Nothing says “apocalypse” like a blood-red sun rising and setting amidst the smoke and haze of a world on fire. Well, nothing except perhaps a bunch of zombies clawing at your front door. At least 2020 hasn’t included any zombies…yet.
As you might imagine, a handful of my socially distanced, backyard events over the last few weeks have led to some fun mental exercises. So far, my favorite has been “cornhole & your role in the apocalypse.”
I recommend you instigate a discussion over this matter amongst your current social circle. It’s best you designate these roles before said apocalypse descends. (After all, there won’t be time to iron out the wrinkles once the EMP hits.)
The conversation I’m hinting at is specifically, “In the inevitable apocalypse, what vital role will you play in our band of survivors?” Sometimes the answer to this question is obvious. Every band of survivors includes the superfluous “first to eat it” person. Come on, you know who you are. I’m not saying you don’t have tremendous value as an individual. I’m just saying that in an apocalyptical scenario, you’re gonna go down…hard and fast. Let’s say there is a massive EMP, and you are a computer programmer. It’s usually something ironic like that.
Of course, there has to be the pragmatist leader who constantly butts heads with the spiritual leader. Then every group needs an enforcer who does all the dirty work in order to keep people from hating the leaders. This person is usually a bit of a loner who realizes the value of a group, but never feels like a part of it.
The only other critical roles you should put serious effort into filling before hand are your survivalist and your medic. Your medic could come from a professional background as a pharmacist, veterinarian, biologist, doctor, nurse, or anything that gives them the skills to care for wounds, bind broken bones, give injections, and diagnose basic ailments. This person will be really handy for determining when someone in the group is about to “turn” and start biting everyone else in the group.
The survivalist should cover several general areas of expertise including: hunting, scavenging, gathering, and cooking. Of course, if you have specialists for some of these areas, then the survivalist can focus on wherever your group lacks knowledge and abilities. For example, if you have a really good cook, or if your medic is also aware of the medicinal values of native plants, your survivalist can fill other gaps.
After you’ve filled these roles, let your imagination run wild! Depending on the type of apocalypse, you might need an engineer, a blacksmith, a farmer, a munitions expert, a scientist, a bard, extra muscle, a scout, a teacher, etc.
My skillset and temperament pretty much ensures that I would be the bard/monk of my group. In any kind of circumstance, I can grow stuff, ferment stuff, tell stories, and care for the dying. I’m that guy in the group who is always asking whether or not it is worth surviving if we’ve lost everything that made us human. (I apologize in advance if you are the pragmatic leader of which I am destined to butt heads.)
If my band of survivors ever comes across your band of survivors, let our signal be waving finger antlers from our temples while blowing a raspberry. That way we’ll know to avoid a costly tangle between two well-prepared groups.
At the Desk This Week
Another 5,000 words this week. I’m starting to get my chops back. I pounded out 2k yesterday pretty quickly. In the next couple of weeks I should get back to my 2,500 words a day rhythm. This will enable me to finish season 3 of The Green Ones in another month so I can get it edited and formatted and published soon after! Actually, I’ll query a couple editors today so I can line that up ASAP. I’m not exactly sure who I’m gonna use for this project since I’ve been doing other stuff for a while.
This week I’ve finished out the freight hopping scenes along with a reefer smoking bit. I’ve got one last leg of my heroes’ journey to figure out so I can drop them into an underground compound and let the chaos ensue. I’m not exactly sure how to quickly get three teenagers the last 15 miles through rugged mountain terrain while staying off the grid. Hopefully I’ll figure it out today.
Boundaries: Ep.3, Scene 9 - Ep.4, Scene 3
[Click here to start at the beginning.]
“That’s ridiculous,” I stammer. “There is no resistance!” I feel myself returning to the night I carried Zorrah’s body through the door marked No Admittance. I see the sadness in Instructor Turon’s face the first time I denied the existence of a resistance.
I don’t know why I’m so upset, but I am. “Why would there be a resistance? Against what are they resisting?”
Neca looks incredulous. “The regime. The way they’ve treated the working class. Not everyone is happy with living in a cage.”
“They’d be more happy dying in the wilderness?”
“What wilderness? There is no wilderness.” Neca stands and gestures with open arms. “Just a bunch of forest and mountains and plains and hills and oceans. There’s a world out here, Calli.”
“One even uglier than our own.” I shake my head. “I’ll be the first to admit life in New Teo isn’t perfect. But the regime is doing the best they can. They’re protecting us. They’re making life possible.”
