Chapter 12: A Short Story

Hinton, an amiable tobacco planter in Virginia, inspected the mill infrequently and trusted him to make an honest trade. There was no way to forecast when loggers would arrive, depending on the weather and the wind and water currents so Matthew remained available year-round. He was tall, burley with bushy, red hair, and freckles that almost connected into a solidly tan face. People never forgot him because his freckles were such an assortment of colors, red, brown, tan, beige, pink, auburn, rust, black, and orange. He entertained visitors with stories of animals and men fighting themselves and each other along with spine-tingling stories about ghosts and Indians that intimidated the settlers. If they were true, it did not matter.

Lifty huffed, snuffing his cough back into his throat as he chucked Petunia into his bedroom.

“Come here.” She motioned for him to move closer. Once he stood before her, she dipped her finger under the elastic of his boxer’s waistband and gave a tug. “Let’s see how sexy you are when you come.”

I sit at the kitchen table going over the eviction papers. But we have done nothing wrong I think in my head. My husband John paces beside me furrowing his brow. “I just don't understand. Why us? Why would they come after us?!” exclaims John.

“This is it,” Theron said, leaning against the holotable. Everything had been powered down and packed up. All that was left was to pile onto their ships and go their separate ways. Theron had a shuttle standing by, a simple, one-manned vessel to deliver him to his mother’s command ship.

Three days passed before Jingyan took a trip to Su Zhe's residence, following a familiar path to a destination with a wholly different sort of anticipation. He made his visit at night, when there were less watchful eyes and more shadows to hide his trail. When he finally stepped into the courtyard of plum blossoms, he detoured to the pond before entering the still-lit room of the house.

The equation on the page of his scribbler began to spread out a widening tail, eyed and starred like a peacock's; and, when the eyes and stars of its indices had been eliminated, began slowly to fold itself together again. The indices appearing and disappearing were eyes opening and closing; the eyes opening and closing were stars being born and being quenched. The vast cycle of starry life bore his weary mind outward to its verge and inward to its centre, a distant music accompanying him outward and inward. What music? The music came nearer and he recalled the words, the words of Shelley's fragment upon the moon wandering companionless, pale for weariness. The stars began to crumble and a cloud of fine stardust fell through space.

As he'd killed these men of the North, Darius had come to understand a bit about them. They were larger than his countrymen on average, their skin paler, and he had a grim respect for their metalwork. The quality of their steel was much higher than what he was used to, this resulted in superior armor and weapons. They wore heavy plate mail, and ingenious mail formed from rings that'd been formed together. The swords that they wielded were longer, and heavier, as were their shields. Even their fighting techniques were different from what he was used to. Still, as large as the majority of them were, he was bigger still, and certainly stronger. He'd taken a number of the weapons off the corpses he'd made, and had studied the intricacies of

Zolah leaned against the terminal and coughed. The ground forces had finally beaten Revan’s army back. She hoped that the distraction had been enough to give the temple assault team enough time to deal with Revan. Reports poured in about a beam of light flashing through the sky, some claiming to have heard a voice. The possibilities of what it could mean send a cold shiver up her spine, but she refused to accept failure without concrete evidence.

I turned in my theme on Mr. Syme’s desk. It had turned out to be 70 pages. Once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. My theme ended up taking me the whole rest of the semester to finish.

Kylo had returned to his sanctum, his personal quarters. A great many thoughts and emotions were swirling around in the Commander's mind. Far more than he could voice in a single conversation. He was excited beyond words to have finally found a way to destroy the Rebellion, excited to see just how strong Zyra were and could be. But all of that excitement were overshadowed by other emotions, new emotions. Desire. Lust. Attraction. New emotions that had surfaced only hours previous, when he felt the warmth of another being finding it's way to his very core. Just being near his new apprentice sent shivers down his spine. It fueled him, fueled his power. He could feel himself more powerful now than yesterday just because of a few short but

Lightning flared and thunder rumbled through the skies of Brogontis. Luke paid no attention to the looming storm. He sat alone at his rightful place at the throne, his eyes distant as he mourned the loss of Dooly, his mentor, master, but more than that, his friend.

Xion exited the dark portal with a finished mission report in hand, she gave it to Saïx who registered it in the database. After that, she left the Gray Room, thinking quietly to herself. 'Huh, I finished my mission a lot sooner than I thought and it's too early to go to Beast's Castle and wait for that boy to return. Wonder what I should do 'till then.'

They turned the castle corner to a giant lawn two kilometers long. Flowers of every color lined where the yard and forest met, a decorated border everyone seemed to fear. A wooden fence marked the beginning of the lawn’s plateau, and flattened stones created a biotic footpath into a green valley of nothingness.

He opens his eyes to an unfamiliar view—there is a blue-toned light hitting against the shadowed ebony metal siding. He hits his head from the van driving over a bump, "Ow..." he gently rubs the affected area.