He’s taunting her. With his eyes, his sneer, and the ring in his hand—a ring that he’s placed on the table to let it spin and spin like a prize wheel at a carnival. With every spin, Prudence's stance stiffens as she watches. Her hands loosen at her sides as the temptation to grab the ring and run grows but she stands still, clenching her hands and trying to recede the furious expression on her face. She couldn’t let him know that he was getting to her. So with all her strength, she makes her face blank as a fresh page in a diary.

The spinning ring is worthless with its small diamond that’s barely seeable by the human eye, but to her, it is worth the price of a large gem the size of a soap bar, which is exactly why he stole it. Her precious ring is a grand piece of a love story that'll never rust. The thief in front of Prudence is named Heath Bradwell, a man whose ambitions lie in suppressing other’s hopes and dreams. To his side is his minion, Nicholas Mills, who looks bored as he holds a sword in his hand aimed at her. At the door is their business partner, Andrew Stevenson, who is playing with his dagger, waiting for her in sick anticipation to attempt to flee.

The men all wear dapper suits in the same shade of black, looking dressed up for a lavish dinner at an elite club rather than a day spent torturing poor Prudence. Meanwhile, Prudence’s dress, with its frayed bottom, skewed sleeves from constant mending, and an overall dirty skirt with an array of stains, looked like fitting attire for the unfortunate scenario she'd been dragged into. Some relief should be courting Prudence with the knowledge that even with all of Heath’s wealth, there wasn’t any modern or alchemical based technology in any of their grimy hands, as it'd be harder to outrun one of those more fatal weapons she heard people whisper about in the general store. Heath was adamantly against change, not for good reason but because he feared that easier public access to things would cause traditional values to diminish.

“If we make it easier to cook, what would a housewife do with her day?” Prudence had overheard him say to his minion in the general store after attending an annual world’s fair.

“It’s ludicrous,” Nicholas responded. “Next, we’ll be making it easier for them to clean and shortening their skirts.”

Prudence remembered, biting her tongue as she placed a coin in the box at the counter to activate the metal hand to ring her up. Now, as she watches Heath and sees him open his mouth to speak, she finds the thought of keeping silent to any sure to be anger-inducing statement unbearable, but still, she manages to hold her tongue.

“I wouldn’t have had to do this if you just agreed to my proposal,” Heath complains, stopping the ring from spinning.

There is a strange clicking sound when it stops but Heath thinks nothing of it. Prudence, however, fears that it’s broken but would a broken ring make a clicking sound? Prudence hadn’t ever owned a ring before or much jewelry at all. At the age of ten, she was adopted by an elderly seamstress who took pity on her after she saw her pleading for food in the bustling city streets. She had taken Prudence back to her small home in a town that somehow felt even smaller. They couldn’t afford any of the latest technology offered or even a discount day airship ticket to the next city over, so they used worn-out fabric from clothes on the verge of death to make clothes for themselves, with the rest of their money going to premium fabric for their customers. It was still the greatest life Prudence had known, for it was a life where she had gone to bed with at least one full meal in her belly and didn’t sleep in a blanket of running rats for warmth.

Heath stands up from the desk that he’s sitting at, then tucks the ring in his pocket. As he walks near her, she takes a step back. Her face stays blank. He stops walking, stopping a bit away from her but still too close. For a moment, his eyes appraise her like she’s a jewel in a store, and then he wags his finger at her as if she’s a child that he needs to chastise.

“I’m not a bad man, Ms. Robinson,” he says as if he didn’t get his friends to drag her into this room. “Which is exactly why I’ll give this ring back to you if you agree to pay me a decent price.”

His price was steep, as he placed her freedom on the edge of a cliff. There were so many times he declared his love for her but there was never any love in his eyes. To him, love is a prison cell and he is the jailer, always holding the key out of reach. To Prudence, love is a sacred oath of devotion where both sides find harmony.

“It’s not worth much,” Prudence complains as she keeps her tone neutral.

Heath takes the ring out of his pocket and brings it to his lips, a look of condescension on his face as he does so. Another clicking sound emits from the ring but again, he doesn’t react. She wants so badly to scream at him and snatch it away but she does nothing.

Yes, she is stuck just watching him like an impatient passenger does a train station clock as they wait for their train.

“It’s worth a lot to you, right?” Heath counters, then scoffs. “I don’t know why you still carry a ring that a dead man gave you.”

