The Lab Review Volume 8

The Lab Review

Volume 8 1|

the lab review volume 8 Faculty Advisor Ann Hemenway

Chief Editor

Corrin Bronersky

Managing Editors

Alison Brackett, Kendall Polidori, Edoji K.

Layout

Kendall Polidori

Cover Design

Christian Russo

The Lab Review, a journal of student writing, is published online by the Publishing Lab through the Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. Fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and visual art were submitted by students for consideration. Visit us online at thelabreview. com for past issues, market research, and industry interviews and videos.

Editor’s Note:

This issue of The Lab Review has come together better than I could have ever hoped. We all came in at the beginning of the semester with little to no idea how to put together a magazine. We worked it out and I could not have done it without any one of them. Special thanks to Kendall for being the one to put everything together when none of us knew how to do anything.

Thanks to Alison for volunteering and truly helping this thing run the way it should. I know she will go on to great things in the writing world. Thanks to Edoji for interning with me and being the support the lab needed. I’m so excited to see where is work goes. Finally, big thanks to all the writers who submitted this semester, and my very talented friend Chris for his art.

Without all of you this wouldn’t exist.

I’m so proud of the lab rats and this volume of The Lab Review. This is my last project before I graduate from Columbia College Chicago and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Best, Corrin Bronersky Editor-In Chief

contents fiction the deepest places |Katherine Martin eyes | Omega

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five shadows| Colin McHugh rhea nightingale | Edoji K. body | Corrin Bronersky

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12 . 19

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poetry without wild thought | Allison Brackett 22 inland sea | Jackson Smith

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The Deepest Places | Katherine Martin

Margaret is dragged out of sleep by nothing in particular. Maybe it’s the heat that wakes her--the sweat that glues the sheets to her back and the useless rattle of the ceiling fan. Or maybe it’s the way this new apartment smells like a stranger. Regardless of the reason, Margaret knows that she’s awake too early. She squeezes her eyes shut tighter, tries to ignore the sticky heat and the strangeness of this place. She could sleep for hours and hours more, if she were able to. But sleep declines her invitation despite the best of her ability; so she resigns herself to lying there, face buried in her pillow even though it makes her feel suffocated.

Bit by bit, Margaret’s dreams fade into the grayness of dawn before she is able to tuck the details away for later. Until all that remains is the feeling of Sarah nearby. Sarah isn’t nearby, though.

She’s god-knows-where and Margaret is alone with a rattling fan and a pile of boxes and the heat.

She takes the day off so she can unpack. But the idea alone of going through all the things in those boxes exhausts her. They stare her down from the corner near the window where they are stacked precariously, a cruel reminder that things can’t go back to the way they were.

Traffic on the streets below grows louder and louder as rush hour arrives, and the heat picks up with it. Sweat makes Margaret’s thighs stick together. She can’t think. She can’t form a single thought. It’s too hot. This city’s too loud. Sarah is too gone. Margaret can’t stand to be alone in this apartment, in this city, for any longer.

She drove until it was quiet. Past the suburbs and into the greenness of the hills beyond them, until she hadn’t seen a house for miles. An abandoned forest service road led her to where she she stands now, on the shore of a lake that might be worlds away. The sounds of the city are long gone, but they still bounce around in her head. She tries to let the idea of the water fill her up instead of the traffic and the steam and the pavement.

The water’s surface is glassy and reflects dark green, stretching out and out and out before her until it disappears behind another hill.

Margaret wants to swim, like she did when she was a little girl in the pond on her grandfather’s farm. But the idea of all that deep, empty water and whatever may be lurking there makes her throat close up. She sometimes forgets the fear that depths like these can instill in her. She turns and eyes her shoes on the rocky shore, and the clothes she’s left bundled up atop a fallen log after an aimless trek through the woods. She could just put them back on, find her way to the car, and drive away from the hills.

Dark, heavy clouds surge on the horizon. She doesn’t have much time before the rain starts. She steps forward into the shallowest of the water, and the rocky earth digs into the soles of her feet.

Years before, Margaret stood on a rooftop in the city. It was gray and quiet then too, and just like now, she watched a storm slink closer and closer. Only she wasn’t alone then, Sarah was with her.

Sarah was always with her before.

“Do you think it’s dangerous for us to be on the roof?” Sarah had said. “What’re the chances that we’ll get struck by lightning?”

