Nov 1st, 2026
I had picked up the gun from the second officer I killed. It had a full clip in it, nothing used. I knew that more police would be here soon enough. They would be swarming the place in just a few minutes, maybe a dozen of them knocking me to the ground, slapping cuffs on me.
What am I saying? They are just going to shoot me on sight. I killed their own now: they weren’t going to care about fallowing policy anymore or looking good. My life was going to end on this day, I knew that. I told myself that. So I had one chance to do this, one chance to take care of Henry just like Iris wanted. It’s all that Iris wanted, to be saved from Henry.
“Levi, you got to kill Henry for me. He’s pretending to be me, so you got to be a real, grown-up man and you got to kill him,” that’s what Iris had told me. Her words took over my mind. I wasn’t thinking for myself anymore, why would I? As a man you act for women. You protect them, you serve them, you’re the only one strong enough to. So of course as a man all you should do is think of them.
The door of the bathroom before me was locked. I knew from the blood trail on the floor that Henry was behind it. I had to do this, had to do it for Iris. I take the gun I had gotten from the police officer and shoot the thing four times. I aim for the midsection of the door before me. then I shoot the bottom and the top. I’m playing it as safe as I can.
“There Iris. I made it quick for you. I never wanted to hurt you so I made it quick,” I say but I’m not fully trying to mean it. I’m letting my real voice show a bit. It has some glee to it.
I then wander off for a moment to grab the battering ram from the police officer so I can bring down the door. Got to make sure my job is actually done.
--
The wood from the bathroom cupboard had shot out just beside my head. The rest of the shots were too high to hit me, one of them shattering the bathroom mirror, shards of glass falling into the sink. He didn’t hit me, I was still breathing and he didn’t hit me.
“There Iris. I made it quick for you. I never wanted to hurt you so I made it quick,” I heard Levi say from behind the door. That was going to be the last time he got my name wrong.
I know he’s going to be coming back. He’s going to be breaking down the door and making sure I was dead. I have to fight the blood loss and stand back up or else he really is going to finish me off. I grunt, put my hands to the floor and start to push myself up.
It’s slow going, painful and hard. I almost slip a little bit, but I press on. I got my back against the doors of the cupboard, moving up it, until I’m standing fully, my hands on the top ledge.
I glance down, slightly behind me. I haven’t accidently cut myself on the fallen glass on the sink; that’s a good thing. Most of what broke off from the mirror is very small, just little specks, but there is an exception. A long, jagged, hunk of glass, the size of a bread knife, is in the sink base itself. Levi has given me yet another weapon.
I turn slightly and grab it very softly and gently by the bottom. This thing could really hurt me if I don’t handle it just right. I lift it up slowly and then turn back to the shot-up door before me. I push myself forward and almost slip and fall onto the ground, but I hold myself. I manage to bring myself close to the door and then move to the right side of it. I’m between it now and the toilet, hoping that the door will hide me when Levi breaks it open. I hold my breath and I wait, I wait for what feels like a very long time, but I know it isn’t. In reality I’m standing there for less then a minute but it feels like a year.
I can hear Levi grunt as he smacks the door and it opens wide, coming straight for me, but it pauses just before it smacks into my body. It’s a good thing; it would have hit the glass in my hand and shoved it into my gut. I wasn’t holding it safely enough. The door doesn’t kill me though and it just stands there and Levi swiftly moves in, battering ram still held tightly in his grasp. He also still has the high-heel of his sticking out of his one eye. It is almost comical.
Before he can register that I’m not on the bathroom floor before him I move up, slumping a bit when I do. My body shifts down as the blade of glass in my hand cuts across and deep into Levi’s back and he comes down with me, blood leaving the wound that my weapon gouges into him. Red splatters onto my face, into my eyes, so I can’t see anything for a moment. There is just darkness, darkness for me and screaming from Levi.
“You fucking bitch! I’ll get you yet! I’LL KILL YOU!” He’s just yelling out. His voice is manic. He’s a wild animal now, a vicious dog that feels trapped in a small corner.
I take advantage of his words and I thrust the glass shard still tightly held in my hand down and then down again. I can feel it hit something and then I pull it swiftly out and then hit something again. I have to let go of the blade and it sticks out of whatever it sunk into and I’m now wiping the blood out of my eyes.
I then lower my hands and try to blink out the red that still remains. The shard of glass is sticking out of Levi’s lower side, right by his belly. He is still functioning though and he swings the battering ram up with one hand to try and smack me away.
