krista225

The Bargain © 2005, Krista Heiser, all rights reserved. The monstrous orb blinked and I took an involuntary step backward, my heart hammering in my chest.    Although I had awakened the creature, my certainty in controlling the beast did not extend to confidence. With bated breath, my gaze roamed over the long serpentine body and folded membranous wings.  Not a muscle flexed along the powerful body.  The great snout did not bare the fangs rumored at twice my elfin height.  Yet, the eye had opened, followed by a rapid blink.  Perhaps I had not fully awakened the legendary sleeper? Uncertainty kept my heart from slowing to a more comforting

Muck stuck to the bottom and sides of her boots, inching its way up the black leather.  The slurpy suction of the black mud caused her stumble, her balance lost for a precious moment before her equilibrium righted itself.  Straining to pull her entrapped feet from the grasping soil again and again was becoming tiresome.  Her muscles were screaming in protest, demanding a respite.  Each raggedly indrawn breath burned her lungs.  Her hands trembled with exhaustion as she brushed away wet, dangling strands of her dark hair from her rain washed face.  She ignored her body's traitorous symptoms and pressed on. The river beside her was beginning t

My life was slowly being erased and I was powerless to prevent it. Had I had a voice, I might have argued the worth of the claw-foot bathtub.  Perhaps I could have persuaded Ellie, the new owner, to leave the childish handwriting in the small closet, a testimony to my oldest son's increasing abilities.  He had been so proud of himself, writing his name all by himself.  But, I had no voice with which to plead with her to leave the evidence of my memories.  I could only stand helplessly by as she happily painted over that scrawled signature, the latest of the many "improvements" she and her husband had made to my home. A lot of work had been

She had no idea what she was going to do with this thing growing inside of her.  And the doctors certainly had no idea, either.  How many had she seen in the last seven weeks?  A dozen?  Not that it mattered; each one had been more baffled than the last.  It seemed their only course of action was to refer her to yet another medical officer who was an alleged specialist in the field of spatium infectus. Jess tapped the link console at her hip, "Hillary." Her animated calendar, fondly named after her boarding mother, had been activated by her voice request.  The link console was always in direct contact with the housing unit where every emplo