2:15 PM September 14th 2026

Museum of Unnatural Science and History Employee Housing

A beam of sunlight stabbed through Kyle’s eyelids, searing his weary eyeballs. Groaning in protests, the young man rolled over and grumbled. Or more accurately, he tried to roll over and gasped in pain. Why was his body screaming at him?

“What in the artificer’s heck was that? Why do I hurt so much?” He moaned under his breath.

It almost made him cry because the longer he lay there catching his breath, the more Kyle felt like the sunlight was burning his eyeballs inside his skull. It seemed like an hour of him gradually feeling the pain in his body fluctuate from sharp stabs to roaring aches to dull throbbing but was probably closer to five minutes. The lowering sun in the sky was also beaming more and more of its traitorous cancer particles through his window and onto his face.

As the minutes passed and consciousness returned, the warlock remembered what exactly he had done to make his body hate him so much. Monsters. Metal and false matter, flesh and bone flashed through his mind. One monster after another, sliced and diced, squished squashed, and squelched. In his hands. Under his boots. Bigger and bigger until the last thing screamed its unholy rage at him while the Wrath of Zeus spell rained down death around them.

Hazel eyes popped open in an effort to banish that horror from his mind. Then those eyelids immediately closed in reflex as the bright afternoon sunlight shone straight through his retina. Reflexively the young man closed his eyes and succeeded in rolling over, yelping through the agony as his abused muscles and joints protested. But at least he wasn’t seeing the nightmare memories of the prior day anymore. He fervently hoped that wasn’t going to be a recurring problem going forward.

Yesterday there hadn’t been time to feel what he’d been doing at the time. Sure, there was fear under the determination to rescue his sister. He’d even had a not so healthy dose of self-loathing that he was killing living creatures even if they were monsters. Killing had never come easy for him and was one of the reasons he’d avoided the military career his mother had so desperately wanted for him to follow in her footsteps. Kyle had felt so much guilt beneath the disgust for the evil manifestations trying to consume the life in his city.

Guilt for killing. Guilt for being good at it. Guilt for disappointing his mother when he was fully capable of doing the job she’d wanted him to do, just because he didn’t want to do it. Then more guilt for having to do it anyways after all the time the two of them had spent fighting over it. I’ll never be like you mom. I’ll never enjoy killing living things even if they are monsters. But he had.

Kyle loved magic. He loved it. He loved using it. Yesterday was horrible and he’d been terrified and angry, and disgusted, but what made him feel absolutely filthy inside his own mind was that he had been good at it. Casting spells of such magnitude and power requirements that they were colloquially known as mage killing spells? Kyle had murdered and danced his way through a city full of monsters, covering himself in splatters of flesh, and splashes of blood and despite the gnawing terror from the constant threat of death… he’d been good at it.

Shuddering painfully, he blinked tears out of his eyes. It was going to take a while to unpack all of that. And he wasn’t going to enjoy doing it.

“I made you breakfast.” A young, familiar, feminine voice spoke softly from over near the door. He turned his head gingerly in that direction. “And I rummaged through your cabinets for a healing potion since I wasn’t sure how you were going to feel this morning.”

She was wearing the spare pair of pajamas that Kyle kept in the guest room for her. It was pink with images of little cartoon cloud hopper rabbits and zigzagging lines of electricity printed on the fleece material. One of the buttons on the top was miss buttoned, illustrating how tired she must have been when she got to bed, and the hem hung unevenly exposing the drawstring on the loose-fitting pants. Kyle smiled and chuckled tiredly. That was so on brand for his baby sister.

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“Thanks Snow Cone.” He tried to get up, he really did, but in the end sighed in frustration and looked at his siter pleadingly. “Could you help me up? I over did it yesterday.” Anna’s face scrunched up in a giggle and for a second, Kyle was reminded of the happy chubby little cherubic baby she was so many years ago. Okay, so, maybe… just maybe, Kyle sometimes still thought of Anna as a little baby that needed to be coddled and protected.

