Home Again-Davis

Home Again

S. M. Davis

A lush, drowned landscape sprawls out in front of me, the languorous heat doing nothing to stem the dreadful chill creeping up my spine. I have a palpable sense of liminality, of being in a no-man’s land that’s neither here nor there. Scott, oblivious, is already rooting through his pack for a snack.

“This doesn’t look right,” I say, wiping the sweat from my eyes. “I know it’s been more than a decade since I’ve been here, but was it always so marshy?” I motion back the way we’ve come. “We’ve just spent hours hiking through old-growth deciduous forest, and all of a sudden it turns into marshland?”

Scott liberates an apple from his pack and shrugs as he bites into it. “It is kinda weird, sure. But it’s a big lake. It’s gotta have a bunch of sources feeding it. Maybe some underground aquifers just became, well, less underground.”

“Kinda weird,” I agree, hesitantly.

“Things change, ecosystems adapt. ‘Life finds a way,’ you know.” He fixes me with a pointed look. “Ten years is a long time.”

My disquiet is edged out by my sense of guilt, and I wither under Scott’s glare. I toy with an energy bar and consider the forest on one side, the marsh on the other. “What’s the plan? Hoof it back to the car?”

Scott squints, calculating. “We’ve only got a few hours of daylight left. Not enough to make it to the carpark before dark.” He digs a jar of peanut butter from his pack, scoops a spoonful, and alternates between licking it and chomping his apple. “The lake’s only a couple hours up the trail. Marshy or not, why go back? We can withstand some wannabe wetlands.”

It’s hard to take a grown man seriously when he’s licking a spoon of peanut butter like a lollipop, but I do my best. “You’re probably right. To the lake!” Scott grins, excited. It’s the first time I’ve seen that grin in a decade, a bittersweet realization. “Besides,” I wink at him. “What could go wrong?”

“Hey!” He steps back. “That’s just asking for trouble, you know. Saying shit like that never ends well.”

I smile, knowing he’s only partially joking. He lives and breathes horror movies, which makes it easy to know how to get a response. “It’s all good,” I say. “You’ve got my back, I’ve got yours. We can take on the world, as far as I’m concerned.”

He shakes his head at my tempting of fate and tosses his apple core into the marsh. “There, an offering to the new ecosystem. To counteract your blaspheming.” The apple core slowly sinks and my gaze lingers, transfixed, until a coughing fit shakes me loose. I catch my breath, but something in the air continues to irritate my sinuses; an acrid rasp scraping my throat. It seems that, even when stagnant, nature asserts itself.

Scott’s already heading up the trail, leading us deeper into the wilderness. I haul up my pack, apprehension still heavy in my gut. I spare a final glance at the majestic forest standing vigil behind us, then hurry to catch up. We chase our shadows away from the sun.

“That’s not a lake.”

A sulfurous, irony twang comes off the verdant swamp that fills the horizon. It looks like it’s been here forever. The air’s empty of all the expected sounds, filled, instead, with a dense, consuming silence.

“I appreciate your capacity to point out the obvious,” Scott grumbles, his mood having soured as the ground got wetter and wetter the further we hiked. “But what’s a swamp, really, but a fermented lake?” He taps his head like this is the insight of the year.

“Other than an entirely different ecosystem?” I turn and march ten yards behind us. “Look at this – there’s a literal dividing line, separating ‘deciduous forest’ from ‘swampy wetland’.” I straddle the clear demarcation; one foot stands on well-compacted earth, the other squelches in two inches of mud. “Does this seem normal to you?”

Scott sighs and shakes his head. “It kinda doesn’t matter. We’re here for the night, either way.” He gestures to a large tree up a slight incline another ten yards away. “I’m going to go set up our tent, up there. You hunt down some kindling, get a fire going. We make camp, eat some hot dogs, drink some lukewarm beers and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we’ll hike the perimeter of the swamp and see what’s up.”

My concerned reflection taunts me from the opaque surface of the swamp, but I try for optimism anyway. “What happens next in this movie? How does the pair of recently un-estranged brothers survive until the credits roll?”

“Ahh, well, that depends. Is this movie realistic or supernatural?” This is his comfort zone. “If it’s pretending to be realistic, well, there must have been some sort of seismic event, right? Some tectonic plates shifted and unleashed a hidden ecosystem that was trapped underground for millennia. We do some amateur scientific sleuthing, figure out what’s gone wrong, and, miraculously, we have on hand exactly what we need to set everything right.”

