Judith tilted her chin. Smirked up at Michael. Her eyes, in combination with her eyelids and eyebrows stared a look of distain. Turned toward the counter in a huff. Showed her tank top back to the tall, black haired boy.

Judith knew who the Leonards were. The ruling political class. They were people who hated the likes of her and the people like her who had the mark of the poor district. Had a tattoo of a small dollar sign on the back of her neck to prove it. A sign of someone less than a slave. The bare life treatment the ruling class afforded them. Judith was a Zoe. Homo Sacer. And the Leonards didn't govern people. They took advantage of them. She wasn't even disposable to them. That would require a place to throw the waste away. She wasn't considered a full human being to the Leonards.

"I'm not with them, Judith. I haven't talked to my family or my previous fucked up community in years. Those assholes are toxic for this city and everyone in it. They're the sum total of the worst kind of human garbage. They're back stabbing megalomaniacs who only care about maintaining their class with their boots on the throats of everyone else. I wish I wasn't related to them. Now, can you turn around so that I can talk to your face? Though, I am enjoying this sweet, rump side of you as well."

Judith's reflex temper swiftly swung her body around to punch Michael in the face. Stopped just before connecting her hard fist with his temple. Michael didn't flinch. Instantly had a knife close to Judith's throat. They stared at each other like statues placed in a basement halted by the air between them. Witnessed the gravity of unmovable stone eyes. Paralyzed by essence. Something happened between them. Judith noticed worlds in him. Worlds witnessed in worlds of her. As if the gravity of his eyes reached out and touched her soul. His green orbs glistened with the memory of a feeling that had no place in her existence.

A blurry song filled with psychedelia melted into and echoed off the background of the violent moment. Judith's gaze began falling into his emerald city, starlit heavens. Michael, who also saw the green as waves trying to crash against him, began swimming in her emerald sea. These places contoured their thoughts to the point where the sky met the water. A fever. They were there. In a memory that neither could remember. Made love above and below the beach and tide of an ocean in some other lifetime. Her and him within the shallow, stormy clear green water of themselves. They were both wrapped together in the glitch storm sea. Both realized one another in the memory of Judith laying by the water of the mire.

All motion had long since ceased and the song's external sound became internal for them. Took over the atmosphere of their minds. The music which filled them from the living room was of a troubled psychedelic guitar. Ominous reverb smothered drums. The Jefferson Airplane flew Today upon the chime of a tambourine. Living room smoke of many inhales and exhales surrounded the enchanted Leonard and Factory girl. Skinny. Pale. Breathed like a hotbox. Smoke sucked the airiness out of the kitchen. Replaced it with a giddy heat. Haze floated like fog upon the many bottles waiting to be turned into shards of glass. And still, the factory girl and the Leonard stared into each other's eyes. Watched for movement. Stunned into curiosity. Witnessed each other. Over and over upon the crashing waves of the sea and sky of their minds.

Eventually, the external world managed a tether of continuation. Molecules that passed between them halted. Judith and Michael became their own and only existence. Death of inner intuition within a slowly released strangle. Allowed the moments of green eyes captured by green eyes. Breathed the same resuscitating air. Individuality lost like an acid trip. A lost soul found within another. Their shadows fucked while they watched each other's countenance.

Michael slowly, magically made his knife disappear. Judith lowered her arm. Brushed Michael's cheek with her fingers as her hand fell. Placed her other palm on his cheek. Rubbed his bottom lip with her thumb. Michael took her hand in his. Clasped her fingers within his fingers. Fit her like a velvet glove. Continued staring into the depths of each other's eyes. Finally, Judith spoke.

"What kind of spell are you?"

"I'm under your spell, Judith. A spell under the thumb of a spell. Whatever that was. Whatever this is. I want more."

Their shadows continued fucking. Silhouette moaning.

Judith nodded. Clasped a bottle of vodka from the counter. Brought her hand back up to his mouth. Kissed. Sucked each finger.

The two strangers walked out the back door of the party house. Judith lead the way into the chilly night. Exit was swift. Effortless. Silently walked down the wooden deck stairs. Tiny creaks of loose nails in worn wood.

Judith heard Pat talking to a girl in the shadows of the backyard. When the two passed the hidden conversation, Patricia noticed them. Peered through the darkness at their direction. Pat ran after Judith. Grabbed her shoulder. Turned her around. Looked at Michael. Saw Judith's face. Released her gel nail grip. Nodded.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Judith. You know who he is?"

