#do you like what I did with the logos and wavy pattern

[crovvrr]

Fresh!sans Alt outfit and darkworld fit

this is totally not for my passion project

Fresh!Sans by @loverofpiggies

[atths--twice]

Knit Four, Purl One

For @x-files1993​ for the Secret Santa Exchange and the prompt “Mulder knits and makes Scully a sweater.” 

An alternate universe in which Mulder and Scully meet as a result of a tragic occurrence in Mulder's work life. She is exactly the person he needs, right when he needs her most.

Chapter One

March 1996

Fox Mulder sighed as he walked empty handed out of the shop. He was jostled about by the other pedestrians as they hurried about their day. His hands in his pockets, he sighed again as he kept his head down. He had gotten the time of his counseling session wrong, not having written it down last week, and he’d had an hour to wait.

As he had walked out of the counselors office, he had thought about his conversation with Samantha the previous night, reminding him about their mother’s birthday dinner that evening. He did not want to go, not at all, but of course he would be there. Samantha had reminded him about getting a gift and he swore as he hung up.

Wishing he could claim to not have had the time, he knew the hour mix up would give him plenty of time to find something. He had walked down the street intent on grabbing the first thing he found sufficient.

Three shops had been passed through quickly and still he had found nothing. Feeling discouraged and a bit angry, he opened the door to the next shop, stepped inside, and nearly walked right out again.

His mother was not an overly sentimental or knickknacky type person. She felt things should serve a purpose, not just sit on a shelf collecting dust and as a result she was a difficult person for which to shop.

This shop, full of tchotchkes and cutesy little things, was definitely not her style. Crafty things and happiness seemed to ooze out of every corner and he felt his annoyance rising.

But then, he noticed a teal colored wall, with shelving shaped like diamonds, holding skeins of yarn in vibrant colors. For some reason, that drew his attention and pulled him forward, despite his previous desire to leave.

“You need help with anything?” A voice said and he turned to find a woman with long wavy reddish hair. She was wearing a flowing dress, a lacy long sleeveless shirt over it, and a choker necklace. She stared at him with raised eyebrows and he shook his head as he cleared his throat.

“No. No that’s okay. I uh… I was actually just leaving,” he said, attempting to step around her, no longer wanting to look more closely at the yarn, but she did not move.

“Leave? But your hands are empty,” she stated and he looked down, as did she. Looking back up at her, she gave him a cheeky smile and it irritated him.

“Nothing here I’m interested in, so…”  He started to walk past her, ignoring the astonished noise she made, when a different woman came into the room and his heart dropped.

She was carrying a vase of flowers, an almost secret smile on her face. She had to be related to the other woman, their hair similar in shade, but she was a bit shorter. When she looked their way, her blue eyes seemed to see right through him. She smiled wider and he took a deep breath, realizing he had stopped breathing when he saw her.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

“Hello!” she said, setting the flowers down and coming over to them. “Did you find what you’re looking for? Did you need help with anything?”

“He says there’s nothing here that interests him,” the woman behind him said and he turned to look back at her. She stared him down, almost daring him to say otherwise.

“Oh,” the shorter woman said and he turned toward her, feeling flushed and slightly uncomfortable. She looked at him with her blue eyes wide and he swallowed hard. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I uh… I just meant I hadn’t found anything… yet.”

“Hmm,” the woman behind him hummed but he ignored her, fixated on the woman in front of him.

“Well, I’d be happy to help you if you’d like.” She smiled and his heart raced.

Jesus Christ, she even had a dimple in her cheek.

“Missy? Would you mind getting that gift ready for Mrs. West? She should be in later.”

“Not one bit. Glad she at least was able to find something interesting to buy.” She walked past them, turning to look at him with a smirk and he sighed.

“Please don’t mind her. She’s my sister and quite snarky at times. This is my shop and we’re sort of working together right now and she’s driving me a little crazy.” She had leaned in and said that quietly as the woman who was her sister walked away. She smiled again and stuck out her hand. “My name is Dana. It’s nice to meet you.” He took her hand and nodded.

“Fox Mulder.”

“Seriously?” she asked, scrunching her chin quickly and clasping his hand with her other hand. “I’ve never met someone named Fox.” He let go of her hand and put his hands in his pockets. “I knew someone named Red, which always made me giggle. And even a… Coyote, but never a Fox.”

“Yeah… well,” he said with a shrug, suddenly irritated again as he glanced around.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said and he looked back at her, finding her smiling. He shrugged again, angry at himself for feeling annoyed by her.

“So what can I help you find?” she asked, clasping her hands together.

“Uh… I honestly don’t know. I just came in here because I have somewhere to be and I got the times mixed up.”

“Oh… well then, I understand you not finding anything to interest you.”

“I didn’t mean… I do need to find a gift. For my mother. This just isn’t really her style.” He waved around the room and she nodded, keeping her eyes on him.

“Not a knickknack person, I get it,” she smiled. “Not a problem. Not everyone is. I promise I won’t be offended if you walk out and leave with nothing.” She smiled and he suddenly wanted to buy something, anything really, just to see her smile like that for longer.

“I…” He took a hand out of his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Please don’t feel any pressure to buy anything. It’s cold out, you’re killing time… I understand.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes widened and he put his hand back in his pocket, both of them now in tight fists.

“Why would you not care if I didn’t buy anything?” he asked harshly and she stepped back a step, crossing her arms and holding his gaze. He stared and felt like an asshole more than he ever had in his life. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

“I’ll let you look around. See if anything strikes you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again and she nodded, her eyes still watching him.

“Have a look around,” she said quietly and smiled, though not the same as before.

“Yeah…” He nodded, his hands still in fists in his pockets. She walked away and he looked at the door, wondering if he could make a run for it without being noticed.

But then, her sister Missy walked past him and turned to glance at him as she did. She raised her eyebrows, looked at Dana, and looked back at him. Rolling her eyes, she walked away and he let out of breath.

Glancing at his watch, he saw he had twenty minutes and the walk to the office would take five. Fifteen minutes. He could make it that long.

Walking around the store, he kept sneaking glances at Dana as she spoke with her sister and a couple of other customers who came into the store. She was happy and light and sweet Jesus, when she laughed, it stopped him in his tracks.

Standing by the wall of yarn again, he picked up a colorful skein of it and then set it down.

“Still didn’t find anything?” He heard and he put his hands in his pockets with a sigh. He looked to his left and found Dana beside him, smiling happily. Her happiness irritated him and he remained quiet, biting back the rude response that threatened to come out.

Her smile began to falter and he hated himself again. Hated the way he was these days; hated it so much.

“That’s okay. Thank you for coming in today. Hopefully you’ll find the gift you’re seeking.” She touched his elbow and he felt it through the many layers of clothes he wore. She started to walk away and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

“How about a scarf?” he called, opening his eyes. She stopped and turned around, tilting her head to the side. “You have all this yarn, I’m sure you have some scarves or things made from them for sale.” He shrugged and she smiled, waving her arm in front of her, to his right.

“On the shelves beside the yarn. Any particular color?”  She walked over to the shelves and he followed.

“Uh… I… I don’t know.”

“For your mom, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s what? Sixty?” She looked him up and down and he nodded in surprise; she was spot on.

“Hmm…” She hummed as she turned and looked at the items behind her. “How about this?” She took down something in a rich red color and held it out to him. He took it and held it in his hands.

It was soft, very soft and as he ran his fingers over it, he smiled, remembering a blanket his grandmother used to have with that same softness. He used to wrap himself in that blanket when he was little, lying by the fire, warm and cozy while his mother and grandmother laughed and drank tea in the other room.

“What do you think? Will that do?” He looked up and she smiled at him. “It’s just a simple pattern, but I always feel that’s best with a scarf. Anything too busy or bulky takes away from the point of the scarf.” She took it back from him and smiled again, running her fingers over the stitches, as she held it in her hands. She looked up at him again and raised her eyebrows, asking a silent question.

“Yeah, I’ll take it,” he said with a nod.

“Perfect. I’ll wrap it up for you.” He nodded again and followed her to the register, admiring the swing of her hips in the jeans she wore.

The scarf was wrapped in lilac colored tissue paper and tied with a teal ribbon. A gold sticker with an embossed S was put onto it and then placed into a bag. He paid for it and she handed him the pale grey bag with the store's logo- two black knitting needles poking through a heart shaped ball of teal yarn, nearly identical to the ribbon she had used and the wall of yarn.

“Thank you for coming in today,” she said, smiling again and handing him his change. “I hope your mother enjoys her gift.”

“Hmm,” he hummed and nodded, looking down and then back into her eyes. “I had the time-“

“So you said,” she cut across him and he stared at her, not quite sure what to make of her. “Regardless of how or why, I am glad you stopped in today. Please come back soon. Perhaps for another gift? For your wife or girlfriend?”

“I don’t have either.”

“Pity,” she said and he watched her try not to smile. “I mean… you could’ve been back sooner if you had.”

“Yeah… well.” He picked up the bag and cleared his throat. “Thank you… goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Fox.” He nodded and turned around, saying nothing further. He walked past Missy, who stared at him the entire time, making him feel very uncomfortable.

Pushing the door open, he walked out into the cold winter air. Adjusting his coat, he looked to the right and fell in step with the other people walking. Glancing at the shop window for one last look, he saw Missy shaking her head and Dana shrugging her shoulders with a smile.

She did a double take when she saw him looking at her and she smiled happily, her blue eyes like lasers as she watched him.

“Knock that shit off, man,” he muttered under his breath. “You’re in no shape to be of any use or good to anyone. Least of all a woman like her.” He shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets, the gift she had wrapped swinging from the bag on his arm.

_______________________

“How are you feeling this week, Fox?” The counselor asked as he sat down across from her. “Anything to report? Any changes?”

“Not exactly,” he said with a heavy sigh, his hands in his pockets.

“Still feeling angry?”

“Yes,” he answered, his voice low, his jaw clenched.

“All the time?”

“No… but it comes up at inappropriate times. I… I don’t know when it will happen, but I recognize it.”

“Have you ever acted on it?”

“What? What do you mean?” he asked, looking at the counselor, feeling his heart pounding and his anger rising. “Do you mean have I ever hurt anyone? Would I ever hurt anyone? Are you serious?”

“Fox,” she said, clasping her hands and leaning forward. “I don’t mean attacking someone. I mean angry outbursts at home, or in the car, and yes, with others. It’s not just physical anger. Words, looks, tone… they can all hurt. It’s not only physical.” She stared at him, smiling softly and he felt his anger calming. He took a deep breath and nodded his head before looking down and unclenching his fists in his pockets.

“It’s… it’s like I can feel it building, especially when, as shitty as it may sound, when someone is happy or jokes around with me. As though their happiness annoys me, angers me. I don’t know why.” He shook his head.

“You’ve been through a lot, Fox. You’ve healed physically, although I know you still have moments of pain. But the emotional and mental are often even harder. It doesn’t seem it at the time, as the physical takes all of our strength in that moment. We push it down and focus our energy elsewhere and once that becomes second… then the next step is harder because, well, we want to be better. We feel better, but we aren’t. Not really.” He nodded and sighed.

“I do feel better physically, but sometimes the pain is there.” He rubbed his chest near his shoulder where the bullet that nearly ended his life had gone through his skin. “I’m incredibly lucky to be sitting here speaking to you. To have what he…”

“Fox…” she said softly. “We’ve discussed this. What happened was not your fault. Your partner was in danger and you yourself were shot. He left you no choice.”

“I know that. I do,” he whispered, still rubbing at his chest. “I just think of all the different ways… the outcomes that could have happened if I’d done things differently. If I’d…”

“Fox…” He looked at her and she smiled softly. “It’s not your fault.” He nodded again, tears filling his eyes, which he tried to blink away, but she saw and handed him a box of tissues. Taking one, he nodded and wiped at his eyes.

Smiling again, she waited until he had gotten himself under control. When he had, he nodded and they continued the session, his heart feeling heavy despite the positive and uplifting words being spoken.

________________________

“Hey! There’s my big brother!” Samantha called with a smile as she walked up to him, putting her arms out and grabbing him in an embrace. “I’m so happy to see you, Fox.” He hugged her back and smiled, though it was forced.

“Happy to see you too, Sam,” he said, kissing her cheek as he pulled back. She put her hands on his face and looked at him, her eyes searching his and he shrugged slightly.

“Hey, you’re here. You shaved… this morning, but you shaved. You got a gift, I see. You’re here.” She smiled and patted his face before letting him go.

“I’m here,” he whispered. She tucked back her long curly brown hair and nodded, reaching for his arm.

“Mom’s already inside. It’s too cold out for her. Ready?” She squeezed his arm and he nodded, although he did not feel ready, and he cleared his throat

They stepped into the restaurant and she guided him to the table where their mother sat waiting. She smiled as she saw them and stood to her feet.

“Hello, Fox,” she said, pulling him close for a hug. He held her for a second and then pulled back. She, like Samantha, held his face in her hands, her eyes taking him in. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“Not like I have anything else going on,” he said, letting out a bitter laugh. She caressed his cheeks with her thumbs and he sighed. “Sorry. Of course I would be here. Happy birthday, Mom.” He pulled back from her and handed her the bag on his arm.

“Oh, how lovely. Thank you, dear. Let’s sit. People are beginning to stare.” She set the bag on the table, the logo facing him and as the waiter came over, he found himself wondering why Dana had chosen that particular logo. What had drawn her to that one.

“Sir? Would you like a drink?”

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head and ordering an iced tea.

Their dinner was good, the conversation light and easy, but he still found himself drifting in and out of it. Hearing updates about people he had known, left him with that angry feeling again; their lives untouched by the pain he was suffering.

“Hey, you okay?” Samantha asked, touching his back and he looked at her, breathing hard and standing quickly to his feet, knocking into the table and spilling their glasses of water.

“Fox! What are you doing?” his mother said, reaching for a napkin and looking at him sharply. He stepped away and walked outside.

He paced along the side of the restaurant, taking deep breaths, his hands clenching and unclenching. The cold air filling his lungs felt good, stinging as he breathed in.

“Fox.” He heard behind him and he closed his eyes, halting his pacing. Turning around, he opened his eyes and looked at Samantha. She was pulling her coat around her and staring at him with concerned eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You don’t need to apologize. But I think I do.”

“What?”

“I keep pushing you. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not-”

“I am and I can see that now. Should have seen it before, but I guess I just wanted you to be okay. Wanted to have you back because… I almost lost you.” Her eyes filled with tears and he stepped toward her, pulling her close and sighing. She cried as she clung to him and he closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I know that…”

“No, Fox.” She pulled back and she wiped her eyes. “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to apologize for. You’ve… Dad dying… and then you shot not long after… it’s been hard on all of us. I know it’s been worse on you, but I… I don’t know how to help and I thought by making you do things it would help you, but I think it’s done the opposite.”

“No. It hasn’t. It’s not anything you’ve done. I know your heart is in the right place. I’m just… I don’t know. I’m angry a lot of the time and I hate it. That’s not me.”

“No. No, it’s not.”

“The medication is helping with the depression I’m still feeling, but the anger… Sam, I can’t describe it.”

“Fox, you had to make a terrible choice and it nearly cost you your life. And your partner’s life. Of course you’re angry.” She stared at him and he nodded. “The question is what to do with that anger.”

“I know.”

“You can’t keep it bottled up and have it explode like it did tonight. I know,” she said, putting up a hand as he started to tell her that was an accident. “That was an accident and barely anything, but I’ve seen it in you and I’ve ignored it. But not anymore.” He nodded, his shoulders slumping.

“I don’t know what to do. I feel like my mind is racing, but I’m standing still. It’s… it’s like this build up that comes on fast and sometimes goes quickly, but other times, I’m angry for awhile.”

“What have you done to try and combat it?”

“I’ve… gone for a run,  long walks… I’ve tried meditation… as hooky as I’ve always made it out to be. I’ve tried shooting hoops, but my arm is still a bit too stiff for that.”

“Which pisses you off.”