Neca turns away and continues in a hushed voice, “How can you think that? After everything we’ve seen together? After the Shadows? After the combat chamber? All the regime knows how to make is war and death.”
“Look, I understand why you would think that. You were practically raised by Centavo.”
“You don’t understand at all, Calli Bluehair. Something inside you won’t let you understand. Every opportunity you get, you choose to push the truth further away. And you do the same to anyone who tries to help.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand!” I shriek at the top of my voice.
Neca jumps.
“Everything I do is for the sake of others—for you, for Olin, for Zorrah!” I try to swallow the nervous rage, but I’m afraid I’ll gag on it. “Every day in the academy I live two separate lives for the sake of the ones I love—for the lives I’m responsible for. I lead, I serve, I protect. I do whatever it takes to improve our chances of survival. And through it all, I can’t let him know!”
I flop onto the floor of the cave. Curled into a ball, I tremble and sob. “The whole time, I have to hide everything from my own thoughts. Even when I know the truth, I can’t let myself feel it, or he’ll know.”
Neca’s closeness had turned the knob. The pressure building inside of me had done the rest. The dividers inside my own brain dissolve. At first, I attempt to scrape them together in exhausted panic. Then I realize the rest of the voices are gone. I feel my mind opening up again, and I’m the only resident.
“Calli,” Neca’s hand touches my shoulder.
I jolt and grab hold of him. I’m not sure of my own instincts. Wires cross, and I don’t know whether to throw him or embrace him. I do nothing.
“You have to talk to me.” Neca grips me beneath my arms and lifts my limp weight. He drapes me over him, despite his own injuries. He whispers into my ear. “Who is threatening you? I can help share the burden, but you have to trust me.”
“I’ve always trusted you, since the morning you carried Olin to meet Centavo.” I lack the strength to pull away from him. I lack the strength to keep anything back any longer. “You know I feel more than trust for you.” I close my eyes and rest my chin in the crook of his neck. I think of falling asleep.
“Calli.”
“I’m dangerous.”
“You’re special.”
“No. There’s someone in my head.” I gasp. Now that I’ve arrived at the brink, I can barely draw breath to continue. “He wants to hurt me by hurting the ones I love.”
“Like Zorrah.”
“Like Zorrah,” I nod.
“That’s why you changed.” Neca lowers me onto the crate, and we sit. He leans back and rests my head on his shoulder. “You blame yourself for Zorrah’s injury.”
In the dim blue light of the chemical stick, I watch Neca’s chest rise and fall. Smeared and encrusted with dirt, the gash across his chest has stopped bleeding. “He told me Zorrah was too dangerous for me to keep. He took her in order to test me.”
“Who took her, Calli? Who is it you’re hiding from?”
“I’m going crazy, aren’t I?”
“You were crazy to begin.”
“Jerk.” I smile briefly, then cry.
Neca uses his braid to wipe a tear from my cheek. “You’re not crazy, I promise. We’ve gone through so many changes, you more than the rest. Yetic and I started the process in Worker City. You entered the academy raw and with Olin.”
Braid in hand, he grips my shoulder and pulls me closer. “I know you don’t believe me, but you and Olin really are special. I’ve known it for years, since the first time you yelled at me.”
I pout, “I haven’t mistreated you for that long.”
“You don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember what?” My lids droop.
“The first time we met.”
I can’t imagine what he’s talking about.
“I’d only been working for Centavo for a week. Monitoring your brother’s status was my first assignment.”
I perk up at the mention of my brother. “Wait, the scrawny kid that never talked?”
“My parents had abandoned me in the underground a month earlier.”
“That was you?”
“Even then, you were so fierce, so beautiful. You intimidated me,” Neca whispers in my ear.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“All Centavo told me was that you and your brother were special, and that if anything happened to either of you, I was to bring you to him directly.”
I pull away enough to look him in the eyes. “So you had been following us the morning of the perimeter attack?”
He nods. “That morning like every morning. I knew everything about you—where you slept, what you ate, how much you loved your brother.”
“I was your assignment.” I squeeze my eyes tight, unsure of my own emotions.
“You were my angel. Protecting you gave me something to live for outside of myself and my own situation. Don’t be angry. I’ve wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you in your mother’s garden, before my last fight. But there was never the chance, so I, I kept on watching you.”
