For Shits and Giggles [2024]

Chapter 01

Waking up each morning felt like some form of punishment. The alarm clock always rang too loud, the sky was always too dark, and the house, as always, was too empty.

Gracie woke up that morning with a fright. Her phone read 5:30, as it did every workday, and she groaned. It took longer than usual to hit snooze. Her hand was still sore from yesterday's accident when the Café's industrial oven decided to malfunction. The smell of burning flesh and human meat was overwhelming, and so the Café decided to close early. Everyone went home—everyone except Paola, who stayed behind to get the Café looking and smelling like new.

The nails, skin, and bones on Gracie's hand all fused together into one grotesque, claw-like shape with charred accents. Today, Gracie's hand was back to normal. She slowly opened and closed her five (now separate) fingers, watching them through half-asleep eyes. The tendons moved as they should have. The skin stretched and pulled in the way it was supposed to. Even after two years, she was mesmerized by how expertly the Tree could recraft her body. Even her nails looked longer and healthier. Despite this, it was still much too early, and her bed much too comfortable, for Gracie to give in to the whim of some needy alarm clock.

Unfortunately, Gracie also understood that she had no choice. Rotting the day away in bed like she wanted to just wasn't an option. Preparing breakfast, going to work, seeing friends, and enjoying her hobbies were all vital parts of her routine. And routine was crucial. Without the familiar, comfortable monotony of every day, the Tree's fickle sense of humor could consume you (even faster than it already was). Feeling hopeless, feeling helpless—that for Gracie was the most dangerous thing in the world. Of course, things that could hurt you or even kill you were also scary. But knowing you will always, no matter what, be alive again the following day... death kinda loses its spice. However, depression, the kind of depression Gracie feared, only gets scarier the longer you're alive. Getting stuck in an unending cycle of nothingness, of feeling nothing, loving nothing, being nothing, and knowing that not even on your worst days can death release you from the suffering—that wasn't something Gracie needed to experience again.

It was like having no mouth but needing to fill your lungs and scream.

That's why it was crucial, in the town of Pleasantwood, to approach each day with intention, to will yourself to be okay and keep going. And if you couldn't, you had to at least pretend. Gracie took on each day with this in mind; yesterday's horrors stayed in the past. She left her burdens at the front door each evening. She scrubbed away any remnants in the shower, careful not to bring any part of the day into her bed. She had already spent hundreds of sleepless nights pondering the Tree's existence. Why me? Why us? What have we done to deserve this, and how can we make it stop? But the answers never came.

Just outside, Tommy was quickly approaching her house, barreling down the street on his bike with a bag full of newspapers hanging off his shoulder. It was true that hardly anybody read the papers anymore. Why would they? Death here, death there. Nothing new. Nothing was ever new in Pleasantwood. But delivering papers didn't require much skill. Other than pedaling quickly and throwing with accuracy—there wasn't much to it. It was the perfect arrangement for someone like Tommy, whose adult mind had been robbed by the Tree. Physically, Tommy was still in his mid-twenties, same as Gracie and all of their other friends from college. But inside, he was eleven again. He threw tantrums, was afraid of the dark, and ate pizza for dinner until he made himself sick. Watching the child inside relearn the limitations of an adult body was almost endearing. That was until, after a couple of months in, he stopped thinking girls were gross and developed crushes on the ones "his own age." Tommy never did understand why he was banned from public playgrounds, they were his favorite place to make new friends. Regardless, his adult bills and adult responsibilities were all due. NNow Tommy was thirteen, and each morning, he got up, ate a bowl of sugary cereal, and was out the door by 6:30 to begin the paper route. Usually.