u/Bram-Stroker-_

The genome lays bare secrets to untold stories. Hard encoding evinces the fruit of evolution’s struggles. On its deepest level things like the basic functionality of organs, heat regulation, and embryonic development. More superficially genes expressed physically like eye color and nose shape. Behaviorally the epigenome is the most direct transliteration of generational experience.

Destiny made manifest.

The nadir of trauma looming heavy.

Our human drive to better our children’s lives and the relentless march of technology has enabled the greatest choice.

Who are children will be even before their birth.

December, 2043. Metro New York City.  

My name is Mark. I’m 43 years old. Salutatorian Exeter Class of ‘18, Summa Cum Laude Princeton Class of ‘22, youngest VP at Sequoia, before finishing things at Harvard for Business School. I now cohead a hedge fund based in Manhattan overseeing activism investment. In my spare time I play squash, bike, run marathons, and have the occasional dalliance.
 
My wife Bryn is 34 years old. We met through her older brother who worked with me. She belongs to the main family of a long line of generational investors. Through the years founding Hollywood, playing a guiding hand in Silicon Valley, numerous real estate holdings, and deftly steering the later most profitable era of AI development. Previously she worked in energy tech but now spends most of her time looking after the kids or in pilates with the other Greenwich moms. I don’t mind. Maybe she’ll write a book at some point or start a charitable org. No need for actual work.
 
Our kids are Will 3, Evelyn 4, and Archer 6 were all born via surrogate. Each carefully cultivated using the latest advances in gene-editing technology. Blonde hair, blue eyes, tall, beautiful, disease free, IQs boosted to the low 140s, athletic, high metabolism, ears for music, minds for numbers, neurochemistry to make a psychiatrist obsolete, and a hunger for knowledge.
 
No nasty surprises.
 
A perfect family from the point of test tube conception.
 
I’m getting back from my Saturday morning run when Bryn tells me about the first real problem I’ve had (other than my lagging bonds portfolio back in 2036).
 
“Archer’s been having migraines again and the sleepwalking is worse.” Bryn says. I’m sure she’s checking her feed. Her left pupil has that telltale dilation. I’ll have to check the logs but she definitely just received a text from her college boyfriend David. Maybe he’s going to be in town from SF. Fucking putz.
 
“Well get those assholes from CRISPR to sort it out. We’ve paid them $30 million already to make sure this kind of shit doesn’t happen in the first place.” I say grabbing a towel and drying off. I open my own feed.
 
“I already have Mark. I keep getting blocked out by their auto messaging service. I can’t even get the CEO Jim. It’s just his AI proxy.” Bryn says, casual annoyance slipping into her voice. Ha maybe David shot her down.
 
This isn’t normal. CRISPR has over 400 people on staff and 150 of those are 24/7 support specialists and docs. I start to give the issue more attention – blinking away my work mail and last night’s smut tape with Bryn’s best friend Emily from my cornea.
 
“What do you mean ‘blocked out’? We bought the Platinum Package for all the kids. That means concierge doctors, gene scientists, and techs available 24/7 – I got Jim fucking funded in the first place.” I say nearly losing my temper for the first time since the Paris marathon in April when a college kid passed me. I’m sure the ruddy red from the run has darkened my cheeks to a deeper rouge.
 
“So, what do you intend to do Mark?” Bryn passively delegating to me. I’m sure she’s had this planned out since pilates this morning. She knows how much of a control freak I am.
 
“I’m on the board of Jim’s company and hold 51% of shares. His lawyer is my lawyer, so strong arming him won’t be an issue. Worst case scenario I take the nuclear approach. Get him removed. Ruin his life. In the process jacking up the stock price to really rub it in. But it won’t come to that.” I say breaking the daydream.
 
I’ve done it before and have no compunctions about the approach; it is, after all, how I make my bones these days. But my kid’s health is potentially on the line. Expediting care is my chief concern. Triage is the name of the game. Get Archer some help and then remove the inept CEO if necessary.
 
“Ok Mark. What then?” Bryn says. I’m sure suppressing the urge to roll her eyes and an accusatory note slipping in.
 
“Maybe it’s a misunderstanding – I’ll call him.” Opting to take the more tactful and direct approach, I do just that.
 
The all too familiar tingling in my hind brain as the gold nano implant fires up grips me. There’s no period of customary waiting while calling, Jim’s AI proxy immediately greets me.
 
Strange.
 