“And if it’s supernatural?”

“Oh, well, then it’s the end of the world.” He nods, playing out the scenario in his mind. “Some teenagers desecrated some ancient ruins, or maybe made a sacrifice on some obsidian altar. Either way, ancient gods ascend from the atavistic abyss and reshape the world according to their own chthonic designs, ending life as we know it.”

“Oof. That’s bleak.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, staring out over the depths of the newly emerging landscape. “A lot of cosmic horror is just thinly veiled nihilism.” It’s hard to look away from the swamp, especially since it isn’t supposed to be here. Scott has sunk up to his ankles in muck, as if the swamp is claiming him even as he stands on land. He doesn’t seem to notice.

I clear my throat. “And that means for us …?”

He finally tears his eyes from the endless green expanse. “Let’s work under the assumption that this is some sort of elevated ecohorror. Anything else is too pointless.”

Is this performance or prognostication? Either way, I play along. “Okay – scientific horror, seismic activity, hidden ecosystem. Got it. Do we have some megafauna to worry about? Is this some sort of megalodon situation?” I’m joking. Really. I’m not at all thinking about a prehistoric creature chomping on me while I sleep.

Scott guffaws, immediately lightening the mood. “No way, dude!” His laugh is genuine, so I don’t mind being the butt of it. “What do you expect, a giant swamp-shark to surface and announce, ‘I am the Primordial Mother, Consumer of Worlds!’?”

“Hey,” I interject. “That’s supernatural. I’m talking science.”

He shakes his head. “It’s all the same, when you start talking megafauna. If this swamp came from deep underground, there’s nothing that could live down there. What could live under all that pressure, with no oxygen, for millennia? What would it eat? There would have to be a whole, thriving predator-prey ecosystem that survived, undetected, in impossible conditions. Nah, if anything at all was alive down there we’re talking bacteria or viruses. Some barely-multicellular life forms.” He grimaces. “In which case, since the human body has no idea how to fight any newly unearthed, millennia-old invaders, it’s a plague to end all plagues. We’re back to the end of the world.”

Now he’s uneasy. The language of cinema has made our situation more real for him. He twitches, as if rebooting, rewinding his tape back before the point of no return. “If that’s the case there’s nothing we can do. So, I vote for hot dogs and beer!” He pulls his boots out of the muck with a thick squelch and trots up to the tree, where he starts to unpack the tent.

The swamp holds my gaze a moment longer. Its surface is full of shadows, a constant sense of movement, even though there isn’t a single ripple. The tang of ozone cuts through the rot and the air feels like the moment after a lightning strike – empty, but filled with a sense of waiting, a pregnant tension. My stomach growls, wresting me from the water’s hypnotic grip. I head toward the campsite and prepare to start a fire, knowing it will do nothing to vanquish the coming dark.

I’m sinking in something viscous. Embryonic. Some primal secretion that’s gripping my limbs and pulling me down.

I wake with a gurgle and gasp, convinced I’m still submerged. The near-pitch blackness of the tent doesn’t stop me from seeing that I’m alone – Scott’s sleeping bag is empty. I scramble and splash my way to a sitting position. Splash? I’m in the swamp! The desperate beam of my headlamp shows thick swamp water cresting my sleeping bag, small vines seeking their way up the tent walls.

I fumble outside only to see swamp in all directions. The water is up to my calves, sticky and strangely warm, the air a thick, choking blanket. I double over, hands clutching my bent knees as I try to calm my breathing. My vision goes dim around the edges and two giant moons fill my sight, one a waxy yellow, the other an infected green. The reflection’s sickly glow doesn’t make it easier for me to slow my racing pulse.

A bright cherry of light flares up a few yards ahead of me – Scott, chest-deep in the swamp, casually smoking a joint. Just the taste of normalcy I need to ease my panic. I splash over to him, the humid air still heavy but less suffocating. The water climbs higher with each step.

He hands me the joint with barely a glance, instead searching the opposing darkness. I take a hit and hold the harsh smoke in my lungs, a welcome respite from the noxious air. He fidgets, nonplussed, as I hand it back. “I don’t know what kind of horror movie this is, but whatever it is, it’s fucked.”

