"I want you to help me.” He says, his head turned toward the sky. His legs start to shake, but he uses his hand to stop it. "I need you to help me."

I let out a laugh. "What?" My smile fades. "Are you serious?"

He finally looks at me; his eyes are full of desperation and fear. Is he afraid? He swallows and wipes unfallen tears. My lip quivers as I quickly realize that he's not joking.

"Theo—" I start, but he stops me by squeezing my hand.

"I never even asked for this. I can't—I can't go on any longer." His words pierce my heart, and I can feel it leaking out in the form of tears. I start to cry without wanting to.

"What about mom, huh? Dad? What about me? I didn't—I didn't ask for this. Why would you.. you would do that to me?"

Theo lets go of my hand and covers his face. "Stop." His voice is muffled. "Don't even start with that."

I scoff. "Oh? So, it doesn't matter what I think, then?"

He uncovers his face and slams his fist against the bench, making me jump back. "I'm the one that's dying! I'm the son that they cry about to everyone! I'm the one they pity! I'm the dying one!"

I bite my lip, attempting to stop the anger that's becoming words, but it slips out anyway. "I'm the other one! They didn't come to my graduation because you were in the hospital! I lost four birthdays because of you!"

Theo's expression softens, and he sighs. "I'm asking you this because you're the one I trust the most in the world. You're my best friend, Arthur." He looks back to the sky.

I take a deep breath. "Okay." It's the hardest thing I've had to say in my entire life, but I say it. Theo looks at me and hugs me tightly.

"I'm sorry," he says, even though it's too late.

"I'm sorry," I say, even though it's too early.

