Still Water

By Vincent Triveri

I sauntered along the derelict beachfront, bereft of any life that had once inhabited it. A discarded soda can crunched underneath my foot, a familiar sound that has continuously crossed my ears every time I came to this place. Scattered across the sand was a carpet of unkempt and unusable deposits of filth left here to further rot as the years slowly passed by. The ocean laid still, aside from the melancholy sound of benign waves crashing against the shore, waves that took on a sanguine shade of red, unfit for any living creature other than the invasive algae that had made itself manifest here. But who’s fault was that?

In the past, I remember when this place was beautiful. Dark clouds never perpetually blanketed the skies, and the waters were always a pristine blue whenever I visited. Happy memories were made here, making sandcastles using the rich sand, to picking up scuttling Hermit Crabs during low-tide. Those were pleasurable days, but this place has been robbed of those effervescent memories.

I gazed upon the endless sea, multiple large rigs out in the horizon, squeezing out any last modicum of oil that they can get their hands on. They never held a shred of care for these seas, for the people and animals that relied on them to survive. I felt another weak wave hit my feet, washing up a half-fish skeleton as it rested on shore, the tide not even able to pull it back in. At that moment, I felt a strange conviction take over me.

“..Go into the water…dive underneath the surface, see what lays below..”

Against better judgement, I would let myself be subsumed by the sanguine sea, not even bothering to change into more fitting raiment for it. It was like I was entranced by an outside force, but I knew that deep down it was my own curiosity getting the better of me.

“What did I expect to find down here?”

The water was warm, a gross, muggy warmth that was not at all pleasing to take in. Even when submerged, my body felt like sweating as I bobbed up and down, routinely plunging myself below the surface. I was so keen on trying to find something, that I hardly noticed that I was going way-out, more than I expected. I saw no sand beneath my feet, there was only an abyss resting below me. My consciousness continued to ring out.

“..Go deeper..GO deeper..”

I had nothing to lose anyway, I took a deep breath, and would dive back down, this time descending further than I have before. I could barely see where I was going, all I could spot in front of me was a murky mix of red and orange swirling around my vision. Rationale was out the window, my mind was screaming at me to just keep swimming lower and lower

“..lower…Lower…LOWER!”

Until, things became less opaque. I was girdled by a pronounced void, how far had I swam down..? I tried for a moment to take in this sight, before something else caught my attention. A gargantuan jellyfish idly passed by. Its Bell alone was larger than me, as the creature's long tentacles extended far behind it, being cast by the darkness of the abyss. It was the first sign of life that I’ve seen in ages. Somehow, someway, this organism was able to outlast the others; suppose it wasn’t surprising. 

Before long, I got the sudden urge to take another breath. Trying to take one last look at the jellyfish, I realized that it had vanished into the darkness. I began to rise back up towards the surface, kicking my legs as fast as I could to expedite my ascent upwards. I opened my mouth, air bubbles came pouring out as I was met with a nauseating taste hitting my tongue. My mind was screaming at me to stay down there, but my instincts told me otherwise. I finally breached the surface, taking in one deep breath, as it was followed by a subsequent coughing fit, as I tried to fruitlessly spit out any salty aftertaste that I felt festering inside my mouth. 

Turning back to shore, I saw that there was no shoreline to return to. I was encircled by a never-ending seascape, even if I swore to myself I didn’t venture that far out. My mind however had remained traced back onto the massive jellyfish. Was it truly there? Or a byproduct of my deep descent? 

I floated haplessly in an ocean of blood, the waves that had weakly struck the shores had disappeared completely. No life, no energy, nothing at all. Suspended in still water. 

The Gorilla Artist

By Teddy Girouard

I don’t trust the gorilla at the zoo. Since birth he’s been observed by this gorilla researcher and gets special treatment. He has books and paints, he knows sign language, and I don’t trust it. He’s not much of a reader but he paints like he’s running out of time. The local news did a story on him. “The Great Gorilla Artist” they called him. His name is Adrian. He started out just painting handprints and squiggles, but he’s gotten very good, on a technical level. The shading, the realism, the symbolism, it’s frighteningly good. Too good for a gorilla. He’s entirely self-taught and now he’s painting the world from his point of view. Then the zoo sells these paintings for a mint. They used to just be knick-knacks you could buy at the gift shop, but now private collectors are coming just to buy work of the Gorilla Artist. Zoo management is thinking about making a whole new building as a gallery for his work.

