In This Moment A Star-crossed Wasteland Novels & Stories

This ends tonight, or we spend the next hundred and eighty days running. Cass grabbed her arm. His gold eyes were blazing. You're not fighting him alone. Then come with me. Watch from the trees. If he cheats, you step in. He cheats. He's Marcus Crane. Then we cheat better. She pulled away. She walked to the door. Luan. His voice broke. She turned. I can't lose you, he said. You won't. She walked into the woods. The clearing looked different in the twilight. The grass had grown back where the wolves had fought. The blood had soaked into the earth. Luan stood in the center and waited.

I take a long and deep breath and we begin our walk to my most beautiful destination. It is like they truly know me; the real me. Some of my favorite soft alternative rock songs play in the background as we walk under the moonlight and stars. As we get halfway down the pathway, “Fade Into You,” by Mazzy Star plays and my eyes lock on the most gorgeous three pairs of eyes I have ever seen.

Or was this some new, insidious tactic, a deliberate silence meant to break me, to chip away at my resolve with the slow torture of uncertainty? I slammed my fist against the table, rattling the papers that clustered my desk. The dim glow of the office lights cast flickering shadows on the maps spread across the surface. They depicted the desolate stretches of the Deadlands, a wasteland carved by unforgiving winds and littered with the bleached bones of past conflicts. The Jared rogue camp, a festering wound upon the land, sat like a viper ready to strike at the heart of the kingdom.

"Zane, go play the game with your mom, okay? You promised me you'd bring back the prize today." Zane looked back at Celine, then at Quinn, and finally nodded with reluctance. Celine listened to Zane urging her to get on stage and prepare. She let out a long breath. Fine. She'd play along one last time. This would be the last time anyway. The game involved crossing a balance beam to retrieve objects from the other side. Celine had never had great balance, so her pace was slower than the others. Zane kept rushing her. He watched the other kids nearly finish while he lagged behind. The realization that he wouldn't get the prize made him furious.

The drizzling sound of rain is what rouses Alina Croix from her light slumber amongst the twisted bed sheets. The tangles of a reaping memory and hollow bridges of lost sleep, tightening the girl's throat when she raises a pale hand to block out the invading light from her wispy curtains. It's hard to tell what time of day it is, but for some unknown reason—perhaps it's the way her senses tingle in slight awareness at the intensity of the sun—but she's certain it's around noon.

The temperature dropped drastically, the wind that blew felt colder, piercing the skin's surface. The trees swaying in the wind dance a dance of death that is both beautiful and magical, their dance accompanied by the sound of dry leaves, and the leaves singing as the wind blows them. The hoarse singing was muffled, their singing was like a muffled screams. It was like someone who wanted to scream with his neck choking hard, someone who was in a transitional period between life and death. They sang and danced as if it was the end of the world. The last day that humanity can taste before everything is destroyed with nothing left

“You always can. You just forget you’re allowed.” After I hung up, I stared at the hospital window where the city spread out like a restless organism. Somewhere out there, Liberty was building her dream with flour and heat and stubborn joy. And somewhere, though I didn’t know it yet, Dawson Lane was on his way back. Not the boy from my memory. A man. With scars. With silence. With storms living behind his eyes.

The winds that whispered through the Valley of Dusk carried more than just the scent of wild herbs and earth—they carried the weight of a thousand unspoken promises, fractured truths, and looming war. Aria stood at the edge of the precipice, her eyes locked on the distant ridges where the land bled into the horizon. Below, the valley dipped into shadow, its secrets buried deep within the soil, forgotten by time… and forsaken by choice.

"Victor, I've been looking for you everywhere. As the alumni representative, you need to give a speech on stage." He followed the administrator but kept looking back at me. I thought today's chaos was over after that he went away. But before I could even breathe a sigh of relief, Victor publicly presented a diamond ring. "Back then, you said you wanted to use 'Wild Roses' to make me a wedding ring. Now it's my turn to propose. Claire Webb, will you marry me?" The auditorium fell silent in an instant, and the eyes of over a thousand people fell on me. I twisted the wedding ring on my left hand and calmly watched Victor walk down from the stage, step by step toward me.

For the first time in a long time, the world felt whole again. No more lies. No more ghosts. Just two broken souls who found strength in each other. As the sky turned crimson and gold, Adrian whispered, “It’s over, Rosemary.” And she whispered back, “Yes. Finally.” --- The End