We rolled down the hill together, hands clasped tight. The sky flashed past in bursts, now blue, now white, blue, blue, white until the ground ate it in hungry gulps and everything was green. We smelled like grass and crumpled flowers. Mouths stained with berry juice, knees with grass, we laughed through the summer and rolled down the hill.
All in Drama
People like to talk about love at first sight a lot. Meeting someone’s eyes across the cafeteria, that frisson of tension, that spark when two souls connect for just a moment. Or that barest of touches when returning a dropped book, skin against feverish skin. I’d had one or two such moments, in my time. But there are other moments of connection, ones that are often overlooked.
The rain washed out the streetlights and blurred the city streets as they passed by. Everything was muted, tinted blue and grey, made to shimmer as though the rain had filled the streets and now they drove through wide, empty ocean caverns, once-houses forming the rock walls.
I missed him. It wasn’t intentional, or good. True, I’d had feelings for him. Even loved him, sometime before he’d become a tyrannical despot, or perhaps while he was on the path. Rose-coloured glasses make it hard to say. So I could see how all this looked.
The lights in the underground parking lot flickered on one by one, each band of yellowy light illuminating the darkness, pushing it back to reveal the dim shapes of cars and concrete pillars. They weren’t very bright, but Illya was more concerned by the way they lit a straight path deeper into the darkness. The concrete stretched on it seemed forever, until the lights became mere pinpricks and then were swallowed up by the dark.
In the towering city on the shore, where the obsidian streets swallowed the light and the steel sea dashed ships upon the rocks, the great lighthouse was known to all. Its light cut through fog and shadow with ease, a warning to all who dared the coast. Do not come here.
Finals confrontation
This was it. My breath steamed in the remnants of the early morning chill, mixing with the dew that was rapidly burning off what grass remained on the field. Metal and boots had churned the damp grass to a muddy slurry; everyone looked the same from the knees down. But on our torsos, the colours were still visible. And they mattered.
Masks
“Just leave it! Come on, we’re going to be late, it’s fine.”
Richelle, caught in a pool of light from a streetlamp halfway between their gate and the taxi, cast a fretful look back at the front door of their house. Dan, one leg dangling over the taxi’s doorframe, the rest of him already securely seated, scowled at her around fake fangs.
Death and saxes
Andres Paolo was a dead man walking to a hopped up beat, and he knew it. It was hard to say who wanted him dead - or at least who wanted him dead enough to pay assassins. The usual strings of scorned ex-lovers, disgruntled fans and irate club owners were long on ire but generally short on cash and/or real desire to inflict lasting physical harm to his person
Safety and sanctuary
No-one knew about the Hamelin Sanctuary, or at least no-one talked about it. Gloria stumbled upon it quite by accident, her fur matted and dirty, paws aching, stomach growling. She’d never known there was anyone living in the forest.