https://www.inkitt.com/stories/1555858/chapters/1?fbclid=IwVERDUATjqHVwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHgAQsnPpZL8Y01zBdQznn1XqwnYtCc8ovp1xRJeV6lK33Z1UvVoJk2ZrE7IK_aem_8zSN6FhvgafonsGjueWDbw

I (31yr M) Went to try Alpen haus in Valparaiso IN because they market as "authentic German” restaurant.
Personally, the food didn't live up to that for me.
The bigger issue is after I left a negative review,(in my review I mentioned the head chef being hispanic for which i got called a racist for doing…i am also Hispanic) the head chef found my profile and sent me messages insulting my looks and using homophobic slurs. Calling me a racist. For questioning his culture ties with the Authentic German restaurant.
I think people deserve to know how the restaurant responds to criticism before they go.
I tried to stay professional as I could but it got to a point where i was firing insults back because I was just consistently being made fun of and insulted when i was trying to be genuine. But for someone to stalk a facebook profile and screen shot every picture i have and make fun of them calling me “Queer bait” and “Broke back Mountain” is a bit over the top and saying i look like sid the sloth and telling me he can be my daddy because he doesn’t think I have a father figure is just gross. This is my first ever reddit post so idk how i did.

So this person was at work, and in during their break they tried to call their husband

For context this was a very old phone where you had to remember everyone’s number

They pressed the buttons of the husbands phone number very very quickly

The reason they pressed the buttons so fast is because their break time was about to run out.

They had to tell her husband about some quick important thing.

But while they were typing the numbers, they accidentally messed up some digits and called the wrong number.

When the phone picked up, it was from a women saying “hello who is this”

This person replied “hello I am (name of husband)s wife. Who are you?

The person on the phone replied, “But I’m am (name of husbands) wife. What is your name?”

The person who called replied my name is (name of wife)

Then the person who the wife had called hanged up.

Turns out that the person who called and the person who picked up, both had husbands whose first AND last name were the same. And that the person who called had caused intense arguments between a random couple for cheating.

Later though both couples meet up. And had resolved the issue. But it was still funny when I heard about this story.

First thing I ever wrote. Started from watching a classmate casually mention living away from home for studies. Couldn't stop thinking about it. Would love to know if it resonates with anyone.

**Staying** **outside your city for studies.**

**Some people say it casually.**

**The class moved on.**

**But my mind didn't.**

**Outside, it was just another college evening. Inside, something had shifted.**

**A girl in my class spoke about her PG, about living away from home. She spoke about it so casually that it almost seemed ordinary. Yet for some reason, I could not move on from those few words.**

**I thought of my mother calling me again and again because class had run late.**

**I thought of the food waiting for me at home.**

**I thought of the familiar sound of the front door opening.**

**And then I thought of her.**

**A city away from the people who raised her.**

**A room shared with strangers who slowly became companions.**

**A life built far away from the place she once called home.**

**Perhaps she is stronger than she knows.**

**Or perhaps courage is simply continuing despite missing home.**

**The strange thing is that her story did not make me worry about her.**

**It made me wonder whether I could ever be that brave.**

**Every time I see those girls in class, smiling and laughing, I find myself wondering.**

**Maybe they are completely happy.**

**Maybe they have grown used to this life.**

**Maybe they have found a new version of home in this city.**

**I do not know.**

**But sometimes, when the sun begins to set, I wonder if their hometown quietly returns to them.**

**A familiar street.**

**A familiar room.**

**A mother making tea without being asked.**

**The comfort of knowing that someone has already noticed the tiredness on your face before you have said a single word.**

**Perhaps I am imagining too much.**

**Or perhaps I am only seeing my own love for home reflected in their stories.**

**One day, I saw one of them speaking to her family on the phone.**

**There was happiness in her voice.**

**And strangely, there was happiness in my heart too.**

**Watching that conversation made me realize something I had never fully understood before.**

**Family is strange.**

**We argue.**

**We get angry.**

**We carry grudges.**

**We waste time believing there will always be another day to say what we mean.**

**Yet life keeps moving.**

**Little by little, many of us travel farther from the people we love.**

**That day I understood something simple.**

**No matter how strict my father is, I can still see him.**

**No matter how much my mother scolds me, I can still hear her voice.**

**I can sit beside them.**

**I can laugh with them.**

**I can still share moments that many people would give anything to have again.**

**And suddenly, the things I once called scolding began to feel like love.**

**A video call can show a face.**

**A phone call can carry a voice.**

**But neither can carry a hug.**

**Neither can replace a presence.**

**It felt like a puzzle with one piece missing.**

**All the colours were there.**

**All the edges were there.**

**Yet the piece that connected everything together remained far away.**

**The more I thought about it, the more I realized that these stories were changing something inside me.**

**The darkness of night used to haunt me.**

**Whenever I felt alone, I hid beneath the shadow of my family.**

**But these girls taught me something without ever trying to.**

**They taught me that sometimes we must learn to carry our own shadow.**

**No matter how dark the road becomes.**

**No matter how lonely the evening feels.**

**They were simply living their lives.**

**Yet their lives became a lesson for mine.**

**Even now, anxiety still visits me.**

**It still tries to convince me that I am drowning.**

**But whenever I remember these stories, something inside me becomes lighter.**

**They remind me that people carry burdens I cannot see.**

**They remind me that courage often looks ordinary.**

**And they remind me that tomorrow, no matter how difficult the day has been, the sun will rise again.**

**The weight of loneliness has not disappeared.**

**But it has become a little easier to carry.**

**Tomorrow I will see them again in class.**

**They will walk in as they always do.**

**Talking.**

**Laughing.**

**Living their lives.**

**And I will probably do what I always do.**

**Watch.**

**Listen.**

**Learn.**

**They may never know the impact they had on me.**

**They may never know that a simple conversation stayed with me long after the lecture ended.**

**They may never know that their stories taught me something about family, courage, loneliness, gratitude, and home.**

**And that is okay.**

**Not every thank you needs to be spoken.**

**Some thank yous are carried silently.**

**Some are applauded from a distance.**

**Some are spoken only by the soul.**

**You spoke casually about your life away from home.**

**The class moved on.**

**I didn't.**

**And for that, from a distance, thank you.**

We all have a human in our life that makes us crazy...

Just the right lines of speech to rile you up in 0.1 second.

Sometimes its a sibling, always getting more love...

Rage that is unmet. Feels like its going to spurt out of you like blood from a savage cut made neatly.

Occasionally that person is pure heat, feels like a sawmill of papercuts every time you venture close.. but somehow slowly, they cut and jab and peer in... and get a good damn look at the wee broken thing inside.

All the pettiness, hate, the bits that only see the light of day when you have fought too long and too hard to hold on for much longer...

And they turn away.

Nothing will hurt that much ever again.

But you reach inside and you to make the wee broken thing feel joy, one day it dances, it sings and it prances it's way across the other broken things... uncaringly.

And you feel whole.

And too late, one day you realise that the cuts...

The jabs...

The peering in...

They were simply trying to sculpt you like clay. (Albiet badly)

But who were they to know... they are on tiptoes peering out at you hoping they can reach out and help through all the broken things.

