed up people are sometimes, or how much they hurt us, if the love feels good we’ll take that pain all day and I think that’s a really dangerous but also incredibly beautiful thing.

To turn or not to turn, that is the question. My signal is flashing but my foot is hovering hesitantly over the brake. Going right at this junction will take me the quickest route into town, but the journey is dark and deserted. I’d drive for miles between areas with cellphone reception. Going straight will take longer but the roads are more well lit. There are more buisnesses and neighborhoods and cell towers. Most importantly, this path leads me west at sunset and the sky is exploding with buttery reddish rays of light that brush softly against the underside of some dark heavy clouds. It looks like the sky is on fire and smoking. It’s particularly and unusually beautiful. I decide that taking the scenic route is worth it. I ride into the sunset with the window down and a warm melody accompanying the breeze. When the world suddenly begins to roll I don’t have time to stop the car before I lose consciousness. It feels like only a blink but apparently I was in a coma for three and a half weeks. My neurgosurgeon says I should have died — the aneurysm was what he termed “catastrophic”. My cardiologist claims it should have been “medically impossible” for my heart to keep beating even with the massive tear in one of my ventricles (or something). My family showed me pictures of the wreckage; it was all fire and smoke and it blended in almost perfectly with the sky. Everyone said it was a miracle my body didn’t crumple and contort the way the car did. It was a miracle a state trooper happened to be posted right up the road, who saw the whole thing and managed to extract me from the car before the fuel tank ignited. Miracles everywhere. That’s what they say. I don’t know if that’s the case. But I’m glad I let myself drive towards the sunset. I’ll never know for sure but I really doubt there would have been a first responder just waiting and ready on that other road if I’d chosen to turn right.

——

Lot of mistakes in this one but I just don’t want to lose my streak lmfao. Leave constructive feedback if you’d like but I’m just saying I probably know but just didn’t have the energy to tweak it.

“It is fun to think I am nothing, only because it allows me to realize I am everything.”

• Someone.

  My humans call it a lot of things. Hide and Seek. Cat and Mouse. Student and Teacher. Victim and tormenter. This dualistic delusion exists in everything. The truth of wholeness also exists in this delusion, though it’s invisible to the average person more often than not. That’s the game. Remembering. Stay wtih me for just a moment. The veins on a leaf resemble the arial view of water systems carving through earth, following the path of least resistance. The branches and twigs of trees resemble veins in the human body. Its all a kaleidoscopic reproduction and warping of fractured bits and pieces turned inward to look at itself from this narrowed view. The “view” refers to all the human senses. All the ways they percieve me through their limited modes of gathering information. All the ways I experience myself as if for the first time, by tearing myself apart like confetti, binding the pieces of me in suits of flesh, limiting myself so much that sometimes just existing is a struggle, making myself forget what I am to the point that I think I’m just this little thing on this rock that does not matter; that is so small and separate from every other little thing. Really I’m just deep inside myself, looking up at my light that shines through the holes I punched in my sky totally unaware that I AM what I’m searching for — that I AM the piece that’s missing from above. That light is what leads me back home. To being whole and going still with peace and knowing how to identify the peace because I have real suffering to contrast it with. At some point I will decide to break myself down again, but between the time when I stop and when I start, time doesn’t exist and I know the human mind can’t fully grasp that concept. I designed you that way. Don’t be bothered or strain yourself in attempt to understand. You’re meant to operate in a world with just enough doubt that makes you scared to hope but also too afraid NOT to hope. I thought you wanted to observe something new. I made this for you and I tried to give you things you like. But you didn’t know you liked them until I showed you what you don’t like. This concept is more commonly referred to at the knowledge of good and evil and is the sole reason why you’ve chosen to suffer. It is the price you were willing to pay in order to recognize happiness when you came across it. Suffering is a gift. All you have to do is appreciate it for what it does, instead of how it feels during it’s moment of creation. As soon as you do this you enter the fun part in the game of remembering. You enter the era of growth that isn’t born from self-deprication, but from self-love and a desire to have the experience of becoming something even better.

  Deep down you know this.

  Even if you don’t want to remember yet.

