06 Feb The Wheelbarrow Cult

My mother left us when I was 6 years old. She’d been having an affair with a co-worker, and it turned into a relationship. My dad got full custody of me, and this huge part of our lives just… disappeared, seemingly overnight. A year later, my mother had moved to Sarasota and was about to have her second kid – what would be my half-brother, Charles.

My father never really recovered. He tried to get back out there, but some levels of trust just can’t be regained. Still, time passes. Over time, both sides of the family moved on. Even though my relationship with my mother never fully recovered, we kept in touch. A periphery touch, but still. If something were to happen, I got to hear about it.

And then there was Charles. My half-brother. I didn’t know him, and everything about his very existence had always been painted in sort of a black cloud. I hated him not for who he was, but for what he was – an expression of the most turbulent time in my youth.

I hated him. I couldn’t help it, and I knew nothing of him, but I hated him nonetheless.

I didn’t pay much attention to Charles and his antics. He was just this person somewhere off in the distance, living his own life. I saw the occasional high school photo, or him recommending something off his Spotify playlist. He was just some guy. I wasn’t there to celebrate any of the big birthdays, and he didn’t celebrate any of mine.

Charles turned 21 in 2017. I saw some pictures of a big party, and there was an open-ended invitation for anyone to come join. I’m sure I’d have been allowed to, if I wanted. But that was never really on the agenda. It wasn’t even discussed. At that point, I had my own life, and patching that bridge seemed useless. Like trying to fix something that you’ve worked your whole life to get around. What’s the point in fixing a bridge when you’re an Olympic swimmer?

Something like that.

But things were happening behind the scenes that I didn’t know of until much later. For example, Charles had been having anxiety issues since middle school. He was riddled with phobias and panic attacks. He’d been having trouble keeping up in school, and most of his friends were (at best) superficial. The kind of people who turn their back on you when the going gets tough.

I had no idea about any of that. But I was about to get a lot more involved in his life than I’d ever asked for.

It was late July, 2018. I was coming home from a long shift and had stopped to get some groceries when my phone went off. I loaded the last paper bag, gave my girlfriend an apologetic look, and took the call.

It was my mother. I hadn’t spoken directly to her for… decades.

“Hey, bluejay,” she sighed. “I’m sorry it’s been so long.”

My first reaction was anger. How dare she call me that, still? It upset my stomach, like I’d swallowed something smoldering. I managed to keep things polite, biting my lip.

“Everything alright?”

She had to be calling for a reason. She wanted something. She’d never talk to me without a reason.

“It’s about your brother,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t have a brother.”

“But you do,” she sighed. “You do, and I think he needs you.”

She explained the situation as best she could.

As a way to deal with his issues, Charles sought advice and guidance from people outside his usual social circles. Harmless stuff at first – spiritual guides and faith healers. He’d studied Buddhism and Hinduism to broaden his horizons, and he’d been trying everything from yoga to revival gatherings. But lately, things had taken a turn.

“It’s just been one thing after another,” my mom explained. “And now it’s just… he’s gone all quiet.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Charles tells me everything,” she sighed. “This isn’t like him. I can’t get a hold of him.”

“So just call the police.”

“He’s an adult now, he’s-”

There was a short break. She composed herself, clearly upset. My callous tone wasn’t helping.

“I think he’s with some bad people.”

She reached out to me, figuring I was far enough on the periphery to go under the radar. Someone they wouldn’t question too much. Everyone else in Charles’ life seemed to be blacklisted and turned away at the door, but perhaps an unknown half-brother might slip by. That’s what she argued anyway.

“I know I can’t ask you to help,” she said. “But I think it could do us some good. All of us.”

“Family is important to you, huh?”

Again, silence. I just shook my head. I opened the car door and sat down. My girlfriend could tell I was upset and leaned over to hug me. I hadn’t even noticed how hard I dug my fingers into the dashboard until I saw them turning pale.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Mom said. “But it is. It really is.”

And with that, I hung up.

I argued with myself back and forth for days. Charles had never done anything to hurt me, but I couldn’t help hating him. Still, I couldn’t tell whether that hate outweighed the sinking feeling in my stomach. Even then, even at my lowest, angriest point, I couldn’t bring myself to want to hurt my mother. I couldn’t.

So I decided to help – all other things be damned. At the very least, I could show her I’d turned into a good man, all without her help.

I texted her to get me all the info she could, and I booked a flight over the following week.

