“You can all watch it!”

“I guess I just don’t understand,” I said, sipping some white wine. We all were a few drinks in and both Desdemonia and Ernest had relaxed a bit more.

“Consider the nature of the Universe. We are only one plane and exist here.” Desdemonia laid out a bony hand. “On top of us, is another dimension but it’s not at exactly the same time. There are dimensions that line up perfectly with our timeline, but there are also some that line up in in a perpendicular fashion.” He held up a hand straight up and down.

“Welcome to Tottenham nick, PC Galbraith.”

Roberta had reported for duty at her new assignment on the Monday after finishing at Colindale the previous Friday.
“I’m Inspector Foster. I have had some good reports about you from your old Inspector. Keep that up and you will go far in the force.”

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.

I took a bath in the downstairs bathroom. Usually this was reserved for guests, but since Dad was…gone, and I was stuck in this older woman’s body, I decided to relocate to the guest room. It felt strange being in my old room anyway.

Mom had decked out the guest bathroom with bath bombs, robes, and candles. I filled the tub, dropped in a lavender bath bomb, then lit a few candles. Removing my clothes, I stared into the mirror.

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

Chesapeake road trailed east from High Valley through a slow canyon and up some switchbacks to the top of the rim. I knew the road from camping trips I’d taken with Jeff and some of the other guys when I’d been in boy scouts. The sun was just cresting the horizon as I drove over the rim. I could look down into High Valley from this vantage point and see the Mill, the meandering stream, and the town all laid out below me.

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.

He smiled and looked me in the eyes,
and in that moment I didn't like him any more.

He said, "It's pretty simple. There are links missing from the chain.
We don't have John Doe number one, and we don't have Anson Charpont.
All we have is you."

"And how is that a problem?" I asked, my mouth suddenly gone dry.

A bleak landscape stretched below me. I’d appeared in a cave, next to some kind of rock formation. Green gases billowed around me, the stench of death and putrefaction made me gag.

A thundering earthquake shook the cave. Small pieces of rock tumbled from unseen areas, pelting me with fragments.

I ducked, covering my head. I saw something slither away with a whiplike tail and a mouth with far too many teeth. Where the hell was I?

Looking for Trouble
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Ryan Tolliver rode out of the south, looking for Trouble. That is how this story might begin. Not looking for trouble, but looking for Trouble with a capital T. Trouble Lumiere. Ryan might have called her his lady love. But she was no lady. Not in any sense.

I swam a few laps, then made April’s mint Julep. There was some fresh fruit already laid out along with some boiled eggs that I wolfed down.

About an hour later, April stepped out of the house and onto the porch.

She’d styled her gray streaked dark hair in one of Desdemonia’s twisted updos, and layered on the makeup but not quite as thick as her mother. She wore a wraparound dress with sensible sandals, and huge sunglasses.

“April?” I said.

She took a deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said.

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.

‘April,’ wore a gingham dress. Her hair had been tamed into a long braid, similar to the one I’d worn yesterday. She wore no makeup, and had tennis shoes that looked a bit too large.

‘Ernest’ had fared a bit better in the clothing department. He wore a brown suit with a white shirt. His teeth looked less yellow than they had yesterday and he’d shaved both his head and his face.

“Desdemonia,” Ernest said upon seeing me. “My old Nemesis.”

“Oh, cut the crap. Everyone here knows what happened,” I said.

Roberta Galbraith - Rookie Days

“Hello?” said Roberta slightly nervously as she stood at the reception desk of Colindale Police Station.
This was her first day ‘on the job’ since she’d graduated from the Hendon Police College two weeks before.

My initial night in basic training utterly jolted my system, and claiming I caught any sleep would be akin to saying I'm an expert in impersonating a lady. Anxiety about retaliation from the second princess kept me so on edge that closing my eyes seemed impossible, not to mention my tail impeding my usual back-sleeping position. As a result, I spent most of the night restlessly tossing and turning. At some point, exhaustion must have won over, as I was abruptly awakened by the drill sergeant's cacophonous banging on a metal can, ordering us to rise.

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.

“Let’s try it,” Ms. Paget said. “Joy and I are going to be chibis on Thursday, and I’d like to get some other volunteers to do the same. You don’t have to wear schoolgirl uniforms or anything; you can be chibi mice or chibi dragons or whatever, even chibi robots,” (nodding toward Todd, who was in one of his less humanoid robot forms today). “If it works out, we might make it a regular thing. Chibi Thursdays. Come in anime cosplay, or better yet venned into a chibi form, and get 10% off...”

"I'm staying with her," Femke told him, while pointing at me.

"No, no, that isn't how it works."

"If that isn't how it works," she replied, "I don't think you can say it's working."

Magic made the clean up process after missions much quicker, and in Ben’s case, much more bearable. No shower was needed for anyone, a spell was able to clean up all the dirt and filth they had picked up in an instant. An incredible convenience, and Ben was thankful he didn’t have to actively bathe. Seeing his naked body in its current state would undoubtedly be uncomfortable.