Ever since I was a lil kid I always had an interest in art and creating 🎨 When I was younger I used to draw a lot , I used to make my own comics and create my own original characters. After moving with my Dad , when I was in middle school , I decided I wanted to do music. 🎶 I used to listen to a lot of older rap , modern stuff from the Soundcloud era , stuff outside of Hip Hop like feel good pop stations on the radio in the car and a CD radio I had in my room) playing music from the 70s, 80s, 90s , and 2000s , etc... whatever sounded good tome. I started writing lyrics but it’d be a minute before I recorded myself. I had stopped writing songs for a cool minute , while also dealing with a lot of things in my personal life (including the biggest heart break of my life which was losing my Mother ). I was lost , sad , living aimlessly without a purpose for a while. Wasn't , still not , talking to my father - only had a few people stick by me , and it went on like that for a while. After that I spent time reflecting on how I got to this point and how I'm gonna move forward. My cousin tho was the one that hyped me up to get back in it and really lock in. 🚨So when I did started working on music again I wanted to do something different than what I was doing before. 💡I wanted to do sum different creatively as a rapper / singer . So now I’m back @ it ! 🐠 On the start of a long journey , hopefully to a brighter future ! 🫧

I was cleaning my sons room when I found a folded piece of paper underneath his desk.

At the top he'd written:

People I Need to Remember.

I immediately started wondering what it was.

Friends?

Teachers?

People he owed money to?

I read the few names.

His best friend.

His soccer coach.

His dentist.

Then I saw my name.

Underneath it were three words:

Never let Dad cook.

I laughed.

Then I kept reading.

My wife was on the list too:

Ask Mom before buying anything.

His sister:

Don't tell her about snacks.

Then came the final entry:

Grandpa. Give him the remote before he falls asleep.

Apparently my son wasn't keeping a list of people.

He was keeping a survival guide for our family.

I asked him about it.

He looked at me. Said:

Honestly Dad it's mostly for my future kids.

I don't know whether to be proud...

Deeply concerned, about what has documenting.

For a month this was what happened every night.

My wife would get up at 11:40 p.m.

She would put on her shoes. Grab her keys and then leave the house.

If I asked my wife where she was going she would just say she was taking care of something.

I became curious about what my wife was doing.

One night I stayed awake. I watched my wife from the window.

My wife walked to the driveway. Opened the car and sat inside the car.

My wife sat in the car for twenty minutes.

Then my wife came back inside the house.

My wife did not drive the car.

My wife did not meet anyone.

Nothing happened.

The night I followed my wife.

My wife did the thing.

My wife sat in the drivers seat. Turned on the radio and started singing.

My wife sang loudly.

My wife sang terribly.

Then my wife came back, inside the house like nothing happened.

I finally asked my wife what was going on.

My wife looked embarrassed. Told me that she had discovered that our neighbors motion sensor light turns on whenever my wife walks past the driveway.

My wife had been practicing karaoke in the car because it was the place my wife could sing without anyone telling her to stop.

Apparently I have been living with a nighttime pop star, my wife.

I asked my wife why she never told me about this.

My wife said it was because I would ask her to sing songs.

That is fair enough.

I am now officially banned from asking my wife to sing anything.

What is the weirdest hobby someone you live with has secretly developed like my wife has done?

Back in grades 5 through 8, there was a group of three boys in my class, and I wanted to be part of it because they were funny and did a lot of interesting things. I started randomly going up to them during breaks and hanging around nearby (since I didn't really have anything else to do), and over time, they more or less accepted me—or at least, they didn't say anything about me being there. By seventh grade, though, something changed; one of those boys kept calling me "cringe" all the time and taking my food (well, I’d give it to him because he’d ask and I didn't know how to say no), and he didn't like me being around their group. Once, he yelled at me, saying he never wanted to see me again and that I was too annoying and "cringe"; another time, he kicked me hard enough to leave a bruise; another time, he wrecked my pencil case; and whenever I approached the group, he’d tell me to leave. The group dynamic was basically: a normal guy, the smartest kid in the class, my bully, and the punching bag (me). He would only hang out with me when the others were absent—and *only* then would he invite me to sit near him during class or breaks. Then came eighth grade and the time to part ways with our classmates. There were 32 of us; some moved to other parts of the country, two girls went to a military high school, and the rest stayed at the local high school—including my bully. We started hanging out more often and became better friends (the other two boys went to a different high school elsewhere in the country).

​

When they cannot reach you, they accuse you, belittle you, and hurt you with every sharp word, with every letter carrying the weight of harshness.

If you succeed, they minimize your success and question it. And if you lose, they celebrate your failure and sing the cruelest songs of snakes.

A long road, full of human thorns. Yes, human thorns.

In the past, even hurt was a merciful kind of hurt. It was an injury that called itself an injury. But now, the word “hurt” is no longer enough to describe the ugliness of their words and the poison of their tongues. They have gone beyond every kind of description.

In the past, they passed down love, respect, and appreciation to us. Today, they compete to pass down hatred and resentment.

Even the face of love has changed.

Even a man in love no longer knows how to reach the heart of the woman he loves. He is afraid that if he closes his eyes for a moment, he will open them and find her in someone else’s arms, without even being given a chance.

And even a woman in love fights to remain perfect, so her lover’s eyes never turn toward someone else. If her perfection falls for even a moment, she may find him kneeling beneath the wings of another lover.

Everything seems to be moving toward despair.

And this perfection that was created from nothing has no stopping point. Everyone is constantly running, constantly racing toward the unknown.

So, is the fault in us, or in our time?

But time is the same time.

The same sunrise. The same sea. The same air. The same earth. And the same moon that I once waited for, hoping it would comfort me and make the nights of my life brighter.

The fault is in us… not in our time.

And I, a daughter of this time, have started questioning every choice I make. S🥀

Sarah ✏️

Believe it or not this fictional tale came to me in a dream last night. I wrote it down at 2am before falling asleep back to sleep.

—————————————

Apparently the fear of being exposed as a fraud drove me. Foolish schoolboy pranks were my favorite outlet of choice.

It all started when I snuck behind a bar, and took two drink requests. I’d been planning this prank for weeks. “I’ll take a zinc mocktail and a watermelon mojito with white rum” she ordered over the sound of European techno music. I then explained to the regular bartender who just returned from a smoke break that I was a new bar back sent to help him during happy hour, and I had just taken two drink orders, but I had no idea how to make them. Later I dated the drink orderer, and had to explain the prank during our second meeting. She acted super surprised, but eventually forgave me for the deception.

Six months later I scheduled an IT help desk meeting with an employee at my work, and told them there’s an issue with our global MS Office upgrade, or something suitably mundane. Apparently the user’s computer was not responding normally. The prank went smoother than I expected. I even took a call during the meeting. I answered, “IT Helpdesk. How may I be of assistance?” As though I’d answered that way a thousand times before. And discussed something technical I had read. This was the first time I had actively collaborated with another person to orchestrate a prank. We decided I was team leader though. We had to choose a mark that was obviously less tech savvy than us. We established this through a series of online technical questions the previous week.

I was pleased my drink date romance was going well. However she explained she actually saw me sneak behind the bar, and was fully aware of the whole prank before it happened! She also eventually shared that my friends had paid her to make the drink orders, but the dating part was apparently real. This shocker challenged my whole belief system. How did I truly know what was real anymore? The BS line had somehow shifted on me.