Neca rushes his words, “I know it sounds silly, and I’ve been more trouble than help. But—”
“Shhh,” I place a finger over his lips. “I get it. Really, I do. Both of us are idiots. Well, maybe me more than you. It would be funny if I could remember how to laugh.”
“How’s that?”
“You know, you’ve put yourself in danger to protect me. As a result I’ve put myself in danger to protect you. I think that makes us a dangerous couple.”
“Oh, so we’re a couple?”
“Keep dreaming, Nightmare.”
“Fine, but now that we know the truth of the matter, we should at least work together.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible.” I sit up, my sleepiness having passed. As I stare around our cave prison, reality sets in. Now that I’ve unburdened my heart I feel a fresh anxiety to find Olin and the others.
“Tell me who’s threatening you. Who hurt Zorrah? I can help.”
I stand and wipe the crusted tears from my eyes. “You can help by finding a way out of here.”
Neca’s clearly disappointed in my lack of transparency. But at some point, if we get out of here alive, we’ll return to the academy. Graduation is the only path through which I can defeat Toltec. I’ll continue to fight him until I grow strong enough to force him out. Until then, my feelings for Neca must remain dead.
I crack a second chemical stick and the two of us mirror each other on opposite sides of the cave—he on one side of the crates and me on the other. Together, we shuffle along the substantial length of the manmade shaft.
“I think we’re going in the wrong direction.” I run my hand over the course wall of the cave. “The quality of the digging seems to be getting sloppier as we go. That means the entrance is probably back the way we came.”
“Wait, what’s this?” Neca rushes forward and places his chemical stick on top of a smooth metallic container that is instantly familiar.
I recognize it as a stasis pod—just like the kind Turon placed Zorrah in. My head spins. “I don’t think we should—”
“Look at this! This proves it!” Neca shakes a piece of parchment in his hand.
I rest my hands on my knees and slow my breathing. “Proves what? What are you talking about?”
“There is a resistance, and Centavo’s a part of it!” Neca crawls over the crates and shoves the piece of paper into my hand. “He wanted us to find this. It explains everything.”
I take the paper from him and hold my chemical stick in front of it. I gasp. The handwriting is unmistakable. I know what I’m looking at instantly. But how?
“Don’t you see?” Neca continues, “When Centavo found out who we were, he had us brought down here, and he left this for us.”
“It’s a page from the book my mother and Centavo were making together.” I have to say the words out loud to make sense of them.
Neca grips my shoulders a little too tightly. I wince at how tender the left one is. Neca is too ecstatic to notice. “There’s no other explanation.”
I shake my head. “This only proves Centavo has been here.” I hand the page back. “Maybe he’s been supplying people outside the city, but that doesn’t mean there’s an organized resistance. These supplies might have been stolen by simple outlaws, the same outlaws who imprisoned us here.”
“No way.” Neca clamors over the crates toward the other side of the shaft. “That paper wasn’t left out for us by outlaws. It was left out by Centavo. And Centavo would only fight as resistance, not a common raider. Of that I’m sure.” Neca jumps down onto his feet. “I’m also sure he left the paper on this strange container for a reason.”
“Wait!” I lunge forward, an irrational fear swelling within me.
“What?” Neca freezes, his hand just above the chemical stick he left lying on the stasis pod.
I’ve no idea why I’m panicking. There must be thousands of these pods, both empty and in use. “I don’t want you to freak out,” I say.
“I’m freaking out because you’re freaking me out.” Neca slowly grabs the chemical stick.
“It’s just that, I’ve seen these before. They’re stasis pods.” I place a hand on the foot of the pod.
Neca is nearest the glass window at the head. He raises a brow, waiting for me to explain further.
“For people—for immortals.”
“I understand that part. Izel mentioned them once. She explained it as a kind of sleep for immortals. What I’m confused about is where you’ve seen them.”
“No Admittance.” I hope the two words will be enough to satisfy him.
He nods slowly. “Okay, I still want to know why Centavo left the page on this particular pod.”
“He probably knew we would see it there.”
Neca shakes his head. “He wants us to look inside.”
“We probably shouldn’t mess—” but it’s too late. Neca places the glowing chemical stick on the glass and leans close. At first, his response is even. I breathe deeply. The pod must be empty.
Then Neca jerks his head away in shock. He stares at me, eyes frozen wide, mouth open.
“What?” My hands tremble as a tingle radiates out from my palms. “Is there someone—”
“Zorrah.” Neca blinks. “It’s Zorrah.”
