Image via Wikipedia

First up is Voidwalkers

Merridian,

Find one of the hostels near the University until you’ve gone to speak to the gentleman listed on the enclosed card. It’s cheaper and safer than referring you to a hotel - especially as things have changed since I visited Edinburgh.

Once you’re settled, ask for directions to Chamber Street Museum and from there head up the hill. It’s a slight incline, but it should be obvious. If all else fails, go up the Museum stairs, put your back to the Museum door, walk down the steps, and turn left.

There’s a statue of Greyfriars Bobby on the corner, across from the museum. Cute wee dog, dedicated to his master to the last - or they caught his tail under the tombstone and he couldn’t move. I like to think the former, but Jon will tell you different. If you’re heading towards shops, that you can see from the street, in a block of windows (I think it’s some sort of pawn shop to be honest, though, it’s been that long since I’ve been there - it might not be), then turn around and go up the street. Remember, I said left. I don’t think I need to remind you to look both ways, and note which way the traffic flows. The last thing I want is Jon telling me you’ve been ran over.

You can grab the rest of it at Voidwalkers - its in return for signing up for my mailing list, but I’m a good soul - I don’t spam

Lemmie know what you think - and feel free to reblog - I’d appreciate a note/link back and if you can tag, use ‘booksbykai’ please?

Thanks!

We’ve had some great stories that I’ve gone over and read, and I’m awed to be in the presence of such brilliant writers – I can’t say that I was disappointed with or didn’t like one of them, so I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to all of the people that took the time to submit a story.

Tom subbed this story:

Name of your blog: Monday Evening
URL of your blog: http://mondayevening.wordpress.com
Title of the story: Fairy tales can come true
URL for the blog entry where the story is posted:
http://mondayevening.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/fairy-tales-can-come-true/
A word count: 750
A suggested rating for adult content: G
A short blurb describing the story: This is the tale of an old widow
woman and her son Jack, and their adventure in real estate financing.

Andrew submitted this piece:

Name of your blog: Dodgeblogium
URL of your blog www.andrewiandodge.com
Title of the story: Running into NoGo
URL for the blog entry where the story is posted’ http://www.andrewiandodge.com/2008/02/20/running_into_nogo/
A word count: 1356
A short blurb describing the story: A bunch of runners head out into the streets for a run and right into trouble.

Lyle submitted a chapter from her ongoing WIP

Name of your blog
Hermitville

- URL of your blog
http://hermitthecrab.blogspot.com/

- Title of the story
The Pathfinder: A Parallel Roads Novel (Chapter 2)

- URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
http://hermitthecrab.blogspot.com/2008/02/pathfinder-chapter-2.html

- (OPTIONAL) Author’s name
Lyle Skains

- (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
PG

- A word count
3900 words

- A short blurb describing the story

At almost 25,000 miles in circumference, the Earth is a hard thing to lose. But lose it exactly what Gloria Walker does in the culmination of the worst day of her life. She awakens to a strange new set of worlds, where anything is possible, and where she alone is responsible for all of them.

The Pathfinder: A Parallel Roads Novel is a science fiction/fantasy novel that tells the story of the one unique person in the universe who can travel between parallel dimensions without machines or magic.

Mad Kane submitted this one:

Mad Kane’s Humor Blog

http://www.madkane.com/humor_blog/

The Definitive Bad Date

http://www.madkane.com/humor_blog/2007/10/10/the-definitive-bad-date/

Under 100 words

PG 13

The tale of a bad date in limerick form.

Donald Crankshaw submitted this brilliant piece –

Blog: Back of the Envelope
Blog URL: http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com
Story Title: Something Inside
Story URL: http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/1204426141.shtml
Author: D.S. Crankshaw
Wordcount: 318
Suggested rating: R
Blurb: Some people don’t believe the truth, while others wish they didn’t have to.

And finally, I’ve written a piece to start out my next novel, 21 Doors.

Blog: Avalon’s Mistress
Blog URL:http//avalonsmistress.com
Story Title – First
Story URL – http://avalonsmistress.com/first/
Author: D Kai Wilson
Wordcount - 935
Suggested rating – R (adult concepts)
Blurb – Meet Bethany, one of the current participants in the 21 Doors project. This piece is her talking to a journalist, before she begins narrating the story of what she did, and why she’s meeting said journalist.

