“Will you marry me?” Lith asked.

  His words hung in the air for a moment. Fayde looked over to her children, who were all holding hands with each other. She met eyes with the eldest of them, her look asking: ‘did you know?’ None of them knew. She turned back to Lith, tears in her eyes and a quivering smile on her face. Her right hand reached back and found Trevor’s, gripping it tight. She loved him. So deeply and so completely. He had been with her for twenty years. Their longest relationship by a large margin. Despite the times he had seriously fucked up, she gave him chances that she would have never given another man. To her surprise, he changed. He became the man she knew he could become. He was a wonderful father to their children. He loved her children that were not his biologically as if they were. He started supporting her endeavors wholeheartedly. All her babies and grandbaby were here with her. For the first time in a long time, she felt whole. He had done everything she asked, become everything she knew he could be, and now, finally, after twenty long years together, he had asked her to marry him in a way they completely blew her away. She knew her answer.

  “Yes.” She said with a smile that was only topped by when she first laid eyes on her children the moment they were born.

  Fayde put out her left hand to Lith, and he plucked the ring from its case. Holding her left hand with his, he slid the ring onto her ring finger. In this moment, to them, all was right in the world. They all wished that this moment; this happiness wouldn’t end. As the ring was seated on her finger at the knuckle, the world seemed to stop. The only thing that mattered was their family. Fayde. Lith. Trevor. Enki. Matia. Guidry. Everything else could just fade away.

  And then…it did.

  Everything faded away from them. The dinner table. The Waitress. The Rooftop Bar. Le Grande Castille. Their small town. And finally, the world. Everything faded away. There they stood in a void of purest black, the only source of light being a soft glow from the ring on Fayde’s finger. Slowly at first the light began to grow, the small glow becoming reminiscent of a flashlight’s beam. It didn’t stop there. The flashlight became a headlight, which became a spotlight before a small, circular ovoid emerged from the ring.

  It looked like a miniature galaxy. Not that it stayed miniature for long. Within a moment, the galaxy was as wide as Lith was tall, and it just kept on growing. Would it become the size of their home galaxy? The model galaxy’s growth was becoming exponential, as if they were watching a parody of the Big Bag happen before their eyes. Before they could make a move or ask what was happening, they all began to feel an immense pressure falling upon them. They didn’t collapse to their knees as the pressure seemed to come from all around them, threatening to turn them all into balls of flesh, blood, and bone.

  Fayde and Lith were the first to notice a terrifying fact. The center of the galaxy was fast approaching them. A tiny black hole, which was soon not to be so tiny, was mere inches from their bodies. In fear of what would come next, they pushed against the force holding them in place with all of their might. If the theories of astrophysicists were true, they would be in for an eternity of pain before coming to a gory mess of an end. As the event horizon began to pass over them, everything shifted. The pressure that held them firmly in place was joined by a torrent of forces inside of their bodies. It felt like their organs, muscles, even their bones were being berated by violent cascading waves. All of them found they were incapable of even yelling out in pain from the combined tirade of external and internal forces. Their minds were kept on the precipice of consciousness from the extreme forces.

  Lith, his eyes open and bloodshot, was the first to feel a sensation close to his skin being ripped open. He looked over to his right, trying to see what kind of damage was being done to his body. The external forces kept him from moving his head, but he was barely able to make out faint wisps of red floating into the air like blood in the water. Was he bleeding? How quickly until he began losing so much blood that he would pass out and die? Fighting against the forces pressing against his body, Lith tried moving his right arm closer for him to see. It was fruitless, as his entire body was still locked in place, but he did notice something. As he focused on moving his arm closer, the internal torrents moved along with his intention. Small streams of red released harmlessly from his neck, chest, and right arm, which also eased the torrential waves inside that part of his body, more so than when it felt like his skin was being ripped open. As soon as he stopped trying to move his arm, the flow from those points along his body stopped and the torrents once again became unorganized and painful.

