Johnathon Morris's shadow.

Today was another lonely morning for Johnathon Morris to wake up and get ready for work. It was early. Very early. So very early that the sun had yet to rise. But his job as a computer engineer and teacher at the local community college had a morning class, and driving there is out of the question when one does not possess an automobile. So Johnathon had to catch the Subway to work every day. The first one that left in the bleak hours of the morning, of all things. So he had to wake himself up, pull himself to get ready, and depart to the station in the chilly fall air so he could catch it. The walk from his apartment complex to the subway station was cold and refreshing for him; he had a smoke and not a soul was on the street. It was quiet and peaceful for his head, something he needed. But every morning when he got his coffee and made his way into the first cart on the station, he hoped to be alone. But always there like a ghost haunting the train, that familiar woman stood in the same cart with him. She would almost always initiate conversation with him, only to flounder through it, attempting to end the discussion as quickly as possible.

"Why are you always following me around?" he would ask, starting to get mildly bothered. A kind and stifled voice made its way through the checkered black and white scarf she adorned.

"I'm just going the same way you're going. Please pay it no heed." Her politeness was difficult to begrudge, even for somebody as young and embittered as Johnathon Morris.

"You say that," he began, "but every single day for the past three weeks you've been following me to work." He blew on his hands from the cold and massaged the glint on his finger before rubbing his hands together. "Seriously, you're always here when I get on, when I leave, and I never see you coming and going. It feels like I'm being stalked."

"Well rest assured, you're not." She brushed her chestnut bangs away from her soft eyes. An innocent glance passed through Johnathon Morris and he quivered a bit as he pulled up his brown and musky coat to reserve himself.

"...You're always looking at me." he refuted.

"That I am." her gentle voice affirmed, reflecting no regret or denial.

"Outright admitting it, huh? Seems a bit shameless, don't you think?"

"Not at all." Her curious angelic smirk didn't falter amidst the crude accusations Johnathon Morris made.

"Oh for the love of..." As soon as he arrived at his stop, he stopped for a bit and glanced at the woman. She was pretty. She dressed simply, but it allowed the attention to be focused more on her features than her attire. He paused for a bit. She let out a calm and sweet smile that made him flustered, so he left the cart to his job. And as 10 hours had passed, he returned to the subway. The carts weren't that crowded despite it being well into the evening. He eventually worked his way to the back where there was an empty cart. Or at least so he thought. He peered around. To the left, then to the right. Then back to the left of the carriage, and there she was, sitting casually in her seat eating ramen noodles from a local restaurant.

"Hello."

"WHY?" he shouted.

"Why what?" she calmly asked.

"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS HERE?"

"I did not ride this particular cart yesterday, I merely rode it today."

"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS FOLLOWING ME?"

"I believe I was here first." Johnathon Morris attempted to talk but he stuttered and stammered and blurted out tongues before articulating coherent thoughts again.

"I JUST LOOKED WHERE YOU WERE!" he proclaimed. "NOTHING WAS THERE! THEN I LOOKED BACK AGAIN, AND THERE YOU WERE!"

"You sound as if your mind is slipping." the woman responded, crossing her legs as she slurped her noodles. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't find words. They were lost, running around inside his head and he wasn't able to catch them through the myriad of other thoughts he was fighting his way through. He simply sighed and sat down in the seat opposite of her.

"Everywhere I go, fucking people there." he muttered. "Just some time to myself would be nice. That's all I ask for."

"You must really want to be alone." commented the woman as she continued to eat.

"Yeah, you can't possibly begin to imagine..." there was a snide tone to his voice. There was a long pause. "...You aren't going to leave, are you?"

"I believe I was here first." she reiterated. He shook his head and rested it on his palms as the lights of the subway tunnel flickered in through the windows.

"Good god, just sometimes..."

"God doesn't seem very good to you from the sounds of it." the woman replied.

"Oh... you have no idea."

"Not a religious man, I presume?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Any reason why?"

"None I'm willing to disclose." His cold disposition wouldn't budge. The woman's cool aura faltered a bit.

