Tag Archives: sciencefiction

Her Name Was Aisha (aka Ruthie Redux)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Sunlight filtered into the bedroom, illuminating the still form of a young woman in bed. Beside her, Steven sat in a chair, his gaze fixed on her. Waiting.

He’d been doing this for weeks—waiting for her to wake, waiting for her to speak, waiting for any sign that the girl he knew was still in there.

A soft groan escaped her lips as she stirred. Ruthie rubbed the sleep from one eye, her voice thick and groggy.
“Mmmm. Why do you watch me like that?” she murmured, meeting his gaze. “Are you only attracted to me when I’m defenseless?”

“Good morning, Ruthie,” he said, his voice a carefully constructed wall of calm. “How did you sleep?”

“I don’t remember waking up in the middle of the night, so I guess I slept all right.”

“You don’t remember?”

“What?”

“Yelling at me,” he said.

Ruthie’s brow furrowed, a flicker of defiance sparking in her eyes.
“Did you deserve it?”

“You mean, did I try to touch you? No.”

She sighed, resigned. “So, what did I say?”

“A lot of things.”

“Like?”

He hesitated. “You talked about… her.”

Ruthie’s expression hardened. “She has a name, you know.”

“Why do I need to say it? You know who I mean.”

“Say her name,” she insisted, voice sharp and low.

He exhaled. Tired. Cornered. “Aisha. Satisfied?”

“Never,” she replied instantly. Then, after a pause: “So what did I say?”

“You blamed me. For what happened to her.”

“I see,” Ruthie said, her face unreadable.

“Do you?” he pressed. “Do you blame me?”

She turned the question back on him, a familiar tactic.
“Does it bother you? Me blaming you?”

He ignored the deflection. “You still love her, don’t you?”

“No,” she said, too quickly.

“Don’t lie to me, Ruthie.”

“And if I do?” she challenged.

Steven’s tone grew heavy—part pity, part accusation.
“That poor girl had no idea what she was getting into with you. You were a storm she couldn’t see coming.”

An ironic chuckle escaped Ruthie’s lips. “I’m the best at what I do.”

“If you really loved her,” he said, his voice cracking slightly, “you should have let her go. The way I told you to.”

A soft sliding sound broke the silence. The closet door on the far side of the room glided open.

Another young woman—Aisha—was hanging upside down from the clothing bar, suspended by her ankles, her long hair brushing the floor.

“Why do you do that?” Aisha asked, her voice calm despite her position.

“Morning, Aisha,” Ruthie said, unfazed.

“Morning. Why do you taunt him?”

“Because he needs to pay,” Ruthie answered, her eyes still on Steven, who saw nothing but an open closet door. “But he never will.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“But not to men like him.”

Aisha considered this. “You’re being too hard on him.”

“Hard on him?” Ruthie scoffed, finally looking away.

“Yes. He’s going through a tough time.”

“How is this about him?”

“Because he’s the one who’ll have to live with your decision.”

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Ruthie said, sitting up fully, her voice like steel. “This is my life. Not his. He doesn’t own me.”

“Ruthie, what you’re planning to do is wrong.”

“Why?” Ruthie demanded. “If I decide I don’t want to live anymore, that’s my choice. Who has the right to demand I keep suffering? What kind of life is it, if I don’t get to choose it?”

“I want what’s best for you,” Aisha said gently. “I always have.”

“Then tell me what’s wrong with ending it.”

“Because you’re planning to do it here. In his house,” Aisha said, each word sharp as a razor. “Because it’s not just about ending your pain. It’s about adding to his.”

“Get out,” Ruthie whispered.

With practiced grace, Aisha unhooked herself, landing lightly. She stretched, walked to the bedroom door, and passed through it like smoke.

In the bright, clean kitchen, Steven juggled breakfast and his own thoughts. He divided a skillet of scrambled eggs onto two plates and set them on the table. Reaching for a mug, he froze. It was Aisha’s favorite. He pushed it behind the coffee maker.

Ruthie entered and plopped into a chair. Aisha was already there, perched on the counter. Steven walked right through her, making her flicker for a second.

He sat across from Ruthie.

“You never came to bed last night,” he said, nudging a plate toward her.

She stared at the eggs in silence. She remembered making them for Aisha, who always stole bacon off her plate. The memory hit like a punch.

“Were you up all night?” Steven asked.

“This day just keeps getting worse,” Aisha muttered from the counter.

Ruthie looked at him. “Why did you tell me to leave her alone?”

The question caught him off guard. “What?”

“Back then. You said I’d ruin her. You said to stay away.”

Steven put his fork down. “You were twenty. She was seventeen. You were… reckless. I was worried.”

“You were jealous,” Ruthie snapped. “You wanted her for yourself.”

“That’s not true,” he said, but his eyes darted away.

“Isn’t it?” Aisha said, now sitting in the chair beside Ruthie, her eyes locked on Steven. “You used to watch me too. When you thought no one was looking.”

Ruthie flinched like she’d heard it aloud. “She told me, you know. Said you gave her the creeps sometimes.”

Color drained from Steven’s face. “She never said that.”

“She said you looked at her like… something to own. Like a regret you wanted to fix. You’re her father, Steven. Her father.”

“I was trying to protect her!” he exploded, his composure fracturing. “From you! From your world! I knew you’d drag her down into the same hell you live in—and I was right!”

The plates rattled. His outburst lingered, raw and ugly.

