Mean You No Harm
_Fran had worked the nightshift at a convenience store. It had suited her in some ways. After a short, mercifully optimistic period of settling into it, it had become customary for her to think of herself as hating her job. Most people hated their jobs...
Fear to Tread
Life had been strange for Klein after he had moved back to North America. His trip back on the boat with Bridges had gone swimmingly. He'd known what to expect, and he'd had to deal with none of the stress of having started out as a stowaway the way...
Yet So Far Away
"I try running away, I'm just not fast enough... My own friends hate me, but I don't give a shit." (Wavves, Green Eyes) "I can't believe you did this _again_." Aside from the droning hum of her ship's engine, the two of them had been sitting in...
Argus
While most onlookers would at first glance think that the job description of Argus the rat is limited to being a librarian, he thinks of himself more as the caretaker to his own kind of aviary. Even though he's a warlock first and foremost, he also...
Ersatz
The skunk stepped gingerly from the shore onto the boardwalk, creaking beneath her feet like a pirate ship’s deck. She wasn’t sure what lurked beyond those thick ferns and dangling vines into the waiting swamp ahead of her, but she was determined to...
Surface (Chapter 8)
"Threefold is the faith of the embodied, which is inherent in their nature- the Satvic (pure), the Rajasic (passionate) and the Tamasic (dark)." - Bhagavad-Gita "Western time is ticking; Eastern time is breathing; capoeira time is pulsating." - ????...
The Sincerest Form
Boko's lair had been unlike anything that Klein had ever seen. They'd gone down through a trapdoor in the forest floor and climbed down a ladder into a large, open, cube-shaped room underground. Inside, there had been stairs on the floor, but also...
Share Alike
'Objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.' (Newton) He could almost feel it starting. It could be a vicious cycle. Sometimes it only had to start from a very small doubt as to whether or not he'd be going to be...
Volk
In Volk's world, undeath ends up playing the social role of indefinite life extension reserved for the upper class. The wolf doesn't believe that there's such a thing as the afterlife, and unlike other undead-fighting heroes, he has no interest in...
Surface (Chapter 2)
Brazil hadn't always been an easy place to live in. The country's history of slavery had left marks which hadn't proven to be easy to erase. Sand children and street urchins roamed the favelasdesperately struggling to keep themselves alive by any means...
Surface (Chapter 9)
Klein had been a weird kid. In class, most teachers had resented him for scribbling, fidgeting, daydreaming and reading books they hadn't even mentioned instead of sitting still and paying attention all the time like he'd been supposed to, and most...
Rakim
Rakim is the bat in my belfry. Birdcages hang upside-down from the walls of his clock tower with their doors wide open. A lightning rod and wind turbines that he's installed on the roof power the light bulbs and turning gears in its top floor...