  Wanting to recreate the sensation again, Lith tried tightening his muscles. Again, the flow of the forces acting inside of his body followed the paths of his intentions, making their way out from the same points of his body. However, this time the flow out of his body was lessened and the pain did not subside as much. When he stopped flexing, the forces inside of his body became chaotic again as the flow outwardly ceased. Realization came shortly after. Even though he could not move, the intentional exertion of movement caused the strange forces in his body to be expelled. Flexing his muscles would cause a diluted version of the expulsion of forces, but for some reason, was lacking something. Doing his best to calm his mind and focus, Lith started to try to move his body in a flailing manner. More points across his body started to exude the red wisps into the space around them as he struggled against the forces pressing down on him. He could feel the forces inside of himself flow through and out of his body through small painless holes. But the movements of the energy inside of him mimicked his own flailing attempts. Erratic. As the torrents loved with his intent, new kinds of pain assailed his body. Shortly after starting, Lith once again stopped his efforts. If he were to keep going, he might end up hurting himself more than the forces inside of his body would do by themselves.

  Taking a calming breath, Lith thought how best he could rid his body of the violent energy raking his body. It was clear that trying to move would cause whatever the red stuff to leave, but simply waving his arms wouldn’t do the job while leaving him in an operable state. When he first tried to move his arm, he was intently focusing on a specific movement and straining his body to make it happen. Was that the key? To focus intently on how you were moving your body? Lith could feel the pressure inside of his body building up again. Not willing to go back to the previous levels of pain, Lith hastily put together another plan and hoped it worked. He would fight against the forces both inside and outside of his body. He closed his eyes and began to practice his martial arts.

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  It had been years since he could dedicate his body to fully practicing, but focusing on it now, he could almost see a version of himself going through the motions. Punch. Step. Punch. Block. Step. Kick. Turn. He took his mind and body through the motions as if he were still able to move and could feel the wild torrents bend to the will of his mind and body. The red forces inside of him began to churn and split off, acting more like the branching paths of a river. He could feel small bits of pressure crop up painlessly all across his body. It was the exact spots the red forces were leaving his body from. After a minute of going through and restarting his martial arts stances, one of the small pressure points felt like it popped. The rest of the energy in his body froze for a moment, eager to leave before Lith’s focus on his movements and directed it back into flow. One by one, each of the pressure points along his skin suffered a similar popping effect. Most of the points were focused around his core with a few placed around his arms and legs. Of particular interest was that the second largest collection of pressure points were focused around his face and head. Then he noticed another interesting fact. With his body now expelling the red torrents from places all over his body, he was able to sense where the energy was coming from. The torrential forces actually had two sources, his head and his heart. Each beat of his heart stirred and shook off energy from within and around it, causing it to travel through and around his veins, while the energy from his mind was a continuous stream traveling down his spine and following all of the pathways of his nervous system. Lith persisted in his practice, feeling the torrents now working with his body as it moved out of him. His mind and body became lost to the process, and it wasn’t until his fifth time of restarting the movements that he realized his body was no longer being assailed internally by the torrential red forces or being held in place by the external pressure.

  With a start, Lith looked over to his family to see how they were fairing. To his relief, Fayde was exuding waves of red from her body as she seemed to dance in the air. The movements reminded him of the dance form she was trained in, Naga-Atem. Each movement of her hips, legs, and arms sent out waves of red in a billowing motion. They had talked about Naga-Atem on several occasions over the years they had been together. It relied on total body muscle control incorporated into dance motions. It was also one of the oldest forms of dance on Earth. Their means of removing the red from their bodies were similar in theory, only differing in execution, as Fayde also used Naga-Atem as a meditative workout. She was also able to move freely and with ease, which told Lith that she was nearly done with removing the red from her body as well. The only other member of their family showing any other signs of success was Matia, who was periodically releasing large waves of red in a less controlled manner than what Lith had done. She would be a bit longer than Fayde, but she would make it through on her own. Of his three remaining family members, Guidry was releasing the least amount of red. Whether that was because of his age and size, or another reason was unsure, but it didn’t change the fact that his grandson was crying from the situation he found himself in, red billowing from his body from red splotches that dotted his clothes and skin. It was clear that he had not figured out what most of them had already. Trusting that Fayde and Matia would take care of Trevor and Enki when they were done, Lith ran over to his grandson.

