Take me to Arion. I willed the portal to open, and the bark began to peel away, revealing a small, glowing gateway. Taking one last hasty glance around me to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I stepped through. I re-entered the Grieving Gardens. Only now, they were deathly quiet. The children were gone. A soft nicker interrupted the stillness, and I turned to see Arion approach me. He set his muzzle against my hand, and I was glad for the kind greeting.
I jump and scream a little when my phone pings in the heavy silence. I let out an embarrassed chuckle as I grab the device. Seeing I have a text message from Arty, I slide my thumb across the screen.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Charlie came running into the room, tears streaming down her face. Her cute little blonde curls stuck to her flustered cheeks. She was my sun in this cold, dark world, the constant glow in my life, and the only reason that I stayed in this shit hole.
“As my partner has said, Mx. is my preferred honorific. It’s important to know who you’re addressing and also who is being addressed. I say this with the full weight in my heart that I am now addressing the great United States of America and the world at large as it’s first gender non-binary Senator!” A round of cheers and not a small amount of booing erupts.
A sharp pain hits me between the eyes, my headache returning tenfold. I squint as I place a hand between my eyes, my nose scrunching. I stand, opening them again as every child stops what they were doing and looks toward me.
“It’s what you like, right? What you are.” Alex stands, holding up the picture. “Ruin.”
I look around me and snort. How can I feel alone when I have two naked men and three naked women in bed with me? Each night I have been inviting a couple of people home with me to see if it can calm this strange dream I am having. It hasn’t been working.
I grabbed another drink from the shifty-looking butler as I made my way to the other side of the party. Derelict warehouse? Only one waiter? Whoever was in charge of throwing the event definitely sucked. It was like someone said gala, and they’d thought they meant apples, and still ended up bringing in Market Fresh.
I could almost feel the tension in the crowd as the first notes of the song began. I shivered with anticipation. I opened my mouth, heard the crowd inhale with me, and began. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop. I was addicted to the sensation.
Tipping my head back on my second drink, I caught sight of something interesting on the ceiling. Some kind of shadow? While looking up, I did a few of my patented three-sixties, admiring the decor and looking for the shadow, but I did not see it again. Maybe it was a loop stuck in my mind from when Nike had floated down moments before.
The lights dimming is the only warning we get. My grip on my wife tightens as I prepare to defend her. My eyes lock on the reflections of the mirrors surrounding us. The golden frames of each are carved with languages, runes, and fractures of religions and magic that are supposed to be dead.
She stood up tall and leaned her head back, letting out a scream so loud it could be felt. A small spark ignited on the tip of her nose, causing her entire body to burst into flames. An inferno of energy exploded from her chest. She had become the light she sought. She became the power that struck fear into others.
“I’m glad you asked me that question. I’m going to answer it with a question of my own. How much hate could a god or goddess summon if they channeled their entire existence into that one feeling? I don’t know how or why, but the anger and hate burned hotter and brighter than I ever felt from you.”
In the meantime, I’d stopped restraining my shadows. They’d been wreaking havoc. Imagine kids loose in a candy store. Now you know what my shadows could do. The news had been riddled with mysterious power outages and car lights having mechanical failure, all of which led to car accidents on the highways. But that was just child’s play.
As I stood over the frying pan, I asked myself the big question. How am I going to be spending this sentence of mine? If I was disallowed from working for a full seven days, I needed to find some other way to spend my time.
I am the hunger
The tooth and the claw
The black hole that’s spindle
And Reclaimer’s maw
New Beginnings 
A Reprimand 
The Secret in Silence, Part III 
Interrogation Doesn’t Break Ice 
Stealing A Moment 
Making a Mark 
When It Hits The Fan 
A Goddess Down 
An Explosive Mystery 
