Stories and other things that come out of a pen.

A blog dedicated to words.

[lsilvertongue]

what we owe each other

[lsilvertongue]

A Sea Witch Stole My Voice on Substack

[lsilvertongue]

On Nostalgia (continue reading)

[letthebookbegin]

Choose Your Own Adventure

Things happen in threes, people always seem to say. Well, so far today you've been yelled at by your manager and soaked by the ol' reliable collaboration of a bus and a puddle, and you quite fancy passing out in your bed so you're fully unconscious by the time the third thing manages to find you. You look down as you fumble with your keys and pause - there's a rumpled bouquet shaking on your doorstep, clearly blown out of someone's arms with the wind.

Do you:

sigh and look around for the owner to return it

bring it inside with you - finders keepers, and you need some cheering up today

step over them and walk inside, today's not a day to tempt fate

Voting ended onOct 10, 2023

[letthebookbegin]

You look around, blinking rain out of your eyes, holding the bouquet out in front of you pleadingly.

'Hello?' You call. The storm answers you with a flash. A figure is lit up amongst the gloom, hair long enough to cover its eyes.

'Your flowers!' You call out, but the figure had vanished with the light. Thunder booms on cue and you push the wet hair out of your eyes. A tiredness beyond sleep has a hold of your limbs now. You reach into your bag, looking for a source of inspiration, and pull out the foil left over from your lunch. Arranging it over the bouquet to give it some measure of protection, you decide you've done enough and finally step inside.

Your calico hears your keys and is at the door to welcome you, already meowing in indignation that you'd left her behind again.

"Alright, okay," you sigh, never too tired to give her the attention she demands. You crouch down to pet her and freeze. There's a crumpled bouquet sitting politely by the paws of your cat.

It's exactly the same as the one you left outside. You wouldn't have realised it had you not spent so much time holding it, but it matches up perfectly; each leaf is bent the same way, each flower blooming as little or as much as it should be to be a perfect copy.

Your cat bumps her head into your still palm and you snap out of it. Of course they're not identical. Someone must have pushed this bouquet through the letterbox and left another on her doorstep. Who? A question for the morning. You just need some sleep. You fill a vase with water and dump the flowers in it, then crawl into bed without changing out of your wet clothes. Your cat follows you in and you lift up the blanket to make space for her purring body.

You wake in the middle of the night, shivering. You finally change out of your clothes and go looking for your cat, lonely and miserable. You find her calling for you, squeezed under the sofa. Dread drops like a weight in your stomach: you pull her out despite her protests and anxiously search her for any harm. There's nothing physically wrong, but you know instinctively, fluent in the silent language two creatures with different tongues have grown used to using to communicate - she's in pain. She meows pitifully, looking up at you with eyes full of trust in the person who looks after her, beseeching you to fix it.

What do you do?

Call off work and stay with her, comforting her as best you can

Try not to assume something is wrong and go to bed

Leave her be and if she's still upset in the morning, call the vets

Burn the flowers - the only thing different from yesterday, when she seemed fine

Voting ended onOct 11, 2023

[letthebookbegin]

Darling, Dearest, Dead

Chapter Two

'Aren't we late?' Sirius interrupts. His tone is casual, but the other two notice the tension between his shoulders.

'This isn't like your parents' parties, Sirius. It'll be... more casual. No one will mind if we're a bit late. But,' James replies, shoving him in-between his shoulder blades, 'If you really want, I'll brave the horrifying notion of propriety a little sooner.'

Sirius snorts, ruffles James' hair in just the wrong way in response. 'Can't have that, it'd be worse than Azkaban.'

'Is there a reason,' Remus enters the room, speaking over James' dismayed shout, 'That you're all up here instead of helping out downstairs?'

'Yeah,' Sirius replies, dodging James' thrown hairbrush. 'To get out of helping out.'

'Made it out!' Lily gasps, shutting the door behind her. 'I knew you'd all be here. Mind explaining why you've left me to fend for myself when it's a graduation party for all of us? I've had twenty different people come up to me and ask me what I plan to do with my life.'

'Your problem, love, was going downstairs in the first place. We're the guests of honour, we can afford to be fashionably late. You look gorgeous.' James whispers the last part, keen to avoid the others' good-natured teasing. Lily grins and kisses him.

Read on AO3

[letthebookbegin]

Darling, Dearest, Dead

Nothing changes overnight.

