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Abandoned for years, the red farmhouse became a landmark in my childhood, glimpsed from the school bus. It sits well back from the road under slim trees that blossomed white in spring and turned gold in autumn. The town calls it haunted. How else to explain the bad luck that collects under its eaves, the flickers of movement where no birds sing? But despite the rumors, Max and I fell in love with it when we decided to move to the countryside. It was easy to see the future. Elaborate meals for dinner parties, our kids playing in the swings, a long-legged setter watching out for them like Nana from Peter Pan. I come home to it now, greeted by the gradually receding smells of new paint and wood varnish, the dry coolness of its interior world. As soon as the front door shuts, the quiet encloses me and strips away all sense of time. Like a snail curled up for sleep, surrendering to the night. It’s taken months to restore the farmhouse, choosing the brass fixtures, navigating the rot in the beams. But the living room is nearly finished, Max’s turquoise couch and bronze flamingo lamps already set in front of the big bay windows. A moving box still holds the most fragile things encased in bubble-wrap. I reach for a bowl of takeout ramen and start on the noodles, leaning against the accent wall. We chose it as much for the name, robin’s egg, as for the color—the palest blue just tilting green. On the other side of the glass, gusting wind set the trees to dancing in threads of dusk, shedding their white blossoms all over the grass like careless stars. Most of the farmhouse noises are not yet familiar, but I identify the creak of the shutters and the drip of the kitchen sink. When my bowl is empty, I carry it into the kitchen, leaving the lights off. The copper pans hang on the wall but mostly it’s still a disaster, cluttered with unopened boxes. The hulking shadow of the fridge is empty, none of Max’s handmade orecchiette pasta, no jars of cheese-flecked pesto or glossy lemon curd. Rachel, a voice whispers like a breath against my neck. Every evening at the precise instance of nightfall I feel it—the proximity of two separate planes nearly touching in the dark. The voice sounds like Max’s, but I know that isn’t possible. Max is gone and I’m here alone in a house meant for a family. Faith Allington is a writer, gardener and lover of mystery parties who resides in Seattle. Her work is forthcoming or has previously appeared in various literary journals, including Honeyguide Literary Magazine, Hearth & Coffin, Crow & Cross Keys, The Fantastic Other and FERAL.

His sword shone brightly, as I drew my own. May God forgive me. I had never fought one, so bold, and so knightly who held the throne. His sword shone brightly I looked upon him contritely. Greed, jealousy, lust for power twisted through me, ingrown. May God forgive me. Our duel had been decided, and when the sun had begun to set, he fell to the floor, and left me alone. His sword shone brightly The years have made me frail, as now I am sixty. But my deeds, I will forever bemoan. May God forgive me Now I hardly have honor, forfeit, as it is rightly. How I miss my dear brother, the only friend I have known. His sword shone brightly. May God forgive me. Jared T. Wilkerson is a freshman at UVU, completing his associate's with an interest in English. He is a prose editor by day, writer by night. Despite his busy schedule, he likes to study physics and read fiction.

I will tell them about the delectation, the solar burst of my heart: how twice it softly jolted me out of the sleep-verge like a glowing end-of-summer firecracker sprung from the place where my eagle’s talon had rested, bent at waist, eyes closed. I will not tell them about the two watchers on the ski hill that are conjured in sleep: the ones that are taller than trees, thrown black shadows and shapeless, except for hunched shoulders, singular and forever, taking forty yards in soundless stride. Donna Kathryn Kelly is the author of the paranormal horror thriller, THE DESCENT: A Halloween Novel, which was a semi-finalist in the 2023 Soon to be Famous Illinois Author Manuscript Contest. She is also the author of THE CHENEY MANNING SERIES, a collection of suspense novels featuring a public defender turned amateur sleuth who investigates murder cases in northern Illinois. Kelly's poetry has appeared in literary journals and anthologies such as Bowery Gothic, Pasque Petals, Southern Arizona Press, Oakwood, Snapdragon, and North Dakota Quarterly. In 2022, she received an Honorable Mention in the 91st Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition (Non-Rhyming Poetry Category). You can learn more about Kelly and her writings @donnakathrynkelly.com.

Lagnogard, balancing on her scaly tail atop one of the many sandstones jutting from the beach, stretched out each of her stubby green claws as wide as she could to play with the dog. The dog’s eyes kept steadfast on the fireball bouncing from hand to hand. Her dad had called the tan, sleek thing a “Mastabull,” whatever that was. His name was funny, too. Scureeb was one of those new-fangled breeds, but this one seemed to be too eager to please to be able to do the job. They had been waiting for a long time: Lagnogard tossing the ball to herself, and Scureeb intently staring. And drooling. She was careful not to swipe her ever-moving tail close to his mouth. His teeth were impossibly sharp, and he was too immature to know not to playfully nip his owner. Her dragon’s scales protected her, but she knew that those dagger-teeth could penetrate even her armor. A long slob stretched from his tongue to the ground. The eyes, coal black mixed with deadlights, never left the fireball. The girl’s lips creased into a grin despite herself. A gal and her dog. Except, of course, she was no mere gal. And the dog was no dog. Time to test this little hound, she thought. “So, Scureeb, is that your name?” Scureeb gave no response, save for a happy drool and tail wag. The drool dropped onto a stone, which hissed and spat as acid dissolved the rock. “Dad doesn’t think I can handle my first one alone, does he?” she said, perhaps to the dog. Perhaps to nobody at all. This time, along with the drool and tail wag, the dog jumped at the ball as she tossed it from one claw to another. He was ready to play. Glaring over the expanse of lake that surrounded them on three sides and stretched endlessly, Lagnogard lifted the ball of fire high into the air. The dog’s deadlight eyes honed in, saliva dripping freely and haunches tightened in anticipation of the throw. The ball sailed for an eternity – although such a concept was relative in this place – and finally settled into the lake with a faint splash beyond a mere human’s capacity to detect the point of immersion. She was afraid for the dog, as she had hurled the ball much further than she had meant. The dog was gone as soon as it took flight. “Scureeb, don’t– ” Lagnogard yelled. She knew the dog heard her but didn’t respond, so intent was he on fetching the fireball. He would need training, after this first job was over. Much training. He yelped as he entered the lake and was quickly lost awash the flickering of fire at the surface. “That’ll teach him,” Lagnogard muttered, her grin expanding into something predatory and animalistic that contorted her face like only those of her kind could do. Then again, Dragonkind was ancient and almost extinct. She was the last of her kind, she and her dad. Then, thinking of her dad, she finished her sentence only in thought, fearful that he was overhearing her insolence. Even this far away from the city, she could not be sure he was out of earshot. That’ll teach Dad to send me some inferior breed of dog. She knew the special hounds weren’t available. Even if they had been available, her dad had said that this dog would help for her first delivery from Hornac. The moments for the dog’s return passed slowly, and he did not return, so her thought slid into regret. The waves swept the beach around her in deafening torrents, and the fire crackled all around. Still no dog. So much time had passed, Lagnogard thought she heard the faint strokes of Hornac rowing in the distance. She stretched out a well-tuned, pointed ear, but Hornac had not yet come. I’m so ready for my first! Come on, Hornac. She was not ready to admit, though, that it was her dad for whom she wanted to prove she could do this job. It still bummed her that he thought so little of her ability that he would send a dog to help! Slowly, she became aware that her furry companion was pulling himself ashore from the murky waves lapping onto the beach. The drenched creature dragged itself to its master, and dropped the ball at her feet. Flicking out a twisted, overstretched tongue, he quenched a final flame from his back. Reaching down to pick up the ball, Lagnogard gingerly rubbed the tight muscles of the dog’s back. She grinned, and the dog’s tail thumped the sand so hard it created a deep tail-shaped hole. Its deadlight-eyes once more trained onto the ball, and fresh saliva flowed. Perhaps the swim hadn’t worn the dog out, after all. Lagnogard lowered the