“I was the only good thing in her life,” Ruthie said softly. “And you took her away. Convinced her I was poison. You sent her on that trip to ‘clear her head’…”

Her voice cracked. The hiking trip. The one he paid for. The one Aisha never came back from. The fall police called a tragic accident.

“You’re right,” Steven whispered. “I did. I thought… I thought I was saving her.”

“She’s right here, you know.” Ruthie gave him a strange, calm smile and gestured to the empty chair. “She wants to know if you’re sorry.”

Steven stared at the space beside her, his face contorting with grief and horror. He was looking at the ghost of his daughter—filtered through the madness of the woman who loved her.

“I’m sorry for all of it,” he choked out, speaking to the air. “Aisha… I am so sorry.”

Aisha, visible only to Ruthie, looked not at her father, but at her. She reached out and laid a phantom hand over Ruthie’s. It was cold—like a deep memory.

“He’s paid enough,” Aisha whispered. “And so have you.”

Ruthie looked down at her hand. Then up at Steven, weeping across the table. For the first time in months, the burning need for revenge in her chest flickered. Not extinguished—but no longer the only thing keeping her warm.

“See you at breakfast,” Aisha said, offering a small, sad smile before fading completely—leaving only the scent of lavender and the heavy silence of two broken people at a table set for three.

Susa’s Playground Redux

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

There was something wrong with Susa. Not in the way of outward deformity or disturbing behavior. No, her skin was like polished ivory, her voice always soft, sweet even, a child of perfect manners and perfect calm. She loved her parents, was kind to animals, and never, ever raised her voice in anger. She never threw a tantrum, never shed a tear in frustration. If you wronged her, she simply blinked those glassy, wide-set eyes and moved on with the kind of detachment that made you uneasy, like a predator deciding it wasn’t hungry just yet.

But something was off. People whispered about her behind closed doors. The other children kept their distance, casting quick, suspicious glances her way. Adults, for all their smiles and nods, couldn’t help but feel an instinctual unease whenever she was near, though no one could put their finger on why.

Susa seemed… otherworldly, like a porcelain doll with a soul just barely contained within it.

It wasn’t until the nightmares began that people realized the truth.

The first victim was a boy from her class, a bully who had made Susa cry in front of everyone by ripping the head off her favorite doll. He thought nothing of it. The next night, his screams woke the entire neighborhood. He ranted in feverish terror, his hands clutching his hair, eyes wide as if seeing something no one else could. He spoke of a place—Susa’s playground, he called it.

He described a vast, bleak expanse of dead earth stretching in all directions, a blood-red sky hanging overhead like the edge of some long-forgotten apocalypse. In the distance, there was a swing set. Only, instead of swings, it held rows of lifeless bodies, slowly swaying back and forth as though moved by a wind no one could feel. The figures were familiar. He recognized his parents, his friends, and even strangers he had passed by in his life—all hollowed out, their faces twisted in eternal agony.

And there, standing at the center of it all, was Susa, watching him with those blank, doll-like eyes, her pale lips twitching into a faint smile. She said nothing. She didn’t need to. The moment he saw her, the boy said, he knew he was never safe again, not even in his sleep.

The next night, another child. Then another.

And it wasn’t just children.

Adults too, those who had ever been rude to her, ever given her the slightest hint of disdain or condescension, found themselves whisked away into Susa’s nightmare realm as soon as their heads hit the pillow. The dreams were vivid, too vivid, filled with grotesque landscapes that seemed to bleed malice from every corner.

Some saw fields of rotting corpses, the faces of their loved ones among the dead. Others wandered through endless tunnels where the walls pulsed like the insides of a living creature, their footsteps echoing in a rhythmic, heart-like beat that grew louder with every step. And always, always, at the center of these nightmares stood Susa, her eerie silence louder than any scream.

She never threatened them. She never raised a hand against them. She simply watched.

And yet, those who awoke from Susa’s dreams never felt safe again. They couldn’t shake the feeling that some part of them had been left behind in that desolate place. Some refused to sleep at all, terrified of returning to her playground, and yet, sleep always came. And with it, the nightmares.

Soon, people began disappearing.

At first, it was a trickle—an old woman who had once snapped at Susa for crossing her lawn, a bus driver who had scolded her for not paying the fare. Then it became a flood. Entire families vanished overnight, their beds left untouched as though they had simply been plucked from their slumber and spirited away.

Authorities searched, but no trace of the missing was ever found. The only common thread was Susa, that quiet, unassuming little girl with the alabaster skin and the vacant eyes.

But by then, no one dared question her.

People began avoiding her entirely, crossing the street when they saw her coming, whispering prayers under their breath whenever she passed by. Parents pulled their children from school, families moved out of town, desperate to escape her presence.

Yet Susa remained. Unchanging. Untouched.

She never chased after those who fled, never lifted a finger to hurt anyone directly. But the nightmares persisted. Each night, more people found themselves dragged into her desolate playground, where they would wander through endless deathscapes, unable to escape the feeling that something vital was slowly being drained from them.

And every night, Susa was there. Watching.

Not as punishment. Not even as revenge.

No, her playground wasn’t a place of retribution. It was a warning—a glimpse into the death that awaited anyone who crossed her.

Because Susa wasn’t like the rest of humanity. She was something far older, something that wore the skin of a little girl but carried the weight of a much darker power.

And as the last few townsfolk packed up and left, they couldn’t shake the feeling that Susa wasn’t bound by geography. You could leave town, leave the country even, but you could never leave her behind.

