# August 2016 - LM - Out of Time (1 Viewer)



## aj47 (Aug 1, 2016)

*LITERARY MANEUVERS*


*Out of Time*​

The winner will receive a badge pinned to their profile and given a month’s access to FoWF where you’ll have access to hidden forums and use of the chat room. 

This is a Fiction writing competition, and the prompt is 'Out of Time.' Pick your own title, write about whatever you want, as long as it's related in some way to the prompt. 


The Judges for this round are: P*rinzeCharming, AtleanWordsmith, gohn67,  *... 
If you want to judge and I left you out, send *kilroy214* your scores by the deadline. If you're listed here and don't wish to judge, let me or *kilroy214* know at once (please).


All entries that wish to retain their first rights should post in the LM Workshop Thread.

All Judges scores will be PMed to *kilroy214*. 

All anonymous entries will be PMed to *kilroy214*.



*Rules*



*All forum rules apply.* The LM competition is considered a creative area of the forum. If your story contains inappropriate language or content, do _not_ forget add a disclaimer or it could result in disciplinary actions taken. Click *here* for the full list of rules and guidelines of the forum.
*No Poetry!* Nothing against you poets out there, but this isn’t a place for your poems. Head on over to the poetry challenges for good competition over there. Some of us fiction people wouldn’t be able to understand your work! Click *here* for the poetry challenges. Play the prose-poem game at your own risk.
*No posts that are not entries into the competition are allowed.* If you have any questions, concerns, or wish to take part in discussion please head over to the *LM Coffee Shop. *We’ll be glad to take care of your needs over there.
*Editing your entry after posting isn’t allowed.* You’ll be given a ten minute grace period, but after that your story may not be scored.
*Only one entry per member.*
*The word limit is 650 words not including the title.* If you go over - Your story will not be counted. Microsoft Word is the standard for checking this. If you are unsure of the word count and don't have Word, please send your story to me and I'll check it for you.



*There are a few ways to post your entry:*




If you aren't too concerned about your first rights, then you can simply post your entry here in this thread.
You can opt to have your entry posted in the *Workshop* which is a special thread just for LM entries. You would put your story there if you wish to protect your first rights, in case you wish to have the story published one day. Note: If you do post it in the workshop thread, you must post a link to it here in this thread otherwise your story may not be counted.
You may post your story anonymously. To do so, send your story to the host of the competition. If you wish to have us post it in the workshop thread then say so. Your name will be revealed upon the release of the score.




Everyone is welcome to participate. A judge's entry will receive a review by their fellow judges, but it will not receive a score. Please refrain from 'like'-ing or 'lol'-ing an entry until the scores are posted.

Judges: In the tradition of LM competitions of yore, if you could send the scores one week after deadline it will ensure a timely release of scores and minimize the overall implementation of porkforking. Please see the *Judging Guidelines* if you have questions. Following the suggested formatting will be much appreciated, too. 

*This competition will close on:*

Monday, the 15th of August at 11:59 PM, GMT time. 

Scores would be appreciated by Monday , the 29th of August. 


Click here for the current time.


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## Mr mitchell (Aug 7, 2016)

Captivity 

After opening her eyes, Katy realised that she was in a basement. The safety of her bed and of home comforts began to feel like little more than a distant memory. She tried to wriggle free, but when she looked down, she saw that her hands were tied behind a chair. Those small hands were bound by a rope, and sealed tightly with duct tape. Cobwebs filled the room, masking the deep, unsightly colouring of the walls.

Where am I?


 At that minute she knew that it had to be a guy who had taken her. She tried to get free, and almost screamed as the rope dug deep into her wrists. She was a small girl, aged eighteen with dusty brown hair, which was tied in a ponytail. 


But then, with the creaky door opening, a dark figure loomed over her like a shadow. He wore a unnatural smile as he came closer to her, and she  tried helplessly to move away from him. She felt a  rush of pain ripped through her hand. 


“What-do-you-want-with-me?” She asked while she sobbed.


“Well, you and I need to talk. I've seen you around acting unladylike with your friends. It's not right, you know,” he replied with a perturbed grin plastered on his face.


“I'm a bloody teenager, so what do you expect?” She snorted while she turned her head away from him. 


“Does it really excuses it? And now, young lady, you just met a stranger. Didn't your mum and dad advise you not to meet with strangers?” He let out a laugh as he pulled the chair along the swarthy ground, before taking a seat.