  “Guidry!” Lith called out as he stopped in front of his grandson. He reached out and touched his grandson on the shoulder only to have his hand rebuffed and shocked.

  “Grandpa?” Guidry asked in a panic. “Grandpa, it hurts.” His crying became more uncontrolled as he spoke. He was more than scared. He was terrified. “Make it stop Grandpa.”

  For a moment, the red coming from the rest of his family stopped before starting back up in a more furious nature. There was no better motivation to finish than to go to the aid of the youngest member of their family. Especially for his mother, Trevor, who was now screaming as red wisps came pouring out of her with the righteous rage of motherhood, faster than anyone else’s red.

  “I know. Grandpa is here.” Lith said in the most comforting voice he could muster. “I need you to listen to me, ok?”

  “Is Mom yelling? Is she okay?” Tears were streaming down his face faster than the red was coming from his body.

  “Yes, she’s on her way here to you. I need you to listen to me very carefully for right now. Can you do that?”

  “Mhmm.” Was all that Guidry could get out between tearful snotty bursts of breath.

  “I need you to take a deep breath. I know it’s hard right now. I know it hurts. But give me a deep breath.”

  Through fits of snot induced coughs, Guidry managed to get in a few deep breaths and calm a bit. The coughs made the exhales do less to expel the red than Lith would hope, but as Guidry seemed to calm, the red did come out easier.

  “There we go. Is that starting to feel better?”

  “Mhmm. It…” Guidry paused as he let out another cough. “It still hurts, but not as much.”

  “Good man. Slow breaths. In and out. I’ll breathe with you, okay.” Lith instructed and waited for Guidry to nod and breathe out before starting. “Breath in ‘whoooooop” he started watching Guidry mimic himself. “And out ‘wooooo’”

  As Guidry exhaled, the red came out shakily but more orderly than it previously had been. Lith theorized it came out shakily because Guidry’s body was still convulsing a little from his crying, but he could see it began to cease the flow from red splotches and become more organized like it came from his own body.

  “Good job little man. Let’s focus on trying to move your body. Think of swimming. Go through the motions. You won’t be able to move, but as long as you try to go through the motions you’ll be okay.”

  “Ok Grandpa.” Guidry said a bit more calmly. The tears coming from his face had slowed, and his breathing was getting steadier as Guidry tried to make his body move like he was swimming. Lith watched as he coached his grandson in breathing, reminding him to go through swimming motions. He could see the points on Guidry’s body where the red was flowing out in a controlled manner. Being able to see it from an outside perspective, it reminded Lith of acupuncture points. After a few moments of coaching Guidry, Trevor was by their side.

  “Dad.” Trevor said as she kneeled next to them both. “I’ve got him. Thank you.”

  “Mom?” Guidry asked as one of his hands reached for her, finally able to move. She immediately reached out and grabbed his hand.

  “I’m here baby.” She said as she wrapped him in a hug. “Mom is right here.”

  Lith looked up and saw that Fayde was already coaching Enki through his purging of energy. It looked like he was starting to figure it out and that he would be done soon. Lith’s eyes fell upon his daughter Matia. Who was sitting with her knees to her chest, already done expelling the red from her body. He walked over to her and sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her and leaning her against his side. She didn’t resist, contrary to the typical behavior his rebellious teen daughter would do. They sat there for a few moments in silence before he eventually spoke.

  “Good job kiddo.”

  She shifted a bit before releasing her knees from her chest and wrapping her arms around his chest.

  “That was terrible.” she said with a sniffle.

  “I know. It was the same for all of us. But you did an excellent job figuring it out yourself.” Lith could feel a wet spot forming on his chest. He knew she was crying but decided not to say anything about it. “I’m proud of you baby girl.” He said as he lightly tightened his one arm around her shoulder before looking out into the still expanding galaxy around them.