Ander - Part 5: Subchapter 1
Chapter 5 Blood in the Snow 1 Kiana awoke with a gasp, disoriented and shaking all over. It took her a few seconds to realize she was in her bedroom, lying in bed, staring up at the same old familiar ceiling with the same old familiar bands of...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 48
48 "I promise... I won't... let anything... happen..." Luke's words slipped out in haphazard mutterings, falling from his numb lips in-between gasps for breath. It felt like his lungs were both freezing and burning at the same time, but he couldn't...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 43
43 "Why hello there, Jitters. Guess who's back." Jitters didn't say anything. Neither did she stomp or snort. Stupid animal must have gone back to sleep. It was dark as a cave in here, but he'd soon fix that. He hobbled over to the giant pile of dry...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 42
42 Banno closed the door behind him, gasping and wheezing, burning from the inside out, trying not to think about how he'd have to walk all the way back to the animal cages, and then all the way back to his room when he was done. But he did think...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 47
47 Through that black window, through the shadows and underneath the blankets lay Banno, fast asleep. He could hear the fire outside, but the sound in his dream did not belong to a fire. It belonged to a river. It wasn't a raging, dirty brown serpent...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 46
46 -uuke!" He didn't turn back. He was looking down at his shadow, spread out before him, made spiky by the grass. It pulsated in time with the blaze at his back, jumping and fading, growing dark again. Shadows weren't supposed to be so clear at...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 44
44 Banno put the fire-starting kit back where he had found it, checked the candles on the table one last time to make absolutely sure it didn't look like they had been tampered with, then continued on to his room - his eyes, ears and nose on full...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 45
45 "Jitters!!" Valery screamed, the full horror of what was happening before her eyes slamming into her all at once. She was still in her nightclothes, and ordinarily she would have been freezing her tail off on a night like this, but the barn was...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 28
28 Maybe there was still time. Maybe he could still make it. And if he couldn't... well... No! What was he supposed to say if he got caught now? _Oh hi there, James! What am I doing out of bed, sneaking around behind your back, you ask? Well, I was...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 29
29 Did they notice it yet? Banno didn't think so. They were too concerned with what was going on in this bed to bother looking down at the floor. He only had moments to think, but this itch... this damnable, infuriating, constant, incessant, ITCH!! It...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 26
26 _Now what do we have here?_ Banno thought, looking up at something he's never seen before. A series of black and white sketches, neatly framed, neatly lined up against the wall, neatly spaced in equal intervals. There were some butterflies, some...
Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 25
25 Where his left foot touched down on solid ground for the first time since he was pulled out of the river, his right leg just ended a few inches too short, the bandaged stump hovering in mid-air. He didn't like that asymmetry. His eye was just as...