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Credits to @Disgust_Draws on Twitter

My name is Raven, and I am an aspiring writer in the genres of fantasy and creative fiction. I am currently working on a small Homeric epic titled Epilogue and on a short elseworld run of DC Batman titled She Is the Batman. Currently, I am a fourth year English major with interest in Japanese and Japanese culture, and I want to get into the entertainment industry, specifically in literary publication, movies, and shows.

If any other creators are interested in doing a collaboration, don’t hesitate to contact me.

[DO NOT REPOST/REUSE MY WORK(S) WITHOUT MY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND PERMISSION

1 The Stowaway Gods: Poseidon, Bringer of Oceans (Chapter 1)

My son, you’re a man now, and I’m dead. There wouldn’t be any other reason as to why you’d find this letter, but that’s alright. I just really wished I got to see home one last time, but we all have our time, even the gods. We are not meant to live forever. Immortality is so short when you’re on your last days. It’s odd. Have I ever told you I hated space? There’s so much boundlessness here and there and everywhere you’re not. I remember when the world used to have edges, and most of all, I remember the seas and the oceans. Not the ones we’ve seen on our travels through the colonies and settlements, mind you. Earth seas and oceans. They were majestic once, and I’m sure you’ll bring them back. I believe in you. I can feel them light years away, and I hear them now. The wailing of the waves and the gulls of the tides. Did you know I created horses out of the water before? That’s how humans got them. Your cousin made dolphins though. Well, remember everything I taught you, and don’t be afraid of drowning. 

P.S. When you reach home, could you do me another favor? Would you tell him I’m sorry? Half a millennia is such a long time to be away from home, and I regret that it still wasn’t enough time to say hello.

P.S.S. If you’re asking where the body is, there is none. Sorry about that, buddy, that’s just how it works. 

Poseidon crumbles up the letter in his hand, half in disbelief that people use to communicate with something that tore so easily and half in frustration that his dad is just gone. Just gone, no body, not even a speck of dust. It’s like he faded into obscurity, and all the young man is left with is his dad’s journal. It’s a thick thing, also made from the primitive paper instead on a simple journal log. His father was such a Terra fanatic, and Poseidon thinks he had a god complex. Humanity has traveled the galaxy for centuries (which was based on the old Terrain standard for some reason) and have found no one else. It’s either there existed no other beings in the entire galaxy, or humanity is lucky, or unlucky based on how you look at it, to have missed everyone else. The possibilities are paradoxical. 

The young god—blue eyes and brown sand hair—curls up at his side on his dad’s bed because his dad is dead apparently and left nothing of himself behind. There are only piles of clothes that could easily be Poseidon’s size and a collection of Earth literature on the small bookshelf. Paradise Lost, The Aeneid, The Catcher in the Rye, The Portrait of An Artist As A Young Man, everything his dad read to him at one point of his life. Poseidon cusses at his father for disappearing out of nowhere, and it’s not even the returnee ship’s regulated breakfast time. He woke up that morning to an empty bunker on the other side, and the three-by-two-point-five-meter room felt like looking at a map of uncharted landscape. “Alien” is what it feels like, and Poseidon is trying to comprehend if that is what being lonely is.

Not knowing what to do, Poseidon presses the crumbled letter in his hand against his head and lets out a shrieking shout. That is the sound of mourning, ugly and undignified and from the depths of his heart, and had anyone else been with him, they would have lost their minds. Little does he know that when gods grieve, time slows relative to the speed of light, drowning weeks into hours, and he doesn’t even notice how much has passed by him in that small bunker he shared with his dad. By the time he stops shouting, he’d turned nineteen, and he doesn’t notice a thing. Finally, there is a knock at his bunker door.

“Go away,” Poseidon calls out, rolling over onto his stomach and shoving his face into the pillow. His throat is a bit dry.

“Fuck, Po, you’re alive?” the voice on the other asks, flabbergasted and lowly pitched. Alexanda.

Of course, he is. He says so, though it might have come out somewhat muffled. 

“Po,” the voice says, “have you been here this entire time? No one has seen you or your dad, and it’s been six months, and they don’t want to come close to here. People moved sectors because of that demon screeching, and the system won’t even let us force open the door. What happened? A malfunction? How are you even alive?”

The young man lifts his head up in disbelief, eyes opened in small slight to stare into the darkness. He sees the artificial light of the ship seeping under the door. “It’s been how long?” he asks.

“Six standard months.”

Poseidon groans, sitting up, and he feels like space was flipped upside down. He attributes it to dehydration and malnutrition if what his friend said is true. They must be weeks away from their destination now.