"That's a pity." A hint of disappointment that was present when she spoke was laced with a slightly condescending twist.

"God ain't done a damn thing for me, and for all I care he can keep it that way." A pious absence in his voice echoed throughout the train. "I'm doing just fine without him, thank you very much."

"You don't seem to be." She said. Johnathon's eyebrow twitched while a coy smirk crossed the young woman's face. She was perceptive.

"Well don't you think you know a lot?" his voice raised. He was getting angry. "So tell me what else you know, why don't you? If you're so damn slick." Her detached demeanor wasn't shaken as he stood up in front of her. She continued to eat her noodles as a long silence permeated the empty carriage, until she finally decided to speak.

"Is this not your stop?" she pointed with her spork at the door opening. It was his stop. Johnathon sighed a bit, and stormed out of the cart back to his empty home. He didn't sleep well that night. He had more misanthropic thoughts before finally losing himself to the night. This was the cycle that Johnathon had with his passenger virtually every single morning he got on the train. Just when his mood hit rock bottom and wanted to be alone, of all coincidences the friendly and gentle commuter started showing up. Her young voice never had ill intent, but it still served to pester Johnathon whenever he saw her during his morning travels and on his way back home. He seriously considered other means of transportation to avoid her, but the financial crunch he was in didn't permit any other alternatives. So he simply tried his best to avoid speaking to her whenever he could. And if she started talking, he would often have a snide quip at the ready to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

"Hey, it's my commuting buddy."

"Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd you're here like always." he drearily muttered as he sipped his morning coffee and took his seat.

"You always seem to find your way to my cart. Is it not you perhaps who is seeking me out?"

"Don't flatter yourself." he drank more of his coffee as the glint on his hand caught a few sparse rays of the rising sun. In clear defiance of the 'No-Smoking' sign tacked on the wall of the rattling subway, he pulled out a carton of cigarettes. He then pulled out a sharpee and wrote 'Last Pack' on it in big bold letters.

"Those things will kill you." she pointed out.

"No shit, they will."

"Then why do you continue to smoke them?" she said as he lit a cigarette.

"Because it's one of the only legal and enjoyable ways of committing suicide that I can think of." he smugly remarked.

"That's a rather dark thought to have."

"I'm in a rather dark place to be having those kinds of thoughts."

"Ho hum, fair enough. But just because nobody else is in here doesn't mean you should be smoking."

"...You're a nosy woman, you know that?" Johnathon coldly remarked, inhaling from his cigarette and letting the smoke swirl inside his chest a bit before expelling it. "You're like my mother." She blushed despite his voice being riddled with venom.

"Oh, I'm flattered." she abashedly responded.

"I hated my mother." There was an unrelenting forwardness to his rude voice as he stood up and looked out the door, watching the morning scenery stream by.

".....Well, I'm still a bit flattered, though." was whispered under his breath.

"Hmm?" Johnathon turned around,and there she was, leaning in slightly towards him, remarkably close to his face while a hint of bliss was on her own, almost as if she was relieved.

"You remember me fairly well, don't you?" she continued leaning in, oh so careful not to touch him while her warm breath in the cold air was illuminated by the passing sunlight through the windows. His face began to flash with that sort of timid brightness and quickly turned away from her.

"You're always here, meandering around. It's not like I could forget. It'd be like forgetting a landmark." Smoke fizzed out of his nostrils as the brightness faded. The smoke went right through the woman without minding her in the slightest.

"Well, I'm just saying that's nice that you remember me, that's all." Her delicate cold hands began to slowly reach for his as he turned away again. The passing sun through the windows lit up the room and she caught the light on his hands and pulled herself away while she continued to talk.

"Being remembered is nice, isn't it?" she asked him.

"No, not really."

"Why not?"

"Like you." he spoke, continuing not to face her. "You're an irritating person who doesn't notice that I just want to be left alone. Remembering you isn't necessarily a good thing." She didn't mind the malicious intent behind his words much.