"I think I might, more than anyone here."

Pat conjured a curious look. Nodded again. Kissed her forehead. Judith's best friend turned. Walked back to the girl in the shadows. Judith recognized Pat's girl. Janice. Naked. Waiting for Patricia.

Michael placed his arm around Judith's shoulder. The Factory girl held both her hands in his along with the bottle. The two walked toward the high cracked wooden fence encompassing the lawn. Left through a shambled, rotted gate. Landscape behind the house was that of a small forest archipelago surrounded by concrete and asphalt. Quiet streets and olden brick buildings.

Before them was a path, that in the darkness, had the suspicious quality of a corridor built of the bent arms and curled fingers of elm trees. There were no street lights to expose the depths of the wilderness before them. Barely any moonlight.

Judith and Michael entered the tenebrosity of the wood. Held each other close. Slowly walked. Watched. Felt each other's hands. Faces. Contours of flesh covered by cloth. Came to a bench hidden in a nook of the little forest path. Michael sat down on the wooden form. Judith straddled him. The two began making out like every lifetime and timeline crossed paths through their passion. Her lips weren't just her lips. His tongue wasn't just his tongue. Their bodies weren't just their bodies. They were the intuitions and the antinomies.

The song and its crashing tambourine which roamed within them at the house played again. Now. In the darkness like a fog of shadows hidden within each other. They were passionate with their lips upon lips. Kissed. Nibbled away the flesh of the world around them and the worlds beyond them.

Their focused intensity moaned. Reverberated through every manufactured simulation. Their love made the eye at the bottom of the mire open again. Vigorously look for them.

The giant shark tooth in Jane's vertex upon the underwater pit fell away. Jane's end was no longer in the jaws of the megalodonic. Her skull disappeared. Rist didn't lose her lover to the Slaughter House beast. The tooth floated down the pit and pierced into the hardened muck. Its movement broke the webbing film from around it and exposed the carved words that had been sliced into it. "Jane was here."

The dark forest calmed its sun burnt charcoal screams. Cooled back into a hollow, curled root existence. Fires extinguished. Old Sol calmed and let the sky sleep.

The mirror portal in the dark forest reversed and was no longer shattered. Glittered. Glowed.

Every infinity mirror in the masturbation room wobbled with the reverberation coming from the two who only existed once.

The house at the bottom of the lake bubbled to the surface. Water portal within glowed green in the dull, cloudy hemisphere of dust and border tree graveyards.

Skeleton art pieces outside the crushed home within the living dark forest of Jane's memory began to converse with each other in their dead languages.

The floating ice world below the snow shifted. Shuddered. Had an awareness. Something outside their world. Every creature felt, for a moment, the shadow of a shadow fucking on the walls like an allegory.

The first reality took notice of movement from the scanners installed everywhere in the mire. City officials began sending their scientists and soldiers into the marsh, just in case someone they dearly missed was about to wake up. Someone whom they were anticipating might eventually resurrect. Resurrect as what? A saviour? A nightmare? They couldn't really know.

Michael touched Judith's belly. Bellybutton. Her ribs. Judith pulled off her tight little tank top. Let Michael feel her bare breasts. Cupped and held her nipples between his fingers. Lightly squeezing. Just enough for Judith to moan. Michael removed his shirt. Embraced Judith. Hugged her like he finally found her. She touched his chest. Washboard abs. Strong arm muscles. Kissed his neck. Situated her breasts against his torso.

Judith felt a warm, wet drop land on her shoulder. Clasped Michael's cheeks to find his eyes in the night. He was crying. Michael Leonard was crying.

"What are we, Judith?"

"Together, my man."

They ravenously tasted each others kiss. Chins and lips and cheeks. Nipples touched nipples.

Judith, laying by the mire, also began to weep.

The trees swayed with a calm but firm wind floating through the autumn branches of the lifetime of lifetimes. A raven sat on a branch and watched the two creatures hold each other like youth in the overflow of eternity. It was the only avian dinosaur that noticed their eyes were glowing green. Haunted the bench. About to preform a ceremony of life. In the face of the raven, the green reflection from the two below became brighter and brighter until it was the raven's eyes that were glowing emerald like a flying monkey trapped in the city of Oz. Green spectacles grew out of its face. Like an angel in Heaven.

