CHAPTER 9
I could see exactly what she meant, for it had made up so much of her debate with Maria: if things went wrong, each could lose a friend. I had never seen anything really nasty in Maria, apart from a certain blinkered aspect when she saw something she wanted. Like Alwen.

“Got to go, love, for the quiz. Chat after?”

“Please. It’s, well, I know you see things clearly. Might help me do so”

“Later, then. Promise”

Chapter Ten — What They Keep

"I'm sorry." Gwen said it into Sam's hair, her voice wrecked, before either of them had let go of the other. "I'm so sorry, Sam. I keep saying it and it isn't enough, and I don't think there's a version of it that would be enough, but I need you to hear it anyway. I did this. Whatever else is true, I did this to you, and I don't get to just be sad about it alongside you like it happened to both of us equally. It didn't. It happened to you because of me."

Torn from his own world and stuffed into the body of a villainess, facing the end of a doomed route he himself wrote, "Amelia" must navigate a world she really should know - too bad she was never great at worldbuilding.

Stuck in a world she (maybe) created, Amelia quickly finds that reality has filled in the details she failed to describe. The characters who were so flat when she wrote them now have nuance, and motives. The kingdom she wrote into existence is experiencing internal strife she never even thought about. And let's not even get into the complexities of the magic system, or the demon that forced her into this situation to begin with...

Oh, and then there's the fact that she's about to be arrested and executed... but surely she can come up with a way to write herself out of that, right?

...Right?

Gary had never been hotter in his life.
Hey, that’s Africa for you, he thought to himself. It’s not like anyone ever said it wouldn’t be anything other than sweat-your-fucking-balls-off hot. And boy is it! If anything, they might have been underselling it!

It was a short drive from campus to the bar. As we drove up I saw a sign outside that said happy hour starting at this hour with all mixed drinks for the ladies half off. Seeing that it was open I was keen on going in but asked Sam if he was up to it. Seeing how this excited me he agreed for a short stop and said smiling that since it was ½ price drinks for the ladies it would be a cheap date.

Becoming Emily

Becoming Emily

Chapter Two: Learning to Stay (Part 1)

The first morning Emily signed her name instead of Aaron’s, she expected the pen to hesitate.

It didn’t.

The ink flowed across the page with quiet confidence, forming six familiar letters that had long since ceased to feel borrowed.

Emily.

She looked at the signature for several moments after the form had been handed back across the counter.

Nothing extraordinary happened.

The clerk smiled politely and moved to the next customer.

Chapter 17 – The Golden Touch

Wychwood Venice

After The Fitting

One

Torn from his own world and stuffed into the body of a villainess, facing the end of a doomed route he himself wrote, "Amelia" must navigate a world she really should know - too bad she was never great at worldbuilding.

Stuck in a world she (maybe) created, Amelia quickly finds that reality has filled in the details she failed to describe. The characters who were so flat when she wrote them now have nuance, and motives. The kingdom she wrote into existence is experiencing internal strife she never even thought about. And let's not even get into the complexities of the magic system, or the demon that forced her into this situation to begin with...

Oh, and then there's the fact that she's about to be arrested and executed... but surely she can come up with a way to write herself out of that, right?

...Right?

Torn from his own world and stuffed into the body of a villainess, facing the end of a doomed route he himself wrote, "Amelia" must navigate a world she really should know - too bad she was never great at worldbuilding.

Stuck in a world she (maybe) created, Amelia quickly finds that reality has filled in the details she failed to describe. The characters who were so flat when she wrote them now have nuance, and motives. The kingdom she wrote into existence is experiencing internal strife she never even thought about. And let's not even get into the complexities of the magic system, or the demon that forced her into this situation to begin with...

Oh, and then there's the fact that she's about to be arrested and executed... but surely she can come up with a way to write herself out of that, right?

...Right?

CHAPTER 8
In the way pf all holidays, of course, just as we had not just established a routine, but settled firmly into it, the clock ran out and we had to return to the UK. We saw Jenny and Lil off at the airport as we awaited our own flight, and I pondered the eternal Welsh question of how waterproof skin really was. Amina was quiet, which was always an unusual state for her, so I distracted her by dragging her off to grab something to eat, after the non-competition of choice between the tapas bar and a certain burger chain. Once we were settled on a couple of stools, I asked the usual penny-related question.

It starts small. That's the thing about it — small enough that the first few times I attribute it to tiredness, to the whiskey, to the body doing things bodies do.

I'm at my desk Friday morning reviewing the overnight logs when I reach for a word — a technical term, the name of the protein cascade inhibitor we'd been modeling — and the word arrives before I've finished reaching for it. Not like remembering. Like something slipping it to me. The word is correct. I use it.

Because of the reporting restrictions still being in place, the mainstream media was limited about what it could say until the jury had returned a verdict. It was as if the world had stopped while the jury deliberated.

I imagined that I could feel each thread passing over the sensitive flesh.

Another Country -19-
by Erin Halfelven