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Cwej: Lost Media by Michael B. Robertson and James Wylder

10/31/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

Lost media
by Michael B. Robertson

and James Wylder

Illustrations by
Ari Michak and Bex Vee

Jhe Family Apartment, Cheonsa Dome, Takumi, Gongen


2384


As the hours passed by, it became clear to Sang Mi that nobody was going to come. She’d sent out dozens of invites, but the only person here was her twin brother, and not only had they shared a womb, he lived here. The bowls of snacks she’d asked her mom to get ready for them sat nearly untouched, aside from the candy-covered chocolates she'd been depressively shoveling into her mouth, and the extra-spicy tteokbokki Sang Eun had been picking at.


“The flu is going around, I’m sure a lot of people are sick,” her brother lied kindly.


“Yeah,” she replied.


“And there’s that big baseball game between the Hongtu Cannonballs and the Takumi Tengu?”


“Sure, I guess,” she said, defeated. She put on the next movie. It was one of the Lubin Studios Films she had the files for. She wanted to enjoy it, it was a movie she loved. To be swept away in it. But she just felt alone knowing no one but her twin wanted to share it with her.


As the action played on, both of their phones pinged. They picked them up in tandem, and checked.


“We’re in!” Sang Eun said. “Mom’s going to be so proud. And Min Jun can stop hounding us.”


She looked at the message. She’d been accepted to Academy 27, the second best High School in Takumi.


“It’ll be different in High school,” she said finally. “I’ll be different.
 
* * *

Picture
​The Pennsylvania Wilderness


May 2025


By the time they reached the tunnel, it was nearly midnight, and the world seemed to be on the edge of itself. Usually, they’d have stopped to sleep by now. Their journey could have been over already if they’d wanted it to be that way—sure they’d have gotten to the lodge in the Blue Ridge Mountains ahead of time, but they’d have been guaranteed warm beds and maybe could have investigated this whole strangeness.


Instead, they hadn’t encountered any hotels, well any that were operating, and there hadn’t been a place they’d felt comfortable or capable of pulling over to sleep at either. Chris and Sang Mi had pulled over to have a spirited debate about whether or not to drink an energy drink.


They’d eventually agreed to each down half of it, and now each had a strange feeling of being slightly too awake.


It was the kind of dark where all you could see was what the car’s headlights illuminated. The sky was overcast, and there were no lights on this stretch of woodland road. Sang Mi looked at her phone. “It says we’re out of service range?”


“That’s pretty normal, there’s not a lot out here.”


“What if we’re lost?”


“We’re not lost—”


“CAT!”


Sang Mi sprung forward, caught by her seatbelt as she pointed at the road, and Cwej hit the brakes hard—the car skidding to a halt. The headlights shone that they were about to enter into a tunnel carved into the side of a mountain. There were a lot of those out here, but there also wasn’t one shown on the map on their phones.


But that wasn’t the really interesting thing.


There was a cat there, illuminated against the shadows, its body flickering, pockmarked with flecks and lines like it was made of film. They’d seen a cat like this before, back on Gongen at Sang Mi’s school, and it had led them to the dangerous film-projector in Violethill. Sang Mi swung her car door open, and Chris followed. They left the lights on the Odyssey on, the orange Honda Element sputtering in park as they approached the cat together slowly.


“It’s a cat made of film!” Sang Mi said.


 “Yeah,” Chris replied.


“Like in—”


“YEAH,” Chris replied more.


Reaching into his pocket, and crouching down, Chris pulled out a piece of jerky. The cat sniffed the air, and tail high crept towards him as he cooed at it.


Then a sound came from the tunnel, like gears turning, and the cat did a turning leap—bolting back towards the tunnel, disappearing into it and the darkness beyond.


“Should we follow—” Sang Mi began asking, but Chris was already going after it. Wasn’t he the grown up here? She sighed, and tailed after him, pulling out her flashlight and turning it on as she ran.


The tunnel was dark. She could feel something though—feel something turning and spinning around her, like gears and cogs that made the clouds move were pulsing in her ears. Like the lack of anything she could see was spinning in a black vortex.


She stumbled out finally, into the light, and looked behind her to see that she’d come out the door of what looked like a small white shed with a shingle roof. Cwej shut the door behind her.


“But—” he put a finger over his mouth, and she could see in his eyes he was giddy to watch her see what he’d already seen.


She obliged, and turned around with him. And she knew very quickly he’d been right to be excited for her reaction.


Chris and Sang Mi looked out to the horizon, deep and dark and blue, and at the collection of buildings silhouetted against it. A row of large shapes, lit by moonlight and surrounded by trees. The distinctive shape of a water tower stood over them all.


Sang Mi knew where they were. She's seen enough photos - probably most of the photos of it that had ever existed - to know its shape even in the dark. “That's Betzwood. The Lubin movie studios.”


“Yes it is.”


“The real one? Are there any other ones, like theme park versions or something?”


Chris paused. “I don’t think Betzwood is as iconic as you think it is.”


She ignored him and took a step towards it. She moved her head, as though to check it was 3D and not just a flat image. “You can go to Betzwood. We, together, can go to Betzwood. The Lubin Manufacturing Company made so many silent movies. So many great shorts! They could've been as big as Hollywood, you know. They were a real competitor. Then a fire destroyed the Lubin film vault...”


Chris looked down at Sang Mi.


“We get to be here,” she said. “Moments and places…I guess they can last forever.”


When she’d sat with Sang Eun and watched movies together, so long ago and so far in the future, she used to think about what it was like for the actors being on set.


That way of thinking always confused her mom. “Doesn’t that ruin the magic?” she used to say. Even though she was a grown up, her mom never liked to be reminded it wasn’t real.


But Sang Mi loved it. Not only did movies let her escape into a story, they let her escape into the past. Each shot was a moment in time, captured on film. But even those captured moments were fragile. The fire in the Lubin film vault destroyed so many movies that will never be seen again.


Sang Mi turned to meet Chris’ eyes. “Can we stop the fire from happening?”


He took in her expression. This meant something to her. Then he shook his head. “You can’t. It’s a hard thing to learn but you can’t. Be content looking at history like a pretty picture in a gallery. You don’t get to do your own finger painting over the top.”


Sang Mi paused. “I read a book about painting restoration once.”


“You can’t change history,” Chris said flatly.


She screwed up her face. “Is that ‘you’ as in ‘we’ or ‘you’ as in ‘me’?”


“Nobody can change history - not on purpose anyway. Anyone can change history without meaning to. You could make an amazing discovery in your native time. Cure a disease, write a hit song, invent a com unit that never loses signal. But going back in time to change things on purpose doesn’t work. If you knew a fire was going to break out so you went back in time to install a state of the art sprinkler system, the fire wouldn’t happen, so you'll never have known about it, so why did you go back and install the sprinklers? Paradox loop. The timeline disintegrates.”


Sang Mi turned back to the view. “It’s not fair.”


“I’m afraid it is fair,” said Chris. “It’s the same for everyone. Nobody’s...superior.”


She nodded, but it was a hollow gesture meant only to end the conversation. “Can we look around?”


“We have to," said Chris. “It’s where the cat went. Whatever’s going on is going on in there. Come on.”


There was a chill in the air. A bird called out somewhere, hoping for a reply in the wind.


Sang Mi led the way. She drifted forward as though in a dream, finally walking through a place she'd known for years.


Chris moved more cautiously, looking down the dark paths between each building, imagining where the best vantage points to watch them from would be. At this point in his life, these checks were purely instinctual. He'd do exactly the same if he was heading out for a bite to eat after his shift on Spaceport 5.


The pair reached the biggest of the buildings and shared a silent look of acknowledgement that, yes, the biggest one was probably the place to start.


Sang Mi started towards the front entrance. Chris tapped her shoulder to stop her and gestured instead towards a side door.


It opened with a rusty sound louder than Chris would’ve liked. Accepting that they had now announced themselves, he stepped in, Sang Mi following behind.


The moonlight shining through the door was their only source of light.


Chris squinted to see. “Make sure the door doesn’t-”


The door blew shut.


“Sorry,” said Sang Mi.


A beam of light illuminated Chris Cwej’s smile. “Have a torch.” He passed her the other one from his belt and the pair set off.


Their torches cast sharp shadows across uneven walls, creating an aggressive expressionist world.


Sang Mi turned and her light fell on a fireplace. It wasn’t lit, save for the light of her torch. Slowly, she raised her beam up across stone walls with old, unrefined brickwork.


She took a step closer, and closer, then she put her hand on the wall. The cold, dark stone looked cold to the touch, but it wasn’t. It was warm. She pushed against it - it was slightly soft. Spongey bricks?


“Ah ha!” Chris’ voice came from somewhere off in the darkness. “That’s what we need.”


A buzz, and one by one the lights sparked on overhead.


Sang Mi looked around at the medieval castle she was standing in.


At the end of the room was a long table, with a shining throne in the middle and several smaller, only slightly-less impressive chairs on either side. Banners hung on the walls above with stark black and white designs, and several empty suits of silver armour stood on guard by the entrance.


A man in a blue suit of armour walked through that entrance. “Not sure about the historical accuracy,” said Chris. “Black and white banners, I suppose so the designs show up well on a black and white camera. Also…”


He pointed downward at the dirty studio floor that this old castle sat upon.


“It’s so detailed,” said Sang Mi. “I’ve never seen this film. What’s through there?”


She ran across the throne room with no regard at all for royal protocol and stepped across the threshold into a dressing room.


Two chairs sat in front of mirrors on either side of the room, and the most colourful array of suits and dresses were arranged on rails against one wall, feathers and sequins everywhere.


Sang Mi sat down and swivelled towards the nearest mirror to admire herself, but saw nothing. Instead of a reflection, she only saw a frame filled in with solid white.


Chris stood by her shoulder and looked. “Mmm. An early attempt to avoid the camera accidentally showing up on film?”


“You mean…” Sang Mi looked around. “This is a set too?”


“Looks like it.”


She examined one of the costumes. “It’s like something they used to wear on stage at musical revues. The Broadway Melody of 190-something.”


Chris opened the door of the dressing room and stepped outside into a wide open space, a dark studio filled with slices of different environments, like windows into different times and spaces, all frozen.


A shape moved through the frozen places.


“CAT!” Sang Mi ran off, Chris following close behind.


The shape disappeared into a rocky tunnel. As Sang Mi and Chris wandered through it, it became harder and harder to see without the light. At the end, Sang Mi pressed her hand against the cave wall and found it was soft again - even softer than the wall of the castle. Hesitantly, she pushed, and a giant hollow boulder rolled out of the way.


The pair stepped out of the tomb.


They turned and looked back at what they had just emerged from.


“This is…”


Chris nodded. “I think it is.”


They were standing on the set of a film Sang Mi knew very well. Chris had seen it too, briefly, but crucially neither of them had seen its ending.


The film was Battle on the Easter Front. This whole wild journey had started when a girl named Petra had moved Heaven and Earth to try to see that ending; it had been her mother’s favorite film. She’d gone so far as to kidnap her fellow students to try to recreate that ending. And crucially, they’d followed the trail of a flickering cat, and found a projector that made the movie… well, real.[a]


“This is the second time we’ve been inside this movie,” said Sang Mi.


“We’ve had the immersive 4D experience,” said Chris. “Now we’re seeing behind the scenes. Battle on the Easter Front was made here. But that means—”


A low grumble distracted him.


Sang Mi heard it too. They looked at each other and silently questioned whether the noise was something they should be worried about.


They heard it again. A heavy droning sound from somewhere nearby. It came and went, every six or seven seconds.


Whatever was making the noise was clearly big, probably dangerous, and the two of them couldn't help but start moving towards it.


They listened as they walked. The low grumble got louder and louder as they got closer and closer.


They found the source more suddenly than they expected. Around a corner, sitting in the middle of the studio floor, was a giant something. At first it looked like a formless pile, but as they got closer they realised it very much had form - a deliberate, sculpted form. It was hard to tell what it was made of. Clay? It seemed to move, rising and falling slightly as the grumble came and went, but the movement was jagged and uneven.


The shape was also flickering. Just like the cat, it juddered as though the image was a projection.


Sang Mi reached out to touch it, but stopped when she saw Chris raise a hand to stop her. He shook his head and gestured to stay quiet.


He led the way as the two walked around the mound. His mind was reeling, trying to connect dots. It looked like a lump of sentient something. Is this what the flickering cat was made out of? Could he take a scoop of this stuff and shape it into whatever he wanted to bring it to some form of life?


He stopped when he saw a strange circle on the mass.


Sang Mi held her breath as Chris leaned in to examine it.


It opened. A reflectionless eye stared back at them.


"Back!" Chris pulled Sang Mi away as the mass started to rise. Part of it lifted off the ground, and as it did its form became clear. Two mighty hind legs, two small front arms, and one massive tail, all moving with not quite enough frames of animation.


They'd woken up a stop-motion dinosaur.


Chris grabbed Sang Mi and they ran. Despite how much she wanted to, Sang Mi didn't look back at the impressive spectacle of the tyrannosaurus rex rearing back, roaring, then charging after them, knocking down sets and lights and rigging as it went. She could at least appreciate the foley that emphasised its footsteps. It chased after them in a flickering rage, each step sounding like a deep drum being struck.


It chased the two of them back through the old dressing room set and the royal throne room. The table crashed over as the t-rex's mighty tail swung. Whatever that flickering material was, it was solid enough, Chris thought.


They ducked through the swinging doors of an old timey saloon - there's no way the dinosaur would fit through after them. Then they turned and saw the set only had two walls.


“Budget cuts,” Chris growled, and they got back to running.


They ran out the side of the saloon and kept barrelling forwards, away from the ever-approaching footsteps. They flew together through different times and places, always with danger hot on their trail.


“Over there!” Sang Mi pointed.


In front of them was a section of the studio that was boxed off from the rest. From this angle, they could see it had at least two walls.


They ran around those two walls, the t-rex not far behind them, until a third wall came into sight. Then, a wave of relief washed over Chris as he saw the vital, intact fourth wall.


He led Sang Mi through a door into the box, entering a pretty swanky-looking hotel room. It was bigger than any hotel Sang Mi had been in - with twin beds, a seating area with a sofa, a sideboard with drinks, the works.


They waited in silence.


Outside, the t-rex had stopped. It slowly crept around outside the four walls, looking for a way in.


They were so quiet, they could hear not only its footsteps, but a sound of whirring coming from the creature - the flickering of the film that made its greyscaled skin.


They heard the sound of something approaching, much closer than the dinosaur. The door to the hotel's restroom opened and a thin flickering man stepped out. “Say, what goes on here?”


Chris grabbed him and covered his mouth.


The sensation of directly touching the man's flickering face felt like static on Chris' hand. He fought the urge to let go.


Regardless, the man quickly fell silent of his own free will. The dinosaur's silhouette passed across the drawn curtains, its shape projected onto the screen.


All three were silent, watching, waiting.


The projected image faded.


They listened as the heavy drum footsteps got quieter and quieter until finally, they were alone.


Chris removed his hand from the man’s mouth. “Sorry.”


He was smartly-dressed, with a sharp suit and perfect hair. “Now do you mind telling me who you two are? And who was that man out there?”


“‘Man’?” Sang Mi repeated. “It was a dinosaur! Didn’t you see the shape?”


The man blinked. “Dinosaur? Now what does that mean?”


Chris circled him, taking in every detail of his flickering form. “A dinosaur. Do you know what a dinosaur is?”


“Can’t say I do. Listen, I tell you what…” He turned towards the table and picked up a teapot. “How about a nice relaxing drink, huh?”


Sang Mi whispered to Chris, not wanting to be rude. “How does he not know what a dinosaur is?”


Chris paused. “Outside of his frame of reference. Maybe the movie he’s from doesn’t have any dinosaurs in it.”


“Is that how this works?”


“Depends. Did I sound convincing?”


The man turned back to them holding two cups of tea. “I suppose I should make an attempt at a proper introduction. I’m Peter.”


Sang Mi smiled and took the cup offered to her. “I’m Sang Mi, this is Chris.”


Chris nodded to confirm that this intel was accurate and took his cup. “Where do you come from?”


“Oh, all over really.” Peter turned and sat down as Chris and Sang Mi sipped their tea. “I’ve been staying here in New York a while, trying to get the big scoop on a new Broadway show.”


Sang Mi tried to read the man’s face. Was he acting? Did he wear the face of some actor from this era of film she just didn’t recognise? Or was he a character personified? Pure unrestrained fiction. “We’re not in New York,” she said finally. “We’re in Pennsylvania.”


“Not to him,” said Chris. “Cats and dinosaurs and even people from movies. What’s bringing them to life? What's giving them mass? How does it work?” He paused as he muddled through it in his head. “There’s one more important question though. The most pressing question of all.” He turned to look Sang Mi in the eyes. “Why would a prop tea pot sitting in a film studio set at night have real hot tea in it?”


Slowly, the two of them looked down at their cups and saw that the liquid they’d been drinking was grey and flickering.


As Chris lost consciousness, he could feel the end of the reel.


* * *


Sang Mi’s first thought was that Chris had just said something. Unfortunately, the thought came to her too late to actually listen.


She looked around at the rows and rows of shelves around her, all covered in film cans.


“Are you okay?” Chris repeated.


Sang Mi’s first instinct was the turn to face Chris, then she realised she couldn’t. The two of them were tied on chairs, back to back, in the middle of some sort of film collection.


“I’m fine,” Sang Mi finally responded, although she realised after she said it that she hadn’t actually checked if she was. She stopped trying to turn and focused her gaze forward, on the film can sitting on the shelf in front of her. “Outwitting Dad.”


Chris tried to see behind himself. “Excuse me?”


“This film canister. It’s called Outwitting Dad. It’s a 1914 movie, I think the first movie Oliver Hardy was ever in. It doesn’t exist any more - it’s lost media. It burned…we’re in Lubin’s film vault.”


“Well, you certainly know your stuff,” said a new voice.


Sang Mi and Chris both turned their heads.


For a brief moment, Chris thought the voice belonged to the flickering cat, which wandered out from the shelves and passed by his feet. Then he watched it slink off towards a woman standing in the darkness. She wasn’t flickering. She looked entirely real.


She reached down, and picked up the kitty as it started to rub against her skirts,  stepping out of the shadows as it flickered in her arms and she stroked its shifting fur. She’d blended into the shadows because she was wearing all black, from her head to her toes. Her face was covered by a black veil. They knew her. They’d seen her before.


“How long has it been now, twenty-one years since the Chicago World’s Fair? Though for you… days, weeks? Being a time traveller must be so convenient, while the rest of us slog through every day between two points, you just touch the highlights and disappear.”


“Something like that,” Chris answered. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Salome Herodian.”


She sighed. “Just Sal. I’ve been funding films here. I am hoping Battle on the Easter Front will allow me to fund other period pieces… including a better representation of my life.”


They gave each other a glance, which hurt both of their necks in the attempt, and tried not to give too much of the future away.


“Well, I’m glad to see you’re doing okay!” Sang Mi said optimistically.


Sal turned her blank veil to face her. “Yes, after you kicked me out of the top of the Ferris wheel and I broke my body in three dozen places and crawled away in agony, I did make a full recovery.”


Sang Mi tried to shimmy so she was more hidden behind Chris. It almost was a good attempt. Chris tried to straighten his back to assist, and calm Salome down. “We’re not here to pick a fight. We’re just…”


“Poking your nose where it doesn’t belong?”


“Investigating,” he said evenly. “That cat is unusual. And it’s not the only thing that is.”


Sal raised her veil just enough they could see her grinning. “Oh, you’re curious about them, are you?” She lifted the cat to look into its eyes. “Inside all of them is a projector. An omni-directional 3D projector. Using AI, it extrapolates a person or an animal or a thing from a movie and sort of…fills in the blanks. Completes them in a way. It imagines what the back of an actor’s head would look like during their close-ups, if you get my meaning.”


“Giving them physical form,” finished Chris.


Sal nodded and placed the cat down at her feet. “Ultimately, corporations turned against theme park mascots. They’d break character sometimes when park visitors misbehaved, and would demand things like ‘pay’ and ‘rights’. With these projectors, you can rip a character straight off of the screen. I’ve been experimenting with them for a while. The cat was simple. Relatively speaking,” she quickly added, for fear of offending the cat. “Then I started to think bigger.”


“Love the dinosaur,” said Chris. “A stop motion dinosaur made of clay. So these projectors can give life to even inanimate material.”


“Of course,” said Sal. “They don’t give life to the clay, they give life to the story. The fiction. The belief that the clay is alive. That’s what’s being animated.”


Sang Mi was starting to get a twinge in her neck from turning to face Sal while being tied to a chair. “Why did you move us here? And why are we tied up?”


“Well, I thought I might just leave you both here,” said Sal. “Locked up in the archive, left to gather dust. A pair of lost stories nobody will be able to reconstruct. Tell you what…while I’ve got you here, let’s see how well you know your film history.”


From one of the shelves she pulled out a projector screen and set it up against the wall.


“Tell me if you recognise this.” She pushed a button and on screen was a still image of a train station.


“The Arrival of a Train, from 1896,” said Sang Mi, almost instantly. “Thought to be one of the earliest films ever made. Just a simple shot of a train pulling into a station. You know,” she said over her shoulder to Chris. “There’s this legend that the first audience it was shown to thought the train was going to burst through the screen and hit them.”


That statement sat there for a heavy moment.


Chris raised an eyebrow at Sal.


Sal just stood there and beamed.


“You realise,” Chris started, slowly, “that this is a very small room. If a train came in here, you’d be crushed too.”


“Would I?” Sal took a step close to the tied-up pair, letting them get a good look at her.


She waved her hand in front of Chris’ face, which at first he found annoying and obnoxious, but it suddenly became very interesting when he noticed her hand moving just a little bit too quickly. Or too slowly? It was hard to put his finger on what was wrong with her fingers, except that sometimes, for a split frame, it looks like there were more of them than there were.


“Wow,” said Chris at last. “Well done. You really have been experimenting, haven’t you?”


Sang Mi tried again to turn. “What’s happening?”


“She’s not really here,” said Chris. “She’s just a recording, like the others. A 4k, high definition recording, running at a higher frame rate and in full dazzling colour, but a recording nonetheless.”


“Well,” said Sal, lowering her veil. “The show's nearly over.”


She pushed a button on the protector and the still image of The Arrival of a Train started to move, a grain now playing across the screen.


“Goodbye!” Sal waved, then the image of her fizzled. For a brief moment, she was entirely blue, then the image retracted, and all that was left was a floating silver ball with several black lenses. The omni-directional 3D projector that had been sitting where her heart was fell gently to the ground and rolled.


Chris and Sang Mi struggled to free themselves as the train on the screen came into view.


“What do we do?” asked Sang Mi. The rope was so thick and rough, it dug into her wrists as she pulled against it.


Chris’ mind reeled. Were they really about to be killed by something so simple? A nefarious villain tying them in front of an oncoming train? “Don’t panic. Panic isn’t helpful. Just pull.”


The pair pulled against the rope as hard as they could, and all the while they couldn’t take their eyes off the screen.


The train got closer.


Chris and Sang Mi were on the edge of their seats.


Closer and closer.


And then.


It stopped.


The train settled into the station.


The film ended.


Chris and Sang Mi sat in the darkness for a moment.


Sang Mi spoke up first. “I suppose those people who thought they were going to get hit by the train were a bit silly, weren’t they?”


Chris gave a nod she wasn’t in a position to see. “Very silly, yes.”


“I suppose it makes sense really,” Sang Mi said, relaxing back in her chair. “If she was making movies here, she wouldn’t do anything to destroy the archive.”


They both took a moment to breathe deeply.


Then the breath was ripped from their lungs.


A deafening blast like a canon and the sound of something heavy shattering echoed through the room and shook their hearts. Cans fell from the shelves and the shelves fell from the walls.


“What now?” Chris shouted, a little too loudly while his ears still rang.


Sang Mi knew immediately. “An explosion in the Lubin film vault. The….um…the gases, I can’t remember. From the celluloid. It heated up and caused an explosion. The fire’s started. We have to stop it!”


“We have to get free - one thing at a time.”


Chris and Sang Mi struggled against the ropes once more, and the pain in their wrists returned as if they hadn’t had a break.


“There has to be something to cut it with,” said Sang Mi.


They became aware of the air around them, somehow thicker, heavier, dragging against their throats as they drew breath.


A confused meow caught them off guard.


The flickering cat climbed over the fallen shelves and film cans. Sang Mi wondered whether an AI-fuelled 3D extrapolation of a character from a movie could feel heat.


Then she noticed the particular film can that the cat had its paw on. It had a label on the side that said ‘A Little Hero’.


Another explosion shook Sang Mi, but somehow she didn’t notice it as much this time. Because something was very wrong, and it sent her brain into a frantic rush.


A Little Hero was a silent movie from 1913. Granted, they were currently in 1914 - the time checked out. What didn’t check out was the fact that she’d seen it. Sang Mi had seen A Little Hero.
If it burned here, in Lubin’s archive, how is that possible?


She’d watched it with Sang Eun. It was a charming little film, barely 5 minutes, about a bird, a dog, and…a cat.




The flickering cat turned to look at Sang Mi, and in that moment, she got it.


She’d seen that movie because it wasn’t a Lubin movie. It was made by Keystone. Which means it being here was wrong - it must be a copy. It must have been brought here by Salome.


And finally, she recognised the cat.


“Is that the movie you’re from?” Sang Mi asked.


The cat just stared at her. It tilted its head slightly, judging her reaction.


Chris looked over his shoulder at her. “Making any progress?”


The air was thick and dark now. The fire was getting closer.


In A Little Hero, a dog saves a bird from a cat. If that’s the movie this cat is from…


Sang Mi started whistling the best bird song she could conjure.


The cat’s ears perked up immediately. The film it came from may have been silent, but the projector in its heart brought the story of the movies to life - it could hear the bird song.


It jumped towards Sang Mi and started attacking the rope, clawing at it and meowing. In moments, it was slack enough for Sang Mi to pull herself free. She turned and untied Chris.


A third explosion rocked the building.


Without saying a word, Chris took Sang Mi’s hand and they ran. They burst out of the archive and escaped.


* * *


Sang Mi and Chris sat on a bench in the middle of Philadelphia. The fire brigade had arrived, but Sang Mi already knew how much they were able to save and how much was lost.


"There were only around 20 injuries, and no confirmed deaths, which is lucky," said Sang Mi eventually. "A lot of people worked there, in Lubinville - that's what they called it. There was one boy called Ray who was badly hurt. An actor called Harry C. Myers saved him. I saw him in a movie once..."


Chris could feel Sang Mi trying to work through it, speaking more to herself than to him. "That's history. It's the way it always was. But, for a moment, we got to be there, didn't we?"


Sang Mi nodded. “Now that moment’s gone.”


They both sat and listened to the noise of the sirens. Then a noise under the bench made them both jump.


They looked down and saw the flickering cat, curled up asleep. A little hero.


“Come on,” said Chris. “Let’s go watch a movie.”

Next Stop:
Coming soon...


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Edited by James Wylder and James Hornby
Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain
Cover by Ari Michak
Illustrations by Bex Vee
Logo design by Lucas Kovacs
 
Concepts Used with Permission:
Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press
WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc.
Archie MacTavish, Tasha Williams, SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby
Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane
Yssgaroth © Neil Penswick
C.R.U.X © Aristide Twain
The Jovian Diplomatic Service, Blue Candle Coffee Company, E.D.E.M, Jhe Sang Mi, Jhe Sang Eun, Maxie Masters © James Wylder
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Cwej: Remembrance by Molly Warton

10/31/2025

0 Comments

 
​
There was nothing but the wind in the night and the howling of the river to hide the soft unspoken whispering of the stars scattered across the horizon.


“Isn’t it beautiful?” beamed Chris Cwej, “The whole universe laid out like a dream in the night.”

“Mhm,” murmured Sang Mi, whose mind was bobbing up and down in her head.


He stretched, and through the stretch fell the world, into the palm of the short hard grass that adorned the rocky ground.


“I think we should get to bed,” Chris said.


“I’m not a child,” said Sang Mi, tracing dreamy fingers about a patch of dust, and yawned, “’m used to staying up late.”


“Well I’m tired,” said Christopher Cwej, firmly, and went off over to the battered old orange car to get the sleeping things set up.


Sang Mi sat up, groaning, in the shadow of the mountain. She, stretch rolling through her body, wrapped her woollen scarf more tightly around her to fend off the bitter coldness of the night, and went over to the grassy ledge which sunk harshly down to the dancing limbs of the white white river below. Her heart ached, and she didn’t know why. She didn’t even notice it. She just stared into the gulf where the wind twisted about the pretty rocks and in it an owl cried, lonesome, for its mate.


She looked to her right, to the forest that sloped its way up into the night. It curved up desperately, grasping for the sky, but it could never reach the stars that gazed so softly upon it.


Her breath caught cold on her lips.


At the base of a tree was a smiling girl, who twisted her fingers shyly about the lower branches of the ageing conifer. She bit her lip and looked at Sang Mi uncertainly.


Sang Mi stared at the girl. The girl stared at her.


“Chris…” began Sang Mi, turning slightly to him, but when she turned again the girl was gone. She ran to the tree.



Not a trace of the girl remained. When she listened she heard nothing but the weeping of the river and the gentle murmuring of the stars. The quiet smell of pine gave no hint of any others.


“Hello?” she said, in English, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help.”


But there was nothing but the wind.


Her heart was doing funny things to itself and she wished that it wouldn’t, but she had to find the child, she had to.


“Do you know where Momma is?” asked the girl, gnawing at her dark hair.


The girl was right in front of her; she could feel her. She could see her.


Sang Mi jumped.


“Uh, sorry,” she said, crouching down, “I don’t. But I’ve got a friend, alright, and I – I’m sure he can find your Momma. What’s your name?”


“Lina,” said Lina, because it was.


Lina’s hand felt soft and cold in Sang Mi’s hand, and she could feel every tiny supple ridge that rolled along it. How beautiful it was, the little thing. She held it as if it were the most fragile thing in the world, and even then was scared of breaking it. She felt all at once as though she was holding Lina, keeping her from falling, and as though it were Lina holding her and keeping her from drifting away into the darkness.


They did not travel fast, but it was not far, and anyway time was of no consequence in the cradle of the stars.


Chris was sitting with his head entangled in a sleeping bag, and emerged a pile of disjointed limbs that flopped about good-naturedly before finally escaping the womb of the woven fabric.


“Hello,” he smiled, panting, “You ready for bed yet?”


“This is Lina,” said Sang Mi, looking rather anxious, but she was gone.


Chris looked at her curiously.


“Who?” he said, brow furrowed in confusion.


“She – she’s there!” said Sang Mi, and she was. But Chris could not see her.


“I don’t see anyone,” he said.


Lina looked very small and shrinking under the conversation, and her dirt-ridden hair went further into her mouth.


“Look!” cried Sang Mi.


Chris looked, and he could not see.

Through the frustration and utter bewilderment of his heart his soul was closed, and so still he could not see, though he tried. Again and again, he tried, and the present overwhelmed the reality so that he was blind in the ancient light of the stars.


Sang Mi stared at his sorrow, and all at once knew it, though her own emotions veiled it.


“Rest,” she breathed suddenly, and he did.


“She’s looking for her mum,” said Sang Mi to Chris.


Chris bit his lip, hard, and felt the pain of it even as he whirled through a hundred states, heart caught between waking and sleeping, the train and the platform, the knit and the purl, the soul and the nafs – even as it fell and rose with the tides and the moon; even as it beat twice, thrice, four times, five.


His eyelids were wrestling together, pressed deep-dark like the woods.


He opened his eyes.


He opened them again, and saw Lina.

“Hello,” he said.


“Hello,” murmured Lina, shyly.



He saw.


“You’re dead,” he said to her.


“Oh,” she said, quietly.


Sang Mi looked at Chris. He looked at her.


“Sit down,” he smiled, but it was a sad smile.


The want for sleep seemed far more acute with the harsh softness of the shunted chair, and Sang Mi felt sleep seep into the edges of her eyes with the tears that she refused to notice. She lifted Lina up onto her lap, and the girl flickered on the edge of existence, cuddling into her chest. She was so warm and beautiful, even in her sadness. Sang Mi hugged her to her chest.


“Lina,” said Chris, his legs dangling aimlessly over the side of the vehicle, “Is a memory. She died many years ago – probably hundreds by the look of her clothes – but the land remembers her.”


“Why?” asked Sang Mi.


“The soldiers came,” murmured Lina into Sang Mi’s arm.


Chris and Sang Mi looked at each other.


“The soldiers came and Momma went to find work and she took me with her because she had to and they were fighting and then there was blood on me and it hurt like – like everything and… and…”


Lina’s voice died out. Sang Mi was holding her very very tightly.


“The land remembers strong emotions,” said Chris quietly, “It remembers her death.”


He shuffled himself off of the car and lay on the ground, propping himself up on his elbows. He shifted some browning pine needles from the ground, and felt the bare soil in his hands, patting it and turning it. He whispered to it, not with his mouth, but with his soul, and the heart of it opened up. It could not be seen, exactly, or felt, or perceived in any of the typical manners in which one perceives things, but the memory was known, then.


Sang Mi knew the unknowable: the subtle shape of a kind calloused hand wrapped around her own; the whispered assurances in an accent long lost to time; the fear of the noise that rang like the world in her ears; the reassurance of the smile of a soldier, with pretty brown hair that hung softly about his head; the look of the soldier as he knew that he was about to die, the blood that came so harshly and yet so soft; the turning of the stomach like a thousand wildebeest; lostness; pain; nothing.


Lina occasionally flickered out of existence, and what scared Sang Mi was that she didn’t notice when she did so. She always came back though, slightly less real every time, and slightly more tired-looking and feeling every time, curled up into a ball in her lap.


She looked at Chris. He was crying.


“Can’t we do something?” she asked, quietly.


“Memory fades,” said Chris, “Existence is impermanent.”


What he didn’t say was that she could be saved, but the only way that it could be done would have brought his Superiors down on them like a black hole. And there were complications, always complications. Nothing was ever simple.


The only – it couldn’t be the only way, thought Chris. There must have been some other way, there must!



If I were clever, he thought, I could see it. If I were somebody else, I could see it. But I’m not. I’m just me. Plain old Chris Cwej.


Sang Mi was looking at him, and he fell into her deep black eyes that held the stars in their rim, and nothing was right. The world was wrong, except that it wasn’t. This was how things were supposed to be.


This was right.


“Crap,” muttered Cwej, but under his breath, so that Sang Mi wouldn’t hear.


Time sat sinking further into the night, taunting him as it danced about the treetops. He saw its mellow dance, and he laughed in his heart with all the warmth of a soldier going over the top. Ribbons of blue and red and gold, laughing in the softness of the night, even as he sat with a world of earth in his palms.


The universe laughed at him, because it always did, and he sat and listened, because that’s what he was for.


He jumped up like a flower in the spring.


“I can save her!” he yelled, tears sparkling in the edges of his eyes, “I can save her.”


But he couldn’t.


“She’s been dead for hundreds of years,” said Sang Mi dully.


He knew he couldn’t.


On his right shoulder sat an angel of death, and on his left sat an angel of destruction, and both would taunt him until Judgement Day, because that’s what he was. And he wished he wasn’t. He wished he were a little fish, swimming in a river. He wished he were a heron. Herons didn’t have to worry about anything, he thought.


He wished he were a deer.


Sang Mi looked at him, and he looked at Sang Mi, and she was his world and he was hers, and he remembered, and knew that he was one after all, and his self was set at peace, and a strange calmness sat over him. He sat upon the carpet of needles and began to cry.


One last time Lina appeared, soft and warm in Sang Mi’s arms. She smiled, and put her arms as far round Sang Mi as they would go, and the world fell into the hug, which was warm and painful and comforting.


“She’s gone,” said Sang Mi, and her voice was very very quiet.


She ran over to Chris and hugged him, and they cried softly and briefly into each other’s shoulders.


Chris pulled away from the warmth first.


“Bed, I think,” he said, smiling sadly, as the light of the stars danced across their bodies.


Sang Mi, bleary-eyed, assented.


Into the sleeping bags went their warm, aching bodies, into the comfort of the night.


And the last moment before sleep was a beautiful, terrible eternity.


Next Stop:
Lost Media
by Michael Robertson
and James Wylder


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Edited by James Wylder and James Hornby
Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain
Cover by Ari Michak
Illustrations by Bex Vee
Logo design by Lucas Kovacs
 
Concepts Used with Permission:
Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press
WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc.
Archie MacTavish, Tasha Williams, SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby
Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane
Yssgaroth © Neil Penswick
C.R.U.X © Aristide Twain
The Jovian Diplomatic Service, Blue Candle Coffee Company, E.D.E.M, Jhe Sang Mi, Jhe Sang Eun, Maxie Masters © James Wylder
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Cwej: This is a Story About _______ by James Wylder

10/31/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

This is a Story About _______
by James Wylder
Illustrated by Newton Locheye


This is a story about a road trip.


But you know that. That's why you're reading this. Well, perhaps this is your very first time reading about the Adventures of Christopher Cwej and his young assistant Jhe Sang Mi as they travel through the American Midwest, and if so, welcome. It's unclear why you're starting here of all places, but we hope you have a good time.


Presumably however, you've seen their stories so far. You've seen them stop in towns, and help, or try to help. You've seen them meet ghosts, and creatures, and monsters.


The road has greeted them, and they have greeted it back. It has become comfortable, normal, their day to day. But no less filled with danger and adventure.


But no adventure is one story. This one starts somewhere else.
 
 
This is a story about Scooby Doo.


Or rather, this is a story about masks.


The flashlights lit up the monster that Christopher Cwej and Jhe Sang Mi were chasing in glancing glimpses, as they struggled to keep the lights fixed on the beast while running.


Its clawed feet and grizzled brown fur stood out in that light, even as its growls and roars of anger allowed the duo to stay on its long tail.


They turned the corner in the mansion, only to find the monster trying to turn a doorknob, rattling it and cursing under its breath.


“It’s the end of the line,” Chris said.


The monster turned to face them, panting, and as they put their hands on their knees to catch their breath, Sang Mi reached forward with both hands, grabbing the monster's head by the ears, and yanked.


The head popped off—too quickly, so that Sang Mi stumbled back and landed on her tailbone, holding the big hollow monster head as the human one in front of her looked up.


“Mr. Wilson. So it wasn't a real monster after all.”

He scowled, spitting at the floor in front of Cwej’s feet. “I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling travelers.”
​


Getting up, and gesturing wildly with the fuzzy head with everything she said, Sang Mi was clearly upset. "But what about the monster attacks at the factory? People died!"

He laughed. “It was a convenient way to cover up all the accidents from our cost cutting.”

“SERIOUSLY!?”

Chris sighed. “I really wouldn't have jumped to dressing up like monsters first.”

“Well it worked.”

Chris couldn't argue that bit. “You”ll face justice.”

Mr. Wilson's scowl turned into a grin. “Will I? I've bought the town prosecutor, the mayor, and the police chief. Go ahead, turn me in.”

Sang Mi looked at Chris. “He bought people? Isn't that illegal?”

“Well, yes, but he doesn't mean it that way. He means bribes.”

“Ohhhhh. Right. So that's pretty simple to solve, right?”

The man blinked. He clearly did not think it was simple. Chris also wrinkled his brow before his face lit up in understanding.

“Right, you see, my friend here is something of a computer expert. And she's found a lot of this era's electronic security to be…”

“Pitiful?”

“Well, I was going to be nice about it.”

She raised a finger and pulled out her phone and started tapping away at the screen. Both Mr. Wilson and Cwej expected this to take a few moments, and for Sang Mi to slickly put her phone back into her pocket with a smirk and announce victory, but instead it took about twenty minutes, with Cwej having to threaten Mr. Wilson several times.

“Okay, done!” Sang Mi said, more relieved than triumphant. “The whole bribery situation has been taken care of. In fact, all your bribes are now being back charged to them. I don’t suppose they'll be very happy with you about that. Oh, and also I transferred all your money and assets to a charity that does stuff with feeding children or something. I figured that was a safe bet.”

Mr. Wilson stared. “You... that's impossible.”

“No, that’s why it took forever. That was really a slog. Okay now can we turn him in?”
 

Mr. Wilson found himself prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In fact, he was put through the wringer more than most criminals as the prosecutor fumed throughout the whole set of proceedings, and everything worked out.

 
Sang Mi couldn’t help but feel a lingering sense of disappointment. “It was just a guy in a suit.”

“That happens more than you'd think,” Chris said.

“I know it’s probably better when we don’t run into real monsters. But…” she trailed off and looked out the window. Everything that had happened on their last stop was clearly still weighing on her.

"We were able to help here—really help. That means something."

She nodded. He knew it wasn’t everything, and he said as much. She screwed her lips to the side, and then continued.

“At the end of this trip, when I go home and we're not travelling together, do you think I’ll do good?”

“Of course I do,” he said. But the thing that bothered him was that he wasn’t sure. And it wasn’t because she wasn’t skilled. She’d made him proud on this trip.

But sometimes when he looked at her he saw himself. And he thought about himself, and the mistakes he had made.

And he wondered if it would be better if he’d never met her.

And he wondered if it would be better if they'd both died in that car wreck.

And he wondered if he was making his own monster in his own image.

And that made his stomach churn. It made his neck and palms sweat and his throat get parched. It made him miss a turn and have to awkwardly make a U-Turn at the next intersection.

He was proud of Sang Mi.

He wasn't sure that was a good thing.
 

This is a story about something you can't understand.

People tried to put words to it, they called it “Yssgaroth” and other names. But these names failed to truly convey its existence. It was a place. It was more than a place. It was where vampires came from. It was another world, another reality. It was an alternate path for existence, one where the laws of reality were fundamentally different. There was life, but what life there was was not the same. Whenever it touched our world, it was poison. Or worse, an infection. It changed things. It made things not as they should be.

