The Sunlit Man

Kiran Black is the new kid at Glenrose High School after his parent's divorce and his move to Oregon with his mother, and he’s less than excited to be starting all over. Being the new kid in school is never easy, especially when you just want to be left alone and the greeting committee is none other than Aurora Williams – the most annoyingly perky person he has ever met. Her name alone means dawn and protection, so she lives up to the name of “being the light” for everyone around her. As annoying as she was, something about her interested Kiran. He knew with every light there was a shadow, and a part of him wanted to find the darkness inside that ray of sunshine. No one is naturally that happy, everyone is fighting their own battle, and Kiran was becoming obsessed with finding her demons. Will Aurora show Kiran the light? Or will Kiran end up pulling Aurora into the dark?

Java, 1586. The martial world is thrown into chaos when a string of brutal murders claims some of its most powerful masters. The killer leaves behind a chilling signature, calling himself Pangeran Langit, the Prince of the Sky. Elsewhere, another predator stalks the land. A bringer of death known only as Tanpa Aran, Nameless. Freshly returned to the Sultanate of Pasir after wandering the eastern territories, Wisnumurti finds himself racing against time to stop both killers before their trail of blood reaches his homeland, Mount Cakrabuana. But his mission unravels when Jaladri—eager for a taste of adventure—is abducted by Suwung Saketi and Remak, two deranged martial artists with a horrifying appetite for cooking and eating human flesh. As the world teeters on the brink of disaster with the rise of a terrifying devil-worshiping sect, Wisnumurti and his companions are drawn into a deadly conspiracy rooted in a blood-soaked past. Secrets long buried begin to surface, dragging countless lives into their wake. If they fail to uncover the truth before it's too late, Pasir will descend into slaughter once again—and become the perfect hunting ground for those Darkness worshippers.

A vampire of noble birth, Dawn, is promised to marry Seth and travels through the cold forests to the promising ceremony. She doesn't want to marry Seth but has to choose between her clan's survival and staying alive or making it on her own. On her way to her new home, the carriage is ambushed, and she is tied to a tree and left to die being burned alive by the sun. A monster finds her and she's terrified, she's never seen any creature like it before! It's name is Ray...a terrifying monster that can walk in the light that calls itself a human! What sort of terrifying beast could do such a thing? Dawn is afraid but yet somehow something about Ray keeps calling out to her no matter how dangerous he seems.

At my husband's book launch, the young woman beside me leaned in close. "Are you a fan of Professor Gyver too? I don't think I've seen you here before." Julian and I had kept our marriage private, so I shook my head. "I was just passing by. It sounded lively in here, so I came in to look." She noticed the white cane by my feet, and understood at once. Onstage, the host asked Julian where the book had come from. He looked toward my side of the room, and his voice went soft. "I promised the person I love that we'd watch a sunrise together. It never happened, for various reasons. So I wrote the regret into the book." When it ended, applause filled the hall. The girl beside me went bounding up and threw herself into his arms. "Professor! The book's out. When are you taking me to see that sunrise you promised?" My smile froze on my face. The sunrise was mine. It had always been Julian's promise to me. Julian ruffled her hair, helpless, let his eyes sweep past me from across the room, then took her hand and left. He didn't know I could see again. That was the only reason I'd come. To tell him that the sunrise we'd waited so long for was finally ours to watch. He'd always said the auditorium was too crowded, that he couldn't find me. So I'd wait alone until every light went out, then leave with my cane. He could find me. That was never the problem. He just wanted a different girl beside him when the lights were on him. I dropped the plane tickets I'd bought for him into the trash. The sunrise doesn't wait. Neither do I.

I had been with Elias, a renowned astrophotographer, for five years. With that said, I had never asked him to take me on a shoot with him, all because he once told me, "The first rule of astrophotography is to avoid any kind of light pollution. Even a flicker of your phone screen can ruin an entire night's long exposure." This was why I never even dared to send so much as a text to ask him if he had arrived at the location. I was afraid of ruining his work. All I did was wait at home. Whenever he went to the snowy mountains or the wilderness for a shoot, I would fold a paper star. In each of these paper stars, I would write down the things I did not get to say to him because I did not want to disturb him. [Make sure you layer up.] [I'll wait for you to come back.] I accumulated a thousand and ninety-six origami stars over five years, filling three glass bottles. He never opened a single one of them. Just last week, he was shortlisted for an international astrophotography competition. I was happy for him and went to the website to see his entry called “Light.” Framed at the center of the image was his assistant dressed in a red windbreaker. She was toying with a sparkler and laughing cheerily. The judges' comment read, "In this submission, the photographer voluntarily passed up the chance to capture a once-in-seventy-years comet. Instead, he dedicated the shot to the figure in the image who exuded all the light for him." This whole time, his world was never devoid of light. He simply wanted to snuff out my light. That same night, I poured all of the stars out of the bottles. I opened them one by one, to read the messages within to myself. Then, I burned them all. At dawn, after washing the three empty glass bottles, I had them neatly arranged next to the box he used for his camera lens. There were tens of thousands of galaxies in the universe. There was no reason I should linger outside the frame and wait for someone's light to bleed into mine.

When her parents lost their jobs, Dawn Talia Celeste became the breadwinner of the family while studying. Then she met Theros Skye Fuentes, the cold-hearted, distant, and arrogant man who only thinks about himself. His life is full of darkness but when she came, everything went bright. They are totally opposite and that's what attracts them to each other. Theros will do everything for his company while Dawn is willing to give up everything for him. Until when will she be able to stay with a selfish man? Until when will she sacrifice just to change him? Will she succeed or she will get tired and leave?