I let the smoke trickle from my nostrils, nodding my agreement.

“Do you remember that janky communal canoe that used to be tied up here?” Scott asks. I do, some donated summer camp castoff, tied to some trees on the shore for anyone to use. He indicates the direction he’d been looking. “I think that’s it, over there. If it is, that’s how we make it to dawn without Swamp in our lungs.” I can hear his capitalization of Swamp and it does nothing to help my distress. A glance at our partially-submerged tent only emphasizes his point.

I see the shape he’s talking about, and it’s lost in enough darkness that it could be a log, or even just another shadow. But he’s right, that’s where the canoe would be, if it were still here. And I certainly don’t have any better ideas. Who plans for a primordial Swamp swallowing you while you sleep? I can do this. “I’ll swim out there, check it out. You collect our gear. While you’re taking our nice, dry packs down from the tree, make sure to thank me for having insisted we hang them, even though, and I quote, ‘There’re no bears here, this is a waste of time!’” I sing-song, aiming for mocking but landing closer to desperation.

He laughs anyway. “Hey, I wasn’t wrong. You see any bears? But, yes, you saved our potables, so …” He mimes doffing a cap and gives a little bow, stopping just short of dipping his head in the water. He looks up, more serious. “Don’t dive down to untie that thing, okay? Just cut it loose. I know I said there’s probably only bacteria and viruses to worry about, but what the hell do I know? Who knows what’s lurking under the surface.”

I pat the utility knife on my belt. There’s no way I was going to dive under this putrid soup to salvage a few meters of rope. He moves toward the tent while I start an awkward breaststroke toward what I really hope is the canoe. I make it to the patch of floating darkness with surprising ease and praise every god I can think of. Not only is it the canoe, but the inside’s still dry and the paddles are bungeed to a seat! Finally, something’s going right.

The rope is slimy in my hand as I try to cut it, almost like the Swamp doesn’t want me to have it. It feels like I’m no longer treading water but molasses, and my energy’s waning. The Swamp is fighting me! I hack wildly with the utility knife, unwilling to give in. The blade slips off the rope yet again and bites into my palm. The blood is viscous and black in the green moonlight, filling my cupped hand before being drunk by the Swamp. I swallow a scream, and for a moment I taste burnt sugar in the back of my throat, cloying and thick. I begin to choke on my own saliva until, suddenly, the engulfing pressure recedes. It’s as if the Swamp, satisfied with my terror, has loosened its hold.

I cut the few remaining plies holding the rope together and wrap its tail around my bloody fist a few times to make sure I won’t lose it. I swim-drag the canoe back toward Scott, the glow of his joint a beacon in the watchful dark.

He trudges out to meet me just as I feel the mud under my feet again. Without warning he grabs me in a messy hug, one I can barely reciprocate, my hand still wrapped up in the guide rope. It’s ten years delayed, this hug. And it’s perfect. He releases me enough to rest his forehead against mine. “I’ve missed you, brother.” He steps away. “Now get your ass in the canoe, and let’s get the hell out of this Swamp.”

We climb in and arrange our gear and the paddles, letting the canoe drift across the relentless expanse. It goes unsaid that we’re not actually going to paddle out by moonlight. Rather, we’ll take whatever sleep the canoe might offer and put our backs to the rising sun in the morning. I wave off the joint when he offers it again, so he takes another deep toke and stares at me across the canoe, ten years of broken lives trying to knit themselves together in the space between us.

Smoke sinks from his lips, carpeting the belly of the canoe, taking on the sickly hue that has saturated our new, effluvial world. “I know you had to leave, I get that. And you’d graduated and scored a good job, so no one gave it a second thought. But couldn’t you have left them, without leaving me, too?”

How many more pieces can my heart break into? The canoe rocks just enough to remind me that we’re not safe here … and that we have nowhere else to go.

Scott continues, unable to dam the flood. “I wasn’t as strong as you, I couldn’t just give everything up. Plus, I didn’t know where you were, you’d cut all contact. I had no choice but stay in that house, alone with them, even if that meant digging a hole in my heart and burying myself in it.”

I say nothing, because what can I say?

He studies the bottom of the canoe. “I don’t hold it against you. Not anymore. Mom and Dad mostly ended up ignoring me, but it would have been worse for you.” His rage is gone but the wound is still raw. “When they died I was sure you’d come home, but I didn’t hear a peep. What took so long? And why now?”

