The minute hand hammered to attention at the same time the medbay doors swung open, admitting nurse Stecth. She carried in her hands a metal storage clipboard, and flipped through papers nonchalantly. 
    That top is awfully low for a medical staff, do you think she’s trying to seduce me? I heard Max think. 
    Shut up, Max. I responded in kind. We had always shared a connection, Max and me. The innate ability to hear each other in her heads— the sort of thing the media always said twins could do. From what I could tell, no twins apart from us could do it. 
    I tore my eyes away from the nurse’s breasts. Damnit Max. It was like his pubescent urges could control us both sometimes. 
    Still better than being the one boy in school who experienced PMS, Alyssa. Max thought. Right, I had forgotten about that...incident. Still for the first thirteen years of our lives, we had survived despite being joined at the hip, literally. Only when Max’s dick started to control his thoughts did the medicare finally fork over some money. Why were boys so proud of their dicks?
    You’d understand if you had one.
    I do, technically. His name is Maxamillion.
    Fuck off.
    Why don’t you go die?
    Why don’t you shove your--
    “Good morning children, I’ll be your nurse today,” Stecth’s boobs interrupted. I panned up to her face and tried to ignore the massive mole on her neck. No way that was healthy.
    “Doctor Smith will be waiting in the OR to get you guys independant at last, isn’t that exciting?” the mole continued.
    “Meh, Alyssa’s jealous she doesn’t get to pretend to be me anymore. We’re like a package deal Parent Trap.” Max snorted. Oh, fuck right off dude. 
    He ignored me. Our father was also sitting with us, and once he got the joke, he gave a painfully rehearsed chuckle that did nothing but admit his nervousness. 
    “Well, let’s wheel you two in and we’ll administer the general anesthetic,” the mole said, and she grabbed the bars of our extra-wide wheelchair before either of us could protest.
    And to think you get practice with the extra-wide wheelchair before we get separated, Max sneered.
    Once we’re separated the first thing I’ll do is choke you to death, Max.
We reached the nurse’s station and she hooked us up to the drip. I glared daggers at everyone passing by gawking. Yeah, watch the nurse put the freaks to sleep. 
    “Now you may feel an odd cold sensation running through you as the anesthetic enters your bloodstream, but just relax and everything will be just fine.” she said. “Any questions?”
Can I fondle your-
“Shut the fuck up.” I said to Max. The nurse’s eyes widened and her smile broke for a few moments. Trembling, she regained it. 
“R-right. I’ll leave you two to it.” She said, quickly darting away.
“You idiot, you said that out loud,” Max whispered in my ear. I flushed. 
“I didn’t- I wasn’t thinking-” I stammered.
“Don’t worry about it,” Max yawned, “When I wakeu-”
Max conked out and before I could take it in, my head reeled and I followed him into unconsciousness.

---

Max?
Yes, Alyssa?
I feel funny. Like in a not very hilarious way.
That’s because we’re asleep but also not. Remember when we ran into that tree at Grandma’s?
You ran into it, I was taken with you, asshole.
Anyways, it’s the same thing. Don’t worry about it. Trust me.
Max?
Yes, Alyssa?
I love you.
You sappy fuck...I love you too.

---

When I woke up, my left arm was completely dead. Not sleeping. Unusably dead. Max woke a few hours later, understandably delirious. His first deed as a single man was to get rejected by our nurse. His second was to be mouthfed water after fainting for moving so quickly after waking up.
    Annoyingly he was right, I was jealous seeing him whole, not feeling all of myself anymore. 
    Will we still stick together like before? I ventured out to him.

Nothing but silence answered me.