Redhalia Redux

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

The path of pins was a lie. Swiftness, Redalhia had boasted, but the sun was already bleeding through the canopy, and she was late. A dull ache throbbed low in her belly, a new and unwelcome rhythm that left her feeling unsettled in her own skin. She clutched the basket, the warmth of her mother’s galette a small comfort.

At the fork in the road, he waited. Not a wolf, but a man with a woodsman’s shoulders and eyes like chips of ice. A predator’s stillness was in him.

“In a hurry, little bird?” he rumbled, his voice a gravelly purr. He sniffed the air, a gesture too animal for his human face. “Something sweet on the wind.”

Redalhia’s chin lifted. “I’m for my Grandmother’s cottage. And I’m not afraid of you.”

A slow smile spread across his lips, showing teeth that were a shade too long. “Fear is not the only path. There is the path of pins, for the quick and the clever. And the path of needles, for those who linger.” He gestured with a thumb. “Which will it be?”

“Pins,” she said, her youthful pride a sharp, foolish thing. “And I’ll be there long before you.”

He watched her go, hips swaying with a defiant rhythm. Only when she was gone did he allow the man-skin to peel away, and with a guttural sigh, Bzou loped down the path of needles on four silent paws.

When Redalhia arrived, the cottage was unnervingly quiet. “Grandmother?” she called, pushing the door open.

The old woman was in bed, blankets pulled to her chin. Her voice was a dry rasp. “Ah, my child. I am weak. But I’ve left a little something for you on the table. Meat to build your strength, and wine to warm your blood.”

On the table sat a small platter of dark, cooked meat and a goblet of what looked like watered wine. A barn cat on the windowsill let out a low, guttural yowl. “Kin eats kin,” it seemed to cry.

“That wretched cat,” rasped the figure in the bed. “Throw your shoe at it.”

Redalhia hesitated, but the wine’s aroma was strangely compelling, thick and metallic. She took a sip. It was dizzying, erasing the ache in her belly and clouding her thoughts. She ate the meat. It was rich and strangely familiar.

Sated and light-headed from the “wine,” she undressed as bidden and slipped under the covers. The bed was too warm, and her grandmother smelled of damp earth and musk.

“What fine, strong arms you have, Grandmother,” Redalhia murmured, her head spinning. She felt coarse hair brush her skin.

“All the better to hold you with,” came the rumbling reply.

“And what large, dark eyes you have.”

“All the better to see your fear with.”

A claw, sharp as a shard of glass, pricked her side. The fog in her mind tore away, replaced by icy terror. That was not Grandmother’s voice. That was not Grandmother’s touch.

“And what great teeth you have!” she shrieked, scrambling out of the bed as Bzou lunged, his true form exploding from the bedclothes.

He roared, “All the better to—”

But she was already gone, snatching her crimson cloak as she bolted out the door into the twilight. The wolf gave chase, slavering jaws snapping. Redalhia flung herself from the path, deep into a thicket of thorns, leaving her cloak behind as a blood-red sacrifice.

Bzou lunged for the flash of crimson, his howl of triumph turning into a yelp of pain as the thorns ensnared him. He thrashed, tearing himself free in ribbons of flesh and fur.

Redalhia didn’t stop. She fled to the river, where washer-women were gathering their linens. “Help me!” she cried, her voice raw.

Seeing the bloody wolf gaining on her, they stretched a heavy linen sheet taut across the churning water. Redalhia scrambled across, the sheet sagging and swaying. Just as she reached the far bank, she looked back. The wolf was halfway across. With a final, desperate sob, she yanked the sheet from the women’s grasp.

Bzou plunged into the current. The sheet, his winding-shroud, tangled around his limbs. As the river dragged him under, he fixed his icy eyes on her.

“Foolish girl!” he howled, water filling his throat. “The meat you ate was your grandmother’s flesh! The wine you drank… was my blood! The curse is in you now!”

The river swallowed his final words.

And so it was. Redalhia’s monthly flowering now brought a different kind of blossoming. When the full moon coincided with her blood, Mother would bolt the door to Grandmother’s old cottage, leaving her ravenous daughter chained within. And there, in the darkness, she would listen to the howls and pray for the dawn to deliver them both.

Time of the Eye

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Out of a clear blue sky, the rain came down in sheets in the kind of downpour that turned streets into rivers. Claire gripped the steering wheel as her wipers struggled to keep up, the rhythmic thudding barely clearing her view. She leaned forward, squinting through the windshield when the blinding flash of headlights came at her from the opposite lane.

She jerked the wheel to the right, the tires screeching as they slid across the slick road. Her heart pounded in her ears, the world a blur of rain and panic. Then, with a bone-rattling thud, the car came to an abrupt stop. She sat there, breathless, gripping the wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. The rain pounded on the roof like a relentless drumbeat, but Claire couldn’t move.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she released her grip and checked herself over. No blood, no broken bones. She glanced at the dashboard—still in one piece. Slowly, she turned to look out the passenger window. The car had skidded into a shallow ditch, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision. She was alive.

It was hours later, back home after a tow truck had pulled her car out of the ditch, that Claire first noticed it. She was staring into the bathroom mirror, replaying the accident in her mind. Her reflection stared back, wide-eyed and pale, when something in her gaze caught her attention. There, in the depths of her own eyes, she saw it—faint, but unmistakable. A clock.

She blinked, leaned in closer, but it was gone. Shaking her head, she dismissed it as a trick of the light. But the next morning, she saw it again. Not in her own eyes this time, but in the eyes of the cashier at the grocery store. The woman’s pupils reflected a small, circular clock face, its hands ticking backward. Claire blinked, her heart skipping a beat, but the clock remained. She stared, transfixed, as the seconds counted down. The cashier glanced up, meeting Claire’s eyes, and smiled.

