Chapter 2

We talked about it for a few days. Dad was worried about my safety, but we both agreed that it could be an exciting and rewarding job. Mum was more worried about my safety but came around to the idea, once I pointed out that there had been no news reports about members of the unit being killed or injured.

Sandcastles, Boiled Shrimp, and Gentle Gulf Breezes
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

-1-
The Open Highway
Somewhere Between New Orleans, Louisiana and Mobil, Alabama

A few weeks ago my life had flashed before my eyes. I'd been forced to cosplay as a Confederate Rifleman for a dumb Civil War reenactment by my tyrant father. In the course of the reenactment I'd developed a second degree sunburn, was bitten by a venomous snake, became dehydrated, and finally the cherry on the sundae was the fact that I had to spend three weeks in the hospital.

Chapter Two
The Awakening

Chapter 19 – Dressing the part

Gloria was all excitement. “Now let me see. Something formal. A little black dress will be the ideal” she decided, “and of course you must wear something elegant underneath. That will do wonders for your morale!”

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.

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.