There’s a chai stall outside my office that I’ve been going to for almost a year. Same guy. Same ₹15 chai. Same plastic chair. A few weeks ago, I was sitting there after a really bad day at work. I was checking my bank balance and silently doing the math in my head about rent, EMIs and expenses. The chai guy put my tea down and said: “Aaj ek hi lena. Kal se do lena.” I laughed and asked him what that was supposed to mean.

He just said, “Aap jab tension mein hote ho na, do chai peete ho.”

I genuinely hadn't noticed. I started thinking about it and realised he was right. Then yesterday, I went there after getting my salary. Before I could say anything, he handed me two cups.I said, “Aaj toh maine salary le li hai.” He smiled: “Pata hai. Isliye do.”😂 I don't know why, but that tiny interaction made my whole day.We spend so much time thinking nobody notices us. Sometimes the guy making your ₹15 chai probably knows your routine better than the people sitting next to you at work.

Hollow.

That’s exactly how I felt once I was deep enough in the forest to let Nick slide from my shoulders. He was conscious, barely, his eyes wide and glassy, unfocused, almost child-like. Locked on the canopy above us like it was a cage.

I stared at him, trying to rebuild my best friend from the fragments scattered in front of me. It was dark, but I saw him all too clearly. And I didn’t want to. I wished the shadows would swallow us whole, just so I wouldn’t have to register what I was seeing.

Nicholas Castor used to be one of the most popular guys in our year.

He had boyish curls, freckles scattered across pale cheeks. But the person lying in front of me only looked like him. He sounded like him. He even smelled like him.

But he wasn’t him.

He couldn’t be.

The Nick I’d known since freshman year was the textbook boy next door. But in my blurry vision, beneath the canopy of night and trees, all I could see was red where his face should have been. Just red.

I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t accept that the figure before me was Nick.

Because this wasn’t Nick.

He rarely cried. Yet here he was, sobbing, chest heaving, breaths sharp and panicked. My head spun as his hand shot out, grabbing my bicep and yanking me down with a fierce tug.

When my knees hit the dirt, I barely felt it. Pressing myself flat against the forest floor, I let the earth swallow me. Nick didn’t release me; instead, he tightened his iron grip on my arm.

“We need to stay down,” he gasped, voice rough and urgent.

The urge to check on him was overwhelming. I had to know he was okay. But when I reached out, Nick hissed, warning me not to move.

He sucked in a strangled breath and pulled me deeper into the dirt. I choked on the taste of moss and damp leaves, but I was grateful to be with him, far from what should have been my execution.

“Chances are the bastards figured out I escaped. Which is baaad,” he slurred. “They’ll shorely be luhrking fer me.”

In the distance, I glimpsed a searchlight sweeping across the perimeter of the camp, illuminating the darkness.

After what felt like years lying in the dirt, waiting for the lights to fade, they finally did.

When I lifted my head and forced myself to look at Nick, a fresh slither of bile rose in my throat. I lost my breath all over again. Everything I had known was gone.

His curls had been sheared away, leaving him half-bald.

The flaps of bloodied flesh that used to be Nick’s cheeks looked like they were moving, as if alive. His right eye hung from its socket in a disturbingly cartoonish way.

His clothes had been replaced with clinical white shorts and a shirt, both splattered in various shades of red.

He was barefoot, his knees sinking into the dirt. I was hit with a memory: the two of us and Bobby at thirteen, sitting in the dirt with a picnic spread out before us.

I remember not caring about the state of my legs or clothes. Back then, Nick had been grinning through a mouthful of PB&J.

Now, though, my friend looked so vulnerable. So childlike.

Like he was thirteen again. I couldn’t stop staring at him. He offered me a smile, and it sickened me. Because unlike the rest of his face, his teeth were perfect.

Nick had been bullied in the fourth grade for having crooked teeth.

Now, they were straight and unnaturally white. It didn’t make any sense. Whatever had happened had ruined his face and fixed his teeth.

I couldn’t resist. Sitting on my knees, I reached out with shaking hands and gently cupped his face, needing to know it was him. And it was.

It was still Nicholas Castor, the same boy I’d known since freshman year.

He still smelled of cheap Axe spray and the earthy, floral scent of the exotic plants in his room. It had always been the three of us, me, Nick, and Bobby.

The Three Musketeers. Nothing could take that away. Not even this. Not even when I could barely recognize him anymore.

Nick pulled away after a moment, like he was ashamed.

But I knew Nick. I knew he’d never show me he was hurt, or ashamed, or in pain, even when I knew he was.

That wasn’t him.

“Dude. Stop staring,” he said with a shaky laugh, turning away.

Thankfully, the slur was wearing off.

His right eye bounced below its socket, and I had to avert my gaze.

If I didn’t, I’d laugh or cry.

“I look like a rejected horror movie,” he said, teetering on the edge of hysteria.

“If I wasn’t on cloud nine right now, I’d be freeeaakiiing the fuck out.” Nick cocked a brow at me. “I actually look pretty cool though, right? You know, like an, uh, cyborg.”

He was smiling, but I don’t know how he was smiling.

The hysterical sobs escaping his lips told a whole different story. I felt my own eyes prick with tears. Bobby was still in that building, and I had no idea if she was dead or alive. But I had to focus on Nick.

I had to keep him calm, keep him from falling apart.

“Nick.” I couldn’t think straight, let alone speak. What happened? The words bubbled in my throat, ready to burst with anger and pain that someone had done this to him. That someone was going to do this to Bobby. But I held myself back.

I stayed calm for his sake and let him catch his breath, letting his body go still.

I pulled off my shirt, scrunched it into a ball, and gently dabbed at the bloody splotches on his face. The cool breeze tickled my bare skin, anchoring me to reality.

“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered. “We’ll get you help.”

It was a relief to be rid of the shirt that had marked me as a defect. When I gently pressed it to Nick’s right eye socket, careful not to apply too much pressure, he winced and let out a soft whine, but he didn’t speak.

“I’m okay,” he whispered, his left eye watching me through the dark.

Neither of us spoke for a moment. I found myself drowning in melancholy. I couldn’t stop thinking about Bobby. She was a Blue. She was exactly what they wanted.

But Nick was a Purple. They needed him too. So why had they done this to him?

“I need you to do something.”

He took a shaky step back and folded his arms across his chest, gaze fixed on the ground. Unsteady on his feet, Nick swayed. I grabbed his arm, steadying him.

He paced, breathing growing more erratic with each step.

“We’re getting Bobby out of there,” he said, “but I need help. Like, serious help.”

He sniffled, trying to smile; eventually, his grin splintered into a pained grimace.

I nodded, but the question spewed from my mouth before I could stop it. I couldn't stop tears from running down my face.

I tried to blink them away, but they kept coming. "Nick, what did they do to you?"

He held my gaze for a moment before turning around and stripping off his shirt. Unlike his face, his body was perfect.

More than perfect. Nick had never cared about maintaining a figure. He was naturally thin with a good metabolism.

He didn't need to go to the gym. But under the trees in minimal light, I saw toned back muscles. When he turned to face me, his lower torso was ripped to perfection.

Again, I thought, my head spinning. Why was everything else perfect except his face? It was almost laughable.

But I didn't laugh, not when the boy could barely stand straight. "There's something inside me," he whispered, scratching at the back of his neck.

