#I wish we had safer opportunities for her to be a menace | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the-voice-of-hell · 4 years ago

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The Septagram

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***

Rosemarie Miller was walking a cart of looted groceries home through relatively barren streets. A few homeless anarchists were grooving at a public fountain, hopping through the water to cool off as needed. She was jealous of their easy-going ways. The reason the pigs all high-tailed out of the region was always on her mind. Would she see the murderers? Would she have to deal with them?

The only reason she’d stayed behind was because she was trying to find her best friend, Jennifer Smith, and ended up missing a window of opportunity for an evacuation escort. She certainly wasn’t going to risk the wilder stretches of highway without an armed guard, so it was safer just to stay at home, in the flat part of Renton. The worst part of missing the opportunity was when she finally did find Jennifer, and learned the weirdo had stayed in town for the chance to rip wicked bicycle moves. Thanks, Jen.

The sky was hot and blue. That part of Renton was so flat that it felt like being at the bottom of a bowl, decorative hills off to the sides, infinite scorching void above. She looked at the new stainless steel apartments along the way. Should she just steal one? Was that where the anarchists were sleeping at nights? There was no evidence the door had been jimmied, so probably not. She reached her apartment, set down the groceries, and fished out her keys.

Suddenly, a distraction. That dragonfly sound of a bike chain speeding her way. As much as she knew it was Jen in her head, in her heart it was the murder clubs. She whipped around to see that goof zipping her way, dorky chipmunk teeth smiling, bleach blonde bob whipping the breeze, big light eyes behind dark-framed nerd glasses. Her frame was typical of a short, slightly pudgy person, but her limbs were bulging with creepy muscles. If she dehydrated enough she could do bodybuilding competitions.

“ROSIE! WHAT DID YOU GET ME?”

Rosemarie wasn’t going to play the shouting game. She waited until her friend was close enough to hear above the chains. But Jen didn’t stop, was heading straight toward her now at full speed. Rose cringed, falling to one knee.

Jen hit the brakes and twisted the bike’s frame in just the right way to spring off the ground with the momentum, spinning three times horizontally as she flew over Rose, and landed with her bike across her shoulders like Jesus carrying the cross.

“WHAT THE FUCK JEN!?” Shouting after all.

“What? That was fucking sick. You used to like my stunts.”

“You’re gonna be the death of me!”

“I hope not? I’m still sorry about that, and I’ll say it as much as you need me to.” She dropped the bike and sent it rolling to rest by the building’s stoop with one hand. “I wub you, come on!” She went in for a hug.

“No!” Rose held her back with a talon-like finger. “You’re sweaty and disgusting.” She relaxed. “I’ll make you something if you want. But you need to shower first.”

“Bossanova.”

Suddenly out of the clear sky they heard a thunder crack and peal. It rumbled and dissipated. Strange notes played in the wake, like the brass section of the world’s worst marching band, but weak as if from miles away. They were both looking north to Seattle proper.

“Doesn’t look like a storm,” Jen said.

“Maybe they’re gonna drop the bomb. Come die with a full stomach, loca.”

***

Clark Upton was a fortunate man. He had lived a long life of excitement and romance as a dancer, dance instructor, and choreographer in some of the gayest cities in the world. But this was Seattle, and it was starting to feel like the end of his run. Although his coughing had cleared up since most of the people evacuated (had he just been allergic to exhaust all this time?), there was apocalyptic air about the events that precipitated the change.

And now there was an apocalyptic air in the literal air outside his apartment. It had been a sunny summer day one minute, and then clouds began to rapidly form - between the buildings themselves. He was below those clouds on the seventeenth floor, but he could see that there were apartments in taller buildings that would be above them. The thunder began as soon as the clouds had, as a rumbling vibration through all the buildings, through the bodies of those still living there. It was building to a climax of some sort.

“Thurston? Thurstooon?” He called for his friend, but couldn’t make himself release his grip on the balcony rail. This wasn’t right.

Thurston Connor was another gay dancer and friend, staying with him while in town. The tall beautiful black man with his perfectly shaved head did not come to his call. Clark began to fear he wasn’t even in the same dimension as the guy.

