Arolitic

The farmhouse had not changed. It was a small comfort. While she had not expected anything to have happened, the confirmation was relieving. After all the trouble with DiaLMoon and the path of destruction she had seen on her way home - buildings glitched and moving unnaturally, some completely encased in a strange black coating, dragonic creatures floating around, snapping their jaws at her - seeing the charming farmhouse still pristine (as pristine as a working farm that was constantly full of young, lost, or distressed children could be). The gate still swung on an angle (her father never got around to fixing it, it seemed) the raspberry vines still threatened to grow over the window panes. The smell of flowers and pollen permeated the air. Animals called beyond the farm house. Distantly a dog barked, either Tesoro or Bambino, it was impossible to tell them apart from sound alone (unless you were Mercutio). She heard, rather than felt, Lucky perk up beside her. Her dog, trained and

From her plush, comfortable chair, Evangeline sighed. A heavy sound, full of fatigue and regrets, the kind of sound one expects to hear from a weary old man, worn haggard and jaded by decades of lonely isolation on the fringes of society. It was not a sound many would expect from a young, wealthy, and beautiful (by society's standards, at least) woman. Many would consider her to be in the prime of her life, yet she felt weighed down with fatigue beyond her years. Her eyes slipped off the page once more, roaming over sentences and words with glazed, unseeing eyes. It was a request for extra funding. A fairly standard request that Evangeline received regularly from the various scientists she sponsored - this one was particularly standard, lacking any sort of individuality to the point that it may have been just a word for word copy of a template document. Yet it was not the letter nor its contents that had caused her headache. No, the reason for the throbbing pain in her temples was the

Prompt 1: Sweater Season Word Count: 547 "What the hell are you wearing?" Theta glanced up from the papers she was marking, peering over her glasses so she could see the other. Two stacks of paper lay on the table in front of her, one marked and one unmarked. But none of that mattered to Skyla, who stood in the doorway of the kitchen. "More than what you are, dear." Theta replied, gesturing up and down with her pen. Skyla glanced down at her own attire. Theta did have a point. She was wearing nothing more than a pair of underwear and white t-shirt stretched tight over her muscles. In all fairness, she had just woken up from a nap after all but crashing into Theta's bed. She'd stripped down to her underclothes and hadn't bothered to put anything back on. Sure it wasn't exactly presentable but it was an actual article of clothing. "I'm not the one wearing a crime against fashion." Retorted Skyla. A soft laugh left Theta as she pushed her glasses back up and returned to grading. "Be

Pepper did not return to the game after the incident. It took some convincing but she eventually got Echo to agree to leave the game unplugged (and by convincing Pepper really means she contacted their parents with her concerns who then intervened). In a few days, she would be glad she did. She was packing her bag when she first heard the rumours. The trip back to her parents’ house had been lingering on her mind for months - work had kept her too busy to visit her family but guilt niggled at her about being so distant from them. Originally it was planned that she would visit in the next couple of weeks but the incident in the DiaLMoon server had left her so unsettled she felt an intense burning need to return home and to watch her twin sister like a hawk. If anything happened to her… “Packing already? I thought you were not leaving for another week or so?” Pepper glanced over her shoulder. Naturally it was Willow who stood in the doorway, steaming mug of coffee in one hand, wearing

Playing the game had become part of Pepper's routine over the last few days. Each night at the same time, once she stopped working for the day, she would slip on the headset and spend time with Echo in the virtual world, completing quests and exploring different areas and servers. It was peaceful and pleasant - and reminded her heavily of her childhood. Nothing had seemed out of place at first. Pepper and Echo were both aware of the patches that the company made to the DiaLMoon but neither paid them much attention. Reading the patch notes often confused Echo and Pepper had no interest in bug fixes or the like. While that meant they were at first surprised when they saw a player in the form of a Toybi run past them, it also wasn't that much of a burden on their play experience. "Woooooow!" Echo exclaimed as she twirled around, face pointed skywards. "Look at this place!" Pepper was very much 'looking at this place'. The 'Cyber Future' Server was certainly a strange place. Most

VRRR VRR Pepper glanced up from her notebook. Her phone, new and still foreign to her, sat on the end of the table, innocent yet still menacing in its own way. It was silent now. Not a call but a message. If it was only a message, it was not that important, she reasoned. So she ignored it, turning back to her notebook and continuing to transcribe her messy, quick notes into comprehensive sentences to convey her points. This case in particular had been troublingly complicated and seemed to be so twisted in on itself that Pepper couldn't even find a point at which to begin unravelling it. Going over her notes, rewriting them, and even rewording them, was just another method of brainstorming. With any luck, as she moved her notes between books, she would spot something or an idea might come to her and give her something to work with- VRRR VRRR VRRR VRRR Another barrage of messages hit her phone, jolting her from her thoughts. Blasted thing. Why did she ever let Willow talk her into

With the flurry of work, tests, and visits to other labs and observatories, Nova soon put all thoughts of the stranger and their even stranger behaviour out of her mind. After their very brief encounter, no further unusual occurrences happened to Nova. She chalked it up to nothing more than a trick. One of the locals must have heard that Crazy Old Nova was in town chasing UFOs again and decided to play a prank on her. Either way, Nova was far too busy to give the incident much thought. Collaborating with several other astronomers and borrowing the lab of some, Nova was able to confirm what she already knew; no one knew of this meteor before it hit. Before it entered the atmosphere, it had not existed at all. The Mass Spectrometry results of the samples she took were less promising however. While it did contain high amounts of metals not common on rocks on Aurora Land (hence its rather metallic appearance - how it did not give her an allergic reaction after extended exposure to it

The meteor should never have struck. It should never have been within the same galactic range as Aurora Land. Nova had meticulously mapped the paths of all known comets and other moving celestial bodies - and kept a rigorous eye out for any new ones. Nothing was set to pass for the next five years and no alarm or warning of a new object sounded. Yet here it was. Still burning hot where it sat in its own impact crater. Nova didn't often visit the deserts of Thundra. Sure the sky's were beautifully clear and perfect for stargazing but it was hot and dusty and gritty and sandy and - basically she didn't like the desert, she hated beaches as well for that matter. But none of that mattered, she had a job to do. A meteor to study. And no amount of discomfort, heat, or sand was going to get in her way. The meteor struck the center of the desert. Which was good as it had touched down far away from any town or village, meaning no one was injured and no property was damaged. Yet it was bad in