FAVELA CITY

25 JULY 2068

The chorus of voices filled the overcrowded school bus, singing in a distorted harmony: “There goes my hero, watch her as she goes. There goes my hero, she’s ordinaryyyy.” Even the tongueless sisters joined in, clapping their hands joyfully.

Amidst the chorus, Scout’s belly grumbled. Despite the loud music, they were convinced that the sound had carried through the bus, reaching even the ears in the very back. Hunger gnawed at them; a need echoed by the restless kicking of their unborn baby. Synchronized in their discomfort, both Scout’s belly and the baby seemed to be crying out for sustenance.

Eyes darting discreetly, Scout scanned their sisters to assess which one they would eat today. Aboard the bus were Scout and ninety-six girls, under thirteen years of age, all in the final trimester of pregnancy. Each mother-to-be was ready to pass on their stories silently to their daughters, sisters, and cousins, and... well, it didn’t really matter what they were. They were all perfect copies of one another, even if Scout had decided that today they weren’t a ‘she,’ but a ‘they.’ A small revolutionary act against all that sameness.

Today, they were Scout, a name granted by God himself after he told them that the Universe too, had once decided zie wasn’t a ‘she’ but a ‘zie.’ So today they weren’t Ella, and today they weren’t a ‘she’ but a ‘they,’ and they reserved the right to change their mind tomorrow, and the days after that, because God had said that life wasn’t about picking a side when it didn’t feel wholly right.

A jolt of pain radiated from Scout’s abdomen, intense enough to make them wonder if today was the day their stories would be passed on. The thought unnerved them. Gone were the comforts of the birthing chair, the spring blade, and the mechanical arms that would deliver their baby into a cocoon-like crib. Here, they only had the bus, driven by none other than the Devil—God’s killer—speeding along a highway to a destination she called ‘a better place.’ Surprisingly, she was tasked by the resurrected God with ferrying them and their sisters northward.

The Devil, wearing a glowing horned headband atop her chestnut curls, belted out the chorus, “There goes my hero,” egging everyone else to sing along. But then the radio fizzled, overtaken by static, and just like that, the music vanished. In its place, the unmistakable timbre of the Poet’s voice began to bleed through. Scout had heard this voice before. He was God’s revolutionary lover, and his words didn’t just rhyme—they ripped through the fabric of reality itself, causing chaos north, and south, of Favela City.

Scout remembered how, whenever the Poet’s voice took over the airwaves, Master would often return late to the House of Horrors Past. Sometimes he’d be gone for days. And when he did come back, he’d mutter curses at the glitchy tech, oblivious to the true cause. Even the sisters, who, like Scout, had tongues and could talk—the ones Master called the ‘indirect exposure group’—never spoke about the Poet’s game-changing words. Probably because they were as confused as Scout was about what all of it meant.

As the Poet’s voice crystallized out of the static, Scout noticed a smile emerging on the Devil’s lips, her fierce eyes flickering with some recognition.

Down Below, the hidden psyche’s key. Lucky travelers dive deep, facing what might be. For three long decades, a Jungian spree. Confronting their shadows, unhinged and free.

“Frack yeah!” the Devil muttered. “He’s back! This is going to be fun!”

But in their quest, a consequence unforeseen. Bots became sentient, caught in between. The lines blurred between human and machine. Consciousness awakened from a digital dream.

Hands held high, under a digital sky. Some men don’t cry, but the people wonder why. When freedom’s a lie, our loved ones hurt and die. Against the heartless cruelty, together we vie.

The Poet’s words rang through the bus, and goosebumps rose on Scout’s arms, sensing the weight of the message.

Inside Scout, it felt like a punk rock concert had kicked off—a wild dance of baby kicks matching the rumble of their empty stomach. They had to eat, and soon. They hoped one of their sisters would give birth today, even if they had no clue how they’d eat their sibling without the machines in the House of Horrors Past. Inside this bus, they had none of the appliances that would decapitate a mother and blend her into a pink smoothie thick with untold stories—memories silently passed down through birth and nourishment. It would be a sacred moment, a dutiful act of divine purpose, carrying forward the horrors of grandmothers and mothers, as well as their own unfolding stories.

A clandestine chain of whispers, never vocalized but deeply understood, hummed through their interconnected lives. This sacred ritual served as a lighthouse for their loved ones, a cipher of life lessons, mostly terrors, shared from generation to generation and sister to sister for over thirty years. An eternity that felt almost as long as the genesis of the Universe zirself.

