A.Journal

Checks

1,054 checks

Medium

You must understand that, he means, if you're going to understand what happens later.

Formidable

Politeness, professionalism, the performance of empathy. These are the things he was taught would make a good man, or at least a correct man. In his moment of greatest extremis, they all deserted him.

Challenging

A vision of Karolina's home life suddenly flashes before you. Her father -- doting, concerned, overbearing.

Medium

The doctor's heart is a snowglobe, a thin glass shell surrounding a moment of perfect pain. You feel it in your hands now.

Medium

A weight appears to lift from his shoulders.

Medium

If it's a fairy tale, it's one he's either grown very tired of or never wanted to hear in the first place.

Medium

He briefly nurtured the hope that he'd simply misheard you. Now he must confront the reality that he's actually having a conversation with you.

Medium

You know it well -- the sensation of being formally fucked.

Easy

He would rather talk about anything else.

Easy

Your flippant misunderstanding has hit a nerve. It's not the first time he's been dismissed this way.

Legendary

He's pleading this case more to himself than to you.

Easy

There's no telling what Gonza's behavioural baseline is.

Easy

Under the air of affected dismissal, the accusation cuts.

Medium

Psychic defenses engaged!

Legendary

He used to lift her in the air and make her fly like a cosmonaut. Used to say goodnight with a kiss on the nose.

Godly

Convince him to part with Dr. Gonza's medical dummy.

Challenging

He sympathizes with any organism that can survive under bleakly hostile conditions.

Medium

Something in him stirs. Some germ of the real doctor behind the porcelain mask.

Medium

Paired with self-loathing.

Medium

Wondering how long it's been since you took your medication.

Easy

Without his meds, the outside world might as well be one big giant seizure-inducing machine. You're not getting Ramses all the way over here without at least one dose to level him out.

Challenging

You've neatly slotted yourself into the 'drug-seeking behaviour' category in his eyes.

Medium

The same medical board that fucked them both. The well of his hatred runs deep.

Easy

A mantra repeated.

Challenging

Those little arguments made his day.

Challenging

They are already untangling themselves from each other.

Medium

'Thought' maybe, but she was clutching something more with the barest of fingertips. That's gone now. You almost heard it go.

Challenging

Set her free. Why should she sacrifice her second chance for yours?

Medium

Awaiting your approval.

Medium

Medium

Let her off easy -- she won't handle the guilt well.

Easy

Even her friends are wavering, it seems. Not as real as they used to be.

Challenging

And yet you can't help but feel a sense of desperation clinging to it.

Medium

An ordinary night with ordinary stars.

Medium

This girl can't be more than seventeen. Barely a glimpse of a lifetime.

Medium

Said for herself, not for your sake.

Medium

Challenging

Squelching one person into another.

Medium

Horizontal pupils... Undersexed... You've met him. The being known as Goat-Eyes.

Challenging

You get the distinct sense she's about to confide something to you. But at the cusp, she retracts the words and puts others in their place.

Medium

Must be a Tempo styling for something significant -- all gravitas and enigma.

Medium

Medium

With your old friend, it was never one deal. Always a tangle of side bets, optional riders, and overlapping interests, arranged in such a way that Tempo always wound up across the table from himself.

Medium

This is her way of asking for help. She needs a friend.

Medium

Or maybe himself in some form.

Medium

His second banning that you've been witness to. He's a ban magnet!

Medium

Be open with her. This girl is not your enemy. She may yet be your ally.

Medium

Blown away into the night before you could even give chase.

Medium

They won't make it.

Medium

Push a little harder and she'll open up. This girl wants to tell you things.