​

Her face was seared into Owenn’s mind. The curve of her chin, the crook of her nose, the way her eyelids beat like wings then rested quarter-way down. She was more of a mother than he had ever had, and the cadence of her voice, like a soft breeze, brought back to mind the songs of his sister Jun.
            He had met Zephyr a year before the gods demanded he etch their words into his skin. Six months before he began to burn. Three days before he first heard Their voices. She was sweeping the front of the chapel in Fordel. Jun had stowed Owenn and herself away on a caravan of musicians and peddlers, but they had had a delayed stop due to some incident with one of their own going off with someone’s daughter and taking a hefty sum of gold and jewelry. Jun had taken Owenn on a hand-by-hand tour of the town. Jun stopped them by the doors.
            “I will light two candles,” she told him. “One for mama, and one for papa. You wait here.” And with that, she ascended the stairs and was devoured by the light of the hall. She never spoke about their parents, but Jun had a locket with a picture of their mother, who Owenn had learned died having him. His papa…had disappeared.
            “Don’t look so down on yourself.” Sang a voice from above him. Owenn looked up and came face to face with kindness. The wrinkles of age had just started to show on her face, but they only made her smile wider and truer. Well-used skin.
            “Jun said to not talk to strangers,” Owenn huffed. The woman laughed.
            “Rightly so!” she cried. “You never know what strangers are capable of. Why, I could be a dragon in a woman’s skin! Or perhaps a hobgoblin…just waiting to devour your flesh!” She mimed fangs with her fingers, and Owenn couldn’t help but crack a smile.
            “Don’t you worry,” she winked. “I like my prey plumper, anyhow! You look like you haven’t eaten in weeks!”
            “Jun says we can’t stop. Many want us dead. We eat as we move.” Owenn recited. The woman’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
            “Jun does not know everything, I think.” The woman said with a serious face. Even with its purpose, Owenn felt calmed. “You two, come have dinner tonight at the town inn. I shall see that you two eat tonight.” And with that proposition, she swept herself away.
            Jun said no. At the mere suggestion her beautiful face contorted like the shell of peanut. The camped underneath a wagon as the soft patter of rain turned their dirt bed into soft mud.
            They were awoken not long after midnight by a great thump and a whinny. The wagon pulled away, and Jun sprung up from beneath it.
            “Move,” she jostled him from his slumber. The broke away into the night. There was a cry from behind them but they reached an outlying farm and hid in the barn. There was a wonderful hour of silence then: thud. thud. thud.
            Jun glowed. Owenn could see in her face she did not want to, but even as she closed her eyes tight as they could go, her skin did not return to her normal colour.
            “Notnownotnownotnow…” she stammered. The barn door swung open with a crash and admitted three strange and burly men in black cloaks. There was a tussle, and Owenn made himself small and dark in the corner of the room. When he looked up next, Jun was gone. The only trace that remained was her locket and two spots of blood.
            Owenn crept out of the barn with trepidation. He rounded the door and- a hand wrapped around his chest and his mouth and he tried to scream.
            Zephyr shushed him until he calmed. “They know she had a brother. Stay quiet and follow me,” she commanded with alarming gravity. She took his hand and he let her lead him to a small abode in the corner of the town. She fed him a carrot stew and made him a bed.
            This would be the only feather bed Owenn would sleep in, and it remains with him as a soft memory. Zephyr offered to let him stay longer, but at the crack of midday, as she left with her broom, Owenn snuck away, the words of his sister as fresh as her mortal wounds were, on display in the courtyard: Don’t stop. Move.
                                                                                    ***
            The wizard had taken in a number of the children of the village into the lighthouse. What was one more? Owenn crept up to the door and knocked. There was a great silence, then distinctly, ten footsteps. The door opened, the backlit silhouette of a large man filled the way. Owenn looked past him into the light of the room. No one else was there. Perhaps the children were in another room... 
            "Why have you come to my door, child?" The wizard asked with a voice like a mallet.
            "You took the others, sir." Owenn said, grasping his arm in his hand to keep himself from trembling. The wizard studied him, then sighed and admitted him. Owenn entered into the lighthouse and shivered. It was cold as ice inside. The wizard closed the door behind him and Owenn saw the man in whole for the first time. He was a wide man, with a large mangled beard of grey and black. His unibrow did not quite stretch all the way across his forehead. 
            "Where are they?" Owenn asked. 
            "Follow me," the wizard said. The wizard led the boy towards a small door at the back, barely tall enough for Owenn to squeeze through. Certainly the wizard would be unable to fit through it. But as the wizard reached for the knob, there was another knock at the door. He answered it, and a bedraggled lady rushed in.
            "Kelstaf! The High Circle has demanded your presence. They need your help to fight the darkness." she said, before anyone else could get a word out. 
            "I built this place so I would not need to go anywhere near the Circle. Tell them to shove their request up their ass." Kelstaf the wizard replied. 
            The lady gave a strange look and explained that they needed his power. While they bickered back and forth, Owenn grabbed the knob to the door and peered in. The children he had seen going in the lighthouse were all there. Some even still had all their limbs attached, though they all stared back with dead eyes. 
            Kelstaf slammed the door. The woman had left. He turned to find Owenn gone, the small door ajar. The wizard cursed, and after searching around the room for a moment, exited up a staircase to the top. 
            Owenn emerged from the shadows. He was good at not being seen. He snuck out the front door, and seeing the woman from before pacing around he approached her with a shy nod. "You said we could fight the darkness?"