A new affinity had not presented itself for over a century. Every power known to Witch and Wizard alike sourced from one of the four elements. Fire. Water. Earth. Air. That was always the way it worked. Supernatural power came from Mother Nature and was therefore bound by her laws — as were we all. The spectrum of power a witch could be blessed with only dealt with objective abilitiies, inanimate powers that closely represented the characteristics of it’s parent element. So at first when the trees started talking, poor Cadaeri thought she was losing her mind. She was a twenty-one year old Giftless witch, alone in the woods for a reason she suddenly could not remember. Although her affinity had not presented yet, she wasn’t without base abilities and instincts — ones that had been honed by the Elders to such a degree that she was constantly aware of every creature and critter within a hundred-yard radius. She used this ability to confirm that there were no humans around apart from her own self. She had never been wrong before, not once. But the voices were RIGHT there beside both of her ears as if the people each had two mouths that could wrap around her head. The sound of the voices had a distinct quality. There was a tone, a pitch, a certain level of clairty, something that made Cadaeri sure that they were definitely audible and not in her head. But. There. Was. No. One. Around. The young girls sharp mind scrambled to make sense of what was happening. Was the wither beginning already? She was only twenty one! She knew witches that didn’t get her their gifts until close to their thirties. It wasn’t possible her vessel was starting it’s process of decay already! It just wasn’t. So that left two options: either she was going crazy or there were actual voices speaking an actual language coming from somewhere around her that was NOT human. The voices didn’t even sound right. They seemed to be more masuline than feminine in their pitch but their was a certain sharpess that made them sound like their anatamoty wasn’t built for this mode of communication. There was also an echo that she knew shouldn’t exist in that hollow forest. “Her thoughts are still too loud,” one of the voices said in a language she’d never heard before yet somehow understood with ease. “I wonder when she’ll know,” another voice whispered. “She already knows.” The first voice tsk’ed as if agitated. “She’s about to remember if you’d LET ME FOCUS.” So the first one was angry, apparently? The humanistic emotional expression was a small comfort to Cadaeri. “Hello?” She called out to the glistening forest. Morning sunlight streamed through the trees and the dew made the ground sparkle like it was blanketed in a million tiny Suns. The sight was actually quite beautiful. Everything was gold and green and brown. Buttery and soft and warm. But something had shifted and things were not right. Reality had entered one of it’s off-kiltered phases. As she stood there and listened to the voices she could not see, something told her she was not safe there. Her body begged to run at the same time as her feet dug into the soil as if in direct response. A direct act of disobedience. “Why has she come?” One of the voices caught her attention. It was louder than the others. “She is our messenger. Her time to remember is nigh,” another voice said. This one was new too and even louder than the previous. All the other voices faded as if they belonged to invisible people that began sauntering off towards the glowy sunrise. “Her soul craves to go home.” The loudest one continued. “She is old and she is tired. She’s ready to remember what she is and finish her journey.” “Ah,” the other exhaled, as if it finally understood. “Her light is so warm. I want her to touch me. I WANT herrrrr. I want her NOW.” Cadaeri kept finding herself lost in listening to their conversations. She knew she should be trying to figure out what was going on. Trying to get them to communicate with her. She should at the very least be assessing if these entities were hostile. For the most obscure reason that she may never know Cadaeri couldn’t manage to move any part of her body and her mind wasn’t panicking as much as it should have been because her attention kept getting sucked into the conversation like a vortex. “Are you hearing us yet, Cadaeri?” The loudest one asked. Hearing her name spoken by that ethereal otherworldly voice felt like it shifted something in the center of her being. The voices had been talking to her AND about her. Of course this was true. Things were starting to rise up in her mind. Things long forgotten and still so familiar. Cadaeri watched the forest grow brighter, the sun rising in conjunction with her fear and resolve. Part of her didn’t want to be there but the whole of her knew that was exactly where she was meant to be and that it was good even though it was unpleasant. “Cadaeri, Little One, stop trying to understand. You already KNOW. You must only remember. Now focus on my voice and answer my question with yours. Can you hear us?” “You know I can!” She snapped angrily. Her eyes went wide and her arms suddenly thawed enough so that she could cover her gasp. She hadn’t meant to say that. Couldn’t fathom WHY she would. She had no idea what they knew. She didn’t even know what THEY were. The Loud One chuckled and it boomed through the forest, seeming