"Well I think your own fault for choosing to remember the bad things, is it not?" He didn't say anything. He didn't have anything to say. "I bet a lot of your problems would be solved if you can just choose to forget the bad things that happened and focus on the good things happening now."

"Are you a Jehovah’s Witness by any chance?" Johnathon sardonically asked. "I almost feel like you're trying to recruit me into a cult. All this talk about religion and remembrance and optimism. If I give any more time of the day, you'll probably bring up Jesus."

"Spirituality doesn't necessarily have to be tied to religion." the woman politely refuted. "This is your stop, by the way. Enjoy your work." She almost began ushering him out the door, but with a simple grunt he acknowledged her and shuffled out to work on his own. Forgetting would do Johnathon Morris a lot of good. The thoughts in his head slowly began to shift throughout that day, though. The anger was slowly purged during his entire day at work, slowly being replaced with a bleak emptiness that was swallowing up the anger. When he got on the train, lo and behold he saw the woman sitting down in a cart by herself, her face dripping with liquid from the burger she was ingesting.

"...Classy." he muttered as he sat down across from her. Her face had a big smile on it despite it being slightly mauled by her meal.

"Did you not notice what you did just now?" her voice a bit giddy.

"What?" he submissively responded

"I didn't talk to you. You engaged me first in conversation."

"......Hmm." was the only noise that made its way through the haze in his throat.

"I think this is the first step towards us becoming friends."

"I don't want friends, I want to be left alone." There was a lack of sharpness in his voice.

"Well, you can't be alone forever." she remarked. "It's a bit childish to feel that way, no?"

"I'm a bit of a childish person."

"Oh I believe you are, absolutely. No doubt." She was eager to agree. That irritated him a bit. "But people aren't always alone, you know. And I doubt you were, either. But I suppose time changes those kinds of things, don't they?"

"Hmm."

"Of course it can fix those things as well." She paused a bit. "But I suppose you know all this. You're a childish person, but I don't believe you're a child." He didn't respond. The majority of the train ride was in silence. The woman knew not to say anything this time. She kept her voice to herself unless he was ready to speak. When they arrived at his stop, he stood up near the door and just stared out for a bit.

"There's always a lack of time, isn't there?" A smile briefly crossed her face.

"Never a lack of time, just an impatience for how slow it can be." He just nodded and walked off the subway cart back to his empty house. The emptiness that night was stronger than usual. He felt exposed even in his own home, almost as if a wall was knocked down to subject him to the elements. He shivered a bit in his large bed as he fell asleep. As he awoke, he shook himself off a bit, almost pulling himself out of his own head for a moment to breathe. He stretched and massaged his dim, lonely hands for a bit, and he pulled himself out of bed to get ready for work. When he left his house, he began his walk to the subway. He ran out of cigarettes and didn't have a smoke this walk. It was odd for him. When he got on the subway cart, there was the woman again, dressed warmly with her brown hair poured out onto her shoulders. The cart had a few people in it, but Johnathon settled down.

"Good morning." he coldly muttered, slightly irritated from the nicotine withdrawal.

"Good to see you're not smoking this morning." Her voice sounded encouraging. He grunted as he shivered from the cold a bit. "You seem to be in a slightly better mood than usual."

"I'm managing." responded Johnathon, sipping his coffee and holding it gently with his bare fingers.

"You know, for all the time that we've seen each other, I don't believe we've ever even mentioned our names yet."

"Probably because I was hoping that eventually you would've given up on me and left me alone, but that clearly didn't work." His snide quip was absent of his usual hostility. "Fine, I'll bite. Introduce yourself."

"My name's Anselma."

"Johnathon."

"So does this mean we're friends now?" she politely asked. He sneered a bit at the question.

"Liberal use of that word, but I'll humor you, Anselma." She smiled and stood up. The sunlight illuminating the window behind her gave her the appearance almost of a seraph as light bloomed behind her like wings.

"I'm grateful for your generosity, Johnathon," her sincere voice swelled with a subtle yet slightly mocking joy. "I believe we should celebrate."

