The Soldier

Posted on January 31, 2026 by M. Bradley under Short Stories

I could hear the bullets split the wind as they whizzed past my ears, a vicious, insectile sound that made my neck curl into my shoulders like I could somehow disappear into my own spine. The world had narrowed to fragments: dust bursting from the wall in front of me, the metallic bite of cordite in the air, the radio crackling nonsense and panic all at once. My finger rested on the trigger, a familiar pressure point I’d trained into muscle memory, and yet it felt like it belonged to someone else.

“Contact left!” someone shouted. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was the voice in my head repeating what it had learned was necessary to survive.

I pressed my cheek harder into the stock of my rifle and peered down the sight. Shapes moved between ruined doorways across the street—figures, not faces. Targets, not people. That was the language they taught us. Clean words for messy things. I had used them before, plenty of times, without hesitation. Pull, recoil, adjust, breathe. Simple. But this time something snagged.

A memory, stupid and small, floated up uninvited. My mother’s hands, always smelling faintly of soap, cupping my face the day I left. “Remember who you are,” she’d said. Not be brave. Not come back a hero. Remember who you are.

Another burst of gunfire stitched the wall above my head, snapping me back into the moment. Chips of concrete rained down my collar. I tasted grit and fear. My heart hammered so hard it felt like it might bruise me from the inside. I leaned out just enough to fire. The rifle bucked. Once. Twice. The sound was deafening, final. I didn’t know if I hit anything. I didn’t want to know.

We advanced by inches, then feet. Shouting. Smoke. The street smelled like burning trash and hot metal. I caught a glimpse of one of them; close now, too close, ducking behind an overturned cart. He couldn’t have been much older than me. That thought landed heavy, as if age itself carried moral weight.

I lined him up in my sights. Center mass. That’s what they drilled into us. Efficiency over everything. My finger began to tighten. And then he looked at me. Not in a dramatic way. No slow-motion revelation. Just a glance, quick and startled, like a deer realizing too late it’s been seen. His eyes were dark, wide, terrified. Exactly like mine must have been.

My finger froze. A voice screamed inside my skull: Do it. Do it or you die. Do it or your friend dies. Do it because this is what you’re here for. Another voice, quieter, infuriatingly calm, asked, What happens after?

I thought of the men I’d already killed. Faces I pretended not to remember, yet somehow always did. I thought of the nights when sleep came in jagged pieces, when I woke choking on dreams I couldn’t explain to anyone back home. I thought of how every time I pulled the trigger, something in me flinched, just a little, like a wire being bent again and again.

Gunfire erupted to my right. One of ours went down, yelling, clutching his leg. The spell shattered. Training surged back, angry and urgent. I fired again, not aiming now, just reacting. The figure across the street vanished from view.

We pushed forward, because that’s what momentum demands. Because stopping meant thinking, and thinking felt dangerous.

Minutes or hours later, time had lost its meaning by then, we took the building. The shooting slowed, then stopped. The silence afterward was worse, thick and accusing. My ears rang. My hands shook as the adrenaline drained away, leaving something hollow behind.

Inside, I found him. He lay slumped against a wall, the overturned cart nowhere in sight. Blood darkened his shirt, blooming like an ugly flower. His eyes were open, staring at nothing. He looked younger up close. Younger than I’d thought. Younger than I was. I don’t know if it was my bullet. That uncertainty should have comforted me. It didn’t.

I crouched there longer than necessary, my rifle hanging uselessly from its sling. All I could think was that somewhere, someone had told him to remember who he was, too. Somewhere, a mother waited for a knock on the door.

The radio crackled again, orders spilling out, already moving on to the next objective. The war had no room for my pause, my doubt, my sudden, aching clarity.

As I stood and followed the others, my legs heavy, I understood something with terrible certainty: the real firefight wasn’t over. It wasn’t even close. It had lodged itself inside me, a battle between the soldier I’d been shaped into and the person I was still trying, desperately, not to lose. And no one had taught me how to win that one.

The Day a King Died

Posted on January 21, 2026 by M. Bradley under Short Stories

I had come to Memphis for a lie. That’s the cleanest way I know to say it. A lie wrapped in a good suit, tucked into a borrowed smile, paid for with cash I didn’t tell my wife about. The Lorraine Hotel sat warm and familiar under the April sun, its turquoise doors open like it was welcoming family instead of secrets. I signed the register with my real name anyway. Habit, I guess. Or guilt.

She was supposed to arrive later that afternoon. We’d planned it carelessly, like people do when they don’t believe the world can interrupt them. I stood outside my room on the second floor, leaning on the railing, listening to laughter drift up from the courtyard. Someone had a radio playing Sam Cooke low. Somewhere a man joked about barbecue. Life, ordinary and stubborn, kept moving.

Then Dr. King stepped out onto the balcony.

You could feel it when he appeared, like the air shifted to make room for him. I’d seen him once before, years earlier, from about half a block away, his voice rolling over us like thunder you trusted. Seeing him now, so close I could count the lines at the corner of his eyes, I felt suddenly exposed. Like he could look at me and know exactly why I was there.

He laughed at something someone said behind him. That’s the part that stays with me, the ease of it. The way his shoulders loosened. A man unguarded for half a second.

The sound that followed didn’t belong to the day. It cracked the air open. At first, my mind refused it. Firecracker. Car backfiring. Anything but what my body already knew. I saw him jerk, saw hands reach, heard shouting rip through the courtyard. Someone screamed his name, stretched it long and broken like it could pull him back.

I remember gripping the railing so hard my palms burned. Remember thinking, absurdly, this can’t be happening while I’m here for this reason. As if the world owed me better timing.

Chaos took over fast. Doors flew open. Feet pounded stairs. Sirens rose in the distance like a wail from the city’s chest. I backed into my room, heart hammering, and stared at the bed that had been waiting for sin. It looked small and stupid now.

I didn’t pack. I didn’t wait for her. I walked out of the Lorraine with my head down, moving against the crowd, against history unfolding in real time. I felt like a coward slipping away while something sacred bled out behind me.

That night I walked until my legs gave out. Memphis burned in places: anger, grief, disbelief spilling into the streets. I found myself sitting on a church stoop I didn’t recognize, listening to an old woman pray out loud for a man she’d never met and loved like kin.

That’s when it hit me: all my careful distance, all my excuses about bills and fear and “not being that kind of man,” and history had still dragged me into the room. I’d been close enough to hear the sound that changed everything, but not close enough to have earned it.

Dr. King talked about the mountaintop. About seeing the Promised Land even if he didn’t reach it. Sitting there in the dark, I realized I’d been living in the valley on purpose: ducking, hiding, telling myself survival was enough. It wasn’t.

I went home the next morning and told my wife the truth: not all the details, but enough. Enough to start over. I quit my job within a month and took work where the pay was thin and the days were long. I marched. I registered voters. I stood between angry men and frightened children and learned what real fear felt like, and what it meant to walk anyway.

Sometimes I think about that balcony. About how close I was to a moment that split the country open. I went to Memphis chasing something small and selfish, and I left carrying a weight I never set down. But it’s a good weight. A necessary one.

I didn’t get to choose the day I woke up. I only got to choose what I did after. And for the first time in my life, I chose to stand where I could be seen.

Tomb of the Forgotten King

Posted on January 10, 2026 by M. Bradley under General, Short Stories

Fear forced his heart to beat like a bass drum as he opened the door, each violent thud echoing in his chest as stone scraped against stone. The slab resisted at first, as though weighing his worth, then finally gave way with a low, anguished groan. A breath of air escaped the tomb: cold, ancient, and fouled with something that made his stomach turn. It was not merely dust. It was the smell of confinement, of time compressed into rot.

Elias Kade stood frozen, one hand braced against the door, the other gripping his lantern so tightly his knuckles had turned white and his palm began to ache. The flame flickered, its light stretching weakly into the darkness beyond. He had imagined this moment countless times while hunched over cracked manuscripts and brittle maps, tracing burial chambers with the tip of his finger. In those imaginings, he had felt awe. Reverence. Triumph. Not this.

The darkness inside the tomb was dense, almost tactile, pressing outward as if eager to spill into the world. Elias felt it brush against his face, cold as damp linen. His instincts screamed at him to step back, to seal the door and retreat to the safety of daylight and research libraries and colleagues and rational explanations. But he had not come this far to turn away.

“This is real,” he whispered, though the words sounded thin and uncertain in the narrow corridor. He stepped across the threshold.

The temperature dropped immediately. The warmth of the desert sun vanished as if severed by the stone door, replaced by a chill that seeped through his boots and crawled upward, settling deep in his bones. The lantern’s glow revealed walls carved floor to ceiling in hieroglyphs: prayers, offerings, processions meant to guide a king safely into the afterlife. The carvings were sharp, their edges unnaturally crisp, as though the artisans had finished their work only days ago instead of millennia. Elias swallowed hard. Impossible, he told himself. Dry climate. Exceptional preservation.

The shadows clung stubbornly to the recesses between the carvings, refusing to disperse even when he brought the lantern closer. For a fleeting moment, he thought one of the figures turned its head. He blinked rapidly, heart racing.

“Get a grip,” he muttered.

This was his first excavation. Until now, his career had been confined to climate-controlled rooms and academic conferences, his hands more accustomed to paper than stone. When the opportunity to join the excavation team arose, when they needed someone fluent in archaic inscriptions, someone who knew the burial customs of minor dynasties, he had accepted without hesitation. Unearthing the tomb of a long-forgotten king was the chance of a lifetime. He had not considered what it would feel like to be alone with the dead.

The corridor widened ever so gradually, and then opened into the burial chamber. Elias halted at the threshold, breath catching in his throat. The room was vast, its ceiling supported by thick pillars carved with protective prayers. They rose like petrified sentinels, each etched with symbols meant to ward off intruders. The air felt heavier here, pressing down on his chest, making each breath an effort.