“That’s impossible.” I stretch myself across the container and peer into the glass. My eyes fog over. Tears drip in a steady stream from my face to the slick surface of the stasis pod. Without sound, my heart liquifies and pours from my eyes.
I hug the cold iron foam of the pod and imagine it as the warm embrace of the only girl who has ever made me laugh. “I’m sorry for leaving you,” I whisper.
“Calli,” Neca’s gentle voice startles me, “what happened behind that door?”
There’s nothing left to hide. I had only held back the truth for Zorrah’s protection. And now here she is, buried in a hole in the ground.
I start with Instructor Turon, and I tell Neca everything. I tell him about the dimension Turon called Nirvana. I tell him about how Toltec had thought Zorrah dead. I pour out both my grief and my fear. Toltec could be anyone, even Turon. I didn’t know what to do. I had no choice, so I left Zorrah in a stasis pod in the basement of the academy.
I end by emphasizing I’m just as shocked as he is to find Zorrah here. “Turon said he’d tell me as soon as she had recovered.”
We both stare at the tiny opening in the pod for several seconds. Neca breaks the silence, “Do you think she’s had time to heal?”
“I don’t know. Turon said it could take weeks. Wait, you’re not thinking of—”
Neca’s eyes begin to water. “What are we supposed to do?”
I shake my head. “We can’t wake her up. We don’t know how. If she’s not ready, it could kill her.”
Neca nods, then straightens. “If Centavo is in charge, he’ll watch over her.” A firmness enters his voice. “We should be happy for her. She’s gotten out. And you know what else this means?” He looks me in the eyes. “Turon is working for the resistance on the inside.”
This time, I want to believe him for Zorrah’s sake. But there’s too many unknowns. “Turon could have been found out. Someone else could have moved Zorrah. Even if Turon did it himself, who knows what his motives were? He could still be Toltec. Now that he’s got Zorrah alive, he’s had a change of plans.”
“Why can’t you except the obvious?” Neca asks.
“I can’t allow myself to believe in something simply because I want it to be true.”
“You should have stopped at ‘I can’t believe in something,’” Neca shakes his head. “You can’t believe in anything, can you?”
I grit my teeth. I can tell I’m doing it again. I’m hurting Neca deeply. I don’t want to, but there’s no choice. I think of the most truthful answer I can manage, “Not yet.” I try to cushion the blow with a smile, but I know it just adds to his disappointment.
“You and I,” he gestures between us, “we could have been special together.”
“Maybe,” I nod.
Neca says, “I hope someday we get the chance to fight together again.”
I turn away from him and run my hand along the length of my braid. “If we ever find the way out of here, we will.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What then?” I ask.
“I’m staying.”
“Wait,” I shake my head, “you’re what?”
“I’m joining the resistance here and now.” Neca holds up the page of my mother’s book. “Centavo’s given us a personal invitation, both of us.”
I gawk at him, speechless, heart aching.
“This is our ticket out.”
I find my voice, “You can’t. What about the others? The twitch? You’ll die. We all would.”
“If what Turon says is true, we don’t need the academy. We don’t need the regime. We only need a simple plant, and who knows more about plants than you?”
“Turon’s a liar.” As I say the words, I realize I don’t believe them.
Neca raises a brow. “You’re sure of that?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving my brother. Never.”
Neca deflates. He knows there’s no point in arguing about Olin. The two of us have to stay together, above all else. “You’re right,” he sighs. “I’ll help you find the way out.”
“Together we have to—”
He shakes his head and starts plodding toward the opposite end of the shaft. “No, I can’t.” The finality in his voice is like a fist to the gut. But as long as we’re moving in the right direction, there is always hope.
It takes fifteen minutes to reach what looks like a dead end. The shaft is more or less straight, the cell Neca and I had awoken in being the only diversion. “Now what?” I stamp my foot in frustration.
Neca hesitates, then inches closer to the end of the tunnel. He reaches out to tap the rock wall with the chemical stick. When he does, the stick passes through it without a sound. Ripples extend outward as if the wall were liquid instead of rock. Neca steps back. “I think this is where we say goodbye, Calli Bluehair.”
Distracted by the oddity in front of me, I pass my own chemical stick briefly through the wall. Only after I realize the wall is some sort of projection mimicking its surroundings, do I focus on what Neca had said. “You could help me find the others.”
“You can’t stay. I can’t go,” he winks. “You’ll find them. I’m sure they’ve only been knocked out. They’re probably already looking for you.”
“For us,” I correct him.