"...I'm already regretting this." His dripping sarcasm attempted to hide a smile creeping up on his face. The cart made a stop as the doors swung open.

"Although I have to leave, ironically enough." she remarked. "This is my stop for today."

"Right then. I guess I'll see you later."

"Goodbye, Johnathon." She stepped off, the doors creaked shut, and the cart started moving again. It was peculiar with her absence on the train, even with the other people in the cart he felt alone. He didn't like it. Not liking it was refreshing for him.

"...I suppose she'll be around." He sighed and laughed a bit, curious as to what he might've just gotten himself into again.

Will I ever have children?

I've actually thought about this question a lot. I mean, me having kids is a scary-as-fuck prospect. First off, I never had the best examples of parents to learn off of. When a child starts to think of their mother and father less as parents and more as sentient beating machines fueled by alcohol, debt, and malice, he or she will probably have a skewed or misrepresented interpretation of what makes a family.

I imagine meeting my future wife already. It's the one time the sparse friends I have cope me out of my house to go to a party. I get drunk as my parents when they beat the shit out of each other, and don't remember a fucking thing the following morning when I wake up at home. I get out of bed and drag myself to a diner because I don't feel like making breakfast or getting dysentery from McDonalds. I feel like getting Dysentery from Denny's, so that's where I go. I walk in, hung over to Hell and back, and I sit myself down in a dingy, smelly booth. I feel like I'm going to vomit. But there's the cute Asian waitress coming to my booth, asking me what I want to have.

"Coffee," I say. "Immediately."
"Yessir!" Then she trots off and gets me a hottle of coffee. It's nice, because it makes me feel like I'm going to have a visitor to share it with. The waitress immediately notices my shirt.
"Ooh, I haven't played Golden Sun in a long time." Oh god, she's a gamer. Kick-ass. We make small talk as I get ready for my order. Despite the throbbing head, I couldn't be enjoying myself more. I thought to myself, "This seems like a girl I wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life with." I would tip her and continue to show up to the Denny's, forgoing diarrhea every trip just to talk with her just to eventually work up the courage to ask her what she was doing Friday night. It was going to be magnificent.

Then a crazy bitch burst through the door and said that I knocked her up at the party last night and that she refuses to abort it. I CAN HEAR THE WEDDING BELLS ALREADY. Or that's the ringing in my ears from the hangover.

"What, I don't want to marry you. Abort it and go away, not my fault you let a drunk fuck you at the party."
"YOU RAPED ME!"
"...WHAT? No I didn't, don't fucking lie."
"YOU STABBED TWO PEOPLE AND SHIT ON THE COUNTER!"
"WHAT? I WOULD NEVER SHIT ON THE COUNTER!" The cute waitress was shying away from the explosive situation. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, MY ONE CHANCE AT TRUE LOVE IS DISAPPEARING. But as little choice as I had, this woman was going to be my wife. She wasn't ugly at least. Nice rack on her, but that might be what pregnancy does to a woman. We begrudgingly got married and moved into a dirty little apartment together. We hated each other at first. At first. But as it so turns out, we have the same general disgust with people as each other. She never wanted to leave the house, and the one night her friends dragged her out she was worried about getting date-raped or something.

...At the very least, I gave her something to hold over her friends for a long-ass time.

We named our first son Frank, after my grandfather that I never met and heard was an asshole. Frank seemed like an asshole's name. He was an asshole, too. As he grew older, he constantly mocked his father for dropping out of college and working at a paint-manufacturing plant while attempting to get his shitty pieces of writing published that nobody would ever want to read, the worthless little shit. You bet your ass that I drunkenly knocked him from room to room when I was bored. The snide bastard certainly had it coming. I came home one night upset and got into a fight with my wife again. She ended up raping me instead out of anger, and despite my feelings I certainly didn't have the pride to apologize to her for raping her because that was some scary shit. I wasn't going to apologize, she raped me. At least I wasn't aware of it. I immediately left home to go visit my friend to console me after what happened. She was a nice girl. We ended up sleeping together and having an affair for the entire week. When I got home Friday night, my wife told me she was pregnant with my rape child. I was horrified that she would birth a child born completely of malice, but she told me that unlike Frank it'll have a purpose to be alive other than simply being a tax write-off. I went and told my friend the horrible news, but then she told me that SHE was pregnant. ...Well, fuck.