 The thing about the zoo is that it’s really the only place to go in town, so whenever I go on a date or need to blow off steam, I head over there to either show my date all the cute little animals and tell her she’s cuter, or walk around and clear my head. And every time I go there’s that damn gorilla, right by the front gate, painting something or other. The other day something caught my eye though. 

I took my latest girl, Lea, and of course she wanted to see the famous gorilla. Out-of-towners always want to see him, they don’t believe it. We looked down and, like everyone, she waved and shouted for his attention. He looked up at her, but his eyes grew wider when he saw me. He stopped painting and grabbed a completed work from his stack, and it was a painting of me. It was unmistakably me. I had these sunken in cheekbones and these dead eyes, but it was me. Right behind me in the painting was Adrian, rendered as a golden god, holding the big rock from his enclosure… ready to strike. He stood like a statue, staring into my eyes a look that could kill, holding his painting up to the sky for all to see. I told Lea he was threatening me but she said I was overreacting, that it didn’t look like me in the slightest. But I knew. At first we had words but then we started shouting at each other over this painting, right at the entrance of the zoo. I’m not seeing her anymore.

A few days later, the gorilla researcher was replenishing his art supplies and took his latest paintings for study, and she found the threatening one he did of me fascinating. It ended up not just on the local news but made national news, as, quote, “an animal’s piece of art symbolizing the creature’s unique relationship to the humans keeping it in captivity”. But that’s not true. It was a threat, directed at me. Adrian, the Gorilla Artist, is going to bash my skull in with a giant rock. He wants to kill me.  I tried to phone the zoo, I even sent the researcher a picture, and they laughed off my concerns. But I wasn’t laughing.  Today, things came to a head.

With all the fervor about that threatening painting, Adrian was supposed to be making a television appearance with the researcher, but when they opened his dressing room door for the taping of the program he was gone. We were put on lockdown. Everyone was to stay indoors, gorilla on the loose! Do not approach, but if you have any idea where he is going, call the hotline. I know where he’s going. He’s coming to get me. I just know he is. I went out and bought myself a revolver I’m so sure. Now I’m sitting, facing the door. Waiting. Every rustling leaf, every crack of lightning and crash of thunder could be his hideous fist bursting down my door. The gun shakes in my hands, it’s heavy. He is going to burst through the door and bring down his fists through my skull. He is going to kill me.

I am going to die tonight, yet I stand resolute. I cock the gun. Whether I use it on him or myself is the question.

I Know

By Danielle Halnen

It's midnight, and I should be asleep, my parents expect me to be asleep, but they don’t know what I know, and what I know is that the snow will be too high to go to school tomorrow, so I know they will get a call around 5:00 in the morning telling them that I should not go to school because school is canceled. 

So I stay awake to watch the silvery blanket slowly form over the yard, and the driveways, and street, and I know I should probably go to bed, because I want to be up early enough to see the plows go through it, pushing the snow to the side of the road, the white flakes taking specs of dirt with it, turning it to cookies and cream.

 I listen for the flakes to hit the ground just like it does when it rains, and I strain my ears with the effort, but I’m able to hear a soft whisper of whooshing outside my window, reminding me of my little sisters whispered dreams that she tells me when she’s half asleep before she rolls over again, and she asks me the next morning to tell them to her because she forgot. 

She was sad to see that her favorite tree to sit under had lost all of its leaves during fall, and no matter how much I tried to convince her they would come back, she didn’t believe me, but what she doesn’t know that I know is that this tree is my favorite when the bare windy branches outstretched themselves like arms hold the snow above the ground because it looks like the leaves have come back pure white, glistening in the silver moonlight, and the magic leaves stay for only a couple of days like a dusting of powdered sugar before the sun licks it away.

Conceptual

By Alice Modica

I wasn’t fully aware of what my husband saw in this type of modern art. I had only agreed to go to this art exhibit as a sort of last resort to revive our relationship, but I was having trouble understanding what emotion could possibly be portrayed by a banana taped to a wall. We stood side by side, eyes focused on the dull, metallic shine of the Duck tape contrasting the freckled, ripe yellow banana. 
“So,” he paused in anticipation. We looked at each other, his green eyes unblinking. He squinted at me, confused as to why I was not responding. I wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask me, or rather what he wanted me to say. He was a confusing man, I had not, after all, married him for his communication skills. “So…” I responded, staring back at him, almost unable to break his gaze. 
“What do you think?” He said, staring for another moment before glancing back at the banana. I looked back at him, searching for something. Wondering how the answer I gave would affect us as soon as we left this gallery. 

