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 Eleven — The Ledger

Gwen smoothed the front of her own dress in the mirror — deep green, worn exactly once before and never for a reason this good — and caught Sam's eyes finding her in the glass instead of her own reflection.

"You look incredible," Sam said, turning from her own mirror to actually look, unhurried, appreciative, the particular look she'd only started giving Gwen in the last few weeks, like she still couldn't quite believe she was allowed to.

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.

“The doctor says it isn’t really that unusual,” Mom commented

Another Country -20-
by Erin halfelven

Becoming Emily

Chapter One: Borrowed Dresses (Part 1)

At twenty-four, Aaron had long ago accepted that people would occasionally mistake him for a woman from behind.

His chestnut hair reached just past his shoulders, naturally soft despite his half-hearted attempts to make it look untidy. He kept it because he liked it—though he always shrugged off questions about why he never cut it short.

“It suits you,” his younger sister would say.

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