The water dripped soundlessly, so effortlessly against your skin; your pale pale pale pale skin. It felt slick you know, how rusty and rubbery your skin feels; you left me, you know, you said you wouldn’t; not even after death, yet, I don’t see you keeping that promise; you’re a liar. a pathetic liar. I could make you come back, you know. you could come back to me and and your flesh wouldn’t be so lifeless. but where’s the fun in that. though, with careful consideration all do respect and utter piss. I need you back. i love you you know. Then I decide I want you back, I want to bring you back into our little, secret, loop. you’d like that wouldn’t you? I know you can feel it, your life coming back, you slipping back into conscious the water filled. You slowly stir to fix your mind on it all. I killed you, and I’d do it again, and again, and again. but right now I need you to to satisfy me. can you do that? I want to see your eyes light up with that same excruciating life and joy and sparkle it had when we first met. can you do that? As I do, your screams. they’re all drowned out. I cant hear them over the water. Though as much as I missed it your eyes were dull. dull of horror and shell-shock. it’s boring, you know. you bore me. and I tip your head back, back into the substance that woke you. I cant hear you but I need you to be oh so quiet. I need you to shut up. Can you do that? Die, then return to me again. Die, then return to me again. Why do you keep returning. Why cant you just stay dead. WHY CANT YOU JUST STAY DEAD

⚠️WARNING: this talks about intrusive thoughts and possibly anxiety. This may seem very confusing to some people, but I made this story to summarize that the wife has betrayed the husband/hurt him and abused him to the point he started having intrusive thoughts.

I watched her, Even in my corner she towered. Bigger than a giant. She was better than an giant. The dagger looked down in her hand. And in these moments you really think, Think about all your past memories: Mistakes And Prosperity. We had it all, so who Knew my wife would stab me in my back? Literally. I saw her thoughts through her eyes, Racing miles. Intrusive thoughts taking over. I guess it was my fault for not seeing them. The demons that danced in My wife’s eyes. I can’t curse myself for being so B L I N D. There was no point in fighting back, The demons led her, Took their hands on here to guide her To my death. There were moments of flashes. I knew my wife was still in her head. Stuck. I wish I could help her, but As she neared. The end of my life was just beyond Beyond what seemed like Everlasting mountains. I was so Foolish to waste my time. And if only I had seen the warnings What would happen if I fought back? -Wait why would I do that What if I killed her instead? What if I didn’t tell anyone about her Dead body? What if- And then it hit me. The realization of what she was going She had given me her demons. And she dropped on her knees crying The knife rattled on the floor and i was left there. I was left dancing with her devils. I hate her, how could she make me Feel this pain. Think these thoughts. Should I finish her off? What if she tries to come at me again? Should I stab her now and get it over with?

Today marks a new beginning in history. To me it’s quite funny how far science has come over the years. And to think, me of all people had the ability to create something so out of proportion, it’s truly marvelous. What I have created is a sanctuary, in a category above all else, even above God himself. And what you do here depends on you, elevate your creative conscious and make a world with your peace and democracy.

As I took the first struck go through ground with my shovel i could tell how long i’d be here digging this hole. In this heat the corpse was rotting much faster and flies began to swarm. Soon a smell even began to fluster around me, good thing I was in the middle of the woods. When I finished i stuffed him into the hole and pushed all the dirt back on him. No more smell, no more corpse. It was sad too, I was really starting to enjoy his company until the AC broke. His unwavering gaze and his undivided attention made it all the easier to love him. As I broke the tree line, back at the 7-11 there wasn’t a car but one in the parking lot. I hurried into my car and changed out of my clothes and hurried home. I slept better tonight. Maybe he was giving my house bad mojo, anyway... I woke up for school all smiley and sunny as normal. And that’s exactly what I thought my day would’ve went on until I saw him sitting at his desk. “Jason?” He turned to look at me, he looked as if I never killed him, never slashed his through and buried him. “Oh hey Alyssa, how are you?” I had no words to explain the level of fear and shock i had. “What’s the matter? Afraid you’ll get caught?” And that’s when his dead fleshy odor hit me square in the face. Almost as if he was a figment of my imagination, his body turned into a corpse again, pale and lifeless and this time it had the wounds. “Help! Help! Someone in here, oh my god!” I screamed almost as if I hadn’t killed him myself, no one saw me come out of those woods, no one saw where i buried him. So how was he here? And the next few hours wee blurry, the police station, the interrogations, all the tears and anxiety. I was scared, not for my crime but just by how he got back. How the hell did Jason get out of his grave and back to school?