Her mind drifts to the love she watched perish all those years ago. His name was Chester Crane, an aspiring inventor who was a little bit of trouble but the love he offered felt worth every adversary they had to face. He gave her that ring on a rainy day as they hid in some stranger’s unlocked shed to shield themselves from the heavy rain.

“You might regret this,” Chester said as he pushed the ring onto her finger.

“There’s nothing I regret involving you,” she responded, then gave him a brief kiss.

She took his rough, calloused hand in hers as she pulled away from their kiss. There were times when she held it and asked him a thousand questions about his day, but Chester was a man where few answers lived. Questions, however, had made a nest in his mind. Still, despite his evasiveness, it didn’t stop her heart from becoming melded to his. His eyes looked a bit sad as she rubbed her thumb against his hand.

“You say that now, but there’ll be a day.”

That day never came, and even a year after his death, she still has no regrets concerning her love for him. She only wishes for more time in her beloved’s arms and fantasies of never-ending days at his side.

“You’ll never understand,” Prudence says to Heath. “You’d have to actually have the ability to love someone.”

One side of Heath’s lips goes up, creating an angry smirk that becomes a sneer. “Have I not shown you any affection? Why the fact that pretty face of yours doesn’t have any cuts on it is proof I’m fond of you, isn’t it?”

“I’m not marrying you,” Prudence remarks, her tone firm.

“I guess this ring is mine now. Maybe I can have this melted down and turned into something useful.”

Prudence can’t stay still any longer. She is finally ready to jump and make a grab for the ring but a knock at the study door stops her.

“I told the maid to not let in any visitors.” He complains under his breath, then motions for his fellow miscreants to hide their weapons.

They do so and Andrew opens the door. He’s wordless and says nothing about who’s on the other side. Prudence notices him slouch forward but Heath and Nicholas are too busy glaring at her to see. Both of their eyes are full of promises of pain, so Prudence contains herself once again, keeping her hands to her side along with a neutral expression. Seconds later, Andrew falls back to the floor with a loud thud. This catches both the attention of Heath and Nicholas but Prudence is more focused on the figure that appears. It’s a woman with golden skin that looks almost metallic. Her eyes are cold and she walks into the room with a vengeful swagger. In her hands, there is a small dagger that drips with Andrew’s blood. Her next actions are a symphony of cruel chaos but Prudence can’t look away. She watches as Heath takes a dagger to the stomach, then the chest, followed by a cracking kick to the leg. He falls over, crashing like a glass bowl on a table to the floor and only Nicholas is left. Nicholas screams and scrambles to a nearby window, jumping out, but just before he’s fully out, the golden woman grabs his leg.

She twists it like a deformed pretzel and the sight of it causes Prudence to lean over and vomit. When Prudence straightens herself, Nicholas is dead. The golden woman looks at her with her cold eyes and Prudence fears she is next but the golden woman doesn’t walk over to her.

Instead, she picks up something from the ground.

A ring. Prudence’s precious ring. She hands it over to Prudence, who reaches for it with reluctance, afraid that the golden woman might harm her. The golden woman is silent and Prudence studies her more thoroughly. The golden woman’s eyes are alight with a golden hue and seem almost doll-like. Her earlier observation of metallic skin appeared to be right, as the golden woman’s skin looks like it was made of gold strictly judging from appearance alone.

“What are you?”

In response, the golden woman points to her neck and makes a spinning motion with her hands. Prudence approaches the golden woman and, on closer inspection, sees the initials of two C’s engraved on her. As Prudence backs away, the golden woman opens her mouth and the sound that comes out is the same clicking sound her ring emitted earlier.

