Chapter 31 - Dénouement

I stepped to where Millie was huddled over Arthur, to check for any sign of life. “She… he is still breathing” I was able to report. The former was pressing a wad of material against her lover’s side. The pad was slowly darkening.

Gloria, tears coursing down her cheeks, fetched bandages and together with Millie, they bound the wounds more tightly, while I looked on helplessly. Guy found the phone and called for an ambulance and then the police. He covered the dead bodies each with a throw from the sofas.

After Karma is kidnapped by a supervillain while on an outing with her mother, she quickly proves that he may have bitten off more htan he can chew.

https://whateley.online/

This story is a sequel to a story I wrote several years ago, "To the Mana Born." Readers are invited to revisit the earlier story (already here at Big Closet) to find out about what's gone on before.

Tina, Beauty School Model

Julie had worked to support me as I went through college, I now had my degree in computer science and had found employment as a tech working from home helping people with their newly purchased software. I liked the part about working from home, now I would be able to keep the house up while providing money for Julie to get her degree. To my surprise and her family, she decided to take vocational courses to become a cosmetologist. We talked several times about her desire, but she was adamant that this is what she wanted to do with her life. One of her friends had taken the courses and was now working as a hair stylist, making almost as much as I was and that was with me having a degree.

Samantha begins volunteering at Willow House, where an unfamiliar uniform, new responsibilities, and a community depending on her make the disguise harder to escape.

Irene, A Step Maid

I was a little apprehensive about going home this time. Home just did not seem like a place I wanted to be any more. I am very thankful for finally escaping from this damn school though. Even a little proud of graduating tenth in my class, although I doubted anyone else would lend any significance to the feat.

“Opal, Sapphire, Ivory and Peridot … please report to the Colonel at 09:30 in No.2 Uniforms.” was announced over the newly installed loudspeaker system.

Opal looked at the others. “We have job to do it seems.”

When the four were ushered into the Colonel’s office they saluted, were told to be at ease, and then were asked to sit.

“We have been approached to carry out what would appear to be a simple task, but may be anything but simple.”

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?

As the door opened, a bell bracketed to the wall rang. “Welcome to the Magic Shoppe,” the tall, thin man behind the counter announced. “What can I do for you today?”

The man in his mid-thirties approached the counter. He mostly ignored the maid sweeping near the front of the shop. “I hope you can help. I need to be a woman.”

“Interesting. How long have you wanted to be a woman?”

“I haven’t.”

“I knew this would be interesting.”

“I’m in love.”