She ended up giving birth a month later after my wife created that tool of vengeance, my daughter. My wife's daughter was Isabel. Don't know why, didn't care. That child did not exist to me. My friend's child was named Amelia after my first girlfriend. That initially didn't go over well, but we both figured it was a nice name and it might grace my second daughter with enormous breasts.

Eventually I get a divorce from my wife because she's pregnant again. She's pregnant after raping me again and having it backfire when I reverse-raped her. It was just a war of terrible, terrible rape that Frank and whatshername shouldn't bear witness to any longer. And I figured they got tired of me getting drunk and smacking the shit out of them. I get the divorce. I do this because then I end up having my friend and my other daughter move in. Life is strangely good. I begin to get a few pieces published, we have a stable marriage where I was drinking less and less. Then when she will take our daughter to daycare one day, they both will get into a car accident and die. This will hurt me beyond repair. And my ex-wife to make it worse will be glad. So one day I get drunk, I go to her house and meet her new boyfriend. I shoot him in the chest four times. I find my wife and kids and I drown them in the tub, then I shoot myself in the head. My brother posthumously gets this story and several others published after my death, and I become a national icon for breaking through in modern gothic fiction and memoir while he makes bank off of my talent.

The end.

Adelie's brother.

"Why are you so grumpy?" the girl asked.

"I'm not grumpy." the man said, his voice projecting nothing.

"You're clearly in a bad mood, tell me what's wrong."

"I'm fine. Everything's fine."

"You're looking away, again." she tried looking him in the eye, but he wouldn't let her.

"This is beginning to get irritating."

"Then just tell me what's wrong."

"I said nothing's wrong."

"I can see it in your face, something's wrong."

"Thinking there's a problem when there isn't one will make one. Please, I'm fine."

"Hum." She let out a little pouting noise. Adelie could try all she wanted to; her stepbrother wasn't going to make a peep. His cold and empty eyes glared at the brown, faded door to his studio, nothing more. He hadn't been in there for weeks. He could not find anything to impel his interest to open the door and enter. This was not unexpected of him, though; he occasionally went through bouts of lazing about for weeks every once in a blue moon. Of course this was the beauty of his and Adelie's lifestyle; Adelie's parents were extremely rich, and thus the two had the ability to go about their leisure without a care in the world. The manor that they lived in was large and fenced off from the rest of the world. It stood tall and authoritatively above the countryside it rested on, an immense fortress of seclusion that pulled all attention on the modest plains to it. A few thin, winding roads through the grassy fields were all that went to and from the manor, giving its residents their solitary exit out of their home. Of course, not that they could actually leave and go about the world itself, anyway. Both siblings had hindrances that kept them shackled to where they lived. Adelie could never leave the house without a caretaker; her pale, sickly body forbade it. Most assumed that she wouldn't be alive much longer, a grim outlook that she had no trouble accepting. While a perturbing mindset it was, she was quite young, and young people haven't nearly lived enough to develop regrets.

The slow weathering of her faculties meant that any sort of moving about took a great deal of effort on her part, so she simply opted against it. Adelie spent most of her time at home reading many books, as an entire portion of the extravagant manor they lived in was dedicated to being her personal library. She was only fourteen years of age but had read hundreds upon hundreds of books in her short and simple life. None of them were particularly good, though; she enjoyed reading for the knowledge they gave her, not for the world they allowed her imagination to meander about in. Over her brief life she's amassed an intellect that was almost unprecedented. Her knowledge was her weapon, and her books were her bullets. But her aim wasn't exactly steady.

"If you told me what was wrong," said she, "I would do my best to help."

