Cwej: STOP! by Theta Mandel

11/23/2025

STOP!
WRITTEN by
THETA MANDEL

I’ve always thought it indicative of the arrogance of the human condition for people to assume they know of every monster.

Humans have this victim complex, you see; they like to imagine that the unknown is made up entirely of big bads that go bump in the night, licking their chops, desperate to skin alive any human being they come across. Survival mechanism, so they don’t go looking for things in the dark and fall where no one can find them, or maybe they just want to imagine that they are hunted, so they can celebrate that they have survived. Whatever the reason, this complex blinds them, stopping them from taking something really quite obvious into account—any creature they can imagine is alive, and all living creatures share a common need. Do you know what it is?

That’s alright, you’ll figure it out.

Mighty presumptuous, to refuse to consider that the darkness doesn’t have to be evil. Mighty lonely, too, if you happen to live in the dark.

Maybe there are some monsters they haven’t met yet. Not under the bed, or in the closet, or even in the woods—this one, for example, lives in a stop sign. An abandoned stop sign, if such a thing is even possible; if you saw this stop sign, you would certainly think so. All rusted edges and peeling paint. You can’t even read the word; you probably only know what it is because you recognise the shape. The blood-red paint is all but gone, the meaning eroded, and it is in this liminal space between “Stop!” and Gone that anything can happen. Anything in between.

There is a car, now, hurtling towards that stop sign. Its orange paint is eroding too, giving it that special touch of magic you only see in old cars and ghostly stop signs, but it is not quite kin. Will its occupants see the sign? Will they know its meaning, heed its warning?

“Hey, it’s getting dark—we should probably pull in somewhere for the night soon,” the larger human said, speeding right past the sign. “Though, I don’t remember seeing a motel on the map… How do you feel about another night on the mattress in the back?”

The smaller human beside him groaned. “Again? How long is this journey, anyway?”

“Well, it didn’t have to be as long as it has been, but…”

“We keep stopping?”

“We keep stopping,” he confirmed, taking no notice as he passed the stop sign once again.

The same stop sign.

Cwej and Sang Mi were playing a game of Go Fish when they first sensed something was wrong.

Slap! went Cwej’s cards onto the mattress they’d wedged into the bed of the Honda. “And that’s my fifth pair,” he proclaimed, spreading out two sevens. “I’m winning.”

“Still think we should be playing the version where you need all four, not just a pair,” Sang Mi grumbled. She’d only played three matches. “Would be more fun with more players, too—I wish my brother was here. We’d always play games together.”

The air grew colder, a sharp breeze striking through the trees around them. Sang Mi shivered.

“Well, don’t worry, you’ll be back with him soon. We’re not that far from West Virginia now. Could be there in another day or two, easy.”

She looked askance, before her attention shifted. “Do you feel that?”

Cwej looked up from his hand. “Feel what?”

His young charge drew her shoulders in, looking around nervously. “Like… someone watching us.”

They slept under the stars that night, trying to ignore the churning air and the whispers among leaves that sounded more like shrieks. Sang Mi tossed and turned, unable to shake the feeling, despite Cwej’s best assurances, that there was something not right. He did his best, he really did, but he just didn’t feel it like she did. No monsters under the car, I checked. Well, check again!

The next morning, they woke up to a cloudless sky, a couple hundred miles away. You can still feel them, where they slept, and you wonder if they have a way to check the date.

“Can you remember what you dreamed last night?” Sang Mi asked, stretching before getting back into the car. It smelled like doritos. It always smelled like doritos.

Cwej shrugged. “I don’t really dream.” At least, not dreams I’d like to remember.

“Everyone dreams.”

They got back into the car, and talked about mundane things. How she was doing at school, his more child-friendly missions. Neither noticed when they passed a stop sign. It was rather old, rusting and peeling and eroding into nothing, but the meaning was still there, if you cared to look.

That night, before going to bed, Cwej got out his pack of cards. There really did seem to be nothing that bag of his didn’t contain.

“Wanna play some Go Fish?”

Sang Mi frowned. “I don’t know, I’m kind of bored of… wait, no, when did we…” She shook her head. “How about you teach me a new game? One I don’t know.”

Cwej furrowed his brow, concerned, but quickly moved on. “Oh, alright—how about some Vexjhi?”

“What’s that one?”

“Well, it’s common among children on Merinos One, but I actually learned it from a smuggler. I was on a mission with my friends, you see, and Larles said something to one of the customers…”

The pair played a few rounds, but the rules were complicated, and Sang Mi quickly got tired of losing. She was used to being good at games. It was kind of her thing. This card game, however, was proving a different story. She moved to gather up the cards to put back into the box, but when her hand touched the top of the pile…

“Hey, Chris?”

He turned to look at her from where he was wrestling with the mattress. “What’s up?”
“Well, it’s just… do you ever get déjà vu?”

He sighed. “All the time. I think everyone does, but, when your life’s as complicated as mine… let’s just say time travel and muddled memories don’t exactly make an ordered mind.”

She let out the kind of noise you make to show you’re listening, but don’t really have anything else to say, and went back to packing away the cards. They slept under the stars that night. Cwej knew that Sang Mi was having trouble sleeping, and he could feel why—something was watching them. He didn’t know who or what, but he could feel it, the same way he could feel something wrong with time. Something local, something personal, something on repeat… he usually had someone watching him, and that someone was usually messing with time, so, he tried not to think about it. And he really tried not to think about what it meant if his Superiors were watching, if they knew how far he was stretching their rules… it could be very, very bad for both of them.

