[two days later]
“Any luck?” asked Sylvia.

I had been calling around all the local hospitals in the hope of finding where Ray had been taken.

Diego and Pablo were grateful to have finally made it to the hot springs. Too used to the warmer climate of their tropical home country, their bodies were ill-suited to the average temperatures of a place this far north. In fact, neither had felt properly warm all vacation long, not since they first got off the plane a week ago, only adding insult to injury after such a long flight. Not even cranking the heat in their shared hotel room seemed to fully eliminate the chill that had seemed to settle into their bones.

Note: this a written continuation of a comic I commissioned.

Page 1:https://www.deviantart.com/thet0wer/art/thet0wer-Comic-01-92...
Page 2:https://www.deviantart.com/thet0wer/art/thet0wer-Comic-02-92...
Page 3:https://www.deviantart.com/thet0wer/art/thet0wer-Comic-03-2-...

Beverly begins to see a way to help native peoples avoid exploitation.

There once was a man who loved to swim. Whenever he could, he frolicked all day in the waves. When he was working, he pined for the siren song of the sea.

Luckily, the man had a lovely witch of a wife who could help him with his passion. She gave him a spell that granted him gills, with the warning that he must never use it for more than a sun's trek across the sky.

Intergalactic Love

“Please leave and trouble us no more with your lies. I may be of Irish descent with strong connections to the Sidhe, but I don’t live in a færie story, and I’m not Cinderella.”

The Light Between (Part 1 of 8)

by Erisian

Book 5

Earth. Deep blue skies filled with clouds and sun.

Returned from the desolation and horrors of Hell, Jordan finds herself again surrounded by friends, kitty, and a peaceful campus with idle moments seemingly to spare.

Yet relaxation and inner peace remain elusive, as unanswered questions flit across thought and dream. After all that she has endured a quiet life as a simple school student feels like a mighty jest - one with a waiting and deadly punchline.

For time, even for angels resurrected in the light, does not so easily stand still.

“Davy is a hundred and three just turned and Granny’s hundred and first birthday is on the ninth of next month. Elle has telt Casper Lawton to be prepared, and to have a traditional Bearthwaite ash wood coffin ready for him. The allotment lads have said that for more than his entire working life Davy was one of them and they’re ready to dig the grave at a moment’s notice.

This contains an edited version of ‘A DISTURBING SCENE’ first posted on 2019/09/10

The pair of us worked long into the night cleaning the house. Despite my best endeavours, Heather would not divulge what she had planned for us when we finally left out current location.

One too Many
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Even with the curtains drawn in a vain attempt to help me cope, it seemed that the room was in direct sunlight, or that I was in a Nazi interrogation room facing a searchlight I kept my eyes open as only slits, or was it the one ton block sitting on my head that was keeping them mainly closed?

Sam looks up at the pink tinted machinery hovering from an extendable arm two foot above his face. He could clearly see the permanent makeup tattoo brushes and eyelash extensions poised to descend and change him forever probably into a girl with light makeup, long lashes, and rouge lips. He was semi relieved that he could not see the tell-tale injectors to plump his lips as well, but he supposed they could be there.

Living my life on the edge of what is and is not legal sort of happened without a plan or deliberate action on my part. It just happened and … well it took a car crash to make me take stock of my life.

Walking over, I sat on the bench and looked over.
"Happy New Year Daddy. Been a while since the last time we talked so I thought I would swing by and catch you up."

Our hero surrenders herself up to the rebels but mainly to start a dialogue.

In a world without women, the trans woman is Queen. Taken from the old saying "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

No one knew who started it, but the Americans accused the Chinese and the Russians. Both of those countries accused each other. The Gynax virus had effectively wiped out 98% of women.

It was thought that it came from a mutated virus that was meant to mimic the beneficial effects of female hormones on the immune system. During the covid outbreak, more women recovered than men, and fewer were hospitalized.

It was a cold winters night, the week before Christmas. The sky was dark and mysterious with only the moon peeking through the snow-clouds. All the stores were closed and shuttered, all the streets were empty dark and bare. Nobody in the right mind was out and about on such a bitter unwelcoming night, the only sparks of life were the homeless shivering in shop doorways, wrapped in cardboard, paper, or whatever other items for warmth and protection that they could salvage.

I was just about to escape into sleep when I heard someone approach me. In the short time I had been sleeping rough I had come to learn it usually meant either Police who were normally ok as long as you moved on until they had left, Security guards who were a lot more intolerant brusque and even violent, or other rough-sleepers who were looking to steal the few possessions or scraps of food that I had.

However this one was different, it was a young woman, well wrapped up in warm winter clothes with her long-blonde hair peeking out from under her woolen hat and wearing a pleasant welcoming smile.