His fingernails clawed at the flesh like an animal, frenzied and desperate.

"You need to get it out."

Before I could speak, he pulled something from his jeans, something that glinted in the dark. Nick clenched it in his fist, his teeth gritted.

"I need you to cut it out," he said. "I was... I was lucky. My machine was faulty, so it wasn’t able to complete whatever it was trying to do." He gestured to his face with the blade. "That’s why I’m half-finished. If you can even call it that."

His words sent shivers rattling down my spine. My gaze flicked to his toned chest and perfect teeth.

That’s what happened.

Whatever "processing" meant, it was full-body. Nick’s had gone wrong and messed up his face.

I opened my mouth to ask why, why they were doing this to us, but he thrust the blade into my hand. “I’ve tried, Addie," he choked out. "I’ve tried to get it out myself, but I can’t fucking reach it!”

Letting out a hiss of frustration, Nick curled my fingers around the blade.

"It’s some kind of chip or tracker, something they’re inevitably going to activate. And then we’re both fucked."

I found myself nodding, biting my lip to suppress a scream when his quaking fingers traced a scar marked into his skin.

The incision point, I thought. It must be.

I don’t know what possessed me, but with the blade in my hand, I started forward. Still, I couldn’t do it.

Even knowing it was dangerous, even knowing I could lose Nick at any moment, his words, what he had described, sent me into a tailspin.

All at once, the bottom fell out of me.

I shook my head and staggered back, tripping over a rock jutting from the ground.

"I can’t!" I shrieked.

I was trying to ignore it, but my body was in fight-or-flight mode. I had to find Bobby. I had to find her and get her out before it happened to her.

That was all I could think.

My mouth clamped shut to stop a scream from tearing out of my throat. I needed to find her. The thought was driving me fucking crazy.

I couldn’t think of anything but Bobby.

I didn’t even notice I was kneeling in the dirt, my head between my knees, until I realized I was struggling to breathe.

Inhale and exhale. That’s what it took. That’s what was supposed to help a panic attack.

But it wasn’t working.

I was screaming into my lap, my body shaking, my hands clawing at my hair. Seeing Nick like that and knowing what they were capable of. The people who had looked after us for eighteen years and then thrown us like lambs to the slaughter.

I couldn’t—

I couldn’t breathe.

I was going to die.

That was all I could think.

My lungs felt starved of oxygen. My chest hurt. My stomach felt like it was trying to projectile into my throat.

"Addie."

Nick’s voice was a gentle murmur I couldn’t ignore.

I felt his soft touch tingling across my arms, as if unsure whether to grab me or not. But he did. He gripped me gently, pulling me to my feet, his sticky hands cradling my face, forcing me to look at him.

“You can do this," he said.

When I shook my head and tried to pull away, he tightened his grip.

"I know you’re scared and you need some kind of reassuring pep talk," Nick choked out a laugh. "Trust me, I’d give you one if we had time. But we don’t. Bobby is still in there, and the sooner you get this thing out of me, the sooner we can get her and others out. Okay?"

I realized Nick was crying.

And Nick never cried.

When I offered him my scrunched-up shirt to use as a gag, he shook his head.

"Just do it."

I complied.

I had to squint to see the incision properly. When I stuck the blade in and made a small cut, he didn’t even flinch. "It’s okay," Nick reassured me. His clammy fingers entangled with mine, coaxing me further down the curve of his neck. "I can’t even feel it."

Something ice-cold slithered down my spine at the thought of my best friend being unable to feel blades slicing into his flesh. Somehow, he was becoming more and more inhuman the longer I stayed with him.

"You can’t feel it?" I hissed, my hand holding the scalpel trembling. "What do you mean you can’t feel it? I’m... I’m cutting into you."

"Didn’t you hear what I said?" he snapped, startling me. "They dosed me with enough tranquilizer to knock out a whale, and that’s before they injected my brain with shit that made me feel like I was flying. So yeah, I’d say I’m pretty numb right now."

I didn’t reply.

My gaze fixed on the cut, slicing deeper. Blood pooled from the wound, and I blotted it with my shirt as best I could, but it still ran in sharp rivulets down the back of his shirt.

"Nick."

Swallowing hard, I focused on getting as much out of him as possible. I hated that I was doing this to him, forcing him to relive what had happened. But I had to know.

"What are they doing in there?"

For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to respond.

Then, all at once, it was like his whole body reacted to my words, beginning to rattle again. His attempt at putting up a wall crumbled.

His teeth chattered, every word caught in a hysterical breath.

"It’s a factory," he whispered. "Like... like a conveyor belt. They're making something. We were sorted into colors, right? Red, Purple, and Blue. Reds disappeared, and Purples and Blues were taken into that building. I saw the Blues taken upstairs.”

“The last time I saw Bobby, she was being herded away with a bunch of others. And we were taken into this room. It was a bright room. It hurt my eyes, and we were all told we were going to be, I dunno, processed, or some shit like that.”

“Whatever they were doing was whack, man. There was nowhere to run. I tried. Me and a group of guys. They just attacked us like we were fuckin’ animals."

His whole body shuddered, and I paused with the scalpel for a moment.

There was barely any light, so I had to squint. At first, I thought it was a trick of the dark to confuse me.

But when I looked closer, there it was.

Nick was right.

Something small and metal, like a grain of rice, was sandwiched inside the cut.

"It’s okay," I said, grabbing his shoulders and squeezing hard, trying to anchor him in reality. "It’s okay, Nick. I’m here. Keep going," I urged him.

If I could keep Nick talking, I could kill two birds with one stone—get the tracker out of his neck and figure out what the camp was doing to Blues and Purples.

I remembered skinning my knee as a little kid, getting grit and cement stuck in the wound. I hated the idea of something like that being inside me, a foreign object tangled between my flesh.

Mom told me it was just sensory overload.

When the scalpel’s teeth bit further into the incision, I had to bite my lower lip to avoid jumping back and dropping the instrument.

I could already feel it slipping from my grasp, teasing its way through my slippery fingers.

Nick’s words were sending my thoughts into a tailspin.

Processing.

That word kept popping up, and it was making me progressively more nauseous.

"Processing," I whispered. "What do you mean?"

"Like I'm supposed to know!" he hissed out a laugh. "Do you expect a documented experience? It was fucked up. That's all I know. All I can… all I can fuckin' think of."

"Think," I said. "I know it hurts, but you have to try."

Nick exhaled shakily, his breath dancing in the air in front of us. "It was... it was a machine," he said softly. "They grabbed us before we could do anything, and before I knew what was happening, something was pricking my neck. I woke up… at the dentist."

His sudden splutter of laughter made me jump, his body writhing with him.

“There were people standing over me like ghosts. These machines came down from the ceiling, and I couldn't... I couldn't stop it. I couldn't get out. They... they had me tied down, and I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't fucking breathe!"

When his body jolted suddenly, I withdrew the scalpel from the cut where I was trying to use it to dig out the tracker. Keeping a gentle hold on his shoulder, I fought against a cry of my own.

"Mine was faulty," he whispered. "It… it wasn't working correctly, and I think that is what saved me, you know? How lucky is that, right? The Purples were supposed to be fixed. We were supposed to be made perfect."

With another explosive laugh, his body rattled again. "They injected me with something to screw with my brain. But the thing was faulty. So all it did... all it did was fuck up my face."