to boomerang around each tree and come back to her ears over and over, echoes overlapping so rapidly it drifted into just one singular note. When it finally died down the voice spoke again. “Release your thoughts, Little One. All you have to do is tell them to go away. I must tell you things now and you must be able to hear me.” Go away? That’s all she had to say to shut her thoughts off? Did she just have to think it? Or must it be spoken. “Say it aloud, Child. Say, ‘I release my thoughts and command my mind to be still so that I may receive my message’.” Cadaeri’s mouth opened and the words flowed out instantly, like they had been in her mouth for years just begging for release. Her desire to understand faded away. All she needed to do was observe. That was easy. She could do that. A heaviness spread through her limbs that felt warm and comforting. It felt to be coming up through her feet from the earth itself. Cadaeri became consumed by her senses. She heard, saw, smelled, tasted, and felt EVERYTHING. And she was somehow able to spread her awareness so wide that she could take it all in with equal attention and appreciation. “Well done,” The Loud One said. The vibrations of it’s voice pressed into Cadaeri’s skin and then penetrated her flesh until she could feel it buzzing in her bones. “You will go out and you will remind the soul why it chooses to come here and suffer. You will tell it to complete it’s karmic cycle so it may find the release and satisfaction it seeks. For you are but a microcosm of the macrocosm and the Collective is ready to start remembering too. You need not worry about how your message is received, only that you share it. Then you will come back here and we will take you into our roots so that you may return home.” Cadaeri did not speak but her eyes swelled with moisture. She knew it was time for her to leave this world but she… liked it here. It was pretty and exciting. And she would miss it. “Your soul cares not what your flesh desires. Your attachment to it is too strong anyway. That’s why it’s taken you this long to break through the veil and reach us.” There was a long pause. “Your path is your path and you will be ready for death by the time you return. If you decide you want to continue this mortal existence you may, but you won’t want to.” She perked up. “I can stay a little longer if I want to?” “Yes, child.” The Loud One suddenly spoke quieter. “Now heed our message and give truth to the masses.” Something rough and jagged stabbed into the soft bottoms of Cadaeri’s feet. She screamed, her back arching violently as she felt her soles being split open. Her newly upgraded level of awareness caused her to be so overwhelmed by the pain that she fainted, but the very things that were burrowing into her bones also kept her from falling over. So she just stood there, standing straight up, falling in and out of consciousness, screaming and crying every time her eyes shot open. She couldn’t tell how long that went on for but finally she came awake, opened her eyes and everything was dark but the pain was gone. After a few moments she realized that she was face down on the mossy forest floor, breathing in dirt and blades of grass. She rolled onto her back and looked up at the sky. The sun was directly above her, winking at her through the canopy of leaves and branches. How long had she endured whatever… that was? The voices were quiet now but they weren’t gone. She could feel them. She could feel EVERYTHING. And she understood it all. They had nothing else to say. It was her turn to speak. She stood up, feeling every bit of the pain in her feet. She cried and fumbled the whole way out of the woods even though she felt as calm as the forest had looked that morning. She let her mortal body mourn it’s impending demise. She let it beg to live while she stayed as quiet as the trees. She passed her home in the forest where her coven resided. She kept both hands clamped over her mouth as she snuck past them weeping as inaudibly as possible. Getting to her destination took hours longer than it should have due to the poor condition of her feet. When she entered the town the people there didn’t know what to think. A young woman fumbling through the cobblestone streets bare foot. Long black hair wild and matted. Dirt-smeared face. A black slip made of silk and lace riddled with rips and tears and souvenirs from the forest. Bloody footprints trailing behind her sinisterly. Some of the townspeople tried to come to her aid but she didn’t stop crying until they got her to the middle of the town where she could sit on the side of their community well. By then everyone was there, drawn by the sounds of her dispair. They asked her what was wrong and she told them. “I’m just going to miss it.” They didn’t understand. Nothing she said made sense. She told them of reality — of the souls desire to suffer for the sake of growth and experience. She knew they would listen but not hear. She knew they would refuse to believe. This was one of the few times in history when Nature allowed proof to be shown. And when she showed them evidence of her new found powers they bound her in rope and burnt her alive. Her ashes were carried by a phantom wind for miles, never touching down until they met the soft soil in the forest, with those tree spirits that were eager to keep their promise.

