Stories

December, 2023 was a high point in eighteen-year-old Kevin Lewiston's life. He'd finally lost his virginity. For the first time in recent memory he didn't get a 'C' or a 'D' on his report card. His parents gave him their old Chevy Equinox for Christmas. Everything was looking up for the young man.

The calendar changed. Kevin's world changed. By June, he was on the verge of giving up. Then he saw something on TV that changed his mind; saved his life even. He packed everything he needed or cared about into his car, hit the road, and never looked back.

Meeting for the first time in Boarding school, Oscar Q Kingston settles down to life away from his country home town, until an incident with one of his friends, while at home on a boarders weekend had him ending up in a hospital and afterwards changing schools and living with his grandparents on the outer north-east suburbs, where he finds new friends.

Months later he bumps into two of his former friends from his old school and after a bumpy start, they form a close friendship that lasts for many years to come, where they go their own separate ways after school ends, and reunite later for a common cause.

"My grand-father always used to say that everything that happens to us in life happens for a reason. And when we look back on our lives there are some moments that just seem to stick in our minds forever and I can now see what he meant by that."

For Scott Fraser there was one such moment that he remembers well. It was the time when, as a teenager, he saved the life of a young boy who was about to be swept out to sea.

What he couldn't have prepared himself for, however, was what would happen when that same boy comes back into his life some years later . . .

A response to Prompt #68:

Imagine where your character leads a pretty decent single life. Then there is a phone call and that life is turned upside down as they find out, they have just become a parent—to a teenager. Is this a cousin that has been left with no other family members? A god child? A niece or nephew? What is this first meeting between them going to be like?

The circumstances whereby Manny obtains guardianship are a little strange, to say the least. Not to mention what happens afterward.

Greg Fowler has been reborn, reforged his life, and been reunited with his newborn brother. Now we join him as he educates himself about his New Reality. While his travels won't cover many physical miles, his education will cover centuries of tradition. Can he learn all he needs to handle his responsibilities? Can he use his newfound knowledge to help his friends? And more importantly, can he use what he learns to help those he finds along the way?

This is Book Four in the "New Reality" series. Reading the first three books is a must if you hope to fully understand the world that Greg and his friends live in.

Best friends, Luke and Matt, have been inseparable since primary school and now, after twelve long years of schooling, the end of those school years are finally within sight. All that is left to do is make it through the night of the school formal, before starting their final exams.

So what will the night bring for the boys and their group of friends? What secrets are about to be exposed? How will they, their families and their friends all react to the events that are about to unfold? And what will they discover about themselves . . . about each other . . . and about life?

Lyoth and Stawren head in one direction, as Phentrom is taken in another. Fonith goes on a universe-spanning hunt, and Captain Suoki makes a new friend. Chaos ensues in different ways for each of them. Will they all ever be reunited?

Corey has been feeling like he's been being watched for weeks now. He finally tells a friend Grayson, only for Grayson to become good friends with a very suspicious new guy.

Being the oldest and growing up in a large family can be hard, especially when you are gay and the family is extremely homophobic. You are constantly being compared to your deceased father. A man whose stature and deeds are always increasing, as time goes by, and are held up as your goals. Anytime you reach those goals, your mother moves the goalpost further away.

You never seem to measure up. You are always being told that you are worthless and will never amount to anything since you cannot measure up to your father. It never mattered that you were a straight "A" student and that you were an athlete.

Kieran and his friends, returned from the Realms, face troubles of a human kind.