PREFACE: This is the Discord where these contests take place weekly: https://discord.gg/gdT896j

Two shots of whisky, half a pint of beer, and a glass of tequila in peyote. Russell was now intoxicated enough to wipe his muddy boots down and approach the barmaid he had been eyeing the past week. Slicking back his hair, he pushed open the swinging doors and entered The Lame Horse.
Almford was a hick town, for sure, but it had promise. If the girl was right, Russell was willing to put aside his roving ways and settle down, bring a few boys into the world to share his fortune and keep him cared for in his old age. The settling west wasn't known to being kind to old men- especially those with two enemies to every friend.
He spied the girl leaning on the bar, fixing her hair in a looking glass. God be damned, she was gorgeous with her dark locks and modest frame. She had the hips and youth for a good batch of kids as well, which was equally important as her looks to Russell. He approached her with a swagger that was half drink, half confidence.
“How rare to find a flower this far into a desert,” he started, leaning on the counter. “What did it take to drag you out here, daddy out to find his fortune?”
She looked over at Russell with a quizzical look. “More like I set out for my own fortune only to end up at a dried river with a dead horse and an empty wallet. What about you, stranger?”
“I wandered in on a very much alive horse, but halfway to my grave. Been here for a couple weeks now.”
A sly smile. “A couple weeks here, and only now did you come to see me? You been hanging around, staring me down like a thirsty dog. What did you think, I was going to come 'round first?”
“Pardon me ma'am, I weren't feeling my best, and you deserve better than a thirsty dog.”
“Then come round, handsome, and I'll mix you something to drink.” She winked at Russell and rounded around the counter. Russell sat down across from her and she pulled out a collection of bottles.
“Now I like a man who can hold his liquor. What do you say, out-drink me and I'll consider giving you a chance to woo me proper.” She placed down two shot glasses on the table and poured the first shots. Whisky, import, nine-percent. Russell felt a little queasy inside. His social grease beforehand was biting him in the ass, he already felt tipsy.
The first couple rounds weren't so bad, but by the third, Russell was starting to feel a bit sluggish, and he wondered if his eyes looked glassed over. The barmaid seemed no worse for wear, and raring for more. Russell knew he was beaten, and to save his face, he toppled backwards, tumbling to the ground as graceful as he could.
“Sirrah?” She called to him. He didn't answer, ashamed of his performance. A beat, and her footsteps came towards him. A pause, and he suddenly felt her touch. But it wasn't an affectionate touch. She rustled around his pockets, searching. He launched up and grabbed her arm, and she let out a yelp. He pulled her down, and shifted his weight to be on top of her.
“I'm a retired bounty hunter, ma'am. No one's stolen my purse and lived for it.” He warned her.
The look in her eyes told him she was close to tears, but she bit them back with just a minute loosening of control.
“What's a girl need to steal money from honest folk for anyways in this small town?” He asked, half rebuking.
“Maybe a girl wants to get away from this small town and its honest folk. Maybe she don't want to live her life barren in this barren desert.”
“I suppose you'd be stealing my horse too, eh?” He let go of her arms and climbed off her. She stayed where she was, embarrassed. That pout, and the look in her eyes: he had seen it before, and his heart yearned for her again. “She has a temperament, that mare. You'll need to steal me to ride her.”
The look he gained in response was equally parts enticing as it was mischievous. “Then you'd better be better at riding than you are at drinking, sirrah.”
She stole on last thing: a kiss.

