Heyyyyyy….so no update today for a few reasons —
- I was supposed to spend about an hour yesterday sketching out the next few days of the story (I have the important events organized by date, and then I go in to fill in character beats and details) but then I ended up watching the end of the Taylor Swift Eras Tour Doc. No regrets, except —
- This leaves me with just what I have of Wednesday, Sep 25 left to write which is 1 part — which means I need to do a lot of work today because —
- Tomorrow’s a busy day. I have a few errands in the morning, and an appointment at 3 which means —
- I have get certain things done — and my prep for work next week and the rest of January comes first, so —
- I don’t have a lot of time to guarantee I have enough planned to write this week. In conclusion –
- I’d rather miss a Sunday, give you guys a peace offering, use that hour to plot the next few days, and update tomorrow.
So my peace offering!
Out of the Woods, my 2007 serial killer flash fiction series rewrite (Watch Me Burn) was the OG Fall 2025 plan, but it never got off the ground for a lot of reasons (schedule, illness, priority issues).
BUT I did write the new prologue. Enjoy and see you back here tomorrow!
Prologue
Remember when you hit the brakes too soon?
Twenty stitches in a hospital room
When you started crying, baby I did too
But when the sun came up I was looking at you
Remember when we couldn’t take the heat?
I walked out, I said, “I’m setting you free”
But the monsters turned out to be just trees
When the sun came up you were looking at me
– Out of the Woods, Taylor Swift
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Port Charles Courthouse: Court Room
She’d always known it would come down to this.
From the moment Elizabeth Spencer had received the subpoena to testify for the special prosecutor in The State of New York versus Jason Morgan, she knew that she’d be asked about her past with Jason.
The scandalous love affair she’d never denied when she was eighteen and the whole world knew he’d been staying in her art studio for weeks.
The sweet friendship that had long ago crossed the line from platonic to intimate and had never gone back.
The secret she’d carried so deep that it had imprinted itself in every breath she took, every word she spoke —
She’d expected to be interrogated about her bias and the nature of her relationship with the defendant —
And if it had been any other prosecutor on the other side of the aisle, it likely would have stayed at that level. She’d have said they were close friends who’d dated briefly but who had moved on to other relationships.
But it was Ric Lansing standing in the well of the courtroom, with the dark eyes and smile that she’d once found so charming she’d married him twice before she’d accepted that there was nothing beneath that slick smile worth loving.
He was a deeply insecure man who had never forgiven the first woman in his life for not choosing him. He’d never accepted that his mother had been given an impossible choice from a cold, unfeeling villain. Choose, Trevor had told Adela, choose between your unborn child and the one who has no one else in the world but you.
And since he’d learned of that terrible choice, rather than feeling sympathy for the woman who’d had so little happiness in her life, Ric had blamed the boy she’d chosen. He’d grown up with hatred in his heart, and little room for anything—or anyone—else.
Jason had the misfortune of being chosen twice by those who had discarded Ric. Sonny had no need for a brother with Jason in the picture, and though Elizabeth had given him chance after chance — he’d always suspected that she was still in love with Jason.
Now, finally, standing in front of her, Ric had his chance at revenge.
And he knew enough to destroy them all.
“So I have to ask, Mrs. Spencer, is it possible that Jason Morgan, the man on trial for the murder of Lorenzo Alcazar, is the father of your little boy?”
Her testimony was already a nightmare. She’d been forced to admit that night a year ago, when she’d found comfort in Jason’s arms, when emotions she’d locked away ages ago had burst free, refusing to be denied again. Her husband, Lucky, sitting in the gallery, his eyes burning with anger — she’d needed to drop her gaze to her lap, to the fingers clenched so tightly that her knuckles were white, her fingers nearly numb, the nails biting into her palm.
Couldn’t look at Lucky, the husband she no longer loved and had betrayed with lies for months. If she told the truth, it could send him crawling back to the pill addiction he’d fought so hard to escape.
Couldn’t look at Jason, the man she’d never stopped loving and whom she’d also betrayed with lies for months, whose heart she’d broken by asking for the unthinkable — to let another man raise their son — if she told the truth, everyone would know she’d lied.
Everyone would know how weak she was.
“Mrs. Spencer? We’re waiting.”
Oh, God, what would she do? Tell the truth and destroy the world? Tell a lie and protect her fragile life for another day?
Another lie.
What was one more when she’d told a million? When every piece of her existence was false, what would another untruth really matter? Jason would expect her to lie so he wouldn’t be disappointed.
He didn’t expect her to tell the truth. Why would he? He never did. Because she never had.
Except when her life was on the line. When she was standing on a precipice, with nothing but darkness stretched out as far as she could see.
Life or death.
Wasn’t that what was on the line right now? Tell the truth and be free of the dread. To be free of wondering when her carefully constructed castle of sand would crumble.
Tell the lie and live another day to worry. To lie awake in terror, in misery, in unhappiness.
Life or death—
“Your Honor, can you instruct the witness to answer—”
“Yes.”
Her answer was so soft, her gaze still trained on her hands that it was nearly inaudible.
But the judge had heard it. “Mrs. Spencer, please speak up so we can all hear you.”
There was still a chance to take it back, to play it off as a mumble, but the relief that had flooded her when she’d spoken the truth — it was dizzying, it was lightness —
It was freedom.
And she was ready to find out what it felt like to be free.Â
Elizabeth raised her head slowly, the tears staining her cheeks, still clinging to her lashes. She met Ric’s gaze, took a deep breath. “Can you repeat the question?”
