The air was heavy. The words that he had said were echoing in her head on constant repeat. She didn’t know what to say or what she should be doing. Confessions always went differently in books so what was she supposed to do when she was rejected? He hadn’t left, merely staring at her.

I don’t like you.

His words echoed in her head like a clap of thunder. It didn’t allow her to say anything or move. They stared at each other, tension rising in the air so thick that you could cut it with a blade.

Humanity died fast when the list appeared.

First came the suicides. When you see yourself at the bottom of the list that supposedly represents all of humanity, it’s hard not to lose hope.

Then came the murders. Of the people who had discovered the list. The people who kept it running. Some decided that the list was fake, and that anyone who believed in it deserved death.

Eventually, we stopped. Killing and fighting and tearing each other apart. At least for a while.

I was born with a number on my hand. I don’t remember what it was. No one can tell me, because you can only see your own number. But right now, my number is 3,425,007. Out of the eight billion people on the earth.

That’s one of the better numbers. My mom told me once that her number had dropped to 6,331,909. I thought she was kidding until I heard the gunshots. One that took my sister. And one that took my mom.

I don’t know why my mom killed my three-year old sister. I don’t know why she killed herself. And I don’t know what the number on her corpse was. Because as far as I know, your number stays with you forever. Even when the only one who can see it is dead, it lives on.

I’d like to imagine my little sister was 1 on the list. Maybe 2, for that time she killed my fish by pouring too much food into its bowl. But other than that, she was perfect. I can’t understand why the cosmic power that decides where we stand would put her at anything less.

No one else understands, either. Everyone has their own idea of the list. I guess that before it showed up, people were content with their own views of right and wrong. But now that someone is deciding for us, we’ve gotten desperate.

A few streets from my house is a church. The sign outside says “God forgives all-Numbers are warnings, not punishments”. The church three blocks away is telling me to ignore the list entirely, that it’s a construct of the devil made to deceive us and turn us away from God. And the synagogue on Bailey Cove promises a way to move your number up the list, and a better understanding of why you were ranked where you were in the first place.

My mom and I went to a church back in our hometown that told us we had to be honest with our numbers and share them with the world. The next church we tried told us the list was a gift from god, to tell us when to repent. My mom loved that answer, but I wasn’t sure. I stopped going to church as soon as I could, and mom’s death didn’t do anything to persuade me to return.

I’ve always wondered who’s at the top of the list. You’d think they’d be on the news all the time, sharing their five-step plan to being a good human being. But only one person has ever claimed to have 1 embedded in their skin. Anton Icara, famous actor, TV personality, and philanthropist. When the first rape allegations came, the woman who had submitted them had been completely ostracized. After all, this man was the pinnacle of human decency. No accusations could ever stand up to that little number on his hand.

Security cameras don’t see your number, though. All they saw was Anton’s fifteenth murder. The same woman who had tried to tell the world what he was really like lay dead on the floor, a knife in her chest.

I wonder sometimes if he really was the best person on earth. If our own view of morality fell apart somewhere along the way, and he wasn’t lying when he told us that he was the only person who understood what perfection was. It seems plausible. When I was a kid, I wondered why the Bible banned so many things that sounded perfectly moral to me. Maybe the list works the same way. Maybe that’s why giving to charity didn’t move my number up the list, but watering my houseplants did. Anton Icara might have been right.

Then again, if he was lying, why did we all believe him?

I don’t know why the number on my hand is there. I don’t know what it means, what it wants from me. I don’t know who decides our numbers. And I don’t know what will happen when I die.

All I know is when this bullet goes through my head, I won’t be looking at the number on my hand.

Star Wars: Episode 1 -

A ninja mime chases down a few rent-a-cops while a whining child fumbles his way through a civil war.

Star Wars: Episode 2 -

A culmination of terrible life choices results in one giant, raging ego. Also the whining child has grown up into a whining teenager and starts another war.

Star Wars: Episode 3 -

Everybody loves space opera, so I thought you might want some space opera in your space opera. Annoying teenager lashes out in self hatred and kills annoying children in an attempt to kill himself. Suicide attempt almost succeeds, but becomes a robot instead. Space ninja order eradicated.

Star Wars: Episode 4 -

If you thought the previous lead was annoying, whoa boy! Whining farm boy (annoyance must be hereditary) becomes Mary Sue and blows up a moon just to get revenge for a creepy old space ninja.

Star Wars: Episode 5 -

Like tandem skydiving, but instead tandem tantrum throwing. Robot from before channels his inner teenage angst to capture his teenage angsty progeny. Hands up - HAH! I remember something about a bunch of snow somewhere...

Star Wars: Episode 6 -

Teenage angst vanquished! ... Not. Whiny adult leads teddy bear rebellion against the space robot. Fireworks and booze for all the teddy bears. A weird love triangle gets resolved when it turns out the one redeeming factor about the whiny bunch is that they don't like incest.

Star Wars: Episode 7 -

Did you see episode 4? Replace whiny teenage boy with inexplicably perfect teenage girl. Everything else remains unchanged. Unofficial title is Star Wars Episode 7: The Search for More Merchandising.