Then the thunder burst out in a great crescendo and red sheet lightning bridged the clouds and the bus tunnel entrance on the streets below. Something began spilling out of the bus tunnel. Dark forms, tumbling and spinning and leaping, shiny instruments in their grips. It was like someone had taken a paper bag full of different noxious species of insects, shook them up to instill anger, and dumped them onto the ground.

The thunder subsided into a rolling menace, but less deafening than its initial burst. And under that sound he could hear them. It was a marching band.

“Oh dear. I’m having a stroke.”

He laid down on the grate floor of his balcony, amid clay pots and chair legs, and he waited to die. It was a lonely feeling. As good as his life had been, he’d known many moments of loneliness and he did not love them. He wished that he’d had a husband - someone who would be there for this. But then, it was never in his character.

The wind whipped wildly below him, carrying the discordant notes of the hellish stroke band. What was that tune? “Inna Godda Davida”? Yes, it was definitely in there, scored with the skill of Souza and played with the skill of Bob Log III. But there were other tunes being played simultaneously - pure torture. Oh no. One of the tunes was Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

Clark made up his mind. Death was horrible, and he couldn’t stand it.

***

A thunderstorm had started in the north. Must be that summer thunder - not very common in the Puget Sound region, in Park’s experience. It didn’t look like there were enough clouds to cause any kind of rain, but it was hard to tell because it was very far away.

The headache was getting worse. He was in a previously vacant house they’d commandeered for barracks. Normally as evening began to fall, he’d be on the roof. He’d set up tall chair there so he could get a good view of the neighborhood and radio to get extra attention on anything suspicious. But this night, he found he was needing rest more than usual, and came down after just a few minutes.

For unit cohesion the guys were living with members of their respective agencies. All the Tacoma PD plus a few State Patrol and other local cops were sharing this house and the one next to it. More than half of them were on patrol or other tasks at the moment, leaving just a few guys behind. They were taking nightcaps and gambling in the living room.

“Hey guys.”

“You want in, Park?”

“Not right now. We got any good painkillers?”

“Legal or otherwise?”

“Watch it, Rickard.”

He ended up taking some Excedrin from one of the first aid kits on the kitchen counter, washing it down with a beer, leaning there under a bright kitchen light. He thought about joining the guys out there but really he didn’t want to play. He just wanted to hang out with Infante. He was afraid he’d made a bad impression earlier. Why was he being so weird? He shook his head, regretted it, then gulped more beer.

Infante came in, grabbing a half-empty bottle of Grey Goose out of the refrigerator. “Hey boss.”

“Hey, Infante. You don’t have to call me boss. Hell, I think we have the same salary.” He tried to smile but it looked like something crinkled and painful.

“Eh… It’s just easier.”

“I don’t recommend drinking that all by yourself. Gotta stay in fighting trim.”

“I know. I was gonna split it. We got glasses on the table.”

“Good man.” Why do I keep saying that? Christ. He had to get some air again, but up on the roof was too much tension, scanning the horizon for any sign of mischief. He went out the front door without saying goodbye.

The sky was getting dusky. People were having a lawn party across the street. A few children waved at him but mostly they didn’t like police. One even put his hand on the top of a baby’s head and turned it away from him. It didn’t bother him too much.

A dark-skinned woman in badly stained clothes staggered in the direction of the party. Her hair was long with puffy curls of varying sizes and shot through with little bits of plant matter. She was holding a hammer.

Park resisted the urge to pull his gun and quickly stepped between her and the party. “Ma’am, please. Stop.” Palms up.

She looked at his gun then looked at his face, scowling deeply. “I need to go.”

“That’s fair but maybe you should lose the tool and clean up a little. There are children over there. You’ll scare them.”

“Don’t care. I need to see Elijah.”

She started walking again and he hustled in front of her.

“At least give me the hammer. I’ll hold it for you.”

She looked confused, thought about it, picking up the hammer as if she’d forgotten she was carrying it, and then handed it to him. “I’m gonna need that back.”

He nodded and mutely accepted it, then followed about fifteen feet behind her. The hammer looked like it had been used to smash up a green compost heap. New, but recently rendered disgusting. He shook his head.

She walked up to one of the houses, stood at the porch for a moment scanning the crowd, then went inside. He hustled to close the distance and stood inside the door, trying to hold the hammer out of sight. Two little black kids played video games, but the house inside looked too nice to have children. Visitors. Park just watched her walking the house, looking for someone, listening to hear if she got in trouble.

