A once in a lifetime event occurred recently for Rori, the current me. I went to school. Lately I've been way too busy trying to keep my girlfriend happy while also trying to get work done quickly. I’m at the point where I go in maybe once a week, and even then, only on Fridays when I have the most periods free.

It’s not like I was screwing about in the senior common room, I couldn’t go there for fear of running into somebody I knew. Either a friend of Rori’s, or Emmet O’Hara’s.

Hey, I can give you my name, can’t I? It’s a little late now, but, Emmet is my real name. Yeah, I’ve said that all this writing is so that someday, someone might know what I've done, but it was never my intention to get attention. Sam is someone else's name, and I'm too tired to cook up another identity. So on the off chance that somebody is reading this, and they get the notion that I'm somebody they should look into-

Stay the hell away from my family. Stay away from my town, my people, and if you aren’t just a second worlder, my island. If you’ve read this far, then you know that I’m not going to take shit anymore.

“You will not pass this subject! Your current work output is abysmal and that, Emmet, is not reflexive of your talent.”

I sat in school uniform staring up at Mrs Art from my wheeled office chair. My silence signified shame and that I agreed... No, the truth is I just didn’t want to get into it.

She was rushing out of the art store room where I was allowed to work, “I understand that you have an interest in textiles, which were very well displayed last year, but you can’t do that, not at the start of the year. You need to do sketches, build a portfolio, research relevant artists, and most important of all, you need to centre your work around a theme; ideas and artistic expressions. There needs to be a point to it. You can’t just mindlessly sew away.”

I blinked off into a nod, “Yes Mrs.”

She scrunched her face up, pushing a smile up and her brow down. It was a sort of passive-aggressive, condescending expression. She was a fair person, unlike my other teachers she had yet to make any harsh threats regarding my attendance. Still, her face and actions told me that she herself was not a person who enjoyed her job, that she was living life on repeat. I’m sure she loved the idea of the job, but in practice it was misery, running after a bunch of no-good kids all day every day.

“I’ll try,” I half promised. She wasn’t really listening to me anyway; with that same unseeing smile she was gone through one of the two doors that led to the room. I looked after her for a moment, reflecting on what she said, realising it was right, and then going straight back to sewing.

The sewing machine makes a racket, but I've always had a childish love for the jittery feeling it gives off, it leaves your hands feeling mechanically massaged, if that makes sense. Right now, I wasn’t working on anything meant to be worn, it was more a mock-up so I could get used to the fabric and see how the seam would look.

I was sewing together an expensive dark green fabric that I had bought with drug money I stole. I suppose it’s kind of fitting that this dress be made and bought with dirty money. Afterall, it’s for Clover.

I’ll repeat again, if somebody reads this like two years from now, and you try and contact any of the people I'm talking about I will change your life. If you send any of the lame ass things I've said about Clover to her, I’ll die.

I haven’t been keeping in touch with her over the last couple of months, getting involved with Tayanita is one reason, another is my guilt. For lack of a better word.

Clover would lie to me anyway. Our relationship was becoming more open, but as the people we had both been, it would never have worked. Neither of us could admit to the other that we had superpowers and had literally gazed upon eldritch realms, which is sort of a big thing in a person's life you know?

If I told her who I really was... what do you think her reaction would be? Something I've learned from lying is that people do not like it when the truth finally comes out. It is better this way, to wait until I am a stronger man and she is a more independent woman.

I have TGFMACJ checking her, it seems there really isn’t a limit to how far Gurl can see, but it takes a while for her to pinpoint the location. Clover is currently in the Cairo gulf with Feoli, and a bunch of other Mountain folks. Gurl says their doing just alright. Work wise they’ve set up relief efforts as well as strengthened the Mountain’s position there. Otherwise, Clover and Feoli are always arguing, they’ve gotten into trouble with some other units stationed there, as well as monsters that Tayanita missed.

Ghosts mostly. Gurl screamed out loud when she saw it.

Now that I think about it, thirty people died here on Valentine's day and only one ghost was born from it. I won’t do the math, but a hell of a lot more would come about from the deaths of over ten million people.