Margaret hadn’t for a moment considered the danger of that roof, and Sarah’s constant wariness made her smile. Margaret wasn’t afraid of the high places, just the low ones.

“We’ll be fine, Sarah,” Margaret replied. She took Sarah’s hand and led her to the roof’s edge, and then she climbed onto the railing and leaned over, so it dug into her stomach. Sixty floors down, the city hummed and flashed; she could barely hear it. It was like a beehive.

“Maggie. Maggie,” Sarah had said. And she grabbed Margaret by her hips, pulling her away from the railing. “I didn’t come up here with you so I could watch you kill yourself.”

“I’m not gonna kill myself,” Margaret replied. She could feel a smile glinting in her eyes.

“Well, you definitely have a death wish.” Sarah was smiling a little too, despite the bite to her voice.

Sarah was wrong, Margaret didn’t have a death wish. But she 6|

hadn’t really wanted to be alive, either. She never seemed to be certain about what she wanted. But when Sarah kissed her, for once in Margaret’s life, she was absolutely sure about something.

But love isn’t consistent in the way that Margaret thought it was then. Sureness wavers, and love fades away--evaporates into the noises and the smells of the city before you can think to stop it. And Sarah did, too.

Breath hitches in Margaret’s throat as frigid water laps at the elastic of her underwear and the skin stretching over her hips. A distant rumble of thunder rolls through her. Her eyes dart towards the dark, seething clouds in the West. Her feet push and grind against the fine pebbles that blanket the lake’s floor. They slide between her toes, and she can imagine the way that they bloom beneath her steps in the black water.

The bottom of the lake falls out from beneath her suddenly, and Margaret’s stomach clenches with fear before she remembers that she can swim. Her hair, long and dark, spreads out around her on the surface, and it tangles around her as she swims towards the lake’s center, the place where it is the deepest.

Margaret tries not to think about whatever may be floating in the water beneath her. But still, she imagines creatures that slide past her ankles. She can feel their presence there, and it sends her body into twitchy bursts of movement--a panicked attempt to swim away before she forces herself to stop and breathe. There is much more space between her and the muddy earth far below than she is comfortable with. She used to have nightmares about dark waters like these, where she could never reach the surface no matter how long she swam. Where beasts and shadows pulled her back into the depths.

Since Sarah left, it’s always her that drags Margaret toward the blackness. And when Margaret wakes from those dreams, Sarah is everywhere. Her face reflects in each and every one of the city’s windows. Every woman that passes by is Sarah. Everything, everything, everything. Sarah is everything.

No. No thoughts about Sarah. No thoughts about anything. All Margaret wants now is emptiness. Thunder rattles the clouds again, steadily creeping closer over the hills. She turns her face towards the sky and those clouds. And she floats, willing the creatures from her dreams to rise towards the surface, to grab her and yank her down. Maybe Sarah was right about her all those years ago, when Margaret first met her and they were still flushed with new love.

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Maybe she does have a death wish.

Margaret stares at the clouds above her, concentrates on the way that they swell and ripple. The lake spreads out around her in every direction. And then the hills. And the city is forever away.

And for once she can’t hear it in the back of her mind. Her ears are submerged, only that empty sound of the water. Thunder again. This time she feels the world tremble. And this time, the first drops of rain fall.

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Eyes | Omega To be fair, it was all in my head.

I found myself very calm and very normal in a train car full of very calm and normal people. I was reading a book--required by my class but still very interesting--when it happened.

At first, it was the chilling feeling down my spine. Something that I was only accustomed to when I was genuinely frightened, genuinely angry, or when my sixth sense picked up on something that I couldn’t possibly be aware of. And I shouldn’t have been aware of it.

The train car was packed to the brim. If any more people pushed their way in, the poor vehicle would surely explode from the internal pressure or at the very least get derailed somewhere along the line.

It was a wonder how I’d even gotten a seat in the first place. I could barely see in front of me. My vision was obscured by the bodies of different men and different women, all different colors, different sizes, abstract in a way, almost like a true work by Picasso. To my sides were the phones and hands of strangers I’d seen for the last time a generation ago. In front of me was the ass of some woman who was blissfully unaware of the fact that her pants were sagging a bit low and showing off more than she intended. It was my blindness that drove me to read on, yet that chill down my spine would repeatedly remind me of the danger that I was in.