I watched as the man faded again. I’m guessing this had been my 5th time drawing his summoning circle. I dropped the stick at the last symbol and waiting. And as it had done the past times, the dead man faded in. “Let me rest in piece!” He whipped his beard in total frustration. “Not until you tell me what happened to your daughter!” I leaned back on my log that was deeply hidden in a cave somewhere in Toronto. “Leave it alone!” “Can’t you see I can’t?! Tell me where she is! I know you know!” And then, for the first time during these 30 minutes the ghost sat down on the log across from me and the fire and took a breath in and out. “If you want to know so badly, I shall tell you, but this is my last summoning!” I nodded and watched the man as he got comfortable. “Abagail was always a free spirited-roamer. Her location cannot be set on a house but the places she calls home which some i truly do not know. Even if she favored me she wouldn’t tell me anything.” I could tell thinking back on his past hurt him as he began to tear up. “I don’t know what happened, nor did i see anything coming when it came, it was silent and deadly. She killed us all, and if you truly want to know, she killed herself too. But not with us, she always thought she deserved better till no end. She might be dead in a yacht or Harry’s house. She could be in Paris or- hell! Damn I hope she is, gets what she deserves.” “Christopher Lyhgns,” he turned to me in response, “Your daughter, why did she her own family? Her own blood, her two daughters too?” The father looked at me without expression. “It was the daughters, hexed us I tell you! Lexi and Sophie, witches.” It was quite impossible for them to be witches because 1. Magic doesn’t exist and 2. they’re only 5 years old. “Don’t lie to me!” “As if I am, started chanting and I watched as my daughter’s eyes turned black and then boom, i’m dead.” I sat in careful consideration. “But how?” “The maid. She taught them, spent more time with the two then Abagail did herself, damn brats.” “What are they planning?” “Hell if I know, maybe taking over the world. Stealing some shit, killing people.” “Times running out.” “It always does, I hope I helped son. I don’t care if they’re my grandchildren, I want you to kill those sons of’a bitches.” “I was planning to anyway.” The man smiled and yawned as he faded away back into his happy peaceful place. “Babe!” From the corner my girlfriend sprang up, “Did he tell you where they were? Did he recognize you?” I shook my head and kicked the dirt around to hide the spell. “No. He thinks you’re dead.” “Where’s my daughters?”

I overlooked the city while being stuck against a chair. I watched the middle hit fast and then skyscrapers fall fast. Far, but clear enough so I could see little, people ran through the roads trying to run away. I watched as blood began to soak on my hands, and with every second the guilt sunk deeper and deeper. Was this all my fault? If I made the deal would I have saved us?

My legs burned from walking to far. Come to think of it, I was humored by this. We’ve been in and out of space and explored deep into the ocean but yet we can’t solve the fact I have to walk a mile to school every morning. I thought out scientists were smart, but I mean, I can’t even think of anything that would work. I looked at the baker carrying his baked goods up the street to the Gubls family. “Mornin’” he was a jovial man, in shape well from his deliveries. Everyone had great leg muscles. Track season was the busiest. Then the idea cracked into my head like a bat hitting a baseball zooming out behind the stadium. An idea that could change the future forever. But what would I ever call it? Carrier? Nah to basic. What would make the most sense? I ran to my science teacher and told him my idea. He stopped dead in his tracts and helped me build my item them test it out. “What should it be called.” “What’s your last name Stacy?” “Wheeler, why?” “Wheel.” I smiled and looked down at the tiny circle that carried our experiment. I liked the sound of it, a wheel.