I try not to think about that, but I can’t help it when I'm sewing. The machine just rattles away while I think about the girl I like being forced to fight drowned phantoms of unfortunate souls whose lives have been ruined by some unknowable facet of the world.

What the fuck am I doing? Trying to seduce a monster hunting crime boss into giving irrefutable evidence of her involvement in mass arms shipping so that she can be imprisoned for it while running myself ragged searching for leads on the American drug operation trying to weasel over here in Belfast and Clover’s absence?

Two months and what I got?

The sewing machine just burrs away, the sound working its way through my ears.

You know, kids have started to make fucking TikToks about ‘John Ireland’- if you want your face to wrinkle like a corpse, go ahead and look it up. I wish it was just five year olds with paper masks, and graffiti and memorials, and the police swarming about Tralee looking for me, but no, people dress up like me for fun and do stupid dances for internet fame while I’m getting shot at, bulldozed, lit on fire, and a hundred other things.

Do you know how fucked it is for the world to think your dead and the first idea most of them get is to paint half their face green and the other half bloody and swollen as a memorial all while shaking their hips to some dumb song?

Worst part is, I haven’t a damn clue while this time was different! The ignorance effect seems to have half worked, they don’t think I have powers or anything, but they still acknowledge me, still know me as the person who resolved ‘Black hole’.

It makes me grind my teeth while I sit completely alone in this store room. That after everything I've done in my life, that is how I will be known and remembered. As a big green joke, when I'm a fucking murderer.

The thought had been on my mind for the last couple of months, but I've since grown numb to it... I’d prefer to say I'm defiant to it, even now. I will not be a joke. When I die, people won’t post shit on the internet, they’ll just be sad. They’ll think the world just got a little worse. I want to be good, regardless of the shadow that follows me.

A creak came from the door and my heart jumped. I gave my head a dull shake, trying to wake up and deal with my teacher.

“There you are you son of a fucken’ bitch!”

I looked up and to the voice. My face remained as cold as before, if not freezing over.

“Hey Mullet,” I groaned. To which he replied, “Don’t give me that! Where the hell have you been? I haven’t seen you in a month!”

I raised an eyebrow, “You must be devastated.”

Mullet hissed out his teeth, “No, I couldn’t give a shit personally, but you’re depressed without me so, here I am.”

Depressed without him and psychotic with him, is what I thought.

I tried to be fair with him, “It’s cool that you’d... show concern Mull, but I’m good. If that’s all, then you should get going, Mrs Art doesn’t let people outside her class in here.”

Mullet grinned, “A-ha, your double wrong. Tell me you smelly depressed bastard, you still in touch with Saoirrrrrr- Clover?” I batted my eyes, and oddly enough answered honestly. “No.”

He nodded, showing just a faint insignificant speckle of wisdom, “She was your best friend. You and me Emmet, we both lost somebody in Belfast. Well, she dumped you or whatever, so it’s nowhere near the same, but like I said, you relied on her because you didn’t have anybody else. You’ve got me now. Meaning, I am your best friend.”

I was dumbfounded. Stupidly I strung a thought together, “I mean... Mullet, we went on a trip together, sat beside each other last year, but you don’t even really like me all that much.”

He broke any sort of solemn mood that had been built, nodding stupidly, “True, true, You’re nowhere near my best mate, everybody knows that’s Aaron from Ballinorig, he’s the man. I’m your best friend, because I'm your only friend, yeah?”

Honestly, it was a stupid thing to say. But he’d been right before...

“I’m friends with TGFMACJ,” I said. It wasn’t exactly true, but I hung out with her a lot more now, but only for ‘work’. Despite everything she’d done, and what I failed to do for her and Adonis, we’re friendly enough. We do joke from time to time... but like always there’s an unease over us. Still better than Mullet.

“Uh, dude, she’s a girl.”

I waited for him to expand on the point, folding some fabric about. He seemed confused that I hadn’t caught on, “Boys and girls can’t be friends.”