ball to the dog. Like a vice the dog’s jaws gripped around it, and despite her tugs she could not wrench it from the creature’s mouth. All mouth and leg muscles this dog was, and more powerful than she had at first given him credit. Much more powerful. While she waited for Scureeb to release its grip, she thought about why her dad had given her this creature. Lagnogard padded over to the landlocked side of the peninsula and peered over the cliff to an expanse of mountain below. The mountain descended almost infinitely, and – again beyond the capacity of human sight – the girl admired her father’s golden city far below. Time for the final test for Scureeb. Lagnogard raised the fireball high and threw it off the cliff’s edge toward the great city below. The dog, never hesitating, jumped off at the highest point and sailed after it. For a second time, the girl lost sight of the dog in the tall licks of mountainside fire. No way the dog could survive that. Even the best hounds of this world can’t fly! And yet, before what was known as minutes in the human-realm had passed, the dog eased itself back again from the cliff edge, ball gripped tightly between powerful jaws. It dropped the prize at the girl’s feet and thumped its tail. Despite the dog’s size, Lagnogard was impressed – he was tough, loyal, and indeed worthy. “All right, Scureeb,” the girl said. “Think I’ll keep you.” Scureeb slobbered all over the girl’s outstretched claw in approval. Scureeb, stiffening and growling, sensed the new soul well before Lagnogard could see the boat. Hornac, the figure dressed entirely in shroud, poled the ancient boat along the flaming water. Hornac’s sole passenger looked as hideous as she’d ever seen of a human. The man, initially sitting, stood when he spotted Lagnogard and the dog. He was dark, all angles and muscles, and actually towered over Hornac when he stood. The boat – really not more than a raft – docked and Hornac pointed his pole to direct the man onto the beach. Without a word, Hornac poled away. Up close, Lagnogard could see the death-wound. A bloody hole was torn through the man’s chest, and a thick crust of dried blood was smeared throughout the chest hair. She felt nothing for the human, though, except the excitement that he’d be her first soul. The man did not cower. Instead, when he saw Scureeb he ran up to it and kicked at it. The dog was faster and dodged the clumsy kick. With lightning speed, Scureeb turned and caught the man’s leg and pulled him down. Sand and fire spun around them. Lagnogard raised a claw to assist and then remembered what her dad had instructed. Do nothing to assist. Your job is to supervise. She balanced with her tail on a nearby rock and watched. Scureeb had shifted his attack to grip the man’s throat. The man and dog struggled. Teeth clamped the throat, while the man’s hands gripped either side of the dog’s jowls. They scuffled, the man flipping on top of the dog, then the dog reversing the position over the man. Slowly, the man positioned an arm around the dog’s midsection, with his other arm in between the jaws to loosen the dog’s deathgrip. Picking up Scureeb, the man stood. Lagnogard wanted more than anything else to help but was stayed by her dad’s remembered instructions: It is the dog’s fight. The punishment must fit the crime. The man walked Scureeb over to the cliff. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest, green gobs of sweat slid down her face. She could do nothing but watch helplessly as her new best friend Scureeb flew over the cliff and howled all the way down. Thick red liquid came from her eyes, and she wiped it away. She’d never cried before but knew somehow that was what these were: tears. Instructions or no instructions, I need to do what’s right. I need to punish. She stood. And he turned to face her. In the human face that turned to confront her she saw an evil, tormented soul. He smiled, and it made her scales crawl with disgust. When he spoke it was as if he were talking through chunks of soot. “Been dealing with hounds like that my whole life. Fought ‘em against each other. It’s why I was shot. Made too much money at it. S’pose it’s why I’m here.” He paused, stuck a thumb out behind him to the cliff. “But you’ll have to do better than that.” Lagnogard stepped toward him, then stopped. And grinned herself. The man before her couldn’t possibly hear what she did coming back up the mountainside. The howls in pursuit would have been frightening if she didn’t know what they were. It was Scureeb. He was coming back – and bringing friends. J. J. Sherman was born a Yankee, raised a Rebel, and nurtured into a writer of suspense and dark fiction. His stories read differently. Off-beat characters slide through the pages. The story might turn strange, maybe even wicked, and craziness will always ensue. His successful publications include the novel Scorching Secrets and short-story collection, Unmasking at Midnight. He has also published short stories in Hadrosaur Tales, Eldritch Embraces, and a dozen more magazines. When he is not teaching pharmacy, he strums his guitar with clumsy fingers, jumps off two-story rocks, and transcribes the stories swirling in his head. If only a medicine could be invented to cure that.

I have not felt the comfort of sleep since my third death. It’s been twenty, maybe twenty-five days since I last tasted the stain of the Sacrament pass my lips and seize my heart. Twenty-five days since anything bought me peace - honey-water, valerian root, melatonin, oxycodone, benzodiazepine, hot brandy scented with lemon…even meditation. All worthless. Insufficient. I offer a thousand prayers every night, but Brutus does not answer. This is not the insomnia I knew before, when the little shameful moments accrued over a lifetime decide to come marching in all at once and take my consciousness for their battleground. The thoughts that plague me now are different. Are they my thoughts or his? They flit by too fast to comprehend, nauseating flashes of colour on a reel that refuse to resolve into an image before the next frame arrives. But it’s more than just that. At times it feels like I sense the heaving of incomprehensible mechanisms within, the construct of thought unmasked to allow a glimpse at the primordial chaos of firing neurons. Have I seen something not meant for mortal eyes? Is this what is destroying me? I’m forgetting things…and remembering things that never happened. Mosquitoes the size of dinner plates smash into the windows of my apartment and leave putrid violet trails on the glass as their carcasses slide down. Those can’t be real. A purple mould pulsates in the corner where the wallpaper is peeling away. Through the layers of glass and insect residue, the sunlight filters in blue and the mould sprouts hands to catch it. I turn on the television and I recognise the face on screen. It’s her, one of the Others. The one who calls herself Jupiter. She’s a senator and on the TV she’s giving a speech where she compares immigrants to parasites, while red rivulets gush from her empty eyes and soak her suit. The more impassioned she gets in her diatribe the more blood comes out, but she keeps talking as if she doesn’t notice. Click. Now Carthage - the one who first invited me to join the Sacrament - is on the screen. “You don’t want to disappoint God, do you?” he whispers to the camera. The ground under him fissures, torn apart by the tectonic claws of a buried Leviathan. He screams. The melanin drains out of his skin to reveal bruising. No, it’s not bruising. It’s…moving. Squirming under his skin. He is swallowed by the earth. Click. I don’t have to touch the remote this time, I just think and the channel changes. Master Carver appears on screen in his crimson robes. He wears his usual jester’s mask but the white porcelain doesn’t cover his lips, which stay motionless while he speaks. “You’re not supposed to know who the Others are,” he scolds, “they can’t help you anyway.” “Am I being punished?” I reply without moving my lips either. “You know who to ask. You know where to go.” An explosion of static. Crimson tendrils reach out from the scream to grab me. I flee to the hallway and exit. He’s right. Another death will fix me. Fix all of this. Yes, just one more. I must descend the Veins of Brutus. It is my first time making the journey alone, but I remember the way. Or, at least, my legs do. A manhole cover pushed aside, a path taken to a disused metro station. My body is a marionette dancing on strings, an automaton following its code. Am I the one doing these things? They are happening with or without me, but I can choose to be the one doing them. A hidden gate is found - no, I find the hidden gate - twenty metres down the tracks. There is a vertical decline that leads to another door, a grotesque thing made of uneven flesh that oozes an orange fluid that smells like battery acid. It is flanked by a pedestal. Here. I must make the offering. The skull is oddly warm when I take it from my backpack. Where did that come from? Usually Carver handles… Never mind. I place the thing down and watch the bone evaporate. The door groans like a wounded creature as it opens. Foul air assaults my lungs