Frank lowered the binoculars as dusk began to settle, washing the desert skyline with its somber orange hue. In the valley below, the portal swirled; a bright cerulean whirlpool sparkling against the dying embers of daylight.
He rubbed his eyes as footsteps approached from the crest of the ridge.
“Woo boy! This climb
“Again.”
The voice that reached Pulsar along the communications thread was neither impressed nor impatient.
Pulsar pivoted away from the smoldering target at the edge of the training field to face the figure near the far-off arsenal. “But Master U’drec—I executed the maneuver perfectly! Why—”
“Return to start position, Squire.”
“You are, without doubt, the laziest dragon hunter I have ever encountered,” scoffed Dorvan’s unwelcome visitor, a young knight.
“Oh? What gave it away?” Dorvan sat outside his cottage with his feet propped up on a stool. He did not even look up as he turned a page in his book.
“I once thought
“What if I told you that you could just go home?”
Toby almost believes the words… until he remembers it’s a villain speaking them, and he shakes himself. He forces a laugh, but pain stabs through the wound in his side, and he stops laughing with a gasp.
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Well, Gram, here’s to you.”
Kevin popped the cap off a bottle of beer and tilted the first sip of pleasantly bitter brew onto his tongue. Gram had never cared for alcohol much. That was probably Gramp’s fault—too many bad memories—but Kevin’s after-dinner beer tended to accompany reflection.
And tonight was
“You find them in the weirdest places,” Aida said to me.
She overturned a rock. A black and yellow-spotted salamander scampered beneath a nearby mossy log.
“I haven’t looked for salamanders since elementary school,” I said, getting ready to squat next to her. “I’m game.”
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Forin would do it this time. Master the All-Gate. And prove his father’s doubts wrong. All the other Gates were limited, only allowing travel between two specific worlds. Heck, sometimes you had to travel thousands of miles just to get to that world’s Gate. The All-Gate would change that. Forin could think of a place,
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I pretend not to notice when Sarah and Cricket disappear into the woods behind our property. Normally, I would warn her not to wander too far, but I can see it. I can see the familiar glimmer around the small wooden fence and between the trees. So, I look away. It’s not my place.
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I haven’t found the right universe yet.
“What do you think?” Cleo’s feet squish into the swampy ground with each step.
I peer through the tiny tear in the fabric of our universe. On the other side is a different world––blanketed in reddish stone with deep canyons and majestic mountains.
“Well?” Cleo demands.
Azar pulled her Harley out of the haze of rush-hour traffic into an unused parking lot and scanned the expanse of asphalt and concrete. Not a blade of grass broke the gray monotony. No flicker of the royal soldiers’ red-edged, black scales.
She parked beside a concrete slope supporting a busier access street,
Water, warm and smelling of copper, sprinkled across his face like the shower head had clogged up again. Jeff blinked once, twice, and peered up at vibrant blue skies speckled with fluffy white clouds.
Beautiful.
That one was shaped like a bunny.
Splat!
More stale water went up his nose.
The tall stranger sauntered through the dark alleyway. His long fingers trailed across the rough brick of the buildings on either side of him, and his arm span filled the alley. He moved at a lazy pace, no hurry to be anywhere. His stroll this evening wasn’t about destination but discovery—about finding someone, finding the one, the perfect specimen to assuage tonight’s hunger.
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