If I Offend Thee
By BillieBob

If I offend thee, please let me know

. . .but today's not your day, and tomorrow isn't looking good either

*****
August 4, 2001

“Damn it, Heath, try to catch the ball, don’t run away from it,” Dan Waters scolded his three year old son. “You’ve never seen DJ run away from the soccer ball! Now get the ball and kick it back to me.”

Heath hated being compared to his big two year older brother. DJ had two favorite things in life, sports and teasing his sissy little brother DJ was the apple of their father’s eye. He was good at sports and not afraid to try anything.

Heath struggled to hold back the tears as he retrieved the ball.

Issue 1: Enter Aria Blade

When we last left our heroine, she had just escaped the clutches of her apparent nemesis, the dark sorceress Raven Wing. A psychic shockwave disrupted Raven’s focus allowing Aria to slip free, but so wracked with pain was the villainess that she called out, begging the heroine not to abandon her.

Aria Blade bid a hasty retreat, but as the crisp night air washed over her gold-trimmed white costume and her exposed flesh, she turned to stare back at the ruin, Raven Wing’s pleading words echoing in her mind.

CHAPTER 12
We sat in silence for a few minutes as my mother’s story ran down. I noticed her look at me, really look at me, and there was something else there, something unspoken, and she seemed to shake herself and carry on.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I brooded weak and weary
Some demonic cloud the likes of which I’d never seen before
All at once took shape before me, making all my soul implore me
“Flee this evil dark and stormy, quit the room, go out the door!”
Yet it moved so that I could not leave the room, or reach the door
I could but stare and nothing more

A chronically ill boy is visited by the ghost of his cousin who offers him a new chance at life. He just needs to learn how to appreciate the very special gift that he's given.

Authors note: This is mild horror with a happy ending. The story gets less and less horrific as it goes on and if you can make it through the opening scene, I think you'll like the story.

Acknowledgment: Many thanks go out to Puddin' for her wise and wonderful editing of this story. She helped me expand my story from an anemic version of five thousand words to this much better version that tops out at a little over sixteen thousand words.

This story just came to me. Out of the blue. I suppose I could have expanded it and divided it up into chapters and there's huge scope to take different threads to various ends but for now it's a stand alone. Each of the 'threads' leaves tantalising potentials for further stories. I might come back to different threads if and when I've hit a dry spot or summat'

Enjoy.

Beverly.

The Rescue.