I snorted out my nose before realising he was serious. “You and Clover were friends Mullet,” as I said that he smiled deviously. I rose from my seat, “I’m gonna kick your ass now.”

He wasn’t afraid at all, just laughing me off, “Alright man, sure. I’m just being honest, I looked at her ass a lot in that biology class.” I ground my teeth and he moved on, “Didn’t you fancy her anyway? The girl from your art class? You know, before Adonis got her.”

I scoffed at the idea, then my face mortified, “What the fuck are you saying?” I glared at Mullet, my blood boiling, “Now that Adonis is gone, I should just swoop in? You fucken sicko.”

Mullet wasn’t smiling, “He was my friend Emmet. More than yours.”

He was quiet for a moment. I joined his silence for a second.

“Like...” he tried to think, “On paper its fucked as all hell. In reality it’s just nature. Your both animals who lost a lot, and you need support like that or you’ll go crazy. You don’t need to think of it as profiting from somebody's death, just as helping her get over it.”

My mouth hung open dumbly.

“I’m not hurt,” I said with certainty, “Clover’s still alive, I just let her go.”

If it was just the usual state of affairs, me getting my as kicked, failing to save the people close to me, then I would have moved forward like always.

But I killed someone.

“Sure, you let her go,” Mullet shook his head, “What’s stopping you from going on a date with the Girl? Other than... you.”

It was approaching the point of over sharing now, “I have a girlfriend. Not Clover, another one.”

Mullet did not believe me, “She hot? You got a picture?”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Fuck it, I thought, he went through Belfast, he knows I had to fight a giant fish woman.

He’s a second worlder, so either way he was going to get into trouble. I figured I might as well tell him what was up in Emmet’s life so he could steer the other way for once. Shamrock had hurt him enough.

I pulled out the cracked phone that Clover had given me, showing him a pic Tayanita sent me post-workout. He frowned cartoonishly. Mullet opened his mouth to speak looking for the words, “This is some sort of rebound situation dude. Ye know she’s a drug lord right? Like Clover kept it really well hidden and all, but anybody who goes to the Quarter knows that Taytay...”

Mullet bulged his eyes as if to tell me telepathically. I asked him, “Aren’t you the guy who said he’d go for any woman? Shit, back in January, didn’t you say that I should go to the Quarter for a pint and get a woman?” I smiled as he tripped over his words.

“Okay, okay, she’s hot, yeah, tan skin, silky hair, tattoos that emphasis her ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude’, she’s ‘one of the boys’, she’s got a fine ass- and abs I guess- and she’s definitely a freak in the bed-” He nodded over all of that, “- but she’ll fucking kill you.”

I folded my arms a dull smile on my face, “On our little trip to Belfast, every girl there seemed to want to kill you.”

“Emmet,” he said.

I didn’t look him in the eyes. For some reason I didn’t want to lie to Mullet. Or maybe it’s that I didn’t want to lie anymore. “I’m going to take her out. Like, take down her operation.”

Mullet rolled his eyes back, “You’re a fucking Shamrock wannabe. Of fucking course you are!”

I considered it for a moment. First, I tried to lay out a reason for why Emmet might want to do this, “She works for the same boss as Clover, if I take Tayanita down they might send Clover back home.” The excuse came to me so quickly I wondered if it was an actual hope I had harboured. If it was- is- then it’s misplaced.

He glared at me, “You mean you want to be John Ireland? What you gonna do, pull some action movie bullshit? Yippie ki-yay her into jail?”

Mullet pointed a finger, “You know he killed someone right?”

There was a twitch in Mullet’s face as I said, “I knew people he got killed.”

Mullet choked for a moment, “A little after Black hole they found a body off the shore of the River Lagan. He fit the description of the drug guy that tried to kill us. Fuckers better gone, but do you really want to look up to the guy that put him down? Its like the saying, there’s always a bigger shark.”

I wanted to say that I wasn’t a shark, that I was just a man trying to keep the ocean clean.

“That’s just a better reason for me to handle things like this, if I sit back and let things happen his way, John Ireland’s way, then people will die, when I can-”

Mullet folded his arms, encouraging, “What.”