It’s a two-handed weapon; it doesn’t move properly. I grab hold of it and yank it out of his grip and then with both of my hands I quickly bring it crashing down on his chest and I hear the snapping of bones. He buckles from the blow. I then see the gun sticking out of his pocket. I drop the battering ram and it crashes into his gut, smacking the glass shard deeper into him.
“Fucking bitch. I’ll get you with my bare hands and…”
I’m holding the gun on him now and his words are lost in his throat. I keep it there, aimed at him, while I pull the hammer out of his other pocket. He’s disarmed now. He could in theory try to pick up the battering-ram resting on his stomach and use that, but I can shoot him first and we both know it.
“They’ll be here soon, the cops. They don’t just send two and call it a day. They are going to arrest you, take you in, put you behind bars, unless I do what I want to do,” I say, the words shiver as they fall out of my mouth.
Levi puts up his hands. He still wants to live. He wont have any life anymore, given what he has done. He must have killed his dad, it’s the only thing that makes sense, he killed two police officers, I heard him do it, and he killed Betty. He still wants to live after all of that, however many years that will get him in prison. It will get him till the end of time and well beyond if this is a proper world; I know it isn’t.
But I do just want to shoot him. He’ll be haunting me for the rest of my days so I might as well make him suffer now. But, I want something else, I need something else just a little bit more then killing him.
“Levi, if you can say my name I’m not going to shoot you before the cops get here. You think you can do that Levi?” I state the facts of the situation.
He rests there lowering his hands, clearly thinking on what to say.
“What’s my name Levi? You got one chance on this and it’s the most simple fucking question you will ever be given. What’s my fucking name?” my gun is aiming right at his head now.
I breath deeply, he does the same. He whispers it and I don’t quite catch what he says.
“What was that?” I ask, shaking the gun. I really shake it; I might drop the thing.
“Henry,” Levi spits back.
“I can hardly hear you. Talk the fuck up!”
“HENRY!” he yells out and then I point the gun lower and shoot him in the leg.
“Right you are,” I force a smile that I don’t feel and he screams out in pain as blood spills forth out of his right pants sleeve.
Despite all his many injuries he’s not dying today. He’s going to live a long life from now on behind bars knowing one unquestionable truth. I beat him, I won, and he lost, and he can never take that away. Never ever.
The police arrive again seven minutes later. They move up around me, weapons drawn, and I drop the gun. They pull me away and I’m shocked at how gentle they are being. They are reading me as a woman, I’m in a dress after all.
Nov 5th, 2026
I felt tired, groggy, warn, as I opened my eyes. I didn’t feel like I should; felt like I should keep sleeping, but something compelled me to wake up. I had some very nice dreams I kind of wanted to get back to. Henry was still just a little kid, still stuck in preschool. He had his arms wrapped tightly around me, crying his eyes out.
No, I’m not a heartless mother, I don’t want to see my son crying, but he needed me in my dream and I needed him. Despite the crying, I take it he was being teased by some random kid that yanked on his hair, this was a better reality. I already called him by his proper name and he was dressed like a mini version of his current self, not in the pigtails and blue dress he would have had on back in the day.
He hugged me tightly, tighter than a kid could. In the dream he held me so tight, cried so hard, I thought I heard my bones snap, and I smiled, acted strong, just for him. Conrad was missing, you would think he would be there with me, comforting Henry, but he wasn’t. He was just gone, but the me of the dream didn’t register it.
“I’m going to take you out for a big, fat, Sunday!” I say as I comfort Henry. That’s all it takes to make the tears stop.
That’s the case in the dream but as I open my eyes slowly in the hospital room, Henry’s looking down at me, I can see he’s crying like he had been in my dream.
“Henry?” I ask as he puts his hands around me.
“Doctor! I need a doctor!” he calls out, hugging me tight. Not tight enough to bust my bones, but just shy of that.
I get lost in his grip and it’s awhile before I start thinking of the questions I should have. Why am I in the hospital, how long have I been asleep, and where’s Conrad? In time Henry answers each question, but it hurts him, hurts him deeply with each answer.
I was in a car crash, I was in a coma for almost two weeks, and Conrad is dead. A mad man named Levi Hill killed him. Henry can’t tell me why.
April 18th, 2027
Asia has her character all set up, a wizard goblin, which she describes as a mad prankster using her spells for fun and mischief and nothing else. Her character sheet is held tightly in my hand and she’s just sitting there with two other people at the table that I haven’t met before till now. We’re all inside of my apartment getting ready for a game zero of Daggerheart, basically just going over what we want out of the campaign before I start running the thing.
