Time After Time

[Carrion Queen]

Ximena dutifully scribbled notes in her notebook about moles and bonds and such until the bell sounded, signaling the end of the day.

Wordlessly and without looking up, she slotted her chemistry notebook and her pencil case into her backpack and zipped it up.

"Am I all caught up?" she said, approaching the teacher’s desk.

"Y-yeah. I went over all your assignments and you only missed two quizzes since it was the start of the school year."

Ximena smiled.

"Okay. Good to hear."

She waved at the teacher, who waved back, and wished him a good weekend.

Ximena had decided to bicycle to school today to enjoy the autumn weather and get some exercise. In a big crowd of students, she approached the bike racks and unlocked hers. Most of the other kids at the bike racks bustling around her were in the younger grades since juniors and seniors would typically drive to school.

It hadn’t been long, but the group that had returned to school and the other students seemed to reach some kind of understanding. Not all of the survivors had opted to return to school, but Ximena had worked hard over the years on her schoolwork and though it may not have made sense to anyone else, she really wanted to graduate this way. She wanted to walk on the field with her cap and gown and didn’t care if no one attended to cheer for her.

The first week she noticed more people looking at her, but humans are adaptable and everyone soon got used to their new reality. No one really talked to her besides her few friends, but no one really talked to her before, so it wasn’t a big change. Sometimes a rando would come up and ask how she was or say they were sorry, but she would always respond the same way –- with a neutral-bordering-on-positive “thanks” -- so they’d learned to leave it be.

Sometimes she thought she might have been able to hear a whisper about her source of income now that it was public knowledge, but no one said anything to her directly since it was well-understood it would be a dick move given what she'd survived and also people assumed she must be able to handle herself if she survived a death game. Ximena was still posting content occasionally to her Only Fans. It was just the fetish stuff and her racy lingerie sets, and she made a frankly ridiculous amount of money for it now with her number of subscribers. But it wouldn’t be something to do forever. She had the money now to go to school, so she was applying for colleges. And her talk (with Astrid as the introduction) had yielded results –- she was on her way to an internship with Playboy’s photo department in the summer. They liked her portfolio, after all.

Today, on this Friday, Ximena wore a black, pleated miniskirt with a white stripe at the bottom, a white button-down shirt, a black vest over it, and white tights with black hearts on them. Gently, her bike glided downhill without much input from her.

Ximena hopped off the bicycle and walked it to another rack where she locked it and went inside Pete’s Pets. She scrolled through her phone because she did remember what Lolihop ate, of course, but didn’t remember Muffin’s preferences. On the screen were a few text alerts: a text from Cecilia, Stephen sent another picture of his new cat, Deacon. Alan sent a meme. She smiled and picked up freeze-dried bloodworms for Lollihop, frozen mice for Muffin.

It was a different life than before, but not a life without good things in it. Though she was still adjusting, she quickly didn’t remember what life used to be like. Not all days were easy, certainly. There were the night terrors and random bouts of panic. But she did finally find a therapist that she could feel comfortable with.

Ximena saw a box on the ground advertising "kittens free to a good home" and inspected the kitten held within. Ximena picked up a small gray cat that mewed quietly at her and bit her finger. Well, she had been a bit jealous of Stephen’s new cat, and she couldn’t just leave the poor thing. She decided to take it.

"Hi, Pete," she said gently. "The food and also this guy."

"Afternoon, Nana. Lookin' like quite the before and after," he said as he rang her up. She'd come by the store all the time over the years, and he saw her right when she'd gotten back. Pete added a few cans of cat food to her things without ringing them up.

She shrugged. "I don’t know when ‘before’ began, and I’m never done so I don’t know when ‘after’ stops."

She thanked him and put the food into her backpack next to some papers from school about getting your GED that she picked up for Astrid.

Ximena went a few doors down to a drug store which had flowers near the front. Inspecting a few bouquets, she selected a bundle of white and red roses. She would go visit Raja’s grave tomorrow with his family, who had always treated her like she was one of their own.

She was about to walk away when she stopped and noticed individual roses for sale, too. With some deliberation and looking at the different choices available, she selected a dark red rose that was so dark it could nearly be mistaken for black as a gift for Astrid. She hoped it would cheer her roommate up. In her private heart, Ximena knew the girl was sweet and every girl she knew liked surprise flowers.

After paying and walking outside, the small cardboard carrier containing the nameless kitten and her flowers went into the basket on the front of her bicycle.

Ximena rode in a leisurely fashion the rest of the way home. There, she went to the bike rack in the apartment complex, which looked like a little cage, and locked up her steed.

It was a different world with different challenges. Some days were difficult. Many of them were, in fact. But as long as you are alive, there is always the chance things can get better. As long as she was alive, every day held the promise of new hope.

Her phone dinged just as she reached for the door handle. She shifted the flowers to her other arm, looked at the phone, then smiled a wicked smile.

It was a world that became a little softer every day.

The nameless kitten meowed curiously. She walked into the apartment holding the carrier in one hand and the bundle of flowers in the other.

"Hello," she announced.

"We’re home."



Tell me about your despair and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile, the wild geese high in the clean, blue air are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like…

Like the wild… tigers, lizards, bats, sirens, eagles, cats, squirrels, illusions, luck, dreams, colors, lightning, and geese -- harsh and exciting,
over and over, announcing your place
in the family of things.

[+] Credits

Thank you for reading my character.

Thank you for everyone who participated in the version.

Thank you especially to everyone who worked with me; I can't tell you how much I appreciate the mistake you had made by doing that.

Thank you to the Supers staff who put in a lot of hard work to make this game possible, I'm very grateful.

And special thank you to the people who read with me.

I hope that every day is a new chance for things to be better.