“Thank you.”

Then she was gone. A kiss on the cheek, sending flashbacks to the hot sweaty nights we had enjoyed. A wave, somewhat halfhearted and that last glance. As I shut the door and braced my body, I waited for the tears to come. As I slid down the door I thought of our old goodbyes. We had a thing of saying, “rawr rawr rawr”, whenever one of use had to go somewhere. Back in high school, it was when I was dropping her off. Lately, it had fallen into disuse as we had spent every moment together. Up until that fateful night.

We had a fight, she slammed the door as she was storming out and went to her favorite bar. I never did know which one it was. Anyways, she was at her favorite watering hole playing pool and downing a not totally unreasonable amount of beer. She was one a winning streak for once, and game after game she had a new opponent. Until one guy came up and wiped her out in three turns. I felt a half smile as I thought of her first reaction: pure unbridled rage, as she put it. She waited her turn and the next time she played him, it was a much closer game. She got his name, returned home and told me the story. We laughed about it.

Then a few weeks later, another stupid fight. This one was my fault. I had been too proud. I still remembered what I said as she was on her way out, as who could forget the worst thing they’d ever said? I said, “Find some other place to stay tonight!” I’m sure I had been drunk, and I apologized the next day, but at the time she wouldn’t say where she had stayed. I assumed her friends, until later that week when I saw on Facebook that they had been on an exciting trip to Colorado. My worst fears began to grow inside of me, eating me up inside.

Then the final straw. She joked that maybe I could start doing the dishes. Something small, like it always was. I still can’t remember why I went off the handle at something so minor. Maybe it was her tone, maybe it had been a rough day at work. In any case, the argument grew silent pretty quick. She always knew that I couldn’t bear it when she didn’t talk back. I pleaded for an explanation of why she was doing it, being silent. After a long pause, she started to explain what had happened. She had met somebody else. Somebody who treated her right. I was floored, I was angry, but I felt I had no choice but to let her explain.

Through thick and thin we had been there for each other, but we were like bandaids healing previous wounds. My exes, her abusive family. We were there to give each other hope that we hadn’t had before, she said. She placed her hand on my chest and said that it was time we finally let ourselves heal. I tried to put my hand on hers but she pulled away, and went to her room to start packing. I felt like time was standing still. She went all over the house, finding the boxes in the basement and the attic, all of her shoes, all of her clothes. The box of memories that she had kept for as long as I had known her. She went out front and waited on the front porch.

After what felt like an eternity, I went out on the front porch. There she was, sitting on the bench swinging nervously. My tears had dried, and I asked if she minded if I sat down. She didn’t. I sat beside her and thought long and hard about what I should say, what I could do. I thought of pleading, I thought of yelling, but suddenly I remembered something I had said long ago, when we had just started dating.

“Does he make you happy?” I asked, the words almost too quiet to hear. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and barely cracked a smile. “Yes.”

I nodded, gave her a hug, and walked to the door as a car pulled up. A respectable man stepped out of the drivers side and came to help carry things. I looked him in the eyes as he walked up the steps.

“Treat her right.” He nodded. As I went into the house her voice called my name from the car. She put the box she was carrying into the trunk, spoke a few words to the new man and ran up to the house. Inside the doorway she stopped, breathless, beautiful, and a little excited. As she gave me a hug I heard her whisper, “thank you.” Then a kiss on the cheek, the door was closed, and she was gone. As I slid down the door I softly whispered the words, “rawr rawr rawr”.

I just hoped that he would treat her better than I had.

Jackson scratched at his scars. They were itching, which he figured must mean it was about to rain. He raised the remote, clicked a button, and the shades raised to reveal that it was, indeed raining. He wondered when this “super power” as his little sister called it, would actually come in handy. He clutched his whiskey with his other hand, raising it to take a sip before returning it to its place on the table. As he glanced around his apartment he was struck with how normal it looked, still. Architecture hadn’t gone far in the past ten years, whereas technology had gone farther than anybody could have ever imagined. Without looking he took his glass of whiskey back into his hand, swirling it about and listening to the sound of ice on glass. Yes, technology had gone far. He downed the remaining alcohol and stood, marveling at how he wasn’t woozy yet. After all, that had been his sixth.

As he strolled towards the door, he had to remind himself of the days when six glasses would have put him on the floor. It had been a while. Not everybody remembered the days when alcohol affected people. Now, even kids could drink it.

Jackson opened the door into the hallway, glancing at every door number as he walked past. He stopped in front of the last door before the stairs and knocked twice, sharply and quickly. He could see an eye staring him down through the peephole before the door opened, revealing the occupant.

