Everyone used to say that I looked like my mother. I was just as clever, just as beautiful, with the same sparkle in my eyes. We had the same blonde hair, the same laugh. One day, I was sure, I would do important work too, just like my mother. Maybe even work for the Union.

I smiled sadly at my reflection, trying to picture my mother’s face in my mind. I couldn’t see any resemblance between us anymore. I had dyed my hair brown so I would draw less attention to myself. My eyes were empty, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had truly laughed.

Still, I hoped my mother would be proud of me.

I heard a creak from the hallway and quickly wiped the tears from my cheeks. The door swung open with a squeak, and Lee walked in. Brown curls bounced around his head, and his tiny body was swallowed by a sweater that was far too big for him.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to smile. Luckily, Lee was far too caught up in his own problems to notice my sadness.

“Anah, Thomas took my toy car,” Lee complained, crossing his arms as he flopped down onto the bed.

“Have you asked him to give it back?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

My sadness curled up into a little corner of my mind.

Not now. Never.

I couldn’t let myself feel it.

Lee shook his head. “He won’t give it back.”

“You don’t know that if you don’t ask,” I said.

“I’m actually too scared to. Sorry, Anah.”

Lee’s eyebrows drooped with disappointment. I ruffled his dark, curly hair.

“No need to be sorry. How about we go ask him together?” I asked gently.

Lee shrugged, but the smile on his face told me that he actually liked the idea. I placed a hand on his back, almost as if I were his mother, and guided him towards the door.

Thomas wasn’t happy when Lee and I asked for the toy car.

“Um… no.”

He gave us a fake smile as he tossed the car into the air and caught it again.

“I could tell Martha or Sandy that you’ve been stealing toys from little kids again,” I said with a sly grin.

Thomas’s eyebrows pulled together.

“Snitch,” he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.

Grumpily, he shoved the little red car, flames painted along its sides, into Lee’s small, clammy hand. Lee thanked him, but Thomas was already stomping away. His red hair bounced angrily around his ears, and his long arms swung at his sides.

Lee ran off to join his friends, driving the car across the long kitchen table, over the couch, through the kitchen, and making it jump over the faucet.

I put my hand on the doorknob, but glanced back one last time at Thomas, who was still slumped angrily on the couch.

How dare he? He was almost my age, yet he was stealing toys from a little kid.

A shiver of anger ran through me, and my hand began to glow with heat.

The doorknob turned red-hot beneath my fingers.

Shit.

I jerked my hand away and froze.

Had anyone seen me?

I looked around, half expecting to be handed over to the Union at any moment. The room was bursting with children, all of them seemingly absorbed in their own little worlds. A few boys were sprawled across the couches, Game Boys clutched tightly in their hands. Kids around Lee’s age were building a pillow fort, while a few girls sat at the picnic table reading a book.

I let out a relieved breath, my heart still pounding in my throat.

No one had seen.

I pulled the door open and ran down the hallway to my room. Once inside, I collapsed onto the bed and dug my nails into my skin until it turned red, leaving little half-moon marks behind.

I really had to stop letting things get to me so easily. Otherwise…

“No. Don’t think about it,” I whispered to myself, rubbing my temples.

But in that brief moment of hesitation, I had seen it again.

It felt as though the blood in my veins had frozen.

“Stop, Anah,” I begged myself, rubbing my temples even harder.

I jumped to my feet and began pacing.

I felt like a wild animal trapped in a cage. There was nowhere for me to go. I was stuck in this orphanage for at least another three years, but my entire life had been one long game of hide-and-seek.

The Union had finished counting to ten long ago.

They had been looking for me for years.

And all I could do was keep hiding.

I felt tears sting my eyes. My fingertips grew warm.

“Please, stop.”

I dug my nails into my palms and thought of my mother.

I had to stay strong.

I took a deep breath.

The only thing I could do was prepare myself for the day i had to face the Union

I lifted my pillow and pulled out the little notebook hidden underneath it. The leather cover was surprisingly cold beneath my fingers, yet somehow comforting and familiar.

I opened it.

The worn, yellowed pages greeted me like they did every day. In my mother’s handwriting, the greatest secrets of the Union were written down as casually as if they were notes from a school lesson.

I flipped through the notebook and stopped at a passage.

It was about a werewolf my mother had known well.

Dead.

Once again, I realized just how important it was that I never reveal myself.

I knew things about the Union that no other magical being knew. I knew how to destabilize it from the inside.

But if I were caught, I wouldn’t just die.

The Union could find my mother’s notebook.

And then…

The most important magical safe havens would be discovered within a week.

All those people would die.