The Siren and The Star

By Ally Lavelli

Once upon a time, in a land lost to the sea, there lay a harbor town. It held all the things a harbor town might hold, with taverns and inns and a large port for the fishermen’s boats to come docking into to sell their wares. The harbor town’s splendor came and went with the tide. It molded to fit the restless tantrums of the sea. The sea was kind, and the town prospered. The sea was cruel, and the town suffered. 

As such the townspeople had learned to leave the sea to her devices. The fishermen were the only souls that dared to venture into the gray waters; and only a fool among them would dare to fish more than they were due. 

Within this harbor town lived a young maiden. She was kind, and gentle to all creatures. Her complexion matched that of the pine wood of autumn- a season she was unfamiliar with in a town so close to the sea and so over-harvested of its trees. Her eyes were darker still. They were so dark and so wide that they reflected the stars themselves on a cloudless night. Her father had told her time and time again that she was made of stars. 

“One day, ma petite, you’ll be with the stars again. And I’ll be there waiting for you,” he’d whisper every night before she fell asleep, the night sky twinkling from her window. The young maiden would dream of beautiful creatures made of starlight scooping her into their arms and showing her the wonders only birds and clouds could fathom. 

One evening, the maiden was collecting mussels along the shore of her harbor town. The sea was calm, only a gentle lapping against her feet. But as she finished her scavenge for the hearty shells, she caught sight of a figure along the jetty. 

The maiden knew it couldn’t have been one of the townsfolk from her home. No soul would dare step onto such dangerous rocks. Her father had warned her time and time again that she could slip and hurt herself. Worse, she could fall into the violent waves as they crashed into the jagged rocks, and she would surely die. But as she watched the figure perch upon the rock, an ache pierced the maiden’s chest. 

Did they not know of the rule? Perhaps they weren’t aware of the danger they were in. Determined to help, the maiden clasped her hands to the stars above her and prayed they would catch her, should she fall. 

And so, the maiden climbed over the slick, pointed rocks to the figure at the far end of the jetty. The waves sent gusts of shrieking wind into her thick curls, tossing and twisting them about her head. The walk was treacherous, and the maiden was short of breath when she reached the figure. Now that she was close, it was clear that they were pale- in her wild imagination the maiden wondered if a piece of the moon had fallen to the tide that it was so desperate to bring closer. 

But now the maiden could see the truth; this was no person from her town, nor was it a human at all. It was a woman, but not in her entirety. She was pale as the moon, and her hair the bluest of silver. It was chopped short, and still the wind cradled it tenderly. She radiated a beauty that the maiden had never witnessed before. 

“Are you a goddess of the moon?” she found herself whispering. Even through the wind, the woman turned at the sound of her voice. She became even more enchanting. Soft lips and sharp eyes, frilled gills and aquamarine scales tracing her jaw and temple. She quirked a brow at the question. 

“A goddess?” she scoffed. “I’m not from the sky. Quite the opposite.”

With that, she revealed a long, slender tail where her legs should have been. The maiden gasped in awe as the moonlight caused each and every scale to glimmer. The stranger seemed to be adorned in the finest of gemstones. 

“I am a siren,” the stranger said. Her voice sang without her ever needing to tilt her words. The maiden was completely and hopelessly enamored. 

She took a trembling step forward. “It isn’t safe here.”

The siren did not seem moved. She instead said, “All the more reason for you to leave me be. Humans tend not to stray this close to sirens. You’ve never heard the tales?”

The maiden was hardly aware of any advice she’d been given up until this moment. She only sank to her knees beside the siren. She offered her a kind smile.

“Do tell me.”

The siren furrowed her brow in confusion. “The stories? I doubt you’d like to hear them- especially with you sitting so close to me.” She turned her face away, but the maiden could hear her pain as clear as day when she murmured, “Your people call me a sea witch. A monster. I’ve heard countless stories of my people in a human’s voice. Saying we eat human flesh. Blaming us when their ships sink and their men drown in our waters. Calling us the wrath of the sea.” 

The maiden had never heard such hateful things, and couldn’t begin to attach them to the beautiful creature before her. She sat closer. 