I made my way to Florida. I’d been getting tons of e-mails with all kinds of images, descriptions, and videos, but I hadn’t taken the time to sit down and review it all. I had a rough idea.

According to my mom, it had started with a nightmare. She told me that Charles kept having nightmares about ‘a boy in blue.’ He’d call her late at night, rambling about it in a half-woken stupor. These nightmares would control his life, and he would try to find subtle ways of dealing with it.  To an outsider, it just seemed like much of his other anxieties, a fixed idea that he couldn’t rid himself of.

There were pictures of his apartment. He’d removed the curtains from the windows to make sure the ‘boy in blue’ could spot him, if need be. Later, he would opt to sleep out in the open. Something about the clear blue sky being a relaxing factor.

And there were other little things. He started to wear more formal shirts. He cut his hair. He started growing strange flowers in his front yard. And then – radio silence. Gone.

The first thing I did was to check his apartment. Just like my mom had said, there were no curtains. I could see straight in, and it was easy to tell it hadn’t been used for quite some time. I got the impression that something had happened there. It was just too barren. A 20-something-year-old with an interest in religion and philosophy, and not a single piece of memorabilia? No books? Nothing? The place was a ghost town.

Hell, at least the sunflowers he’d planted were doing well. Not a fan of the blue color, though; those things didn’t look natural.

The final straw was seeing the pile of mail by the front door. It was substantial. We were talking a couple of months, at least. Reminders on reminders.

Then, there was the core of the issue: the group he’d been involved in. The Church of the Twelfth Sky Assembly. They had a bit of a social media presence, but they didn’t have much to say. They seemed like your average run-of-the-mill group, with smiling young people offering companionship and understanding in their outreach material. It was so general that I felt like I’d seen it before.

I had a bit of luck, though. Turns out they had a community event going on later that day. I figured it was a good way to get my foot in the door. Probably wasn’t the best idea to go knocking on their compound door. From what I could find, they had a place out by Lake Parrish, but it seemed to be a members-only kind of deal. Not much said about it on their socials.

So I drove out to Bradenton Beach, hoping to spot these nutjobs in action.

Turns out it wasn’t as difficult as I’d imagined. They’d made themselves a makeshift stand down by the beach, where they were handing out fliers. Looking at it from a distance, you might mistake it for an energy drink promo. About a dozen beach-fit young people eagerly engaging in conversation. It seemed so disingenuous.

Still, I gave it a shot. I put my sandals on and strolled casually, pretending to be passing by. It didn’t take long for a young man and woman to come up to me, their smiles as white as the fliers they were handing out.

“Excuse me,” they smiled. “Having a nice day?”

“Can’t complain,” I smiled right back. “You folks out here selling something?”

“Nah,” they chuckled. “Just sharing the good vibes.”

And with that, I had a pamphlet in my hand.

I stuck around to talk to them for a bit. As a whole, the organization didn’t look that strange, but once you started singling out individual pieces, you could see some inconsistencies. For example, their logo. For a church called the Twelfth Sky Assembly, one might imagine clouds or a cross. But no, their logo was a wheelbarrow. One of those old-timey wooden ones. I counted the pegs on the wheel, but it just added up to seven. It wasn’t even numerically consistent.

Then there were the members themselves. I got the impression that this wasn’t their actual passion. They seemed disconnected, and their lines seemed practiced. Like they weren’t really members of the church, but just paid to be there. The way they talked when they didn’t think anyone was listening seemed to confirm this.

This was all an act. But for what?

“Are you the folks out by the, uh… up by Lake Parrish?” I asked. “I think I’ve seen that logo before.”

“That’s just administrative. We’re in seven different cities across the state, so it takes a whole lot of effort from a whole lot of people to keep things running.”

They immediately got defensive. I tried to shift away from the compound, instead talking about meetings and other members, but they’d already soured. It wasn’t until one of the folks in the background approached that I felt like I was getting somewhere.

He was a man in his early 50s, with short blonde hair and a sizeable gut. Large black glasses, a white shirt, and a blue tie. He patted the others on the shoulder and smiled at me.

“You consider yourself a man of many questions, friend?” he asked.

“I suppose I am. Not a lot of places to ask them nowadays.”

“Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

And with that, he turned his back on me. I must’ve said something to spook them. I had no choice but to go all in.

“The boy in blue,” I said.

It was the first thing that came to mind. It’d been the central theme in Charles’ issues. It had to mean something.

