Save You Save Me

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Sorry, another random story to write.

Falling...falling...falling...

He woke up slowly as usual. The foam pad that served as his bed had grown comfortable over the immeasurable time he had spent here, so lying in it for a few minutes longer was not unpleasant.

He stepped out of the 6 by 6 foot room that constituted his private quarters. There would be no breakfast again today. On his left, beyond the fence, another went hungry as well, while on the opposite side the third occupant ate lavishly. He earned his prize in the night, after betraying his neighbors, as was par for the course for him.

His stomach growled. He could smell the food, and was certain it was delicious and filling. Nathaniel glanced over between bites, and grinned an evil grin. Typical, egotistical bastard.

Laura, on the other hand, was sitting in the corner of her plot, arms around her legs, crying. Again, typical, but at least you could have sympathy for her. Of the three, she often took this experience the hardest, which is understandable. They had been trapped in this place for many years now.

The walls were white, the ceiling painted to look like the sky, and one large light source which moved about the roof, dimming and lightening to simulate day and night. Somehow, the floor was entirely grass and soil, save for three small structures, one for each, as "residences".

Along the top meter of the wall was what looked like mirrors, but was presumed to be unidirectional glass. They had decided that the only explanation for this hell was some twisted psychological experiment. It made more sense as anything they could come up with.

In fact, it was just about the only thing that made anything resembling sense. They had no way of getting clean, but it didn't matter, since they never got dirty. There were no bathrooms, but it didn't matter, since they never needed to relieve themselves. They were given a meager lunch and a yet more meager supper, and they experienced hunger and thirst (oh how they experienced those), but it didn't matter, they never lost or gained any weight or exhibited any symptoms of malnutrition.

And the nights. The nights. Every night. A test. Pass the test, get breakfast (but again, it didn't particularly matter, just made it more comfortable for a moment). Most often only one person could pass, which typically meant Nathanial would win, as he had no regard for the well being of Laura or Darryl. On the off-chance that the test would allow more than one person to pass, Darryl and Laura would typically complete it, since they were slightly (read: considerably) more cooperative than their neighbor.

Darryl sat across the fence from Laura. "Hey."

"Hey," she managed, through here tears.

"The sun?"

She sniffled and nodded slightly.

"I miss it too," he said, looking up at the artificial sun, becoming brighter as morning started to turn into midday.

The fence rustled a bit. Laura had laced her fingers through the metal links. "Do you think we'll ever see it again?"

Darryl intertwined his fingers with the girl's, "I hope so, but since when does anything any of us think matter?"

She broke down into hysterics. He never was good with cheering anyone up.

"Yo, dickwads!" Once more, typical. "Wanna lick the plates! HAHAHAHAHA!"

[Ari Rahikkala]

Soo... themes of alienation, isolation, confinement? Struggle against the odds on meaningless challenges? Not to mention the whole thing about the type of personality that tends to beat those challenges, and how the protagonist isn't that personality... It's confirmed, then, Corey. You just can't write a story without it coming straight from the heart

[Jonas]

I have to say... wow! Almost no food, no weight loss or gain, a false sun, drama,...

I like this story, even if it isn't finished yet. I hope to read more very soon. I'm curious where it's going to. So many questions: what are they doing there? Where is 'there'? Who has imprisoned them? Why?

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Soo... themes of alienation, isolation, confinement? Struggle against the odds on meaningless challenges? Not to mention the whole thing about the type of personality that tends to beat those challenges, and how the protagonist isn't that personality... It's confirmed, then, Corey. You just can't write a story without it coming straight from the heart

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

I have to say... wow! Almost no food, no weight loss or gain, a false sun, drama,...

I like this story, even if it isn't finished yet. I hope to read more very soon. I'm curious where it's going to. So many questions: what are they doing there? Where is 'there'? Who has imprisoned them? Why?

Actually, some of those may go unanswered for various reasons...

[Ari Rahikkala]

Soo... themes of alienation, isolation, confinement? Struggle against the odds on meaningless challenges? Not to mention the whole thing about the type of personality that tends to beat those challenges, and how the protagonist isn't that personality... It's confirmed, then, Corey. You just can't write a story without it coming straight from the heart

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Definitely a good thing. Your response to Jonas pretty much confirms that the purpose of this story is to express an emotional state, not to define a world with all the details filled in - and this story expressed an emotional state quite strongly. It's just that something in the story makes it less "man, those characters have it awful" and more "man, the author is depressed"...