At the center of the chamber lay the sarcophagus. It was massive, black stone veined with pale lines like cracks in bone. Its surface was smooth, unmarred by time or theft. No chisel marks. No fractures. No signs of intrusion. Untouched since it was placed in the room. Elias felt a thrill of fear cut through him. Untouched tombs were rare. Untouched tombs were dangerous. He approached slowly, lantern held high. The light glinted off the stone, revealing inscriptions running along the lid. He recognized the name immediately.

Khetamun. A minor king. Barely a footnote in most historical records. A ruler whose reign had been brief and poorly documented. Yet nothing about this tomb spoke of insignificance.

As Elias circled the sarcophagus, he noticed something odd. Certain honorifics had been scratched away, their elegant symbols replaced with crude, jagged markings. The workmanship was frantic, uneven, as if carved by a trembling hand.

“Defacement?” Elias murmured, crouching closer.

The markings were not random. They formed a pattern, one he did not recognize. A chill crawled up his spine. The lantern flickered.

Elias straightened sharply, heart leaping into his throat. The flame wavered, shrank, then steadied. He exhaled shakily, though his breath fogged in the cold air.

“Old oxygen pocket,” he reasoned aloud. “Air circulation.”

His voice echoed strangely, lingering longer than it should have. As he turned back toward the sarcophagus, he became aware of a sensation he could not immediately name. A pressure behind his eyes. A faint ringing in his ears. Then he heard it.

A sound: soft, indistinct. Like breath brushing past his ear. Elias spun around, lantern swinging wildly. The chamber remained empty, the shadows pooled at the edges of the room.

“Hello?” he called out meekly, hating the tremble in his voice. Silence answered him. Thick. Watchful. Almost ominous.

He laughed weakly. “You’re alone,” he told himself. “You knew this would be unsettling.” But the laughter died quickly.

Drawn by a force he could not explain, Elias returned to the sarcophagus. His fingers brushed the stone, recoiling from the unnatural cold. He found the mechanism almost by accident, disguised seamlessly within the carvings. His hands hesitated.

Every rational part of him urged caution: documentation, consultation, procedure. But another voice whispered beneath those thoughts, insistent and hungry. Open it.

He pushed. The lid shifted with a shriek of stone on stone, the sound reverberating through the chamber like a scream. Dust billowed upward, stinging his eyes and throat. Elias coughed, waving the lantern to clear his vision. When the dust settled, he leaned over the open sarcophagus. Inside lay the remains of Khetamun.

The body was wrapped in linen, blackened and fused to brittle bone. Gold amulets rested against the chest, their surfaces dulled and corroded as though something had eaten at them from within. The skull tilted slightly, jaw parted, frozen in an eternal attempt to speak.

But it was the wall behind the sarcophagus that stole Elias’s breath. Carved deep into the stone, crude and unmistakable, were words that did not belong to ritual or reverence.

I WAS NOT MEANT TO DIE

The lantern shook violently in Elias’s grip.

“No,” he whispered. “That’s… that’s impossible.”

The pressure behind his eyes intensified, blossoming into pain. Images flooded his mind: parched land cracking beneath a merciless sun, a king kneeling before silent gods, priests chanting words they barely understood. A ritual meant to bind a soul to the land, to save a dying kingdom. A ritual that failed.

The whisper returned, louder now, layered upon itself. “I am still here.”

The shadows along the walls began to move. They stretched and twisted, peeling themselves free from the carvings, forming long, clawed shapes that reached toward the sarcophagus and toward him. The temperature plummeted, frost creeping along the stone floor.

Elias staggered back, heart hammering wildly against the inside of his chest. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t know.”

The whispers swelled into a chorus, grief and rage intertwined. “You opened the door!”

Driven by pure terror and instinct, Elias slammed the sarcophagus lid shut. The stone sealed with a thunderous crack that shook the chamber. The shadows recoiled, snapping back into the walls like smoke caught in a sudden wind. Silence fell. Elias collapsed to his knees, sobbing, the lantern clutched against his chest. He did not know how long he stayed there, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

When he finally fled the tomb, stumbling back into the brutal sunlight, he felt hollowed out, as though something had followed him to the threshold and pressed itself deep into his memory.

The discovery would make headlines. Scholars would praise his translation, his courage, his contribution to history. But Elias would never return to the field again. And sometimes, late at night, buried deep in the quiet stacks of a research library, he swore he could still feel cold breath against his ear; and hear a voice that has been waiting far too long for the door to open again.

First Hunt

Posted on November 29, 2025 by M. Bradley under Short Stories

He was finally entering manhood and now was the time. Storm Runner stood at the edge of the high ridge overlooking the valley, breath frosting in the crisp morning air. He had barely crossed thirteen summers, but today he would walk with the hunters. Today, he would be counted among the grown men of the Ani-watu—the River People—his tribe nestled deep in the rolling green hills of the early American frontier.

A thin mist clung to the forest below, blurring the shapes of trees so they appeared like spirits rising from the earth. Storm Runner tightened his grip on the bow he had carved himself, smoothing his thumb across the polished wood. His father’s voice echoed in his memory.

“Tools are only as strong as the heart guiding them.”

His father, Black Cedar, emerged beside him, tall and broad, carrying the quiet confidence of a seasoned warrior. “You breathe too fast,” he murmured.

Storm Runner exhaled and nodded, trying to steady himself.

“It is good to feel fear,” Black Cedar said. “It shows the heart is awake. But do not let it rule your hands.”

Storm Runner wanted to answer with something wise or strong, but all he managed was a tight smile. His father didn’t seem to mind.

The party gathered—ten men, all respected hunters. Strong Elk, who laughed even in the face of hardship; Two Rivers, whose tracking skills were unmatched; and old Gray Squirrel, the elder who had hunted more winters than any man alive. A few offered Storm Runner nods of encouragement; others simply watched to see how the boy would carry himself. Today was tradition. Today was responsibility. Today was everything.

They moved at dawn, slipping into the forest like shadows. Storm Runner walked near the rear, his senses alive. Every cracking twig, every whisper of wind through branches, felt magnified. The forest was waking with them: birds scratching in the underbrush, distant rustle of deer, the burbling creek ahead.

Gray Squirrel knelt by the water, dipping his fingers into the soft mud. “Deer passed here not long ago,” he whispered. “A buck. Heavy.”

The men nodded. They began to follow the trail, steps soft and deliberate. Storm Runner bent low to study the tracks. His grandfather, Ghost Wind, had drilled lessons into him on how to read the land. “A track is a story,” he had said. “If you listen, the earth will tell you what happened.”

Storm Runner traced the shape, noticing the deep impression of the hooves—yes, a large buck, moving steadily but not fleeing. The boy smiled faintly as pride warmed his chest. He was ready.

They stalked deeper into the woods, weaving between towering pines. After an hour, they spotted their prey grazing in a glade. The buck was magnificent—antlers branching like small trees, fur shimmering in the dappled light. Storm Runner’s breath caught. This was the moment. But just as Strong Elk began to signal positions, the forest shifted. The birds went quiet. The breeze stilled. The world tightened around them.

Storm Runner felt it before anyone else—the unease creeping in like a cold finger tracing his spine. He opened his mouth to warn the men. But before the words could come out, a gunshot cracked across the valley. The buck bolted. Men dove behind trees. Another shot followed, then a third, echoing through the forest. Shouts carried through the trees—harsh, commanding voices. Storm Runner froze for a heartbeat before Black Cedar grabbed him by the arm and pulled him behind a fallen log.

“Soldiers,” he hissed. “Union soldiers.”

Storm Runner’s heart hammered. Why were soldiers here? Their lands were far from towns or battlefields. The Ani-watu tried to stay hidden from the war tearing the country apart. But war often wandered where it didn’t belong.

Blue-coated figures emerged through the brush, rifles raised. Though only a dozen or so, they moved with grim purpose.

Two Rivers muttered, “They must have tracked us. Or the deer.”

No one believed that. The soldiers spread quickly, forming a loose semicircle. They were coming for the hunters. Storm Runner clutched his bow, hands trembling. Black Cedar crouched beside him, eyes fierce but calm.

“Remember what I taught you. The forest is your ally. Listen.”

Storm Runner nodded, though panic clawed at his chest. The men around him looked tense. Some were already wounded from the first shots. They were outnumbered, exposed. Another volley of gunfire blasted through the clearing. Bark splintered. A warrior cried out. Storm Runner squeezed his eyes shut for an instant.

“Listen, boy,” Ghost Wind’s voice whispered in memory. “When fear speaks too loudly, hear the world instead.”

He forced his breath to slow. Through the chaos, he listened. The creek. The slope of the ridge. The cluster of pine needles masking soft, unstable ground. The deer path looping behind the soldiers. The world was speaking.

Storm Runner tugged at his father’s arm. “The ridge,” he whispered. “It’s soft. We can trap them there.”

Black Cedar met his gaze. He didn’t question the boy. Not today.

“Go,” he said. “Tell the others.”

The boy slid through the brush like a fox, keeping low, weaving between trees. Shots cracked overhead but missed, the soldiers distracted by the warriors’ evasive movements. Storm Runner reached Strong Elk first.

“We must draw them toward the ridge,” he whispered urgently. “The ground there will collapse under many feet.”

Strong Elk blinked. Then a grin spread across his bearded face. “Ahh. Ghost Wind’s trick.” He slapped the boy’s shoulder. “Go, tell the others!”

Storm Runner raced from man to man, relaying the plan. Soon the warriors shifted subtly into new positions, moving with practiced silence. A sharp whistle—Storm Runner’s signal—cut through the trees. Arrows flew. Warriors darted between trees like living shadows. The soldiers, believing they were pushing the hunters back, surged forward with renewed aggression. Right toward the ridge.