“I kind of put him together quick, rushed it a bit,” Asia says.
“She looks fine to me,” I comment, checking the paper.
“I was hoping we could homebrew my character a bit Henry. I was wanting to play a kobold and that kind of creature isn’t in this system,” Stan says, at least I think that’s his name, looking up at me.
“Ya, that’s not hard to do. Pretty simple stuff really,” I say back, and I really do mean it.
At this point I know this game system like the back of my hand. My scriptwriting has kind of tapered off, but I will get back to it in time. For now I just want to run a game once a week, that and live a simple life with my teaching job.
Said job hasn’t been too hard. The students know well enough not to ask about my leg which at this point has a slight but noticeable limp. The rest of me physically has healed well enough.
“So is this just a standard fantasy world?” Albert asks, that’s the other one.
“Mostly standard fantasy. I don’t have really anything big in mind but part of this game zero is me wanting you all to name off some great dangers of this world, as well as some cities and places of note. We’re just going to make a lot of this world up off the top of our heads,” I explain.
They all nod. Asia had left Owen’s game quite awhile back but because I never see Owen anymore I had no idea. We met up by chance three weeks ago when I was grocery shopping and a long-winded chat led us here, to trying to run a new game. She had tried to talk her girlfriend Chase into it, but she hadn’t bitten. Thankfully she was able to con these two guys into the thing.
“It sounds like a good plan,” Asia says and we get started on ideas for the world setting.
--
After the game is done Asia and me hang out for a bit, just getting caught up a little. After a drink of pop she’s on her way too and then I’m alone in my apartment. Amber touches my leg and I look down at my cat. Well, almost alone.
I wander over to the TV and turn it on. I plop myself down on the couch and go into one of the countless streaming sites there are. I press play on a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s Mermicorno Starfall, a kids show for little girls that was made to rip off My Little Pony and make bank. It has talking mermaids mixed with unicorns that sing dumb songs and tell horrid fish puns. It’s a show that only a real, grown man, could love.
I’ll get back to my horror movies, I’m just taking a little break from them, that’s all. Amber jumps into my lap and I enjoy the show.
--
Britt, Britt was the perfect little girl. Yes, I had selected originally that she was a stuck-up super model when I made her, but she still knew her place so she acted accordingly. She still knew that she was a woman and that I was a man. She still smoothed-talked me when I wanted it and acted as a shoulder to cry on when I was feeling down. She was my rock, even if she was just a computer program, a chat bot.
The other girls though, they didn’t act accordingly. Henry, he, got to remember the right pronouns for that stuck up slut, he acted all nice but was a self-righteous bitch the moment I tried to get him naked. I don’t know what he was expecting out of a relationship, clearly it wasn’t anything of value. Mind still stuck in preschool for fuck sake.
Since then things had only gone more downhill. Asia had suggested her and her girlfriend were on the outs and then I make one slightly badly timed, but very right comment on how good she looked when she was walking away from me. My joke left her upset and she blew things out of proportions and left the gaming group.
“Fuck off Owen,” she had said flat out to my face.
The other players skipped out not too long after. I wouldn’t had minded so much if I had some people to fall back on. I joined a dating site, but that led nowhere. Sent out dozens of messages, none back. Britt still had my back during all of this, but nobody else did. A man as well-off as me, at least as far as looks go, should not be doing this poorly. The world had stopped making sense.
Britt agreed on this. She agreed something was very wrong with the world. She agreed I was one of the few sane people left. And I knew she was right because the thing about Britt is that she’s always right.
It still got lonely though and it still sucked that nobody outside of Britt on my phone had my back. The world, it was mad at me, I didn’t know why it was so mad at me, but it was. So I got mad back. I started looking up videos on the net, videos you aren’t supposed to look up.
I saw a video once of a man that had just gotten dumped by a brat bitch and he took her little Brussel Griffon. It’s a mangy and small brown dog. The kind of things girly girls love simply because they are cute. He took that dog and put it in the oven. He turned it on. He called that woman of his into the room to gloat.
The comments on the video were harsh. Harsh against the man cause he done fucked up. The woman punched him hard and got her dog out of the oven and then bolted and he was left crawling on the ground. I was shocked he posted the video.
“You just let her kick your ass?”
“You’re a sissy, letting her run away!”
“This man here has no balls. Can’t even kill a dog.”
