Line In The Sand Novels & Stories

"I'm fine." "You can park behind that dumpster." He followed her instructions with clenched teeth. I don't want to park behind some dumpster. They were in front of an abandoned field. It was the old field where they used to play Home games, the last time he came here his hand was under some girl's skirt. Venus was holding that hand. She led him to the middle of the field and spread the blanket on the ground while Jules pulled off his jacket and hung it around her shoulders when they laid down their shoulders touched.

“Isn’t he afraid of being smothered to death in this heat?” After a while, the sandstorm slowly stopped. The tanned man stood at the front of the line and shouted, “Let's try to reach the center in the afternoon.” They started walking again, but after a while, the vampire stumbled and fell into quicksand with strong suction. Everyone tried to rescue him, but it was in vain in the end. The vampire died in front of everyone. Philip was surprised to see that the sand element practitioner never made a move. Why did the vampire walk into the quicksand all of a sudden?

Nina slightly confirmed my thoughts with a nod and opened the box, and I saw a kind of sand there, but it was of a golden hue, a mix of silver and a soft purple hue, a mix of these three colors that made the sand iridescent. "Achilles, I need you to step back." Nina explained. My companion gave me another soft kiss and did as asked. Nina raised her hand, and the sand followed its course, enveloping me, and I felt a strange pain as the sand penetrated my skin, and gradually I could hear the sound of bones breaking, and I screamed.

Flashes exploded like lightning against the glass façade of Linèa Cosmetics headquarters. Not one camera. Not ten. Dozens. Journalists swarmed the front entrance, microphones raised like weapons, their voices blending into a wall of noise. Security guards locked arms, forming a barrier as reporters pushed forward, desperate to pierce the silence inside. And all of it,every chaotic second because of one thing: Vanessa in Dubai. With another man. A man who wasn’t Jerome.

I tapped accept. A line appeared on the screen. [Assignment term: three years. Destination: Havenmist branch. Please report to your assigned location by this Saturday.] Today was Wednesday. There were three days left before both my wedding and my departure. Simon Carver saw me looking down at my phone, and his frown deepened. "Maren, I'm talking to you." I locked my phone and looked up at him. "Mm. I heard you." He probably hadn't expected me to be so calm.

A Few early students move across the grounds, preparing for orientation. As I start to take a sip of coffee from my mug, I can’t help but wonder what they’ll think of me. A newbie in the sea of others. An outsider. The one who kept to himself. The kettle whistles reminding me that I forgot to turn the stove off. I grab my phone, a message blinks from Andrew. “Don’t ghost me Sim. You alive?” I smirked. “Barely, settling in.” He replies fast, chronically online as always. “Get some sunlight. And don’t forget to smile otherwise you’ll scare off all the kids.”

“Good evening, Kai, you have 20 minutes to solve the riddles and escape this room.” The screen of the tablet opened with the first riddle and I read it. “You measure my life in hours and I serve you by expiring. I’m quick when I’m thin and slow when I’m fat. The wind is my enemy.” There was a space at the bottom of the page for me to type in the answer. “Real funny, whoever this is, I’m not playing your stupid game anymore,” I said out loud, and the walls moved closer towards me. I looked back at the tablet and typed in ‘candle’. The next question appeared on the screen and showed two of five.

The dusk sky slowly became purple as Madeline and Nathaniel got up from where they had been sitting. The waves, peaceful just moments ago now grew bigger washing over the sand under their feet. Nathaniel wiped the sand off his pants then looked at Madeline who stayed still her face hard to read

The pack house suffocates me, but here by the water, with sand between my toes and Yuri's easy laughter in my ears, I can breathe. "Ready?" Yuri crouches at our makeshift starting line, a stick driven into the sand. The sun cuts through the leaves overhead, painting his dark hair with flecks of gold. I nod, settling into position beside him. We have stripped off our shoes, leaving them in a jumbled pile by the old oak that marks our territory. The sand is warm beneath my feet, still holding the day's heat though evening approaches. "Three, two—" But he is already moving, sprinting ahead with a whoop of laughter.

“We are splitting up, Ozzy and Chris you stay behind and protect our flag, Nathanial and Gabriella you are our second line of defense, Sav and Kiara are going to play offense and see if we can get to the flag. I will be a distraction and swim directly for the flag above water. Sav and Kiara you need to hold your breaths and swim for the buoy form underneath and retrieve it. Sav how good can you hold your breath?” he asks through the mind link.