when I step in, fouler than I remember. The slime on the walls retreats from the light when I shine my torch on it. Something comes towards me from beyond the torchlight. Noises. Whispers. A voice - Master Carver’s. “Come, child of Brutus.” But Carver cannot be here. This is an echo - this is what he said during my first visit. The past leaks into the present over my shattered synapses. I am reliving my first visit. Click. As I descend down the tunnel, I feel like the walls are about to contract and swallow me. Pull me deep into this gargantuan gullet. Carver’s gentle whisper still beckons forward. Down towards the core. Closer to the explosions of a heartbeat that drown out the squelching of boots. I reach the room of the first ritual, both in the past and the present. There is another flesh-door, from which protrudes an obsidian bowl. To my right, Jupiter places her hand palm-down on the rim. Carver brings down a hatchet and a few of Jupiter’s fingers drop into the bowl. She screams. Now I am screaming. I drop the hatchet and wrap my bloodied hand in cloth. God, it hurts, but it will be better soon. The bowl glows sickly and emerald. The door dissolves in both whens. My brain screeches, my skull shakes. At first I think it’s bifurcating under the strain of two realities. As I close my eyes, I feel the thunder in my head - this comes from within. I need the Blood. Now. If my brain gives out before I reach the final chamber… I take a deep breath and gag on putrid air. Then I enter the core. But something is different - something is wrong. I stare down two sets of walls, but only one of them is moving. In one, the resounding thud of colossal atria and ventricle is silenced. No. I place a hand on the wall. To my left, Carthage does the same in the past. “Incredible. Every brick is a strand of living tissue. The circulatory system of a God.” It doesn’t feel alive now though. In the present, I walk through the corpse of my God. I am doomed, then. It is a calming thought, one that strips me of my panic, my tortured urgency. Still, I want answers, so I stroll to the final chamber. The door is open already. I cross the threshold. Click. I am sucked into the past more fully. Carver makes the rest of us sit in a circle around the wound in the floor that bleeds darkness. “This goes straight to the centre. The purest blood, completely unfiltered.” Did his lips move? I can’t see them clearly. He fills our jugs from an old blue bucket, the chain tethered above and its other end trailing into the abyss. “Now drink. Complete the Sacrament,” he says. We all obey without hesitation. It tastes like petrol and gin, like the nectar of eden drenched in arsenic. It tastes of everything and nothing. Of death and suffering and salvation. Approximately two minutes later, we all die. This death isn’t peaceful. Muscles shrivel, tendons and ligaments snap, bones crack and break. Flesh melts off us like butter in a frying pan. We are conscious during most of it, since the nervous system takes a while to dissolve, and it’s the most horrifying pain any of us have ever experienced. At least, until thirty more seconds elapse and the resurrection begins. Tissue fuses and reforms. Whatever magic lies in the blood now courses through us, our liquid selves. What was destroyed takes shape again. The tissue becomes rigid, organs take shape. The nervous system comes back in a perfect, visceral torrent of blazing agony. A heart. A heartbeat. Lungs. Violent heaves as air comes into us once more. When the pain subsides, Jupiter looks at her newly grown finger in astonishment. Carthage says that his shortsightedness is cured. But none of us need these physical changes as proof to know that we have come back changed. Each sense is stronger than before, everything is so fresh. We are more alive than we have ever been. With the Blood of Brutus in my veins, I can do anything. The euphoria fades and the present returns. Past is discarded. I’m in the chamber, in my usual place. To my right and left are Jupiter and Carthage, their masks on the ground before them. Both of them are dead, Carthage has been stabbed hundreds of times and Jupiter has red ruins for eyes. They gesture at me accusingly. Across from me is a corpse missing its head. Carver. The skull in my bag... But I won’t think about that now. There is a jug beside my spot. How did I miss it before? I drink deeply. Petrol and gin, cinnamon and rust. I sit and wait for death to take me. But my stomach curdles. Something is wrong with the blood. It is…stagnant. Harvested from a lifeless heart. “Well God-fucking-dammit,” I say to the dead. My words hang in the air like a veil. Before I can decide what to do next, the headless Carver sits up. He pulls a skull out from beneath his robes and attaches it to a protruding vertebra. His skull. The one I offered at the door. “I am pleased at your return, though I regret the circumstances,” he says. It is not Carver’s voice. It is the baritone of bumblebees drowning in honey. It is the echo of an organ in a cathedral. The voice of a God. “What…what happened to me?” I say. It’s the best question I can think of. “Alas, little of you remains. It is rare for me to say this to a mortal, but in this case it is warranted… I am sorry.” “Brutus, what do you mean? I need your help. I–” “There are many who need my help, and few who receive it. Alas, I am beyond helping, or being helped.” “I know. You’re dead,” I say. “But then how are we speaking?” “My essence is contained in blood, and you have just drunk the last of it.” Even without tissues or muscles to form a facial expression, the skull looks remorseful. “Every time my children drink my blood, I speak to them. And I beg that they stop and leave me in peace. I tell them that I am dying, that I need to recover. Not even a God can survive such bloodletting. But something in the resurrection erases the memories of our talks, and you return, as greedy as before for the product of my veins.” “Is that why you killed Carver and the others?” “No, it’s why you killed Carver and the others.” “What?! I–” “While you were under the fugue of my blood, I tried to implant something of myself into the circuitry of your brain. A subconscious directive that would survive the violence of resurrection. I had attempted it before, but it never worked. Until I tried it with you.” Memories returned suddenly. Suffocating, poisoning, burning. Cutting a bloody swath across Paris. So much blood. And beneath it all an alien buzzing in my head. Instructions for the Champion of Brutus. “I…remember now. It was too late to save you, but not to avenge you.” “Indeed. You were my Archangel Michael.” “And that’s why I’ve been going insane. There is something of you in my head. Something beyond what a mortal mind can sustain.” Brutus nodded. “You are the last Child of Brutus. And soon there will be none. Once the blood wears off, I will cease to exist. And so will you.” “But how…what happens after?” “Even I cannot say, Champion. I’m new to this too. But for you I have a final gift. Listen…” Click. “I don’t hear anything.” “Exactly.” Understanding washes over me. The thudding in my brain has stopped. Peace. No more blood and whiskey, no more suffering and salvation. Just peace. “Thank you, Brutus.” Thank you, I say, not bothering to wipe tears from my cheek. “I’ll be ready to go soon. I want to enjoy this a little bit longer.” “Believe me, Champion, I’m in no rush.” A single red tear trickles down Brutus’ cheekbone. I sit for a while, and enjoy the silence while my God prays beside me. Nick Badot is an Irish/Belgian author, poet, and reformed computer scientist currently living in Montenegro. He has a predilection towards speculative fiction, hopeless romanticism, gothic horror and history, and has published poetry in the Provenance Journal and the Rabble Review. He is also writing a gothic horror novel.

Maybe we were better off When gods and monsters walked among us. When evil walked the world, But we knew it when we saw it. And the monsters would destroy villages But not souls. And the gods walked among us, And we knew their names and faces. It was humbling to walk with the gods. They might demand a sacrifice, But it was a price we could bear. Until we drove the gods away And killed all the monsters. But evil still walked the earth, And it slipped more and more into the hearts of men. The gods no longer heard our cries, And the heroes all left town. Now the monsters walk among us But we don’t know them when we see them. So we fear so much more now. Maybe we were better off When the monsters and gods Walked among us. Kelly Winget grew up on the coast of Massachusetts, believing in mermaids and fairies and the old magic and never really stopped. For as long as she can remember, she’s always had stories and pictures running through her head. She lives in the Blue Ridge mountains of Western North Carolina with her husband and their two crazy pibbles, Lou and Patch. She can usually be found dancing, playing with paint, hiking, chasing waterfalls, or seeking out the magic all around her and trying to share it with the world. She self-published her first book of poetry, art, and photography, Madness and Grace, in 2023.