"I said nothing's wrong." he adamantly said. His tacit voice couldn't be shaken. This was how it always went between them. He was twenty-three years old, but looked much older. His disheveled and uneven beard gripped his face like a tumor, marring his face with age. He had beige dress pants and a wore an unironed white dress shirt that lacked a kind of liveliness and dampened his mood. His cold, brown eyes cast dark shadows underneath them, and lacked the softness that they usually had towards Adelie. He clearly hadn't slept well for a great while. In fact, the lazy bum hadn't done much of anything in a great while. He simply woke up at noon, went to the family's arboretum in the courtyard for eight hours, and then retreated to the room for the rest of his night, only to repeat the cycle ad-nauseum until he felt ready to work again. Adelie didn't like the Arboretum and thus didn't follow him in there, nor did she know what he did to occupy himself in the place. It was a great enough distance that she had to call a carriage to make it there. And nothing but vehement agitation awaited her there, as she possessed rather severe allergies and thus would be driven to madness whenever she decided to enter the place.

"Why not come into the library and read with me every once in a while? You would probably feel invigorated after reading a good book."

"Not partial to it." he responded. He slowly ate his breakfast as he continued to look directly ahead at nothing, acknowledging nobody.

"Everybody has to read, brother." she refuted. "It might give you the knowledge you need to get out of your rut."

"I decline." his droll voice reverberated. There was no hostility or irritation in his voice. His voice was empty; simply a response to his sister. He finished eating and stood up from the foyer table. "I take your leave." was all that left his mouth, and he went to the courtyard, no doubt to rot away in the Arboretum for several hours again. She always wondered what he did in there. She enjoyed talking to her brother and she enjoyed watching him work in his studio, but she had nobody to keep her company whenever he started acting like this. The young girl never saw her parents; they were always working and what have it as aristocrats. Her personal doctor never talked to her much, either. The housekeepers were polite and listened to her, but that was simply their job. And thus with nobody's company to enjoy, she would retreat to the library to occupy herself. But her books did not occupy her. She noticed her brother's mood was colder than usual. The distance he was putting between himself and her was far more than she was accustomed to. So one day, she decided to inquiry her maid about something.

"The arboretum?" the maid said.

"Yes. I want to visit brother there." Adelie politely demanded.

"Mistress, you know the greenhouse will only serve to irritate your fickle body." the maid advised. "I would advise against it."

"I did not ask for your opinion, I was simply making an order." she haughtily stated. " I am going to visit my brother there."

"I don't think I can permit it, mistress."

"I don't think you have that jurisdiction. Now get the carriage and take me there."

"......As you wish, mistress."

And that was all it took for young Adelie to get a carriage for to ride to the arboretum in the courtyard. She was in a ash-colored dress filled with volume, a sharp contrast to her petite frame with pale, colorless skin and her ice-blonde hair. She carried a parasol to shield her delicate skin from the sun, at least what little that managed to make its way through the clouds. A gray sky hung over the manor and its courtyard. The rich colors that normally seared themselves into wandering eyes were dulled and muddy from the dark overcast. It was a ten minute walk from the manor she dwelled in, too far for her frail, pale body to carry her. The ride there was not pleasant. She could do nothing but glance at her home as the carriage rolled towards the arboretum. The manor was a rustic, Victorian building awash in a bright white while a few spires climbed from the roof, checkered with blue shingles. It almost resembled a cathedral more than an actual building of residence. A long, brickwork wall surrounded it and the entirety of the courtyard grounds while the grandiose size of the manor and walls made the world around Adelie seem so small, undermining the expanse of land that the family seemed to own. The entirety of the courtyard was an empty green field that shimmered and swayed in the wind; there were a few sparse trees, but it was particularly barren aside from the stone-paved road that crept itself over the hills to an extensive garden sheltered by a glass fixture over it. It was quite large and normally would be a bright light on the horizon, but there were no rays of the sun to allow it to be so. When the carriage parked itself in front of the gate to the arboretum, Adelie told the driver to wait for her while she had a talk with her brother. As soon as she walked into the the gates, her senses were becoming immediately smothered by all the pollens and dusts that punctuated the air. Her eyes were sieged with washed-out colors that were dulled by the cloudy sky. The building looked and smelled of death to her. She couldn't stay for long. She saw her brother sitting at a table fixture near the center. His shoulders were slumped over. He did not move.