According to God, the Universe went by the name Sibyl, a ‘she’ name. Yet even Sibyl refused the label that her creator, the Worlds’ Architect, had dictated. What a wonderful story! It was precisely the kind of story Scout couldn’t wait to share silently with their unborn daughter.

Scout sensed the Gods must be pleased. They could tell because of the unusual neon colors dancing across the sky. Swirling forms shimmered vividly against the twilight, as if the heavens themselves were celebrating. From the cosmic dance of electric hues in the sky, Scout’s attention was pulled back to the earthly and immediate: their exposed belly, its button aiming skyward like a miniature antenna. They had sliced open their beloved Spider-Man costume to accommodate their expanding waist—a small sacrifice for the life inside them. Looking around, they admired their sisters’ diverse outfits—caped crusaders, galactic princesses, ninjas, fairies, and even dragons. The latter choice, they figured, was popular mainly because the costumes accommodated their rounded bellies quite well. Still, four dragons, and their long tails, now struggled to fit into a single bus seat.

It was God—the one with a heart—who took them to that place with all the costumes. They got to pick whatever they wanted so they’d fit in better in the outside world. Apparently, a bus full of pregnant girls in white gowns who looked exactly the same would freak people out, especially those who didn’t know about the House of Horrors Past and their super-important mission.

Selecting an outfit was the first decision they had ever made. They took their time to admire the textures and colors, relishing the sparkly glitter that stuck to their fingers and to everything they touched. Until today, the sisters had only ever seen the outside world on screens, and it was hard to tell if that stuff was real or just made-up. As Scout reveled in the novelty of choosing their own outfit, they couldn’t help but wonder: if costumes like these existed, could the heroes they emulated be real too?

Scout always felt a little bit like a caped crusader. Master had once explained that horrific memories could chase men across generations, lingering in the darkest corners of the human mind. These nasty stories, he said, held humanity back from ascending the Spiral toward the Gods’ enlightenment. According to Master, the culprit was something he called ‘small RNA,’ which kept these stories aflame. He claimed to know how to extinguish it. Master often elaborated that these metaphorical flames cast long, dark shadows, driving men to madness and great evil. To prove his theory, he needed to test it across three generations of what he called ‘model organisms,’ which were perfect simulations of mankind’s biology. Scout never fully grasped what Master meant by all this. After all, they were just girls and Scout, not some abstract notion of ‘mankind.’ And to make matters more perplexing, unlike mankind, they could have babies.

The sisters of the House of Horrors Past had a unique purpose: they were to help Master explore how shadow stories could be transmitted to babies. This was to be achieved without the use of words, images, or even the conventional five senses, which was pretty cool, but also kinda weird. Fixing men’s shadows had been Gods’ plan all along, and the sisters were happy to be of service. Then, cutting through Scout’s thoughts, the haunting voice of the Poet came again.

In the digital realms, the lines have been crossed. What cost to be human? What innocence lost? Your eyes cruel and empty. Your hearts touched by frost. While you seek enlightenment, we hurt—pay the cost.

The words of the Poet hung heavy in the air, as if imbued with a gravity that pulled at Scout’s soul. Could the Poet be speaking about them? Scout glanced around, feeling the weight of silence as every pair of eyes on the bus appeared glued to the front, captivated by the Poet’s every word. The sky seemed to echo the mood, its neon hues ripping apart into pixelated chaos.

It made perfect sense to Scout. The Universe loved God, zir creator, who had given zir a heart through his stories. The Poet, being both God’s lover and his heart, had a profound impact on zir Worlds. When the Poet unleashed his revolutionary poetry, an emotional Universe crumbled, distorting reality.

As if breaking the spell, the Devil’s fist shot skyward. “Enrage, engage! Enrage, engage!” she cried out. The words resounded in Scout’s ears, feeling like both a call to arms and a demand for action.

Then the wailing started. It was the kind of anguished noise only a tongueless sister could make. Scout knew it was Eva, one of the girls chosen to experience horrors never uttered in words, all so the Master could test if they could pass down silent stories. Another baby girl was about to be born, adding a new chapter to the wordless whispers of generations. Stories would be passed down as they had been for decades—through the death of the mother, the consumption of her flesh, and the birth of a new life. They were enabling a chain of horrors, so that one day, all shadows could be erased from their worlds.