Chris and Sang Mi had encountered the Yssgaroth in Chicago, but they had barely encountered it. They had encountered an edge, a glimpse. Like the proverbial blind men each feeling one part of an elephant, they assumed a greater understanding of the whole than they did.

Because they did not understand the Yssgaroth, and neither do you. You can look them up, and read about them, and read about it, and read about what it was and what it will be, and you will nod and think you have a handle on it.

But no matter how little you understand it, it will continue to be what it is.
 
 

This is a story about a kidnapping.

It wasn't a very big dock, it was just for motorboats and kayaks on the lake, but it was still a dock. And that was enough for a shady meeting at midnight.

“You Big Lips?” the man in the black trenchcoat asked the man in the blue trench coat, one hand stuffed in a pocket.

“I am, this is my associate,” the man in the blue trenchcoat said, gesturing to the girl in the grey trenchcoat.

“I said meet alone.” The gruff man in the black coat pulled a gun from the pocket, a Stivala N9B1 from the looks of it.

"Look I got tired of waiting at the hotel, I can't sit all the dangerous stuff out. I watched all of "Owl House" during the last secret meeting," the girl sighed.

Blue trenchcoat threw his hands up. "I'm really sorry, kids am I right?"

Narrowing his eyes, the man in the black coat nodded slowly. "Fine. You have the cash?"

"Half now, half when we see the girl."

Black coat gritted his teeth. Not ideal, but he could play ball. "Sure."

The man in blue held up a bag, and tossed it to the man in black. Without lowering the gun, he carefully unzipped it. It looked like the right amount of cash at a glance, and a few quick flips showed that the stacks of bills weren't just 100s with 1s in between them. "Alright, looks good." He whistled, and a car pulled up to the dock, from it a terrified young girl with duct tape on her mouth and zip ties on her hands was guided out by a man in a balaclava and a leather jacket.

"She matches the description," the girl in grey said.

"Well you saw her, too bad you're not leaving the dock alive."

He was about to pull the trigger when the girl sprang—and sprang fast. He could have sworn he pulled the trigger, and there was a pop-bang, but that was impossible because the girl was alive and drawing of all things some kind of sword on him—a sword that cut his gun's barrel off horizontally two thirds of the way down. If he wasn't sure it was impossible, he would have said that she'd cut the bullet he fired in half too.

But that wasn't possible either.

The sword spun up, and ended up at his throat. Dropping the remainder of his gun, he raised his hands in surrender.

The man in blue was cursing, and he could hear the sound of a fistfight going on behind him, intermixed with scolding.

"I told you I would handle it!" he said.

"I saw an opening! I'm not hurt!"

"You're not hurt because you're using a sword that breaks the laws of physics!"

"It doesn't break them on Gongen!"

"Your universe has different laws of physics, obviously—ugh—oof." There was then the sound of several counter punches and a triumphant, "AND STAY DOWN!" Followed by panting and, "You can't show people that you have a sword that breaks the laws of the universe."

"They wouldn't know if you hadn't said anything!"

The man in the black coat coughed. "Uh, so what exactly is going to happen to me?"

He heard the man in blue sigh. "You're going to continue this wild dream."

And after that, there was only darkness till he woke up in a jail cell.
 

* * *
 

Sang Mi sheathed her sword. "I helped, there's no need to be angry. I fought the Vampires too, remember?"

Cwej gestured for her to tie the man up as he went to untie the little girl. "You're okay now, Stacy. This is going to sting a little—" He pulled off the duck tape, and the girl took in a deep breath.

"Is... is it over?"

He nodded. "It's over, you're safe." She fell into his arms sobbing, and Chris mouthed, "We'll talk about this later” to her.

They delivered the child back to the family, who had never had enough money to pay the ransom, received many thanks, and then handed them the bag of money they'd stolen from the last group of criminals they'd undone because Chris was getting tired of carrying it around and it was probably more money than they'd ever had in their life. There was the usual "oh no we couldn't!" before they accepted. Finally then Chris used a fake ID to pretend he was an FBI agent who couldn't break his cover by being the one to turn these kidnappers and the evidence he'd collected about them in, and the police detective he spoke to was kind and generous enough to take all the credit for the arrest, rescue, and investigation.


After all of that, they left town.
 

"I wish we'd see a monster, or an alien," Sang Mi said, flipping absentmindedly through Oddities of the American Midwest.

"Haven't we seen plenty already?" Chris ventured, but knew immediately it wasn't what she wanted to hear.

"I mean, yeah, but..."

He knew what she was thinking. They'd made peace with having to leave the town with, well, for lack of a better term, Little Green Men. But it still lingered for them. She wanted to do something more, to feel like she'd accomplished something. "We saved that girl you know. Stacy Kimble never would have made it home without us."

Sang Mi nodded. "I know. I'm not saying it wasn't important. It was just... normal, I guess."

"It was normal until you pulled out your magic sword."

Sang Mi frowned. "It's not magic. It's got a mono-molecular edge. They're one of Gongen's greatest inventions."

Chris sighed, and flipped his turn signal. "Sure. But not here. And you could have been shot. You could have died."

"But I didn't. I thought you were over this, being scared of putting me in danger."

"That's not the issue. I told you you'd need to follow my instructions, and you didn't. I had a whole other way of handling that scenario planned. Things worked out, but... when they don't work out, people die. You promised me you'd follow my instructions. You broke that promise."

She slid down in her seat. "Sorry. Really, I am."

"I know," he said. They drove on in silence together. "And look, I want to see something unusual too. I've seen a lot of things but... you don't go on these kinds of adventures if you don't want to see new things."

She nodded. “Let’s rest for the night. I know it's early but…”

It wasn’t a bad idea, so he took it.


This is a story about a date.

Archie wasn't usually one to ask someone out at work. And it had sort of happened by accident. He'd been working late with Tasha Williams, and as they charted the sightings of the monster across the city, he'd joked.

"They saw it at The Seventh Badger Pub? That was the last place I had a date. With how it went, might be worth checking into Brenda."

"You dated a Brenda?"

"Not for very long."

"And you let your last date be with a Brenda?"

"Do you have something against Brendas?"

"Do you?"

"Touche. But it's not like I planned on not dating again—and how long has it been since you were on a date?"

"Well, a while."

"Was it with a Brenda?"

"Maybe. And it's not like I've not wanted to date again either! It's just how things have gone!"

"Well maybe we should go on a date," he joked.

"Maybe we should," she said without thinking.

"Well then I'll see you tomorrow at six," he said just as quickly.

"I guess you will."

There was a sudden pronounced silence.

"Uh, where at?" she asked, as everything caught up to her. "I mean, you don't have to—"
At that point their co-worker Maxie walked in, and slammed a piece of paper straight from the printer between them. "I made a reservation for you two. Now shut up, let me get my work done already, and stop flirting!"

"We weren't—" they said in unison.

Maxie scoffed and shook her head. Archie could have sworn she muttered about "humans" as she walked away, but he was probably mishearing her.

"I guess it’s a date," Tasha mumbled.


* * *


Archie adjusted his tie. He thought he dressed well most of the time, but he'd scrutinized his own appearance longer than he had in years tonight. He'd settled on pin-stripes; when he'd made the choice he'd thought he looked slick as hell in the mirror. But now the thought rang in his brain: pin stripes? Really? That's what you chose?

"You look good." He looked up to see Tasha.

"I should be saying that, damn." And he meant it.

She was adjusting an earring and cursing under her breath about it. Tasha had chosen a classic black dress, and she was both stunning in it, and also looked slightly out of place.

"Psh," she replied. "But thanks. I thought this place was going to be fancy but there's a Blue Candle Coffee next door."

"Honestly I'm glad Maxie didn't try to bankrupt us."

"Ha, when you put it that way I'm glad too. Funding is tough enough as it is."

He put out an elbow, and she took it. It was a simple action, but one he hadn't done in ages. Work had been his priority, and he didn't mind that. The greeter took them to their seats, and their waiter told them the specials. They ended up both getting fish.

"I thought for sure you'd get steak."

"I did too till you reminded me of our financial straits," Archie said, then sighed. "You'd think with how much danger people are in they'd be willing to put more money our way. I mean, C.R.U.X is doing fine, the JDS are thriving and the US is even founding some new alien group that sounds like a music scene... EDEM I think? Geneva is doing okay, there's those other guys in Cardiff infringing on our mandate, and somehow that Zoltan guy is still doing things.”

"Wasn't Zoltan in World War Two?"

Archie shrugged. "Should that surprise us?"

Tasha laughed. "I suppose not. But maybe we shouldn't talk about work."

"Right, of course."

They ate their fish in silence for the next ten minutes.

Eventually, Archie paid their check after a bit of back and forth over splitting it, and they headed out into the cold night air.

"Well, that was..." Tasha trailed off.

"Yeah, sorry about—wait, look." He pointed to the shadows, where they saw it: slimy and fish- like, mouth covered in fangs, it was crawling out from an alley, before it got up onto its hind legs, and roared. A roar that caused the few passers by in the area to scramble. There it was—the creature they'd been charting all this time! Tasha pulled a pistol out of her purse, and pointed it at the monster.

"Don't move!" she called.

"Oh shit!" the monster said, raising its hands. "Whoa, hold up there, I give! It's just a joke, just a joke!"

Archie and Tasha looked at each other.

"Well that was disappointing," he said.

"The date or the monster?"

He sighed.

"Look, it’s nothing against you. I just don't think either of us are ready for dating. Let's deal with this bozo."

"Yeah, you're probably right," he agreed.

He would wonder later if he shouldn't have agreed so quickly. If he should have pushed a little harder and said: "No, we clearly both care about our work. That's not a bad thing. We really do have that in common."

But he hadn't said that.

And she was probably right anyway.

He wasn't that kind of man.
 
 

This is a story about a hotel.

Bernice McCleary was bored. It was the fifth day at the hotel, and her dad insisting she come along on his business trip so he wouldn't have to pay a sitter was proving to be something she regretted. Her now-ex-girlfriend back home had told her she wanted to see other people after day three, and she was too young to go into the single gay bar this podunk town did have cause they actually carded at the door—heresy.

So when she went downstairs to get another cup of free and incredibly thin coffee from the lobby and saw an Asian girl in running shorts shoes and leggings and a zip up hoodie, with a bob haircut that was starting to grow out a little longer than it was probably meant to be and a deer-shaped hair-clip. Her internal senses told her everything she needed to know: she might not know the right answers in English class, or social studies class, but she knew one thing: this girl was not straight. The girl was on her laptop, tapping keys and whipping her mouse back and forth, with her own Styrofoam cup of thin coffee.

She waved at the girl. She hesitantly raised a hand. "Mind if I join you? This place is jank."

She gestured to the seat in front of her, and Bernice slid in.

"Hi, I'm Bernice."

"Saaa...Sarah. I'm Sarah."

"You sound unsure about that."

"My name is Korean, so I go by Sarah around here on Earth."

"...On Earth?"

"I mean Pennsylvania."

Weird but whatever. "Sure. Hey, are you into UFOs?"

"...Like Little Green Men?"

"Yeah!"

"They're not real. People from Mars look totally different."

Bernice adjusted her skirt. This girl was exactly her type. "I think UFOs are real though—there's all sorts of wild stuff in the night sky. And if you go online there are all sorts of videos you can't explain."

"In my experience when there is light in the sky you can't explain it's like... spy drone. Spy satellite. Another spy drone."

Bernice nodded furiously. "Yes, the government is always watching."

"They do that here too? Where I'm from it's on the moon, well one of the moons, but they have this huge base there... Sorry this would be absolutely insane to listen to."
Grabbing her hand that was on the mouse with both of her own, Bernice shook her head. "No, I believe you! I'd love to hear more."

Sarah nodded. "Sure... I'm trying to beat this level in Half Life 2. Chris—he's like, my mentor— told me I'd really like it."

"Do you?"

"Yeah, it's pretty good. Usually he leaves me at the hotel because he thinks it’s going to be too dangerous for me to go with him to uh... to work, but today I got too clever and now he's got the room all evening." She sighed.

Bernice raised an eyebrow. "...Oh?"

"Yeah, he was talking to the cashier at the grocery store, and I gave him a little nudge and this time he actually took the hints and said something normal and smooth. He's dropped the ball so many times on this trip I was just like, please go on this date with this lady, I'll be fine. I can find stuff to do. But turns out his date is going way too well, and I did not need more details, and I don't have anything better to do than play Half Life 2 in the hotel lobby."

"Well, that's not entirely true."

"Oh? Did Half Life 3 come out or something?"

Bernice leaned in. "You could do me."

Sarah blinked, and her brain began doing calculations. "Oh. Oh I get it, yeah."

"Nothing serious, my dad is out of our room all night, so we could fool around a bit." She tried to give her best sexy eyes, but they didn't really seem to be having an effect on Sarah.

"Let me finish this level, then... sure I guess, yeah. I mean, that's something you want, right?"

She pulled her hands back. "That's not exactly enthusiastic."

Sarah shrugged, returning to her game. "I'm rarely enthusiastic. That doesn't mean I'm not down for it. I just don't really feel attracted to anybody I haven't known for a long time and really trust. But like, I am really bored, and that's probably more fun than this, so really just let me wrap this up."

It was definitely unusual, and normally Bernice would have walked at that point, but she waited, and they went up to the room, and they did in fact have a really good time. And then did cleaning up in the shower too.

They cuddled in bed, both of them on their phones, showing each other memes, but Sarah seemed pensive.

"What's up, something is clearly bugging you. You're not regretting…"

"No, no, like I said, this was all really good. I was just thinking like... I don't normally do this kind of thing."

"You mean with girls?"

"No? That's a weird question. I just mean like... this is the kind of thing Chris would do. Meet someone on an adventure and have a passionate encounter. I've been learning a lot of good stuff from him. I think I'm a lot more confident these days. But I don't know, I'm not really attracted to people sexually or romantically very easily. Anyone. So like, I don't know if I would have done this before this trip, you know? That doesn't mean it’s bad, or that I regret it. This is really nice. But I don't know. I guess I just didn't think this would be something I'd learn from him. I thought it would all be like... job related skills, I guess."

Bernice put an arm around her. "We're all bits and pieces of the people around us. I'm sure he's learned stuff from you too."

Sarah nodded. "That's probably true?"

Picking up her buzzing phone, Bernice's eyes widened. "Oh shit, it’s my dad. He says he's not feeling well so he's coming home early—you've got to get dressed and get out of here."

Sarah frowned. "Not supposed to have people over?"

"That and he doesn't know I like girls—it would be a whole thing." She kissed her, hard and this time with longing. "If you're still here tomorrow, hit me up."

She wasn't there tomorrow.

She did leave a note for her though, slid under the door and labeled from your "FRIEND Sarah" with way too much emphasis on the "friend part". There wasn't anything life changing in that note, but Bernice kept it with her in her purse. Years later her fiancé would ask her who "Sarah" was and she finally took it out and hid it in a drawer.

It was embarrassing to admit, but it was the only time someone had ever written her a note like that. She knew there hadn't really been emotion in it for Sarah, hell, the whole time Sarah was more concerned with making her feel good than worrying about herself. But sometimes she'd ask herself late at night when her wife was snoring next to her if she could have been something more to Sarah if they'd just had more time.

It was the kind of thought she wished she could push out of her mind.

But it was the first time she'd had a thought linger like that too.
 
 
This is a story about firsts.

Sang Mi and Kyon lay in bed together. They'd rolled over to face each other after he'd pulled off of her and he'd pulled the condom off.

They'd both asked each other if it was good, and reassured each other. "Sorry, I was a little nervous," he'd said.

She'd kissed him. "It was the best."

"It was the only."

She'd nuzzled into his chest. "Still, not everyone enjoys it the first time. It felt good. I thought I'd feel different now though."

"Yeah I think I get that. Like, I thought I'd feel like I was a man now, you know?"

He kissed her forehead.

"I... know what you mean, but in the other way," she ran her hand down his pecs. She liked that. He ran his hand down her back to her butt. "I really thought I'd finally feel... feminine. Connected to it all. You know, I thought I'd feel that way when I got my period. My mom prepared me for it. And then it happened and it just hurt. It didn't make me feel like a girl."

"Is this like... a gender confession?"

"No, not really. I guess. I don't know. I mean, I wanna do this again when you're ready. It's nice to just... feel like I'm here. Like my body is good. I don't usually feel that."

"I could probably go again, you know, whenever."

She laughed, and it was a real laugh. They were both sixteen. "You don't need to sound so eager, it's not like I'm going anywhere. You can just hold me for a little."

They kissed. And he did hold her. And they did go again.

And later he cheated on her and didn't tell her for three months. Because they were stupid teenagers. And she hated him for that later, but she did look back on her first time fondly. Regardless of anything later, for that moment, she was safe, and warm, and happy, and felt good, and he was sweet and gentle and kind.

And somehow, everything bad later didn't ruin that memory.

* * *

He'd chosen this body-bepple just to impress him. He didn't even really like it, but Chris Cwej knew that Eli was always looking at people with this body-modification. He'd hoped this would be the end result. He knew it was ridiculous, going this far for a boy's attention. But anyone who had rolled their eyes could eat it—because it had worked. Eli had known what he was doing, and Chris had been content to let him do it.

"I thought I'd feel different," Chris said finally.

"What do you mean?" Eli replied.

"I mean, I thought I'd feel like a man. Grown up. Or like I liked my body, I guess."

"They have body bepples for that," Eli said obliviously.

"Yeah, I'll look into that," Chris deflected. "But don't you know what I mean? I thought sex would fix me."

"Not really, honestly. You saying it was bad?"

Panicking, Chris sat up and waved his hands. "No! No way, it was great, I'd love to do it again. I mean, when you, uh, yeah... Was it good?" he asked.

"Yeah. It was good. You uh, hadn't done this before had you?"

Chris laughed. "Found me out, huh?"

"It wasn't that hard."

"That's not true," Chris winked.

Eli blinked, and then it clicked and he shoved him playfully and kissed him. Their hands moved down, and touched each other once again. "That was a bad joke, it wasn't even funny." Eli said afterwards, but he was still smiling. Chris liked that he was smiling.

There was a part of Chris that felt a pang of regret that he knew this was all there was going to be—he'd looked a way that had caught Eli's eye and got him going, and he didn't have any interest in Chris beyond that. Chris wanted there to be more. He wanted to tell Eli that he knew what kind of movies he liked, or that he'd learned how to waltz because he'd planned to join the ballroom dance class Eli had quit later the same week.

He'd wanted all of this—and by the Goddess it had been good. He felt an aura of calm and satisfaction all down his body. Eli tolerated him cuddling, but the boy was already on his phone. They were both sixteen.

But there was another part of Chris that was relieved. He'd checked this box off, gotten this over with. And it had been good. He could make it matter the next time. He wouldn’t hurt knowing that his partner would leave when he got up to use the bathroom, and then hurt again when his instincts were proven exactly right.

He liked to think that that pang in his heart taught him to be kinder to his partners afterwards, more attentive to their needs. It wasn't the end he'd wanted, but he didn't feel bad about how his first time had gone. He'd chosen it, and somehow everything bad later didn't ruin that memory.
 
 
 

This is a story about a prisoner. 

He had been in prison for four years, and each of those years had been the same. It was hard to say anything interesting about his time. Every day was the same. Once a year, someone would come to visit him, which was the highlight of each year. He read a lot of books. He watched all of "The Owl House" and "Grey's Anatomy". He only got in one fight, but after that no one tried to fight him again. He wished after that he'd held back—it would have at least given him something to do if someone tried to fight him again.

That all changed the day he had two visitors, neither of whom was his usual.
 
The first was a woman in all black, like a mourning Victorian widow complete with a ridiculous veil. She sat waiting for him with her hands folded one over the other, the blank front of her veil facing him as he was led towards her. Once the guard had left, she didn't waste time.

"How would you like to get out of here?"

He shrugged. "Not if it means I'm in debt to you. I have time."

"I'm aware. You aren't the only immortal in this world. You think I don't know who and what you are? Why else would I be here?"

He smirked. "Please. You're not the first person to come here and offer me clemency."

"Yes I am," she said.

He unsmirked.

"You're not cute, and you're not fooling me with your faux confidence. I can free you. From here, and from your... affliction."

"And if I don't want to be free?"

"Then die alone, Archie MacTavish."

"That won't be my end. We're done here. Come back if you have a real offer."

She got up soundlessly, fluidly, and walked from the room.
 
 
The second guest was much less subtle. He sat in a beige suit with a brown tie, flicking through a copy of Crime and Punishment. He wasn't reading it, he was just performing, the drama queen. Archie slid into the seat in front of him. Waiting for the man to stop pretending he didn’t know he was there.

"Oh, I didn't see you there!" he lied, eyes shining and his smile pulling up his white beard.

"Are you with the widow?" Archie asked.

"Who? No, doesn't matter. I'm here for myself. And hopefully for you. Call me Agalon. One word, like Ulysses, though I'd never call myself him."

"You're offering to set me free? In exchange for what?"

"In exchange for you to do what you would already do. We have the same mandate, you and I. Unfortunately our friends have had several... bad goes at it. 1893 Chicago. 2020 London. 2023 Yorkshire. Among others. We've had a bad run. You know that yourself, you were there in 2020. But we only need to win once."

He examined the man closer. He could see it, upon further inspection. They shared a fate. "Okay, you also work for them."

"We want the same thing. And things are happening. Things that will benefit us. A darker world, one less kind, one that meets the needs of your benefactors. And one you will be most suited to."

He leaned back. "So how would you get me out, exactly?"

He gestured vaguely. "Oh, you know. We live in a silly world. I took the liberty of sending some very complimentary letters on your behalf to several very needy politicians. I can get you extradited to the USA, where you'll be pardoned immediately. What do you say?"

Archie leaned in. "What's the catch?"

He was nonchalant. "I really do just want you to do what you already would. Set the Yssgaroth free. I'll even give you a gift to help."

Archie gestured for this to be shown.

Agalon obliged, setting it down on the table with a smack.

"Well, I never said I wasn't above taking bribes."

 
 
This is a story about the Pentagon.

Archie had nice shoes now. They were the nicest shoes he'd ever owned, and cost more than his old salary had been in a month.

"You look sick," director Mark Ronaldson said.

"This is just how I look," he replied.

Ronaldson shrugged. "Whatever. I hear that we got you busted out of jail in the UK to be here, what were you in for? A lot of the guys here at EDEM were in for weird stuff with minors."

"Nothing like that." Actually that thought disgusted him.

"Well, whatever it is, I hear you know a lot about this UFO-alien-Roswell stuff."

"You could say that."

He clapped him on the shoulder. "Well welcome aboard man! EDEM is cool, you know. We're not like other organizations. We don't really have like, oversight or regulations so we can do what we want! It's really neat."

"So it would seem," he replied. Archie didn't know a lot of things, but he was sure of this: this man was an idiot.

And he'd be glad when he was dead.

It was just a matter of time.
 
 
 
 
This is a story about a Squonk.

The squonk lived in the woods of Northern Pennsylvania, and had for a long time. It lived there alone. It knew there were other squonks out there somewhere, squonking and crying, but he couldn't bear the thought of looking for them, for he was too hideous, and whenever he saw his face, he would sob and sob and sob, and his tears were never ending. Sometimes hunters would follow his tears and he would flee, crying even more. Thankfully he had never been caught yet.

He was scared, and sad, and very very alone.
 
But this isn't just a story about a squonk. 

This is a story about a girl. This girl had a name, and it was Julie. One night she was combing her hair, trying to get the strands to fall over the right side of her face so it was as hidden as it could be. She was getting it more covered, but it also made her look lopsided. But better to be teased for being lopsided than what she was. She only wore long sleeves these days, on her pants and her shirt, even when the summer heat was so bad that she felt parched after riding her bike just a little bit. But those long sleeves rubbed against her skin, and even with all the lotions and creams that hurt—hurt so much she would bite down on her rubber keychain to keep from crying out or grinding her teeth to dust. But that pain was still preferable to hearing people say things about her. Not that it stopped them totally, but it did make it all less. And less was at least better.

She was also trying to avoid her parents shouting at each other. This had become a very common occurrence since the accident. Her mother yelled that if her father hadn't been drinking, that she wouldn't be disfigured and ugly. Her father yelled back that he'd only had two beers, and it was her fault their daughter was horrible to look at for not bothering to hook up the child-seat properly.

Couldn't one of them just be glad she was alive?

Eventually the shouting settled down, and ended with two doors being slammed and two different TVs going to war with the volume on different shows, and Julie Paulson went to her window—it overlooked the mudroom of the house, and so she could slip out onto its sloping roof and then she could drop down onto the trash cans, and then onto the dew-covered grass of the lawn. She knew she shouldn't be out this late at night alone—her parents had a strict rule about getting home when the street lights turned on. She was well aware how scary the world could be.

But at this point, she didn't care.

Shoving her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, she marched across the grass towards the darkness of the trees. She'd brought her phone with her, so she had light if she needed it. Light felt in all too short supply for her. Soon her footsteps were crunching branches and leaves, and she was following the deer trail into the woods. It led to a tree she liked--she called it the special tree, which was a name she was proud of. If she had friends, she knew they'd laugh at it. But Eliza hadn't responded to any of her messages since she saw her at the hospital, and Leticia had blocked her.

She'd expected everyone to rally around her when she needed them. She'd thought that she'd mattered to them. She wanted to say that that pain hurt worse than her skin, but that was a lie.

Her skin hurt worse than anything she'd been able to imagine.

She clasped her hands together, intertwining her fingers, and trying to look as devout as she could.
 
Please God, just give me one friend. One friend who can understand me.
 
There are many times when people pray. Julie’s family waffled between being very religious and not at all. They would get very into a new pastor opening a new church, and it would become her parents’ personality for about a month and a half before they would lose steam and their attendance would go from weekly to bi-weekly to monthly to not at all. Julie prayed when she was supposed to, and didn’t pray when it wasn’t asked.

But not tonight.

Tonight as she said her "amen", she heard something new.

Crying. It wasn't quiet, but it was that muffled crying from someone who was trying to keep their tears hidden but crying too hard to actually manage the task. She got up from the roots of the tree and followed the sound.

But it wasn't just the sound.

There were clues there—little tear drops forming a path to follow along, beading on the hard ground. She didn't know how she knew they were tears, she just did.

Pushing through the brush, she saw it.

It was on four legs, skin baggy and bunched up. Its head was something between a buffalo and a frog's, and it stood looking into its reflection in a puddle of its own tears, which only made it cry more. By any assessment, it was ugly.

"Are you okay, Mr. Creature?" she asked.

It turned, and its eyes grew wide. Its body started to... lose form, growing shaky like he was turning to gelatin.

Hastily, she pulled her hair aside. "It's okay, if you don't like how you look. I understand. I'm like you too."

He stared at her, and he started to grow solid again. One foot in front of the other, he walked over to her, and she sat down. He lay his head on her lap gently. She reached down to pet him—he wasn't soft. His fur was like brush bristles. But she didn't care.

For the first time since the accident, Julie didn't feel alone.

It was then, in her moment of peace, that she looked up and saw it: a light that beamed down on her and the Squonk, so bright it shut out the shadows. It came from something big, turning and strange. And she knew that she was not alone in another way, too.
 
 
* * *
 

"I want to find a monster."

Sang Mi said this so definitively that Chris at first could only nod and give her a thumbs up, accepting this statement wholesale. They drove on for another ten minutes before he thought to ask. "Wait, like, any monster or a specific one?"

"This one!" she said, holding a page of their book Roadside Oddities of America up to him.

"I'm uh, driving," he said, veering around a pothole. "Let me pull over..." Once he'd gotten onto the gravel on the shoulder, he took a look at what she was showing him. "A... Squonk?"

The picture was an illustration from 1910 of a quadruped critter with loose-fitting skin and a dour expression.

Sang Mi waggled the image in front of him. "Yes! It cries all the time, and it dissolves into a puddle of tears if you find it."

He nodded. Then he narrowed his eyes. Then he overly cautiously put a hand on her shoulder. "Sang Mi, is this a cry for help?"

She pushed his hand off. "No, I just think he's neat. Look at him! He's just a wacky lil guy!"

"Is he?"

The look she gave him said clearly that:
1. Yes, he is.
2. It would be best if he agreed.
"Yes, he is," Chris agreed.

"He lives in Pennsylvania, if he exists. About where we're passing through. Well, okay a small detour."

"It's not a small detour, is it?" Chris asked.

"Well. No."

"Thought so," he said, and put the location into the GPS anyway. 


* * *
 

They pulled into town, had lunch, and came out of town with a commemorative Squonk plushie that had tears on its face, and both sipping from giant slushies in commemorative cups.

"I don't know how today has gone like this," Chris said.

"Oh please, you're the one who kept insisting the plushie was super cute when I tried to leave," Sang Mi said.

"You're the one hugging and hogging it."

She held it up to his face and moved it up and down as she gave it a high pitched voice. "You can hug me later Chris! I'm the Squonk and I could use all the cheering up. I'm so sad! Won't you be my friend?"

"Of course I'll be your fri—I'm not talking to the stuffed animal."

She keeled over laughing, stumbling her way back over to the Odyssey. As she was about to open the door, she noticed a set of black SUVs a few blocks down. As the back door on one opened, a man in all black tactical gear with the green letters EDEM on the back and front breast hopped out, holding a machine gun.

E.D.E.M. An organization focused on getting rid of anything like aliens or cryptids, and who delighted in doing it brutally.

She sobered up quick. "You can't be serious. I thought they got eaten?"

Chris looked where she was. "A lot of them did. They must have chosen a new director." He grabbed the plushie from Sang Mi, and looked into its bead-eyes. 

"...We'll save you, lil guy."

Sang Mi couldn't even muster up the heart to tease him. "Yeah. We sure will." 
 

* * *
 

They hid behind some bushes, which didn’t feel suspicious at all, as they waited for the EDEM agents to make their way into the forest. Then, they followed.

The agents were not subtle, stealthy, nor silent. Their thick boots crunched as they walked, their bulky gear caught on tree branches and thorns.

“This is weird,” Sang Mi said. “I feel like I got better military training at my school.”

Chris knew that that was true. He knew the implications of that. He also knew he didn’t want to confront them. “Hey look, they’re heading that way!” he deflected as they headed the same way they had been. With each step, they moved faster.
 
 
This is a story about running.

Julie was not strong, but she found the strength within her to pick up the Squonk and carry it. She had only just made her friend a few weeks ago, and she sure as heck wasn’t going to let him get taken away by scary men.

Every day Julie would sneak out to see the Squonk. She brought him her favorite foods (scrambled eggs and pancakes), which he would eat with vigor. She'd tell him about her day, and they'd play with a frisbee she'd found in the basement her dad had gotten at a job fair five years ago. The Squonk was pretty bad at catching it, but it was still fun. Even when people were being nice they were pitying her. They'd either look away or stare too hard. She was tired of it. It was nice to feel like she could just exist.

Now the men in big boots with big guns wanted him. She ran hard. But there was something else wrong.

That light she had seen before, every night. It was back. Only this time, she wasn’t the only one who could see it.

“Oh shit,” one of the men said, and raised his gun. He fired, and a burst came from the ship and all of a sudden the man wasn’t there and the air was filled with that burning smell you get when you leave a plastic plate on the burner when it’s cold and forget it there when you turn it on again.

A man and a girl came bursting through the trees, and the man wrapped her in a hug, shielding her from the men with guns, and looking up at the flying saucer.

“It’s okay, my name is Cwej, I’ve got you—”

And then they lifted up off the ground, rising in a beam of light into the air, as the Squonk squonked.

 
On the ground, Sang Mi looked up dumbfounded, and then looked back at the dozen soldiers pointing assault rifles at her. Slowly, she put her hands up.

 
This is a story about a sword.

When the EDEM agents took Sang Mi’s sword, they didn’t know that it was special. To them, taking a sword felt nowhere near as important as taking a gun. One of them joked about it, after all, why would someone seriously use a sword in 2025? They had Stivala Arms Assault Rifles; what use would a sword be?

They were, of course, complete morons.

Sang Mi’s sword was special. It was a hwando, a type of Korean sword. She’d gotten it on her very first adventure with Chris, on the spaceship called The Point of Know Return which had been in orbit around her planet. It had been a gift—one of her planet’s most carefully guarded secrets, and most potent weapons: blades with mono-molecular edges. These blades could cut through things. Too many things.

When Chris first encountered the sword, he had been incredulous. They’d used it to cut through the hull of a spaceship repeatedly.

Transplanting that sword here, into the wrong place, it was like an invasive species overtaking an environment. A glitch in a videogame that breaks the balance. He’d almost told Sang Mi not to take it with her, but in Violethill it didn’t seem like it would do too much harm, and then things progressed from there.

But she did take the sword with her.

And now there was a sword that didn’t follow the laws of reality here.
Whoops?
 

This is a second story about a kidnapping.

The zip ties hurt, and whenever she tried to adjust her hands the man next to her in black tactical gear gave her a look that made her think actually remaining uncomfortable was just fine.

The man across from her though, he hadn't looked away yet. Sang Mi imagined saying a lot of sarcastic and witty one liners to the man that would really show 'em. But in reality she was terrified. In her head, she boldly kept her head held high and didn't let any of the tension of the event show. But in reality, after being zip tied and thrown violently into the back of an unmarked black van, she found herself crying and instead of a witty rejoinder said "Please let me go."

"No," the man across from her said.

She sniffled.

He pulled his face mask down, and removed his black sunglasses and helmet. Before her was a green eyed and black haired Caucasian man, with a slender face with high cheek bones. "You're not from here," he said in a British accent with a tinge of Scotland.
Sang Mi sucked her sniffles in and managed the closest thing to a witty rejoinder she could. "So are you."

"That's true. You're from a bit farther though."

The SUV rocked back and forth. The guard next to her pulled down his mask to take a drink from a nasty looking dark liquid in a plastic bottle. She looked back to the green eyed man.

"You seem more put together than the other EDEM guys we've met—ow!"

The man in tactical gear had whacked her.

The blue eyed man raised a hand and the other lowered his own.

"I should actually thank you, what happened with Director Ronaldson was tragic, but I've been suffering as Assistant Director to an incompetent nepotism hire for months now. He was weak, and EDEM cannot afford to be weak."

"Picking on little guys isn't being strong."

"That's what the little guys always say. As though we care."

Sang Mi tried to center herself. What would Chris do, right now? He wouldn't give up, that was for certain. She focused on the pain in her wrists. If they were going to hurt her, she could use that. The discomfort. The aches and pains. She let it overtake her anxiety, her fear. She just hurt. And that was unhappy. And when it was all she could think about, she could think about something else.

Okay.

Center yourself. Push past the pain now.

Where are you?

The back of an SUV.

Who is the man in front of you?

The head of EDEM. He's British, maybe Scottish. 

No, born in Scotland but lived in London most of his life.

Have you met him before?

No.

But why do you feel a sense of familiarity?

This last question was the hardest. She examined his face, blinking away her tears as much as she could. There was something about his face... She'd seen it before...

"You're a vampire!" she concluded suddenly.

He looked mildly impressed. "I read your file, you encountered the Yssgaroth in 1893 Chicago. I see you haven't forgotten."

"But we beat the Yssgaroth?"

"You won a battle in a war that will be going on long after you rot."

"Kinda rude...."

"Kinda true. You're in violation of US law. After all, you're not even from this reality, let alone this planet, let alone this country."

"Isn't that... massively hypocritical from the guy infected with evil reality rot from another universe who is also Scottish?"

He shrugged. "Consistency is for the weak. It doesn't matter that I don't fit the guidelines, that's strength."

What a prick. "Who are you anyway?"

He raised his chin. "Archie MacTavish. I used to be a member of a well-known but under-funded paranormal research organization. Now I'm the head of an organization with a budget in the billions."

She mustered the strength to roll her eyes.

"I was extradited from Belmarsh Prison in the UK for this job. My expertise was needed."

"Knowing EDEM you probably complimented someone online and they let you out."
He was quiet for a moment.

"Oh my God I was kidding. And stop acting like you're important. I have no idea who you are!"

"How I got released isn't important," he deflected. "As head of EDEM I am important, whether you like it or not."

Still riding the high of somehow getting under his skin while being his prisoner, without actually meaning to, Sang Mi pressed her luck.

“You haven’t had a date in ages, have you?”

“I think we’re done talking for now.”

She got to be smug for only a little bit, before they came to a halt.

Sang Mi was shoved out the back of the SUV, which she had expected. But what she didn’t expect was to see the UFO, landed in a clearing, surrounded by supply trucks and a large military style campsite. EDEM agents were going in and out of the craft from a big onboarding ramp.

She looked back at Archie.

She looked back at the UFO.

"Huh," she said.

"Impressive, isn't it?"

"Did you build it?" She asked, as her personal guard shoved her forward.

"No, we just killed the aliens who came in it. They came in peace, ironically."

She let her open disgust show.

"Oh please. Your file says you had military training in school, and you're put off by putting that into practice? We don't need to be like those peacenik losers in our rival groups. If humanity is stronger than aliens, then we should show it."

"Bullshit," she mumbled.

He turned his eyes on her. His gaze was piercing. "What was that?"

"...Nothing."

She was led up the entry ramp—a massive sheet of smooth steel she found it difficult to walk on, and it led up into a hatch which popped open into a gigantic circular control room. Windows lined the room, which could be seen from between the two plate-like halves of the craft from the outside. The room had few natural barriers, and so the bits that EDEM had installed into it stood out like sore thumbs. One of those was a cage, awkwardly placed off-center in the room, in which she could see her friend Chris, the girl with the Squonk, and... two EDEM agents?

"SANG MI? ARE YOU OKAY?" Chris yelled.

"Mostly!" she called back. She looked back to Archie. "Why are your own people in there?"

"Oh, they weren't supposed to know what was going on. They'll be summarily executed later, but in a way that's helpful." He grinned. "Wanna know my evil plan?"

She sighed. "Go for it."

"EDEM has been struggling ever since our previous director and so many of our wealthy supporters were killed or injured in the Churubusco incident."

Sang Mi snorted a laugh. Archie frowned at her.

"Sorry, sorry! It's not funny!" She snorted a second laugh. "It's really sad and stuff."

"Regardless... the only thing that can really cause us to lose power is to lose the support of the people in power. And when you have a bloodbath like at Churubusco, people start asking questions about why you're being given so many billions of dollars."

"Must be real tragic for you."

"It is," he deadpanned. "So what we need is a very public victory. And unfortunately, when this town comes under attack, many civilians will meet a tragic end, and many EDEM agents are going to give their lives in the service of their country. But EDEM will heroically power through, and destroy this UFO."

Sang Mi was silent. "That is an evil plan," she concluded.

"Aren't you going to ask why I bothered telling you?"

"Naw, I figured it out."

He grinned again. "Of course you did. They said you were clever. But did you figure out why we need the Squonk?"

"...No, not really."

"Then we'll demonstrate soon enough." He looked to one of the EDEM soldiers, who was relaxing while drinking some of the same dark liquid the guard in the car had been, "Time to lift off, Mr. Henning."

"Yessir!" he called back.

What was interesting was that Mr. Henning didn't touch anything. Instead he took a breath, stepped into a circle at the very center of the room, closed his eyes, and looked almost meditative. The ship lifted off the ground, and the ramp began to raise.
 
* * *

This is a story about an invasion.

Michael Paulson was putting the dishes away when it began. It was something to do.
Julie was gone from her bed when they’d woken up. She’d taken her bag, worn her best walking shoes, and gone downstairs to pack snacks and take a flash light. The police had concluded she’d likely run away and would be mounting a search. That was until he got the call that the search was being called off.

He screamed into the receiver, demanding they restart it.

“It’s not up to us. EDEM has full jurisdiction right now.”

He’d stormed over to the woods, planning to search them himself, but they were taped off and men with assault rifles stood watch.

When they threatened to shoot him, he went home.

And so he was doing dishes. The only thing he could do.

That was until the flying saucer rose into the sky. It spun, its top and bottom halves rotating in different directions, and a bright light beaming down from the bottom.

“PUNY EARTHLINGS! IT IS THE TIME TO MEET YOUR DOOM UNLESS YOU SURRENDER TO THE QUILLIPPPI CONSORTIUM!”

A screeching wail came from the saucer, and at first he thought nothing had happened, but then he felt the despair. The deep despair. He dropped to his knees, and he knew he would never be happy again.

 
* * * *
 

Archie had ordered his men to take the Squonk from Julie. It cried, and she cried, and they hit her in the face which caused her nose to bleed and for her to let go. But before they did that they had to smash Cwej in the face first as he tried to fend them off.

They carried the Squonk to the circle, and set it there. It didn’t seem like anything was happening, but Chris was looking horrified.

“I see that one of our guests has realized what’s going on,” Archie said.

“You’re projecting the Squonk’s grief onto them. You’re filling them with despair.”

Archie just smiled.

Chris looked around. He had to figure something out. Fast.

Then he saw it.

“Hey, you there. Nice sword.”

The man looked down at the sword which he’d set down on a crate. “It’s just a sword.”

Chris laughed. “To you maybe. I bet you can’t even swing it.”

“Of course I can swing it. It’s not hard.”

Chris scoffed. “Okay, tough guy.”

The man marched over to the cage. “You realize you’re the prisoner here, right?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. But I’m not the one scared of a sword.”

The man grabbed the sword. “You listen here, I’m going to come in there and bash your face in if you keep talking like that.”

“Go on then, do it, Mr. Too-Scared-To-Swing-a-Sword.”

The man’s friend tried to interject. “Hey Jeff, he’s clearly taunting you—”

“NOT NOW CARL!” He drew the sword from the sheath. It reflected things in its blade in a way that looked wrong, too real to be real. “I’ll show you. You'll be begging me for mercy when I’m done with you.” As if to demonstrate, he banged the sword against the bars of the cage.