Judith pushed Michael onto his back upon the form bench. Swung her leg over and stood up to untie her shoes. Discarded them. Unbuttoned her jeans. Pulled them down. Kicked them off at her ankles. In that time, Michael had stripped to reveal his erect sculpture to her wet loins. She accidentally hit his penis with her bare foot as she swung her leg back over him. Mounted him. Guided his sculpture into her. Moved her ass up and down as he moved in and out to the endless song of their bodies colliding and their music in the moans of what they were singing. She rode him for a time as their sex became faster and faster. The pleasure climaxed. Michael edged. Sat up. Pulled Judith onto her back. Mounted her in the missionary position. Lifted her legs above his shoulders and pressed into her. Slipped ferociously in and out. Sucked her big toe. Every toe. Licked her heel. Slapped his pelvis against her crotch, over and over.

She looked into his eyes. There it was. That twinkle. That spark. That life that they never had. It existed as an ounce of happiness within them like an apparitional memory.

Michael's sculpture imbedded perfectly. Touched exactly the right spot over and over. Rammed her innards faster and faster. Judith lost control of her body. Grafenberg spot exploded. Moan screamed into the night. Michael pulled out of her at his last moment. Sprayed semen upon her stomach and ribs. She tasted the drops that shot onto her lips. Salty sweet.

He collapsed onto her. Held her for dear life. Wrapped her arms and legs around him. Breathed heavily. Cried tears of pleasure and joy for what just happened. Knowledge of being thoroughly found by someone who was like her own shadow. Judith's shadow.

Opened her eyes. Witnessed behind Michael. Two green glowing eyes stared back at her. They seemed familiar. She didn't know why.

Judith sat up. Held him. Fingers through his long soft black hair. He smelt like words. He smelt like God.

They kissed. Made out again. Touched her nethers. Ravenous for his sculpture again. Slid off the bench. Stood. Let him witness her nudity in the midnight. Bent over. Ass in the air.

"Come catch me, my man. Chase me. Come be a wild animal with me."