Because of me.

This is a story I’ve been working on. I’m done with pt 1 (the first half, about 70 pages in journal front and back) and am moving it over to my notes app and editing it as I go.
I just need critiques,advice, and opinions plus maybe a little moral support if I can get it and chapter 1 isn’t complete crap.
Feel free to be harsh.

The Drunkard and the Frontier
By Pressy the button

Ch.1

There once was a drunkard who lived on the very edge of existence. At that edge was a rock that held the only signs of civilization for lightyears. From this boulder there was a forwards and a backwards that was easily distinguishable from one another. Due to the constant momentum of the pebble if one looked backward they’d see all of existence stretched out before them. Looking forward one would see the making of existence as electrons and protons gained their charges, atoms came together, and one would see the very fabric of reality being woven together in a fanciful show of lights and colors.
This rock was a magical place known as the Frontier. The Frontier was the place where stories that inspired the denizens of the next existence took place. It’s the place where the parables that laid the foundation for the next one happened.
The citizens of the Frontier came from all over time and space knowing this is the place of stories, and in stories anything was possible. Many had come hoping to be heroes in myths and tales not realizing most didn’t get to choose the part they played. Stories had many different characters and usually one to three heroes. Most also didn’t realize that with such a multitude of stories taking place one could easily be a hero of one story, yet a villian, side character, antagonist, protagonists, side character, and/or a background character in another’s story. There were only a few who realized while hopes, actions, and intentions could shape what character and what story you’re in. Those were usually discounted by the powers that shape and chose the stories.
The Drunkard had come to the Frontier from a time and place that he never felt he belonged. He was still a drunkard there, but it was harsher for a drunk. One was made feel less than because of their problem. Forced to feel as though they were out of place while still getting sold their addiction.
He couldn’t explain why he was a drunk when and then. Truth be told when he was asked the only answer he could give was “it made the time pass quicker.” That answer had never been to anyone’s satisfaction, not even his own. At the time when the drunkard had heard of the Frontier he was told it was the place where stories happen. He had thought to himself, “stories need a drunk.” It had made him think that maybe there was somewhere he wouldn’t feel out of place. Somewhere he wouldn’t feel like a waste of space. The thought had brought him so much comfort that he knew he had to go there.
He couldn’t tell you how he had arrived there. Upon waking up from a blackout he had just found himself there. For a while, he was happy feeling as though he had found the place he belong.
He spent his days in the Frontier’s bar drinking as he watched other characters pass through. There were some that came back to the bar, but most stories were bloody and filled with death fueled by the hopes and dreams of those on the Frontier. So many simply never returned. The Drunkard would sit at the bar drinking and trading stories with Tabitha, the keeper of tabs as he referred to her in his head. Tabitha spent her days running the bars and writing down the stories of the others on the Frontier.
One day, he had even found love out on the Frontier. She had accepted him for who he really was, and he had found that that was something he had always wanted but never realized. During that time of his life the drinking slowed, but never ceased. It slowed because he wanted time to last longer when he was with her.
Eventually, he learned the drunk wasn’t supposed to have happiness. He learned the drunkard was supposed to have tragic reason to drink. The Drunk should be a sad cautionary tale of how wrong one’s life could go whether by their own hands or another’s. He didn’t realize that after his wife died. No, it wasn’t until the second tragedy struck that he finally got the lesson being taught.
The Drunkard felt as though he belonged, but it was in a place that seemed to want to keep him miserable. Now he drank to keep away the happy memories that haunted him even in his sleep. He drank to go to sleep and he drank to wake up. He couldn’t tell you the day because they were all the same for him. How he told the time was by whether or not the bar was open. When the bar closed he’d stumble home with a bottle of something strong in hand. It was empty by the time he arrived and so he’d open another. That was his life for years or decades. He really didn’t know. He just continued on and on.
One day he had an idea. It was one that only the Drunkard could have. “If anything could happen in a story why do they have to be so bloody? If a story could be anything why did he have to be miserable?”
It was on that day, at least he thinks it was that day that he approached Tabitha with the suggestion of a drinking contest. Tabitha was always looking for some sort of entertainment for the bar so she needed very little convincing. All it took was the Drunk adding the stipulation that the loser pays both tabs. A sign was soon sitting in the bar’s window stating, “see if can out drink the Drunkard. All contenders welcome. Loser pays both tabs. If you want to wager more at least make it interesting.”
It started small and slow. Maybe a person new to the Frontier who didn’t know of the Drunkard’s reputation, or someone who did but felt confident in their drinking skills. All of those went the same way. Three or four drinks, five if they were experienced. Then the other contenders would either pass out, lose their confidence, or would simply be too drunk to continue. The Drunk would watch them with a little disappointment and just continue drinking. He would always remind the challenger afterwards to spread the word.