“Which pisses me off, yes.” They both laughed and she smiled at him. He shook his head and sighed.

“Well, we’ll have to find something that can help you calm your mind. I’m sure there are lots of creative outlets you haven’t thought of.”

“Creative?” He gave her a look and she laughed. “Can you see me sitting in a park, painting a picture?”

“Only if you’re wearing a beret,” she teased and he laughed. She linked her arm through his and pulled. “Come on. Let’s go back to the table so Mom can open her gifts. We’ll think of something that brings out the creative side in you.”

He scoffed and shook his head as they walked inside. He was not a creative person, never had been really. His own insecurities got in the way along with his father’s voice in his ear that anything involving ‘artistic ability’ was for girls.

Shaking his head again, he sighed as they walked to the table, their mother smiling with relief.

__________________

An hour and a half later, he closed his front door with a sigh. Dropping his keys on the table, he walked into the kitchen for a beer. Popping it open, he took a long pull and let out a deep breath.

God, he was exhausted and honestly, he had hardly done anything that day. Shopping, therapy, and dinner. Hardly a rough day and far easier than he’d had in the past eight years as a detective.

Sighing again, he walked out of the kitchen and into his bedroom. He set down his beer and took off his shoes, looking forward to going to bed. Reaching into his jacket pockets, he took out his wallet and cell phone.

A piece of paper was stuck down deep in the pocket and he pulled it out, finding the receipt for his mother’s scarf. He stared at it, thinking about Dana and her happy blue eyes. Eyes that had not seen or felt the pain he had.

His mother had loved the scarf, admiring the rich color and the stitching. Samantha had given him an inquisitive look, the gift not one he would normally choose. He had said only that he had gotten it in a shop as he waited for his appointment, not mentioning Dana or her sister.

Staring at the receipt, he wondered if she would be interested in hearing how his mother had liked the gift. He felt he rather owed her an apology anyway, acting like an asshole and insinuating her shop had nothing to offer. He should pay her a visit tomorrow and tell her he was sorry.

Besides, he really wanted to see her again. See her smile, her eyes lighting up as she did.

“Tomorrow,” he said, with a nod, setting the receipt down on his dresser, and beginning to change his clothes. “Tomorrow.”

[juukyu]

Pact Coffee Project

Details About the Brand

Target Audience Pact has two main audiences; independent coffee shops the customers of those coffee shops. Coffee is a very broad market, but it is very popular with university students and working adults, typically around the 25 – 35 age range.

Initial Thoughts Most of the cafés that stock Pact coffee will advertise that they are doing so by putting bags of it in the window of their shop or having bags out on display within the shop. The bags themselves are very plain, just a brown bag with the details of the coffee on the front. I think that adding some artwork to the bags would catch people’s eyes and lead to more sales of the product. Based on the intended audience of the coffee, the designs should be playful and relaxed but still carry a sense of maturity; I don’t want them to come off as childish.

Market Research

Pact’s Current Packaging

Pact’s current packaging is plain and simple; the front tells you which blend it is and the back gives information on which farmers grew the coffee and various other coffee related info. The packaging is fine for returning customers who know that they like the taste, but I don’t think any first-time buyers would pick this instead of any other bag of coffee based on the packaging alone.

The Packaging of Other Coffee Brands I popped around to my local shops to have a look at other coffee brands packaging. I myself am not exactly a fan of coffee, so I feel this was a good exercise as I don’t know the difference between any of the coffee brands, or if some have better reputations than others, so I can only make my decision based off of the packaging. Here is what I found:

Taylors of Harrogate Coffee

Clippers Coffee

What drew me to these 2 brands was that they have something visually interesting on them, but without it feeling overwhelming. They stick out from the rest of the coffee brands, which normally use silver or brown colour palettes, and instead choose to be colourful and eye catching. They convey a calm mood with the imagery that they use, which I think is an important factor as coffee is often drunk in the morning, a time when not much is happening and people are getting ready for their day.

Concept Stage

Initial Concepts

Concept 1 The concept for this would be do have a clear ellipse in the middle of the bag, with a farmer’s face vectored over it, but with the skin tone being coffee beans.

Concept 2 When the coffee is grown in the fields, it tends to be planted in a wavy hedge formation. I would either have a clear section on a paper bag, or have a recyclable plastic bag, either of which would feature some of those hedges, either drawn or vectored, with the negative space in which the coffee beans would be shown acting as the colour of the ground.

Concept 3 Create some colourful standalone artwork related in both colour and theme to countries that Pact sources their coffee from. This artwork could then be used both on packaging and on POS items such as aprons, posters etc.

Concept Mock-ups:

Further Research

I decided to dive deeper into the roots of coffee and where Pact was getting it from. This turned out to be mainly Brazil and Columbia. I chose to focus on Brazil since it was the number one location that Pact is sourcing from. I’m a musician, and I believe that music is a great reflection of a country’s culture, so I looked to the Brazilian music scene for inspiration.

Concept 1: Unity

The first genre I looked into was Samba. It was the firs thting that came to my mind when I thought of music from Brazil. The genre is heavily focused on working in unison with others. Most of the melodies are made up of acapella choirs, and the drum beats are typically played by multiple people at the same time, creating a huge atmosphere from sound that wouldn’t be possible without such a large group of people. This concept would have a focus on community, and themes of dancing/happiness. This Samba style is associated with vivid colours, so I would play into that aspect of the aesthetic.

Concept 2: Bossa Nova

Bossa Nova was the next genre I looked to. The genre originated from Brazil and also was perfected there. It’s a mix of Samba and Jazz elements which make for a very pleasant, and slightly more grown-up/mature vibe. I think this vibe is suitable for Pact coffee, given that it’s an expensive brand that, realistically, only people with disposable income buy. A lot of people into coffee enough to spend big bucks on coffee beans will most likely also have expensive equipment to go along with it, so this concept would focus on creating a design that can look premium, expensive and elegant next to all that expensive coffee-ware. The main colour palette that comes to my mind is Gold/Black.

Concept 3: Bond

For this concept, I equired with my Brazilian friend about how much coffee is cosumed in Brazil. He asked his parents and they replied “as much as water”. This concept would focus on the fact that Pact is a link between the coffee lovers of Brazil and the coffee lovers of England. Pact would be visualised as the intermediary.

Development/Mock-Ups

I ended up developing the bossa nova concept. I chose to take inspiration from classical guitars, since they are the most commonly used instruments in the Bossa Nova genre, and contribute heavily to its signature sound. The sound holes typically have intricate patterns around them, which I wanted to emulate for my design. Here are some examples:

I used these as a visual reference when making my design. I wanted the design to look elegant and premium, so I used a gold colour scheme. Here’s what I came up with:

Here are some mockups using the design:

After taking in feeback for the design, I shrunk the logo in the middle and added colour the the pattern. I chose to use the colour palette of the Brazilian flag given that Brazil is the country that this graphic is representing. Here is the final Brazil design:

From this design I also made a pattern to be used on coffee cups:

Here’s some mockups of the designs:

Applying the Musical Theme to other Countries

I decided to take the theme of taking inspiration from a countries traditional music and apply it to another country, this time Columbia. Pact sources coffee from Columbia almost as much as Brazil, so I wanted to include the country as an example to show that the concept of this design process can be applied to more than just Brazil.

Research and Development/Mockups

One of Columbia’s most popular traditional music genres is Vallenato. The main instrument of the genre is the accordion, which I did attempt to make a design for, but it just wasn’t working, so I decided to look further into the genre. I found that almost every picture and video of the genre being played featured at least one person wearing a Vueltiao hat. These hats are an important part of Columbian culture and also synonymous with the Vallenato genre. Here are some examples of the hat:

Using these hats as inspiration, I made a piece of artwork in Photoshop as a proof of concept that this idea can be applied to multiple countries. Here is what I came up with:

I would’ve liked to have done more work to this idea but I ran out of time towards the end of the project. I still included it as a proof of concept as I mentioned above.

Summary

The final design overall for the whole project that I am most happy with is the refined guitar design:

I learnt a lot throughout this project; mainly ways to generate ideas that I hadn’t tried before. I found that throwing myself into the world of the source material of a project really helps me to come up with ideas I can say that I’m happy with. Fr this project, it was diving into the Bossanova genre, something I hadn’t really done before, and I ended up with a good design and also some songs from that genre that I’m still listening to now.

[thedenimdentist]

Role Club Underdogs: Ordering Process, Unboxing & First Impression

Introduction

Brian Truong (@brianthebootmaker) is a boot maker based in Los Angeles, CA. He works out of a shop with his teacher, where he works resoling and building custom boots. Over the years, Brian has created a catalog of several styles of boots and shoes, most of which can be seen on his Instagram. He is most widely known for his iconic engineer boot (which I have already placed an order for).

In order for Brian to build you a pair of custom made to measure boots, he requires a set of measurements for each foot. Ideally, Brian takes these measurements of your feet himself (for those lucky enough to live nearby or are willing to travel to his shop). For everyone else, Brian allows you to submit your own foot measurements using a guide available on his website. 

Ordering Experience

Living in California, I was lucky enough to be able to stop by Brian’s shop to be personally measured. During my visit, I was wearing my Java Waxed Flesh Trumans. Just by looking at the way these boots were creased and broken in, Brian could immediately tell that these boots were too large for my feet. I explained that I have to size up in all boots in order to accommodate my full length orthotic inserts. When I told him that leaving out the orthotic was not an option, Brian said he could wrap a pair of my memory foam orthotics in vegtan leather, and use this in place of his standard leather insole. By doing so, he would be able to size my boots appropriately rather than leave room to accommodate both my foot plus the additional insert. 

(Above is the orthotic Brian wrapped in leather and used for my insole. I purchased these off Amazon and mailed them to his shop after my visit.)

After a few discussions with Brian (both in person and via Instagram afterward), we settled on the following Underdog design:

Leather: natural Essex vegtan leather

Upper stitching: white

Hardware: Brass eyelets/speed hooks (5/2/1)

Last: 100 last

Toe: unstructured

Outsole: white cork half sole and heels

Heel style: low woodsman

Edge finish: raw/natural

Custom orthotic-leather hybrid insole

(Left: A mock-up I created on Photoshop of what I was looking for, using photos off Brian’s Instagram. Right: The photo taken by Brian of my actual Underdogs. Not bad!)

For my Underdogs, I was debating between Brian’s 2307 and 100 last, but ultimately decided to get the 100 last (mostly due to my affinity for slimmer profile boots). For a more in-depth summary of all the lasts/toe shapes Role Club toe has available, I will link you to Brian’s YouTube video.

If I had to describe my interactions with Brian, I would say they were...concise. He is a man of few words, always getting straight to the point with fairly short responses. I feel like my level of excitement when I visited his shop may have been a little over the top for Brian’s more soft-spoken personality, but I still found the whole experience quite enjoyable. He’s a nice guy who is passionate about his craft, and it was cool to be able to meet and support him.

Price, Lead Time, & Shipping

The cost to reserve a pair of Role Clubs is $200, regardless of which model boot/shoe you are ordering. I made this deposit during my visit to Brian’s Los Angeles shop on 8/21/2019, reserving me a pair of boots he estimated would be completed in April 2020. After months of waiting, I received an email from Brian on 4/27/2020 stating that my boots were completed. I paid the remaining balance for the boots ($880 + $35 domestic shipping), my boots were shipped on 4/30/2020, and they arrived on 5/3/2020. In total, I waited about 8.5 months for this pair.

Unboxing

The boots arrived fairly quickly (a day earlier than expected). Upon arrival, there was nothing overly extravagant with the packaging. The Role Club box seems fairly sturdy. It’s a nice white box with vibrant blue print. A nice touch is the information on the side of the box containing my name and details of the boot.

Within the box, the boots were packaged individually within clear plastic bags. Clean, standard, basic. No frills, greeting cards, extra padding/card stock dividers, or spare laces (like some of the other MTO boots I’ve received). Nevertheless, this packaging was enough to adequately protect the boots during transit, as I could not find any scratches or damage to either boot.

Top View & Toe Shape

Surprisingly, the 100 last didn’t result in as slim of a toe box as I had expected. This may just be due to how Brian had to adjust the last based on the measurements of my wide bunions? Comparing them to some of my other boots, I would say my 100 last toe shape is similar to, but slightly less angular than the Truman P-79 last and drastically rounder than my Onderhouds.

If anyone is interested, I’ve also written reviews for both of these boots: my Java Waxed Flesh boots by Truman Boot Company and my Onderhoud Handmade derbies in Badalassi cognac. 

Design & Pattern

Front view. Pretty standard service boot.

The inside neck of the left boot (above) is embossed with Brian’s Role Club logo. These boots are unstructured, so I’m excited to see how the toe box collapses with wear. 

The outside neck of the right boot (above) shows the outline stitching for a Role Club fabric tag visible from inside the boot. Brian mentioned in one of his YouTube videos that he does this intentionally, as the white thread will pop more and more as the leather darkens.

I really like the stitch design of the heel stay and counter. I’ve always liked the look of triple stitching, and the wavy loop stitching going up the vertical strip is very tight and clean; beautiful!

Sole & Heel

It seems (based on Brian’s Instagram feed) that most of his natural Essex boots are finished using his Role Club natural cork half sole and heels. While this look is very clean, I personally found it a little too monochromatic and uniform. Thus, I decided to go for something a little more unique and chose his white cork half sole and heels. While the white is a little more flashy, I think it adds the perfect amount of contrast to break up the natural leather and raw edge finish of the midsole. It may not be for everyone, but I like it, and I figured I could alway resole the boots with a different color in the future (like brown or black) after the upper leather darkens with wear. 

As for the heel shape, I decided to go with Brian’s “low woodsman.” At the time I placed my order, I did not have any experience with anything other than low block heels. Brian’s full woodsman heel would’ve been a huge jump out of my comfort zone, and honestly felt a little daunting. The low woodsman heel seemed like a safe middle ground and a nice stepping stone toward a more substantial curved heel. (Since placing this order, I’ve had experience with several other boots with woodsman heels, and may choose to get Brian’s full woodsman on my next pair of engineers.)

Of all the woodsman heels I’ve seen online, I think Brian’s style is probably one of my favorites. The angulation and curvature of the heel are more subtle than a lot of others (like on my Onderhoud derbies), and they’re finished very tightly to the upper, leaving a very slim and minimal welt around the heel of the boot. The stacked leather and soles are all nicely polished and smooth to the touch.

Stitching & Finishing

After thorough inspection, I’ve found the stitching on both the uppers to be some of the cleanest work I’ve seen on a pair of boots. The stitch density is all uniform and tight, with all stitch lines parallel and evenly spaced. I didn’t find a single stitch out of place or loose/hanging threads. 

Here is a detailed photo of Brian’s embossed logo on the left inner ankle. The logo design is clean and simple, and it’s placement is discrete and will be hidden majority of the time beneath my pant leg. I personally really like it, and I look forward to seeing how it patinas.

If you look closely, you can see that the sewing needle may have sightly punctured the leather beyond the boundary of the tag (above the top left corner). I don’t have any issues with it, and I would hardly count this as a “stitching error.” 

Look how symmetric, parallel, and evenly spaced all the stitching is, even along the curved heel strip. Not sure how difficult this is to do, but I’m impressed.

Below I’ve provided an excessive amount of photos of the welt stitching. Overall, very clean, tight, and uniform. I’ve grown to really like when each individual welt stitch is slightly angled, which can mildly be seen on these Role Clubs. 

Here I’ve compared the single welt stitching of these Role Clubs to the Veldtschoen double welt stitching of my Onderhouds. I would say that the actual stitch length between the two is fairly similar, but the Onderhoud stitches may be pulled tighter, resulting in slightly larger stitch holes and spacing between the stitches. The angulation in the Onderhoud stitching is also slightly more pronounced, which I do like, but both of these look awesome. 

Below I’ve placed my Trumans with stitchdown construction alongside my Role Clubs and Onderhouds for reference. I’ll let the photo speak for itself. (Although, I will acknowledge that stitching over a toe cap may be difficult and could be to blame for some of the stitchdown inconsistencies, but that’s beside the point.)

