Elliot Jensen and Elliot Fintry have a lot in common. They share the same name, the same house, the same school, oh and they hate each other but, as they will quickly learn, there is a fine line between love and hate.

2000; Indiana Wiley and Carter Warren; five year olds. Very dedicated fans to the Beatles. Ice cream lovers with Big dreams. Sounds like normal children who lived normal childhoods, right? 2011; Indiana Wiley; sixteen years old. Depressed. Anorexic. Brokenhearted. Carter Warren; sixteen years old. Illegal alcoholic with unstable anger issues. There was a climax in their life, where everything they hoped for and dreamed of together collapsed because of one encounter with a drunkard. (Goal: A n t i - A l c o h o l A w a r e n e s s.) [cover by the amazing @luminouscities.]

A dialogue short story about the things we wake up to that remind us there are still things in this life worth waking up for. ante meridiem - [adv. & adj.] "before noon;" Abbr: A.M. Or a.m. [credit to owner of image (not me)]

Music:ON World:OFF Welcome to Syrus. Please pick up your complimentary pair of headphones at the gates. Plug them into your mandatory devices and skip to track four. Listen and enjoy. Cor's world is filled with notes and pitch and tone. Twenty three hours of the day she is hooked to the music mandated by the Serial Seven, Syrus' elite council. It is essentially every teenager's dream: Hit a button and drown the world out. But what happens when the music stops?

Sometimes all you really need is a place to call home. * * * NOTE AS OF 04/2026: This is the old version of the story from 2012. It is currently being reprised, which you can also find under my profile here in wattpad as "5:48 [reprised]"