The man turned around, adjusted his glasses, and squinted at me.

“The boy in blue, huh?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It’s been keeping me up at night.”

“I can imagine.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and took a deep breath. Finally, his eyes met mine. This time, his smile was genuine.

“Perhaps we got a few things to talk about after all.”

I spent the better part of the day talking to that man. His name was Isaiah, and he was one of the aspiring members of the church. He’d been with them for a couple of months and was still getting his bearings. Still, what I’d said resonated with him. The boy in blue was a common theme among the church’s inner circle. They said it was a prophetic vision. A guideline for things to come.

Later in the afternoon, as we were calling it a day, Isaiah and I circled back to the tent they’d set up down at the beach. I almost stumbled over one of the wheelbarrows they had there, and I couldn’t help but ask about it.

“It’s an… unusual symbol, I’ll freely admit to that,” Isaiah chuckled. “But it’s about picking yourself up. About extending yourself beyond your usual capabilities.”

“That’s a lot to ask from a wheelbarrow.”

“We don’t ask anything from the wheelbarrow,” he smiled. “It’s about you. You’re the one who has to pick it up. But it’s there when you need it.”

Having a foot in the door, I settled into a temporary routine. I called my girlfriend every night, updating her on what was happening. I texted my mom occasionally, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her. I would spend my afternoon messaging Isaiah and trying to keep a low profile, waiting for an invitation to something further. If I could just get a chance to meet the other members, there’d be a chance of me meeting up with Charles. And maybe I wouldn’t be able to get him out of there, but at least I could make sure he was okay.

I met Isaiah a couple of times over the following week. Once for lunch and another time at a separate event. I was invited to help, and I accepted. I mostly printed pamphlets and helped set up their tent.

The pamphlet wasn’t that interesting. The logo, an address for an office downtown, and an inspirational quote about reaching for the sky. Not much more than that. I got the impression that handing them out was mostly a way to get an excuse to talk to people, rather than to share a message. Almost as if it was expected for them to do this.

The more I spent time with Isaiah, I got the impression that this wasn’t just a church. There were no priests or preachers, and there were no spectacular meetings. If anything, they were just going through the motions.

Everything pointed to the compound by Lake Parrish. There had to be something there, and Isaiah was my way in. I had to try something big.

I hadn’t showered for three days when I met him for the third time. I pretended to have slept in my car, and I made up a lie about going through a rough breakup. Isaiah was slightly surprised, but bounced back as the gears in the back of his mind clicked into place.

“Sorry to hear that,” he said. “You made a beautiful couple.”

It was an innocent enough sentiment, but there was an uncomfortable reveal hidden in it. He knew what my girlfriend looked like. I’d never shown him a picture. Had they been looking me up?

“I guess that’s why you’re out here, huh? Starting over?”

“I’m just in a, uh… a bad place,” I said. “I barely get enough sleep as is.”

“No, I hear you,” he nodded. “I’ve been there. But it’s like… sometimes the cure is worse than the disease, you know?”

His saying that… stood out to me. This wasn’t a man trying to trick me into a cult – this was a man trying to keep me out. It was a warning, not an invitation.

“Anything is better than this,” I sighed.

Isaiah looked me in the eye, clearly concerned. He tapped a nearby wheelbarrow.

“Alright then.”

We drove out to Lake Parrish later that day. It was a silent trip with Isaiah behind the wheel. No radio, no small talk. If anything, he seemed apologetic. Like he didn’t want me to do this. Following a side road, we passed a sign informing us we were entering private property. Not long after, we reached a chain-linked fence. Isaiah had a key for the padlock.

The compound was not what I expected. A trio of one-story buildings out in a field, covered from end to end by the fences and trees. The knee-length grass that covered the area made the place look abandoned. A handful of people in white shirts moved between the buildings, pointing at one another and having lively discussions.

“So what can I expect?” I asked. “Do all people here have the same problem?”

“Yeah,” Isaiah nodded. “But not all are willing to deal with it.”

He looked up at me, but didn’t meet my gaze. He wasn’t sure about this.

“Talk to Miss Miller,” he continued. “And go from there.”

I got time to walk around the compound, looking for Charles. A central area between the three buildings looked like a sort of gathering spot. The ground was flattened and the grass cut, with six wheelbarrows off to the side. I don’t know why, but I felt uneasy looking at them. They all had these dark splotches at the end.

