Tatum Laliberte:

1. It Never Ends… – Inclusive Prize winner

2. Author’s Note

Jade Wimbish:

1. No Breaks

Kayla Waszak:

1. Tiny Dragon Slayer

2. XIII

Caitlyn George:

1. The Last Dog Standing

2. Author’s Note

Grief is a relentless roller coaster, a ride with no exit. It shapes you in profound ways, you never forget the memory of those you’ve lost deep into your soul. The unpredictability of life’s fragility is a haunting reminder – you never truly know when it’s someone’s final day, and how quickly it can all slip away. Losing loved ones shatter us into a million pieces, and in their absence, you count the days without them. Six months, three years, six years, seven years, ten years, twenty-four years – the passage of time only accentuates the void they left behind. On good days, you find joy in memories, cherishing the happiness they brought into life. grateful those moments happened, but the next moment, tears rolling down onto the ground, a reminder of the relentless pain that never goes away. Saying goodbye is a wound that never fully heals. And even when you manage to utter those words, it never feels like enough. The unspoken sentiments and the unfinished conversations linger, a testament to the love that endures even in the face of eternal goodbyes.

I climb the tree, reaching so high above a canopy of mostly barren branches, that I swear I can stick my hand out and touch the bright white stars. Into a world where birds sitting in their nests become dragons, and this tree is a tower belonging to a stone castle. The cardinals breathe fire, and I remain unburnt. My own breath coming out in frosty puffs. A tiny wooden sword tucked into my belt.

I am flying within the clouds, a harsh winter gust of wind making me wrap my arms tightly around the trunk. I’m reaching for stars and scaling the walls of a great castle to slay dragons. My older brother climbs up after me, eager to see the fantastical world I described above. Heartbeat racing against my chest with excitement.

My fingers are cold, cheeks red, and bitten, but none of that matters because I finally get to show someone my favorite secret. Finally convinced him to come outside and pay me some attention. Escaping the orange burn of lights and loud carried voices of our parents, arguing again. I move quickly, an expert from memorizing my handholds and the best places to drag myself up. I’m at least a foot shorter than him.

“There’s nothing here,” he says. His face falling with disappointment.  Light brown curls falling over into his green eyes as he shakes his head. Looking, but not seeing.

I pinch his forearm through the layers of his jacket and point up to the stars. Setting myself down on the branch beside him. Both of our weights make it dip. Up here is everything. There are no rules, no parents, and no school. Up here is the sweet perfume of pine and freedom.

“Yes, there is,” I insist, “Open your eyes and see.”

When a person dies, in those very first moments, the heart stops. It seizes all electrical activity from the sinoatrial node to the atrioventricular node. The heart does not contract again. Blood flow seizes to the brain, vital organs, and extremities. After thirty minutes that blood pools to the bottom of the body due to gravity. The hands and feet turn blue, the temperature drops. After twelve hours full rigor mortis sets in.

I’ve seen death. I’ve known death my entire life without ever meeting it myself. Death is constant and the only event that is one hundred percent certain in life. Everything that lives must die. The same way every story must come to an end. Nothing is forever. Make peace with death now, or you will live your entire life in fear of the certainty that is the unknown.

I was eight the first time I Googled what happens when a person dies. I wasn’t looking for an answer about heaven or hell, but that’s certainly what I found. So much debate over belief that made my child mind spin. I just wanted to know what happened to the body. Like what really happens? Surely, you don’t stay stiff and powdered forever. Smelling heavily of flowers.

I Googled it again when I was twelve. Came across a documentary and some random explorer showed the world what a decomposing body looked like in different stages. Now, I get to spend the rest of my life thinking about all the stages. Every time I lose someone, and a certain time period goes off, my mind likes to tell me what they look like in that stage. Two hours, twenty-four hours, seven days, three months, eight months, a year.

The endless tic of time along with every obsessive thought, that is a constant reminder that death will come a knocking whenever he chooses.

My first enemy was a dog.

There was a time when I was younger, and my grandmother had five Miniature Pinschers. They loved to run and roam, bark and growl. My mother, grandparents, and I all had our favorites out of the bunch. Grandpa preferred Fritz and Duke, the youngest and oldest brothers of the three puppies, and the two biggest. It sometimes felt like an injustice to refer to Fritz as a ‘mini’ anything as he was twice the size of any of the other dogs. My mother took a liking to Mitzi, the mom of the three pups. I sometimes think it was mostly because her collar was blue, her favorite color, that my mother liked Mitzi most. I see now it might have been Mitzi’s gentle disposition that had drawn my mother to her; they had much in common. I adored the middle brother, Tiny. His name suited him in that he was indeed the smallest height-wise. However, it also betrayed him because he was the chubbiest of all the dogs. I liked his jolly nature, never one to bite or snarl at anyone. I swear he used to smile, front teeth crooked and tongue haphazardly slung on his bottom lip, eyes glossy and admiring.

Then there was Coco, my first foe. He was a mean thing, always snarling at me when I approached and never seeming to warm up, even as we grew together. My grandmother loved that dog like he was the son she never had. Coco was the father of the three pups and the first of the ‘Min Pins,’ as they were referred to by us, to come into the family. I cannot recall when I encountered Coco for the first time, nor when my disdain for him blossomed. It could have been the time he bit me. Then there was the time he tripped me. The times he stole food off my plate when I wasn’t looking. That last one happened so often that I started walking around the house with my food, never leaving it unattended again.

What I do know for certain is I spent an entire childhood hating that dog.

Gradually, over the years, the poor pups began to pass. The first to go was Fritz. He died in 2015, and we all mourned him like we had lost a family member because, in some ways, we had. My grandfather cried; my grandmother held him. I understood love for a few seconds. Then it started to rain, and we all went inside the house, where all but one dog stayed uncharacteristically silent as the door slammed behind me.

“Shut up!” my grandfather screamed at Coco as he yapped until my grandmother picked him up and held him like he was a baby in need of consoling. I understood fear. I could see it in my grandmother’s eyes that stayed fixed on my grandfather as he fumed. There was the time he had kicked Coco in a rage over his barking, and my grandmother never forgave him. I could see it in the distrust creasing on her face as she stared at her husband, glasses glinting off the overhead light, making her eyes unreadable.

He turned on me.

“And hold that damn door next time!” With that, my grandfather stormed off, down into the depths of the basement where he goes to grieve. Or drink. I never saw him cry again.

All the dogs have died but one. My mother called a week ago to inform me Tiny had passed away. It was a dull pain, what I felt when she told me, like the ache in your back that grows steadily after you’ve been slouching for too long. I inquired about Coco.

Alive and doing better than when you visited. I sighed, and we hung up.

There was the time after my grandmother passed away on a dreary fall afternoon in 2018 when we thought for sure that Coco would be the first of the four Min Pins left, to go. I had supposed he’d be unable to live without her and die of a broken heart, assumptions not solely reserved for the dog. We were wrong. Though I hated him in my youth, that ornery old hound means a great deal to me in my adulthood. He’s a decrepit and crusty reminder of the persistence and perseverance of love. Coco cannot see, he cannot hear, and he can barely walk. But he can feel. He can bark. He can smell. Despite his losses, he finds a reason to wake up and live another day. He’s been doing a lot better as of late.