Star Wars: Episode 8 -

Tonight, there's going to be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town! Tonight there's going to be a jailbreak, and every intelligent person even remotely associated with the project will abandon all hope and leave. The most boring space race of all time crawls on by while an insubordinate dick wad goes on a side quest. Girl Perfect meets whiny incestor who still hasn't found a cure for all the whining going on in the galaxy. Oh, did I forget to mention the most whiny of all characters, New Space Robot? Yeah. New Space Robot, version 2: now serving cheese with its whine.

On Prose, I'm very open about my asexuality, as most of you wonderful people support me and are incredibly nice! However, in reality, I'm closeted at home and only out with friends and at school. The time I tried to tell my family, they didn't believe me and that I was labelling myself.

"You just haven't met the right guy yet."

"You're only fifteen, it's too early to label yourself."

I just nodded and smiled like that perfect girl they wanted. The perfect girl I couldn't be. It made me sad to think that they didn't understand, so I decided not to mention being biromantic because I wanted the convorsation to be over.

The next week one of my best friends called me, also a LGBTQ+ member, but they're very out and confident with their sexuality. They said: "Hey, want to come to pride with me? It'll be a lot of fun!" I wanted to so badly, but I wasn't sure how to ask, so I did. My parents said it was fine, under the impression that I was just hanging out with my friend there, which was true.

So, I went. And it was one of the best desicions I'd ever made. It was astonishing how much support there was and how many others like me were there. It gave me hope that one day I could come here completely out and accepted. I know It'll probably be a while and will take time for me to come out again, but honestly, that's fine. I want to be ready when I try again.

So, if you ever doubt yourself or are feeling down, remember you're not the only one. I'm here for you and everyone else because it takes time to be accepted and even longer sometimes to accept yourself. So, just keep you're head up high because you're all perfectly imperfect in your own ways!

YOU

ARE

VALID!

And most importantly...

YOU

ARE

LOVED!

Two men stood, side by side, watching the most wonderful man in the world go by.

The first sighed, staring up at the man with adoration. "I aspire to be as good as that man."

The second nodded. The first turned to him.

"And what about you?" he asked.

The second smirked.

"I aspire to be better."

You were a little shit...

You could have used the ability to let go of things because you were a petty little shit. Grow up you aren’t smarter than anyone because you don’t like someone who is well-liked. I know you were lonely and just wanted friends and didn’t want people to hate you. You were a know it all who was also just a kid. You were nine and because of this, I’ll just tell you that I wish I had been as mature at school that I was at home.

Maddie was cute and popular and if I could go back in time I would have been nicer to her. Kayla was your friend and I’m glad you did right by her and you were a good friend.

You become a better person ish...and you hate yourself more now than you did then.

-Present Me.

“Where did it go?” She demanded.

Startled, he could only stutter out, “Wh-where did what go?”

“My hair tie, you asshole. You stole my favourite one.”

“I..?” He began, but then he started to remember, “Oh, that. The one I stole from you like a year ago?”

“Yes.” She pouted.

“Why do you only care about it now?” He asked, rather perplexed.

“Because it was my favourite one, I already told you.” She repeated as if that explained everything.

“Yes, but I’ve been wearing it on my wrist ever since I stole it, and you didn’t have a problem about it until now?”

“Exactly. You were wearing it. Why did you take it off today? I know I haven’t talked to you for a while, but I didn’t think that you would stop being friends with me.” Her eyes glistened, she was serious about how much the tiny hair tie meant to her.

Starting to grasp the situation he said, “No! That’s not what happened. It broke. I’m so, so sorry.”

“You broke it?” she asked almost in tears.

“No. Well, yes. But, no, I-I didn’t mean to.” He’s dug himself into quite a deep hole now, “What I mean is that I used to stretch it and twist it, when I was stressed, it gave me something to do. And I mean, I was reminded of you, every time I got stressed, it helped...”

Tears began streaming down her face.

He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t realise that hair tie would spell the end of their friendship.

She brought her hands behind her head, and with one tug she pulled her current hair tie out, and handed it straight to him.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered.

″...at the speed of sound.”

Typically, any words that preceed that usually make the sentence awesome, but I’m gonna tell you, I have the lamest superpower ever.

No. I can’t fly at the speed of sound, or run at the speed of sound, or even read at the speed of sound, or talk at the speed of sound. I can’t clap at the speed of sound, or eat at the speed of sound.

The only thing I can do is...

....wait for it....

blink.

That’s right.

I can blink at the speed of sound.

My mom keeps telling me that it’ll come in handy one day. Sorry, mum. I’m not convinced. She has super eyesight, dad has super speed. Why’d I have to turn out so average? It took two years of investigation for the Super Hero Committee to even determine that I actually had a power and what exactly it was. At first, they thought that my power was the ability to keep my eyes open forever; never needing to blink. That honestly would have been way cooler. But, nooooo. My eyes had the nerve to need to blink anyway, and my lids had the nerve to be the only thing on my body that posessed super speed. Doctor Gunthrey made a joke about super eyes plus super speed equals super blink. That didn’t make me feel any better.

The only time my superpower actually helped me to accomplish something was back in first grade when Yoko bet five cents I couldn’t beat him at a staring contest. I even felt bad about it afterwards because he was right all along. I couln’t even hold my eyes open longer than his ten second “all time record”.