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Ryon was blasted back, across the room. He struck the wall, then, purged of his mania, dropped to his knees, amidst the mess. Shaking, too weak now to do much more than crawl, he wobbled on all fours towards the curtained lump of girl. She’d been blasted, too—through the splintered glass of the French doors, and out onto the decking.

A glass and goo-coated curtained lump, of quivering girl.

The silvery tones were fading from Ryon's skin now, under a coating of messy wing and body parts, leaving an ashen shade which spoke of exhaustion. Ryon was wiped, big dark circles under his eyes, and his heart still pounding like cooldown after a marathon. He didn’t know what had happened—couldn’t think about what had happened…yet.

Instead, he tugged the curtain off the girl, ripping it where it stuck to her. In the aftermath of all that noise, he could hear clearly the tinkling sounds of raining glass…and the dripping of dragonfly fluids.

Horror. He thought he’d seen it in a dying man’s face once, but now he knew differently. If he were to look in a mirror now—if there were any glass left to reflect his image—he was sure he would see it in his own.

Don’t.

Don’t think. He checked, momentarily, then reached out a hand to touch her crushed curls. He brushed her off, picking and digging at mouthparts still half embedded in her skin. All the while some part of him was saying, this isn’t real. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for this—for the specter haunting him. For the concept that everything he believed could twist, torque, turn upside down this way.

Dragonflies don’t eat people.

But the alternative was nearly as terrifying, and later he would wonder why he didn’t leap to the most obvious conclusion—that he was mad, and this entire exercise, imagined. Instead he opted for the reality he knew—the one he was experiencing.

In it this woman wasn’t “people”. She was something else.

*Free entry option (post your answer to LiteraryPromotions@gmail.com): Who is Trevor Richmond? Find the answer in my excerpts at www.NDHansen-Hill.com

Closes May 1st, 2008

Void where prohibited.