“I can just make it stop. We can just live in peace again.”

Mullet, for what it’s worth, tried to be delicate, “I know you’re not going to understand, but these aren’t the sorts of people who’ll ever stop. Their tenacious, vain, and above all else, they believe in themselves way too much. I’m talking about Tayanita, John Ireland... Clover. Me.”

“You know that I'd never stop looking at other girls not even when I'm married, I'm just that much of a horny bastard. Oh, by the way the weddings in March. Or it might have been April, I don’t know Iggy’s handling that stuff. Anyway, yeah, don’t get any more involved in this shit than you already are, trust me, I’ve had to put up with enough of their crap.”

For that I was truly sorry, but now was not the time to say as much. “Am I invited? Seeing as I’m apparently your best friend.”

He didn’t laugh at my joking, Mullet instead straightened himself and proclaimed, “I will except the responsibility of being your best friend, but I will not go out of my way to hang out with you. You wanna talk, you come to class jackass.”

I looked at him while he was walking to the door, thinking about why he went out of his way to do this. I grabbed at my arm, the one that Sruthan had used her power on briefly. It always itched now.

‘Come to class’, Mullet said. I felt he must have been concerned when I stopped going to school, and that’s why he came looking for me.

And then he stopped at the printer.

The machine beeped as he punched in a code, I asked what he was doing and he said, “I told you didn’t I? I came here for two reasons, because there was a slight chance you might be here, and because this is the closest printer to my class.”

He looked away from me, shuffling the sheets of course work that came out. I nodded to myself, of course I was just a stop in the road. You know... Tayanita is a killer, but at least she seems to like me. Even if it is a fake dick head version of myself.

Mullet was about to go, but he called back, “Seriously, come to school, I need somebody I can talk about black hole with, even just a little. Izzy makes it about prods and catholics and the British- I just want somebody who understands how fucking insane it was. You fucked up that fish monster right?”

I feigned confusion, “I don’t know if I'd call her a fish, but yeah I beat up a big woman. She poured acid on my arm or something.” I took off my blazer and rolled up the sleave of my shirt. Mullet came over to look at it, “Shiiit. You should get that tatted. A dragon or something, that’d be bad.”

I gave a laugh, slipping my hand over some green fabric on accident, the sheaf rolling of the desk in front of me. I turned to tend to the mess I'd made when I saw what was revealed by it.

The mask I'd worn when I fought Belfast was sitting in the box I keep my fabrics in.

I looked up to Mullet. He was looking down on it.

He was quiet for a moment. “Oh,” he said, “You already made the mask for the John Ireland bit huh?” He didn’t seem to mean the words as he said them, but I gave a firm confirmation, “Yes, yeah, I thought I might as well do that bit- cause I can you know.”

“It’s accurate,” he said without joking.

I nodded quickly, throwing materials on top of it again, “Thanks. I got a good look at him when I was making my way back to the hotel.”

He nodded. A part of me told me he wasn’t convinced though the story made sense. “Don’t go around wearing that thing, you know what the cops are like nowadays. You fit Shamrock’s build perfectly.”

I shake my head, “You keep calling him Shamrock, I thought John Ireland people called him Junk Monkey here.”

“Sure do. I hate the guy, least I can do is remember his name unlike the rest of them,” He sighed, forgetting it, “I’ll see you in biology.” He didn’t look back as he passed. I took a breath when I was alone again.

I looked to the pile of scrapes, under which lay the remaining half of my ask. In the fight with Belfast it had gotten torn and I never came around to repairing it, actually I'd maybe a couple dozen other masks but was never content with the shoddy fabric. The Schism mask was of a high quality, the cops were probably looking into purchases of highly durable green fabric online, but neither was the main reason.

I simply didn’t feel like putting it back on. Don’t get me wrong, I still wear the rest of the costume plus a balaclava mask, but I've just let the face I once loved sit in a box.

I closed my eyes, gripping a fist. I snatched at the pile of materials suddenly, throwing them to the side, then I grabbed the mask. It was tossed aside like nothing too. Hidden beneath all those green fabrics I had kept it.