There were probably about a dozen people there at the time. Isaiah took the car and left, leaving me to speak with this Miller woman alone. She had an office on the west end of the front building, almost like a reception.

I couldn’t get over how sparsely decorated the place was. A logo every now and then, the occasional wheelbarrow, and that was it. The place was pretty much sterile. It even smelled like a hospital.

Miss Miller was an older woman with short gray hair and thick glasses. She asked me to come in and sit down across from her and fill out a form. I was asked to surrender my phone, keys, and wallet.

The form asked for all kinds of personal info, including passwords and usernames for various social media accounts. But what surprised me the most was the second page, which was all about my proposed anxiety issues. There were three spaces for paragraphs where I was supposed to ‘describe my meetings with the boy in blue.’ I just made something up, trying to keep the small talk up.

Miller didn’t have much to say. She assured me that there was help to be had, but that they needed complete honesty from me. I tried to ask her a bit about the other members (which she called ‘patients’) and how they were dealing with it, to which she had this to say:

“What you’re experiencing is no fault of your own,” she said. “It is not by the will of a God, or Satan, or anything in-between. It is beyond our measure, and so, the steps to stop it may seem drastic.”

I had to go through a quick physical check-up. I had to fill out a health form, and they tested my blood. A surprising number of people on hand seemed to have a medical background. Some seemed to have a corporate background. I noticed a lot of boxes with a particular pharmaceutical company. Looked like an axe or hatchet.

When all things looked to be in order, I was guided to a personal room at the far end of the compound. A long corridor with locked doors, from which I could hear groaning and crying. A nurse rushed past me with an armful of bloody linens.

Miss Miller showed me to a private room. Not much to it: a bathroom, a bed, an end table. There were no windows, and the door was locked from the outside. I didn’t notice the latter until the door clicked close.

I probably spent the better part of a day locked in that room. I could hear people in the other rooms. Most of them weren’t saying anything coherent. Some were crying, others just screamed. Someone tried to keep their composure and politely asked for help. All coming from muffled voices from behind locked doors.

Now, I don’t have a way to check, but I think it took about… 12 hours or so, in total. I’d arrived early in the morning, and by the time the door opened, it was getting dark outside. My first thought was to get the hell out of there, but I was in too deep. I’d invested too much, and I just had to finish it. If Charles was stuck in this place, it was time to get him out.

When one of the nurses let me out, I was handed a wicker basket with various hygiene articles and some fresh clothes.

Washed and cleaned, I was put in a line with other people. Some looked worse for wear, and others didn’t seem to know what was going on. There was this one woman who could barely stand up and had to lean on one of the nurse attendants. Looking at them, it was easy to forget that this was supposed to be a religious organization. It looked more like a hospital.

We were taken out into the middle of the compound. There were about a dozen attendants and nine other people like me who’d been taken out there. They turned on a series of floodlights, bathing the yard in pale white.

That’s when I saw Charles.

He must’ve lost at least 30 pounds. The guy was skin and bones. His hair had fallen out, and he had this patchy, unshaven mess on his face. He looked completely out of it. I couldn’t imagine him recognizing me even in a healthy state. But now that I’d seen him, I was glad I was there. I was going to help him, one way or another. I just had to get through whatever this was supposed to be.

We all lined up in a circle, each with a wheelbarrow in front of us. Everyone else lifted them by the handles, and one by one, they were administered a pill. People just took them, no questions asked. I could hear a single protest, someone being unsure. They were simply asked if they wanted help or not. They did, and down the pill went.

When it was my turn, I just shook my head.

“No, thank you.”

“Then we’re gonna have to ask you to leave,” said the nurse.

I looked around the circle. I was holding up the line. There were no ifs, ands, or buts here; if you wanted their help, you took the pill.

So I did.

It was a sort of muscle relaxant. It wasn’t a powerful hallucinogen or anything like that. Just something that made my shoulders slump and my speech slur. But looking around the circle, it seemed to have a massive effect on the others.

The nurses went patient by patient and recorded what they were saying, making notes on a spreadsheet when there was something of particular interest. Most folks were rambling incoherently, but some were strangely lucid. Some were naming places, or things. Vague descriptions of events unfolding.

A few of the nurses were asking targeted questions, or even making demands.

“Ask him to show you the Portuguese election,” one nurse said. “Are you getting anything?”

