Wonderland
"Eli, is... is there anything I can do to help?" The turtle-crab had raised an eyebrow quizzically at her. "To help with what?" Mano hadn't known how to broach the topic. "Have you ever thought about seeing someone? About everything that happened, I...
Driftwood
_'I hate this.'_ Afternoon. Skyscrapers concealed what was left of the setting sun's light with hard lines, cold stone and sharp angles. Mano missed the reassuring ocean depths and iron hull wrapped around her like a protective cocoon. The swarming...
Personal Space
Brazil hadn't been an easy place to live for the people who already lived there. It hadn't been going to be easy for them having moved there either. Slavery may have been gone but it had left its marks, as the street urchins roaming the favelas...
Oasis
'_It's a good thing that I've already read this before_,' she groaned inwardly as the shaking bus rudely closed the book she was re-reading in her hands yet again, _'Or there's no way I'd be able to keep up with it otherwise.'_ The cephalopod had...
Milgram
The chimera moved between the spaced out bamboo poles as seamlessly as a performer would've spun on a dance floor. Any misstep would've landed him in the water below him, and he \*was\* deathly afraid of water. Thinking about how Rakim had had to...
Before A Fall
Things weren't going so bad for Soma - it wasn't even a tournament month. He'd been getting a few patients he'd needed to take care of here and there, but just the right amount, not so much that it was proving overwhelming for him to keep up. It's...
Dead Trees
She derived such a sense of peace from this place. Taking a look around, she saw nothing but shelves and shelves of books everywhere around her. Every table was covered in stacks and piles of books and pieces of paper, scattered all over the place as...
Idle Hands
Rakim had sort of told himself ahead of time that his date probably wasn't going to work out to guard against disappointment. He discovered that he didn't fully have a plan for if his date actually did work out, that he wasn't sure if he was even...
Eye of a Needle
"Are you afraid of needles, Fran?" Fran had always vaguely hated hospitals. This must have been a fairly widespread sentiment all over Earth, she imagined. Of course, you go to the hospital because you need to, not because you want to, she told...
Bellerophon
Diaz knew that the chimera, having trounced him soundly, and with there being only one fight left, wasn't going to have to leave the ring until the tournament would be over. He certainly didn't expect to see the monster get out of the ring where the...
Phone Home
_ "Thank you, Fran." Her best friend and her roommate had been there to welcome her in her hospital room after she'd woken up. It had made her glad to be back._ _ "For what?" She'd tried to sit up in her hospital bed. Harder than it looked._ _ "For...
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...