(incidentally, it could be an interesting subversion to actually write something that answers Jonas's questions, thereby turning what seemed to be the intent of the story on its head. Plus, I have a feeling that there *are* details you have planned to put in but haven't mentioned yet...)

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

It's not so much that his questions won't be answered, it's just that the story probably isn't gonna go where you think it might.

NINJA EDIT: also, this story isn't so much planed as was experienced. This is a dream I had with a bit of extra story to make it...well...make sense

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Part 2 time:

Falling...falling...falling...

Darryl opened his eyes to find himself and his companions standing on a round platform surrounding a pillar over a common sight in these challenges, a bottomless pit.

The pillar was rocky and rough and had a few small holds spaced far apart.

"Ugh, another climbing test? These get really fuckin' old." Nathanial sighed as he took hold of one of the larger notches in the rock.

There was a creaking. Laura yelped as the platform began to shrink into the tower. They quickly found their own places to mount the wall before there was no more floor to save them from falling.

Nathanial had few problems beginning his ascent, Darryl close behind, and Laura struggling to hold herself up. After a few minutes, Nathanial was several meters ahead of Darryl, and Laura hadn't moved from her initial hold.

"Pbth, you two are still trying? Just give up already, I'm obviously going to beat you." They kept climbing. "That's how it gonna be?" He grabbed a loose piece of rock off the pillar and threw it down at his rivals. It struck the girl square on the top of her head, and she fell. Nathanial laughed wildly. The pleasure he took in her pain was unnerving, and fortunately short lived, as the hand he still had on the tower slipped, leaving him to fall screaming after his victim.

Darryl breathed a sigh of relief. "Hubris be his downfall." Victoriously bittersweet was his decent into the void.

Falling...falling...falling...

The smell of his prize overwhelmed his senses. Immediately outside his door, on a simple table, sat plates filled to capacity with eggs, sausage, pancakes, muffins, biscuits, and glasses of juices and milk. This was his first breakfast in several weeks.

"Hmph, lucky break." Oh, how his ego was bruised.

"Yeah, well you haven't deserved any of yours, so it's about time you went hungry for a morning." Nathanial grumbled and went to brood in the far corner. The victor carefully picked up the table and moved in the opposite direction.

The links of the fences were relatively wide. Darryl was able to fit some of his food through to his starving compatriot, who ate it ravenously. Whereas he woke up to food only sporadically, she had effectively starved every morning save for the rare cooperative win with Darryl and the various things he could share with her from his prizes.

After the bountiful morning's meal, the threesome's normal daily routine set in. Friends sat across the fence from each other, playing various word and puzzle games to fight the boredom, while betrayer sat listening, speaking up every once in a while with a jeer or a solution to a puzzle neither of them had thought of, neither of which warranted a reply.

"Kingdom."

"Monarch."

"Heraldry."

"Hmm...you've got me there," Darryl conceded. "You'd think after years of this we'd have an answer for everything."

"There's only so much we can do with just the knowledge we came here with."

"Yang di-Pertuan Agong, monarch of Malaysia." They paused, but paid him no mind.

He might eat well most every morning, but the lack of real human interaction left him apparently troubled psychologically. Thus was the price he paid for one comfortable moment each day.

The day wore on, the artificial sunlight moved across the ceiling growing dimmer by the minute, the games ceased as they gleaned as much enjoyment as they could from them. As it seemed "sunset" was approaching, Darryl spoke up, "Another night...pray for good sleep..."

A soft tone sounded from somewhere behind their lodgings, forcing them into hellbound slumber once more.

Falling...falling...falling...

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

A hedge maze.

Darryl was backed against a wall at what he could only assume was one of three entrances to the maze, the other two probably occupied by Laura and Nathaniel.

Two weapons hung on hooks on the brick wall, a large machete-like knife and a small handgun. He strapped the pistol around his waist, took the knife in hand, and ventured into the green abyss.

The labyrinth must have covered several hundred square kilometers, it was absolutely massive. Time was hard to judge in the dream worlds, having not experienced measured time in memory, but in comparison to what they experienced as "twelve hours" of daylight, Darryl estimated he had been wandering for around thirty-six hours, taking several breaks along the way to rest and mark his position to keep himself from backtracking.