Change was constant and inevitable, of course, but it was also gradual. Voldemort didn’t build a near-invincible army to wage a devastating war overnight. Dumbledore didn’t craft his opposing army, carefully nudging and prodding his chess pieces into play, overnight.

The youngest of his players didn’t begin their tragedy overnight.

But this was the moment when things began to settle differently in their minds, the moment when milestones changed from birthdays and holidays to battles and deaths.

‘Remus, wake up!’ Remus gropes blindly for his wand and points it vaguely in the direction of his assailant. Sirius rolls his eyes, grabs Remus’ wand, and uses it to shine light directly in his face.

Remus makes a faintly disgruntled noise, covers his head with his pillow, then slams his bed’s curtains shut with as much force as he can muster.

Sirius shrugs. ‘I tried my best.’

‘You did not.’ James stares in disbelief at Sirius lounging on his unmade bed, the only person ready in the mess of the seventh-year Gryffindor dorm. ‘Will you get up and be useful for once?’

‘It’s not my fault I’m the only one who bothered to get ready in time.’

‘Why can’t I find any socks?’ Peter wails, cross-legged on the floor and covered in piles of clothes. ‘Do you know how many socks I brought to Hogwarts this year? Ninety-eight. Do you know how many I have now? Zero. I just don’t understand what happens to them.’

‘Remus transfigures them into little birds.’ Sirius replies, his focus on conjuring sparks from his wand. ‘He has been since first year. ’Course, he wasn’t that good at it back then. Blew up a few on accident.’

‘I thought we were keeping that a secret.’ Remus mumbles through Peter’s yell, still trying to hold onto the remnants of his sleep.

‘I figured last day of Hogwarts is as good a time as any to tell him.’

James peeks out from behind his curtains to look hopelessly at Sirius. ‘Get him some socks.’

‘But I’m already packed.’ Sirius gestures at his open trunk and the precariously leaning tower of clothes inside it. James disappears behind his curtains with a curse.

‘Are you lot ready?’ Lily asks from the doorway, wearing dress robes the colour of her eyes. ‘You know we’ve got to go down in – wow. Never mind.’

They all have their reasons for joining the fight against Voldemort. Lily will because she is about to emerge into a world where her only choices are to fight or hide, and to her, that’s no choice at all.

‘Lily!’ James cries, brightening immediately. ‘You look amazing.’

‘So do you.’ Lily replies, lips twitching. James looks down at his bare legs and neon pink shirt he’d thrown on because he was cold and decides to salvage what’s left of his dignity by disappearing again.

‘I know.’ He adds, voice muffled by the curtain, just to be absolutely sure she doesn’t think he’s embarrassed.

‘Nice save, mate.’ Remus interjects, ruining his perfect impression of a sleeping person. James chucks a pillow at him.

‘You all do know we’re graduating in an hour, right?’

read the rest on ao3

[letthebookbegin]

🍃 storm

(send me a 🍃 for a story)

They say a storm is a perfect hiding place.

Tonight is no exception. The light of the full moon is extinguished by the endless expanse of clouds. The sound of footsteps is muffled by the drumbeat of the raindrops and the crashes of thunder. The flashes of lightning blind and distract more than they illuminate.

A door creaks open and light pools out into the rain. Thunder booms and the light fizzles out, and a boy jumps back with a gasp. Out of all the creatures hiding in the storm, he is the most afraid; but, just like the others, he has a reason to hide.

With a final glance towards his parents’ room, one hand tracing the mess of bruises on his skin, the boy steps out into the storm.

Immediately, he shivers. He pulls his coat tighter around himself, but it has no hood; after a moment’s hesitation, he runs to the edge of the wood.

A raindrop falls on his eye and he winces, blinks hard. He knows there’s more shelter if he walks deeper into the forest, but his heart races at the thought of that dense darkness. His gaze catches on a familiar tree stump and when he opens his eyes he is five years old, watching a waking nightmare. He stares up at eyes bigger than the moon, eyes taking shelter from the storm, and the eyes stare back.

The young boy swallows, hears his mother’s voice in his head. It was only a dream, you pathetic child. The words repeat, this time in his own voice. Only a dream. Only a dream.

In the end, the eyes behind him win out over the eyes in front. Knowing his parents could easily wake and see him through their window, the boy steps forward, as alert as hunted prey. The crunch of leaves underfoot and his gasping breath is lost to the incessant beat of raindrops and thunder.

He wants to stay as far from the clearing as possible, but the path and his feet lead him there anyway. (Surely the path didn’t curve this way in the daylight?) He walks to the tree stump and he shouldn’t stop, but he does. He shouldn’t sit, but he does. And then the boy hugs his arms to stop the shaking, and looks up towards his fate.