Four stops away from Harlem; I was almost off of this damned thing. Another chill. My head shot up again, scanning the bodies around me. My eyes landed on the boots of the lady in front of me. I’d never seen them before but yet they were so frustratingly familiar to me. The nails on her bare hands were short, the cuticles bitten from a nervous tick caused by some event in her past. Was it traumatic or was it just a habit she inherited from someone else? I’d never know, but her hands terrified me. Her coat was too familiar, her hair long, dark, and straight. Her face was obscured, facing the opposite direction of where I sat quietly, slowly suffocating in my own gas of despair. I couldn’t see her reflection in the opposite window. There were too many people in the way. My eyes kept swiveling, jumping manically from her boots to her hands to her coat to her hair to the impossible to see reflection then back to her boots. I needed to see her

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face. I suppressed every urge in my body to yell at her, to shout something awful to get her to look at me, to put my mind at rest once and for all.

Next stop: Austin. Her face turned slightly as the voice came over the intercom. I caught a glimpse of her eyes. They were foreign, unreal to me. I’d never seen them before and because of that, I grew relaxed. I became calm and suddenly very angry. My body turned cold, almost frozen. The chill in my spine was still there, but clearly, I had been deceived. It wasn’t on this car.

She wasn’t in this car.

The train rolled to a stop at Harlem. I jumped out as soon as the doors opened and planted myself beside the doors, allowing all of the people to swarm around me like a colony of ants, all droning forward on their way to their next task. It was almost eight in the evening by now. I searched the masses, the swarm of unfamiliar faces for the one that I would recognize, the one that would kill me from within once I saw it. But it never emerged.

I had a sudden urge to run. Instinctually, I needed to escape, find safety. My life was suddenly in danger. No, it had been in danger all along for much longer than I had ever realized. I took off at full sprint, overtaking all of the faces that I’d just let by me. I ran down the stairs, out through the turnstiles, out onto the street, under the overpass. I sprinted as fast I could, slipping on the icy snow that was freshly planted not even an hour ago. I kept running past all of the staring faces until there were no more faces left to stare at me. I kept running until I was all alone. I was secluded and yet, I was still in danger. That one familiar face was still somewhere nearby and it was coming for me.

I found my car and hastily turned it on, not waiting for it to warm up in this freezing weather. My breath was raspy now, my gasps echoing a cough that would forever be caught in my throat. I didn’t know what was happening but I knew that I needed to escape.

I drove myself south instead of north, the direction of my home.

I continued to the Blue Line for reasons I couldn’t explain. The world around me was normal, it was calm, it was serene and presented no threat, but I knew better. Underneath the layers of ice and snow were splatterings of blood and sin and lies untold that only masked the reality of imminent calamity. The face found me wherever I went. Her eyes burning into my consciousness until they blinded me more than 10 |

any headlight on the street.

I parked my car outside of the entrance descending into the Blue Line. The cars behind me honked. I couldn’t be here, but I didn’t care. I stood up and calmly walked to the fence walling me off from the interstate down below. It was the first time that I had felt truly calm and truly normal in all of that day. In all of that week. Perhaps even all of that month. I trailed my hand across the chain link as I walked further south, the blaring of car horns eluding my ears. I found the little division in the fencing and the wall, an open spot that someone had foolishly overlooked.

I climbed the wall and shimmied across, crucified above the interstate’s roaring chaos. I closed my eyes and frowned. The eyes were still there. The face was still coming after me. My instincts took over. I needed to escape. I needed to save myself. I opened my eyes and yelled louder than I’d ever yelled before. I roared, letting my guttural growls fill my temples like a deterrent for malevolent spirits and allowed my wings to grow. For one brief moment, I had become Icarus and I was escaping my nightmares. I felt peaceful, I felt myself finally freeing myself from the demonic gaze of her eyes, her constant torment of my mind. I plummeted down to the stream of lights, the shooting stars of a heaven that I didn’t believe in but were nevertheless enveloping me in their eternal embrace. I saw these lights come in tandem, swallow me whole, and then all went black.

