My Pixelated People

“Remember what we practiced,” Vlad reminds Evan as Akira beckons him to take the stand. 

Evan swallows hard. His thoughts are a jumbled mess. He wouldn’t call his session with Vlad a rehearsal, and before he could even get into any real preparation, Alice and Akira showed up and hustled him out of the office into some waiting room while they planned.

This is real. This is happening. Oh God, I’m going to die in front of an audience. 

Evan rises, knees buckling, breath stuttering, the world tilting as he takes the stand. His pulse hammers in his throat, palms slick, fingers trembling uncontrollably.

God, I can’t breathe. He could feel the Erinyes watching him. His mind felt blank, except it wasn’t. It kept repeating Jayden’s name. Don’t faint, he instructed himself. Don’t run. Hold on. Love is the only thing I have left. Please let it be enough.

The three women move as one, not quite slinking but gliding. They stop just in front of Evan’s seat and lean in close. “We would seek permission to observe our meal. To see how fresh and delicious he might be.”

Evan jerks back in his seat. His fingers gripping armrests, knuckles white, legs trembling beneath the table. 

“Objection,” Vlad huffs.

The three of them turn their heads fully around without moving their bodies. “On what grounds?”

He winks. “Actually, withdrawn. I have no grounds. We really should see how this goes. I’ll let you know if inspiration strikes me again.”

The Erinyes look furious. “That’s not how this works.”

Vlad smiles, his eyes alight with pleasure as he leans forward, putting his elbows on the table and resting his chin in his hands. “What can I say? I’m unpredictable.” He turns in his seat to look at a little girl in the front row. “Am I allowed to drink, or is alcohol frowned upon in this setting?”

She glares.

“I’ll take the silence as a sign to do what I think is best. Carry on.”

The sisters hiss their frustration, but Evan’s relief from their attention is short-lived. They turn back to him, grinning. 

“Full of blood,” Megaera says, her sharp nails dancing along the edge of Evan’s seat.

“Not enough teeth,” Alecto adds, “But we’ll make do.” She flashes her own terrifying set in a gruesome smile.

“Flesh is still flesh,” Tisiphone tsks. 

“And now,” the three say in concert, turning back to the courtroom. “Our opening—”

“What in Nyx’s tit?” Megaera growls.

Evan’s counsel is not listening to the trial. He’s pouring himself a glass of nectar and waving over a man from the audience who reluctantly comes and takes a seat beside him. Vlad pours him a glass and clinks his glass in a one-sided toast.

“Can you have an ounce of fucking decorum?” the little girl hisses as she marches over to stare Vlad down. 

“Of course,” Vlad gives her a solemn look. “Should I assume someone will be along shortly to clean this up, or is this just a live and let live sort of situation…metaphorically speaking? ”

The man beside him lets out a nervous yelp and starts casting about for some papers, but Edith snaps at him to leave it. 

“You can continue,” Edith shouts before taking her seat.  

The Erinyes share a look, but pull themselves together. “Denizens of the Netherworld, welcome. It has been a long time since we’ve had a Determined so…” They glance back at Evan and chuckle, “Determined to bargain with Death in an attempt to assuage their guilt. If our Mother Nyx were here, she would call down the light from the sky and bathe Evan in the darkness he deserves. Such suffering was wrought upon his family because of his weakness.”

“Because of his pride,” Megaera says.

“Guilt,” Alecto confirms.

“Selfishness,” Tisiphone hisses. “And we will prove it to you in three questions.”

The Erinyes smile when they turn back to face Evan, but an undercurrent of fury and a looming sense of peril surrounds them.  

“First question,” Megaera begins. “Your daughter didn’t have any experience with demons or dark things in the world. Why would you let her grow up thinking the world was safe? Why leave her so ill-equipped, so naive, so foolish?” She slams her hand down on the witness stand. “Don’t you think if you had prepared her instead of believing your family was untouchable, she might’ve sensed the danger herself?”

Evan covers his face. He knows he’s in the courtroom; he knows Alice and her partners have some kind of plan. But it doesn’t feel like that’s where he is.

He feels alone. Isolated in the dark.

“I’ll repeat the question,” Meg says. “Don’t you think if you had prepared her instead of believing your family was untouchable, she might’ve sensed the danger herself?”

