The days of thunder and towering fire passed, but not without the slow chugging on of time in the face of such bedlam. Once it was finally played out, the nation went from a writhing snake rife with parasites and disease into a patchwork of cities that were bleeding out. Still, a sense of centralized […]
Tag: civil decay
The Love Market: Chapter Seventeen
It took several minutes for Piper to disentangle herself as well as Sequoia from the wreckage of the truck. There was a fleeting moment where she had attempted to drag the others from the vehicle, but the notion seemed superfluous. Rose wasn’t moving anymore, and Mika’s head hung at an odd angle. Monroe had let […]
The Love Market: Chapter Sixteen
Where Piper felt most of her life that she was being discriminated against in the worst of ways, she found it played out in the military, with her ending up with little more than busy tasks that simply required a body. For that matter, she was put in charge of minding the three ex-Marketers stationed […]
The Love Market: (Part 3) Chapter Fifteen
“I guess I always wanted a child, but no one does that anymore. I thought, I guess when I was younger, I thought it was because no one wanted to grow up like me, clutching my stuffed pup so tight no one could tell I was trying to stop breathing, but I don’t think it’s […]
The Love Market: Chapter 14
Fourteen percent. After it was all calculated, for one reason or another, the Gray Party had only garnered fourteen percent of the vote. Ellit walked away with forty-four, and Juliet just shy of the mark with forty-three. The nine-millimeter bullet that had ripped its way through flesh and lodged itself in the bone stung less […]
The Love Market: Chapter Nine
The map, showing what was left of connecting lines running through the states, was recent, printed just that year by some other factory likely closed indefinitely now, but was nonetheless out of date. From snippets of news Piper had gotten from those passing through looking for work, at least another quarter of the major cities […]
The Love Market: Chapter Eight
“I told Peter about the cyclones and what I thought of them, and he told me again that it didn’t work like that and that when the time came, it would be safe for me to leave the House. But I told him the same thing I would have told him any other time before […]
The Love Market: Chapter Seven
“There used to be some others who lived in the House, and Peter would bring them to my room to play. These playmates were there when the visitors were too, but I didn’t notice that very often. And these playmates, a bit older than me, left the House during my last birthday. They were old […]
The Love Market: Chapter Six
“I learned about storms from the screens, and I wish I hadn’t because I saw how they hurt people, killed people, made people sad, and struggle to keep living. Peter says we’re lucky to live away from where bad storms happen anymore. I asked if maybe the cyclones would figure out where we were and […]
The Love Market: Chapter Five
“A base is where all the men and women who work for our army live. The work they do isn’t like what I have to do or what I’d have to do there. But, mister… Peter says that someone should be over there and will need to be there to help them in the way […]
Trazor 