Now I don’t mean to bash on Truman here, as I believe the structural integrity of all three of these boots are solid. That being said, you can definitely see a difference in the cleanliness and precision of the welt stitching of the Role Clubs and Onderhouds in comparison to the Trumans. However, the Trumans are also a fraction of the price ($480 vs. $1080), so I would expect the finishing on these Role Clubs to be a step above.

When it comes to buying premium boots, at a certain point the law of diminishing returns really comes into play. In other words, once you hit a certain price threshold, you’re going to get a quality-made, functioning, long-lasting boot (assuming you’re buying from a legitimate, well-known boot brand). As price continues to increase, you’re no longer paying for a higher-functioning boot, as much as you’re paying for the attention to detail and craftsmanship with which the boot was made. This can manifest in visible qualities (such as the cleanliness of the stitching, sole polishing, and overall finishing of a boot), as well as details below the surface (like 360-degree hand sewn welting the uppers to the insoles, or making all your thread by hand (*cough* Goto-San of White Kloud *cough*). If this attention to detail and appreciation for the craft are qualities you appreciate in your boots, then these higher-end boots may be worth their higher price point. If not, it’s all good. To each their own.

Lol sorry. End rant.

Above, you can see a couple spots where the welt stitches aren’t perfectly aligned. Extremely, extremely minor, and the closest thing I could find to an “inconsistency” in stitching on the entire boot (the upper included), which is quite impressive.

A couple little rough dents along the edge of the welt here on the outside of the left boot. Doesn’t bother me, I can’t see it when I’m wearing the boots, and will probably disappear quickly during the break-in process.

All the stitching on the soles is very clean, with the outer stitching being a little more dense than the inner row. If you look closely, both the half soles fall slightly short of the pencil guide lines. Again, this will fade away once broken in. It’s also on the bottom of the boot, essentially invisible during wear. Zero issues. 

Sizing, Fit, & Comfort

According to the box, my size is a 29 1/2 (whatever that means). All I know is, these boots were custom made by Brian based on the measurements he took of my feet, so they should fit like a glove (boot?)—and they absolutely do.

In my hand, these feel like a sturdy boot and have a good amount of weight to them. They felt comparable to my Java Waxed Flesh Trumans, which are a rugged tank of a boot. As soon as I slid them on, I could tell these boots were definitely custom made for me. Up until now, I’ve had boots that were “wide enough” for my bunions, and were a size large enough to accommodate both my feet and the full length orthotic insoles. Never have I been able to comfortably put on a properly sized pair of boots without my orthotics—until now. 

I just want to take a second to spotlight the magic that Brian worked with this insole. TMI: The main reason I need to use these memory foam insoles is because the balls of my feet are terribly bony, to the point where I can’t even stand on hard floors barefoot without wincing in pain. Thus, I can barely even stand on the hard leather insoles typically found in boots without added cushioning.

As I mentioned earlier, I mailed Brian a pair of these memory foam orthotic insoles. If you look closer at the orthotics, you’ll see that they come with a contoured top surface with a plastic skeleton supporting the arch and heel cup. Brian managed to remove the plastic cup and all of the contour, and then stitched leather over the top. This created built-in flat leather insole with the cushion in the forefoot that I need! I’m absolutely mind blown. Brian is a magician. (I apologize if I’ve dwelled too long on this topic, but this is a big deal to me...and this is my review, so sorry not sorry.) 

Compared to the rest of my boot collection, these Role Clubs probably have the chunkiest toe shape. However, once these were on-foot, they didn’t look or feel chunky at all. The tongues are thinner compared to the rest of the uppers, making them a little floppy and tend to fold when tying the boots. Luckily they’re gusseted, which helps keep them in place. Overall the upper leather is already fairly soft and supple, so I don’t foresee too terrible of a break in period. 

Conclusion

Overall, I am extremely happy with how these Role Club Underdogs turned out. Keep in mind that I was inspecting these boots with my 100mm macro lens, so all the irregularities I pointed out are actually very tiny and essentially unnoticeable in social settings. These are my first pair of natural vegtan boots, so I can’t wait to start breaking them in and seeing how this leather patinas. 

These Underdogs, as well as all other Role Club boots, may cost a little more than the average stock boots from other reputable brands. However, but I believe the customizability offered by Brian, as well as his build quality and pristine finishing, makes it worth the premium price. Would I order from Brian again in the future? Yes, and I already have. I placed a second $200 deposit last October 2019 for a pair of his classic engineers, which are due to be completed in November 2020. From what I’ve heard, Brian’s waitlist has already extended well into 2022 (at least June), so if you’re thinking about picking up a pair for yourself, I’d recommend jumping on that quick.

I still plan on writing a follow-up review on these gorgeous Underdog boots, where I will be able to expand upon the fit, break-in, and patina of this natural vegtan leather. But until then, HAGS and TTYL.

[rs1fmp2021]

Normal post #1

This was my first campaign post concept which i initially drew out a rough sketch for to get an idea of where i want things to go and how it would look overall. The idea is to use the old windows aesthetic icons which i made in the last post. I then kept to the theme of old windows by making pop up menus with different messages that linked to my theme. This was also going to be the carousel post as i think they look really good and i like the idea of all the pictures lining up and using a big design to pan across a series of slides. 

I then went onto coolors.co and created a colour palette which i would use for this post and i decided to go with a cool colour scheme using mainly blues as blue is often linked with technology and therefore links to my theme.

I started off by creating a 1080x1080 pixels art board. I then set the background to a turquoise colour and then made a bar across the bottom as computers have a bar across the bottom. I then put another smaller cetangles on top to act as a button and also a darker shade box so it looks as though its going inwards. I then started copying and placing into place the icons i made.

I aligned the icons along the left hand side and also started putting the names of the folders using the silom font which looks quite blocky and more computer generated which i wanted.

I also finished the bottom bar by adding my logo with some words and the ‘time’. I had the idea while creating this to make it into a ‘tip’ post and educate the viewer on ways to stop them scrolling.

I then started working on the next ‘slides’ creating the pop up menus using the shape tool and the bevel and emboss tab. I wanted to create each menu different and have a different heading so for the first one its a downloading menu with the text ‘creating a healthier relationship between you and social media’ which is what the post and campaign sets out to do.

I put all the slides i wanted and ended up sticking to 4 which i originally planned. I kept to a max of one ‘tip’ box to each slide and some of the pop up menus overlap onto the other slides which will look really cool when its put together and especially on the actual instagram post. I also liked the idea of having some ‘error boxes being spammed over the page which i did on the third/ fourth slide.

i also started testing out different looks such as on the photo above some dotty rectangles and then here i tried some curvy lines but i wasn’t happy with how it looked. For the background, i decided to go with a gradient panning across the whole design which looked really nice.

I then went back to the start to refine my design and make sure it looked the best i could make and i felt the title wasn’t popping out as much as it should as its the first thing i want the viewer to see. I added a pop up menu and io overlapped it onto the icons which i like and creates a layer of depth. I then worked on the menu and made the 3 really big so it stood out. I also played around with different colours as the blue felt basic and i wanted it to be unique while also maintaining the old windows feel so as you can see i tried purple and light blue and a range of other colours from my colour palette.

I decided in the end to go with light blue to be used across the pop up menus which i quite like. 

At this point, to work on the background i had to out the whole design onto the same art board so i could see what it looks like next to each other. I firstly altered the gradient background to match my colour scheme better. I then made some shapes which i did in my repeating pattern workshop using colours like the background and i liked how it looked however i felt it took too much focus off the actual idea of the post which was the menus.

Finally i decided to go with this design. I made the background slightly textured by adding noise which adds some subtle depth and then i created some wavy lines on illustrator and then put on here and lowered the opacity so they dont stand out too much. Overall, i’m very happy with my design and i really like how all the tabs look and when used in a carousel post it flows nicely from one slide to the next. I also changed the error posts to in a diagonal line with the text ‘shut down’ and ‘stop scrolling’ as it links to the campaign. Also all the information on the pop up menu is valid advice and put into simple chunks of text that are easy to read. I also really like how each menu is a different size and it all looks different and unique. 

[fluffynexu]

Day 8 - Sharing Traditions

prompt list - finished prompts

“Looks like this is the end of the line for me. But I’m not going out without a fight. Ovech out!”

The hologram flickered out. A low, idle hum came from the holoterminal as Quinn and Akrona stood in silence. Everything about this disastrous situation ran through Quinn’s mind. He went through all the mental checks of this operation and turned to the Sith.

“My lord,” he said with urgency, “Major Ovech would be a terrible loss. I served on his ship, know it like the back of my hand. I can infiltrate and try to restore command to his men. Then they would be free to join the fight.”

Akrona didn’t even hesitate. “Then we can’t afford to waste a moment. Let’s set a course for Cato Neimoidia.”

“Right away, my lord!” Quinn nearly ran to the flight deck, set the calculations into the navicomputer and the ship jumped into hyperspace. He began to pace around, going over everything in his mind again.

But it’s as he said. He could do it. For now he would have to wait until they reached their destination.

“How long until we arrive?” Akrona asked, entering the flight deck.

“Five hours and thirty-two minutes. I only hope that—”

“Quinn…” She came up to him and reached out for his hand.

There was just a slight hesitation before he allowed their fingers to entwine together.

“It’ll be alright,” Akrona said softly. “Have faith in the Force—”

“Hmm… yes, well I’m unsure if—”

Akrona giggled and shook her head. “If not the Force, have faith in yourself.” They held their gaze for a moment before she spoke again. “Five and a half hours you said?”

“Yes, my lord,” he replied with a slight bow.

“That should be enough time…” Akrona rubbed the back of Quinn’s hand with her thumb and walked toward the doorway of the flight deck.

“Enough time for… what?”

“Come to my room in… let’s say ten minutes?” she replied with a wink before dashing off.

Quinn stood with mouth open and wide eyes. “Your… room?” he nearly squeaked.

His heart pounded in his ears as certain thoughts began to race across his mind.

Her room. She wanted him in her room. But so far, she didn’t strike Quinn as the type of Sith to string along a group of lovers and admirers. Or perhaps she was and he was simply beneath her usual partners… but then, would that mean facing a sexually frustrated Sith?

Quinn blushed at the mere thought.

No, his lord wasn’t like that… or was she?

Ten minutes have come and gone before Quinn could speculate anymore. Sweating slightly with a warm face, Quinn headed to Akrona’s room. The door was open but he knocked for the sake of courtesy.

Akrona rose from the bed and headed over to him. “You’re here.”

“Y-yes. I am here as instructed.”

“Good!” She took his hand and led him to… a desk?

The two of them sat side by side in front of a wide array of brushes, a small container of water, several pieces of cloth, a slice of sitrine, and two bowls, one with a grainy powder and the other with a black liquid.

She looked at him innocently with a bright smile. “So then, let me see your dominant hand.”

“My hand?” Quinn asked.

Still smiling she nodded and Quinn offered her his right hand.

“Excellent. I’ll get started then.”

“Get started on—?” She pulled the glove off of his hand, pushed his sleeve up, and began to rub one of the powders all over his hand and a bit onto his forearm. “My lord, what… what are we doing exactly?”

Akrona wiped away at the residue with a cloth that was dampened by some water. “Huh?” She pulled the bowl of black liquid closer and grabbed one of the brushes. “Oh!” she giggled, “Isn’t it obvious, Captain? I’m painting your hand.”

Quinn sighed and a great tension seemed to be lifted off of him. “Painting. Of course.”

She nodded slightly and focused on his hand. Her left hand gently rested upon his forearm while the right hand maneuvered the thin brush in and out of the black liquid. The strokes on his skin were cool and smooth, creating wavy lines that slowly came together to form the basis for the Imperial symbol.

Quinn had seen and heard of pureblood Sith adorning their arms and legs with ornate designs, but this was the first time he had been so personally involved. Which made him wonder…

“Is there a… reason for this?”

Akrona was still concentrating on painting his hand. “Hmm?” She changed brushes and began to mark his forearm. “For luck.”

“Luck?”

She shrugged. “Luck, good fortune, happiness… for fun.” Finishing up the last bits of design Akrona traded the paintbrush for the slice of sitrine, squeezing the juice and pulp all over. “Let that sit for a while.” Leaning back in her chair Akrona looked at him with an expectant smile.

“It’s… lovely.” Quinn held out his arm, hovering it over the cloth stretched out on the table as his eyes traced the stylized Imperial logo and the series of stripes and floral patterns. “How long should I—?”

“It’ll be done shortly before we arrive.”

He wanted to protest but swallowed any grievance he had. After all, she had just spent a good amount of time adorning his hand and arm with the marks of her people. Upon that realization Quinn felt humbled.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “You didn’t—”

“I wanted to.” Akrona took his other hand into hers. “We’ll be going into a rather disorderly situation.”

“Of course. It’s hard to tell exactly what kind of resistance we might face, I suggest that we remain on high alert.”

She looked down and Quinn adjusted his painted arm so it could dry a bit more comfortably. “I trust your judgement, Captain. I’ll follow your lead.”

Quinn’s eyes softened as he looked at her.

The next few hours were spent with small talk over the different designs painted on his hands, what the process of making the dye was, how long it stained the skin, which plants it came from, for what occasions the markings were painted for, and so on. It was an enjoyable conversation that enlightened Quinn on aspects of Sith culture he previously had little to no knowledge of. Granted he never had any great desire to research such matters before, and if he did the Imperial databases were so technical, but hearing her talk and seeing her do these things was something else entirely.

The chrono in the room signified that they would be coming out of hyperspace shortly. Akrona took another damp cloth, wiping away at the dried paint and pulp bits from his skin.

“There,” she said. “It’s finished.”

Quinn looked at the back of his hand, his forearm, and then turned to his palm. “It’s wonderful and I’m deeply honored.”

Akrona took his hand and gave a small peck upon the Imperial symbol. “May your aim be true, Captain.”

“I’m confident, that with your blessing and our combined skills, this mission will be 100% successful.” Quinn pulled down his sleeve and put his glove back on. He was a bit sad to see the designs hidden away beneath his uniform, but still felt the comfort of knowing they were there.

There was a sudden jerk as the ship came out of hyperspace.

“Well? Why are we still standing here?” Akrona retrieved her lightsabers from across the room with the Force and giggled, “Let’s go!”

Quinn bowed with a smile. “Yes, my lord!”

[benjamincrocker-desn2031]

Week 1

In the first tutorial, we went over the first assessment task; branding and wayfinding for an airport. 

We also had an activity to make the packaging for a milk carton.

I’ll be honest the idea of doing wayfinding didn’t thrill me but we’ll see how it goes. 

I spent the tutorial starting to think about the assessment. I wrote a short list of locations and ended up choosing San Francisco. I thought that it had a lot of potential inspiration and is a place that I’d really like to go to one day.

Ralph took us through a few examples of airport branding and recommended that we start by looking into typefaces because that will help inform us how our icons would look. 

I had the idea that I wanted a type with rounded caps. I thought that maybe that would be fun and have some potential in terms of linking my iconography visually.

The second idea was to try something a bit more fashion and incorporate a high contrast type into the logo. I pretty quickly decided that I didn’t like how unfitting it was for an airport.

I knew that one thing I would need to avoid was the temptation to brand the airport with geographical symbols or anything flag related. I thought that is probably a direction that a lot of other people would take and I wanted my branding to be its own unique entity.

I did the milk carton exercise at home in my own time. I started first by brainstorming ideas for brand names. I thought that this had a lot of potential to a fun project so I explored a lot of humorous ideas. After the big list of names, I started developing some rough imagery for the logo/packaging. 

I knew that this was only a weekly task so I didn’t want to do anything that would take too long. I liked the idea of exploring some type of logos and trying some kind of pattern-based packaging design.

After this sketching phase, I started a more refined version of this process in Illustrator and started thinking about colour.

I’m not sure why but the misspelling of cream wasn’t sitting right with me so in the final I changed it. I also decided I really like the wavy line and wanted to utilise it as a motif. I also wanted to do something with caramel-y colours so I moved onto the final design with that in mind. 