The eyes look down at him.

He blinks.

They blink back.

His stomach twists in on itself, but he doesn’t look away; as frightened as he is, tonight, what’s behind him is even scarier.

‘Will you help me?’ he asks. His voice is as quiet as the rustle of the leaves, but he asks. He’s not sure why. His body does not answer to his mind any longer, it seems; only to fear.

The eyes blink twice more, then do not open a third time. Left alone, a forgotten raindrop tricking down his skin, the boy tucks his knees to his chest and sobs.

When dawn breaks, he drags himself back to the path (had it shifted in the night? Was it just hidden under leaves?) and back into bed. The storm had softened; now it was just rain.

The boy feels empty, all his feelings cried out onto the leaves. The emptiness persists when he is woken barely an hour later by his parents, familiar expressions of fury twisting their faces.

And then fear pierces the emptiness, followed by wonder, because in the shadows of his parents is a pair of eyes – eyes the size of pocket-sized moons. The boy blinks, and the eyes blink back.

The storm was not yet over.

[letthebookbegin]

✨ selja!

thanks for sending in an ask <3

the rush of the ocean as a wave soaks you from behind; the flicker of a dying torch used to read under a blanket; the warmth of a stray cat as it purrs on your lap. tangling your fingers in someone else’s hair; planting a seed and watching it grow; pressing your head against the window to listen to the rain.

send me ✨ for a name aesthetic!

[letthebookbegin]

Hi! 🍃 + the word “dragon”

hi, thanks for sending in an ask! (send me a 🍃 for a story)

There was once a dragon who told the Truth and the Time.

Or so it was said, although no one in living memory had usedit for anything but the latter.

The dragon lay curled up just outside the village, in size indistinguishablefrom the mountains that bordered it. It had lain asleep for so long thevillagers had started marking their years by it; when its scales had fullyblended from one colour to another, as all dragons’ did, their year ended. Today,its scales are merging from deep red to the vivid orange of first sunlight, thecolour spreading from the tip of its tucked-away tail.

A girl in the village watches her giggling sisters driftfurther and further away on their climb to seek the Truth, and sighs. She wasborn in the year of afflictions; the dragon had become the exact colour of themountains, invisible at a glance, until you noticed its raised wings, a gustaway from flight. The dragon had begun to vanish, and the villagers’ prosperitywith it. But the seasons had changed; the dragon had shifted into a lightgreen, the hard times with it.

‘Wait up!’ The little girl shouts at her sisters, who all groan.

‘Didn’t even want to be here,’ she mutters to herself,rolling her eyes. ‘Father would hate this, you know!’ She calls out to the othersagain.

The eldest’s eyes flash. ‘Then he can come back and bring usdown himself.’ Walking back, she grabs the little girl’s hand and brings themback to the front again.

‘I just don’t see why we have to bother it, that’s all.’ Thelittle girl says, brow furrowed with worry. ‘It’s only sleeping. Father always saidit’s a defenceless-‘

‘It’s just a harmless bit of fun.’ The older sister dismissesher, eyes growing cold again. ‘Come on.’

Keep reading

[letthebookbegin]

The skies are heavy this night, weighed by the grief of tears not yet spilled. It is a certainty that the rain will fall, eventually; but for now the grey clouds are stubborn and lost in their denial of the mourning of the world below.

A girl stands out in the open and hopes and begs for the rain to fall, for foreign tears to wash her face if she cannot find any of her own, but the sky is as disbelieving as her own eyes.

Out of the gloom, the monster appears, towering above the shattered world. Its antlers pierce the clouds and paint themselves with the hidden rain.

‘I’m sorry.’ it rumbles from somewhere within itself, the void of its body almost indistinguishable from the dark around it. The shadows are frightening because of what they conceal; the monster is frightening because it is nothing. 'I never meant for this to happen.’

Moisture drips down the bright white antlers and traces the path of a tear down the creature’s face, and the girl nearly crumbles from the unfairness of it all right there.

Instead, she straightens her back and glares at the creature as if she were just as tall, her vision clear through unshed tears.

'Then fix it.’

[thegobletofweasleys]

I got so much encouragement on my post about a Hogwarts Mystery fic (thank you all!) that I wanted to get started right away on it, but since I have exams I couldn’t do much, so here’s a little sneak peek on the fic:

CHAPTER ONE

Tall buildings cast looming shadows in the street, shrouding half of it in darkness. The other half glowed orange with the dying light of the sun, settling on the red hair of a mother with a furrowed brow.