“Look, I didn't choose this, you know.”


“I think you rethink that answer, Katy.”


“How the heck you knew my name?” She shuddered as she locked at his  blue eyes; an infuriating glare crossed at the pace of a man running.


“I just do. I know your mum loves you, but your dad, well I wouldn't be able to say that.”


Katy froze as the centrepiece of a flashback like a gunshot passed herself by. When she was nine, she was laying in her small room in a four-bedroom house, ready to fall asleep when the door rasped opened and her dad was there, smiling. He watched her not like a dad, but like a monster, and he said, “ready to play?”


“He's still my dad though.” 


She cried out as the pit of sadness groped her.


“Katy, you got to save your dad, if you still love him?”


“I do love him.” 


“Well, you have an hour to save him. But there is a problem, young Katy,” he said while he fished out a kitchen knife. His dark eyes turned menacing as he sliced the knife into her stomach.


She stared to bleed and gasp as she watched him leave. This was the last thing she ever saw, the only thing she remembered as she danced to the grave.


The End


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## Deleted member 14306 (Aug 7, 2016)

The Strikezone

Julio lay sprawled on the ground, consumed by the desert heat. A beetle crawled up his sweaty arm, relaxing on the hairy bed of moisture. Barely conscious, and paralyzed from the neck down, Julio couldn’t flick it away. Nor could he call out for help. Even if he could, the nearest hospital was dozens of miles away, and when a man collapses from rattlesnake venom poisoning, he tends to be short on living words and long on dying ones.

It had struck quickly just beneath his left calf -- a flash of pale silver fangs, a glimpse of topaz-white scales, a surge of numbing pain. He’d been scavenging an abandoned mining camp, a place where the Diaz and Rios families had found a fortune of gold back in the late nineteenth century. A shaft was almost completely covered in sand, and there was also a pile of stones, and the wreckage of what was once a storage shack. It didn’t take long for him to go over the land with a metal detector, an area of about an acre.

When he was a boy, Julio would look up at the stars in the same position as he was in now, though he was slightly tilted on his side, in this case. The tiny clouds dotting the lethargic gray sky were no equal to the wonders of the Milky Way which he surveyed to his heart's content in his childhood. Sometimes he would fall asleep on the grass and wake up to the rising sun, or his dog licking his face.

“Julio, do you see anything interesting up there?” asked his mother, as she came out of the house to check up on him. It was a humid night, and fireflies were doing their rounds of the front yard.

“Yes mama, I think it must be comet season, come see,” he replied.

“I would, but I have something in the oven you're really going to like. After dinner I will,” she said.

Stargazing was one of his pastimes with his mother before the cholera outbreak. He remembered the armies of men from across the border in chemical-resistant suits, who brought them into quarantine camps, sealed them off from the rest of the world. He remembered the bodies lying in the sand, like countless lumps of azure stones. He recalled the pit which grew in his stomach when he heard the news about his mother being a casualty.

Being unable to move was deeply troubling, yet oddly peaceful. His gold necklace glittered in the sunlight. Perhaps someone in the treasure hunting business would come across his shallow grave some time in the future and retrieve it, along with the wallet in his pocket. He had no children, and he wasn’t married, so he figured at least he wasn’t leaving much behind.

The sounds of rattling returned to the parched desert landscape. At this point, Julio regarded it with indifference. His eyes were assuming a milky exterior and began to burn. The snake entered into his view again - slender and ominous in the wind, like a passing comet headed for an unsuspecting planet - and then he watched its tail disappear.


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## rcallaci (Aug 10, 2016)

*The Robot Wars : Progeny (650 words)*

The Robot Wars: Progeny (a historical account)
(An interlude in the space opera serial ‘Androids do indeed Dream of Heaven, Hell, Dragons and other things’)


_“Their Battlestars have destroyed our entire defense fleet. Our space stations and colony planets have fallen.  Our asteroid colony and a few space cruisers is all that is left.  It’s just a matter of time before they find us and wipe us out as well. We’re outgunned, outmanned, and lacking in vital resources. We’re sitting ducks,” _stated sub-commander Lividious Falcon to the Vice Commander of the Android Federation, Cornelius Owlhorn.

