We entered the throne room, and I had Spire show me what was going on outside the station. We saw Queen’s Rage firing on three ships that had come into the system. “Spire, get me in contact with Admiral Stook.” A separate screen flashed up showing Admiral Stook in the command chair.

“Admiral, what is going on out there?” I asked.

Darryl pulled the Mustang into the parking lot at George Pratt’s office. It was a nice building; definitely upscale. He and Marcia got out and went inside where they were ushered through to Pratt’s private office. Pratt, Heather Shore, and a social worker they hadn’t met were present. Pratt introduced her as Caroline Ogilvy.

Heather was seated in a chair, looking very sullen. Marcia sat down beside her and asked how she was doing.

Rather than answer, Heather just shook her head. She didn’t want to talk.

When a mountain downpour forces Lydia and Thomas Thompson into a cavern's shadowy embrace, Lydia's touch upon ancient runic inscriptions awakens her latent power and identity. As they emerge to find the enigmatic town of Sælicbrook—a nexus of realms and magic—Lydia is transformed into her destiny as its guardian. But as the cosmic entity Nyarlathotep stirs, intent on unraveling the threads of reality, will Lydia's newfound power be enough to stand against an eldritch horror bent on devouring all? The battle for existence looms, and only the guardians of Sælicbrook can safeguard the world from the impending darkness. Will they triumph, or will everything they know be consumed by the infinite appetite of the Crawling Chaos?

Later that night, I returned to Shelly's room. As soon as she saw me, she pulled me in and closed the door. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don't play coy with me. You have the look of someone who spent some time doe-eyed with a boy. Spill.”

“Marc and I kissed.”

“A four word sentence is insufficient. What did you say? What did he say? Where did he touch you?”

“He was a perfect gentleman. We kissed several time before getting dinner in the cafe. It was very wholesome.”

“Wholesome? What, no groping?”

“Not even once.”

"I don't want to talk about it" I sped up trying to get away from Murphy but he wasn't letting up.

He stepped in front of me, "Laura, what was that? What video was he talking about."

I don't know. That's what I wanted to scream but how could I explain to him why I didn't know what I clearly should know. I had never told anyone about me before, not like they would believe me anyway.

"I'm feeling overwhelmed right now" I said to him trying desperately to find a way out of the situation. "I'll tell you later okay? I promise"

Steven yearns for acceptance. His sister and friends want to put makeup on him. In exchange, his sister offers honorary sisterhood among her tight-knit group of friends. When they see how he looks, they want to dress him en femme and for this his sister promises full sisterhood if he accepts. However, another member of the group is more protective of this sisterhood than the others. Having justifiable concerns about allowing a boy to be part of that circle, she insists upon including an initiation to ensure that he is worthy of their sisterhood. What will Steven have to do?

When a mountain downpour forces Lydia and Thomas Thompson into a cavern's shadowy embrace, Lydia's touch upon ancient runic inscriptions awakens her latent power and identity. As they emerge to find the enigmatic town of Sælicbrook—a nexus of realms and magic—Lydia is transformed into her destiny as its guardian. But as the cosmic entity Nyarlathotep stirs, intent on unraveling the threads of reality, will Lydia's newfound power be enough to stand against an eldritch horror bent on devouring all? The battle for existence looms, and only the guardians of Sælicbrook can safeguard the world from the impending darkness. Will they triumph, or will everything they know be consumed by the infinite appetite of the Crawling Chaos?

Mirror Changed Chapter 11

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Courtney~

The last week had been a frustrating lesson in patience for the dangerous and well dressed Courtney. Though ultimately vindicated by the others of her small grouping, she still felt angry at herself for losing the young magus in the local mall. She swore that the other Chosen had fled into the theater, but after making a bit of a ruckus she had been forced to give up. The threat of the breeders police force didn’t really scare her off. There was little they could possibly do that would more than inconvenience her.

Elias Dufort was the leader of the king's appointed hunters. The hunters had attempted to remove the plague of nightwalkers for centuries. While investigating a possible hiding place, Elias runs into somethign completely unexpected and it will change his life forever.

Feathers

by Erisian

It had been a bad fight that night almost a year ago, the worst we'd ever had. The wings had appeared on our backs that morning - everyone got them, and it hadn't taken long for the significance of the colors to be understood.

If you had been morally good, your wings were white. If bad, they were stained with black. News video of prisons demonstrated that sharply: almost all inmates and too many of the guards had wings smeared and splotched as if with black tar. Most people had a blend of white and grey - some of the patterns were actually rather pretty. You could even glide with them if they were big enough and you were in moderately good shape, and children started figuring out how to actually fly - though there seemed to be an upper limit to how high up they could get. About ten feet or so seemed to be the limit. Physicists and biologists were utterly baffled, of course. Chemists were having a field day in tremendous excitement analyzing the composition of the feathers - but that's another story.

This is about us. Me and my wife. My wings were no better nor worse than most folks; though I could see a few splotches of darker grey mixed in. My wife, Sarah, hers were brighter than mine - except for a couple feathers that appeared rather splattered with black ink.

In a nation plunged into the abyss of chaos and darkness, where the boundaries between the tangible and the otherworldly had evaporated, the President's authoritarian grip tightened, and his loyal advisors were bound to him in a sinister alliance, driven by anger, fear, and desperation.

Chapter 26

July 29^th, 2023

Palmer, Ak

10:37 AM

It was payday on the farm, and Mage was making her way around to the different workers, handing them their statements. It was the day and age of electronic payments, but she had decided to hand people their statements, at least, as it allowed her to chat with each of them and find out how they were all doing.

Chapter 2 - we meet Jordan, the non-binary twin and learn about their life (romantic and otherwise)
——-
Jordan walked around the jobsite, looking for the electrical subcontractor. They were getting tired of this, to be honest. Every day, they’d find him placing bets on his phone while his guys were busy bullshitting or jerking off or doing anything but what they were paid to do - which was wire the fifth floor.

If they had their way, the guy and his crew would’ve been out the door three days ago, but…

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

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

The days before she died was all the time that I really knew the real Anna Renee Joel. She was very sweet; always helpful and polite to me and that kindness made me feel threatened because whenever she talked to me my guard would come down and I was pretty much hypnotized. She could read the directions for soup from the back of a can and it would have sounded like poetry in motion.

Driven from Normal .

Simon McKenzie started his week normal enough, but after a series of events he found himself standing in a bar wearing a cocktail dress and the weeks that followed didn't return to normal.

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

Life and Love are far more complicated than we can possibly understand. For one young cop, a journey of self-discovery will teach them that true strength was inside them all along.

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

Molly walked leisurely down the paved path that snaked through the woods. It was almost dusk, and she enjoyed taking these early evening strolls after particularly hard days at work, which it certainly had been.

Life and Love are far more complicated than we can possibly understand. For one young cop, a journey of self-discovery will teach them that true strength was inside them all along.