He out a yawn, stretching his arms above his head, and the motion sensors slowly dims the lights on, revealing that nothing has been moved. The alien feeling, however, is gone. Poseidon slowly stands up, blinking a few times to get used to being upright again. Maybe he has been in bed for half a year, but where did all the time go?

“Why are you here?” Poseidon asks, taking off his sweats.

“The screeching stopped, and I had been worried,” his friend answers. “Are you okay?”

“Actually, I’ve never felt better. Be out in a minute.”

The god goes into the even smaller washroom that every bunker has, and he steps into the shower, which turns on at a nice temperature. He grabs a tooth mint and starts chewing on it as he lathers on half a palmful of lavender scented shampoo-and-conditioner. Poseidon stays under the gentle hum of the water timed for no more than five minutes, thoroughly rinsing out the suds in his hair before using some odorless bodywash and spitting out the tooth mint. He doesn’t hear another thing coming even when the water turns off and the air pressure dries him off, or as he’s changing into something that wasn’t sleepwear. He doesn’t bother combing his hair, passing the mirror.

Poseidon picks out his shoulder bag from under his bunker bed, shoving his dad’s journal in it. From now on, where he goes, it goes. Oh, and his dad’s letter, which is crumbled up on his dad’s bed. Huh, he thinks, pausing because something is different about him now, and he’s not sure what it is. He doesn’t know what or why; he’s just different now.

Shaking his head, the god thumbs at the spot behind his left ear, and he picks up his dad’s letter, smoothing it out and folding it. He slips it between the pages of his dad’s journal, his shoes on his feet as he clumsily dances over to the door, and it slides open.

“My dad’s dead,” Poseidon announced, almost too easily even for him, “and he just left me a stupid note. I think I was coping.”

Alexanda is staring up at him with wide brown eyes, flabbergasted. Her hair is longer, he notices, touching her shoulders now, and she has more scars than the last time he saw her, which should’ve been just last night when she was working with her mom. He wonders what is it that she is seeing right now. Poseidon wonders if she’s shocked by the news or that he is, in fact, alive.

“Oh,” she ends up replying, clearing her throat. Sympathy and pity set in on her face, her lips thinned. “I’m sorry. If only you said something. A few of us would be happy to help carry him out.”

“There’s nothing to carry out,” Poseidon tells her, stepping back as Alexnda peers into his bunker. “He just left a note, there’s no body.”

The engineer’s daughter frowns, stepping in to look herself. She powerwalks into the washroom, and as quickly as she enters it, she comes back out, looking frightened. “That’s not possible. Maybe he’s somewhere in the ship.”

Poseidon shakes his head, hand on top of his shoulder bag. “The old man hated being on spaceships. And he wouldn’t go anywhere without telling me. He’s just . . . gone.”

Alexnda blinks, the white of her eyes turning pink. “How are you so calm about this?” she asks, almost accusing him of apathy. “He was your dad.”

Yes, how could he? His dad was always there. Poseidon doesn’t remember anything about his mom, whoever she was, but there was never a day that the god didn’t know where his dad was. His dad was a marine explorer, one of the few fearless of the unknowns of new settlement and colony planets. He had an affinity for water, people were always telling Poseidon, and his dad always said it was almost like home.

Home, whatever could that mean? Poseidon wouldn’t know; he grew up following his dad with every new job. Poseidon doesn’t even remember which planet he was born on, much less somewhere he had stayed at long enough to think it as a part of him. Home was wherever his dad was.

“I don’t know,” the young god says because he doesn’t know. “It’s just how I am. It’s not like I could expect him to be here forever. Nothing last forever, and I know that.” But how?

“I guess being friends for more than a year isn’t enough to know someone as well as I thought,” Alexnda says softly.

Poseidon sighs, rubbing his face with a hand. He’s not mad at her reaction, but he’s feeling frustrated. He doesn’t want to lose her friendship; she was the first one to talk to him on the two-year voyage. Right now, she and her mom are the closest thing to family he has left.

“Look,” he says carefully, “I don’t get it either. Like you said, how am I still alive? The human lifespan is a hundred-year average, but we still can’t go more than a week without water. I really wish I can tell why I’m not dead yet, but I just don’t know. Nothing makes a lot of sense, nothing I can explain right now or even know how. This isn’t the right place, so would you let this go for a bit?”

The engineer’s daughter looks at him quietly, and gracefully, she nods. Alexnda won’t stay complacent for long, though, so he better figure something out.

“Okay, thank you,” Poseidon says, and he tries to give his friend a smile though it’s faint at best. “What time is it?” He forgot to check the time.

