Ander - Chapter 8, Subchapter 7

7 "Haah... Heeaargh!" Ander stopped at the sound of that voice. Or at least, he _thought_ it was a voice. It had an odd, wheezy sort of quality he didn't like, similar to an animal slowly dying of thirst. He squinted into the darkness. The moon was...

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Ander - Chapter 8, Subchapter 5

5 He could hear it up ahead, the sound of the river. It was so different to the roar of a year ago, the thunderous, roiling crash of muddy brown water sluicing through the earth. This sound reaching his ears now, through the trees and the shifting...

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Ander - Chapter 8, Subchapter 4

4 Standing in the shade with his hands in pockets, James couldn't help but stare at the mountain for a while. It was so different in the summertime. No armour of frost and snow to cover its sheer peaks. No howling wind tearing through the cliffs. No...

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Ander - Chapter 8, Subchapter 3

3 "Now that was some odd weather," James said, starry-eyed from the memory of those two rushing out of the chapel, not unlike the way he had rushed outside with Emily on their wedding day. The breeze whispered through the sycamore and a smattering of...

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Ander - Chapter 8, Subchapter 2

2 This tiny little room at the back of the chapel had a massive full-length mirror running up the wall, and it was in front of this mirror that Kiana now stood, just as countless blushing brides before her had done, turning this way and that,...

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Ander - Chapter 8, Subchapter 1

Chapter 8 Epilogue 1 The sun beat down from a clear blue sky, glinting off the weatherworn gravestones as they stood in their neat little rows. Away in the distance, cicadas chirped their repetitive songs as though in complaint of the baking heat....

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Ander - Chapter 7, Subchapter 33

33 They didn't go far before they came across a she-wolf sitting in the shadowy gap between two tents, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth, muttering beneath her breath. Her hands were soaked in fresh blood, and that was reason...

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Ander - Chapter 7, Subchapter 32

32 Nilia knew, even before they crashed through the snow-speckled web of bushes at the edge of the basecamp, that something was wrong. She could smell it on the wind, the stench of smoke and blood. The sounds of many voices, broken by the storm into...

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Ander - Chapter 7, Subchapter 31

31 Kiana pushed against the dead Wolf with all the crazy, panicky strength she could muster, gasping for air and expelling it again in hysterical half-screams. Her hands kept slipping off his blood-drenched neck and his face kept slapping onto her...

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Ander - Chapter 7, Subchapter 30

30 Kiana barely had enough time to register the dirty, mangy fur and the dried splatters of blood across its bony knuckles before she was yanked right off her feet. She yelled and tried to pull away, but she wasn't touching the ground anymore, so she...

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Ander - Chapter 7, Subchapter 29

29 Most of these tents had already been ransacked. Bit of an extreme choice of words, perhaps, but fairly accurate. They were stripped completely bare and for some reason reminded Kiana of barren market stalls at midnight; just a line of placeholders,...

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Ander - Chapter 7, Subchapter 28

28 _I have to help, I_ know _I can help..._ It was beginning to turn into a kind of obsession. Kiana knew this perfectly well, but she couldn't let it go, and neither could she turn back. She had to finish this. There was simply no other way. The...

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