“You’ll think of something. Tell them you saw someone dragging me off. Or tell them the truth—that I never was cut out for the academy, and when I saw a chance to sprint past the PNR, I took it.”
“Point of no return,” I say the words out loud, testing them on my tongue. I shake my head. “That’s not what this moment is. You know that, right?”
He smiles. “You never know for sure until you cross it.”
END of Episode 3
I haven’t been able to sleep for a week—nothing more than snatches. Since convincing the rest of the green ones that Neca traded his willing cooperation for my release from our captors, I’ve been dogged by doubt and guilt and Toltec. The attack outside the city happened almost a month ago.
Tonight I have a decision to make. Whether I stay or go, I expect zero sleep. I try anyway. Closing my eyes, I mentally run through the motions of preparing a logwood dye bath—the most mind-numbing procedure I can think of. I’ve used it countless times in an effort to occupy my brain long enough for my body to rest.
After three repetitions, my concentration is broken by the sound of someone snoring several bunks away. I sigh and open my eyes. Several of the occupants of Serpent 6 have changed during the last month—mostly a churning of the bottom dozen. Over half of the 49 have stuck with us since the end of the first month.
I don’t recognize the cadet snoring currently. At least I don’t recognize the snore. As I listen, T’zan joins in the slumbering chorus. His snore is low and throaty with a constancy that allows it to blend into the white noise of four dozen sleeping cadets.
“Xoxochueyi,” I swear under my breath, knowing I’ve blown the last thirty minutes of dye bath meditation. Turon creeps into my thoughts, and there’s little use in starting the exercise over.
Today in class, Turon spoke the words I have been waiting to hear. He stared straight at me during lecture and wove the question seamlessly into his speech as a class-wide question. “Have you pondered the possibilities?”
The words are supposed to indicate Zorrah has awoken and that I can visit her in the basement of the facility this very night, in less than thirty minutes time. But the last time I saw her, she was sleeping in a hole in the ground outside the city. More than ever I suspect Turon and Toltec are one in the same.
If Turon doesn’t plan on reuniting me with Zorrah, what is his plan? For what is he luring me beyond the door? And if the need arose, could I defeat him? I can’t be sure of the answer to any of the questions. In the end, I’m sure of only one thing: I can’t trust Turon. I try the logwood dye bath routine in a vein hope to sleep through the night and put off my worries until morning.
Someone stirs in a bunk above my own. The sound is abrupt, as if someone were startled on the verge of sleep, or possibly throwing back their sheet. A shadow drops silently to the floor in the center of the room.
My heart skips. I know who it is. I don’t want to be right.
Without sound, the cadet hovers toward the door leading into the commons. As the door whooshes open, allowing a dim wash of blue light to slip inside, I recognize the cadet as Olin.
My mind races. There’s only one place he could be heading after lights out, and the timing can’t be coincidence. The question is how does he know? Did Turon extend the same invitation to my brother? Or did Olin somehow access the information about Zorrah from my thoughts?
I chew the inside of my mouth. The more immediate question is whether I’m prepared to follow him. Still in uniform, I ease out of bed and slink across the dorm. The door whooshes open a second time. I breathe deeply and exit through it.
Olin has grown desperate in Zorrah’s absence, especially after Neca’s exit. Perhaps Turon has deemed Olin a softer target. Maybe my brother is a backup plan.
I shudder at the thought. Maybe Toltec needs Olin and I together, and tonight is the night he ends the wait. I cross the barracks in a flash and poke my head into the darkened corridor. Fifty meters distant, I spot a shadow hugging the wall.
I check in the opposite direction to be safe and then scamper after my brother as quickly as I can without alerting him to my presence. Even as I follow him, I’m not sure what I’ll do when he reaches the door. Do I stop him? Or accompany him?
Together, maybe we could overcome Turon, but what then? An altercation with an instructor could be an unforgivable sin.
No. I should stop him, or at least find out what he knows. If Turon has been feeding him different lies than he’s been feeding me, maybe we can get at the truth by grouping the lies together.
A blue light flashes near the end of the corridor. I plaster myself against the wall and try to become part of it. Cautiously, I turn my head and see nothing. No light, no shadow, no Olin.
Sprinting the final hundred meters, I’m out of breath when I reach the door marked No admittance. I rest my hands on my knees and my forehead against the cold, metal door. I don’t know how, but Olin’s gone. I check the time—23:01, a minute past the designated rendezvous.