Michael was a nervous man, always had been. The surgeries hadn’t changed that one bit. As Jackson looked him up and down, he was thankful for that. That nervous man had an eye for bad situations, and under pressure he regularly pulled through. The two shook hands and embraced briefly, both muttering, “Nova initia,” before releasing and turning to descend the stairs. Michael scratched his scars, before turning to Jackson. “Do you think…” he began, but Jackson cut him off.

“Michael, it’s raining.”

Michael looked dejected. He also wishes this gift was a super power thought Jackson as he had many times before. Reaching into his front jacket pocket he found his baby in the place it always was. He lovingly ran a finger along the barrel before Michael cut in.

“We could just stay home. I mean, this sounds like a bad idea.”

Jackson shook his head. “No, we’ve got to do this. It’s our last chance.” Michael again looked dejected, before muttering, “Not if we just steal from another supplier.” Jackson stopped and allowed Michael to walk a few more steps before he started. “Michael, you remember what this man did?” Michael stopped and bowed his head before responding.

“Is revenge really the answer?”

Jackson closed the distance and pinned Michael against the wall, thankful that nobody was walking through. He still overdid it a little bit, as he heard the drywall crunch. He shrugged internally; it wasn’t the first time he had to pay for damages. He renewed his focus on his partner.

“Michael, they killed her. Blood for blood.” Jackson let up a bit when he noticed Michael was having trouble breathing. Michael struggled and Jackson let him go, watching silently as he walked further down the halls. Michael stopped and turned, throwing out his hands.

“Well, are you coming?”

Jackson returned to Michael’s side. “How many men?” he asked, knowing that his partner had already scoped out the place. Jackson had never had the patience for it, but Michael was a natural.

“About twenty, twenty five. Ten of them heavies like..” Jackson didn’t need him to finish. Like us. he thought as the walked out the front door. They turned right and headed down the boulevard. Jackson was cool and confident, Michael was nervous and a little shifty. But that wasn’t all out of the ordinary. From time to time as they walked Jackson stopped to shoot the shit with cops, bums, and passerby. Finally they stood in front of a monolith. Cooper’s Place.

“You ready?” Jackson didn’t wait for a response to the question as he pushed open the front doors, walking to the receptionist.

“Nova initia…” Michael replied, following.

The receptionist was a cute thing, in his mid twenties. He must’ve been new, though, as it didn’t take much prompting before Jackson and Michael were in an elevator headed to the penthouse. It hadn’t taken much; all they really needed to do was “prove” that they weren’t heavies. Luckily Michael had a solution for that: act like a pussy. Jackson snickered quietly as his partner shook his head, long tired of Jackson’s remarks. He realized it was just the way things were, but that asshole had proven his worth a long time ago too. The elevator beeped with each floor. Around floor forty Jackson stopped snickering and looked at his partner. They locked eyes, hands in their coats and prepared to go out swinging. Forty six, forty seven, forty eight… Their hands grasped the weapons tighter. Forty nine… They both muttered the phrase together, drawing their weapons.

“Nova initia.”

The elevator dinged and opened, revealing two huge, burly men. Their prosthetics were not hidden, probably to make them seem more fierce. Indeed, their burly, shiny arms radiated strength as they reached out and knocked Michael and Jackson’s heads together. They both passed out.

Jackson woke up a time later, hanging upside-down from a meat hook next to what he could only assume was a cow, although this wasn’t really his element. A voice came from behind him.

“So. I hear you don’t like how I do business.”

The voice was the smooth sound of a man assured of his power. As Jackson struggled, he caught a glimpse of Michael hanging two hooks over. His eye was swollen shut, and something was throwing off sparks near his chin. Blood dripped from a wound on the side of his head onto the concrete floor. Jackson twisted as much as he could to get a look at their captor.

Unassuming was the man that stood before him, in a tailored three-piece suit that seemed immune from the bloody environment. He held a cane out in front of him, clearly not necessary for walking but absolutely vital to his image. A slight cocky grin dominated the man’s face, and his eyes told Jackson only one thing. I am in control here. Jackson spat at the man’s face, but it fell a bit short and landed at his feet. As he gathered another shot, a real one rang through the air. Jackson could barely see the man who fired it, standing behind the boss. He mentally traced the trajectory to see where it had landed, square between Michael’s eyes.

“Now that I have your attention, how would you like to make a deal?” The smooth voiced man was unperturbed by the death, whereas Jackson was doing everything he could to swing himself closer to Michael, whose unswollen eye had opened at the shot and now stared dead into space. A swift strike of the cane hit Jackson in the cheek, and he did his best to face the monster before him. Now was not the time to fight.