Someone almost bowled him over coming inside. “Excuse me officer. Need more soda pop.”

“Elijah? Eliijah?”

The pop seeker yelled. “He ain’t here!”

She came back into the hall and stepped closer to her.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well what the fuck are you doing in his house?!”

“Hey! Calm down! There’s a cop riiight theeere.” She pointed at Park.

The messy lady was a little more clearly visible where the light of the kitchen came into the hall. She was thin, with thick and strongly curled eyelashes but thin eyebrows. She looked like she hadn’t changed clothes since the evacuations began.

“OK, fine!” She gestured angrily as she spoke. “Why are you and these boys in Elijah’s house? Why are those people on Elijah’s lawn?”

“He knows us. We’re just usin’ his food and nothin’ else. He wouldn’t mind.”

Park waved from the entrance. “We’re here but our priority is keeping people safe in the neighborhood. You’re not from around here, but you knew the owner?”

She scrunched up in impotent fury. “Yes I know Elijah. I don’t know her! I don’t know them!”

The boys didn’t like the look on her and jumped up, running past Park out to the lawn. The game beeped and yelled at nobody, controllers on the scuffed up old hardwood floor.

Park took a step toward her and offered a calming gesture, palm down. “You’ve been out there, right? Fighting your way here to find your friend? Listen. You can just stay in this house. Take a bath, wear some of his clothes, catch some real rest, OK?”

The soda hunter said, “Mm-mm, that’s between y’all. I’m just gonna get this soda pop and get, alright?”

The skinny lady blew past Park to head outside again. He turned to follow her. She started asking party goers. “You know where Elijah is? You know where Elijah is?”

Park held the hammer behind his back and offered a sympathetic look to the people. To a woman nearby, he quietly offered, “I can do something about her if you need me to.” She shook her head.

“Ippy. I know you.” A Q-balled thirtyish guy with strong arms regarded the skinny lady. Nobody turned down the music - some R&B diva going off the rails.

“I don’t know you.”

“We went to high school together. You me and Elijah.”

“I don’t remember you. Do you know where Elijah is?”

“Maybe he was at work when the shit went down, ended up evacuating before he got home. I haven’t seen him since it all happened.”

She shook her head slowly and looked stricken.

The bald guy looked kindly, “Aw girl, it’s OK. He’s probably fine.”

“I don’t have anyone.” She turned around and went past Park back to Elijah’s house.

The guy looked hurt. “What am I? Chopped liver?”

Park followed her into the house. In the living room, he got assertive.

“Ma’am, stop. Look at me.”

She stopped in the hall and slowly turned. Park did not like the look on her. He’d seen the expression on other people before - like they had their own lives, whatever was going on was the most important thing in the world, and that every cop in the world could blow away and they wouldn’t care.

“You don’t have to stay here, you can do what you want. But get a grip. Clean yourself up. I am not gonna let you have this hammer back unless you show me you aren’t unhinged.”

“Then keep it. Go away.”

He nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

Iphigenia was glad to be rid of the cop. A chance to go cry in peace. She knew she’d never see her people again. Everyone died or left her behind. Her mind was spiralling the drain. She went to Elijah’s room and walked toward the bed.

There was a big dark shape there - another woman, old, sleeping? She had her eyes closed, head on a pillow. But her breathing was steady and easy - not the kind of racket the average person made in their sleep.

No, Ippy did not have time for other people, awake or otherwise. She went to the poorly maintained guest room. It had a bunch of half-folded laundry on the bed and she just flopped across the top of them in that slimy stinking condition.

Park had dropped the hammer in a garbage can on his way back to the cop house. Inside, he saw the poker game had ended prematurely. Only Infante and Rickard remained, sitting on the couch and looking through a book of DVDs.

“Wanna watch a movie now? What happened to the game?”

Rickard said, “I don’t know if I wanna watch something, really. Just...”

Infante said, “The game just got … not fun. We all started to get the creeps. Maybe just ‘cause somebody mentioned it, then we all started feelin’ it.”

“Huh. Yeah,” he looked at some kind of green stain on his hand from the nasty handle of the hammer, “It’s pretty creepy out there.” He looked back to them. “But that’s kinda strange. You guys alright?”

Infante dropped the book, leaned back, and looked at Park. “You alright? You look like you’re sleepwalking but somebody wired your eyes open.”