The idea of making it honey milk came from the colours themselves but really helped inform me in the rest of the design. I thought the off white base gave me a lot of room to explore different tones. I imagined how honey would sit at the bottom of a glass of milk so tried using the colours on the base of the carton. I liked this; it weighs grounds the rest of the packaging. The wavy line motif was just to add some interest to the upper portion of the packaging but I really liked how it turned out. 

I think I really failed with the rest of the carton. I had sunk a lot of time into this already and wanted to get started on my assessment so I kind of rushed the last part. 

I like the cute little droplet detail that is revealed depending on what side of the carton you open it on. The left two sides are very weak but I really needed to just move on at that point.

I’m a photographer but I will tell you right now that the product photo I took of this milk carton is awful. Really bad. I do most of my work in the AM. As in 1-4 AM. I also currently do not have a light globe in my bedroom. I took the photo by lamplight and tried to edit it to look like a real product photo but yikes. 

In the spirit of moving on though I decided to use it anyway. Please don’t judge me.

With that all done I had time to move onto the assessment. 

[aliciagaliano]

Tales of Spider-Jack Noir

Notes are at the foot of the page

...

Someday you might find your hero, Some say, you might lose your mind...

AKA... What a Life! - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

...

Ah, the city of San Franjosé. It's been a while since the gang's been there – well, everyone minus Flint... according to intelligence he's gathering, the disappeared inventor had to be somewhere in the city, most likely in what's now the old headquarters of the Live Corp. It wasn't just a mere assumption of his part, he knew that his vanished friend was in there kidnapped and he desperately needed to get him out because his life was in great danger. Nobody else knew anything about it more than himself, he was just vanished for four days and it was stressing as hell to not know where he could be, they weren't looking for money, no one contacted his father to ask for a ransom, "vendetta" was written all over the place...

Right now he was on the lane that belonged to his former apartment, it wasn't that late at night, but there was nobody on the streets either, he didn't care about it, he didn't need anyone to see him. He was using a hooded sweater as his hands were on the pockets, observing towards the lone isle with the giant light bulb which was off, as if there was not even a single soul inside... he had a tingle saying that was wrong, it wasn't empty, they were somewhere inside undercover, trying to not raise any sort of attention.

"There you have the Live Corp. headquarters, my dear friend!" He said out loud – even if he was alone, biting his lower lip, "I know Flint must be there."

"I have to put a question here, Seán." A voice said from his wristbands, "How are you so sure that Mr. Lockwood is here? I'm sorry if I sound rude with it–"

"It's fine!" He interrupted raising both hands, "You ain't being rude at all pal, it's just curiosity, isn't it?" There was a little pause, he sighed deeply trying to mentalize the possible dangers ahead. "Alright. Connor, scan the building, please."

The sides of both wristbands illuminated as what looked like light particles (that were actually nanobots) detached from them, forming a person: it was a tall young man appearing to be in his late twenties to mid thirties, with brown eyes and dark brown hair wearing a uniform of a semi-formal grey jacket, white shirt, dark tie, and dark jeans, a blue armband on the right arm, on the front a blue triangle on the left chest and what looked like the model and serial numbers on the right chest. The back of his jacket has across the shoulders the word ANDROID, a larger blue triangle, and his model number RK800, half a head taller than the Irishman. He looked towards the island as his eyes got this blue glow, Seán raised up his left arm to see what was Connor seeing in his scanners through a holographic screen.

"The highest point of the building is empty." He said, the Irishman was seeing how a map of the place was being built up too, "The lower floors from the office to the main floor are empty," He kept scanning, "Huh, Seán?" He said, "There is a huge concentration of people in the isle, underneath the building, I detect Mr. Lockwood in there too, but according to my scanners, his physical condition is deplorable. My diagnosis is physical burnout."

"Physical bu–" He hoped that what he thought was wrong, "Are they fucking beating him?!" The situation escalated, "We have to save him now!" The android nodded as he went back up to the wristbands, the Irishman cracked his knuckles, "Connor, suit me up!" The same nanobots got out from the wristbands going all over his body: it became a neoprene jumpsuit covering his entire body, of dark green around the zone of his front torso, the upper sides of his arms, his back to the height of the shoulder blade plus his waist to make it look like a belt and his shoes; dark blue tones under his arms, ending at the height of his elbow, the back side was the same color plus his trousers. It had designs in black of what looked like a spiderweb, logo of one was right in the middle of his chest as another similar logo, but bigger and quite sillier was on his back in the same dark green. "Woah, the fuck is this suit?!"

"It was an update sent before we ended up here," The AI explained, "it's called the Water Spider. It will let you dive."

"Why would I want to dive right now?"

"There is an underwater entrance where we can break in without being detected."

"Ohhh! I get it." A mask covered his head, following the same pattern of his clothes, "Spider-Jack is here bitches!" He quickly jumped to the water and started to dive, from his spider-insignia a bright light that crossed the dark waters towards the bottom popped, illuminating his way. He didn't feel like going any faster. "Connor, what can this suit else do?" He asked, he got indicated to stick his fingers together, when he separated them again, web-like fabrics knitted on the sides as webbed hands, "Ha! Cool!" He looked at his feet too, seeing frog legs, he was completely flipping the hell out of excitement, "But I don't entirely need them, do I?" There was no response, "Anyway, let's go!"

His feet got against the concrete surface of the safety wall of the lane, separating his legs and bending them, he took impulse. Water started to swirl around his legs, going up to his waist, then he took the leap: the water swirling became a whirlpool that gave him impulse like a torpedo, diving fast through the sea towards the isle. It was maybe an amazing sensation that made him feel free, the closest thing from flying – even if it wasn't flying at all... sometimes he wished he wasn't too fucking afraid of heights, he would be able to enjoy more his gifts in that way...

He was diving nearby the bottom, raising sand, avoiding rocks, seeing some awesome fish swimming around mindlessly of the world outside; he got upside down seeing the distant surface and the lights from stars reflected on the moon, it was mesmerizing to see the wavy surface of the water refracting the light and "eating" the rays a couple of meters after. Maybe, sometimes the sea was wide translucent at days, that wasn't the case at night, yet from the deep to the surface, so many people were missing a pretty view like that... then maybe, what he was seeing was what those people who died in open seas saw before they closed their eyes forever – he should stop thinking about it or he'd end up developing thalassophobia (1) like Mark. Maybe not, it was just a fun wonder to observe.

Oh yeah, it didn't take long (around three or four minutes) before they arrived to the feet of the isle, looking to his sides he started to swim in the search of an entrance using the light from his chest, Connor pointed out that there was a bigger facility underneath, the secret labs that Barb talked once upon a time and the reason of why the government didn't destroy the headquarters just yet.

"Seán, I detect an entrance under you." The AI said, he started to dive down, finding a hatch, "There is no one on the other side; if I am right, this is an exit for divers, we can make a plan when we're in."

He nodded in response as he started to go dive again, down below he found a hatch, his hands quickly drove there as he twisted it open... how fun, it was easier than he thought, maybe because it wasn't an old hatch from a sunk ship but anyway, he first looked to his sides as if it was a window where he was getting into, then sled his body in and closed the hatch.

There was no other way he could feel in that moment, and that was pure excitement.

His first solo mission.

When they reached the other side of the large pipeline, it seemed to end on a cubit, reaching a room a couple of meters up where some white-and-orange diving suits were hanging; his spider-themed suit vanished as he stretched out a bit trying to contain his excitement, what a nice way to prove himself a bit with a saving mission, right?

Right?

"Your neurotransmissors as showing a lot of activity, Seán. In the scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you?"

"20!" He exclaimed, "This is the first time I'm going like this and it's fucking alone, and I'm so excited that this is happening! It's perfect to prove myself that I'm actually good!" It's something his AI detected clearly even if he didn't sound really clear, the last sentence was carried with a little hint of anxiety and distress, "And Flint is my friend, he needs our help."

"Actually, Seán, you don't–" He was interrupted.

"Alright Connor, suit me up!"

Well, he didn't say a thing as he followed the command. This time his suit was pure black from heads to feet: black boots, black skin-tight trousers, a tool belt with a gun in its holster at his right side, a large black coat, underneath it he was wearing a turtleneck and what looked like a vest; then his hands were gloved, his head was covered in a mask with the spider web design, aviator-like google eyes and a large cowboy-looking hat with a sharp blade on its edges, which also had a green ribbon around it. On his back there was the spider logo too in a more stylized way. Underneath the mask he seemed genuinly impressed, looking to his hands and his general outfit, taking off the hat and looking at it.

"This is the stealth suit, Jack." Connor said, "The Spider-man Noir."

"With Kung Lao's hat?! Really?! This is fucking awesome! And I even have a gun – even if I actually have no fucking clue how to use it... Anyway! Can this be the default suit?" He got a positive answer that made him happier than before, putting his hat back up he got ready. Inside the mask he could see on his right eye the map of the entire underground lab and where his friend was, from the large paths of hallways that leads to a same giant underwater dome, the ventilation system. Of course he would – no, he had to take the hard way.

Slowly he got out from there throughout the vents (incredibly his hat did fit), unlike the quite dim room from before, looking out through the ventilation grill he could see that the hallways were as bright as the rest of the building with that titanium white, What the fuck with all the white– or light blue– whatever color I'm seeing anyway? He thought, At this point is obnoxious...

"Oh, I'm sorry Jack, I forgot to activate the colorblind lenses (2)."

"Wait a minute, what the– woah..." It took only a few seconds to notice how different (and brighter) the colors looked with the lenses on, adjusted perfectly to his visual graduation, "But I thought they take a while on getting adjusted!" The lack of answer actually made him realize what he just said, "Enchroma (3) didn't make them, right?" His mask retracted for a moment, leaving his hat on as he massaged his eyeballs, blinking twice and getting his mask back on, the lack of response answered his question, "Of course."

Going back to the fucking thing, he started to move through the ducts as careful as he could, kind of feeling inside a Metal Gear game because of all the secrecy he had to have to move around without being detected... it was time to put in march what video games taught him, and one of these was how to be Solid Snake. He let out a little "fuck yeah" with the thoughts.

Even behind the vents, his mask was showing him where the people were, and there were actually guards walking around the halls, he heard some of them complaining for needing to patrol a highly secured (ha! Surely secured) facility where not even a single soul from outside could enter – of course little they knew there was an intruder even if they seemed to have a thermal camera as an extra gadget to detect whatever that could move beneath the walls.

Surely that was (not) the case.

Connor explained him some of the advantages of the Noir suit: invisibility under the shadows like a ninja, designed to be undetectable on radars including those types of cameras because one never knows, silk steps if he wasn't running, bulletproof, a few hundreds of combinations of spider-webs that would make his mind blow away, and a guide's user in case he wanted to check later. The last feature brought a question: "Why didn't you tell me that before?" To then get the obvious realization that there wasn't actually a lot of time in hands, even less when he got an update of the condition of the distressed inventor, so he kept moving.

It could be the fact of being just crawling the reason of why he was having the feeling of going so slow, realizing how it was also easy to lose track of time in a secured facility where the only lights available to be seen was the annoying white lights (fuck, it was even worse with the lenses on), some of the guards he passed by were completely oblivious to his presence, passing undetected; at some point, tired of sneaking in the ventilation he decided to find an empty room and check on the user's guide to see if he could get to move forward faster outside, checking about the invisibility mode. It was a lot of a fun thing actually, when Connor mentioned the invisibility under the shadows he meant it literally, it was, according to the guide, to hide from cameras and other people at plain sight, mostly planned for dim places like underground facilities (of course, no one would've count in something like Live Corp ever).

On the other hand that little break gave him a point where he could take a look to the underground map with more calm to take shortcuts, still keeping track with the help of his AI of the people roaming around the area, it was possible to reach Flint's location safely, probably without getting into fights or anything. They could get out by the same way where he entered, he only needed get his friend dressed with the swimsuit, the oxygen tank and mask and they'd be able to swim away and eventually get back to the island; ten minutes later he was ready again to leave, stretching his arms and body, tapping his hat a bit...

Unexpectedly when he was right about to leave, one of the guards entered. Shit!

Before the guard could even have the time to react, the Irishman quickly extended his right arm upside down as a spider thread was shot from his wrist, sticking on the person's chest, then he quickly dragged him to his direction and with the other hand Jack got him stuck against the wall, just for in case he had to web up his mouth with a little bullet, "Sorry..." He whispered as he awkwardly left. He already used the shooters before, but he never reacted in that way... he blamed it to the panic. Even Connor was surprised for it; was it worth hiding again?

"Jack, my scanner indicates that Mr. Lockwood is moving."

"What? Where is he going?"

Instead of making it pop again on an eye, he made it pop again on his right hand and saw several dots moving towards the dome, he wondered what was that actual point, quickly he started to move again as fast as he could.

.

On the other hand, Flint Lockwood wondered what was going to happen now. He wondered how long he's been trapped down there, he did lose track of time since he arrived; his face showed several bruises, a swollen eye, the right side of his lower lip was cut, hands tied behind his back while his right arm seemed to be twisted in an uncomfortable position; he didn't seem to have had a real shower in days as his lab coat and blue shirt were dirty and stained with his own blood. They've been "playing" with him for days and all he hoped was just leave; his friends were sick worried for him...

And he missed to have Sam with him...

This was a random moment of introspection as he thought about the many times he fucked it up with her, yet they were still together. She knew that his stupidity wasn't intentional but because of his naivety leading his reasoning everywhere... he's been wanting everything to be a stupid, realistic nightmare, but it wasn't for his biggest dismay; was it the hell he had to be through for all his past mistakes? The food storm, the affair with the foodimals, Chester... he squinted feeling anger towards himself, again his current situation was his bad for not having been careful at the time of leaving the laboratory towards the woods.

And that's when he realized how he needed Seán by his other side, the man with the big dick energy (as Brent referred once) who often manages to flip the coin to a positive side and showed all the support of the world since their very first meeting. He could even consider him as his best friend... always there to help him out with his problems, whiling to listen and help out if it was necessary. No one actually ever cared for him that much, and if he was going to die there then, it was a real pleasure having met them. So, am I actually resigning myself? He thought, Meatballs... Whatever was going to happen, he should get ready.

The dome was different from the rest of the hallways: dimmer in dark tones (which was a relief for a lot of people from the obnoxious white), a lot of dangerous turned off inventions all around the place on different stands with their respective names plus some failed attempts of replicating his FLDSMDFR. The first day (?) some of them forced him to build one for them, he completely refused, he got a blow on his face in response; next they tried to force him to make some more weapons similar to the refreeze-a-fan, something better than that, again he refused, again they hit him harder than before to make him cooperate. He hated having done it; after that they wanted new armors in base of the Sentinels of Safety, something better, more dynamic, five fingers, stronger and faster, safer for them so nobody else but them would be able to use it (one of them was in the crazy food battle of the factory in Swallow Falls and remembers how Barry was able to use it without problems). Again he refused, but ended breaking when the hits became stronger and worse than before, actually, after he felt his arm snapping, swearing it was broken... for now, two out of three things were still blueprints, hopefully everything would explode in their faces like his usual stuff does.

Indeed, the most loyal people without Chester were nothing but idiots, and they clearly needed someone like him to help them get out from the shadows.

Then they tossed him to a chair, making him tumble backwards and roll once as he whimpered in pain, hissing in pain as he tried to at least sit down without his two hands as they laughed, putting the chair back on its place and grabbing him from under his armpit he sat looking down; if the room was silent, a soft wheeze would be heard from him.

"What the heck do you want now...?" He asked huskily, "Just leave me alone..."

They tied his arms around the chair and his ankles against the legs of the same. He realized how the sneaky assholes were aware of his crescent fear and how they were even enjoying it.

"Well, after everything you've done for us, there is someone who's been eager to see you again!"

Again?

He heard footsteps from behind, he tried to turn around but he was unavailable to do so. He was really scared now, trying to untie himself somehow and just run away as fast as his legs could, hide, find the exit, then who knows what'd happen? All he wanted was see his bed and cuddle his girlfriend, have long hours of sleep and pretend nothing ever happened.

