the damage, part 1

September 2086. Stephanie Nova and Justin Kim are 26. Willow is 5, Lily is 4, Benji is six weeks old.


After a few weeks, Justin returned to see his doctor for a checkup. His ribs were healing as expected and the pain had gone away almost completely. The pain in his ribs had gone, at least. On a couple of occasions, however, he'd been hammered with a sudden and excruciating headache, worse than he'd ever experienced before. He was outside in the bright sunshine when it happened and he felt like throwing up and dying all at once.

"It sounds like you've had your first migraine," his doctor said.

Drown #14: we go on, part 2

September 2086. Stephanie and Justin are 26. Willow is 5, Lily is 4, Benji is 3 weeks old. Robert is 52. Jeremy is 70. Bryson is 64.  


Stephanie spent hours going through a cycle of hope and disappointment and hope again. She called out to his nurses, "I think he blinked!" But it wasn’t a blink so much as a muscle spasm of the eyeball or maybe even a burst of REM dreaming. Then she thought she saw him move his finger. A twitch. The nurse wouldn’t say yes or no, just, "It could be." Then she went on with her work. Stephanie wasn't sure whether she was hearing grunts or exhales or perhaps just a tummy rumble.

"Do you think he's hungry? How can he be getting enough nutrients through that little tube for this many days?"

She was driving herself a little bit crazy.

Her mother demanded that she step outside to watch the sunset. "Come get some air with me, sweetheart. If it was a blink, then he’ll still be doing it when you get back."

Drown #14: we go on, part 1

September 2086. Stephanie Nova and Justin Kim are 26. Cynthia Kim is 50, Robert Kim is 52. Keri Riley is 25. Alice Nova is 65. Willow is 5, Lily is 4. 


I don't want to hear it. This isn't happening. 

"Swelling on his brain due to repeated blows..."

Remember when we were kids, when we used to camp out behind my house in the summer?

"... induced the coma to give his brain a chance to rest..."

You said if we slept with our backs to each other we could see in all the directions and the monsters could never get us.