PREFACE: This is the Discord where these contests take place weekly: https://discord.gg/gdT896j

Once they had extracted the cyanide pill from the spy's tooth, getting him to speak was easier than hand-to-hand with a straw man. Wicker, the man with the golden tooth, extracted the information neatly and without (much) blood.
“Lt. Kester- he's got a new weapon from the HQ...blows all of you to smithereens!” The man proceeded to laugh manically, and Wicker, deciding that the man told the truth, shot him square in the forehead. Pally was glad, he couldn't stand the man's voice.
They discussed what to do over a can of rations and light piano music. “What do you suppose we do about the weapon?”,“I suppose we move base again. No point fighting them with just six guys.”, and so the plan was simply set in motion. Pally and Lancer would pack up and move, Wicker and Terrance would scout the new place, and Luis and the General would provide cover.
They moved under the guise of night. Spotlights shone down like heavy rain, but the clothes layered over the barracks made it easier to hide from them. Lancer carried the forcefield, and Pally everything else. The new spot they found was comfy but noticeably smaller than their previous place. The first thing the General did was command that Pally put up their flag. It was a wonderful flag, in Pally's opinion. They had come up with the idea themselves. The battered tarp they used was half dyed green, and the top half was a bleached white. In the middle, a patch made by their late friend Yonket sat in the middle. The patch detailed a great creature, Yonket's vision of the behemoth. Pally's hands couldn't flip the pages of the Bible anymore, but he remembered when Yonket would read to them.
They lasted in that place for a week before Kester sent a patrol to their doorstep. The fight was difficult, and Terrance died. It was inevitable, Pally decided. Terrance wasn't adapting like the rest of them. He was still mostly human. They feasted on two cans of rations that night in remembrance, and Luis sang. His voice contrasted his thick, grey skin, a beautiful tenor from a rhino-like man.
Their plan to escape this new hideout was cut off by Kester's new weapon. It was a tank of sorts, and its shots decimated Lancer and the General before they even knew they were in danger. Wicker was sullen and as silent as ever as they abandoned everything except their flag and food. The forcefield was destroyed by this powerful weapon. Luis raved on about how this was the end, and Pally vainly tried to block out Luis' whining tone. The next morning, Pally found Luis had fled. Dead or alive, Pally wasn't in the mood to search for him. Wicker was tongueless and much more bearable anyways. They continued on for days in silence. Pally had dreams every night, usually of his comrades.
It was a hot summer day when they were met with the end of the world. A huge crevice spanned before them, black and burnt. There might've been another side, but Pally wasn't in the mood to try and find it, so they waited for surrender. When Kester did finally catch up, Wicker took himself out with the pill hidden in his gold tooth. Pally, utterly alone, was taken prisoner. They continued to give him shots, and he found his strength depleting and his form returning partially to what it had been before. Soon they moved him from a special prison to a steel cage. He didn't have the strength to escape anymore.
Eventually they wheeled him towards his execution. They were going to take out his brain, study him, he knew. Strapped to a cart, they took him down that all-too-familiar hall, and his eyes caught something that infuriated him. The bastards, they've made a new me. He thought, looking at his human likeness reborn in a tube.
“Alright,” said the doctor after they'd strapped him to a table, “Let's see why Pally number 30 failed.” The scalpel to his head was all Pally saw before he fainted to an endless sleep.

PREFACE: This is the Discord where these contests take place weekly: https://discord.gg/gdT896j