“Olin, what have you gotten yourself into?” Every bone in my body screams that it’s a trap. But what choice do I have? We’re stronger together than apart. Maybe if I’d been more understanding, or if I had shared more of the truth, we could have avoided this. Whatever Turon has in store for my brother on the other side of the door, I shouldn’t let him face it alone.
Gently, I test the lever. It’s locked. But there’s no lock mechanism.
I jerk on the handle and slam my shoulder into the door. It won’t budge.
“Ms. Bluehair,” Toltec’s voice burns the inside of my ears.
I jolt upright and slam my head into something solid. Disoriented, I squeeze my head until the proximity of Toltec’s voice fades and the fireworks spreading across the inside of my eyelids disperse. I open my eyes. I’m no longer in the corridor. The sign, No admittance, has gone.
I query the darkness with groping hands. They quickly send back an unbelievable answer—I’m in my bunk. Wait, of course. I remember now.
I return my head to my pillow. I had been running the logwood dye bath routine, and I must have fallen asleep. The rest had been a crazy dream—the memory of it already fading.
I remember the sign, No admittance. I had tried the lever and found it strangely locked. There had been something else. Olin.
A sick feeling crowds my gut. It’s already an hour past lights out, but Olin and I have often conversed in our minds later than this. I have to check. Olin. I hail him softly. Nothing in response. I’m sorry it’s so late, but I have to talk.
Still nothing, not even an irritated dismissal.
His bunk is only two above mine, so there is no way he can’t hear me. Silently, I swing out of bed and latch onto the ladder. In a few quick movements I reach my brother’s level. He’s not there.
After lying petrified in bed for three hours, I pretend to sleep as Olin floats telekinetically into his bunk above me. This time I know I’m not dreaming. Olin has passed through the door in my place; that much is certain. Why and how, I’ve no idea.
For an additional hour, I run the logwood dye bath routine in effort to drive out the haunting presence of Toltec. I feel him poking and prodding around the edges of my conscious thoughts. His constant invasiveness over the last several days has driven me to the brink of madness.
During the long hours of night, I no longer trust any of my senses, or my ability to process them. Whatever has happened between me and Olin, I will have to wait until morning to seek an explanation.
Mercifully, the allrise chime sounds in my ears. Exhausted by the effort of sleeping, I embrace another day of wakeful tiredness. Quick to rise, Olin slides down the ladder and disappears into the commons before I even budge. With effort, I remove my sheet and drop my bare feet to the floor. There will be time to quiz Olin later. First I need to steady myself.
“So you’re not even bothering with dressing and undressing anymore?” Yetic works me over with his eyes.
I press my hands to my face in attempt to wipe away my mental illness like beads of sweat.
“Still not sleeping, huh?” Yetic takes my hand and helps me up.
I nod. “For the most part, I can keep him out of my thoughts—or at least away from anything important. But the effort is constant. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.”
Yetic clutches my forearm and guides me toward the washroom. “Why not stop trying? I mean, if this guy really is part of the regime or even the academy, what’s he going to do mentally that he can’t do in person?”
I rest my hands on either side of a sink and ponder the question while looking at my reflection in the polished metal mirror. “The last time I let him in, he took Zorrah,” I say.
“No offense, Cal,” Yetic splashes his face with water from a neighboring sink before turning toward the showers, “but maybe you should start worrying more about yourself than the rest of us. We’re not helpless, you know.” With that he steps behind a barrier to disrobe.
I turn on the water and cup my hands. On the surface, I want to believe Yetic is right. I pour water over my head and down my face several times. I towel off and hit the head. By the time I reach the commons, I know Yetic is wrong. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have his thoughts molested by a malevolent mind—to be forcefully co-opted into hurting the ones he loves.
If Toltec, whoever he is, wants to attack me and mine, let the monster do it in person.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read these scenes of Boundaries, Season 2 of The Green Ones. I’ll be publishing FREE daily scenes from The Green Ones until…I die…or something terrible happens. Seriously, I’ve got over 100 scenes written so far, and I’ll be writing more until the story reaches its natural ending. You are totally welcome to read the entire story for FREE! If at any point you decide you would rather finish the story in ebook or print format, just click the buttons below and you can do that as well. If you enjoy reading the serial releases, BUT you would also like to support me as a writer (my kids need wine!) please subscribe to my premium content for bonus scenes, exclusives, and insider access to my process. And of course, I’d be grateful if you would share this post with any of your reader friends who you think would enjoy The Green Ones. Happy reading!