By the end of the first tenday, I had become a friend and playmate to the younger children, an assistant to Bisur in his magical workshop, and an assistant to Mipina in her writing. Razuko, however, remained uninterested in socializing and did not seem to want much help.

“I thought you had a boyfriend named Pete,” he asked.

Eighteen-year-old Nicholas Hammerstein is at the cusp of finishing high school in his hometown of Los Alamos, NM. He has a seemingly ideal life and is blessed with loving parents, a cute baby sister, and great friends. Nicholas is a gifted student and martial artist who has dreams of leaving for college at the end of his senior year. But, living in a world of Emergent humans, he will soon find his life turned upside down as his life and the fate of a kingdom hang in the balance. His future and theirs will be determined by how he navigates the drastic changes in his body and the magical and superpowered Mergent population he joins.

When Robert’s wife’s body is stolen, Robert must discover where and who she is and get her body back. But can he succeed when Exmuritious Forrester, the CEO and owner of Transmigration Studios, decides to stop him? Who can Robert trust, when anyone could be anyone?

"Well, —uh— first I got naked..."

Idol

Idol - 1991- Age 22

Cassady stumbles out of her bunk and walks into the small kitchen. She could hear the rain hitting the top of their tour bus and realized as she is fixing her coffee. That the tour bus wasn’t moving at all. She looks out of the nearest window and noticed they were stuck in traffic.

She walks towards the front of the tour bus and notices Marty was driving. She learned that Marty was an actual cowboy. He used to be a bull and bucking bronco rider, but had to give it up after barely surviving a life-threatening injury.

It was my sixteenth birthday and all my dreams were coming true. We were in my uncle's spaceship, traveling at Warp 8.5 to the famous pleasure planet Risa, where I was scheduled for a miraculous makeover in a modified transporter that would make me a real girl at last!

The 24th Century was a wonderful time to be alive. Trans people like me were understood and supported, medical science had advanced to a point where changing your sex on a genetic level was possible; and all the wars, famines + bigotries that had plagued Mankind since the dawn of history were a thing of the past!

But the Universe was still a dangerous place. And unbeknownst to my two mothers and I every lightyear we traveled was bringing us closer to an unscheduled encounter with the greatest menace anyone in the United Federation of Planets had ever faced... The Borg!

I had finally done it. I was on my own in my own flat. My marriage had failed and I had split amicably with my wife. She kept the house that had been paid for mostly by a trust fund set up by my parents. I kept the remainder of my savings. I did not begrudge her the house. She had been patient and understanding about my "condition". Both my parents were dead, which is why I was contemplating doing something I had been longing for all my life.

“We’re gonna be working together! This is gonna be kind of awesome. I mean, it’s menial service industry work, so that kind of sucks, but it’s about as good as waiting and busing tables ever gets, from what I hear. Mr. Paget’s a fair boss, unlike that asshole at my old job, and you get to work in all kinds of cool bodies.”

The Light Between (Part 5 of 8)

by Erisian

Book 5

Chapter 16 - Sins

Countless nights spent staring into a fire’s dancing flames or into skies darkened by midnight’s gloom flooded everything, twisting as a barbed arrow within the chest. Abandoned by a father whose infinite radiance had turned as cold as the snow he’d left her in, a young girl had wrestled with inner scars which seeped anew from every self-perceived failure. Even her uncle - though he had at least stayed - always bore into her soul with hooded eyes of penetrating and absolute judgment.

Only Siabh had held her tenderly. Only the fae priestess had softly offered words of love and support.

But some nights those hadn’t been enough. And as the long hours crept towards dawn the child had whispered the same questions over and over:

Does my mother also think me worthless? Is that why she never came for me?

Is she ashamed of me too?

CHAPTER 55
I prodded Tref a few more times over those few days, as his story of the Cardiff trans girl intrigued me. Alys, for her part, avoided those discussions, but she grilled me on that subject when we were in bed.

A group of friends streams their gaming on Wednesday nights. But not all the action is on the dining room table.

“Just keep moving, Petey, Pete, Pete."

Chapter 3

I also found out that the drama group I had seen today was mainly made up of lower-level employees of several embassies, as a relief valve to lower their stress. She told me that Vlad wasn’t overtly linked to the Russians, but he had a lot of friends from all around the Soviet Bloc. It was said that he was an advisor to Todor Zhivkov, the leader of the Communist Party, and had carried that connection through to Lyudmila, pushing the culture and arts to the forefront.

Eighteen-year-old Nicholas Hammerstein is at the cusp of finishing high school in his hometown of Los Alamos, NM. He has a seemingly ideal life and is blessed with loving parents, a cute baby sister, and great friends. Nicholas is a gifted student and martial artist who has dreams of leaving for college at the end of his senior year. But, living in a world of Emergent humans, he will soon find his life turned upside down as his life and the fate of a kingdom hang in the balance. His future and theirs will be determined by how he navigates the drastic changes in his body and the magical and superpowered Mergent population he joins.

Colonel Moreno was at his makeshift desk looking over reports when Keir entered the mostly intact building. The hopelessness and fear that had filled the mans dark eyes when they'd first met had faded. There was a hint of iron and hope when he spoke now. Keir was glad to see it, this was going to be a long war and defeatists could bring it all crashing down.

“Mage Keira, I trust your errand went well,” Colonel Moreno said.

Conjugal
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

We were brothers the way that real brothers never can be. We had been friends so long neither of us could remember our first meeting. With did everything together, we went to school together, we played sports together, we scored girls together, we did crime together.

Eighteen-year-old Nicholas Hammerstein is at the cusp of finishing high school in his hometown of Los Alamos, NM. He has a seemingly ideal life and is blessed with loving parents, a cute baby sister, and great friends. Nicholas is a gifted student and martial artist who has dreams of leaving for college at the end of his senior year. But, living in a world of Emergent humans, he will soon find his life turned upside down as his life and the fate of a kingdom hang in the balance. His future and theirs will be determined by how he navigates the drastic changes in his body and the magical and superpowered Mergent population he joins.

Always Stay Down To Earth, Walter
I grew up overshadowed by lush lakes
Couldn't catch the eye of no city boy
Here I am devoted to Walter
How I love the way you look in your blue jeans
Can't believe I let the smog cloud my eye
Where the lush lakes stand
And the deep mountains surround
I'll ride my battered truck with you by my side
There's a whisper in the Tennessee breeze
Reminding me of Chris
That whisper builds
That whisper cries
Chris in the morning skies