“Mr. Stephens I’m sorry Jim isn’t available at the moment. Can I leave a note from you?” The pallid slightly younger facsimile of Jim Simons with a bushy mustache tells me with all too real sincerity. Disarming if the mannerisms aren’t slightly manufactured.
 
“Listen here you clanker fuck I know for a fact that Jim has me on his direct neural response list. Override whatever you need to in your neutered machine learning algo’s to get me the man. My son needs CRISPR attention now.” I don’t have time for most people let alone a crude reproduction of them.
 
“I’m sorry Mr. Stephens that won’t be possible. If you’d like me to…”-
 
Jim’s serene face shimmers and fades. Oscillating between smile and grimace, its voice gripped with static backwash cuts off. A last pained expression before the connection is filled with the tinny interference you get with late-stage tinnitus. Hearing returning after a grenade blast. Ringing, dizziness, and atypical vertigo.
 
My vision goes. The electronic backwash is too much. I pitch forward and fall face first.
 
Someone is shaking my arm. It’s Bryn. I get up sluggishly; my head still ringing.
 
Bryn mouths –
 
“Are you ok? Are you ok? Are you…”
 
Eventually the lip reading comes with the sound of her voice too.
 
“I’m fine really. Call my assistant Cathy and tell her to go with the nuclear option for CRISPR. Tell her to get a hold of my lawyer Jordan, too. Also, ask her to get someone to service my implant.” I slur. Dim awareness of the situation returning as I regain control of my faculties again.
 
“Mark what just fucking happened and why do you need me to?” Bryn asks once I’ve gotten back on my feet. All semblance of this just being a game to her gone I see.
 
“I’m sure that my implant needs a recall that’s it. These things happen Bryn.” I say not quite convinced myself.
 
“Mark you got the new version last month. It’s insured for 20 years. They don’t corrode and the software is top notch.” Her eyes widen further.
 
“Bryn just do it. Please.” I shuffle up the stairs to take a shower. A shower would do me good.
 
My half stumbling gait is bad enough but I’m sure the ‘please’ is really throwing my wife for a loop. I don’t show weakness and that extends to my communication. A ‘please’ is tantamount to me admitting I have leukemia or that I’m giving up on business and joining the peace corps.
 
On the landing before I enter the hallway I pause. Almost as an afterthought I call down to my wife.
 
“Also have Cathy phone the police for a wellness check on Jim.” I don’t really know why I call down to say it, it just slips out. I stumble into the palatial master bedroom and then into the shower.
 
I’m sure that despite her misgivings Bryn will do as asked and get in touch with my assistant of a decade, Cathy. She’s incredibly intelligent for her position and I’ve assured her that she’s being groomed for chief of staff role in the near term. But she’s too good at her job for me to give her up. A victim of her own competence. Really, she only has herself to blame.
 
I lie in bed with a pounding headache.
 
Thirty minutes later the implant neurologist and a tech are here. They walk in the foyer, up the stairs, and into the master bedroom.
 
Upon doing some scans with a portable MRI and implant reader Dr. Chandari analyzes the results while the mousy 25-year-old implant tech, Claire, stands looking busy in the background. She’s kind of hot in a sort of pathetic way. I catch her eye and avert my gaze. Now I have her blushing.
 
I glance up from my bed and look toward the confused doctor. A portly man of middle age, Dr. Chandari stands about 5’9” tall. He wears a white lab coat which contrasts with his dark south Indian complexion. His black irised eyes shaded by thick bifocals are tired but possess a discerning vitality.
 
He establishes a baseline test for my neurofunction by performing some simple tests. First running a fingernail under my bare foot to which my toes flex back. Next flashing a light over both of my eyes. The doctor’s expression which remains confused is now muddled with concern.
 
“Your baseline is good but the left eye’s dilation is consistent with a dysfunctional implant at the end of its lifecycle.” Dr. Chandari says perfunctorily.
 
“Doctor, I had the latest version implanted a month ago how could this happen?” I cut him off before he can get his main point across.
 
“Has business taken you anywhere near the Balkans or the US-Mexico border recently?”
 
“No, the closest I’ve been to either was Paris in April and San Francisco in June. What does this have to do with my implant?” I say even more impatient than before.
 
