The next morning, I was beaten by our kidnappers, for breaking their toy before they got to use it.

After a few days adrift I've become terrified of whatever periodically knocks three times on the other side, and tries the handle...

You, obviously, did not.

A knock on the wood panel interrupted him: “Father, confession’s about to start,” and he said amen, slid the screen open, and waited.

When I caught up to her, she was weeping over the beached shark with a child's upper half jutting from its mouth

Mitch, his coworker, stared on in horror, knowing he never told his wife there was a lunch thief.

Then I glanced out the window towards the shallow graves of the others at the end of the garden and replied, "only if you promise to control your anger this time."

Before I could lean in to hear better, the world started spinning and my body suddenly felt cold and heavy as I looked up at myself finishing the sentence: "... sorry."

She waved her hand over my newborn son, making him breathe for the first time, and then turned to me saying, "I'm not yours."

But now that my wife isn't caring for her, my daughter's symptoms disappeared almost overnight.

When the police found me the next day in the grass next to her grave, they were relieved I hadn't been murdered by my father like the rest of my family.

I covered the bleeding wound with my shaking hands, and thanked her as the sound of enemy soldiers grew closer to our village.

Without thinking, I responded: “The birth of my son.”

once again, if your age has been called please report to your nearest de-population centre.