Park felt like he was blushing and looked away. “That bad, huh? Fuck it, I’ll try to go to sleep.” He made a few stops along the way, grabbing a harder beverage from the kitchen and looking around for more useful medicines.

There was still daylight coming through the windows and he shut the curtains as well as he could. He took off his gun holster and hung it near the bed with care, then stripped to a tank top and boxers. He turned off his radio, swallowed a ZzzQuil with a glass of ill-tasting rum, and settled down.

A few minutes later, still wide awake. It was like his eyes didn’t want to shut, were made of lighter material than that. He sat up, went to a corner and turned on a fan, then returned to bed. The white noise helped, and eventually the chemicals did too.

***

Maddy and Jason had to hike up a very steep hill to get out of that neighborhood. Exhausted, they took a rest stop at a lake. It was surrounded by private residences and they didn’t know which might have some paranoid lingering homeowners with guns, but there was also a senior care home on the lake, and it felt a bit more safe. There was just nobody in sight. Not a soul. Only a few ducks and geese wandered the surface, off in the distance. Jason felt like splashing some of that water on his face, but knew it would be full of bacteria - and he still had open cuts from the crash.

“A place like this has gotta have a nurse, right?”

“Safe to say she’s out of town, daddy.”

“Ah, but I bet she left some supplies in her office, right?”

“I don’t wanna break and enter.”

“It’s alright. Anyone would be understanding, given the circumstances. We can’t exactly motor on over to the nearest urgent care clinic and get patched up, can we?”

“I guess. But let’s do our best to not surprise anyone, OK?”

They knocked, they yelled, and they broke and they entered. The place was bereft of human life. Fortunately, as with most of their journey, there weren’t any corpses either. Safely evacuated. They improvised some medical treatment, ate some food, drank lots of water, and ultimately decided to call it a night.

In a room with two beds alongside each other, they laid themselves out. Maddy insisted to leave the light on, but they lowered the blinds.

“We’re doin’ good, hon.”

“Oh really? I don’t think so. I messed up pretty bad today.”

“I would’ve done the same thing at the wheel. Don’t think about it. Listen.”

“What?”

“We should steal a car tomorrow.”

“Whaaat? No!”

“It’s gonna be a reeeally long hike down I-5, Baby. We shouldn’t have to do that. You know I avoid talking about the … bad men, but do I have to remind you? The plan was to breeze by them. Eighty em’s pee aitch. Can’t do that on your Keds.”

“They’re New Balance and… I just don’t think it’s good. Everyone is going to come back, and lots of people are gonna find stuff stolen. We shouldn’t make anyone go through that.”

“Well listen then, I got an idea. When we take the car we write down the license plate and make, all that. And then we use the information to find the people, let ‘em know we’ll cover the damage. Right?”

“...I guess. I guess so.”

“OK, snuggle up buttercup. Let’s catch every Z and make ‘em our bitches.”

“*snrk* That’s horrible. Good night, Daddy.”

“Good night, Princess.”

Outside the blinds, outside the glass, the night air swirled in an unnatural miasma. The world was changing.

***

Ippy had cried herself to sleep, hugging Elijah’s clean laundry, making it filthy. But in the night, her eyes popped open. Somebody was mumbling. The old lady in the other room.

She sat up, felt like her body was turning into a statue and she interrupted the process rudely. It protested by making her movements embarrassing and stiff. She staggered into the hall, footsteps as light as she could manage, and leaned against the wall outside Elijah’s room, listening.

The lady’s voice was quiet as if she wasn’t talking to anybody, expecting anyone to hear. And yet, she said, ”Iphigenia. Come and hear.” Ippy’s body threatened to freeze solid, her eyes widened.

She went inside, feeling along the wall, not sure if she should turn on the lights. She decided not to. “Yes?”

“The Sibyls sing. Will you listen and understand?” Her body was still. A shape. She was breathing evenly between her quiet pronouncements. Eerie.

“Not like I have anything better to do.” Ippy almost choked on her words, but then she took halting steps forward, tried to bend her ear. The old lady was so quiet.

“They never mattered. You do. The murderers will come to you, come to die. They will break upon you like water.”

“What? How? What do you mean? How can I--”

“It doesn’t matter. They didn’t matter and their deaths will not matter. But you do, Iphigenia. If you only think of them you won’t understand.”