“Don’t!” My mothers voice booms inside my head and it sends a jolt of panic through my already fried nervous system.

Telepathic communication is suuuuper convenient. Yeah, whatever. It’s not going to be very convenient when that shit gives me a heart attack from all the adrenaline and cortisol. 
Is it too much to ask that we get a ringtone or something? Maybe a little vibration sensation? I’d settle for a swift kick in the nuts to being jump scared by that shit every day.

I shake my head and dart my eyes around, trying to get my bearings. What was I just thinking about? My thoughts feel jagged. Cut off in the middle of the stems before they can flourish. My gaze focuses in on the men far off in the distance. They are gravitating closer to the mouth of the ship. Suddenly eleven men spread apart and become doubled. So 22? Maybe? I don’t know. That’s a lot of heads, man. And speaking of heads, holy SHIT I’m losing too much blood. 
I give myself a very harsh shake both mentally and physically and then bring myself back to the present situation — hopefully for the last time.

Okay, so here are the ducks and here is the row: Wrecked ship. Precious, HIGHLY sensitive, HIGHLY classified cargo. Loved ones also amongst precious cargo present on ship. Possibly hostile aliens infiltrating the ship as we speak. Specific order to terminate mission if ever making contact with other sentient life forms. Terminating Missions means detonating the fusion core thus dissolving all organic matter within the deadzone. 
Most important fact of all the facts: Fuck that. We’re not just going to sit down and die.
Focus! I blink my eyes over and over. 
Oh, this is not good.
Okay Xale, think! You know what to do. Observe. Report. Analyze. Plan. Prepare. Execute.
You’re trained for this.
Plus, mom’s there. And she knows you’re there. 
She’ll wait. 
She will.
She will wait.

From where I crouch behind a big mound of snow probably harboring a large boulder underneath, I watch the aliens walk the perimeter of my ship. I know that the metal stuff they carry are called guns and I know what they do. I just don’t know what that means for us. 

Are they hostile? Or defensive? And will I be able to convince my mother to give me a chance to figure out which before she makes any reckless, mass casualty decisions?
The fate of every person in an approximately 400-foot-radius currently rests in my ability to reason with the most stubborn bullheaded woman I’ve ever known. Luckily for me that woman is my mother and those traits in particular seem to have had first class tickets straight to my DNA. Now I just have to use these mental faculties before I bleed out. Shit fucking damn. My side hurts! Whatever those guns shoot, it’s weak as hell but hurts like it too.

“They’re just looking around,” I tell my mom, trying not to sound desparate as I attempt to reassure her all while keeping any signs of pain or waning out of my message. “None of their technlogy looks advanced. I’m telling you even if they try to engage we can disable them. I’m not going to let them find you or jeapordize our assignment.” 
I send the message, close my end of the connection, and then suck in air as if I had forgotten to breathe for the last hour or so. 

It costs a lot of energy to communicate this way and judging by the blood slushie that has slowly formed around my boots, I probably don’t have much to spare, but she needs to know I’m coming. She needs to know there’s still a chance we can make it out alive. She needs to know that she doesn’t have to do what I’m sure she’s already gearing the system up for.

“I’m within the blast radius, mom. If you blow it, you kill me too.” I’m not sure if that’s true or not. I’ve seen our crafts explode before but not from self-detonation. 
Her anger hits me like a pulse of heat. “I told you to run!” The raw emotion she allows to twine itself into her telepathic message shocks me. My mother has never given me acccess to any part of her mind besides her intellect. To receive these feeling from my mother is like watching the sun rise on the wrong side of the ocean. I don’t hate it but I won’t feel comfortable unless I understand why it’s happening.
The next message she sends has emotion but this time it is resigned, resolved and rock solid. “I sent the distress signal, Xale. They’re coming for you. But if you don’t make it out alive then all our work, our knowledge and data, it will be lost and it will have been for nothing. Either you stay and we all die and millions of people just KEEP ON DYING because you didn’t save this research, or you run and you give our lives the meaning they deserve. You owe us that. Make the right choice, son. Two-minutes twenty-four seconds.”

I know she’s done talking. And listeing is something she gave up on years ago before dad even died. She expects me to run and let her sacrifice herself, as well as every friend and family member on our ship. I’m supposed to let her destroy the place we have called home for the last five and a half years. She thinks I’m capable of letting her kill — No, not sacrifice. Let’s call it what it is: killing. — her own daughter and I am to just… let it happen. To leave and run right now. To spend the last few moments I have with my family running AWAY from them. Abandoning them. Choosing the safe path instead of the right one.
The part of me that loves humanity as a whole pleads for me to haul ass as far as my feet can take me in the next two minutes. The part of me that loves my family refuses to allow these to be the only  options.