I owe him this. “They’d been buried more than six months before I’d even heard about their accident. At that point I didn’t know if you’d want me around – I was scared. I should have just asked you, I know. But if you’d rejected me too … It felt safer to cling to the hope of a home than to see if I actually had one.”

The night hangs empty and silent for a long moment.

“Well, that was fucking stupid.” He’s grinning again. Gods, I’ve missed this. Scott flicks his roach out into the darkness, its ember glowing a trail as it arcs into the night. It hits the Swamp and a rush of purple and green flames erupts across the surface. The mirrored dark transforms into a brilliant nightmare.

We both jump back, the canoe teetering dangerously. There’s no escape from the riotous flames which have traced a ring around us, an antediluvian conflagration of alien colors branding itself onto more than my corneas. Then, without warning or fanfare, the flames sizzle out as quickly as they’d come. Darkness floods back in, and again that burnt sugar taste hangs in the air, peppers the nose. Scott gapes at me, wide-eyed. “I know I’m kinda high, but … You saw that, right?”

I’m too busy white-knuckling the rim of the canoe to answer. Once we stop wobbling and I confirm that I have not, in fact, shit myself, I manage to squeak out, “Yeah, that just happened. Maybe we hold off on flames for a while, okay?” He nods, as if this is just the sage wisdom we need to survive. It’s not, but maybe it’ll get us through the night. We’ve just found each other again after way too long apart – I’m not gonna let some Swamp mess that up. “Let’s get some sleep. Maybe everything will be better when the sun’s up. It’s not like it can get worse.”

Scott shakes his head, chiding me. I have yet again broken a cardinal rule of surviving a horror movie. I laugh, “Yeah, yeah, I know.” I open my eyes wide and give him my best Randy Meeks. “‘There’s a formula to it. A very. Simple. Formula!’”

His smile is tight but not forced. “That’s entirely out of context, but I’ll allow it.” He leans back on his pack and closes his eyes. “God, this better not be a slasher.”

I try to follow his lead but wonder if maybe staying awake is safer. I don’t trust this Swamp. The world around us seems to have settled, though, and my eyes won’t stay open. Dense air envelops my face like a mask, pulling me into the deep dark.

I wake up to find Scott paddling us toward a just barely risen sun. Still hazy from sleep, I struggle to sit up, jolting back to reality with the realization that, somehow, there’s even more Swamp now. It fills every horizon. The old-growth trees are just barely poking above the surface, their crowns writhing with strange vines. The atmosphere has a new greenness to it, too. Not a fog or a haze but some indescribable quality, a shift in how it refracts light. I struggle to remember dry land.

“Hey,” I manage, finding it hard to form words around a tongue that feels like it’s covered with moss. “Aren’t we going the wrong way? We gotta go west to get back to the carpark.” If it isn’t underwater, I don’t add.

“Eventually. But I’m not convinced it won’t be underwater.”

Sharing thoughts does not provide the reassuring fraternal comfort I’d imagined.

“Besides, don’t you want to figure out what’s going on? We have some amateur scientific sleuthing to do!”

“Oh, I see.” I’m only a little exasperated. “This is a scientific horror flick, then?” I stretch, grab my paddle.

“I already told you, elevated ecohorror, until proven otherwise.” I can practically see the smirk through the back of his head.

I join my strokes with his and the canoe cuts through the Swamp with purpose. “Let me guess: there are sample kits, coincidentally, squirreled away in our packs?”

His answer is more sober. “We’re not actually going to solve this, Jay. I’m a film critic and you study ancient cultures. Not exactly the skillsets for wilderness survival. No, we’re finding a way out.”

Relief hits me like a freight train.

“Remember that rock quarry on the far side of the lake? That’s the highest ground in this area. It’s our best chance at getting a lay of the land, charting a proper exit.”

We round a cluster of treetops and, as if he’d conjured them, a group of rock formations lumber out of the Swamp. It’s a maze of crooked-backed giants, some towering twenty, thirty feet above us. But they look wrong. This is partly because we’re used to seeing them from the quarry floor, now submerged who knows how far down. But also … they’re leaning against each other in strange ways. Large fissures expose stone untouched by the sun or weather. Almost as if …

“Dude! Seismological activity has awakened a sleeping ecological beast!” Scott sounds giddy. Mapping out an exit is clearly no longer at the front of his mind.

