Nyx

Krystal had spent countless hours in the woods around the cabin, silently stalking any prey she could track, gradually maturing into a fearsome apex predator undaunted by any kind of weather. It was what she'd always done when her mother would bring her up to the mountains and then disappear into the wilderness to perform her “rituals,” but this time felt different…

Kienna, working the night shift at the mermaid tadpole nursery…

Zuira put on the black ring and wished for snow…

The night before her 18th birthday, Giuliana fell asleep on Earth for the last time. Later, she realized it was far from the first time she'd been abducted. Numerous troubling occurrences—occasionally inexplicable happenings that had punched confounding holes throughout the continuity of her childhood & adolescent memories—suddenly all pieced themselves together into a coherent, canonical whole, for which her current situation, light years removed from Earth, became the only possible, inevitable adulthood.

Although initially fascinated when they first appeared, Orico quickly came to realize that if she wanted to be able to continue lounging on the roof of her building with Larry the lizard, something drastic was going to have to be done about the gargoyles…

Anya, directing a music video on her first night shoot…

Brandy had returned to the temple that she thought was her home, until she tried to leave again. Her main hall no longer led outside, but simply repeated itself, extending farther than she could see…

What Saffron missed most about smoking was having a reason to compel her to take smoke breaks. So she started feeding the birds…

Once Cherry finally gave in to its constantly whispered requests and wore the black ring to cheerleading practice, things escalated quickly…

For as long as she could remember, Yarine had been able to lucid dream. Growing up with this inherent ability, for her, dreaming seemed like just another series of realities, and likewise, waking life often felt like merely her most persistent (and most obstinate) dream…