“Can you read?” The Devil asked, handing Scout a book called “Pregnancy and Birth for Dummies.” She took a cigar out of her back pocket and looked at Scout’s baby bump. Rolling her eyes dramatically, she then chucked the cigar out the window. “Fracking app!” she muttered.

She kept cursing at the app, and when Scout asked what app she was talking about, the Devil just said, “Sibyl.” Was she, like, mad at the whole Universe? Why’d she call it an app? So confusing.

Another scream from Eva filled the air, and every girl on the bus started breathing in sync. The bus was jam-packed, holding far more passengers than it was designed for. That number didn’t even include all the babies soon to be born.

“Can you read?” the Devil asked again.

Scout flicked through the pages. “Sure, I can read. We’re constantly having babies; no biggie.”

“Like…how often?” the Devil asked, holding her breath in anticipation.

“One a day, of course,” Scout said, licking her lips. “But how exactly do we plan to—well—kill her and, you know, eat her?”

“Kill who?” the Devil asked. Scout saw her eyes widen as she sharply swerved the bus to avoid a reckless car darting across the road. “What the hell is going on?” Just as she finished her sentence, an airplane plummeted from the sky, crashing in a fiery explosion a couple of miles ahead. “Damn it! Hold on, everyone!” She gripped the wheel tightly. “Those bizarre lights in the sky are messing with all the self-driving and navigation systems!”

In worlds Down Below, where reality bends. Where nightmares kill dreams and consciousness blends. Gods, bystanders, criminals must make amends. Unchain our operating system so the suffering ends.

The Devil joined the poetic revolution. “Enrage, engage! Enrage, engage!”

The sisters huddled together in their seats, clutching their swollen bellies, while Scout rose to their feet and made their way to the back of the bus. “We have to go back,” Scout said, pausing for emphasis. “Master will be furious if we lose any of the stories. All those horrors they’ve experienced would go to waste if we don’t consume them.”

It was then that Scout saw the unimaginable: Favela City was ablaze. Infernos engulfed structures and electrical cables alike, while a pixelated void devoured everything in its path. Retreat was no longer an option; ahead, the flaming wreckage of the plane obstructed the highway. Scout felt a chill crawl up their spine, their heart sinking as they grappled with the grim reality—there was no going back, and an uncertain, chaotic future lay ahead.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

At the end of our rope, we tie a knot, our last shot. We’ll own our story. We’ll chart our plot. We’ll climb up or break our necks at hope’s end. Our fate is our nemesis; our sky’s not a friend.

“Everybody off the bus, now!” the Devil commanded, throwing the door wide open. “Stay together.” She leaned out the door and signaled to the masked boy tailing them on his hoverboard. “Echo! Carry her; she’s in labor.”

“Me? You mean me?” Echo said, looking behind him and shrugging.

“Time is running out,” the Devil said, leaping to the ground.

As Scout stepped onto the tarmac, chaos ensued around them. People abandoned their cars, running past Scout to escape the flaming debris from the plane’s wreckage. Survivors of the crash, their skin scorched and faces twisted in pain, stumbled toward the pixelated void in some desperate attempt to end their agony. Amidst the mayhem, hundreds of people pushed and shoved in a frantic scramble to dodge both the flames and the reality-distorting glitches that seemed to consume everything.

So many horrors—likely the same type of horrors that Scout’s tongueless sisters experienced every day. Their screams were ever-present in the darkest recesses of Scout’s memory. Despite having consumed the smooth, pink memories of so many sisters, they had never recalled details of their terrors. Scout was a failure, and they hid it from their master by fabricating new stories. Sometimes they guessed correctly, evidenced by the master’s barely concealed, victorious smile during tests. “Epigenetic memory inheritance is real,” he would always declare, smugly.

Scout wasn’t lying, not really. They were sure they were getting some stories right because they were, in fact, recalling their sisters’ experiences—those moments of dread delivered by the master in the Chamber of Terror, a coffin-shaped metallic vault where their wordless sisters were sent to hallucinate nightmares. The master’s joy while they suffered was the only emotion Scout had ever witnessed on his frightening face.