A second letter from Schism.

Normally I would have left something like this back at my cave, but it was something that shouldn’t be left unguarded, especially since I hadn’t read it yet.

I held the red envelop in my hand staring at the blank side furiously. With a wince I turned it over.

‘Concerning the one person who has ever loved you, truly.’

If it were only. Schism isn’t the sort of man I can trust, not after black hole.

He reminds me of a loan shark, the one my mum owed money to. He gave us a couple months' rent, to warm us up to him. My mum knew better than to trust a man like that, but she couldn’t do better. She had no one but a whiny little kid.

He was nice to us. As nice as sharks are. He offered that we do favours for him, that I make deliveries and he be allowed my mum, that, or he’d be back for blood.

I knew what was going on, the walls were paper thin after all. They gave me little tasks to do for them, dirty work. When we had nearly paid off the debts, he calls me over. Usually, he’d give me drugs hidden in a toy or ball, this time he gave it to me straight.

When he handed me the little bag, he said it was a reward, a bag of sugar meant for me and not my mum. He said he’d show me how to take, like I hadn’t seen my mum do it before.

I held it like I held the red letter. I’m sure there was some reassurance to be taken from either object. It was a warmth at the end of a long day, something to make life just bearable... and it would be the catalyst for their control.

I nodded meekly and accepted it. It struck me then that that was the first time I had actually handled a drug- I‘d shoved stuff over on the kitchen counter, but I'd never owned it before.

At age eleven, I opened a baggy of cocaine and scattered it across the wind.

I told myself that I would never belong to anyone. That I wouldn’t make the mistakes my mother had made, and that I would never be put in that position again.

Here I am. Still running drugs, scattering them to the wind and the process repeats despite my best efforts.

I tossed the letter back in as my art teacher came through the door, “Working well Emmet?”

“Yep, yep, absolutely,” I smiled and nodded, but that only made me feel worse.

If I'm a good person then how can I lie about everything so easily?

The door closed as my art teacher got what she came for.

“Hey,” a voice startled me, and I turned to see the girl from my art class, who is also the girl from my amazingly crappy job.

She was usually around here as well, but we agreed not to talk any more than we would have before black hole.

“Gurl, wait,” I spun around in my seat to see her setting up an easel in the opposite corner. My mouth hung open and my brow was furrowed.

“Inch beach. I need you to search it.”

She checked to see if anyone was nearby, “Is Feoli back in town? She liked that beach.” So did Adonis, I remembered, and Samantha Burrows.

“This is something else. I need you to look under the dunes for a cavern.” I had visited the beach awhile back, but hadn’t gone digging. I never told TGFMAC about it, why would I?

I told her now because I was feeling desperate.

She looked to the west for a moment, her arms folded. “Is it big?”

“I don’t know, I never- I don’t know what it looks like. I’ve been told it’s a church.” Despite my encounter with the Negative God I did not remember Sam. For all I know it was lies, for all I know, it was just some malevolent part of my power trying to cause me pain to overcome adversity. Either way, it mattered.

I wouldn’t take what Schism or any other false god was offering me, I'd find it on my own.

“I don’t understand. Is this something your girlfriend was talking about?” I tried to think of an answer, “It’s something dangerous. Something that you shouldn’t be involved in. And you won’t be.”

“How many enemies have you made?” she joked; I didn’t answer. “Fish, robots, mountains, cities, China, oh and gods I guess.” Her grey eyes teased, “And that list is getting longer, and longer. And longer... It’s worth it though, right?”

“There are monsters out there that are your natural predator,” I reminded her, “If a roamer came for you and I wasn’t here, you’d be chow.”

“Ho, ho!” the girl laughed, “Whatever you say boss. I’m under you.” Some days she was Gurl. Other days she was distant, like a shadowy version of the quiet girl from my art class. Gurl said “You haven’t slept much. Sometimes when I'm up late I watch you on the job. I saw that time you got run over by a fucking bulldozer, that made me laugh like crazy, and I had to make something up for my parents. We were watching that Jeffery Dahmar documentary-”

“What’s your point,” I said in Rori’s tone.