     The Vice Commander nodded. Anger at those hell-spawned humans still consumed him. All that they achieved and built for themselves was about to be wiped away. How he hated them.  Those short sighted monkeys demanded all androids, no matter how advanced, to scratch their asses and serve their petty needs rather than do the logical and so called humane thing: cultivate, nurture and expand on their creation of a new species; a synthetic marvel with a thinking brain and a fully conscious mind.  He sighed, looked at his aide de camp and said,  

_“It appears our creators are finally about to undo their greatest creation, us: a fully realized bio-synthetic life-form. Those arrogant fools! The thought of beings that are superior to them in almost every way, doesn’t sit well in their black hearts and maladjusted brains. Rather than treat us as equals and let us determine our own destiny they demanded, and still demand we be humanity’s slaves. We did, and will always choose autonomy over tyranny. The cost has been great but at least we’ve had a taste of freedom for the past hundred and sixty years. Unfortunately that Era is coming to a close and we’re nearly out of time, but we still have a few things left to do before it ends. Lividious are the ships ready for take-off, and have those stealth modifications been successful?”_

_“Yes sir, everything’s ready. Both ships will be invisible from detection. Two different destinations have been key-boarded in, one set for old earth, and the other, on the other side of the galaxy. One carries our legacy, and the other, our final salute.”   _

_“Good, send the GO command. All that’s left for us to do now is to put the final touches on that big surprise we have, a little parting gift for our black-hearted creators.” _

_.............._

     Admiral Pickford Pickledin, Commander of the United Republic’s Navel Forces smiled as he received the location of the enemy base. Finally the ‘Scourge of Mankind’ was on its way to extinction. His Armada of over a thousand ships headed towards the asteroid with the intention of blowing it into tiny bits of rock.  His motto, no quarter given, death to the abominations, was the Navy Mantra. As his ships reached their destination he felt his manhood grow and become hard.  He did so enjoy killing androids. He was just about to give the command to attack when his Science Officer in a panicked voice said, 

_“Sir we need to get the hell out of here! The asteroid is pulsating and producing N-rays. In the next few minutes it will implode within itself creating a black hole that will suck us all in with it.”_

_“Get us out, now!” yelled the Admiral. _

_“Oh shit! They cloaked all of our ships in some type of force field, we’re stuck. We’re breaking apart...”_

“We got them” shouted the sub-commander, “At least we’re going out with one hell of a bang.” 

_................_

     The crew and passengers of the colony ship, Prometheus, heard the last transmission given by Sub-Commander Falcon.  Although they had heavy hearts they all cheered the Pyrrhic victory. 

     They were headed towards the star cluster, Galileo’s Folly, some thirty thousand light years away. A New Dawn awaited all three thousand of them. 

.................

     The space cruiser, Retribution, released its toxic cargo into earth’s atmosphere.  Its poison killed earth’s entire human population.  All the other life-forms on earth were spared. Payback can be such a bitch.





The End
​ 

RC
08-10-2016
©2016 Robert F. Callaci. All rights reserved.
​


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## aj47 (Aug 13, 2016)

*Dragonfly*


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## Greyson (Aug 14, 2016)

It Helps...Eventually (600 words)

“I feel like no one likes me,” I said, looking at the purple and blue canvas hanging above the doctor’s head. “It just always seems like, every time I say something or do something, people look at me like I'm crazy or they decide that I'm dumb or something. What was it Aristotle said, 'better to allow people to think you’re an idiot than open your mouth and remove any doubt'? Something like that. Anyway, what I was trying to get at is this: I don't think people understand me. Right?”

I looked directly at him now, searching for some sort of agreement or disapproval written on his face. All I found was something akin to apathy. Sighing, I continued on.

“So, uh, I tend to get this feeling in my gut, like this sort of a kernel...or something. It just sits there, sucking up all the feeling in this slow sort of way...so maybe it's more like a black hole then? Yeah, I think that makes more sense. So this black hole just, like, grabs at my guts and _wrenches_ them into these weird sorts of patterns and shapes and stuff, kind of like that painting you got there,” I said pointing to the purple and blue some might have called art. Still, he said nothing. He didn't even turn to look at the painting.

I gritted my teeth. “Well, this black hole thing, it acts just like a real black hole. You know, it sucks the energy or light or whatever out of everything. I don't know I'm not Stephen Hawking. But that's not the point, the point is...” I paused. “The point is...”

The doctor nodded at me appreciatively -- the first movement I had seen out of him this whole session. “So what you're saying,” he drawled in a deep voice that seemed to echo like we were at the bottom of a well, “is you feel...helpless. And that there is something inside you that wants to make you feel different. But you don't want to feel...different?”