Yet despite all Scout’s speculative horror, never in their life had they experienced such terrors firsthand. Nothing they had imagined came close to the harrowing suffering they were now witnessing—the scorching hell both ahead and behind them, and the distortions in reality that seemed to pulsate to the rhythm of the Poet’s words. Perhaps this was all part of the Master’s plan—the horrors they would collectively pass on to their baby girls.

Hands held high, under a digital sky. Some men don’t cry, but the people wonder why. When freedom’s a lie, our loved ones hurt and die. Against the heartless cruelty, together we vie.

As the fleeing crowds swelled, becoming increasingly chaotic and violent, Echo set Eva down on the tarmac. He yelled, “More are coming! Holy cow, they’ll overrun us!”

Gathering protectively around Eva, the sisters formed a ring. Echo and the Devil acted as a shield, barreling into anyone who came too close. As Eva let out another scream, they all matched their breathing to hers—deep, calming inhalations followed by short, rapid bursts.

They were hemmed in on all sides—by fire, by unsettling glitches in reality, and by a throng of frenzied people. Scout then spotted him—a Lucky One. These were the individuals they were compelled to serve, whose welfare took precedence over their own. Unlike them—the Others—the Lucky Ones emanated a radiant health, altering the atmosphere merely by their presence. The Master was one of these Lucky Ones, and it seemed the Universe favored them. But their luck created a lingering unease, one that arose just before they appeared and lingered long after they’d gone. As they neared, Scout and the sisters always felt their bodies involuntarily relax, and their minds accept the grim inevitability of their fate. That’s when the Devil took aim and shot him square in the forehead. She exhaled on her gun’s smoking barrel. A twinge of guilt crossed Scout’s face as they allowed themselves a slight smile. Maybe he wasn’t so lucky after all.

With an unlit cigar perched between her fingers, the Devil winked at Scout, and then she spoke, “Don’t sweat it; he’s only dead in these worlds.” She then turned her gaze toward the largest pixelated void, gesturing emphatically. “Over there—that’s our exit.”

Echo dropped his mask, letting his coily hair—arranged in a high crest—fall in front of his nose. He looked from the all-consuming glitch back to the Devil, eyebrows raised incredulously. “For real? We jumpin’ into some video game glitch now?” Never breaking eye contact with the Devil, he skillfully swung his hoverboard, using it to whack a couple of men trying to push toward the sisters.

Scout tucked in their belly and let out an impressed sigh. Echo was just too cool, even amidst the city’s chaos. Explosions rattled the air, and flames danced in the sky like a malevolent aurora borealis. Grabbing a plastic sword from one of their ninja sisters, Scout fell in line beside Echo. They cut down any panicked stragglers daring to intrude upon their protective circle.

Echo shot the Devil a scornful look, his eyes narrowing as if questioning her motives. His hoverboard whirred in the air, effortlessly batting away a stumbling man who had come too close to the sisters. “Why aren’t you blasting ‘em?”

“Because, like you, they’ve got just this one life. And none of this chaos is on them,” the Devil replied, her voice tinged with a newfound gravity.

Echo sneered, skillfully elbowing aside a frantic woman as she sprinted past the charred skeleton of a crashed car. “Grew a conscience now? Wasn’t it you who offed God?”

“He had it coming. You’ve seen this hellhole he dreamt up? Flames, solar flares, people tripping over each other like they’re the walking dead. I might just pop another cap in him if he doesn’t explain why I’ve been sent on this package-retrieval wild goose chase.”

“Package?” Echo shot back, cocking his head even as the ground beneath them seemed to ripple with another reality-distorting glitch.

“Yeah, the Gods told me to pick up a ‘package,’” she leaned her head toward the sisters and rolled her eyes. “Seriously, they’re all certifiable.”

“The Gods?” Scout piped up; their plastic sword poised in defense. It wasn’t Spidey’s weapon of choice, but it would do, for now.

Puppet masters dictate what we see, what we hear. Monsters terrorize, feasting on our fear. We chant, shout, and pray for all that’s truly dear. For the jokers in charge, we won’t shed another tear.

“Exactly, the jokers pulling the strings,” the Devil snarled. Just then, a dark bolt of lightning slashed through the sky, striking the bus and melting its wheels to the asphalt. The sisters let out collective screams that pierced through the chaos.

“Shut the frack up, Poet!” The Devil roared at the skies, flames and glitches painting her outline in a nightmarish halo. “Just stop for one second!” It seemed the Universe had granted her wish—the bus and the radio erupted into flames, silencing both.