"Goodnight, young Lockwood. We meet again."

No, nope, nope, nopity nope, NO! There was no way in the entire universe that voice belonged to who he thought, he saw how that Cheespider ate him before he could run away... the back of his head got smacked hard, making him hiss in pain once again, then there was a sharp pain on his left cheek that spread to the rest of his face, another at the right side of his face as the person was downloading its rage on his humanity, to then feel how there were two hands grabbing his shirt, and a horrible pain on his forehead that even created a bleeding wound. The strength used was such at the point he tumbled backwards again, his seat turned to a side as he could feel the blood slowly dripping from his forehead as he hissed in pain more than before; he was feeling dizzy now, feeling difficult to breath as probably his nose was now either dislocated or broken (all he knew was that it was burning).

"Chester..." He heavily said, "How...?"

He felt the older inventor kicking his stomach, taking away the air from his lungs.

"Yes, Lockwood, I'm still alive!" He kicked him again angrily, making him cough and gasp for air, "And not thanks to you!"

"Stop it!" He barely managed to say it, there was too little air in his lungs to say it louder, coughing heavily, to then feel him kicking his chest. "Please...!"

"You took away everything from me, little piece of shit!" He angrily replied, "My company!" He kicked his chest again, "My money!" The poor inventor wheezed harder than before as the pain intensified to an extent he couldn't handle, "And my reputation!"

It was a lie to say that no one in the underground heard the loud scream of pain of Flint plus the popping sound of a broken bone, and that was the case. That last kick was hard enough to break a couple of his ribs, making him wheeze and cough hard, already feeling the metallic flavor of blood escalating his throat; the former scientist placed him upon his back without straightening up the chair, having this psychotic smile on his face as a crazy bitch enjoying the moment so badly...

The screams that were heard all over the underground were painfully clear: it echoed in every single corner of the entire place, Chester was squashing his chest against the floor, crushing his hands and his injured arm at the same time, he felt how he was starting to choke in his own blood, his left lung was aching badly, swearing it was getting punched – or at least going in that way horribly. "Stop! Please! Please!" He begged with tears down his face, "Please!"

"You think I'll be merciful after all you've done to me, Flint?" He asked in the coldest way he could, squashing his chest more, "I know that Christian and Chelsea are by your side as well... you put them against me!"

"I didn't do anything!" He squealed, "They aren't kids neither stupid! Of course they know what you've– AHHHH!" Putting asides the pain, he actually couldn't believe how sadistic this man actually was, and he never realized either, he was enjoying with every single fiber of his being on torturing him, breaking every single bone he could under the weight of his foot. He's been waiting so long to put his hands on him, to beat him and break him down as much as he could. Why he waited to do it? He needed to see how actually far he could be got pushed to make everything he wanted, if under pressure he would do anything they wanted as long they stopped torturing him... sadly he was decided to not cooperate about making a new food machine, he didn't care, once he had everything settled up, he'd have his coveted revenge. He wanted to kill him right there, but he'd wait til all his friends were under his mercy and his island destroyed...

Retiring his feet from his chest, he saw him wheezing and coughing that crimson liquid he's been wanting to see so badly from him. Since he first got out from that damned cheespider he just pictured a thousands of ways of killing the stupid little shit of Flint Lockwood, he's been seeing it again and again for weeks the blood spilt from the goddamn piece of shit of the blue-eyed inventor, see him suffering one way or another... now it was physical damage, in some time his revenge would fall upon his precious home, and he couldn't wait for the day to come. The underground lab was the best place to hide because it was impossible for anyone to get in, even for the government. They'd never know he was alive until it was too late! At that point, world domination didn't seem as a bad idea... after all, everything he loved and had was gone, he would definitely look forward to kill Flint... for now... he had to keep him alive, then, bye bye!

"Take him back to his cell." He said, "And give him some medical attention, I don't want him to die yet."

Flint got untied, he didn't fight back, wheezing with every breath he took, the ones around him were checking him with portable X-ray scanners, retired the chair leaving him laying on the floor as Chester gave his back to him ready to leave.

"You haven't seen it... right...?" His former idol turned around to look at him, seeming curious, "You... you'll just add... another reason... for Chelsea and Christian to... to hate you..." He was having serious issues to breath, wheezing harder than before, "If I die... they won't ever... forgive you... even Barb won't forgive you..." His blue eyes were staring straight to his green eyes behind those green-tinted glasses, "Unless you stop this madness..."

He knew how angry Chester got by his words, he didn't care, actually he gave a little smile knowing that he dug his grave earlier than expected. In his opinion, even if he was about to join his mother in the other world, he said just the plain truth from his point of view in base of the opinion of his three friends: at a beginning he didn't entirely trust his offspring fearing that they'd do something to him, but showed him in many ways that they weren't spiteful but the opposite, being angry at their father for all he did to him and his friends; on the other hand Barb actually had hopes of him being alive and having realized all his mistakes, wishing for him to be the man he was before he turned into that greedy jerk... at least, he was alive, yet crazier than ever.

There was still time to change, but he wasn't going to take it...

"Say goodbye, Lockwood!"

The people who were around them looked to each other, with one glance they all stepped back in fear, Chester was being totally serious.

"Goodbye..." He closed his eyes and fell instantly unconscious, perfect enough to not feel pain ready to leave.

The old inventor raised his foot ready to squash him for once at all, ready to end with his goddamn life and make him pay for everything he took away, hating to see that fucking smile on Lockwood's face as if he was mocking him...

Suddenly something stuck at his side, and at the same time he lowered his leg to stomp on his chest, Flint's body was dragged to the darkness making him stomp the hard floor, by how hard he hit it, he felt a loud cramp escalating from the bottom of his bones to his skin, making him grab it from his knee and hiss in pain while trying to keep his balance. "What the fuck just happened?!"

"Me bitch!" A distorted voice said from behind, when he turned around he got punched right in the face, but it felt like a boulder hitting him, and it was that hard at the point he was sent flying backwards, rolling on his back leaving him dazed off for a moment, feeling the warm blood starting to get out of his nose. He couldn't see what the heck was that, but he saw his henchmen pointing everywhere trying to find who did it.

"Release the goddamn sentinel drones!"

Hidden somewhere around the dome, Jack was scanning Flint with the help of Connor next to him, having needed to take off his mask when the rage started to take over and he needed air: dislocated nose, arm fractured in four parts, his face was too bruised and stained in crimson at the point he couldn't take it, his rib cage was severely damaged with some bones broken in several parts causing him a type-3 pulmonar laceration that needed an urgent surgery, so at the time of carrying him he needed to be careful enough.

"Seán," Connor called out while he was closing some of the injures with a spray from his index finger, "Why don't you try to use the instant transmission? Even with my aid, Mr. Lockwood will need specialized care. Any sudden movement can worsen the condition of his inner injuries, our only way to get out and fast is with the instant transmission."

He looked to his sides checking that nobody was coming.

"Connor, you realize I haven't got the handle of a lot of aspects of my powers, right?" He stared at him serious, "Even if I already have like three years with it, I still haven't got the proper handle of being an energy sensor and even less about Chris' version of the instant transmission! The island is too far from here to feel their energy, and I don't know if I'll have enough time to concentrate and expand my ratio."

"Well, you'll have to try. There is no other way without risking his life more."

The Irishman sighed as he got his mask back up. Underneath he closed his eyes and placed his index and middle finger on his forehead trying to concentrate. In the darkness of his mind everything started to flicker: the presences of every single living being in a ratio of three miles, from the biggest whale swimming deep in the sea to the smallest bug, he could feel and see them... he tried to expand his ratio, go beyond and find the location of the island, try to feel the earth as part of him, its energy flowing inside him as one... then there was a thing he developed with his ability to sense energy, something called the "spider-sense" (or as a friend of his uses to say, the "Jack-a-boy tingle"), without hesitation one of his hands went to the gun and took it out, shooting a drone behind him about to shoot at him; it didn't just affect the bot, but it was that powerful that made its way out.

With a lot of ability he sheathed his gun again, carefully grabbed the inventor and placed him on his back, Connor strapped the inventor against the back of the Irishman by making an extension of the Noir suit, there he started to run faster than the drones that started to swarm could realize (and that maybe was the biggest dismay for Chester as he was seeing every single little thing with their cameras now). Jumping up and down and using the drones at platforms he was making his way to the big vault-like door at the same time they kept shooting and destroying each other in the attempt of getting Jack, who was smiling widely under the mask. Hell yeah! This is fucking awesome! he thought proudly, It's time showtime! Shooting a spider string towards a drone, he quickly twisted on his axis and tossed it towards another group making them explode, from behind the smoke wall more came, he jumped and started to stick as many as he could, to then use an electrified web that extended to a large and important group.

He had a feeling of more coming from up, that'd mean that the door was going to open. He got really ready for it, from back and front he was surrounded, but no one counted with his cowboy hat: he tossed it, it sliced one, two, five, six, ten, thirty before ricocheting back to him as he repeated, attacking as many as he could while they were trying to either deflect, evade or destroy the dangerous weapon disguised as something innocent as a hat... but he was everywhere! It was insane! There were shootings from his powerful gun, the sharp blade of the cowboy hat and the spider-man himself destroying them with pure brute force, it was like a carnage of metal and loads and loads of precious technology being put down by an army of fucking one! He couldn't let escape a potential specimen for research now...

On the other hand, with every leap, body twist and stunt he made, Seán was trying hard to be careful with his movements and not worsen the situation of his best friend, it was an entertaining activity in his honest opinion, but there was a life in danger so he had to go. He had all the fun his friends experiences sometimes, now it was time to go to the serious shit and flee; it wouldn't matter what'd happen later, the priority was Flint's life and nothing else. Quickly he trespassed the open vault-like door as more were coming, seeing a large spiral stairway that would be translated to at least three dozens of floors, Eugh, I'm not gonna run all the way up! Flexing his knees and going as down as he could, he gave a powerful jump that even broke the metallic floor leaving a mark of something taking off, reaching a quarter of the staircase he made a backflip before he could fall, landing on the handle and took another jump, breaking again whatever was down there (basically cutting an important part of the path) and finally used a drone that popped too close and exploded mid-air as he got to the door. He charged his fist as the air seemed to even compress there, breaking it and part of the wall with something he referred as the "Kilkenny Smash (4)".

The main floor was back to that obnoxious white, but with all the lights turned off which was better, he quickly started to run again towards an exit in the direction that Connor was indicating him. He was ready to smash the wall when a horde of drones popped again, How many fucking robots does this madman got? Gosh, how fucking annoying! He kept going to the wall of the entrance, then made a backflip and quickly started to jump upon them again. He only had one exit: go all the way up by using the outside of the hydraulic elevator. While he was avoiding, counterattacking and repeating he was looking up; at least no one would be telling that he was looking scared, because he fucking was.

"Uh... do I really have to go all the way up, Connor...?"

"There is no other way out, Seán. As an AI who carries their past experiences, trainings and personalities, you have to overcome your vertigo in order to be better."

He looked up again, it seemed so fucking high like a skyscrapper, it looked fucking scary (as if fighting killing drones wasn't), then there was resignation knowing that his AI was right about it... With a great power comes a great responsibility, he had power, he had a life walking and swinging violently on the tight rope on his back... three miles didn't sound too far away even if it meant not knowing where he teleported, he couldn't be going like that for too long, it was dangerous in some ways, so... taking a deep breath he separated his legs and charged towards the elevator, when he ran, the surface under him broke again leaving the mark of his foot and raising part of the hexagonal floor; he crossed his arms as a defense, clashing fully against the drones with something called "Brighton Smash" making them explode as well. When he reached the feet of the elevator he made a backflip, took impulse on a drone and jumped up...

"Oh boy, here we go... Naruto sprint, don't fail me now..."

One of his foot got the surface, then the other and he started to run the rest of the way with a ninja sprint, it was quite tiring defy the laws of gravity, Flint wasn't a problem as he felt like a feather. Up, and up, and up he got, reaching the top in no time; he did another super jump as he extended his arm in high with his fist closed, underneath the mask he closed his eyes, hearing the loud crack from the ceiling made of glass...

Everything went in slow motion...

He felt freedom.

When he dared to open up his eyes again he felt alive, almost feeling like his hands could graze the sky, the night sky was shinier than ever, full of stars salutating, it was even beautiful than looking from the bottom of the ocean... the world shut down in its entirety being overwhelmed by not just the view, but his actual position, as if he was floating in space drifting away letting it take him somewhere else. Amazing how those thoughts crossed his mind for only a couple of seconds before his body bent backwards landing on the translucent ceiling at the same time more drones popped from the hole he made and other many places; he ran a few metters before taking a leap from there, freefalling.

"You've gotten over your fear pretty fast, Seán." Connor said.

"It's the adrenaline doing everything, don't mention it again or I'll chicken out!"

Turning around to face the sky he shot a string against the translucent wall of the gigantic building, when it tensed he swung with body forward with the intention of turning towards the entrance, flying away when it got cut by a laser from one of the drones, so flipping to the front, he extended his legs with the intention of landing on the bridge that connected him to mainland. When his feet touched the ground he started to run away. Boss ass bitch isn't going to let me have another option if he keeps on like this... He thought.

A game of lasers then got all around him with the intentions of killing him and Flint in the process and destroy the bridge so they wouldn't get to a safer place, at that point he wasn't seeing the drones, just the lasers coming endlessly from everywhere as a cage from just one point on the other side looking at him: he saw her staring with a defying grin as energy beams were coming out from all her fingertips, moving them and making a full set of many ones going to him. He smiled back.

He took a leap reaching a falling piece of the bridge, running all the way up and keep going, making a side flip that made three longshots pass by almost grazing him, on a stable ground he kept running, leaping through an almost closed hole as if it was a ring... in a nutshell he was completely overcoming the biggest offensive Chester has ever made against anyone for his major dismay... it was impossible, right? It just had to be impossible and a stupid, crazy dream.

"You know what? Imma fuckin' do it," The Irishman said, "He's gonna fucking regret what he's done!"

"You mean..."

"Hell yeah! Connor, water spider suit!"

He ran behind a falling piece of falling debris as his suit was quickly switched back to the Water Spider, then took a powerful impulse towards the ocean as he flipped to the front and, for another major surprise of the oldest inventor, he actually landed on fucking water! "Beep beep motherfucker!" he heard him yell with the distorted voice again as the Irishman started to go away by actually skating. On. WATER! (Un)knowingly for Jack, he had the crazy feeling that maybe dear Chester was screaming and sending everything he got in a crazy attempt of either capturing or killing him – whatever the fuck happens first. With every mad laugh he was making he was losing a chunk of sanity, but it didn't matter as long as the nuisances were fucking gone, right? He wanted to stomp onto that fucking spider, kill it with fire or ice, it didn't matter! He wanted him to fucking vanish! He saw him leap and fall into the water, vanishing to the deep – why even?

One of the cameras turned off. "What the–?!" Then other and another, the water itself was raising into water stalagmites getting all of the drones in a shot, branching out in water arms creating a large set of technological fireworks... this was out of this world, the dude even had fucking hydrokinesis, he got into his element and had all the advantage of the fucking world... with one of the many cameras he saw the Irishman resurfacing, with his body surrounded by a green halo, he started to fly away as his hands touched the water, to then start to ascend...

"Oh shit..."

He couldn't believe it anymore, it was completely insane... he wondered how far his hydrokinesis could go because he just raised a gigantic wall of water that was of the size of a tsunami directly towards the isle, then the top started to get the shape of a water-y fist that raised up the middle finger as a clear "fuck you" from the Irishman, who still had his arm in high as a way to keep it up. Nothing from his arsenal would be able to stop the incoming destruction it'd cause when the fall comes. Of course there were a lot of people witnessing the frightening yet amazing event going on, while the police was trying to evacuate as much as they could before they could die...

