Ed Note: The story veered off in a direction I didn't really plan. It gets dark in this chapter. There is language, and violence. Just a warning. If you haven't' been reading here's a quick catch up. It's 1994, small college town, two 20 year old's went looking in the underground for Magic and found it. ASHTON has spent her life suffering from gender dysphoria without the language to express it. Her new friend Marie has a talent for knowing things that people are trying hide, and a talent for folk magic. Garrett has fell in with the wrong crowd a satanist named Rick.

NOTE: This story was originally posted in single large chunk. But some readers have indicated that it was hard to navigate, so I've split it into two parts.

The next morning, our space suits arrived. All eleven of us were all together when we were trying on the suits. Our group of eight simply tried on the suits, without catheters, and made sure they fit. They were set aside for our return to Earth. The other group got fully ready for flight, with a near pass of their target to the station just an hour from when the suits arrived.

During 2035 there were 12 incidents in which a spacecraft was impacted by free-floating man-made materials in space, generally classified as “space junk.” This was a record number of such impacts, and everybody agreed a solution was needed, but what? 2036 managed to avoid breaking the record again only due to companies shying away from launches.

In 2037, Karl Greene proposed a solution.

 
Warning: This chapter contains a brief reference to sexual violence, including rape. It is not explicit, and it is only presented as a recalled fragment of memory central to the protagonist's identity. Reader discretion is advised.
 

Wolfe County, Kentucky, March 15, 2001:
A poor, uneducated young teenage girl of fifteen years old gives birth to a baby girl. The thirty-year-old man who had gotten her pregnant stood just outside the bedroom where two older women helped her through the birthing process. The older man had been hoping the girl would give him a boy, instead of a girl. He wanted a boy to carry on his bloodline.

[The following February]

The steady stream of punters leaving the club signified that closing time was near. The flow soon dwindled to a few stragglers. The two doormen looked at their watches anxiously. It was well past 02:00 when the last customer left the club and climbed into a waiting taxi. For the doormen, their work for the night was done and dusted. They went inside and locked the door behind them.

Chapter Thee – History Repeats Itself

Sarah's defilement at the hands of the four lechers continues as she recalls the traumatic incident in her youth that led her being who she is today and explains how she came to be in the predicament she is currently in.

Transformed But Never Redeemed

Chapter 1: Transformed

The First Curse

Hope's Light

Chapter 18

by Erisian

Book 6

Chapter Eighteen - Threads

“Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.”

The Hitchhiker
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I know that you take your chances when you stand on the highway shoulder with your thumb in the air. It was just that I had no money, and no real place to go. It seemed like the best way out of a home that didn’t care for me was to just walk to the edge of town and stand on the side of the road and make the sign. If somebody woud stop for me I was ready to go as far as they were, and then keep going.

Hope's Light

Chapter 3

by Erisian

Book 6

Chapter Three - Sin

Languages are magic.

Think about it. By making weird sounds or scribbling strange markings against a surface, we transmit ideas, conjure images the recipient has never seen, and organize the very way we think. And it’s not limited to only verbal or written mediums; there is language in music, in mathematics, in dance and motion, and yes, in the act of making love. They are the tools by which we interact with each other and the universe at large, coordinating our very perceptions into meaning.

Mostly we use language to manipulate the thoughts and ideas of others, but some…well, some use it to manipulate the world directly. And what lies behind it.

Nathan observed as the demon king ruthlessly struck down his comrades, each one collapsing in a pool of their own blood. He too was rapidly losing vitality. In a desperate attempt, he endeavored to cast a spell that might stop the flow of blood, yet his dwindling strength rendered him unable to complete the incantation. Overwhelmed with despair, he listened to the anguished cries of his fellow soldiers-those who had placed their trust in him, fought alongside him, and believed in his leadership time after time. His senses began to blur, and he could feel the encroaching shadow of death.

Oh, do I have a tale to tell you….

The final day of my life, at least as I had known it up until that point, was a Sunday, which now
seems appropriate, if not a bit ironic.

[TW]

The months that followed for Elara were worse than she could have ever imagined. She could never prove it but she believed Catalina or one of her ladies were spreading rumors about her. Rumors made all the more believable by Olmund who favored her presence more and more and disregarded that of his betrothed's.

Genesis Infiltrator

The woman's words were a hammer blow. Raped. Mutilated. Left for dead.
Stacy... the image of her friend, vibrant and alive, morphed into a
terrifying possibility - a victim of human trafficking, lost in the
nightmarish underbelly of the world.

A wave of nausea swept over Sasha; a primal scream trapped in her throat
by the leather restraints. "Stacy?" she rasped, her voice cracking.
"What about Stacy?"

As we ventured through the bustling streets of New York City, the towering Empire State Building and the iconic Chrysler Building rose above us like giants of glass and steel, their mirrored surfaces reflecting the city's chaotic energy below. The air was filled with a symphony of honking horns, bustling crowds, and distant sirens, bouncing off the towering buildings and creating a cacophony of sounds.

Charles is now at Jane's Winsome Girls' School for Wayward Boys. He has volunteered to become one of Jane's girls to help Jane not only clear his name but to help Francis. He has a lot to learn about being a girl in a short amount of time, as Toby Camber is arriving at the school in a weeks time. Something else occurs that Charles wasn't expecting, he learns something else about himself while being Charlotte.