“Breakfast,” Alexanda says, walking out of the bunker. “I thought if you were still alive, you’d want something to eat.”

The god laughs a bit. Yeah, he could go for breakfast, and he tells her that.

What Everyone Else Lacks, a Chapter: A Mock Dance

They continue walking for almost four days. Silence did not join them because Sister continued to talk, annoying Mad Hatter. They walked from a wood path to a stone path to a garden path to a seashore path.

“We’re at the sea,” Sister commented as she stepped on sand, and it was crushed beneath her weight.

“I can see that,” March Hare added, lowering his hat to block the sunlight. “The White Queen should be around here.”

“It reminds me of a poem I once read. Won’t you listen to it, Mister Hare?”

“Do what you want, Sister,” March Hare said.

Sister laughed and recited:

“Jester, why’re you laughing?
I’m having lots of fun,
Making others laugh at me.
Why don’t you join—

My lady, thank your soul.
There is no need for that
For I still have more to give.
There is nothing I will—

Miss maid, you are so pure.
I keep myself for one,
Who is my future lover
And there’s no one else I’ll—

Lovely is your heart.
I only do my part;
For this world’s cold and savage,
A small act is no—

Things must be moderate.
We say we do agree,
For everything should be for all
And not all for one—

Parson, how long’s your wait?
I will wait as long as I must
Because it’ll teach me good
To stop myself and—

Working again, my man?
Why, I am as I am,
For work itself is good.
And I will pray in the—
Dark, dark, dark, dark!”

“That was quite,” Mad Hatter said before pausing, “good. I am okay with applauding you for it.”

Sister scoffed. However, she remembered that she was a proper lady.

“Thank you, Mister Hatter,” she said monotonously off at a distance. Then, she smiled and put her hands on her hips. “The Man on the Moon taught me that himself. He said that I was the most wonderful child that he had ever seen.”

“You’re lying! If that’s true, then you won’t be here.”

Sister growled, but then she perked up, pointing off into the distance.

“Look over there by the rocky pathway! I see a party of some sort. May we go and see the celebration? I can see people dancing. Are those lobsters I see making music? There’s a man with a walrus!”

“Stop spoiling what I have yet to see!” Mad Hatter yelled, blocking his ears.

“You have taken my interest, so we will go and see what’s by the sea.”

Running towards the rocky pathway which he found, Mad Hatter grabbed a hold of March Hare and left Sister all by herself. She, in response, yelled at him to stop and began to chase them, refusing to be left alone.

They crashed into the party, running into the only table set up, and all the food and drinks fell onto the ground, spoiled. That roused the anger of the man sitting beside the walrus, face becoming red. “Look at what you’ve done!” the man yelled, face scrunched up. He raised an angry finger at Mad Hatter.

Sister blushed in embarrassment, but Mad Hatter and March Hare rolled their eyes at him. The large, blubbering walrus flapped his arms in agreement with the man.

“I apologize, men,” Mad Hatter said, taking his hat to greet them. “Please, let us bring a table of our own. It will be much better than whatever you had, I swear. I am the Mad Hatter, he is the March Hare, and that is the Sister.”

“Excuse me?” Sister scoffed, arms crossed. “Did you address me as ‘that’? I am not a ‘that’! A ‘she’ I am, but a ‘that’ I am not.”

“Does it matter that he called you ‘that’?” the mad asked, a big frown on his face. “He, at least, told us you have a name. Why are you insulted?”

“I am insulted because I am a proper lady, sir, and someone of my status should not be called a ‘that’. Clocks and books are ‘that’. Animals and birds are ‘that’. I am a lady, and therefore I am not a ‘that’.”

“Really, now?” the walrus asked, his bushy eyebrows hid his eyes.

“Animals should be called ‘that’? Well, then, I am the Walrus, and all may address me as ‘that’ for I am not a lady but a walrus.”

“That is one ugly animal,” Mad Hatter whispered loudly to March Hare.

They giggled.

“See?” the Walrus said to Sister. “I do not feel insult my way. I’ll introduce my friend as ‘that’ as well. ‘That’ right beside me is the Carpenter.”

“I do feel insult my way, Walrus,” the Carpenter said, frowning even more. I don’t want to be addressed as ‘that’ like you. You may remain as a ‘that’ if you wish, Walrus, but I shall not. It’s below me. Girl, you are stupid for even bringing such stupid matter up.”

“And you are below me,” Sister shouted, huffing in anger. “I am a lady, and you are an artisan. I have the higher status.”