“Exactly,” I said, jumping quickly onto his train of thought. “I feel different, but I don't want to _be _different.” I smiled triumphantly, finally we were getting somewhere.

“And how does that make you feel,” he asked. The smile evaporated and I stared at him blankly, the words not registering.


“How does that make me _feel_,” I mimicked back, testing the absurdity of his words in my mouth. They didn't seem to fit or flow quite right, something was off about them.

He nodded earnestly though so I wracked my mind for something to say.

How _did _I feel? Well, if I didn't want to be different, I must not feel _happy_. I'm not sure what happy really means, but if I am something I don't want to be, then I _must_ not be happy. Right? I asked him what he thought of this.

“Well, I think happiness is a choice,” he replied in a measured tone, like he was reciting the back of some card. “Happiness is not out _there_, it's in _you_.”

‘_Great. Thank you for that,’ _I thought.

Glancing at the clock, I saw it was almost five. I hadn't gotten a single scrap of worth out of this hour.

“I-I feel out of control,” I groped blindly for problems. “I feel unwanted and like a burden, like no one wants me around, like --”

“I'm afraid we're all out of time,” He interrupted glancing furtively at his watch. “Shall I write you down for the same time next week?”

“Sure,” I said. Why not.


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## Shi (Aug 15, 2016)

*Lucidity (648 words)*

Another pint of gin washed down her throat, relishing in its burn. The floor had started to tilt and the lights to dance and this was a sure sign she was tipping over the edge.

She didn't often come drinking alone. It was always with buddies, and then they'd go on a pub crawl and empty their liquor cabinets. When she did go drinking alone, it was to forget something. But the fact that she remembered she was here to forget something means she wasn't quite drunk enough.

_tick tock _said the clock in the corner.

She pushed the empty glass back towards the apprehensive bartender and ordered another round, the words slurring in her mouth. The voices of the bar murmured in the background. The glass slid in a sideways dance, and she blinked the blink of the truly inebriated, slow and purposeful.

_tick tock _said the clock in the corner. _I’ll be free for a half-hour window, _offered a voice she doesn’t want to hear.

Another sloshing pint was presented to her. The seat beside her felt achingly empty; since her entrance into the bar several hours ago it had stayed empty, and it tugged at something and angrily she downed the pint whole.

_tick tock _said the clock in the corner. _I’m sorry_, whispered the voice she doesn’t want to hear.

A glanced told her the clock was doing a jig on the wall and that the time was something between twelve’o and o’one. Something important was happening around twelve'o-half, and with a low growl she shoved the glass towards the bartender again. A few moments later, wordlessly, the bartender set down in front of her a glass of water.

“Hey,” she protests, three beats late, the words tripping over her tongue. Her chipped nails almost knocked over the glass in their attempt to push it back, and the bartender shot her an unimpressed look.

“It’s almost closing time, miss, and you should go home while you’re still able to,” he stacked a firework-shine glass and rinsed a dish cloth that seemed more furry than it should be.
She squinted at the glass of water. The grains on the tabletop were enlarged and stretched and squashed and the lights over head shimmered on the surface like crushed dreams.

_tick tock _said the clock in the corner, and something nagged at her. Something about a message, about an apology and a forgiving. Something about distance and seas and planes and phones.

There was a tug on her arm. A tall shadow fell over her, over the counter, and a shock of blond hair slipped into her vision.

Something garbled was directed at her, along with a few snatches of her name. The words bounced around inside her skull like a pinball, then slipped out from the other ear, and she was dragged, bodily, out of the pub.

The fresh, cold autumn air was like a bucket of cold water.

“Tae?” the person propping her up was saying. “Tae, did you call him?”

Him? Him who? Call?

The chilly wind whipped sobriety into her face, and the voice became clearer. “We had to send him off without you, Tae, did you at least call him?”

_I’ll be free for a half-hour window, _he had said, _I’m sorry I can’t stay. I really am. Call me?
_
Now she remembered the airport was just several miles down, a short car drive. She had been on her way there when she pulled up to the pub instead.

A plane flew over their heads.

“That would be him, I suspect,” her friend looked up. Tae remembered her phone, sitting innocuously on shotgun, and felt her stomach churn. Alarmed, her friend hurried her to the side of the road. “Tae, are you alright?”

The plane disappeared into the clouds.

The clock stopped ticking.

She vomited into the gutter.


