Solameya

   I stared at the faintly glowing, neon letters on my dashboard, my hands wrapped around the leather-clad stearing wheel in a white-knuckle grip. I heard faintly the rasping breath of someone breathing far too quickly, and after a moment of distant pondering, I realized it was me. I was practically hyperventilating. Drawing my mind back from my self-induced stupor, I concentrated on slowing my breath, and gradually loosening the grip on the stirring wheel.    I'd be fine. This was going to be okay. I'd done this hundreds of times before. This one was only slightly different. She was just like everyone else. Same procedure, same result. I m

 All in all, it was a very bad idea. I had no shells left, the back door was stuck, and I had to pee. Really bad. This had seemed like a logical choice at the time. I let out a short sigh and slumped back against the door, sliding down to sit on my butt and glare dejectedly at my sawed off two barrel. Why on god's dead earth had I thought a two barrel would be enough? There were, what, six billion deadheads running around out there, and a two barrel was enough? I groaned, and it echoed the sound coming from behind me, through the door. They were thumping thier empty heads against the metal and trying to turn the knob with dry, stiff fingers

It would be easy, wouldn't it? It's just a simple step off the platform. I could even make it look like an accident, like I was distracted by something behind me, and misstepped. I don't imagine it would hurt very much. The train would hit the side of me before it crushed my head, and all that would happen in a second or two. It wouldn't be a clean death, per se, but a fast one. What kind of mental state do you have to be in when you start to think these things? What were the people standing next to me on this platform thinking about? Surely not suicide. Most likely about where they were going. What is the woman in the brown coat going to h

The last thing I saw was the dirt on his sneaker. Before that, I remember hearing him breathing, really fast and shallow, and whimpering too, like he was about to cry. I saw his leg shake. I saw him drop the bat. I didn't know Conor very well. I'd seen him at school, joking with his jock-y friends, or sitting with that blonde girl who always wore the cutesy ribbon in her hair. I think she was a cheerleader, and that made sense I guess; he was the type to hang around with cheerleaders. Or any pretty girl, really. Apparently I wasn't one of them, though. I was on the academic decathalon, and I did theater. I was in honors-Latin, and the stude

"Why does it hurt so much...?" "...She was only protecting herself." "But, I didn't mean to!" "It's all right, child, calm." The Druidess stirred softly, her eyebrow furrowing before she sat up with a start, panting softly. Quickly taking survey of her surroundings, she calmed, leaning back against the tree on which she'd been napping, looking meaningfully at an empty lap and pale hands. "That dream again... always in my head.  Always that man in... in my head." She mused to herself, still staring at the pale, limp hands clasped in her lap. It'd been so many years; why would she still be having this dream? Araidia huffed softly, trying t