Goodbye, Mr. Regret

Timothy stared at the message on his phone, his dark eyes fixed on the glowing

screen for a long while.

[Do you like it?]

He typed a reply.

[Yeah, just like Happy and Lucky.]

He pressed his lips together, thinking.

If Sheila liked them, there was no harm in giving her one too.

There were twenty-two left.

He bought them all, though he only intended to keep one.

The rest, he'd throw away.

It was just an excuse to set one aside for Sheila.

[If you like it, keep it.]

Capital City.

Jessica was too afraid to sleep. She huddled in the corner of the hotel room, knees pulled to her chest, shivering so hard her fingernails nearly broke the skin of her palms.

Every clap of thunder struck like a hammer against her heart.

total darkness. Only when lightning ripped across the sky did the world briefly flicker into view. The wind howled, rain hammered the windows with a relentless drone, and Jessica felt her courage drain away,

memories crashed over

heavy and gray, rain threatening at any

twenty, told her to run to the corner store for a bottle of soy sauce, and said she could buy whatever snacks she

out candy, even choosing a piece of

was practically skipping on the way home, swinging her bag of groceries, when she

was a

froze. When she finally looked, she saw it was her

and unseeing, blood spreading from the

dark, snaking rivulets across

welled from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Her skin was as white

shouted that a

surrounded

the ground. She

to scream for

but no sound

the thunder

alone in their apartment, and followed

were out. In the darkness, the image of her mother's broken

and rolling thunder outside never stopped, battering her small world with each

why her mother

her body, the time she'd wasted picking out

had come home earlier, maybe

teeth, hands shaking as she pulled out

of the screen was blinding in the pitch-black

Her lips trembled.

nearly made her drop