It had been a good seven minutes since the two men walked into the sauna, with nothing but a towel and a thermos to each. They had sat silent next to each other on the top stair in the sauna, the fat man leaning back against the wall.
'Have you thought about the deal?,' the fat man asked. The other one, a young business type, shrugged.
'I've thought about it, but it don't seem too kind to me. What do I get out of it? Nothing!'
'You get more than nothing, kid. You're getting paid more than you're worth.'
'I'm not talking about money, big guy. Any loser worth even half his salt can make it rich just doing a bit of down-and-dirty work. I want something more. I want to be more.'
'You're talking dangerously, kid. Boss don't take kindly to upstarts.' The fat man took a sip from his bottle then set it down again. The young man tapped his foot with a pang of irritation. He took a swig from his own bottle, then shifted his weight to face the fat man.
'Well if I ain't going to get up and start things, then who is? When the boss' time comes, there'll be fighting over his seat. What's so wrong with trying to use it to my advantage.' He laughed, running his hand through his coarse black hair. 'You wouldn't understand, big guy. You've been a grunt for your whole career. A muscle type. That doesn't come easily to me, all my strengths are up here.' He tapped his cranium, then laughed again, taking another swig.
'You'd be surprised at what can I know, kid. You don't just work 40 years in the family business and not learn a thing or two. For example, I'm aware you lost your sense of taste when you were young, correct?' The fat man smiled, but the young man stood suddenly and grabbed the fat man's neck. The fat man gagged, and flailed in the young man's strong grip. The youngster couldn't help but laugh again, and he let the man go, who fell to the ground coughing. The man cursed, and the young man spread himself across the seat. With a glare, the fat man exited the sauna.
Once he was gone, the young man took a sip from his thermos and released his bravado. How did that man know that information? He was just some common bouncer-type. The young man took another sip of water. Perhaps he just overheard it being talked about...but why would they talk about such an odd detail?
The young man scratched at his throat. It was starting to feel a bit coarse, as it did after enough time in the sauna. Odd, he'd never gotten this dry so quickly. The young man chugged the rest of his thermos of water and headed to the door to exit. He pushed the handle. Locked.
No. No, this wasn't right. Why would be locked? This was a public pool. He looked out the window. The pool, which had been full of life earlier, was now bare. The young man banged against the window. It was too tough, double-enforced glass, he presumed. He returned the door and pulled even harder, but to no avail. He breathed in but started coughing. His throat was closing up now, and each breath was more painful than the last. He fell to the ground, grasping at his neck. A shadow appeared at the window. The fat man. The window was fogged on the other side of the glass. The fat man traced his finger, writing in the fog four letters: N-A-C-L

Knock knock? The faint tap came from behind a battered blue door. Isabel and I looked towards it. We were trapped inside a place that seemed to span infinitely, and every place what would've been the ceiling or a wall or even the floor was a different door. Each one was unique, as far as we had discovered.
“What do you suppose is behind it?” asked Isabel. I didn't know, as usual, and said as much.
“...and I don't care to find out,” I amended. Isabel shrugged, disappointed.
“You could at least suppose something. Like it's a game!” she said.
“Alright, I'll suppose something. I suppose it's a monster come to grab me and drag me with it into oblivion.” I said sourly. Somehow that answer satisfied her, and she took her turn.
“I suppose behind it is a cake shop. They'll have hundreds of different treats, but every single one will look like a door!” She laughed at the absurd notion. I laughed, but for my own reason. I laughed at the fact that she still found ways to entertain herself. I had mostly lost track of the day, my only indicator of time passing was when the white door in the middle of the room knocked to give us paltry portions of provisions. We would open the door and in a small room inside it would be a plate of food. The proportions that each of us got had increased since the others died doing their own foolish things. Alexander had tried to open a door where nothing had knocked and was rewarded by disintegrating on the spot. Penny had figured that if she knocked, she could enter without harm. She suffered the same fate as Alexander. Liam had stayed in the food room one time, and had vanished completely the next knock that came around. Unna had gone crazy. We killed her ourselves.
All who remained now were myself and Isabel, a girl a few years older than myself in age, but much younger in maturity. She took her confinement in stride. My mind drifted to the first one to die. The Example. We never knew his name, but he was the one I remembered most. He was the one who opened doors for us, fearlessly. He figured out the white door on the first day, opening it after the knock and receiving the food. He then opened other doors, finding everything from the mundane to the entertaining. It kept us busy during the early days. One day not long after the food knock, he opened a red door with an ornate glass handle and embossed diamond shapes in the wood of the door. Behind it was something so terrifying his face turned white and all he could say was “Don't look” before he died where he stood. That door still stood open, far along the hall. We stayed in the middle now, taking our food and keeping to our own.
Another knock. This one came from a mahogany door with no handle but a brass bar to push. Isabel supposed it was some alien theatre. I could only picture a hideous alien that would murder us.
“What do you suppose we do then,” she stated simply. “You've been such a downer.”
“I don't know. Live and die here?”
“We saw so many amazing things before, can't we take at least one chance?”
“You can do that and die. See if I care.”
“Do you care at all?”
Not really, I wanted to say. “Of course. One day we'll escape. Maybe we can have kids and once they're all grown we'll try doors until we escape or die. Then they can repeat the pattern until we're finally done.”
“That's a stupid idea,” she laughed. I joined in, and our jovial voices echoed throughout the hall. A resounding knocking from many doors chimed in. The knocks almost sounded like laughter, voices sharing in our joke. Some joke, I thought, but I couldn't help my continued laughter. Isabel and I knew we were both going mad, but at least we'd do it together.  