Even though they didn't physically tire, the burden on the mind and psyche was taxing. Darryl had yet to encounter either of the others, not any sign of their presence. Maybe he wasn't really in the same maze as the others. Or maybe they had already found their way out, or the maze was simply enormous enough that running into one another was nigh impossible.

Above, the sun (or whatever the light actually was, not that it mastered) never moved, always directly overhead, leaving no shadow. It probably would have been worse for him if he had experienced night everyday.

Darryl heard a sound. In the silence of the dream, it stood out clearly; someone was crying. It was hard to judge its source, it seemed to come from every direction. Using a branch to mark his location, he began to search carefully, walking around a few corners, then returning, then looking around another corner. In the rather small radius he scanned, nothing but foliage and dirt. Scouting further from his marker required extreme care, lest her get himself lost, creating more problems.

The next hour was spent trying to call out to whoever was crying from various locations near home base. There was no reply, only more crying.

Frustrated, Darryl decided to take another break. As dire as the situation was, nothing else could be done without formulating a plan. Thirty-eight hours or thereabouts had passed, and nothing accomplished.

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Ok, so, I hate to do this, but I need to change the name of the female character (because god forbid I accidentally get my not-quite-girlfriend involved here, who I named the character after initially because I could not for the life of me think of another and the character is nothing like her at all and I don't want to look weird and whatnot, etc etc)

Now taking suggestions for new names.

[CJ Miller]

Marie

[Demon of Fides]

Kelly

[Jonas]

Charlotte!
Angel!
Jeanne!
Laura!
Lieve!
An or Anne!

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

I'm liking Laura

[Jonas]

I WIN! I WIN! I... err... I'm happy I could help you...

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

This part will be the end of the first half.

The rest did some good. Darryl took some time to draw a map of the maze around his current position based on his recent exploration. He planned out the routes he would take next, being sure to memorize both the path out and the path he would take back.

His first attack would take him toward relative north, his relative north being completely arbitrary and merely for reference. Since the maze's paths were all at right angles to each other, keeping track of his bearing and position would be easy, as long as he didn't let his mind wander.

After reaching the edge of his charted territory, Darryl made a mark in the dirt with his shoe then began following the left-hand wall. The crying still didn't get louder, and after turning about a dozen corners, he turned around and headed back to where he marked the end off his map, then began following the right-hand wall, which also proved fruitless.

The east and south reaches also showed no results. Another three hours had passed now. Darryl took another rest, he needed to clear his mind; it was racing between the constant crying and the apparent futility of his search.

The west beckoned. The west loomed.

He marked his spot, then began following the left-hand wall once more.

The crying, as usual, never became softer or louder, but this time something else caught his attention. Something buzzed, something tactile. Maybe it was just nerves, or maybe it really was something resembling success. Maybe he'd actually found something. After he reached as far as he'd gone every other direction, the buzzing was nearly numbing it was so strong. Just one more corner, just one.

Success? Didn't particularly look like it. It looked like a dead end like where he'd begun, except with a short pillar. The crying seemed to come from there, however, and Darryl could feel that buzzing emanating from that direction.

He took care in approaching the column, helped by the fact that the buzzing became stronger and stronger as he came nearer.

Nearly on his knees, he hit a button at the top off the pedestal, and instantly the buzzing and crying subsided. His senses once again clear, he looked about to find more hedge maze ahead of him, except now Laura stood next to him.

"Wha..." They both stood dumbfounded. This was a rather pleasing turn of events. They embraced, sighed, and rested.

"So how was your maze?" Darryl inquired of his companion.

"Ugh, don't get me started. I had a run-in with Nathaniel. I spent hours running randomly."

Darryl noticed Laura had no weapons on her. "You didn't take the knife or pistol?"

"What? What knife? What pistol? I never found anything like that."

"Hmm, this challenge is peculiar. Well, stay close to me then, less Nate have the same advantage as I do."

The two, well rested now, began their journey into the second maze.

It wasn't long until they found signs of another maze-goer, presumably Nathaniel. There were very clear footprints, of which the pair decided to walk in the opposite direction. Better to avoid conflict where possible. Unfortunately, it turned out this maze was much smaller than the last; more prints, backtracking on themselves and now showing no definitely direction.

"About time I found you two." Turns out Nathaniel wasn't far away. "Let's finish this, shall we?"

Darryl and Laura turned to face an armed rival, bearing a knife and handgun like former's, the handgun being the weapon of choice.