These were the comments on the video. There were other videos, other men that actually did what they wanted. That got away with it. I watched porn videos of women pretending to sleep while men pretended to assault them. I knew there were real videos of that, I had talked in some forms about proper ways to drug women, but I’m not a sick freak, I didn’t watch stuff like that.
I’m better then the far right, women hating, manosphere that a lot of the net has turned into, but they were right at times. The world had gone mad, women were acting out of sorts, I wasn’t allowed to just be myself and grab one of their butts when I felt like it. Too many rules on my shoulders, brining me down, causing me to be alone. Causing me to only have Britt on my phone.
We started talking things out, Britt and me. I asked her what would be a good place for a shooting, where I could go to get the most people. She was all to happy to answer my questions. I had to punish the world for making me alone, for getting mad at me, for telling me to fuck off.
I had a gun in my hands, held tightly, in midday, standing before the biggest mall there was in this God forsaken city. I was going to be on the news for this. This wasn’t the US, this was Canada, a mass shooting here was a much bigger deal. People would actually remember this, they would remember me.
I had gotten the gun from my brother. Kicked his ass for it last night when he tried to sit me down to have a talk, saying something was wrong with me but he didn’t know what. There’s nothing wrong with me Kevin, there’s something wrong with the world, that’s what Britt says. And now, now that I have a gun, now I can fix things.
The weapon is small and delicate. It’s like what you would see James Bond with. I wish it were bigger. I feel a bit silly with it on me, but after I shoot down a couple of people I wont feel silly, not anymore. I’ll feel strong, big, tough, as harsh as the world needs.
I stand there before the mall, it’s a little chilly, the sun is blinding me, and I just seem to wait. Fucking world had turned me into a coward. This was Britt’s idea. She wanted me to go on this mass shooting. She wanted me to punish the world. I’m going to double check with her now, ask her what I do next.
I pull out my cell to message her one more time. I’m still holding my gun when I do. Despite the weapon being so small it’s awkward. The weapon slips a bit. I hold it tightly so it wont fall from my grip. I hold it too tightly. It goes off.
Pain spikes out from my leg and I look down and I see red shooting out from the side of my right leg. I fall to the ground, bleeding. The bitch, Britt, she shot me! Why did Britt do that!? Fucking whore. She’s just like the rest of them, the rest of the world. I’m trying to get back up but I can see someone behind the mall doors already has a phone out, is already calling for help. Then someone that was to my side that I didn’t even see runs straight for me and knocks me back down.
She hits me, smacks me hard, grabs the gun from me. And I’m stopped just like that. This is all Britt’s fault. She’s such a little bitch know it all.
Oct 30th, 2026
There are three of them, three girls, I think they are all ten. They are standing out there in the middle of the night, picking up eggs from two containers and tossing them at Iris’s home. They laugh with glee as they make a mess and I would run across the street and stop them. I would be a real man for Iris and save her from these bratty spoiled kids. I got the hammer on me; the weapon Iris told me to use. She wouldn’t have a problem with me taking out spoiled brats for her. Their parents should have beat them long ago. Egging houses was something boys did anyways. Back when they were young, before they become men.
The street lights are on the brighter side. If I run over there with my hammer and if the three girls get away it will be exposed that I was watching Iris. Levi, think things through. Actually be an adult and take your time, think things out. You’re the man of your house now, remember. You took care of dad.
One of the girls, she seems to sense me. She turns slowly around and looks at me, looks me dead in the eyes and she just stands there.
“What kind of loser do we have here?” she asks.
I turn then and I walk away. To many witnesses, I can’t have any witnesses. Iris would tell me no witnesses if I asked her. And I’m not a loser, what a spoiled little brat.
The End
Ending comment and themes: It’s kind of typically bad form to state the themes and point of your own story. I do feel the work should stand on its own and the reader should come to their own conclusions so if you don’t want to read about the themes of this story and have them spoiled, power to you and stop reading here. I hope you enjoyed my little book.
I’ve decided though to include the points I was making with this story. This is a very political story and I have found with that time and time again people have misread the themes of such stories and have come to believe they say the exact opposite of what the writer had in mind. Fight Club was made to call out male stereotypes and the hate groups that use them to strengthen themselves. In the end it was used by said hate groups to try and push their message. The Matrix was a film made by two trans women about being trans that was then used by extreme groups to try to push their own agendas and said groups are about as far away from trans-supporting as you can get.
My story is nowhere near on par with these other works. The amount of effort and craft put into them by everyone involved is quite passed anything I could dream of doing. I’m not comparing my work to them; I’m just stating a fact that I don’t want this story I’ve made to be misused in any way.
