Ander - Epilogue: Subchapter 10 (THE END)
10 "Kiana?" he whispered so softly he could barely hear his own voice. It somehow felt like any kind of noise in this place, in this moment, would be akin to sacrilege. He stepped inside and eased the door shut behind him, wincing at the click of the...
Ander - Epilogue: Subchapter 9
9 Ander was vaguely aware of an awful throbbing in his fingers, but that seemed far away and unimportant. There was something else going on, something so fundamentally wrong it was able to reach him even through the shifting haze of shadows he had...
Ander - Epilogue: Subchapter 8
8 - here!" Ander didn't open the front door so much as he _smashed_ it open and tumbled inside like a lunatic. Rufio and Hezzi were already there. Hezzi was pacing up and down in front of the fireplace, and Rufio was relaxing by the open window,...
Ander - Epilogue: Subchapter 7
7 "...aah... naah!" 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...
Ander - Epilogue: Subchapter 6
6 The light was growing soft. The shadows, fuzzy. James took a quiet moment to look out over the field again. The kids had retreated into the shade of an old elm tree and were talking about something in that special way unique to the young, with many...
Ander - Epilogue: 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...
Ander - Epilogue: 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...
Ander - Epilogue: 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...
Ander - Epilogue: 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,...
Ander - Epilogue: Subchapter 1
Chapter 7 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...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 187
187 Kiana didn't think she had ever been in a formation quite as lopsided as this. She had Hezzi's arm slung over her shoulder, and she, in turn, had her arm slung over Valery's shoulder, whose knees were just about shaking under all the weight. Hezzi...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 186
186 _Vallah! Get down from there before you break your neck!_ _But there's this huge bug up here, Father! You gotta see it! Its fangs are like, this big!_ She held her arms as far apart as they would go to indicate the sheer size of the mystery...