1867, two years after the war ended, five years after Antietam, 22,700 and more dead at Sharpsburg, arms and legs scattered around me like fireflies at night, bones still singed from flash powder, three years after I escaped Elmira POW camp, "Hellmira" more like it, us eatin' roaches and maggots. I hightailed it for the Indian territory and Robber's Roost Peak near Black Mesa, burrowing in like a mole, and I wasn't coming out, no way, no how. One night, dark as a witch’s maw, huddled over my campfire for warmth, I started slitting my catch, a squirrel 'bout as big as a prison rat. Here I was, hungrier than a rainbow chasing rain, my rawhide shirt, as holey as Palm Sunday, hanging on my bones like I was a scarecrow out on my paw's milo field back home in Chicksaw, Tennessee. I just wanted to eat, lay back by the fire, and look at the stars. Though they seemed to be moving closer to me. That coulda' been due to the rotgut moonshine I was drinkin', probably half snake venom, half turpentine. I'd bought a gallon jug off a traveler for maybe four chunks of gold I'd panned out of the Cimarron. I sliced through the varmint's gullet, them stars still gettin' closer, and saw it, inside the squirrel. Something red, glowing like an ember but pulsing. I plucked at it, hoping for a heart, good eatin'. Out it came, hard as a ruby gem, in my hand, still pulsing, and attached to the squirrel by wires, green, red, and black. So I pulled, damn fool that I was, and its innards unspooled, now metal, like clockwork. And it started talking. Don't know what language, not mine, maybe Cherrokee or Sioux, but nothing like I'd ever heard when I'd stumbled upon tribes. The damned squirrel started humming like a machine afire and buzzing and vibrating and chattering like a telegraph transmitter. Next it said in English, sort of, part growl like a rasp file, part machine like a thresher, "I am not of this time, nor should you be. I can show you a life of plenty." Suddenly, a light from above shone on me, pulsing like mother's blood amidst a whirr as if from a thousand hummingbirds. I was lifting like Jesus on the third day toward who knows where. Home? And the voice spoke again. “Come. Let us depart." Steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life's dissonance. He has published in CafeLit, Panoplyzine, Crack the Spine, Decadent Review, Vermilion, In Parentheses, Wingless Dreamer, Big Bend Literary Magazine, Coffin Bell, and more, plus his chapbooks Once Planed Straight; Viral; and The 13th Floor: Step into Anxiety from Spartan Press.

Outside it’s snowing. Again. Hard. Already new-white blankets the off-white of last week’s storm on the campus of our mid-sized college in upstate New York. Flakes tap against our dorm windows. The forecast calls for eight to ten inches. Lights out and our talk — mine and RanShack’s — drowses toward nighty night with references to, perhaps, Aristotle or Diogenes. We’re philosophy majors, after all. But still basically kids. So, maybe we talk about R.E.M. or U2. Or perhaps the Rangers or Islanders. Or even who should win the best picture Oscar: Shawshank Redemption or Forrest Gump. I can’t really remember the exact subject because of what comes next. Just before our drifting words sputter into sleep’s rhythmic breathing, Theo, our other roommate, jumps out of bed and screams in such terror that the sound charges me from all sides, expressing human, animal, and otherworldly agony all at once. I grasp my ears and yell “Stop!” But I can’t hear myself. “I am dissolving!” Theo bellows. “Help me!” The night light etches his silhouette. He stands, arms imploring heaven. I can’t move. “Theo, it’s OK!” RanShack cries. Too late, for Theo dashes out of the room. We hear him stomp through the hallway past the elevator and clamber down the stairwell, still screaming. Somebody yells, “Call security!” Though in minutes, he can no longer be heard, Theo’s agonized cry lingers in my ears like tinnitus. I take deep breaths, try to calm myself. RanShack flips his lamp on. He’s stunned, like a boxer taking the eight count. “He’ll freeze his ass off!” I say. “He’ll have to come back!” He says, “At least he didn’t crash through the window.” Windows, actually. We’ve got two that we now stumble toward, each to his own. My hand shakes as I lift the roller blind. But not just my hand. I’m trembling all over. “There!” “Where?” “There!” Theo slip-slides across the quad wearing nothing but sweatpants, a flannel PJ top, and socks. His spindly, 6-foot-5-inch frame collapses about a half dozen times as if he’s a puppet whose strings keep getting cut. He struggles into upright, runs a bit more, falls again. How long can this last? Long enough for Theo to turn a corner and disappear behind a building across the way. “Holy shit,” I whisper. On the peripheries, red and blue flashing lights appear and float through the storm toward each other. Two golf cart-type vehicles of campus security, back tires no doubt in triangular snowplow mode, meet right below us where Theo’s footprints begin. The guards confer for a moment, and then one rolls off retracing Theo’s steps, while the other heads across untrampled snow toward where they must have decided that Theo most likely will be now if he hasn’t zig-zagged into the woods that surround the college. “They’ll get him,” RanShack decides. Maybe, I think, because the storm kicked up a few notches. Its intensity already erased most of Theo’s footprints, while only three of the etchings of his falls remain. RanShack turns toward me. “Don’t you think they’ll find him, Trotsky?” “They should.” That’s not the question, though. The question is will they find him alive? The weather people underestimated this storm, and instead of eight inches we eventually get 18. That’s not unusual in this part of the state, where nothing short of an atomic bomb would make administrators cancel classes. Students carry on the next day knowing that a search — complete with cadaver dogs — takes place on the edge of their cocoon of higher education. And they do find Theo — that’s a nickname, by the way, his real name’s Maximilian Nola — as twilight scatters muted colors along the horizon. He’s dead. Hypothermia. We give statements to school security, administrators, and the local cops. RanShack — real name Randal Shackleton — and I, Trotsky — real name William Trotter — know that the worst thing to do would be to fake an emotional response. So, no tears, no mourning. Shock’s OK. Shock is real. Detectives with the town’s police department seem inclined to like us. Maybe that’s just a technique, but I don’t think it’s entirely put on. We’re not trust-fund babies, RanShack and me. We’re work-study. I do shifts at the cafeteria, and RanShack makes rounds with maintenance. We’re not part of the contingent of snot-nosed spoiled college punks who number too many at our school. That should count for something with these bootstrap puller-uppers. “I didn’t really know him that well,” I tell a detective. RanShack is in another room being interviewed. They separated us just like they do on cop shows. “Maximilian keeps — kept — to himself.” “Even in a dorm room with two other roommates?” “We tried, you know, to draw him out like you do with people with social anxiety,” I say. “So, that didn’t work. Then we more or less ignored him. We didn’t want to crowd him. We wanted to give Theo the chance to get used to us.” “Theo?” “Yes, sorry, detective. That’s our nickname for Maximilian. He minored in theology.” “And all three of you major in philosophy?” “Yes, detective. What are the odds? You can wind up being roommates with anybody with any major. But we’re all philosophy.” “And did Maximilian take that initiative?” “Initiative?” “To be friends with you and Randal.” This with a tinge of annoyance. “No. Not really. Then me and Randal just….” I shrug. He says that “some things need to happen organically.” Three long beats before I respond. Organically? I don’t expect such a word from a cop. “We did try,” I finally say. “I know, young man.” They didn’t press it because — surprise, surprise — it turns out that Theo battled mental illness his entire life. Even with all the confidentiality laws surrounding somebody’s health records, that fact wanders loose. About two weeks after the incident, the maintenance guys clean out Theo’s belongings to store in boxes somewhere in case someone comes back to claim them. I don’t know if anybody ever did. RanShack and I hadn’t gotten to know Theo better because he only started rooming with us at the