She was standing loose in a midnight blue void. No light, no understanding. “Fine, fine. What do I need to understand?”

“The murderers opened the door. What comes through will change the world. But you will decide. Your hand will decide what that means.”

“I don’t care what it means. Not now.”

“The die is cast. Alea iacta est.” She moaned louder than anything she had said, moved fitfully.

“Ah, are you OK ma’am? You need help?”

The moaning almost sounded like crying for a moment, but then faded away. She propped herself up. “Oh girl. Can you help me get to the bathroom?”

“Yes. I can do that.”

It wasn’t easy. The old lady was closer to four hundred pounds than three hundred, but she put in enough effort of her own to make the move possible. “Oh Honey,” she said. Her voice had dropped to the soft tone of her prophesying.

Ippy listened close in case there was anything else to glean. “Yes?”

“You smell really bad. God love you, but you need to wash yo ass.”

***

Park’s skull was a house and he was living inside. He had no curtains. The miasma of the changing world could pour right in if it wanted to. Maybe surface tension kept those clouds at bay. There was a light behind them as well, like the brightest sun trying to get through. He didn’t want to experience that sun. He knew it was going to hurt.

He sank into the bottom of his cranium, ass wedged into the dip where the brain stem passed the bony cage. He covered his eyes and hoped it would go away but the light was getting stronger. He dared to look and up above, his fontanelle was opening again.

The plates of the upper part of the skull were coming unseamed, a star-shaped light streamed through. The miasma didn’t reach up there, only that illumination. With the photons came sound waves, rippling through his body, pinning him in place. A ring of swarthy old white men stood at the edges of the opening, looking down on him. They were wearing various togas or standing nude but for sandals.

“What the hell? I’m trying to sleep!”

One opened his mouth, then another, then another. A humming sound increased. He began to know things. He knew they were the Oracles and that their light was going to consume him whether he wanted it or not.

The light, the knowledge, took shape. He beheld a vision. At first it was a relief to escape the weird scene in his head, but he still felt the vibrations and heat passing through his body, and knew it was just a vision of the future.

He was in a throne room. Infante was suspended from his wrists, stripped to the waist, sweating. A pale, smiling, red-haired white woman was seated on the throne towering above him. The throne itself was carved to resemble a camel, head snaking up from between her legs, and a massive bone crown sat above her heavily painted face. She looked ten feet tall, wide at the bottom with huge thighs, spoke in an unknowable voice. Every word she said caused Infante pain and he jerked on his chains.

Another creature was behind her, even larger, horned, cloaked in shadow. And then someone stepped in front of her, holding a familiar hammer. Park couldn’t see her face but he recognized her big black hair, her dark brown hands.

Then Infante began to scream, distracting him. He turned around and saw the young man’s body tense, muscled, dripping with sweat. And his face was taut, wracked. Something terrible was going to happen. Park felt his pain and his heart almost burst.

Snap. Back in his skull, then rolling out of bed. He hit the floor face first and hurt his mouth and ribs. Did he bite his cheek? No, but the inside of his lower lip was pressed between teeth and the floor enough to break skin. And he needed to go to the bathroom badly as well. He used the bed to climb up to his feet and staggered that way clutching his belly.

After finishing his business there but before cleaning up, the cop sat on the toilet, his head in his hands. Must’ve been the ZzzQuil. He’d never used that stuff before. But somehow he knew that wasn’t true - knew that he’d seen the future.

“The oracles sing,” he said quietly. “The story is already written.”

Somebody knocked on the bathroom door. “You alright in there?”

“It’s occupied, Rickard. Fuck off.”

***

Morning sun coming from on high in the east, streaming over the hill down into the valley of ghost cows. The red manure haze hadn’t been kicked up yet, fog still clung to stands of trees near houses and around the road.

Blood and glass covered the road like marble. Alongside the road, along and under. The mud was red. It could all be blood. There could be so much blood that it would mean somebody was surely dead, and you wouldn’t know because the mud was so red.

Tangled roots in the embankments just teased at a notion of escape but there could be none. They were too thin and the earth too loose to offer a sure grip. You’d just be pulling carrots too easily, like Bugs Bunny having a good day.