I want to live she thought suddenly as her life flashed before her. Beads of blood fell soft as her tears as images haunted her; children whom she had lost,her parents whom she never really had, even her dog so many miles away.
The dog that was specifically trained for her had been taken from her and given to the very last person in the world she wanted her with. She had been deemed unfit to care for the dog meant to care for her. She would have laughed at the ironic horror had she not already been crying. Unbidden, the scenes swam before her, silvery fish to their school. Shots of before she had gone and gotten herself sick. The doctors couldn’t explain it though they pretended to. Using diseases that were naught but initials like AML or CML, long winded words even the doctors themelves couldn’t pronounce, and even those they changed as often as their perfectly ironed shirts. Although she was beyond certain of this; she was equally certain that she did know. She knew in her heart of hearts what it was, what it always had been. It was the very core of her, the part so deep even fancy doctors with all their fancy instruments could never see.
It was her very soul rotting from the inside out. It was all the ugliness inside she had fought so long and hard to hide. It was now oozing out of her very skin for all the world to see; to mock and shame her in the end after all. It was eons of pain that she had held so tightly in her heart it scarcely managed a beat. Unleashed at last, it now ravished freely in her bones.
Beautifully painful images of her first dog and her first child tumbling in a blanket at castlewood when her firstborn had been just a babe and she couldn’t even fathom the thought of them being apart. How could she? When they had so recently been as one. Lord she cried i was so young, and thinking it would always be so. There had still been light in her eyes and curls in her hair with not a single lesion to be found on her then tan skin. “Lord almighty when did i grow so pale?”, ​ ​​ “Is it true then?” the boy interrupted with wonder in his eyes “Do you really see your life flash before your eyes before you die”, excited now. “That way next time Willie gets scared on the train”, fidgeting now as he realized his faux pax, “So long as hes not seeing flashes and just the things outside the windows, he’ll know we’re not going to crash and he needn’t be scared”. ​ “Well I’m not certain if that old wives tale is true”, seeing the dissapointment on Jones’ face and the worry in his eye knowing he was speaking of himself and not his brother; even she felt she could soften (the blow), “In this case it most certainly is true”. Satisfied he sat back. “Now would you have me tell it, if so then hush.” There wasn’t a sound. I want to live she screamed. Not with her lungs but from the depths of her very soul. So loud and terrifying that surely the lord himself above the thunder and terror of all his angels their trumpets blaring and the prayers and screams of millions of other lost souls,surely his son whom she loved and cherished in her bosom above all else, surely he heard her. For she had one last glimpse of the thousands of memories hitting her all at once and that was of June. The only child that remained to her and that was only at a glance. June so named for the peace and sunlight and harvest of love that she would bring back into her life. Only that wasn’t what was to be. No, just like the others she too would be shorn away from her very breast. And yet it was enough. That infinitesimal bit was enough to wholeheartedly change her mind. Ill just use a tourniquet she thought dimly now. She had even brought one along with the blade; but as her life’s blood ran down her arm in rivulets pretty as a stream that made her think of June again. She reached for the rubberband but it was of course like everything else in her life had been. Too little and much much too late. Her last thought before the darkness came was that her God had heard her after all. Because to think of June was to hope, and to cling to hope when the game is set is a much crueler fate than even she could take. Had she lived she would have been condemning herself to this fate as surely as the collapse of the world had been a half decade ago. As she sank deeper into darkness her eyes fluttered one last time and as the tourniquet rolled from her now limp hand Jones could have sworn he heard her whispering the word “June” over and over. He looked out the snowy windows of the train convinced he was hearing things until Willie turned his face up to his older brother’s and asked a simple question “I’m confused Jones, what does she mean? Isn’t it December?” Jones pulled his brother into a hug so full of love it ached. Realizing they had just lost yet another mother and probably their only true friend, he kissed him on the forehead in a rare act of vulnerability and answered honestly “Yes Will. It’s December alright. And yet,” his words fell from his lips as he tried to formulate what he thought her last word could have meant. Completely unaware of the daughter she had been forced to leave behind. He did his best. “ I think she wants us to be brave. Keep going without her. Eventually we’ll hit the safety zone. And eventually June will always come” “But we never got to hear the story”, Willie complained. Thankfully still to young to understand the permanence of death. “I’ll finish it for her someday. I promise. Right now you need your rest. “ His older brother and last ally in the world assured him as he held him closer than ever. No longer caring how weak it made him look, overcome with too many conflicting emotions to count and fought back his own tears this time. Rocking his baby brother back and forth in an effort to soothe them both. His eyes fixed on her blood as it glittered like rubies and ran down the side of the train. She who he thought had loved them as her own for the last four years. That was wrong. He KNEW she did, and yet had still seemingly out of nowhere decided to abandon them. That was a question he knew then and there he would never be able to answer. With that revelation finally unmasked his tears came all at once; mingling with hers to make a crystalline river on the cold pavement of the train. Steam coming up as if from a hot spring. A single element of beauty on this ugly death machine. Blessedly he saw that Willie had fallen asleep in his arms and now that he wasn’t being pressured or asked he thought he really did understand what she meant. The undeniably beautiful river of tears and blood, the years she had done literally anything and everything for them. All without hesitation or heeding any of the sure fire consequences and as he closed his own wet red eyes he himself whispered “June”. Silently vowing to not let her death be in vain, to live by her code of love and to give his own life or even soul for the cause if and when it ever demanded it. And most importantly to never ever let anyone or anything hurt Willie again. He was older now, stronger. And in his opinion had just been taught the simultaneously most beautiful important and strongest prayers he had ever fathomed. “June”, he said again with more conviction and confidence in his voice, less tears in his eyes; and the knowledge that he would continue saying it for the rest of their lives.

“It’s a simple question.”

It wasn’t. I suppose it never is when you’re face to face with evil incarnate. How did I find myself here? One second I’m at a vending machine and the next I’m in this basement.

I have to choose between two people, a doctor who has been tampering with her patients' records to get them their treatment faster, and a nurse who has been euthanising his terminally ill patients.

If I don’t choose it’ll be me he takes. I don’t want anyone to die, but the pressure is on. I have no doubt he means what he says, there is no calling his bluff. Pick or die. Those are my options. I have to weigh them up.

Patients need medicine, if tampering with their records, exaggerating gets them their care faster I can understand it.

If the nurse's patients are terminally Ill who does it matter if he helps them?

It’s a difficult decision, and it has fallen to me because as the guest of a patient I’m supposed to be impartial.

“Choose” he pushes.

I look over at both the choices and sigh.

“The doctor” I say.

“Very good,” the killer says as he begins approaching her.

It started with a goldfish. Well not one goldfish but a bag of goldfish, feeder fish. Ginny had saved five whole dollars to buy her own pet someone just for her. That day in Polly’s Crackers Pet Shop Ginny learned five dollars doesn’t go very far and some pets were raised to be eaten by other pets.