beginning of the second semester, replacing a guy who dropped out. We were not impressed. Theo always bumped into things, stumbled, or flat-out fell. He wasn’t on good terms with his motor skills. He wears glasses with thick black frames that somebody with ’tude could possibly turn into a retro rebel look. Theo doesn’t have ’tude. Then there’s the hair: totally gray since his early teens. A young man’s face under an old man’s hood accented by pitch black eyes in which the voids of the pupils dominate. Also, he could be staring at the world from inside a fish tank, thanks to those Coke-bottle lenses. He blinks slowly, rhythmically. Seemingly too aware of what should be an automatic bodily function. Creepy. Now, I don’t say Hollywood keeps me and RanShack on speed dial for leading man roles. But at least we blend, maybe too much. At a party last semester, one girl asked if we’re brothers. We waxed jivey about each other’s ugliness, but we’ve fielded the question before. I suppose we could be twins. Brown hair, blue eyes. About the same height and weight: 5 feet, 11 inches, and 175 pounds, give or take. Similar build reflecting gym time and also a tendency to blow off a workout the same way we’re a bit too ready to cut class. Over winter break, Shackleton grew a Van Dyke, and I’m working on a mullet. We silently agree: enough with this “you look like brothers” bullshit. When Theo moves in, we try to balance the new dynamic, but balance keeps its distance. He’s quiet and either extremely fragile or extremely violent, but holding it in. We can’t decide. “He’s all right,” RanShack says. “Is he?” I say. That night, Theo thrashes in his sleep, crying out sometimes. “Nope,” RanShack says. “Not putting up with that.” That morning he hands Theo one of those tins that breath mints might come in. Theo plates it on his palm, stares at it. “It’s zolpidem,” RanShack says. “For sleeping.” “Deep sleep?” Theo asks, still gazing at the tin as though it could be an archeological find that might crumble. “Puts me out,” says RanShack. “One pill right before bed.” “Deep sleep,” Theo says, like a mystic who’s finally found enlightenment. It works, too. That very night. Theo sleeps drama-free. “Thank you,” he murmurs to RanShack the next morning. “Is it…?” “Yeah, it’s my prescription but go to town. I don’t need them, really. Just now and then.” Translation: RanShack likes his beer but his beer doesn’t always like zolpidem. “You should get your own prescription, though,” he adds. “I should.” But Theo never does, and when he runs out into the snowstorm that night, RanShack right away grabs the tin, pockets it. He tells me later that he tosses it into the piles of trash that he collects as part of his maintenance crew gig. “That’s that,” I say. “Really?” This isn’t the response I’m after. We’re both disturbed by what happened to Theo, but RanShack gets physically ill. I hear him barfing a few times after the incident, and he now and then wanders about the room like a geezer who has forgotten what he’s looking for. I lay it out for him a week later over beers at McStew’s, the off-campus dive where college kids and townies sometimes brawl. “Theo was mentally unhinged,” I say. “He probably would have wound up killing himself.” “How do you know?” RanShack asks. “Look, we’re young.” “So’s he.” “He’s gone, Randy. We’re still here. We have our futures.” “Yeah.” “We did something stupid,” I say. “A prank.” “Yeah, right. Just a prank.” “No,” I say. “I take that back. Not just a prank. If you remember our intentions were sort of decent. Loosen that zombie up a bit. Get him to enjoy life for a change.” “Then why not just tell the cops?” “Because good intentions or not — and you know a lawyer could make it seem diabolical to a jury — it’s against the law. We’re talking a Class A drug here. That’s possession and distribution. It’s involuntary manslaughter. It could even be considered third-degree murder. And there’s no statute of limitations for third-degree murder. Confessing does nobody any good.” “It gives Theo’s family closure.” “Theo’s family’s got closure. He ran out into a blizzard and froze to death. See? Closure.” Distractions abound in a place like McStew’s but the workers and bouncers tend to notice mainly two things: people yelling at each other, and patrons leaning into each other having what appears to be a quiet argument that too often leads to punches getting thrown. The waitress suddenly appears and asks, “You guys OK?” We lean back. “As a matter of fact…” I order buffalo wings, emerald chips, and another pitcher of beer. We’re careful to keep up the appearance not too far from reality: two friends hashing out a scheme. “Can you live with what we did?” RanShack asks. “We?” His head snaps back as if I slapped him. “What?” “Look,” I say, satisfied that he knows who’s mostly to blame. “We will not only live with it, we will bury it and move on. And we will have happy, productive lives.” What happened — what we did — was this: While cleaning a lab in the Empsonelli Neural Perception and Psychedelic Science Building, RanShack came upon LSD pills. He suspected right away because someone had helpfully printed in black marker “LSD PILLS” upon the little plastic bottle that lay on the floor and which RanShack scooped up and dumped into his trash can. When he finished cleaning the space, he rolled the trash can down to the dumpster room and fished out the bottle before tying up the bag and tossing it onto the heap. Mission accomplished. We Netscaped like crazy that night to certify as much as possible the tablets’ authenticity. Bottle says “LSD,” but is it? “There’s only one sure way to find out,” I say. We discuss it, finally deciding that I’ll babysit in case something goes wrong as RanShack guinea-pigs himself. “For science!” he says, before popping the pill and chasing it with a wincing swig of tequila. RanShack’s eyes water, and he wipes his nose as he coughs. Deep breath and he says hoarsely, “We have liftoff.” In about 30 minutes, he bolts up onto the edge of the couch sitting straight as a gymnast, and talks about beautiful exploding colors, sentences in different languages floating by, streaking lights. He points to my head: “You have a halo, Trotsky.” Then, he whispers, “I am one with all things” and collapses back into the couch in an open-eyed trance. None of this is unexpected, more or less matching accounts we’d read about acid’s effects. None of it causes alarm because RanShack’s experiencing a good trip. For now. Could it go dark? I don’t know. The responsibility for my friend’s well-being that I’d so casually accepted now triggers panic. Should I take him to the clinic if he doesn’t snap out of it in another hour? What would I tell them? The body hides LSD, but this soon after ingestion? There’d be questions. I began to roleplay what those questions might be and how I should answer them when RanShack shakes his head as someone might when breaking the surface of a cold lake. “Wow!” “You OK?” He smiles blissfully. He’s OK. “This is incredible!” he says. “What do you see? Tell me.” “That wall. It’s breathing.” “What else?” Floating globs of color, sudden bolts of light, sparkler showers, corners of the room growing and shrinking, shoes melting into the floor. “Astounding!” RanShack says. “Just astounding! Like they said, my ego dissolved and I became part of everything. I became you, Trotsky. I hung on to you — your existence — as a way to tie myself to reality. And you were saying something.” “I don’t remember.” “But I took over you. I not only heard your thoughts I became you thinking your thoughts. It’s crazy. Paranormal. Religious.” RanShack’s a Catholic of a sort. The sort that doesn’t go to church. I’m agnostic of a sort, the sort who doesn’t want people thinking I’m hedging my bets by not plunging into atheism. We’re learning about Camus in one class and Camus said that “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, then live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.” Nobody ever called Camus a chickenshit. Also, true atheists don’t believe in anything paranormal. Nothing exists except the material universe, right? No ghosts. No sprites. No banshees. No angels. No afterlife. No. Yet, I have experienced incidents that cannot be easily explained without having a belief in the power of coincidence that borders on the supernatural. Once upon a midnight dreary, I agonized over a term paper that should explain the nuances of one of the more famous existentialists of the last century. I recalled a teacher