Lupus
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Good questions — ones I can’t answer just yet😄 Franz really can reach the tower in his dreams, but how Darren could get there — if the goblins’ claim is actually true — is still a mystery. We’ll learn more about the tower at the very end of this book.
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Glad to hear you enjoyed the chapter. Let’s see what happens to Mark and Sandro in the final chapter🤫
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Darren The Uninhabited Lands His head was spinning. When he opened his eyes, he had to shut them again at once. Jagged patterns raced across his eyelids, and for a moment Darren felt an intense urge to throw up. Then his ears began to pick out sounds around him, and he remembered Danae. Where is she? Their hands had slipped apart the moment they stepped into the gate. After that, everything had been nothing but swirling chaos. Darren remembered the tumbling and the white flashes. Whe
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Thanks for the comments!☺️ Mark is almost as bad at reading people as he is at talking about his feelings. And he definitely doesn’t want to mess everything up again by blurting out his feelings to Sandro. Jared is simply a kind and caring person — the type who dislikes conflict between people. He’d certainly want Mark and Sandro to be back on good terms.
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Exactly. A story needs misunderstandings and a bit of drama😃
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Good point. Even though Sandro is angry, it would be out of character for him to seriously hurt Mark. Most likely he didn’t kick the ball with full force (even if that’s how it seems to Mark).
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"Mark, don't," Jared warned, stepping into his path. Around them, a crowd of partygoers had formed a silent ring, their curious, judgmental eyes locked onto Mark. The music thumped in the background, but in that hallway, the silence felt deafening. Jared grabbed Mark's arm firmly. "Leave Sandro alone. You've done enough." "Let me go, Jared! Please!" Mark pleaded, his voice cracking with a raw desperation that echoed over the crowd. He tried to yank his arm free, but Jared held on tight. "Yo
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Thank you all for your comments! I’ve really enjoyed reading them.😊 Clearly nothing is easy between these boys. Let’s see what happens in the next chapter.
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Saturday evening arrived with a crisp autumn chill, but the air inside Mark's chest felt strangely lighter than it had in months. Coming out to his family the day before had felt like stripping off a suit of lead armor. For a few fleeting hours after that tearful conversation in their living room, Mark had allowed himself to breathe. He had survived the secret. His parents still loved him. Katie had his back. But as he walked down the dimly lit suburban street toward Sammy's house, the
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@Philippe @drsawzall Mark is really poor at expressing his feelings — even for a teenage boy. So I think letters and serenades would be completely out of the question for him. In the next chapter we’ll see what his plan for approaching Sandro looks like.🫣
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Nice to hear the story interests you. I planned to make this just a short story, which is why the chapters are so brief. Maybe at some point I’ll write a longer story about some other boys.
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Many thanks for your comments.😊I’m not intending to add any death‑related elements to the story. There’s certainly angst, but most of it is Mark’s internal struggle.
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@FanLit @akascrubber @VBlew Thanks for the comments. In the next chapter we’ll see what happens at Sammy’s party.🙂
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@Seraph28 @Cane23 How much easier things would have been for Mark if he had had this conversation earlier. Teenagers unfortunately don’t tend to share their troubles easily, especially with their parents.
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Friday morning was cold, damp, and utterly miserable. Mark sat stiffly in the passenger seat of his father's sedan, staring out the rain-streaked window at the main entrance of his high school. The principal, Timothy Vance, had called Mark's parents late Thursday evening. Zero tolerance for physical violence on school grounds. That was the rule. "Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is, Mark?" his father, Rick, said, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
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@chrstphrl @Seraph28 @Cane23 @akascrubber @Modified Cub @DenCornell Thanks for the comments.😊 We’ll see what happens to Mark. Four chapters to go, and the last ones are a bit longer than the earlier chapters.
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@chrstphrl Thanks for the feedback.😊 I also consider Franz a successful character, precisely because he’s so complex and not overly nice or immediately easy to like. At the beginning of the story Franz was more of a side character, but the further the series has progressed, the more space he has claimed in the narrative. If I had known how the story would eventually unfold when I first started writing, I would have built many plot turns and characters differently. Even at this point — near the end of the fourth book — I still wasn’t entirely sure how all of this would end.😏
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Thursday brought the kind of heavy, damp chill that made the high school hallways smell like wet raincoats and cheap body spray. Mark was leaning against his locker, shoving a folder into his backpack, when Sammy bounced over. Sammy possessed a permanent, restless energy that made him almost impossible to ignore. "Marky-Mark!" Sammy grinned, pulling Mark into a playful headlock. "Listen up. Saturday night. The annual Miller twins' extravaganza at my place. Sienna's promised to supply ‘
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@Seraph28 True. Franz is a contradictory character. His heroic fantasies and the image he has of his own mission don’t really match reality, and in this chapter I wanted to bring that out more🙂 And yes, little by little the loose plot threads and the fates of different characters start weaving together. Almost the whole group is indeed gathering in Dimalos. But not quite all of the important ones. Because in the next chapter, we’ll see where Darren and Danae ended up after stepping through the magic gate.
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Franz Dimalos, Andiol Empire In his daydreams he had imagined arriving in Dimalos in a far more glorious fashion: how they would float over the towering palaces of the administrative quarter and descend proudly somewhere near Senate Hill. Franz would have waved at the great triumphal arch and at the crowd that, in turn, would have cheered the valiant balloonists and placed garlands around their necks. Or at least something along those lines. That was why the real Dimalos felt like a
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@jaysalmn @Modified Cub @akascrubber @VBlew Thanks for the thoughtful comments. We have to remember that Mark and Sandro were closer than friends usually are. They’ve spent practically their entire lives together, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if Max’s words turned out to be right. But a situation that has gotten this bad isn’t easy to fix — especially when neither of them is clearly ready to take the first step toward making peace.🫤
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Good points from you. Before anything else, Mark needs to learn to accept himself.
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The walk to school was usually a ten-minute straight shot down the street, a path Mark had walked thousands of times. For years, those ten minutes had been filled with dumb jokes, spilled gossip, and the rhythmic slap of a soccer ball passed back and forth across the asphalt. Now, Mark walked it alone, the silence heavy around him. As he turned the corner onto the main road, the sting of yesterday's lunch break confrontation settled back into his ribs. He had tried to fix things after
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@FanLit Mark had been speaking about gay people in a negative tone for quite a while, but this time, in his bedroom, he went too far and Sandro couldn’t stay silent anymore. In Mark’s case, it seems to be about having a certain ideal of what he thinks he himself should be, and homosexuality doesn’t fit into that.😕 @Seraph28 Exactly. For some people, accepting themselves is easier, and for others it’s much harder and takes much longer.
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Yep. He hasn’t been able to handle his inner turmoil.