This was actually a better result than Chris had anticipated. He’d had a whole elaborate plan, but this sped things up. Because the sword didn’t bang against the bars.

The monomolecular blade broke the rules of physics, and seamlessly cut through the cage.

The man lost his balance in the swing, and Chris took that opportunity to reach through the bars—one hand grabbed his wrist, the other pulled the sword from his grip.

Getting out of the cage after that was easy.

“Stay here,” he told Julie.

Sang Mi, seeing what was happening, threw her body weight at the guard next to her and, as he staggered with an “oof”, ran for Cwej. With a simple slice, he cut her bonds, and handed her the sword. Archie scowled, and pulled a long black rod with a gem attached to the end out. They recognized that gem immediately—they’d seen others like it.

“A magic wand!” Sang Mi said.

“A control scepter,” Archie bit back.

The fight began.

 
 
This is a story about Julie.

She was not the kind of girl who saved the day. She could barely save herself. When the crash had happened, she had had to learn several terrible things at once. Her father had been drinking, and he and her mom were yelling at each other.

The first thing that happened was the deer walking in front of the car. The second was her father saying a bad word and turning the wheel of the car hard to the left. The third was the car slipping off the road, bouncing against a ditch, and then spinning as it fell down the hill below it. The roof hit the ground, and she remembered hearing herself scream, but it was like the voice belonged to someone else. Something cold was trickling through the car. It smelled horrible. Only later would she know this was gasoline. The car’s engine didn’t stop—it sounded like it was ripping itself apart trying to run.

She hung upside down, and her parents unbuckled themselves, and what happened next would always stick with her.

Her mother simply ran. It was hard to fathom for her, to reconcile. She watched her bolt, her feet on a ceiling of grass, stumbling and scrambling without looking back.

Her father unbuckled himself, and got out. He did not run. But he could have gone to her side of the car. She was closer, after all. But instead he rushed around the car, and opened the door to get her brother. He pulled him out to safety. It was then that she realized that no one was coming for her. She was no one’s favorite child.

Everything was a priority before her.

And then the gasoline lit up.

If she hadn’t been buckled in, she’d have been in the puddle below her, and she’d have died. But she still lit on fire on the side the liquid had dribbled down from the ceiling.

She was alone. And she was abandoned. And no one loved her enough to save her.

A voice in her head said that she should give up, and let herself burn. Another wanted to panic. But the voice that yelled the loudest said she was going to live, no matter what anyone else believed, she deserved to live. She reached for the door handle, blood still flooding to her head. She recoiled—it was hot. The air was filling with smoke. The inside of the car was so hot it was hard to think.

She reached again. She was going to live. Reaching burned her hand. Pulling the handle burned her worse.

She felt lightheaded from the pain. But she shoved the door open, and clicked her seatbelt—hurling herself out of the car.

She rolled down the hill—and that unintentionally helped a lot. When she reached the bottom she ripped off her smoldering clothes and collapsed onto the rough ground.

She passed out from the pain at that point.

But she lived.

Even if every person in the world said she didn’t deserve to live, she decided she was going to. And there in the flying saucer, she knew she had one task: she had to rescue her friend.

She had to be brave. The man called Cwej and the teenage girl Sang Mi were fighting Mr. Archie, and the door to her prison was open. There was the Squonk, crying in the circle, surrounded by armed men.

She had to be brave.

She crawled out from the cage, and ducked behind consoles and boxes till she was close to the circle. The Squonk looked up at her. She had one shot at this.

She sprinted towards the circle.

“Hey—stop!”

She dropped to the ground—sliding like she’d seen baseball players do, and slipped under the armed man’s gloved hands. She thought she’d done it—when she felt those same hands grab her legs. She put in one great effort, and stretched her arms out as far as she could, grabbing the Squonk by the front feet. 

The man pulled her back. And then said “Oh shit,” as he realized what he had done.

The Squonk and her slid out of the circle.

And the saucer’s beams powered down.
 
 
This is a story about surprise.

Archie had been dueling the pair, and he felt good about his chances. The girl had a sword that could cut through anything. Cwej was wielding a rifle like a club. And Archie had his scepter with the gem he’d been gifted. He knocked Cwej back, and the girl came in to try to stab him, but as he dodged her blow he focused on the scepter, and dark tendrils shot from it—knocking her to the ground and pulling the sword from her grip. She screamed, and he felt pretty good about how things were going.

Then the ship shook.

And he looked over to see that the Squonk was not in the circle. One of his idiotic guards had let one of the prisoners slip through. That shouldn’t have happened. He was about to win. In that moment, he let himself get caught up in his feelings. He didn’t like to think of himself as that kind of person. He thought he was a different kind of man.
But the sword had been picked up from the ground, and as he pulled his attention away from the Squonk, trying to keep his balance as the ship rocked, there was a sudden sharp pain in his chest.

He looked down to see the sword through his heart.

He was a vampire. He wasn’t supposed to die. It took a very special kind of thing to be stabbed through his heart to kill him. For a moment, he laughed. He started to reach for the sword to pull it out, but then felt his knees give out under him.

“Oh,” he said, as he realized that a sword from another universe that broke the laws of physics was probably exactly the kind of special thing that could kill him.

Chris didn’t bother to finish him off, he let him slide to the floor. It didn’t matter. Everyone knew what had happened.
 
 
This is a story about death.

Archie thought he knew death, but what he had become meant he experienced a strange sort of one. But it had had remarkably few consequences. He was in most ways still alive. He'd suffered a death that meant he still walked, and tasted, and felt, and saw. He moved, and was not still. What was happening now was very different. This was an ending.

A real ending.

In a little while, there would be no more Archie MacTavish, forever.

This thought was not a relief.

It was terrifying. He'd heard the cliche that life flashed before your eyes before death, but as his eyes began to lose their shine, he didn't find that to be the case for himself.

No, it was his future. All the possibilities. All the paths he could have taken from here. He was supposed to do so much. He'd been chosen, after all. He was someone now.

Agent of the Yssgaroth. Director of EDEM.

He should have led things into the future. He should have stood at the top of the hill. Instead here he was, feeling the life drain out of him.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't FAIR.

At that moment, he felt someone take his hand. It was warm. Warmer than his already cold body by quite a lot.

He used some of his fading energy to turn his head. It was the girl, Sang Mi .

"It's you," he said.

"Yeah," she replied.

"I didn't think I'd end like this."

"Who would?"

"I barely even know who you are."

"I know you even less."

"I had a rival once. You know, a best friend. The kind of guy who thought a pony tail made him look unique. I always thought if I bit it he'd be right there. A fitting end. It would feel right. Satisfying."

"Death is never satisfying. It just sucks."

He coughed, and blood spluttered from his lips.

"I certainly didn't think you'd be here, giving me kindness."

She laughed, which felt both rude and totally fitting. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you'll be dead. But I'm trying to be a different kind of person."

He nodded. "It would have been good to die with someone who loved me, or cared about me. Or even knew me. But this will do. This will do... Where did the light go?"

"It's still bright in here."

He felt terror.

"Is all that awaits me darkness? Is... is this how it is forever?"

She squeezed his hand. "I don't think so."

He nodded, and his fingers fell loose, and his head tilted.

 
Chris came over, and put his hand on Sang Mi’s shoulder. "You did a good thing. Who was he?"

She shrugged. "Some asshole. Let's go."

 
The saucer was tilting to the side, and the EDEM soldiers inside were scrambling for footing. Chris ran to grab Julie and the Squonk—the soldiers who had been guarding it had pretty quickly left their posts when they realized the jig was up. Sang Mi, however, was running for two things that were right next to each other.

She pulled her sword out of Archie's chest, which was gross, but easy. It slid out, his body flopping down the sloping floor like a ragdoll. And as it did, she grabbed his scepter.

"This thing is going to crash!" Chris called, holding Julie, who was holding the Squonk.
"Right—I'll make an exit."

Sang Mi lifted her sword in both hands, and shoved it down into the floor. If it was following any form or function, it should have merely scraped against the floor. Instead, it slid through the floor as if it was warm butter, and she made a nice nearly-circular hole that dropped out from the ship.

"We'll still hit the ground, you know!" Chris called.

"Right," she hadn't thought of that. Probably should have.

"Wait, I've got it!"

She held out the scepter, it was basically a magic wand, right?

"Abracadabra!" she yelled, pointing it at the hole in the ship.
 

This is a story about magic.

First of all, magic isn't real, so check that off your list.

Second off, magic is absolutely real, so check that off your list too.

Arthur C. Clarke said that any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But what if the magic was just magic?

What if magic wasn't so much magic, but a glitch?

In this case, that might be the best explanation. Sang Mi's sword was a glitch, because it came from a different universe.

And the gem in the wand was a glitch for the same reason. And so when Sang Mi pointed the wand, and said a magic word, it wasn't that nothing happened. Something did happen. But it wasn't what she had planned. And it was only part of what Archie planned.

Here's what was unspoken: Archie knew Sang Mi had figured this out, and they didn't bother saying it, but all of this, all the tears and sadness and death, were part of a ritual. Sang Mi had seen rituals. Archie had done them before.

But there hadn't been enough sadness. Enough death. It had all been cut short. If it had worked, perhaps a giant gash would have appeared in the world and great things would have clambered out to feast and destroy.

But that didn't happen. Still, there was some sort of charge there in the wand, there were tears, and so something did open up.

A door.

And as the flying saucer began to crash into the forest, and the hull began to crumple and the fuel reserves began to burn, Chris knew there was really only one way out.

It wasn't a good idea, but they were going to do it anyway.

He carried Julie and shoved Sang Mi through that dark door.

And they were gone.

The saucer hit the ground. The hull tore apart—the two halves like two, well, saucers, broke away from each other, and explosions rocked the hull. Bodies fell from it, scattering through the forest. The top of the hull hit the ground and exploded. A shockwave followed: trees were torn from their roots, and EDEM agents and vehicles were blown through the air. The town beyond was rocked, and debris hit the sides of the buildings. But thankfully by that point everyone was already inside and taking cover. The other half of the saucer hit the ground on its edge, and rolled for a moment before falling over, hitting the ground with a quake, but without exploding. The shockwave threw cars around, and telephone poles were pulled over. It was all a mess. And in the distance, a man stirred.

 
This is a story about an EDEM agent.

Jason Vichy crawled out from the wreckage of the saucer. Everything had gone wrong, and gone wrong so quickly. Director MacTavish had promised glory, but gazing out at the forest, he didn't feel glorious. The forest was littered with bodies. Bodies of his friends, his comrades. He'd had a good time in EDEM. He'd ignored the cries of the half-alien children they'd kidnapped. He'd ignored his mother cutting off contact with him. He ignored the weird feeling the all-natural homeopathic drink Director MacTavish gave them had given him. He had been doing the right thing: he was keeping people safe from aliens. But for the first time, he questioned if maybe he was in fact on the wrong side of things.

Pulling himself up, he could feel broken ribs. He wasn't hearing much out of his right ear, and his right eye seemed fuzzy. "Hello?" he called out, and stumbled, catching himself on a tree. "Anyone?"

"Help?" he heard a raspy voice call out, and he rushed over towards it to find a woman with a support beam from the saucer on her legs. He tried to lift it, but it was too heavy.
She reached a hand out to him, and he rushed over to take it. "I don't... I don't feel good?"

He held her hand. She probably didn't have long. At least she wouldn't die alone. "I know, just hold in there, we'll get help."

She shook her head, and he thought he knew what that meant till she spoke. "No... something else. I think... I think something was in our drinks."

The drinks had been weird but... the woman began to convulse, and black lines began to fill her veins. The black lines began to drain though, bubbling up to build up in her throat which bulged, until something began to crawl up her throat and out of her mouth. First came a long spindly leg—the tip of it was sharp as a razor, and the rest was twitchy and segmented. More legs followed, and it pushed and slashed its way up out of her head. The bloody thing that revealed itself was like if a spider had too many legs to count, and all of those legs ended in knives. Its body was a pulsing mass of gore and hair.

Jason fell back, landing on his rear, and began to scamper back. The thing had no eyes, but it seemed to look at him.

He had to escape.

He turned, trying to push himself up again, and there was a shining piece of chrome from the saucer's hull, a broken shard that curved and distorted his features like a funhouse mirror. Even so, it was enough for him to see that his veins were turning black.

He had enough time to be afraid before he began to feel it knifing its way up his throat.
 

It was too bad Archie was dead, because it turned out his plan was working out after all.

 
* * *
 
This is a story about nowhere.

Sang Mi found herself there, alone. It was dark, but the darkness seemed to be made of strands of muscles. It was wet, and smelled like fresh nutmeg and rotting meat.

She rose, and saw herself.

And she knew it was not her.

She raised a hand, and the other one did as well.

"You're the Yssgaroth?" she asked. It was just a guess, but a pretty good one.

"You're a stranger to this world," she said in her own voice.

"So are you."

"We are the same."

"I mean... no... but... sure why not let's go with that. We're the same. So you're nice now."

"You're not nice. You want bad things to happen to people you dislike. Then you feel bad when it happens. Guilty. Beat yourself up. As though that makes it better."

The words stung. They really did hurt. But she knew this kind of bullying. She'd had it plenty of times before. It didn't matter if this thing was Cthulhu, she knew the type. She took a deep breath—which wasn't as relaxing as she'd hoped because of the wet air—and let it out. "You literally are trying to wipe out the world. Literally."

"Not true. We deserve to exist."

"I mean, I agree?"

"This place, it’s not yours. We should have it. There are people there. They are selfish. Living their lives on this ground. Living in flesh and hoarding their blood. We will free their blood from their bodies into the soil. We will make the land free. It is our right. We deserve this universe."

Sang Mi took all of that in. "Back home some people say that about my planet. Gongen. They want to take it over. Because we said we deserved to be independent. They think they have a right to live in the houses we built. Does that seem right to you?"

"Yes."

She looked at it. Really looked at it. She knew that this was just a form it was taking. It was something she couldn't understand. Something bigger, darker, more powerful. It was incomprehensible. She was trying to have a conversation with the toenail of a giant, and to think she knew what was on top of its head was hubris.

But she was feeling pretty confident.

"You're an invasive species. Just like me. You're a glitch, you're not supposed to be here."

"Then you have no right to judge us."

"Actually I do. Because I don't plan on living here, and I don't want to bulldoze their houses to build my own. Tell you what, let's make a bet. You have Chris and the little girl and Squonk, right? The little hooved guy? You copied me, so copy the Squonk. Feel what it feels. Embrace it. Do that, and if you enjoy it, you can have the planet."

The Yssgaroth stared blankly at her. "This is a trick."

"Of course it's a trick. But if you're so powerful, it shouldn't be a problem. I'll just be wrong."

It stared at her longer. And then the other Sang Mi's eyes rolled back, and she dropped to the ground. Her flesh began to bubble, and pull, and shift, and the real Sang Mi looked away. When she could bear to look back, there was a Squonk.

And its eyes grew wide, and teary.

 
* * *
 

Michael Paulson was having the worst day of his life. His daughter had vanished. Armed thugs had threatened him. Aliens had threatened to invade. Their ship had crashed, and sent a shockwave through the town, and now a swarm of spider-like horrors was crawling towards the town. Their legs looked like knives.

He looked at his wife. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about... everything. The drinking. What I said about our daughter. About..."

She pulled him into an embrace. "Me too... I... I'm so sorry."

The wailing pulled them apart. They looked out the window to see the swarm of horrors was stumbling about as if they were the drunk ones now. It was like they were desperate to cry, but had no eyes. Then the swarm lifted their knife-like arms into the air, angled them towards their lumpy bodies, and slid them in.

And suddenly there was silence.

 
* * *
 

Chris didn't really know how they got back in the forest, but he was with Julie, and the Squonk, and Sang Mi, who were all unconscious, and the forest was littered in horrifically mutilated bodies.

So he did the natural thing, and lifted all three of them. It was awkward, and not easy, but he'd had worse. Sang Mi was slung over his shoulder, Julie and the Squonk in his arms. The whole arrangement hurt, and he felt exhausted by the time they got out of the forest and he set them down on the ground, only to find a mess of meat and legs in the field leading up to the town.

He had a lot of questions.

But he didn't actually care about them as much as he cared about getting some rest.
He caught his breath, picked them back up, and made his way into town.

 
This is a story about recovery.

The Jovian Diplomatic Service rolled into town as quickly as they could. Relief tents were set up, and Brittany Mordley found herself swamped with tasks. The town had had remarkably few casualties and no fatalities. All things considered, the damage wasn't terrible. A lot of folks needed new cars, new powerlines had to be put up, and the buildings on the edge of town needed some real work, but she'd seen worse after an event like this.

More difficult to deal with was cataloguing the annihilation of the EDEM operations here. She hated EDEM, they opposed everything that the JDS stood for, but seeing the fates of what happened to the hundreds of agents who had been in the area chilled her to the bone. Somehow there had been no survivors, and it seemed they'd all been turned into monsters. They catalogued the bodies one by one, including EDEM Director MacTavish. She knew they'd just appoint another one, but rebuilding the personal loss here wouldn't be easy.

Nor would be explaining why there had been a flying saucer.

As she carried another crate of bottled water from a truck, she saw a family being reunited—a little girl and her pet... something, running to meet her parents and brother. How sweet.

She set the water down, and wiped her brow. What a day.

 
Chris and Sang Mi sat on the tailgate of the Odyssey, drinking some of the water the nice lady had handed them.

Sang Mi pulled the gem off the wand, and handed it to Chris.

"Found another one of these, I guess."

He took it, and without much fanfare, pocketed it.

"So... still glad you came with me? This was... well it has to have been a lot. I didn't want you to see stuff like this."

She looked into her bottle. "Archie, the EDEM guy, he used to help stop stuff like this."

That was news to Chris, but he just nodded so she'd keep talking.

"Honestly I don't think I've wanted to go home more than I have before. This was... horrible. A whole lot of people died." She wiped tears away. "And they were bad people, really bad people! But..."

"It's never easy." He scooted over and put an arm around her. "Should I take you home?"

She shook her head. "We saved people too. I heard no one died in the town. If we hadn't been here... We stopped the bad guys, right?"

"We did."

"I thought stopping the bad guys would feel better."

"Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't have a reward. It hurts and it makes you want to smash your hand with a rock. But you do it anyway. Because of who we are, you and me."

She thought about that. "Let's stay and help. Not... for forever. But let’s help them clean up. Care for people. I don't want to drive off into the sunset just yet. I don't feel like we're done."

He smiled. "I was hoping you would say that."
 

This is a story about a body.

Chris had felt it was appropriate to find someone to claim it. In the end, two women arrived, calling themselves freelancers who were ex-co-workers of his. One of them, a brown-haired woman, signed for it, while her black haired comrade who didn’t take her sunglasses off inside just stared at the body with her hands in her pockets.

“Friends?” Chris asked as she handed the clipboard back to the attendant.

“Used to be,” she said. “I’m Tasha, that’s Maxie.” Maxie raised a pale hand and shoved it back into her pocket. “He…” She looked at his corpse for a moment. “He was almost a whole person, you know? We almost… never mind. He tried to end the world twice. That’s really all there is to it in the end.”

Sang Mi nodded. “I guess so. I lit a candle for him at St. Matthew’s down the road. Maybe he’ll find his way out of the dark somehow.”

Tasha shrugged. “It’s all in the past now. I think it’s just time to let go, and move on.”

Chris put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve given yourself some great advice.”

They watched as the attendant shoved the body into the furnace. They weren’t supposed to be there, but as Sang Mi explained, “I learned you can do basically anything by bribing people in America!” The thumbs up she gave everyone while smiling was a little too optimistic for them to explain their discomfort with what she’d said, so everyone just nodded and smiled politely.

The body of Archie MacTavish burned, first the skin, then the muscles and sinew and organs, and then the bones. By the end there were only ashes.

And as the four of them left the room, they never returned.

 
This is a story about a girl and her Squonk.

The Squonk no longer lived in the woods, but in a house, where he was fed Hershey’s chocolate bars, and raisin bran cereal with milk, and tomato and cucumber salad, and whatever Julie thought sounded yummy. He wasn’t picky.

The Squonk would curl up on her feet while she slept, and he would wake her up in the morning, frolicking around the room happy to see her.

Julie and her parents didn’t immediately heal their relationship. There were a lot of things that might never fully mend. But they tried in a way they hadn’t before. The man who called himself Cwej and the Sang Mi girl had insisted her parents go to marriage counseling, and it didn’t solve everything, but it made most things better. The yelling and screaming lessened. And then one day it stopped.

Her mother took her shopping, just the two of them, and bought her new clothes.

Her dad looked into more surgery for her burns. She didn’t mind how she looked the way she had before, but she did mind the way her skin felt, and the treatments helped.

And most of all, both of them told her they were sorry. She had never expected that. She didn’t know what to say when they did; she just cried and they hugged her.

One night, she was sitting watching TV with her mom, dad, brother, and the Squonk. Everyone was laughing, and passing a bowl of cheap microwave popcorn around, and Julie realized that she finally didn’t feel alone.

It disappointed a lot of people, but from that day on, the Squonk didn’t cry anymore.
 

This is a story about a road trip.

It takes place in an orange Honda Element that they named the Odyssey. The back of the car can be used to sleep in, and they keep sleeping bags in there for just that. There are bags with all sorts of things: flashlights, or as Chris called them, torches, lots of snacks, a big bag of trash that they keep forgetting to throw out, a blue baseball bat custom engraved in Louisville, hospital discharge documents from Elkhart, a bobblehead of a Melonhead and two sets of baseball uniforms, several large gemstones, a projector in a box, a space-age gun, an equally space-age sword, and a book called Roadside Oddities of America.

This was a home. It might not look like a home, but it had become one. It became one when Chris and Sang Mi sang along to songs together on the radio, or argued about whether or not oat milk counted as dairy, or when they pulled over for the night and they stayed up too late as Sang Mi tried to teach Chris the steps to a dance from Gongen called “the Hongtu Shuffle.” He was terrible at it, and they laughed so much that the sun came up.

And there were a lot of scary moments too. Both of them almost died, and they got drugged and brainwashed and had to play baseball to win their freedom, and they found so many lonely people on the road. People who had lost things. People who were lost.


And they technically had a destination, but they were lost too.


Or they were supposed to be.


But as they pulled out of the town that night, Sang Mi turned on the radio, and it was playing Cupid by Fifty Fifty. Sang Mi started singing along, doing a ridiculous dance in her seat that involved too much elbow movement to be taken seriously, and might be better suited for a chicken imitation competition.


Chris tried to keep a straight face as she leaned his way, still waggling her elbows, and finally he cracked. He laughed, and as his face lit up in a smile, sung along too. They harmonized as they drove towards the rose glow of the sunset.


Someday this too would end.


But for this moment?


This was a story about friends.


Next Stop:
Remembrance
by Molly Warton


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Edited by James Wylder and James Hornby
Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain
Cover by Ari Michak
Illustrations by Bex Vee
Logo design by Lucas Kovacs
 
Concepts Used with Permission:
Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press
WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc.
Archie MacTavish, Tasha Williams, SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby
Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane
Yssgaroth © Neil Penswick
C.R.U.X © Aristide Twain
The Jovian Diplomatic Service, Blue Candle Coffee Company, E.D.E.M, Jhe Sang Mi, Jhe Sang Eun, Maxie Masters © James Wylder
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Cwej: Little Green Men by Plum Pudding

10/31/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

Little Green Men
By Plum pudding
Illustration by Bex Vee

“They don’t look like that,” Chris Cwej noted, pointing at the neon green bumper sticker. 


“Mm?” asked Sang Mi, half-listening. The road was long and she had zoned out, as she was liable to do in the downtime. 


“Aliens. Martians. They don’t look like that.” Chris shrugged. It was just a plain fact.


“Yeah.” Sang Mi said, pointing at herself melodramatically. “I know.”


Chris chuckled, softly. He had forgotten she was from Mars — Gongen, that was — if only for a moment. She seemed like she fit here. Even if neither of them really did. 


Chris felt now he had to continue to justify himself, so he continued to explain. “I mean, some aliens, well, they look similar. Maybe. At a push. But they don’t visit Earth. Even the lads that showed up at Roswell sure didn’t look like that.” 


“Cool, yeah, uh, I don’t know what a Roswell is,” Sang Mi responded. 


“It’s a thing nutjobs yell about on conspiracy forums,” Chris said, half paying attention and not really explaining because there were so many bumper stickers, decals, decorations on nearby houses. This was alien-central. 


The amount of bumper stickers didn’t really sit well with Chris. Bumper stickers were weird. Like they were something people believed in, an ideal. Chris knew about ideals and cultural fads. He didn’t trust them. 


The road was grey; the pavement and the buildings nearby were also very grey (or at least brown or white) and all excessively dull looking. There was generally a state of decomposition all around – Chris briefly wondered if this was a bad side of town, but then there were trees, nice trees, and every once and a while they’d see a beautiful old house, or in fact, a series of beautiful houses, and it would suddenly be clear that America was just weird like this. It came in waves. 


For every disheveled hut labelled ‘Jason’s Wayback Whoppers, the best Burgers in Pennsylvania ’, there would be another place that was gated off and looked like it came from old money. There were no rules. Excepting, of course, that damn near every other car in this town happened to have those alien bumper stickers. Some were green, some were grey, but they were increasingly common. 


This was a big deal around there, that they had all sorts of alien merch. This was pretty far from city civilization though, and yet the intensity of the town’s fixation did indeed take him aback. Perhaps there was something in avoiding the highways now and then.


“There are a lot of those,” Sang Mi at one point said, wrinkling her nose at the inevitable tacky American flag alien. It was funny, she had no idea the symbol existed before this whole thing, but she had tended to only see the flag showcased by nutjobs. She presumed there were ordinary people. She hoped there would be ordinary people.


It was bewildering to think that he lived here, Chris thought, had lived here, will live here, well, at least on this planet, nine-hundred and fifty years later or so, before all of this, although the memories of those days were now blurry and hazed. And he usually didn’t think of it, except for the fact that this little place in Pennsylvania  did remind him of Spaceport Five Undercity, even if they were nothing alike. This place was industrial, sure, but not a city. It was suburbian, small town industry. He had been to earth hundreds of times without the thought of Spaceport Five popping in. But there it was. Perhaps he was getting too introspective. Seeing things that weren’t there. 


“There’s gotta be a little green man,” Sang Mi squeaked, a little more excitable than she usually was. “There’s a really big one,” Sang Mi said, pointing at a giant inflatable Little Green Man. 


Chris instinctively pulled over. 


* * *


The home of the giant inflatable little green man was ‘Marko’s Mechanical Contractors, Exceeding Your Expectations Everyday’, next to a shop labelled ‘Suburban Tobacco’, and a restaurant called ‘Big Elk Grill’. It was decisively ordinary, the typical plaza you would see teenagers loitering at and not much else of note.


“There can’t be a little green man,” Chris said. “This specific design of a little green man isn’t native to anywhere. It’s not a thing.” 


Sang Mi nodded. “It’s kinda got to be a thing though.” 


“It absolutely is not,” Chris said firmly, not because he wanted to antagonize Sang Mi, far from it, but because he didn’t want to get her hopes up. 


“I mean, from a statistical sense,” Sang Mi began, and Chris sensed that there was absolutely no stopping her at this stage, which was doubly impressive because she was nearly dead to the world but for a few minutes ago, “a sizable percentage of the things we have witnessed on this trip have been in the impossible category. In short, thing territory.”


They still had quite a few miles to go today, a sizable amount of progress to be made, and if the whole day became a little green men production, they may not make it to the motel on time. 


Which, Chris supposed, wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. He decided to trust himself. He had to have pulled over for a reason. 


They got out of the orange car (which looked an oddity in a parking lot of silver and navy vehicles) and proceeded into Marko’s Mechanical Contractors. What awaited them inside they could not have possibly anticipated.


* * *


First off, there was a mascot. 


It was clearly a man in a suit. Embarrassingly so. He was the same sort of green alien the outside inflatable decoration was, but the person inside the suit did not befit the outside alien’s impossibly slender form. 


Secondly, it was a hardware store. They should have known from the sign. 


“Welcomeeee ee eee humaaaaannnn mortals,” the unconvincing mascot proclaimed. His voice was agonized, that of an unprofessional voice actor who had been forced to poorly impersonate Goofy for shifts of seven hours at a time. Every vowel was stretched out for millenia, his remarkably nasal voice cracked frequently. 


“Oh hell no.” Sang Mi muttered in apprehension. 


“It is I, BlooxBop from the planet Gameepmorp! I’m here to save YOU up to 15% OFF any purchase of lugnuts, screws and bolts under seventy-five greep glops! Gwarsh, I’m sorry, that’s my language for dooooooooooollaaaars!! Haha!” 


“You don’t have to do that,” Chris began, feeling his patience already wearing thin. “I’m Chris Cwej —” 


“Kweej? Golly, that’s a Gameepmorp name if I’VE ever heard one, buddy,” the Mascot began. “Have you tried our new drywall package? It’s out of this world!” 


“And this is Sang Mi,” Chris said through gritted teeth. She waved awkwardly. The Mascot did an (overenthusiastic) little jig in return. Sang Mi regretted the wave. 


Chris wondered for a moment about whether or not to ask anything further, if he should just walk out. This man was clearly not going to be helpful, but still, out of whatever it was, stubbornness or aimlessness, Chris remained there, standing in frustration. 


“Can we just talk normally?” Chris asked, tersely. 


“Caaaaaaan do!” The Mascot squeaked. 


“No, really.” Sang Mi butted in. “Please stop the weird voice. We’re not here for hardware.”


Suddenly the Mascot stopped dancing and slouched. “Ah, man, why didn’t you say sooner?” The Mascot said, talking in a normal, albeit low, voice. “What do you want then?” 


“What’s the deal with the bumper stickers?” 


It was bizarre how quickly the atmosphere changed, how solemn the moment seemed. The mascot removed his little green mask and sat down. His brown hair was tousled and stubble had grown all over his face. He looked depressed, nervous. Whatever he was, he was a hell of an actor.


“I, um, I don’t really know how to start. There have been disappearances. People… kids, mostly… They go missing in the forest. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they… don’t…” the man said quietly. He looked over his shoulder, frightened of being overheard. “And the worst part is, it brings in the tourists, so nothing’s being done.” 


“Nothing?” Sang Mi whispered incredulously. 


“Nothing,” he said, haunted. “But it’s all this town has, the alien merch. And we’ve got to get paid.”


Sang Mi didn’t know how to respond. “That can’t be right…” 


“Excuse me.” He placed the Mascot head back on and got back to work. 


* * *


“I was right,” Sang Mi told Chris, clambering back into the car. “I told you the little green men were real.” She was a little too proud of herself. 


“Ugh. I mean, probably,” Chris said, buckling his seat-belt. “I think I believe him, despite the initial cartoon voice. I mean, it’s grim enough.” 


Sang Mi nodded. The proudness faded as she thought about that poor man in the Mascot costume. It was the first thing in a while to actually properly remind her of Gongen. Of home. And the reminder wasn’t because of the little green men suit, it was just the unfairness of it. Like that nasty old man challenging her to a sword fight in the gymnasium just to try to embarass her. She deliberated over what to suggest. She didn’t have to suggest anything.


He turned the car key in the ignition and they set off. They were going to explore the woods, and figure out exactly what sort of thing was going on here. And he had a feeling it was the sort of thing that would be terribly, terribly wrong.


* * *


As they drove through the town to go to the woods, they saw a man standing still, completely and utterly still–just staring out at nothing by the side of the road at, well, nothing. There weren’t enough cars on the empty road to grab that much attention. Nor was there anything picturesque on the other side of the road. His face was forlorn and tired. 


The strangeness of this man put a chill in Chris’ chest. He felt more dread seep in. He stopped the car and rolled down the window. “Hello?” he asked, carefully. It was a fairly ineffectual start, but he didn’t know what else to say. 


The man had sorrow in his face and alcohol on his breath. He wore a flannel sweater, but it was completely unbuttoned, exposing his haggard hairy chest. There was a fleck of blood on his lip – he had been absent-mindedly chewing it. “Please leave me alone,” he whimpered.


“I’m sorry, I understand wanting to be left alone — but seriously, are you alright?” Chris asked. 


“Course I’m not,” the man said. “My son’s gone. He just disappeared after soccer practice. It’s been weeks. Weeks.”


“Soccer? What’s that?” Sang Mi whispered in Korean. 


“Football,” Chris softly whispered back. In English, he continued talking to the man: “Is there anything we can do to help?”


“Leave me alone!” the man cried, still a statue on the side-walk. Unmoving and static. “Leave me alone!” 


Sang Mi wanted to say something but she felt useless in the face of the man’s grief. It was like a sponge: damp, absorbent. She felt herself getting sucked into it, and she wanted desperately to say something helpful, but nothing came to mind. 


“It’s been weeks,” the man whispered. 


They pulled the car over into a nearby parking lot and walked over to the man, trying to offer him some comfort, even if the attempt was feeble, but he was simply catatonic. 
“Come on, Sang Mi,” Chris muttered after their attempts at kindness had morphed into a long silence. “Best thing we can do for him is give him some peace and quiet.”
​


Sang Mi wasn’t sure. Usually when she was that bereft – on those rare occasions she did get that down and miserable – her shouts to be left alone were pretty much the last thing that she, deep down, really wanted.

But still, after a few minutes with the man, they had to move on. The forest was ahead, and so, hopefully too, would be answers.

* * *

Chris remembered why the town reminded him of the Spaceport Five Undercity  as they set off down the road to the woods, which were large and hitherto unnamed. It was the neglect. The authorities had never cared about the Undercity and no one cared about this place either. The woods overtook the buildings they passed, abandoned shells dotted the road. The centre of town had Marko’s and Big Elk, and even that was a little crumbly. But here? The roads weren’t maintained, because hardly anyone came out here but monster chasers, wanna-be interstellar abductees and minivan campers. It painted a dull picture. 

“It’s pretty out here,” Sang Mi said quietly. 

Chris wasn’t sure he really agreed. Though the trees were, in fact, marvelous. Mostly pine, really. It was funny. He had thought that pine trees were almost exclusively up-north, for Christmas decorations and Stephen King novels. 

“I’m still thinking about that guy,” she said. 

“I am too.” 

The road stopped, and there was a muddy trench of a parking lot ahead of them. He carefully manoeuvred the car into the lot, hoping that it would be easier than it looked to get it out. The sun was setting, and they were off course. Though Chris, despite his apprehension, felt certain that they were exactly where they were meant to be. Perhaps they should have brought camping gear. The alien-abduction in the forest experience felt incomplete without s’mores, tents, and a campfire. Though, he supposed, he could probably at least craft a campfire himself. And they had the car. Which had served a relatively tent-like purpose on previous occasions. 

The muddy parking lot had a few other cars in it. One of them in particular was gathering dust from abandonment. It had a broken window and what was probably raccoon scat on the front cushions. Most of the other cars were okay, but it did make Chris wonder what happened to that particular vehicle’s owner. Part of him said there were dozens of mundane explanations, but another part couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t something more.  The place was colder than usual for Pennsylvania , although that may have been the night air. Still, it was a gentle cool. 

“I’m going to go get some spare wood,” Chris said. “Start a fire.” 

Sang Mi was looking back at the little remnants of the town. She was having a nice little moment, taking in the sights of the tiny town over the hill. She hadn’t had the chance to just be at peace lately, so Chris, for whatever reason, decided to leave her to it. 

* * *

On the side of the parking lot, Sang Mi found a lost little bear. It was a stuffed animal, a teddy thing, though more gold than the typical brown. It looked well-loved. It didn’t make her feel nice to see it abandoned, sitting there like that, festering. Sang Mi, not thinking, in a sort of automatic ritual, reached down and picked up the bear.

It was lost, like her, sort of. She wasn’t lost, in most senses. But still, it was like her. She felt the story of the bear, its loneliness. Dropped in the forest by a child who, she knew for whatever reason, would not pick it back up again. The bear was essential. Sang Mi hugged the bear gently, and went back to place it in the car so as not to lose it. As she put it in the car, she shuddered a tiny bit. She never wanted to let it go.  

* * *

Soon enough he was deep into the forest, which was suitably for a forest, wild and unkempt. He stepped through some masses of brambles, picking up sticks. Twilight made the forest navy blue in shadow. Chris did not feel as peaceful as the woods. He smelled something sour in the distance, which he changed his path to avoid. 

It was the epitome of quiet and still. There was no bird song, no crunch of leaves underneath his feet. Everything felt muffled. Chris did not think anything of it. He had been to places that were like this before. Points of Stillness. He had never liked them, but they were always there. 

His eyes began to adjust to the dark. Yes, it was dark, suddenly dark. He paid it no heed. 

He kept thinking of Spaceport Five Undercity. He really needed to stop doing that. It wasn’t relevant, not at all. He bit his lip. He was in the middle of the woods, not a Spaceport. There was no-one, positively no-one here. It was in fact, the opposite of a Spaceport.

He picked up another stick. It wouldn’t do. It was soaked in some sort of sticky tree-sap. He cringed for a second, then remembered that it was just sap, and not some form of alien doom-acid. 

To be blunt, much of the forest was damp and moist, if not with sap, then with dew. He would be picking ticks off his clothes for days, no doubt. 

It was still very still. Chris resisted the temptation to hum to himself. In places like this, it was best not to be the only thing heard. 

Then he saw the shadow move. It was not an animal, but it also was not an alien. It was a person, standing in the middle of the forest, with a hunting rifle. 

“Don’t shoot!” Chris said, waving his hands. “I am not a deer!” 

This potential falsehood seemed to allay the figure, who lowered the hunting rifle. He could now see the shadow more clearly. It was a slightly rotund woman, middle aged – she was standing just like — no, that would be absurd. 

“Chris, dear, is that you?” She smiled. “Come give your mum a hug.” 

* * *

Sang Mi rummaged in the back-seat of the car for the soda and the sour cream and onion chips. She was hungry, and she liked the food that they sold at these “gas stations” very much. She wasn’t quite sure why Chris had left her alone out here, but for once, she didn’t particularly feel like following on after him, no matter how wonderful it had been to be with him lately. She just wanted some me-time. And she could sense that he wanted that too. Odd. She hoped she hadn’t done anything wrong. 
The chips were very nice though. She was confused why Chris called them ‘crisps’ even though it said Chips on the bag and everything. Perhaps he didn’t know. What an odd thought. 

The sun had completely fallen. Oh, and what a moon it was: a clear moon, a full moon! Though surely it had only just been a full moon a few nights ago, so this must be a nearly full moon. She squinted at the probably nearly full moon but came to the conclusion that, yes, it was a full one. 

She kept thinking about Gongen, and how, when all of this would be done, she would have to go right back there and do everything all over again. Back to the school, to the stress, to Sang Eun and Saki and all of it. And probably, sooner or later, something much worse than school.

There was a ruffle in the bushes. Chris was likely back. They should talk about something, she thought. She wanted to know more from him – know more about him. They had talked! They did talking, they did all sorts of talking, they had to, but still, sometimes, she felt just a smidge guilty that she had sort of forced herself into this whole thing, and sometimes all that talking didn’t feel like talking. She bit her nails nervously. 

But then the ruffle revealed itself, and it wasn’t Cwej. It was a young man who looked very similar to Sang Mi indeed. He could be her twin — in fact, he was. 

“Sang Mi!” Sang Eun exclaimed. “It’s so good to see you! But come on, we’re in danger — and —” 

Sang Mi immediately picked up the baseball bat that was hidden at the bottom of the car. There was absolutely no hesitation. She had seen a lot of ridiculous things lately and knew a trick when she saw one. Aliens were always shapeshifters in the movies and stuff — and this Sang Eun’s Korean was terrible. 

“You aren’t my brother,” she said, fiercely. “You don’t know anything about my brother.”

“Of course I’m your brother,” Definitely Not My Brother said. 

“How’d ya get here, big bro?” Sang Mi said, readying the baseball bat. 

“I followed you here from town. Mom says that we need to get back to the house. She’s making up some nice Illinois Jambalaya,” the false brother desperately attempted.
 

Sang Mi swung the bat.

“CHRIS, THERE ARE ALIENS!” Sang Mi hollered.

* * *

Chris looked at Mummy Dearest discerningly. She continued to smile in a superficial way. He was immediately aware this was not his Mother. This was manufactured. And quite glaringly so: Not only was Lovely Old Mrs. Cwej in the wrong century, she was dressed completely wrong, wearing the fashion of this century, and equally fashion she would never deign to wear. Plus she was holding a shotgun, which was quite out of style, and she was a bit too young too. Worst of all, she looked just like she did in his memories — the ones he recently discovered his Superiors had heavily edited, which was incorrect on a multitude of levels. Just seeing this pilfered and incorrect attempt at a Mother did indeed make him feel rather sad and nostalgic, but he was acutely aware that was the intention.

“So,” Chris began. “I think we both know where this is going.”

Mrs. Cwej chirped out a sickly-sweet noise of endearment. “Oh, my boy, I’m so very glad to see you again.” 

“And I would be too,” Chris said quietly. He looked at the woman and the shotgun. “Put down the gun, would you please?”

He was frustrated with how this whole thing still worked, despite the failure of the disguise. For whatever agenda or purpose, this thing was still dredging up old feelings. Why hadn’t he written his Mum a postcard? Even after he saw her last, in the deserted Undertown, barely able to say hello, let alone goodbye — and he hadn’t looked back for a second. That’s how he had always been. 

“You’ve caught on, haven’t you, love,” Mrs. Cwej murmured, disappointed. She pursed her lips into a sour triangle. “I can see it in your face.” 

“Yeah. So, you’ve been disguising yourself, taking people,” Chris declared. “I want to know why.”