“Give it back.” He dangled the necklace between his fingers. The purple jewel swayed slightly back and forth. “Why? It’s not essential to your power. In fact it may only get in your way when you fight.” She stretched her hand out to him. “Now.” He shrugged. “Alright.” He takes the few steps to place it in her palm, but he stops. “Ah, wait a minute. I know why you want it so badly now. He gave it to you, didn’t he? Your precious suit and tie friend?” Her grimace deepened. “Does he give you goodies and treats often? If we’d known that’s all it took for you to bend, we wouldn’t have threatened you during this deal.” “You’re not as observant as I thought you were. I had it before I met him, I had it when you and I met.” “Oh yes, how clumsy of me.” He brought the trinket to his chest. She waited patiently for his next move, but was she was losing it internally. He brought him up on purpose. “How about we trade?” “I could snap your neck and take it back from you.” “Think of what my lord would think if you did such a thing.” He shook his head, pretending to be disturbed. “I’m sure you’d enjoy it in the moment, but the consequences for such actions on me...” “What do you want?” “I’ll give this back to you, if you kill someone for me.” She blinked. “Is slaying monsters not enough for you? Now you want me to kill a person?” “I didn’t say they were human, dear.” Releasing an aggravated sigh, she folded her arms. “I’m not killing someone for you.” “Awww, too bad. I guess I’m keeping this then.” He had the audacity to turn and leave the office, and she had the motive to jump on his back and slam his head into a wall. “Wait.” He stopped at the door, his silhouette encircled from the light flooding in from the hallway. “Hmm?” “Who is it... you want me to kill?”

It would be an easy trade. She honestly laughed when she saw the note left behind by the thief. What was demanded was nothing compared to what was stolen. But then she thinks, one man’s trash is another’s treasure.

“Do you have what was requested?” “Requested? Ha! That’s almost a kind way to put blackmail.” “The Twizzlers, Karter.” Ace says in a board tone. “You’re lucky I still had this wretched pack of ‘candy’ from the time Fabio gave it to me thinking it was a gift.” She grumble chunking the Big Bag of Twizzles at Ace. Karter looks pointedly at him and asks, “My 49 flavor Jelly Belly Jar if you would be so kind.” He sets it down in front of her not sparing a glance as he dug into is bag of candy attained through dodgy deeds. Chuckling to herself she walks away from her criminal best friend. Popping jellybeans into her mouth as she saunters home.

Hi so this is a story of my dad but you will find out who he is so let’s get started

On a hot summer evening and me and my sister and two brothers were having a party and ther was a few of us there we had some drinks and then we herd a gun shot that echod frout the house then everybody was terrified the screams we started to runaway from the house but we got cout and locked in the basement we were ther for I don’t know how long we were there but the screaming slowly faded away.

Then we heard a noise we fort it was the police but it was the man thay took 1 of my brothers but I stole the keys and I let myself go and snuck upstairs and I knew what I had to do so I got to the phone and I called him or my dad he’s known as the man in the in the skey masc and Jason he did not say anything I just said that we need help and 1 minute later we knew he was here from he’s Hevey brething

Remember the time and novelty of having physical copies of your memories in forms of polaroids and glossy photographs that had the date printed on the back. Well, imagine if instead it was not physical but stored on a camera. Although it saved space, it was also more susceptible to risk of loss. This was when, as I was snapping some street art in the rough area of town, my camera was snatched from my hands. I found myself surrounded in a dirt of thugs. They encircled me like hyenas would do stop a defenceless meal.

On that phone held my adventures and precious memories. The leader asked for some money for it back. I gave this some thought. Why would they even take it if they didn’t want it. Why not just rob me of my money. Why hold onto something for no value to them. I guess that was the point. I handed them all the cash from my wallet. The leader looked at the scraps of scarce notes and weighed it with the camera like a balance.

They took off and as they left, he threw the camera to the floor.

“Hey, hey, hey. Look, I didn’t mean it guys! Just... give me a day. A day, seriously, and then I’ll give you what you want!” He stuttered on his knees, begging like a sinner.

They stared at him unsympathetic. A grimace rolled over one of the group’s face. The three women sat on the tattered red sofa in the warehouse, the lights dimmed and focus held on the man in front.

“You have twenty four hours before we send someone after you.” The woman with red hair spoke with a rich deep voice, the threat sounding bored. The man sighed loudly with relief before clambering to his feet.

“You won’t regret this, uh... thank you,” he jumped to his feet before scurrying out the door, shoes clomping and echoing throughout the warehouse.

The woman with the red hair turned to the other two with a sly grin.

“Hannah, good job with finding out his little ‘secret’. The footage is more than enough to jeopardise his marriage.”

The woman called Hannah glanced up through long lashes, running a hand through her cropped electric blue hair.

“It was easy, Charlie... I could have done it blindfolded,” she spoke boisterously, like a hyperactive toddler. A wide smile graced her features, showing her tooth gap and wonky teeth. She grabbed a wrapped sweet from the pocket of her tracksuit and popped it in her mouth, before offering one to the others.

The redhead, Charlie, glanced at the other woman with eagle eyes.