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Five Shadows | Colin McHugh It was near midday when the body was first found, though no one who’d last seen her had much expected her to turn back up unharmed. Testimony from them was she was half carried off, drunkenly giggling, by a man whose face that every one of them gave a different description of. A man who simply vanished into the night with his victim in tow. A tug boat heading down The Chicago River had a greenhorn pushing aside any debris that might be causing trouble; the hook tore off a piece of a sparkling black dress.

“That river is a mess, hardly can tell the difference between a bobbing broad and a crocodile! Didn’t mean to poke a big ‘ol hole in her.” was what was printed in the papers later that day, a quote from the teen who’d manned the boat.

The sirens finally stopped blaring by the time Detective Murphy and his partner, Detective Anderson, arrived with several other officers packed like sardines into one of the few squad cars the city had. Murphy was a tall, brown haired but balding man, with brustling mustache and wide powerful shoulders. His face could crumple like paper into a creased mess of anger, but he seemed unusually cheery, and the growing gut causing his uniform buttons to strain was rather unprofessionally jiggling about. Anderson, on the other hand, was rather lean, with his clothes hanging loosely on his frame. His hair was a pale blonde, kept cropped short and hidden beneath a hat. His face seemed stern, grim almost, and he moved with a purpose.

When they exited the vehicle, a barricade was up at least being maintained by a few black shirted officers but there was already a gaggle of reporters crowded around, each trying to snag a shot of the dead dame for their respective papers. When Murphy and his partner approached the line in slick brown long coats, they were immediately assaulted with questions and bright flashing pictures.

“The Tribune! Does the Department have any comment on the continued string of murders?”

“Evening Post, can I get a comment on the ethnicity of the girls killed all being italian? Is this the gang war between the Italian and 12 |

Irish Mobs growing in intensity?”

“Gentlemen, is this city still safe to travel at night? How close are the police to finding the killer?”

Questions are also thrown in German, Russian, Polish, loud demands and quiet requests. The two detectives push their way through the gathering without answering a single one, with the officers joining their fellows on the line to keep back the ever growing riot.

“You’d think they’d have some sort’a respect for the dead, don’tcha think?” Murphy asks his partner as they make their way past the barricade. His accent only just kept that slight irish tinge, but it was enough to peg him for those who cared about that sort of thing. Which, in the City of Chicago, was just about everyone.

George Anderson didn’t mind though. His own family had had trouble when they first arrived in America, so he figured least he can do is help another hopeful dreamer.

“The one that gets the best pictures gona be the one thrown to every house this side of the river tomorrow. They’ll stop the damn presses and print ‘em all again for a body y’know. One who snags the shot’s gona get himself a nice new desk job and a bonus, guarantee it.”

“Hell, gimme a camera I’ll take the damn photo me’self, maybe finally get myself off these streets, yea?”

“Something tells me the chief might not quite go along with that plan.”

The two share a chuckle as they approach the tug boat, moored to the docks and bobbing up and down gently in the disgusting sewage filled water of the Chicago River. The crew had long been ushered off and had statements gotten from them, and the body had been laid out as respectfully as the first responders could manage on a small raised platform on the center of the deck. There was a thick wool blanket covering her, likely put over her by one of the crew. When the two removed it they could see why someone would be inclined to do so.

The body was an utter mess. If she had as some point been a beauty the detectives couldn’t tell. The black sparkling dress she was wearing was tattered, covered in grime and much. Some of her

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fingers and toes were missing, likely from one of the residents of the river, and there was a massive indent in her forehead that caved into her skull. What skin was visible was pale as powdered sugar.

“Could’a just been an accident. Pretty gal goes out for’a night, trips off one’a the bridges, and tumbles into the river. Doesn’t have to be related. The pale skin could mean any number of things.”

Murphy says, scratching the top of his head as he looked at the girl.

“Could be, but…” Anderson leaned in, turning her head to the side and wiping away some mud that was covering her neck. There, plain as day, were two small holes over her jugular. He let out a sigh, rising to his feet once more and digging into his pockets for his notebook. “Just like the others.”

“Just doesn’t make any sense. All different places, different styles, but each one’a them’s got the same marks. Wouldn’t know unless you was lookin’ that these was even related.” Murphy side eyes Anderson, as the smaller man scribbles notes on a small pad of paper. Anderson, for his part, pretends not to notice.

“And all Italian.”

