“I keep thinking about my job.

About what I was chosen to do?

I’m supposed to preserve “The Balance,” but I’m constantly asking myself what that means or—to be honest—what did it mean?

I mean, yeah—yeah, I get it in sort of a macro, big picture, sort of way that there’s light and there’s dark. Ying, yang, can’t have too much of one versus the other and all that jazz.

But that’s what keeps throwing me for a loop, right?

Okay, so I get that life is just, like, basically a mix of good things and bad things.

I do.

I totally get that a perfect misery-free life just can’t exist and that runs true for the exact opposite.

Basically: life is just one significant compromise.

Got it.

Compromise is the status quo…

That realization hit me pretty hard because the status quo is essentially…The Balance.

So, like, my job was…to preserve the status quo, right? Make sure no one’s not too happy or sad, I guess? Bad things happen, and it’s okay because sometimes they…need…to…happen..?

Woof.

I mean, that’s pretty heavy, y’know? I don’t even believe in that kind of thinking. Like, I never have.

So naturally, I chafed against it and…

Well, I broke it. I didn’t necessarily mean to. I was just trying to forge my own way, y’know?

But it happened all the same.

And I think: no big deal—I’ll figure it out.

I keep getting told that I’ll have to figure it out.

And a part of me is totally, totally, like…maybe this is better for the universe?

As I get older, my issues with determinism fall into focus pretty quickly and become hard to square with what I wish were true versus what I think is true.

But I keep seeing some scary shit out there.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Excerpt from the private logs of Roxanne Belmonte

The twin moons of Izanami sagged low in the sky and kissed the horizon. Brachium, the system's main star, had just barely passed behind them both and signaled the end of what was known as The Long Evening. The Madrono City Prison blighted the otherwise magnificent countryside filled with thick trees and massive grasslands grazed by the local wildlife. Half-destroyed high rises hung around the foreground while a thick, dense jungle surrounded the river side of the city. Those, in turn, covered the outer walls—thick concrete slabs that went about a mile high and reflected against the river water.

The air out here riverside was dense with dime-sized flies called Senetas. They were deft little bastards with fuzzy purple abdomens and a 3-inch wingspan; they were an enticing target. A pair of copper hands slapped at them because it was muscle memory; Leon hated bugs. And god, was it hot as hell. The sweat pooled on his forehead and formed huge droplets streaked down to his thick white eyebrows before resting there until the next volley.

The flies were native to Izanami and feasted on necrotic flesh, human or otherwise. Leon stood at the lip of a pit, three feet deep but stacked six feet high with bodies. It was obscene. He chewed absentmindedly on the butt of an unlit cigarette. Some of these corpses had to be three days old at best, just going by decomposition. Others were clearly older; he shuddered at the thought of the ones at the bottom…no doubt in his mind that they were liquefied. Leon took the butt out of his lips and spat at the ground after a loud throat clear.

“You say you saw the law come by here?” He croaked behind him. Leon’s voice was rough, like a bag of gravel. He found it hard to take his eyes off the pit. The freshest bodies had dried blood caked around their noticeable orifices: eyes, ears, mouth, and more.

“Yeh,” said a voice from behind him. It belonged to a 12-year-old boy named Joyo. He was covered in dirt and wore no shirt, but at least he had cruddy jeans on.

“Couple of them were arguin’, heard one of them say these people were sick.” He pointed at the pile.

Leon spit again, then tossed the butt down the pit. He nodded to himself as this explained much as far as he was concerned.

“This river feeds into the drainage, don’t it?” Joyo asked. “I thought it did.”

“It do,” Leon replied. “People think it’s airborne, but with this…man, who the hell knows?” People had started getting sick in the city a few weeks ago, the strangest thing. Spread so easily and rapidly that Leon had to stop free travel to and from the town and say no to outside packages from any sympathetic party. The guards employed by the Izanami Central Government also stepped up their game and, to their credit, allowed medics in to look at the infected. It wasn’t entirely selfless, as it appeared only to infect OverHumans—which, in all honestly, was not good news for a place that served as a prison for them.

Infected people in the city died the same as the saps in this pit. It wasn’t shocking to see how the ICG treated the dead, not in the least. There was nothing but OH trash here, so who could care? Leon found their indifference likely and utterly not surprising. Still, some of the bodies in this were older than just a few weeks. Clearly—at least to him—they had been dumping here long before the first reported case.

“They wanna kill us,” Leon muttered. He felt a cool fluid slide out his nostril and travel over his thick lips. Leon wiped at it with the back of his hand and bright red blood smeared across cracked knuckles. He knew enough to know that this was the first sign of infection. He felt his heart skip a beat. The damn problem with this virus was that it was impossible to tell how long you had been carrying it as you didn’t show symptoms immediately.

But when you did…

“Go on, get back home!” He shouted at Joyo before he convulsed. His brain ached and felt like it was cut in half; Leon started coughing violently, each one wetter than the last. Joyo hesitated but backed away quickly, lest he got it too. Leon contorted, muscles tensed past their braking point. He had never seen it get this bad so quickly. Most at least lasted a week before the convulsions and bloodletting started.

Leon found it progressively getting harder and harder to think. His ears felt full and silenced the world around him. He tried breathing some more and couldn’t as he gurgled up more blood from his lungs. The pit of fear in his stomach swelled, and his hands shot upward and grasped for a lifeline that wouldn’t ever come.

A moment later and he was still. His legs and arms were contorted and locked at odd positions while his body had curved into a pseudo-fetal position. The bodies under him stared at the sky. Brachium was alone, high and bright, and here for The Long Morning.