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.

the world briefly flicker into view. The wind howled, rain hammered the windows with a

crashed

sky was heavy and

mother had handed her a twenty, told her to run to the corner store for a bottle of soy sauce, and said she

candy, even choosing

on the way home, swinging her bag of groceries,

was a

froze. When she finally looked, she saw it

eyes stared wide and unseeing, blood

head in dark, snaking rivulets across the

and ears. Her skin was

shouted that a woman had

quickly surrounded

groceries crashed to the ground.

call out, to scream for her

but no sound came

thunder and lightning

Jessica alone in their apartment, and followed the ambulance

darkness, the image of her mother's

outside never stopped, battering her small

why her mother

fiber in her body, the time she'd

come home earlier, maybe her mother wouldn't

shaking as she

of the screen was blinding in the pitch-black

Her lips trembled.

thunder nearly made her drop