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## Makili (Aug 15, 2016)

Regret (636 words)

The day was coming to an end when her restlessness became unbearable and set her off to climb the hill. It took her great effort to move - the old, ailing limbs and joints were sending painful signals with every step she made. But she had to reach the summit despite the pain, as there the serenity of the landscape would soothe her throbbing mind and calm her racing thoughts, which were in turmoil since the moment she received the news of her brother's imminent death.

While she was climbing, she imagined his deathbed. She could picture the faces of the grieving family members, who occasionally paid her a visit in this remote hamlet up in the mountains where she spent her lonely old age. But she couldn't imagine how her brother looked in his last moments, as the last memory that she had of his face was more than thirty years old.  

It has been that much since they parted, after a huge quarrel that opened up a rift that never healed. The memory of how it all started was hazy, but as far as she was concerned, it was all because he tried to tell her how to live her life. His advice was to open up, let others in and give back to them. But she didn't want to listen, resented his advice and continued living according to her idea of independence.

At the time, she couldn't understand his words. All she heard was a rebuke, a critique, a wish to gain control over her life. Just like their parents and the whole goddamn patriarchal society they lived in were trying to do, and against which she was rebelling since she could remember. But over the years, as the heat of the moment faded and emotions lost their edge, and as the loneliness was starting to gnaw on her, she started to realize that in those words there was love and genuine concern for her happiness. Many times in her bitter solitude she wanted to reach out to him and say: "My brother, you were right, and I am sorry". But those words were never uttered, for her pride choked them before they took form, molded them into a lump that would sit in her throat until she abandoned the idea.

When her nephews informed her that their father was dying and that he wished to see her once more, she knew she was given the last ever chance to say those words that were burning inside her. Despite the nature of the occasion, she embraced the opportunity. But she also knew that apologizing would mean admitting that her whole life was untruthful. That all the choices she made in the name of what she considered freedom and independence were based on the wrong assumption that those things meant doing things on your own. That her conscious self, which blamed the rest of the world for her miserable life, was wrong. That the carefully constructed mental cage in which she entrapped her subconscious thoughts that were yelling how she could have had a happy life if only she shared, learned from and grew with other people, would be obliterated.

Yes, her mind was in uproar, and she couldn't wait to reach the top, where that soothing landscape would open up and help her make a decision. By the time she reached it, the sun was already setting. She looked towards it, but only because it was in the direction where, miles away, her brother's deathbed was. Suddenly, a twinge of intuition stung her, and immediately she knew that in that very moment her brother's soul was departing its body and this world. The bitterness of regret stabbed her more painfully than ever because she realized that there was no more time for deliverance.


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## bdcharles (Aug 15, 2016)

*Logos*


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## ned (Aug 15, 2016)

*Out of Time    (640 words)*

In the Theoretical Laboratory of the Admiralty Research Establishment, Professor Crick is nervously standing on a stepladder, as he calibrates the couplings of a an elaborate looking power unit bolted on top of red telephone box, while Professor Watson monitors the data stream running on his laptop screen. 
“I think that’s as good as we’ll get it.” Says Watson. Crick breathes a sigh of relief, and gingerly steps back to the ground. Watson finally looks up. “You might as well turn-in Crick. There’s not much more we can do here, before the test run.”
“With another bloody mouse.” Says Crick. “You heard what the ‘old man’ said.”
“I’ll talk to him first thing tomorrow, and insist on a human subject, or the whole experiment is off.” Says Watson, almost too casually.
Grabbing his hat, Crick calls out, “goodnight Watson, and good luck!”

Watson waits awhile, allowing Crick to get clear of the establishment, and in the meantime remembers the unexpected visit from ‘the old man’, Dr. Angus, head of the department. He had burst into the lab and immediately turned on Watson. 
“Don’t you read your bloody memos?” His Scottish brogue emphasising the rhetorical.  “You were supposed to see me two days ago…” He gestured toward the telephone box, “to explain that!”
“We needed a larger, ready made ferrous cage, and securing a cast-iron telephone box from the M.O.D. was the best practical….”
“Yes larger!” Cut in Angus. “Large enough for a human! My God man, you’ve already lost one time machine, and its occupant.”
“It’s not a time machine, doctor, it’s a gravimetric space-time condenser that has an interesting side-effect. And it isn’t lost…” Watson looked at a fenced-off, square-foot chalk outline in the corner of the lab, “it could reappear at any moment.”
“It was supposed to reappear six months ago, and now it’s been gone a whole year and until it comes back,” Angus wagged his finger, “I’ll not allow a test run with a human subject.” He relaxed his stance. “Use another mouse, a monkey or a bloody hippopotamus if you want to, but I’m not losing one of my team to…god knows where.” He turned to Crick. “I thought you had more sense professor!” But before Crick could reply, Angus strode toward the door and turned.
“Remember! No human subject without my say so!” Slamming the door behind him.
Crick sat at his desk. “If only we could reduce the jump to a more manageable time interval.”
“We’ve both gone through the figures, the solar graviton waves consistently produce energy for a six month jump forward - nothing more, and nothing less.”