"So this is what you do every day in and day out, is it?" she said. He almost seemed startled as he peered towards the voice addressing him.

"You should not be here." was all he said. He did not look at her.

"I want to know what's wrong, though. You've been moping about far longer than before."

"I said nothing was wrong." His empty voice reverberated.

"You are a liar." she asserted, a hint of impatience in her voice. "Nothing can hurt from telling me what's wrong." There was a long silence weaving its way through the arboretum, but her brother stopped it.

"...Nothing hurts." he said. "Therefore there's no problem." Adelie sighed. She was starting to sweat and cough a bit. She was becoming lightheaded.

"You should leave before you fall ill." he said.

"...Fine, you can rot in here for all I care." her tired voice muttered, slightly defeated. She managed to make her way out of the arboretum, her equilibrium trembling and swaying.

"...Milady?" the driver asked. Adelie stumbled and sat in her chair in the carriage.

"I'll be fine," she meekly declared. "Take me back to the manor."

"Yes, milady."

She did not converse with her brother for a good while after that. She was quite upset with his sad state of affairs and simply realized how futile it was for her to try to get any answer out of him. She was not speaking to her brother when they talked; her words went into him and was swallowed by his emptiness, and nothing she said could fill that void up. And the trip to the arboretum took a toll on her health; she was simply not capable of moving about too much. She retired to her library and continued to read more and more, tearing into encyclopedic texts and attempting to decipher anything that could be wrong. Eventually though, her curiosity made a decision for her that she normally abstained from.

She was in the foyer one morning, and there was the dull brown door to her brother's studio. The door he hadn't entered in well over a month, now. Adelie opened it and stepped inside. The curtains shielded the room from any light, so she pulled them open to illuminate the dark room. What she saw were canvases everywhere. They were propped against the walls and propped against more canvases. All of them filled with colors. Bright, incinerating colors that scorched Adelie's eyes just looking upon them. Large meshes of green, checked and spotted with reds and blues and yellows and violets. All of them seemed to express a bright inanition that radiated from her brother's spirit and weaved themselves into the paintings and walls.

"What are you doing in here?" she heard. It made her jump as if she was caught doing something unfitting of a young lady. She turned around and there was her brother. His eyes were fixated on her. It wasn't like his sister was what caught his attention, but almost as if he didn't want to look upon the studio.

"I... I just wanted to look at all your works, that is all." she stuttered. While not entirely true, it was partially true; anything that might tell her what was wrong with her brother was what led her into the room, but a nostalgic twinge was what caused her to linger.

"You shouldn't be in here." he said. She timidly nodded and shuffled out of the studio. He stood with the door open and hesitated a bit before he closed it. The next day, Adelie requested again to be taken to the arboretum. Both the housekeeper and carriage driver declined. Her health was delicate, far more than usual after the initial trip. She was upset, as would be expected. She went to bed that night in a hiss, unable to see her brother since he did not return home until long after she retired. When she awoke the following day, she got dressed in her usual wardrobe; her black ashy and bouncy dress, and her parasol. She wore slightly more resilient boots and she managed to leave the house that morning before her brother awoke. Against her better judgment, she decided to walk to the arboretum on her own. It was a ten-minute walk for a normal person of good health. It took forty for young Adelie, who frequently had to stop and breathe heavily and rest before continuing again another short distance. Her weak body was creaking and sputtering the entire way there, bringing her closer to death than most people would ever know in their lives. Yet she did not care for death. Her iron will was all that dragged that corse behind her to the arboretum. When she made her way in there, she was winded, exhausted, and her heart was racing. She was paler than usual and sweating a great deal as she trembled and rested on one of the benches in the lush garden. The air was both taxing to breathe yet refreshing all the same. After her body calmed down and managed to pull itself back from death, she managed to look about her surroundings.

"He really must've painted every inch of this place..." she said to herself. "He's probably run out of things to paint."