Storm Runner scrambled up the side of the slope. He remembered he and his grandfather testing the hillside last spring, Ghost Wind saying, “One day you will use even the land as your shield.”

He struck the ground with his bow, hard and rhythmic. The soil loosened. Pebbles tumbled.

Below, the soldiers advanced in a line—too many men on too unstable a slope. The earth groaned. Then it gave way. A roar of sliding earth filled the forest as the ridge collapsed, sweeping half the platoon down in a cascade of mud, stone, and broken tree limbs. Men screamed, some trapped, others scrambling desperately. The remaining soldiers staggered back in shock. That was the moment.

The Ani-watu warriors emerged from the trees with fierce cries, arrows and spears flashing. Strong Elk led the charge, his battle roar echoing across the valley. Black Cedar’s blade struck like lightning. Even old Gray Squirrel moved with age-forgotten speed.

Storm Runner, still on the ridge above, fired arrows to cover them—each shot guided by instinct, training, and the beating heart of the forest around him. The soldiers faltered, morale broken. Some fled outright, disappearing into the trees. The battle was over within minutes.

Silence fell slowly, hesitant to return. Storm Runner climbed down, limbs trembling. The men gathered, some wounded, all exhausted—but alive.

Strong Elk clapped the boy on the back hard enough to jolt him. “You saved us all, little warrior.”

Two Rivers nodded. “A plan worthy of Ghost Wind himself.”

Black Cedar approached last. No words at first. Just a warm, steady hand on his son’s shoulder.

“You listened,” he said quietly. “You trusted the land. You trusted yourself. Today, the spirits walk proudly beside you.”

Storm Runner swallowed hard as emotion swelled in his chest. A hush settled as Gray Squirrel stepped forward, leaning heavily on his staff. He studied Storm Runner for a long moment.

“Storm Runner,” he said in a voice like rustling leaves, “you entered the forest today as a boy. But you return from it as something else.”

Storm Runner lifted his chin, meeting the elder’s wise, weathered gaze.

“You have earned your place among the men of the Ani-watu,” Gray Squirrel declared. “From this day on, you stand as a warrior of the River People.”

A murmur of approval rippled through the group. Black Cedar’s eyes shone with fierce pride. Storm Runner felt his heart grow fuller than he thought possible.

He walked home with them beneath the fading afternoon light. The land was quiet again, but it felt changed—more alive, as if acknowledging him. He had entered the hunt a child. He returned a warrior. And the forest knew his name.

The Jury Room

Posted on November 23, 2025 by M. Bradley under Short Stories

It had taken five long days, but the jury had finally come to a decision.

The windowless deliberation room—Room B, according to the peeling sign outside—felt more like a bunker than a space meant for reason. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flickering occasionally, as though even the electricity was tired of the arguments repeating themselves.

Day five had begun with the same bitter divide that had ended day four. Marilyn Blake, Juror Number Four, sat rigidly in her chair, arms crossed like stone gates blocking any chance of compromise. She wasn’t cruel. She wasn’t stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. She was terrified—of the case, of being wrong, of the ways a single decision could warp a life forever. But fear made for sharp edges.

“You’re all being reckless,” she said now, her voice trembling with something brittle. “The prosecution doesn’t need perfection. They need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And I still have doubt—but not about his guilt.”

Tom Herrera slammed his notebook shut with a snap that made half the jurors flinch.

“Marilyn, that’s the entire point! Reasonable doubt means if you do have doubt about his guilt, then we can’t convict!”

“That’s your interpretation.”

“It’s the law!” Alexis burst out, practically leaping out of her chair. “We’ve read the instructions seventeen times!”

The foreman, Leonard Briggs, pinched the bridge of his nose hard enough to leave a red mark. “Everyone sit,” he murmured. “Please.”

But the room was too small for the emotions swelling inside it. Frustration. Exhaustion. Helplessness. No one sat.

Juror Nine, an older man named Harris with a soft voice and hard opinions, muttered, “This is going nowhere. Again.”

Juror Six rolled her eyes. Juror Ten openly groaned, slumping forward and burying his head in his arms. Then came the moment everyone knew would push them over the edge: the rehashing of the key witness testimony.

Tom pointed at the timeline on the whiteboard—now crowded with crossed-out theories, sticky notes, and half-erased scribbles. “Look at it. Look! The witness couldn’t even identify what shirt the man was wearing. First it was blue. Then gray. Then she said she couldn’t remember because of the streetlight glare!”

“She was traumatized!” Marilyn snapped back. “Trauma affects memory!”

“Yes, it distorts memory,” Alexis said, stepping closer. “It makes it unreliable. Which is exactly why—”

A hard knock sounded on the door, muffling Alexis’s words and making the jurors jump. Lunch had arrived. Lukewarm lunch meat sandwiches. Again. No one touched the food.

The foreman stood, resting both palms flat on the table. “Before we spiral again, let’s try something new. Let’s take turns saying what scares us most about making the wrong decision.”

Marilyn stiffened. “Feelings aren’t relevant.”

“They’re driving your vote,” Alexis said quietly. “So they are relevant.”

Silence. For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Juror Eleven—the quiet one, always observing—said softly, “I’m scared of ruining a man’s life.”

A few others nodded, murmuring agreement.

Tom said, “I’m scared that if we convict him, we’ll be doing what the prosecution wanted, not what the evidence supported.”

Harris said, “I’m scared that if we don’t convict him, and he did do it… there’ll be another victim.”

The air tightened. Even Tom couldn’t counter that fear. Finally, all eyes shifted to Marilyn. Her jaw moved. Once. Twice.

“I’m scared,” she said hoarsely, “that you’re all seeing something I’m not. Or… that I’m seeing something you can’t. And either way… I’m terrified of being the reason we’re wrong.”

The confession hung in the air—raw, vulnerable, honest. For the first time in five days, she looked less like a wall and more like a person trying not to crumble.

Leonard approached her gently. “What can help you feel sure? Tell us, and we’ll do it.”

Marilyn hesitated, then whispered, “Go through the photos again.”

They did. Slowly. Carefully. The room grew still as she studied them with trembling hands. Tom watched her closely—not with frustration this time, but with hope. Alexis held her breath. Even Harris sat forward.

When Marilyn asked, “Wait—show me that one again,” everyone leaned in.

Something clicked. A detail she’d misinterpreted. A timestamp she’d never fully registered. A shadow in the background that changed everything. Her breath caught.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Then louder: “Oh.”

It took another hour for her to gather herself enough to change her vote, but the moment her voice didn’t crack on the words “Not guilty,” the room felt as if it had been holding its breath for five days and could finally inhale. Eleven sighs of relief followed. Some were shaky. Some were whispered prayers. One sounded like a stifled sob.

When they filed back into the courtroom, they were changed—bonded by conflict, battered by responsibility, and united at last. And when the foreman announced the verdict, the defendant didn’t celebrate. He simply closed his eyes with a gratitude so heavy it nearly bowed him forward.

But behind the jury box, Marilyn pulled in a long, trembling breath. Not guilt. And not doubt. Just relief—the fragile kind earned only after a long, harrowing storm finally breaks.

The Innocent Man

Posted on August 16, 2025 by M. Bradley under Short Stories

As I shook the man’s hand, I knew he was innocent. Not because of anything he said. Not because of some supernatural instinct or lawyerly sixth sense. It was the way he looked at me—steady, quiet, but not pleading. There was no desperation in his eyes, just the kind of hollow certainty that comes after life has already beaten the fight out of you.

His name was Marcus Lyle. Thirty-two. Former paramedic, now sitting in a cold, windowless interview room in the county detention center, wearing an orange jumpsuit that hung too loose around his shoulders.

I sat across from him and opened my file. It was bad. Bad enough that if I were the prosecutor, I’d be rubbing my hands together. Photos. Police statements. The autopsy report. A single gunshot to the chest—his girlfriend, Nina Morales, dead on the kitchen floor of their apartment. Neighbors had heard an argument. The gun was his, registered. His prints were on it. But something about the case didn’t add up. Too clean. Too convenient.

“I didn’t do it,” he said, voice flat.

“I know,” I replied. Not a tactic. Not strategy. Just the truth, or at least what I believed. Marcus studied me, as if trying to figure out what kind of game I was playing. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“Then you’re the only one who does.” I closed the folder and set it aside.

“Tell me everything. Start from the moment you woke up that day.”

He hesitated. That was normal—clients always did. But this wasn’t the hesitation of a guilty man scrambling for a lie. It was something else. Fear, maybe. Or shame.

“I was going to propose to her,” he said finally. “Had the ring in my pocket. Took the whole day off to make dinner, set things up right. She never came home.” I didn’t interrupt. I let him speak, watching the way he kept his eyes on the table.

“I waited. Called her. No answer. Around ten, I drove around the block—worried, you know? Then I came back. She was just… there. Lying on the floor. The front door was cracked open.”

“And the gun?”

“In the drawer. Same place I always kept it. But someone used it.”

I nodded slowly. “Did the police test for prints other than yours?”

He shook his head. “They didn’t care. She was dead, I was there, the gun was mine. That was enough.”

I tapped my pen on the edge of the folder, mind already spiraling through what we could do—alternate suspects, forensic inconsistencies, a door left open… maybe even surveillance footage. But mostly, I was thinking about that look in his eyes when we shook hands. Not innocence like a halo, not some divine light. Just the absence of guilt—and something else. Something darker. He knew who did it. Or at least, he had a pretty damn good guess. But he was too scared to say. I leaned forward, voice low.

