START [options] program [childhood.wav]…

Young Flair had been living with her grandparents for a while. She had only been five when she first started living with the elderly couple. The memory of her parents dropping her off was fuzzy, but she held no attachment to them. Her parents weren’t parents, her grandparents were. Grandmother told her she had cried buckets that day, but the woman soothed the sobbing girl with a jar and glittering paper stars. “Stop crying, Dearie. Every time you want to cry, but don’t, put a star into here.” “Yes Granny.” A pudgy arm wiped away the droplets pooling in her eyes while the other reached out for the plastic container.

Quietly, it filled up. She tore her negative emotions away until she was empty, clawing them up from the deep and cramming them into her crowded jar of stars. Blank eyes stared at the bottle, placed in the windowsill. Her attention drifted away as she heard car wheels rolling over gravel. Flair stood on the tips of her toes to spot a bright red vehicle parked in the driveway. She shuffled down to the front door to greet the visitors with Grandmother.

find “Nicolas Carter” <’’input file name’’> ‘’outputfilename’’

Nicolas Carter was smaller than her, but not by too much. He was only two years younger than her. His hair was a similar shade of blond compared to hers, but perhaps a bit darker. Just like a boy, Nico’s hair was short and brown pupils stared behind drowsy eyelids.

She held out a hand for the boy to grab, a soft voice leaving her lips, “I’ll show you our room.”

find “nightmare” <’’input file name’’> ‘’outputfilename’’

The creatures kept her up at night. They always did. For the past years Flair had learned to cope with the sounds of toppled boxes, creaking doors, and chilly laughter that permeated the house once the sun fell and the moon rose. She always draped the covers over her head, small hands clutching her jar of stars like a security blanket. Eyelids squinted shut and body trembling, Flair stilled when she felt the bed next to her shift and another warm body curl into hers. When she opened her eyes it was her cousin, his own eyes wide with restless fear. She didn’t need to say anything when she hugged him close for the rest of the night, her comforting jar of stars between them.

For the next few years they slept together, fending away the shadows.

START [options] program [hunterexamination.wav]…

Flair quietly loaded the gun, her attention glued to the fellow candidate sleeping a ways from her. Her mind grew clear. Her vision became sharp. She crouched low so she was behind the tall grass, an ill green as the stalks bent in the weak breeze. Nothing was there to restrain the budding college student from bringing up the handgun and aiming the barrel at the dozing man. For some candidates there was the extreme difficulty of scaling the wall called morals, but for Flair it had been frighteningly easy. It made the woman wonder if there was something psychologically wrong with her.

She briefly thought of her jar of stars.

She could have not pulled the trigger, but she pulled it once, twice, three times. Startled birds screeched in the distance, a flock of them rustling their wings before fleeing the small collection of nearby trees. She lowered her gaze to the ground as she crawled away.

“Come on, Nico.”

She would always look out for her cousin.

START [options] program [hunterlife.wav]…

find “You could have been something” <’’input file name’’> ‘’outputfilename’’

Her fingers flew across the keyboard as the computer screen illuminated her face with a pale blue glow. She remained unblinking, the sleeves of her white hunter jacket neatly rolled up to her elbows. The screen was mainly white, black lines streaming across the word document as she wordlessly coded a program. Intimacy and relationships were, overall, foreign concepts to her. Her grandparents had given her love, but had kept the child at a hesitant distance; perhaps afraid of their influence or perhaps wondering why this child had ceased being a child at the age of six and a half. She found it difficult to grasp the wild emotions people often flaunted around and it was just as befuddling to observe other hunters engage in romance and strike up new friendships, which ultimately crumbled away with death and time.

Numbers were better. Logic and reason did not change; they were always understandable. They were cold, unfeeling, not requiring frivolous emotions.

She paused her typing to skim over her progress. Her blank expression did not change as she tested out the game, a window popping up as it welcomed her with a simple name “Welcome to Deus Ex Machina.” Flair drew the cursor to the start button and began her choose-your-own-adventure, speeding through the endless choices until she came to the end of her coding.

