program

1. Elijah Pines - Business Not So Usual - Two warriors must ascend the Conpany Inc business complex, and take total control. 2 min 13 sec

2. Amber Payne - Compliance - A girl who sides with police brutality and anti-Black racism is haunted by a ghost from her past, all while in conflict with her mother. 11 min 24 sec

3. Dominic Turan - A Helping Hand - A young man on a desolate planet is visited by a group of interesting entities. 1 min 36 sec

4. Gabe Bell, Olivia Manno, Kellan Sims - Blade of the Undead - A samurai known only as Hendrix attempts to bring his son back from the grave, but finds he has awakened something much more demonic in nature. 1 min

5. Jake Shevitz - I’m Glad I Spent it With You - A young woman is visited by an associate from an old group. 1250 words

6. Malcolm Lynas - Polar - A boy searches for the North Pole, but things go wrong… This piece showcases a collection of clips of the process of making the animation. 50 sec

7. Miguel Lucero - Cenozoic Park - The audience is taken on a time travel adventure that shows a creature that could have been alive today and how it went extinct. 1 min 40 sec

8. AJ Jurecko - Sephtis the Destroyer - A cult attempts to summon the demon Sephtis the Destroyer, but it doesn’t go as planned. 1 min 51

9. Easton Cluck - Hell-ter Skelter - When Charles the Cat finds himself lost in the woods, he turns to a mysterious figure to help him get out. 1 min 47 sec

It was 8:30, and Connie was humming again.

She would always stop herself. She wouldn’t be thinking, just making her breakfast or reading the news, and her hips would start to sway and she would hum those familiar progressions, and then realize what was happening, and stop herself there. At first, she felt foolish for stopping, and told herself it was just a song, but part of her knew that wasn’t true.

And there she was, having just stopped herself, her pancake now out of her mouth as all focus was on getting the song out of her head. Her fingers tapped on the table in a random rhythm, far away from the smooth, clean flow of the song she was thinking of. She sighed as the melody exited her mind, and felt the silly urge to lay back in her chair with relief. She finished her breakfast and was just about to put her plate in the sink, when she heard it.

“In the shuf-fl-ing madness, on the locomotive breath–”

Someone was singing, moderately, edging quiet.

Connie’s blood ran cold and she had to grip the plate tight, tight enough to stop it from dropping.

“–runs the all time loo-serrr, headlong to his death–”

She knew the voice. It was coming down the hallway, and now her own humming started again. She fumbled around for something, anything, but the knife rack was so far—

Someone knocked on the door.

She cursed in her head, the music still playing alongside the word. “One second!”

The singing outside stopped, but now they were humming. She breathed deeply and opened the door, knowing who it was. “Todd?”

He had lost weight. He used to be a sturdy man, but he had dropped at least ten of those pounds. His voice seemed quieter. He used to be loud and angry, but now he looked as though someone had stepped on him.

1

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Sam is dead. Can I come in?”

If Connie was still holding the plate, she would’ve dropped it. “I—sure. Come in.”

She ushered him inside and quickly shut the door.

“Do you want, um, something to drink?”

Todd shook his head and sat down on her couch.

“You look, umm...good.”

Todd snorted. “Yeah, right. You look good too.”

He was right. Connie herself had lost around the same amount as him, her ordinarily thin frame now twiglike. But god, Todd really looked bad. Before, he was a lion, and now, he was a house cat that was scared of thunder.

“What happened?”

“SWAT team got him.”

“Christ.” Connie rubbed her eyes, staring at the floor, and she could feel Sam’s hands on her shoulders, his voice floating down into her, humming the chords, and she could feel herself slipping back into the past, the chords taking her back into processing, and then she forced herself to stop tapping her foot.

“They just...kicked in his door, and he went for a gun or something, and they shot him.”

Connie wanted to say that she was glad, she wanted to hurl her unwashed fork that was ten feet away at him, she wanted to do something, but she sat there, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Where was he?”

“Motel room. He’d been there for three days, all by himself with a lot of drugs.”

Connie quelled the piano in her head and asked the question that had been on her mind since Todd walked in. “So...why are you here? You couldn’t have just stayed outside?”

He looked as though he knew as much as she did. “You were his favorite. I guess you’d want to know.”

2

He was most definitely right. She was always Sam’s favorite. After she joined and slowly moved up in his eyes, soon becoming a sort of companion to him. He became her older brother, unlike her actual one who drank too often.

“It had to be in person?” Connie sputtered out.

Todd just stared at her blankly.

“Can you leave?” Frustration was creeping into her voice. She was tired of having to deal with him.

“Sorry. It’s, just—things are different now, yeah?”

“Nothing is different!” she snapped, her foot frantically forcing the beat out, breathing heavily. “The only thing that’s different is that he’s dead, and we don’t have to see each other anymore! Ever! So get out!”

She glared at him as he continued to stare blankly. If she couldn’t see him clearly breathing, she’d have thought he was dead.

“Do you remember your processing?”

“Of cou—yeah.” She looked down, feeling somewhat ashamed. She did remember her processing. She remembered how Sam would tell her to remember the song he gave to her, and how it would help her “connect with herself” in ways she had never experienced. It made no sense, but she was sixteen—everything made sense when you were sixteen. She was sixteen when she joined him, and she was twenty-one when she left—or, more accurately, when they relocated and she decided to not relocate with them. She was aware the group was bad for her—so she did something about it. “You still hear your song?”

“Yeah.” Now she was fully ashamed—she didn’t understand exactly what, but it was something in her that made her feel sick. “Do you try to forget it?”

She merely nodded—she didn’t want to respond.

“I don’t want to forget mine. I like it. It’s a part of me.”

She swallowed down nervous laughter. “Yeah, alright, Todd.” “What? It is. It did to me what he said it would do. I really do feel more in tune with myself. Do you ever feel that way?”

“Sometimes. It wasn’t worth it, I think.”

3

Connie was thinking about how eventually, both she and Todd would sit in on new processings. She was there to help the new person feel relaxed, and Todd was there to scare them. She would smile politely, speaking in the most soothing voice she had, and if they were resistant, Sam would take her out and have Todd go in, and in the end, they were usually all open to Sam’s teachings.

Looking back on it now, she was disgusted with her actions. She suspected Todd wasn’t.

And looking at him now, sitting there, smiling a little as though he was nostalgic for the events, she finally managed to get out “I’m glad he’s dead.”

His blank stare was back, his eyebrows raised at her.

She kept going. “Yeah, I know you liked it in there. You look like shit. Was it really that good to lord over people the way you did?” Todd cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, it was. You enjoyed your time there, didn’t you?”

Her song was back, and it was playing louder than ever in her head, and she had to resist humming.

“I didn’t.”

“You did.” he replied simply. I think you enjoyed it just as much as I did.”

And now she was thinking of how she did.

“Get out!” she snapped, raising her voice in full. He stared at her, then stood up, turned around, and walked to the front door, closing it behind him.

And now Connie was alone, and she sat back in her chair and exhaled sharply. Her foot started tapping and her breath quickened, and soon she started humming.

“...oh, just a perfect day, you just keep me hanging on, you just keep me hanging on…”

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