DUCK. AMERICA LOVES DUCKS.

So… America likes ducks, right?

Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, Plucky Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Howard the Duck, and… Duckman.

Ok, so you probably haven’t heard of this show. For A LOT of reasons.

A. It aired when the Simpsons was still at it’s height in popularity

B. It was something of a show that attempted to tackle some of the more controversial and deeper parts of humanity.

C. It originally aired on USA. No, not the country, the network.

D . It was NEVER syndicated, for A-C, only comedy central aired episodes, and only very briefly.

With those reasons in mind, what is Duckman? Well, it’s essentially a show about a duck who goes around solving mysteries, with a family man spin put on it. Also, he’s a incredibly large dick, often insulting anyone and everyone around him, putting others in danger, objectifying women, and, when he’s angry enough (or just wants to honestly) killing his secretaries, Fluffy and Uranus.

D’aww, aren’t they adorable?

They’re… cute. Disgustingly cute in fact. They’re supposed to represent the PC culture that we were entering as a society in the 90s, where everything had to be good and nice, never offending anyone, and are generally extremely annoying about it. And while they make at least one or two appearances an episode, and rarely get more then like, 2 or 3 minutes of screen time, their characters are made worth it by some fun activities they often partake in.

Like becoming sidewalk pizza!

This is easily one of the tamest ways these characters are offed, and apparently, due to being made of cotton, they’re incredibly resilient.

As far as to come back from this.

These are both from the 1^st episode. I won’t spoil much more, but I really enjoy this show, and you might want to check out this show. The art is extremely interesting, and it generally parodies humanity. Though the fluffy and Uranus deaths are easily my favorite.

another skipped week D=

I'm at home for the weekend and I don't have Internet, sorry guys.

JS Harlow Post: SnG, Ch. 1

Whoops! Day late. I might or might not have been playing the incredibly awesome Final Fantasy 6 and lost track of time. You'll never know. Could have been ninjas, too.

So now onto the next segment of Silver and Gold! Hope you like it. ^.^

Chapter 1, Pt. 1 & 2: Vines; Coffins

JS Harlow

            The thorn vines were taller this year.

Three years ago they had only reached the top decorative iron curl in the trellised cemetery gate. Five years ago they had only reached halfway. Ten years ago they had barely sprung back out from frozen northern dirt. Twelve years ago, well… Reah's hands clenched, rubbing fingers on faded scars. The white blossoms on her back whispered, remembering her of fire. A man’s loud drunken voice echoed in her head.

It had been twelve years since Reah had seen her mother’s face. It had been too long for her to remember it. She had tried every day to call it into mind but some time before the start of her first memories, she had lost the image. All that was left of the barmaid Lili, now, was a small stone marker, a pile of dirt, and Reah's final faded memory: of violet eyes.

            Reah shifted on her bare brown feet, easing the muscles in her legs. She had been leaning against the low blonde wood fence surrounding her home: a convocation of brick and glass which the nation of Gehenna knew as the Orphanage of the Sisters of the Frozen Blood. She had been staring east past the blond wood fence. From the top of the west hill where the orphanage sat and devoured Fulkton Gardens' sunsets every evening she could pick out the exact location of her mother's grave. It was early in the morning still and a rare clear day. Reah had been gazing over the village for a good twenty minutes, now, planning. She knew that Elvene's sycophants were under the tree by the entrance to the Orphan's Quarters behind her. Were they waiting for her to make her way inside?

           She didn't want to think about them. She should be thinking about her mother, instead, today. All that Reah could remember of the woman buried beneath the orchard hill was the image of her violet eyes.

When those eyes were clearest in her mind they were always opened wide. Reah could only think that they must be staring outwards at the world as their owner died. That man’s voice echoed in her mind again and, snarling, Reah turned her back on the hill and the cemetery that lay on and surrounded it. Her mother's eyes had been looking out at the Lord of Fulkton Gardens. Reah was certain of it. She had no memories, but she still had dreams.

           No one would listen. No one would ever listen and the lord of Fulkton gardens was walking free from murder.

           "Your mommy set the inn on fire. Daddy won't say it but you should just die."

           No one had listened to Reah's words. They had refused to listen and all memories of the girl's mother had failed. The Hoary Stag had been built, new, at Lord Fulke's expense. The woman's last name had been forgotten with her death and her daughter could no longer claim it. Now, even Reah had forgotten everything but her mother's eyes, and the words she had repeated to every passerby again and again since her early childhood.

           Lord Fulke clothed her. He housed her, as if she were just another nameless orphan. He pardoned her for speaking out against him.