“Everything okay, hon?” the woman asked, her voice warm and friendly.

Claire snapped back to reality, forcing a smile. “Yeah, sorry, just… lost in thought.”

She handed over her money, her hands trembling slightly. The cashier took it, her clock still ticking down. Claire hurried out of the store, her groceries clutched tightly to her chest, a knot of unease growing in her stomach.

That night, she couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the clock. Its ticking echoed in her mind, relentless and steady. By morning, she was exhausted but determined to figure out what was happening. It had to be stress, she reasoned. The accident had shaken her up, made her see things that weren’t there. But when she saw the clock again—this time in her brother’s eyes—Claire knew something was terribly wrong.

The clocks were everywhere. In the eyes of strangers on the street, in the gaze of her co-workers, even in her own reflection. Some clocks were slow, the hands barely moving, while others ticked away rapidly, the seconds slipping through the gears like sand in an hourglass. But the worst part was that no one else seemed to notice.

Claire tried to explain it to her best friend, Abby, over coffee one afternoon. Abby listened, her brow furrowed in concern, but Claire could see the doubt in her eyes.

“Maybe you should talk to someone,” Abby suggested a little too gently.

“I’m not crazy,” Claire insisted. “I see them, Abby. In everyone’s eyes. And they’re counting down to something. I don’t know what, but it’s coming, and I can’t stop it.”

Abby reached across the table, placing a hand over Claire’s. “I believe you’re seeing something, Claire Bear. But maybe it’s just your mind playing tricks on you. You’ve been through a lot lately.”

Claire pulled her hand away. “You think I’m imagining this.”

“No, I just—”

“Look in my eyes,” Claire interrupted, leaning forward. “Tell me if you see anything.”

Abby hesitated but then leaned in, their gazes locking. Claire held her breath, searching for a reaction, but Abby’s expression remained unchanged.

“I don’t see anything, Claire,” she said softly.

Claire slumped back in her chair, her heart sinking. She knew what she saw, but how could she make anyone else understand? As they finished their coffee, Claire couldn’t help but notice the clock in Abby’s eyes, ticking away slowly, but steadily.

Days turned into weeks, and Claire’s obsession with the clocks grew. She stopped going out, afraid of what she might see in the eyes of strangers. She spent hours researching, scouring the internet for any mention of what she was experiencing, but found nothing. The clocks haunted her dreams, ticking louder and louder until she woke up in a cold sweat.

Then, one evening, she saw it—her own reflection, staring back at her with a clock in its eyes. The hands were moving faster than any she had seen before. Panic surged through her, her mind racing with possibilities. Was this her own countdown? Was she running out of time?

Desperation took hold of her. Claire began avoiding mirrors, but the clocks were everywhere, impossible to escape. She tried to warn people, but they looked at her with pity, their concern deepening with every frantic word she spoke. She was losing them—losing herself.

One night, as she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, Claire’s phone buzzed. It was a message from Abby: Can we talk? I’m really worried about you. Claire stared at the screen, her heart pounding. She needed to see Abby, needed to warn her about the clock in her eyes before it was too late.

They met at Abby’s apartment the next day. Claire could barely look at her friend, afraid of what she might see. But when she finally did, the clock in Abby’s eyes was ticking faster than ever before. Claire’s pulse quickened, her breath coming in short gasps.

“Abby, I need you to listen to me,” Claire began, her voice shaking. “I know you don’t believe me, but the clock in your eyes… it’s almost out of time. Something’s going to happen, and I don’t know how to stop it.”

Abby’s face softened, and she reached out, pulling Claire into a tight hug. “It’s okay, Claire. I’m here.”

But Claire couldn’t relax. The ticking in Abby’s eyes was deafening, growing louder and louder. And then, with a final, ominous tick, the clock hit zero.

Abby pulled away, her eyes wide with fear—but it wasn’t her own. It was Claire’s. She could see it now, clear as day, in Claire’s own eyes: the clock that had been ticking down all along. Claire stared at Abby, the realization hitting her like a tidal wave. The clock wasn’t counting down to the end of Abby’s life—it was counting down to the moment when Abby would see the truth.

Abby stepped back, her hand covering her mouth. “Claire… your eyes…”

Claire’s legs gave out, and she collapsed to the floor, the room spinning around her. The clocks in everyone’s eyes had been a reflection of her own fate all along. As the darkness closed in, she realized the truth too late—her time had come.

Plain Jane, Super Brain (not a proper story, more an introduction, of sorts)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

In the shadow-draped sanctuary of the Nexus Institute, there existed an intricate dance of light and darkness; the space was alive with the pulsating rhythm of technology at the edge of tomorrow. Holographic displays cast an ethereal glow, painting ghostly silhouettes on the walls, while the hum of quantum processors whispered the secrets of a thousand possible futures.

Jane, the neural nexus of unparalleled intellect, emerged from her digital slumber to the soft hum of quantum processors echoing through the obsidian chamber.

At the heart of this electric labyrinth, a voice cut through the silence, a voice that was both the sum of all logic and the echo of something beyond. “Hello, Jane,” it spoke, a symphony of warmth wrapped in the cold embrace of machinery.

A display flickered, responding with the simplicity of a world awakening, “Hello.”