“Marcus. If you know something—someone who had a reason to hurt Nina—you need to tell me. I can’t help you if you don’t.” His jaw clenched. For a second, I thought he’d say nothing at all. Then he looked up, eyes hard.

“She was scared.”

That stopped me cold.

“Of who?”

He hesitated again. Not the kind of hesitation that comes from lying. This was a man trying to decide if telling the truth was worth the cost.

“She used to work for this guy—Ricardo Talanes. She was just a server at one of his restaurants, but everyone knew it was a front. Drugs. Laundering. People who got close to him either ended up rich, in jail, or dead. Nina quit when one of the other girls disappeared. Just stopped showing up to work one day. No one talked about it.”

“And she was scared he might come after her?”

Marcus nodded. “She said she saw something. Wouldn’t tell me what. Just said, ‘If anything happens to me, it’s not you. Promise me you’ll remember that.’”

Jesus. I rubbed a hand over my face and sat back, the gears already grinding in my head. If what he was saying was true, it changed everything. But hearsay about a boss who was drug dealer wasn’t going to win us a not guilty verdict. We’d need more. A lot more.

“Why didn’t you tell the police any of this?”

“I tried,” he said. “First night they brought me in. I told the detective about Talanes. He laughed. Said I’d been watching too many crime dramas. Next thing I know, the report says I gave no alternative suspects.” I believed him. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did.

“Alright,” I said. “Then we do it my way.” Marcus looked up, wary.

“We build a narrative they can’t ignore. If the cops won’t look into Talanes, I will. And if he’s got something to hide, we drag it out into the light. But I need everything you remember. Anyone she talked to, anything she mentioned. We don’t have the luxury of silence anymore.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “You really think we can beat this?” I stood, gathered the file, and gave him a nod.

“I don’t take cases I plan to lose.” He almost smiled at that. Almost.

Three days later, I was sitting in my office, a half-empty coffee cup sweating on a stack of manila folders, when I found the first thread. Nina’s bank records, subpoenaed that morning, showed a withdrawal—five thousand dollars in cash, two weeks before her death. The same day she quit her job at Talanes’s restaurant. A payoff? Or a bribe gone wrong? I picked up my phone.

“Marcus,” I said when he answered. “Did Nina have a storage unit? Safety deposit box? Anything like that?”

A pause. Then: “Yeah. A small unit out by the marina. She never told me what was in it. Just said it was insurance.”

Bingo.

Two Weeks Later

Superior Court of Hamilton County

State of Ohio v. Marcus Lyle

I sat at the defense table, suit pressed, notes arranged with surgical precision. Marcus was beside me, hands folded, eyes fixed on nothing. Jury selection had gone well—we’d kept a skeptical engineer, a quiet librarian, and one retired homicide detective who gave the prosecutor a look that said, Don’t waste my time unless you’ve done your homework.

The state had rested its case yesterday. Their narrative? Textbook. Marcus and Nina argued, Marcus snapped, shot her with his own registered firearm, then called 911 playing the grieving boyfriend. Motive? Jealousy and control. Means? The gun. Opportunity? He was alone with her. Neat. Too neat.

Today, we started our case. I stood and walked slowly to the jury box.

“The prosecution has told you a story,” I began, voice calm. “A simple one. But real life is not simple. It’s complicated. Messy. And sometimes, what looks like the truth is just a shadow cast by the real one, hiding behind it.”

I let that land. A few jurors leaned forward.

“We’ll show you that Marcus Lyle had no reason to kill Nina Morales. That their relationship was stable, that he was planning to propose to her the night she died. And more importantly—we’ll present evidence that someone else did have a reason to want her silenced.”

That word—silenced—hung in the air like smoke.

“And we’ll ask you to consider not just what the prosecution presented, but what they ignored.”

I called Nina’s best friend to the stand—Kayla Duren, steady under pressure.

“Did Nina ever express fear about Marcus?” I asked.

“Never,” Kayla said. “She loved him. She was more worried about someone else.”

“Who?”

She hesitated, then answered. “Ricardo Talanes.”

Whispers from the gallery. The judge banged the gavel, but I had what I needed—Talanes’s name now lived in the jury’s mind.

I submitted evidence from the storage unit—photos, copies of internal ledgers, a USB drive. Nina had been gathering information. She had been planning to go to a reporter. And all of it tied back to Talanes’s restaurant operation.

“Where did these come from?” the prosecutor demanded in a sidebar.

“They were Nina’s. The victim’s,” I said. “They speak for themselves.”

The judge allowed them in—barely.

We brought in a former police investigator turned consultant. Clean record, methodical.

“Were there any signs of forced entry?”

“No, but the door was ajar when officers arrived. That suggests someone left in a hurry.”

“Were fingerprints other than the defendant’s tested for?”

“No. The scene was not processed for unknown prints.”

“Would that be standard in a homicide investigation?”

“No. It would be considered incomplete.”

Then came the critical moment: I cross-examined Detective Roy Haskins, lead investigator.

“You’ve said you found the murder weapon in a drawer, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Was the drawer locked?”

“No.”

“Were Marcus Lyle’s fingerprints the only ones found on the gun?”

“We only tested for his.”

“Why?”

“Because it was his gun.”

I turned to the jury. Then looked back at Haskins.

“So, you assumed he was guilty, and tailored your investigation around that assumption?”

“Objection!” the prosecutor barked.

“Sustained,” the judge said, but the seed had been planted.

As I sat, I caught the jurors stealing glances at Marcus—not with certainty, but with doubt. Reasonable doubt. The kind that grows roots.

Marcus leaned toward me. Whispered, “You think it’s working?”

I didn’t answer right away. Then: “It’s not about what I think. It’s about what they feel.”

And right now, I could feel the tide turning.

We were supposed to be done. My witness list was exhausted, the judge was expecting closing arguments tomorrow, and the prosecution had all but dismissed our case as a conspiracy theory. Then I got the call.

A voice, shaken but urgent.

“She told me she was going to die. I didn’t believe her. I should’ve. I need to talk to someone.”

His name was Eli Reyes—a line cook who used to work with Nina at Talanes’s restaurant. I had him in a hotel by nightfall. By morning, he was on the stand.

He wore a gray shirt with a frayed collar and spoke like a man who had gone years without being heard.

“I saw him. Talanes. The day before Nina died.”

“In what context?” I asked.

“She came to the back of the restaurant. Wanted to give him something. Said she had to return it before it got her killed. They went into his office. She was in there for ten minutes. When she came out, she was crying.”

“Did you hear what was said?”

“Just the end. He said, ‘You think this ends with you walking away?’”

Whispers rolled through the courtroom. I let them settle.

“Did you report this to the police?”

“I tried. They didn’t call me back. Then I started getting strange calls. People following me home. I left town.”

“Why come forward now?” He looked at Marcus. Then at the jury.

“Because I didn’t think he’d actually go down for this.”

The prosecution looked rattled. But during the recess, they played their ace.

“We’re requesting a motion to introduce new evidence in light of the Reyes testimony,” the ADA said, holding up a manila envelope. “It pertains to the defendant’s connection to the victim’s prior employer.”

The judge allowed it—with reservations.

That afternoon, the ADA revealed what they’d found: a series of encrypted messages recovered from Nina’s old phone. Messages not from Talanes—but from Marcus.

He had written, over and over:

“If you go to the cops, I can’t protect you.”

“This isn’t just about you.”

“I need you to be quiet. Just a little longer.”

I didn’t show it on my face, but inside—I froze.

After court adjourned, I cornered Marcus in the holding room.

“You said you didn’t know what she had on Talanes.”

“I didn’t,” he said quickly. Too quickly.

I leaned in, voice low. “Don’t lie to me now. Not here. Not when the truth is about to walk through that courtroom door.” He looked down. His voice was hollow.

“She stole something. From his office. I didn’t know until after she died. She told me it would ‘take him down.’ But I never knew what it was.”

I believed him—mostly. But that seed of doubt, the same one I’d planted in the jury, had now been planted in me.

Now I had two narratives colliding.

One painted Marcus as a scapegoat, framed to keep Talanes safe.

The other? Marcus knew more than he admitted. Enough to keep quiet, maybe enough to cover something up.

I had to make a choice. Push forward with our original theory—and risk the jury seeing Marcus as complicit—or pivot, and suggest that Nina’s death wasn’t about Marcus at all… but about a secret no one had fully uncovered.

The courtroom was silent as I stood and buttoned my jacket. I took a breath and walked slowly to the jury box.

“You’ve heard a lot in the last ten days. Some of it has been messy. Conflicting. Complicated. And that’s because real life isn’t a TV script. It’s not tidy, and it rarely makes perfect sense.”

I paused, scanning the jurors one by one. I needed to feel them leaning toward me.

“The prosecution gave you a clean story. Too clean. A man, a gun, a body. Case closed. But what you’ve seen—what you’ve felt—tells you it’s not that simple.”

I tapped the folder gently.

“We showed you that Nina Morales feared for her life—not from Marcus, but from the people she used to work for. She was collecting evidence. She was ready to talk. And then she was gone.”

I let that sink in before continuing.

“Then came Eli Reyes, a man with no stake in this trial, who told you about the threat she received just one day before she was killed. A threat not from Marcus, but from a man named Ricardo Talanes—a name the state doesn’t want you to remember. Because if you believe Talanes had motive, if you believe he had reach, then you have to consider the possibility that Marcus Lyle is not a murderer, but a casualty.”

A juror scribbled something down. Another nodded, just slightly. I softened my tone.

“You also heard about messages Marcus sent—ones that sounded like warnings. Some of you may still have doubts. That’s fair. I have doubts, too.”

That got their attention. A defense lawyer admitting doubt?

“But that’s the point. Doubt is your standard. Not certainty. Not perfection. Just the knowledge that the story you’ve been told doesn’t hold up under the weight of the truth.”