“Well as you know the Second Serbian civil war kicked off two years ago. Each side has seen a variety of new drone technologies developed. Many now equipped with small yet powerful EMP payloads which have been used to great effect on soldiers, officers, and infrastructure. With things getting worse, to fund the war efforts they have sold to criminal elements like the cartel. This past year has seen the Sinaloa and Jalisco deploying them against US military assets in skirmishes along the border and in high value hostage attempts. Wipe out the comms, disrupt wet ware, and strike. Your implant’s power unit is consistent with this localized type of EMP attack.” Dr. Chandari muses.
 
“Jesus, no, nothing like that happened. I was talking with a colleague’s AI to leave a message. It seemed to be on the fritz and the connection I think had some corrupt data. Maybe some digital backwash caused it to short circuit?”

Even as the words leave my mouth, I knew the impossibility of the scenario. AIs can’t create a localized EMP blast. Even my limited knowledge of electrical engineering and superposition tells me that.
 
“Being one of the designers for this implant the level of information overload necessary to do that would be staggering. To put it in perspective it’d be on a similar level needed to fry a mega datacenter under the Atlantic.”

Dr. Chandari continues—

“We’ll review the logs of course for more details but you should also contact the police. I believe this may’ve been a shoddy attempt at kidnapping or at the very least, sabotage. There have been some redundancies built into the device fortunately, so my colleague Claire will activate the backup power unit on the implant. We’ll want to replace the unit ASAP just to be safe. On Monday first thing – the procedure is minimally invasive under 30 minutes.” The doctor looks to be done with the visit judging by the brusque head nod to his tech and putting away his data pad.
 
I just want to be done with this whole situation. I allow the tech to strap the electromagnetic to the back of my skull. Within a minute the backup battery kicks in and my feed boots up. Messages from work, my assistant Cathy, Emily, Jordan my lawyer, and strangely something encrypted from Jim’s AI proxy.
 
I decide to ignore the last one for now. There’s an orange hazy overlay on the UI which hadn’t been there before. A sepia graininess and static which scares me. I decide not to mention it. The pair leave through the bedroom door.
 
I lay back down again and settle in for a nap. Something occurs to me.
 
An EMP would have fried the electronics on the entire first floor. Everything is working just fine. Dread grips me as I slip mercifully into unconsciousness.
 
Strange dreams play out.
 
Dark things with gnashing mouths and indistinct asymmetric bodies in my eldest’s bedroom. Archer silently crying, clutching his head. Black tears well in his eyes. Evelyn and Will talking to each other in a language I can’t understand. Jim holding a scalpel behind his wife Mary while she sets the table.
 
An orchard. An apple. Snakes.
 
The quad in Cambridge littered with shadowy small bodies. Laughing horrors behind them. Perched like gargoyles in the columns of collegial buildings. A phrase I can’t make out keeps repeating. A dirge of children’s voices. I swear I can hear my own kids too.
 
Something about inheritance…
 
I wake with a jolt to Bryn shaking my shoulder. The uneasiness from the dream still has me its grips.
 
“Mark – it’s Archer’s first Peewee hockey game tonight, do you feel well enough to go?” Concern etches her face.
 
I look at the clock. It reads 4:49. I had slept for over five hours. My naps never last for more than 20 minutes. I hate wasting time. I’m pissed and groggy.
 
“I can’t miss his debut game. I’ll get ready now.” I say tossing my feet over the bed.
 
Another alert from Jim’s AI proxy.
 
This one is encrypted too. I’m about to open it, but the static orange is starting to give me another headache. I power down my feed and put on my clothes.
 
Nothing is casual in my world. Appearance is everything. When a chance meeting could be with a potential business associate or rival it pays to look good. I purposely slip on some nondescript outfit that tastefully strikes the balance between informal and giving a shit. It easily costs $5000. Subtly impressive with no garish labels; after all I am only going to my kid’s Peewee hockey game.
 
Hopping in the newest model Mercedes EV G-Wagon I have Brynn drive. Our kids in the back are absorbed in some educational videos. Completely quiet. Normally the silence is reassuring to me – the studious attention a reminder that my kids will rule the world one day. Now though, I feel uneasy. Grudgingly I’m realizing how alien my kids are to me. A mere unmodified human. It’s eerie.
 
I’m a relic.
 
We park at the rink each filing out of the car. Archer starts to carry his large hockey duffle. Shouldering it with ease. The thing is double his height and weighs nearly as much as he does. I take it off him telling myself it’s the “fatherly” thing to do. I know the kid can easily hoist the bag himself the 200 yards inside. I’d normally let him do it too, hell I’d paid enough for the privilege, but the sheer otherness of my son is getting to me. Starting to walk I stop and look down at Archer.
 