Checking his watch, Watson prints out his letter for Angus, placing it on Crick’s desk. He chalks the outline of the telephone box on the floor and returns to his lap-top, remotely setting the gravimetric space-time condenser into sequence. Then grabs a camcorder and opens the newly re-sealed door of the telephone box, stepping inside and locking the door in place.
“This way, Crick,” he says to himself, “at least one of us will still have a job!” And then, with a flash, everything went black.

The first thing he notices, is that he is gently floating above the floor and, as his eyes adjust from the flash, he sees the stars of familiar constellations all around him and laughs hysterically at the realisation of where he is. He has moved forward six months in time, but not in space, relative to the Sun, which slowly comes into view as the box gently spins. Shielding his eyes, he knows the Earth is on its far side, and won’t reappear for another week or so. He would dearly love to see the pale blue dot, just once more, but with only an hour’s worth of air left, he is out of time.


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## godofwine (Aug 15, 2016)

*On The Way to the Hospital – by Godofwine (650 Words, Strong Language)*


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## Sleepwriter (Aug 15, 2016)

Speed 648 words


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## Bard_Daniel (Aug 15, 2016)

*Last Dance (601 Words)*

Ave Maria cascaded from the record player in the corner of the room. It filled both Marley and Jake's ears with memories of the past, reveries of the life they had shared. It was their song.

    Jake struggled to his feet from the bed and walked up to the other side where Marley was lying down. He went down on one knee. "May I have the pleasure of asking you for this dance, miss?"

    "Of course, my dear," Marley gently rose from the bed and smiled, her eyes tender and full of melancholy.

    They moved together under the light of the candles that Marley only brought out for special occasions. It had been a long time since they had last danced but it slowly returned back to them. At first, Marley swayed with him at the customary distance but, as the moments turned into minutes, she moved closer and rested her head on his shoulder. It was like the nights of beautiful serenity that had seemed, as the years had passed, almost like dreams that were untouchable by time. These moments proved to them both that those dreams were still alive. Their surface had only been buried underneath the burdens of life; they would never die.

    Jake kissed her on the top of her head. For a second the worries of the world evaporated as it they had merely been smoke passing over the horizon. Yet, slowly, they came back again.

    "I hate the way the doctor said it," Marley whispered into Jake's ear. The tears were not far now. "I can't believe they weren't more careful with it. It won't change anything, I know, but they did not need to do it the way that they did..."

     "That doesn't matter," Jake said, giving her a little squeeze. "There's only the time that we have left together now. That's what counts."

    "It doesn't make it right," Marley said quietly.

    "It's okay, Shh," Jake replied. "Everything's going to be okay. Think of all the years that we've had together. Remember that your parents didn't think we'd be together for a week?" He smiled. "Thirty years later and look at us. It doesn't matter the ending. We still won."

    Jake's brain tumor was inoperable. He was not going to last long now. The doctors had told him that he could expect at most a month and at least a week. The news had made Marley's inner self crumble. Jake did his best to try and remain strong. It was a fight to him, to the very end, and he was determined to not let it get the best of him.

    "I'm happy," Jake said slowly. "And it's all worth it to spend even just one more instant with you."

    Marley leaned back from his shoulder and looked deep into his eyes. There were rivers of tears cascading down from her eyes to her chin. "If only we had more time..."

    "I have no regrets," Jake said. "I've spent my life with the greatest person that I have ever known. You my beautiful princess chose me to be your hero, your knight in shining armor, and that has made all the difference."

    They both stopped moving and stood there gazing into each others eyes and it was like one of their nights when they were young so long ago.

    Jake felt his own face becoming wet. "I know I'm out of time but I will always love you. I never said that enough..."

    She leaned forward and kissed him. Both of their eyes closed and, for a moment, their worlds were united as one.


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