“It doesn’t mea-” “It might not mean, Murphy. And it shouldn’t. Just a working theory. We need everything we can go off of right now.” Anderson reaches over, putting a hand on the big man’s shoulder and giving him a reassuring shake. “Wouldn’t believe for a second a good irish citizen of this city is responsible.”

“Yea, yea...a face like mine is gona be all over the papers though, speculating on the irish threat to the city. Every single word writer probably has their palms greased by some hairy, slick hairned-” Murphy goes quiet, seeming to seeth for a moment or two, before taking a breath and allowing calm to return.

“You worry too much about the papers Murph. C’mon. We’re not gona find anything out here we don’t already know. Besides... we stick around too long it means we have to bag’n’tag her like last time.”

Murphy seems to shiver at the thought. “Yea, heh. Let’s leave that to the poor sods at the barricade.” The two cover the body with

the blanket before making their way off the tug, the both of them looking despair but also somewhat relieved. This might not be 14 |

much progress, but it was another piece at least. They decide to skip the barricade, taking a side street to avoid another bevy of questions with no line of boys in blue to retreat behind.

“Murph...you a superstitious man?” Anderson asks, stopping just before they exist an alleyway.

“I’m a good god fearing man if that’s what you’re wondering.” He responds, stopping and looking at the man with confusion.

“Not exactly, more so wondering if you believe in, well…”

Anderson rubs the back of his neck, turning to the big man to reveal some red embarrassment on his face. “Ghosts, fairies, monsters..that kinda thing. You believe they exist?”

Murphy’s face contorts a bit in thought, as he seems to take the question seriously...before he bursts into laughter, putting a hand over Anderson’s shoulder, turning him about, and walking the two of them into the street and down the sidewalk. “Andy, partner...you’re spending a bit too much time in your books.

We’re gona find whoever is doing this, yea? Me and you, and we’re gona see that he gets what’s coming to him. And he sure is a monster. But that’s as real as they get, flesh and blood like you and me, nothing supernatural.”

Anderson gives a nervous nod, letting the big man lead him away from the scene. It wouldn’t do to try and convince him on a hunch, of something that doesn’t exist. The irish bastard was stubborn when it came to what he had with his coffee in the morning, and with a case? God help the man who tried to draw him away from his conclusion. He might not be the most nuanced detective, but when he was right he was right, and like a biblical act when it came to finding who was responsible. Anderson decided for now just to play along, as they headed back to the station.

Anderson closed himself into his office when they arrived, letting out a sigh of relief at finally being able to pull himself away. He’d managed to convince Murphy not to take him along to shake up some “Italian brickheads who might know’a thing’er two about what happened.” Anderson collapsed into his spinning chair, slumping into the red leather cushion and allowing all the stress of the day so far to just flow from him.

The office was sparse, with only a small bookshelf and the | 15

whiteboard above it seeming out of place from when it was originally given. The bookshelf was stacked tightly with leather bound pages of many varieties. Historical Books, Encyclopedias, Psychology, Sociology, Big Binders of past reports. On the Whiteboard, there were various chalk drawn theories, and even more eraser marks underneath them. There was currently an empty spot on the shelf, the book which usually inhabited it was splayed open across Anderson’s desk.

“What in the world am I thinking?”

Anderson was not usually the kind to go off speculation. Often times to be a good detective you have to be able to trust your gut in a situation, take a risk with leads to get what you need, but that just wasn’t his speed. Anderson was the type who wanted all the facts and avenues explored before he even stepped a foot out on the beat. Cases to him were just little puzzles that he could piece together. Of course he couldn’t get everything in the office, but by the time he walked out the door Anderson knew what kind of man he was hunting, what their motivation was, if it was affiliated with organized crime, things like that.

And that’s why this most recent case assigned to him frustrated the ever loving daylights out of Anderson. He leaned forward, eyes following the words as they skipped across the page of an old children’s book. One he kept for the sake of memento. A Book of Fantastical Monsters from Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Myth. His mother used to read it to him when he was just a child, each one coming alive in his head as he imagined the vicious creatures that roamed the night.

Right now, the page turned to was marked with bold letters across the top.

Vampire “This is preposterous still. There’s another explanation than monsters, there has to be. Murph is right, maybe I am spending too much time in the books…”

Something catches Anderson’s eye, a strange indent in the page that hadn’t been there when he left his office this morning. Cautious yet curious, he slowly turned the page to reveal a spotted yellow letter, with an immaculate red stamp. The symbol on it was strange, and Anderson spent a few minutes recreating it on his chalkboard.

