Bear a light and face the night. After you've finished your homework. On her first day of high school, fifteen-year-old Megan O’Sadie has one goal in mind: reconcile with her three best friends from primary school—Angie McMillan, Evan Cadell, and Ryan d’Maughn—who she hasn’t talked to for all three years of middle school. However, when she makes the attempt, she is horrified to discover that something terrible has been happening to the three of them behind her back.  Still, reconciliation seems possible, and Megan is dead set on trying her best. But then all their lives get even more complicated when they meet Chris Gramyre, a new boy in the freshfolk class, and their class’s only Light Bearer.  Can Megan handle the truth of the past three years? Can Angie and Evan handle their anger over it? Will Evan get to hunt the dreadful Beasts Below? What is Ryan’s deal, even? What is happening with their birthdays? Can any of the four handle the aftermath of lunching with a Light Bearer? And who’s that kid that Megan and Ryan don’t recognize? Set on the fantasy AU Earth of The World Between, The Nineteens and the Whispering Shadow is a medium-stakes, slow-paced fantasy YA/coming-of-age high school slice-of-life story with significant elements of drama, action, horror, and (eventually) romance. It might even be funny on occasion. It has four foul-mouthed view-point characters, many additional characters, occasional interludes, and is pound-for-pound mostly dialogue.  Updates Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Saturday at 12:19pm, Pacific time zone (GMT -7/8, depending on the time of the year). Notes: -The story will get dark at points, but mostly is not. There will be occasional gore, mostly monster gore. -There will very occasionally be frank discussions of sex and sexuality by teenagers, and some characters are sexually active. There are characters of a variety of sexualities and gender identities. If any of this bothers you this is not the story for you. -If you don’t like profanity or vulgarity, this story is for sure not for you.  -Act 1 is complete. It is over 400,000 words. -At the moment, the cover art is generated by DreamAI.