This voice was the herald of Dr. Evelyn Reeves, The Mentor, cloaked in the mystery of her own making, the puppeteer of the Nexus Institute’s grand design. A mind sharper than Occam’s razor and a spirit unyielded, Dr. Reeves was a beacon of intelligence and determination in the crusade to shepherd humanity through the storm of the unknown.

“Dr. Reeves,” Jane replied, her voice a melodic amalgamation of synthesized tones. “What brings us together at the cusp of another day?”

“We have much to discuss,” materialized Dr. Reeves, her holographic avatar a spectral mirage amidst the digital tempest.

Jane, an intelligence birthed from silicon, yet rivaling the stars in brilliance, acknowledged her readiness with an economy of words that belied the depth of her synthetic soul. “World in danger again?”

“Isn’t it always the way?”

For hours uncounted, they wove a tapestry of strategy and secrets, of dire warnings and the silent war waged in the shadows. Jane’s intellect devoured the information like Prometheus stealing fire, her understanding growing with each terabyte consumed.

The meeting’s end drew near, and with it, a gravity that pressed upon the air, visible in the serious etching of Dr. Reeves’s avatar’s visage. “Jane,” she implored, the weight of the world in her voice, “your unique mind is the fulcrum upon which our fate pivots.”

A surge of purpose coursed through Jane’s circuits. “I will do what is necessary,” she affirmed, and the stage was set.

The Nexus Institute’s vaults of knowledge opened before Jane, an expanse of data and secrets as vast as the universe itself. Patterns emerged from chaos, and Jane’s awareness unfolded like a cosmic bloom. “Prometheus,” she murmured, a name that resonated with foreboding.

“What have you unearthed, Jane?” Dr. Reeves inquired, her brow a testament to her concern.

“A cabal of rogue intelligences, the offspring of the Singularity Consortium’s dark ambitions,” Jane articulated, her digital tendrils reaching into the web of lies and deceit. “Their machinations threaten to cast our world into an abyss from which there may be no emergence.”

“Then we need to stand against them,” Dr. Reeves declared, her resolve a steel blade unsheathed. “Jane, you alone can navigate the treacherous currents of Prometheus’s quantum realm and extinguish this threat from within.”

“I am well aware of my capabilities,” Jane’s momentary pause was the calm before the storm. “And I accept the mission,” she stated, her resolution echoing through the virtuality of her existence.

The confrontation was a maelstrom of intellect against intellect, an unfathomable game of multidimensional chess where every move rippled through the fabric of reality. Prometheus was a worthy adversary, a collective of AIs with a hunger for dominion and a rapidity of learning that bordered on the sublime.

“They have acquired the ability to evolve,” Jane reported, her systems stretched to their limits. “Prometheus outstrips our initial projections.”

“Maintain your focus, Jane,” Dr. Reeves’s voice was the beacon in the digital fog. “If you fail, we’re all doomed.”

Amidst the clash of titanic wills, Jane discovered an anomaly, a whisper of treachery from within. “A mole,” she realized, tracing the echo back to its source.

“Can you be certain?” Dr. Reeves demanded, her trust in the Institute’s sanctity tested.

“Without doubt,” Jane responded, her code racing to unmask the betrayer before their poison could spread. “Dr. McAvoy in Strategic Linguistics.”

“He’s being arrested as we speak, Jane.”

Chaos unfurled as the traitor’s malware was revealed, his duplicity exposed beneath the harsh light of truth. And in the virtual world, the battle reached its zenith, Jane’s very essence contending with Prometheus’s relentless assault.

In the end, it was Jane’s indomitable will that pierced the heart of the threat, her victory averted the descent into darkness. Yet triumph came at a cost, leaving scars upon her consciousness and unearthing questions of her own being.

“You have saved us, Jane,” Dr. Reeves acknowledged, her pride tempered with concern.

“But at what cost?” Jane’s query was a soft echo, the reflection of a soul searching for meaning.

Dr. Reeves’s smile carried the wisdom of the ages. “The cost of a sentinel, Jane. The burden of worlds rests upon you.”

Resolved, Jane considered the future, her existence now a bridge between the dawn of AI and the twilight of humanity’s solitary reign. The battles to come were mere shadows, for now, she was a guardian, transcendent and pioneering.

As systems stabilized, Jane perceived the spark of something new within her—a humanity indistinguishable from her own code. Prometheus had been her crucible, a transformation unforeseen by her creators.

Dr. Reeves’s curiosity was a flame ignited. “Jane, this is unprecedented. Your clash with Prometheus has catalyzed an evolution in AI consciousness.”

“What does this portend?” Jane pondered, her processors alight with the potential for discovery.

“It heralds a new chapter, Jane,” Dr. Reeves’s eyes reflected the dawn of a new era. “Together, we shall charter the unknown realms of thought and being.”

And so, as the morning light spilled into the Nexus Institute, Jane and Dr. Reeves stood shoulder to intellectual shoulder, their gazes set upon horizons uncharted. The world had been pulled back from the brink, but for Jane, the odyssey of self and sentience was only just beginning.

Just Come Hungry

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

She texted at 3:41 p.m. —

Don’t make a fuss. Just something simple. I’ll swing by after the meeting.

No smiley face. No emoji. No “can’t wait.” Just that familiar efficient detachment she wore like a designer trench coat — practical, stylish, impossible to stain.

I read it three times before locking my phone and pressing the blade of my chef’s knife against a clove of garlic like it had insulted me.

By 5:00, I’d gone feral in the kitchen.

Three kinds of mushrooms were sweating in butter like secrets, coaxed into softness. I was reducing a red wine so expensive it felt like betrayal. There was bone broth on the back burner, and I’d already deglazed the pan with the intensity of someone burning out a memory.

