Charity Case

William Hagle has spent his entire life being hunted. Framed for crimes he didn't commit, hounded by accusations, haunted by the accidental death of a man named Harold R. Thompkins. Now the Hexers have found him, extraterrestrial beings whose vengeance follows him like a shadow, shaping every misfortune that befalls him. Hagle tells his story in a fractured internal monologue, tracing his troubled upbringing through neglect and false accusations to a desperate attempt to steal from a mission, where he learns about a time machine that might offer escape. But the question that curdles at the center of this bleak, paranoid tale: is Hagle truly cursed by supernatural forces, or has his mind manufactured the Hexers to explain a lifetime of social failure? The devastating conclusion suggests his 'disease' isn't something he caught, it's something he earned, a tax on living under perpetual scrutiny. A cold war-era meditation on guilt, persecution, and the terrible comfort of blaming the stars for our own choices.