[ Note: contains scenes involving the aftermath of violence. If that sort of thing is at all triggering for you, do please move along. ]

I felt like I was on fire when I woke up.

In my head, I flung back the sweat-damp duvet and pivoted up and sideways on one hip. In reality, I managed to push myself half-upright before discovering I couldn't even lean against the bed properly and so slithered gracelessly to the floor. My legs didn't want to work the way I expected and I had a weapons-grade headache. That was when I remembered the stabbing pain in my leg while at the metro station the day before. I twisted round as best I could and found what looked like a serious insect bite.

Spiked.

It was the sort of thing that happened to other people - usually in the more excitable media.

The Princess of the Desert

By Melodie Thomas

Edited by Holly Hart

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 8
I left his office en route to my first class, which was English. I had done as well in Caen as could be managed when trying to study as things are thrown at you from behind or as someone tries to set fire to your shirt with a cigarette lighter, but this class was to be a different experience. I knocked at the door, as I was making a belated arrival after my little meeting, and at the invitation to enter I did. The teacher was a woman of a certain age, with what could have been the widest hips I had ever seen on someone not actually obese. Grey curls above a pair of pince-nez, she smiled and her whole face fell into the wrinkles of an elderly apple.

I hope everyone enjoys this the first chapter of the final version before final editing.

Let me now introduce Nibola Calton or as she prefers to be called Nibs or the Blackfairy. The story starts on the few days before the final exams of High School.

The Making of Nibs — Volume 1:The Beginnings

Chapter 1

Sat in the living room of Damien Cameron’s home in Suraban were Timaus, Damien and K-Dog.

When Hikari came home from her dads she told her aunt “I need to go out, so I can find “good friends.” so she went to the mall to hopefully find a new friend, ‘I blame Audrey, she told herself, “she told me that, "you know, if you want to meet new faces you should go to the mall.’” Audrey is one of Danielle’s friends Hikari met when she was at her dads.

“Spar! Come on in,” I said. We had all thought my cousin Spartacus was immune to the changing, since he hadn’t caught it when other children did on several occasions when it was going around the village. But it was obvious now that she wasn’t.

CHAPTER 52
They weren’t that noisy, in the end, but I found Rachel slightly out of sorts the next morning. I had just filled the kettle to do my wifely duties, and she joined me in the kitchen. Her hair was all over the place and, to be blunt, she really needed a shower, but there was a slight edge to her expression.

“You OK, Rach?”

As I walked towards my class, I noticed several people smiling at me. I figured that people were starting to get used to seeing me around, and they were just being friendly. It wasn’t until Debbie came up that I realized it was more than that.

“Girl, that smile could light up a room!” She laughed at me. “What’s got you so — oh, that’s right! Today is your date, isn’t it?”

I blushed. “Debbie, I'm so excited! I can’t wait!”

My Super Secret Life…Diamond-3.

Chapter 3

My Mom looks at me and sighs. “Honestly honey I don’t know. I suppose we play it by ear with these folks and see what their doctors can tell us.”

“Okay, I guess there not a lot of choice in the matter is there huh.”

“It really doesn’t look like it.”

Chemystery, by Karin Bishop

Part 8

August 15