“You better do what you can to disble that detonator, mom. Because I’m not leaving you and I’m not leaving my sister. Dad trusted me to protect you when he died. And you know damn well he’d be on my side with this. So don’t fight me. Use the next minute to save our fucking lives and then help me take out these red suits. Head count of eleven from this vantage point.”

It’s my turn to be done talking. The ball’s in her hands and there’s one second on the clock. Take the shot or drop the ball. Kill us all or fight for the chance to live.
I wait in strained silence. Hoping. PRAYING. Wishing on every star I can see for her to concede and choose to believe in us. Believe in ME. I’ve done a decent job of being a father figure for Xadie but I can’t be our mom too. I can’t be… without a mom… too. 
I somehow managed to bandage the hole in my sisters heart when our father died, without ever being able to even look in the general direction of my own. I won’t be able to do it with mom too. My heart can’t handle another hole that doesn’t heal.

“I can’t disarm it but I added an additional five minutes,” she sends.

I damn near crumple into the snow with relief at the sound of my mothers thoughts.

“Xadie?” I ask tentatively. My muscles somehow manage to bunch up a little bit tighter. I don’t know the status of anyone on the ship besides mom. She’s the only one I’m able to communicate with.
“She’s working on the Suits.” Mom assures me and my exhale makes me feel ten pounds lighter. “She’ll signal when to move in.”
There is a pause of silence for a moment. And then another. My stomach suspends itself in mid air. 
“Mom?” I send.
Empty. Silent. Hollow.
I pop up from behind the boulder. No men in red suits. Just a dirty gray ship stranded in a dirty gray blizzard. The only possible place they could have gone is inside the ship. Either Xadie has come a long way in her distractive tactics, or something is very very wrong.

Their feet were what wasted away first. The “gone ones” (as we call them) that were fortunate enough to die with shoes on are the only ones that can manage something that remotely resembles dancing. Although their movements looked incredibly awkward and jerky, I have to admit they were perfectly on tempo. Even the ones that had more bone showing than skin. They look like a personification of the joke about how white people can’t dance. Maybe that’s not a joke? I’m not white, and people don’t dance in the apocalypse. My Aunt Gatty is the one that told me dancing was even a thing when I was around seven and she also told me that dancing was something happy people did. If there’s one thing I know it’s that’s us survivors definitely aren’t that . The second you let yourself relax enough to feel any sort of pleasant emotion — BAM! There’s a zombie slurping the blood through your carotid like a straw. Sorry ‘bout your bad luck, kid. Better luck on the undead side! So here I am, dumbfounded as I watch the decomposed humans skip and sway and I question everything Aunt Gatty ever told me. If only happy people dance then why in damnation are these zombies two-steppin’ and boot-scoot-boogie-in’ through this delapidated stretch of coastal highway? And why do I kind of want to laugh about it? A siren in my head blares. DEATH APPROACHING! FROWN! FROWN! FROWN! I can’t resist. A burst of laughter explodes from my chest and I watch in horror as the horde or gyrating zombies jerk their heads in my direction, twist their still-belly-rolling rotten bodies, and then begin to start shimmying what I think they hope is seductively towards me. Something happens. I can’t move, can’t run, can’t scream. I’m just stranding there laughing as they crowd around me like a captivated audience. This vibrating circle of smelly corpses watch me as they dance and tilt their heads as if to ask, “Why aren’t you dancing too?” I don’t understand why they aren’t attcking me. Right as I have that thought skeleton fingers split open my scalp as one grabs my head and yanks my neck back. I gaze up at the sky and wonder why I didn’t run. And then I wonder what it will feel like to dance. And then I find a moment to be grateful I have shoes. And then I feel teeth tear into my neck.

DJ drop the beat!

My smile scares you. Everything about me makes you want to run away. You can’t see the beauty in my bones. That makes me sad but it’s okay. Because I can see the beauty in yours and I know that it’s good to feel sad sometimes. I see it! Yes. Unmistakable. I know it like I know where the stars will lay each night. Buried deep under your skin beneath muscle and tissue and trauma. I see the structure that fortifies your soul and I could not love you anymore than I already do. Could not love you any deeper than I always have. To love without hope of ever being loved back is the healthiest form. So as I said, it’s okay. Like an explosion in my splintered skull, I realized one rainy day as I stood under my umbrella and smiled at you while you glared at me, that I have come to love you so much, so deep, so forever, that it overflowed and I found I had a little left for myself.