           There was pain in her palms. Reah looked down at them. Oh. She had drawn blood with her nails. But she had trimmed them yesterday.

           Why do I still let myself do this?

           Reah's mother had been soft. That was the best thought that Reah could manage. Her mother had been a soft woman. And now she was dead. And Reah was alone.

She was the girl with the ugly brown skin: the freak and the orphan: the child with no last name. She left no room in herself for softness. Not for anyone but the dead. She was the type to move forward, and lords' mercy on those who got in her way.

Reah started. She was standing and doing nothing. She had to stop; she had to do something. She hated attention.

Two stories of laid bricks loomed above her as she started walking. There were no windows and just a single door on the side of the orphanage facing Fulkton Gardens and its cemetery. Many of the Sisters of the Order of the Frozen Blood disliked both the living and the dead.

I have to go pick Mother's flowers, now, Reah thought.

           Her mother was dead. She had loved black fall lilies, though. Reah could bring the lilies to her mother today, after Sunday church, if she could get to the woods to pick them before church was called to session. The flowers had just started blooming. They would be at their prettiest, today.

           All Reah had to do was make it to her room: past the six tall, pale orphan children with the too disinterested looking green and blue eyes gathered together under the tree by the door she was approaching.

It was still cold in Fulkton Gardens this early in the spring. Fulkton Gardens was one of the northernmost townships in Northern Gehenna. It was nearest of all to the barbarian wastes. Warmth was loathe to visit here, this far above Gehenna's Cold Line. As Reah passed into the shadow beyond the white stone archway of the convent's entrance door she felt pride in the fact that, despite the footsteps on the grass behind her, she did not shiver.

***

           "Have you heard this one, yet? I heard they cut her legs off to make her fit in her coffin."

           Damn you.

           "Oh? That's nice. So what do we do with her?"

           They had Reah in a corner. She'd let them do it. King take her, she didn't have time for this. She spoke out.

           "Why are you doing this, Jocelin?"

           "Hey! It wasn't her who spoke. You should have some manners and answer me, girl."

           "Shut up, Lawrance."

           There. She had Jocelin talking.

           They had her trapped in a corner of the hallway breaking off in the direction of the quarters she shared with the girls among them. The group of them were trying to look as if Reah was with them. The Sisters had a habit of appearing without making noise on the halls' slate tiles.

           Blythe was the youngest: thirteen. She had brown hair cut short and green eyes. She was born local, but she'd been in the orphanage since she was five. Her brown haired, green eyed father had murdered her mother and three younger sisters. It was said he'd wanted sons. He'd become a High Blood vampire's dinner and Blythe had gone to the orphanage. The girl wasn't usually a part of this group. She hadn't been with them last week. She was watching the hallway, now, perhaps concerned. A potential weakness?

           Owen was probably fourteen. He was blonde. His blue eyes had a pale aspect to them. He had been found in a rubbish ditch outside a town in Southern Gehenna while still a toddler, pawing along the ground like a beast, searching for food scraps. He was poor-sighted and always squinting. Reah thought he was probably an imbecile. He had been chasing after Jocelin for years, now. He was as far away from the girl as he could be, as always, standing in the shadow of the wall to which Reah had pressed her back. Blythe was next to him. The two of them were a weak point in the circle surrounding her, but Reah didn't want to gamble on them.

          Sarah and Locke. They were next to eachother again, whispering. Sarah was fourteen. She was taller than any of the other girls, blonde and blue eyed. She had been found outside the orphanage as an infant. From what Reah knew of her she was uninteresting, but wholly Jocelin's creature. There'd be no opening there.

          Locke was the oldest of the group: almost sixteen. She should have been out of the orphanage by now. Reah didn't know why she had decided to stay instead of moving on. It didn't matter, anyways. Dark brown hair, much like Reah's own, and pale blue eyes. Short, though still taller than Reah. Another obstacle.

There was Lawrance. He was a wall. Huge. Blonde hair and green eyes. He wasn't much for talking but that didn't make him any better than the rest. He was a local boy, not an orphan. A farmer's son. Almost a man. If he wasn't here escape might have been an option for Reah. There was a reason he was here.

Jocelin.

          "What is it?" Jocelin said. She wasn't very good at sounding sweet. "Don't you like our company, Reah?"

          Jocelin had been at the Orphanage of the Sisters of the Frozen Blood for twelve years. She was nearing the orphanage's age of maturity, now. Reah didn't know her family history. It was well known in the halls that the sisters had decided to keep Jocelin's past to themselves.