I was asked to share my experiences, too. I just copied a bit from what I heard others saying. I could tell they weren’t entirely convinced. They went out of their way to get a light to shine in my face, but before they got a chance to, one of the guys next to me started freaking out.

He was in his early forties. Didn’t look all that peculiar. Pretty fit, somewhat shorter than usual, balding. Reading glasses with a crooked frame. His knuckles had gone white, and he started shaking his wheelbarrow. His eyes rolled back in his skull.

“A fire!” he screamed. “I see a fire!”

The nurses flocked to him.

“He’s… he’s showing me a fire. Screams. A highway cut off by fallen trees. Late autumn. November? Crackling… crackling bark. Turning black.”

“Look for a license plate!” one of the nurses said. “Can you see a license plate?!”

“O… Ontario?”

One of them ran off, speaking loudly into a phone. Others stepped back. They all looked at the man with anticipation.

“He… he releases me,” the man said. “I’m… I’m released.”

And with that, there was a sudden quiet. The nurses looked away, as if bracing themselves.

I didn’t look away, but I wish I had.

His voice became more distant as his jaw extended. His tongue was swelling.

So was his abdomen.

Seconds later, there was a loud pop. Blood and viscera exploded out of his stomach, filling the wheelbarrow. Then another pop, as his tongue did the same.

Then he just stood there, bleeding out. Frozen, holding that wheelbarrow. A tool to keep him from staining the ground.

No one reacted. No one recoiled, ran, or screamed. It was just this… eerie quiet. I could feel panic boiling in my chest, but I tried not to stick out. There was no telling what they’d do if they thought I was faking it.

About half a minute later, it happened to another one. The nurses called out to one another, confirming what they’d heard. Fire. Ontario. Late November. They cross-examined the information and details given by these people.

Every bone in my body was telling me to run. To just beeline to Charles, get him, and head for the exit. But looking at the dead man to my left, still standing, holding his wheelbarrow, there was a primal part of me that refused to move. I felt like an antelope watching a lion pass me by; a twitch of the leg might set it off. I had to wait.

They were poking and prodding at the others. Asking them questions. Four people, in total, seemed to have something to share, and the same four people popped like overly ripe berries. Their faces had this look of relief on them, like this was a kind of reward. This was what they aspired to get.

The thought struck me that perhaps this was what awaited Charles as well.

I looked at him as his head started to swivel back and forth. His eyes were rolling back.

I couldn’t wait.

I took my first steps towards him. No one noticed at first, but as I gained speed, others called out. They asked me to stop. To wait. To listen. But as I saw Charles’ hands tighten around the grip of the wheelbarrow and his voice rising in cadence, I didn’t consider the consequences. I had to try something. Anything.

So I tackled him. And the moment I put my hands on him, something inside me broke.

I looked into his face as the world shifted.

I was standing on a highway, among dozens of broken-down cars. Burning trees falling all around us to the screams of hundreds. Charles was there. We were running in the wrong direction, watching people choke to death inside their cars. Others just walked into the woods, falling over from asphyxiation.

Further down the road, a child. A boy, no older than seven or eight, dressed in blue. That’s who we were heading for.

Charles looked back at me.

“He’s showing us,” he said. “We have to keep-”

I grabbed him. I slammed him to the ground. I could feel the texture of the asphalt on my hands. I could taste the burning oak trees. But it wasn’t real, and it couldn’t be.

In the blink of an eye, we were on a plane, falling through the sky. Oxygen masks long since deployed. People screaming as alarms blared. Again, just down the aisle, a little boy in blue, waiting for us to come closer. Wanting to show us more.

“He’s trying to save us!” Charles cried. “He needs me to-”

“No!”

Another blink of the eye.

Standing on a beach, watching a cruise ship slowly capsize. I forced myself to look away, so that I wouldn’t see its name. I grabbed Charles by the face, forcing his eyes to lock onto mine.

Blink, after blink, after blink.

Earthquakes. Shootings. Fires. Lightning strikes, hurricanes, floods. Bursting dams, falling bridges. Knives and guns. Hangings to cheering crowds.

Death. Death. Death.

Then, for a brief moment, grass.

Back in that field, in that compound. People were coming for us. Charles was next to me, clutching his stomach. I leaned over, grabbed him under the arms, and lifted him to his feet. If I were going to have to drag him out, I would.

Blink. A congregation standing in a massive cathedral as the ceiling caves in. Idols and Latin hymns crumbling. Dark shades in the distance, growing closer.