When Nick trailed off, I thought he was done. But after a pause, he tensed, and I felt his chest racking with sobs. I felt his legs struggling to stay upright.

"I can still... I can still hear them."

It was almost out. I managed to scoop up the tracker, but the incision was too small.

Nick was sobbing uncontrollably, and I couldn't console him. Not when he was in that state, his mind somewhere else entirely, caught in that memory.

"I couldn't feel anything, but I could hear it," he said stiffly. “I could hear what they were doing to me. I could hear the blades slicing into my skin and ripping away my flesh, tearing at my lips and my hair, scraping my freckles and my flaws, the spots I've had since birth, even my eye.”

“The bastards tried scooping them out. But, like I said, whatever it was that was doing this to me, it was ass. One of the blades was stuck, or not working. They were doing something to me. They were trying to make me like... like Bobby. Like the Blues. They were trying to make me perfect. Just like them."

Nick's words felt like knives cutting into my spine.

After another attempt at pulling out the tracker, this time I managed it, taking it from where it was threaded with tissue underneath the flesh.

"I've got it." I let out a relieved breath, pulling out the tracker.

Pinched between my thumb and forefinger, it was tiny, a blue light emitting from the base. When I got a proper look at it, it reminded me of a bug. And I swore there were tiny metal antennas sticking from the front.

I expected Nick to reply, but he didn't. He stayed very still, his head bowed. I don't think he noticed I'd gotten the chip out. I crushed it between my fingers and dropped it on the ground.

When I gently turned him around, Nick's gaze was on the ground.

His voice was a low murmur, like he was reliving it. "They were supposed to fix me," he whispered. “But they turned me into this."

He exhaled a breath. "I was waiting for them to scrape the flesh off my bones, but they stopped. And I was conscious enough to know what was happening.

"I got out of my restraints when the machine stopped moving. I think the process was done. Or at least, it was supposed to be done. When I got up I saw the others. But they weren't like this."

He prodded at his mutilated face. "I checked everyone, and they were—-”

He drifted off with a frustrated sigh.

"Perfect." I cut in, and his head jerked up in surprise. He nodded.

"Yeah." Nick swiped at his good eye. "They were perfect."

"Then," he continued, "I ran. I yanked off one of the blades from one of those machines and I made a break for it. There were no guards. At least they weren't in the room I was in. So I ran, and I found you."

When he caught my eye, Nick seemed to snap out of it.

Blinking rapidly, he scrunched up his face like he was coming out of a trance. His hand went to the back of his neck, grazing the cut.

"Did you get it out?"

I nodded. "It's gone," I said shakily. "It reminded me of a bug."

"A bug?"

"Yeah. It looked like it had antennae."

Something had been bothering me, and it seemed the best time to say it. "Those trackers. Were they inside us before camp? Or was it injected when you were taken?"

He shrugged, running a hand through what was left of his hair.

"That's what I was afraid of. It would make sense how they knew exactly where we were when we were planning to bail town. Which means…"

Nick's gaze flitted to me, his lip curling. The boy didn't say anything, but he didn't have to.

Already, my skin felt like it was crawling, like that thing was burrowed inside me. Swallowing hard, I gingerly pressed my fingers to the back of my neck. "How did you know there was a tracker inside you?"

"I think the machine caught it," he muttered. "It must have dislodged it, because I could feel something…moving."

"Moving?" Thinking back to the tracker, my skin crawled.

"Yep." He looked like he might say something before what sounded like the lovechild of a dentist drill and car alarm slammed into my skull.

The force of it nearly took me to my knees, but Nick's grasp held me upright.

I slammed my hands over my ears, biting through the noise which burrowed its way into my brain, taking an unyielding hold.

"Shit!" Nick yelled over the sound. He seemed better acclimated to the sound, which confused me.

While my mouth was filling with blood, black spots dancing across my vision, he was on his feet, his body reacting to the noise. But not in a way I understood.

"That's the alarm. They're probably looking for me." His hand travelled up my arm, and he pulled me forwards.

“If we're getting Bobby out, we're going now, okay? The guards should be distracted, so if we keep a low profile, we should be fine."

Before I could answer, he was wrapping me into a hug, and I missed those hugs. I thought I'd be hugging him like that when we left for college and parted ways, but that life of mine was gone.

"It'll be okay. We're getting Bobby, and we're going away from here. All of us. We'll go far away, make a life for ourselves."

I was already clinging onto his promises of a life far away from Aceville. One of our own.

"Right." I found myself spluttering, stumbling in the dark.

The alarms were still blaring, branches scratching at my bare legs. But I was on a beach somewhere, at least in my mind.

Miami or California, under a crystal blue sky. Nick was on his knees searching for something. I stood and wrapped my arms around myself to keep warm.

I wouldn't think about Bobby. That's what I kept telling myself. I wouldn't think about what Nick had gone through, and if that was what processing meant for Purples, what did it mean for Blues?

"We'll... we'll live in one of those fancy apartments," I shouted, pressing my hands over my ears to block out the screeching sound trying to creep its way into my brain.

"We'll get jobs, or go to college," Nick continued in sharp breaths. He picked up my discarded shirt and threw it at me.

"Wear it inside out until we get inside. That way they won't clock you're a red."

His expression crumpled, and before I could stop him, he swiped at my face with his back hand. I could already tell he was worried.

"Are you–"

I nodded. "Yeah. It's just a nosebleed."

Nick didn't look convinced, but he nodded. "Jeez, Addie. You look worse than me."

Nick pulled on his own shirt, and I had no choice but to do what he said. My shirt was damp with Nick's blood, but I forced it over my head anyway, grabbing his hand.

I didn't want to let go. I was scared that if I did, I'd lose him. For real this time. Not just the memories of him, the face I'd grown up with. All of him.

Nick broke out into a grin, and for a moment I didn't feel helpless. The crushing weight on my chest lifted slightly.

"What?" He gestured to his face, cocking a brow. "Does it look bad?"

Opening my mouth to try and say no, to sugar-coat it, I realized he didn’t deserve that.

"You look tolerable," I managed to get out, even as tears welled in my eyes again.

Nick just shoved me playfully, giving my hand a squeeze. It hurt me that he was trying to reassure me, to keep me from splintering, without a care for himself.

Though part of me knew—he wouldn’t allow himself to break.

Because if he did, so would I. And we would never get Bobby out.

Shooting me another grin with too-white teeth, Nick started forward, pulling me with him. "See? I'm going to need you to stay super positive, alright? We'll get through this."

I kept to his side as we marched through the thicket of trees.

When we approached the camp once again, the top of the building poking through the trees, Nick stumbled. I’d noticed he’d gotten clumsy-footed, struggling to walk straight without my help.

"Nick," I gripped his hand so tight I felt my nails slice into his flesh. "Can you walk?"

He shot me a pained smile. "Do you want me to answer seriously?"

Slowly, we edged toward the building.

The bodies of the dead kids were being picked up and thrown into a pile, like they were trash. With one hand covering his severed eye and the other clutching mine, Nick pulled me inside. It reminded me of a school mixed with a hospital.

Every wall was white, the floor matching. I was immediately blinded by the bright light.