“You’re really good with programming.” A bodiless voice murmured behind her. She didn’t recognize it. It must’ve been someone she had been briefly acquainted with or watched her from afar.

Flair never turned around. She kept typing. “I know.”

“You could have had a great life ahead of you.”

“I know.”

“You could have been something.”

Her jaw tightened. “I know.” The words came out icy. She slowly turned the chair around to glare at the man. Lavender eyes, cold and hard, bore into dull brown ones.

“A lot of people can be a programmer, but how many people can be a hunter?”

find “Aki” <’’input file name’’> ‘’outputfilename’’

She was assigned to the Life division, the hunters that not only researched, but handled a lot of the medical aspects as well. Her shoes shuffled across the floor while Flair traversed down the hallway. She passed doors, some tightly shut closed and others slightly ajar. One in particular happened to be swung wide open, allowing the blond a perfect view of her cousin clumsily attending to some unfortunate soul. Soon as she passed by the room she stopped, backtracked, and coolly entered the room.

“Nico. What are you doing?” She sounded unamused, her eyes turning toward the female sun hunter.

The hunter glared at Flair. “Nico, who is this woman?” Her voice dripped with venomous indignation, causing Flair to quirk an eyebrow as she stepped forward to swipe the medical supplies out of her relative’s clueless hands.

“You could have called me if you needed medical aid.” She held out the disinfectant first, and the nameless woman recoiled.

“Don’t let her touch me!”

Flair let out a miffed sigh. “Trust me, I’m a Life hunter.”

Please note she said ‘Life hunter’ and not ‘doctor.’

START [options] program [glare.wav]…

Flair had only seen her partner’s pre-weapon form once, twice at the most, but here was the gargoyle, stolidly standing in front of his hunter. Everything about him was stony and grey. He had granite skin and pupil-less eyes that took in his surroundings with calm ease. Clawed hands reached up to adjust the brim of his hat, which obscured most of his sharp facial features. His wings rustled, stone rubbing against stone as he spoke, “This is it.”

She knew this conversation starter, only in reverse. “I know.”

A comfortable silence settled between them. Neither hunter nor weapon was a chatterbox; that was someone else’s job.

“Do you regret anything?”

A pained grin. How could she not? She imagined Nico and Aki strolling out from the shadows, allowing her to walk up to the two sun hunters with a wistful smile on her lips. Noticing the boy’s disheveled jacket, she shook her head and leaned forward to smooth it back into place. “You can’t do much without me for long, can you?” The smile faltered. Perhaps that was why the man had to die first. Now she was frowning as she cupped his cheek with one hand. The words were automatic. “I'm sorry, little brother.” Then Flair reached out to gently comb away tangles in Aki’s hair. “We always argued, but you were special to me too.” Pause. “I could have protected you better. I’m sorry.” More silence. “I’m a lousy sister.” She didn’t feel like a cousin and acquaintance to them. She had never admitted it, and she never would.

She heard Glare murmur behind her. He never made a move to leave. He knew. They both knew. He wasn't going anywhere. “If you could do it all over again, would you?”

Another genuine smile, small yet glowing in the darkness like a flare. “No.”

START [options] program [12_31_1999.wav]…

find “Conquest” <’’input file name’’> ‘’outputfilename’’

This was it. Time turned painfully slow, was this the effect of the arrows?

Flair searched for a clock. It still hadn't hit midnight. It was still 1999. She blinked once, twice.

Flair was standing at a train station, the engines steaming and the whistle blowing. Her breaths came out in wispy puffs, evaporating into the air. When she stared at the nearby clock the arrows refused to budge. Time had stopped. She turned to stare at the train, stoically watching as the doors slid open for the woman. Thin lips spread into a relieved smile once she noticed the passengers. Flair walked forward, her strides long and confident as she stepped inside, lips moving to form words, “Geez. Where were you guys? I was looking for you.” Nico’s familiar laugh greeted her ears and she met Aki’s eyes as both women smiled. Flair seated herself beside the boy and patiently waited for the train to move.

While she complacently faced forward, she finally uttered the words she had never gotten to speak at the Marriott. "I love you two."