‘Why don’t you go and get your books, sweetheart? We’ll get your potions supplies and then we’ll meet at Fortescue’s for some ice-cream.’

Layla tentatively smiled back at her parents, grateful for the gesture. She waited until they were out of sight – looking back several times – before she allowed herself a sigh of relief. The latest argument over Hogwarts had brought more tension than the others; the letter arriving by owl had made the situation more real than ever, and the resulting argument had ended in tears for everyone concerned.

Keep reading

[resembooltrio]

Parental FMA week, day one: ‘Isn’t it past your bedtime?’

I don’t know what this is haha, but was a good way to get back into writing ‘^^ also thanks to @ramble-girl for beta-ing!

’It was the darkest part of the night, a time when anything felt possible, and in the military hotels, the night was full of the sounds of creatures trying not to be heard. Roy Mustang had left his team to go to the bathroom, and was now regretting it.

Keep reading

[letthebookbegin]

THE END (for the ask thingy)

THE END — i’ll make up an ending, or post the ending if i’ve written it

It is a loud night, and the children of the city cannot sleep for the noise. They huddle close, and a fallen princess spins them a tale to keep them company in the dark.

‘The wind howls warnings at her, but she does not heed them. The rain upends buckets of water on her, but her fury is not dampened. She advances on the trembling child with no pity…’

They watch her flailing hands and hear her dramatic voices with bated breath, a different storyteller to her sister, but no less captivating. Her heart has not healed, yet, but in the flickering light of the fire she can almost see her sisters smiling at her story along with the children, and she knows it is on its way.

[lsilvertongue]

The first (unedited) page of the story i’m currently working on!

It is a loud night. Nights are never as quiet as they seem, of course; the sleep of some is opportunity to others, whether it be the animals that are disturbed too often by day, or the humans that find, for whatever reason, that the night suits them better than the sun. It is not the muffled scurrying of the living that makes this night loud, however, but the roaring of the skies. Nature differs from the living of the night in that it does not care a bit about the supposed quiet, which brings me back to my first statement; it is a loud night. Thunder bellows unrestrainedly at those far, far below, and the rain is unrelenting on the roof of a cave, a cave which shelters a weathered family which cannot sleep for the noise.

The father sits as far as he can from the others, his eyes blank. He does not seem to hear the raging of the world outside, but lies awake anyway. The mother is the only one who does; work leaves her exhausted enough to be as unaware as her husband.  Four daughters huddle close, and the eldest, in hushed voices so as to not disturb their parents, spins a tale to keep them company in the dark.

‘Where do stories come from?’ she asks the others, who strain to hear her over the rain that sounds eerily similar to her voice. ‘Well, there are as many different beginnings of stories as there are stories themselves. Some are borne on the crest of a wave, brought crashing to shore where they can be told. Some are buried beneath layers of sand, discovered after years of hiding. Some are brought from places beyond imagination, slipping into minds to be shared. There are as many different stories as there are days and night, but all share one thing; all tales burn to be told.’

They listen, the other sisters, as she tells her story. Normally they might have interjected with questions, exclamations, gasps and cheers; but it is a loud night, and so they are quiet. They listen to the story, and do not sleep until the rays of the sun peek out from the clouds.

The youngest regrets it in the morning, as her mother sharply wakes her just as she begins to drift off. Weak sunlight filters through the remnants of the appeased storm, and she stares with dismay at the slippery rocks.

‘Get ready now,’ her mother warns, and she slips on her outer clothing dutifully, mindful of the wrath always waiting just beneath the surface on these early days. She covers her bright hair with her grey hood, red hair she was named for, after a fashion. Patterns of the same colour snake along her arms, stopping just shy of her elbows. She rushes to the mouth of the cave, her mother already leaving with a hood to shield her face and telling eyes, and turns to wave goodbye to her sisters. None stir, fast asleep, but the eldest, who gives her a sleepy smile before her eyelids shut again, hiding the brown.

The girl hurries to catch up with her mother’s impatient stride, almost slipping on the rocks before catching herself. The walk to the market is long and boring for a 15 year old girl, so she amuses herself by staring up at the sky. It gives her a strange feeling, gazing at the massive expanse of blue; it’s as if the longer she looks, the more weightless she feels, and if she keeps looking for just long enough she’ll feel her feet leave the ground –

‘Walk straight.’ Her mother snaps, and she sighs and drops back onto the balls of her feet.