“Taking people?” Mrs. Cwej laughed heartily. The familiar noise hurt something very deep down inside Chris, though he didn’t show it. “Aren’t you so funny! The little monkey thinks we’re doing something wrong. Isn’t that cute?” 

Chris didn’t let the monkey insult get to him. He’d been called much worse by the Superiors — and plenty of others across several star systems. What really annoyed him was the callousness of whoever this was. And that he had no clue who they even were. It didn’t fit the pattern of any other shape-shifter thing he knew of. They usually had to lock someone up in a pattern suspender, wear a specific disguise, or, depending on the creature, could automatically change to whatever they had seen. Whoever this alien was, he doubted it had seen his mother. 

He decided simplicity was the best move forward – he needed to keep things simple. “Who are you? What planet have you come from?”

The thing shaped like his Mother smiled again, a truly vicious looking smile. The smile opened vertically, revealing skin and arteries and eventually, a grey-green face. It re-asserted itself, and his mother was gone. The classical face remained; the prototypical face for alien and other. The grey alien face with those bulbous eyes. It was real. 
“We are from here,” it said, gleefully. “We have always been here.” 

Chris was astonished at the thought. He looked at the strange creature. Even as it talked, nothing on its face moved. Its voice was the only thing that betrayed emotion.
“You haven’t always been here,” Chris said. “I would know. The Superiors would know. An additional sentient species native to Earth, that’s not the kind of thing that gets overlooked.”

“We have always been here,” the Grey repeated. “In fact, we have become quite popular.”

“I’ve noticed,” Chris said. He steadily reached into his back pocket, subtly, so the Grey wouldn’t notice. “You even have merchandise.”

“It is intentional. It is intended. It costs money to remain hidden, Mr. Cwej,” the Grey told him. The voice was still the voice of his mother. “Even for, as you call it, shapeshifters. Of course, we give glimpses to certain people now and then. To discredit the idea — to remain in the public consciousness, to have a degree of… celebrity.”

“Yes, your appearance,” Chris said. “The abductions. It’s all very cliche.” 

“It’s a matter of branding. Public Relations,” said the Grey.

Chris hadn’t felt this angry at someone in ages. “Branding?! You’re kidnapping people and talking about branding?!” He tried to sound strong, in charge. “Listen up, you tiny little thing. I’m going to stop you. I will stop every one of you that’s doing this. I will take this as far as it needs to go.” 

Its face began to oscillate in color — it was green for a moment, quite green, although then it was grey again. Cwej scoffed at the sight. Everything was about appearances to this guy. 

But then, the Grey laughed. “Take it far, Mr. Cwej. No one will believe you.” 

A flying saucer was overhead. The Little Green Man made a mocking little “Live Long and Prosper” salute and then he was gone — beamed up. A little helicopter done up to look like a flying saucer was above him. It shuffled off. Cwej felt sick to his stomach. The callousness of whoever that was — it was incredible. 

The world felt upside down. Strange. Like there was more to it than he had ever known, and yet somehow so much less. These Roswell Greys, Zeta Reticulans, whatever he’d end up calling them — they were so small. So vindictive. Cwej looked up at the faux saucer, still ahead of him. He finally finished reaching into his back pocket, no longer needing to be subtle, and fished out his old celluloid camera. He snapped a photo, but there was nothing in the lens. The flying saucer didn’t appear. David Bowie’s voice echoed in his ears. There was no Space Oddity. There was no Life on Mars. 

* * *

Sang Mi came rushing towards the alien, baseball bat in hand. She knew enough Kendo to give these Grey bastards one thing coming. 

It no longer was disguised as Sang Eun. Great. That made swinging a baseball bat at its skull way easier. But she swung the Bat, and she missed by the biggest mile conceivable. Several miles. Several trillions of miles. A miles to lightyear conversion ratio.  

It was gone. Just like that. Her bat didn’t connect with it, she didn’t hit anything, it was just gone. She didn’t even see a sci-fi thing. It just wasn’t there anymore. What? Shit. 
She tried to ignore the sting of failure, and collected herself. None of today had made any sense, but there was still a bit of hope she could solve this, and surely that must be enough. She turned and rushed into the clearing after Chris. She only tripped on a root in the underbrush once, and she picked herself up and ran further into the forest. If there was one thing she was especially good at, it was running.

* * *

Chris was there in the clearing, remarkably dejected as Sang Mi got to him. The clearing was dark without the light of the fake saucer, and Sang Mi swatted away some bugs that tried to land on her face. The clearing was dead, scorched, though not by fire. The woods had just pulled back from where the Alien —well, if it was an alien — had stood.
 

“They’re gone,” he said, bitterly. “It doesn’t make any sense.” 

“I take it you also saw the little green men in question,” Sang Mi guessed. 

Chris Cwej’s failures were not usually this total in enormity. He shrugged. It was a feeble gesture, but he felt remarkably feeble. He didn’t feel like he had learned anything that didn’t bring up more questions, more problems. He could theorize how the Greys had obtained the face of his mother and also get so much wrong, but he couldn’t be sure.

What did make sense to him is what they had done. They had lured people in with familiar faces, abducted them. It was probably, maybe, why he had been feeling so nostalgic, and… The flying saucer he had just seen — well, it… it was a mockery of everything about abductions, now he saw it up close. A sick joke, enough for atmospheric travel, a goddamn helicopter. If he could just track them down…

“Chris,” Sang Mi interrupted his thoughts. “Are you alright? You look a bit like that sad dude on the road.” 

Chris made an untranscribable noise. “Yeah…” He sure felt miserable.

But maybe, if he had a mavimetric scanner that bypassed an active cloaking field with – ugh, if he had that, he might be able to track them — and he’d probably end up alerting the Superiors too. Who would outwardly dismiss whatever he claimed. How on Earth could they possibly remain undetected for this long? How on Earth?

“Hey! Sang Mi to Chris,” Sang Mi said, snapping her fingers in front of his face. That did it. “What’s going on?” 

“…I …I don’t want to talk about it,” Chris said, after a while. 

Sang Mi thought about what she wished she said to that man on the road, begging for them to just leave. “Tough luck,” she said decisively. “We need to talk about it.” 

Chris began to explain, “I couldn’t catch them. They’re shapeshifters. They said they’re… native? They became my Mother for a bit — then they mocked me a lot and talked about capitalistic ventures, how they’re everywhere —” 

“Slow down,” she said. 

“There’s something about this town,” Chris began, “that’s just eating at me. It’s sad, and it’s wrong, and it doesn’t make sense.” 

“Then we get outta here.” Sang Mi tried to explain. “We aren’t here specifically to hunt maybe-aliens, we’re here to try and help people. And if we can’t help people — we tried! That’s part of what I like about you, not that we win or we lose or whatever — but that we try.” 

Chris stood up. “You’re right. But when it’s something this big — you can’t just try once and then give up. Not when people’s families are on the line.”

“I wasn’t trying to say that.” She said quickly. 

Chris sighed. “I know!” He said angrily. “It’s just, sometimes, I don’t know what to do.”
Sang Mi looked at him. She thought about how funny it was to hear him say that. Not haha-funny, or even funny-strange, but just… funny in the coincidental sort of way. How alike they were. And how small her problems seemed in a sort of comparison when looking at her teacher. Mr. Cwej from the high school where she was Sarah Jhe. She minded a lot of things, and it was a weird name, but she never minded being Sarah Jhe.

“Well, we do what we can, I guess.” 

Chris, looking at her, thought how funny it was that she was the student and not the teacher. How she was already much better at all this than he was, and that when she grew up, she would probably be some sort of world peace superhuman, even if there were storm-clouds ahead. They were so alike. It would almost perturb him if somehow it didn’t make him feel better. 

They both felt better for being on the road — for solving problems.  And deep down, although they knew neither of them could solve this one, it made them all the more certain they could solve the next. Even if they were getting close to the end of the line, it still felt like a new start. 

But before they went for good, they had to do what they always did. They had to try.

* * *

Jimmy put the ZeepZorp costume on the shelf. It was the end of his shift. He sighed. It had been a long day of pretending to be a happy goofball and he was exhausted. He could stop being the Mascot now, and he could be Jimmy again, if only for a few hours. He’d clock in again tomorrow. But for now… 

He went outside for a cigarette. The town was empty and strange tonight. The light from the storefront was the only light there was. It was a lonely town. He almost convinced himself he could hear the relaxing country twang of guitar over the wind. Things would change around here soon. Less customers today. Maybe aliens weren’t as popular these days, what with the news. People have really had enough with always thinking the world’s ending, he thought. It’s not good for the mental health. 

The cigarette wasn’t hitting like usual. Jimmy stamped it out on the pavement, not even thinking about littering. His mouth still moved automatically, even without the cigarette — he chewed his lip steadily. 

The odd orange car from earlier rolled up to the storefront. It was funny they knew he was still here. The door opened, and there they were, the pair from earlier. He had sort of wondered who they were, what their real deal was, though somehow he knew he’d never really know. It was good they weren’t lost in the forest like so many others. 

“We’re looking for an old man,” Cwej declared.

“There are plenty,” Jimmy said, gruffly. “This is a town of old men.” 

Chris sighed. They had been all over town. It felt hopeless.

“Are you sure you don’t know him?” Sang Mi asked softly. “We have to get going. We have places to be.”

“If you had a name, I might be able to help,” Jimmy said, though he knew that they wouldn’t have a name somehow. This was a nameless town of nameless people — they had never bothered to ask his name earlier, now had they?

“Well, if you see him, if you see the guy, can you give him this?” Sang Mi asked. There was hope and pain in her eyes. She handed Jimmy — with great difficulty, he noticed — a small golden and thoroughly tousled teddy bear. Her grip around the bear was tight. He solemnly took the bear, recognizing its significance.

Sang Mi stepped away, awkwardly. “He, um, he needs it more than I do.” 

Jimmy looked at the bear in his hands, subconsciously stopping to feel its soft fur. Sang Mi’s sacrifice was noted. “I’ll make sure it gets to him,” he said. As he held the bear, it became Jimmy’s mission too. 

The two strangers got back into the car, and began their way out of town. It was night, but they were still going. Jimmy chuckled to himself, despite everything, despite being a thirty year old man holding a bear in an empty parking lot. Jimmy saw them drive, saw that they were going. He felt certain, although he hardly knew him, of one thing — that they would never stop. 

* * *

The Man stood at the side of the road. It was night, and it was time to move. He would have to go home, sit down. Maybe his boy was waiting for him back home already, and he had been wasting his day on this pavement for no reason, stinking of cigarettes and beer. Wouldn’t it be so nice if all the problems could get solved? Mmph. But that wasn’t real life, now was it? Certain things just hung there like implacable flies. 

Above his head, for just a second, he saw something in the sky twirl. A flying saucer! A flying saucer. Aliens were real! Aliens were real, goddamnit! Proper aliens! Not the big dumb aliens on the news, but honest to god Little Green Men in flying saucers! He laughed so hard. Those Little Green Men in flying saucers! They – Wait —  They’re the kind of alien that abducts people! Maybe one of those Alien agencies would know! Know where his son is!

He walked over to the nearest payphone — which still work in small towns like this – and he feebly dialed the phone directory and got the number for the Federal Bureau of Alien stuff or whatever it was. It was surprisingly easy to get, too. He was certain this would be it. He would report the UFO, and find out about his son. 

He phoned the number. “Hello!? I’ve got to call about the Little Green Men! I saw them! In the flying saucer!! It was a sighting, and you government people want to know about those, right!?” 

“…The little green men?” 

“Yes! The Greys! The Zeta Reticulans! They were here, in Pennsylvania !” His drunk voice probably wasn’t doing him any favors. 

“Mister, this is an official government line for real extraterrestrial sightings. We do not take well to being prank-called. There are no such things as little green men.” The phone played that dull beep of a tone, and he was hung up on.  

Another man might have sworn up and down, and redialed the number, and screamed to anyone who listened that the Aliens were in the Government! This man didn’t bother. He placed the phone down and walked back to his house, past the dozens of green and grey bumper stickers and inflatable balloons. He trudged past the merchandise, his drunkenness making him stumble. That was it. The Beer. His eyes must have been playing tricks on him. 
​

There are no such things as little green men. 



Next Stop:
This is a Story About _______
​by James Wylder


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Edited by James Wylder and James Hornby
Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain
Cover by Ari Michak
Illustrations by Bex Vee
Logo design by Lucas Kovacs
 
Concepts Used with Permission:
Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press
WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc.
Archie MacTavish, Tasha Williams, SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby
Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane
Yssgaroth © Neil Penswick
C.R.U.X © Aristide Twain
The Jovian Diplomatic Service, Blue Candle Coffee Company, E.D.E.M, Jhe Sang Mi, Jhe Sang Eun, Maxie Masters © James Wylder
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Cwej: The World Series by James Wylder

10/16/2025

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Picture

The World Series
by James Wylder
Illustrations by Leela Ross and Bex Vee


​​Deep in the trees, where the branches crowd out the light like intertwined fingers, there was a madman. He needed subjects for his experiments, subjects who wouldn’t be missed. He found them in children—abandoned and forgotten. Orphans who had been shunted off to the local asylum.

The madman was named Doctor Crow, and he had been working on a secret serum, which he injected into the children’s heads—causing them to swell up like melons.

The children turned feral—their teeth grew sharp, and they ate anything they could.

Nurses.

Each other.

And finally Doctor Crow himself.

Now they roam the forests, feasting on flesh, wandering in the darkness—”


“With their melon-heads?” Sang Mi cut in, her voice as dreary as her disposition. The black suits and ties she and Chris were wearing certainly didn’t help that.
 
Carol looked to Cwej hoping desperately he’d back her up. “It’s a real local legend!” She held up the bobblehead of the melon-headed child. “And that’s why we’re naming the baseball team after them.”

Chris looked over at Sang Mi, trying to keep his composure better than her. Unfortunately, he was well aware Sang Mi was a better liar than him, and he also knew she was doing a bad job that was better than his own bad job right now. “…It’s certainly an interesting proposition but, uh, you don’t hear people saying to name their team after say, the Jersey Devil.”

Carol crossed her arms, still holding the bobblehead. “You mean like the New Jersey Devils? The hockey team?”

“Oh shit, really?” Chris gave Sang Mi a look of pleasant surprise. She shrugged. “Well I still don’t think it’s a very catchy name.”

“With all due respect, you’re just consultants, and this is my team. Starting a minor league team isn’t easy, and I’ve invested everything I have into buying this baseball field, renovating it, and scouting out players. And we have a backer who’s going to make this place a real success… even if they keep saying we should name the team the Corvids.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Like that Doctor Crow?”

“I guess. I think we should stick with the simpler reference. Regardless, I appreciate that a generous donor paid for you to come here to assist us, Mr. Rodonanté and Ms. Kim, but I really think the Melonheads name is what suits our community.”

Sang Mi, aka Ms. Kim, scooted her chair back and got up. “Okay, well, I think we should go then, Mr. Rodonanté.”

Cwej nodded. “Sure. Not sure how much good we’ll be here at this point. Hopefully some of our suggestions were helpful.”

“Yes, I mean you did realize we were getting double billed by a few of our vendors, which is going to reduce our overhead tremendously, so I do thank you for coming.”

They each shook Carol’s hand, and filtered out. Chris made his way from the office to look out over the small stadium. Sang Mi scampered to follow him. “Did we really have to wear the suits? And why did we use our mothers’ maiden names?”

Chris stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I really wanted to feel like we were undercover.”

“You didn’t change your name at the school, and we were undercover there for like, a while.”

That was a good point, and he didn’t have a good answer, so he changed the subject. “So, what do you think, about the Melonheads?”

“I think that she's going to need to rebrand as fast as she can once it sinks in that It’s a terrible name for a sports team.”
 
He twitched and looked over at her. “No, the cryptids! The legends!” He threw his hands out, trying to gesture in a way that captured the mystery of it, but instead made him look like an insecure bird trying to take off.

“Oh. Well, I mean, they’re in our book, aren’t they? They don’t sound real, but nothing has sounded real. It’s not like I expected to meet vampires, or shadow people, or giant turtles.”

“There’s a lot of strange things in the world. And this trip has been filled with coincidences. I knew a Dr. Crow a long time ago, well, nearly the same name. So, I was curious.”

“I’m guessing you’ve concluded it’s nothing?”

He nodded. Then he shrugged. Then, as if hoping it would make him look more confident, he gave a second firmer nod. “Well, whatever. Let’s hit the road. Not every town is going to have a real mystery.”

* * *

And so, they abandoned the search for the Melonheads. Sang Mi already had their hardcover copy of Roadside Oddities of America out on her lap, flipping through the pages for something interesting. Chris shifted into his seat, turning out onto a country road. “Sorry that was a waste of time.”

Sang Mi screwed her lips to the side, holding a page of the book in the air as it bounced on her lap. “Isn’t that the whole point of what we’re doing, wasting time?”

“I wouldn’t call it a waste, we’re on an important mission.” The page stayed held in stasis between her fingertips.

He glanced over, flicking the turn signal as he did so. “Are you getting homesick?” “No, no, it’s not that. I don’t want to go home. It’s just…”

Trees flicked past the window. A stray dog perked its head up from some roadkill as they zipped by. “I can’t know unless you tell me.”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” “It’s really okay—”

“I said don’t worry about it!”

He held his gaze on her—probably too long for someone who was trying to pretend they were a safe driver—but as she leaned over and let her head bang at the window, he couldn’t help but go through an incredible list of improbable possibilities about what was bothering her. He started with fairly reasonable thoughts:

“Hey, Sang Mi, you’re not… in a love triangle with a dog-person and a pirate, are you?”
 
She tilted her head up from the window. “Stop kidding arou —” She saw the look in his eyes. “Oh, you’re serious. Are uh, dog-people real? And why was that example so specific?”

“Never mind, happened to a friend of mine,” he mumbled. “I’m just worried about you.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s just the storm clouds in my head. Just ignore me,” she said as she went back to flipping through the book, examining an illustration of not a cryptid, but what looked like a very large ball of twine.

He tried to think of what to say, but it wasn’t long before the first roar of thunder—and that thunder was far from metaphorical.

“I don’t remember rain in the forecast?” Sang Mi said, looking up from a page on the Flatwoods Monster. She blinked, then rubbed her eyes to check if she was seeing things right. “Hey, Chris, the sky went dark? It was blue just a second ago.”

Of course the sky had gone dark. He really should have been expecting more things like this when they were looking for monsters. It almost made him want to call it quits and just drive to the lodge early and hope they didn’t get bored in the mountains playing board games. “Yeah, that’s bad.”

She pulled her shoulders in. She was probably thinking of their car wreck by Elkhart that had put her in the hospital when the same thing had happened there. “It’s not just like, when they turn the lights off in the dome instead of dimming them?”

Chris glanced at her. “Shouldn’t that all be automated?”

She shrugged, and he realized her eyes were filled with draining hope. “No, it’s not like that. But we’re going to be okay I—”

Chris looked back to the road, and with a curse hit the brakes hard. But not fast enough—the sound of their front tires popping caused both of them to groan.

Then it started raining.

“…Was that a strip of spikes in the road?” Sang Mi asked. “Sure looked like it.”

“That’s not normal either, right?” He could feel the spiking anxiety in her voice.

Chris shook his head, and looked out his side window. The forest on that slide sloped up onto a hill, and at its peak was a large and aged brick building, either a boxy manor or a fancy sanitarium. “I’ll call for roadside assistance. But it might be a little, considering the sudden and unnatural night.”

“We should just wait this out. Take turns napping and being on watch til the lights come back?”

Cwej bit his lip, pulling it back over his teeth till it snapped back into place. “…Yeah. Yeah, let’s do—”

Something rammed into the car.
 
Not with the force of another car, it had come from the side facing the forest after all, causing the Honda Element they’d dubbed ‘Odyssey’ to rock, just like Ulysses’ boat buffeted on Neptune’s waves.

Chris and Sang Mi looked at each other, and Sang Mi gestured for Chris to look behind him. He turned in his seat, only to see a being with a bulbous head, light purple skin, yellow eyes, sharp teeth, and claws, dressed in hospital clothes—and balancing on the shoulders of another small bulbous- headed being.

“It’s a freaking Melonhead!” Sang Mi said.

“It’s kinda cute, in a weird way,” Chris said.

"Seriously?”

As they bantered, more of the Melonheads started to make their way through the treeline, poking their heads out from behind trunks at first, and shuffling their way forward curiously. Some were holding hands delicately, comforting their friends as they approached the car.

Sang Mi softened. “I guess they are kinda cute, now that you say it—”

The Melonhead by the window let out an ear-piercing shriek, its mouth wide showing all its razor teeth in full gleam, and started pushing the car again. The car rocked harder.

Sang Mi un-softened. “They're going to turn us over, we have to get out—”

The assembled Melonheads charged the car, and Chris’s eyes turned serious and cold. He reached over, and opened Sang Mi's door, unbuckling her, and shoving her out the door as he leapt after her. She stumbled out into the rain, gaining her footing, and Chris grabbed her wrist. “Run!”

As the Melonheads screeched, she complied wholeheartedly. They ran across the road, and up the muddy hill towards the old brick building on the hill, the lights in the windows a guiding light. The sound of a swarm of feet splashing through the damp earth followed them. Sang Mi’s time as a runner was clearly paying off for her as she kept her footing in the muck better than Chris had expected.

Behind them, the Melonheads scrambled and screamed. Sang Mi had gotten ahead of Chris, and he could tell she was slowing her pace to not lose him. “Just go!”

She nodded, and bolted.

Looking along the path, Chris saw a fallen log, a bit rotted, but it met what he needed. Hefting it up, the Melonheads closing in, he dropped it, and pushed it with his foot down the hill. Most of the Melonheads scrambled out of the way, but the closest pair were knocked over like bowling pins as the rotting log broke apart upon impact. The pair thrashed their limbs and rolled around crying while the others went to try and help them.

Good, they’d be fine. He hadn't wanted to hurt them at all, but he also didn’t feel like getting chomped on today.
 
He charged up the hill after Sang Mi, finding her banging on the door. “It won’t open—uh—should we break it d—?”

Before she could even finish her question, Chris took in a deep breath and bellowed: “OPEN THIS DAMN DOOR!”

Sang Mi blinked, and the door creaked open. A Melonhead wearing a miniature orderly’s outfit with a suit jacket lazily placed over it opened the door.

“Mrah?” the Melonhead asked.

“Could we come inside?” Sang Mi asked, with a surreal politeness.

“Mrah,” they replied with a nod, and gestured that they follow them in. After they slipped in the door, Chris and Sang Mi scrambled to shut the door, turn every lock, slide the deadbolts, and then shove a nearby chair under the knob. Only then did they allow themselves to catch their breath and examine their surroundings.

The building was something between an old-timey hospital and a manor house. Clean white tile, interrupted by a grand wooden staircase in the center. A purple carpet rolled down it all the way to the doorway. The walls were decorated with framed baseball jerseys and cards. Slightly obscured by a great chandelier, were a set of five pictures of various people, two in black robes, three in medical gear. And above that, a great sign:

‘DR. CROW'S ORPHANAGE, SANATARIUM, AND HOTEL’.

Sang Mi looked at the sign, looked back at Chris, and then repeated the motion three more times.

“That is not a serious sign,” she said.

“No, no, it is,” Chris said with an exhausted acceptance. “You said you knew a Dr. Crow, this is them, isn’t it?” Chris pursed his lips.

“What are they like?” He scratched his nose. She squinted.

He glanced away.

“Oh no,” Sang Mi said, realization hitting her.

“I didn’t say anything!” Chris said, way too defensively. “You and this Dr. Crow… you guys were like… an item?”
 
Chris sighed again, performatively louder. “Yeah. Guess there's no fooling you there. He and I uh… my Superiors trained me in Japan for a while.”

Sang Mi blinked. “Wait, you said your ‘superiors’ run the Universe—so why, like, Japan?”

There was a certain lack of respect in the way she said "Superiors" that he felt like he should correct, but he couldn't find the words, and now wasn't the time anyway. “It’s a long story. Dr. Crow, or the Corvid as I knew him then, was sort of a… trainer? Physical therapist? He monitored how I was doing for my Superiors. We may have uh, gotten a bit closer while he was helping me stretch my hamstrings—"

“Chris, I mean this with all the love in the world, please do not tell me more, ever.” “Sorry—anyway, he got reassigned before I finished there, due to some, uh, unauthorized experiments.”

“Please no more euphemisms.”

“No, like, he did experiments on people without their consent. Which… lines up with the Melonheads legend. I assumed he went home, but maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was just wandering the Earth for centuries.”

“Hundreds of years of medical malpractice,” Sang Mi mumbled.

“But apparently he got eaten. That’s… well, if the legend is true, he might not come back from that one.”

“…Being cannibalized would do that, yes?”

There was banging on the door, he looked over at the friendly melonhead who had let them in. “This guy seems okay. Maybe the others are trying to get him?”

That didn’t seem quite right, they were holding hands with a sweet compassion. But maybe they were in factions? Sang Mi turned this over in her head like a pancake: quickly and without the desire to flip it again. “Yeah, that tracks. If they ate their creator like you said, they might eat each other?”

The kind melonhead tugged at Chris’s sleeve with a “Mrah!’ and pointed at the doorway to the right. “Want us to go in there?”

“I’ll watch for traps!” Sang Mi volunteered as he went and opened the door.

Beyond it was a grand dining hall. A long table extended out, with a huge golden chair at the far end, and beautiful and expensive but less grand chairs lining the table on either side. On the table was a blue tablecloth, a noticeably empty spot for plates, cups and silverware, and an elaborate centerpiece depicting a star.

Two places already had glasses filled with water, and one with wine and the other with milk, to the left and right of the golden chair which had a stuffed toy of a crow sitting on it.

“Mrah!” the kind melonhead said.
 
“Are you serving us dinner? Mr…. Uh…”

The melonhead pointed to a pin on his jacket with the number ‘Five’ on it. “Five? That’s your name?”

He nodded.

“You look more like a Ji Ho.”

He shrugged, and gestured again to the table. They sat, scooting in the rather heavy wooden chairs. In just a moment, Five came back with a large cart containing several plates under covers, which he pulled off with a flourish and set down before each of them. The plates were fine china with gold-leaf filigree, and on them was food that was rather unlike anything Sang Mi was familiar with. But as Chris saw it, his face drooped. Sang Mi looked up at him, eyes bright with excitement, which dimmed just like the light in the domes was supposed to at twilight.

“Something wrong with the food?” When they were alone in the car, Chris and her talked almost exclusively in Korean. When they were around others, they usually spoke English. But Sang Mi asked this question in Korean, even with Five right there.

“Yeah,” Chris replied in turn. “It’s made from local ingredients, but this is trying to emulate food from the Base of Operations. The home-world of my Superiors.”

The food was a fried chicken cutlet, the breading thick with herbs, with several parallel cuts down it, and a dark blue seasoned sauce made primarily from berries laid into each of the trenches. To the side was a set of what looked like kebabs on wooden skewers, but made of peppers and Brussel spouts, slightly charred and smoked. Finally there were small pieces of bread, each the size of a golf-ball, soft and drizzled in butter and honey with nutmeg.

Sang Mi picked up her knife and fork, and cut into the chicken, taking a bite. The roller coaster of the light in her eyes continued, as they lit up again. “It’s good! It’s sweet and savory, and it’s got the crunchy coating, juicy meat, and the texture from the berry goop.” She immediately went to the bread. “That’s yummy too!” She rushed into a bite of the veggie kebab. “…A bit of a weirder taste, but I could get used to it?”

Reluctantly, Chris tasted it too. They probably should have been more cautious about eating it, but well, Sang Mi seemed fine. She was right—it was good.

“It’s been a long time since I had this.”

“Is it like, a delicacy?”

He shook his head. “No, honestly it’s probably the closest thing to home cooking they have up there. Food isn’t common among them.”

She perked up, strangely. “Food scarcity? Like three years ago when the hydroponics failed back home?”
 
“Er, no, nothing like that. They have enough to eat,” he clarified. “They just sort of mostly… don’t? Not proper meals, I mean. Fun ones. Mostly, they just eat these, I don’t know, nutrition pills.”

Sang Mi chewed and swallowed. “That has to be boring.”

“They love being boring. It’s one of Their biggest talents.”

“Huh. Then when did you try this before?”

“Oh, with friends…” he said vaguely. “Leaving home isn’t the only way you can rebel.”

She picked up the last of the mini-breads, turning it around in her fingers. “I can understand that. Even getting a good grade can be rebellion sometimes. My mom always said so.”

“Speaking of home… earlier, you were saying something about going back?”
​
She stopped spinning the bread in her hands, and shoved it in her mouth, looking away from him as she chewed. “Hey, Chris, why are they serving Superior food here?”

He was trying to figure out if he should call her out for dodging the question when the music kicked in, and the doors to the dining room swung out. Five stood there, in a half-bow, holding his hand out gesturing for them to return to the grand entryway.

“I don’t know this song.”

“It’s called Science Fiction Double Feature,” Chris said, suddenly looking dreary. “Well, we’d better go see the Show.”

“The Show?”

He got up, and she scampered up as he gestured for her to follow.

The lights in the entry hall dimmed, as they approached the center, where they stood together, tense.

From the great stairwell came a spotlight, then awkwardly timed in the wrong order, the lights then went off. Framed there was a woman in a long white lab coat with long raven hair, posed with her arms out, staring them down like she was trying to mimic a bird in flight.

“Chris Cwej,” a musical cue followed, and she changed her pose dramatically with the beat. “It’s been a while.”

Chris and Sang Mi were of one mind. They immediately turned around and ran for the door. However, that door shot open, and the Melonheads that had been chasing them from the car up the hill waddled in, looking unhappy, dirty, and tired, but no longer like they were going to take a bite of them. They were, however, glaring at them with malice. Naturally, the duo took a few steps towards the staircase. One of the Melonheads hissed at them, supporting one of the pair Chris had hit with the log, who was sucking their thumb.

“Oh, uh, hey Corvid… How’s it been? I see you’ve, uh…” Chris gestured at the Melonheads. “…been keeping busy?”
 
She effortlessly leapt onto the banister, landing side-saddle, and sliding down to hop off with a perfect gymnast’s landing. The Melonheads all clapped.

“Thank you, thank you.” She tossed her raven-black hair back. “I see you’ve been busy as well. Who’s this child?” She gestured at Sang Mi with feigned disinterest. “I heard you’d been travelling with some Grigori, but she doesn’t have four arms.”

“This is…” he trailed off, so she cut in.

“Jhe Sang Mi, I’m from Gongen.”

She tapped her cheek. “Gongen? Never heard of it. At least you look human.” Sang Mi furrowed her brow. “I am human!”

Dr. Crow laughed, covering her mouth with one hand and flapping her other hand in the air. “I’m sure you’d like to think so. How much genetic modification did they have to do so you could survive on this Gongen? Look at you, your DNA is a mess.”

“You can’t just see my DNA,” she said dryly.

“Actually, she can,” Chris said. “She’s a Superior. She’s messed with her own bodies so she can do that. Those aren’t the eyes of a normal person, or even a normal Superior.”

Dr. Crow grinned.

Sang Mi nodded slowly. “I’ve met people who modify themselves like that, I get—wait, what do you mean, bodies? Like, plural?”

“This little hatchling really doesn’t even know that? Tsk tsk, you never were much of an educator, were you…”

Drained, Chris looked back to Sang Mi, as if explaining this was taking a year off his life. “Her People can reform themselves after death. Take on a whole new body. She’s less a person and more a forest fire that’s been bottled in skin. She didn’t have a medical procedure to change herself from the man I knew before—he was a man then, and in this body she’s a woman. She’ll change bodies again in the future, and she could be any gender or sex in any combination. Her features could be anything. But she’ll always be a Superior. An inferno kept in check with manners and smiles. That’s who she is.”

“Very poetic,” Dr. Crow said. “You could have just said I’m like a god and be done with it.”

​“I have strong feelings on that word,” Sang Mi said.

Crow’s face hardened. “I bet you do. A little girl with insignificant superstitions.”

Chris moved protectively in front of Sang Mi, and Dr. Crow took that opportunity to stroke his face, which caused him to back up, bumping Sang Mi on the nose, who promptly yelped.
 
Dr. Crow smiled. “Did you enjoy the meal? You used to love that. I cooked it for you. I couldn’t get the turoon but I made do.”

“Substituting the chicken for a vegetable worked better than it should have.”

Her hand crept up to stroke his face again. “Why don’t you stay the night here? I promise you’ll be safe, and it’s so wet outside. Plus what a tragic accident that happened to your car—”

“The strip of nails literally right in front of your house with your minions waiting to flush us to the front door?”

She smiled wide. “Whatever could give you that impression?”

“Every single thing that happened gives us that impression,” Sang Mi said, still rubbing her nose. “We thought poor Five here was under siege, but it looks like this was all choreographed.”

“Well, what can you do?” Crow said, throwing her hands up and shifting them side to side in the air with her palms up a few times while bobbing her head. “Guess you caught me. But more accurate to say, I caught you.”

“Okay, well, I think that’s our cue to.…” At that, Sang Mi bolted again for the door, causing the surprised Melonheads in the way to scatter. She rattled the handle, and then rammed her shoulder into it.

“It won’t budge,” Crow called coolly. “But you’re welcome to leave anytime.”

Chris knew that way she was talking. That was the way the Corvid talked when he had already won. “What’s your game?” He clenched his fists and stomped towards her. “You experimented on these children—”

“They would have died anyway, I saved their lives, give me a little credit.” “I bet you didn’t ask them if they wanted to get turned into melonheads.”

She shrugged. “Well, no, but look, I already paid for that—how do you think I lost my last body?” She leaned in. “They did eat me, you know. That was hard to come back from. And look at me, I’m still caring for the little carnivores!”

“You always think things are okay if you just do things and ask forgiveness afterwards. That’s why we broke up.”

She grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket, drawing him closer. “We broke up ‘cause I got fired.”

“It was a two-for-one,” he said, trying to brush her hands off his chest, but she grabbed his instead, intertwining their fingers. He glowered at her. “You’re not as slick as you think.”

“But you haven’t let go,” she said, then pushed up on her toes. He dodged her lips.

“Sang Mi, now.”

Crow raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look away from him as Sang Mi sucker-punched her in the jaw.

“OW! What the heck!?”

It was Sang Mi's turn to grab his hand and pull him away—why was it hard to be pulled away?
 
Was there something in the food? They ran down the hall to the left of the staircase—the rooms were labeled with big numbers, one through nine, with child-sized beds in each one, the floor checkerboard tiles, the rest all white and fluorescent lights. He didn’t know where this hallway led, but at the very least it was leading somewhere away.

He let himself feel a moment of relief, before Sang Mi stopped. He didn’t quite halt his momentum, and rammed into her. But she just stayed staring, her body swaying along with her tie like a pendulum.

“We have to keep—”

“I get it now. I get it. Why we came here.”

He stared into the room. It had a larger bed than the others, but otherwise looked the same. A signed picture of some baseball player on the wall. Hospital monitoring equipment there. She stepped into the room, and took her suit jacket off, then her tie, sitting down on the bed, eyes somewhat vacant. He rushed over, shaking her by the shoulders.

“Sang Mi, we have to go. Now. NOW!”

She looked up, glassy eyed. “This is my room, though. It’s okay. I understand.” She placed a hand gently on his own, and patted it. “This is where I get left behind. I knew it would happen. The road trip ends. And you forget about me. Everyone forgets about me. This is where it ends.”

He shook her harder. “No—no, stop talking like that. I came back for you, remember? That’s why we’re here.”

She shrugged. “I wanted to keep it going. Force this to never end. I’m just a fool. Everyone should stay away from me.” She seemed to realize he was there. “Stay away from me!” She shoved him back, and ran over to the wall, she pulled her head back, ready to smash it into the plaster, but he put her into a bear-hug, and tore her back as she thrashed.

“Sang Mi, listen to me, you’re not yourself! Something—AGH!” She whacked him in the face. She’d gotten better at that, all due to him, and it was a bad way to learn she’d picked things up. “Let me go!”

“Not if you’re going to smash your head into the wall, stars above!” A voice called from the doorway. “Number Five, sedate her.”
​
Before he could let go and try to stop it, the little Melonhead slipped over and jabbed something into Sang Mi’s leg. It wasn’t an ideal spot to inject a person, but it still worked pretty effectively. He held her as she slowly grew limp, and lay her down gently on the bed. Looking over her, his heart ached at her heavy breathing, the pained look on her face, the way her closed eyes seemed to clench, and her hands ended in curled fingers that neither clenched or straightened.

He closed his own eyes, and turned to face Dr. Crow in the doorway. “What did you do to her?” “Do to her?” she scoffed. “I didn’t ‘do’ anything.”

“Bullshit.”

“This place, this building, this is a place where your desires are let loose,” she said as she posed in the doorway, in an attempt at sexiness that would have worked a lot better if she was still in her last body. Still, there was a certain appeal… She approached him again, and he didn’t step back.

“It was the food,” he spat.

“The food is a part of the experience.”

“Sang Mi has fought harder to grow to where she is now with her mental health than you’ve fought for anything in your immortal life.”

She tilted her head, and after all her smarmy cockiness she finally sounded serious. “You took a mentally unstable girl off her home-world, and brought her on a road trip? You’re not being kind by taking her on this trip; she’s going to break because she’s already broken. Chris, she’s not the kind of girl you take on an adventure. Do you think your mentor would have?”

“I’m not him,” he shot back without thinking. He would have stopped to sit down and think about it, but things kept going too fast for self-reflection.

She stroked his chest. “Oh, I know you’re not. Trust me.”

“This girl—Sang Mi—she deserves this. She deserves to… travel, and see amazing things. She deserves someone to believe in her.”

“There’s a difference between believing in someone and ignoring that their deepest desires are to be abandoned and harm themselves.” She snaked a hand under his shirt. It felt good. It… No. He pulled away. He had to pull away. He pinched his own cheek.

“She was holding herself together until she came here!”

“Oh? She never broke down and curled up in the corner? She never started having a panic attack and had to convince you to keep going?”

He stomped his foot. “That doesn’t mean she’s broken! She’s kept going. She’s kept fighting.”

“This is what she wants, Chris. You strip away all the coping, all the filigree, all the ways she’s taped herself together, she wants to be here. Wants to stop being a burden. Just like you want to be comforted right now.” What was this place?
 
She was a Superior, and this place was her forest that she could burn at her leisure. Her eyes cut into him like torches, and the world was warm and dangerous. He needed to focus. Needed to stay in control.

But she was right.

She wasn’t a good person. But he did want her. He’d wanted him back then, and he wanted her now. And he shouldn’t. And something was wrong about this place, the laws of reality were wrong here.

He should be able to control what he wanted.

But…

“You said I never asked permission Chris,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around him. “So I’m asking.”

Oh, to Hell with it. He kissed her.

And they left the room, and shut the door behind them.

* * *

4th August, 1869, Future Site of Kobe, Japan
It wasn’t so long ago that no one could walk the shores of the city from the training center. And even now they weren’t supposed to be, but that made it all the more exciting. It didn’t smell great up here, but that was how it often went with the past. The great ships that had come into port belched smoke and steam, and the foreigners and locals mingled about the docks.

“It wasn’t too long ago we wouldn’t fit in at all here,” the Corvid said.

“We still don’t,” Chris replied, tipping his hat to a woman carrying a huge basket on her back as they passed.

“You know what I mean. This whole country was closed off. Now we can get some fresh air.” “You shouldn’t let your friends down there hear you, next they'll be whispering you’re touching plants, or some other heinous deed.”

He laughed, and nudged Cwej in the arm, then shifted to feeling his bicep. “That’s pretty nice. You’ve gotten more muscle mass.”

Chis pulled his arm away. “Don’t make it sound so clinical.”

“I’m not trying to, I was trying to sound sexy. Was I not sexy?” He leaned in and whispered. “Can I prove to you that I’m sexy?”

Raising a hand to cover the blush on his face, Chris gave a small nod. “…Later though,” he added aloud. “Hey, what’s going on over there?”
 
On a rough patch of dirt, four chalk squares forming a diamond had been drawn, with two groups of men—one made up of sailors, the other of locals—gathered together. A local, a Japanese man with a well-trimmed beard, was holding a ball in the center of the diamond. He pulled his arm back, and hurled the ball at one of the sailors, an American man with a thick moustache. The sailor was holding a wooden bat, which he struck the ball with, an action which caused all the locals on the pitch to go running for the ball to catch it. The sailors cheered as their batter started running for the next chalk square.
“What in the Architect’s schematics are they playing?” the Corvid leaned in, using the excuse to press into Chris’s side as he performatively stroked his beard in curiosity.
“Its one of those old-timey sports, I don’t really know which one…”

The Corvid noted this, and called out to a well-dressed Japanese man holding a notepad. “You sir, what game are they playing?”

He looked up. “Baseball, I take it’s not played in your outsider country?” “Not so much,” Chris answered curtly. “Its interesting though.”

“Quite! I’m covering it for the Hiogo News. I humbly ask you buy a copy if you see one,” the reporter said brazenly, giving a bow of his head to offset it.

“Sure,” The Corvid replied, fixated on the game. “Baseball. I like it. Let’s get some food, and watch it together. It can be our first date.”

“Our first…” Cwej folded. “You really are forward, you know. You can’t just decide we’re dating.”

“But I kinda just did, and you’re kind of into it, aren’t you?” Cwej looked away.

“You’re blushing.”

“I am not.”

“If you turned around your face would be as red as a cardinal.”

Cwej knew he was right on every count. But if he turned around he’d have to admit that. The Corvid put an arm around his shoulder, like a sheltering wing.

“Come on then, let’s watch some baseball. If the sport survives, we can go on another date and be all wistful. What do you say?”

Cwej just nodded.