“Sure.” She padded into the room in fuzzy slippers and set a plate of food and a cup of orange juice on the bedside table. Turning to face him, she leaned down and wiggled a hand under his shoulder. “On three, okay. One, two three.” She counted down in a voice that made it clear she was very amused that her big strong brother needed her help for once. “Heave ho.”

On ‘heave’ Kyle tensed his muscles to rise and pushed himself up with one hand while grabbing onto Anna’s shoulder for support with the other. Once he was sitting, Kyle gave his sister a flat look.

“Heave ho?” The warlock suspected that she was making fun of him somehow but hadn’t been able to quite put his finger on it.

“Yeah.” Came her innocent admission. “It’s what people say when they are working together to move big inanimate objects like boulders, stones, logs…” Kyle was certain that she would have gone on for a while if he had let her, but it only took a minute for him to get where she was going with her list.

“So, you’re comparing me to rocks and wood?” Taking the plate his sister picked up and then handed to him, Kyle waited for her answer while trying to not drop the food he desperately needed.

“Hey if the object-without-a-brain shoe fits…” She shrugged impishly and easily ducked his pained clumsy attempt to swat at her playfully. “See?” Anna giggled as she turned and grabbed the orange juice which miraculously had a straw in it. Where had she gotten a straw? Did he even have straws in his apartment? “You can’t even feed yourself after yesterday.”

“Point taken. Is the healing potion in there?” His sister held the cup for him and steadied the straw. As soon as he put his lips on it, he realized the straw was made from ice. Taking a few sips and swallowing carefully, Kyle savored the sensation of liquid in his parched throat. Then sighed as the pain in his body first burned with accelerated healing then receded to a dull ache.

“How did you know I was going to need a healing potion?” Finally able to support his own weight and hold the cup for himself, he took it and stirred the remaining liquid with the chilly straw. Melting liquid flowed over his fingers as he did, and he looked up at his little sister sheepishly when she didn’t answer. Her arms were folded over her chest and one eyebrow was raised inquiringly.

“Really?” A snort of disbelief left her lips. “You never use as much as you should because you have a neurotic paranoia about rationing potions. I bet if I go through the pockets on whatever coat you were wearing when you got home last night right now, I will find a half a bottle of unused accelerated healing potion.” She stood back and watched him imperiously as if daring him to prove her wrong.

“You’re not wrong.” Shaking his head ruefully, Kyle picked up his fork and dug into the eggs and pasta with a side of fruit salad.

“Eat up.” She turned and headed out of his room. “The water’s out, so you can’t shower, but I made enough clean water that you can do a washcloth bath. The bowl is on the counter in the bathroom when you’re ready.”

“Thanks, Snow Cone.” Smiling gratefully, Kyle started eating. He was still a little sore, but not so sore that moving felt like punishment. After he’d finished eating, the warlock headed to the bathroom to clean up. His clothes were stained with monster guts though thankfully the worst of it had evaporated as it had been from the false matter portion of the manifestations. Cleaning some of the muck and grime from yesterday off would be nice.

Stripping, he dipped the cloth into the bowl then yelped as the ice-cold water touched his skin. From his living room Kyle heard his sister’s tinkling laughter, Jones standing up in concern and then Anna explaining between sniggers that it was just the cold water. Peering at the water more closely, Kyle saw the little ring of ice around the edge and grimaced.

“Very funny, Anna.” Cold, and a little annoyed, Kyle summoned a heating spell. Whispering “Infernis,” he cupped his hands in the frigid water, shivering as he did so. Though the water chilled his fingers to the bone, they warmed swiftly as his spell took effect. Then Kyle swayed as his magic levels dropped swiftly. Belated the warlock he remembered that he wasn’t drawing on the magic from his pact and that magic levels inside his home weren’t sufficient for him to just do spells all willy-nilly. His shoulders slumped dejectedly.

“Getting used to being a regular warlock again is gonna suck!”