“Sister,” March Hare said, “do not delude yourself because he, an artisan, is useful while you, a lady, are not. He can work in almost every setting while you live only at fancy parties and homes. And since this is a party, go and be the lady you say you are. Hatter and I shall join you. We will be useless too, as gentlemen.”

“You make us sound like the Red Court,” Mad Hatter mumbled as March Hare ushered them away.

“Wait!” the Carpenter ordered. He pointed at the fallen table with the fallen food and drinks. “You said that you have a better table. Replace the fallen table, the one I made myself.”

March Hare nodded, taking off his hat. He waved it once, and there, where the previous table was, was his Feasting Table.

It must have been in a great mood because it decorated itself to fit a party, bright and colorful. Stacks of delicious – looking pastries and treats were placed next to mosaic teapots of a variety of hot tea barely brewed and matching teacups. This time, it had a total of forty – one matching chairs. March Hare himself was impressed.

Mad Hatter giggled as the Carpenter and the Walrus looked upon the fancy table with amazement. “Go!” the Carpenter shouted, letting them go to the party.

Mad Hatter giggled even more, pulling out the viscaria he had kept in his pocket. He presented it to March Hare, who again rolled his eyes but took the flower and stuck it in his suit pocket. Sister giggled but didn’t say anything, giving them space.

“March Hare,” Mad Hatter addressed, holding a hand out and bowing slightly. He tipped his hat a bit to his friend.

“Mad Hatter,” March Hare addressed back, taking the other’s hand and nodding once.

Without a second to make another thought, Mad Hatter pulled March Hare to him, and they started waltzing. They made a show of themselves, catching the attention of everyone there. The other guests stopped at the sight of them and watched as the two friends dance. Soon, the lobsters with shingles on the rocks were playing music at their speed.

They were good at it, waltzing. They shifted and changed at any time. Sometimes Mad Hatter led, and sometimes March Hare led. There was not a word spoken between the two. It was amazing to see them move so well together. They were become lost in their little world that they did not notice the rest of the world around them. Soon, others joined in to dance, coming beside them in pairs and dancing.

“They are interesting to watch, aren’t they, my lady?” someone asked.

Sister turned around and saw a handsome man smiling at her. He was the only one who wasn’t wearing a mask. Sister thought it was odd because everyone else was. She thought it was a masquerade ball out by the sea. But he also had eyes too, which everyone else didn’t. They just had mouths with plumped lips. “Would you like to dance with me, my lady?”

Sister smiled and nodded, giving the man a curtsy before taking his extended hand. He led her to where everyone was dancing, and they also followed the music. “I am Sister,” she said as they got into position.

“I am the Knight of Knave,” the man said, smiling. “Who are your companions?”

“One of them is my companion, Mister Knave. The other is just going the same way we are. I would have thought that everyone would know who they are because they seem very important.”

“I’ve never seen them in the Country of White before. Where are they from?”

“I don’t know. I never asked. They just showed up at the White Castle without so much as an invitation. I think they are from the other side of the bridge because I was told that no one in the Country of White ever came to the White Castle.”

“You think so? What are their names, my lady?”

“They are Mister March Hare and Mister Mad Hatter.”

The Knight of Knave flinched violently, pushing Sister away. She hit the stone ground hard, scraping her knees and hands. Sister yelped in surprise, and the lobsters stopped their music. Mad Hatter and March Hare came out of their little world and to her.

Mad Hatter bounced his way towards her as March Hare waved curtly to the lobsters, and they continued their music. Mad Hatter grinned at the fallen one and brought her up by her hair. “Did the proper lady trip and fall?” he asked mockingly. “I didn’t know that proper ladies tripped and fell. What do proper gentlemen do, then?”

“Let go of me,” Sister said, removing Mad Hatter’s hand from her hair. “I certainly did not trip and fall. I was pushed by a man who called himself the Knight of Knave. He pushed me when I told him your names. Where has he run off to? I demand an apology for his rudeness.”

“The Knight of Knave, you say? Sister, you may not have been a lady today.”

Sister scowled at him, but Mad Hatter ignored her, scanning the crowd. He found the Knight of Knave running away, getting further and further away from the party. Mad Hatter started on a run after him and jumped so far that he fell only a yard from the Knight of Knave. He threw his axe at the man, and the axe struck the man, pinning him to the rock path he fell on.

“Knight of Knave,” Mad Hatter said, grinning and laughing. “The Red Court had passed a law for your execution. Your head is to be brought back to the Red Queen. Do you have any last words before I take it?”

“Don’t kill me!” the Knight of Knave pleaded. “I was wronged and framed for a crime that I did not commit! I did not steal the Red Queen’s tarts! I have done no wrong.”