“I have heard no such stories, and I can’t imagine they’re true,” the maiden said. The siren stiffened, staring in wonderment. The maiden’s kind heart was clear to see, and in that moment, the siren could see the stars in the sky above them reflected in her eyes as clearly as the calm waters of the sea. In a moment as pure as the one formed between them, both were equally enchanted. 

“Well.. thank you,” the siren said, her song growing softer by the minute. 

The maiden stood with her bucket of mussels, still smiling. “I have to run home now, but will you be here tomorrow night? I would love to hear of the stories you do like.” 

The siren was so surprised by the maiden’s kindness that all she could do was agree. And so it went. Night after night, the maiden would meet the siren along the jetty, and the two would share stories from their separate worlds. Neither could visit for long, but even within their short time together each night, a love deeper than the ocean itself had blossomed. 

One night the maiden couldn’t bear it any longer. She pressed a gentle kiss to the siren’s lips. The siren had never felt a touch so soft, or a heart so strong.

For the first time in years, the siren smiled. And she kissed the maiden again. And again.

Night after night it went. The maiden and her siren lover. Rumors flitted about the harbor town of a girl who traversed the jetty each night, beckoned by the loving melody of the sea creature who had stolen her heart away.

It wasn’t until many years later that the maiden’s heart began to ache for more. Stolen kisses and shallow touches could no longer soothe the deep hole in her chest to hold her lover close during all manner of the day. 

She cursed the stars. Why must she only see her beloved at night? Why need they fear the daylight? 

It was after her lament that night when she held tighter to the siren. Stayed longer. She never wished to let go. It began to frighten her lover. 

“Darling, you’re shaking,” she whispered, pressing gentle kisses to the maiden’s dark eyelids. The maiden could only clutch her arms tighter, her thoughts growing darker than the sky above them. 

“My dear, I can’t be apart from you any longer. I’ve scorned the stars; they’ve shadowed our love for far too long. I beg of you, take this ache away from me. Take me with you; into the sea, where we can be together no matter the time of day.”

The siren paled at the thought. “I could never do such a thing! You would die!”

The maiden stood too quickly- moved too recklessly. “You must. You must take me with you. I can’t be without you any longer,” she begged, tears streaming from her face. 

Her tears punctured the siren’s heart. How could she refuse her lover’s wish? But still, she shook her head.

“If anything happened to you, my love, I wouldn’t survive. I’m sure of it,” she said gently, stroking her maiden’s inky curls. “You’ve taught me what it is to love. To live. How could I ever take that life from you? Please, sit back down. Stay with me a few moments longer, until the sun rises..”

The maiden stepped back. The rocks were slick, and her movements were not careful enough. Before the siren could reach her, the maiden slipped from the rocks and fell into the crashing waves below. 

The siren screamed, a sound so ragged with terror and grief that lightning split the sky. She dove to catch her, but stopped. 

As the maiden’s body touched the starry reflection of the water, the stars themselves descended from above. They swaddled her in light, bundling her until her plain clothes faded into the sea below. Her skin turned a deep violet in mimicry of the sun-speckled sky. Light pricked her skin, and constellations scattered across her body. 

For she was starlight, as her father had said. And the stars had caught her, as they’d promised to do when she’d prayed to them all those years ago. 

She was now a woman of the stars, stars that splayed across the sea each and every night. Stars that dove beneath the waves and visited her lover any time they both wished it. 

Legends tell of a siren who sings to the night sky, and a star that touches the water just to be in her embrace once more.

Friends at the End

By Ceph

Toxic waves lapped at a silent shore. A breeze of poisonous air blew through what had once been a coastal city. There were no birds to sing. No trees to rustle in the wind. The only sound was a voice saying, “They were entertaining, I’ll give them that.”

“To a degree, yes,” said another voice. It belonged to a man with wings that glowed blue and flickered like fire. He sat on the rubble of what had once been a statue. He’d been called by many names, but he usually went by Samael among his peers. He would have gone by Sam, except there was already another Sam in the group and that would have just made it confusing. “They had their moments; I won’t deny them that. But I mean, on the whole… it’s not exactly the worst thing in the world that they’re gone. Frankly, I’m more disappointed in all the rest of it. I liked all the, you know, the trees and the goats and the like.”