No, really.  Get that firmly into your little head - I can see it in your eyes, you’re thinking that already.  You’re told that men can ‘rent’ my time, and you think ‘oldest profession in the world’.

So you’ve lost that have you?  It won’t slip off your lips, or out of your fingers - that sloppy accusation that always comes up at one time or another - it’s sloppy because I’m not a hooker.  If I CHOOSE to sleep with my clients, it’s exactly that.  I don’t charge more for it.  That last part is all about connection - and discretion.  My clients don’t pay me to be their ‘object’ for the evening - they pay me to keep them company - to look, and sound good.  To be what they need at that moment in time - and trust me, when you have as much resources as my clients, the last thing you NEED at any given moment in time is sex. 
It’s just not part of the equation.  More to the point though, why would they hire me?

I’m not much to look at.  Come on, honest appraisal here.

(Journalist’s note - she’s average height, fair skinned, red haired woman.  I’d say around five foot six, in stockinged feet.  She’s wearing a silk blouse, black waistcoat, black trousers and was wearing four inch heels when she greeted me at the door.  She’s got an open smile and eyes that dance and change colour in the sun - from grey to a deep, almost depth defying blue.  She’s right; she’s not what I’d peg as a prostitute.  But that’s what she’s listed as in the police report.  Whether she is or not, I also know that in doing this – in making me write these asides, she already has me right where she wants me.  And dammit, I’m quite enjoying it.)

I can tell exactly where you got the idea from - that dammed police report.  Daniel died of natural causes - and that was proven, but some fuckwit released the records of the investigation.  Three careers were destroyed because of that, and mine is…Precarious.  And I’m only two steps from completion.

I’ll explain THAT later, cause there’s a time and a place for everything.

So, are you willing to let go of the mindset that I’m a prostitute?

It’s important, because preconception colours everything, from writing to reporting, to verdicts.  And Daniel doesn’t deserve that.  More to the point neither do any of my other clients.  Nor do you need the aggravation of wrapping your head around the things I’m going to try to explain to you - because, of course, there’s a chance you just won’t understand.  I’d rather that was because you just didn’t understand, or can’t, instead of won’t.  And if you don’t understand that’s fine – we can let it go here.  Right now.  You can get up, and leave – there’s a wonderful coffee house just in the lobby – sit there and think about the next story you want to pitch.

She pauses, tilting her head at me.  She reminds me or a friend, in a way, curled up in an opulent overstuffed chair, she looks like a little girl.  And then her smile changes, and she reminds me of Sister Bliss - and I remember that she’s been trained, just like her.  I interviewed Sister Bliss just before *SANITISED*

Come on, let it go.  I’m not a prostitute.  More to the point, those of you thinking of reaching for your wallet - don’t bother.  I don’t JUST cost in money - there’s more to it than flashing cash.

I nod, because Sister Bliss said exactly the same thing, but this feels stilted, almost rehearsed.  She’s still making these statements in a casual, offhand way, but there’s something in what she says that makes me think that they have a script of sorts.

All right, I’ll keep reminding you.

So, that’s first, and technically, second.  You can’t hire me.  Automatically, because I’m allowing this interview, you’re never going to get onto my client list.  Don’t care how cute you are - it’s one of the rules.

Why?

Well, knowledge is power.   If you KNOW things about me, you can foster a feeling of intimacy.  That tends to grow like weeds between people like us.  And I’m sorry to say that nothing good ever lasts.  Goodness, and joy, unless you’re incredibly lucky, melt like snow.  Or are murdered, and die a bloody death at the hands of some pompous asshole.

And, some of the things I’m allowed to tell would, to be quite honest, make you feel a little uncomfortable about remaining in your seat.  Trouser tents here we come.  Aha, the virginal blush.  You’re not here for cheap thrills then, though, you wouldn’t be.  You’re the journalist that got Sister Bliss before she…went underground.