Images from my dream come back in a torrent.
 
Those awful shapes in the bedroom. My son crying. Black tears. That song. That awful fucking song. Inheritance.
 
“Dad, you see them too?” Archer asks me. Face blank, his icy blue eyes seeming to bore into me.
 
“What?” I manage to sputter out.
 
“Mark, Archer – everyone else is filing in. Let’s go.” Bryn calls after us. She’s standing hand in hand with Evelyn and Will just outside the doors.
 
We go to the locker room. Bryn helps Archer put on his oversized pads and skates. At this point I want to say something like –
 
“Go get ‘em champ!” or “Score a goal for me!”
 
But I’m at loss for words. What Archer said has me shaken. I just stand there like a putz instead. Archer grabs his stick and shuffles over the rubber floor to his waiting coach and other kids.
 
Bryn looks at me with something approaching scorn tinged with dismay. 
 
“Why didn’t you…I mean are you ok? What the hell Mark, you can’t even wish your kid good luck?”
 
“I…I don’t know. I’ll just have to cheer harder for him out there.” I say mind elsewhere.
 
The rink all told holds about 200 people. CEOs, founders, trustafarians, tech people, and many other flavors of success. I recognize most. Each family has between 3-6 kids under the age of five. Large families being in vogue these days. All designer cultivated via the latest advances in CRISPR technology. Purpose built, fashionable, and perfect. All smug in their accomplishment that they’d cheated God. Normally the thought would make me smile, now though I don’t feel so amused.

We seat ourselves next to two other couples we know well and whose kids are on Archer’s team. We exchange pleasantries with them. Chris my classmate at HBS manages a Private Equity fund, his second wife Samantha, and their 4 kids (ages 1-5). Margaret heads Blackrock’s renewables team, her deadbeat playwright husband Joe, and their 3 kids (ages 2-4).
 
“I can’t wait to see the kids out there; it’s going to be a blood bath for that other team!” Margaret says competition oozing from her voice.
 
“Oh, come on Margaret they’re only 6 years old! They should focus on having fun.” Joe says placidly.
 
Joe, what a fucking pussy. I swear if Margaret didn’t have such a wounded bird complex she’d have gotten a lot further in life. To think she’d given up that job in Singapore so he could produce his off-Broadway show about earth worms. Fucking earth worms. According to him, it was Avante Garde, but the New York Times had dubbed it an “hour and a half long travesty dressed in oddly phallic worm costumes.” Joe was in hysterics and for the finale would up at Betty Ford in Malibu for three months. God, I hope Marge is getting some on the side.
 
“Well regardless this is going to be the beginning of many good things. Think of how many…” Chris launches into a monologue.
 
I’m sure my old business school classmate is reading some sappy script that his AI proxy is feeding him. About how this is the start of all their kids competing for the rest of their childhoods. Becoming best friends. Building relationships that will last well into their careers. All very erudite and touching. All bullshit. Meanwhile he answers work emails, chats with his mistress, strikes some trades, and plans a boy’s trip to Aspen.
 
I take his lead and start to do the same. Ignoring the hazy orange overlay I approve the plan my lawyer sent on the CRISPR takeover, complimenting the photos I’d received from Emily, and telling Cathy to schedule the implant replacement.
 
Then the hallmark hockey klaxon goes off to announce the game is about to get underway. The commenter with overproduced zeal launches into the pregame lineups-
 
“Well folks we have ourselves the first game for these little warriors. The 6-year-old Peewee league’s inaugural matchup of these two perennial powerhouse youth teams the Raptors vs. the Whalers. It’s sure to be a fierce bout that no one at home will want to miss out on. On the starting line…”
 
Totally hokey but all of us parents are fired up and just like that the kids are off on the ice.
 
1st strings pile out for the faceoff. Little Archie vs. some other kid. The puck drops and my son scoops it away before passing to Chris’s kid behind him. The game is on.
 
I mean they are good. Really fucking good. Scary almost.
 
Playing with the coordination of 14-year-olds, passing well, minding the rules, and getting plenty of shots on goal. These 6-year-olds are even taking some pretty big hits considering each child only weighs 50 pounds soaking wet. Little bodies slamming against glass. The kids getting right back up. No crying, no tears. A lot of grit and near supernatural levels of determination.
 
Over on the left-wing Archer gets the puck while the opposing team’s defense is off balance. He puts it in the back of the net. Top left cheese. Skirts it around the goaltender’s glove. It’s a goal. 10 minutes in, the first goal of the game. Everyone goes wild. Bryn is screaming. The klaxon blares.
 