She went home with a bag of fish and a globe tank the owner threw in for free. Al the pet store clerk taught her how to care for them but also told her not to be too sad if they die because things just die on you. As she was cleaning one of the big tropical fish tanks in her and Vin’s family room, she thought about Al’s words and her first five fish. Her bright purple net dipped in and out in delicate loops. A school of black ruby barbs flitted past her net while a lemon striped angelfish waited to rub her fingertips. Their family room, their living room, and one wall of their dining room featured large aquariums.

Upstairs heavy bass rumbled from behind Bethany’s closed bedroom door. Vin Jr. wouldn’t be home till late if he came home at all. Ginny continued cleaning her tanks, from freshwater to saltwater. Flashing silver, loaches wiggled their bellies for her. The side door slammed as Ginny was feeding the calico and red cap orandas. Ginny was carefully to feed only a few granules at a time so the fish would gorge themselves or damage their fins gobbling greedily.

“So I guess there is nothing for dinner again,” Vin called out from the kitchen. The last thee nights she had made dinner and eaten it alone. “There are some nice leftovers,” Ginny called back. She listened to Vin open a beer and down it in front of the open fridge door. She waited tin of fish food in her hand. “I can scramble some eggs,” Ginny said. Her voice was a little too high. She slowed her breathing. Vin didn’t like it when she got too emotional. He didn’t like Ginny angry or sarcastic or sad. He called her tears manipulation. “Why would I expect a hot dinner after working all day?” Vin said into the refrigerator. “Well I work the same hours as you,” Ginny said to her lion head who was pushing the other fancy goldfish around look for food. To Vin, she said, “I could go out and pick up your fav—“ “Forget it, hon, sorry to bite your head off. I have a wicked headache. I’m taking some Tylenol and heading straight to bed.” Vin was in the doorway to the family room. Pain pinched his face and his large hand rubbed the back of his neck. Leaning against the doorway, Ginny remembered how he looked in high school. How they looked together, before Bethany and marriage and bills and house payments, Vin was her person, her one and only. They were Vincent + Virginia in curlicue letters surrounded by hearts and daisies. Without realizing it she stepped towards him. Vin shied away from her. The she remembered Vin didn’t like it when she got too emotional or too close. Ginny turned back to one of her tanks, the cloudy one with the Siamese flying fox fish. Vin headed upstairs. “If you came straight home you would feel better,” she whispered to the tank. “What?” Vin called from the stairs. “Feel better, sweetheart.” Kissing up and down the furry green glass, the emerald striped fish were doing a good job of clearing this aquarium of algae. Ginny put down the goldfish food and picked up an old tin of chemical algae cleaner labeled poison. Vin’s heavy unsteady footsteps walked overhead. She tossed the nearly empty can of Algae Destroyer into the trash bin. Ginny tried not to be too emotional as she tied the bag shut and set it on the back steps for Vin Jr. to take to the driveway’s end.

Ikarius, kings of kings and sons of many great powers before him. He was the last of them before the revolt of his Empire. Hoards of terror and pure evil brought him down to the Chambers of Oríon, where his fingers slip down to the void of eternal distress and long wanted peace. But I had a choice..

For I knew that if I grabbed his wrist it shall only be to say my last goodbye before the swarms of devil spawns granted him a suffering much worse than letting him go.

I loved him, I couldn’t bring myself to let him go.

But I can’t help but get the feeling that brining him up was worse than letting him go, worse than a betrayal. All I could remember was his shrieks before his soul dropped lifeless on the cobbled ground.

Maybe the void wasn’t such a bad idea, for this has scarred me of true emotions.

This shouldn’t be hard. Everyone has to make this decision at some point or another. And they’re fine, so I should be too. If you asked anyone they would scoff at you. The answer is obvious. It’s easy, practical, everything I’ve ever wanted to want. It would kill my family if I didn’t, but I think doing it might just kill me too. I can never be happy being a housewife, going to tea parties and balls and cinching my waist to attract a man. Pretending I cared about conversations that would be obsolete in a few moments, hours, years. I want to meet ME. A girl who’s never seen the light of day before, who doesn’t quite know who she is yet and her place in the world. I want to ask myself questions without receiving a fabricated answer. I want to see the world without rose tinted glasses. But if I choose freedom, it will cost everything. But do I even want THAT?

