I stand before the husk of my father’s house.

At the end of a derelict asphalt road miles from civilization, spring storms ravage the unkempt rice paddies and overgrown gardens surrounding the humble estate of crumbling stone walls I once called home. Thunderheads beat the fields until they bow. Stands of wild bamboo creak and bend with dilapidated groans. Tempests whistle through the abandonment like air through shattered teeth. Rain drowns it all.

A cold breath passes between my lips while I stand unmoving at the foot of the driveway. In front of me, a downward slope of dark, broken tile ends at the estate’s stained outer walls and rusted iron gate. The remains of the house itself lurk deeper within the overgrowth. Rivers of rain pooled in the asphalt underfoot. My battered sneakers toe the muddy gravel. Another cold breath shudders out.

I descend and force open the rusted gate; my shoulders bowed by the storm, by the burdens I carry always in my mind.

I wander through the garden like a ghost, feet instinctively finding their way from stone to moss-covered stone. The pale glow I shed flickers and fades with every slow step. By the time I reach the foot of the collapsed front porch, my skin is as lifeless as wet stone.

A ruined, sprawling house in traditional village style, thatch roofs and square rooms and paper walls, yawns in front of me like an open tomb. The squelching of my shoes fades away, overtaken by the gentle roar of rain on the fields. I rock there on my heels, lost in a different time, a different life.

Three years since Dad died, and already the world conspires to wash away the last of his presence. Three years. Yet it hurts like he only left yesterday as I exhale and whisper,

“[I’m home], Dad.”

Nothing comes back.

The porch groans as I limp up the broken, uneven steps. Deep shadows welcome me under a fallen support beam and into the ruined entryway. I part the sliding front door with a jerk of my hands. Echoed memories of my younger selves rush past me into the house; a flood of ghosts that jostle and dodge as they shuck sneakers, chase after Thane, drop off groceries, pull out their JOYs, let themselves be swept up into the arms of someone larger. Every one of them laughing and smiling.

One by one they shove past me and disappear until all that’s left is me and the creaking house. And silence.

I catch my breath as I survey the darkness.

Curtains of rain cut through the wounds in the walls of the welcoming room. Small rivers drizzle through shattered planks overhead. Half the floor is collapsed into a jagged pit of debris. A long bank of cubbies for storing shoes and umbrellas covers one entire wall, stuffed with athletic tape and sneakers worn by smaller feet in smaller years. Each pair bright crimson red with a number markered onto the heel. The numbers count up from single digits to double before suddenly ending at the number fifteen, going no further.

The faded 16 on the heel of my sneakers splashes through another puddle.

Stepping gingerly through the collapse of the next door, I squeeze into the long, thin hallway that goes in a long square circuit around the entire house, stopping every few steps to nudge aside the wooden debris littering the way. I trace the devastation with a wistful, lingering gaze. Every knot in the ceiling an old friend, every turned corner a bitter needle to the heart. Wind moans through the wreckage. Crumbling keepsakes glint beneath the remnants of collapsed shelves. Framed photos on real paper, their ink blurred by rain and their moments dripping across the wooden floor. Trophies, tournament medals, travel mementos. A spilled linen basket, the rotted remains of a chessboard. Lapping, lapping against the shores of my memories.

Even a stranger could feel the sadness of this place. Grief is etched into every grain of it. Grief, and the horrible longing for something that can never be replaced.

I slow as I approached the corner to the eastern wing. A lump grows in my throat. But my feet keep moving on their own. Dragging me forward one morbid step at a time until I turn the corner and come to a stop at the threshold of a ruined bedroom. I stop there framed within the broken doorway, silhouetted by the grey light misting through an open window.

Everything is just as he left it. Open curtains flapping wetly in the rain. That empty peg by the door where his jacket always hung. A roll of griptape on the bedside table, a single earring and an empty mug of caf beside it. A wooden necklace of a kingpiece hanging from the lamp. Shoes under the bed. Clothes in the basket. Blankets still rumpled on the bed. Like he only just stepped out, and will be coming back to sweep me up from behind the moment I turn around.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

My whole body hitches up as I take in the room. But it’s no grieving cry rising in my chest. Eyes widening, I clutch up at my heart in panic before a second convulsion wracks me and I stumble back, falling into the wreckage in the hall. Hitching out airless, hiccupping squeaks. A crushing pressure tightens around my chest. I cough and kick out, trying to sit up. Fumbling for my JOY and tapping into my kinetic sense as the convulsions repeat begin to repeat.