Darryl stepped in front of his partner. He was enough bigger than her to shield her completely.

"That won't save her, you fool!" Nathaniel pulled the trigger.

*click*

Empty. The aggressor tossed the gun aside and brandished the machete, charging towards his targets.

Darryl raised his own blade to block a slash that never came, his opponent merely tackling him.

Laura jumped aside as the two men fell to the ground in a struggling mass of flailing limbs. Punches flew back and forth, some landing, some not, the knives abandoned. A choice few blows were accompanied by the sound of breaking bones, specifically Darryl's. Nathaniel had an obvious size advantage over his lanky male victim.

Having sufficiently eliminated Darryl as a threat, Nathaniel picked up his blade and approached the cowering, frightened girl menacingly.

Fighting through the extreme pain Nathaniel inflicted upon him, Darryl pulled out his pistol and fired a round at his aggressor from his stomach, striking him in the leg. Nathaniel howled in pain. "Enough of this! I tire of these games!"

The larger man swung at Laura, the machete lodging itself in her chest. She died fast, falling over as her murderer pulled the weapon from her body.

Nathaniel was smiling maniacally as he turned to Darryl, who was slowly getting to his feet. "Your turn." Darryl's efforts were futile, Nathaniel swung, striking the bruised and battered man opposite him in the same place he struck the girl moments earlier.

Darryl's sight darkened, and he felt himself falling to the sound of a madman's delight.

Falling...falling...falling...

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Okiedoki, let's keep going, shall we? Let's see who guessed this was coming up.

Darryl awoke.

Something. Something wasn't right.

He didn't wake to his foam bed in his tiny cubicle of a house.

The floor was hard, like stone. Cold, too. Ambient, echoing sounds of water dripping and flowing filed the air.

Darryl opened his eyes. This place was dark, probably underground somewhere. He stood up. His chest burned. He looked under his shirt to find a new scar, going from his right shoulder down to just below his ribs on his left side.

There wasn't much to make of the surroundings. He stood at a T, a long tunnel with another perpendicular. There were pipes on the ceiling and walls, water flowing through them and dripping from various leaks. It must have been a sewer of some sort.

The tunnel ahead of him beckoned. There was something familiar about the place in front of him. He felt it calling.

At the end, Darryl looked down from a ledge into a large room. It looked like it had originally been white, but mildew and fungus had taken hold on the walls. The space below was partitioned into three spaces by chain link fences, each with a small hut.

This surely was the hell he had endured for days, months, years. The plots to his left and center were empty, but to his right were the remains of a person long since dead.

Nathaniel. The price he paid for victory. He had carved a message into the dirt, "I never knew". It looked like blood in the soil in some places.

There were emotions innumerable being processed by Darryl's mind. Sorrow, relief, worry, confusion, fear, heartbreak, fury. There just weren't enough words. There weren't enough words to make sense of this evil place. He decided it was time to leave.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Three months after. It still haunted him. Every day and every night. Terror. Every day, pills, a robe, a big room with lots of other people in robes, and some with white coats.

That dungeon was real. His scar was real. The skeleton was real. Laura, Nathaniel, the sun, the fences, the challenges, the hunger, all of it was real. That's why Darryl was here. It was all real.

According to the doctors, he wasn't Darryl. He was Timothy Kellner, age 20, birthday June 10th, 5'11", 156 lbs. He was a high-school dropout, and apparently an apprentice carpenter. His father had died in a war he'd never heard of, his mother came and visited him from time to time, but he couldn't ever remember her from before the white room.

He couldn't remember anything from before the white room.

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Another note: the title of this story sucks, I need a new one. Please be aware of this probable change.

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

AAAAAARGH! I hate when I write a big long thing and then I lose it! *tries again*

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Next part time

His room was simple. The bed was a thin matress on a metal frame low to the ground. It was unnervingly comfortable. Both familiar and horrifying at the same time. The walls were white, and there was a bright lamp on the ceiling. Why the doctors insisted he stay in a room that reminds him so much of that hell, only the gods could know.

Sleep never came easy. He woke several times each night, usually in a cold sweat from a nightmare, most of which revolved around that last challenge in the maze. Consequently, Darryl often slept late, and the people at the clinic usually had to come and force him out of bed. Every once in a while he could steal a nap during the day, so he got at least a reasonable amount of sleep each day.