“That is a lie, Knight of Knave,” March Hare said as he arrived from the party. “You would not be important if that was not true. We can tell it by your face. You are to have no more last words. Mad Hatter, you are to execute the Knight of Knave right now.”

“You didn’t need to tell me that, March,” Mad Hatter said, pressing his foot on top of the Knight of Knave’s torso to remove his axe. Lifting it, he struck the fallen man once and twice and thrice. The Knight of Knave, by then, was armless. Mad Hatter reached to pick up the arms and threw them into the crowd. “You’ll be a course for this party.”

Everyone stopped dancing and cheered when they saw the arms fall from the sky, and they scrambled to the ground and tore each limb apart for a bite. Sister could see that their lips hide sharp, disgusting teeth that were sharpened like knives. She grimaced at the way they tore meat away with their own mouths.

Mad Hatter swung his axe more and threw the rest to the party. The Knight of Knave only had a head left, and he didn’t get to keep that as March Hare picked it up and threw it into his hat. He put it back on his head.

“This must be the least boring birthday party I have ever had in my boring, boring life,” a large turtle. He was blue and stood impossibly on his two hind legs. “But I have more things to clean up. What a horrible idea this was.”

“It’s your birthday?” Mad Hatter asked, wiping his face with his sleeve.

“Tell me, good fellow, what is your name? March and I will gift you with a cake.”

“My name is Mocking Turtle, and I ask not to tell me lies. No one would ever give me anything.”

“Then what are those nicely wrapped boxes on the ground over there?” Sister asked, pointing to a large area filled with gifts and presents. Sister looked at them as if they should be hers.

“Those are filled with pranks and tricks! When I opened them, I’ll face humiliations at the hands of my guests. Everyone here is my bully!”

“Why would you invite your bullies to your own birthday party?”

“I did so in order to change their minds with my main course.”

“What’s the main course?” Mad Hatter asked, licking his lips. “Is it delicious?”

“I’ll not spoil my party any further, but I’ll tell you that he used to fill me up with warmth and glee. I have been told by the Carpenter and the Walrus that you replaced the table with your own. May I use it to bring out the main course?”

“Of course,” March Hare said, nodding once. “Where is the course?”

“The Carpenter and the Walrus are bringing it out right now. Please clear you table for it.”

March Hare nodded again and went to this Feasting Table. He grabbed the edge of the tablecloth at one end and pulled it off in one swift movement. He out it back on the table, and everything disappeared underneath the now black tablecloth.

“Carpenter! Walrus!” the Mocking Turtle. “Bring the final course now! Before everyone leaves because my party is so boring!”

The Carpenter and the Walrus appeared, carrying out a dish covered with a silver pan. It was massive and still steaming, releasing the smell of rosemary and basil into the air. The Mocking Turtle had stopped the music and was standing beside the Feasting Table.

“My bullies!” he shouted loudly for everyone to hear. “Thank you for coming to my birthday party! It’s an honor to receive you as my guests! Before the sun sets, I will give you a gift in return that you will stop using my name against me! Carpenter!”

The Carpenter reached over and took the pan off, revealing the main course. The course was a large lion with the head and wings of an eagle, glazed and stuffed with all sorts of fine herbs and soaked in snail soup. All his feathers were plucked, and between his beaks was an unpeeled orange. All the guests ogled at dish, steeping closer to it as they look upon it with hunger.

“This is,” the Mocking Turtle continued, “I mean, was my friend, Gryphon! And now I gift him to you to eat so that you can be my friends in return! You all mocked me because of my name, but on this birthday of mine, I hope to change that! I give you, friends, and you will me by my changed name, Mock Turtle! Eat, enjoy, and greet me as such!”

The crowd charged in without waiting a second more. The main course disappeared as they fought each other for a taste and a bite. Some threw others off into the sea, but they all ate the Gryphon and greeted the Mock Turtle.

Yes, if it’s your birthday, you can do this too. Anyone can do anything they want to do on their birthday because it’s their birthday. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, no laws or reforms can ever remove this right. One can even jump off a cliff and fly away to never return on their birthday. Many people have done so, and it came true for all of them. Though, they never celebrated another birthday again.

“You would never do that to me, right?” Mad Hatter asked, as he, March Hare, and Sister watched from afar.

“Maybe,” March Hare answered, “if I no longer want my name. Fortunately, for you, at this moment, I do.”

“We should leave now,” Sister said, looking out to the sea. “The sun’s setting, and I don’t want to watch people eat with such improper manners. As a proper lady, I demand proper guests who know proper eating manners.”

And they left.