Evan recoils, breath stuttering as the words spill out of him in a rush. “I…I didn’t make her naive on purpose. I wasn’t hiding demons from her.  I didn’t even know demons were real. How was I supposed to prepare her for something I didn’t know existed? I thought the danger was… normal danger. Sims danger. Things I could handle. I thought keeping her close, keeping her loved, would be enough. I wasn’t trying to make her foolish. I was trying to protect her from a world I didn’t understand.”

The moment the last word leaves him, his stomach twists. God, that sounded weak. Did I just admit ignorance? Are they going to tear me apart for that? Maybe I really did fail her. Maybe I failed everyone.

“Question number two,” Tisiphone says. She smiles and then pauses, as if a thought has just occurred to her. “It’s so curious. How did you even come to know of this ritual?”

Evan stiffens, throat closing around a sound he barely swallows. His voice comes out thin and uneven. “I didn’t go searching for forbidden knowledge or anything like that. I just… I heard about an ancient ritual from my—” 

He cuts himself off so abruptly it’s almost a choke. “I mean, from someone. Somewhere. It wasn’t… it wasn’t a clear source, just a story, a rumor, something desperate people cling to.” His fingers curl hard against his knees, eyes darting anywhere but the Erinyes. “I didn’t know if it was real. I didn’t know if any of this was real. I just—when Jayden…. I grabbed onto anything that sounded like hope. That’s all. That’s how I found it.”

“Evan, tell us. Were you not warned of the dangers? Were you not told to stay out of matters of life or death? Told not to interfere? And yet, you did it anyway because you wanted to undo your mistake. You want your husband, though fate has seen fit to do something else. You seek to withhold his soul from the God of Death and keep it for yourself. Why so selfish?”

Evan’s breaths came out shallow, shoulders curling inward as if the question was physically pressing him down.  His voice comes out rough, uneven. “I… I was warned,” he admits, the words pouring out of him. “Chris told me not to interfere. He told me reapers can’t cross those lines, that death has rules, that you don’t … you don’t get to pull someone back once they’re gone.”

His fingers tighten as he grips his hair in clumps, trembling. “I knew the rule. I knew it. But I still had to try.” 

He swallows hard, eyes burning, guilt twisting deep in his chest. “I wasn’t trying to steal a soul or defy a god. I made a mistake; I should have listened to Jayden when he tried to warn us. He did everything he could to protect us. I couldn’t let Jayden go without trying. I owed him that. I thought love had to count for something. I thought if I didn’t try, then that would be the real selfish thing.” 

His voice breaks, barely holding together. “I wasn’t trying to take him from anyone. I was just trying to fix what I’d done.”

And in his head, everything spirals at once: God, Chris warned me. He warned me, and I still did it. What if I dragged him into more trouble, too? What if I ruined everything? 

Alecto is last. “Why did you convince your husband that his feelings didn’t matter?” she asks. Her voice is sure, understated, almost quiet, but her words cut deep. “Jayden worried for your daughter, did he not? He sensed the danger, but you convinced him otherwise. Why?”

Evan’s breath stutters, shame hitting him so hard he almost folds in on himself. His fingers tighten on the stand, trembling. “I… I didn’t convince him his feelings didn’t matter,” he starts, but the words crack immediately. “I just, oh God, I thought he was wrong. I thought he was… jealous.” 

His voice shakes harder. “She was growing up. She had a boyfriend. She wasn’t our little girl anymore, and I thought Jayden was struggling with that. I thought he was afraid of losing her, not sensing danger. I thought he was reading too much into things because he wasn’t ready for her to grow up.”

He swallows, guilt twisting deep. “I thought he was creating danger that wasn’t there. I thought he was being overprotective. I thought—” His voice breaks. “I thought I knew better.”

A beat. A breath. A collapse.

“I should’ve listened. I should’ve trusted what his empathy was telling him. He felt something I didn’t. He knew something was wrong. And I …  I dismissed him. I made him doubt himself.”

His eyes burned, his chest felt tight. His guilt was suffocating him. God, I did that. I made him feel unheard. I made him feel small. If I'd listened, if I’d trusted him, maybe none of this would’ve happened…Jayden, I’m sorry.

Megaera slips onto the desk and crosses her legs. “The prosecution rests.”