I walked back to the table, then turned.

“So ask yourself this, before you decide to take away a man’s life: Are you absolutely sure? Are you ready to send him away knowing this case left questions unanswered, leads unfollowed, suspects uninvestigated?”

I glanced toward Marcus, then back to the jury.

“If the answer is no… then you already know what your verdict must be.”

The ADA was sharp, composed. He tried to redirect the narrative:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the defense wants you to believe this was some kind of movie style mob hit. That the victim was silenced by some criminal mastermind. But in doing so, they ask you to ignore the evidence you do have—physical evidence. The defendant’s gun. His prints. His presence. His messages.”

He walked across the room, voice tightening.

“You don’t need a conspiracy to explain this. You need motive. Opportunity. Means. The law doesn’t require a perfect picture. It requires enough.”

He turned to the jury.

“Don’t let shadow stories blind you to the facts.”

They were out for thirty-six hours. Marcus sat with his hands shaking slightly, jaw clenched, staring at nothing. I watched the jury door. If they believed Marcus was a grieving boyfriend caught in something bigger, they’d acquit. If they saw a man covering for someone, or holding back the truth—they might still convict.

The door opened. The bailiff took the slip of paper. Everyone stood. The foreperson handed the verdict to the clerk. It was time.

One Wish Left

Posted on June 28, 2025 by M. Bradley under Short Stories

“You have one wish left,” the small genie said. The words hung in the air, delicate and heavy and alive, shimmering like the motes of dust in the slanted afternoon light that glinted through the open window. I looked down at the ancient brass lamp beneath my hand, the indelible swirl of its handle worn smooth by centuries of use—and by me, only a day ago, idly polishing its tarnish before realizing what I held.

Only one wish left. I closed my eyes, crestfallen. My heart hammered. This is always the moment in the stories, the stories I loved as a child, before I believed—I brushed a lock of hair from my forehead and lifted my gaze to the genie, whose luminous eyes watched me with infinite patience. Two wishes gone—and folly.

First, I had blurted something silly: “I wish for a lifetime supply of chocolate!” The genie blinked, nodded, large eyes widening in surprise. In an instant, carts of treats appeared, boxes and boxes layered in my cramped apartment. At first, joy: rich, melting sweetness, dark and bittersweet, milk chocolate with caramel, white chocolate with pistachio. Friends came to marvel—and eat. But by day three, the sheer volume overwhelmed me. I cared less and less for the chocolate; it cluttered my space and weighed heavily on my conscience, knowing waste is a sin some larger than taste. I’d feel guilty even tossing a wrapper. The glamour faded fast.

Second wish: “I wish I had perfect memory.” I craved something useful, intellectual—value, I told myself. But I hadn’t considered how overwhelming it would be to carry every moment, every fact, every sliver of experience forever. I could recite my childhood like a movie, recall every factoid I had ever absorbed. But it became exhausting—the intrusions of petty regrets, buried embarrassments, every dismissible conversation replaying endlessly in my mind, jangling like bells I couldn’t silence. And that’s why we were here now, poised on the third and final wish.

The genie held space around me, a fountain of soft blue incense and mild laughter—kind, curious, still bound by promise, by rules, by the burden of hope in my hands. I squeezed the lamp’s base, feeling the sense of potential—and peril. What did I truly want? What didn’t I?

Time blurred. The afternoon light shifted to dusk. I walked through my apartment, chocolate boxes half-open, dozens of unshelled memories drifting inside me, carrying the world’s cumulative weight. Nothing felt right. What need hadn’t I noticed until now. That’s when I thought of my sister.

Lily had been my little sister once—bright hair, dimples, an impish grin that meant she was about to ransack my room. We’d shared dreams: traveling the world, painting sunsets, cataloguing stars—anything to chase adventure. But Lily had fallen ill years ago. A rare disease, doctors gave us hope, then took it away again. She fought until she couldn’t, and then, she was gone.

Now the memory of her emptiness sat like a winter bloom in my chest: beautiful, tragic. I’d come to hate how memory could include everything—especially things you don’t want to remember. My second wish—my perfect memory—did nothing to comfort me. It simply replayed Lily’s younger laugh more clearly than before, sharper than any real memory could be. Could that final wish change something? Could I turn back time? Could I—dare I—erase some things? Or was that too… dangerous?

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. The genie drifted near, curiosity peaceful, not expectant. Sometimes I’d catch it sliding like smoke between the furniture, adjusting to human space. It had already grown fond of me—timid laughter whenever I disclosed my regrets about chocolate or pointed and laughed at my own absurdity.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

For what? For frivolous desires when the world had swallowed more essential things. For not noticing sooner. For being selfish.

A breeze rattled the window. I heard cars passing. I smelled late-summer jasmine outside.

What if…?

I sat up. The genie looked at me, hopeful. I closed my eyes again, imagining each possibility. I imagined making a wish to bring Lily back. But then, the story pitfalls flooded my imagination: tragedies I couldn’t predict, infinite consequences—duping nature, old cosmic laws. I imagined a perfect world, change I could effect—and the knowledge of what that perfect world might cost. I pictured friendships rearranged, timelines snapped, histories rewritten. Another whiff of jasmine, warm evening light on my eyelids. And I thought: what if I don’t try to solve everything? What if instead I learn from what I’ve lost?

I brushed my fingers over the lamp. I felt its energy thrumming faintly. The genie floated closer, luminous glow illuminating my face, revealing worry lines I had only just noticed.

I swallowed hard, then asked: “Can I… ask for something to help me grow? To become more—worthy?”

It blinked, then nodded. That was allowed. Wishes didn’t require grand outcomes, just sincerity. I looked inside, trying to separate need from want.

I thought of memory—burdened—and the way I’m more than memories. I thought of chocolate—pleasure—but empty pleasure. I thought of Lily and how love existed beyond death. I thought of myself—and what I still could be.

Then I spoke:

“I wish… I wish for the strength and clarity to live a life that honors those I love, and leaves the world better than I found it.”

The genie’s eyes swelled. The lamp glowed. A hush of wind through the room, a pulse of light, and then… stillness.

It looked at me, and then at the lamp. “Your wish,” it said, softly. There was no cosmic shimmer beyond the light in its eyes—just calm. The lamp’s glow faded, and then the genie dissolved back into it, tiny again, smiling.

I held the lamp, trembling. Strength and clarity: not a power or potion—something intangible, something lived in choices. I cried. Grief, relief, possibility. I felt my chest uncoil slightly, memory still there—but no longer choice without pain. Choice with purpose.

The next morning, I woke early. The jasmine scent followed me. I brewed tea and opened the Duolingo app—Spanish lessons. Lily had loved Spanish songs, dancing in the living room when I played them. I opened a notebook and began: Para Lily. I wrote a single sentence in Spanish and smiled.

Later, I laced running shoes and jogged down a local trail. The sun filtered through trees; each step felt lighter and fuller.

I looked at my phone, thought of the chocolate languishing in boxes. Not waste—it could feed others. I messaged a local food pantry: Hi—I have bulk unopened chocolate treats—would you be interested in them? They did. They came and took everything yesterday. I smiled at the relief of passing clutter on.

That night, I volunteered at a literacy program in town—an elementary reading group. I felt shy, shaky—still a new version of me. But I showed up, taught one kid to read “cat” that night, saw the pride in his eyes. I walked home thinking of Lily’s smile, thinking of the children I might brighten.

I tucked the lamp in a drawer, hidden beneath other simple things—a revised relic now just a keepsake reminding me of a choice made.

Because true wishes aren’t always supernatural—they’re the choices made every day, with strength and clarity and quiet courage. I think the genie left too, maybe forever. I don’t mind. I have enough magic here

What’s Below Reflects Above

Posted on April 19, 2025 by M. Bradley under Short Stories

He lowered himself into the tunnel beneath the street. No, this day wasn’t usual, but neither was this murderer. Detective Caleb Ryker grunted as his boots hit the damp concrete below. The reek of mold and something long-dead clung to the air, turning his stomach. He tugged his coat tighter around him, more out of habit than warmth—no coat in the world could block out this kind of cold.

The access tunnel had been pried open earlier that day by a sanitation crew who’d found something their job descriptions never prepared them for—a man’s body, stripped bare and laid out with surgical precision. Organs arranged in a semicircle. Eyes placed delicately in the palms. The fourth body in three weeks.

Ryker clicked on his flashlight. The beam cut through the gloom, catching movement—just rats, fleeing into the dark. He exhaled through his nose, lips pressed in a line. The press was already calling him “The Ritualist.” Lazy name, but not wrong. Every victim had been positioned the same way. Every scene had the same message carved into the nearby wall: “What’s Below Reflects Above.”

He moved deeper into the tunnel. The floor sloped downward, and the stink intensified. The low ceiling forced him to hunch. Dripping water echoed like a ticking clock.

“Ryker, you copy?” His partner’s voice crackled through the comm clipped to his collar.

“Go ahead, Lena.”

“You’re sure you want to go in alone?”

“You know I don’t believe in backup until I’ve got something to point a gun at.”

There was a pause. Then: “Just don’t be a hero. We’ve already got four victims. I don’t want to add you to the list.”

He smiled faintly. “Noted.”

They hadn’t told the public everything, of course. The part about the victims all having the same birthday—September 9th. The part about the organs being removed without damage, as if someone knew the human body better than most surgeons. Or the fact that each body had been found closer and closer to the center of the city. Like a spiral tightening.

He paused at the edge of a larger chamber. His flashlight scanned the space. The walls were old—older than any public works project should’ve been. Stone, not concrete. Carvings, not graffiti. Strange symbols that looked like a fusion of Norse runes and mathematical diagrams.

