Tawai, arriving at a dinner party only to discover that not all of the guests appear to be strictly human.
Tawai
Many girls in many dimensions, one mysterious piece of jewelry…
Tiziana
Tiziana knew by now that she was not really in a magical forest, but she still couldn't help frequently forgetting that fact, because the forest was very good at pretending to be a forest, and even better at pretending to be magical…
Elli
Elli had been angling for an invite to the Gomiumi Genomics Compound for over a year, knowing from the get-go that adding her name to the waitlist would lead only to waiting. But armed as she was with confidence, knowledge, & several years of study in Berlin under a recent Nobel Prize winner, her nascent experiments with CRISPR had drawn the interest of numerous colleagues, to such an extent that she'd been able to secure her invitation before even having to consider resorting to less savory tactics…
Yarine
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…
Inka
Inka, aware of the Minders for several years now and long past cycling through self-doubt (am I dreaming? high? crazy?), had simply accepted their presence, and the fact that no one else seemed to be able to see them, as a novel fact of her life. For the most part, they just floated around, though it was clear from the get-go that they gravitated toward populated areas…
Hodja
The few seconds between bungling her over-practiced landing and actually slipping the black ring onto her finger were the most precarious of Hodja's entire life…
Aannii
Aannii, drinking coffee, in a teacup, in space…
Lilith
Lilith, listening carefully for the next instruction from the black ring…
Zuira
Zuira put on the black ring and wished for snow…
Arabella
Despite having gone to the lake in the woods with a trunk full of costume changes and the express intent to be photographed, Arabella could not shake the eerie sensation that she was being watched by additional, unseen eyes.
Ether
Ether lived in a liminal space. Though her childhood had been Earth-typical, in her teens she'd begun to "phase out," not mentally (like every other high school student), but physically. From her perspective, her surroundings & everyone in them would disappear, leaving behind a bare scaffolding of wherever she'd started, seeming both under construction & on its last legs simultaneously…