Ric furrowed his brow, tipped his head to the side, his smile fading, his lips pulling the corners of his mouth inward until his expression was pinched. “Is Jason Morgan the father of your youngest son?”
The words were no longer spoken with that touch of scandalous intrigue, and he was no longer the gleeful man with a secret only he knew. He wanted her to lie. He expected her to lie.
Of course he did. How many lies had she told him over the years, promising to forgive him, to believe him, to love him —
How many lies had she told Lucky since his return from Cassadine captivity? Promising that their love was still as true, as sweet, as real as it had been when they’d been teenagers, dreaming of their futures.
How many lies had she told Jason? That she didn’t want him, that she wanted to remain with Lucky, that he would be the better father for their son?
How many lies had she told her precious children? Promising that this time, it would be different. That this home would be forever.
How many lies had she told herself, pretending to be happy? Playing the role of Lucky’s girlfriend, his wife, his partner — performing the love she no longer felt, and for what?
What had her lies ever earned her?
Maybe it was time to see what truth could do.
Elizabeth drew a deep breath, looked at Jason briefly, long enough to see the lick of surprise, of maybe panic in his expression because he knew what she was about to do —
And let herself find Lucky in the audience and realized he already knew. That her delay in answering had told the story and even if she denied it now, he’d never believe her.
Maybe he’d understand one day. Maybe he’d forgive her.
But it was time to stop building her world around what Lucky Spencer would or would not do.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said finally. “Jason Morgan is the biological father of my son.”
Port Charles University: Main Quad
They were the brightest lights he’d ever seen, the glow radiating from their figures illuminated the shadows around them, the laughter in their eyes, rippling through their bodies, their smiles a beam of perfection that could power the entire university campus—
When the world was dark, when the clouds that had lingered throughout his life threatened to swallow him whole, he always drifted towards the bright lights, the shining, burning streaks of purity and goodness rarer than a gemstone. You couldn’t become a bright light, God knows, he’d tried that over and over again, aiming for perfection at every turn.
No, you couldn’t earn that brightness, you could only admire it from afar, reflect on its light, on the way it sparkled, little bits and pieces cascading onto those around them, a temporary moon orbiting a star.
He liked to watch them, these perfect lights, liked to imagine that if he could just stand near enough to them that some of those sparks might find their way to him, creating day when there had only been night.
He never turned down an opportunity to visit the campus at Port Charles University, not since the beginning of the summer when the student population had dwindled until only the most devoted students had remained — he’d seen them one day in early June, walking out of the student center —
The blonde with her warm brown eyes and friendly smile, the brunette with curls that spilled over her shoulders in wild spirals that sometimes bounced when she laughed. They stopped at the bottom of the steps, smiling at him, with their sweet voices asking if he needed any help, if he was lost, looking for someone—
He came every week now, learning their routine. Every Wednesday, they went to the student cafeteria, bought lunch, and came out to eat in the sunshine. He didn’t need to talk to them, to even be that close — their light was visible from anywhere on the quad — standing at the arts building, the student building, or the library — he could go anywhere and not be noticed.
And maybe he would have been content with just watching them, at observing the warmth they brought to the world, the small joy it brought to his day, but on this day, on this Wednesday—
They weren’t alone.
He’d been watching them, standing by the doors at the student center as the girls took their usual table in the shadow of the trees, the blonde sipping a soda, the brunette twirling her finger in one of her coiled curls. And he hadn’t heard the door open behind him —
He stumbled forward, a heavy weight against his back pushing on his center of gravity. He grunted and spun to confront his attacker—
Only to hear the hurried apology as a young man — though he barely looked old enough to qualify for the label — lumbered down the stairs, spindly and lanky, awkwardly carrying a messenger bag slung across his thin chest, his hands tugging at the beanie cap pulled over messy brown hair.
The boy hadn’t even properly apologized, hadn’t even had the decency to look him in the eye. To notice him. Because if he had —
He might have realized the mistake he’d made, the insult he’d caused.
But not this boy. He was hurrying towards the tables under the trees — and he sat down next to the girls, the sparks flickering, sliding over the boy’s figure, enveloping him in the light he hadn’t earned. That wasn’t his to enjoy—
But that was Damien Spinelli at his core — an intruder who barreled into someone’s life, stealing everything they’d earned. And he knew the girls, that was clear from their smiles, from the conversation that flowed.
Damien Spinelli didn’t deserve to sit among them as an equal — a lick of panic crawled up his spine. Could Spinelli hurt the girls? Hurt the light? Dim their shine?
No, they had to be protected. The light had to be preserved. Spinelli would be easy to dispose of — he ought to have done it long ago — but this betrayal, this degradation of their worth — it was troubling. Could the girls not see what they were doing to themselves? The filth that threatened to destroy the beauty they brought to the world?
Maybe they didn’t deserve the light either. If they couldn’t be trusted to protect it, to nurture, to only illuminate those who were worthy — maybe he could take it for himself.
Could he absorb the light? You couldn’t earn it, no, but maybe you could take it into yourself — transfer it —
That’s what he should do. That’s what was needed. If the girls couldn’t protect themselves, couldn’t protect the warmth they brought to the world, he’d have to do it for them. They were too weak, too fragile to take responsibility. He’d be doing them a favor.
Certainty settled in, and his frustration eased. He understood now his purpose in his life and why he’d been given a gift no one else seemed to possess — he could see the lights because it was his duty to protect it, to watch it, and if necessary, take it for himself.
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