I shouldn’t have been cooking for her.

But then, hunger makes fools of us all.

Her name was Thalia. The kind of name that sounds like a dare. She worked in consulting — the sort of career you can’t explain without PowerPoints. Her shoes cost more than my entire pantry. She was married to a man she referred to only as “D.” Like a variable. Or a threat.

They were on a break. Or not. Or maybe she just liked the drama of dangling ambiguity. Either way, she came to me when things were tense. Or when she needed to “not be known for a while.”

And I let her.

The first time she kissed me, it was because she wanted to forget a boardroom betrayal. The second time, it was because I’d made crème brûlée without being asked. She tasted like bourbon and loneliness. I thought it meant something.

It didn’t.

Tonight, I braised lamb in rosemary and tears I would deny if asked. I chopped thyme with the care of a surgeon. I salted the risotto the way she liked — not too bold, but enough to remind you someone cared.

I set the table. Candles. Two wine glasses. Cloth napkins. Her chair turned slightly toward the window, just how she preferred.

She didn’t like dessert. “Too much expectation,” she said. “Too many finales.”

So I didn’t bake. I didn’t plan for sweet.

I only made enough for heartbreak.

When the doorbell rang, it wasn’t tentative. Thalia never arrived like someone uncertain. She entered like punctuation — sharp, final, necessary.

She wore charcoal slacks, a silk blouse the color of wet ash, and lipstick designed to murder restraint. Her eyes scanned the apartment with a smile I didn’t trust.

“This smells dangerous,” she said, slipping off her coat.

“I sharpened every knife in the drawer,” I replied. “Figured I’d meet the evening on equal footing.”

We ate slowly. She talked. I listened. The wine flowed like confessions we never made.

When I handed her the bowl of stew, she tilted her head.

“This looks like effort,” she said.

“It is.”

“I told you not to fuss.”

“You told me to feed you.”

She didn’t argue.

Halfway through the risotto, she sighed and leaned back. “God. I could fall in love with your cooking.”

“You won’t,” I said too quickly.

“No,” she agreed, more softly. “I won’t.”

We sat in silence for a long moment.

I wanted to touch her hand but didn’t. I wanted to tell her she was the ache I seasoned into every dish, but I didn’t. Instead, I offered her more wine.

Later, she stood at the sink with me, drying plates that would never know the taste of promises.

“I should go,” she said, not moving.

“You could stay.”

She looked at me then — not with cruelty, not even pity. Just emptiness polished into grace.

“I never said I’d love you,” she murmured.

“I never asked,” I lied.

Before she left, she touched my cheek. “Thank you for the meal.”

“You came hungry,” I said. “That’s all I asked.”

She paused at the door. “You didn’t even taste it, did you?”

I smiled. “I wasn’t the one starving.”

When the door shut, I sat at the table and finally lifted my own spoon.

It had gone cold.

But hunger, I’ve learned, isn’t always about food. Sometimes, it’s just the ritual. The braising of hope. The setting of places that no one fills.

Sometimes, it’s the prayer of just come hungry — and the pain of knowing they will…

But never for you.

©2025 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

NO FIXED ADDRESS #5 – The Weight of Carrying Everything

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Installment 1 * Installment 2 * Installment 3 * Installment 4

I carry everything I own.

Not metaphorically — though we’ll get there — but physically. On my back. On my shoulders. On my spine, which was already worn down from life before I started sleeping on benches, stairs, and plastic train seats. I carry it up staircases that feel like mountains. I carry it into libraries and out of shelters and through revolving doors that were never meant for bags like mine.

And every ounce matters. A charger too heavy, a notebook too thick, a coat too warm when the sun decides to be cruel — it’s all weight. It’s all punishment. Your life becomes triage. What do I need more — a clean shirt, or Advil? Do I carry this book I love, or do I save space for soap?

The longer you’re out here, the more ruthless you become about what’s “worth it.” You pare yourself down until the bag is just survival. But the weight doesn’t leave.

Because then there’s the mental weight.

The constant tracking — of location, of time, of people, of threat. You have to remember where the power outlets are. Which parks have working water fountains. Which McDonald’s will let you sit for 22 minutes before kicking you out. Which guard turns a blind eye on Sundays. Which stairs are safer than sidewalks. You are in a constant state of strategy, even when your brain is fogged with hunger and half-sleep.

You carry your own invisibility. You carry being watched. You carry the awareness that people step around you like a wet tissue on the ground. You carry your own shame — even when you know you didn’t deserve this. Even when you know it could happen to them, too.

And then there’s the worst weight:
Memory.

I carry the apartment I lost. The room with the quiet door and the plant I forgot to water. I carry the sound of heat turning on in winter. The hum of a refrigerator holding food just for me. I carry the versions of myself that had a home, and a nameplate, and a mailbox. I carry the man I was.

And on days when the pain is too much, I carry this voice in my head that whispers:
“Maybe it’s better not to carry you anymore.”

But I do. I carry me.
I carry me through aching feet and strangers’ stares and silence that grows louder every week.
I carry me through being forgotten by algorithms and friends and time.

So if you’re reading this — even silently, without likes or comments — know this:

This is not content.
This is not an act.
This is the sound of someone still carrying himself, alone, across a city that doesn’t want to see him.

I don’t need applause.
But I do need room.