"Behold my ultimate attack: United Kingdom of Smash! (5)" He swung his arm down, the middle finger started to fall right towards the headquarters. Many of the people inside were running in circles as the tsunami siren was flickering on and off, others were hiding under desks or even praying to God for mercy as the entrance of the place, destroyed by the Irishman in his way out was one of the hermetic doors in case of floods and it was unsure if the vault would handle the pressure, maybe yes, maybe not, but it was going to come with everything. "Fuck you dude!"

When the wave fell, it destroyed the building taking away everything in its wave, the water made its way towards the underground where (un)fortunately the secured door managed to keep them safe, trapped for some time as there wasn't a real way to get out asides of that little room with a limited stock of diving suits, the specialized machinery that builds anything they need was upstairs and destroyed as well, so... they wouldn't be a problem for some time (hopefully, forever), it'd mean peace for an undefined amount of time (months, or just mere weeks as there was no actual way to tell what was left) and it'd give time Flint to heal properly enough. Leftovers of technology were coming afloat as other parts sunk, parts of the drones scattered in the water mixed with the debris of the bridge and the building...

The Irishman landed on the wet lane happy that there wasn't a severe damage for the coast city than just water; his body was trembling now that all the shit was over, letting all the adrenaline flow and get a proper break... Flint was still on his back, breathing slow, steady and stable.

"You've done an amazing job, Jack." Connor said, popping next to him, "I'm sure he would be proud..."

His mask wore off as he looked at his friend with a glint in his blue eyes as if he was a child.

"You think so...?" His friend nodded in response with a smile, "I'll definitely gonna tell them when we're back, then!" There was a soft chuckle by the side of the android, "Alright, it's time to go I guess..." Again he placed his two fingers on his forehead and closed his eyes, popping his mask back on, facing to the east trying to focus. Come on... He thought, You can do it, just focus, try to do what he told you: visualize the place as much as you can...

"Uh, Seán...?" His friend ignored him as he was giving him his back, looking to catch the energy of the island and perform the instant transmission, "Jack, this is important." He got ignored again, he had to shake his shoulder to make him turn annoyed and point to a side above the ocean showing a damaged drone that was still working, aiming with pretty much every single weapon remaining.

"Fucking dumbass..."

Trapped down there in his underground, Chester was laughing like a madman ready to try to kill them once again by using the manual mode, losing chunks of sanity with every laugh, pretty much everyone behind him were just staring at their boss thinking that it'd been better to stay at home that night. A few holographic buttons were glowing on and off as a signal of be ready to be used: missiles, laser guns, needles, chainsaws, normal guns, tear gas, laughing gas, feathers (what the fuck?)... all of them pointing to his face. By one side there was the Irishman just staring, still with the fingers on his forehead as he amazingly didn't lose the entire focus, on the other side there was the mad scientist getting a microphone ready.

"Are you ready to die spider-bitch?!" He asked out of his mind, contrasting his usual chillness.

"Uh, yeah, maybe?"

"Then say goodbye you fucker!"

"Well, goodbye fucker!"

That's when all his arsenal was shot over and over again until he ran out of ammo, giving hysterical laughs and smashing mostly the missiles, creating a big explosion, a wall of dust and clearly bringing on the attention of the police force which sirens could be heard in the distance. Even with all the crazy amount of shit he shot, there still had to be a dismembered and barely recognizable body – three bodies counting the taller friend next to him, when the dust faded away there was nothing but a large crater and nothing else... did he actually disintegrate them?!

The camera bounced a bit, for a brief second his eyes could see a shadow onto the drone and he went bananas, sadly it was too late when he realized as the transmission cut short. It was game over for him.

At the same time the Irishman, with his hand trespassed the hard metal of the robot like paper and ripped off the core making it instantly fall at the same time he safely landed back, "Jackass." Now, where was he? Oh, right. He focused again, managing to get more of the handle of sensing the energy, going far to the east coast, crossing the ocean, until he finally reached the shore of the island, the town and finally Sparkswood... it was like in his mind he could see the shapes of all his friends in the darkness, pretty much everyone were awake minus Brent and Barb... he wondered if they realized he was gone, maybe not... he swiped his mind outside Sparkswood Labs, he would leave Flint at the entrance, they had medical support and he didn't trust in the security of the hospital so, it was for the best and to protect his best friend, right?

He didn't flinch at the sounds of sirens coming closer to his location, completely trying to keep his focus and his mind clear from external influences; for a moment his body seemed to flicker, then became blurry, and finally at the same time the patrols arrived he was gone...

When he appeared he was in front of the laboratories, jumping inside in joy as he managed to do it; carefully his suit released the straps that were holding the inventor on his back making his body fall, being held by the Irishman who carefully placed him down, happy that the madness was over for now, happy to know that his friend was going to get treated and could recover from all the damage... he stared to his friend for a while, then made the bell of the front door ring as he extended his arm up to a tree and stood there for a moment switching back to stealth mode. Sam was the one who came out curious to know who the hell was coming at fucking 2 A.M., when she saw her boyfriend lying on the ground motionless she drove her hands over her mouth with a muffled gasp and called out for help, it didn't take any long before all their friends arrived to check, with Earl quickly pulling Flint up and rushing inside yelling to Manny to get ready to do his job, before she rushed back inside she looked everywhere trying to see if there was anybody else around, as if someone was watching from the shadows. Even if their eyes connected, she didn't see him, as that happened, she rushed back inside, letting Jack take a deep sigh in response.

Without saying anything he swung his way back to his room in the second floor, feeling glad that he left the large awning window open as he slid under the glass; once his feet touched solid floor, without commands Connor unsuited him, showing a tired Seán that seemed to still being processing all that happened in the last thirty (yes) minutes of his life. He sat at the verge of his bed looking outside, his heart racing against his chest and his skin going paler than it already was. Even if he already did let all the adrenaline flow before, there were things that he still didn't process like having jumped from the roof of what'd be considered as a skyscrapper (as there wasn't a real definition of such in terms of height, it could be considered as one for standing out the rest of the buildings around the coast, and most of them were on hills so many buildings didn't count). The memories of that event were quite fuzzy, everything happened so fast, he reacted mostly by instinct, but the thing he remembered so clearly was that moment when he broke free.

In that moment everything went away, he was floating looking to the sky full of stars as they seemed to be flickering back at him as a salute, it felt like floating in outer space, it just felt crazily amazing, and he would like to repeat that feeling again...

"For a brief time you inhibited your vertigo and did awesome things, Jack." Connor said, snapping him back to reality, he looked at him, the AI started to walk around the room, "You'll have to work more to get over them for good, that's the only way you will be able to enjoy it to full." He took a coin that was on the computer desk, starting to pass it from hand to hand separated in a considerable distance really fast, "Is not just letting the thrill do all the job for you, but taming them as well, keep your head cool and improve your abilities." Then the AI caught the coin between his index and middle finger by its sides, showing the tail of the coin, "You might need a training plan." He pushed the coin out of between his fingers making it land on his knuckle, then started to flip it across the knuckles of his right hand.

"Heh, you really sounded like him this time..."

The soft clink of the coin was audible as he used his thumb to throw it in the air, then caught it back, flipping it a few more times.

"You know who programmed me. They didn't just make me the android sent by CyberLife, but also a bit of them. A bit of him..."

Knock, knock, knock!

"Seán! Wake up!" It was Sam, "Someone brought Flint back! Come soon!"

"Alright, I'm going in a while!" He replied, when he heard her going away he looked at Connor, "Well, get back into the wristbands. We gotta go."

Standing up he stretched up his body ready to leave, his AI followed the command as he returned to the wristbands and headed to the medical bay.

It didn't matter a lot what Chester V could be planning underwater right now, how he would come back with a sweeter revenge upon the island and everyone who turned their back to him; all that mattered was stick to the momentary peace that was peeking for an undefined amount of time. If he had to fool his plans back again he would do it gladly, but for now, now that everything was back to its place he just wanted to take a nap and sleep for hours, later they would see how to raise and improve the security around the area and around the island itself.

Dangers maybe were ahead, and he was going to be ready for it.

...

(1) Thalassophobia: Fear of the ocean.

(2): If someone doesn't about this, Jack said several times he's slightly colorblind. Even if I tried to figure out which kind of colorblindness he got (there are three, then a fourth, really odd one where you see in achromatic colors), I'm still not sure what is it actually so I found myself improvising some points. I'm sorry it is just silly me nitpicking with details (probably a lot) and stuff, that's why I'm pointing it out.

Seán if you ever see this, I really tried.

(3): Enchroma is a brand that sells glasses for colorblind people.

(4): Sorry for my laziness but I'll assume that the reference is quite obvious.

(5): I suddenly thought about this when I was going off to sleep and thought it was hilariously stupid and I feel it as something Jack would actually do (maybe not but it’s fair to dream). Maybe this isn't the ultimate attack and he said it to scare them, but who knows, maybe there is actually more... ... Author's Note: Some of you might be wondering "what the fuck is this shit here?!" Well this is maybe one of the randomnest ideas I've had in a very long while from a story I was writing, but as I had no idea how to tie-in everything to this point and two or three other parts that's been stuck in my head I decided to post it here because they needed to get OUT of my brain. That's why there are many losen points here. My actual intention was publish it this last week, but I found myself in troubles near the end because I was having issues in putting all of the ideas right which ended up leading me to laziness plus college sucks my creativity away plus I'm tired all the time <s>plus I've been slacking off by playing minecraft</s>, and it's a very common problem I face when I'm ending a chapter or story or whatever (and it's horrible). This weird-ass thing will have two or three more parts but I don't know if they're coming out anytime soon... if I don't die first maybe m8. There are things that probably didn't come as good as I expected them to be, but I get often confused when I try to change them as the ideas either swap, gets lost or just completely messes up so... sorry if there aren't good parts lmao. If there are typos I'm sorry, English is not my first language. ... Disclaimers: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 (c) Sony Pictures Animation Spiderman (c) Marvel Detroit: Become Human (c) Quantic Dream/Sony Interactive Entertainment JackSepticEye/Seán McLoughlin belongs to himself The only things I actually own is this weird-ass piece of fanfic and the Water Spider suit.

[mymallmetrro-blog]

A Page from the Pavement Runway:Street Style Essentials

Season in season out, the apparel architects endeavor to answer this inquiry: What do ladies need? The appropriate response can be subtle—not every person longs for a designer cocoon coat. There are imitations, be that as it may, and an ideal approach to discover them is to turn a scientific eye to our road style from across the fashion capitals of New York, London, Milan, and Paris Fashion Weeks. We dealt with many to haul out the examples and individuals that emerged in the city this season. Read on and get a look at what future runway shows may hold.

Since you're perusing this little niche we have, I will expect that you're beautiful, fun, intriguing, and right now have the design rudiments down. I'm certain you have closet nuts and bolts like an LBD, flats, a white traditional shirt, knee-high boots, and a trusty match of dull cut thin pants in your storage room. You likely additionally have huge amounts of different shirts, jeans, dresses, and fun additional items - however, for most young ladies, it's difficult to take a group of individual parts of a very much supplied storage room and transform it into a genuine closet.

It required me a long investment to make sense of this, however, the way I have an inclination that I've influenced my closet to go from alright to marvelous is by building my whole check out of a couple of key pieces. By having a clear mental photo of what some of your "building square" pieces are, it's anything but difficult to include a couple of additional items and blend and match to dependably shake an outfit that is fascinating, snazzy, and interesting to you.

Be that as it may, this is 100% simpler said than done! Along these lines, in this post, I've illustrated the most vital things you should have in your wardrobe. Obviously, this will change depending on your own style. The style we are choosing is vigorously impacted by a street style store online and any such sites and is merely suggestive, yet in the event that you're more preppy and girly, your own rundown will appear to be unique than this one. Simply think about this rundown as a beginning stage to characterize your must-have pieces.

So how about we get to it?

1. A Cozy Flannel Shirt: With regards to building an in vogue closet, a trusty woven or wool catch down is an incredible place to begin. Plaid traditional shirts are great since you can style them to look hipster-esque, grungy, western, or even laid-back California cool.

How to wear them

•Pair it with denim shorts, a hipster headband, along with accessory, and a couple of easy-going shoes like Converse All-Stars, Vans, or another other.

•Wear the shirt under a larger than usual, thick-sew cardigan. Complete with thin pants and a couple of knee-high boots.

2. A Cropped "Leather" Jacket: In spite of the fact that cowhide coats are an investment piece, they don't need to cost a considerable measure of cash! I'm stunned at how delicate, strong, and splendidly cut my $25 coat is. To be completely genuine with you, I've had it for a long time now despite everything it hasn't scraped, in addition to that, the material feels as rich delicate as the day I obtained it.

How to wear them

•Dress up even thin cut warm-up pants or free cut harem pants with a tank top and a trimmed cowhide coat.

•Leather coats are inconceivable layering apparatuses. Wear a cowhide coat over thin cargos, a wool shirt, and a cardigan, or with thin pants, boots, and a troubled sweater.

3. A Delicate, Girly Dress: Each young lady needs a perfect, knee-touching ladylike dress produced using a sensitive texture like trim, tulle, silk, or a mix of surfaces. Try your best to discover one that is light, but quiet shading, so it can in any case work amid the winter. Cream and dusty rose-hued dresses are my top choice! •Wear a botanical or silky dress with a chambray best to transform the dress into a skirt.

How to wear them

•Tie a wool top around your abdomen, or wear it with a military-motivated utility coat and an overwhelming soled shoes for a '90s grunge return.

•Confuse the world in a magnificent path by wearing a frilly dress with Converse All-Stars and a mold cognizant baseball hat.

4. A Utility Jacket: Utility coats are popular, urban, and have recently the perfect measure of edge to convey warmth to a generally basic outfit. You don't need to discover one that is entirely "waterproof" to procure a utility coat's capacity to protect you from common components. I lean toward coat cuts that hit your mid-thigh - have a go at swapping out exhausting cardigans or a hoodie with one and you'll be happy you did!

How to wear them

•Layer one over a cropped, at that point, include pants and wedge heels for a smart easy-going kind of look.

•Patterned pants and a plain white slipover will look magnificent with an intense and cool utility coat.

5. A Cropped Denim Vest: This return thing has influenced a tremendous come back to standard to mold in the course of the most recent couple of years. Denim vests are such a simple thing the toss on finished any outfit to quickly support your style.

How to wear them

•Cropped denim vests look awesome over female dresses. They look cool with free and frilly sundresses, yet additionally amp up the style factor when matched with body-con dresses.

•Jean vests look fun-loving and pseudo-punky with graphic t-shirts and skirts.

6. A Graphic Tee You Identify With: Shirts are wonderful discussion pieces. Discover ones with interesting expressions, retro logos, or those that reference a band or games group that you cherish.

How to Wear ‘Em

•Tuck into a swathe skirt and include a couple of Converse All-Stars, Finish with a (#11) chic bowler cap or turband.

•Graphic tees...even the kind that you're compelled to wear for sorority or club events...can look nice when matched with a very much set panther frill and some of your most loved adornments.

•Wear one with a chambray shirt or wool shirt open to finish everything.

7. Extraordinary, Signature Jewelry: Including a couple of very much set bits of gems is frequently all you require to influence an outfit to look finished. The magnificent part about adornments is that there are such huge numbers of various styles, sizes, hues, and pieces. You'll have a wide exhibit of things to pick from while deciding your mark piece!

How to wear them

•If you have a basic, rich kind of style, look at pearl stud hoops, pearl pieces of jewelry, straightforward menswear-motivated watches, or silver antique appeal armlets. They'll run with anything, regardless of whether they're spruced up or down.

•Statement kiddie apron neckbands can influence an average outfit to look significantly more cool and classy. Take a stab at wearing one with a white traditional shirt and pants, or a chambray shirt and shaded denim pants.

•Pick a specific kind of adornments that you cherish, and make it your mark. I am wild about rings, so I generally shake midi styles, knuckle shields, and those insane two-finger rings. On the off chance that you cherish dangly hoops, make those your mark. Long pieces of jewelry and bangle wrist trinkets are likewise great alternatives.