All it looks like on the outside is simple hiccupping. Or crying, because of the sudden tears that track down the grime smeared over my freckles. Only someone who’s seen me have a feedback seizure before would know the sounds to be anything more dire. Dad’s empty bedroom stares pitilessly at me while I croak out another silent cry.

Then the door slams shut.

A callused hand rests on the latch. Muddy boots and a ragged black cape sweep down as Thane kneels beside me. He doesn’t meet my eyes even as he helps me up. Wordlessly, he throws my left arm over his slumped shoulders, bearing both our weights onwards in a hurried lockstep.

Ours is a raw silence. The wreckage around us, the quiet between us, the natural outcome of what happens when an unstoppable force reunites with an immovable object. Thane’s once-proud frame is bowed with exhaustion. Sharp cheeks hollower, skin smeared in muck and grime, dark clothes as torn and ragged as my skinsuit. Beads of rain cling to his full eyelashes. Drenched strands of black hair slop down one side of his face as he rakes them aside, already sweating again from the muggy spring humidity. But his eyes. Colored the purest shade of gold and riven by cracks of magmatic, emotional color, they shine with guilty intelligence as his gaze wanders the wreckage of my father’s summer home.

Another seizure of electric agony hits and my legs forget how to work, dragging us both to a stop. I have to fight to get my head up so I can point at the nearby washroom.

“There,” I gasp through chattering teeth. “The relaxers… in there.”

Scents of rotting wood assail me as we force our way inside. Slumping against the counter with Thane’s help, I claw for the collar of my skinsuit with my left hand, fighting the zipper down past my chest. I yank the shoulder down low on the right side, exposing the gleaming outer shell of my carbon fiber prosthetic. My fingers fumbled with the manual lock. Disengage it on the second try. Aware, all too aware, of the way Thane glances away as I struggle to get my arm out of the suit.

The nerve relaxants are right where Jolie always kept them; cabinet above the sink. I grabbed the first injector I touch. Pull it out with shaking hands, then check it with a light my JOY casts over my shoulder, making sure the purplish liquid inside is still intact. A wickedly long needle extends from the end of the tube. Tossing my hair to the side, I look up and nod to Thane in the mirror’s grimy reflection. Only then does he move closer and take the injector from me.

“Left shoulder blade, right behind the heart,” I grit out. “Then do it fast.”

He nods.

“Something’s wrong with it. The biocircuits…” Another seizure convulses through me; the feeling like barbed wire tightening around my heart. “…melted through. Too much ki. I think it’s fused to-”

Thane jams the injector into my back so suddenly that the needle tickles the back of my lungs before I even get a chance to gasp. Mechanical smooth. He injects the relaxer and pulls it out in the same fluid motion, tossing the spent cartridge into the tub.

One rough, callused hand grips my prosthetic high on the bicep. The other firms at the nape of my neck, holding me against the counter. No gentility. Just simple intent. Like he’s about to pop open a jar.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, deathly quiet.

I’m the jar.

My body shivers in fear. I grit my teeth and buckle down anyways. Breathing harder and harder through my nose.

“Yeah.”

Thane’s grip tightens and his hands jerk in opposite directions, ripping the prosthetic a half an inch out of my shoulder socket.

I gasp in sheer shock. I can’t help it. Then he rips again and my teeth bite into my tongue as I swallow down a scream. The taste of iron fills my mouth. The tears come anyways. Impossible not to cry when someone is grabbing up every nerve in my body in a fistful and jerking them till I tear apart at the seams.

My whole body contorts against the counter. Toes scraping, scrabbling against the wooden floor as my ankles arch and my legs spasm uncontrollably.

He rips again. The agony transcends words. Sensation melts away. Active thought dissolves. Everything in me tries to jerk away from the formless, shapeless pain devouring every neuron. I hear more than feel my own wordless cry morph into a throat-torn sound; not even a scream, just a wet choking noise.

My head hits the counter as Thane holds me down, bracing a boot against the wall for more leverage. Through glassy vision, I watch the quivering, silvery threads liking my half-disconnected arm to the shoulder like spiderweb strands. Bloody chunks of flesh drip off fibrous ropes of biocircuitry.

I wasn’t strong enough for Cal.

I can be strong enough for this.

My whole body shudders as I grit my teeth again.

“Do it,” I gasp.

In the mirror’s reflection, Thane’s face contorts in grim determination.

He rips again.