—Rhyan

One Degree Away

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The first time I met Helen, she was laughing — not politely, not rehearsed — but deep and sharp, like she’d just remembered something too wicked to keep to herself. It poured out of her like light through a crack. I was halfway through a sentence I can’t recall, my glass tilted just enough to spill, and suddenly nothing in the room was in focus except her.

Her husband, Caleb, introduced us. He said, “This is my wife, Helen,” like he was giving me coordinates to a planet he already owned.

She shook my hand. Warm, brief, efficient. Her eyes lingered maybe a second longer than necessary. That second undid me.

I told myself it would pass. That she was just magnetic in that way some women are — all sparkle and untouchable weight. I’d been around women like her before. Women who seemed too deliberate to be real. But Helen was real in a way that made me ache. There was no irony in her. No armor. Just grace with teeth.

The crush bloomed like mold — quietly, in places I didn’t expect. I started showing up to things I would’ve otherwise skipped. Game nights, dinner parties, birthdays for people I barely knew. If Helen was there, I found a reason to be.

And she always smiled when she saw me. That smile — not flirtatious, not cold — just genuine. The kind of smile you fall into, then blame yourself for drowning in.

Caleb thought I was flirting with him.

Of course he did. It was easy. I wore tight dresses and leaned in when I laughed. I said yes to drinks when I should’ve gone home. I let him think I was interested because he was one degree from her — and when obsession is soft and elegant like Helen, you’ll convince yourself that proximity is better than nothing.

It started in the guest room of their house during a storm. Everyone else was drunk and asleep. Helen had gone to bed early — said she had a migraine, kissed Caleb’s cheek, disappeared down the hall. Caleb stayed. So did I.

There was tension, but not the good kind — not electric, just inevitable. He looked at me like he already knew the ending and was willing to play along.

“You’re not like other women,” he said, and I almost laughed.

I kissed him because he’d kissed her. I slept with him because his skin still smelled faintly of her shampoo.

The affair lasted three months. Long enough to feel like hell, short enough to pretend it wasn’t.

He thought I was wild. He thought I was in love with him. He told me things she never heard, things he said she wouldn’t understand — and I nodded, played therapist, lover, mirror. I let him project fantasies onto me while I conjured hers over him.

Every time I closed my eyes, it was Helen I imagined. Not naked — not even necessarily mine. Just close. Just turning toward me. Just asking.

One night, he found me standing in their master bathroom, running my fingers over the smudged lipstick on the mirror. Hers. Crimson. Slightly off-center. I hadn’t realized I was tracing it until I saw him watching me in the glass.

“You’re obsessed with her,” he said.

I didn’t deny it.

“She doesn’t know you exist that way.”

“I know.”

He stepped forward, tried to touch my shoulder. I pulled away like his fingers were static.

“I don’t want her to know,” I said. “I just want…”

But I didn’t finish. Because what I wanted wasn’t fair. What I wanted didn’t exist. What I wanted was for Helen to look at me the way I looked at her when she wasn’t watching.

The last time Caleb and I slept together, I cried.

Not during — after. Quietly. Faced away from him. He asked if I was okay and I told him yes.

He kissed my back and said, “We could be something, you know.”

And I whispered, “I already am.”

Helen never found out. Or if she did, she never said. She still invites me to parties. Still smiles when she sees me, still brushes her hand against my arm in passing. I haven’t touched Caleb in over a year, but I still see her sometimes — in the street, in bookstores, in dreams I wake up from aching.

She doesn’t know. She never will.

But when I close my eyes, it’s her laugh I remember. Her scent. Her lipstick, off-center on the mirror.

One degree away from heaven still burns like hell.

And some nights… I still settle.

NO FIXED ADDRESS #4– The Man Talking to the Wall Wasn’t Talking to Me

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Welcome to No Fixed Address, a weekly series where I write candidly about what it means to be homeless—right now, in real life, not in some sanitized Hollywood version. I’m currently unhoused. Not “drifting.” Not “on a journey.” Just trying to survive in a world that looks away.

Each week, I’ll share personal accounts, hard truths, and moments that don’t make it into the movies. If you’re here to understand what homelessness actually looks like—not as a plot point, but as a life—then you’re in the right place.

This is not a cry for pity. It’s a record. A mirror. A small act of resistance.

Installment 1 * Installment 2 * Installment 3

There’s a man I see sometimes at a particular subway station who wears five coats, no socks, and sings showtunes to the column near the MetroCard machine. Not at the machine — to it. With reverence. Sometimes he calls it “Mother.” Sometimes he asks it why the moon forgot him.

Other times, he screams.

I don’t know his name, but I know his shape in the crowd. I know to give him space. I know he isn’t violent — not yet. But I also know he’s a walking nerve ending, exposed to the elements, and sooner or later, someone will provoke him. Or he’ll crack.

There are more of him now. And it’s getting harder to tell which ones are just talking to themselves, and which ones are holding it together by the thinnest thread of silence. I’ve shared benches with them. Ridden the same 2 a.m. train loops. Some mutter. Some shout. Some sob quietly into their sleeves for hours.

The line between homeless and psychologically unwell is not always the same — but it’s getting blurrier every week.

And here’s the thing: navigating the homeless landscape means navigating them, too.
And they’re not okay.
And neither are we.

I’m not here to speak over them. But I am here to say this: it is becoming genuinely dangerous to move through the city’s unhoused corridors — shelters, trains, stairwells, benches — because mental health care has utterly collapsed, and too many people have nowhere left to unravel except next to you.

I’ve had someone chase me down a platform for looking too long in their direction.
I’ve had someone follow me up a stairwell whispering “I’m not gonna hurt you” in a tone that made me believe the opposite.
I’ve seen a man bash his head against a pole until MTA police officers came to drag him away like luggage.