[lsilvertongue]

i was looking through my wanderlust tag and wrote a few things inspired by it! Here’s one of them:

There is a house in the middle of the lake. If you watch from the shore, it is always there; small and decrepit, half hidden by trees with sparse leaves. If you try to approach it by entering the lake, it disappears, gone but for a single ripple that spreads out from the centre of the lake, a perfect circle. People say, however, that there is one way to enter the shack. Every once in a while - when the moon is full on a leap day? When a solar eclipse changes the colour of the water? When a person falls into the lake with the intention of never resurfacing? The stories can never agree, but they all say that when a person is chosen to enter, a path will open up across the lake. It is made of grey wood and dusted along one edge with snow or sugar or white paint, invariably tempting. The people who follow the path always return, whether it be seconds or years later, but with no recollection after the first step. They are always subtly and jarringly different from then on, and people treat them different too; some with reverence, others with fear. It is not something you recover from, the otherness; just as the house, silent in the middle of the water, never leaves.

[letthebookbegin]

motorcyclist sees a distressed baby bunny on the road and rescues it.

(Sorry if this doesn’t make sense, it’s 2 in the morning but i wanted to finish it haha)

Countless years of planning and patience had led up to thismoment. Anya had planned the end to the last detail, allowing for every singlemistake that could happen, for any delay or misfortune. Today, finally, shewould be the hero who would rid the world of the Earth’s greatest villain, theenslaver of millions and the murderer of thousands more, including her ownparents. Today would be the day she would exact her revenge.

Or perhaps not.

Keep calm, Anyatold herself, drumming her fingers on her driving wheel and taking forcedbreaths. You still have a lot of time. Don’tworry about this, you need to conserve your energy for the –

‘WIILL YOU GET OFF THE ROAD!’ Anya underlined her yell witha very long press of the horn. ‘I’M LATE, HERE!’

Unfortunately, when Anya had allowed for any delay, she hadneglected to think of a scenario where she would be held back by a beardedbiker trying to rescue a distressed rabbit.

‘Sorry!’ The biker yelled back, in between gulps of breath,rather tired out by chasing the terrified bunny across the road. ‘He’s just alittle scared of the cars!’

‘He’s scared of you,’The girl sitting on his motorbike, a giant of a thing turned sideways to blockoff the road, buried her head in her hands with a sigh. ‘You’re really embarrassing,you know that?’

The biker put his hands on his hips, indignant. ‘Why wouldhe be scared of me?’ he asked, towering over her at seven feet, his helmethiding his entire face but for his tangled beard.he was so wide he might haveblocked the road himself.

The girl looked up to show the biker dead eyes then hid herface again.

The biker went back to coaxing the rabbit towards him.

Anya’s eye started twitching.

‘Okay, THAT. IS. IT.’ She got out the car and slammed the dooras hard as she could, jolting both the biker and the girl from their self-absorbance.She stomped over to the biker and prodded him as close to his chest she couldreach while still looking dignified. So much for being taller than average.

‘Listen here buddy, I’ve been waiting for this moment avery, very long time, and if you do not remove yourself from this road I willbe forced to-’

‘Don’t. Move.’ The biker, having not listened to a word ofwhat she had said, was staring at a point near her feet. Anya froze, herbreathing shallow.

‘What? What is it?’

The biker and Anya stood still, Anya’s finger still pokingthe biker’s stomach. Anya felt herself thinking of a bizarre game of musicalstatues. The biker moved imperceptibly forward.

And then fell.

Anya screamed and jumped backwards. She tripped and fell tothe floor and craned her head up – more – tilted it as far as she could – tosee the biker cradling the rabbit in his vast arms.

‘There you go,’ he murmured soothingly, holding him gentlybut firmly. ‘You’re safe now.’

There was not much that broke Anya’s calm exterior. Already shehad yelled more than she had for the last three years – snide remarks andcollected comebacks had done plenty for her. But when she saw the rabbit, andlooked down at her watch to see she was fifteen minutes overdue, she feltcompletely justified into letting out a guttural scream and punching the overgrownbiker the highest she could reach.

‘W-What was that for?

‘I. Have. Waited.’ Anya gritted her teeth. ‘Far. Too. Long.For. This. To. Be. It.’

Anya staggered to her feet, wiping furious tears, her eyesnarrowed in anger.

‘I have lost. Far too much. For this to be it.’

