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?

Chapter 16 – The list

At the cursory glance which was all I had the opportunity to make I could see that there were no marks upon the dead woman’s face or arms and no sign of a struggle anywhere. She looked as peaceful as if she had indeed died naturally in her sleep, but there was no way anyone could be sure.

“How sad!” I exclaimed, and I meant it. In the brief interview I’d had with Flora her forthright personality had made a strong impression upon me. We would never continue that conversation now.

Chapter 1

Before I get into telling you my story, I really need to tell you a little bit about my ancestors. It does have a bit of a bearing on what happened later, as some revolves around my given name. Many years back, my grandfather was born in Scotland. When he was a toddler, his parents moved to London, where my great-grandfather had a new job to go to. It was working for an import / export business, with the main business importing butter from New Zealand.

Chapter 15 – Dead end

Guy was most disturbed next morning when I told him about what had occurred. “I don’t like this at all, Jennifer” he began. “Living on your own as you do makes you extremely vulnerable.”

Chapter 14 – The intruder

By the time I had driven back to town, I was tired and in low spirits. To make any real kind of progress in unravelling the mystery of the PI’s death seemed to elude me as much as ever. I was tempted to go straight home and soak away my weariness in a steaming bubble bath, but I knew I ought to check in at the office first, for form’s sake if nothing else. When I did so I found my boss at his desk in a scholarly attitude. Had he not moved from his task all day?

The Dead Pixel Society

© 2026 Zoe Taylor

“This isn’t enough to make up for me not screaming when I walked in on you in the girls’ bathroom. That was a ‘lol meet cute’ BS Disney moment. This is real. This is you seeing the Madison that hasn’t freaking existed since I was a freshman, and used to pray to God nobody heard me crying in the east wing stairwell, where the acoustics made my sobs sound like a tragic French opera..."

Chapter 13 – Horse country

I walked across to where my two-seater was parked and turned to wave goodbye, but the ex-agent had already disappeared inside the office.

For Saturday, August 5, I brought Aries back with a specific idea in mind. After breakfast, and after asking Aries to put on one of her bikinis, I called my parents and set up another video call.

As soon as Aries came into the frame, before I even had a chance to introduce her to my parents, Mom exclaimed, “What the hell is that!”

“I can explain, Mom,” I said.

But Dad interrupted with, “Told you so.”

“Told me what?” I asked.

Chapter 8

By the following morning, the questions swirling through the city had finally reached the clan’s doorstep, their urgency amplified by rumor, fear, and the relentless churn of public debate. Chief among them was one that threatened to divide the community more sharply than any other: Should hunters be allowed to attend school alongside normal children?

Late November. They've known the date for three weeks - Jenny scheduling the induction for a Tuesday morning, the bag packed and in the car since the week before. We get to the hospital at six. Emily is checked in, changed into the gown, the IV in by six-thirty. The monitor strapped around her abdomen, the baby's heartbeat on the screen - the same fast percussion as the ultrasound in May, steady, constant.

Chapter 12

On our way home, we spoke about setting down roots of our own and talked about places where we would like to live. When our contract expired, we would lose the use of the apartment unless we re-signed, so would need to get a place of our own. Of course, by then we would have over four million in our banks. We had only splashed out on the car and a few trinkets, and our expenses were all paid for by the employers when we travelled.

Chapter 11 - Magnetic attraction

Millie showed me upstairs and into an empty bedroom. It had its own adjoining bathroom and like the rest of the house was expensively furnished. “If you will wait here a moment, miss.”

More than a little embarrassed by my lapse in choice of attire I waited as requested. Minutes later she returned with a dress over her arm. “I think you will find this little frock acceptable.” It looked delightful and I took it from her eagerly, glad to be able to remedy my mistake.

Chapter 11

Mum and John were with us until Saturday, turning the visit into a couple of days exploring the city, a place that was bringing Mum out of her small-town life, now ready to embrace a new future with the man she loved.

My phone rings at twenty past one.

"I've got it," she says, before I can speak. Her voice is different — faster, something lit in it. "The reactivation isn't a response to the gradient. It's a response to the timing. The nodes are pattern-matching the suppression interval and compensating. If we randomize the interval — structured pseudo-random within a fixed variance band — the mesh can't predict the next suppression event."

I sit up.

"Show me," I say.

"I'm at home. I've been running it on my machine."

I'm already looking for my shoes.

Chapter 9 – A discovery

“I’ve seen his office building” I repeated.

“Then you should go and see him and find out what the son of a gun is up to? Give him my best when you do. First, some refreshments would be nice but hurry! Then you might catch him in.”

Wychwood Venice First Days

She/her

One

“Okay, Mountain pose,” Lauren said, taking a long, slow breath. “Stand tall, feet shoulder-width apart.”