The announcer booms “Ladies and Gentlemen do you believe in Peewee miracles?”
 
I’m on my feet too. Screaming and whooping for my son. For the first that entire day I feel good. My boy scored the first goal. Everything is going to be ok.
 
A notification appears on my feed.
 
Jim Simons direct neural link.
 
I forgot to block that little shit. My lawyer Jordan had advised me to. My anger over being ignored and urge to gloat gets the better of me. I allow the call through.
 
“Jim, buddy, we should only be talking through our lawyers at this point. Don’t worry though you won’t be walking away from this empty handed. I’ll make su-” I shut up immediately.
 
Jim has switched to a live cast of his ocular feed. He hasn’t said a word and doesn’t need to.
 
I’m looking at Jim’s dining room table.

The orange sepia of my scuttled implant UI fading to hazy red. His wife and eight kids aged 1-6 are all seated. The infant triplets and twins in their highchairs.
 
There’s a tight weeping hole in each of their foreheads. The youngest children’s upper skulls are completely gone in an act of crazed overkill. The macabre table is set. On the children’s plates is a gristly amuse-bouche. Their own larynx. I notice rectangular excisions on each of the throats. Strange whistling emanates from the organs.
 
His wife Mary at the head of the table has received a special dispensation. Her plated womb. The brown winter dress she’s wearing is cut horizontally below the navel. Exposing her innards and the space where her uterus had once been housed.
 
“I killed them Mark. I had to. The resonance you see it’s building. I can’t let it grow. We’ve offended God. All of us.” Jim says with utmost certainty. The crazed confidence of a righteous zealot.
 
Jim shifts slightly and walks toward his seat at the table.
 
My blood runs cold.
 
“You need to do the same Mark. Don’t let the choir build. I should’ve listened sooner but it’s not too late for you.”
 
Jim sits down. On the plate is his dismembered and intact package. Judging from the congealing blood it’s been there for some minutes already.
 
Jim pulls out his pistol, cocks the trigger, and puts it in his mouth. I can taste the coppery metal barrel and feel the cold muzzle on the roof of my mouth. I sense the feverish sweat bead down the back of Jim’s neck; the aching hole where his loins had been.
 
It isn’t possible to experience this through the feed. It just isn’t. It’s only a fucking live broadcast.
 
He lisps something through the barrel of the gun.
 
“Inheritance”
 
Jim pulls the trigger. The bullet entering palate, sinus, soft meaty lower brain, parietal, all the while creating cavitations rending the surrounding critical areas. It exits the top of his skull. I feel it all.
 
His torso spasms and pitches forward limp. Head smacking the hardwood table with a meaty wet squelch and comes to rest on his right cheek. Unfocused eyes take in the gristly place-settings and space above them.
 
Smokey black tendrils drift out of organs that had once given voice to his children. The whistling sound like air through porous rock intensifies. Jim’s vision dims with the ichor draining out of his skull. A coalescing tentacled nightmare plops onto the table, providing languid caresses to the children’s faces. Shimmering hazily, it trains a yellowed eye on Jim.
 
The connection goes dead. Sensory decompression sickness grips me as I plumb the depths of sanity for the second time that day. My consciousness floods back. I’m in my body again. The sympathetic phantom pain still feels all too real. My head throbs. The nerve endings in my face feel like they’ve been scourged with burning needles. Even now I can sense that malevolent yellowed gaze on me.
 
Around me the other parents are still on their feet cheering for Archer. No time has passed.
 
What just happened? Did I just hallucinate?
 
It’s all too much for me. I need to sit down. All I can do is stare out at the ice. Yes, just sit. Just sit and watch.
 
Everything will alright if I just watch the ice.
 
For the first time in my life, I pray. A meek prayer to a God I don’t know nor believe in.
 
A few minutes later the period ends. Score 2-1. Kids skate skillfully over to opposing benches.  The pimple faced teenage ref comes out riding the blue Zamboni to resurface the ice.
 
I take it in like a dementia patient notices the days passing. I’m walking a tightrope of catatonia and full-blown schizophrenic break.
 
The clock strikes 6:00PM.
 
Bryn looks over at me. I hardly notice.
 
“Mark, are you ok? What happened?” Bryn sounds like she’s battling a panic attack of her own.
 
I can’t respond.
 