After some unspecified amount of time, people and other beings started coming to the Frontier specifically for the drinking contest. Some of them were just people looking for a challenge, others were just sure of themselves, and some were drunks just like him.
The first person who made an interesting wager was a cowboy. Who knows exactly when or where they were from with their handle bar mustache and a sidearm on their hip. They had sauntered up to the bar with click clack of their boots and the jingling of their spurs. With the spiral trends of fashion and the strangeness of their sidearm there wasn’t any telling when they arrived from.
The Cowboy once reaching Tabitha at the bar said to her in a gruff voice with a strange accent, “I’m here to outdrink whatever sorry sonofabitch you got here.” Tabitha, having seen it all in her time on the Frontier simply pointed him towards the Drunkard. The Drunk was at the end of the bar doing what he always did, pouring them down his gullet.
To the Cowboy this disheveled man in clothes the seemed to big for him looked like an easy win. Wearing a jacket that wasn’t buttoned right. Some were missing from the jacket, others the Drunk had just missed when he had buttoned up (whenever the hell that was), and others were just buttoned to the wrong ones. It was stained with old drinks, dirt from drunken falls, and some stains one just wouldn’t want to identify. He seemed to already be on the verge of passing out with the way he was slumped over his drinks. A bunch of empty bottles filled the spot to his left, and a half-filled bottle of something strong sat to his right. The Cowboy was filled with confidence at this sight.
He felt a bit sad for the drunk knowing this was all he had, and that the Cowboy was about to take it all from him. All it took was the Cowboy clearing his throat, “uh-ergh,” that was the sound he made to get the Drunkard’s attention. The Drunk simply eyed the cowboy and got up from his chair. Swaying and almost falling over as he made his way to a table that was set up to allow all in the bar to watch without having to move. He fell into the chair as though he couldn’t have walked any farther.
The Cowboy knew he could do this. After all, he was a gunslinger who shot straight even when he was seeing double. His breakfast was always followed with a few glasses of whiskey, and he kept that pace all day. He was used to drinking while robbing trains and other modes of transportation. So, how could he not be filled with confidence that he could out drink the pitiful creature in front of him while robbing it of the only thing it had.
The Cowboy had wanted a wager to make it interesting, but he had only decided it when he had seen the Drunk. Maybe it was pity at knowing he’d leave this creature without even a reputation to cling to. Maybe the Cowboy was hoping to scare the Drunkard into forfeiting. He couldn’t tell you as he sat his side arm on the table and he said, “if I win, I’m going to shoot you straight in the face. Right between the eyes,” it wasn’t a question, “and if you win you can do the same.”
Tabitha spoke before the Drunkard could slur his words. “Wagerin’ lives very interestin’ indeed, but there will be no shootin’ in my bar, ya hear! You do that outside. Now what do you say?” She asked the Drunkard.
“If he winsh he can shoot me dead. I’m good with that, but I wantsh something elshe from you, if-a I win you go on a wild wander for me,” he said pointing a dirty finger at the Cowboy, “ and a you tell everyone and everything about thish bar, thish contesht, and thish drunk who will out drink anyone and anything. How’sh that sound?” He questioned the Cowboy with half closed lids.
“Seems cheap for me, but hell I accept’”
With the terms laid out Tabitha brought out a large bottle of a proof that should be deadly. Setting two glasses down she then filled them with the precision of a machine. 2 centimeters from the top. So, if you spilled a drop it was your fault and not hers.
The Cowboy tried to fix the Drunkard with a steely gaze. He expected them to lock eyes like what would happen in his quickdraw duels, but as he did the Drunk was already pouring the poison down his gullet. The Cowboy was confuse for a moment as Tabitha poured the man another. He watched as the Drunkard struggled to wait for him to catch up. The old gunslinger not wanting to be outdone shot it back in the blink of an eye. The only effects of the first that he felt was the heat in his abdomen.
The moment his glass touched the table Tabitha was already pouring more into it as the Drunk was finishing his second.
“I’m not pourin’ you another one until he catches up,” Tabitha declared with authority to the Drunk.
“Oh Tabi pleash I swearsh I’ll be a patient. Tabi pleash he’sh jusht so slow…. Pleash.”
The Cowboy took offense to that and poured the second straight down his throat without even tasting it. “ Now you listen here,” the Cowboy exclaimed with a tone full of indignation, “I’ll keep up with ya I just thought that we’d at least make eye contact before you started drainin’ them!”
“No,” was the only reply he got from the Drunkard as Tabitha first poured the Cowboy a third as the Drunk watched greedily as he waited for Tabitha to fill his. Once both glasses were poured, it was a race to get to the bottom. “Clink” was followed by “clunk” as the Cowboy was just a bit slower than the Drunkard.
After the third one, the cowboy was starting to feel the alcohol. He didn’t know what he was drinking. He just knew that it was strong, and it was hitting him all at once as he felt his face heat up, and his eyes watered a bit. He felt himself sway in his chair. He knew if he spoke he would sound more like the Drunkard than himself. Once the fourth was poured though he shot it back as quickly as was possible for him in an attempt to out speed his opponent. Even with his small head start, it wasn’t enough. His “clunk” followed the alcoholic’s “clink.”