8. A Simple Black Maxi Dress: Nothing can supplant an exemplary minimal dark dress, yet a chic dark maxi dress is about as adaptable. When shopping, search for an essential plan that stays agreeable for a few more hours and isn't excessively uncovering, making it impossible to wear generally puts.

How to wear them

•Have a low cut top that you adore, yet don't have a craving for demonstrating that much skin? Layer one over a thin dark maxi.

•Graphic tees are likewise a truly cool approach to transform a maxi dress into a skirt. Include a turban and a match of Converse all-stars for a startling, California-cool look.

•Wear a dark maxi with your chicest match of stage shoes, an articulation accessory, wavy hair, and red lipstick for an incredible night out on the town look.

9. A Worn-In Chambray Top: A light and delicate conventional chambray is a standout amongst the most important things you can have in your wardrobe. It for all intents and purposes works with everything - and I do mean The world - in your wardrobe.

How to wear them

•Have some uproarious harem downs or metallic thin pants, or print stockings that you can't discover anything great to wear with? Chambray to soften the deal!

•Try tucking a chambray shirt into a sequined or frilly smaller than expected skirt with a couple of lower leg boots and a grasp for a furious look that is ideal for a date or young ladies’ night out.

•Layer under a cowhide coat or utility coat and wear with a couple of hued thin pants for an easy-going cool troupe fit for class.

Street style ultimately boils down to the expression of what lies within your beautiful soul. It is what you want to say to the world. It doesn’t matter what it may be. So far as it is your message you should determine what exactly that is. So while these guidelines should help, they are just suggestions. You can definitely get any of the apparel mentioned from a street style store online.

[lashofer]

Damselfly

April

The black vinyl smells like Windex and rubbing alcohol. Through the thin sterile paper, my hollow stomach is cold. The doctor sets down his clipboard and retrieves a pair of latex gloves from a nearby cupboard. They’re not a trendy black like at the shop, but white, turned peach with the skin underneath. Snap. Powder in the air.

He sits down on a stool and hovers over my back. I haven’t eaten in two days. Ever since Alex, I haven’t been able keep much down. Ten months ago – that’s when I met him. Almost six months since I’ve had this thing etched on my back.

“Quite the work you've got, here,” the doctor says. I knew his name when he introduced himself, but it’s gone now.

“Can you get rid of it?” I ask.

“Black pigment is the easiest to remove. In four to six sessions, it should be gone; this looks like amateur work.”

Alex wasn’t an amateur. He was rushed. Distracted.

This clinic isn’t anything like Alex’s shop. There aren’t any sugar skulls and pin-ups, graffiti art or display cases full of gauges and tapers for stretching. It’s more sterile, cold. White, blue and fluorescent.

It’s not soon enough. If it wouldn’t leave behind a terrible scar, I would have cut it out of my skin months ago.

The doctor presses an ice pack over my side and readies the laser like a paintbrush. He glides it over the dips between my ribs. It blinks in sporadic jolts. Every blink is a hot rubber band against my skin. Every blink fades the black into moldy green.

My father was an artist. An insect taxidermist before the osteoporosis became debilitating. He arranged butterflies in patterns on white backgrounds, shiny blue and green beetles in pinwheels, and framed them as gifts. He worked at the town hall’s insect gallery. As a kid, I used to go out with him into uncultivated fields, searching for Tumbling Flower Beetles and Snakeflies. We’d store them in Tupperware and mason jars until we got home, and then would throw them in the freezer to avoid damaging their fragile bodies. Sometimes we fumigated them using sawdust soaked in ethanol. Nail polish remover worked in a pinch.

I visited the gallery a couple of months ago. Gazed at the Melissa Blue butterflies suspended with thin wire, Carpenter Ants pinned down through their thoraxes into white foam. I tried to remember which ones I collected with Dad, but all I could see were the pins. Drawers and drawers of display cases, clear glass meant for gazing. Flower Flies and Milkweed Bugs. Paper wasps, dragonflies and Arctic Skippers. Wings spread out and stabbed.

I resist the urge to rub my wrists in concentric circles. They feel tight, squeezed, held down. The bruises are still there, even if my wrists are healed.

The blinking stops, and so does the pain. “Alright,” the doctor says. The tattoo is faded, but still there. I can still see the angry word, with its rough edges and incomplete blocks. He puts a bandage over the wound, and I bring my t-shirt back down over my stomach.

I walk up to the receptionist and pay. Two hundred dollars. Sixteen hours outfitting mannequins, cleaning out change rooms and cashing out.

I zip up my hoodie and walk into the 7-Eleven next door. I don’t have any Ativan with me, and I’ve heard that smoking helps. Maybe the shaking will stop. I walk up to the counter and buy a plastic Bic lighter and a pack of strawberry-flavoured cigars that Montana used to smoke in our high school smoke pit.

Outside, I fumble with the lighter’s metal wheel, careful to not pull in too much smoke. It goes straight to my head, and my stomach flips. The smoke burns in my nostrils, and I push it out like a fidgeting dragon. It’s still cold outside, and my kneecaps rattle.

My phone buzzes.

“Sam?” The text is from a number not listed in my contacts. It doesn’t matter; I’ve memorized it anyway. I thought he would have given up by now.

Last June

I stood outside of K-Town Liquor, sweating in my sneakers. It was warm, and I felt stupid holding the multicolored horse piñata we had just bought from the dollar store.

Montana was inside, flirting with the guy doing retail. I could see her through the window, foot cocked behind her as she leaned on the counter. She tossed her blonde hair to the side. Three bottles of tequila and a pile of miniatures were on the counter – little bottles of Jäger, Triple Sec and Baileys. Maybe for the piñata, I thought. Montana didn’t tell me what it was for. She just told me to hold it until the party.

Montana had just gotten back from visiting her sister in Vancouver. She stole her sister’s driver’s license off her desk. Spent an entire afternoon alongside her and her husband, looking behind couch cushions and air vents in the floor. Montana said that a workable fake I.D. was worth an afternoon of labour.

We were both sixteen when she moved out last year. Her dad was ex-military. Once he found out that she was sneaking her boyfriend, Chris, into her room every night, she had to choose whether to move out or move to Calgary with her aunt. She convinced a landlord that she was eighteen – that was easy, almost everyone else assumed she was – and she got a job at Earl’s wearing black minis.

I met her on the first day of honours math. She wasn’t good at it, but she wanted to impress Chris. I let her copy down all my answers during quizzes – she wouldn’t have ever talked to me otherwise. I was shy, fifty pounds overweight, and couldn’t hold a conversation. Being the Bug-Man’s daughter didn’t help. But she needed a math tutor to pass, so I started to come over on weeknights. She got a kick out of getting me to identify the species of spiders that were in her apartment. Thought it was cool that I could pick them up with my bare hands to take them outside.

I squinted through the window. She gave the cashier a wad of twenties, took the change and stuffed it into her mini-shorts, and carried the white bag outside, bottles clanging.

She smiled and held up the bag.

“I can’t believe you just did that.”

Her smile widened. “I know.”

A black pickup pulled up in front of the store, Chris in the passenger seat. Montana ran over to his side and yanked the door open. Kissed him on the mouth.

I stood on the sidewalk, held onto the piñata, and since I was staring anyway, waved to the guy driving.

Chris had his tongue in Montana’s ear. The driver barked something to them, and they got in the backseat. He rolled his window down.

“If you’re not too grossed out to sit in the passenger seat, it’s free now.”

“Thanks.” I sat down and shoved the horse between my feet. The driver had dark wavy hair that came to the nape of his neck, and was wearing a grey collared shirt rolled up his forearms. He had a sleeve of traditional tattoos. Sparrows, bannered hearts and nautical stars. Pin-ups.

He put the truck in reverse and turned onto the highway. Turned on the radio to drown out the smacking sounds from the backseat. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Sam.”

“She’s my math tutor,” Montana yelled. I heard a seal break from behind me. The smell of tequila wafted forward.

“I prefer Sam,” I said.

He laughed. It was warm. Comforting. “That has a nicer ring to it.”

“Who’re you?” I asked. Felt my cheeks go hot.

“I’m Alex. Chris’ older brother.” He pulled up the turning signal.

I nodded and fiddled with the vent on the dashboard.

He followed my gesture. “I like your bracelet.”

Surprised, I took my hand away from the vent. It was hemp, interwoven with beads, feathers, and a jackalope charm. “Thanks. It was my mom’s. She used to have a shop downtown.”

“Oh yeah? Which one?”

“It had lots of artisanal stuff. Jewelry, paintings from local artists. Wolves with hooves, geese with Pomeranian tails, that kind of thing.”

My dad was a weird mixture between an artist and a scientist. Maybe that’s why she liked him.

“Was it on Leon?”

I looked up sharply. He had dark eyes; his pupils were almost the same colour as his irises. “Did you know it?” I asked. “It was called Gilligan’s.”

“Like the island, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I remember it. The walls were painted with fish and bubbles.”

“Yeah, she had a thing for the ocean.”

He looked at my bracelet again. “And jackalopes.”

I smiled. “Right, jackalopes.”

“My shop is right next to it,” he continued, eyes back on the road. “It’s a sushi place now.”

I went down Leon sometimes, even though Dad didn’t like it. There were a lot of shopping carts, sleeping mats, and panhandlers. But I felt closer to her, even if the sign wasn’t there anymore. There was still a shadow of a large capital “G” underneath the logo of a maki roll. I ate there, sometimes. Pretended that she was still there, wearing a full-length skirt and hair extensions. She would take my hand and tell me about Kelowna’s emerging artistic talent. Show me which pieces weren’t for profit. Try to convince me to work the register while she beaded glass onto hemp string.

Then I’d finish my veggie tempura, pay, and leave. Remember the clumps of hair on the bathroom sink, the lingering smell of bile.

“Your shop. It just says ‘Tattoo’ above the door, right?” I asked. It was nondescript. Black lettering stencilled straight onto the stucco.

“Yeah. Hey!” he yelled at the Jeep in front of us. Jammed his fist onto the horn.

I pressed into the back of the seat.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” he continued. “I thought about calling it ‘No Ragrets,’ but it felt too cliché.”

“You could always add a subtitle.”

He laughed.

Montana stuck her head through the partition. “I forgot to show you.” She shoved her wrist in front of my face. It was inflamed, but a new tattoo was there. A tiny pink heart, outlined in black. “Isn’t it cute? Alex did it for me yesterday. It only took like ten minutes.”

“Cute,” I echoed, not knowing what else to say. I imagined it stretched, wrinkled and old.

Alex looked at me again. “If you ever want to get any work done, I’ll give you a great discount.”

I looked at his tattooed arm again. Felt like a child.

Montana’s apartment was terracotta and brick, with seventies wood panelling. She had a lumpy brown couch and a TV with only half of its screen working. An old Friends rerun was on, but only half of Chandler’s face was showing. Uncomfortable with the number of people who had shown up already in her small apartment, I went to the kitchen on the pretense of getting some water.

“Sam,” Montana called through the bar window. “Can you start the margaritas?” She was filling the piñata with Lindor chocolate truffles and the booze miniatures.

“Sure,” I said. I had no idea what was in a margarita, except that they were pink, and sometimes green. I plugged in the blender.

Alex came in behind me as I inspected the bottle of margarita mix. “Need any help?”

“Uh, sure.” I wasn’t sure why he would want to. There were prettier, shorter, drunker girls in the next room.

He went to the freezer and brought out a bag of ice. I hadn’t noticed before, but his fists were lacerated and bruised.

“What happened to your –”

Through the bar window, Montana screamed, “I forgot! We have nothing to whack this thing with!”

“Don’t worry,” Alex said, and left to get a baseball bat from the trunk of his car.

May

I’m at the gallery again, looking at a half-moulted damselfly that Dad and I caught seven years ago. It was clutched to a cattail stalk, and just starting to uncurl its abdomen from its old exoskeleton. Now it’s brown and shrivelled, but when it first emerged, the new form was green as a plant shoot.

My ribs ache from my last tattoo-removal session. There’s still a faint outline of a “W,” but the doctor said that my white blood cells will do the rest. They’ll carry the smaller ink particles to my liver.

“Sam?”

I look up from the display case. It’s Marianne, one of the gallery’s curators. She and Dad dated for a while – she used to come over for Sunday brunch and late-night Scrabble. I fiddle with my bracelet’s charm.

“God, I didn’t even recognize you.” Her face is wrinkled now, curly brown hair streaked with grey. She looks concerned, excited.

“Oh,” I laugh. “Pilates.” I leave out the hours I’ve spent leaning over porcelain.

“That would do it!” she exclaims. Her hair bounces, and her horn-rimmed glasses slide down her nose. “Which studio do you go to?”

I laugh again. “It was really nice to see you, Marianne, but I’ve got to get going.” I squeeze her arm. “I’ll come by sometime soon. Maybe we can do coffee.” The words are involuntary. I have no intention of following through; I’ve already bought my plane ticket, and my bags are almost packed. I found a decent apartment in downtown Vancouver, and there’s a coffee shop nearby that has agreed to do an interview whenever I arrive.

“Sure, honey. Tell your dad that the gallery isn’t the same without him.”

I straighten the strap of my purse over my shoulder and walk out the big glass doors. Dodge the hornets’ nest and the suspended black and yellow insects. The old angry words.

Last July

Alex was tattooing a wasp on someone when I first visited him at the shop. He hovered over the man’s neck, pushing the tattoo machine back and forth in short lines. His dark wavy hair hovered over the work. He wiped ink and blood away once every few strokes. His black gloves looked painted on.

The walls were covered in holographic images, spray-painted canvases and penciled portraits. I turned around to go back outside the moment I heard the buzz of tattoo machines. Montana needed help studying trig more than I needed to talk to a guy I had a crush on.

The receptionist called me before I made it to the doors. “Do you have an appointment?”

Alex looked up. Wiped his hair away from his forehead with a tattooed forearm. “Oh hey, Sam! Give me a minute – I’m almost done.” Push, push, wipe.

The receptionist gave me an anxious look.

I browsed the different display cases filled with metal bars and colourful plastic tapers, spiral wooden earrings and navel barbells. I pictured my unpierced earlobes stretched and droopy, pinned to the foam underneath the glass.

“Hey.” Alex was next to me, eyes on the Hello Kitty-stamped barbell I was looking at. He smelled like metallic ink and cologne. “What are you doing here?” His dark eyes were playful.

“I’m not really sure,” I admitted.

He laughed. “That was my last client.” He looked me up and down. “Hungry?”

“Sure.”

He opened the door for me and grabbed my hand.

Last September

Alex’s apartment was white. Sterile, purposeful, full of angles and sharp edges. His charcoal sketches were hung on the walls in neat rows behind identical black frames and museum-grade glass. Three inches apart on each side. He had a leather couch, hardwood floors, chrome appliances, and a large television. A queen-sized bed, bedside table, shaded lamp, and dresser in the other room.

I had been there for two weeks, and hadn’t been home in four. Dad was frustrated that he couldn’t be out in the field; he could hardly get out of bed and make it to the gallery with his bones grinding. Stacks of used clothing, mounting paper, embalming fluid and medication towered over him from every side. Half-empty bottles of bourbon and calcium. He hardly noticed when I left or came back anymore, and the food in the fridge was rotten. I was sick for three days after I ate a ham and cheese sandwich. I lost five pounds and figured I was onto something.

I stayed with Montana for the first two weeks until I couldn’t handle the loud sex or the smell of old vomit and beer anymore. She gave up trying to graduate on time, and she and Chris wanted the place to themselves.

I came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my head, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. The leftover water droplets on my face were cold in the air conditioning. Alex liked the chill.

He was on the couch, sketching a pinup with long wavy hair and face painted to look like a sugar skull. She was wearing a tight corset with Frangipani flowers decorating her hips and hair.

“She’s pretty.”

He smirked. “I’ve been inspired lately.”

“Cute, but she looks nothing like me.” Add another forty pounds and a face of freckles. Then we could start comparing.

He put the sketchbook down. Grabbed me around my hips and lowered me onto the couch. The towel came undone, damp strands of hair unravelling onto the leather.