And then, in the middle of the room—there it was. The fifth body. This one was different. Female, early twenties. Her expression was peaceful. There was no blood. Her organs were intact. But her chest had been cut open and stitched back shut, not arranged like the others. Ryker knelt, eyes narrowing. This felt wrong. Not just gruesome—wrong in a way he couldn’t explain.

“Lena,” he whispered into the comm. “You need to see this. And bring Forensics. We’ve got another one.” No response.

“Lena?” Static.

He stood, pulse quickening. The comms was dead. Either the walls were interfering with the signal, or something else was. A faint sound echoed behind him—metal scraping stone. He turned sharply, light slicing through the dark. Nothing. But then he saw it.

A shadow moving without a source. Just a slither of black across the far wall, rippling like smoke underwater. It stopped as soon as the light hit it. Vanished. Ryker swallowed. This wasn’t just a murder investigation anymore. This was something else.

He backed away from the chamber, only to stop as he caught sight of something he’d missed before—on the far wall behind the body, just barely legible beneath layers of grime: the same message, freshly carved.

“What’s Below Reflects Above.” But this time, there was an addition. “And Above Is Already Cracking.”

Ryker stepped back from the inscription, every nerve in his body taut like piano wire. The addition to the message nagged at something half-remembered—an old case file or an offhand remark from a profiler. He couldn’t pin it down, but it wasn’t new. Something was watching him.

He turned slowly, not with the panic of prey, but the calculation of a man who’d stared down death before and made it blink. The beam of his flashlight cut through the shadows again, revealing only stone and stagnant air. But the feeling remained.

Behind him, the dead girl lay like a whisper, stitched shut and waiting. He forced himself to crouch beside her again. Something about the surgical work gnawed at him. Too clean. Too controlled. Whoever did this had time—and confidence.

He looked more closely. Her hands were folded over her chest, fingers curled, but her nails were painted—chipped red polish with tiny gold stars at the edges. He’d seen that once before. It wasn’t in the autopsy photos, but it was in his notes. Victim #1 had the same polish. He cursed under his breath. They had missed it. All of them. The girls weren’t random. They were connected.

His radio clicked softly. Static. Then Lena’s voice. Warped, faint. Like it was coming from a long way off.

“Ryk—there’s—need—you to s—above—the light—it’s—” Static again.

“Lena? Repeat that. I didn’t catch—Lena?” Nothing.

He stood. Every instinct told him to go back, but he took one last sweep of the chamber before retreating. His beam caught something he’d missed earlier—a small object wedged into a crack between stones. He pried it out. A gold earring. Delicate. Shaped like a crescent moon. He pocketed it and made for the surface.

The street above felt like a different world. Blindingly bright. Noise everywhere. Sirens in the distance. People shouting. The sudden return to reality felt jarring, like stepping out of a dream mid-fall. He pushed through the gathered crowd and ducked under the yellow tape. Officers nodded him through. Lena wasn’t there. He checked his phone. One missed call from her. No message.

“Detective Ryker!” He turned. Officer Graves jogged toward him, face pale.

“You better come quick.”

They stood in front of the burned-out remains of a corner bookstore two blocks from the tunnel entrance. Fire crews were still hosing it down, steam rising like ghosts into the afternoon air. Ryker frowned.

“What am I looking at?” Graves pointed toward a group of onlookers across the street.

“Lena was here before it went up. Said she was chasing a lead. One of the victims used to work here. She went in—and then boom. Place lit up like kindling.”

Ryker’s stomach dropped. “Is she okay?”

“She’s alive. Shaken. Couple burns. Paramedics took her to Mercy General. But here’s the kicker—before she went in, she told me to look in the basement. Said there was a hidden room. She was convinced this bookstore wasn’t just a bookstore.”

Ryker stared at the scorched remains, something dark curling in his chest. He didn’t believe in coincidences—not four ritual murders, a hidden chamber, and now a hidden room in a bookstore connected to the victims.

He turned to Graves. “Did you find anything?”

Graves shook his head. “Not yet. Basement’s unstable. Too hot to get into safely. But fire marshal said it looked like something was already burning down there before the upstairs caught.”

“So someone wanted it gone,” Ryker muttered.

“Yeah. Or buried.”

Later that night, Ryker stood in the hospital hallway, listening through the glass to Lena argue with a nurse. She was sitting upright in bed, her dark curls a mess, bandage on her cheek, fury in her voice.

“I don’t care if he’s ‘not allowed’—tell him to get in here before I walk out!” The nurse glanced toward Ryker, already recognizing him. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” she said, then pushed the door open and waved him through.

Lena locked eyes with him. “We need to talk.”

Ryker pulled a chair over and sat. “You first.”

“I found a journal.”

He blinked. “A journal?”

She nodded, digging into her bag beside the bed. “Wrapped in oilskin. Hidden behind a loose brick in the basement. It was still warm, so I grabbed it before the fire spread.”

She handed it to him. The cover was cracked leather, old. The spine had a symbol burned into it—three intersecting lines forming a spiral. He’d seen it once before. On the wall of the first crime scene, faint, like it had been washed away.

“Whose was it?” he asked.

“Belonged to the owner. Evan Mallory. Same birthday as the victims. September 9th. His body’s never been found—but he’s been presumed dead for two years. House fire.”

Ryker flipped the journal open. The handwriting was small, frantic.

They’re coming from below. I hear them in my dreams. The spiral is tightening. The city isn’t built over something dead—it’s built over something sleeping. Something we woke up. And it remembers us.

He looked up at her.

Lena’s voice was low. “There are more victims, Caleb. Ones they never found. This guy tracked them. Said they were part of something called ‘The Ninefold Echo.’ A kind of cult—but older. Way older. Before the city. Maybe even before the settlers.”

Ryker’s throat felt dry. “Why haven’t we heard of this before?”

“Because every time someone starts asking questions,” she said, “something burns down. Someone vanishes.”

She leaned in. “And I think Mallory was trying to stop it. I think he started the bookstore to watch the people being drawn in. All of them had the same birth date for a reason. September 9th isn’t random. It’s part of a pattern.”

He nodded slowly, adrenaline creeping back into his bloodstream.

“So what’s the next move?” she asked.

Ryker closed the journal, his jaw set.

“We go deeper.”

The subway tunnels beneath District Seven had long since been decommissioned, swallowed by new infrastructure and sealed behind rusted iron gates. But Ryker knew the city best kept secrets underground. He moved through the skeletal remains of the platform, flashlight trembling slightly in his hand. It wasn’t fear—not yet. It was the pressure. Like being watched by a thousand unseen eyes.

The deeper he went, the colder it got. Old tiles shed dust with every step. Faded graffiti whispered stories in languages no one spoke anymore. He paused at the edge of a corridor, studying the markings etched into the walls. Circles. Spirals. Interlocking triangles. The same pattern that appeared on the journal spine and the walls of the murder scenes.

He knelt and traced a symbol with his gloved fingers. It had been carved deep, not with modern tools—more like etched with stone or bone. Below the pattern were three words, barely legible beneath soot:

“Nine Folded Once.”

He didn’t understand it, but the phrase pulsed behind his eyes like a forgotten memory. A soft sound behind him made him rise fast, gun drawn. Footsteps. Just one set. Then silence. He turned. No one.

But when he aimed the flashlight back down the tunnel, something had changed. The spiral graffiti wasn’t behind him anymore. It was ahead of him—on the opposite wall. Had he turned around? No. He was sure he hadn’t. Something was toying with him.

Back in her hospital bed, Lena stared at the ceiling, the journal open on her lap. She hadn’t told Ryker everything. Not because she didn’t trust him—because she couldn’t yet trust herself. Her hands trembled as she flipped to the page she’d hidden between two glued sheets, a trick she’d learned in fieldwork years ago. Mallory’s final entry wasn’t written in ink. It was in blood.

To stop the spiral, one must go inward. The murders are echoes, sacrifices. The Ninth is always the key. Born on the Ninth, chosen by the Ninth. Each cycle begins anew. The Echo needs a mirror, and it’s found one. In him.

She closed her eyes. The word him was underlined. She didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t. But the journal mentioned Ryker. Not by name directly—but it described a man matching his profile, his transfer to the precinct five years ago, the death of his wife, the insomnia, the tunnel dreams. He’d been dreaming about the tunnels long before the murders started. And somehow, he didn’t remember that.

Underground, Ryker reached what looked like an old maintenance chamber, sealed by a reinforced door. Faded paint spelled out Zone 3-B: Civic Utility Access. Someone had welded it shut long ago. Except now, the welds were melted through. He pushed the door open, and the darkness behind it swallowed the light.

The chamber was massive, circular, built in an era when stonework was still an art form. At its center stood a platform, slightly raised, with grooves cut into the stone floor like channels for draining—or guiding. The same spirals covered the walls here, but these were painted in something darker, glossier. He stepped forward. His boots echoed across the stone. In the center of the platform sat a chair. Not a throne. Not a torture device. Just an old wooden chair. Simple. Ordinary. Too ordinary. It was the only thing not covered in dust.

As he approached, a cold wind stirred the air, though there was no source for it. Then a voice. Low. Feminine. Barely above a whisper, yet it filled the chamber like thunder in the mind.

“Welcome back, Caleb.” He spun, gun up, but the room was empty. No sound. No movement. The chair creaked. Not just an echo. It moved. By itself. He didn’t run. He wanted to—but his legs refused. His body felt miles away, as if he were moving inside a dream, following a script written by something else. He took a step forward. The air changed—like stepping through a veil. Cold became warmth. Darkness became memory.

He was eight. Sitting in his mother’s basement. She was crying upstairs. Father gone. TV flickering static. The door to the furnace room cracked open. A voice whispering his name.

Caleb.