Best to ignore it for now, and try to get some sleep.

The next day—the same day—Cwej and Sang Mi started a few hours away from the stop sign. Sang Mi happened to turn her head and spot it as they were passing, but they were not passing, they were Past, and it was Gone. The night was drawing in, and she didn’t really See—it was quite eroded, anyway, whatever it had been. Probably nothing.

That night, despite his best and most concerned protests, Cwej was convinced to teach Sang Mi poker. Neither of them slept more than a few fitful hours, and when they woke up, there was not a cloud in the sky, and they were a few hours away from the stop sign.

“The wind howls so mournfully,” Sang Mi remarked, “almost as if it wants something. Like a dog, left out in the cold.”

“Maybe it is,” Cwej mused. “Cold, or lonely. Maybe it’s been forgotten.”

It was an uneventful game of bridge. Sang Mi stayed up all night, just thinking, and yet didn’t see when the hours rolled over, and they were the same, recycled hours. Familiar, so familiar you don’t even notice that they’re there. They never notice

Today was the same day and the same day would bring the same cloudless sky, the same tree-lined road, the same--

“STOP!” Sang Mi cried, and Cwej slammed on the breaks.

“What? What’s wrong?”

She looked to her right, taking notice of what no one ever does—something old and discarded on the side of the road. It was a rusty metal pole, the kind that was all spotted and covered in grime, but there was something so familiar about it. And then she looked up. Suddenly, she knew why she needed to stop—why they’d been stopped, stuck in some half-remembered dream of a pattern, why this road looked so familiar and why they couldn’t move on. Because she was sure, now, that they hadn’t moved in a while, even if the calendar said otherwise—hadn’t moved in space, or in time. You shouldn’t ignore a stop sign.

“Look, at the top of that pole… I recognise it, I think. Stop signs on Gongen aren’t that shape, or that color, but… there’s something about it. I can’t explain it, it just is a stop sign.”

Cwej looked around. “It’s not like there’s anyone watching.”

“That doesn’t mean we don’t have to stop. The rules don’t stop mattering just because no one’s looking—you used to be in law enforcement, right? You should know that.”

I don’t just disappear because no one’s looking.

Cwej sighed. “The rules don’t mean as much to me nowadays… I rarely see a fair one. But, maybe there are still some that are necessary. Maybe I’d forgotten.”

“Good job I’m here to remind you, then.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” The air was still as the pair looked at the stop sign. It was old, probably meant to be removed, but received a stay of execution simply by virtue of being forgotten. There was a lot like that in the world, remnants of the past that had been left behind, for better or for worse.

The soldier and the student sat on the bed of their rusty old car as the night drew closer, playing a game to pass the time. They could have moved on, kept driving a little longer, but there was something in the air, like someone was begging for their companionship, just for a little while. They obliged.

Not all humans are arrogant. Not all the time.

Cwej thumbed through a pack of cards, shuffling them well. Sang Mi said she was ready to try Go Fish again—maybe this time would be different, not that there’d been a last time, not really. Maybe she’d find what she was looking for—and Cwej found himself dealing out three hands. One for him, one for Sang Mi, and one for…

“There’s only two of us,” Sang Mi remarked, and Cwej looked down at the third hand. He didn’t know why he’d done that, but it felt kind. Drawing himself up, he looked at the sky—it was calm tonight, and the stars were showing. Maybe there was someone, out there, who was by themself and just wanted someone to play with. Waiting to be included.

“It’s like… Elijah’s hand,” he replied, and Sang Mi laughed.

“Like Passover! There’s a girl in my class, Hannah, and she gave a presentation about it for culture week. It’s a Jewish tradition of leaving out an extra cup during Seder for the prophet Elijah—it’s an invitation for anyone to come and join the feast who needs to, and to bring hope for the future. Everyone could use a bit of hope.”

Cwej smiled. They played a few rounds—which was a bit difficult, what with them missing seven cards, but it was a nice gesture. Offering a hand to anyone who needed it—you don’t have to be scared of the dark. The monsters get lonely, too.

Maybe she felt it because she knew more of what it was like to be lonely. Maybe it was just because she was on the passenger side, closest to the side of the road. Or maybe she was just younger, and had not been so hardened by a cruel world as the puppet-soldier, beholden to unfair rules. Though, he had still noticed, even if it did take him a little longer… maybe, he was not as lost as he thought. Maybe there was still hope.

Have you worked out the answer to my question? Oh come on, you remember—I asked you if you knew what common need all living creatures share. I think you’ve worked it out now, but if you haven’t, I’ll tell you—it’s to belong. Everybody needs someplace to feel a part of, to be included in something bigger than yourself. The girl had her friends, and the man had his ideals, and together, they had hope.

Cwej and Sang Mi slept peacefully through the night, and, in the morning, they left the stop sign behind.

They may have taken the cards with them, but they left by that sign on the side of the road a little of the joy they had brought. Not gone, but multiplied, because it was shared. Even from a rusty old stop sign in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but trees, I was not forgotten. As long as a passing human would be willing to open up their hearts and leave a space for me, deal an extra hand—yes, I was sure.

I would not be lonely

NEXT STOP:
THE FLATWOODS FRACTAL
BY ARISTIDE TWAIN

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 Leela Ross
Illustration by Plum Pudding
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

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