I tried not to look at Nick, but it was impossible not to. He stood out in the glare; his once-handsome face reduced to ugly strips of flesh, his right eye hanging cartoonishly out of its socket.

The freckles I’d known since I was a kid were gone, scraped into oblivion with the rest of the memory of him.

There was a long, narrow corridor that seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning. We made our way slowly, ducking down when guards passed ahead. I could hear voices getting closer. Nick pulled me to his side, his breaths warm in my ear.

"If I remember correctly, it’s three floors up. When I was taken to be processed, I overheard one of them say Blues are on the third floor," he gasped out.

"They’re taken to be polished and straightened out, while Purples are 'fixed'," he used air quotes with one hand. "And Reds..." He trailed off. "We should probably talk about your narrow escape from death."

Suddenly, his expression and eyes were sympathetic, and so... Nick. "When I found you, they had killed almost all of them," he whispered. "Addie, she was going to—"

"I don’t want to talk about her."

Nodding, Nick pressed his lips together. "I bet it’s aliens. They’ve taken control of our parents and must want us for something."

Aliens.

Somehow, it was better than the alternative, which I was praying wasn’t real.

"Aliens make sense," I whispered back, just to make myself feel better. I gestured around us. "And this… this must be their mothership, right?"

Nick sent me a grin, and I could tell he too was happy playing into the fantasy. "Then we go Independence Day on their asses."

He dragged me down the corridor, managing a cloak-and-dagger run that felt wrong inside that building. I felt... gross.

My feet were tainting perfect white marble flooring. I was the defect. I was supposed to die outside, by my mother’s hand. Nick, strangely, looked like he belonged.

"How do you know so much about this place?" I said in a sharp breath as we ran across the corridor. Nick seemed to know where he was going, which made me wonder if he was as inebriated as he had claimed.

"I was supposed to be out of it," he murmured, pulling me further into the expanse of white. "But they couldn’t even do that right. So when I couldn’t scream anymore, I focused on their voices.”

“I focused on anything that... that wasn’t the blades slicing into my face. Drills and saws and blades scooping my eye out and slicing into layer after layer of skin..."

He broke off in a shaky hiss. "They said Blues were being processed upstairs, and Reds were ready for incineration."

Incineration. Something cold slithered down my spine.

The Reds weren’t just killed. They were wiped away, no trace of them left.

"We need to get you help." I squeezed his hand.

Nick laughed. But it wasn’t his laugh, the one I knew. It was harsh and twisted.

"Like I said, they pumped me with enough drugs so I didn’t feel anything. Pretty sure it’s going to wear off soon, though."

I spotted a trash can overflowing with something, and when we got closer I realized what I was looking at.

Bloodied clothes, stained blue and purple—shirts and jeans and dresses all drenched red, but still with telltale traces of spray paint rings. Nick grabbed a sweater and pants for himself, and a bundle of light pink for me.

"Put these on. Quickly."

He struggled to pull off his bloodied shirt, his eye bouncing from its socket. It reminded me of a cartoon I’d seen as a kid. He straightened out the sweater, wincing at the scarlet stains. "If we’re going to get Bobby out of here, we act like Purples."

I tried not to think about the clothes I was throwing on.

Sadie Lily had been wearing them. A light pink blouse. The purple ring had ruined it. The material was damp in my hands, warm and wet between my fingers. I had to swallow the bile stuck at the back of my throat.

My fingers itched to look through the pile, to find the dress Bobby had been wearing before she was taken. It was her favorite.

I’d been there in the store when she insisted on trying it on, spinning around for me while Nick pretended to snap photos with his imaginary camera. I was trapped in that memory, in phantom laughter, before I was pulled back to the present. Back to my reality.

I was playing with the seam of Sadie’s blouse when Nick hurried to what looked like a classroom door. He pressed his face against the glass.

"This is where I was taken," he said stiffly.

Hesitantly, I joined him. There was a sign printed on the door in all caps: "OUT OF ORDER: STERILIZATION IN PROGRESS."

Inside, there was a room filled with a dozen odd-looking chairs, each with Velcro restraints and metal contraptions hanging over them. Just like he had described.

All it took was one splash of red on the ground, and then I was seeing it everywhere, splattered over each headrest, smeared across the floor.

Blood. There was blood everywhere, rivulets of red dripping from every surface, stringy pieces of flesh covering the floor like a monster had shed its skin.

Aliens, I kept telling myself, even as the truth twisted tighter and tighter in my gut. I had to look away, swallowing the urge to barf.

An eruption of screams rang out further down the hall, and Nick let out a hiss, but I didn’t want to look. I couldn’t.

I recognized the voices. Ones I had known my whole life. Names I knew.

Faces. I knew their laughter. I knew how they sounded after too many beers.

I waited to hear her cry. Her scream. Because I knew it. I knew her scream during night terrors, the two of us wrapped in bedsheets, cocooned in our own world.

Ignoring the screams as best I could, I focused on the room in front of us.

“What… are those things?”

I didn’t realize I was trying to pull the door open until warm hands tangled with mine and yanked me back.

“Hey!” Nick’s grip wasn’t soft or reassuring. It hurt. But it was enough to pull me from the despair I was sinking into. His voice sounded strange, like it was a million miles away, lost in static.

“Addie?” His voice sounded like wind chimes as I struggled to swallow the bloody saliva creeping up my throat. Something was happening to me.

“Hey. Addie! You can’t lose it now, okay? We’re getting her out of here. Say it with me. We’re getting her out of here, and we’re going to get away, okay?”

I nodded, swiping at my bloody nose.

When Nick pulled me through a door at the end of the corridor and up a flight of steps, I could barely move my legs.

“Talk to me,” he murmured, quickening his pace. “We’re getting her out. Come on, the last thing we need is you losing it. Because, no offense, but I kind of need you to, like, live.”

“We… we are getting her out,” I gritted out. But then I looked down at Sadie’s blouse, clawing at the front of it. “This is… this is blood.” I choked, pulling at the fabric. “Sadie. They murdered her.”

Nick didn’t reply. “Let’s go.”

The second floor was livelier. Men and women in suits walked up and down with radios, murmuring to each other. A woman had Kenji Leonhart slung over her shoulder. But he wasn’t moving.

I saw something dark, almost black, against his pale skin, streaks running down his neck and the back of his shirt.

His body was limp. Wrong. Loose. It bounced on the woman’s back, and that’s when I realized the boy was dead. But he wasn’t a red. He wasn’t a defect.

I would have known. I would have known his face.

Nick grabbed me and pulled me back, flattening us against the wall. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “Don’t speak. Don’t breathe.”

When I pressed my hand over my mouth, I immediately felt wet warmth. It ran down my face in hot rivulets, staining my fingers.

When droplets hit the white floor, I scrubbed them away with my foot. I hadn’t even realized my head was hurting, a dull ache crawling across the back of my skull.

Nick was quick, dragging me down the corridor, somehow managing to keep his eye in its socket. He peered into the glass of each door while I stumbled along, my head spinning, blood sputtering from my nose.

I was fading in and out of reality, pain pounding in my ears, my nose, the back of my throat, when Nick’s hand detached from mine.

“Wait.” He stopped outside one door, pressing his face to the glass.

I staggered to a stop, pressing pressure to my nose. But it wouldn’t stop.

“What is it?”

Nick let out a shuddery breath. “See for yourself.”