Other things might make you wish you never asked - not everything about this job is exactly savoury - or happy.  Once I’m paid for, clients can do anything to me.

Within reason.

Shall I start with Daniel, and work my way back, changing the names as I go - cause there’s no way any of my clients would even consider identifying themselves as being ‘clients’.  Or do you want me to start at the beginning, when they taught me?

You’re not sure are you?  I can see it wavering in your eyes - immediate release, or the slow, more measured build up.  Instant gratification or sustained pleasure?

What’s your poison?

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting some short stories, some first chapters, and some other ‘fun stuff’ from D Kai Wilson, DK Wilson - and Kai Viola.
So if you’ve got a request, please let me know - the list of books is over at BooksByKai.

The next Storyblogging carnival will be on Monday, March 2nd. If you have a story on your blog that you’d like to have included in the Carnival, please e-mail me at donnakaiwilson@gmail.com (or post in my comments), including the following information:

Name of your blog
URL of your blog
Title of the story
URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
A word count
A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Friday, February 29th. More detailed information follows:

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.

2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.

3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. By lengthy excerpt, I mean that it should be a significant portion of the story, at least 10% of the whole thing. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.

4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You should submit the first post to the Carnival.

5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I’ll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won’t be panning anyone’s work. I expect future hosts to be similarly polite.

6. The story may be the blogger’s own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

*taken from Back of the envelope - with thanks to Donald Crankshaw.

If you want to enter, feel free to send them on - we’ll be running here on the 2nd of March. I hope to see you all then!

She’s an amazing writer, which I don’t say lightly, and I’d geek and say she was my hero, but that’d probably get me lynched.? So instead, for all of my BDSM/erotica reading blog readers, (we both know who you are…go, shoo!) go check out her site now!
Should also probably mention that THIS is the talent coming out of the degree at the Uni of Gloucestershire ahead of me, for those of you questioning the Uni that I’m at I’ve got no hope of living up to the quality and skill of the writers coming out of the degree now, but I’m still having a blast and learning lots.

http://fearmeetsbest.com

So.  Um.

Writing is going apace.  I’ve got a blog for my weekly(ish) short story exercises at http://avalonsmistress.com , have restarted http://irlfemale.com (my really irreverant gaming blog) and am currently repairing the last of the hacking issues we encountered around the time I stopped blogging.  That and the server crash, which took us offline for nearly 48 hours and completely killed all of my scheduled writings.

I have a big(ish) blogging project in the pipeline, and some other fun stuff, but mainly I’m spending the next couple of weeks buckling down and writing for Uni cause I’ve got assignments due in a couple of weeks.
So.

How are you?

 She leaves for a second as a buzzer goes off, out of the range of your field of vision before you realise where she’s going.  You daren’t turn to follow her, your head feels as if it’s been wreathed in flame and fire, a massive band of heat that encompasses your forehead, flaring to a brittle, tender spot that feels like  it’s been spot welded to the right side of your bandaged temple.  That weld seems to have attached a grotesque lump to the side of your head.  You’ll touch it gingerly every so often, absently until the flare of pain trips through your skull, rebounding around your head.  Lightning strikes flare through you, behind your eyes, arching to reach into your memory.

Which is blissfully, numbly, empty.  Blank.  The nothingness is all encompassing, yet, you recognise everything around you, without question.  You know you’re in a hospital bed, that you’re looking at a ceiling.  That the sky is blue, and you like coffee, not tea. 

You can’t ‘find’ your childhood – there’s nothing there.  Your age.
Your name.

The ravaging echoes of pain slides into your sinuses this time, making you wince, and close your eyes.  Your head rolls to one side, away from the wound, the injury that you’ve mapped through sharp stabs of testing the edges. Your fingers are clumsy, and slip down your face after a while, the gauzed tips scratching past your cheek.  You feel brief dampness on the tips and look at the blooms of blood, speckling out on the summits of your fingers.