Maddy was in that muddy ditch again, but it was deeper and the car was more mangled. She was so worried about her father but he was hard to see through the spiderwebbed glass and maddening distortions of the twisted metal.

Plus she had the monster up on the road to deal with. What had it been? Had it lived? Would it come for them? She kept glancing up there, half sure she was seeing glimpses of it. No, she thought. She would get daddy out and he would be able to stop it. She knew he would be OK because she had already done this before.

“Just another minute, Baby. Gotta adjust my baby seat, haha. That’s all.”

He just kept making inane statements of blithe positivity. Things that didn’t even make sense. Was he crazy from blood loss and shock? Would he go into a coma?

“Nobody keeps a good man down. I’m like a rodeo made outta dynamite.”

“...I’m working my way up to it. I’ll get out of here and do a tap dance just to show you how OK I am. Or make a sausage outta one of these cows.”

“You never knew your mom as well as I did. She could turn a Vietnamese submarine into a pretzel with her nose. She was my queen, Princess.”

She banged and slapped the metal, shrieking, hoping he would hear her over his mad droning, knowing he wouldn’t. She left red handprints up and down the car doors.

Suddenly the car door popped free and open. She fell against the embankment, looking in at her dad with a sense of fear that she didn’t understand. He was just sitting there coyly, hands in his lap, thumbs together, smiling.

“Hi, snookums.”

“You have to… to get out...”

“I told you I could do it. Just let me stretch my legs for a minute.”

He started pushing himself free of the driver’s seat using only his legs. He kept his hands clasped over his belly, body leaning back in that casual pose. His legs finally popped him free of the dashboard and began lifting him into the air. They were too long, too thin - and covered in bark like birch trees.

Maddy woke in a panic, but settled down once she remembered where she was and once she realized she’d been dreaming. She composed herself and dragged Jason out of bed.

As she tried to penetrate his foggy morning demeanor, she became possessed by a worry that the longer they took getting to the Beacon Hill safe zone, the more things could go wrong - the worse the situation would get.

Jason kept up his sunny demeanor, but went along with her demand for urgency. They decided that cars from businesses or apartments would be less likely to have angry shotgun grandpas protecting them, and set to finding one.

At last they found a business with a garage that they were able to break into. The sun outside had just finally fully risen, but they were in relative darkness. Jason found the key that corresponded to the company car they were going to steal - a charcoal grey Prius advertising pest control on the doors - and pushed its buttons. With a beep the thing came to life, signal lights gleamed on their lowest setting.

“Paydirt. And the phone number for the owner is right on the side. How do you like that, Baby?”

“Thanks for listening, dad.” She poked around in the gloom for a button to open the garage door. They were able to get their bodies in through a side door, but would need the big one rolled up to get the car out.

Suddenly they both became aware of a sound growing, coming closer. A marching band? One so big it shook the earth. Maddy had found the switch she needed, but she didn’t dare flick it. Instead, she gripped an exposed structural beam for dear life, half expecting it to grow into an earthquake. She looked at her father and he looked at her face, etched in confusion and fear.

The rumbling definitely was coming from whatever was making that music. It was a cacophony of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “March of the Gladiators,” and … Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball”? The sound and the vibration made it clear, this band wasn’t just marching down the thoroughfare - they were a line stretching from one horizon to the next.

At its horrid climax, the sounds were from all around them, they could hear bodies and metal slapping against the outside of the garage, hear feet running over the roof. Maddy jumped and collapsed as shadows began to fall in front of the nearest window - the players leaping down from the roof to continue their mad dash over the world.

And just when they thought it was for sure moving away, that their fear could diminish, they heard a joyous voice cry out - echoed by another a hundred feet away, and another.

“QUEEN BYMAAN WALKS THE EARTH. THOU ART HEREBY SUBJECT TO THE AUTHORITY OF EXALTED LUCIFER! YOURS IS NOW THE KINGDOM OF HELL!”

The voices died down, piping up again barely audible in the distance, following behind the line of the great unholy band.

“Baby, um… Oh no, Baby!”

She was collapsing under the weight of terror. He jumped over the car hood to get to her as fast as he could. Her eyes were wide, her mouth agape, head lolling. Jason took his daughter in his arms, kissed her sweaty temple, held her close.

“Don’t worry about that, Honey. It’s nonsense. Just some… nonsense...”

***

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#The Septagram

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