Chapter *2*
Unexpected Reunion

From nine to eleven is two hours in the real world but on race days time runs differently, the first hour and a half lasts ten minutes while that last half hour is at least four hours long. The exception is of course the last five minutes; they last about 30 seconds. And so it was this morning; I tried reading, German lit homework would you believe, but I couldn't concentrate on it or anything else.

Can Dreams come true?       A dark little story here that I wrote a few years back.

As she dashes off hoping to locate her brother, Drustina runs up against disturbing development in the ancient borough of Preston.

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Scientists all over the world have sought how to enhance human body. Exposure to deadly chemicals and nuclear fusion Gamma Ray did nothing except shorten the life of the test subject.

SALAMANDER, n. Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
~ The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce

Is the Prophecy a great humanizing force keeping us from returning to our ritualistic animal nature, or is it a source of injustice, a power that ultimately maintains a corrupt status quo by limiting human evolution? Abigail, now accepting her fate as both an adolescent and a young woman, deliberates with her family on these questions. Despite this acceptance, Abigail continues to struggle with her identity as she tries to find her true feminine self and avoid regressing to a state where even her teenage friends would question her behaviour.

CHAPTER 24
“Chris, got a sort of a favour to ask”

He laughed, and I could hear Adam’s description of him in the way he did it. Absolutely and completely, which left me wondering how well I ticked the ‘butch dyke’ checklist.

My present, my future.

the cool wind lifted my skirt up my body as I walked down the street
I wondered if I was doing the right thing.

During an 'away hockey match' one of the school buses collides with a train. Jenny, Cynthia, Jacky and Veronica suffer serious mutilations. This chapter deals with our friends efforts to deal with the mutilations and prepares the way for the sci-fi deviations to be forthcoming.