When Amaryllis finally woke, Lily was already gone. It was the kind of sleep that you didn't remember your dreams from—but you did remember the feeling, and that was an unpleasant one. Groggy she rose and found that she was alone, and that she knew nothing, least of all now. It would be suicide to g...

She shifted from her mock-recline when she heard Lily enter the tent. No obvious signs of being caught any less groggy than Amaryllis wanted to look, good. She feigned some surprise when Lily announced the death of their snowman target prisoner child man but the pride was real, felt for the second t...

Amaryllis felt slightly nauseous. It had been this way since Lily left camp. [Amaryllis Peszek-Byrne continued from Cat Scratch Fever. ] She listened closely as the shots rang out. Any extra would mean trouble, and that meant Amaryllis should hide. There wasn't much else she could do without the gun...

Amaryllis followed closely behind. It all swam in her head like a pod of whales. If we start shooting first and asking questions later, we'll survive. The whale of a question in the room. How long until they turn the guns on each other? She didn't believe Kitty for a second that it was all self-defe...

A moment could be provided. It seemed that moments were all they had now, moments and the certainty of death. "I guess it's good, then," Amaryllis said, "that Kitty has a conscience." She watched them move through the trees and out of sight. When they were gone she put her rifle ...

It all fell apart, but not in the way that Amaryllis was expecting. Lily returned, unharmed, after what seemed like a flashpoint for potential escalation—Kitty had spotted Amaryllis, somehow, or figured out the set-up more likely—defused by Kitty's travelling companion. Maybe Lily did have the right...

She watched from the trees, silent, patient, and barely remembering to breathe. [Amaryllis Peszek-Byrne continued from Terminal Paradise. ] So far, it was going well. Nobody had needed to die yet. And compared to what she had imagined when Lily brought this up, that was a miracle. Because, at first,...

The sound of a human voice, at this turn so alien and foreign as to feel only like an animal noise, stopped K. dead still. K. looked up and saw her, and then the wrong end of the gun. All this walking and the thought that he was unalone had gone ever onward out of his mind. Fucked him sharply it did...

I would also like to open the floor (mine specifically [not here {maybe this was a poor choice of metaphor} ] ) for death pitches and ideas for K. Emerson. I would personally feel much better to see any cards go to literally anybody else but me here so if for some reason you wanted to save K., pleas...

Lily's slip of the tongue, if that was what it was, made Amaryllis blush, but she was sure that Lily couldn't tell the difference between that and their natural flush due to the cold, right? I mean, any number of things could make Amaryllis' face go red like that, really. Didn't have to be the cold,...

K. continued along the path, and started to whistle their old fight song as they went. Whistling was one of their favorite pass-times, even if it wasn't something they were involved in to the degree of it being a hobby or something they wanted to enter compositions over. It helped to have some kind ...

Amaryllis' eyes widened. "I, uh," she stammered, "I might." She had firearm experience, it was true. But she had never handled a rifle quite as heavy-duty as what she now saw. It wasn't a guitar, but this machine could still kill fascists. Even if it did come from Germany—still, ...

Amaryllis, too, was shocked upon her first bite of the roast, so much so that she gave in and pinched herself to make sure that she was not dreaming. When her open eyes did not open again, and the roast remained before her, she dug in, scarfing down bite after bite of what could very well be her las...

On hearing Lily's voice, Amaryllis nearly faceplanted into the snowman's side. She hadn't heard Lily's approach. Apparently there was enough coverage on the ground to obscure her footfalls. Amaryllis righted herself around on the ground, and saw the conspicuous tube jutting out from Lily's back. &qu...

K. rotated so hard he wound up on the mountain. He didn't notice it happening; several spins around the research complex and he couldn't tell what building was what, by the back or their profile across the circle. And then he lost the plot entirely, and was climbing, or hiking, moseying, perhaps, up...