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A large fang of some kind sat in the center, surrounded on four sides by large hammers each pointing towards the next. Looking around as if whomever, or whatever, had left it still remained, he cracked the seal, and quickly poured over the note within. Compared to the outside, the actual message was rather plain, clearly having been made by a typewriter.

“Detective Anderson, We do not wish to alarm you with mystery, but there is no other option. We cannot afford to reveal anything that might compromise our group.

What we can say is that we’re on the same side, and wish to stop these murders as well.”

Anderson paused after having read this, unable to help but shake his head. Questions and speculation flew through his head a million at a million miles an hour.

There was more than one, and this was a group clearly organized in some way, but who were these we? How were they related to these murders? With growing frustration, he read on.

“You might not trust us, and it should be understood that the feeling is mutual. However at the moment we need one another.

You have the resources of an entire police force, and we have the information needed to end the bloodshed. Meet us at the Warehouse at Dickens and Clark, in Lincoln Park tonight. Come alone, and tell no one.

One last thing you should know. You’re not crazy with your current line of research, though we’d recommend a more...mature book.

Sincerely, B.B.W.” Anderson read and reread that letter at least a dozen more times, glued to every word and looking for something, anything of a screw up. There wasn’t a trace, no address or markings on the letter that might give him anything. And B.B.W.? What did that mean?

And that last sentence…

His gaze turned to the picture of the children’s book. It showed a

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tall, rather regal man all dressed up in black. Everything about him exuded suave and elegance. Just the kind of guy girls would let take them anywhere at any time of day. He was the picture of perfection, all but for the deep satin red eyes, and sharp, pointed canines that protruded from his mouth. “This is impossible...it’s...just a joke or something. Clearly. A bad joke. I’ll get there, and Murph will be waiting all laughs and insults that I fell for something so juvenile.”

Anderson let out a bit of a chuckle at the idea.

But five minutes later, he was out of his office and heading towards the door. He gave Sally, the receptionist, a small note to give Murph in case he didn’t come back, telling him to read the note in the bottom left drawer if Anderson didn’t show up in a few days. A gust of strong wind nearly took off his cap when he exited the front door, causing him to curse and press it down tightly. This wasn’t like him. He was going off a lead without knowing anything beforehand.

He didn’t even know the name of the warehouse he would be meeting them at.

He passed by a couple on the street, making lovey dovey faces at one another and making sweet promises of what they’d be getting the other the next day. The thought had nearly slipped Anderson’s mind. He’d have to get something for his own sweetheart, maybe he’d get it on the way back. After all, tomorrow was Valentine’s Day.

18 |

Rhea Nightingale| Edoji K. FROST COVERED GRASS flows calmly in the steady breeze.

Captain Ellanor Krow hangs calmly from the side of a mountain that is two times the size of Mount Everest back on Earth. Captain Krow, always makes it a point to listen to Nirvana out on expeditions.

“When in doubt, Nirvana on.” She would say. The display on her arm that is the size of a large cell phone reads, 05:00:00 and continues to countdown as the drill extracts minerals from the mountain rock, as well as scans the planets core using a laser.

Captain Krow does the one thing everyone knows you aren’t supposed to do and looks down. She breathes deeply as Smells Like Teen Spirit starts playing. She looks up to the sky where she can see the ghostly outline of her ship. It’s been a while since she’s heard from Darbis, her Copilot and Medic.

Darbis and Krow go way back. They go way back even before the Academy days. Krow and Darbis were growing in their mothers at the same time. They were born on the same day around the same time. Darbis was first by an hour. Krow makes up for it by being physically fit in every way possible. She had always been at the top of the class right under Darbis when it came to the physically demanding path.

“Everything alright Doc?” Captain Ellanor Krow said into the communicator inside of her helmet. Darbis doesn’t respond. There’s nothing but a static frequency. “Doc?” Krow said, again with no response. “If you’re playing with me again, you’re going to get a beat down.”

The frost covered grass that is fifty thousand feet below Captain Krow becomes as still and as calm as the Earth’s Pacific Ocean in October. Unbeknownst to Captain Krow, this planet has reached the end of its life span. A planet such as this can be extremely unpredictable even with the most sophisticated of technology.