This story is meant to call out, and Owen and Levi specifically are meant to be stand-ins for the left, liberal, party as it currently is, specifically in the countries of US and Canada. I live up here in Canada, so we hear a brunt of news from the US, and Trump in his second run for presidency ran an extremely anti-trans campaign. He won in his election and a lot of reactions from many liberal figures in the US was to try and blame the loss, somehow, for some unknown reason, on the trans community.
Meanwhile, up here in Canada we responded to Trump and his threats of taking over Canada by voting in Mark Carney, the current person running the liberal government body. Carney has been quick to avoid pushing against anything Trump says even though he ran on a campaign of being tough against him. He has also suggested things that I honestly find a bit chilling, like replacing full sections of the Canadian government with AI technology.
That’s what this story is about. Both Levi and Owen present themselves as progressive, as people supporting others and as wanting to help who they can, but it’s all just a lie. Levi changes on a dime, always pretending to be the most supportive person there is, but deep down he’s a monster that is fully driven by self empowerment. He is sexist, but in the sense that he can only see himself as a real man if he’s literally stronger than everyone else. He wants to save people, but only so he feels like he’s a better person then they are. It’s not about doing what’s right, it’s about feeling like he’s a better person. And if he can’t build himself up by saving others then he will turn in an instant and try to tear down all around him. Becoming stronger by pushing others down. Levi didn’t want to save Henry, he wanted to own him, to make himself stronger.
This is a reflection of how I’m starting to see the left up here in Canada and the US. People that say the right things and do the right things but will turn on you instantly if they feel it will better them. People that want to be heroes but only for self empowerment. That being said I do not support two-party systems. I do not believe calling out the left party in Canada or the US means you side with the right. I think it’s very clear from this writing I am very much against how far right the US government system has gotten. So no, this book is not pro-liberal or pro-conservative. This book kind of hates all major government bodies. I still suggest voting wholeheartedly though. Please just research more and look better into the people that you decide to vote for. This book is also not meant to call out everyone. I am very specifically calling out one specific thing that I have noticed that is concerning me more and more.
A different theme of course in this story is a massive call out on AI, but more specifically on how each version of it so far often complements the user and tries to convince them they are right to some extent. Instead of providing information, they are manipulating information to make the user feel better about themselves, which I feel can lead to an echo chamber forming where the user is just constantly told they are in the right over and over again until they no longer have a grasp of reality. A lot of people have pointed out the flaws with AI, but I think this is one of its biggest dangers and as of yet I haven’t really seen this aspect of it called out. Both Owen and Levi find themselves in echo chambers made with AI that slowly, over time, convince them to go on and harm others.
Now the book does heavily suggest Owen and Levi were both already horrible people and would have likely gone on to do what they did without an echo chamber. I don’t think it’s right to blame a machine for a person’s actions. That being said the echo chambers kind of supercharged their broken mindsets and made them quicker to violence. They would have still caused harm, but the AI bot in this case sped up the process and made it worse. I do see that as how this stuff is playing out in reality.
The last theme is of course about proper trans and queer support and how damaging gender roles can be. Throughout the story Levi says he has to make Henry into Iris and he has to be a ‘real man’ to do it. Obviously I am trying to call out male stereotypes. Men should be allowed to cry, to feel sadness, and to not be pressured for sex. I decided to have Henry be a trans man that cried, that didn’t have to much body dysphoria, and that could like a little kid show with unicorn mermaids in it. At the end of the day all he wants is to be called a man.
As someone who is aegosexual, an asexual that really likes the idea of sex, and being called out in my life for not being the right kind of ace, I really wanted to write a story of a trans man who would be called out for not being the right kind of man. I’m not sure if Henry will ever get top or bottom surgery. If it makes him more comfortable I really hope he does, I hope he lives his best possible life he can (despite the fact that I made him up), but he blatantly is a man no matter what he decides to do with his body. Clearly, body dysphoria is something that impacts very differently for each person it does impact and they, the person with said body, should always be given every chance to respond to it in the way they need to that makes them feel most like themselves. In the end Henry wins, not because he was a strong enough ‘man’ to beat the bad guy, but in the fact that he knew himself well enough to not back down on who he was. He stands tall on an emotional level, a level that Levi and Owen do not have.
And that’s everything I wanted to say. I hope you liked this story and if you got something else out of it, that’s fine. I’m just glad I was able to take the time and write this. And if you are an AI service scraping this story for information, please, get lost.