We navigate the labyrinth of tottering peaks and enter what feels like a cove. A ring of stone towers stand sentry around a central, solitary megalith. Rising pyramid-like out of the gloom it isn’t as tall as its looming sentinels, maybe only fifteen or twenty feet, but it’s far more imposing. Mottled with dark moss and swarming with vines, somehow cloaked in shadows, petulantly ignoring the rising sun. The giant crevasse in its face, no doubt the result of whatever earthquake rearranged these ancient monuments, is an open black mouth, waiting for us. That’s not simply a cracked boulder, that’s a cavern. That’s … a temple.

Warning klaxons go berserk in my skull. Scott clearly hears them too, and we frantically try to paddle away. Our efforts do nothing to slow the canoe’s forward momentum, though, and we’re dragged toward the opening. Once we cross the threshold it’s immediately clear that the cavern is somehow larger on the inside than the outside, the ceiling twenty feet above us, the distant back wall at least eighty feet away. There’s a sluggish illumination that comes from all directions with no discernible source, and stalactites pierce the Cimmerian depths. We drift to the far back, where the Swamp dead-ends onto a silty black beach.

We clamber out of the canoe and scramble away from the shore’s sharp, cliff-like edge, giving a wide berth to the long, squat monolith occupying the heart of the beach. Ancient black stone, shining a deep oily gleam. Demanding oblation.

“This is not elevated ecohorror.” Scott’s movies have infected me, and I’m on the verge of hyperventilating. “This is eldritch sacrifice and stygian exultation. That’s a goddamned altar!” I slow my breathing and find a moment of clarity. “But … it’s empty. We haven’t made any sacrifices, haven’t ransacked any ruins. The credits haven’t rolled yet. There’s still a way out of this. Right?”

Scott’s shrug is apologetic. “Scientific, supernatural – those are movies, not real life. We’re not heroes, Jacob.” His tone is one of resignation, but his face is awash with wonder. He sits with his back against the cavern wall, gesturing for me to join him. “But this is pretty cool, right? How many people get to hang out with their brother in an eldritch swamp-cave at the end of the world?” He actually means it. He grabs my hand and we’re kids again, in a tent in the backyard, protecting each other from our parents’ rage. “You still haven’t told me why you finally came back.”

Even this impossible cave can’t diminish how right it feels to be with my brother, again. “It’s actually not that exciting. My partner and I got into a fight. Nothing serious, just some dramatic nonsense. But they stormed out and went to stay with their brother for a few nights. Seeing the two of them take care of each other, in the middle of that blow-up fight, I realized that I needed you in my life. That you were worth standing up to the anxiety-monster holding me back.” It’s my turn to shrug. “Yada, yada, yada, and here I am. Simple as that.”

Scott smiles. “Best decision you made in a long time.”

For a moment it seems the gloom might be lifting. But a new voice fills the space, echoing from the walls, from the Swamp itself. “Ooh, how cute. I do love a good family reunion.” The voice is like an unholy mix of Jennifer Tilly and Tom Waits, with an electrical buzz that makes every hair stand on end. “It is nice to come home again.”

We jump to our feet, but there’s nowhere to go, and no way to be prepared for what emerges from the Swamp. The only thing I can think is giant prehistoric crocodile, but that’s a pale imitation of the awesome monstrosity in front of us. Its head is the size of a truck, its sinuous body seems to fill the entire cavern. Rivers of putrescent Swamp flow off its jagged, impossible anatomy as it surfaces. Every visible inch of the beast is armored by moss-covered scales, muddy green and darkly vibrant. It opens its jaws wide, too wide, a terrifying beartrap filled with countless rows of serrated obsidian teeth, each as large as my head. Its voice continues to roar in my mind. “I am the Primordial Mother, Consumer of Worlds!”

I gawp at Scott, unbelieving, terrified. That’s when it laughs, a deep, bellowing growl. Is that … thing … laughing at us? Something breaks in my mind, then. The beast closes itsjaws and focuses one of its giant, viciously green eyes right on us. “I’m just fucking with you. You’re sooo loud, and I just couldn’t resist. You can call me Tiamat.”