‘Oi!’ Anya jumped in surprise at the girl who stood in frontof the cowering biker, barely coming up to his knee. ‘Stop bullying my brother!’

Anya huffed out an unkind laugh. ‘You’re taking me to therose gardens.’ She ordered the biker, ignoring the girl. The motorbike, smallerthan her car, would offer more opportunities for shortcuts. They would make itthere in time. They had to make itthere in time.

‘Er, okay, but why?’ The biker trudged towards his motorbike.

‘No!’ The girl protested, trying to hold on by one enormoushand as the biker walked away. ‘You can’t just give up like that!’

Anya rubbed her forehead, trying to ward off the impendingheadache. ‘I’m going to defeat him.’

The words made them pause, as she knew they would. There wasno one left who hand not lost someone to him.

‘Okay,’ the biker said simply. ‘But we’re leaving as soon aswe drop you off. If you finish him off, great. If you don’t, me and Katie hadnothing to do with it.’

‘Why not? I could show that guy!’

‘Show him what? You’re only seven!’

‘What’s your name?’ Anya interrupted, looking for grooves tohelp her climb onto the bike.

‘Ed.’ The biker replied. ‘Let’s go.’

Anya sat behind the siblings, Katie in the front. The biker shoveda helmet onto her head, then a rabbit into her arms. ‘Look after him.’

Anya stared at her entourage and laughed, loud and clear. Forthe moment before the biker set off, anyway, at speeds that had Katie shriekingwith laughter and Anya simply shrieking.  She was being joined by a child, a giant, anda rabbit to reclaim their world. This day was definitely not going how she planned.

[letthebookbegin]

Fluffy person who likes hugging is forced to kill

They say everyone has a price.

That everyone who refuses something will bend if the correctamount is offered.

Jessica has rolled her eyes at this statement from the firstmoment she heard it. People have lines, she says, that they won’t cross nomatter what. If they choose to do so after being offered something great, itwas never on the other side of the line in the first place, though perhapsclose to it.

‘Okay,’ her friend counters, turning so she‘s leaning on theback of her bus seat to look Jessica in the eye, ‘Say there’s something acrossthis hypothetical line, like killing someone – murder is across your line, isn’t it?’

Jessica gives her a look, her lips twitching. The same daythey had had to write a word describing each member in their class, and almosteveryone had written her as ‘sweet’.

‘Just checking, you never know these days – anyway, say murderis across the line. You would never murder someone normally, would you? But if killingsomeone would bring world peace, what would you do then?’

‘How would killing someone bring world peace?’

‘This is a hypotheticalsituation, Jess, honestly-’

The bus jerks to a stop, halting the conversation with it. Theghost of a grin hasn’t quite faded from Jessica’s lips as her eyes follow thebus driver, who rushes out the doors in a panic.

‘What’s happened?’

Cries and mutterings start rippling, slowly, from the frontof the bus to the back.

‘Why did the bus stop?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Someone’s been hit!’

Jess runs to the doors, always the first to try and help,never mind that her stomach’s churning and she has no idea what to do –

The world slows, sometimes. In the early morning, those fewminutes when those up late fall asleep and those up early haven’t awoken yet. Whenit snows, and the entire world seems muffled and soft. When you have to sitthrough an hour’s lesson that manages to feel like three.

And when you run out a bus to help someone who’s been hit,and see that it’s your little brother.

‘He ran out in front, I couldn’t see-’

‘This isn’t the time for excuses!’

‘Is he breathing?’

Brown hair fanned out across the ground, turning black fromthe blood.

‘Someone call an ambulance!’

‘Hello? Kid, can you hear me?’

A life has been takenunfairly. To amend this, the one who committed the crime must pay the price.

‘Does he have anything on him we can use to contact hisfamily?’

‘Move him off the road already, you’re causing a blockage!’

A gun, beside the brown hair turning black, beside theglassy eyes.

‘Wait! I think I read somewhere you’re not supposed to movepeople with injuries!’

Use the gun, Jessica.Bring him back. Send his killer in his place.

‘There’s got to be someone here who can help! Is anyone adoctor?’

‘Can’t you people see it’s too late? Move him out of the waybefore I get late too!’

Everyone has a price,Jessica. Is he not enough to be yours?

‘Show some respect!’

‘Don’t start a fight here!’

‘I’ll – Oi, girl, what are you doing?’

The world seemed to grow sharper as Jessica picked up the gun,the fog clearing a path towards the wide-eyed bus driver. She shot.