"I don't think you should be alone. You need to rest. Do you want to go to your sister's, your place, or mine?" I offered.

He blinked at me, processing what I said at the same time as he was processing his emotions and the events that just unfolded.

"I'…

She explained how this pre-natal nurse had come to see her everyday in the hospital, since she refused to leave the babe and insisted on a private room. He was handsome and did everything he could to appease her. He wasn't supposed to keep helping the bab…

The houses here were like high rise apartments lining the steep walls of the caldera. The buildings in the bowl were community buildings. I took my friend to the hospital, on the trail of his wife and the baby she risked it all for.

His name was Charlie.…

Operations came in the night. They gathered up those who were gaining entry to the caldera and led us through the giant steel doors. The tunnel was dark and dimly lit by torches. The pair of uniformed men at the rear of the procession snuffed out the torc…

"I will help you find your wife. I promise. I will not let your parent's sacrifice be in vain." Tears sprang to my eyes then. I thought that I was incapable of feeling after so much time spent distrusting, pushing people away.

"We're definitely getting i…

Driven by a promise, through the dark and twisted tunnels of the Dewar and the misty mountains of the Jian, through shrouded wood of the Elhu and the gray hillocks of the Hob, I have come. Step by heavy, faltering step I have traversed such distance and b…