A one shot sequel of Blood in the sand, but only one of the pathways that branched from it. The year is 2018. Our narrator will be tried for treason and executed soon. Set in a universe where he didn't die from the onager.

It was a joke at first, visiting the boardwalk psychic on my last days on earth. Oh, that sounds dark. The last days on earth thing. I... I'll get to that. This whole beach visit, and the boardwalk, and the psychic, it was like a prisoner's last meal. My last half-baked hurrah. By Roman law, I am to be executed for treason. I have a very short leash to live by in my final days, and if Reyna-who graced me with these final days-knew I had a knife with which to cut that leash she wouldn't have put me on a leash. She would have put me on a noose straight away. I don't tend to want to fight my way out of this situation, though. I have the knife because of the psychic. Not because I want to hurt the poor woman, just that it has been very long since I had enlightenment of my own. It was fantastic, it used to be. I don't wear a t-shirt to the beach. I am trying not to appear like a treasonous psychopath. Actually, I am not a psychopath, at least not in my own mind's eye. Troubled would be a good word for it, I believe, but troubled doesn't matter if you're a traitor. If you relied on the wrong side for answers, and, and hope, then you are treasonous. I accept my fate entirely. I am at fault.

The sky sky is gorgeous the day I visit the psychic. She does not look like the dolled up psychics from the movies, which makes me believe that she either possesses legitimate powers of divination, or is trying very hard to make it look like she is not a hoax. I wouldn't even mind if she were a hoax, because I'd come to prove to myself that I am not a hoax.

"Hello," She says pleasantly. She is somewhat like me, except pleasant. Actually, when I say she is like me I only mean she is wearing a blue shirt, and I do as well, for blue is my favorite color. I wear it whenever I am able to, and I have my favorite blue shirt picked out to die and be buried or burned in.

"Octavian?" This was a registered psychic session, thus she already knows my name and therefore is not divining it.

"Yes." There is an imperial gold dagger in my pocket. The stuffed animal gutter. My best friend is this dagger. It was a sad existence and I no longer feel horrible that it's ending. Actually, I have never felt bad about this.

"Good to meet you, please sit, and perhaps tell me why you're here?" I don't sit, she doesn't either.

"You're a psychic not a psychiatrist," I retort. I have always been the witty type, except no one ever knew it because no one ever talked to me and when I talked something else came out, something ambitiously cold and calculating and ultimately very much like my mother. The psychic laughs.

"True. I'm Molly, and I understand that some people feel very uneasy coming here, confiding their personal inquiries to someone they don't necessarily believe in." I nod, makes sense to me.

"I believe in seeing the future. I'm just curious if you can do it." She smiles.

"A challenge."

"Call it what you will, you've already been paid either way."

"Alright, ask away."

"Will I find love?" I asked. This was a question the hoaxes would consider and then give an affirmative response, so that the client leaves happy and leaves a good yelp review. But I'm not looking for happy, because I am going to be dead in no more than three days. I am looking for truth. I present my normal Octavian mask, because I don't want to give her any context clues. She studies my poker face.

"Impossible," she decides, "you are about to die. I can feel it. Half of my work is fake but you are a challenge, a true challenge, because your death is already written out and fast approaching. I can't tell most people their death is already written. Tell me what makes you different?" I say a quick prayer to Apollo and hold the hand of my best friend for a moment. A finger inches up to test the sharpness, which I've never had to do yet never not done. Imperial gold is infamous for retaining its sharp sting, and this metal has done little more than slice open teddies for nearly 18 bloody years. When I was four and first forced into the auguring business. I feel the lone drop of blood on my index finger, satisfied. I understand this is odd for anyone who does not understand proper sacrificial practices. After all, blood is ugly, distasteful. Horrific for anyone who has to watch it gush out of someone else. That is why I was first displaced from my home in Sacramento, the year was 1999. It had just been my fourth birthday, and I was on the beach, as I technically am now. And I saw things. You always saw more with blood than fluff. No one ever realized that. But ut had to be a willing sacrifice so it had to be my own. So I wore long sleeves to places like the beach. I rolled my sleeve up a little, having to relinquish my friend for a moment. I think Molly is ignoring the scars on my arm out of admittance that she, not technically a psychic, has no idea what they actually mean.

"Because I divine as well." Then I pulled out my reliable blade and slashed over another familiar scar, enough blood coming out to please the gods. She gapes as I remember being looked at by my mother, the screams echoing through the years and and now pouring from Molly's mouth. I don't expect her to understand being able to see beautiful things when the "psychic" in blue can only see death. I pitied her as she screamed at me and accused me of being sick and twisted, which I am. Because she must be painfully aware of her own death and everyone else's but I can see the beautiful things beyond my own life. And that grants me peace.

I walk off the boardwalk, onto the sand, intending to go get some ice cream in a minute, before my leash gets tugged on so tightly it becomes the noose I am well aware is coming. But for now, with a dazzling future filling my head like teddy bear fluff I watch the blood drip onto the sand and wonder why so many people see it as ugly.