that I’d had freshman year in high school who specialized in just this philosopher. I hadn’t even thought of her in seven years. I considered reaching out but discarded the idea, thinking, “Are you really going to chase her down after years of no contact? She probably won’t even remember you.” The next day — and, I mean, the very next day — who should contact me asking how college life goes and offering to help if I need it? I never even found out how she got my email address. And one night years ago, I dreamed about a favorite uncle — Uncle Jim — whose body started to shut down. He stopped eating. Could hardly move because of arthritis. Doctors gave him another year, because Uncle Jim didn’t have cancer or heart disease or anything else that might take him fast, and the nursing home he wound up in always made the 10-best lists of such institutions in the state. In my dream, Uncle Jim wept as he listed everything he’ll miss in this world: the Mets and Jets, a favorite restaurant, morning prayers, family, watching the ocean. And as I listened to Uncle Jim recite these things, I actually became Uncle Jim. I thought his thoughts and felt his sorrow, a sorrow that I would recall years later when reading T.S. Eliot’s “Preludes,” which talks of our world’s connection to “some infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing.” I awoke to a phone call telling me that Uncle Jim had just died. Coincidence? I don’t know. But RanShack’s talk of thinking my thoughts seemed somehow plausible. RanShack’s LSD tablets didn’t exactly match the size and color of the zolpidem pills, but close enough, especially since Theo usually dived in after we’d turned the lights out. RanShack dropped a few in the pill tin, and because of a few unused zolpidem, this gave the prank a Russian roulette flavor. But on the first night, Theo dropped acid. And that’s how Theo — Maximilian Nola — died. Age 20. RanShack recovered. Guilt can corrupt. Yes, you do something wrong, you should feel guilty. Wallowing in guilt, though, means wallowing in self. It’s a form of narcissism, I told him. It can stand in the way, especially for two young guys getting into law. Oh, yeah. I’m an attorney. What the hell else are you going to do with a degree in philosophy? Stay a student until 40 and hope to land a tenured position somewhere? No thanks. I’m a deez, dooz, and dem kind of lawyer. The people’s lawyer. Criminal law. Shackleton’s practicing law, too, somewhere. We drifted apart as people do. Why? Just life. Kids. Career. Ups, downs, sideways. We keep the pharmaceutical experimentation in college just between us. Nobody needs to know. Oh, yes. I dropped acid back then, as well. About a month after Theo. RanShack’s turn to babysit. That’s when I freed him of guilt. My ego did indeed dissolve, and I saw faces of people I’d cared for but who’d died. I talked to them. They became more present in my life. The dead aren’t really dead, and the living aren’t always living. You can get away with murder because, in essence, there’s no such thing. “You talked to Theo,” RanShack told me after I’d come out of it. “I did. Most he’s ever talked.” “Does he forgive us?” I lied. “Forgive us?” I said. “He thanks us. He’s so much happier now.” “So, there’s a heaven?” “He forgives you, RanShack.” That should have been the end of it. We never again dropped acid. RanShack stopped feeling guilty. We became quintessential college knuckleheads, joining a frat and limiting substance abuse to beer and an occasional shot. We saw the future and the future looked good. Except, except, except… It is now nearly 30 years after college, and I’ve built a reputation as a kick-ass criminal attorney that prosecutors don’t want to tangle with. About six months ago, however, he returned. Theo. He stands by my bed pointing at me. His black eyes seem to have taken on an appearance of coal heating up, a trace of red seeping from below. His gray hair whips about in a wind I do not feel. “What the hell do you want?” I shout, thinking that my words stay within the confines of dreamland, but my wife shakes me awake. “Are you OK?” I know that LSD can sometimes cause flashbacks, and this must have been one of them. It wasn’t hallucination because I knew that it wasn’t real. Then — after an admittedly fraught few days and nights — I thought, “Well, that’s that.” No. He returns. Sometimes in my sleep, and sometimes when I’m awake. I’ve learned how to pretend he’s not there because, well, hell, he isn’t. I talk to him when I’m alone, but he says nothing. I’m trying to decide what to do. See a shrink? Or maybe I’ll track down Theo’s family. I haven’t figured out what to say to them if I do, though. Or how to explain why it’s taken me so long to say it. I must do something, though, and soon. Because lately Theo’s image begins to betray the shadow of a smile as he continues to point at me. A frozen smile. A mildly sadistic smile. A prankster’s smile. Frank Diamond's poem, “Labor Day,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize Award. His short stories have appeared in RavensPerch, the Examined Life Journal, Nzuri Journal of Coastline College, the Fredericksburg Literary & Art Review, and the Fictional Cafe, among many other publications. He has had poetry published in many publications. He lives in Langhorne, PA.

I nearly set the date— I always put great stock in astrology. And with our planets so aligned I moved with a false confidence. My bouts with this affliction have always been proper and without pride or medicines. My anticipation has been the subject of many essays in Gothic literary journals. My disappearance provides little comfort but I will heal and return sometime before the Harvest Moon. R. Gerry Fabian is a published poet and novelist. He has published five books of poetry: Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts, Wildflower Women as well as his poetry baseball book, Ball On The Mound.

I once studied in the hall of mirrors, kept my back to the reflections. I never recognize myself anyway. I looked out the wall of windows on the other side. The courtyard was green, long into winter, because of how the light bounced, I think.  If something is true there is a scientific explanation. When the building fell apart they rebuilt. A towering newness, made all of glass. Before you think to yourself, oh, what a nice tribute – you should see the numbers: the casualties, the way they rack up and rake away the piles of broken birds. Shana Ross is a new transplant to Edmonton, Alberta and Treaty Six Territory. Qui transtulit sustinet. A Pushcart and Rhysling nominated author, her work has recently appeared in Gigantic Sequins, Laurel Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Radon Journal and more. She is the winner of the 2022 Anne C. Barnhill prize and the 2021 Bacopa Literary Review Poetry competition, as well as a 2019 Parent-Writer Fellowship to Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She serves as an editor for Luna Station Quarterly and a critic for Pencilhouse.org

The Empress. The Ten of Cups. The King Of Swords. First comes a strange sensation, Like a poppy racing to bloom, Or a present hastily unwrapped Somewhere in my chest. It feels Big. An entire field inside my soul Exploding in sunlight and gorged on Demeter’s laugh. Then electricity. A shiver down my spine and a tingling Through my fingers. Bolts of Hermes’ speech Made into silver glitter That catches in my hair And sings through my bones. That's when I know I’m ready To pull the first card. Whispered wisdom from awe-inspiring Olympians. When I’m done I find I am often A little out of breath Slightly light-headed. Eventually I have no choice but to step back, Come up for air, Find comfort in my smallness And stillness amongst the sparks. It can be dizzying sometimes, To rock back from one extreme to the next. But I like it that way. Communication with the sacred Should be A little wild. Holly Payne-Strange (She/Her) is a novelist, poet and podcaster. Her writing has been described as “genuinely captivating” by LA Weekly and “profound and sincerely engaging” by USA Today. She was also a writer for Fireside Mystery Theater, which The New York Times called “One of the top ten podcasts to bring drama into your home.” Her next novel, All Of Us Alone, will be a recommended read for Women Writers, Women’s Books. Her poetry has been published by various groups, including Door Is A Jar magazine, In Parenthesis, Dipity Magazine, and will soon be featured in Academy Heart, among others.

