Unbalanced

June 21st 

217 Honeycutt Drive

Come alone 

Folding and refolding the paper, I stared at the cabin before me for a few excruciatingly long moments and tried to summon my courage. Tried to convince myself this was a good idea, showing up to a mysterious summons. I finally took my first step toward the cabin when the door swung open to reveal a battle axe of a woman, and a thoughtful look crossed her face as she ushered me in. I almost thought she was pretty, but a long, raging scar cut across her face, pulling the side of her mouth into a permanent half-smile that showed too many teeth for comfort.

The cabin felt smaller than it did from the outside. A long wooden table bisected the living room from the kitchenette, and the fireplace crackled in the corner, sending steaming heat around the space. Candles littered the table and were spread throughout the room as though they were prepped for losing electricity.

Two people sat at the table, a wide berth between their seats. A younger guy, probably around my age, had his head tipped back to stare at the ceiling, never looking up. A heavy pour of red wine clutched in his hand. 

In contrast, the other person was a jaw-droppingly beautiful black woman who stared at me with deep consideration as I sat down. She was covered in glitzy jewelry, and her long nails looked like talons—sharp and long enough to cut. She held a cigarette in one hand and picked at a plate of grapes with her other, her fingers gliding over every fruit but never eating one. 

The woman who opened the door sat down directly next to me. “Welcome. We’re pleased you came to join us. You may call me Tina. What do you like to be called?” 

“My name is–” 

She held up a hand and stopped me. “Not your name. We don’t do names here.”

“I like to be called Alex,” I said, happy not to use my real name for once.

Tina motioned to the other woman, “That’s Annie.” 

Annie licked her lips before purring, “Hello, Alex.” 

Annie pointed her cigarette at the man without breaking eye contact, “That sad lump is Jessie."

I looked at Jessie, but his eyes stayed locked on the ceiling.

“What do you think of our hideaway?” Tina asked me. 

I thought it was cramped and too hot. Instead, I said, “It’s, uh, nice. Homey."

Annie snickered, and ash fell from her cigarette, landing on her grapes. She picked up one of the ashy grapes with her long fingernails and regarded it as though it had personally offended her.

Tina stood and took the plate to the kitchen. “Can I get you a glass of water? I’m afraid it’s all we have.” 

“Sure.” 

I looked at Jessie and his wine longingly. As though he sensed my stare, he lifted his head, and I could finally see his face. His eyes were bloodshot and watery, like he’d been weeping for hours. 

Jessie cleared his throat, but before he could utter a word, a startling, wailing wind rushed around the house like we were suddenly in a hurricane. But just as quickly, the wind stopped, and a booming CRACK came from outside. Tina shot to the window and peered out, tense and jumpy, before relaxing and turning around. 

“Jessie, a tree just came down. Can you take care of it?” 

Jessie walked out the front door without a word, wine in hand.

“Doesn’t he need help?” I asked.

Annie chuckled, “He was a carpenter once upon a time. He can handle it.”

Tina finally returned to her seat, setting a glass of water and a new plate of grapes in front of me and Annie. 

Tina plucked a grape from the plate. She regarded it briefly before beginning the slow task of peeling its skin away.

“So… I have to be honest,” I said, my hands waving around as I spoke, “I have no idea why I’m here. I just got an invitation to, hopefully not, a murder cabin.” 

Tina stopped peeling, and Annie smiled widely, her white teeth shining in the firelight. 

“Oh, I like that!” She exclaimed. 

Tina rolled her eyes, “This isn’t a murder cabin.” She said it like the words tasted sour. 

“So then what is it? I have no idea who you people are.” 

Annie tutted, “Yet here you are. In a murder cabin–”

“Not a murder cabin,” Tina interjected. 

“With three strangers. And you came because you got an anonymous invitation. What do you think that says about you? Seems like a red flag.” 

I balked at her, searching for a defense, but couldn’t find a good one. “It’s been a crazy time for me lately, and I just decided to go with it."

“Crazy is a bit of an understatement, wouldn’t you say?” 

A hot, ugly feeling started to blossom in my chest, the same one I’d been coasting on for weeks, and I snapped, “The hell do you know about it? Have you been stalking me? Is that it?”

“We haven’t been stalking you.” Annie gestured broadly to herself, “No offense, but I’m way out of your league, and I have better things to do. Besides, I’m not required to give a shit about your life decisions just yet.” 

I drew back and frowned. “What does that even mean?”

Tina finished skinning her grape and arranged the pieces back on the plate before focusing on me.

“We’re all here because the world might be about to end.” 

My eyebrows flew up, and I looked at both women before I started laughing hard enough that my lungs seized up.

They didn’t join in. 

“You guys are joking, right? Or high? Not drunk since only Jessie gets the good stuff.” 

Annie scoffed, “If you ask him nicely, you can have wine. He makes it himself.” 

“You just ignored all the important parts of what I said.” 

Annie snapped her fingers, “Ah! Yes, well, Tina’s right. The world might be ending. Sucks pretty bad. I’ll be booked solid for weeks.”

