He wrote in the journal, "The town was eaten. I am all alone."

Early in the afternoon, the boy came to the town shouting, "Wolf! I saw a wolf! Come, come, this way." Armed with all manner of weapons, villagers followed him to the outskirting fields. But when they had all gathered, there was no wolf. The child was beaten and the villagers left.

Alone except for his sheep, he wept. When evening arrived, he picked himself up and guided the sheep home.

Greeting him home, his childhood friend enveloped him in a tight embrace.

He winced. "Ow!" She backed up a little to get a good look at him but he shook her off. "I'm fine. Go home, Lucy. You shouldn't even be here."

She puffed out her cheeks and crinkled her nose and shook her head. He didn't pay attention to her and left her outside, slamming the door to his small shack in her face. With a deep sigh he rested his back on the door and slowly slid to the floor, pulling in his knees and wrapping his arms around them. "You shouldn't be here," he repeated in a low voice and rested his head in his arms.

The next day, the boy went out with his sheep once more. He watched them with a careful eye, and just like the yesterday he saw the tell-tale signs of a wolf, the tips of its ears and sway of its tail peeking out from the nearby bushes. At once he sprinted to the village crying, "The wolf has come, again! I see him! He will eat the sheep, and consume the village!"

And again the wolf seemed to have just vanished. The child was fiercely beaten before the villagers calmly walked back to their homes and market stalls.

Bruised and bloody, the boy shivered as he coughed and spat out blood. He looked up from his crouched position to watch the shrinking backs of the disinterested villagers only to see his childhood friend watching him. Her brows were knitted together and her arms were wrapped around her figure, her eyes slightly widened and her body still.

"Lucy--"

"Lucy! Come home!" Her father called for her, and with a shudder she turned around and ran home.

The boy bit down hard on his bottom lip and slammed his fist on the ground. He touched his forehead to the dirt below him and screamed.

Despair ground the heel of its boot into the back of his head and laughed at his sadness.

At dusk the following day, the boy saw multiple wolves approaching the field where his sheep grazed. At once he worked against the pain in his body to sprint to the village, but no one would listen to him. The butcher smacked him in the head and said, "Don't come crying here again, boy. We do not like liars."

The boy returned to the grazing field alone only to find nearly all the sheep eaten, their ripped open and exposed bodies splayed out to the clear skies to peer into.

Filled with panic, the boy ran to his childhood friend's house and banged on their front door. Without any time to lose he screamed, "Lucy! Lucy, the wolves are here, we have to go!" But the door did not even open. From within came the dominating voice of her father:

"Turn away, boy. We do not like liars. There are no wolves. Lucy's time is wasted on you."

Not wasting a breath, he ran to the side of the house and broke open the crawlspace door. He climbed inside and closed it. Here, he waited as the sky continued to grow darker and darker.

Not one hour had passed when someone saw the wolves approach. The villagers screamed and cried as they ran in fear for their lives.

Above him, the boy heard the doors broken down and the gurgling sounds of Lucy's father as his throat was bitten into. He imagined blood splattering everywhere as he choked on his own blood.

The boy covered his eyes and kept as silent as he could, shutting everything out with regret and fear.

By the time the sun rose the following morning, silence had long since fallen. The boy emerged from the tiny crawlspace he had hid in only to be greeted with carnage in the streets.

Forget. Forgotten. Forget.

"How could I possibly forget?"

"Is it really that difficult for you? Just eliminate the past. You only have the present. Can't even believe in the future, can you?"

Silence.

"Look at you, a pathetic lump of flesh. There is nothing you can do while holding onto those memories."

Forget, forget...

A loud crash followed by a soft reverberating in the ground like rolling thunder. A myriad of colors flashed across the sky; cyan, yellow, maroon, a deep blue, velvet green. Bang, bang. Silence.

She laughed at him. "You're terrible," she said and her body shook with laughter. She buckled over and her gatsby hat fell off, her hair falling around her face.

A flash of light like lightning and for that split second she was a skeleton before appearing normal again, her double vested coat buttoned snugly around her small frame.

He blinked profusely and the grip he held on the gun tightened.

"Forget. About everything. Don't you realize--" She disappeared into smoke and the sun moved across the sky, noon to dusk to night to dawn. A thousand times as he stood still.

"Michael?"

He spun behind him and there stood she, the woman who was his weakness. "Valley?"

She repeated, "Michael?" And he reached out to her, but she, too, vanished into smoke. Appearing behind him was the girl with her hat back upon her scalp.

A wide grin crawled its way up her face and gave her a twisted appearance. "You should forget."

Red water showered from the sky, he let out a cry. Time froze and he smiled before time began to reverse itself.

There they sat, Michael and Valley, on a bench watching the lake. The weather was hot but a cool breeze blew from off the lake. She snuggled into him and they both smiled.

"I'm so glad to be here with you," she mumbled in a half daze.

"Me, too," he replied.

A loud bang.