           "You know Elvene doesn't like you, Jocelin," Reah said.

           That should get her angry.

           Retreat was not an option. Reah would have to adopt a different tactic.

           Jocelin took a step toward her, breaking the circle Reah was trapped in. Lawrance was the one she needed to worry about now. The boy was standing just behind Jocelin, within reach of the hole the girl's movement had made in their circle. No space for Reah to run. Worse, he was in arm's reach of Jocelin.

           Just four more steps.

           Right now, anyway.

           "You mongrel little bitch," Jocelin said. Her voice was vitriol: good. "Why would I care about that?"

           Reah took a single step forward. The space between herself and her tormentor was closing. If she could get her claws into the blue eyed girl she could get some retribution, and the group around her would be bound to make noise. A Sister would come. But first Jocelin had to take one step farther from the boy Lawrance.

          "Because," Reah said. She took a step forward. Come on... "Everyone knows. You've been trying for a chance in Elvene's dresses since the day you met her."

           "Take that back."

           Jocelin was the palest girl Reah had ever known. She was red now, though. Good. She had a wide thin lipped smile like a hatchet wound to the face. It was always an empty smile. Unreadable. But those green eyes of hers were sparkling beneath the brown mop of her hair. She took a step forward.

           Just within reach. Out, rather.

           Another of the girls cut in. Locke, Reah thought. "We're not in the woods this time, Jocelin," she said. "That Corwin boy's got nothing to a sister. Back off."

           "Take it back, girl."

           Reah bared her teeth. "I won't."

           "Take it back, Reah. Jocelin's not like that." Owen's voice. He was trying to defend Jocelin again. Trying to calm her down. What an idiot. Reah didn't take her eyes off of her target.

           Jocelin turned a dozen shades darker red. She was always convinced that her friends were stupid and that they wouldn't catch on to things. She hated being wrong. She spun around.

           "Shut up, Owen!"

           Reah took her last step forward.

           Good.

          "I'll fit you in a coffin," she said.

           She glanced up. Lawrance was staring directly into her with his idiot towhead green eyes. He wasn't a ward of the orphanage. He was a farmer's son who shouldn't be here. Why was he going through the trouble? Reah cleared her mind. She wouldn't have long once the boy started moving.

           Jocelin started to turn back. Reah didn't bother to wait for a look at her target's face. She lunged forward, crying out, and her hands were around the girl's neck. She felt her nails dig into flesh. So odd. She had cut them yesterday. It didn't matter. She dug harder. She saw the farmer's son moving out of the top edge of her eyes.

Jury system.

Y’know…. The American jury system has always been a rather interesting beast.

If it weren’t for this system, it would be incredibly difficult to decide who is deserving of punishment, and who is innocent of their crimes.

In the best case situation.

The jury system is honestly a flawed system, for many reasons. First off, it was made by humans. People fucking suck.

But past that, there’s the fact that, the jury system takes from a extremely large group, and whittles it down to a select group.

The parameters for this group are:

A. The jurors can’t make an excuses to get out of it

B. The jurors aren’t biased (or at least hide it well)

C. Can actually show up.

So… yeah. You know that stereotype where only the stupidest people in a jury group ever get chosen, as they fulfill all 3 of the above three parameters? Yeah. It’s mildly valid. Most people can find a way out by making an excuse, or can at least seem kind of polarizing if they REALLY don’t wish to serve.

Let’s be honest here. Trial by Jury can be a really scary term, but… having one person choose your fate is also pretty awful, and the worst would easily be phoenix wright.

Guilty till proven innocent? Awesome. I’d rather have trial by jury then have that kind of system in place. Play any phoenix wright game, you’ll see what I mean. If that was the alternative? It'd be cool, but Christ, i'd be scared to be accused of a crime.

Cooking Time!

So. I’ve been learning to cook food, particularly Colombian cuisine. I’ve already learned how to make a few things, like lentil soup, empanadas, buneolos (basically a salty doughnut, using cheese, flower, and eggs), some heavier soups. Today, I’ll be going through a recipe I actually did earlier today, called sudado de albondigas, which roughly translates to meatball stew. Before I go into the recipe, maybe it would be wise to discuss the term sudado.

Obviously, sudado, or stew, is essentially a meat (chicken, meatballs, lean beef cuts, lamb, you can likely also use tofu or fish if you’re inclined to do so) placed in a gravy, composed of many ingredients, which often goes great on top of white rice. This meal is extremely cost effective, extremely filling, and can easily make a bland meal really delicious. The ingredients honestly don’t need to be exact, as you can vary the amount of meat and potatoes as much as you want, as long as you keep the base (the onions, tomatoes, seasonings) it should taste quite good.