“He's a real asshole, I'll tell ya that.” Wallman lit up a Camel, then passed the lighter to Tom.
“You say he's the asshole, but you're the one who started the fight, you know?” Donny snickered. Wallman dragged sullenly.
I noticed in the flickering of the discarded work light, Wallman's eye was now bright purple. I knew he also had a knife gash across his shoulder, but I made sure to bind it up tight. Leroy had been left behind, but I figured he could throw the Jacks off. He knew Civic Center better than anybody.
“C'mon, let's get going again,” said Roost. True to his name, his red mohawk drooped over the back of his shaved skull. “Them Jacks catch up to us an' last thing we need to worry about is who beat who, kapeesh?” He motioned to Wallman, who spat to the side, before begrudgingly butting out his smoke on the tunnel wall. My feet were cold and wet from wading through the sewer, but no one else had complained yet so I kept quiet.
We walked along for a time before Wallman spoke up again, kicking up some water. “How much further do we have to go, Roost? How do we know this fella of yours will follow through? We ain't hardly met him!”
“Lawrence my friend, Wallman, I'd appreciate it if you trusted him. We're nearly there. ”
Wallman stayed silent as we continued on. Eventually we reached an opening where the sewers opened up into a room, where a raised platform of cement awaited us. Tom and I were the first ones up on there, and when we saw that this was our destination, we eagerly took our wet shoes and socks off. Donny, the clever bastard, had taken his socks off before wading, and exchanged his wet shoes for the dry socks once he reached the mound. The five of us took a minute of reprieve.
Roost broke the silence. “Listen, Lawrence is a bit jumpy around new people, so stay calm and don't give him any reason to run or nothin'. He whistled down one of the number of tunnels that spouted from the room. Deep in the darkness of the tunnel, another whistle came in reply. “He's coming,” Roost reassured us. A minute passed, and the whistle came again, obviously closer. Tom had the flashlight, and flashed it down the tunnel. Nothing but blackness.
Wallman opened his mouth to complain when the blackness moved, a low gurgle barely audible as it squished it's way through the tight passage. Tom froze, keeping his light on the shapeless form that approached us. A splash behind us made us aware of Donny, running down the opposite corridor. Wallman's mouth had opened wider, his disbelief as evident as his rage. “Roost,” he said, his voice shaking, “What the fuck is that?”
Roost turned around, but I sensed immediately that the man who stood before us wasn't Roost. Not anymore. “He's my friend,” he said in a monotone voice, his eyeballs seeming blank in the darkness. Lawrence whistled in response. “Stop shining the light on him, he doesn't like it,” Roost commanded Tom. Tom was unresponsive. Roost knocked the flashlight out of his hand with a kick, snapping Tom out of his trance and scrambling towards the flashlight. It had fallen into the water. “Stop!” Roost called, in his own voice. Tom didn't listen. He jumped into the water, and with a sudden yelp, he keeled over in pain.
“MY LEGS!” he howled to us, turning around. He fell backwards and his legs- what was left of them swung up as he was enveloped in the water with a quickly muffled scream. The water had torn the flesh straight off. Wallman cried in horror. Lawrence whistled in a tone that reminded me of a disappointed mother. Roost was nonreactive to Tom's death, he turned immediately back to Lawrence, who had nearly reached the mouth of the tunnel, as far as I could tell in the darkness. I shivered, pulling my Rangers cap further down my brow.
“As long as you stay calm, everything will be fine, Roost assured the two of us. The thing entered the room, growing and stretching to fill the room, engulfing all but our plateau.
I picked up Tom's lighter and flicked the switch. In the light, a thousand bulbous eyes stared at me. They whistled directly to me their lullaby, and I let the lighter off. Their music was beautiful.