The planets core has begun to slow down. To a point that the planet begins to shake like a spinning top coming to a stop.

Unfortunately, the mountain that Captain Krow is firmly attached to, feels the effect of this shaking that essentially is an Earthquake rupturing the planet from the inside.

A crack starts at the base of the mountain, and jaggedly trails its way upward. This crack just so happens to cross paths with Captain Krow’s drill bit. She cocks her head in surprised confusion.

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The mountain shakes as if it’s trying to buck her off, “You don’t have to tell me twice!” Captain Ellanor Krow said. She presses the digital button on her display that automatically detracts the drill. The drill folds inward like an origami box and disappears into a pocket on Captain Krow’s left leg.

Captain Krow detaches herself from the side of the mountain, and uses her propulsion jets to gradually and safely descend to the planet’s surface that is, 90% water. Her white cushioned raft gracefully catches her. Cosmo Corporation is the company Captain Krow works for. They built the billion-credit raft that does its job only for a short while as it becomes exponentially unstable with each use of its propulsion propellers. But why? This raft should be more than capable of handling rough waves. Alas, the planet is proving otherwise as the raft becomes over run with water.

Reluctantly, Captain Krow falls into the vast, ice cold water. There’s no telling if her polyester suit will hold up. She proceeds to swim forward to the coordinate point where the signal is strong enough for her to be materialized back onto her ship. This is where the problems start to become all too real for Captain Krow. She attempts to initiate the connection.

The connection process fails.

“I hate this new age tech. DOC!?” she looks up at the silhouette of her ship in desperation. “DOC!? Come on Doc, I know you can hear me, I could use some fucking help here. Open the GODDAMN GATE!” THE RHEA NIGHTINGALE space ship is being ripped apart at the seems as if being crushed by a powerful trash compactor. An explosion in the recreation room. An explosion in the engine room.

An explosion in the laboratory. Explosions are happening all over the ship. Another explosion occurs, this time in the corridor as Brianna Nightingale dashes forward dodging body deforming sparks.

“I’m coming Captain. Hold on. Hold on!”

Brianna climbs up a latter that leads up to the Pit. She vigorously slaps the red button, it strobes green. The gate is now open for Captain Krow who materializes next to Brianna in the captain’s chair.

“Took you long enough Brianna.”

“Don’t start with me right now Ellie. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little preoccupied.”

No one other than the captain’s best friend would have the balls to speak to Captain Krow that way.

“What hit us?” Captain Krow said.

Brianna exhaustingly said, “We weren’t hit by anything.”

Brianna swipes across the window that doubles as a computer 20 |

screen. She brings up footage from the south side of the ship that contains the engine. A heart wrenching supermassive black hole has its jaws on them, and the planet that Captain Krow had been on.

“There’s not supposed to be a black hole here for at least a light year.”

“Well there is one, and it’s destroying my fucking ship with us in it.”

“The best we can do is wait and see what happens.”

“I’m going to be royally pissed if I get killed by this fucking thing.”

“It’s a black hole Elle.”

“I know it’s a damn black whole.”

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POEM| Allison Brackett entangled in a whirlwind of sorrow, i am dizzied by the darkness and melancholy that shoots past my eyes like stars in a dark night sky. i try to claw myself out of my pits of despair but it is no use. i am betrayed by my mind, enslaved by my desolation, suffocated by my sweeping emotions. i am drowning in this sorrow and can’t seem to stay afloat, water rising above my head as i sink further and further into the deep unknown. in this hazy gloom there is no ray of light or shimmer of hope beyond the horizon. faith is untouchable when you can’t seem to understand, how are you to grieve someone you’ve yet to lose? when you can feel their physical presence, but can’t reach beyond that. when you can hear their voice, feel their touch, know that you are there, but for how much longer? when every second, every minute, every hour counts. when each i love you and glance on the way out the door could be the 22 |

last. when you go day by day waiting, hoping, for a miracle. when you fear each unexpected call, and lay in bed each night wondering if you’ll ever again hear their voice or feel their warmth. because you know that with each passing day you’re only one set closer to losing a part of you. how do you grieve someone you’re not ready to say goodbye to?