There’s a woman, in the bed next to you.  Tears are rolling down her hollowed, pale cheeks, though her eyes are closed.  You watch them slip, sliding down, onto her jaw line, making damp patches on the sheets tucked around her, and under her chin. 
“I just phoned to say goodbye”, the woman said, off to one side of you.  There’s a duality in your head to the distance – the impartial, logical part of your mind, the one that’s still poking through the blank pages where your memory should be and finding nothing but inky smears and odd, sad images that are blurred through layers of gauze, bandaged from sight - seems to believe that its right next to you, but the pins and needles in your nose and  the bit of your brain that believes your head is the size of an air balloon – that part believes the voice is on the other side of a huge chasm.   There’s a pain coming back now – the shot you’ve been given is wearing off.

…I know, but the doctor told me that I haven’t got long.  That’s why I’m in this ward now,” the voice is continuing.  She doesn’t sound dreamy, in fact, she sounds cold. 
“Yes, I’ve got a companion now,” she continues, and you hear a rustle, as she looks over at you.  “I don’t know” the one sided conversation continues, “she’s never woken up,”
You make a soft, croaking noise, but that’s all you manage.   It slips from your lips, a kitten’s whimper, before you close your mouth again.  You can see a cup nearby, and you reach over for it, fingers sliding on the edges of it, before you gain a grip.  You hand seems rusty, stiff, like you’ve been asleep for dozens of years.  Scores of pain begin to chirrup in your head, your ribs, your hand, singing malign songs of oddity and ravage that makes you bite your lip.  The stab momentarily distracts you, as you begin to taste salt.  You’ve cut your lip slightly.  The chirping has become a chorus, and it rolls through you and over you, growing.  Time makes no sense any more – the black pain is discordant, out of sync, and follow you as you slip in and out of consciousness.
You no longer care who you are – only that you want it to go away.  

There’s a commotion in the bed next to you and you turn your head, a bolt of pain slipping between your shoulder blades and up your neck, into your head.  The crown of fire flares again, fuelled.
The woman’s heart monitors are making an odd keening sound, the quiet banshee whimpering as she slips away.  Curtains are whipped around the bed and there’s a lot of urgent whispering, and squeals, as the metronome turns into controlled chaos.  You tilt your head back to its starting position, resetting to the pain free position. The pain dulls down, the roar slipping and sliding in volume until it dulls back to being able to concentrate.  The doctors and nurses work efficiently – hopeful, for three minutes – four, and then regret begins to tip into the air, tilted in as the machine is silenced.  The feel of the room changes, she’s lost. 

There’s a rough spot, in your head.  Your memories are still gauzy, hazy.  Painful.
You reach, but can’t find your name.  The pain is slipping away now, taking clarity with it.   The cacophony trails off to the furthest reaches of your body, and crouches there, waiting to come out singing at the top of its lungs.   One day, it’ll pull you there too – as you wither, but by bit.

You have no memory of coming here, to this place.  You guess it’s a hospital – there are nurses bustling about with trays and clipboards, their white, starchy uniforms fluttering around them like flags, bleached leaves that hissed and murmur as they walked.  The squeaks of their plimsolls and trainers on the floor pendulums through you, regular beats as the rest of the world moves on. One joins you at the side of your bed, checks your temperature, your pulse, and then says “Are you in any pain?”  She’s flicking through your chart, reading notes and clicking her pen absently.  Her badge says ‘Jeanie’.  She had been with you when you woke up, taking your temperature again with an absent smile.
“Yes” you manage, swallowing past the dry patch in your throat.  She looks at your chart, then returns a few minutes later with a two syringes. 

“Cyclasine first” she says.
She puts it in slowly at first, till her hand slips, and the burning, stabbing pain slides up your arm in barbs.   Burning heat, pushing your veins, whilst it spreads up your arm.   It tangles at one point in your elbow, and the chorus roars into life, singing bloody operas and revenge as it flows through you.   At your shoulder, it blossoms, and then subsides as she realises what happened.
“Sorry” she says, with a sheepish grin.  She pauses and rubs your arm, massaging your vein.  A coppery, slick taste kicks up on your tongue.  The odd, sick feeling in your stomach goes away, withering along with the burning pain in your arm. The first one slips into you, and you feel odd, like your head has detached and everything is moving in slow motion.  Shapes and suggestions flash in your eyes, on flat surfaces.  The ceiling gains a texture that dances and moves, ebbing and flowing in eerie tides.  These tides form into strings, trailed by an invisible kitten or three over the roof.  You’re on the roof, tied there, watching the floor as the perspective shifts dizzily.
Time slows, moving forward at a sluggishly.  There’s serenity in the air, and you stop questioning what you’ve lost.  You don’t care what it was.  A grin spreads across your face, unbidden.  There’s nothing funny, you just feel like smirking. The smirk tips and slips around your face, sloppily moving from a grin, to a smile.