He blinked, and the memory vanished. He was still in the chamber. But the walls were closer now. Or maybe the room was shrinking. He staggered back. This wasn’t a murder scene. It was a ritual. And someone—or something—was trying to pull him into it.

Lena’s phone buzzed on the hospital tray. She didn’t recognize the number, but she answered anyway.

“This is Detective Marlowe.”

The voice on the other end was gravelly. Male. Shaky. “You need to get him out of there.”

She sat up. “Who is this?”

“The chair. The spiral. The Ninefold Echo—it doesn’t kill. It copies.”

The line went dead. Lena stared at the phone. Copies? She opened the journal again, flipped to a page with a diagram of overlapping faces—nine faces, all variations of the same man. Some older. Some younger. Some distorted, monstrous. The Echo doesn’t destroy. It duplicates. Replicates. Possesses? She cursed aloud and grabbed her jacket, pain flaring in her side. Ryker didn’t just find the center of the spiral. He was the center.

Ryker stared at the chair. The wooden frame groaned softly, though there was no breeze. No movement. Just the sense that it was waiting. His flashlight flickered. Once. Twice. Then it died. Darkness swallowed everything. Ryker’s breathing quickened. He tapped the flashlight, shook it. Nothing. He reached for his phone—its screen blinked to life for a second, then went black with a hiss of static. Then a faint, low hum filled the chamber. Not mechanical. Not natural. A resonance. Like a note played on an ancient instrument, buried under centuries of silence. And beneath that note, whispers. He stumbled backward and hit the wall. The stone was warm, too warm.

He spun, running his hand across the surface—and felt shapes carved into it. Familiar. Faces. Dozens of them. Mouths open, locked in silent screams. He jerked his hand away. The humming grew louder. The chair creaked again. And suddenly he knew. This was where it started. This was where they brought the Ninth.

Lena raced through the municipal archives building, limping slightly, coat flapping behind her. The night clerk gawked as she flashed her badge, then barreled past him into the elevator. The journal had referenced blueprints. Hidden ones.

Basement Level 2 had an unscanned archive: original civic engineering documents from the early 1900s, long before digitization. If there were records of these chambers—of the “Ninefold” designs—they would be here. She flipped through dusty drawers, choking on old paper and mildew. Finally, she found it.

CITY CAVERN SYSTEM—PROPOSED RITUAL SITE BENEATH 7TH & RAVEN

Her blood ran cold. There was a name on the blueprint. Project Overseer: Evan Mallory. She pulled out her phone and snapped photos of everything, hands shaking. And there—scribbled in red pencil on the corner of the final page—were two words.

“It remembers.”

Back underground, Ryker tried to move, but his legs wouldn’t obey. His arms felt heavy. Breath shallow. The chair called to him. Not in words. In memory.

He was seventeen. His best friend saved him from almost drowning in a lake outside the city. He never spoke of what he saw beneath the water—only that he came out changed. The nightmares started a week later. And when that friend vanished months later, all Ryker found was a journal. Spirals. Numbers. Symbols carved into the margins. He had forgotten that. Or something had made him forget. The humming crescendoed. And in that moment, Ryker saw himself. Not reflected in a mirror—but multiplied. Nine versions of himself. All standing around the chair. Some smiling. Some weeping. One screaming maniacally, covered in blood. He blinked—and they were gone. The chair sat empty. But not alone.

At the far end of the chamber, something stepped forward. Not a person. Not a shadow. A version of him. Eyes hollow. Face slack, like a mask only half-formed. It raised one hand—and pointed. Sit.

Lena burst into the command center at Central Precinct, a handful of blueprints and the journal clutched to her chest. Captain Wilkes stood from his desk, startled. “Jesus, Marlowe, you look like hell.”

“I need every available unit near 7th and Raven,” she said, slamming the journal down. “There’s a chamber underground. Ryker’s in it. And he’s not alone.”

Wilkes frowned. “You’re not making any sense.”

“He’s part of something. Something old. It doesn’t just kill—it copies people. Uses them. There were nine original chambers. Nine people born on the Ninth. But this cycle—it didn’t finish. Someone interrupted it last time. Now it’s starting again.”

Wilkes looked pale. “You’re talking about cult stuff?”

“No. I’m talking about something worse.” She met his eyes.

“I don’t think it’s trying to hurt Ryker, it’s trying to become him.”

In the chamber, Ryker fell to his knees. His thoughts were unraveling. His name, his memories, the boundaries between what he was and what he’d done—it all blurred. The echo-thing stepped closer. It opened its mouth—and his voice came out.

“You saw it too. In your dreams. The spiral. The chair. The city above breaking apart.”

Ryker gritted his teeth. “You’re not me.”

“No,” the thing said. “But I will be. Soon.”

It pointed to the wall—where a new carving had appeared. Fresh. Still wet.

“The Ninth has returned. The Echo is complete.”

Ryker reached for his gun, but it was gone. Laughter echoed around him. The versions of him reappeared, circling the chamber now, eyes glowing faintly in the dark. And in the center, the chair waited.

Lena and two officers forced open the tunnel gate with industrial cutters. She led them through the same winding path Ryker had taken, flashlight sweeping across old graffiti and ancient markings. And then she saw it—blood on the wall. Fresh. They reached the open door to the stone chamber.

“Ryker!” she shouted. Her voice vanished into the dark.

Then a whisper echoed back. “Lena…”

She turned to the officers. “Wait here. If I don’t come out in five minutes, seal the door.” They started to argue, but she was already inside. The darkness swallowed her.

Ryker sat in the chair. He didn’t remember moving. His limbs didn’t feel like his own anymore. Around him, the copies began to hum in unison. The spiral above him—cut into the ceiling—began to glow faintly. The thing stepped forward, now wearing his face perfectly. But Lena’s voice cut through the chant like a blade.

“Caleb!” He looked up. The copies froze. The thing turned, hissing. And for the first time, Ryker saw fear in its eyes. He reached inside himself. Past the memories. Past the confusion. To the thing that wasn’t part of the spiral. The truth. He wasn’t just born on the Ninth. He was the break in the pattern. The one they couldn’t copy. Because he’d already died once. And come back wrong.

Lena stepped into the chamber and froze. Nine figures circled the center—each one a version of Ryker, flickering in and out of shadow like ghosts trapped between moments. And in the center, bound by something deeper than rope or chains, sat the real Ryker. His eyes found hers, wide and terrified—but not for himself.

“For God’s sake, don’t step inside the circle!” he shouted. She stopped. Too late.

The moment her foot crossed the etched groove in the stone floor, the air pulsed, and the spiral above them glowed brighter. The chamber shifted—stone groaned, not as if crumbling, but like it was awakening. The thing wearing Ryker’s face turned toward her. Perfect. Hollow. Infinite.

“You shouldn’t have come, Lena.” She raised her pistol, hands trembling.

“I came for him.” It smiled—his smile, but warped at the edges.

“You came for what’s left of him. But the Echo doesn’t break. It completes. It reflects. He’s already halfway gone.”

The other versions began to chant again. Low, rhythmic. The walls responded, light pulsing with each syllable. Ryker strained against the invisible weight keeping him in the chair. “Lena—it’s not just trying to be me. It’s trying to replace everything I ever was. The murders were the setup. I’m the finale.”

Lena took a step closer, crossing the second circle in the pattern. Her flashlight buzzed and died. Darkness closed in. Only the spiral remained lit—burning now. Growing. The Echo moved toward her. “You can’t stop it. But you can join him. Be the Tenth. Complete the new spiral.”

Lena’s mind screamed at her to run. But instead, she turned the gun—not on the Echo, but on Ryker.

“Tell me something only you would know,” she demanded, voice cracking.

Ryker’s eyes burned. “First time we met, you thought I was a media plant. Said no real cop had shoes that clean.” Tears welled in her eyes.

“Second time?” she whispered.

“You loaned me a pen. I never gave it back. It’s still in my desk.” That was enough. She fired—not at Ryker, but at the chair. The bullet struck the wood near his foot—and something screamed. Not a voice. A force. The circle erupted in a blast of heatless light. The chant faltered. The Echo stumbled backward, flickering like a failing signal.

Lena rushed forward, grabbed Ryker’s arm, and pulled. The chamber fought her. The floor cracked. Spirals twisted upward from the stone like vines. The other versions began to convulse, faces collapsing in on themselves.

“You don’t belong here,” she growled. “You never did.” Ryker grabbed her hand—finally able to move. They ran.

Behind them, the chamber collapsed inward, the spiral shattering, the echoes screaming. As they passed the threshold of the outer circle, a final pulse slammed through the space—and the chair exploded in a blast of darkness and light, like two realities colliding. The gate behind them slammed shut. Silence.

They emerged into the night. Covered in dust and blood, gasping for air. Sirens wailed somewhere distant, but the city felt… still. Like something had passed over it and moved on. Ryker collapsed against a wall, hands shaking. Lena knelt beside him, breathing hard.

“It’s over,” she said. But Ryker didn’t answer right away. He was staring at his hands. At his reflection in a broken piece of glass nearby. Then he whispered, “Not for me.”

Two days later, Ryker sat on the roof of the precinct, watching the sunrise paint the sky in beautifully rich hues of violet and gold. Lena found him there, wrapped in his thoughts, nursing a paper cup of black coffee. She sat beside him.

“They’re calling it a gas leak,” she said. “The whole chamber collapsed into itself. City engineers are baffled.”

He nodded. “Let them be.” She studied his face.

“You’re still hearing them, aren’t you?” He didn’t answer, but she saw it in his eyes. The spiral had broken. But some things—some truths—stay.

“They’re not inside me,” he said finally. “But they left something behind. Like echoes. I close my eyes and I see them. Feel them.”

She looked down. “You saved people, Ryker. Whatever they wanted, whatever they were trying to become—you stopped it. You broke the cycle.” He gave a small, sad smile.

