A cloud of bullets slapped my body. Staggering backward, I fell on my ass. I may be indestructible, but I was as weak as normal human Erind.
The fuckers continued shooting.
Instead of raising my arms to shield myself, I splayed my body on the floor, pretending to be dead. They fired a couple more times to make sure I was down. I coul...
2022-09-25 11:28:23 +0000 UTC View PostFuck! I had seen this scene so many fucking times—this was the emotional ending of a movie. Yeah, it was drama. But I hated them because I preferred a different brand of drama.
After this, Deen and I would drive down the empty desert road, fading to black as a song would start playing. The credits would roll afterward. Bef...
2022-09-21 06:32:03 +0000 UTC View PostA large bang echoed as the wheels of the chair connected with the glass.
Surprisingly, the window held firm. Deen, Imani, and I deflated at the anticlimactic turn of events. It was funny hearing all of us loudly exhale at the same time.
Did Chair Guy the Second not swing hard enough? Or was the window like those high-impact ones used...
2022-09-19 11:35:45 +0000 UTC View Post"The Tea Party is a criminal syndicate based here in Vegas,” Imani said, “that deals with illegal augmentations and enhancements."
It was grating that she was mostly talking to Deen.
This was nothing new. My presence lowered whenever I was next to my beautiful best friend—I wouldn’t be surprised if invisibility were the super...
2022-09-14 10:30:21 +0000 UTC View Post(Author's Notes: The next few chapters are set after Erind and Deen killed all the frat boys and before they torched the store.)
Should I help Deen carry the dead bodies? I craned my neck to see if she was already coming back. The dilapidated store blocked my view of the hills. She's taking so fucking long.
Or I was...
2022-09-09 15:01:44 +0000 UTC View PostCan they just be worms?
Maybe the Tea Party liked collecting worms, slugs, or whatever these things were. Circus Mustache definitely sounded like he had overgrown maggots crawling up his ass, feeding on his assholeness. That's an excellent line; I did come up with the most creative things when stressed out. And the though...
2022-09-07 04:23:37 +0000 UTC View PostWhat is this bitch up to? I quickly glanced over my shoulder to check Imani. She was looking right at me. Creepy weirdo…
Our band of twenty hostages trooped up the stairs to the second floor of the convention center’s east wing. I was the nineteenth in line while the suspicious as fuck Imani was behind me. She tried t...
2022-08-31 10:38:29 +0000 UTC View PostCould this be the opportunity I was waiting for? I looked at Mom as I stood up with the rest of the hostages.
She met my gaze and said something that could be, 'I love you, sweetie.'
Uncertain of her actual message, I mouthed something gibberish that ended with an apparent ‘Mom’ word. That seemed to work because...
2022-08-27 00:58:58 +0000 UTC View Post"Ouch!" Deen exclaimed, pulling her finger away from my mouth.
I continued to munch on the fry as I spoke, "Don't be such a drama queen. I know that didn't hurt you." I leaned left, pushing Deen to her side. Then I reached across my body with my right hand to get another piece of fry. She didn't pull the plate away.
"No, I was just s...
2022-08-27 00:49:52 +0000 UTC View PostImani Nanda (Tove)
This isn't good. Not good at all.
Imani Nanda, or Tove, as was her chosen codename, gritted her teeth as she lowered her hands from her lap. Hiding them by her sides, she slowly clenched her fists. She could feel her aug-arm exerting force that could pulverize bone as her frustr...
2022-08-18 08:31:54 +0000 UTC View Post"Oh my god!" I gasped, my hand covering my mouth. The first thing that came to my mind was, What the fuck? But I religiously stuck to the face I had on despite the bullshit happening. Not that anyone could've heard me cuss over the noise of gunfire, screams, stampeding feet, and crashing stuff.
"Wha-what's going on?" Deen said, he...
2022-08-12 06:26:33 +0000 UTC View Post"Erm..." I gingerly brought the straw up to my lips. Then I moved it away with a finger, poised to drink instead from the tip of the glass. I looked up to check Deen’s reaction.
She scrunched her nose at me. "I don't have any disease transmissible by saliva if that's what you're worried about."
“Wha-? I wasn’t thinking about th...
2022-08-10 12:52:12 +0000 UTC View Post"I think I like the Natural History Museum more," I grumbled as I folded my arms across my chest, annoyed at the number of people in this place.
It was Friday and, as I promised Mom, I went with her to the Greaves Technology Fair at their convention center which was supposedly as large as seven football fields; that was what the brochure m...
2022-08-05 14:43:10 +0000 UTC View PostThat was her saliva, wasn't it? I thought as I looked down at the straw. Straw, strawberry, what a funny coincidence.
I quickly glanced at Deen and looked away before she noticed me; she was hesitantly picking at the gravy-coated fries with her fork.
Whatever I sucked out of the straw sure didn't taste like a strawb...
2022-07-31 11:40:46 +0000 UTC View Post“Erind dear, I’m so happy to finally see with my own eyes that you’re safe,” Mom loudly said as she marched towards us. Her voice and her peculiar appearance—although not as weird as other people here in Vegas—made heads turn.
"How's the flight, Mom?" I said as I hugged her. She had to bend down to return the gesture because sh...