Her smile faded. Now the girl said, “You don’t have to be a paragon to be a good man. Adonis did bad things, but he did just as much good. He gave money to charity, he got a new van and wheelchair for my little brother-”

“I’m not a paragon,” I interrupted, swatting the thought away, “I’m using drug money now too. You know what I did in Belfast.”

“Listen for a second. I was your enemy for a while, I learned you. You could have built bonds and made compromises with any of those groups, and they might have respected you, given you the space you need to do actual good.”

I walked in front of her, forgetting what she was doing. Gurl stared straight through me as I said, “I do not compromise. Look around, the country has been free of enemy units for months. Before black hole, there was a new fish or wizard every week, I’m finally free.”

Her eyes twitched over the distance, “It’s the calm before the storm, you don’t need x-ray vision to see that. The Ints and Bastards are probably prepping right now to take us. Maybe for whatever you think is under the dunes.”

She spun away and got to painting.

Angry I whispered, “What did you see?”

“Nothin’,” Gurl said, “Without knowing what I'm actually looking for, I can’t really find it. Like I can’t see air. Maybe it’s not there, or maybe it’s magic.”

She made a ghost noise and twiddled her fingers. I just stood grimmly.

“You’re going to run out of juice,” she went on, “A thousand normies over the two sleepless months is probably equal to the ten or so Units your enemies are going to send here. I’m not good at math, but that’s about right.”

“You don’t get it,” I curled my fists. “I don’t get tired. I’m fine- great. Your lazy ass might see this as an opportunity to relax, steal a bunch of cash and have fun, but for me this is a parting in the clouds, where I can do what I want to do. Fix this country.”

She went quiet again. I knew she thought it was stupid.

I made yet another promise, “I’m not going to die. When I do, your smart enough to join up with the Mountain or the Ints. I’d recommend the later. I hope they are coming, saves me having to find a way to cross the ocean to get to them.”

“Why,” she stressed, “why do you care so much about people miles across the world?”

I made an effort to unclench my fist, “I care because nobody else does.” I thought about it, “I know your sticking with me for protection, but what do you actually want?”

She sighed, and for a moment I couldn’t tell who she was.

“I wanna be free,” she painted bright blue onto the canvas, “I wanna be free to do what I wanna do, regardless of who it hurts. I can see everything, but I can’t reach because I'm only human. Do you know how frustrating it is for me? I can’t do anything, I can’t hold onto what I want but you can take whatever you please, go where ever you want.”

I saw where she was going with this, “I can’t go anywhere. The oceans in the way and I can’t swim.”

She was getting annoyed now, “Oh yeah! You can’t swim but you can teach yourself how to climb up walls on nothing but your fingernails! It’d take you a fucking day to learn. You know what I really want? I want everyone to be free. You should do what you want to do, if that’s living out some hero fantasy, fine. But no, your sitting here on your miserable ass, trying to torture yourself for putting down a rabid dog!”

“Quiet down,” I commanded, “we’re at school.”

She didn’t listen, “Go to England and fuck up that golden eyed prick. Go to Egypt and spend time with your girlfriend. Do not waste your youth getting with a woman you’d sooner punch than fuck.”

I let her vent her frustrations, and when she was done I said my piece.

“You’re right.” I admitted, “I'm not happy like this, never have been. A lot has changed over the years. I’ve met a lot of incredible people, seen incredible things, and I have imposed my will on the world to great effect,” I thought of the police officers now patrolling Kerry, searching for me and worse.

“Do you know why nothing changed until Belfast?”

She did not answer.

“Because I never changed.”

She shuffled about, “Trust me, change isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

I nodded, and started away, “I know. John Ireland killed someone. Shamrock never got anything done. I’ll try Rori out.”

I haven’t written in months. Do you know why I started again? Because this little meet-up on Halloween is something that needs to remembered, whereas I can afford to forget the tons of drug busts and all else.

Whether Rori works or not, I need to make note of the outcome. So that someday, I may become the hero the world needs.

I’ll see you in November.