We had fifteen minutes.
It took three for Nuru to wake up properly; the tray rattled out of the wall like a final breath, dispensing her with all the clinical efficiency of a morgue. Her fingers were cold. Too cold.
All in Romance
Summer's deathbed
Firelight made his eyes ache, even through his eyelids. It flickered and danced, casting lurid shapes across his vision, and Jurian curled himself tighter and tried to ignore the feeling of his skin gradually drying out as the warmth and light sapped his strength. The eternal dusk overhead was gradually lightening as the Pyrds carried him further from the cliff-carved ring city of Dular – soon, they would need no flame to keep him contained.
Cute to be Cryptic
Shimmering dunes stretched hungry fingers towards the towers of Theros, false water threatening illusory floods in the blinding sunlight. Aspasia watched the travellers trudge across the sands day and night, huddled beneath meagre shade-cloths even as their sprawling caravans stretched out towards infinity.
Compersion
Tanya smiled sleepily, hearing the sounds of cooking creep beneath the door and into the cosy bedroom. Luxuriating in the purple satin sheets, she stretched cat-like for a moment before sliding out from between the bedlinen and padding to the door.
Egg salad sandwiches at midnight
He was contemplating whether to risk the staff toilet, affectionately called the Toilet of Doom by everyone who had ever had to use it, and so was surprised when the door chime announced the arrival of a customer. Roscoe glanced up, and then stiffened and stared like a deer in headlights, his brain frantically grinding gears as it tried to deal with the fact that Chadwick Smithson had just walked through the door.
Sand Piper
His hair was tangled with the weeds, his skins sleek and glossy with blood. I called my mama, for I was only young, then, and we took him up to the walkway and to our store.