A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

“I wish I could see it snow just one more time,” she said. Her skin was pale white in the cloudy sky. Was she becoming a part of it already? I didn’t want her to go. We were on the roof of a building, standing on the ledge, two lost causes. My heart raced, but she just smiled at me. The white light coming from behind the clouds made everything tinted, highlighted with a milky notion. “Maybe we’re both portal walkers,” she suggested. “Wouldn’t that be great? We’d just wake up in new bodies at the moment of impact, live anew somewhere strange.” “Maybe,” I replied looking down toward the street. Nobody could see us yet. “But we’re dying anyway. I don’t know if even that would heal us.” “At least we’ll be together,” she said as a droplet formed at her left eye and begun a journey down to her pale lips. I didn’t believe her. The moment we hit the sidewalk, we would be alone in the dark, like I was before she showed up. It was about time that hesitation hit me. My feet were getting tired of ...

NILVIIVLIN It was a dragon. A baby, but still a dragon. Nilvi was looking at it hatching before her very eyes. The stranger thing was that this creature of myth and legends was emerging from what she believed to be a farm-fresh chicken egg. She got it from the chicken coop and rather than cook it, Nil decided to hatch the poor creature only to be heartily surprised. The process took no extreme measures, no blazing pyre like in the books. One heating blub and time was all it took. The creature was almost entirely out of the shell, but a few bits still stuck to surprisingly smooth lavender skin. In the books, dragons were said to be scaly and reptilian in nature, but here was an example of a different outcome. It had a pair of horns already atop a rather reptilian head, but the eyes were as those of a mammal. “You need a name,” Nil said as the little dragon turned to her as if she didn’t even exist before. The little maw opened to produce a tiny squeak. “Oh, but are you a boy dragon or...