He probably should have paid more attention to the game they were supposed to be watching, but his attention wasn’t focused on the pitch, the ships, or the great bustle of history all around him. Instead, he looked at a face, and let his cheeks get red again.

* * *

The Present, 2025
One Week Since Cwej and Sang Mi arrived at the Mansion

Sang Mi stretched as she woke up to the sunlight stroking her face through the window. She slipped her feet into the bunny slippers she’d been provided, threw on her robe, and stumbled her way down the hall.

“Morning, Eight,” she said.

“Mrah!” Eight replied, carrying a basket of laundry to the chute.

She made her way down the staircase, and over to the dining hall where Chris and Crow were already eating together. She went over to the buffet and grabbed a plate of more food than she was going to eat—waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs, copious syrup and hot sauce, a banana, and three beverages (orange juice, milk, and coffee). Balancing it all precariously, she slipped back out before they could notice her. They’d probably be sucking face before she made it back to her room.

She set her tray down on the bed, and turned the TV on, then the Super Nintendo. They didn’t let her have many games, and right now the only one was Super Baseball Simulator 1.000. She pulled the controller over to the bed—it wasn’t wireless, which was, frankly, silly, and the wire hung awkwardly between the TV stand and the bed. She shoveled some eggs into her mouth, and got started. The game was kind of weird—she was an RPG and open world girlie, not a sports game gal—and it had taken her a bit to figure out the mechanics. At first she’d just button-mashed and hoped she could hit the ball or throw it, struggling to pass the ball around to the right places as the game shifted what player she was every time she did. But she was getting the hang of it now. She wasn’t good at it, hell no, but getting better.

“Mrah?” Five said, poking his head in the door.

“Yeah, sure, take a seat. You can take controller two on the next round.” “Mrah!” Five said, sitting down in excitement, rocking back and forth.

She tapped the button right, and her batter whacked the ball far into the outfield! She ran her little guys around the bases, and pumped her fist. “Yes! I am the queen of Baseball. Or at least of Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 on the SNES.”

“Mrah,” Five agreed.

She was glad Chris didn’t have to worry about her.

She knew her mom, dad, and brothers had to be relieved to be done with her now. They’d feign sadness, but she knew they’d be happier without her.

She was content here. Hidden away.

Something about that was wrong. But she couldn’t hold onto it, and went up to bat again.

 
* * *

Chris shot up in bed, just like he had every night. The Corvid rolled over and moaned. “Oh, stop having nightmares,” she mumbled.

Not like he could help it.

He slid out of bed, and washed his face off. The dreams weren’t the same. They were more like a collage of bad memories. A blade in his hand red with blood, and the sky cracking open in response. A fierce hunger in the desert, and only his own flesh to sate it as he grew more ravenous. His friend Kwol becoming more erratic, threatening his life, and only violence could stop it. His friend Roz charging off across a battlefield into death. Sang Mi, doing the same back on Gongen, suited up in yellow armor, charging across a field of invading soldiers. No, no, that last one hadn’t happened. Wouldn’t happen.

She’d be okay, wouldn’t she? Or…

He looked into the mirror, and hated who he saw. He couldn’t be like Charles Zoltan, and solve a problem with peace and dignity. He couldn’t even save his friends. He couldn’t even make the right choices. Sang Mi looked at him like he was someone, like he was a hero. Like she wanted to grow up to be him. He couldn’t think of a worse prospect than that.

When he was with Corvid, he didn’t have to think about that. Did he like her, or did he like that she made him forget, just for a little, what he saw in the mirror? There was something wrong with all of this--

Whenever he tried to think past that though, he came back to the mirror, to the dreams, and to that boiling pit of self-hatred that he’d kept capped off.

He put on a robe, and went out to the living room of the suite, turning on a radio. Chris Cwej froze in place.

Always Something There to Remind Me.

He knew that song.

That song was… part of something.

It came back to him; he’d been there with Sang Mi. They’d gone back for the deer statue.

Sang Mi, a scared little girl, looking down from her lonely hospital bed, seeing him standing by the deer statue in the Cheonsa West General Hospital courtyard. Waving at him. And he waved back.

Seeing him again, and bravely coming down to help him with the strange cat. He’d bought her a baseball bat in Louisville.

She called him her deer, guiding her through the dark forest.
 
And it was dark.

And The Corvid had lit the trees on fire.

Always Something There to Remind Me.

The Deer. The Forest. The Song. The Bat.

The Crow.

She was here. Sang Mi was still here. It didn’t matter how much he hated himself, and right now that was quite a bit, but he couldn’t keep drowning himself in bed with his ex and keep forgetting this.

Her family had smiled, and left her at the hospital. They were good people, really. She loved them. But they hadn’t visited her. He knew they’d have refused to let her go on this adventure. They treated her like a fragile cup that could shatter at any time. But she was a living person, damn it, she was his friend. He was the only person who could tell her she wasn’t crazy and mean it.

He looked down from the mirror, into the sink. This place amplified your desires till you couldn’t control them. Good ones and bad ones, it made no difference.
But he’d woken up now. And one desire rose in his heart above all others: he was going to save his friend.

He didn’t wait, he didn’t plan. He ran.

Chris flew out the door, down the stairs, past Melonheads Six and Three, and skidded a turn on his bare feet towards the ward where the Melonheads and Sang Mi’s rooms were. He charged in, flung open her door, and she blinked and looked over from where she was playing video games with Melonhead Five.

“Hi?” she said.

Chris knew what he had to do, and it wouldn’t be dignified, but dignity be damned. He took a deep breath, and started belting out Always Something There To Remind Me. He even did his best vocal approximation of the solo synth riffs.

She and the Melonhead stared at him.

“Chris, I gotta be real with you, you should not join a band.”

“That’s too bad, cause I was thinking of playing bass, now come on,” he held a hand out. “We’ve been trapped here like Lotus Eaters, but I’m the deer that leads you out of the darkness, remember?”

Her eyes focused. “You… wait a second, why have I spent the last week playing Super Baseball Simulator 1.000? I don’t even like sports games?!”

He tilted his head a little. “Not the weirdest thing, but I’ll take it—let’s go!” She began to get up. She froze. “No… No, I…”

He held his hand out. “Sang Mi. I want you to take my hand. So—please.”

She took his hand, and as the Melonhead scrambled up behind them, they rushed out back to the lobby.

“How are we going to escape? Won’t we just… go back into whatever loop we were in?”

“This place amplifies our desires. And I’m betting that includes hers too.”

They skidded to a halt together in front of the grand staircase as Dr. Crow marched down it, stopping in the center of the staircase, for what seemed to be no reason other than to dramatically frame herself in her kimono and nightie.

“I didn’t think listening to The Naked Eyes would have such a strong effect. Oh well. You still can’t escape.”

Chris pointed at her. “If you want us to stay, then let’s make it permanent one way or the other.

Stop this cat and mouse game. I challenge you to a contest of skill.” Sang Mi raised an eyebrow. “Not a duel?”

“It has to be something she’d actually accept,” he mumbled.

The Corvid tapped her cheek. “…Perhaps. Perhaps. It… you’d really stay here, if I won?” “If you win. And if we win, you let us go.”

Sang Mi jumped between them. “She could just, you know, not do what she’s saying! Lying is real, Chris!”

He shook his head. “No, for all her faults, she’ll hold to this.”

“But I’ll hold you to it too. No running away. If you try to escape, you’ll be here forever.”

“Fine,” he said, lightly stomping his foot.

“And what contest did you have in mind?”

Chris had not thought that far. He stood awkwardly, finger in the air, his brain feeling like mush, until he looked at Sang Mi, hoping she had an idea.

“Of course we have our challenge,” she said. “Doctor Crow, we challenge you to a game of Super Baseball—”

“I ACCEPT!”

“…Simulator 1.000.”

“No, I accepted baseball.”

“You accepted Super Baseball, which isn’t a thing.”

“Baseball is super, just because I am playing it.”

Chris scoffed. “Baseball. I guess it’s full circle. Works for me.”

“Very well, we will play against each other tomorrow. Assemble your team, and meet me at the Melonhead baseball diamond I helped fund. Thankfully, there are eight Melonheads and myself. Good luck finding your own team. It would be a pity if you had to forfeit.”

Chris and Sang Mi looked at each other, nodded, and gave her each a different rude hand gesture before turning for the door, which opened without a hitch.

“And don’t you dare think of running. I’ll be watching you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They shut the door. It was a warm morning, and the forest was alive with noises and life. “You’re still wearing just a bathrobe,” Sang Mi noted.

“So I am,” Chris replied, stretching his arms up. “That’s the least of our problems, but I think I know the first person to recruit for our team.”

She put her hands on her hips. “You don’t mean the French lady, right?”

“She’s a short drive away, and she’s still studying Oscar!”

Sang Mi sighed. “I don’t think she knows anything about baseball.”

Chris put his hands on his hips to mirror hers. “And you do?”

“Uh, baseball is one of the most popular sports on Gongen, I’ll have you know.” “Have you ever played it?”

She looked down at her slippers. “…In gym class? And I played Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 for like, a full week.”

His arms moved from his hips to crossing his chest, and she knew she’d lost this round. “Find, we call Odette Caron. Who next?”

He grinned. “Some friendly faces.”

* * *

When Sang Mi and her twin brother Sang Eun were six years old, their father took them to a baseball game for the first time. It was the Takumi Tengu versus the Hongtu Cannonballs, and both of them were more interested in the scripted antics of the two animatronic mascots for the teams that were doing live-action cartoon comedy on the sidelines.

They got a big thing of ttekbokki, and of popcorn, and shoveled their faces while the match progressed. Moreso than the game, the twins enjoyed the chants and cheers, the songs and pageantry. All these years later, Sang Mi couldn’t remember who won that game. She knew she’d be able to look it up easily, but she didn’t want to. What had been important was her father reaching over and tousling her hair, and her brother stealing “her" popcorn (that had been expressly bought to share) and them squabbling over it til their dad got them both ice cream to shut them up.

He held their hands on the way back to the train station, one on each side of him, mouths ringed a little in strawberry ice cream he’d only mostly been able to wipe off.
They went again years later, and she’d regretted it because she and Sang Eun had been messaging their friends their whole time and didn’t pay attention to the game. At the time she hadn't cared, but now she looked back on her father’s blank face and knew it was masking a hurt as he wanted to share that precious time he had off from the factories with them.

What a selfish thing I am, she thought.

But she would still look back at that memory when she was six with a deep fondness.

Now, she stood in a parking lot doing practice swings of the baseball her friend Chris had bought her. She’d had her nickname, Kalingkata, engraved on it along with a little reference. She pulled the bat back, and swung at the air.

“You’re pretty good.”

It was Chris, walking up with most of their team. A few of them were familiar faces. Back during the big storm on Gongen, when she and Chris filmed that TV show together, Lady Aesculapius and her girlfriend Blanche had helped solve that whole affair with them. Aesc had curly black hair and brown skin, and looked incredibly confident in her baseball uniform, but also gave off the vibe she didn’t know why she was here. Blanche, on the other hand, had tied her white hair back in a tight bun, and looked prepared but like she’d rather be anywhere else.

“Blanche, look, it’s Sang Mi!” Aesc exclaimed while pointing at her, a few feet away.

“Yeah, I see her. Hi.”

Sang Mi waved. “Good to see you both and—COLOTH!”

She dropped the bat and ran over to Coloth. The two high fived, which turned into a spin and then a handshake. Coloth had also been a part of that whole debacle, only he’d been in the cast of the TV show with her, so they’d spent a lot of time backstage hanging out.

“Oh, okay, didn’t expect such a warm welcome!” he said, a little bashfully.

“Hey so, before I thought you were a guy in prosthetics, but you’re actually an alien who looks like a cactus-person right?”
 
“More like you’re an alien who looks like a shaved monkey, and my species aren’t supposed to look like cacti, but uh, yes, something like that.”

She squealed a little. “Chris, Coloth is an alien!”

“So is Lady Aesc, honestly,” Chris deadpanned.

She looked over at her. “Well, she isn’t green.”

Aesc sulked. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, everyone with good taste likes Coloth. I get it.”

She picked her bat up. “Baseball teams have nine people, right? So that puts us at five.”

A car pulled into the parking lot, and Chris nudged her. “A little more than that.” Odette Caron of C.R.U.X exited the car, followed by another familiar face--

“Is… is that Bill Murray?”

“Yeah.”

“Like, the actor?”

“In the flesh.”

“Does he know how to play baseball?”

Chris considered this. “Well it’s cool that he’s here, right?”

Sang Mi stared him down til he looked away.

“Okay, but I do have a surprise you might actually like. Maybe not better than Coloth but,” he gestured with both hands, waggling his fingers in a way which was trying to be both magician- and cheerleader-like, and was hitting neither. From Odette’s car, the back doors opened, and out stepped the pair of Megan Grabowski and Martha Sandalwood.

Well, she’d give this one to Chris—she bolted for her friends from Hughes High. She’d spent weeks there with Chris under cover, and Megan had been her closest friend there. Martha was Megan’s friend, and Sang Mi and Chris had saved her from being kidnapped and trapped inside a movie projector, and it’s hard not to be friends after that.

“SARAH!” they yelled, which was her undercover name, but whatever. “MEGAN! MARTHA!” she yelled back.

The three girls promptly hugged, and then jumped up and down together while cheering.

“Thank you so much for coming!”

“Of course, like we’d leave you in the lurch!” Megan said. “When Mr. Cwej called, we got packed right away! What are you doing anyway, is like, part the secret agent stuff you guys were doing when you saved us? Are there more people trapped in movie projectors?”

Sang Mi blinked. “Well uh, right now we’re playing baseball against monsters from urban legends and an immortal mad scientist, so… kinda?”

Megan and Martha were very excited by this turn of events. After they’d caught up, Chris clapped and got everyone to order. “Alright everyone, today is the first ever game of our team, the Starmen, against the Corvids. It’ll also be our only game.”

Aesc’s hand shot up. Reluctantly, Chris called on her. “Hello, yes, what game are we playing again?”

He stared at her, the mirth gone from his face. “Baseball.”

“Right, right,” she noted this down on a clay tablet she had with her for some reason.

Bill Murray’s hand went up, so Chris called on him too. “Sorry, uh, so is this for a documentary? Or a movie? Is there a script or am I just improv-ing? My agent said this would pay off that bad trip to Monaco, and so I’m all in, just uh. Why is he a cactus?”

“Why were you in Garfield?” Coloth shot back.

“You know what, that’s fair,” he replied.

“Don’t worry about anything. Just do your best, and have fun. No script, just… make sure to treat the Melonheads with respect and kindness, they’re just little guys.”

“Melonheads?” Martha asked.

Odette chimed in. “You’ll know them when you see them. The name explains it.”

“What about—”

The questions continued, and as they did Sang Mi watched as Chris fielded them expertly. Megan and Martha were right on things. Coloth was cool as always. Aesc and Blanche were fun. Odette Caron was clever and analytical. Bill Murray was, well, Bill Murray.

She wondered if she walked away now if anyone would even notice. Eventually, she did.

* * *

When the team meeting was over, Chris realized that Sang Mi was gone. There had been a lot of questions, and he may have gotten a little too long winded and passionate answering a few of them, but he still felt awkward he’d missed when she slipped out. Had she just gone to the bathroom? He poked around, only to find her right outside the locker room entrance from the parking lot, whacking a set of cardboard boxes by the trashbin with her bat. It was a halfhearted effort though. Like she wanted to look angrier than she was.

“Hey, I was looking for you,” he waved. She looked up at him, and then kicked one of the boxes.

Finally catching up, he tried to be cheerful. “Ready for the big game?”

“You’ve got everyone else, you don’t need me.”

“Where’s that coming from? Most of these people are here because I thought it would be fun for them to be here with you. Megan and Martha especially.”

She nodded, then Sang Mi turned to face the wall, putting a hand against the concrete bricks and digging her nails in with a clawed scraping sound. “Hey Chris… You know that… you know you can stop this whenever you want, right? I want this to go on forever but… you don’t have to force yourself. Really.”

He didn’t know where she was going with this. And he quickly decided he didn’t want to. “…Well, I don’t want to stop this,” he said, “so let’s just forget about whatever is bothering you and get to the game. Everyone is waiting for us.”

She pressed her forehead into the wall, and for a moment a spark of fear ran through him, and he felt bad about that as her shoulders pulsed and she let out a pained laugh. “You were worried, right? That I was going to smash my head into the wall? I did that when I was a kid, you know.”

“You’re still a kid,” he countered.

“A little kid. I rammed my head into the wall. Split my head right open. When we got there the E.R. was full—I don’t know why, maybe there was a big accident or something—and they had to put a curtain around me and my mom while they waited for a bed to open up for me. I think they just thought it was one of those wacky little childhood accidents, you know, you think you can fly if you flap your wings so you jump off the table and break your arm.”

“I did that,” Chris said.

“I bet you did. But that’s the thing, Chris…” She moved her hands from digging into the wall. “I wanted to hurt myself. I knew I deserved it. But I didn’t tell anyone, maybe I just didn’t realize everyone didn’t feel like that. Maybe I didn’t want to worry my mom. I don’t know… There was something wrong with me then, and there is something wrong with me now.” He could hear the tears between her words. He hesitated, not sure what the right move was.

Sweep her up in a hug?

Give her a speech about how she was special? Nothing felt right. And so he just stood there.

“I know what the Corvid said. I heard her. The Defector, that superior who took you across the stars on all those adventures… They wouldn’t have taken me. They wouldn’t have. Because I’m broken. I’m broken and everyone can see it.”

“You’re not broken,” he said, maybe too simply.
 
She spun around, the tears she’s kept imprisoned flying out in a splatter as she did so. “Of course I am! I’ve… I’ve had how many breakdowns while we’ve been travelling together? I broke down when you came to pick me up for the World’s Fair. I broke down the night you took me to Violethill. I broke down on the Point of Know Return trying to help you. I broke down at Dr. Crow’s… and… and I guess I’m breaking down now! Why not!”

“You’re just feeling things. That doesn’t mean you’re breaking down.”

“Does it? Does it, Chris!? I was so moody in Louisville we barely got what we needed done.” She covered her face again. “I did it. I got out of the hospital. I learned to control all these feelings inside me, all these urges to hurt myself, to hate myself. And I have medicine that lets me do it. But they don’t go away. They won’t go away. I tried to get better but I can’t. I keep trying but I can’t make these feelings disappear. I can’t win.”

Chris untensed, and strode up to her. He put his hands gently on her forearms, and tugged a little. She relented, and showed her puffy face. In return, he gave her a warm and gentle smile.

“Getting better isn’t one victory. That’s not why it’s good. Getting better is having another day. Cause no matter how bad that day is, it’s yours. And it can always be yours. Right now, right here, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about you. It matters that I want you here, I chose you to come with me.”

“But Dr. Crow, she said your old friend—"

“I’m not him.” The words came out fast, and when he said them, he had to stop, because he knew he meant them. The honesty of that confession churned his stomach, he could feel a muscle in the side of his neck tensing and pulling at his collar. But Sang Mi's face softened too.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re not.”

“And I’m sorry, I wish I could be—"

“I don’t want him. I don’t give a shit about him, you believed in me, you came back for me, don’t you get it!” She shoved him lightly. “Don’t you?”

They stood together, Sang Mi catching her breath.

“Yeah, I think I do.” He didn’t, but it was the right thing to say. And even though it wasn’t quite true, he meant it with all his heart. He’d work through that contradiction later. He slowly and gently wrapped her in a hug, watching for any sign she was uncomfortable with it—but part way through she rushed him and buried her face in his chest, sobbing.

He held her there, for however long it took her to cry it out. He didn’t keep track. Just waited.

When she finished, she pulled back, wiping her face on her sleeve. “…I really am a mess, you know. I’m not stable. I’m not… pretty, or—or as clever as I think I am.”

“You’re exactly who I want you to be.” And that, he meant all the way. He could see himself in that moment. Not at her age, he was a lot less world-weary than she was then. No, at his failures. At the points where everyone had turned their backs on him. He could hear their voices, churlish and harsh: he was a little kid in a man’s body, he always tried to do the right thing but failed at it, he was one card short of a deck.

He’d come back for her. And the way she tried to mimic him terrified him.

He’d tried to bring people along on his adventures before. Larles and Kwol, two friends he’d tried to reform from their misdeeds, and one of them had spat in his face by working for the very people who hurt him.

A girl turned away from him in 1970s London and never looked back, and he couldn’t blame her.

And despite everything, Sang Mi’d come back for him. She’d packed a bag and ran after him, begging and bargaining to join him.

She stood in front of him, 17 and a little kid, hands balled up at her sides. She still believed in heroes.

She believed they could be as screwed up as she was.

“You’re the kind of girl who goes on an adventure with me. Everyone else, all the other space swashbucklers and time-travelers, they can go to Hell.” He held a hand out to her. “Now let’s go play some baseball, defeat my ex, and save the day. And it will be your day. No, our day.”

She put her hand out, it shook, hovering over his. “…And you’re sure? You can’t go backsies on this. You can’t… tell me you accept me and turn around later. You just can’t.”

“That’s never been on the table to begin with.”

She took his hand. Slowly, the edge of her lip turned up a little. “Hey Chris, I have a confession.”

“Yeah? You’ve already had some doozies.”

“I can bat really well, but I can’t throw a ball to save my life.”

He pulled his head back as he took that in, and when it finally sunk in, he laughed hard. “You'll do just what we need you to. Let’s go, your cola is getting warm, and somewhere down the road there's creatures made of starlight, and doors that lead to dreams. Come on, Sang Mi, we’ve got a game to play.”

She smiled, and gave him a big nod. It was time to play ball.

* * *

“Hello and welcome to the opening exhibition game here at Melonhead Field—and it’s opening early, which has been a real surprise, isn’t that right, Greg?”

“Yeah.”

“Fans are filling up the seats, and it looks like those commemorative Melonhead bobbleheads sure are popular. I got one myself, how about you, Greg?”

“Yep.”

“Oh! And it looks like our home team is taking the pitch. It’s the Corvids! Now I’ve never seen anything like this team before, these little guys are purply—why I think they're costumed as the fictitious Melonheads themselves! What a treat. I wonder how they did that.”

“Eh.”

“And their team captain—wow she’s a looker, and for some reason is wearing a labcoat with her number on it on the back! She’s waving to the crowd and—it looks like our visiting team is here! The Starmen, that’s a musical reference if I’m not wrong?”

“Bowie.”

“Oh you’re so right, Greg, referencing the classic album by David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. What a hoot. This team has a lot more variety to it— including a boy in cactus makeup! And… wait, is that Bill Murray?”

* * *

Chris was first up to bat. He stared down Melonhead number Six who was winding her pitch up. The two team mascots—he was very surprised they had been pulled together in 24 hours—a crow boy and a star man, were pulling hijinks on each other on the sidelines. He and Six stared each other down.

Come on Melonhead. Give me your best shot. He was ready for this.

Six’s arm moved forward. The ball was loosed from her hand. And dropped to the grass two feet away.

“Ball? I think?” the Umpire called. The crowd, which was much larger than Chris had expected, laughed.

Dr. Crow stomped her feet and flapped her arms. “SIX, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?! THROW THE BALL!!!”

Six started bawling, rubbing her eyes with her fists.

“There’s no crying in super baseball!”

Cwej picked up the ball, and carried it to the mound, putting a hand on Six’s shoulder. “Hey kid, cheer up. It’s just your first throw. You can try again. Don’t listen to those idiots laughing up there. Here, watch me.” He straightened up, and mimed throwing the ball. “See how I moved. Try doing that. And let the ball go when your arm is--here.” He demonstrated as much. “Don’t worry if you don’t get it at first. So are you willing to try again?”

Six sniffled. “Mrah.”

“That’s a brave girl.”

“CHRIS CWEJ, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING TO MY MELONHEADS!?”

He put the ball gently into her hand, and walked back to the batter’s box.

Six tossed the ball in the air, catching it, and took a calming breath through her fangs. She pulled her body back into position, trying to mirror Cwej, and threw!

It dropped three quarters of the way to the batter. The crowd laughed again.

Chris was about to start saying some choice words to the audience, when he heard Sang Mi call out from the dugout. “Come on Six, you can do it!” He looked over to see her nudging each of her teammates.

“Yeah, you can do it, Six!” Megan yelled. Martha joined her.

Coloth joined in too, and then the whole team did. Bill Murray looked somewhat confused, and made sure he was in view of the stadium cameras the whole time.

Six threw it again. It was low and slow, but it worked. Chris swung, and the ball went awkwardly to the left. The Melonheads struggled to scramble for it, as he ran for first base. Two of the melonheads were struggling over the ball, and a third decided to mediate the situation by eating it.

“Mrah!” he said, proud of himself for solving the dispute.

Chris probably could have gone further than first base, but this was good enough. The umpire got another ball.

Lady Aesc was up next. She picked the bat up, went up to bat, and… “Aesc, that’s not how you hold the bat!” Blanche yelled from the sidelines.

“No no, I’ve played this before!”

“Cricket! You’re holding it like it’s a cricket bat!” Aesc was, as a matter of fact, holding the bat upside down.

“I got this!” she waved.

Six hurled the ball. Aesc swung. “STRIKE!” called the umpire.

She swung twice more, and was quickly out. Blanche held her head in her hands.

Odette went up, and did hold the bat correctly. She got one strike and then a hit, and made it to first—Chris, to second.

Next up was Megan who bunted and very sloppily got to first, pushing everyone one base ahead.

Bases were loaded, which meant everyone was very excited when Coloth got to bat, waved to the crowd, and missed every single swing.

“Good try, Coloth!” Sang Mi yelled, as he went back to the dugout embarrassed.

Chris gritted his teeth. They had two outs, one more and they would rotate so that the other team would have the chance to go to bat at score runs.

Sang Mi was up to bat.

* * *

When Chris Cwej asked her what she wanted engraved on her baseball bat, Jhe Sang Mi wasn’t sure. She paced around in the lobby for a while, and pulled up all sorts of quotes and sayings on her phone. She nearly settled on a few of them. Ironic or funny quotes—gag sayings like having the bat say ‘Sorry’ on it, like it was saying that before whacking someone in the face. But in the end, she’d chosen something personal.

Kalingkata
The Wandering Star

Kalingkata was her screen name, and her nickname. It was what most of her close friends called her. Her brother had been nicknamed Talinata, after the video game console, and she’d made up her own name to fit in. It was a nonsense word meant to sound like it naturally paired with her brother's nickname. So they’d always be together. Even then, a part of her knew she was forcing it.

And that led to part two. The wandering star. It was a bible reference to the book of Jude. Wandering stars had the gloom of darkness reserved for them forever, or so it was said. And so she felt. Life was the shadow of a cloud over her head. A terrifying journey where loneliness was always at the other end. The goatman at Pope’s Lick had been lonely. Rodney too. How long had Simone waited for the closure they’d given her? To stave off that loneliness, she and Chris had played pretend in a warehouse together. This journey would end too. And she’d watch more people leave.

But as she walked up to bat, Chris giving her a thumbs up from third base, the sun warming her shoulders, Sang Mi felt something she hadn't allowed herself to feel in some time.

She allowed herself to feel wanted.

She raised the bat—blue-barreled and black-handled—stretching it up like a salute, or a flag. She’d survived today, and it was their day. Everyone who had come here for them. For Chris. For herself.

She’d been told she was good at kendo.

Six wound her pitch up, staring her down. She threw the ball. And Sang Mi swung.

With a crack, it struck the ball. She put her hand up to block the sun and watch its course. She should have started running, but she was just amazed she’d hit the damn thing.

It flew up into the air, and somewhere into the back of the stands where a little kid scrambled to pick it up.

She grinned, and she ran.

Chris, Odette, and Megan all scored runs, and then so did she, crossing home plate as the crowd clapped and cheered.

Everyone clapped her on the back as she got into the dugout. Chris was smug. “I knew you’d do great.”

She smiled back. “Guess I can’t argue with excellence.”

“Psh, keep your head on, we’re not done yet. But great work.”

“Yeah, she did good,” Bill Murray said. “Guess it’s my go.” He wandered up to bat as Megan and Martha hugged her.

“Does uh, Bill Murray know how to play this game?” she asked Chris. “Oh,” Chris laughed. “Yeah so, he actually owns some minor league teams.”

They weren’t watching when he hit the ball, but they all cheered as he ran the bases. A pretty good start.

* * *

When the teams swapped places, Dr. Crow went up to bat first. Blanche volunteered to pitch, which turned out to be a great choice because, unlike everyone else (except perhaps Bill Murray), it turned out she was good at it. Even so, her first pitch didn’t give that impression because Dr. Crow immediately hit the ball out of the stadium, and off into the horizon.

“Ha! See that Chris, I’ve been practicing!” she called out to him as she started circling the bases.

Sang Mi looked over at Chris from second base. “Shouldn’t she have batted later, so that like, other people could score too?”

“Yep. But she couldn’t resist showing off…”

Five went next, and got to first. Two was next, and Blanche pitched three strikes, putting her out.

One got a bad hit, and it should have been an out, but Sang Mi failed to catch it, and then failed to throw it. Martha picked up the slack (and the ball) and stopped Five and One from making it to home base and scoring.

Things progressed from there.

Bill Murray and Sang Mi proved to be killer at bat, and so did Five and Seven.

Blanche and Six both improved their pitching inning after inning.

In the 7th inning stretch, everyone rose for a rousing chorus of ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’, a song which was seemingly only known by Megan, Martha, and Dr. Crow between both teams. But everyone did their best.

​It was unclear if the Melonheads knew it or not, though they definitely sang along with their most passionate “Mrah!”s.

All in all, the game bounced back and forth, the Starmen took an early lead, but lost it in the 5th inning, before catching up, and in the final 9th inning, both teams were tied up.
Chris gathered the team together for one last pep talk. “Alright, so we all remember why we’re here today right?”

Aesc’s hand shot up; Chris pointed at her. “Because if we lose the game you and Sang Mi will be trapped inside Dr. Crow’s mansion for all eternity!”

There was a long pause.

“What!?” Martha, Megan, Odette, and Bill Murray all said in near unison, with Bill Murray being the most off.

“Oh, you didn’t know?” Blanche said blandly. “What a surprise, Chris Cwej left important details out,” she deadpanned.

“…If you didn’t know, why did you come?” Coloth asked.

“Cause she’s our friend!” Megan and Martha said in actual and impressive unison.

“Sang Mi is a friend to animals, and science,” Odette said

“I thought this was like, a direct to streaming movie set or something?” Bill Murray said. “What exactly are we doing? And am I getting paid?”

“You’re getting paid,” Chris answered partially.

“Good enough for me,” Murray concluded.

Sang Mi tapped her bat against a metal support pole. “Hey hey, back to the important thing! We actually have to win this game.”

Chris cut in. “And on that note, I do have a plan. I just need everyone's help here. Just trust me on this.”

He explained his plan.

Blanche sighed. “I don’t really know what I expected. But sure.”

* * *

The Corvids went to bat first. Dr. Crow chewed on a shiny coin she kept in her pocket just for these scenarios when she was nervous. She was so close. The game was tied. She just needed to get ahead and shut Cwej's team out. Her melonheads could do it.

“Alright, all of you! We’re winning this. No crying—” she snatched a juicebox from Four's hands. “And no snacks! Not until we win.”

“…Mrah,” Four opined.

“And no complaining. I know Cwej has to have something up his sleeve, but your goal is to score as many runs as you can! For every run you get, I’ll get you a new video game. And… a cupcake?”

“Mrah!” The Melonheads cheered.

“But if we lose, you’ll all suffer in ways you haven’t even imagined!”

“Mrah…” the Melonheads moaned.

“Now get out there, and WIN.”

First up to bat was Five. Reliable hitter, and reliable he was. He got to second base. Nice.

Next up was Eight. She wasn’t quite as reliable, but she hit the ball, and started scampering for first base.

She got halfway there before she lost balance with her big head, and fell face first into the pitch. “Eight, get your ass up! Eight you better not get out or I swear—”

“You can do it, Eight!”

Dr. Crow blinked, she looked around to see who had said it. It was one of that Sang Mi girl’s friends? She couldn’t tell the difference between them. It didn’t matter, because the other one chimed in too.

“Yeah, it’s okay Eight, don’t give up!” Sang Mi yelled. Eight slowly pushed herself up, teary eyed.

“You’re okay, Eight,” Chris called.

“Uh, yeah, small… melon-headed child who is purple,” Bill Murray added. “You can absolutely do whatever you set your mind to. As long as it only involves saying the word ‘Mrah’, I guess.”

“You can make it to first!” Aesc, Blanche, and Coloth said in a sing-song voice together. Eight dusted herself off, and started jogging to first base.

The whole Starmen team clapped and cheered as she reached it. “What,” Dr. Crow said, “the Hell is going on?”

This same pattern was repeated, over and over. Batter after batter. The melonheads got lots of runs, and lots of cheers, and when it finally turned over, they had a sizable lead.
This would have brought Dr. Crow joy, except that as soon as the Starmen went to bat, they were blazing through just as fast, if not faster.

Five let Coloth get to second, and Dr. Crow was stomping and cawing at him, but while five cringed, he didn’t relent.

Soon enough, with a great set of runs propelled by Sang Mi and Bill Murray, they had caught up.

As Chris Cwej himself went up to bat, she put the coin back in her mouth. Everything was falling apart.

Chris looked her in the eyes, and winked.

And as Six threw a pitch at him, he didn’t swing. “Strike!” the umpire called.

And again. “Strike two!”

And… Six wound up, and threw her pitch. Chris readied his bat.

Of course. He was just being dramatic. Showing off. She should have known. And then he lowered the bat, and stuck his tongue out at her.

“STRIKE THREE, you’re out!”

With that, Sang Mi tossed him a megaphone from the dugout. Well, mostly, he had to move to actually catch it from her poor throw, but he did get it, and lifting it to his mouth, spoke to the field. “Wow, who would have guessed the game would end in a tie!”

“We go into extra-innings—” Dr. Crow tried to yell over him.

“And since it’s a tie… I guess that can only mean I have to take all you Melonheads out for ICE CREAM!”

The Melonheads leapt up into the air, cheering—“Mrah! Mraaah!!!”—and rushed over to Chris excitedly, where he started congratulating each of them on a good game.

Dr. Crow stood stunned. She didn’t really understand.

She knew she had just lost control, but she wasn’t sure how it happened. There were rules to this game. It had had two set outcomes. But now a third thing had happened.
Chris directed the Melonheads over to the rest of the team, who took over the congratulation duties, and he started his way across the field to her.

She straightened her shoulders, and raised her chin. So be it.

“You win, Chris Cwej.”

He shrugged. “This never needed to be a competition.”

She kicked up the dirt. “You could have stayed with me! We would have been happy. I put all this together for you, you know. Like our first date!”

He thought back. “Oh yeah, in Kobe. You know, I barely remember the game cause I was watching you the whole time. You were handsome, clever, confident. I didn’t know that you were vain, conceited and controlling.”

“Oh haha, laugh it up. I bet you’re enjoying this, humiliating me.”

Chris puffed his cheeks out like a chipmunk, and blew the air out. “No—no. That’s not what I’m feeling. Corvid, I’m sad. Cause the truth is, if you’d just welcomed us in, and given us normal food you hadn’t drugged, and hadn't driven my friend to a breakdown, I might have stayed. I can’t say what I would have done for sure. Maybe I’d have invited you along. But… you’re just mean. Controlling.”

“You didn’t mind when we were screwing each other's brains out.”

He sighed. “Yeah. I didn’t. And I can’t say I didn’t want that. I did. I wanted that a lot. And that’s the thing Corvid, I would have been with you even without all your plotting. If you had just treated me with respect, we’d have made love and not screwed.”

“There’s not really a difference.”

“I’ve not found it to be so.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re through. You had your second chance. And you tried to force me and Sang Mi into a situation outside our control. We’re going to find a new home for your Melonheads. And I’m… going to let you walk away.”

She blinked. “Sorry? You’re not going to kill me?”

He shook his head. “You really don’t get it, do you? I’m going to tell you something Sang Mi told someone recently. Go get some therapy, and get a damn cat.”

She clicked her teeth. “Don’t condescend—”

“I’m not. I really mean it, cat and all. I’m giving you a third chance. You don’t deserve it… but I know what you went through. How lonely you were back on the Base of Operations. Those secret dinner parties you'd throw, hoping you could make friends, even though it risked exile. Remember how they'd teased and mock you, just because you were interested in the biology of life? Because you liked dissecting flowers and fruits. You used to be… soft. And the world broke you.”

She felt something churning in her chest. It was too many feelings. Anger. Love. Fear.
Acceptance. Being seen. She felt her head spin. “I don’t need your pity.”

“And you’re not getting it. Sang Mi is an insignificant human from a universe without any beings like you Superiors. Far as we know, the hands of the clock move themselves, back there.”

“Sounds barbaric.”

“Kind of is. And yet. She’s been abandoned. She’s been cracked, she’s taken hit after hit. And you hurt her, and I don’t forgive you for that. But I want you to know—she didn’t let the cruelty of the world break her. She still tries to do good.”

“So you’re shaming me now?”

“I’m saying if you really are as powerful as you think, then do better than she is! I’m saying that you failed today, but… healing isn’t one big victory. It’s… winning one day at a time. And today isn’t your day. But maybe tomorrow can be. You don’t deserve a third chance. I probably should kill you. My Superiors and your kin wouldn’t even blink if I did. But I can see how conflicted you are. You’re a force of nature inside.”

“I know, I’m a wildfire. I burn the forest down.”

“No, I was wrong. You’re a wildfire today. But tomorrow, maybe you could plant a tree.”

She was struck dumb, and as what he said sunk in, she felt something she had never felt before in her centuries of life: she was fairly certain it was called ‘shame’.

Chris gave her a smile, and started to turn around. “Wait!”

He stopped.

She ran over to the dugout, pulled something out of a bag, and ran back, holding it out to him.

It was a great purple amethyst. Huge, the size of a baseball. “Take it.”

He didn’t touch it. “What… is it?”

“It’s a gem, a powerful one. It has certain powers. I used it to create the Melonheads. You can use it to create serums, liquids, medicines…”

Chris picked it up, and turned it over in his hands. It resembled the ruby they’d found in 1893 Chicago that had allowed the Yssgaroth to break into reality. “You’re sure you’re okay giving this up?”

She nodded. “Think of it as… a sign of goodwill, that I… will think about what you said.”

She didn’t say another word. She took two steps back, activated a device on her wrist, and vanished.

Superiors. Always doing that.

He tossed the gem in the air, walking back over to the team and the Melonheads.

“Good news!” Sang Mi said running over. “Bill Murray is going to help fund a new home for the Melonheads. He’s not entirely sure what’s going on, but whatever!”
 
He smiled. “That is good news. Here, take a look at this.”

She took the amethyst from him, and raised an eyebrow. “Like the ruby…?”

“Yep.” “Did it…”

“Help make the Melonheads? Absolutely.”

“…Huh. That’s… concerning?”

He nodded. “We’ll just keep a lookout going forward.”

“What happened with Dr. Crow?”

“I let her go. With a stern warning. I told her to get therapy and a cat.”

She gave a small ‘hah’. After a while, she added, a touch more seriously: “Think that'll work?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t forgive her. But… I want to be the kind of person who gives people a chance.”

Sang Mi nodded. “Yeah, I think I want to be that too.” “You’re just saying that cause I said it.”

“Maybe I am!”

He laughed, and put an arm around her. “Come on kid, we’ve got an ice cream parlor to devour.”

She looked over at the Melonheads, at their friends and guest. “Maybe today, I’m not the worst.”

“I think that about you every day. Cause I want to be not the worst too. Now what do you want, chocolate or vanilla?”

“Strawberry.”

He laughed. She laughed. Today was their day.□


Picture

Next stop:
Little Green Men
by Plum Pudding


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental or has been done firmly within the bounds of parody and fair use. Edited by James Wylder, James Hornby & Aristide Twain Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain Cover by Leela Ross Logo design by Lucas Kovacs Concepts Used with Permission: Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press Coloth © Simon Bucher-Jones WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc. SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane Yssgaroth © Neil Penswick C.R.U.X © Aristide Twain Lady Aesculapius, Blanche Combine, Jhe Sang Mi © James Wylder ​
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The Warehouse Anomaly

10/16/2025

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“I got it!”

Stan Roberts turned from his chair, eyebrow raised, as Edward dropped a series of tapes on his desk. Analogue tapes.

“Got what, exactly?”

“The footage, the proof.” Edward was agitated, almost jumping up and down. “This is the remaining security footage from the haunted warehouse…”

Stan sighed. “For the last time, it’s not haunted. Some kids made that up. The story’s been done, the source was tracked down.”

Edward pointed at the tapes. “But you didn’t have these. Security tapes going back to the late nineties. It’s all I could get, but these ones were all held for review. They’re important… I know it.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll humour you,” Stan conceded. It was a slow newsweek anyways, and perhaps there was something worthwhile in them. He gestured over to the VCR, which lay gathering dust. “But if this is a waste of time, then we’re not calling you back”.

“Oh I assure you, it won’t be.”

Edward excitedly put in the first tape. It showed an hour of footage of military equipment being loaded into a warehouse, dated 12/19/1998. Stamped for retention from erasure due to ‘proof of previous ownership’.

And so the trend began.

Three hours of darkness with occasional animal scratching noises, dated 01/10/2004, marked for ‘lawsuit against pest control’.

Half an hour of darkness interrupted by a ball of light that blew out the camera, dated 05/16/2017 and labeled ‘Insurance claim for faulty electronics’.

Edwards was particularly excited about a tape dated 02/23/2020 that contained a broken window and evidence of animal activity. Until a teenager snuck through the window, scooped up a cat, and climbed back out. The label was ‘Vandalism’.