Let’s begin, shall we?

2-3 large potatoes. Type doesn’t matter much, but if you like more potatoes, you can add more

4 or 5 half cassava/yuca. I personally don't like yuca too much, but my parents absolutely adore the stuff.

2 medium sized tomatoes. You can honestly go as big as you want on the tomatoes, as tomatoes are mostly water, you’ll just add less water at a later step however, be sure not to add too little tomato, as it’ll make the meal taste significantly worse.

2 medium sized red onions: Same thing as the tomatoes, you can add more if you really like onions, otherwise, 2 onions should be plenty

Some olive or corn oil, not much, about a table spoon full is plenty.

1 lb of ground beef

2 eggs .

¾ cup of bread crumbs.

A adobo type of seasoning, approximately 2-3 tablespoons. Adobo seasonings are basically just turmeric, salt, pepper, and garlic, and oregano. Goya sells a rather good adobo seasoning for approximately 2 dollars, so I usually go for that.

A large pot

Now, you’ll want to begin by dicing the onion and tomato into small pieces. You place the oil into the large pot, and allow it to heat up. After the oil is sufficiently hot, add the tomatoes and onions. Add the adobo seasoning on top, and mix well. While the tomatoes and onions cook, peel the potatoes and slice them into half inch slices. Now, when the tomato onion mixture looks well mixed, it should look like a red mass with the occasional hints of water. Add about a cup of water, and add the potatoes. Put the lid on top, and let it come to a boil.

Take your ground beef into a bowl, and add the 2 eggs and the bread crumbs. Mix well, until there are no traces of bread crumbs or egg left, and form several 2-3 inch in diameter meat balls. Place the meatballs into the stew. Now, I know it looks extremely cramped in the pot, but it’s fine, just moved some of the potatoes aside and add the meatballs in, you want each meatball at least half submerged in the stew. If you want to add yuca, feel free to do so now, as even when frozen, the vegetable takes very little time to cook. Now, when all the meatballs are in, stir VERY lightly, as if you stir too hard the meatballs will break up. Just stir until the mixture seems even. Now you simply put a lid on the pot, and allow it to boil for about 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, it’ll be done. The meatballs can obviously be eaten however you want, and the gravy from the stew makes a great addition to any simple rice dish.

That’s how you make sudado de albondigas!

The measurement on the meat isn’t exact, so it allows a lot of flexibility. This especially works well for lean cuts of meat with very little marbling, as the stew itself keeps the meat nice and moist.

That’s all for this blog post, thanks for reading, and, as for next time? Something different.

Quick Post Before I Pass Out

Hey folks, sorry about last week. I kind of screwed up my ankle pretty bad Saturday and was too busy being in pain to think about posting.

Also this week I'm too exhausted to give you anything good, so how about a brief recap of the previous night?

Good, because that's all I'm giving you.

Last night, I attended a game for our college hockey team. It was fun, I drank a beer, ate some nachos, and didn't really care about what was going on in the game. We were losing 2-1 when we left at 11:15. It's okay, that was just to kill time until midnight.

At midnight, we headed over to one of the closest game shops, Above Board Games, for the midnight prerelease of the new Magic: The Gathering set - Mirrodin Besieged. In it, each player chose between the two factions of Mirran and Phyrexian and received 3 Scars of Mirrodin booster packs, and 3 special packs consisting of cards strictly from their chosen faction. I chose Phyrexia, because if you haven't played any Magic recently, poison is RIDICULOUS these days. Phyrexia is loaded with cards that poison your opponent to death, and in this format, that meant it was the proper competitive choice to make.

Anyway, the tournament consisted of, if I had to guess, approximately 60 players and 6 rounds, then cutting to a single round for the top 8 players to decide final rankings. I had gotten a little lucky with my card pool, and managed to go undefeated until round 5. Unfortunately, my luck and ability to play were both dwindling as the tournament reached its end. We started at midnight and finished around 7:30 a.m., so lack of sleep became a very challenging issue to deal with. Sadly, my lack of sleep was my downfall, and cost me my last two rounds. I made it to top 8, in 8th place, but I still made it in. However I had to get paired against the guy who was in first as the time, and he royally flattened me (having a better card pool than me and apparently having the ability to play through sleep deprivation will do that). However, I'm still content with the results - I made it into the top 8 out of about 60 other players and had some fun doing it. That's a nice accomplishment in itself.