Born inordinately small, the boy Kedalion grew into a giant of a man. They say it was on account of his smallness that he kindled his gift into an inferno. It manifested as strength. He hid it, of course, such were the times; it was necessary for survival. Before the coming of the floods, those with the gift were few. Nonetheless, his family knew, for he was convinced his talents would spread to them, to his child in particular. It was this belief that saw him fall victim to hubris, but fate had an even hand. Convinced his son would bear his gift, Kedalion encouraged him to attempt feats of inordinate strength, as was child’s play for himself. In the first trial, he was to break a handful of kindling wood with his bare hands. He succeeded. In the second trial, he was to carry a cauldron of water across his home without spilling a drop. He succeeded. It was during the third trial – an attempt at literally defying the fate of Sisyphus – that the child fell victim to Kedalion’s conviction that the boulder could be stopped, or at the very least, avoided. Kedalion arguably suffered the crueler fate, for his heart was crushed, yet he was condemned to continue living. Feeble for the first time, Kedalion left his family and all he knew, and wandered towards the dark horizon in the hopes he might fall off the edge of the earth. But nothing can be overcome, without first traversing mountains. For mountains have a way of guiding us; their ancient faces having seen the passing of ages, a wisdom flows about and within them. It was in the tall and ragged coastal mountains that Kedalion’s grief turned into a search for solace. And it was in those very mountains that solace would be provided. It was a late winter night when he found the cave. The air was sullen with snow that was wet but still cold on the skin. The entrance was low, forcing him to stoop upon entering. Leaving the outside world, he faded into the darkness. The cave was warm, warmer than Kedalion expected. The inky black seeped into the recesses of the cave as his eyes adjusted to the viscera of the earth. The faint smell of brimstone wafted up from somewhere behind him. Turning, he noticed a quivering golden crack in the cave wall. He took a tentative step towards it. It wavered, then disappeared. He froze. His heartbeat filled his ears as his heavy breath joined the shadows. Then, a flicker. A golden vein fluttered before him. His heart jumped. This could be it, he thought. The answer for a demi-god such as himself must be this: a river of gold awaiting discovery in the heart of the mountain. Another tentative step, and it was gone. He leaned headfirst into the darkness. Emptiness greeted him. He reached out. Air. But it was moving. A light flashed at his eyes. Blinking himself out of confusion he saw the light flicker from a wide crack in the cave wall. It drew him forward. The faint glow pulled him into a labyrinthian hollow, deeper and deeper within the mountain. Following the widening tunnel, the light grew with every corner, dancing across the grey stone. Many twists and turns finally brought him to a den of sorts: a wide opening in the very bowels of the mountain. There, within the far wall, lay the source of the light. A golden fire burned in a natural hearth. Like a hypnotist, it seized his consciousness. He was rooted, like the mountain itself, to the earth beneath his feet. Kedalion watched the fire until he slept. When he slept, the fire watched over him. But symbiosis was impossible for Kedalion, for he did not yet understand his gift. So, though he had shelter, he found food and drink wanting. Leaving the cave became a necessity, as did tools for living – something he had not foreseen. His attempts to fashion the required implements from the forest’s wood met with failure. Frustrated, Kedalion holed up in his cave – the golden hearth his only source of comfort. Tossing and turning one evening, Kedalion rolled over a stone that had seemingly crumbled from the wall of the cave. Disturbing his already disturbed sleep, he tossed it with some bitterness at the fire. It bounced against the burning back wall beyond the flame and landed near the mouth of the hearth. A glow grew within the hollow. A luminance filled the cave like the sky set alight by a sunset after an ocean’s thunderstorm. Kedalion watched the mountain’s stone with wide-eyed fascination. It shifted, changing shape, slipping, until it fell forth onto the ground before him. He circled it and watched it cool until its surface shimmered in the firelight. He picked it up. It wasn’t heavy. One side was sharp; that gave him an idea. Holding it firm he tapped the sharp end against the cavern wall. Several more chunks fell loose; the smelted piece remained sharp. Carefully chipping off a longer chunk, he held one end in the fire. It reacted just as the first piece. When it burned bright as the sun, he removed it from the hearth and pushed it hard against the ground. It bent, and Kedalion had the beginnings of a hammer to accompany his rudimentary knife. And so it was that Kedalion learned he could smith rock from inside the mountain. His first tools were crude, but they allowed him to fashion the implements he needed to survive in isolation. With time, he created a proper forge – anvil, double-handed hammer and all – and he used it to hone his craft. And honing it desperately needed. For when he created large cutting tools, in order to be better able to gather wood, the blades were too brittle. When he created farming tools, in order to plant his own food, the blades were too soft. When he created piercing tools, in order to hunt, the blades were too dull. And with each tool, his hammer and anvil soon rusted, requiring that he forge them anew. It was only when he created simple art – arm bands he would have given to his son; necklaces he would have given to his wife – that his creations held firm. And so, he created many of these, for, like children, they gave him a sense of having given himself to something new and beautiful. In this way, Kedalion, alone and isolated inside a distant mountain, clung to his former fatherhood. But solace was not forthcoming. It so happened that at this time, Man met the consequences of generations of insensitivity to the earth, and, having borne all that she could, Gaia cleansed herself. Her waters rose, coastlines were altered, and the inhabitants that could, ran inland to save themselves. Amongst these refugees, were those with the gift. It was they who fled to the mountains, knowing those ancient structures would endure. And it was they who found the cave. The voices echoed off the labyrinthian walls. They caught Kedalion’s ear as he approached from outside, returning as he was from gathering berries. He froze. The voices dimmed, then grew louder. The sound of clinking metal echoed. Kedalion set off at a sprint. Running through the twisting passages, his footsteps sounded like impetuous rainfall. Jagged stone corners crumbled as they met his furious mass hurtling past. Narrow archways were widened as he charged towards his violated sanctuary. He burst into his den and saw them. A handful of individuals huddled around his fire, casting long shadows. He paused only for a moment. His forging hammer was in his hands within the space of a breath. “Get out!” he bellowed. The room was still but for Kedalion’s heaving chest. As he eyed them, he tightened the grip on his hammer. There were six, three men and three women, none too young, none too old, all still and unperturbed. Some of them looked at each other. “Get out of my cave!” Kedalion boomed. One of the taller men stepped forward. Shadows from the fire danced across his face with glee. His hair waved as he approached, like the branches of willows in a gentle wind. He smiled, though that seemed to be his natural expression. It annoyed Kedalion. “You have the gift,” he said. Kedalion roared at him and swung his long-armed hammer. It swooshed as it passed through emptiness. The man now stood next to him. “I can teach you,” he whispered. Kedalion made to elbow him but missed. He swiped at the intruder, unable to make contact, screaming louder with every swing. At last, his hammer hit something. Kedalion looked up from his rage to see the upper handle firmly in the man’s fist. He tried to jerk it free. It was immovable. Kedalion lunged forehead-first in an attempt to ram his opponent with his head. His neck muscles tensed as his motion was brought to a sudden stop. The man held Kedalion’s head in place with the tip of his finger. The man gave a slight push with it and Kedalion flew backwards, slamming into the cave wall. Rock crumbled around him. The man approached and extended his hand. “My name is Yoake Tetsu,” he said. Kedalion eyed him from under his brow, breathing heavily. Yoake stood motionless, hand still extended. In a flash, Kedalion grabbed it and stood. Yoake hadn’t flinched. “What do you know?” Kedalion said in a low growl. Yoake smiled, as if to a child, still gripping his hand. “We are martial artists, and our art is a conduit for the gift. We need weapons that reflect that. You could forge such weapons with your talents.” Kedalion’s eyes shot to his anvil and then back to Yoake. “Shed your worries,” Yoake continued, apparently clairvoyant, “you cannot forge anything in your state. Your soul is in turmoil; only when you find peace will we both have what we want.” Kedalion pushed past him. “You know nothing of me or my gift.” He stooped and retrieved his hammer. “Now, get out.” Yoake watched him for a moment, then nodded to his crew, and they left. Kedalion remained by his hearth for a long time. Hunger finally drove him outside. There, Yoake and his gang of martial artists had set up camp. Furious, but too weak to act on his anger, Kedalion returned to his cave. Time passed in naps. When a nagging pressure at the side of his head became an unbearable migraine, he rose to find water. Dizzy from dehydration, he barely made it out of his labyrinth. When the cool mountain air engulfed him, he swayed and stumbled forward. An exposed root brought the giant down to earth. The first sensation that followed was that of water touching his lips. Coughing, he regained consciousness. Yoake crouched next to him. He told him he had something to show him. Leading him back to the hearth, Yoake sat in the middle of the den and placed his palms on the ground. “Forge me a cup,” he said. Kedalion hesitated. “You owe me that much