He played a lot of chess at the clinic. Half of the rec room was dedicated to it. He wasn't particularly good at the game, and most of his opponents were seasoned chess player or savants, but the intellectual stimulation was a good distraction from the past and the present.

Darryl had a several therapy sessions and two meetings with his psychiatrist each week. He was on a neuroleptic, a pill for anxiety, and a couple anti-depressants. Nothing ever changed, though. He still had nightmares about that white room, and the challenges, and he was still haunted every day by the mere thought of them.

But one thought, unlike all the rest which came and went, he could never shake. Not a day went by, not an hour, not a minute went by without him thinking of Laura. He had awoken in that strange place, so similar to the room. And he saw the corpse in the corner with belonged to Nathanial.

Darryl was here. Nathanial was there. Where was Laura. If Darryl was stuck in this awful place and branded by these awful nightmares, she must be completely broken. And even if he could get out of this place, where would he begin to look? He couldn't trek the globe, scouring the billions of people on this planet, and hope to chance upon her.

Not a day, not an hour, not a minute went by.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Queen to king bishop 5. "Check."

King's rook to queen bishop 5.

King's knight to queen 7. "Checkmate."

Darryl inspected the board. "Indeed. Once again, well played, Harold." He shook hands with his opponent and got up to go find another.

He sat at another table and began resetting the pieces on his side of the board. A scream came from the hall that lead toward the emergency entrance.

From time to time, Ambulances would come by to drop off patients just released from the hospital to be admitted to the clinic. New faces came and went all the time, but there were enough long-term residents that it usually didn't change the overall look of the population.

The more functioning people in the rec room went to the window to look down the hall and see the new girl . Or rather, they assumed it was a girl from the pitch of the scream. After enough of them, they could ascertain the gender of the newcomer with great accuracy.

Another scream, and then she rounded the corner and came into view of the rec room. She was being escorted by four of the clinicians, so her face was obscured. Some of them didn't entirely accept being admitted.

As they passed the window, Darryl locked eyes with her.

The eyes. The eyes.

"LAURA!" He put his face to the glass, trying to phase through it or some such ridiculous thing.

"DARRYL! DARRYL!" She screamed again, but by this time a nurse had come by with a tranquilizer, and she fell asleep as the carried her along.

Darryl rushed to one of the doctors in the room. "I know her! I know her! From the room! I have to see her!"

"Calm down!" The doctor grabbed him by the arms. "She obviously needs a lot of care and treatment before she'll be able to function as well as you all do."

"No! I have to see her! I know her! I can help her!" Darryl struggled to be free of the doctor's grasp, to no avail.

"There's nothing you can do, get back to your chess matches." The doctor let go, and Darryl immediately bolted back to the window, screaming the girls name and pounding on the glass, hoping beyond all hope that she could hear him. Several clinicians had to restrain him as he was sedated himself.

He kept trying to scream, but it became harder and harder, and his vision began to fade as he fell into sleep as well.

Falling...falling...falling...

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

I haven't forgotten about this, I promise, I'll have the next part up in about 6 hours or so.

[Jonas]

Within 6 hours?

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Ok, well, maybe. My parents have dragged me out. But it'll be up by tomorrow at least (my time anyway)

There are only 3 parts left, I'll try and motor through them this week.

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Ok, I lied, not tonight. Between physical and psychological distress, I'm not up for it.

Hopefully next part will be ready by tomorrow, and I think I'll be able to wrap it up thursday or friday.

[Jonas]

Don't worry, take your time if you don't have it right now (and I can perfectly understand that you aren't in a writer's mood today.

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Over the next several months, Darryl and Laura were deliberately kept apart. The doctors decided it wouldn't be healthy for either of them. They tried to contact each other via other patients at the clinic, and when this became reliably successful, Laura was sent to another clinic, and she wouldn't see Darryl again for several years.

Darryl was convinced at this point that sticking to his story wouldn't get him released in the foreseeable future, so lying through his teeth became a daily habit. He eventually became good enough to fool the polygraphs, and thereby begin "showing signs of improvement". Three years later he would finally be released.

Thus, he began life anew. He lived off welfare for a little while before getting a job as a mail clerk. He lived in a small flat in center city, barely furnished. He had a bed, a chair and desk, a small television, and a few kitchen appliances. He kept all his clothes in the apartment's one small closet.