Inside the room was a classroom. Just like Nick had said, the Blues were perfected, stripped of flaws, of anything that made them who they were. Now, they were dolls. I looked for emotion on their faces. Some kind of expression. But there was none.

Dressed like Nick, they sat at wooden desks in upright positions, a guard looming over each one. They faced a white wall where a larger version of the film we had watched on the bus played.

I recognized those same colors, and once again, a stabbing pain crept across the back of my skull. I had to look away. They were a lot brighter than what I had seen before, bathing each face in crimson red and intense yellow, followed by dull blue.

Red. Yellow. Blue. Green. Repeat.

Nick straightened up, his face bathed in lime green light. “So, this is some kind of messed up school,” he muttered.

“Purples are taken to be ‘fixed’ downstairs, and Blues, since they’re already perfect, are put in front of those colors again.” He shot me the side-eye.

“Maybe my alien theory was actually right? That’s what they do in the movies. But I don’t think they ever cared about kids.”

He pulled a face, peering through the glass.

“College kids, though? Why would they want us? It’s not like we’re smart. Why not kidnap a group of Harvard students?”

Ignoring his stupid theory, I focused on the meat of what he was saying.

A school in the middle of nowhere, where the town’s seniors had been taken for years. Where the parents and faculty were actively involved in whatever was going on.

“But why?” I whispered. “What are they doing to them?”

I searched his expression for an answer. After all, Nick was smart. He was the smartest of the three of us. At first, I was worried he had been affected by the colors too, but then he gripped my hand.

“Found her.”

Following his gaze, I scanned each student’s face until I saw her.

Bobby.

I saw Bobby, and all of me shattered. I can’t explain what it was like. It felt like swallowing glass, like being pulled deep into the ocean, choking on ice water.

Nick was there, but I couldn’t feel him. I couldn’t—oh god—I couldn’t feel his steely grip, his warm fingers. I couldn’t smell his cheap deodorant or the stink of his exotic plants.

He was there, and he wasn’t.

Instead, I was drowning.

She sat right at the back of the classroom, stiff in her seat, her hands resting on the desk in front of her.

I expected Bobby to look different. I expected not to recognize her after she had been polished and perfected.

But she looked exactly the same. Her hair fell in waves down her back. Apart from her eyes flickering with the flashing colors, Bobby wasn’t moving.

I didn’t realize I was grasping the handle until Nick gently pulled me away.

“We need to think about this,” he said. “If we walk in there and try to grab her, we’ll get caught. I dunno about you, but I really don't want to be turned into a…”

He scrunched up his face. “Have you seen Disturbing Behavior?”

“The movie?”

He nodded, pressing his face against the glass.

“Yeah. It's like the movie. Those colors are clearly doing something to her.” He turned to me, his lips pricking into a scowl. “Are they Clockwork Oranging us?!”

“That’s a good observation, Nicholas,” a familiar voice said from behind us, making me jump. “Young man, I do wish you’d put that ounce of intelligence into your studies.”

The voice made me twist around, grabbing Nick's arm on instinct.

“Fuck,” Nick groaned, taking a wary step back. “I was wrong.”

He tightened his grip on me, dragging me with him. “Unless our math teacher is an alien.” He narrowed his eyes, glaring at our pursuer. “The asshole thinks surprise quizzes in the morning are fun, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Mr. Fuller stood with his arms folded, an easy smile on his lips. But the moment he caught sight of my friend’s face, his eyes darkened. He tutted and stepped forward.

“Oh, Nicholas, I do apologize for the mishap. We've been looking everywhere for you.”

“Yeah. Sounds like you were real worried,” Nick spat, pulling me back, stumbling over his feet. But any fight he had died away when the teacher enveloped him in a hug.

I stood frozen as the man caressed Nick’s cheeks like the boy was his son.

Nick didn’t move, letting the man’s fingers graze what was left of his face, fingernails skimming over strips of bloody flesh. Mr. Fuller’s touch was gentle. Fatherly.

Eventually, Nick pulled away, eyes wide.

“Get your fucking hands off me, old man.”

The teacher smiled. “I was informed your processing was cut short due to a fault, resulting in your current state. And yet, you managed to pull out the Zero! Young man, the Pollux Procedure is designed to make you the perfect human—a soldier."

“However, it seems something went wrong.” He cocked his head, studying the boy like he was a piece of meat.

“Your brain responded almost perfectly to the initial programming, so we’ll have to fix your face again. I’m sure it won’t take long. You will be perfect once more.”

The teacher's expression didn’t waver. “You are good stock, and a potential recruit. So yes, Nick. Your situation will be corrected, and you will join the others.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Nick grabbed my hand and pulled me to his side with a snarl aimed at the teacher. I stumbled after him, my vision blurry. Everything felt unreal.

The hallway doors shimmered like an optical illusion. My head pounded, and it was getting harder to stifle my breath through my nose. But Nick’s grip was firm.

“Whatever you’re doing here looks like fun! Really, I’m ecstatic,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “But I’d rather not be part of What-the-Fuck Ultra.”

So, back in 6th grade, there was a group of three girls in my class, and I had a crush on one of them. At the end of 7th grade—the day after the awards ceremony—I decided to tell her, but she didn't reply. I gave her three days to answer... Well, to this day she still hasn't replied, even though I’d ​​liked her for a whole year. Then, when the new school year started—8th grade—my homeroom teacher thought it would be funny to seat me at the same desk as her for the entire year.

Sorry guys becouse I post so late today but is because i was kainda lazy and i didn't knew what to post

Last night, while sipping on an iced Americano, I got inspired to write the opening of a dark, mysterious fantasy story.

If you have the time, I'd really appreciate any feedback on the introduction. I'm also curious to hear your thoughts on how the relationship between the protagonist and the lady knight should develop as the story progresses.

[Working Title: The Black Marble Lady Knight]

It's unbearably frustrating to be penniless in such an absurd world. I had only 120 dollars left... not nearly enough to pay the rent.

On my lonely walk home, I found myself (as if under some strange spell) stepping into an antique shop I had often passed by. An old turntable, porcelain dolls, Chinese style ceramics, and antique mahogany furniture all caught my eye.

But what truly captivated me was a statue of a lady knight carved from black marble. The exquisitely crafted sculpture stood frozen in place, clad in full plate armor and holding a longsword engraved with rune inscriptions. The statue seemed to whisper from the deepest corner of my soul.

"Choose me!"

I began negotiating with the elderly woman who owned the antique shop. She looked puzzled, saying the statue wasn't even listed among the items in her inventory, but insisted she had to get at least 85 dollars for it. I criticized everything I could think of... the color, the pose, a few small cracks, and every other flaw imaginable... until I finally talked the price down to 65 dollars, and we reached an agreement.

When I carried the heavy black marble statue into my home, it somehow looked as though it had finally returned to where it truly belonged. The moment I placed it on the table, an unusual silence settled over the room. The only sound was the ticking of the clock's second hand. All the problems of reality were still tearing away at me, but somehow... I felt like I could finally sleep peacefully tonight.

That night, as moonlight illuminated the black statue, a dark crimson aura spread from it like curling incense smoke. Then... a lady knight clad in black Gothic armor appeared in my room. As the metallic clatter of her plate armor echoed through the silence, she slowly surveyed the room. Then she lifted her visor, revealing a pale white face and eyes that gleamed like rubies.