for saving your life.” And Kedalion did so while Yoake continued to sit, eyes closed, palms down on the floor. When the cup was ready, a rumbling followed. A perfect circle manifested slowly before Yoake. The floor within it then crumbled in on itself. Yoake motioned at the cup and it floated into the hole. “This is a well. Its waters are infused with millennia of pure universal energy. Drink, and you will heal.” And with that, the cup appeared before Kedalion, brimming with shimmering, dark water. Kedalion drank and health was restored to him. He stared at the cup, then the well, and then at Yoake with incredulity. Yoake only smiled, stood, and left. It was some time before Kedalion left his cave again, amazed as he was by the infinite millennial well and his newfound energy. When he did, he found Yoake and his partisans sitting at their camp. “Teach me,” he said to Yoake. “I have,” he replied without looking up. “I can’t do what you do.” “Not yet. But you have the foundation.” “My gift?” Kedalion asked. Yoake glanced at him and shook his head. “More fundamental than that,” he said. Kedalion considered his words. “My muscles, my body.” Yoake raised an eyebrow. Then it hit him. “My health,” he said. “You are nothing without it,” Yoake replied, standing. “Your gift is nothing, if you neglect the conduit through which it passes. You have your first lesson, now, forge me a blade.” Kedalion did as instructed and brought it to Yoake. The martial artist examined it and promptly smashed it against a nearby rock, shattering it. “It needs more layers, to remove the impurities,” he told Kedalion. The giant returned to his forge, surprised but encouraged at the thought. He had not folded the metal previously and thought that may have been the missing technique. Smelting the mountain’s ore until it was white hot, he folded it once and then hammered it into a blade shape afterwards. When he brought the finished product to Yoake, the martial artist examined it, and promptly smashed it against a nearby tree, splintering it. Kedalion left, bent out of shape. It was hunger that brought him back to the gang. Wondering how they sustained themselves he watched them from the entrance to his cave. When his stomach was growling loud enough for the others to notice, one approached. The man placed his upright palms together and nodded at him. “My name is Doron.” Kedalion gave a curt nod. “You’re hungry.” “What of it?” he replied. “We have food, but we need to cook it.” “Can’t you make fire?” “The wood’s too wet.” Kedalion knew immediately what he needed to do. Though he wanted to hesitate, his hunger forced him to act. In a bowl he had forged, he soon brought the group burning coals he had heated in his hearth. His contribution was gratefully received by a woman who introduced herself as Grace. She gave Kedalion some of the food in return. As he ate, Yoake approached him. “It’s good, isn’t it?” the sage said with a smile. Kedalion nodded with his mouth full. “What do you feel?” Yoake then asked. Kedalion stopped chewing and turned his focus inwards. A feeling of gratitude emerged from a curtain of ignorance. He glanced at the individuals sitting around what was now a campfire and smiled, satisfied he had contributed to something beyond himself. Yoake was smiling back at him. It was then that Kedalion also noticed the silence. All of them ate; none of them spoke. When he searched their faces for clarification, he found pleasure. So, he sought to find the same. In reflecting on his senses, he discerned countless positive impressions, and found joy in them. Among the sensations he enjoyed was the sight and sound of the fire before him. His forging arm twitched and when he finished he returned to his forge. After placing the mountain ore in the hearth, the wait passed slowly. With his mind a-flux, he sought out Yoake. Unable to find him, one of his colleagues approached. “Can I help you find something?” “Yoake.” “He’s climbed to the mountain peak to meditate,” the man replied. Kedalion sighed. “Perhaps I can help instead?” the man offered. “I need forging advice,” Kedalion replied. “Use your intuition.” “Huh? No, you see it’s the ore—” “Just follow your gut.” Kedalion huffed and returned to his forge. Perhaps it was his frustration, perhaps he had actually listened, but watching the ore take on its clarion color, he dismissed his worries. When he removed the metal, he began his hammering without thought. He folded the metal once and hammered away. But he did not stop there. He folded it again, giving his all and hammered it flat, and then relying on nothing but his senses, he did the same, twice more. When he raised the orange blade, he looked around. The bucket he had made to take water from the infinite well caught his eye. He stabbed the liquid with the sword and watched the steam rise. “Impressive,” Yoake’s voice made him jump. “I heard you were looking for me,” he said as he approached and took the blade up and examined it. “I was—,” before he could finish, Yoake whipped the blade against the mountain wall, cracking it down the middle. “You’re learning. Try again,” Yoake said. And Kedalion repeated the process, bending the metal six times now, putting everything he had learned into each fold. When finished, he brought it to Yoake. The martial artist examined it and promptly hurled it against the ground, bending the blade. Kedalion kicked over his bucket of water and left his cave. After the mountain air had cooled his head, he sought out Yoake. When he found him, he asked how many more times he’d have to fold the metal until it was ready, Yoake responded with a mischievous smirk. “There’s something lucky about the number 1000 for martial artists,” he said. Standing in the spitting rain, one of the crew named Aletheia appeared at his side. She told him she could help him find the truth, if he was true to himself, first. Only then would he know where the problem lay. “I’m in no mood,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s a start,” she responded. He only glanced at her before continuing to brood at the mountain landscape before them. “Why are you in no mood?” she asked. He sighed heavily through his nose. After a moment, he mumbled, “I’m frustrated.” “Why?” she asked. His eyes glazed over as he considered the truest answer. When it came to him he returned to his cave and was not seen again for three days. Kedalion emerged at dawn on the third day, forging hammer in hand. He interacted with no one, until he came to Aletheia’s side. It was then he whispered, “Because I can do nothing with my gift, and I feel I’m nothing because of it.” When he said the words, his rusting forging hammer fell from his hands. He inhaled deeply. “There,” she pointed at him, “Are you nothing right now?” He stared at her with an intense focus before his eyes slowly shifted to everything on the mountainside. “No,” he breathed. “The sun above the clouds is the same sun,” she said. “Though the mountains and rivers below are all different, each is happy in its unity, and variety.” Kedalion nodded and returned to his forge. When he forged a new hammer, he began on a blade; folded the metal eight times and cooled it, he saw rivers swirl in the blade and ran to Yoake. The martial arts master examined the blade as Kedalion spoke. “Rivers are in constant motion, and yet they can always be found in the same place,” he said and then grabbed the blade back and tossed it away. “Teach me that.” A knowing smile spread slowly across Yoake’s face. And so Kedalion learned to meditate, and the giant became a mountain. Contemporaneously, his gift took on a new added character of telekinesis – like that of the martial artists. When he folded the next blade nine times, he thrust it into the water from the infinite well, himself in an infinite state. Yoake examined the blade. He held it up, then out, he twisted his wrist, and swung it expertly. “This is a blade worthy of a demigod,” he said, “but it is not for me. My energy cannot circulate through it. A blade must be a conduit for the bearer of the gift.” He placed it carefully next to the mat of straw Kedalion came to sleep on. “What does it need?” Kedalion asked. “Only you can answer that.” For forty days Kedalion meditated on creation. For forty nights he forged blades. Ore leapt willingly from the mountain walls as he used the newfound character of his gift. No fingers chafed, no muscles strained; day upon patient day, his den grew as he chipped away at the mountain walls. But the newly forged blades did nothing. They shone, dead on his floor. When his forge expanded into the labyrinthian passages, he stopped. He had taken all he dared from the mountain walls, and echoes now rung deafeningly in the hollow corners of his abode. On the final night he sat staring at all he had created. Pride swelled in him, father as he was to his makings. And it was then he saw the problem. The next days were spent with the martial artists. Each sunrise and moonset with one of them. Sustained by water from his well, he took the familiarity he gained from each individual and worked it into a blade, folding it once more than usual. When he had forged a blade for each friend, he presented it to them. And every one of them found their energy could flow through their blade. This made the blades inordinately powerful. Kedalion presented Yoake with his blade before the hearth in the forge. Ite rang out like water crashing into the bottomless sea. “You folded it ten times,” he said. “Over a thousand layers,” Kedalion replied. Yoake examined his sword closely. “But that’s not all,” he said. Kedalion only smiled. Yoake looked around the den. Something was missing. “Your creations – the armbands and necklaces you made…” “What I made was never really mine, anyway. They all had their own roles to play.” And so Kedalion atoned for the death of his child and found solace in a quiet life of free servitude. Adam Anders is a Canadian writer and teacher, living in Warsaw, Poland. Once upon a time, he worked as a scholar of the Roman Army, having earned a PhD in Ancient History. Now, he teaches History, Media Studies, and Creative Writing at a private high school. He holds an ALM in Creative Writing & Literature from Harvard University’s Extension School. His short stories have been published in The Opiate, The Writing Disorder, and The Wilderness House Literary Review. Always seeking solace in nature, in his summers he sails the seas, and in winter, he skis.