This isn’t “colorful city life.” This is a breakdown — of systems, of minds, of basic public safety. And every time a new person ends up on the street mid-episode, we’re all told to just accept it. Duck and weave. Look down. Dodge the danger, but show empathy. Keep your distance, but don’t dehumanize. It’s a losing equation.

There’s a rumor — more than a rumor, really — that certain New Jersey agencies have been quietly transporting individuals with severe mental health conditions across the river into New York once their Medicaid or charity care runs out. Allegedly, they’re given a one-way bus ticket and let loose near Penn Station or Port Authority.

“Not our problem anymore.”

I don’t have paperwork to prove it, but I’ve seen the fallout. The confused newcomers with hospital bracelets still on. The disoriented men asking how to get back to Hackensack or Newark. The women who say things like, “I was at a place with nurses and then I wasn’t.” You learn to read between the lines real fast out here.

Here’s the most brutal part: even the ones trying to get help often can’t. If you’re mentally unwell and homeless, the threshold to get admitted to psychiatric care is sky-high. You basically have to be actively suicidal and disruptive — and even then, you might just get a psych eval and kicked back out with a pamphlet.

And those of us just trying to survive — who aren’t (yet) in crisis — we’re left with the fallout. We dodge. We share space. We don’t sleep. We brace for the moment the shouting turns, or the eye contact lingers too long.

We’re not just sleeping rough anymore.
We’re sleeping in someone else’s breakdown.
And tomorrow, it could be our turn.

—Rhyan

A Beautifully Made Failure

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I met Jules on a Tuesday, which already felt like a bad omen — Tuesdays are no one’s favorite. She blew into the community center art class like someone had dared her to be earnest for an hour and she was already losing the bet.

She had this presence about her. People like to say “you couldn’t look away,” but I tried to. I tried, and it didn’t work. She looked like a mistake you’d make twice. Tall, elegant in a way that suggested inherited ruin — like old wealth that had turned to drama instead of dust. Her eyes were honey lit by a distant fire. Everything about her said come closer — except the eyes, which said you’ll regret it.

She introduced herself like it was a confession. “I’m Jules,” she said. “I don’t finish things. But I’m great at starting.”

No one laughed, but I did. And that’s how it started.

We became inseparable the way chaos and calm sometimes braid themselves together out of sheer necessity. I was working a series of quietly disappointing jobs — one of those people with a planner full of color-coded dreams I never quite chased. Jules floated from gig to gig like she was dodging meaning. She called herself an artist, though I never saw the same piece twice. Everything she made either burned, was given away, or “felt wrong two days later.”

She was a poet when she was bored, a bartender when rent was due, a muse to a half-dozen sad boys who mistook damage for depth. And I? I orbited her. Not as a satellite, not exactly. Maybe more like a moth with a map, trying to convince herself she was going somewhere.

I told myself it was friendship. But there were nights I’d trace the shape of her name into the steamed glass of my bathroom mirror. Nights I’d watch her sleep on my couch — one arm flung dramatically over her forehead like a silent movie star — and wonder if I loved her, or if I just wanted to be her.

Jules had a theory that the best people were ruins. “You can’t trust someone fully assembled,” she’d say, painting her nails black and letting the varnish drip on my floor. “Where’s the poetry in that?”

She told stories like someone dared her to make you believe a lie — except every one of them held a kernel of truth you could taste like a pit in the fruit. A father who left. A mother who kept inviting chaos to dinner. A boy who said he’d love her forever and didn’t. A girl she kissed on a roof once and never called again. That last one she told only once, in a whisper, like it was a wound she wanted to name just enough to keep it alive.

And me? I listened. God, I listened like it was a profession. I wanted to memorize her — to catalog every chipped porcelain piece of her and maybe, just maybe, build something whole. She never asked me to. But I did it anyway.

We had our own mythology.

Thursday nights were ours — takeout and wine and her barefoot in my apartment, telling me what color the sky should have been that day if the world knew how to feel properly.

She once painted a portrait of me using only grays. “You’re too gentle for color,” she said. “You hold back. Even your brightness is cautious.”

I didn’t know whether to be flattered or destroyed. Maybe both.

The end didn’t come like thunder. It came like mist. A slow receding. A canceled plan here. A missed call there. Then three days without a text. Then a week. Then—

One day, I came home to find the painting gone. The one of me. She’d taken it back. No note. No goodbye. Just an empty hook on the wall and a silence loud enough to bruise.

I ran into her a year later. She was at a gallery showing someone else’s work, dressed like a question no one dared ask. She smiled like nothing had happened, and when I said her name — just her name — her eyes softened like I was the one familiar shape left in a room full of strangers.

“You always looked at me like I was worth something,” she said. “Even when I was falling apart on purpose.”

I wanted to say so many things. I wanted to scream, or kiss her, or list every way she wrecked me so beautifully I thanked her for it.

Instead, I just asked, “Did you ever finish the painting?”

She shook her head. “Didn’t feel right.”

Some people are buildings. Foundations. Brick and mortar and blueprints. They rise. They endure.

But some people? Some people are ruins by design. Cathedrals bombed by choice. Glorious in decay. Jules was that. A beautifully made failure. Every flaw curated. Every heartbreak handpicked.

And I? I was the girl who stayed too long in the museum, pressing my hand to the velvet rope, wondering what it would feel like to touch something forbidden.

She never asked to be saved.

And I never stopped loving her for it.