“Does too.” His chest was reassuring against mine. His fingers entwined through my hair. He bit my lower lip, pulled away and let go. “Staying home?”

I was already going to be late for English. Wasn’t planning on going for History. “I was thinking that I might go see my dad.” I doubted he had eaten anything all day; I could stop at McDonalds.

He sat up and looked at me. “Don’t you want to spend time with me?” His eyebrows were creased.

“Of course I do.”

“No, you don’t. You just said you want to leave.”

I sat up, brushed the damp strands out of my face. “Why are you getting so upset?”

“I thought you only needed me.”

“I –I do. But he needs me. He's all alone in that crowded townhouse, surrounded by dead insects and broken picture frames.”

“There must be something you need that I'm not giving you. Tell me what you want, Sam. I can't read your mind.”

I didn’t know what to say. Alex still had that pained look on his face. I didn't want to abandon him.

June

The gallery isn’t the same without him. Marianne’s voice rings in my head to the tune of the bus’s high-pitched whine. The skyscrapers of downtown Vancouver flicker past in muted colours, metal and glass. I haven’t seen anyone since I moved. Didn’t even speak to Alex before I left. Freed from isolation, I have new skin, lasered and thin. Moulted.

A small, strange green insect steps across the window in front of my vision. At first, it seems like an apparition. It’s too bright. No native vegetation would be able to disguise it.

I reach for my phone and dial.

“Hello?”

“Dad, it’s Sam.”

“Sam?” he asks. “Where are you?” He sounds slurred, but not incoherent.

“I’m on the bus. I’m looking at a really weird insect. It kind of looks like a stink bug, with a shielded body. But it’s green. Bright green, like an apple. And it has pink petal designs around its abdomen. And small. Almost like a ladybug.”

“Hmm.”

“Dad?”

“Mm?”

“Do you know what it is?”

“It sounds like a nymph. Maybe a southern green stink bug. But that can’t be right.”

“Southern as in South American?”

“Mm. I don’t know what it’s doing way out there.”

I pause. “Me either.”

“Come home, Sam.”

The stink bug continues to walk across the glass. A middle-aged man spots it, and his thumb starts to move toward the glass.

“Stop!” I yell, and reach in my bag for my leftover Tupperware container. It still smells like thousand island dressing. I nearly feel the lettuce coming up again. I wipe it out with the bottom of my blouse.

The man looks at me like I’m out of my mind. I don’t care. I tap the insect into the container, close the lid, and place it at the bottom of my bag. I hope it will be okay until I get home.

I lift the phone back up to my ear, but nobody is there.

The bus stops, kneels, and a woman with a stroller gets on. It’s Montana, blonde hair dyed greasy brown. She’s in a faded pull-over hoodie, face covered in acne. I didn’t even know she lived here. Maybe she moved out here to be with her sister.

“Transfer, please.” Her baby shrieks.

Before she notices me, I collect my bag and stand up. She probably wouldn’t recognize me, but I don’t want to take the chance. I blend into the crowd by the door, and get off the bus.

I’m on Robson. Tall buildings filled with boutiques and cafes are on either side of the street. The sun is bright, and reflects off the windows like mirrors. I decide to catch the next bus at a stop a few blocks down. I wish I wasn’t wearing heels.

As I pass a Starbucks, a woman in jeans and a white leather jacket approaches. Her large sunglasses make her look like a praying mantis.

“Hi there,” she says through a tight, bleached smile. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

I hesitate a second too long.

“Have you ever considered modelling?”

I can’t help but laugh. “No.”

“You’re really beautiful, you know that?” She rifles through her bag.

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Here. Take my card.” She hands it to me, simple text on a white background: Margot Sheffield. Prima Model Management.

“Call me if you’re interested.” Margot walks away, stilettos clicking on the pavement.

Last October

Alex had been in bed for fifteen hours. He and Chris were at the shop last night tattooing drunken messages on each other. Chris dropped him off this morning and shoved him onto the bed. Showed me a new rabbit tattoo on the sole of Alex’s foot. It was warbled, with broken lines and incomplete shading.

I shook my head. “At least nobody will see it.”

“It was for practice,” he said, adjusting his baseball cap. “If I get good enough, he said I’ve got a job.”

“That’s great.” I’d never known him to have a steady job. Nor did he have artistic promise.

“Yeah. Well, see ya.” He gave me a sour, stubbly kiss on the cheek and left.

I spent the day watching TLC and going through one of Alex’s sketchbooks. A row on the bookshelf was full of them, identical with black covers.

Bored, I got a glass out of the cupboard and filled it with cold tap water. Drank half, filled it again, and walked into the bedroom. Alex grunted. I put the glass on the bedside table and snuggled up behind him. Breathed in his hair and tucked my nose behind his earlobe. His shirt was damp despite the chill.

“Alex,” I whispered.

Nothing.

“Alex. Wake up.”

“Mm.” He grunted and rolled over.

I left the bedroom and went to the kitchen again. Grabbed a leftover box of pizza from the fridge and ate three cold slices at the kitchen table. Still empty, I went to the cupboard and grabbed a box of double-stuffed Oreos. Went back to the kitchen table and ate two rows. Peeled each one apart, grated the icing away with my teeth, and crunched through the rest.

I went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. Adjusted my top and pinched my sides. I lifted the toilet seat and kneeled. I didn’t even need to use my fingers anymore.

Something in the garbage can caught my attention. A dark-coloured cotton ball, and underneath, the black numbers of a syringe.

Last November

Alex was sketching on the couch again. I slipped out of my heels and manoeuvered behind him, wedging myself between him and the black leather. I put my arms around his neck and peered over his shoulder to get a better view.

He stiffened and shrugged me off, taking the charcoal sketch to a different cushion. The white paper was indented with harsh, black lines.

He didn’t look up. “It took you a while to get back.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my tone even. “I was at my dad’s.”

His fingers were black, and the charcoal crumbled under the force of his strokes.

“Look, Alex. I don’t need to justify seeing my dad. If I didn’t go over there once in a while, he would survive on potato chips and booze.” I was frustrated. Feeling bold.

He looked up, eyes blazing. They were dilated. A layer of sweat covered his skin. “I don’t think you went over there today.”

The accusation took me off guard. “But I was.”

His eyes glazed over, and stared too hard at a spot on the couch.

I leaned over to look into his face. “Are you okay?”

“Why would you lie to me? Don’t you care about me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Do you think I don’t know where you go? I’ve seen the way you look at other guys, wearing your new slutty clothes.”

“Excuse me?” I had to buy new clothes; the old ones were too big for me now.

“I think I feel more alone now than I ever did.”

I should have left right then, but I thought I could talk him down.

“I’m here with you,” I insisted. “I don’t want anybody else.”

He whipped around, and I felt his hand slam into my jaw.

Face first on the opposite end of the couch, I was too stunned to say anything.

“I thought you were different,” he was saying. “You’re the same.”

He had been explosive before, but never violent. I had never felt like I was in danger.

I stood up and started for the door.

He jumped in front of it. “They should know how much of a whore you are.”

“Who? What are you talking about?” I wiped one of my cheeks. My hand came away black with mascara.

He grabbed my wrist. Dragged me into the bedroom. I tried to grab onto the doorframe. Slipped. “They should know,” he repeated, voice broken. Over and over again. He threw me on the bed and ruffled through a nearby duffel bag. Came out with a pot of ink and his tattoo machine.

He forced my face into a pillow. I couldn’t breathe. I screamed and thrashed, tried to get a hold of the bed frame, but he was strong. Heavy.

I was dizzy. The cotton pillowcase was wet and salty. My lungs screamed for oxygen. Blackness was closing in on my vision. I tried to pry his hands away. And then nothing.

*

When I woke up, my ribs felt like they had been ripped into by a dull box cutter. The back of my head ached like I had been hit again. Maybe I had been. The tangy smell of him was all over the bed sheets. The shower was running, and the tattoo machine was still plugged in, thrown to the floor.

I felt my breath coming in short gasps, and put a hand over my mouth to stop. I needed to get out without him noticing.

My shirt was on the floor in a heap, torn at the neckline. I slipped it on, winced as I stretched. My pants were still on.

I tiptoed past the bathroom. The steam underneath the bathroom door met my bare feet. I grabbed my heels and purse in one hand, and glided the door latch open with the other. Pulled on the knob. The door creaked, and the shower curtain skirted open.

“Sam?”

I ran down the hallway, gasping before I was out of breath. Took the staircase, the concrete cold on my pounding feet.

I reached the bus stop just as the bus pulled in. Dropped some coins in the slot and sat in a seat next to the window. Curled into a ball and buried my face in my hands.

Fifteen minutes later, I looked up and pulled on the yellow cord. Got out at the next stop.

I was in front of Dad’s townhouse. The grass was un-mowed, and metal legs of the pink flamingo lawn ornaments were bent, their beaks hidden in the foliage. His rundown SUV was parked in the driveway.

As I walked in, I smelled booze and something rotten. I heard the Gilligan’s Island theme song in the next room, Dad humming along. Picture frames filled with mounted butterflies and moths were crooked on the walls, piled with weeks of dust. An insect graveyard. Piles of boxes were everywhere. Broken lamps, books and clothing.

My wrist throbbed where Alex had dragged me.

I snuck past the room and went upstairs to my old bathroom. My shirt was stuck to the wound, plasma and blood staining the yellow fabric brown. In the mirror, bruises on my jaw and neck were forming, pink circular splotches. There were ten of them, but I could only see the thumbs.

I took my clothes off, wincing as the fabric separated from my skin. The word was encrusted with blood and unwiped ink.

After showering, I padded down the carpeted hallway to my bedroom. My bed was covered in newly acquired thrift store items. I found a set of pajamas, locked the door, cleared a space to lie down, and slept for two days.

*

Dad didn’t know I was there. I stepped out for groceries once I woke up, using a twenty I found on my dresser. Milk, eggs, cereal, antibacterial liquid soap, gauze and medical tape. I’d seen Alex do aftercare on new tattoos before. It wouldn’t be hard to replicate. I made sure to wear a long sleeved shirt and a scarf.

Dad walked into the kitchen, confused at the smell of fried eggs and buttered toast. “Morning,” he said. It was four in the afternoon.

“Hi. I cleared out the fridge. Half of it was expired.”

“Oh. Thanks, kiddo.” His blue eyes crinkled through his round spectacles.

“And I figured out why it smells weird in here. When was the last time you took out the trash?”

“I thought I just did it.” He laughed. “Your mother used to do it, you know.”

“Yeah.”

We sat at the kitchen table in silence. Crunched toast and scraped metal on porcelain.

I knew that I should do this more often. Make meals, dump out booze. But I couldn’t stay here for long, nor did I want to. His E.I. would only cover so much, and the thought of being in the same town as Alex was stifling.

August

Prima Modelling Management is in an office that looks over Robson square. I stand against a cold, white wall, shoulder to shoulder with twenty other bikini-clad models. We’re all about the same age, eighteen, nineteen. Two scouts pace in front of us, pointing now and again. They jot notes on a clipboard like scientists.

“Uh,” Margot, the scout who gave me her card, gestures to me. “Samantha Cowen?”

I straighten and nod.

“Turn for me?”

I turn to the side.

Margot looks to the other scout. “Isn’t she editorial?”

He agrees. “Very distinctive. Kate Moss, almost.”

I feel the other girls stiffen beside me.

“Not quite as waifish, though.”

“I’m sure she can work on that. Can’t you, Samantha?”

November

I’m at Dad’s, sweeping rat feces into a dustbin.

“How you doin’ in there, Sam?” Marianne calls from outside.

“Fine,” I answer, but it’s muffled through my mask.

We’ve been hauling boxes and bags out of the house for two days. Dad is outside on a lawn chair, Marianne beside him, sorting through bins and trying to figure out what is most valuable to him. He can’t keep it all, but he wants to. He keeps finding Mom’s old stuff. Clothes, photos, old medication. Marianne is on edge, but doesn’t say anything. She keeps sorting, every few minutes taking off her mitts and wiping her hands with Wet Ones. There’s no snow yet, but everyone is in parkas.

I pour the contents of the dustbin into a full garbage bag. Haul it over my shoulder and set it by the entrance. The kitchen is cleared out, and no longer smells like rotten food. That’s good, because my weak stomach has already been put to the limit today. Above the table, my green stink bug nymph hangs in a tiny picture frame. It only lasted a couple of weeks before I had to mail it. I thought it would make Dad happy, but it’s hard to look at.

My throat constricts, and I make a beeline for the door. Zip up my sweater and tear off my mask. I grab the garbage bag and throw it all into the dump truck. Stare over the side until my stomach settles.

Dad and Marianne wave me over.

“Hey, kiddo,” Dad says.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you all day!” chimes Marianne, glad for the distraction. “I was looking through Vogue this morning, and guess what I found?”

“Oh,” I say. Try to muster up some laughter. “Did you see it?”

“You bet I did!” She leans over and retrieves the magazine. Kate Winslet is on the cover. “Go to twenty-four.”

I take the magazine and flip to the page. It’s a Givenchy ad, three models posed with their mouths parted and delicate hands splayed. I’m the one on the left, head back and body turned to the side. I’m in a white dress, backless with slits going up my bare ribs.

“Now this,” Dad says, “is a good scarf. I have to have this.”

“No you don’t, Ron. We already have a box of them over there.”

“Where’s my drink?” He stands up and hobbles back inside.

“This is one for the scrapbook,” Marianne says, pointing to the magazine.

Or maybe it’ll be one for the wall, next to the stinkbug nymph and damselflies. I’m tired. Tired of being someone’s voodoo doll, stuck with needles and pins. I wish I could break the glass and free all the insects in the hall. That they’d flutter out, tap away on their hairy legs and skinny feet.

There’s a chunk of broken concrete at my feet. I pick it up. It’s heavy. The edges leave chalk smears on my hands.

I hold on to it, grab the magazine, and follow Dad into the kitchen. Take his keys from the kitchen table. Dad’s SUV is reversed into the driveway. I’m in the driver’s seat before anyone notices. The magazine and chunk of concrete are on the passenger seat.

The engine rumbles as I turn the key. I’ve never been behind the wheel, but it can’t be that hard. I rev the engine. Try both pedals. Nothing happens. I look over to the shifter handle. It’s resting in the “P” position.

“Where’re you going?” Marianne calls.

“Stupid.” I ram it back into drive and press a pedal at random. My chest hits the steering wheel, and the horn blares.

I try the other one, and the car takes off out of the driveway and onto the street. I know the rules of the road, sort of. I stop and look both ways. Try not to speed.

My heart pounds, and adrenaline pulses in my ears. The jackalope charm on my bracelet twinkles in the sun. If she were still here, she’d be in the passenger seat.

Dad and Marianne are waving from the driveway. They didn’t make it very far trying to stop me.

I take the back roads, get accustomed to the sensitivity of the pedals. Look over my shoulder every few minutes for cops.

Downtown, I stop the car in the middle of Leon. I’m next to the sushi place, can still see mom’s faded “G.” All the shops on the street are closed, lights out.

There’s a permanent marker in the back seat. One of the thick, wedge-tipped ones. “24,” I squeak on the magazine’s cover. Try to think of a simple phrase to go with it, but put the cap back on. There aren’t enough words.

I wish I had some kind of scandalous note with allegations, offensive photos of some kind. All I have is the magazine. Proof that I’m here, almost thriving. Maybe he’ll relive it, even for a moment, like I have been for the last twelve months.

After ruffling through the glove box, I find one of Mom’s old hair elastics. I curl the magazine around the chunk of concrete and fit the elastic around both.

I get out of the car and hear a cacophony of beeps and horns. I slam the door shut and plant my feet like I’m in middle school track, wielding a discus. With all my weight behind me, I fling the package through Alex’s shop window. The glass shatters, and the concrete block skids over the hardwood floor, bringing November air in with it.

A pedestrian screams, and I hear a siren in the distance. I wipe the leftover chalk on my jeans and get in the car.