I sighed, deciding just to go with it once again. “Fine. The world is ending. Please. Do tell. This will only be the 5th apocalypse that’s supposed to have happened. What is it this time? A meteor heading straight for Earth? Global warming finally got too out of control, and the sun is about to fry us all like a bunch of donuts?” 

I leaned back and crossed my arms, waiting for the big tell-all. It was nice not being the only crazy person in the room for once. 

Annie regarded me as she tapped the cigarette filter against her lips, and I readjusted in the chair. I thought about how I must seem to her. On a good day, I’d give myself 6/10 for looks, but I hadn’t had one of those in a long time. Today, I likely topped the scales at 3/10. 

It wasn’t all my fault. The dark circles were hereditary and persisted no matter how many hours I slept. Not that I’d slept much in the past few weeks. Last night, I hadn’t slept more than three hours, just thinking and tossing for hours.

But Annie was practically a moonbeam; she was so radiant. Flawless skin. Plump lips and cheekbones sharp enough to hollow out the bottom half of her face and elongate her features.

She must have noticed my staring because she narrowed her eyes at me before looking at Tina. 

“The world may or may not end tonight,” Tina calmly interrupted my thoughts. “This one, anyway.” She leaned in closer to me, her face rigid and severe. “We’ve finally reached the tipping point.” 

I snorted, “Try to be more vague, why don’t you?” 

Tina frowned at my tone, and I imagined my mother in her place, scolding me. Not that they looked anything alike. Tina had choppy grey hair, strong arms, and a battle scar that made it look like a bear had mauled her. My mom was an overweight diva who fed off drama instead of food. 

I almost apologized, but the front door smacked open before I could say anything. With a gust of wind that roared through the room, Jessie was back, wine in hand. He took my water from the table and went to the kitchen without acknowledging me. 

“Everything ok, Jessie?” Tina asked

“The cabin’s fine. No damage, for now. I expect that will change later.” Every word sounded like it was being ripped from his throat by force. His voice was hoarse like he’d been screaming at the wind while out there. 

“That’s good.” Tina hummed in approval and gently lowered her voice. "We’ve just begun to tell Alex what is happening.”

A loud breath exploded from Jessie, and the glass in his hand shattered. The cup splintered into dozens of shards, shooting across the room. Blood dripped from his hand onto the floor, and Jessie seemed almost spellbound by the site of it pooling in his palm. Tina’s chair flew back and crashed into the wall behind us, and I flinched.

“Annie, could you continue while I help Jessie?” Tina ushered Jessie out of the room and began cleaning his blood and the glass from the kitchen. 

“Is he okay?” I asked.

Annie sighed, “Not really. Jessie’s a very empathetic man. I imagine he’s struggling to be here. Struggling to be around you.” 

“Why?” 

Annie ignored my question and said, “The world doesn’t end all at once—no planetary collision, zombie apocalypse, or religious nonsense. The world ends because of pain, fear, anger, and every other ugly feeling. It’s been building for thousands of years, and something has to give. The scales are unbalanced.”

“I don’t understand. How can negative emotion blow up the world?” 

“That’s not what I said. We don’t blow up. We decay. The Earth as we know it will rebel. The ground will quagmire, and cities will vanish one by one. The water will make you sick. Natural resources will become a poison, and the cancer will grow. The pain persists and gnaws until everyone is an empty husk, burning away into the ether. It could take years for it to end.”

“That was quite poetic.”

She pulled a long drag from her cigarette and held it in her chest for long moments before slowly blowing it up toward the ceiling. My lungs ached at the idea of it.

“Let me word it this way,” she leaned forward in her chair, and her hair bounced around her ears, showing little, white feather earrings. “All of your pain, fear, whatever is like a bubble around you. Energy. Chi. It all means the same thing—bad essence versus good. And right now, this world is so steeped in hate that I can taste it." She snarled it at me like it was my fault. 

“So, what? Tons of people are sad, and now we all die?"

Annie bit her lip before lunging across the table at me. I jerked back, but she was faster. She gripped my wrists and slammed them to the table, pinning me in place no matter how hard I struggled. 

“Let go of me!” I yanked at my arms, but she held firm. Malice, followed by curiosity, flickered across her face as she studied me before her eyes fell to my heaving chest and stayed.

“Tell me, Alex,” her voice was frigid and quiet, “if I reached into your chest and ripped out your heart, what color would it be? Red like the blood you’ve spilled? Or black, to mimic the feelings in you?” Her eyes glazed over, and she leaned in close enough that I could smell the stale ash on her breath. “I know what you did.” 

I stopped breathing as I looked down at my hands. My knuckles were split, and my fingernails were dark with dried blood. Under my shirt, bruises and cuts throbbed across my chest and arms. Some defensive wounds. Some not. Despite the barrier, I felt like she could see every inch of my tarnished skin. 

Her eyes cleared, she released my arms and sat back down like she’d never moved. “More importantly, I know why you did it, and I don't blame you.” 

I gaped at her as my heart galloped in my chest. I didn’t know if I should run or not. Before I could decide, Jessie came back into the room, Tina right behind him.