Then back again. Screaming all around me. Another patient burst on the other side of the field, filling another wheelbarrow.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

Soon, the screaming was getting harder to tell apart. Some of it coming from the nurses, others coming from the patients, others still coming from God knows where. It was all getting mixed up. Still, I carried Charles, step by step, out towards the front fences, trying my best not to have him look at anything for too long.

His stomach was moving. Literally, physically moving. His eyes were rolling back and forth. His tongue swelled to the point where words turned to noises.

I had to get him away from this. To distract him. Something. I closed my eyes.

A wave of hot air, stinking of sulfur. An endless highway. Waves of red sand blasting us from all sides, blistering our skin. Rattling bones litter the side of the road, bearing witness to countless people who’ve fallen. Off in the distance, a boy in blue, urging me to look closer. To get sucked in, just like the rest of them. I cover my eyes, as well as Charles’.

“You need to know,” a voice whispers right next to my ear. “You need to see.”

Something is pressed into my hand. I protest. I scream. I feel the sand burrowing into my skin.

Suddenly, I am sitting down. A soft wind. The click of a seatbelt, then sudden acceleration. I thought it was another vision, but it lasted too long.

“Hold on.”

A gate crashing open. I was in the back seat of a car, with Charles next to me. He was doubled over, crying hysterically. In the front seat was Isaiah, stepping on the gas.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped as he turned the car around, heading for the highway. “This is the only way to stop it. It’s the only way it ends.”

And with that, we sped into the night.

By morning, Charles was getting better. His stomach wasn’t moving anymore, and his tongue wasn’t swelling. His eyes were red, but he could focus again. He was barely speaking, but visibly conscious. He responded to questions, albeit nonverbally.

Isaiah confided in me that he’d been plagued by the same visions as Charles for some time but couldn’t bring himself to go all the way. He’d seen the end goal, and how the nurses poked and prodded for people to extend themselves.

“That’s not the way I wanna go,” he sighed. “No matter what, that’s not it.”

He shared a cigarette with me. I hadn’t smoked since high school.

“I saw what you were trying to do,” he admitted. “You were making the same choice that I’d had. Except you were showing it, you know? You were doing something. I’ve just been… coasting along.”

Isaiah told me all he knew. That the church was sponsored by some kind of pharmaceutical company. That the religious front was basically a way to identify legitimate targets and bring them in, to turn them into this sort of… commodity. A wheelbarrow man. Someone who could share something about things to come, for a company to exploit.

“They’re not telling you the whole story,” Isaiah continued. “They don’t tell you that it passes. That it comes and goes in waves, leaping from one person to another. And that if you just refuse to listen hard enough, it will leave you alone.”

“So they offer a fast and easy way, at the cost of your life.”

“Yeah,” Isaiah nodded. “Story as old as time.”

He looked down at his cigarette with a sigh, flicking it away.

Charles was slowly recovering. He could barely speak, and we had to help him in and out of the car, but he made it back home. I thought I’d be angry seeing my mom again, but there was no way to get angry at a smile that honest. Her sense of relief was infectious. And that time, when she hugged me and called me her bluejay, I couldn’t help but feel like she meant it. That one time, at the very least.

And that was that.

I’ve kept in touch with them over the years. Charles was in and out of therapy, slowly recovering from his painful visions. He got back on his feet about the time when the Covid pandemic hit. Isaiah got completely out of the Church of the Twelfth Sky Assembly, instead getting involved in local politics in his home state of Indiana. I think he works some kind of local campaign there.

I’d like to say I’ve grown closer to my mother’s side of the family, but that’s not really how the world works. This was an anomaly in many senses of the word. I’m sure they are thankful, but besides the occasional greeting or birthday card, things are as they always have been.

So, in a way, things are as they always have been. And in another very real sense, nothing is.

See, something was pressed into my hand that night. I haven’t told anyone about it, and I probably never will. A note with names, dates, and events. I don’t want to think about it too much, or I might fall victim to the same thing that Charles did. Even talking about it now brings this sinking feeling into the pit of my stomach. Still, I can’t deny that I can recognize some of these names in the news, and it’s making me… nervous.

But it raises an important question. Would the knowledge we could gain from this be worth a life? Could it save others? Is it even real? As far as I know, the fire referenced that night never happened. But if they hadn’t spoken about it, could it have happened?

I think the only way to get a clear answer is to look a bit closer, and put it all on the line.