She flushes that through with saline, moving automatically, efficiently.  It burns again, briefly, and then she inserts the second needle, twisting it to make sure it’s seated well, before feeding that smoothly into your cannula.  Watching you carefully, she slowly empties the syringe into your arm to the 5ml mark, and then pauses and asks how you feel.  Your head is still throbbing a bit, and you think you say so because she empties the syringe at the same speed. 
The nurse smiles at you, “its morphine.  It’ll take away….well, just about everything to be honest”
Soon, this second syringe numbs you, heating the pain, and cooks it all away, in a delicious bath of taffy.  You feel the bubbling, warm slip up your arm, across and down into your chest.  It speed lines to your head, exploding in an encompassing blanket, and suddenly, the weld in your head is gone…like you’re sliding into a bath, cascading up like delicious honey.  It hits your neck, making your heart speed, and your leg muscles heat and tighten…and then you’re blissfully AWAY from the pain.  It’s still there, but you don’t care, all pain is gone.  Your memories don’t matter.  Your name is somewhere.  You can ask tomorrow, the nurses will know.  You close your eyes again.

You’ll say goodbye tomorrow.

One of the slight, softly illuminated signs canted to the right, splintered and crushed against a post. Sprinkled amongst the grass, out of season splashes of colour still marked where the newer flakes and thick, crusted splinters had disgorged below, vomited into the earth, and left to hang there in ropy, whimpering gouts.

I bypassed the sign, heading down the main midway – ignoring the stalls that had collapsed in on themselves – their rotten canvas smelled vaguely odd, and here, and there, occasionally, flies paddled in the air above them, blots of decay marking bodies that had fallen in their headlong run from the Haunters. They had a habit of dispatching people with a shotgun blast in the back, pellets made from scraps of disintegrated metal, the rust marking out the pieces that they could break into ammo, the boundary between life and death as arbitrary as decay.
I was almost surprised when they took the corpses, leaving only bloody pools of gore in their wake, squalls of red gashes falling against the main tent of the big top before darkening to an almost oddly placed brown stain – pre bombing, you could almost have believed it was a mis-stored canvas, stained with rust.

I’ll stalk out amongst the fairway when things settle, into the solemn dusk. It’s reminiscent of the first couple of weeks after everything went to hell in a hand basket. I occasionally see others; I seem to be the only soul willingly haunting this charade of human experience. I can find food, amongst the ruins; I’ve become quite an adept hunter, though strictly vegetarian. I don’t know how sick the beasts are around here, so I pick for things that I can eat on the go. I’ve got tins of things back in my store too – that I rescued from a couple of the trailers when I arrived here. A couple of them go out of date in a few months, but they’ll be used soon. People will be back before then.

We’re on the outskirts of a crater, you see – you can actually map where the blast shifted from instantly vaporising to simply deadly. The fairway was once concrete, and there’s this odd, sooty line on it, along with some vaguely human shadows that appear to have detached from their owners. One is burned into the helter-skelter’s only remaining wall – a jutting, shattered tooth in the gumless maw of the crater edge. It’s a fifteen foot drop on the other side of that wall – I try not to go too near too often, just in case the land breaks under me, like it did when I first arrived.

My leg is bothering me again – I can’t really run, so I’m glad that they don’t chase me often – there’s little that can be said, or done when they decide they want YOU. Like the finger of god, coming down out of heavens that have turned their back on us,

‘ITS YOU!’