Judith climbed into the woods. Away from the path. Michael immediately pursued. She laughed. He howled. Continued the ceremony in the wilderness and weather within them.

  ~~~~~~~

Judith sits up from the memory. Notices her loins are moist. The rest of her body's dry compared to the warmth between her legs. Been crying as well. Many thoughts slip through her plethoric mind. Talks to herself. To whatever might be listening in the mire.

"Michael, are you my shadow? Have you forever been? Have you always been standing beside me? How? I've never recollected feeling this way before. Not ever in my death-ish life until the memory of you as you were. Made everything else disappear. I love you. I think I've always loved you. But you're the bone saw man. How did you become that from this...this feeling I've never known or remembered? You feel like I'm home. Oh god...what happened to you? What am I going to do?"

The memories from the revenants expand past the first moment that Judith met Michael. Figures there's so much more to remember. Knows that a certain particular avenue of knowledge will lead to her beginnings. Explanations. The tattoo on her neck.

Judith stands. Brushes dirt and bluegrass off her back and ass. Flicks a ladybug off of her breast. Smirks to herself. Thoughts on the distant dystopian city are that she already knows where it's located from where she currently situates. Remembers the visions concerning Jane. Begins sauntering through the muck. Soft grass of the nighttime wetland. Takes her time because she has a lot of memories to mull over.

                                 ~~~~~~~

Michael sat against a tree and held Judith in his lap. Caressed her hair. Listened to her breath. She listened to his heart. Felt his arms around her like a warmth she had never had in her life.

"How do we know each other, Michael? When have we ever travelled together in this life to warrant this exact moment? Why do I feel like we're meant to be and always been?"

"I don't know, Judith. It's beyond my comprehension. All I really know is that I'm yours and I will live and die for you. I have never known contentment mixed with extreme excitement before. You are a wonder."

Kissed his palm. Could eat it.

"You've made my cheeks rosy. I could smell your odour for the rest of my life, my man. My sweet man. But I've known horrors, Michael. I've lived through them and I hope that my mind doesn't damage yours. But I want to know about you. If you're not a true Leonard, then what faction of family are you?"

"Oh, Judith. I'm a scientist and an inventor. What I said about realities being made of other realities, well, I've stumbled upon something. You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

A moment of quiet. Dead space silenced wilderness.

"I haven't the will to not take your word as true at the moment. I don't believe you're lying to me about how you feel, so I can't help but believe that what you'll say now would ever be taken as a fabrication."

Michael smiled. Kissed her dry, perspired forehead, just where her skin met her disheveled, grey green copper hair. Let his lips linger to catch a taste of Judith. Sighed at her fragrance. She smelt of autumn spice and dark roast coffee. To Michael, she was like a divine morning. A treasured day.

"I created another world. A manufactured simulation of this world. There is a portal in my lab that enters into it. I've been there, physically. It's a bit different than this place. And I know this because I know that I don't exist there. Other people who I'm friends with, do. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?"

"No, Michael. It actually makes some kind of sense. How else could we know each other's ways when we've only just said hello? And what if you aren't the only Michael Leonard to invent such a thing? How do you know this place isn't also a manufactured simulation of something else? How do you know that this place isn't a simulation of a simulation?"

Michael had no response to Judith's questions. Her suspicious inquisitiveness made him fall even more in love with her. When a sword meets a whetstone, the world itself can be cut.

"Holy fuck, Judith. I'm going to lose my mind with you around. I can't wait!"

Michael and Judith held each other until the sun climbed upon the revolution of the planet. They both got up. Scratched from tree branches. Bruised from trunks and ground. Walked their slivery barefoot steps together. Held hands. Helped each other through the archipelago wilderness all the way back to the bench. The path. All their clothes were missing.

"Oh, fuck."

Judith had an inkling of where their belongings had gone.

"We're going to have to walk out of this forest and meet up with the jerks who're waiting for us where we came in. I think it's you they'll want to get a piece of, my man. I know you can take care of yourself because I've seen your knife, but let me hand out the punishment, if you don't mind."

"As you wish, Judith."

"I'm not a prince's bride. I'm a hateful, dangerous woman of The Factory. And if they don't know, motherfuckers are about to find out."

Held hands as they came to the end of the path, which was the beginning a few hours ago. Old Sol had risen above the buildings around them. Exited the forest. Light and the heat felt soothing. Michael kissed her shoulder. Positioned behind her.

Four tall men closed in on them from the backyard fence of the party house. One of them held their clothes and was laughing. The others mimicked him like dogs. He did the speaking.

"Well, Michael Leonard. You're a piece of shit and we're gonna send you back to your own people in a body cast. Now come out from behind your slave slut and take your beating, asshole."

Judith held Michael back with her hands. Moved forward, closer to the four men. Realized that they didn't recognize her, but she knew who the little shits were.

"You'll have to go through me, Motherfuckers. If you try, I'll break all four of you."

"Sure, I can do that. Break me slut. Bend me backward and break me in. You're dressed for it."

The man who held the clothes dropped the articles and stepped on them as he walked toward Judith. Another man smashed Judith's vodka bottle. A weapon. Judith became even more furious.

When the mouthy leader took a swing at Judith's face, she swiftly moved aside and tripped him. His face smashed against the morning ground. The Factory girl jumped on his back and elbowed him in his temple numerous times. He tried to get up off of his stomach. She hit him so hard, his skull caved in. Killed him instantly.

The man with the broken bottle tried to stab Judith but missed. She jumped away from the dead body. The motion of the man's cutting ended up sticking the sharp glass into the neck of their dead leader, making it look like he just killed his friend. Judith swiftly swung her leg around and connected her heel with his nose, breaking it into an extremely unnatural position. The man screamed and fell on his back. Cried and swore as blood spurted like a water fountain from his nose.

One of the other two men who was watching the annihilation of his friends, spoke in a slightly nervous tone.

"Oh shit. You're Terra Coal's sister, Judith. Oh, fuck. I'm so sorry. Um..."

He picked up Judith and Michael's clothing. Quickly walked over to them. Nervously handed back their belongings. Kneeled on the ground. The final man turned. Ran into the backyard of the party house.

Judith and Michael smiled at each other as they dressed. Walked away from the three Factory men. Entered the backyard through the rotting gate. Michael pushed Judith against the gray wooden fence. Ferociously kissed her. Became heated again for a long moment. Touched each other until caresses became fondling. Michael took a long inhale of her scent.

"Judith Coal. You are amazing."