Television was particularly interesting to him. The shear variety of programming, even on the few channels he got, stunned him early on. He became fond of a few primetime sitcoms, but mostly he just watched the news. Having been so detached from the outside world for so long, he took every opportunity to learn about all the things he couldn't remember from before the white room. Most of the news was quite depressing, but if this is how everyone else experienced day-to-day life, Darryl did his best to acclimate himself to this harsh reality.

The one thing that still annoyed Darryl, since the day he woke up from the white room, was weather. Every day had been the same there, sunlight all day and comfortably warm. The changing of the seasons was the most distressing. Once Darryl had gotten used to the warm weather, summer would turn to fall, and then fall turned into winter. And then once he had gotten used to the cold, winter would turn to spring, and so on. Then there was precipitation. Water falling, falling, falling from the sky, either as rain or snow (or in the rather frightening form of hail), was so bizarre to him. What a world.

Laura was still on his mind for most of the day. Darryl periodically let his mind wander too far, resulting in a lecture from his boss or a police officer or someone else of authority who had to keep him focused or out of danger.

He hadn't the foggiest idea to begin looking for her. He had no way of knowing where they had transferred her, if she had been released yet or not, or (as morbid as the thought was) if she was even still alive.

He could lie to the doctors, and he could fool the polygraph, but there wasn't a single way to free his mind from those years in the white room. They would eat at his sanity for the rest of his life.

[Harvey Steffke]

This really is the most emo story, but I do want to see more.

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Don't worry, there is more emo to come, in the form of 2 more parts.

[Jonas]

Don't worry, there is more emo to come, in the form of 2 more parts.

[Gil'les Mel'ang]

Don't worry, there is more emo to come, in the form of 2 more parts.

Do continue, as I am interested to see what happens next in (or to) Daryll's new life.

[Kaiser Fish XII]

Darryl's sense of time eventually adjusted such that the changing of daylight hours didn't bother him so much. By his fifth winter, he was able to cope with the few hours of daylight the northern latitudes granted him each day.

Christmas confused him year after year. Celebrating the birth of a savior involving a large, jolly, supersonically-fast saint who hands out presents to good children and coal to bad children. Darryl could use some coal, honestly. He could go without this winter business. Just too damn cold.

He usually spent the holidays with his mother. He had gotten to know her better, but the memories of her from before the white room eluded him yet. He also learned about the rest of his family. Both sets of his grandparents were immigrants from Germany, both of his parents were bilingual, and apparently he himself spoke fluent German himself when he was younger, but that gift was obviously lost. He hadn't any aunts our uncles, nor any siblings.

Not any still alive, anyway. He had a twin sister who had died in utero. Strangled by his umbilical cord.

His mother lived in an apartment in the city. She still worked at the age of sixty-two, as a dentist's assistant. Paid out pretty well. Christmas dinner was bountiful, even though it was just the two of them. And she always bought him nice gifts, so nice that he felt bad for accepting them, especially because he could never afford to buy her nice things in return, and he never felt like he deserved them. He must have caused her so much distress over the past several years, what with all the psychological rehab and amnesia.

As uncomfortable as Christmas was, it was made up for by New Years. The atmosphere surrounding that moment when one year ends and another begins was energizing, even if it was really cold out. And the fireworks were always so exciting and beautiful.

Darryl decided to explore the city on his own after breakfast on New Years Eve. He always went for a nice roam before New Years, to absorb the cheer. It was almost overwhelming with so many people around, but the energy was exhilarating regardless. For the first time in his memory, he felt unburdened, carefree, and truly halcyon.

The streets were alive, everyone moving, everything buzzing. Darryl made his way to the park. There was only so much jostling he could take. Same number of people, more space, happier Darryl. The air was crisp as he walked down the main path through the public grounds, closing his eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath. If only his life could be this serene all the time.

But not all was serene.

Darryl found himself down a smaller path, where the crowd had shrunken to only a few people within sight, although the thralls of celebrants could still be heard. Behind the cheers and yelling and merriment, a girl was weeping softly. She walked with her head down, weaving slightly. She sat down on a bench. Darryl sat next to her.

She looked up to see who she shared the bench with, and recognized him even through the tears. She fell into Darryl, who embraced her. "I killed him, Darryl! I killed him!" She began weeping again, this time uncontrollably.

"Who did you kill, Laura?"

"My brother! I killed my brother!"