Until they, at last, reached the final three tapes. Dated 05/02/2025—three months ago, and just four months after the site had been purchased by its current owners, some new-age spiritualist group called the Ascendancy.

Edward’s excited demeanor had given way to nervousness as the tapes revealed years and years of nothing. Every single one a dud. He’d of course argued the evidence meant something, but without a smoking gun he was pointing at nothing.
 
The first of the last three tapes was of the warehouse entrance, and was the earliest timestamped of the three.

Edward put it into the VCR with bated breath. Stan was tired now, tired and annoyed. The fate of Edward’s job hinged on the contents of these tapes.

 

ASCN WRH ENT.——2:30 05/02/2025

FoR INTERNAL USE oNLY——Do NoT CoPY

The following tape contains the first of three accounts of a break in dated 2nd May 2025 at the Canton ohio Ascendancy Warehouse. The culprits have been identified as ‘Sarah Jhe’, a former student of Violethill Illinois's Hughes High School and ‘Christopher Cwej’, a former teacher at the school. Records indicate the two to be related, but attempts to contact them after the break in have been unsuccessful. Their whereabouts are presently unknown.

The recording has been subtitled from Korean.

The warehouse door swung open with a creak and two figures, Chris Cwej and Sarah Jhe stood in the light.

Dropping a crowbar, Chris reached over and turned on the lights. “Is this really the place?” Sarah asked.

“That’s what the kids said: ‘haunted’.” Chris gestured towards the camera. “It’s worth checking it out. Could be alien.”

Sarah smiled nonchalantly. “Part of the mission, of course.

“Naturally.” Chris grinned back. “We have to make sure there aren’t any other projectors lying about. If there was one it would explain the noises they’d heard from here, and the disappearances. Although that doesn’t rule out the supernatural of some kind,” he said, oddly excited.

“Then let’s look around!” Sarah dashed forwards into the room, before glancing back. “Y’know, to make sure it’s safe and all.”

“Alright, I’ll search the boxes back there.” He pointed behind the camera. “You check the offices. Call me if you see anything strange.”

“Got it.” Sarah held a thumbs up, and the two left in either direction, out of the camera’s view. Several minutes of silence followed, broken up by occasional shuffling or muffled muttering offscreen. The silence broke with a crash, followed by Sarah’s call: “Chris! Something here!”

Chris came back into view, running past. The camera went still again for a minute or so, before the two came walking back into shot. “I could’ve sworn there was something there,” Sarah said.
 

“Are you sure?” asked Chris. “I checked, and there was nothing.”

“I saw something,” Sarah insisted. “I mean it. I think we better keep looking, just in case.”
“Maybe a little longer,” Chris conceded. “Just… no more knocking things over. We’re not supposed to be in here, remember?”

“Right, yeah, sorry,” Sarah replied.

Chris put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine Sang Mi. It’ll just make things a little awkward when whoever owns this place comes looking for who broke in here.”

“Can’t you just wipe the cameras?” Sarah asked.

“They’re analog-- old technology, chemicals on film rather than numbers on a hard-drive” Chris answered. “Either way there’ll be evidence: you can’t wipe analogue without destroying the footage outright. People would notice.”

Together with Sarah—or, as he’d always known her, Sang Mi—Chris walked off once more in either direction. After a few more minutes of silence, Chris called out once again. “Sang Mi! I’ve got something!”


“Hold on… hold on!” Edward interrupted. “We have those tapes too! We can see what they saw!”

He hurriedly removed the tape that was playing and replaced it with another. By now, Stan was at the very least intrigued. Edward pressed play on the second tape, labeled ‘Security office’. The VCR whirred as it began playing…
​



ASCN WRH oFF——2:32 05/02/2025

FoR INTERNAL USE oNLY——Do NoT CoPY

The following tape contains the second of three accounts of a break in dated 2nd May 2025 at the Chicago Ascendancy Warehouse. For more detailed information see the first account.

The recording has been subtitled from Korean.

Sang Mi swung the office door open and came inside, turning on the lights to reveal the room. The place was abandoned, filled with cobwebs. It clearly hadn’t been used since the warehouse transferred ownership.

“Well this is creepy,” said Sang Mi. She walked over to a set of drawers and idly opened them. Inside were a few pages of documentation. She leafed through them, decently uninterested, until she stopped on a newspaper clipping and read out, “Teenagers fake ghost sighting? Gah, a hoax! We’ve been tricked…”

She sat back on the chair. “Back to the car I guess…” She sighed. “But we just got here, and Chris was so excited by their story…”

She paused for a moment, before walking over to the closet and opening it. Inside were old military uniforms.
 

“Well, when there’s no ghost…” Sang Mi pushed the closet over, the contents spilling out across the floor. She called out, “Chris! Something here!”

Chris kicked the door down as he entered. “What happened?”

“I saw something moving, it went through the closet. I tried to see what it was but…”

Chris walked over to the wall, pulling out some sort of device. He ran it over the wall. “Not detecting anything,” he announced. “Are you sure it wasn’t your imagination?”

“No.” Sang Mi turned away.

Chris sighed. “Well, there’s nothing here now…” Still holding the device aloft, he left through the door, Sang Mi in tow.

The camera recorded an empty room for a few minutes before Sang Mi reappeared, shut the door and hung her head. “That was stupid. Why did I do that?”

She sat down against the wall, holding her head in her hands. “I just… I don’t want it to end… The longer it takes…”

Chris called out, “Sang Mi! Got something!”

The tape ended, and Stan glared at Edward who, more nervously, said, “I… I have one more showing the back of the warehouse. We’ve almost got the proof now…”
He ejected the second tape and put in the third.


​


ASCN WRH BCK——2:32 05/02/2025
​

FoR INTERNAL USE oNLY——Do NoT CoPY

The following tape contains the second of three accounts of a break in dated 2nd May 2025 at the Chicago Ascendancy Warehouse. For more detailed information see the first account.

The recording has been subtitled from Korean.

Chris strolled in from off camera and swept his device over the boxes. He sighed. “Nothing.”

He glanced off camera. “Sang Mi was looking forward to a genuine ghost hunt,” he said, disappointed. He sat down near the boxes with his thoughts. “Surely it couldn’t hurt to be absolutely sure. After all, you never know…”

He began opening the boxes, discarding the arbitrary items of Ascendancy property that could be considered as potentially connected to a haunting.
​

He was interrupted by a cry from offscreen. “Chris! Something here!”

He darted off camera, leaving several minutes of footage of the artefacts strewn across the floor. When he returned, he took his device and waved it back over the boxes. He hit the side of one in frustration.

“Still nothing…”

He put his hand on his chin, setting his device down beneath the boxes. He pressed a button and the image of a ghost appeared, humanoid, translucent, pale and cloaked in an old robe. Some tropes he’d pulled from some low budget horror schlock he’d watched during a previous trip to Earth.

Chris called out, “Sang Mi! Got something!”

The girl was with him in moments. “God,” she gasped. “What is that?”

“I don’t know,” Chris replied.


Sang Mi stared at it in disbelief. Then it flickered. Sang Mi raised an eyebrow. “Uh… Isn't that…”
​

She waved a hand in front of it and nothing happened. Then she reached down and collected Chris’s device from the ground. The hologram disappeared. Sang Mi held the device up to Chris.

“Sorry.” He smiled sheepishly. “You just seemed so excited and I didn’t want you to think you were just seeing things.”

Sang Mi laughed, and the tension she held about lying to Chris fell away. “And here I was thinking I was immature for lying.”

“You did?”

Sang Mi held her hands up. “I found an old newspaper saying teenagers made the whole thing up. You’d all but jumped at the chance to come here, so I didn’t want to just leave right away…”

“You could’ve just said, so you know.”

Sang
 Mi laughed. “Right back at you.”

Chris held out his hand. “Alright, we should probably get going. And Sang Mi?” 

​“Yeah?”


“Best we don’t try to make things interesting for one another like that again. I’m sure this trip’ll be plenty interesting on its own. Ghosts or no ghosts.”
​

Sang Mi smiled. “Yeah, alright.”

 




The two walked offscreen, and there the tape ended.
​

Edward stammered “No… Wait… There’s still the first tape, there’s still evidence, something has to happen…”
​

Stan tapped his watch, irritated. “You’re trying my patience, Edward.”

“Please!” Edward desperately reached for the first tape and put it back in. Stan raised his eyebrow, but allowed it, though his fury was obvious.

​ASCN WRH ENT.—2:45 05/02/2025
​

Cont.

Sang Mi and Chris arrived back at the warehouse door. “D’you ever think there was anything here?” Sang Mi asked.

“I had the footage cross referenced against the internet and my Superiors’ records. All resolved and settled.

Nothing supernatural, nothing paranormal.”

Sang Mi shrugged. “Ah well, maybe next time.”

Chris nodded in agreement, and the two left the warehouse behind.
​
Edward turned to his boss, who glared daggers at him. “I swear, something weird happened in this warehouse,” he pleaded. “I mean it. How did that Chris guy create a hologram otherwise?”
​

Stan sat back against his chair. “Edward…”

“No, wait—please.” Edward was practically begging. “I can get more proof. You just have to give me time.”

“Edward,” Stan said again — “You’re fired.”

Next Stop:
The World Series
by James Wylder


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental or has been done firmly within the bounds of parody and fair use. Edited by James Wylder, James Hornby & Aristide Twain Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain Cover by Leela Ross Logo design by Lucas Kovacs Concepts Used with Permission: Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press Coloth © Simon Bucher-Jones WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc. SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane Yssgaroth © Neil Penswick C.R.U.X © Aristide Twain Lady Aesculapius, Blanche Combine, Jhe Sang Mi © James Wylder ​
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Always be a Part of Me by L. Alves

10/15/2025

0 Comments

 
The gentle omnipresent rhythm of the road beneath the tires seemed of a piece with the night itself. Low and dark; as oddly comforting as it was vast and lonely; and nearly eternal—broken only by the occasional lane change or brief collision with a rumble strip in the case of the former, and by the illuminated signs and roadside lights which cut through the latter, seeming to hang at odd angles halfway to the pitch-dark sky.

There had been no roads like this on Gongen. The highways of America, on this parallel Earth in a distant past, were a much vaster and stranger network than any streets Jhe Sang Mi had ever travelled back home. Liminal. Liminal and lonely, especially after nightfall. There was a sense of total isolation out here, traversing the endless miles between destinations, one which was only intensified by the occasional reminders of human existence—the brief flicker of headlights from a passing car, the burning orange-on-black notice signs looming from the roadside, the occasional oasis of light stretched around a gas station or convenience store. Reminders which only served to bring the emptiness into starker relief. It was somehow hard to imagine the architects of any of these signs and signals as fellow people. They were simply a distant and unnerving presence, casting messages out into the eerie silence—like strange shapes passing beneath dark waters, or a fisherman’s lure dropping in from somewhere distant.

Sang Mi sighed, leaning her head up against the closed passenger-side window and letting the gentle vibrations and the meaningless smear of roadside lights draw her mind from such gloomy thoughts. A dark highway past midnight was no time or place for deep thinking, especially not for someone who’d spent the evening reading all the best and scariest of this Earth’s urban legends and creepypastas on the ancient mini-tablet device which Cwej had purchased. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. They had been encountering a lot of that sort of thing lately. It was good to be prepared.

​She glanced at Cwej, who was staring straight ahead through the front window, making occasional adjustments to the wheel. She wanted to speak to him to relieve some of the loneliness of the dark highway—but it was strangely difficult, at night, in a place like this. The easy chatter which filled their daylight adventures seemed to dissipate at this hour, replaced with a soft and vaguely stifling veil which was nearly impossible to penetrate. It felt wrong to try to talk, this late at night. Their mutual state of awakeness was merely a practical necessity brought about by the strange realm that was the highway, one which it seemed somehow rude to acknowledge.

It was odd, she supposed, that the night should seem so lonely with her friend by her side. But the melancholy feeling was there nonetheless. A road, after all, was nothing more than an extension of its inevitable end. Every further mile that they travelled, the pressing awareness that their travels would soon be over weighed ever more heavily on Sang Mi’s mind.

There was something comforting about travelling with Cwej. They understood each other, in a way that was unique among her friendships. There were parts of herself, and of her life, that Sang Mi didn’t like, and she suspected that the same was true of Cwej. But when they were with each other— things seemed more balanced, somehow. More manageable. More able to be overcome. But the fundamental truth of their time together was that it couldn’t last forever.

They were from different worlds, she and Cwej—different universes and times altogether, but also different lives. At the end of the day, she still had school, and friends, and things which she simply couldn’t put on hold forever to travel the multiverse. Not to mention an uncertain future to face after that, the same which faced all of Gongen. And Cwej—Cwej had responsibilities which she still didn’t fully understand, to Superiors whose identities she still couldn’t quite grasp. Massive responsibilities, cosmic responsibilities - responsibilities which this final road trip could only delay for so long. Soon, very soon, their time together would end. And while that was a truth which Sang Mi had assured herself she could face, it wasn’t a truth which she could face at two in the morning on the loneliest highway in the world. Not without letting that eerie melancholy feeling creep in.

The car jolted lightly as Cwej changed lanes, snapping Sang Mi once more from her silent ruminations. It was getting hot in the rubberized interior of this awful orange cube, she realized. She cracked the window, letting a fast-rushing burst of cool air hit her face, bringing with it the smell of gasoline and distant fried food and, somewhere beneath it all, the fresh scent of a summer night. She sighed. It reminded her of nostalgic nights on Gongen, time spent with dear friends. But just now, the thought of being back on Gongen was a sad one. It was an odd feeling, to think of her life and her friends that way. But it was difficult to avoid.

The glowing orange sign ahead read ‘Slow Down. Sharp Turn Approaching.’ Cwej leaned smoothly into the curve, then reached to turn on the radio. In the few seconds before the sign vanished from view, Sang Mi glanced back at it and read the words ‘Fueling Up Ahead. Don’t Want to Show Up at Simone’s on Empty. I’m Not Staying.’ Then it was lost in the darkness behind them.

But those signs didn’t change. And what kind of message was that, anyway?

Static flared on the radio for a moment, snatches of random stations coming through. Cwej cursed lightly. The primitive device was never able to pick up a signal this far out—Sang Mi had realized that by now. They’d picked up a few CDs at a second-hand store called Sullivan’s Curios, but those were still wrapped up in a bag in the back, alongside the projector which they still had yet to deliver. Sang Mi sat back in her seat, intending to let the rumble of the tires lull her to sleep.

The radio static suddenly pared into sharpness, the notes of a twentieth-century synth-pop song dancing forth into the night. She glanced at Cwej, hoping that the familiarity of their now-usual routine would break the awkward silence. He hesitated for a moment, listening, then shook his head.

“Nope,” he said in Korean, his voice husky with tiredness. “Too old. Space Age music all sounds the same to me.”

Sang Mi nodded, biting her lip as she listened to the song herself, trying to remember. She’d taken a class on twentieth-century popular media at Academy 27, and several of her friends were, as she’d have happily teased them, notorious nerds who had assailed her with music of approximately this vintage countless times. But in her case, their little contest had the added complication that any given song which might play on the radio station of this past era might simply not ever have existed at all in her universe.
After a few more seconds, she had it. They’d definitely covered this one during the Anglo- American unit, and it helped that the English title was right there in the lyrics.

“‘Always Something There to Remind Me’,” she proudly announced. “By…” She faltered. “I don’t know,” she admitted, scrambling for vaguely-remembered names. “…Duran Duran? Måneskin? Punchdown Krone?”

“The Naked Eyes!” Cwej exclaimed, snapping his fingers triumphantly. “I remember that one now!”

Sang Mi crossed her arms playfully. Cwej might have hailed from even further ahead of this era than she did, but he had the advantage of regular time travel under his belt, and she didn’t.

She didn’t.

She wasn’t part of that world. And it was going to have to carry on without her, soon enough.

Feeling the melancholy tendrils creeping around her again, Sang Mi leaned back in her seat. The chorus of the song blared on as she finally let the rumble of the road carry her off to sleep.

* * *

Careful to keep glancing back at the road ahead, Cara lifted the worn old cassette from the centre console compartment and popped it into the tape deck, pressing play. She needed music right now. And ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’ seemed fitting. Happy that she’d rewound after the last time she’d listened to it—it was easy to remember when she only ever wanted to listen to the first song on the tape anyway—she let the music wash through the car as she turned onto a sudden dirt pathway and began the bumpy crawl towards the second-hand store which she’d discovered the day before. Simone had always made fun of her for her intensely mainstream taste in music—she was more of the Bikini Kill and Team Dresch persuasion of cutting-edge punk rock, while Cara couldn’t stand the stuff—but honestly, she’d never minded. It was hard for her to mind anything that Simone did.

But there was no point in thinking about that. That was in the past. Almost. It would be, soon enough. After she’d taken care of this one last thing.

Pulling the car to a stop by the side of the path as the clanging synths of the song chimed, she pushed the door open and hopped down onto the gravel which lined the drive. The tiny shop— Sullivan’s Curios—was almost a mile from her parents’ town, and she wanted to be on the highway before sundown—but she hadn’t had her wallet with her when she’d taken a nostalgic last look around yesterday afternoon, and there was something in the shop that she needed. She only hoped it hadn’t sold. But given how empty the place had been both times she’d seen it, that didn’t seem like much of a possibility.

The ring of the bell as she pushed the door open alerted the shopkeeper, a cranky man in his mid-forties who’d refused to set anything aside for her, even when she’d promised to be back the next day. He frowned irritatedly, then returned to his paper. Cara nodded briskly back, then made directly for the shelves in the far corner.

It was still there. Relieved, Cara hefted the heavy wooden deer from its place near the top, leaving its matching double behind. She ran a finger along the dust-encrusted details; the careful lines of its muzzle and hooves. The adhesive sticker on the underside declared a price of thirty dollars, which was steep—but worth it, she thought. Fastening her grip around the middle of the sculpture, she lugged it back to the counter and placed it in front of the shopkeeper, wincing slightly at the fortunately-unwarranted thought that it might shatter the glass surface, then fished the money out of her wallet.

“This is a real classic piece,” the man said as he counted the money, as if vaguely suspicious that Cara was not the right buyer for such an item. “There’s a matching one, you know. I’d really have preferred to sell them as a set…”

“I can’t afford both,” Cara replied. “Is that a problem?” The man hesitated for a moment.

“I suppose not…” the man replied, frowning as he wrapped the deer in newspaper. “But take care of it, will ya?”

She nodded, looking out through the transom window. The light was waning. It was time to go.

Back outside, she set the deer gingerly on the gravel, then popped the trunk. There was still a little space left next to all of her earthly possessions. She slid the deer in, newspaper and all, and pushed the lid shut. Back in the front seat, she started the tape playing again, and put the car into drive, turning back onto the dirt path and starting for the main road. The highway beckoned. She shuffled her hand around in the cup holder—enough change there to handle the upcoming toll booths. With any luck, she’d be at her new apartment by Thursday. Just one small detour to make first…

* * *

Sang Mi woke up, feeling an ache all down her back. That was the problem with sleeping while on the road, she thought—it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as a motel, not that those were the height of luxury either. But they’d planned to drive this night through and only stop for a rest come the next afternoon, a plan which had seemed entirely sensible in the cheerful light of morning.

She peered through the front window. Cwej had slowed the car to turn into a gas station, which was probably what had jolted her from her uneasy slumber. The lot was eerily empty. They pulled up between two pumps, and Chris leaned out the window, squinting at the prices. Rubbing her eyes, Sang Mi turned up the radio, hoping that they were now close enough to inhabited civilisation to have a choice of channels. There was a brief burst of static, and then it resolved into the distinctive opening notes of ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’.

“This again?” she asked. Cwej glanced over.

“Yeah, still static,” he answered. “Sorry.”

He pushed open the driver’s-side door, then stepped out.

“I won’t be long,” he continued, before pushing the door shut again.

Sang Mi frowned—what had he meant by ‘still static’? Still mildly unnerved by her earlier reading, she turned the radio off again, then glanced out the window. Cwej waved to her from the pump as he began filling up the tank. She waved back, then sat back in her seat, gazing out into the darkness. It was eerily black beyond the great overhead lights of the gas station—a silent wilderness, in which anything at all might lurk. One keenly felt the sense that this was an outpost in the wasteland; a fragile oasis surrounded by vast and unknowable things.

Sang Mi shook her head, resolving not to read any more scary stories for the duration of the trip. Probably best to try to sleep again, she thought, uncomfortable as it was. She settled in her seat and stretched her legs into the space beneath the dashboard, gazing vaguely through the window towards the starless ink of the sky above and listening to the soft clunk of the fuel nozzle in the gas tank. She let her eyes flicker from the lightly-glowing dials behind the wheel to the blinking radio clock to the rearview mirror above the window, in which she could see the row of gas pumps stretching out into the darkness behind the car.

Something tingled oddly in her peripheral vision as she stared through the reflected back-window. She sat up again. Her heart beating faster, though she didn’t yet know why, Sang Mi shifted her gaze to the reflected forms of the backseat headrests which loomed behind her. There was something else in front of the one directly at her back, another form, partially obscuring her view.

Someone.

“Cwej!” she called, whipping fearfully around to look in the backseat. “There’s—”

There was no one there. She turned back to look in the rearview mirror again, and saw only empty seats.

Cwej pulled open the door, looking concerned. “What is it?” he asked. “Are you alright?”

Sang Mi looked in the backseat again, still seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

“There was someone in the car,” she said. “In the mirror, anyway. Behind me, in the back seat.”

“Damn it,” Cwej replied. “Was it another… thing? Another one of these things?”

“Creepypastas,” Sang Mi put in, nodding. “I’m not calling them that,” Cwej said.

Stepping out, he took the fuel pump out of the car and got back in, then glanced in the mirror himself.

“After your time?” Sang Mi asked.

“Before,” he groaned. “You sound like a period novel.” Sang Mi crossed her arms.

“It had a comeback,” she said. “Part of my gen’s slang.”

“And my grandma’s gen’s,” Cwej replied. “So… are we haunted, then?” Sang Mi watched the mirror for a moment more.

“No, maybe not,” she replied. “I’m really tired. I think I might have just imagined it. But I’ll let you know if there’s anything else.”

Cwej nodded.

“Well, get some rest,” he said. “We still have a ways to go.”

That was good, Sang Mi thought, as she settled back in her seat. That was very good.

When next she awoke, there was a line of unmanned toll booths stretching across several lanes ahead, lights flashing and gates down. A white-on-green sign proclaimed that the cost was $1.90, and also instructed passengers to have their money ready, an instruction which Cwej was rapidly attempting to obey as he fumbled in his wallet for the required change.

“They really charge people to use the roads?” Sang Mi asked drowsily. “I knew Earth was capitalist, but this is ridiculous.”

“I just can’t believe it isn’t all electronic yet,” Cwej mumbled back. “These must be the last vestiges.”

The car approached the toll booth, and Cwej rolled his window down to put the money into the tray. A few moments passed in silence, the gate not raising—then the booth speaker crackled on.

“Sorry for the delay,” came a pre-recorded voice in overly-cheerful tones. “Please wait.” Then there was silence again.

“Now what?” Sang Mi asked. Cwej shrugged.

“Hope it opens, I suppose?” he said, with a touch of weariness in his voice. He patted the wheel. “That or I’ll drive on through the gate and see what happens.”

Sang Mi laughed.

Outside the window, the toll booth speaker crackled on again, and Sang Mi strained to listen. But it wasn’t the pre-recorded voice this time. It was a woman’s voice, faded and fragmented—hard to make out.

“Can’t stay too long,” Sang Mi heard the voice mutter. “But I need to deliver it.” “What?” she said aloud, unsure whether she was speaking to the voice or to Cwej.

“It’s important,” the static-choked voice murmured. “We won’t see each other again. I can’t let her forget me.”

The speaker fell silent.

“Did you say something?” Cwej asked, looking up from the awful book of jokes which he’d bought at Sullivan’s Curios. He had been reading to pass the time whenever they had nothing to do.

“I was just wondering what the heck the speaker was saying.” She frowned. “…You did hear it, right?”

“After the first time, you mean?” Cwej asked, looking mildly concerned. “No, I didn’t hear anything else. Did you?”

The speaker crackled again.

“Going to turn off at the convenience store a few miles from here,” came the voice. “Then straight on till morning. Can’t let her forget.”

There was a pause.

“Please help me,” said the voice. “Our time is ending. Don’t let her forget.”

“Sang Mi?” Cwej repeated, concerned.

Sang Mi was silent for a moment, thinking. Something in the strange voice’s plea had struck a chord for her. Whatever it was, it sounded like it really did need help.

“Yeah, I did,” Sang Mi finally replied. “There was a voice. Talking to me, asking for help.” “Uh oh,” Cwej said wearily. “That doesn’t sound like the best of news.”

“No, I know,” Sang Mi said. “But it sounded… genuine. Is there a convenience store up ahead?” Cwej unfolded his map.

“Yes,” he replied. “A few miles on. Why?”

Sang Mi hesitated for a moment. “I think we should stop there. That’s what the voice was saying, and I kind of want to check it out.”

“Are you sure?” Cwej asked. “We could have an anglerfish situation on our hands.”

Sang Mi nodded. “I know,” she said. “But we can handle that, right?”

Cwej grinned. “Oh, yes,” he laughed. “Together, I’m sure we could.”

Outside, the speaker crackled on again. Sang Mi listened for the voice—but it was the automated message, instead.

“All set!” it chimed. “Please move up.”

The gate lifted, and Cwej put the car into drive, picking up speed as he left the toll booth behind.

Yes, Sang Mi thought, staring ahead—together, they probably could. Together, they could probably do anything.

But their time was ending. She sighed, then turned up the radio to hear the sounds of ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’.

* * *

Cara stepped through the automatic doors of the convenience store, nodding to the tired-looking young woman at the counter. She needed the bathroom, and a map.

The first of her tasks completed, she crumpled up the paper seat cover (you couldn’t be too careful) and began to wash her hands at the only sink in the tiny convenience store restroom. Staring blankly at her own reflection in the mirror beneath the harsh unnatural lighting, Cara felt her thoughts drifting inexorably back towards Simone. Both a longing for the past, and a mild dread of the future. Those days weren’t behind her yet—she was still going to see Simone, one more time. And the thought that the end of the most important relationship of her life was still approaching even as it was long over made her feel mildly nauseated. Maybe it would be better if that end never arrived, she thought. Maybe it would be better to travel the final road forever, and never quite reach its finish. Delay the journey’s end into eternity, and always remain in the moment before the close.

She splashed water in her face, then stepped back into the convenience store proper. She put a quarter into an arcade machine called Blox Stacker and quickly lost, then took a map from the rack and brought it to the counter. The clerk took her money with one hand, sipping boredly at a cherry cola held in the other. Cara glanced down at the row of newspapers beneath the counter. At Fifth Avenue Parade, Thousands Celebrate Gay Pride, proclaimed the New York Times, halfway down the page beneath a headline announcing the death of Warren Burger. She looked away, busying herself with the map.

A shelf of tacky souvenirs caught her eye, and she sidled aimlessly over to it. Cheap keychains and bumper stickers. Items meant to be introduced into a journey solely for the purpose of serving as eventual mementoes of it. Premature earthly remnants of something which was not yet quite over. To buy a souvenir was to declare the present moment past before you could even see the end of it.

But then, you could always see the end of a road. It was all around you, down the whole length of it. Souvenirs made sense, Cara supposed. Things always ended, no matter how great they were, and then they faded away. And when they ceased to be present, they were inevitably forgotten. Unless you preserved the remnants—encased them in a little plastic trinket, a totem of the past, which could spark the last little flecks of memory.
Of course, it didn’t have to be plastic. And, she thought ruefully, it didn’t have to be cheap. Tucking the map into her pocket, she headed back towards the doors. She had a deer to deliver.

* * *

“Don’t mix all of those flavors,” Cwej said.

“Why not?” Sang Mi asked, as she ran her hand along the row of dispensing levers on the convenience store slushie machine, depositing a pump of each into her plastic cup.
“It won’t taste good,” Cwej replied, shaking his head, as Sang Mi popped the cap on and put in the straw. “So… this toll booth voice. What was it saying?”

“She said she needed help delivering something,” she said. “Because… because she was afraid that she was going to be forgotten. And she said she was going to this convenience store.”

She took a sip of her slushie, then cringed at the taste.

“It just sounded like she really needed help,” she continued. “Even if she was a demon or something. So… I don’t know. I’m going to take a look around.”

Cwej nodded.

“Alright,” he said. “Be careful. And don’t wander off. I need the toilet.”

Now alone but for the clerk, Sang Mi cast her gaze around the store. The speakers were playing ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’, faintly. Nothing much out of the ordinary—except for one thing which caught her eye: a battered old arcade machine with the words ‘Blox Stacker’ painted at the top. The screen was flashing and flickering strangely. She drew closer. The falling blocks of pixels had formed themselves into rows, and were gnashing like teeth. Sang Mi fished a quarter from her pocket and put it into the machine, and the blocks vanished—replaced by words.

HELP ME, they read. I NEED HELP.

“Who are you?” Sang Mi asked, leaning closer.

I NEED HELP, the pixels spelled. OUR TIME IS ENDING. BUT I WANT HER TO REMEMBER ME.

“I understand,” Sang Mi said. “But you have to tell me more.” SIMONE, read the screen. SHE NEEDS TO HAVE THIS.

The words split apart, and the pixels reformed themselves into the image of a deer. Sang Mi’s eyes widened.

I’m CHECKING INTO THREADS BUDGET MOTEL, said the pixels. AND THEN ON TO HER HOUSE. BUT I NEED H E L P…

An address flashed on the screen. Then the screen flashed, and went out.

“Everything alright?” Cwej asked, appearing behind Sang Mi. She jumped, then nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “I think so. But we need to go to the Threads Budget Motel.”

Cwej frowned.

“But we have a reservation at-”

“I know,” she interrupted. “But I think it’s important.”

She strode towards the doors, then paused and turned to the clerk. “Do you know where Threads Budget Motel is?” she asked.

The clerk frowned.

“Just a few exits from here, I think,” she replied. “I haven’t heard anyone mention that place in ages.”

Sang Mi thanked her, put her unappealing brown slushie into the trash, then turned to walk through the doors. As she did, she caught a strange sight reflected in the glass—a woman whom she didn’t recognize, blurred and distant.

Sang Mi nodded to her, then stepped through the doors, Cwej following closely behind.

* * *

Walking through the fog of chlorine which clung to the carpeting outside the room housing the shabby motel pool, Cara approached the front desk of the Threads Budget Motel. The desk clerk was typing on a bulky beige IBM, working beneath the crackling flicker of a sparking ceiling light on a cheap countertop which had seen better days.

“Check in?” she asked.

“Yes,” Cara replied, handing over her ID. “I have a reservation.” The clerk glanced at the ID, then nodded and handed it back. “Second floor,” she said. “Room 220.”

Upstairs, sitting on her bed, Cara found that the TV flickered on and off just as much as all of the lights did. Sighing, she turned it off, then lay silently in the darkness.

It shouldn’t have been like this. She was moving into a new city in just a day. A new apartment, a new job, a new life. It should have been good. Except, of course, that it couldn’t possibly have been.

She couldn’t be with Simone. Not in this life. Not if she wanted to have a life. But a life without Simone was no life anyway.

Things were changing, Simone had said. Things wouldn’t be the way they were now forever. But Cara couldn’t quite believe that. Maybe things would be different someday, but she couldn’t see the end from where she stood now.

Her time with Simone was coming to an end, and it hurt terribly. But she couldn’t bear the thought of it all fading away. She patted the wooden deer from Sullivan’s Curios, which was sitting on the bedside table. A deer, just as they’d seen on their first hike together. A memento. A remnant. A souvenir. One last stop.

Cara turned off the flickering lights and went to sleep.

* * *

Sang Mi stared in shock at the burnt-out wreck which stood before her.

“Yeah, this was it,” the jogger they’d stopped was saying. “Threads. Big deal when I was a kid, I remember. Thirty years ago this month, actually. Some kind of electrical problem.”

Sang Mi shared a concerned glance with Cwej, then turned back to the jogger. “And… everyone died?” she asked.

The jogger frowned awkwardly, rubbing at her head. “Well, yeah, I’m afraid so,” she replied. “Awful.” Cwej nodded.

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” the jogger replied, heading up the road again. They stood in silence for a moment.

“Well… I guess it was a ghost,” Cwej said.

“Yeah, but—she needed help,” Sang Mi replied. “She needed to deliver something. A deer.” Cwej nodded.

“I know, but—I doubt anything she needed to deliver survived this,” he said sadly.

Sang Mi mirrored his nod.

“I guess you’re right,” she said. “I guess Simone will have forgotten her, whoever she was.” “Why do you say that?” Cwej asked.

Sang Mi felt tears welling in her eyes.

“Because… because their time came to an end,” she replied. “That’s what she was saying. It ended, because it had to end. And now it can never begin again. I don’t know.”

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Sang Mi—” Cwej began, concerned.

Something caught Sang Mi’s eyes among the rubble, and she ran to it, then pulled it from the wreckage. It was a board—a board with words burned into it. She patted the wooden deer from Sullivan’s Curios, which was sitting on the bedside table, the ashes spelled. Cara hefted the heavy wooden deer from its place near the top, leaving its matching double behind, they said in another place.

She looked at it for a moment. Then her eyes widened.

“Cwej!” she said, determination setting in again. “We need to go back to Sullivan’s Curios!” “What?” Cwej asked. “But that was half a day back!”

She ran to the car.

“We have to,” she said. “And then… we’re going to Simone’s house.”

* * *

As the chiming tones of ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’ faded out for the hundredth time, Cwej stopped the car by the house bearing the address which Sang Mi had glimpsed on an arcade machine’s screen. Sang Mi popped open the door, hauling the heavy wooden deer—marked up to $70 after three decades on a shelf—along with her.

“Are you sure about this?” Cwej called.

“Always,” Sang Mi replied, marching up to the door. She rang the bell.
​
A woman in her 60s opened the door, then looked confusedly at Sang Mi. “Are you Simone?” Sang Mi asked in English.
​
“Yes?” the woman replied. “Do I know you?” Sang Mi took a breath.

“Don’t ask me how,” she said, lifting the deer as high as she could manage, “But this is supposed to be a gift from—”

“Cara,” the woman breathed, tears shining in her eyes. Sang Mi nodded, setting the deer down on the doorstep. “You remember,” she said. “I… wasn’t sure you would.”

“Always,” Simone replied. “It’s been thirty years. But she’ll always be a part of me.” She lifted the sculpture.

“We loved deer,” she said wistfully. “So do I,” Sang Mi said, nodding. Simone smiled.

“Then you should have it,” she said, putting the deer back into Sang Mi’s arms. “Wh—but what about—?”

“You drove all this way,” Simone said, nodding to Cwej, who waved back. “Damned if I know how or why. But you deserve it. I’ve got something better: all the memories.”

* * *

Back in the car, Sang Mi sat quietly for a while as Cwej drove away, on towards their next destination.

“Cwej,” she said at last, holding up the deer. “I want you to have this.” Cwej chuckled.

“Nope,” he replied. “You’re stuck with that thing now.” He paused, then Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental or has been done firmly within the bounds of parody and fair use. Edited by James Wylder, James Hornby & Aristide Twain Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain Cover by Leela Ross Logo design by Lucas Kovacs Concepts Used with Permission: Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press Coloth © Simon Bucher-Jones WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc. SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane Yssgaroth © Neil Penswick C.R.U.X © Aristide Twain Lady Aesculapius, Blanche Combine, Jhe Sang Mi © James Wylder sighed.

“Look, Sang Mi,” he said. “Everything has to end eventually. But—that woman was right. We’ll always have the memories.”

Sang Mi nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

Cwej smiled. “I’ve been around a bit. So take it from me: you don’t need souvenirs,” he said. “Because the journey never really ends. There’ll always be a little piece of us left travelling these roads forever.”

Sang Mi smiled back.

“Then let’s make sure it’s a really good one,” she said.

“You know, I’ll bet we could get some actual radio stations out here,” Cwej said. He turned on the radio.

They roared down the highways of America beneath the rays of the shining sun, ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’ playing at full blast.

Next Stop:
The Warehouse Anomaly
by Thien Valdem


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental or has been done firmly within the bounds of parody and fair use. Edited by James Wylder, James Hornby & Aristide Twain Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain Cover by Leela Ross Logo design by Lucas Kovacs Concepts Used with Permission: Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press Coloth © Simon Bucher-Jones WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc. SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane Yssgaroth © Neil Penswick C.R.U.X © Aristide Twain Lady Aesculapius, Blanche Combine, Jhe Sang Mi © James Wylder ​
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Rodney Didn't Help Him by Xavier Llewellyn

10/15/2025

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Picture

Rodney Didn't Help Him
by Xavier Lewellyn
art by Bex Vee

​The haze of the early morning sun filtered through the grease-stained windows of The Horned Bull as Rodney was guided to his high-top seat by a young waitress—young enough to be his daughter. She introduced herself, in a broad Appalachian accent, as Anna-Mae.

“I’m new here,” she went on, while sunlight sparkled in her dyed ash-blonde hair as he looked, fixated, at her chest. She downplayed her discomfort and continued her job, taking his order—a disappointingly ordinary request of ham and eggs on toast, and a cola to drink—which was the same meal Rodney had ordered virtually every morning for far too many decades to remember. Rodney liked predictability, although he wasn’t so much as organized; he was the type to meander through life, uninspired for anything grand.

He had wasted most of his life, never being one to take chances. He had never loved, always too afraid to ask girls out in his youth—or now, and spent his life alone, miserable, in a dead-end job. He made little money, had few possessions that meant anything to him, and his family had died long ago. He had no pets. The only thing he did was sit on his couch, beer and chicken tenders in hand, watching late-night reruns.
He wasn’t unique. There were a million people like him. His hair was grey and thin, skin ruddy and fattened, his clothing unremarkable. Just stained jeans and t-shirts.

There weren’t many people in The Horned Bull at this hour, much less anyone he recognized. Even as insular as Rodney could be, all he recognized were the cowboy Miller brothers who claimed to be plumbers, who once somehow made his already broken sink trap spew dirty, smelly water all over his kitchen.

The bar itself was nothing amazing. It was a shabby-looking place, paint peeling, yellowed and faded, tabletops scratched and the varnish worn away, the fake wooden floor tacky as one stepped on it, and all illuminated by sickly orange bulbs. But the food was serviceable, and that’s what mattered to Rodney.

All of a sudden, a woman sat herself besides Rodney, to his right, not even waiting for the waitress to greet her. Rodney paid her little attention, more focused on his rumbling stomach. After a minute, he realized that the woman hadn't called the waitress over, and he shot a sly look at her from the corner of his eye. He was taken aback by what he saw.

What stood out, most to him, was the fact she was dressed for a funeral; she was wearing a silken, voluminous, trailing gown, decorated with frills, lace and ruffles, with a thick, dense veil, preventing virtually any light from penetrating within. He let out a startled yelp, reminded of not only a horrible old hag from some late-night horror film, but of his long-dead, nasty, hateful grandmother, and he wasn’t entirely sure which scared him most. In the middle of his shocked reaction, his steel-toed boot collided with something hard on the floor, which was neither the bar- table or the stools. For what he had kicked, moved… and clanged. The woman stooped over, not saying a word, and shifted what he took to be some sort of box draped in a black cloth, one just as ominous as the fabric of the woman’s dress, to her side farthest away from him.

He reasserted himself, trying to make himself seem oblivious to his accident by looking around for the waitress, in a terribly unconvincing fashion that resembled a theatre kid who took themself to be far better at acting than they really were.

“That’s alright.” She spoke coolly, responding to an apology he hadn’t made. “Accidents happen.”

He turned slowly to face her, wincing in discomfort. He felt as if hot lights were shining directly on him, as if his body itself had welded itself to the cracked leather seat. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead and dripped onto his cheek. He was entirely unable to move.

“…you’re… going to a funeral, then?” he choked out, barely more than a whisper.
She continued to look at him, or at least Rodney guessed that she was, for it was hard to tell due to the veil, but didn’t say a word. Rodney tried another track, with even less confidence.

“I can call the waitress over?”

“That will hardly be necessary, for I am not hungry.”

“I—um, then, why are you here?” he asked, more intrusively than he wanted. He immediately regretted the action, although the woman continued to remain still.

She didn’t respond.

“You remind me of my grandmother,” he added after a while.

“Do I?” she finally responded. Rodney was torn between mild relief and yet more horror as the woman seemed to be interested with small talk. “What was she like?”

Rodney swore reflexively, then winced. “I hated her,” he explained. “She used to hit me, to punish me, even if I hadn’t done anything wrong. But I still get awful nightmares about her.” Rodney, normally, would not have been so open, even if anyone had cared enough about him to ask about his childhood. But now? He felt as if he was a nut that had been hit with a hammer, his innards crumbling out of his cracked shell.

“I guess we’re all haunted by the ghosts of our past,” the woman responded sagely after a long moment, in a surprisingly apologetic tone. “I suppose you could make amends. Perhaps you could do me a favor?”

“How would that benefit me?” he frowned.

Despite being unable to meet her eyes, he had the distinct feeling she was glaring at him. All of a sudden, he decided, whatever this woman’s request was, he’d do it just to get rid of her. She appeared to understand this, somehow, and continued:

“Shortly, two people will come here. One of them will be a man, tall in height, blonde in hair. The other a teenager, dark haired and much shorter. What I ask of you is simple: tell them about your ghosts.”

With that, the woman, as abruptly as she appeared, stood up, her box in arm, and left, the glass door swinging behind her. Rodney slumped forwards, head in hands, processing whatever the Hell it was that just happened to him. Perhaps he had fallen asleep? He knew that not to be true, and, to that effect, Anna-Mae asked where his friend had gone as she brought over his breakfast, telling him that as soon as she turned to take the completed meal from the chef, the woman had simply vanished.