“What do you propose? Dirtbag… Jackson thought, spitting blood out onto the ground.

“You stop following me, and start going after the people behind this.” The man punctuated each word with a slight swing of the cane. Jackson’s eyes narrowed as he felt he rage building up again. “You’re behind this!”

“Oh Jackson, you don’t really think I’m the only one behind this? You’ve got to understand that there are bigger things at play here.” The man suddenly looked put upon. In his public image, he was said to be in his mid-thirties but in this state it was clear he was much older. It didn’t do much to subdue Jackson’s rage, however. He bit his lip for a minute and finally came up with a reasonable response, one that had a chance of getting him out of here.

“What’s in it for me?”

Satan sat in his iron chair absent-mindedly ran his finger along the spout of an old oil lamp, waiting for his next soul to come in and speak with him. He’d had this idea for a while, and was relatively excited for the opportunity to put it to use. As the door opened and a floating wisp entered, Satan rose to greet him.

“Hey! Steve! Come in, come in. I’d shake your hands but you haven’t earned those yet.” The Devil was all smiles, and the wisp gave an exaggerated sigh. As the wisp floated over to the other side of the desk, the Devil lowered himself into his chair and started right in to his sales pitch.

“Alright Steve, here’s the deal. You get phenomenal cosmic power, help people succeed in the real world, and get to see the Earth from time to time. How does that sound?” Satan smiled a friendly smile, and leaned back in his chair holding the oil lamp.

“That sounds amazing… but what’s the catch?” The wisp radiated suspicion, something Satan never really could understand. How could a ball of light be so nervous?

“Well, for one you have to be trapped in this here lamp. I will create thousands like it, and put them up for sale in stores all over the world. One of those lamps, yours, when rubbed will release you. That person gets three wishes, then you go back in the lamp.”

“And this benefits you… how?” Steve mentally raised an eyebrow.

“Well, those people that release you are forever after bound to me.” Satan leaned back, waiting for an answer. It really was a clever plan, if he said so himself. Nobody could resist that temptation, and once word spread there would be people just clamoring to get taken to hell for their worldly desires.

“Do I get to choose my appearance?”

“Of course.”

“Any limitations?”

“You can’t raise the dead, and you can’t affect affairs in Hell or Heaven.”

“Done.” Steve was excited. He knew how this would go. He would spend eternity trying to convince people to use just one of their wishes to let him go. He was sure that at least one person would go for it, and then he would have phenomenal cosmic power and be free to roam the Earth. He rose slightly in the air and moved over the desk, examining the lamp from up close. It would be his home for at least a few hundred years. As he entered the lamp, Satan place the lid on it and set it back down on the desk for a second before pausing to stare at it.

“Oh, and Steve? I forgot one thing.” Steve rose out of the mouth of the lamp, a small blue person with shackles on his arms. He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

“There is one more limitation. You can’t be freed from this lamp, by wishes or any other power.” The smile on Satan’s face was infuriating to Steve, who tried to rise out and strike the Devil. Before he could reach him, the lamp was teleported to a bazaar which Steve assumed to be somewhere in Egypt. As a greasy American traveler lifted up the lamp, Steve’s mind could only come up with one reaction.

Well, fuck.

“It was an accident.”

Jim was reclining in his chair, reading a decent book. Occasionally he would glance outside, seeing snow fall and wishing for summer. He sighed, removed his glasses and rubbed his forehead.

As he took his hand away from his forehead, he heard a scraping sound; something was moving on the carpet. He dropped his book and looked around for it, as Jim expected to be the only person here this weekend. As he looked he felt with his right hand for the drawer of the stand by his reclined, opening it and pulling out a pistol. He mustered his courage, and cocked the gun.

“If there’s anyone here you better tell me!” Jim could barely feel his voice falter but was overall very intimidating. His father always said the sound of a gun being cocked would bring out any intruders. Unfortunately, his father wasn’t right this time. Nothing moved.

As Jim started to walk around the house he noticed a scrap of paper on the floor in front of the mud room closet. He looked around for where it might have come from, noticing a table next to it. He started to feel rather silly about the gun as he knelt down to pick up the note.

**Hey Jim, just wanted to let you know that your fly is down.**

Jim checked, sure enough the note was right. He corrected it before he started looking for a pen. Once he did, he wrote the following, “**Thank you. Dinner tonight?** He left this note where he found the first one. As he sat back down in his chair he saw a female arm reach from the closet and grab the note. There was a very faint sound of pen on paper, and suddenly another note sat outside of the closet.

**Sure.**

Jim started getting ready for dinner, chucking to himself. His wife was definitely weird but she knew how to surprise him.