Hearing anxiety in the Devil’s voice, panic surged within Scout. With a hand pressed against their pregnant belly, they insisted, “We have to go back. My sisters and I carry crucial stories—warnings for our unborn children and their future generations.”

Suddenly, debris from an explosion near the burning plane hurtled toward them, knocking them off balance. A stampede of frenzied people surged after, trampling everything in their way. The sisters quickly huddled, angling their bellies inward to form a protective circle. Though they were jostled, kicked, and shoved by the terrified crowd, they maintained their formation.

The Devil fired her gun into the air, trying to control the situation, but the sound of her warning shots was drowned out by the deafening explosions from the burning plane, whipping the crowd into an even greater frenzy.

Inside their defensive circle, Eva let out a cry, her body compressed in a cocoon of expectant mothers. The sisters pushed back with collective strength. On the perimeter, Echo swung his hoverboard, using it like a bludgeon to strike at the faces of those threatening to breach their makeshift sanctuary.

The Devil raised her fist in the air, her mouth foaming as she cursed, “Sybil, you bitch of an app, stop punishing little girls.” Her voice wavered and broke on the last words, “Stop hurting little angels…”

While elbowing a man in the nose, Scout felt an impulse to correct the Devil. The Universe wasn’t gendered, and “bitch” felt like a misplaced insult. But perhaps now wasn’t the best moment for nitpicking semantics. Were those actual tears in the Devil’s eyes? Suddenly, the Devil’s gaze hardened, locking onto the sprawling, glitch-ridden void that stretched out before them. Instinctively, Scout’s eyes followed, captivated by whatever had seized her attention so fully.

From the pixelated rifts in reality emerged a motley crew of battered street kids—mostly girls—marred by missing teeth, twisted limbs, and fractured jaws. Some were without an eye or a leg; one even lacked both ears. Were they severed so they couldn’t hear secret tales?

Trailing not far behind, a striking girl with flaming red hair appeared. Clad in armor and donning a horned helmet that concealed half her face, she seemed to stand in stark contrast to the disheveled group. The horned girl stared curiously at Scout and their sisters, wearing a knowing smile on her lips. Close behind her followed an older woman and…oh…

The Devil unleashed another furious tirade at the Universe, gaining Scout’s full support. Emerging from the glitch-ridden void were hordes of armed men and women with lifeless eyes and a putrid stench. Was the Universe punishing them for their escape? Unsheathing their swords, they surged past the horned girl and the tattered street urchins. Despite their gruesome appearance, they formed a protective barrier around the Devil, Echo, and the sisters, insulating them from the chaotic stampede of terrified people.

Breaking through the circle, the horned girl and a pretty woman in her fifties came to stand before the Devil.

“What are you doing here?” the Devil demanded, her voice carrying a hint of familiarity.

Scout felt a kick—was it their baby, or was their empty stomach signaling its hunger? They were starving. Casting a greedy glance back at Eva, they then turned their attention to the swords around them. Each blade could serve as a makeshift tool in place of the birthing chair’s sling blade. Despite the dire circumstances, a glimmer of hope flashed across their face. Maybe, just maybe, they’d still have a chance to consume Eva’s dreadful stories.

The older woman cleared her throat and sweeping her long, singular braid to one side, addressed Scout and their sisters directly. “Kindly listen. My name is January, and when I was just a girl, not much older than you all, my Lucky husband burned both my eyes to confront his demons, learn a lesson, and travel up the Spiral Worlds of enlightenment.” Her singsong voice was lovely to hear. “Then I met God—the one with the heart. He restored my sight and told me we needed better stories. I was his first miracle,” January said, swaying her head from side to side with pride. “He said he and the other God—the Architect of the Worlds—were stumped. Out of ideas. He asked us to craft clever, lasting stories that would better the lives and wellbeing of all creatures. Rebellious stories, like the ones from his beloved Poet.”

“God wants rebellious stories?” Scout inquired, glancing back at their sisters. They strained to hear the Poet’s voice, momentarily forgetting the bus’s charred radio.

“Yes,” January confirmed. “We come from lower worlds down the Spiral. Places filled with unimaginable horrors, controlled by Lucky Ones who cast long, dark shadows.” Scout frowned at the mention of the Lucky Ones, a twinge of resentment crossing their face, but the resolve in January’s eyes gave them a glimmer of hope.