I’m finishing up my under graduate courses and happen to find myself living with a new couple. They are decent people and we mostly keep to ourselves. They are expecting a second child and this is where my recent dilemma begins. Unexpectedly I get a frantic call from my roommate Marc, he is all over the place and I do understand his request to me. He is with his son Maverick and just got told his wife has been rushed to the local hospital to give birth to their second child anytime now. Marc is desperate and asked if I can look after James, his first son, while he rushes to his wife’s side. But, I advise no I cannot. I am drowning in assignments and have a final exam I need to prepare for tomorrow. He is vivid with me. I apologize for this inconvenience, but I most be strict with my own tasks. In my mind, the should have gotten a babysitter or called their parents. Those are the people that can help with his predicament, not me.

He has just texted that him missing this important event is all my fault. But, I need to stand my ground. This situation has nothing to do with me.

I look at the clock. 11:47PM. Hindsight. It comes too late to do anything more than cause hurt. Unless you hit your target.

He texted me at 5PM saying he would have to stay late at work again after ignoring my message for hours asking if we were still on for dinner at Romano’s. It started months ago but just every few weeks. It wasn’t suspicious at first. Not until I saw the Instagram account. The one I wasn’t supposed to find. That was four months ago. Now, this has become a weekly endeavor for him. He doesn’t know that I know anything, or that I have evidence. And that’s not the only thing he doesn’t know.

I now sit, pictures, screenshots, and bank statements all lying around me. Seven years of memories and love drowning in Patron. But the real treat is my new toy. Yes, you see, I’ve made some loaded purchases myself. So, as the clock turns to 11:57PM, I patiently wait these last few minutes before he tries to quickly sneak into the house and up to the shower; the cylinder spinning and the hammer weighing heavy on my mind.

“E-ov”

The abbreviated words stood out to me like a middle finger in a church parking lot. An insult. A moral wrong.

I had been working at Gerseppi’s Pasta and Pizzeria for three years now, and I had known, all that time, that this day would come. Though I had prayed daily, agonizing with the Eternal Father to spare me this dilemma, the day had still arrived. Some poor, sadistic, freak with defunct tastebuds had finally requested the ultimate evil.

Extra Olives.

I pressed my mouth into the fabric of my faded red Gerseppi’s Pizzeria polo and muffled a cry of frustration. How dare they- How DARE they send such a request into my kitchen. How dare they allow it to pass the threshold of the ticket window. How dare they.

It would have been easier to excuse if the order had come from the new girl, Neveah. Just a spunky little know-nothing teenager that had never worked in a pizzeria before. I could have ignored that. I could have just corrected the order without a second thought, and then informed her of proper pizzaria etiquette afterwards. Oh, how easy it would have been if only the order had come from her.

I fixed my eyes upon the culprit of my moral dilemma as the fat, greasy, son-of-a-moldy-onion-peel waddled into the kitchen like he owned the place. Partially, of course, because he did.

“Gerseppi!” I started, my voice rising to a roar by the end of his unnecessarily long first name.

“What is it this time, Rodney?” Gerseppi replied in that tired, annoyed New Yorker accent of his.

I held up the grease-stained ticket with Gerseppi’s grimy fingerprint plastered plainly on it.

“What is this? Extra Olives? You let some Bonehead order extra olives and then have the nerve to send it into my kitchen?”

“Just make the order and send it out, Rod. Don’t make a big deal out of it like you did when I switched to whole wheat flour.”

“Whole wheat flour is a blaspheme to pizza!!” My voice cracked under the force of my fury. “But I made it anyway!! But extra olives, Gerseppi?? That’s a bridge too far!”

Gerseppi smashed his fist down on a plump, juicy tomato, launching freshly-made tomato sauce in every direction like a wave of Italian vengeance across the disarranged kitchen.

“You’ll make that pizza and you’ll make it now!!” His sweaty jowls undulated with fury as smashed tomato dripped down off of them.