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Body | Corrin Bronersky Today I left my body. Skin, bones, scars, fat, hair, nails, all of it. It lays rumpled and disheveled where I’d slept, almost unseen.

Camouflaged with the blankets I had used to wrap up and hold myself together; like bandages pulled tight around a mummified corpse.

I see myself there, the physical form of me, and blush in disgust.

That body was heavy, flabby, ugly; things I had affirmed to myself in the mirror every morning. The mirror always agreed.

I stretched my new form, let it fill the room and I rejoiced in the freedom of it. My obligations had already been forgotten. No longer would I have to rise in the mornings and shovel tasteless, mushy oats into my mouth. Wouldn’t have to let the few spoonfuls sit in my stomach so I could pretend they satisfied me until my small work lunch that I’d scarf down in private. No more job that forced me to strain my cheeks in barely believable contentment which was only relieved when I could show my detest to everyone else trading their time for survival. No more skipping dinner under the guise of “forgetting” or being “too lazy”, but really having an underlying hatred for food that my mother taught me. A hatred her mother taught her, and one day I would teach my own daughter, not through lesson but action. Whenever I complained about my weight, skipped a meal, or mentioned not looking quite right; her young mind would conform, and she too would teach this hatred.

No more seeking validity in my body through someone else’s.

No more letting my value be decided by who and how many people would fit their body to mine. My body no longer needed others to feel like its own because I no longer was confined, defined by it.

No more…beep,beep,beep… my eyes open. I unfurl myself from the blankets I had become one with. I stretch and float on the mood of a forgotten good dream. I walk past the mirror. I eat my oatmeal with blueberries and brown sugar and spend an extra few minutes in the shower. I pack a lunch and grab a book to read on my commute. I believe that today will be different from yesterday.

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Inland Sea | Jackson Smith We sit together on the jetty.

It’s too humid to hold hands.

The sky is seagull white and the breeze off Lake Michigan is cooling.

I stare out towards the horizon as you look down at the slate-grey water flecked with foam from the city’s pollution.

On a clear day you can see straight to Indiana from here, I remark.

You say nothing, the moment pregnant with frustrated silence.

Finally, you: It used to be an inland sea, now it’s just a lake.

Later, when you check your cell phone’s calendar | 25

and realize it’s the anniversary of the day we met, we will decide to make love.

Later still, the sweat of our exertion cooling in the breeze from our window unit— skin tingling, itchy, alive— you will look into my eyes, and say nothing the moment pregnant with viscous silence.

And in my eyes you will see flecked with foam the slate-grey waters of an inland sea.

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author biographies Mandi Vanhoy is a Creative Writing major who is attending Columbia College Chicago in the heart of downtown Chicago.

Writing is her passion, its what’s kept her pushing forward while going to college full time, working full time at famous blues club, while trying to keep up with day to day life in a way that helps her live her life to the fullest, much like the characters in the stories that she loves.

Mandi has accomplished staying on the honor roll, including being on the Deans list her freshman year, through out her college career which she is almost half way done. This has taken intense concentration, time management, dedication and sacrifice that has helped her gain the confidence to finally start submitting her work and starting her real career as an Author.

Mandi enjoys many other hobbies and has recently started some side training for voice acting and minor acting. More ways to tell stories and communicate with people’s hearts in today’s vastly growing and changing world. However, this doesn’t stop her from fitting in some time to play video games online with her mother while sipping on some morning coffee.

Katherine Martin graduated Columbia College Chicago in the spring of 2019 with degrees in Creative Writing and Photography. She writes stories about growing up and moving on, and she likes to be dark in subtle ways. These days, she lives in Michigan and generally has no idea what’s going on.

Omega is an unpublished student author attending Columbia College Chicago. He is currently enrolled in his sophomore year, heavily focusing on creative writing as his major with a focus in fantasy work. He prefers to appear anonymous and wishes to submit all of his work to publishers and editors likewise, using instead the pseudonym “Omega” to be his sole method of identification. He has been taught by professors and published authors such as Sam Weller, Tina Jens, Don DeGrazia, Eric May, and Gus Johnson and will continue to gain experience and learn from colleagues and university staff alike to improve upon his writing and begin to submit to publishers more often.

Jackson D. Smith is a grateful heart transplant recipient originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He has previously published haiku and senryu in Prune Juice and Acorn

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