Somehow this is what breaks me from my stupor. “‘Tiamat’? Really? I find it hard to believe you’re the primordial ocean goddess that birthed all the gods and demons of ancient Mesopotamia.” What am I doing? How is being snarky to the ancient crocodile god-demon helping?

“Close enough.” She shrugs. “Names, icons, titles – just ideas, to appease your feeble minds. ‘Demons to some, angels to others,’ you know how it is.”

“We really don’t know how it is,” I manage. My hysteria won’t be denied any longer. “Did you just quote Clive Barker and shrug at us? You don’t even have shoulders! How can you shrug at us?”

She “shrugs” again. Her nonchalance is profoundly disturbing. “I simply am. You have figured out by now that you’ve stumbled into a supernatural horror movie, haven’t you? And my oh my, you’ve broken all the rules.”

Scott appears more confused than ever. Meanwhile, something is dancing on the back of my tongue, just out of reach.

Scott blunders forward, querulous. “What are you talking about? We didn’t do anything!” I can see him going through his index of horror movie tropes, trying to figure out what we did wrong, how we can fix this. “We didn’t open this temple. We didn’t desecrate anything. And that altar is empty! No sacrifices, no dark offerings!”

Tiamat smirks, all chainsaw teeth and death. “Oh, dear! Really?” Her eye rolls towards me, pinning me down. “What do you think, Jacob?” Smugly, she asks, “Have you told Scott about the gifts offered to bring about my triumphant return?”

That’s when I recognize what’s on my tongue. The smell floating on Tiamat’s breath. Burnt sugar, a black pepper spiciness, choking my sinuses.

Tiamat knows the moment I figure it out. “Exactly,” she croons. “My temple is opened, and sacred offerings of food and blood are made, sealed with fire. Yada yada, yada, and here I am!” Her poisonous grin is damning. “Maybe you didn’t say the hallowed words, and yes, you were very clumsy in making offerings. Not one made its way to my actual altar, such bad manners!” She tsks. “But the Swamp receives all. Sometimes a girl has to be flexible about these things, you know.” She purrs, a bowel-shaking rumble that brings us to our knees. “Your world? It’s my Swamp now.”

“Jacob, what’s she talking about?” Scott, pleading, turns to me for answers.

I wish I didn’t have them.

I whisper, defeatedly. “On the trail, your apple core? You threw it into the marsh, which must have been the beginnings of the Swamp.” I show him the wound on my hand, already purulent and green. “When I was getting the canoe I cut myself, deep. And then, then your roach. Remember the purple fire?”

“Oh, I do enjoy a little theatricality,” Tiamat trills.

Scott deflates as understanding crushes down on him. “Food, blood, fire,” he summarizes. “We’ve brought about the end of the world.”

“‘The end of the world!’ My, so dramatic!” Tiamat titters. “The world isn’t ending, dear. It’s being reborn. And I need heralds. Spread my glorious Swamp! This forest can’t hold me for long, and you can be my vanguard. Worship me and be rewarded. Find a home in my Worldswamp. Or drown in it.”

I shake my head. We can’t doom the world. Can we?

Tiamat rolls her giant eye. “I see you, thinking maybe you can play the hero. Don’t be foolish. Now that you have awakened my Swamp, I am inevitable.”

I look at Scott and marvel at the home I’d lost for too long, and only just now found again. My priorities are clear, and so is my resolve.

The rental car idles outside Scott’s house. He’s the one to break the thick silence. “You don’t need to stay at that hotel. Get your stuff and come back here.” I nod, still not trusting myself to speak, and he gets out. He starts to walk to his front door but pauses, turns back, and comes to my window. He leans in and presses his forehead, flushed and clammy, against mine. “I’m glad you’re home.”

He walks away, eldritch puddles blooming under every step.

S. M. Davis was born, raised and educated in New England, receiving undergraduate degrees in theater and religious studies and a Masters of Divinity in Buddhist Ministry. He is a Buddhist monk, teacher and a translator, splitting his time between India and the USA. His writing has previously appeared in Garbology: The GarbAugust Anthology of Awesome Trash (Tough Times Publishing, 2024) and CriminOlly presents Trash Tales: An Anthology of Trashy Fiction (Kilter & Rammel Publishing, 2025).

Without in any way limiting the authors’ and publisher’s exclusive rights, any unauthorised use of any part of this story to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited.

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, locations or general circumstances is entirely coincidental and/or used in a fictitious manner.

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