It’d be almost comical, cartoon, japery, if it weren’t for the fact I know that, yes, one day, it’ll be me. They’ll fell me like a creaking mare that’s not fit even for the cart. They used to come shattering into the night looking for women to breed with – the ‘librarian’ before me told me that Jacelle had been taken and her screams had echoed across the crater for about three days and then had abruptly died back. I responded dully, that I didn’t expect they cared about continuing the race, and that living here probably made all of us barren.
Unlike the plants, it appeared. Jewel like fruit began appearing this autumn, plums that glowed ruddy purple in the wan moonlight, ruby red apples, and emerald green pears. I’d eat them greedily if it wasn’t for my stomach always being so upset. It had been for a while now, since they took their song, and followed it north – sombre, but the jangle and cacophony piping them away was hypnotic, a beacon of hope for most of them. I couldn’t follow – recently broken, and battered, the best I could hope for was that they’d left me enough food.
We’d abandoned this area, before the bombs, and nature was slowly clawing it back. Paths split, apparently from the pressure underneath them – earthquake effects caused by mutated plants, rather than tectonic plates.

I picked my way to a vantage point, opposite the stabled horses from the merry go round, some still hanging on the rack like forgotten clothes, others leaning or destroyed on the floor beside them – ornately twisted tethers and poles shattered and warped beyond recognition. On the outer edge, a couple were singed, their coats brown dapples of soot, and oddly shaped lumps where the paint had become carcinogenic lumps of material in their flanks. One or two were carved as if they were neighing and their bulging, almost accusing eyes followed me as I picked my way back to my meagre belongings. I slept in their stable, because it was easier to hide behind the jumble of legs and shattered bodies than in the open.
I pulled out the last photo in my wallet, the one that was tucked behind my ID. Creased, oddly wrinkled, and peeling, it was a photo of my dog. His brown and black fur fluffed perfectly for that first photo in our new home. I could remember the feel of his fur under my fingers and the dank, doggy smell – it bothered me back then, but I miss it now.

Life became odd, and as it is now around a year ago. There was this bottomless slip that left most of us hanging over the gap that had opened up below the collective human race, and then, mercifully, we’d slid to a stop. Those documentaries about it being “five to midnight” and that, if our government didn’t get the world under control, that we’d be dead within a couple of years, was more ironically apt than most of us could grasp. It was our own government in the end that had killed us all – that unsettling, discourteous slip towards the abyss that was threatening to devour us was oddly, interestingly the last real marker of history I can affix on. None of us talk about THAT day, seared in our memory as it is, those of us that collect and collate and document – that remember books as well as we can – and carry the few precious ones we find with us – either partially damaged, or completely obliterated will all attest – history WILL forget the bombs. None of us will ever tell our stories.
Eidetic memory, my ass – I choose to forget. Or to pretend.

Some of this conversation – some of the recording I do, depends on someone understanding why someone would archive and catalogue human misery the way I do. Why I would assume that people could even read what I was saying – there is every possibility that I’m talking to you over a void that I’ll never surmount – that I’m communicating a pain that you’ll never understand.
That the simple act of writing, on soluble, or flammable materials is pointless, and will wither, and die, with or without me, at some point in the future. I’m scared. I miss my family.
I miss my dog.

That’s something I haven’t seen lately – dogs. I don’t know why – I’ve seen rats that would almost pass for mongrels, save the twisted, oddly hunched pose, the short legs. And I hear them yipping and yowling in the night. Its definitely not dogs – there’s something human, yet feral about those noises – it could be the rats, or something equally deformed, and destroyed. But I’ve never seen a dog. Maybe the Haunters took them down first – target practice. Cats are another thing I’ve missed – even the feral ones that used to stalk through this place - gods of all they surveyed - are gone. Very little seems to have…there is very little life to speak of left. Flies, cockroaches the size of my feet, but very little else. And I don’t know how I survived either. Maybe I’m not - my handkerchief is bloody, and there’s nothing I can do about it any more. My mouth permanently tastes coppery - even after eating. I’m so sick of being sick. I think the fall did it, which is why I stayed behind.

And I’m the only one of our small band left. They’ll be back soon, I hope. I’ll endure this inhuman feeling for a couple of more days, and rest up, letting my leg, and my ribs heal.

http://personal.kaiberie.com – the post above it contains the password.