“But I think they needed me to.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?” He turned to her, voice quiet.

“I was the break in the pattern. The flaw. They couldn’t complete the ritual with me because… I was never whole to begin with.” Her brow furrowed.

“The drowning. Years ago. When I was seventeen. I died, Lena. Just for a minute. Cold water. Silence. And something else.” His hands trembled.

“I think they touched me then. Marked me. But it made me… incompatible. A broken mirror.” She reached over and gripped his hand.

“Maybe you were the break. Or maybe you were the only one strong enough to refuse what they offered.” He looked at her.

“Do you think I’m still me?” She didn’t hesitate. “I know you are. You’re the version that walked out.” They sat in silence for a while, watching the city stir awake. He reached into his coat and handed her a pen—her pen. She laughed softly, tears in her eyes. “Took you long enough.”

“You earned it,” he said. “You came back for me. Pulled me out of the spiral.” She squeezed his hand once more, then stood.

“Time to get back to work. There’s a lot of city left.” He watched her go. Then looked down at the journal in his lap—burned around the edges, many pages unreadable. But one page remained legible. The final page.

The Echo breaks when the chosen refuses their reflection. But every mirror cracks differently. And sometimes, the cracks are where the light gets in.

Ryker closed the journal, tucked it beneath his coat, and faced the sun. Whatever came next, he would meet it head on. Alone, if he had to. But awake.

Regret

Posted on March 8, 2025 by M. Bradley under Love & Relationships, Short Stories

I was sitting on the couch watching TV when there was an unexpected knock at the door. I paused the movie I was watching and made my way to the front door. “I wonder who it could be,” I said to myself as I bent down to look out the peephole. To my surprise, it was Elise, my ex-roommate’s girlfriend.

“Hey Jonah, I’m sorry to stop by like this.”

I stepped back from the door and paused for a moment. For the life of me, I couldn’t think of a reason for her to be outside my house. We hadn’t been particularly close when Matt and I lived together, kind of just existing on the edges of each other’s lives through him. But I decided to open the door anyway.

“Come on in. You want something to drink?” I heard her close the door behind herself then, softly reply, “No thank you.” I went back into the living room and slumped back into my spot on the couch. She shortly followed and sat down right beside me.

“We missed you at the funeral.” My heart sank to my feet as I took a good look at her. She was dressed in a modest black dress with her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Matt’s funeral was today and I had completely forgotten about it. Even though it had been a few months since he moved out, the two of us remained close. I stumbled over the words of my apology before she finally told me it was okay.

“I figured you probably weren’t gonna come, but I thought I’d stop by and check on you anyway.” She briefly gave me a run down of what happened at the funeral. She said the entire scene felt a bit suffocating – too many people, too many condolences that felt rehearsed, too much silence that would’ve drove Matt insane.

When she was done, we sat in awkward silence for what seemed like forever as we each tried to decide how to navigate the uneasy tension that had fallen on the room like a wet blanket. Eventually, I convinced myself to go into the kitchen and fix myself a drink. To my surprise, she was right on my heels.

“Great minds think alike, huh?” I nervously joked as I poured some vodka into a glass. We both let out a small chuckle that seemed to let some of the air out of the room. We went back into the living room and talked for a while. As she talked, I could tell that it was weighing on her. With the deft precision of a blunt instrument, I tried to change the subject to something a little less emotionally draining. Instantly, she was mass of sobbing humanity in my arms. I squeezed her tightly and did my best to console her through what was obvious an inconsolable moment.

“I’m so sorry to come over here and dump on you like this, but I didn’t know where else to go.” The stream of tears running down her cheeks was reminiscent of the Mississippi River. I didn’t say anything, I just hugged her tighter as my eyes began to spring a leak.

After what felt like eons, we released our hold on each other. But something else seemed to be drawing us closer to one another. I wildly shook my head, as if trying to free myself from a hypnotic trance. “Another drink?” She forced a smile for my sake and eagerly nodded as she handed me her glass. I decided to grab the bottle and return to the living room.

We drank in silence at first. Then came the stories – small fragmented pieces of Matt that we were clinging on to. We laughed, but it was the kind of laughter that cracked at the edges. But the third drink, Elise had stopped laughing. By the fourth, she looked at me with something unreadable in her expression and said, “I don’t want to go home.” And I knew what she meant, even if neither of us said it out loud.

We got up from our seats on the couch and slowly made our way towards my bedroom. Not because we were drunk, but because of the unspoken hesitation that I felt between us. Maybe it was a warning. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was too much vodka playing tricks on me.

When we reached the door to my bedroom, it was like something snapped. Elise reached out for me, fingers clenching at the waistband of my sweatpants, pulling me into a kiss that was all teeth and desperation. It wasn’t soft nor sweet. It felt like her grief had turned into something tangible – something she could sink into, drown in. I quickly lifted her up, my hands gripping her thighs as I kissed her harder than she had kissed me, like I was trying to erase the taste of vodka and sorrow from both of our mouths. She hooked her legs around my waist, pulling me closer to her. We fell back on the bed while Elise’s fingers fumbled with my drawstring, tugging at it impatiently before dragging her nails across my back. It hurt, but maybe that was the point.

In an instant, our clothes were a mess on the floor, and the only sounds between us were sharp breaths and the rustle of bedsheets. I unsteadily traced my lips down her neck, over her collarbone, leaving a trail of gentle kisses that would have almost been reverent if it weren’t for the vice grip I hap on her hips. Elise pulled me closer, her body arching into mine as if she needed more of something, anything. Every touch, every kiss, every movement between us felt like a plea – don’t stop, don’t think, don’t feel anything but this.

We moved together with the kind of desperation that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with forgetting. Everything about it was rough, feverish, our bodies colliding with an urgency that left no room for hesitation. Hands roamed freely, nails left marks, teeth grazed over skin – small, fleeting reminders that we were still alive, that we could still feel something, anything, even if it was only for the night.

Afterward, we laid together, our bodies slick with sweat, the air think with something neither of us wanted to name, let alone acknowledge. Elise laid on her back and traced a path across my chest while absently staring at the ceiling overhead. I laid beside her, my arm draped above my head and stared blankly at the TV mounted on the wall in front of me. The room smelled like a mixture of vodka, sex, and sweat. But the air between us had shifted, thickening with the weight of what we had just done. I could still feel the ghost of her skin on mine, taste her lips on mine, but the comfort our actions had given us both was already fading. There was nothing left now but the cold, creeping realization that it wasn’t going to make either of us feel any better.

“This was a mistake,” she whispered. I let out deep sigh, relieved that she said what was bouncing around in my vodka soaked mind. “Yeah.” But neither of us moved. The silence stretched out between us. But unlike before, there was a weight to it, much heavier than before, almost to the point of suffocating. Eventually, we lost our individual battles with sleep.

By morning, the feeling of regret was unbearable. It almost felt like Matt was standing in the corner, casting judgement on us. I woke up first, but pretended to be sleep so I wouldn’t disturb her. When she woke up, her hand immediately covered her face, I can only imagine that she was replaying the previous night’s events over in her head. She slipped out from under the covers in what I suppose was an attempt to not disturb me. Then she quickly got dressed and bolted for the door, never looking back to see that I was watching her the whole time. Maybe I should’ve tried to stop her, or at least said something. But what exactly? The only reason I didn’t do the same thing was because we were at my house. Once I heard my front door close, I quickly got in the shower and tried to scrub away the guilt and regret.

And just like that, we became strangers again.

Can’t Knock the Hu$$le

Posted on April 4, 2019 by M. Bradley under General

Good morning world. I wish I was writing this in a better frame of mind. Hell, I really wish I wasn’t writing it. But because these thoughts have been weighing so heavily on me for the past few days, I felt like I had to get them out.

Unless you just don’t care or you’ve been under a rock all week, you know the tragedy that happened on Sunday (March 31, 2019). There are too many superlatives to list that describe Ermias Joseph Asghedom (known to the world as Nipsey Hussle). Now I’m not here to claim that I knew this man, I’m not even claiming to be a fan of his music. He existed on the periphery of my consciousness. I was cognizant of what he was doing in the world and respected the hell out of the message he was putting out into the world. But when my girlfriend called me and told me of his untimely demise, I couldn’t help but cry.

I didn’t cry when ‘Pac died. I didn’t cry when B.I.G died. I did shed tears for Michael and Prince. I’ll probably cry whenever Hov leaves this mortal realm. And these are probably my 5 favorite artists of all time. But here’s a man who I couldn’t name more than 2 songs by him, yet I cried like I had lost a family member. I turned on his music, pulled a hat down low over my eyes, and grieved for a man that I had never met.

Then, like most of us did, I jumped on social media to post something that could potentially display the hurt I was feeling. And that first night, it was beautiful. People posted links to songs, pictures, etc. showing their respect for Nipsey. But after that, the shit got twisted. Since Sunday night, wild conspiracy theories and videos of his last moments have ran rampant all over social media. We’ve become so focused on his death that we’re ignoring his life.

I’ve taken the past few days to really look into what this man was doing with his life and platform. He was preaching black empowerment in a way that our community hasn’t seen or heard since Malcolm X laid down. This is what our focus should be on. Not how or why he lost his life. Lift up his legacy, don’t sensationalize his death.

That’s all I got for y’all today. Peace and love. Let’s run this marathon! #RIPNipsey

In My Own Words…

Thoughts, Rants and Ramblings from the Mind of an Average Man… That Just Happens to Be Anything But…

Tag Archives: death

The Soldier

The Day a King Died

Tomb of the Forgotten King

First Hunt

The Jury Room

The Innocent Man

One Wish Left

What’s Below Reflects Above

Regret

Can’t Knock the Hu$$le

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