“What are you thinking over there, Jasmine?” Angela asked me. I suddenly realized I was lost in thought, probably staring off into the distance.

“I…” I started to say, but trailed off, unsure of what I wanted to tell them. I gathered myself and sighed. “I’m just…I don’t want this to end. I like being…this. I like being your daughter, I like being…”

3627 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin)
Hyperspace, aboard the Aces and Eights, en-route to Ruuria, Outer Rim Territories

“Why did we drive a car if we can just walk through mirrors?” I asked as Meredith eased her car between two others on a temporary grass lot.

“Because it freaks people out when we just appear in front of them,” Angela told me, rummaging through her purse for something. Finally, she yanked a pink bracelet from the bag and handed it to me through the seats. It was pretty plain; there was nothing special about it, it kind of reminded me of a slap bracelet, though without the slapping part. “Put that on, it makes it easier to find you in a crowd.”

The fire was almost dead. I was sitting on the living room couch, thinking about all the things that happened today. My head was still hurting a bit from fainting and hitting the table. Watching the fire die in our fireplace, it felt like something was ending. Randy was long gone. I was not upset about this. Well, maybe just a little bit. Riley was here now. She will not go anywhere. I knew that was for sure.

“How are you, babe?” Mary asked me gently while softly squeezing my hand.

I smiled at her and nodded.

I stared incredulously at the creature that had just passed through the mirror. Were my eyes deceiving me, or was this really, truly a talking armadillo? Angela and Meredith immediately rose from the couch, though I sat there, mouth agape until Angela nudged my shoulder. I climbed to my feet and leaned into her, wrapping my arms around her waist. She laid an arm around me and gave me a partial hug.

CHAPTER 79
The dining room in the hotel was pretty shabby, and the choice not the greatest, but they had chilled apple juice on tap and as much tea as I could drink, which helped with the beer-mouth. I loaded up on carbs and grease, before sorting out some odds and sods for a morning of wandering along the front while waiting until it was time to head over to the little hospital for my friend’s return from theatre.

I suppose I should have been there for her departure for surgery, but I was so terrified at the possible dangers I hid in the city instead, and played tourist. There was, after all, plenty to see, even if I didn’t go up on the ‘i360’, a viewing platform on the sea front.

“What should we watch next?” Angela flipped through the Netflix menu on the television, I laid comfortably between the two of them, kind of curled up. It was nice being small. “I think we’ve watched everything on Netflix and Hulu, we’re going to have to wait a few years for them to update the library.”

Stuck in a Rut.
By Rosalie Redd

Casey Church is a normal 13 year old boy, full of hopes and dreams and fears and anxieties. But in a world where there hasn’t been a girl born in over a century, what is normal?

Chapter 10.

CHAPTER 78
I was back with the others after a surprisingly short conversation, followed by a longer one, with Simon, who was looking positively secular in a checked shirt and jeans, not a whistle of a dog collar in sight. That thought brought back others, of course, and he noticed. After we had finished our negotiations, he asked outright what had disturbed me.

“Nothing here, Simon. Just been a rather heavy time at work”

“Ah. Annie told me about the shootings”

I stared in the mirror, mouth agape as my face changed from a grown woman to a child of about twelve. She’d forgotten to change the maid uniform with me, so it was sort of hanging there, the skirt falling way past my knees.

“Steve?” Angela placed a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“How…how long am I going to stay like this?” My voice came across as a mere whisper, I saw Meredith smirk behind Angela in the mirror.

“Until you can change yourself back,” Angela smiled and ran her fingers through my hair, straightening it out. It felt good.

“And I am back with groceries!” Angela said cheerfully as she walked into the room. I had resumed my original position on the bed and Meredith was pretending to be busy with her phone, acting like she hadn’t just forced me to lick her feet for the last hour. I kind of wanted to say something to Angela, in fact I was pretty sure I could have, but I just didn’t want to. I was tired, I was hungry, my body felt like it had been hit by a truck. I just wanted to lay here on the bed and drift off to sleep. “Wake up over there or it’s going to feel worse later!”

Twigs snapped, feet pounded, the forest whizzed by in gasps as I dodged from tree to tree, palms outstretched to make sure I didn’t plant face first into a trunk. Aleah said I’d know it when I saw it. What was I looking for? I inhaled as I ran, forest air scraped through my throat and barely inflated my lungs. I thought the endless expanse of trees and briar patches would extend forever, but I was wrong. It ended. I burst into a clearing, stopping short as if I’d just found myself on the edge of a cliff and pressing my hands to my knees as I bent over in exhaustion.

[The following January]

“Come on you laggards. Just because you are effing women does not mean that you can slack off. There is still six miles to go. Then it is only a few more hours then, you can have that hot bubble bath that you females all love so much!”

CHAPTER 77
Annie was smirking, and although Eric was doing his best, his own mouth was twitching. I gave him a by-now-well-practised Mother Look, and he shrugged.

“They did it to us, Di, years ago”

Annie slapped his arm.

“You mean me, love! Di, first time I went to that music day event, and they had video of the whole sodding thing!”

Curtain Fall - Chapter 13

Itimori and De’elen moved steadily through the lush environment, proceeded by a lightly clothed protector armed with his standard combat pole-arm. Following was a second who was tasked with pulling supplies via a wheeled pack. The remaining two were flanking the women out of view.

Other than weaponry there was little machinery in evidence. It had been concluded that the ability to recharge any powered transportation or device might be problematic, so it had been decided to go without until they might acquire such from the aliens.