* * *

“What a dump.”

Sang Mi was not impressed. Chris had decided that they should wake up early that morning, and thus her anxiety about falling asleep quickly the previous night resulted in her being entirely unable to sleep at all. It didn’t help that she swore that she saw a cockroach in the bathtub in the shabby motel they stayed at, a few miles west in the denser area of Louisville. They had been driving all day, that day, and only crossed into Kentucky as the sun set and bathed the city in an orange blanket.
 
Not only was she irritable with Chris for his stunt, it was all for nothing anyway, as they didn’t exactly have a schedule to stick to. A few minutes before she had said something to this effect, or perhaps, more accurately, snapped at him with cattiness atypical of her usual friendly nature. Chris had sensed his error and offered to take her to get a proper breakfast, something they had been unable to get so far on their trip.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. It has character! Look at that authentic, side-of-the-road diner aesthetic! A true nineteen-sixties throwback. Something straight out of a movie.”

“A horror movie, more like it. And it looks like it’s from the nineteen-sixties because,” she paused, gesticulating her arms towards the diner for dramatic effect, “It hasn’t been redecorated since the sixties. With our luck, Norman Bates will be taking our order and Leatherface cooking our rashers. Human rashers made from dumb teens.”

Chris shook and lowered his head in defeat and headed inside. Sang Mi wasn’t too far behind.

Inside, Sang Mi only had to take a quick glance at the sordid state of the eatery to look up at her friend and glare. Chris, unaware of the death stare, was simultaneously engaged in polite chatter with the waitress whilst being entirely oblivious to her flirtatious advances. She led them to a booth, asked them for their order, and began walking backwards before stumbling into a table and knocking over a bottle of ketchup. She hurried off in embarrassment.

“Dude, you do realize she was flirting with you?”

“No she wasn’t,” Chris said too confidently, then stopping to consider the possibility. “Was she?” Sang Mi rolled her eyes.

Chris was about to open his mouth to apologize again for the lack of sleep, but was interrupted when a greasy looking man sat next to him.

“I, uh, hi?” Chris offered a hand to shake; Rodney didn’t take it.

“I’ve been told that I need to tell you something. I wouldn’t normally talk to random folks like y’all, but this woman in this eerie black dress made me—” He stopped himself, realising he was sounding like a child, and changed his tune accordingly.

He began his tale of woe.

* * *

Many decades earlier, ten-year-old Rodney, on his brilliant blue bicycle, sped along Taylorsville Road, alongside his friend Michael, one wintery evening. Rodney’s blue bike was the subject of envy of his fellow pupils, which he reveled in. He took a lot of joy parading it around and showing off, as he had worked hard to save up for it, and this was the first time he had something to be proud of. He had spent the past three summers running errands for his neighbors, and, when needed, cutting their lawns and shoveling snow. Given his despondent home life, even his clothes were ratty and several sizes too small, and his parents couldn’t afford to buy him much of a daily lunch or school supplies; Rodney was often bullied, beaten and bruised, but he never seemed to let them get to him.

As the duo slowed down by the Pope Lick intersection, Michael suddenly had an idea.
“Hey Rod, I dare you to go onto the trestle bridge. For five minutes.” Michael had a wicked grin on his face, with the sharp angles of his sharp face illuminated by the cold sun.

“What, no!” Rodney argued. “That’s really dangerous! My old man told me never to go up there, or he’d hit me with his belt.”

“If you do, I’ll let you raid my candy jar…” Michael manipulated the situation, aware that Rodney never had the chance to have candy, especially as Michael always refused to share. It was a tempting offer and Rodney, pining for the taste of those chocolatey goods, couldn’t resist, even with the threat of his father’s punishments.

“You’ll have to leave your bike with me.” Michael tried pulling the blue bike from Rodney’s hands, but the poor child clung on.

“I, um, I’ll take it with me. On the bridge.” Rodney began to suspect his friend’s actual motive, but, as much as he didn’t want to believe it, he wasn’t going to take that chance. If Michael did take his bike, he’d have no chance of getting it back; Rodney’s father was a coward and a suck-up, and worse still Michael’s father was his boss.

They waited a while, without conversation, until a freight train thundered over the bridge. If a train was on the line, it would be a while before another came along. Rodney scrambled backwards up with the hill, dragging his bike behind him. The sun had now set and the area, shadowy, dark and cold, sent chills up his spine. He took a second to take in the reality of the situation, to see just how dumb he’d have to be to attempt this. He toed onto the railway track and inched closer to the beginning of the bridge, only now grasping just how high up he was. Worse still, there were gaps in the planks, so that he could see the earth beneath him, and there weren’t any sides to the bridge.

It was just a sheer drop down to the unforgiving, cruel ground below. “Do it then,” Michael taunted.

Preoccupied with fear, he hadn’t noticed Michael follow him up. “Mike, I’m really not sure about this. I wanna go home.” He pleaded.

“Too late, a dare’s a dare. And you wouldn’t want me to tell everyone you’re a chicken, are you? A wet, raggedy little chicken who’s too scared to even walk on a bridge?”

Rodney gulped, fortified himself, and began his treacherous feat.

Take one step, pull the bike close. Take on step, pull the bike close. Take one step, pull the bike close. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look--

He looked down. Rodney was not quite midway across the bridge, but just over the creek. He wobbled. The world spun beneath him. He got down on his knees, grasping the rails for support. He felt like he was going to be sick.

He heard a laugh far below him. Michael had done a runner, got back on his bike, and hurried away at full speed.

Rodney was all alone.

The sun had fully set now and he was in near pitch blackness. He blindly fumbled with his schoolbag and retrieved his solid metal flashlight. Its dim orange glow did little to help, but he could just see the wooden beams beneath him.

He wept. He begged God for his mommy, but He didn’t answer and his mom didn’t save him. “He-eh-eh-eh-eh-ello?” came a voice, out of the void. Rodney tensed up, then began shaking as

he panned the torch around him. “He-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-ello?”

Rodney’s mind had gone blank; he had forgotten how to move, how to crawl, how to flee. Thunk.

Thunk. Thunk.

Something was nearing him. Rodney swore it came from his left, so he jolted his flashlight in that direction, only to see the faint silhouette of a man bounding up the side of the steep bridge with impossible ease.

“He-eh-eh-eh-eh-ello?”

“Please, luh-leave m-me al-al-lone,” he wailed between sobs.

The shadowy figure flung himself onto the top of the bridge, crouching on all fours before standing up on his legs.

“Are you my frie-eh-eh-eh-eh-end?” the strange man called to him. If Rodney wasn’t any wiser, he would have thought that the man almost sounded… goat-like.

Rodney focused his flashlight towards the figure. The amber glow barely illuminated him, but Rodney could see that the man was only wearing pants; he was otherwise nude, but extremely hairy. Rodney then came to the realisation that the man’s pants were, in fact, not pants, but thick, bushy hair, not unlike the shaggy strands that covered the man’s head, face, chest and arms.

“I would really like a frie-eh-eh-eh-eh-end. I’m lone-eh-eh-eh-ly!”

The man’s legs were also weird. It wasn’t just the hair; they were bent, crooked, misshapen. The joints went all in the wrong directions.

Rodney sobbed harder.

The man only now sensed the boy’s fear and tried humming, as if he were a mother soothing her ailing baby, but this only freaked Rodney out more. Rodney let go of his bike and scrambled over it backwards, eyes and flashlight fixed on the being.

The man tried to follow him, his arms outstretched, attention likewise fixed on the boy, and this was his mistake. The man tripped over the bike. The bike tumbled off side, falling into the creek with a hefty splash. The man clung onto the side, hanging on with all his strength, but Rodney could see he was struggling. Rodney watched, petrified in fear, while the man’s fingers slipped, one by one.

A minute later, Rodney was all alone. An hour later, Rodney was still alone.

As the sun peaked, hours later, Rodney finally moved, and went back home.

He never again took any chances. He never took any risks. He never again hoped.

His spirit had been crushed, and a great guilt placed on his shoulders. He had realized, in the days and weeks that passed, after being grounded and punished by his father, that the man had meant him no harm, and had just been as lonely as he was.

And Rodney had not helped him.

* * *

Rodney’s version of the story had left out many of the details. Rodney hadn’t the strength to talk about his regrets, guilts and pains, and had only—in a frank and ineloquent manner—retold the tale hastily and cursorily.
​
As such, Chris was interested, but unsatisfied; he could tell there was more to the story, and hoped Rodney would elaborate, but nothing came, and he finished his coke.

“Well, I’ve done my part. I’ll be gone.” Rodney stood up and left the building without another word or so much as a glance backwards.

The duo was quiet as they heard the distinct splutter of a noise engine rev up and just as quickly fade into this distance.

Chris was the one to break the silence. “Well, that was—”

“So help me if you make some cringey one-liner, Chris. I’m not in the mood.” Sang Mi interrupted brusquely.

Chris tried a different tack.

“Do you reckon that man, whoever he was, had met… you know…?” he trailed off, not needing to specify the identity of the woman, as he and Sang Mi had only met her themselves not long prior.

“I guess so.” She shrugged. “A woman in a creepy black dress sure does sound like Sal. And she told that man to tell us of that ‘monster’ he met; three guesses what she’s trying to get us to do.”

“Yes, it all adds up. After we finish up here, what say we go poke our noses at the railroad?” Sang Mi grunted in agreement.

After a moment of silence and idle contemplation, Anna-Mae brought them their breakfast, balanced in her arms. She laid the plates in front of them, fixing a smile towards Chris.

“You have a really nice forehead,” Chris offered, remembering what his friend had told him and attempting to reciprocate the flirtation. He did not, however, think through what he said and it had the opposite effect that he intended; Anna-Mae’s smile dropped, replaced with a nonplussed frown. She abruptly left them to eat without another word.

* * *

They wasted no time in driving to the trestle bridge that ran over Pope Lick Creek. Chris parked their car safely down the road, a short distance down from the bridge. The bridge was next to an intersection, and on its opposite side lay a gas station. As the duo walked down to the bridge they had to avoid a couple of oncoming cars.

“You know,” Chris struck up conversation, “That guy’s description of the creature he saw reminds me of Greek mythology. You’ve heard of satyrs, right? Half-men, half-goat people?”

“Until recently I would have thought you were having me on, but now? Why does it not surprise me?” Sang Mi sighed. “So they exist, do they?”

“…and so do the Greek gods themselves. Sometimes. My employers have, uh, an understand with them. But people like them come and go, real one moment, then not a moment later.”

Sang Mi took this in her stride. Somehow a bunch of muscled men in togas commanding the elements didn’t surprise her any more than goatmen.

They had reached the trestle bridge, which contrary to the ethos of the stories told about it, was unexpectedly ordinary. The road and sidewalk were clean and well maintained, the grass well- trimmed, the foliage and trees thick and dense. The structure of the bridge itself was rusty, but not dilapidated.

“Let’s hope appearances can be deceiving, eh? ‘Cause this is anything but spooky.” Chris was obviously disappointed. “Shall we take a look around? You have a nosey at the creek while I wrestle with the bushes?”

“Can you do the creek? I actually can’t swim. Never had the opportunity to learn where I lived.”

“You know, that should have crossed my mind after our adventure with Oscar. Alright then, shall we meet back here in half an hour?”

“Sure.”

Chris took to the creek like a rabid dog. He quickly yanked off his shoes and socks, rolled up his trousers, and bounded into the flowing current. He sploshed around, arching his posture to inspect the river bed and bank. Underneath the roadbridge that formed part of the intersection, the only notable find was a bit of vulgar graffiti.

He decided to move on and made his way further upstream after grabbing his footwear, in preparation for climbing over the mass of low-laying vegetation and underwood. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, as he used his right foot to push the growths away from the ground. Human-sized goat droppings, maybe? Evidence of weeds being nibbled at?

After spending ten or so minutes doing this without any success, even leaving the creek itself and traipsing a small distance under the shadow of the several-hundred foot long structure, let out a dry laugh, bored out of his mind. Yet, for good measure, he decided to give his method one last go, one last kick. He punted a rather snide-looking bramble, and--CLUNK! His foot collided with something.

Crouching, he inspected what he had struck: jutting out of the dried mud like some sort of ancient burial marker, was the rusted handle of a bike.

Chris grinned.

* * *

Sang Mi didn’t share her companion’s enthusiasm. Unlike him, she had little desire to hack through the thicket, to come out on the other side looking like a madman with twigs and leaves knotted in her hair. Besides, as she made her way along the raised tarmac path that went parallel to the road, she found that the far side was fenced off. Ominous ‘DANGER’ and ‘NO TRESPASSING’ signs placed by the Norfolk Southern Railway were obvious warnings to any foolhardy adventurers who found that a wire-mesh fence wasn’t enough of an indicator that hiking up the embankment and onto the bridge that loomed dizzyingly high up off the ground was a bad idea.

Instead, she set her sights on the gas station.

She darted around a pick-up truck as she crossed the car park, nearing the building. Incidentally to the supposed satyr running around these parts, the physical architecture of the Circle K vaguely reminded her of a Greek temple, as the front of the store had some six concrete pillars holding up a canopy.

Inside the store, she grabbed a coffee for herself, a cola for Chris, and a handful of snacks, as she thought that not only would they need refreshments, it would give her an excuse to strike up a conversation with the clerk.

She glanced around for any sign of local memorabilia, but with no sign of any she plonked her goods down on the counter. The clerk,—Otis, going by the nametag on his red polo shirt—greeted her and started scanning. He was a thirty-something African-American man, with a fade and a wiry beard.

“So, Otis,” she started. She saw Otis raise an eyebrow upon hearing his own name, but she didn’t falter. “I hear that a goatman lives up on the bridge over there?”

“Let me tell you the truth,” he laughed dryly. “It’s a load of old nonsense. Just tall tales made by people who are bored or who have something to sell. There’s nothing there but death—and not by the hooves of some demonic creature, but by people climbing on that bridge and paying for it with their lives.”

The tone of the conversation had turned dour.

“So it’s all made up, yeah? But, like, what are those tall tales? I’m curious.”

“I don’t know the full details, not that anyone agrees on them, but one story claims there was this Satan-worshipping farmer who became half-goat after a sacrifice gone wrong. The other main story was that the goatman was a member of a circus train who swore revenge on its captors, and for some reason decided to do that by haunting a rickety old bridge—either that or it escaped after the train derailed on the bridge.”

“Pretty inventive, huh?” Sang Mi played along. She didn’t want to come across as a loon if she started insisting that the goatman was real.

“That’ll be $12.98, including the bag. You paying with card?”

She looked at him with an empty expression. Card? she thought. Oh right, yes, money. She feigned a smile while Otis reciprocated with the blandly tired look of retail workers everywhere.

She shook her head as she dug out a couple of scrunched up bills from her back pocket, which Otis tried to flatten, with little success, before inserting them into the till. Sang Mi thanked him as she grabbed her plastic bag in one hand and her coffee in the other, left the shop, then jogged across the road back to the shadow of the bridge.

She saw Chris maniacally grinning from a mile off. “Chris, what’s that smile for?”

He explained what he found.

“There’s a guy in that gas station who wouldn’t believe you and would think you’ve gone a little looney,” she jabbed an extended thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the building.

“Probably. Anyway, I don’t think there is anything more to do here. Reckon we should come back at night? Things do go bump in the night, after all.”

Sang Mi agreed, sipping her beverage as she shook the bag at Chris. He grabbed it and began rummaging around in it delightedly, finally pulling out what he wanted and plonking himself gracelessly on the grass. There, he crossed his legs like a child and tucked in. Sang Mi stood silently, continuing to sip at the hot drink. The more she drank the brighter her mood became.

“I’m sorry, Chris,” she attempted. “I’ve been grumpy. I really am.” She rubbed her head in a vain attempt to ease her thumping headache she only now realized she had.

“Honestly Sang Mi, I hadn’t noticed,” he lied, attempting to make her feel better.

They killed the rest of the day by visiting Louisville’s amenities; they wasted an unreasonable amount of time due to Chris’s prideful refusal to ask for directions; the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory was an enjoyable visit, even in spite of their shared ignorance of baseball; they were impressed by the veneration of the late Muhammad Ali at his eponymous museum; and they spent the rest of the day at NuLu, topping everything off with a meal at an oven-baked pizza place. They were living in the moment, basking in the wonder of life itself.

* * *

They were welcomed back to Pope Lick Creek by the hoots of an owl, perched on a tree, high up and out of sight. Chris parked the car in the same place as earlier, and while he grabbed a pair of flashlights for himself and Sang Mi, he was taken aback by what she was preparing.

“The baseball bat? Do you really think that’s necessary?”

From the baseball factory they visited earlier, Sang Mi had insisted on having a personalized bat to commemorate the visit, which had cost a small fortune. Yet Chris thought it a small price to pay for her joy over the stained, wooden-bodied club, which she had customized with a blue barrel and a short, inscribed message:

Kalingkata: The Wandering Star.

“Absolutely!” she grinned. The angle of light from Chris’s flashlight cast shadows in the recesses of her face that made her expression look more akin to that of a maniacal nutjob. He let out a laugh then tossed her the other flashlight before she remembered to ask: “Considering we’re about to trespass, do you have those wire cutters on you?”

Chris promptly dug the pair out from the trunk and brandished them in the air triumphantly.

They wasted no time in cutting through the fence and ignoring the multiple and very literal warning signs, checking over their shoulders to make sure nobody was near, climbing up the very same bank the man at the diner had described, and making it onto the railroad line. They safely crouched in the shadows for a while, telling jokes as they waited for a train to pass them. After the train thundered past, which took an annoyingly long time given its length and slow speed, Sang Mi realized that they could have just waited in the car. Chris aptly facepalmed. They got up and brushed the dirt off their trousers.

“That guy wasn’t exaggerating when he described this thing,” Sang Mi groaned as she tentatively placed a foot onto the first beam.

“Hey, it’s not that bad!” Chris made a show of confidence, walking backwards along the bridge with ease. “Just don’t look down.”

Sang Mi shot him a look but he was too oblivious to notice, caught up in the exhilaration of the height. Up here, the breeze tousled Chris’s hair majestically. Yet for Sang Mi, it seemed to unfairly whip across her face.

“Ahoy there, Goatman!” Chris called out into the void. “We’re here to talk! We’re your friends!” “CHRIS!” Sang Mi worriedly hissed at him. “Keep it down! Someone could still hear us.”

“Such as?” He heeded little for the fact that unwanted attention could actually land them in trouble with the authorities.

Instead of replying, Sang Mi merely pointed in the direction of the gas station and, as he followed the direction of her finger, he let out a deflated “Ah”.

They continued on, now in silence, hoping for any sign of anything out of the ordinary. Although they didn’t admit it to each other, they felt as if they were wasting their time. Even though they knew Sal expected them to find something, this felt to them more as if she were playing an unfunny prank and was about to appear any moment and shout “Boo!”, as nonsensical and dangerous an act like that would be right now.

It was lucky for them, for at that precise moment, the fabled goatman made an appearance. Yet, in spite of them being prepared for everything…

…they weren’t prepared for this. “Is that…?” Sang Mi started.
“What the Hell?” Chris finished.

The goatman was decidedly translucent and glowed a pale blue light. “It’s a ghost?!” Sang Mi was dumbfounded.

Chris scratched his head, entirely unsure what to do.

“He-eh-eh-eh-eh-ello?” the goatman wailed eerily. “Fri-eh-eh-eh-ends?”

“Yes, yes we are!” Chris’s instincts kicked in and his mind snapped into action. “We are your friends and we’re here to help! So what do you need help with, Mr Goatman…? Uhhh, do you have a name?”

As the spectral being neared them, Chris and Sang Mi tried to get a better look by illuminating it with their flashlights, but the light passed right through.

“If any physicists were here they’d have a field day with this.” Sang Mi grinned. “This is fascinating.”

“Frie-eh-eh-eh-end?”

Chris sighed. He had hoped that communicating with a ghost wouldn’t have been like in stories.

Still, he tried again.

“Yes, we are. I’m Chris Cwej, and this is my friend Sang Mi. And we’re your friends too.”
“Fri-eh-eh-eh-ends.” It said more assertively. It had now reached, more-or-less, the midpoint of the bridge--

—and, without warning, fell sideways into the darkness below. The duo craned their necks over, just as its unearthly illuminance disappeared. Without words, they ran back to the end of the bridge and slid down the embankment. Chris grabbed a spade from the car, Sang Mi left her baseball bat, and they made their way to where the goatman fell, marked by the rusted handle of a bike.

“We should help him pass on, shouldn’t we?” Sang Mi suggested. “Find his bones and give him a proper farewell, from friends. That should work, shouldn’t it?”

“Worth a shot!”

Sang Mi held her flashlight steady as Chris rested his on the ground and started digging around the bike, using the edge of the shovel itself to hack through the web of roots. His strength made quick work of the job; as Sang Mi hauled the bike backwards, out of Chris’s way, he started digging with his hands and placing any bones he found in a neat pile.

There weren’t many. Over the course of decades, the goatman’s corpse had likely been scavenged by wildlife, and the remnants further distributed by weather. In all, there appeared to be a few odd fingers, a femur, a few ribs and a fractured skull.

* * *

As the sun rose once again, Chris and Sang Mi had work to do.

After a quick minute of research on Google, they decided on Jefferson Memorial Forest as the perfect place to lay the goatman’s body to rest. They carried its bones in a cardboard box they plucked from the gas station as they walked deep into the forest, ascending the terrain to a high point that overlooked downtown Louisville. Chris dug a grave and lowered the remains into it.

“Sang Mi, do you want to say a few words?”

“Sure. Um, Mr. Goatman, while we didn’t really know you, you were probably really nice, and it’s awful the way you died. I’m sorry you never had friends in life, but now, you have us.” She spoke softly, yet uncertainly. The city caught her eye and she added: “And the city and the forest. You’ll have the world of humans and the world of nature buzzing around you, forever, and you can become one with the Earth itself.”

“That was lovely,” Chris smiled with great sincerity.

“I wasn’t that good. I just said the first thing that came to mind. I keep thinking I should just say a prayer—I just didn’t know if that would be…” She trailed off, and repeated a muttered: “It wasn’t that good.”

“You are that good,” Chris insisted. “Now, we’ve someone to visit.”

* * *

Rodney had just finished his meal of ham and eggs on toast and was heading back to his rusty, beaten truck. To his horror he noticed a car pull up with those two strangers from the day before and he rushed into his truck. They ran over, shouting hello, and began knocking on his window. He was just about to tell them to leave him alone when he noticed what the girl was holding.

No.

It couldn’t be.

It was his bike. It was mangled, bent, rusted, muddy, and overall just scrap at this point, but it was his bike!

He slowly got out and fell to his knees, in complete shock. “W-where did you find it?” he stammered.

“Pretty much exactly where you said it was,” blond man told him. “Same with the goatman.” Rodney looked up at the man, his eyes filled with fright.

“Yes, that goatman. It never meant you any harm, you know. But we found it, or what was left of it, and gave it a proper farewell.” The man smiled reassuringly.

“And I think that’ll be the last people see of the goatman. It can be at peace and people won’t have a reason to risk their lives trying to find it.” The girl added.

Rodney was at a loss for words. He shook the hands of the pair and got back in his truck after putting his bike in the truck bed, and drove off.

He took in the rays of the summer sun, feeling the warm rays dance on his skin.

He felt renewed. The incident in his past, that had eaten so thoroughly at his mind for countless years, was now not so bad. He was feeling so much better, anticipatory of what the world could offer him. That night was far behind him.

And now?

A new lease of life lay ahead.


Next Stop:
Always Be a Part of Me
by L. Alves


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental or has been done firmly within the bounds of parody and fair use. Edited by James Wylder, James Hornby & Aristide Twain Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain Cover by Leela Ross Logo design by Lucas Kovacs Concepts Used with Permission: Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press Coloth © Simon Bucher-Jones WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc. SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane Yssgaroth © Neil Penswick C.R.U.X © Aristide Twain Lady Aesculapius, Blanche Combine, Jhe Sang Mi © James Wylder 
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A banquet for Beasts by James Wylder

10/13/2025

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She’d literally been in a car crash, and fought a giant vampire with sword in hand, but no; this was the thing that had her so scared her legs were trembling. This. Her mom would be laughing at her.

“Oh, come on, just get on the boat.”

She shook her head, rapidly. “No thank you. I mean, people used to go on boats, but Blackbeard was a pirate then!”

Chris sighed. “People used boats long after Blackbeard died.”

“Not on Gongen!”

“What, are there no oceans or lakes on Gongen—oh.” Suddenly Chris got it, and his demeanor softened. “You really haven’t been on a boat before, have you? Sorry, I don’t know, I just sort of assumed.”

She squinted. “Is it safe, like, you can’t see the bottom of the water, and what if I fall off?”

“You can just swim to shore!” Chris said cheerily. Then the next thought hit him. “You uh, can swim right?”

She shook her head rapidly a second time.

“Oh. Really? They don’t teach you that at school?”

“Where do you think my family would go to swim? The desert? Do you know how expensive a swimming pool is on a desert planet?”

“There’s an artificial beach, right? Don’t you take school trips there?”

She held a look at him.

“Right, okay. Well with the life vest, you’ll float on top of the water if you fall off, and it’s a sturdy boat! I inspected it myself.” He sighed. “Wish I could have grabbed the Vicinity II.”

She put a foot out, and touched it on the hull of the boat.

It jiggled slightly and she immediately pulled back. “I’m telling you Chris, this amount of water is not normal. Humans were not meant to be on boats; they should be in their natural habitats—big glass domes.”

Chris looked over the side of the boat and watched the fishes swimming around below them.” If you get in the boat you can pick dinner tonight, anything you want.” He turned his eyes back to her; she was clearly chewing on that.

“…Even cheonggukjang jjigae?”

He would simply have to accept this loss. “Even cheonggukjang jjigae.” He didn’t quite hide his dreariness at the idea, or his queasiness just thinking of its pungent aroma, but his willingness to go that far despite all that seemed to sell her on getting past her own discomfort. She reached her foot out, pulled it back. Reached out, pulled back, and then finally set it in the boat, which wobbled, and caused her to wobble too.

She yelped as she lost her balance, and Chris was quick to catch her, helping her down onto the seat on the rowboat. She clutched the sides of the boat cautiously and looked over the edge into the water. “And you’re sure it’s safe?”

He unmoored the boat and pushed off. “We’ll be fine.”

They started rowing. Chris felt his worries slide away, the calming waters and the gentle sunlight letting him feel a peace he hadn’t felt in ages, while Sang Mi repeatedly grabbed a hold of things, and whispered a long prayer apologizing for everything she had done wrong in the last few months.

Eventually, she calmed down (a bit) and while still tense, was able to look around. “So… The Beast of Busco? From the picture in the book, it just looks like a big turtle.”

“That’s ‘cause it’s a big turtle.”

Sang Mi nodded slowly, then caught herself on the side of the boat again. “I know we’re looking for aliens and cryptids and mysteries, but what if it’s like… just a big turtle?”

Chris shrugged. “What’s the biggest turtle you’ve ever seen?”

“…Size of a pie plate at the pet shop.”

“This would be a lot bigger, so at the very least, we’ll be seeing something new.”

“Honestly, this is something new enough. I never thought I’d be on a boat.”

His smile was as gentle as the sunlight. “So not so bad?”

“No so bad,” she agreed.

The sun got lower, until it was a golden-orange crest on the horizon. At that point, Sang Mi had actually gotten calm, and had gotten comfortable enough she was letting her fingertips trace the water’s surface.

That was when they saw it.

At first, it was a small stream of bubbles. Then the water rippled, and then a head poked out of the water, along with the top of a huge shell. It was indeed a very large snapping turtle. Though perhaps not exactly one, its features were a little more… prehistoric, perhaps?

Sang Mi looked over at Chris, her face glowing with an open-mouthed smile. He returned it. It was indeed wonderful. Neither spoke, for fear of disturbing it. It was good enough just to see it. It lifted its jaw up and sniffed the air.

Then the noise came.

The pair looked over—coming towards the lake was a black helicopter. Sang Mi pulled up her binoculars, and tried to focus in the dusk.

“…E… D.E.M. Oh damn it—Chris, it’s those guys who did the child kidnapping in Violethill?”

Cursing, Chris stood up, unbalancing the boat and causing Sang Mi to curl up clutching the bench, waving his arms and yelling: “Go back under water! Shoo! Shoo!”

He pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket, and hurled them into the water with a plop, “SHOO!”

The Beast was spooked, and went under the water, and they both deflated in relief. Which was short lived, as things began to drop out of the helicopter into the water.

Things that exploded.

They hit the surface with a splash, then sank for just long enough it seemed like nothing would happen. But then huge bursts came up in columns as they exploded under the surface, sending waves out in all directions. The boat rolled and Sang Mi yelped as she was thrown overboard. Chris held on, but this wasn’t as useful as he hoped as the boat kept rolling and capsized, his head bobbing up above the water into the overturned hull.

He took a deep breath, and swam down and out from under the boat, rising to the surface. He scanned the water, seeing Sang Mi floating safely (if panicked) in her life-vest, and on the shore a group of black SUVs and a huge flatbed truck. The SUVs were pulling on metal cords that sank into the water, which quickly turned into a net holding a huge snapping turtle, crying out in pain. It thrashed against the net, trying to break free, bellowing to the sky as armed E.D.E.M agents shot it over and over with tranquilizers, the SUVs dragging it up the ramp on to the truck as it screamed.
“We have to help it!” Sang Mi yelled, trying to figure out how to swim towards it in real time.

Chris gritted his teeth. “We will. I promise.”

* * *

Getting to shore was difficult, but worse: it was time-consuming. By the time they’d reached land, they were both exhausted, soaked, and their targets had long since driven away. If time weren’t an issue, they’d have stopped for the evening right then and there. But instead, they changed into new clothes quickly in the Honda, and Chris gave Sang Mi an important job.

“You’re still good with computers, right? You can still do hacking and—” he waggled his fingers over her laptop, “—fancy tech stuff?”

She nodded. “I mean, I didn’t lose the ability. The operating systems are different here, but that doesn’t stop me from using my ultimate skill.”

Chris furrowed his brow. “Okay. Cause we need to find where they took Oscar.”

“Oscar?”

“The local nickname for the creature.”

She nodded, and instead of opening her laptop pulled her phone out, searched for a few things, then pulled up a phone number, and called.

“Hello, Mr. Johnson? Haha, yes. This is Grace from tech support, it looks like we’ve seen some unusual activity from your account. I’d like to take a look if you don’t mind. It’s nice to talk to someone with such a strong voice on these calls, it’s really—oh you run marathons? I might have guessed you were muscular. Could I get your num—I mean your password, haha, so I can check the issue on my end?”

She said it all with a completely emotionless expression. 

“Well, I guess that’s hacking,” Chris mumbled.

* * *

They followed the address Sang Mi had gotten, and as she read internal emails from E.D.E.M out loud, they were both intrigued by the idea that there was a secret meeting taking place where they were going to, and also annoyed at the sheer ineptitude of the people writing the emails.

“A lot of these read like a guy who won’t leave you alone after you told him to go away,” Sang Mi said.

“Yeah, that’s their target recruitment demographic,” Cwej said unironically.

“I sort of assumed they’d be like… smarter? Is that rude? Elitist?”

Chris shook his head as he squeaked a tight turn. “Nah. You just feel like bad guys should have an evil plan that makes sense. I get that. It’s nice to believe, that there’s some sort of hidden meaning to it all. But a lot of the time, bad guys aren’t motivated by brilliance. They’re boring bullies who just like being bullies.”

Sang Mi frowned, and looked out the window at the darkening sky. “That’s disappointing.”

“Say more.”

“It… makes the world feel hollow?”

Chris took one hand off the wheel and put it on her shoulder, which he was clearly surprised he had done and caused the car to do a little squiggle on the road. “Someone else’s life feeling hollow doesn’t mean yours is.”

She smiled, and then looked down at her phone. “Thanks Ch—WAIT TURN RIGHT.”

* * *

They drove past their destination, and parked in a field behind some trees. They had seen what it was, and while they had been prepared for most things, they had assumed they had been prepared for anything, but they had not in fact been prepared for ‘generic Italian restaurant’. They trudged through the underbrush, and poked their heads out, Sang Mi using her binoculars to read out the ’restaurant closed for special event’ sign.

“I can see some of the guests going in. Maybe my phone can recognize them?” She awkwardly zoomed in and snapped a picture. “Maurice Gibbons, owner of… child sweatshops in three countries? What the heck?”

Chris rubbed his nose. “Well, if this is what it looks like, and they’re taking Oscar into a restaurant kitchen…”

Sang Mi felt her whole body go cold. “We have to rescue him!”

“We will. I promise. Who else do you see?”

She snapped another picture, and waited a moment. “Search says… Janette Coolidge. Escaped conviction for poisoning two-thousand of her workers through unsafe practices that resulted in cancer … are all of them like this?”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “That’s the clientele here. Beasts, all of them.”

Sang Mi nodded. “So how do we want to play this, I mean we can’t just walk in?”

“Oh, we can just walk in, just not through the front. There was a convenience store down the road, right?”

Sang Mi’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I get you.”

* * *

Manuel wiped his hands off and went to the back door where the knocking had not let up. He swung it open. “Yeah?”

There was a tall white man and an Asian teenage girl there, each carrying cases of cheap Seven Veils Beer stacked on each other.

“Where should we put it?” asked the man.

“We weren’t expecting any delivery?”

The man sighed. “Look I can show you the order on my phone, it’s not my problem what you do with it.”

Manuel hesitated, and then heard Mr. Mitchell yell for him to get back to prepping the salads. Whatever, he wasn’t being paid enough to figure this out. “Whatever, look, just uh, put ‘em in the storage room, it’s down the hall to the left, says storage room on the door.”

“Right, got it,” he put his foot in the door to keep it open. “Come on then,” he said to the girl, who shuffled along behind him.

Manuel went back to the kitchen, and got back to salad prep, trying to ignore the giant turtle in the middle of the room. Nina nudged him. “Hey, uh, do you know what’s up with the turtle? They’re not usually that big, right?”

The turtle looked at them through the cage, the muzzle around its mouth straining for a moment as if it wanted to answer.

“Just ignore it, that’s part of the job.”

“What if it’s like, endangered? Won’t we get in trouble?”

He went over and grabbed another bag of lettuce, “We’re already in trouble or we wouldn’t be working here.”

“But—”

“HEY,” the other white man, the balding one in the tuxedo at the back, yelled from his folding chair. “Could you keep it down, I’m trying to get ready back here.”

They shut up and worked in silence.

“God, seven billionaires in the audience and they can’t even give me a goddamn green room…”

He leaned back, shaking his head.

“Hey, sweet cheeks, yeah, you, by the ugly guy. Why don’t you come back here and gimme a kiss?”

Nina ignored him.

“I’m talking to you sweetheart. I was on the billboard charts, you know.” He patted his lap. “Come on, take a break.”

Nina’s lip was trembling. Manuel tried to decide what he should do. How bad did he want this job? He knew that hesitating here made him a coward. But he’d been through worse.

“HEY. You can’t talk to her that way!” the girl who’d come in earlier said, storming up to Mr. Tuxedo.

He stood up. “Who the hell are you?”

She poked him in the chest. “I’m the person telling you to leave her alone.”

He scowled. “I’m getting Gerry—you’re all going to be fired; you don’t get to disrespect me like this.” He threw his arms out. “I was on the Billboard charts! Who do you think you are!?”

“You can’t talk to her that way!” the blond man said as he stormed out from the back.”

“People keep saying that but I sure can, I can say whatever I want.”

“I have no idea who you are,” the girl said, blandly.

He moved to shove her, and the blond man instinctively clocked him in the jaw. He tumbled over and hit the tiled floor.

All work stopped. All eyes turned to the scene.

“Uhhh,” the girl said.

Manuel rushed to the man, checking his pulse. He was out cold, but he’d be fine. He looked up at the pair of interlopers from where he was squatted over the now unconscious MC. “What the hell are we supposed to do, he’s supposed to go out there in five minutes introducing the main dish.” He pointed at the turtle.

“There’s Oscar!” the girl said. “Well, that’s a mystery solved.”

“Main dish isn’t good,” the blond man mumbled.

Manuel looked around, “Anyone ever been on stage? Know how to sing?”

The girl looked at the man, who shrugged, and she turned back to him unsure. “I’ve done standup comedy—oh, and I was in a TV show once, but that’s…”

“Good enough. Nina, get her into one of the tuxes in the back.”

“But—” the girl and man said in unison.

“NO BUTS, you’re on as soon as you’re dressed.” He picked the script up off the floor and shoved it into her hands. “Get reading.”

* * *

Sang Mi stumbled out, then forced herself into a faux-confident stride. The tux didn’t fit, but it had been pinned so that it looked like it was hand tailored. That didn’t make it comfortable. She’d barely had time to look at the script, so she’d be winging most of this.

She looked at Oscar, who looked back at her with what she was probably projecting was a sad hope.

“Don’t worry lil guy, we’ll get you out of here,” she whispered to him, before raising her microphone, and as the band started to play strode up to the microphone smiling and waving like she was supposed to be there.

“How are we doing tonight?” There was applause. People always applauded when you asked that, like clapping was words. “Wonderful, wonderful. Great to be here in beautiful Churubusco Indiana. Uh,” she pulled the microphone off the stand, and wandered around the front, gesturing finally at a group of men at a table. “And where are you folks visiting from this evening?”

“Florida!” one yelled.

“Idaho!” another chimed in.

“I’m from here…” a third said meekly.

She shrugged. “Wow, travelled a long way.” That got a laugh, somehow. “So, what do you boys do?”

“We’re uh, E.D.E.M agents,” one said.

“Well, I knew that,” she said, as convincingly as she could manage under the circumstances. “Have any hobbies?”

“Uhhh…”

She moved on. “And I hear we have some very special guests this evening!” She scanned the room looking for the people who thought they were special. “Ah, there we go, round of applause please! We’re so honored you’re here!” Whoever you are!

A man and woman, the man with the air of a politician, stood up and waved, and a group of other men at a table stood but didn’t wave and looked a little more awkward about the whole thing.

“Lovely, lovely. I’m your host tonight, Sang Mi Jhe. You might know me from uh… stuff.” She was running out of steam and so was relieved when a voice came in over the intercom. “Everyone rise for the singing of the national anthem.”

“Oh, thank god,” she mumbled, and started right in.

“Glory to Gongen, you shall live forever
your people who love you will stand by your side
to live and to serve you, to fight and defend you,
through war and through peace we will stand tall with pride!
Forever live Shocho!
Long live the Gongen people!
We’ll beat the Earthers back once and for all
From Phobos to Deimos shining bright
to Olympus Mons at its proud height
Gongen forever, we fight for you!”

Everyone expected her to stop, like it was a gag, but she was getting really into it and barreled right into the next verse.

* * *

They shoved Sang Mi out on stage, and as soon as he’d waved her off and given her a double thumbs up as she and Oscar, now laying tied to a giant silver platter, disappeared past the curtain, Chris pushed past the staff, opening door after door.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” Manuel said, tailing him.

He shoved another door open. “Looks like I can.”

“No, you don’t understand—”

He tried the next door. It didn’t open. “Ah, there we go. That’s what I’m looking for.” He squatted down and inspected the lock. “You know, normally I’d just break this, but my friend there taught me a special technique, an original from the hacker Kalingkata.” He winked, and reached into his pocket and pulled out… a screwdriver.

He then proceeded to unscrew the lock mechanism from the door.

Manuel was so surprised he just stood there, blinking away.

The door opened up, and from rows of cages and tanks, animals looked up at them—strange herd animals the color of red sand called Morning Star Cows—a singular detached llama foot that nonetheless turned to face them—blue animals called caffalumps, with too many legs, looking something like a camel mixed with an elephant—a singular timefish in a tank—a two-headed purple lizard with gills—even a beautiful half-humanoid being with long brown hair, wearing a sports-bra; its bottom half was made of a serpent’s tail and… a lot of dog heads?

Then from the back, a woman called in a faintly French accent from where she was hanging upside down from the ceiling. “Hello there, might I bother you for a rescue? The blood is going to my head.”

* * *

There was faint confused applause after Sang Mi finished the entire Gongen National Anthem.

A voice came over the intercom. “And now for uh… the actual national anthem?”

Sang Mi mumbled a curse and pulled her phone out. She’d have to wing this one.

To her credit, she hit most of the notes.

* * *

Chris rushed forward, and cut the woman down, then got to work severing her bonds. The half-woman half-monster creature watched closely from the cage next to them.
Rubbing her wrists and ankles, the tied-up woman gave him a smile. “Thanks, who knew this one would go so sideways. You’re Cwej, right? I recognize the face from my training.”

He startled, “You do?”

With her hands now free, she pulled a badge from within her bosom. “Odette Caron, from C.R.O.I.X.—that is, C.R.U.X., in English.”

It was such a bizarre occurrence he really had no reason to doubt it. “And why is someone from a French research institute studying alien lifeforms operating in Indiana?”

She gestured at the animals, and the glowering half-woman. “We can’t have private individuals destroying live specimens just for their own, sick amusement. It’s immoral and it’s un-scientific. Besides, this is against international law—and interplanetary law as far as we know it. Aliens have threatened to wipe Earth out for less than this.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong. “So, are they really… eating all these creatures?”

She nodded, disgust washing over her face. “It’s barbarism, plain and simple. And E.D.E.M is running it, so no one stops them. When they decided they were going to eat Scylla, no one questioned whether we had to step in.”

Chris looked over at the cage. The half dog-serpent woman waved, menacingly.

“… The man-eating creature from the Odyssey? The one that attacked Odysseus and his men?”

“The very same,” Scylla said.

“Ah,” Chris concluded lamely.