“Mark you’re not ok, I’m calling Cathy to get you out of here right now. Get up.” Bryn continues whispering with urgency and grabs my arm.
 
I can’t budge. I’m glued to my seat. She’s shaking me now.
 
By this point the other two couples have noticed the commotion.
 
“Jesus Mark you’re bleeding out of your left eye, you should go to the ER.” Marge says with a look of pity and concern.
 
That seems to break my reverie. I dab my eye. My fingers are coppery black.

No, it’s not blood. It’s too inky. Something you’d find coming out while changing your oil.
 
Then I hear it. The same dirge from my dream. That awful lament. The kids. All of them are singing, even those in the stands.
 
I turn to see my own next to me, Evelyn and Will, are as well. Perfect posture, eyes leaking black tears, gripping their seat handles with white knuckles, while their necks bulge with corded veins.
 
That praising lament is in a far eastern dialect. Like grit grating against sandstone. The warmth of blazing sun crescendo to furnace.
 
The stadium vibrates sympathetically in response. A low rumble of an apex predator.
 
I look back at the ice which is now seeming to bubble. It phase shifts from solid to liquid to superheated gas. The Zamboni driving 16-year-old is cooked alive like a steamed crab. Eyes melt like wax in their sockets. Skin blistering and sloughing off in uneven meaty clumps.
 
The heat of the gas hits the stands with a whoosh. It singes my nostril hairs. Black tears further blot my vision.
 
Screams erupt from the stadium. Parents scramble to pry their mesmerized children from their seats. The result is nil. Their tiny bodies magnetized in place. My wife gives up on me as she begins to work on our own harmonizing kids.
 
Some unscrupulous parents decide to give up on their children entirely; Joe amongst them. Tripping over Margaret and then himself to get to the aisle.
 
The steam clears from the rink. A cavernous black void has opened like a maw. The Zamboni and its cooked occupant pitch end over end into the drink.
 
Ripples languidly issue outward with the malaise of an algae choked pond.
 
The lights in the stadium turn out. The screaming of parents and the incessant drone of the choir our sole sensory inputs.
 
Luminous bulbs of yellow light come upward from deep inky waters. A malevolent yellow piercing the dark veil of the viscous liquid.
 
The glow dimly illuminates the team benches. The children, with Archer amongst them, increasing in decibels. Oozing blackness pouring from their small eyes. A fevered reverential joy painted on their features.
 
Cresting the wave from below gigantic, stalked eyes erupt like submarine towers. Black insectile irises dart around with frenetic ease.
 
Silence follows.
 
The yellow is replaced by red in the stalks. Hazy light issues painting everything in sepia.
 
The singing begins again — louder and more urgent.
 
A mass erupts at last. A grotesque round and meaty body. Its sides brushing the glass of the stands. They shatter. A piece cuts my right cheek. I tongue the gap and feel open air.
 
Human faces dot the raw meat of the creature. Individuals affixed with the same pained joy as the children. They sing too.
 
The body extends and erupts from the stands. These portions phasing in and out of reality. Semi corporeal as if the area above the waters are the only thing which is solid.
 
I find myself singing now too. The babble of nonsense syllables hurting my teeth. My back molars feel like the dentist is digging out a cavity with a drill. They shatter and crack. Empty gums oozing a sanguine puddle on my tongue.
 
The levitating mass rises further still. Crashing into the ceiling.

Then a blinding light.
 
It’s gone.
 
I wake.
 
The lights are back on.
 
My wife is dead. Her lower half is embedded in the concrete. Her clawing hands rest on our daughter’s shoulder.
 
All the adults are in various states of life and death. Some have their bodies phased into seats and concrete of the rink. Horrid bulging eyes like a fish dragged up from the depths too quickly. A neo-gothic Dali meets Goya.
 
Twitching mounds of flesh moan incoherently.
 
The kids are alive. Catatonic with dried black staining their cheeks in rivulets. Glassy eyed zombies. Their life force spent on the song. A few hum swaying slightly.
 
I choke and cough as stumps of broken teeth leak ichor down my throat.

I look down to find a hand protruding from my chest. It’s Margaret’s. Her right arm is lodged between my heart and lungs. The pressure is immense as I feel her forearm flex as she regains consciousness.
 
In shock she tears it out.
 
The bleeding is immediate. I slump off my chair and to the floor. Head smacking concrete. Dazed I stare at the roof which is now open to winter sky.
 
Constellations greet me as I hope this nightmare will be over soon.
 
These aren’t my stars.