The test scores were out and I just couldn’t wait to show Elizabeth that I would be able to get into that high tech school with her. Well if I passed. I ran to the office and asked to get it before they were handed out by the teachers, they agreed to help me. I made it, I passed. I wanted to tell Elizabeth fast, I wanted her to know right away so she wouldn’t have any doubts. I ran to her house, but it was empty. I texted her, but she didn’t pick up. So I went to my friends house, Chris. He failed, it took a lot to pass the test and I didn’t think he’d pass. I told him about Elizabeth’s strange disappearance, he looked at me funny. What he said made me want to rip my heart out. “Her family sent her away because she failed the test.” I had spent my entire school year studying hard, making my own study guides because she was super smart. She was obviously going to get in and I wanted to go with her. I didn’t understand. Chris knew immediately what happened, he told my parents, but they expected me to go to the school. Depressed or not. Elizabeth was gone and my shot was blown out of the waters. It’s been a few years and I decided to open my own kitchen, we’ve become pretty popular. Billiards and commercials. I’ve seen a lot of T.V. Stars pop up around a few times so it was normal. But then one day my world turned upside down. “Table for one, Lucas,” I turned to look at the woman. Her voice like violins playing in harmony to a small drum by the snare that rose into a chaos of trumpets and French horns. Her face was still as it looked years ago, perfect like a flower bed. Dark shades of red flooded her cheeks like a damn broke. She came quick with a hug. “I’ve missed you.” I didn’t know what to do, I just stared. The woman I loved, Elizabeth was back. Had fate taken her to my restaurant? It didn’t matter she was here. “I came as soon as I saw your commercial. I flew here from California. Lucas?” “Elizabeth, I love you.” Her eyes popped then grew soft and tender and she drew me in close for a lingering kiss. “I love you too.” I never let her go again and we were married. Happily ever after.

Grimy, black, cracked fingers pushed its way between the door and the wall. Then they began sliding down to turn off the light. In a breath sucked in for realization, she ran for the window. But she was too late, trapped, lights off. Her cold sweat stuck to her back, or maybe it was the blades, cut sharp to be able to stab prey with its nails

   I hadn’t predicted this was how my winter would be spent. Stuck inside a small town on the outskirts of a destroyed country. Teetering back and forth between pushing me out or keeping me. 
  We were a small group of people: old people, young children and teens. I got scolded from not being born if the property. “He’ll revolt!” “He’ll steal our food then run!” “He can’t be trusted!” I was constantly getting bashed on. It wasn’t my fault I wasn’t born from one of them. I was chosen I like to think. Like God led me to them, but they don’t think as much.

 I grabbed my bag and started for the old barn they let me camp in, I got the job for cleaning it out. Yay! I pushed a small pile of hey off a bigger stack so I could lay down and cover myself. And that’s when I found it.

Was I supposed to tell the others? Will they think it’s my doing? They will certainly cast me out and split me into two for the virus to shred me up. I pulled it out careful not to touch the blood as that’s where the virus seeped through your skin, but then... A cold sensation ran down the back of my hand. It was warm at first so I didn’t realize, my skin cut open splitting like the sea did for Moses. In my case Moses was the infected blood drowned in by the virus for who knows how long. I pushed my fingers against it trying not to create a ruckus, but the blood seemed to defy gravity. It danced into my cut then closed. I dropped. I bit off the meat from the bone, I wondered how long it had been since the virus infected me. I looked down as to what I was eating. A woman. I remembered her too, Jamie Young.
She was quite beautiful for her age, much too young to die as she did. But at least I wasn’t an outcast as her parents had called me. I pulled her into my arms and hugged her, “Thank you for giving me the greatest gift. Tag,” I let her go and dropped her body. I was finally free from having to hide. “You’re it.” She rose with crystallized eyes and a crave for non-infected blood. She turned around to face the village. I wonder who she’d get to first. Jamie let out a terrible wail before she limped down the trail. I turned to her with one last message for the town, “See, your own beloved has became an Outcast too.”