"I have." The voice made her jump again. There her brother was. "You should not be here." he said. "You could've killed yourself coming here." That coldness in his voice seemed to be slightly heated by anger this time. Not tremendous, spiteful anger, but almost a tiresome impatience and displeasure that projected more emotion than usual.

"I don't care if I die." she pouted, still clearly nauseated by her reckless behavior. "You shouldn't stop painting just because you've painted everything in here. Find something else to paint."

"That's not it."

"Then what is?" she asked, her condition being agitated by her temper.

"There's nothing going on."

"There clearly is, are you unhappy?" she asked. He paused for a second.

"No joy." was all that left his mouth.

"Why? Where has it gone?"

"I've painted it all out." he said.

"I told you, find something else to paint, then." she adamantly stated.

"You don't understand." he said. She paused for a bit. She didn't say anything. Despite her attempts to ask what was wrong and to search for a problem, perhaps she COULDN'T understand. But she still wanted to.

"I don't care what you paint, though. Just paint something. It's something you need to do." she said. She was starting to cry a bit. Her brother walked to her and picked her up.

"Let's head back." He said. There was a slight warmness to his voice. A familiar warmness. But Adelie couldn't stay conscious much longer. Her body gave up on her and almost gave up her ghost, but that iron will again weighed it down.

She awoke in her bed. The sun was rising. Her body still felt terrible, but the light coming in through her window warmed her body to life. She shook her sleepiness off and crawled out of bed. She made her way to the foyer, and there her brother was. She blinked and rubbed her eyes and almost couldn't believe what she saw. He was clean-shaven and his eyes had no shadows. He looked remarkably young again, almost like a child's face on a large frame. His clothes were still ragged, but he seemed to exude life again.

"Good morning, brother." she managed to choke out, still slightly lost for words.

"Good morning." was all he said as he finished dinner. His voice no longer had that hollowness that echoed throughout the room. He stood up and was walking towards his studio door. Adelie's face lit up.

"Can I come in and watch?" she eagerly asked.

"No." he said. She was surprised and a bit upset.

"Why?"

"This is something special. I'll show you it when I'm done." He said as he closed the door. While initially angry, it made her excited. She was looking forward to what he could've been painting. She shuffled off to the library and continued to read more to occupy herself while her brother worked. But her brother never left the studio, and he was usually in there long before she awoke. This went on for a week. Eventually she woke up, and heard yelling. She pulled herself out of bed to see what the problem was. The housekeepers were arguing, some were crying, and some simply didn't say anything while they stared at the studio doors that were open.

"What is the meaning of this?" Adelie demanded as she awoke.

"It was your stepbrother's appointment with some of the aristocrats from the neighboring city today." one of the housekeepers frantically explained. "He was supposed to start doing some leasing and insurance work today for your father's institution."

"I heard nothing of this." the young girl said.

"Well he wasn't working, so your father was going to force him into the family business or kick him out of the house for doing nothing day after day." the maid explained.

"So why all the commotion?" A few of the housekeepers grew silent. One of them was weeping a bit. "...No... don't tell me..." she immediately stumbled forward and raced into the studio.

"MILADY, NO!" But when she went in there, there her brother was, on the ground, the sigh of God that left his breath lingering in the room. Adelie didn't know what to say. She knelt towards his cold body, but there was a vague smile on his face as he lay there on the floor. She looked up and saw an enormous canvas propped against the wall. It was two canvases mounted next to each other to create a painting of gloom that covered the wall. It was a picture of a girl in a garden, sitting lifelessly next to a man with a gray overcast while it rained upon them. The entire color scheme of the painting was dark and muted. It was dark, depressing blotch of gray out of all the colorful paintings that adorned the room.

"What a tragic and horrific painting..." one of the housekeepers said. Adelie just stared at it, almost in awe.

"I think it's the most beautiful thing he's painted in this room." she said. As she looked at it. It was the only thing that existed to her that came from her brother. And it was the last. Time simply ran out, as precious as it was. She started to cry.