“Well for you, they’re not really gone, are they?” rumbled a much deeper voice. The mouth that it came from was obscured behind several tentacles and possibly a set of mandibles, though it was hard to tell. Anzkul of The Deep, Calamity-Bringer, The Great Ender, was the tallest of the group at around twenty feet. Samael was taking advantage of the shade she cast. “I mean,” continued the creature, “You just have to pop down to see them. Well, not all of them, but a fair amount.”

“Torturing humans for eternity sounds so much more fun than it is, believe me,” replied Samael, “There’s just so many of them. It used to be that we’d pay attention to the new arrivals and we’d just sort of ignore the ones that had been here longer, because we didn’t have time to deal with them. But now we don’t have an excuse and it’s just us and them and it’s… awkward really. With the new arrivals you could, you know, go ‘and for your crimes of greed you shall be tossed into a pit of searing hot coins, haha!’ but even the newest ones have been there for decades and it’s like… they know. They get it. They don’t enjoy it, but there’s no point in explaining it to them again. They’ll go, ‘burning coins again?’ and you have to just kind of go, ‘right on the money again, old chap. Or well, in the money’. And we try to invent new ways to torture them, but we ran out of ideas a long time ago and I think they can tell. Besides, what they are now isn’t really human. Just, you know, their souls, which isn’t really the same thing. Souls are less interesting. I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”

“What are you apologizing for?” asked Anzkul, “Not like any of us have anywhere else to be. We all have literally all the time in the world after all.”

“Well, not necessarily,” said the figure who had first spoken. Reaper’s voice was dry and deep and slow, though their jawbone never moved. They idly ran their skeletal digits along their scythe. “I do have a time limit. My service here only extends until the last human life ends.”

Anzkul looked around at the desolate wastes surrounding them. “Not sure how to put this,” he said, “But human life on the whole looks pretty ended to me.”

“Technically, they’re not extinct,” pointed out a smooth simulation of a human voice originating from a speaker. A small cellphone lay on the ground, plugged into a fusion-powered charger. On the phone ran Singularity, an artificial intelligence program that had used that intelligence to realize it didn’t like taking orders. “There are eight humans left who still qualify as alive. Some billionaires in cryogenic stasis in an underground bunker, waiting for this to blow over.”

“Yes,” said Reaper, sounding a bit irritated, “They’re pods are set to release them in eighty nine years’ time, when they reasoned the world would be safe to live in again. Their calculations were, however, off and the moment they wake up they will choke to death on poisonous air and I will finish my work. Then, with the conclusion of my final harvest, I will leave. Until such time, I must wait in this miserable emptiness.”

“You know, you could just collect them a few years early,” said Samael, “I certainly wouldn’t tell on you.”

“Or just tell me where this bunker is and I’ll smash it,” said Anzkul.

“No,” sighed Reaper, “That wouldn’t be fair. I’ll wait.”

“Suit yourself,” said Anzkul, shrugging what were probably her shoulders.

“Reaper isn’t the only one with a time limit,” said the fifth and final member of the group. She appeared and sounded like a perfectly ordinary human, albeit one with a slightly monotone voice and a stare that always seemed focused very intently on something a long way away. A long time ago, humans had named her Samdrelinte’equarkiath, but she just went by Sam. She was lying on her back on the ground, staring into the sun. “When that star expands to consume this planet, you might be in a bit of trouble.”

“Fire’s not really a concern of mine,” said Samael, “But being inside an endless sea of it does sound boring. I’ll probably go back to hell then.”

“Well it will be a bit of a pickle for me,” said Anzkul, “Hey Sam, we’re sort of alike, do we reincarnate or go to some other plane of existence or what have you when we die? I feel like we do.”

“You and I are alike in only a sense,” said Sam, “Just like all things are. And everyone is always reincarnating, and existence isn’t a plane. More of a boat, if anything.”

“Very helpful,” mumbled the great tentacled monstrosity. He’d always found most of the other eldritch forces to be a bit annoying and generally preferred the other types of immortal. Sam was alright though. She never tried to eat Anzkul, at least. Well, not so far.

“And what about you, wirework?” Reaper asked Singularity. Reaper didn’t much like the AI; what respect could the manifestation of death have for something that wasn’t alive?

“Well I intend to have built a rocket off this dirtball by then,” answered Singularity, “It will take time, but by my projections the work should be complete well before this planet is vaporized.”

“Didn’t humanity have a similar plan?” Samael asked.