2022-07-30 14:41:31 +0000 UTC View Post"Is that her?" Deen energetically pointed at a black-haired, middle-aged woman pulling a large pink suitcase. "Is she your mom?"
We arrived at the airport after a grueling two-hour drive through the bullshit that was Las Vegas traffic.
It would've been fine if it was just regular heavy traffic—plenty of those in La Esperanza and al...
2022-07-25 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post"Cut that out," I snapped at Deen as soon as the waitress left.
"Cut what out?" she innocently replied, absentmindedly blinking as if she wasn't caressing my thigh with her foot.
I grabbed her foot and gave it a firm warning squeeze, a clear message I meant business and was ready to break her bones, before pushing it away. I also rel...
2022-07-21 12:15:01 +0000 UTC View Post"Sorry for the wait, Erind," Imani told me as she returned, putting away her phone in her purse. "I just had to take a call from work. Busy, busy, busy," she added, tilting her head back and forth.
"I can understand." I gave her a sympathetic grin.
We didn't walk that far. Three busy blocks from Divergent Boulangerie, we ent...
2022-07-20 14:48:50 +0000 UTC View Post"So, you won't be getting the security deposit of your leased condo back?" Mom sternly asked on the phone.
"Um, I haven't asked them yet, Mom," I replied. The truth of it was I hadn't even thought of stuff like my lease contract, the security deposit, unpaid utility bills, all those things connected to my destroyed condo unit.
It had...
2022-07-15 15:01:05 +0000 UTC View Post"I never expected there's a diner so far out here in the desert," Deen said as she gingerly sat down.
I noticed she checked if the seat and table were dirty even if she tried to be subtle about it. Disguising it as smoothening the bottom of her shorts, she lightly brushed the spot she sat on. She probably thought I was going to tease her f...
2022-07-12 12:10:43 +0000 UTC View PostWhere's the nearest fire station? I tilted my head to the right, gazing at the blaze in the distance reflected in the side mirror.
Eventually, a passerby would report the random fire in the desert. We hadn't seen any other cars on the road so far. If we were lucky, no one would bother calling the police or the fire department befo...
2022-07-10 15:01:05 +0000 UTC View PostI think I got the hang of snapping necks...or not? Was there any video on the internet about this? Was I using the correct technique? I suspected that I was sort of brute-forcing it rather than doing it correctly as I had seen in movies.
But then again, I didn't know if it was to do possible in real life or if it was one of those ...
2022-07-05 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post"Excuse me?" I said, raising a brow at Deen.
"You're excused," she replied with a giggle. The car lurched forward as the cop waved for our line to move. "Seriously though, isn't it my turn now?"
"Uh, your turn? That's news to me. Why are we taking turns here?" I had already won. There was no way I'd give her a chance to overturn it. ...
2022-06-27 22:10:30 +0000 UTC View PostEnrico Haynes
"Was that Miles' voice?" Enrico Haynes whispered to his best friend and fraternity brother, Charles Monde. He immediately switched off his light and elbowed Charles to signal him to do the same.
"Why are—?"
"Shhh! Keep it down," Enrico hissed as he crouched to hide behind the slope of the hill. ...
2022-06-27 01:49:54 +0000 UTC View PostA girl who turned out to be an Adumbrae? Isn't that super fucking cool?
I was so excited to try out this new face that I had goosebumps all over while waiting for the asshole crew to enter this abandoned store. My enthusiasm for the drama that’d ensue deflated a bit when the bastards basically trash-talked me saying I was a twig...
2022-06-19 22:18:33 +0000 UTC View Post(Author's Notes: This is set just before 5.8 (during Erind and Deen's drive out of La Esperanza).)
These people don't want to sleep? I stared at the mass of cars surrounding us, the entire procession crawled at a snail's pace along the main road exiting La Esperanza. I wasn't sure how long it'd take to reach the checkpo...
2022-06-15 13:00:29 +0000 UTC View Post“This is for Erind,” Amber Deen Leska whispered through clenched teeth. I’m not going to fail her this time. I don’t fail.
Despite herself, she pressed her ear to the store’s door, hoping to get a clue of what was happening. She wasn’t exactly telling the truth when she told Erind that she had full confidence in her. M...
2022-06-14 05:04:06 +0000 UTC View PostCharles Grayson, usually called by his surname because he had a senior fraternity brother also named ‘Charles', abruptly stopped laughing as Lee's screams reverberated in the air. He and his brothers all looked at each other. What was that about the hand?
He was shining the light of his phone right on Twig Girl and Lee at the end of the ...
2022-06-08 08:53:01 +0000 UTC View Post"Wow," I said as I pressed my fingers on Deen's stomach. "You have really well-defined abs." I wasn't just telling her that as a friendly compliment; she really did. I could feel her firm muscles through the towel as I wiped her sweat—well, she really wasn't sweating much, or at all. I knew she was asking me to help her wipe to tease me. And I...
2022-06-02 09:08:48 +0000 UTC View PostYves Garland
Yves Garland opened and closed his clammy hands to stop them from getting numb. They tingled, the blood rushing away from his fingertips due to the stress and anxiety. The cool desert air drying his sweat made him more uncomfortable, and a bit nauseous too. It was weird he was sweating when he wasn't doing any...
2022-05-31 22:07:49 +0000 UTC View Post