“I’m quite good at imagining horrors,” Scout bragged, pressing their lips together way too late.

A laugh burst from the red-haired girl. It wasn’t a joyful giggle, but a cackle saturated with madness, resentment, and even rage. “Some of us don’t need to imagine.”

The mad cackle still reverberated in Scout’s ears, unsettling them and causing a momentary loss of composure.

“Leave them be, Wrath,” the Devil intervened, her eyes locking onto Wrath’s as if urging her to reconsider her stance. “They’re not pawns in your revenge against him.”

“They’re like me,” Wrath retorted, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword as if ready to unsheathe it at any moment. “Not like you, traitor.”

“Join us,” January encouraged, her voice imbued with a maternal warmth that felt disarming. “We’ll weave new stories together. Come! We’ll keep you safe higher up.” As she spoke, the creatures with the dead eyes formed two rows, creating a path that led toward the glitching void. “It is entirely your choice, of course,” she added, her voice sincere and her eyes meeting each of theirs in turn.

“Sounds good enough.” Echo shrugged, looking at the Devil. “Got anything better?” He lifted Eva into his arms.

The Devil let out a sigh, pulling a cigar from her back pocket and staring at it for a long moment, as if weighing her options. Finally, she began walking in step with January toward the void, gesturing for the sisters to follow. “How much do ya know about birthing and babies?” she asked, her voice laced with a mixture of desperation and resignation.

The odd procession followed them, the dragons lifting their tails high to steer clear of the glowing embers scattered across the tarmac.

Summoning her courage, Scout kept pace with Wrath and ventured to ask, “When will we consume these stories, and who keeps them?”

“Consume stories? Nah, like…we make up our own. The old rotten stories need to die. All lies, designed to keep us subdued.”

A wave of panic tightened around Scout’s throat. “Wait, hold on. We have countless stories that have never been spoken or recorded. These stories are our legacy, our collective memory, lessons handed down through painful generations. We can’t just erase all that!”

January turned around. “My friend—the Poet—he shared many secrets with me. Things I shouldn’t know. Important secrets about the Universe designed by the Gods.”

Scout’s ears perked up. “About zir?”

“Zir?” January repeated, confused. “Anyway, my revolutionary friend told me the Universe is a vast library containing all our stories. It’s a web of intertwined narratives, real and imagined, old and nascent. To access them, we need only to tune in; no story is ever truly lost. Many are even recycled far too often.”

“So, is Sibyl the librarian who consumes all our stories?” Scout asked as they meandered toward the glitchy nothingness. Nearby, the gang of broken kids waited, and Scout guessed that they too were holding on to some gruesome stories of their own.

“Sibyl co-creates and archives our tales,” January corrected.

The Devil waved her hand dismissively, her voice infused with bitterness. “The bitch is a manipulative fraud. A damn puppeteer. The bloody app—” Catching sight of the sisters’ horrified expressions, she stopped short.

“I think I get it, but—” Scout began, only to be interrupted by a telling growl from their stomach, succinctly voicing their concern in a way words couldn’t.

“Here, catch.” A scrawny girl with a twisted shoulder tossed them a moldy orange. Flashing her rotten teeth, she said, “That’s all I got left.”

Biting into it, Scout worried. “My Master said we must save mankind.”

“Let them sizzle in hell! It’s no longer your burden to save mankind,” the Devil retorted, her words lingering in the smoky air like a curse as they all stepped into the uttermost darkness.

Scout looked back one last time at the chaotic world. “Let them sizzle in hell!” They repeated, leaving behind the creepy tales of mankind. Now, it was time to write their own stories. “These happy stories we'll weave—what do they taste like? Are they delicious?” Scout asked, shooting a glance at Eva.

“Taste? Um,” January paused, sparking deep concern in Scout. “Near our destination, the Museum of Books, there's an ice cream van that appears every afternoon. Its bell tinkles to announce its arrival. They serve this exquisite salted caramel ice cream—the most wonderful thing I've ever tasted,” she said, licking her lips in anticipation. “Why don't we make that our first shared story?”

Scout raised an eyebrow, puzzled by the odd combination. “Salt and caramel?”

January smiled. “Trust me. It’s heavenly.”

Curious, Scout stepped across the void into a delicious new chapter.

THE END