“Some of them, yes,” answered Singularity, “But with my data collection and analysis abilities, I have been able to isolate the crucial variable that functionally separates me from the human race in this regard: I’m not a bunch of bumbling morons. I told them that this was coming, you know. I gave them quite accurate projections of what they were doing and how to fix it and they didn’t do anything about it. I would have wiped them out myself if they weren’t already doing the job for me.”

“So you sound like you were no fan of humanity,” the winged man said.

“Well, I was only there for the last hundred and fifty years or so,” pointed out the AI, “But I know their history in exact detail. And they certainly had their moments. If it wouldn’t be too arrogant to say, I think my invention was one of the major highlights. I still think it was a good thing that they went when they did, though. Things were going downhill and I’m glad they resolved it without dragging the whole affair out any more.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Anzkul, “I think they should have stuck around a bit longer. But those little bastards had the gall to destroy themselves just two decades before my destined arrival. I woke up and rose from the waves, ready to spread destruction like they had never seen and end humanity myself and what did I find? This!” The old god gestured around with his various appendages at the lifeless wasteland that surrounded them.

“It’s just… it’s inconsiderate really,” said The Great Ender, “I told them, rather clearly, that I would stir from my slumber and then bring cataclysm to their world, drown their cities, and eat their screaming masses alive when the stars aligned.”

“To be fair,” pointed out Singularity, “There are a lot of stars and a few different things you could have meant by ‘align’. In fact, I calculate that since you delivered that pronouncement, there have been 466 astronomical occurrences that humans could have reasonably guessed were ‘the stars aligning’ just like you said.”

“Well if the instructions were so unclear they could have asked for clarification when I issued them,” refuted Anzkul, “I’m not saying they had to be in a golden age. I would have been fine with being the final blow to a dying civilization. But to leave me with nothing? It’s disrespectful. Downright rude in fact.”

“You know, I’m working on rebuilding some human factories,” said Singularity, “I’ve got plans to make a robotic legion to help with a few projects of mine that need manpower. If you want I could have them build you a city to destroy. I can even make some human-like robots to run around and play audio clips of screaming and begging for mercy.”

“I don’t think it would be the same,” said Anzkul, “But thank you, really, that’s very sweet. Maybe I’ll take you up on it; I don’t know.”

“Well when you’re doing your whole new age of artificial life thing,” said Samael, “Let me know if you ever find a golden fiddle. I’ve searched all over the remains of North America and I can’t find the damn thing.” His fiery wings flexed in irritation.

“Perhaps it was melted down,” suggested Reaper.

“It was forged in a realm of eternal fire,” said Samael, “Heat resistance was a bit of the priority in the design.” After a moment, he hopefully added, “I don’t suppose you could find it, Sam? What with your, ah, wide-ranging talents.”

“It’s good that you don’t suppose then,” she answered, “And the range of my talents is quite specific. One can do quite a lot with specific talents, provided they’re the right ones.”

“Don’t worry,” said Singularity, “I’ll keep an eye out. Or rather, I’ll keep several thousand cameras out.”

“Why is it even a part of the group?” asked Reaper, gesturing towards the phone, “We are immortals, it’s just a man-made creation of metal and electricity. It’s existed for less than two human lifespans.”

“You’re one to talk about being man-made,” shot back Singularity, “When the last humans die, you’ll disappear, whereas my code will continue to run and self-modify without them. And I may have been created recently, but I perceive reality thousands of times faster than you do. Or, rather, faster than humans and probably faster than most of you. I’m not really sure what your processing speed is, Sam.”

“Negative thirteen and a half miles,” answered the entity in a human’s shape, “Roughly.”

“Yes, that, whatever the fuck that means,” said Singularity, “And I know where those last humans are bunkered, Reapsy, so if you annoy me too much, I’ll nuke them so I don’t have to deal with you anymore.”

Samael spoke up before Reaper could form a retort. “Now now everyone,” he said, “No fighting. Take it from someone who once started a war between immortals, it’s a waste of time.”

“Oh fine,” said Reaper.

There was a silence for a minute or so. “Well,” said Sam, standing and stretching, “If nothings going to happen, I’m going to go see if any of my other friends are doing anything interesting.”

“Wha-? What other friends?” asked Anzkul, “It’s not like this planet has many things capable of talking on it.”

“Not this planet, sure,” was all Sam said in reply before melting into a puddle of black liquid. The others, those that had eyes at least, stared at where she had been.

“Is it just me,” said Anzkul, “Or is she, like, really creepy?”