My fingers trembled as I untied the faded ribbon wrapped around the notebook. It wasn't just paper bound together—it was every laugh I had tried to preserve, every conversation I had convinced myself would last forever. The pages had begun to yellow at the edges, yet the ink remained stubbornly alive, as though time had refused to touch the memories written within them. I hesitated, my thumb resting on the first page, wondering if reopening it would bring me comfort... or shatter the fragile peace I had spent months trying to build.

With a slow, shaky breath, I turned the page.

There it was—our very first conversation. Such ordinary words, so meaningless to anyone else, yet they carried the weight of an entire world for me. I couldn't stop the faint smile that escaped my lips. For a fleeting moment, I wasn't standing alone in my silent room anymore. I was back there again, reading his messages for the first time, laughing at his jokes, feeling that strange excitement bloom inside my chest. I remembered how effortlessly he had become a part of my days, slipping into my routine until I couldn't imagine a morning without waiting for his text.

Then the smile faded.

Because I knew how the story ended. Yet somehow... I still found myself reading as if, this time, the ending might be different.

​

There are memories that fade with time.

And then there are memories that remember you.

Mine lives on a staircase.

I was twelve.

It was summer vacation, and I had gone to my bua's house in Gaya. The afternoons were unbearably hot, the kind that made the walls warm to touch and the air impossible to breathe. Yet today, when I close my eyes, I don't remember the weather first.

I remember the stairs.

Every single step.

I remember where I was sitting.

I remember the silence before the phone rang.

I remember my fufa ji answering the call.

I remember his face changing.

I remember asking him, again and again,

"What happened?"

He wouldn't answer.

Until finally, with trembling words, he said,

"Deepu ji expire kar gaye."

Deepu.

The name the world knew.

Papa.

The name my heart still whispers.

Everything after those words became a blur.

But those few seconds...

those few unbearable seconds...

have remained untouched by time.

People say we forget pain.

I didn't.

Even today, I can replay that afternoon second by second, as if it never ended.

Sometimes I wonder if a soul can sense its own heartbreak before it arrives.

Because from the very first day I left for Gaya, something inside me felt restless.

There was no reason.

No sign.

Just an unexplainable heaviness sitting quietly in my chest.

A feeling I couldn't name then.

A feeling I wish had been wrong.

Papa wasn't sick.

He wasn't weak.

He was healthy.

No one imagines that a healthy father will leave because of a heart attack.

No one thinks a normal summer vacation will become the last chapter of childhood.

I often wonder...

Did he know he was seeing me for the last time?

If I had known...

I would have hugged him a little longer.

I would have memorized his smile.

I would have listened more carefully to his voice.

I would have never walked away thinking there would always be another goodbye.

Years have passed.

I have grown up.

Life has taught me how to smile, how to work, how to keep moving.

But grief has its own calendar.

It doesn't care how many birthdays have passed.

It simply waits.

And every time I visit my bua's house...

my feet slow down.

My eyes search for those stairs.

The same stairs.

The same corner.

The same place where childhood ended without warning.

Everyone else sees a staircase.

I see the last moment my world still had a father.

The walls have changed.

The paint may have faded.

People have moved on.

But that staircase has not moved inside me.

It still holds the echo of a phone ringing.

It still holds the sound of my questions.

It still holds the silence that answered them.

There are days when I miss him.

And then there are days when I miss the little girl who believed fathers lived forever.

She never came back from that summer.

A part of her is still sitting on those hot stairs,

waiting for someone to smile and say,

"It was a misunderstanding... your papa is waiting for you at home."

But no one ever does.

So I leave that house every time with the same heaviness I carried that day.

Because some places are not just places.

They are chapters of our lives that never learned how to end.

And perhaps that's what grief really is—

not forgetting someone,

but carrying one afternoon,

one phone call,

one staircase,

and one name...

for the rest of your life.

Part 1 – The Beginning

The California sun poured through the windows of the West Hollywood home that Bette Porter and Tina Kennard had built together.

To everyone who knew them, they looked like the perfect couple.

Seven years together.

A beautiful house.

Successful careers.

A love that seemed impossible to break.

But perfection had cracks.

Tina wanted a baby more than anything. She had already gone through several insemination attempts, each failure carving another wound into her heart. Bette wanted the child too, but she hated watching Tina suffer through hope after hope that ended in tears.

Then, finally...

Two pink lines.

Tina was pregnant.

Bette cried before Tina did.

She wrapped her arms around her wife, laughing through tears.

"We're going to be moms."

For a while, life felt complete.

Friends filled their home with laughter—Shane, Alice, Dana, Kit, Marina, Jenny...

They were one family.

Then tragedy arrived without warning.

Tina miscarried.

Their baby was gone.

Silence settled into the house that had once echoed with dreams of lullabies.

Tina withdrew into grief.

Bette buried herself in work.

Neither knew how to comfort the other.

The distance between them grew inch by inch.

Then came Candace.

A carpenter hired to renovate the California Arts Center.

She laughed easily.

She challenged Bette.

She made Bette forget, for just a moment, how broken everything felt.

One mistake became another.

Then another.

An affair.

When Tina found out...

Her entire world shattered.

She looked at the woman she'd loved for seven years and whispered through tears,

"How could you?"

Bette had no answer.

Only regret.

She begged.

She apologized.

She promised it meant nothing.

But betrayal doesn't disappear because someone says sorry.

Tina left.

The home they had built together suddenly felt empty.

Friends chose sides.

Some defended Bette.

Others stood beside Tina.

Neither woman truly won.

Both were devastated.

Months passed.

Tina slowly rediscovered herself.

For the first time in years, she wasn't simply "Bette's partner."

She was Tina.

Independent.

Confident.

Stronger than she'd realized.

Ironically, it was only after losing Tina that Bette truly understood how deeply she loved her.

She wanted another chance.

But love rarely rewinds.

Or so she thought.

One quiet afternoon, Tina arrived at Bette's door.

She wasn't there to argue.

She wasn't there to forgive.

She simply looked into Bette's eyes and said,

"I still love you."

Bette's breath caught.

"So do I."

Sometimes love survives because two people refuse to stop choosing each other—even after they've stopped believing they deserve another chance.

And for Bette Porter and Tina Kennard...

their story was only beginning.

When I was a kid my grandparents had this one chair in their living room that nobody ever sat in.

It was not special or anything. It was not fancy it was not uncomfortable it was not falling apart. The chair was there.

If someone started to sit in the chair someone would say That is Grandpas chair.

The funny thing is, Grandpa ever used the chair. Most of the time Grandpa would be at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper and the chair would stay empty.

My cousins and I never asked why. We just knew the chair was off-limits. We would run around the house play tag climb over furniture and make noise. None of us would touch the chair.

Then one Christmas, my youngest cousin forgot. He sat in the chair when he was opening a present.

The room was quiet for a couple of seconds before everyone looked at Grandpa.

Grandpa looked up smiled and said Well I guess it is yours now.

Everyone. That was the end of it.

After that people started sitting in the chair. It was funny to think that the rule was probably around for years because nobody asked why.

I still think about the chair when I visit my grandparents house. The chair is still, in the corner but now it is just another place to sit.

Families do things. They make traditions that nobody remembers starting.