A voice called out from the doorway: “Monsters and aliens don’t have rights, and we can eat them if we want to.” He was a surprisingly young man for the authority he clearly carried, with an aura of haughtiness that seemed to radiate out from him, his hair in a lazy buzzcut, his suit expensive but badly tailored. Behind him stood a pair of armed guards in full tactical gear.

Odette’s scowl deepened. “May I introduce Mark Ronaldson, the head of E.D.E.M.”

“DIRECTOR Mark Ronaldson!!!” he screamed back, stomping his foot. “The President gave me a title! It’s my title! I’m important! Use it!” He pulled out his own gun, with its safety.

Chris tried to put on his most diplomatic tone, holding up one hand peacefully.

“Okay, no one has to die here, we can talk—”

“Shut up!” Director Ronaldson screamed back. “None of you are walking out of here alive!”

Chris sighed. He had wanted to end this in a way that he could brag to Charles about later, but well, necessity called. He pulled out the screwdriver. “No need for introductions. You should really buy better doors, these things really are embarrassingly cheap,” he sighed again, as he unscrewed the lock mechanism from the cage door. “Not that you’ll probably get a chance to use that advice.”

Scylla pushed the door open, and gave an ear shattering scream as she launched herself at Mark Ronaldson, who didn’t need his introduction anymore as various bits of him splattered the wall. Odette quickly began opening the other cages—the caffalumps reared on their legs out of their cages and charged the wall. The sound of machine-gun fire briefly occurred, only to be silenced with the wet sound of meat being ripped by teeth.

Chris and Odette shared a look of relief, and then a terrible thought struck Chris: Sang Mi was still on-stage.

* * *

“The Beast of Busco, what a wonderful creature. Sure would be a shame to eat it huh?” The audience looked back at her awkwardly. “Wow, tough crowd!” she said; a desperate attempt to recover that worked better than she expected as some people actually laughed. “We’re uh, waiting for our special guest to return before we send Oscar here back to the kitchen—”

“JUST GET ON WITH IT!” the senator called from the back. “They have to butcher and cook the damn thing, he’ll be back by then.”

The sound of screams and machine gun fire echoed from the back.

“…All part of the show folks, all part of the show…” She edged back over to Oscar, and began to hastily start pulling off his restraints and muzzle.

People began to rise from their seats, some beelining for the exit, some coming up towards the stage asking what was going on, to see a manager, or saying she’d never work in this town again, etc. Guards, some in suits, some in tactical gear, also were rushing forward.

She ignored them, and focused on getting Oscar free. The last restraint came loose, and he gave a great bellow of freedom, as through the curtains a half-woman, half-serpent-and-dogs person came barreling through. Hugging Oscar’s side, she gave the monster-woman a thumbs up, and Oscar leaned into her protectively.

The woman seemed to accept this, and moved on quickly—leaping from the stage into the audience, her many dog heads biting, her tail lashing, her eyes filled with rage.

The guards lined up by the left wall raised their guns, only for the wall to collapse on top of them as great blue beasts charged in, stomping their way through the crowd. A strange, eyeless fish leapt from the gap; a woman caught hold of its tail, only to turn into a baby, and then an old woman, and finally a skeleton. Something that looked like a llama foot flew out and went for a man’s jugular. Still more creatures followed. 

But Sang Mi had stopped looking, and focused on guiding Oscar off stage. “We uh… well, don’t worry about all that, big guy. Let’s get you home.”

He gave an affirmative bass noise.

As they pushed through the curtains, through the small backstage, and back into the kitchen, she saw a relieved Chris who was already running towards her.

“We’re okay!” she said. “Granted, a lot of people are not okay, but me and Oscar are!”

“That’s all that matters,” Chris said. Then paused. “Don’t tell Charles I said that.”

Sang Mi gave a thumbs up, and they both looked at Odette. “Who is she?”

“Odette Caron. She’s like… from the French SIGNET, if that makes sense.”

“Sorta,” Sang Mi replied.

“Hello there! And don’t worry, I’m perfectly fine with letting Scylla do her thing,” Odette said, mimicking Sang Mi’s thumbs up.

Chris awkwardly also gave a thumbs up, all three of them in the same pose as they stood in silence while horrific noises came from the room beyond.

“E-excuse me,” Manuel said, poking his head out from where the kitchen staff had apparently been hiding behind an overturned steel table. “Are we, uh…”

“On the menu? Nah,” Chris tried to casually wave the concerns out of the air.

“What should we do, the owner was out there in the crowd…”

Odette smiled, which was a little awkward with the background noise. “Don’t worry, we’ll get things cleaned up, you won’t have anything pinned on you. Oh, they’re probably worried about their jobs!”

“Are they?” Sang Mi asked quietly.

“We’ll make sure one of you gets the deed transferred to you. Any volunteers?”

Manuel bit his lip for a moment. “It should be Nina.”

Everyone else seemed to agree with that.

“Great! Well once things get settled down, we’ll iron this all out.”

Chris and Sang Mi raised their thumbs up again, and everyone settled in.
 
* * *

“E.D.E.M is getting an entirely new leadership, as it appears the director and every department head have resigned to spend more time with their families. None of them could be reached for comment, despite repeated attempts by our reporting staff. Concerns that this new leadership were even less experienced than the last set were quashed by officials, who said everything is fine and to not ask questions. Senator Griffith described their resignation as a tragedy, but refused to explain why his arm was in a cast, nor why spending more time with their families was tragic.

“In other news, the return of missing students in Violetthill Illinois—”

Manuel turned the radio off. “Enough of that. Who is on the grill?”

“Sorry!” Maria rushed back over to it.

He shook his head. “We have to get things ready for the investor today, Nina won’t like it if—”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, your funding is secure.” All eyes turned to the woman speaking, who had entered in through the back. He thought they’d fixed the locks; oh well. She was dressed head to toe in black, with a veil covering her face. In one hand she held a gold birdcage that was covered by a burgundy cloth. She was flanked by a pair of bodyguards in suits and sunglasses. She extended a hand, “Sal H., your new investor.”

He shook it. “A pleasure, if you’ll—”

“Like I said, your funding is secure. On the condition you tell me all about the visit Chris Cwej and Sang Mi paid here. I have a lot of questions.”

He swallowed—something about her gave him the creeps. But he’d do it for Nina.

 * * *

The three of them, Odette, Sang Mi, and Chris, sat in the rowboat watching Oscar paddle around.

“A beautiful creature. You did a good thing rescuing him—and rescuing me, for the record,” Odette said. “Why are you here, anyway; you didn’t seem to know I’d be here?”

“Oh, we’re…” Chris fumbled around for a moment, and then decided being honest was better than the awkward silence. “We’re going to an auction. It’s in the Blue Ridge Mountains.”

Odette’s eyes lit up. “Ah, we at the Conservatoire have heard of it. It’s famous, and exclusive. You’re lucky to attend.”

Sang Mi looked down into the water, her face solemn. “Isn’t it kind of odd? We get a letter from Salome, she sends us on a road trip, and we start running into creatures and monsters and people from organizations with acronyms for names? And we even ran into someone from the Odyssey after we named our car that! Isn’t that all just… too co-incidental?”

Chris had considered this, but had written it off as needless worry. “We’re just trying to spend as much time together as we can before I have to send you back. I don’t think there’s anything more to all this.”

Sang Mi nodded, but he could tell she didn’t believe him.

“Oh, look!” Odette called. He turned to see Oscar diving under the water, and then leaping out from it, high into the air in a joyous burst, before splashing back down.

“Well, whatever, even if it was messy we saved the day,” Sang Mi said.

“Sure did,” Chris replied. And he meant it.
​
They stayed there till the sun set, and then parted ways with Odette. The road awaited them, and who knew what they’d see next. 

​Next Stop:
Rodney Didn't Help Him
by Xavier Llewellyn


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Edited by James Wylder and James Hornby
Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain
Logo design by Lucas Kovacs
Concepts Used with Permission:
Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press
WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc.
SIGNET and Charles Zoltan © James Hornby
Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane
Murder Llamas © Plum Pudding
Gongen National Anthem by Jo Smiley
C.R.U.X., the Morning Star, Morning Star Cows, Timefish © Aristide Twain
Caffalumps © Molly Warton
Blue Candle Coffee Company, E.D.E.M, Jhe Sang Mi © James Wylder

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The Search for Francis Bilge by Theta Mandel

10/13/2025

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Picture

The Search for Francis Bilge
​by Theta Mandel

Chris Cwej was getting wary of rest stops.
​
He and Sang Mi had been on the road for days now, covering the same stretch of land, over and over. At least, that’s what it felt like—there was no variety, nothing to mark the miles save an ever-increasing milometer and a litany of Are we nearly there yets. Even the rest stops looked the same—after days on end of such monotony, Cwej was desperate for even the slightest hint at something new. Rest stops were meant to break from the boredom, but alas, even they were all identical. Really rather the opposite of what they were supposed to be—Cwej found that made them hard to trust.

Sliding back into the car—a 2007 Honda Element that gave new meaning to the term ‘rundown’—he turned to his travelling companion, Sang Mi.

“Hey, come on, are you sure you don’t want to stretch your legs before we set off again? I don’t know how long it’ll be before we get another chance.”

Sang Mi shrugged. She was staring out the window, which felt sad, because even if there wasn’t much else to do on this kind of road trip, not even trying to pretend otherwise somehow made it worse. Cwej slapped his hands down on the driver’s seat, making her jump.

“Come on! Earth to Sang Mi!”

“Huh? Oh, no, it’s fine. Let’s just get going.”

Cwej sighed, then glanced back at the rest stop. “The little shop has candy.”

“Oh-okay-I-guess-I’ll-stretch-my-legs-for-just-a-minute-if-you-insist!” Sang Mi’s quick string of words bounded out of her mouth faster than Cwej could follow. By the time he worked out what she’d said, she was already entering the shop. 

It didn’t take the pair long to grab some snacks, Sang Mi already munching down on some chocolate by the time they reached the register. A bored twenty-something with spiky neon green hair stood behind the till, watching as Cwej fumbled around for his wallet inside his bag. They sighed as he began shaking out the bag’s contents, tipping out various odds and ends all over the counter, mumbling all the while about his wallet “Being in here somewhere”. Sang Mi continued to eat her chocolate.

“Look, I need some form of payment—cash, card, either is fine. Though we don’t take amex,” the cashier told him as he shook a metal sphere out of the bag. Defying all known laws of physics, it stubbornly bounced on the counter, and then right over the side, disappearing into thin air. The cashier didn’t raise an eyebrow. They worked at a gas station shop in the middle of nowhere—it was hardly the most unusual thing they’d seen in the last few days. At least this one wasn’t trying to bring a crocodile into the store. “You can pay with your phone, if that’s easier.”

“Aha!” Cwej exclaimed, and triumphantly presented a blackberry. He held it out towards the cashier, then frowned, looking down at the phone. “Uh, how exactly do I do that?”

“They mean a smartphone,” Sang Mi supplied, and Cwej swore before sliding the phone back into his pocket.

“Right, right… Look, okay, I’m really sorry, but, I think I’ve lost my wallet.” He stood there, panicking, as if he didn’t face deadly danger on a daily basis and losing his wallet really was the end of the world. The cashier sighed again.

“Look, usually I’d just say to put everything back, but, your friend there has already eaten several items,” Sang Mi was indeed breaking into a fruit-and-nuts snack pack as they spoke, “so, I don’t really know what to do. I’m probably supposed to call the cops —” Sang Mi dropped her snack pack. “—but you both seem innocent enough, and… I’m not a snitch. Look, no one else has come in all day—I’ll let you take the snacks, say they got lost, if you just make my day a bit more interesting.”

Sang Mi, who had picked up her snack pack and moved to help Cwej with his attempts to cram everything back into his bag. “How?”

The cashier shrugged. “Up to you. I’m just really bored of everything being the same, day in, day out. Maybe you can change that, even if it’s just for a few minutes.”

Cwej smiled. “I know how you feel.” He glanced down at the piece of paper he had been trying to fit in his bag, and then handed it to the cashier. He squinted to read their nametag. “Okay then, Lance, how about a story? I’m Chris Cwej, and this is my friend, Sang Mi. For the last couple weeks, I’ve been her teacher at a high school in Illinois. We saw a lot of strange things at that high school, but perhaps nothing as strange as what we uncovered during her final theater project…”

​* * *

"The Search for Francis Bilge"


​Junior theater club end of spring semester final project. Task: create your own short film. Students: Megan Grabowski, Sarah Jhe, Martha Sandalwood. Assessor: Mr. Cwej.
Of all the local legends that the students of Hughes High have grown up with, none is more intriguing than the tale of Francis Bilge, our very own school founder. Very little is known about the man, his reclusive nature and desire for privacy becoming not only legendary, but infectious—each of his predecessors follow in his footsteps, anonymising themselves until they disappear entirely. Our own headmistress, Ms. Suenne, remains unseen, not even having a photograph on our school brochure! So, we chose to explore this mystery in our film, “The Search for Francis Bilge”, as it is one that is close to our hearts, and has an effect on our lives to this day.

​With Martha as our camerawoman, Sarah taking the lead on research, and Megan on production, we worked together to create a short documentary about three schoolgirls’ attempts to locate that great figure of mystery—the man who created their school. We used a Canon EOS DSLR camera, Adobe for editing, and our school library, council records, teachers’ memories, and other sources for our information, as detailed in the attached ’sources’ doc. The raw footage and the final video are on the USB stick in the attached envelope.

Although our group had differing opinions on how best to present the story, we were able to overcome these through discussion, and compromised by including elements of each of our ideas. For example, Martha wanted to focus on the terror of someone who had such a lasting impact going missing so completely, so we started the documentary with a voiceover similar in tone to a ‘true crime’ report. Sarah wanted to get to the truth of what really happened to Bilge, rather than focusing on the impact, so she played the part of investigator and led the audience through the research we were doing around the mystery. Megan was more concerned about the pacing, so we made sure to include action shots at appropriate moments.

Creating this short film has taught us about teamwork, camerawork, and the effort that goes into making a film. 

What Went Well: We were able to balance everyone’s ideas fairly through frequent discussions.

Even Better If: Next time, we would spend longer in the editing stage, to make sure that our final product is fully cohesive in tone.

We hope you enjoy our exploration of the greatest mystery our school has ever known.

‘ ‘ ‘ click play to continue’ ’ ’
 
Fading in from black, a black-and-white shot of the school door, which slowly pans out to show the rest of the school as MARTHA begins speaking.
 
MARTHA (VOICEOVER)
In 1964, a man named Francis Bilge opened the doors of his home on Darmire Road, Violethill, to the children of the local area. His former students claim that he had some prior teaching experience, though we could find no records of this held in the council archives. In fact, there are no records of anything to do with the man… It’s almost as if he has been erased…
 
The video takes on color, the sounds of traffic becoming louder. A very modern-looking car zooms past the school, and MEGAN, a brown-haired girl about seventeen years old, walks into frame, followed by SARAH, a girl with short black hair around the same age. They stop in the middle, and MEGAN stares into the camera.
 
MEGAN
Here we stand today, students of what was once Bilge’s school, and we barely know a thing about him, including why he stepped down as headmaster, or what became of him after leaving Hughes High. Journey with us today as we try to uncover the truth behind Francis Bilge’s disappearance.
 
The camera shakes slightly as its holder, MARTHA, nods at MEGAN, who then spreads her arms wide before the school. SARAH takes a step forward, and the camera zooms in on her face --
 
SARAH
Whatever that may be.
 
Fade to black, then to a porch door, on which SARAH knocks. Cut to --
 
OLD WOMAN
He was a good teacher, all things considered. A bit gruff, but, very memorable. Had all sorts of little tricks to help us learn.
 
A banner appears at the bottom of the screen: MIRIAM, seventy, former student of Francis Bilge.
 
SARAH (OFF-SCREEN)
And, did you ever notice anything strange about him?
 
MIRIAM
Well, he kept to himself, that’s for sure. Never knew a thing about him. Though, there was one thing…
 
The image stills, and SARAH’s voice can be heard.
 
SARAH
We talked to several of Bilge’s students, and they all said similar things about his teaching style, personality, and one other thing…
 
We see different people, all in their seventies or older, with their names and the note that they were former students of Bilge’s appearing on banners as they spoke.
 
GEORGE
He was my first teacher. Because of his lessons, I was able to get into a proper high school.
 
LOUIS
Even though I was a weird kid, didn’t exactly fit into the norms, he never made me feel like an outsider. That was something I didn’t get from many other teachers.
 
KELLY
It was harder for girls back then in areas like this to get a proper education. He didn’t just teach me the basics—he taught proper algebra, history with real sources, the works. I’d never have been able to go to university if it weren’t for him. Not that he was there to support me through, by that time…
 
MIRIAM
Something I’ll always remember…
 
GEORGE
But, there was that one thing…
 
LOUIS
The thing none of us really brought up, even though we all knew it…
 
KELLY
I always wondered if he ever worked things out with that man.
 
SARAH (OFF-SCREEN)
What do you mean? What man?
 
KELLY
Well, there was this man who we’d sometimes see around his house, or talking to him in the garden. Well-dressed fellow.
 
GEORGE
I saw them together a lot.
 
LOUIS
They seemed real close, if you know what I mean… Though, I think they fought a lot. I could often hear them when I stopped by to deliver homework, arguing, all hushed and quiet, even when there was no-one else there. I always did wonder, you know, if we were outsiders in the same way. Their relationship certainly seemed… well…
 
GEORGE
Definitely a homo. Him and that other bloke.
 
SARAH
Do you know where we could find that other man now?
 
MIRIAM
Of course! He was on the local council at the time, half the town knew him—a Harry something. Harold Marsh, maybe? Something like that. The town hall’s probably got a picture of him, stuffed in one of those dreary offices, or at least some information about him, locked in a filing cabinet somewhere. I’m sure they’ll tell you all about him if you ask. Good luck, dearies—and, do tell Francis I asked after him if you find him, won’t you? I don’t know where I’d be without his lessons.
 
The camera zooms out to show several diplomas hanging behind Miriam’s head, as well as an educator’s license.
 
SARAH
Of course we will.
 
MEGAN and SARAH walk along a residential street.
 
MEGAN
Of course, the odds of finding Francis Bilge after all this time seem slim, but we’re determined to give it a go. Armed with our first real lead, we’re heading to the archives at City Hall for any information about our first headmaster’s alleged paramour.
 
Cut to: City Hall—it’s an ugly yellow building with modern grey automatic doors. MEGAN tries to push one of them, then looks embarrassed while she waits for it to open before confidently striding through. Inside --
 
MEGAN
Here we are, City Hall, home to records of death, birth, marriage, arrests, and so much more. We have already gone through the publicly available parts of the archives, looking for anything to do with Francis Bilge --
 
Cut to: SARAH, knelt by a low table, furiously flipping through piles and piles of paper. Images of increasing mounds of records piling up around her are superimposed onto one another, the old one fading out just as yet another stack of papers appears by her head. Dramatic classical music builds, and, at the crescendo—cuts back to City Hall, no music.
 
MEGAN
But, we were unsuccessful.
 
SARAH
However, last time, we were only looking for mentions of Bilge. Now, we have a new name to try.
 
Messy footage with intense background fuzz. SARAH’s question can barely be made out as she speaks to the figure behind the desk—a purple-haired lanky person with a name-badge pinned to their button-down. ’dEBS’.
 
SARAH
Hey, we’re here for information for a student film project—can you give us any information on a former councilman, Harold Marshal?
 
DEBS
Uh, yeah, I remember hearing about him from some of the councillors. There’s some public records about him—file room’s downstairs, first door on your left. Though actually, if you don’t mind coming back on Thursday, he --
 
Suddenly, the video cuts. When it returns, the audio is cleaner, and the camera is closer to DEBS.
 
DEBS
(a bit forced)
You are in luck! Harry Marshal, the man you seek, is in this very building today!
 
MARTHA
(from behind the camera, also forced)
Oh wow, it must be fate! Where can we find him?
 
Cut to: MEGAN, looking serious as she checks around her to make sure it’s only her, SARAH, and MARTHA, before sneaking exaggeratedly up to a nondescript door. Straightening, she knocks.
 
A VOICE FROM WITHIN
Come in.
 
They do. Inside is a man in a tweed suit, tidying up an office—he is old, though doesn’t appear old enough to have been a councilman in the 1960s. Despite this, his lanyard reads ‘HAROLD MARSHAL’. He glances towards the girls.
 
HARRY MARSHAL
Ah, you must be the students Debs told me about. I understand you want to know more about my time in the council? It’s wonderful to see you young ’uns taking an interest in local politics and history.
 
He smiles, perching on the edge of the table and leaning back.
 
HARRY MARSHAL
So, what did you want to ask me?
 
MEGAN
Well actually, we wanted to ask about a man you knew, back in the 60s. Does the name ‘Francis Bilge’ mean anything to you?
 
HARRY looks wistful for a moment, and then freezes. His eyes seem cold as he answers.
 
HARRY MARSHAL
I think you’d better leave.
 
The camera looks between SARAH and MEGAN’s confused faces then back at HARRY.
 
SARAH
We didn’t mean to offend, we were just curious --
 
HARRY MARSHAL
(almost shouting)
LEAVE! I have… things to attend to. If you’ll excuse me.
 
He quickly shepherds the trio out of the room, slamming the door. The camera focuses on that closed door, and we hear a cross between a scream and a sob before the screen fades to black. When we fade in again, we see MEGAN and SARAH, on a street.
 
MEGAN
After that strange reaction, we knew we were on the right track. We --
 
There is a cough from behind her.
 
MEGAN
— Sarah read through Marshal’s public records from City Hall, but what she found didn’t help much.
 
As SARAH speaks, various scans of documents like marriage licenses and property records appear on screen.
 
SARAH
While Bilge likely never married, the same could not be said of Marshal, who married a woman named Esther in the 1980s, though they didn’t live together for long. They divorced the day after same-sex marriage was legalized, and she remarried to a woman named Joan the following year. Considering the students’ stories, is it possible that Esther and Harold were mutual beards, pretending to be straight through marriage in order to hide their sexuality? With this in mind, it’s possible that --
 
SARAH looks at MEGAN, who gives her an encouraging nod. There’s a sigh from behind the camera before SARAH continues --
 
Marshal and Bilge were lovers, and Bilge’s disappearance was something more sinister than a man trying to escape from the public eye. Could it have been a lover’s spat with a horrible ending? Is it possible that we are about to uncover a decades-old murder? Despite the lack of fresh leads, we are more determined than ever to uncover the truth.
 
MEGAN
We’re journeying to the city library in order to read old transcripts of council meetings. Could Bilge’s disappearance be related to a dispute over something Marshal did in an official capacity? One thing is certain: we’re onto something, something big. And we can’t stop now.
 
Cut to SARAH flicking through pieces of paper with MEGAN leaning close by. The camera lens is adjusted, minutely, again and again, almost bored. MEGAN notices.
 
MEGAN,
(hushed but desperate)
Martha, do something!
 
Once again, the screen shows superimposed clips of SARAH slogging through mounds of research, against a classical music score. Suddenly, this jolts to a stop --
 
SARAH
I’ve found something!
 
The camera and MEGAN crowd around to see the papers SARAH is holding —- transcripts of a council meeting from 1978.
 
SARAH
I’ve found a few transcripts where Bilge and Marshal appear together—after the council gets wind of the school and starts to take it seriously, they talk about incorporating it into the city properly. Making it a public institution. Marshal argues it’s good because the school will get more funding, but Bilge always sounds… angry. Like he’s having something taken away. But, listen to this bit:
 
MARSHAL: I’m only doing what’s best for you.
BILGE: You don’t get to decide what’s best for me! You don’t know me, Harry.
MARSHAL: Of course I know you, and I know that with time, you’ll come around. But this school needs federal funding, and it needs it now. We can’t wait for you to come around—just skip the theatrics and do what’s right for your school.
BILGE: You dare make those kinds of assumptions about me and mine? Go ruin some other institution—take over another school. Build a new one if you have to, just, stay away from mine. This isn’t what I want. You don’t know me as well as you think you do.
MARSHAL: Frankie --
BILGE: Don’t. Just… don’t. The day the government gets its grubby hands on my school is the last day I’m ever seen in this town.
 
MEGAN
That… that sounds like he followed through on his promise. Maybe he really did choose to leave. Couldn’t bear to see his beloved institution of privacy turned into something so public.
 
MARTHA
But this way, more kids get to learn from the place he built. And, the headteachers still honor his legacy now—it’s not like what he was working for was all swept away.
 
SARAH
I don’t think it’s only about that. Back home, our schools are controlled by the government—which is miles better than ones who only let kids in who can pay to go, of course! But, the specific way the system is configured means our teachers and students aren’t free. We learn only what the people in power think we should be learning, and behave only the way we are told we must behave. That’s not freedom.
 
MEGAN
So, if Bilge just wanted to be free from surveillance, from judgement, from the law… where would he go? Sarah, did you find anything else?
 
SARAH
Wait, there’s something else… It might be nothing, but, in 1979, when the council was finalising its transfer of power over Hughes, an objector came into the town hall, and was dragged out after he was recognized.
 
MARTHA (OS)
(from behind the camera)
Wait, I thought the council got involved in the late Sixties?
 
SARAH
Yeah, that’s when they started to take notice of Bilge’s little operation, but they were convinced to stay pretty hands-off until around the time the school moved location, in 1975. And it looks like the man who was keeping them away was the same man who confronted the objector in 1979—one Councilman Harold Marshal.
 
MEGAN
Gasp!
 
MARTHA
Did you just. Did you just say the word ‘gasp’ --
 
MEGAN
This is it! This has to mean something! Look at the transcript --
 
She snatches a piece of paper away from SARAH, clears her throat, and begins to read.
 
MEGAN
COUNCILMAN HUGHES: Okay, any final comments on the upcoming school acquisition?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have a comment.
HUGHES: Alright, but, make it quick. Please state your name for the record.
AUDIENCE MEMBER (READING FROM NOTES): My name is Mr. Townsend, and I am a local resident who is thoroughly concerned about this acquisition. This school is currently a bastion of independent learning, unmarred by the fickle whims of the status quo. What that school teaches does not change based on the current administration’s beliefs—they teach the truth, whatever that happens to be, and they prepare young people for further education in a way that cannot be wholly entrusted to an increasingly corrupt and deceitful --
COUNCILMAN MARSHAL: Townsend? I know that name --
TOWNSEND:—government, which refuses to prioritize the real and immediate needs of its people, serving themselves and their party above --
MARSHAL: No, I know that voice! Francis Bilge, you have been banned from this hall, you cannot simply don a fake beard and expect us to listen to your unhinged ramblings!
“TOWNSEND”:—the constituents they are meant to be serving. And, it is with this in mind --
MARSHAL: Stop talking, Frankie, you’re embarrassing yourself.
“TOWNSEND”:—that I strongly oppose the --
MARSHAL: SECURITY!
 
MARTHA
Woah, that got out of hand.
 
SARAH
All of Bilge’s students said they were close… What happened? Could this be motive?
 
MEGAN
Wait, there’s more—it looks like the stenographer caught part of a conversation between Marshal and Bilge, after Bilge was dragged out of the meeting:
 
MARSHAL: I can’t believe you. And, this disguise, really? I’d recognize you anywhere, especially with that damn alias. I know you. I know you love that show. What were you going to tell us your first name was, Charlie?
BILGE: Didn’t expect to get that far.
MARSHAL: That’s your problem—you never think these things through. You see yourself as fighting for justice, but you’re really just fighting against progress. You’ll see—this’ll be good for the school. Could even be good for you. I can make your life better, if you let me.
BILGE: This isn’t what I want. I won’t stand for it.
MARSHAL: Well, you’ll have to, because the motion’s passing. Your school’s ours, Frankie.
BILGE: Don’t call me that. Not anymore.
MARSHAL: Frank --
BILGE: If you do this, don’t expect me to just stand here and watch. I won’t let this happen.
MARSHAL: And, when it does?
BILGE: I don’t expect to be around to see it.
MARSHAL: Frank --
BILGE: Goodbye, Harry.
 
MARTHA
Wow.
 
SARAH
Yeah.
 
MEGAN
Gay people were even more dramatic in the Seventies…
 
MARTHA
That’s homophobic, Megan.
 
MEGAN
I’m a lesbian, Martha.
 
MARTHA
Oh. Makes sense.
 
MEGAN
What?
 
MARTHA
All those carabiners you wear. I did wonder—good for you!
 
SARAH
Anyway, as touching as all this is, it sounds like we have a new lead.
 
MEGAN
What do you mean?
 
SARAH
Look there, at the top of the page—it gives descriptions of the people talking. And it says that our ‘Charlie Townsend’ had a bag with a pizza box sticking out of it. Look at the brand.
 
MEGAN
Volare. They’re on the high street—let’s move.
 
The girls are now entering Volare, an Italian restaurant. The sign above the door reads, “Proudly serving Violethill since 1964”. MEGAN strides confidently up to the counter.
 
MEGAN
Hello, we’re here looking for someone. Might’ve been a regular, a while back. Does the name ‘Bilge’ mean anything to you?
 
WOMAN BEHIND THE COUNTER
Uh, no, but I haven’t been here as long as my grandmother—let me get her for you.
 
She leaves, returning with an old lady, at least in her eighties.
 
VALENTINA
Hello, I’m Valentina, I’ve been here since this place first opened. Who are you looking for, lovelies?
 
MEGAN
Francis Bilge. It’s for a school project.
 
VALENTINA
Oh, how wonderful! But I’m afraid I can’t help you—no Bilge. I’d know.
 
MEGAN
That’s a shame. Thanks anyway.
 
SARAH
Wait, I’ve got another idea—Valentina, how about a Charles Townsend?
 
VALENTINA
Oh, yes, Charles! We get orders for him all the time. Delivers out to the middle of the woods. Impossible to get to, but my girls always find a way. No idea what he looks like, though.
 
SARAH
That’s alright, you’ve been a big help. I don’t suppose someone could show us where exactly he can be found?
 
Cut to: SARAH and MEGAN are trailing through the woods, their clothes dirty and covered in twigs.
 
MEGAN
I. Regret. Everything.
 
SARAH
Aren’t you excited? We must be close… There, just up ahead!
 
MEGAN
Yep, that sure is a creepy cabin.
 
SARAH
It’s exactly where the woman said it was. This is it, I can feel it!
 
The camera swivels to focus on her.
 
SARAH
The electricity, running through my veins… We’re finally going to find out the truth. He really might still be alive…
 
She finishes the hike up the door and raises her fist, ready to knock.
 
SARAH
You ready?
 
MEGAN nods, as does the camera.
 
SARAH
Then here. We. G--
 
There’s a small cut, probably just a glitch, and the camera swivels to show an OLD MAN, brandishing a rifle.
 
MAN
What are you doing here?? Damn kids—get off my property!!
 
SARAH
Wait, are you—Ahh!
 
The MAN shoots once, into the air, then levels the gun at SARAH.
 
MAN
I SAID, GET!
 
The girls shriek and start running. The camera drops, bumpily filming the forest floor, and the students’ laboured breathing is loud and clear as they race away from the cabin. Finally, some safe distance away, they stop and catch their breaths.
 
MEGAN
Could that have been him? Really, actually him?
 
MARTHA
No! You idiots, that was some wacko who was probably going to kill us! I don’t care how engrossed you are in this mystery—theater club isn’t worth dying for! We don’t even get a damn credit!
 
SARAH
I don’t care. I have to know! Aren’t you curious? Aren’t you excited? We are on the verge of uncovering something big!
 
MEGAN
Martha’s right, Sarah. Recent experiences have taught me to be more cautious—the only thing we’re on the verge of is being the subjects of our own missing person’s documentary. I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime. Come on, let’s go back.
 
SARAH
I’m sorry, I didn’t think… You shouldn’t have to risk yourselves just to satisfy my curiosity. You’re right—the tale of Francis Bilge ends here.
 
The camera fades out as the girls start walking back. The screen stays back for a few moments, then…
 
SARAH
(whispering)
Okay, it’s late now, and it’s just me. If I have to do this on my own, I will.
 
The camera swings to show the street ahead as SARAH walks. It’s dark out, and she’s wearing all black. She reaches the edge of the forest, and turns the camera back around to face herself.
 
SARAH
Whatever the cost.
 
For a while, she’s just picking her way through the leaves. It’s calm at night. Peaceful. Suddenly, she lets out a cry—the camera turns to show her leg tangled around some barbed wire.
 
SARAH
Shit, shit!
 
She struggles to pull it off, scraping her hands, until the sound of footsteps makes her stop.
 
OLD MAN
So, you didn’t listen.
 
The camera cuts to SARAH and the MAN sitting inside a log cabin, an empty box from Volare sitting by the lit fireplace.
 
MAN
Yes, I am Francis Bilge. I retired quietly many years ago to this little spot of land. It’s technically not under any council, and so I can do what I like here. This is my place. I miss the children, shaping young minds, but leaving was necessary—I had to escape, before it became impossible. You can’t just hide from the world anymore. You can’t be alone.
 
SARAH
Most people don’t want to be alone.
 
BILGE
Better than being trapped, believe me. But I’ve had a good life—I carve bug hotels now.
 
SARAH
Huh.
 
BILGE
What, there’s something wrong with bug hotels? You have a problem with a bug the size of your pinkie nail?
 
SARAH
No, no, of course not! I’m not feuding with bugs. I just thought, I don’t know… If you’ve spent all this time away from people, you might be starting to miss the company.
 
BILGE
Sometimes.
 
SARAH
You know, your school still honors your legacy. There’s over a thousand students now, and they’re taught the importance of privacy and anonymity—the headteachers set an example. There aren’t even any photos of the current head! I’ve never even seen her, only heard her voice. The school never moved on, Mr. Bilge—it’s still very much yours.
 
BILGE
Thank you, Sarah. If you hadn’t come here tonight, I never would have known all the good that managed to survive.
 
The video fades to be the walk back down the forest, and towards the school, as BILGE’s voice continues over the top.
 
BILGE
My goal when I started teaching the local children was simple: provide the education they just weren’t getting anywhere else. I was filling a niche, that’s all. But, as the years went by, I quickly realized that I had become something more for these children—a place of refuge from a propagandized world. I wasn’t just teaching them their letters and numbers; I was teaching them how to be themselves, individuals, without complying to the rules. I was teaching them how to be free.
 
I saw the way such tight documentation meant risk. It meant kids who just wanted to learn could be identified and ripped away because some politician decided they shouldn’t be there; meant people who wanted to live as themselves had a paper trail to their former lives; meant women couldn’t escape abusive situations. People knew too much about other people, could keep track… It’s dangerous. We need to learn how to help people hide… and how to stay hidden.
 
Having reached the school, the video fades to an image at the same angle in black-and-white, of the school from decades ago. Finally, words appear on the screen:
 
The search for Francis Bilge is over.
 
We will continue his legacy by making sure that this film is never seen by the public. This way, he can remain, forever,
 
Hidden.
 
‘ ‘ ‘ click restart to watch again’ ’ ’
As the screen faded to black, Cwej put his hands together and started clapping. “Woo, yeah, brilliant documentary! Well done! Though, Sang Mi,” he said, turning to the girl sitting on the sofa next to him, popcorn bowl in hand, “You may be able to fool other people, but you can’t fool me. I know you too well by now.”
​
Sang Mi put on her most innocent face, toying with an unpopped kernel absent-mindedly as she answered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If you were in real danger, I know you would have told me. And you definitely would have told him about the impact he had on his students, just like you promised, if that had been the real Bilge. Besides, your acting was good, but the editing was far from perfect—it couldn’t hide the glitches of cut footage. What really happened when you went into that cabin?” Cwej’s voice was stern; it was his best teacher’s voice. He was rather proud of it, and, after spending so much effort perfecting it, he was a little annoyed at the idea that he was unlikely to ever need it again.

Sang Mi sighed, but relented. “Fiiiinneee. Megan said the truth was too boring, so we roped Martha’s grandpa into playing Bilge. If you want to see what we found, the raw footage is there if you scroll through the drive—there was nothing. Totally empty, save for that pizza box, and an old encyclopedia. Probably just a squatter.” Her words came too fast, and her shrug was a little too practised. Cwej told her as much.

“Come on. You don’t really buy that. The girl who saw the same cat years apart and dropped everything to go chasing after it would never accept that it was ‘just a squatter’. What about the alias used to order the pizzas being the same one Francis Bilge used in that town hall? How would a squatter have known that?”

“Okay, yes, it is bothering me, but there’s nothing more I can do. We’re leaving too soon to keep investigating—and besides, if this has taught me anything, it’s that some stones are best left unturned.” She stood up, looking around at the few things she’d brought with her from Gongen, all scattered around. “I’d better pack. Goodnight, Chris.”

“Wait, Sang Mi?”

She stopped, turning. “Yeah?”

“Who did you get to play the Councilman?”

She frowned. “Marshal? No one, that bit was real—well, he wasn’t ‘conveniently on site’, we had to wait a couple days, but, that really was him. Why?”

Cwej stared at her, hard, like he was trying to see through her lies. There weren’t any. He shook his head. “Nothing, nevermind. Go, get some sleep.” 

Even after she’d left the room, Cwej still couldn’t stop thinking about the mystery of Francis Bilge. It just didn’t make any sense—he could almost buy into the conspiracy theories that he’d been murdered by his lover in a fit of passion, or taken out by Councilman Hughes so the council could take over his school once and for all… but no matter what he came up with, none of it could explain how a man who was at the very least in his thirties, likely older, still looked middle-aged nearly fifty years later. Like a dog with a bone, he couldn’t let it go—determined, almost shaking with anticipation, he played the raw footage, scanning for any possible clue. 

It was all like Sang Mi said. The girls had entered the cabin to find nothing more than a pizza box and a book. No man. No clues. Nothing. Wait --

“Is that…” 

Cwej squinted at the book on the screen. It was an old, leatherbound thing, cracked and worn, but the title was just about visible. He should have noticed. He should have remembered… 

Bilge’s Encyclopedia of the Universe. Known by every universal traveller, it contained information on anything and everything the universe had to offer, fitting an impossible amount of information into what was surely a limited-space hologrammic book. The handy guide to everywhere… and no one knew where it came from. 

He’d always wondered if he had an entry.

Cwej closed the computer and looked back towards the stairs towards where Sang Mi must by now be asleep, and then towards the door. 

The choice was easy.

He slipped out of the rented house and towards the forest, burdened by only a little guilt at not involving his travelling companion. His heart hammered out a rhythm too fast to count. He picked his way through the pathless woods—he remembered the direction the students had taken well, as it was shown in the documentary several times—and soon arrived at the cabin.

This was alien. This was time-travel. This was big, and here he was, alone and unarmed with enough adrenaline coursing through his system to make him feel every soft whisper of wind like a slice across his cheek, every twig like a sword and every sound, every sound… 

The forest was different at night.

Sang Mi hadn’t found anything, but she hadn’t been here when it was like this. In the dark, no one could see you move. In the dark, cold, dead of night, no one save the birds and the insects were there to hear. In the dark…

It didn’t matter. If Bilge showed himself, it would only be to Chris Cwej, and no one else would know. He could stay invisible, if he chose. And Cwej would be happy, if only he knew the truth, just for him, a little secret to wrap it all up in a neat little bow and satisfy his curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat, not the Cwej. Curiosity kills those who need to stay hidden.

He couldn’t stop himself. Hand on the door now, he pushed, hard. No need to knock—there would have been no answer. Not here. Too dangerous.

Cwej slammed his body against the door until it gave, and stepped inside.

And, as to what he found there? That’s anyone’s guess. Some things we aren’t meant to know. For safety, for privacy, for the sake of a quiet life, a little piece of freedom. Some things are best kept hidden.

One thing that we can know is that, when Cwej got back to the house that night, he picked up a red pen. On the top right-hand corner of the theater club final project cover letter, he wrote down a letter, wrapped in a loose circle.

This truth does not have to remain hidden: Sang Mi, Megan, and Martha’s project received a very well-deserved ‘A’.

* * *

Lance had been perching on the countertop during much of Cwej’s story. They looked down at the piece of paper Cwej had handed them: it was the cover letter of the project, detailing the reasons the students had chosen to delve into the history of their school’s elusive founder. They handed it back to Cwej, then smiled.

“Good story. Shame you won’t tell me what you really saw in that cabin, though.”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering that too.” Sang Mi narrowed her eyes at Cwej, who floundered under the glare.

“I was trying to create mystique! Some questions aren’t meant to be answered. So, was it good enough to pay for our snacks?”

Lance laughed. “Well, it better be, considering you’ve already eaten most of them. Though, before you get back to, well, wherever it is you’re going, I was wondering something.”

“Oh?”

“What were you two doing at that school, anyway?”

Cwej looked at Sang Mi, and then back at the cashier. “That’s a long story. And, I think the cost of telling it would be more inventory than your shop holds.”

Lance smirked. “Alright, keep your secrets. Thanks for making my day a little more interesting.”

“Any time,” Cwej said, and he and Sang Mi made their way back to the car. They had many miles of humdrum, identical stretches of road to go, but they were both in slightly higher spirits. At least today, even if only for a few minutes, got to be a little different.

Next Stop:
A Banquet for Beasts
by James Wylder


Copyright © 2025 Arcbeatle Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Edited by James Wylder and James Hornby
Formatting and design by James Wylder & Aristide Twain
Cover by Rosalie Mauer
Logo design by Lucas Kovacs
Concepts Used with Permission:
Academy 27 © Arcbeatle Press
WARSONG, WARS TCG, Gongen, Takumi, and associated concepts © Decipher, Inc.
Chris Cwej and associated concepts © Andy Lane
Murder Llamas © Plum Pudding
Blue Candle Coffee Company, E.D.E.M, Jhe Sang Mi © James Wylder

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