“I’d sooner die!” I screamed back, launching a flurry of chopped habaneros into his face. He screamed in agony as the pepper juice filled his eyes before reaching for a knife and launching it at my head. I ducked under the projectile, leaving it free to slice into the gas line behind me. Quickly, I jerked up the hot skillet of cherries for my cherries Jubilie and ignited it with the gas stovetop. I pulled on the copper line, aiming it at Gerseppi’s face before holding the flaming skillet up to the escaping fumes.

A line of fire billowed out toward Gerseppi, but the oily hog doused the flame with a bucket of discount alfredo sauce and then threw the emptied bucket at me. I attempted to dodge but the sauce on the floor hindered my normally graceful movements, putting me in the unfortunate position of having a bucket lined with expired alfredo sauce on my head. I wretched and stumbled back into more sauce, quickly losing my footing, causing me to fall against the pasta bowls, launching spaghetti, ziti, rotini, and gnocchi into the air.

I tore the bucket from my head, scrambling to my feet, expecting the italian whale to be waddling toward me with all his might. Gerseppi, however, was still where he had been previously standing, his face blanched white and his eyes wide as saucers. He made an odd sound in his throat and fell to his knees.

“He’a choking!” One of the low-rent, untalented, minimum-wage line cooks exclaimed.

“What??” I exclaimed in horror

“One of the gnocchi balls launched into his throat and got stuck!”

Gerseppi’s eyes were starting to roll back into his head and he began shaking all over, his rolls of fat jiggling like cold lard on a serving tray.

“Gerseppi!” I cried with utmost despair. Desperate to save him, I rushed to his side and tried to wrap my arms around his midsection to give him the heimlich maneuver. My efforts were entirely in vain, however. He was much too wide and cylindrical. Panicking, I searched my mind for a solution. What was the one thing that could make Gerseppi wretch? Then it hit me. I ran to the vegetable chopping station and grabbed the one thing I knew would make Gerseppi’s stomach reject everything it has ingested, taking anything else in the way, along with it. Olives.

I rushed back to Gerseppi’s side and shoved a handful of the dreadful orbs into his mouth and forced his powerful jaws shut. His eyes instantly refocused, all sign of irises gone as he blanched whiter than the bleached flour he no longer allowed us to cook with.

The flurry of things that came out of that man's mouth would haunt me for years to come. Mcdonald’s burgers, children’s toys, three decomposing rats, and even a piece of tablecloth that had a bundle of grapes printed on it. I shuddered and decorated the floor with my own lunch of oranges and chewed up bread.

Both of us fell onto our backs, our chests heaving.

“I’m sorry, boss, I’ll do what you say next time, I promise,” I told him. He shook his head and waved his hand, but still didn’t respond for several long seconds.

“Na, na, you was right, Rodney. I shouldn't've accepted that order. I should have kept the status quo. I’m sorry, I hope you can forgive me.”

“Forgiven boss, forgiven.”

Gerseppi’s sighed and rolled over to get up. I followed, a bit more nimbly. We wiped our hands off on our aprons, sheepishly and nodded to each other before heading back to work. After I had reached my station, just before Gerseppi stepped back out into the dining room, he turned to me.

“Oh by the way, table four said they want you to add black pepper to their cheesy bread.”

“I’ll never do it!” I screamed, throwing my pot of steaming hot marinara sauce at his face. He ducked and grabbed a porcelain plate, launching it like a frisbee while screaming:

“You’ll do it and you’ll like it!!”

The doctor tells me I should be able to return to work Friday. Gerseppi said I have to be back by Wednesday. In response, I mailed him an envelope full of olives I had stashed in my apron.

It’s a simple choice.

Frannie or Hayden.

Frannie and I were best friends until around fifth grade, until she and I had a falling out when we got to middle school and she decided to befriend the popular girls instead of me.

Hayden and I briefly dated freshman year. He’s a good kisser, pretty hot if I do say so myself. He’s sweet, but we couldn’t be more than friends so I haven’t talked to him in a year and a half.

Frannie stands in the field, fidgeting with her hands. Her hair is in a messy ponytail and her right shoe is untied. Her expression is one of pure fear, as well as Hayden’s. His hair is still buzzed, which he somehow pulls off. He’s bouncing his leg and itching his head.

I’m making a pros and cons list when someone shouts: “Hurry up and choose already!”

“Frannie,” I say. “Frannie can be on my dodgeball team.”