I glowered at Annie. “That’s what this is? Some kind of bullshit blackmail?” 

Jessie walked over and set a glass of wine in front of me. I looked at him in surprise.

“It’s not blackmail.” His voice was still hoarse but had gained a steadier edge, “It’s just what it is. Now sit. We don’t have long.” Like a puppet without strings, I fell back into my chair. Obeying him was automatic, sending a wave of alarm and suspicion tremoring into my body. 

Everyone sat at the table, their gazes unerringly fixed on me. I felt like an ant about to be crushed underfoot. The ugly, burning feeling in my chest started to build up again. I was tired. Tired of Annie’s cryptic speeches. Tired of being afraid of myself. Tired of my entire life. 

“You’re upset,” Tina remarked, as though there was a neon sign above my head announcing it. 

“Yeah, what gave it away?” I ground out through my teeth.

Tina pointed at the plate of grapes. “Look.” 

I focused on the plate, my vision tunneling in on the fruit. If I hadn’t known that they were white grapes, I wouldn’t have been able to identify them as such now. They were rotting before my eyes. They had turned black and crusty, shriveling up like raisins as I watched. 

I reached out a hand, distantly noticing the harsh tremor that had overtaken my extremities, and picked one up. I studied the grape in my palm as it shrunk and collapsed. It felt like watching a time-lapse video. 

I watched the fruit shrivel in my hand for long moments. I considered eating it to see if it tasted like a raisin, but the grape was gone in another moment. The fruit had disappeared entirely, wasted away to ash. I tipped my hand over, and the residue fluttered onto the table. 

I looked at Tina in horror. “I did that?” 

Tina nodded, and I grabbed my wine. It sloshed over the sides as I gulped hard. 

“Your pain, suffering, your terror,” Tina said softly, “is the breaking point this time. It’s up to you.” 

I felt tears boil up in my eyes—from sadness or anger, it didn’t matter. As I watched the grapes wither and disintegrate before me, I believed my hurt could kill. This horrible ache born in me finally showed itself to others, and part of me reveled in it, reveling in the release and acknowledgment.

All my hopelessness. Weariness. Fury and spite. It roiled in my chest, suffocating and muting me. I’d felt like this for so long. Destitute. Forgotten. Lonely. I had always been a broken toy with no future. Life didn’t get better for someone like me. It just got worse. 

I used to pray, beg, scream, cry. It never mattered in the past. I felt the tears escape me then. Running down my cheeks and dripping off my chin. I wanted to wail and howl. Open the floodgates and let every ugly thing inside me rip out and burn it all down because I couldn’t shoulder this hurt alone.

There was another cracking sound from outside. The wind had picked up again, and the lights flickered. Once. Twice. Then it went completely dark. Only the fire cast choppy light across the space. The electricity had gone out. 

Annie stood and began lighting the candles spread throughout the space. They had prepared, knowing everything that would happen.

“So, who are you guys, then?” I croaked, my voice barely above a whisper. 

The fire cast long shadows across the room, and I glanced around at my companions, waiting for an answer. But as my eyes adjusted to the darkness around us, I found myself dumbfounded. 

In place of her worn t-shirt and jeans, Tina now wore a gleaming set of armor. A spear propped up against her side. A helmet covered the top half of her face, so I could only see her permanent smile. The scar stood out even with everything else. 

Annie, still standing, wore a long gown with delicate gold lace along her bodice. Her teeth had lengthened, jutting from her mouth and curving downward like a wild animal’s. In one hand, she held a heart that pumped and leaked blood in her palm. I grabbed at my chest, halfway convinced she had stolen mine.

Then there was Jessie. His clothes hadn’t changed. He still wore a simple shirt and pants, but I spotted a few holes in his jeans. Lines were smeared across his face like he’d taken a tumble in the dirt. But what caught me was the crown on his head. It was simple—just a golden band with peaks that rose above his coiffed hair. But at the bottom, sharp edges dug into his forehead, piercing his skull. Blood wept down his face as he stared back. A humorless smile hovered on his lips.

My breath stuttered in my chest, and just like that, the new version of my companions vanished. No blood or wardrobe changes. We all sat at the table facing one another. I didn’t see Annie sit back down, but there she was. Smoking and smiling at me as though she knew what I had seen. 

“What happens now?” I whispered, afraid of the answer.

“We wait. You decide if your pain is bad enough to damn the world. Decide if you want them to feel it, too. Because tonight doesn't have to be their end. Not if you can figure out how to handle your pain by yourself.” Tina said without hesitation. 

"What if I can't?" My voice sounded reedy and wet. I hated how weak I sounded.

"It's you or everyone else. They share your pain until it rips them apart, and you never deal with pain ever again. You can be one of us. Or you let it all go, and only you end."

"I don't know who I am without it," I whispered, and a sob started to wiggle up my throat. "I don't know how to be normal."

I stared at the grape remnants and thought about everything that had brought me here. The last few days had been the worst of my life, and I felt sick relief at the prospect of it all ending and an even sicker sense of shame.

I settled back into my chair and thought about ending the world.