He felt his face heat not just from the alcohol, but also from anger at this thing in front of him. The alcohol didn’t seem like it had changed the Drunk’s disposition at all. The only change the Cowboy could see in his opponent was that he was slumped just a little bit more in his chair.
“Fuck am I drinking againsht a machine,” he let out in exasperation.
“Nah I’m all biological,” was the reply he got from the Drunkard who had been about to pour the fifth one down the blackhole he called a throat. Then, the Cowboy heard the dreaded “clink” of the Drunk’s glass being set on the table in the split second he had blinked. The Cowboy put the glass to his mouth. He hesitated as the cool glass rested upon his lips. The smell of it now was sickening to his nostrils. He wondered if his mustache and nose hair wear shriveling up and burning away. He quickly slung his head back. It went down easily enough. A river of fire down a dark cave landing in a churning lake of acid.
“Clunk,” his glass hit the table. As the Cowboy held his head up by a mat of his hair he heard the “swoosh” of the glasses being filled. By now he could only focus on the table and his glass. The dark patterns in the wood of the table looked as though they were dancing as he swayed with one eye open and the other closed.
A “clink” brought him back from the dance in the table. He was brought back to the contest he was participating in. He could feel all eyes were on him. Everyone in the bar was eagerly was eagerly awaiting for him to drink or fail. Or worse yet, to give up. He wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction though. No, he was a cowboy, a real gunslinger, a robber, a bounty hunter, a winner; no he would not give them that satisfaction! So he fixed the Drunkard with what he thought to be a look of determination. Then, he brought the glass to his lips.
The last thing he heard was the Drunk asking him a question he couldn’t quite make out. Next thing he knew he was being woken up by the Drunk.
“Hey-a. Hey-a it’sh the next day guy. You losht. You-a remember what ya said ya’d do? Pleashe get-a on with it.” The words pounded down on the Cowboy. It felt like a blade splitting open his head. They echoed around in the cavern of his skull and banged on his temples. He thought his head might explode from the worst hangover he had ever experienced. It was so bad he actually considered quitting drinking for a few minutes. Then, he came to his senses.
“Before I do anything I need a glass of whiskey and one of water.”
“Then-a you’ll go and do what-a you said you would?”
The cowboy pulled himself up to a standing position as he nodded. That was followed by him stumbling over to Tabitha.
“I need a whiskey and a water. Not in the same glass, little lady.”
“You need to settle your tab,” was the curt reply she gave as she poured him a whiskey followed by a water. She grabbed out one of the bottles that was the Drunkard’s drink of choice, and skid it down to the end of the bar that was the Drunk’s spot. It came to a stop as he fell into his chair. She then pulled out a thick leather bound book, and looked the Cowboy in the eyes as she asked him, “what’s your story?”
“What?”
“What’s ya story? That’s the cost of your tab,” she said dryly.
“What? Story? Whatcha mean by that,” he asked confusedly replacing the words once they left with whiskey.
“Tell me about ya life. What have ya done before and/or after ya arrived here?”
“I’ve done quite a bit before gettin’ here. Do you really have the time for?”
“ I have all the time I need. Don’t think ya gettin’ out of payin’ this tab. Those were some expensive drinks ya drank,” Tabitha spoke eyeing the old man like he might run. The Cowboy just sat on down and started at the beginning as Tabitha listened intently and took notes. She only ever stopped to pour drinks, but she never seemed to missed a beat or fall behind in her writing. It went on like that for some hours as the Cowboy told her everything that he had ever done. It just poured out of him like whiskey from a bottle.

Just sharing this here for a little inspo - because david mamet said it best - always be closing! Even writers!

https://brevity.wordpress.com/2026/10/13/the-writers-abcs/

And if you want to come to a Q&A tomorrow about selling work, read to the end of the essay -