“Andrea, you aren’t speaking much. What’s wrong?”

Andrea stared at the floor intently, her dark hair covering her face. She spoke softly with an air of grace. “Isn’t this technically blackmail?” She sounded confused and hesitant, as if worried what the others thought.

“Andrea, we’ve been scamming people for years. You think a little blackmail makes it even more morally bad? This guy’s cheating on his husband, he deserves to get stolen from. You had no problem scamming those innocent elderly women for their hard earned pensions,” Charlie said with poisoned words. “Sounds like it’s getting too real for you.”

“Scamming people who are stupid enough to click our scam links, I can deal with. Actively going out of our way to look into some random persons life and then in person blackmail him for millions of dollars? Uh, of course it’s more real than internet scamming!” She sounded indignant and almost regretful.

“You’re in or out Andrea. Why not sit back and see where this takes us, yeah?”

I’ve looked everywhere. Up down. High and low. However, I just can’t seem to find IT. My grandma’s urn. Where is my grandma’s urn? Left right. It isn’t here. I need to find it. Under the couch. No in the closet? Cabinet. No no no! Where is it! The phone rings. Once twice thrice. I ignore. I go the kitchen I keep looking. I need to find it. It was suppose to be out on its mantle today like always. But it wasn’t there. I check my bedroom. Did I put it there on accident. No. It isn’t there. My main bathroom. My other bathroom. No no no! The phone rings again. I keep looking. On the fourth call in a row I answer, “Hello? Is this important? “Yes.” The voice on the other end is heavy with a thick accent. “Out with it.” My eyes search the room Nothing. Nothing at all “We have it!” “Have what!” I keep looking. “Nana’s urn. We have it be ready tomorrow.” I freeze. How could they disrespect the woman that raised me like that?

“Don’t!” I yell out at her. Begging for her not to let go of the golden chain. “Why not?” she taunts me. She swings the chain back and forth. “It means everything to me.” I take a step forward but freeze when she opens her palm and the chain drops. Thankfully it doesn’t slip from her fingers and she still has a hold on it. “I know.” she smirks. “Why don’t we strike a deal?” her eyes widen and she’s got an idea brewing in her head. “What? Tell me. Just please don’t drop it.” I tighten my hands into fists and I physically have to stop myself from moving any further. “Kill him. Kill my brother.” fire burns in her eyes and I nearly lose my breath. “Kill him? I can’t kill him.” It all comes out in a question. Because I already know that this is something that she has decided. “Do it. And you can have your precious trinket back.” she laugh menacingly and teases me whilst dangling the chain over the bridge. The bridge that looks over the fast, running water. The chain will definitely be swept away in that.

It was a scarf. Nothing of real value, but had some form of value nevertheless. I would wear it often, on chilly and cold days and when it was warm I would hang it on a hook next to my bed. Many find it weird, but it’s my prized possession. No matter how tattered and dirty it got, it always felt fresh to me and I would always have it by my side.

But that was my thought process last week.

Today, I sit in my bed, looking at the crumpled note on my blankets. I received it only two days after my beloved scarf went missing. Reading the first two sentences forced me into rage, quickly balling the note and throwing it at the wall.

But it had information that was valuable to me; information that would lead me to something even more valuable.

My scarf.

——— Dear Ginny,

I hear you like this scarf of yours, no? You probably believe you misplaced it somewhere in your room, however that’s sadly not the case (for you that is). I have obtained your precious scarf by means I have no intention of sharing. If you don’t believe my statement, I made sure to leave a small piece of the fabric attached to this note. This scarf makes no use to me, but you are a child of wealth, so I’ll propose a ransom. $20,000 for this worthless scarf you find valuable or it will be “burned at the stake”. You have 3 weeks to decide. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. :)

<3, They

During the snow storm I noticed it was missing. The next day I expected to find it but it was definitely gone. I tried to think when was the last time I had it...why hadn’t I noticed the absence? I started sending out tiny messages, hints to those close to me. Questions. When had they last seen me with it? I began to doubt that I’d even had it. It was then that I received the ransom note. Scrawled in bad penmanship on hastily torn paper. They said they could help.. they just wanted one thing. One small thing that I wouldn’t notice. I thought about it..I did. But it made no sense to me.. why would I give up hope? Surely I needed that, especially to find what I lost. I’m sure I’d find optimism again...one day.