And that's about it. I'm going to go pass out now.

-Arlon The Enigma

Blog Post #3 and a New Segment of Silver/Gold

Well'p, here you go!


A Lantern in the Dark

There was a stream flowing on the far side of town. The hard pack thoroughfare running past the Stag bisected it, running north. The road faded in the woods. No one had had reason to travel north of Fulkton Gardens in a long time. The bridge which had crossed the river where the road traveled was collapsed, a ruin, and the river had worn it into rounded stones. Some of the stones still stuck out from the water. They were gray in the night while the river was black to Taim. He could not see its bottom. It was the first thing like that he'd found.

Lili was a caster, a mage, and she had discovered herself to him and now he had to kill her. He had loved her perfumes and never guessed that she was hiding her scent from his wolf nostrils. He had not known why she'd scorned his ardor for so long. Now he understood.

He could feel himself sobering. He had stuck his boots in the stream. The spring had been warm so far, but the water of the stream was still only a few weeks clear of ice and snow.

Tell me, Lilika, did you want me to go against fate? Desert my duty?

He wanted to. He had already revealed her secret to someone higher than himself. He could not abandon the things he owed.

"I should go, now," he said to himself.

Still, he sat there. His feet had gone cold through his drunken haze. They felt clearer than any part of him had felt today. Time passed. Now, he could barely feel his feet at all. He tried to sense his pulse in them. He could not. That bothered him.

He could turn into a wolf and his feet would be back to themselves again. He would sober up quickly, as well. Doing that would terrify him. He pulled his feet out from the stream and crossed them under his legs and they began throbbing after a minute of waiting. That was good enough.

They could run, he thought: go against it. Try to break. They'd take Reah as well. But the young Lord Jasper Fulke would kill Taim's family. He wouldn't want to. Fulke was a good man. He'd have them slaughtered, anyway: Regid, Taim's father, and Joyce, his mother, and Tordric, Joyce, Kit, his older brother and young sisters. Tordric's surviving children would die as well. Taim's blood would die, and for what? No one had run from The King before. Not with a caster: not and lived.

He looked at his boots. They were muddy and the mud was on the back of his pressed black pants.

Someone was coming up behind him.

"I don't want to worry you, Taim..."

"You couldn't."

Taim turned around to look at Hellory. She had slipped on shoes and come out to look for him.

"Lord Fulke sent me to get you."

Taim got on his throbbing feet and started to walk back to The Stag. There was a brightness over the horizon, flickering, like the wick of a lamp. He was walking with his most even strides but his heart was beating in different tempos with every step. There was a smell of smoke. He thought that he was walking. He could hear Hellory running to keep up with him. She was falling behind.

The Hoary Stag was on fire. The inkeep and his beautiful son and his ugly wife and their four surviving servants were standing outside of it as it burned. Jasper Fulke was watching it, as well, his face pink. He turned and looked at Taim, steady.

You would not do it. I had to do it myself. To protect us from them.

That is what Lord Fulke would say, if he wanted to. He said nothing as Taim passed him and went into the burning inn.

"Wait!"

A woman's voice, somewhere behind him in the night. Taim ignored it.

There was no fire in the bar room yet, but it was hot and Taim could barely breathe the air. It was being sucked through the rafters to feed the conflagration on the floorboards above and there was a breeze running through the door, whistling.

He ran. The stairs to the rooms above were in the far corner of the barroom, by the counter. The stairs ran four ways up to get to the second floor and the fire had not yet traveled down them, but he could see the light it was casting on their farthest visible wall. His boots steamed as they flicked on and off the stairs and then Taim burst into the hallway and all the walls were orange and red and moving like a swarm of living things. The bright organisms had just started to creep across the floor.

Taim was a soldier in The King's army. His senses were not human. The sight of fire was nearly blinding when it was so close. And there was so much of it as well. The ceiling was being devoured by an oily cloud of smoke and his eyes were driven to pick out the patterns in the drifting ash.

The heat was unbearable but it did not bother him. He was frozen, looking, and the hair on his arms and his face and his close-shaved scalp was shriveling away. He could feel the grease in his skin prickling a moment later. The fire was trying to bake him alive. It did not bother him. To him this was not something he could not bear. His body was an object and he had treated it as such most of his life, trading it away in beatings and the things that followed. To him there was one thing unbearable in the heat of the burning hallway.

His ears were not human anymore and they tortured him with a sound, a murmur, dashing through the roar of flames. It was a babble, like a brook. It was a toddler's whisper.

Each jerk Taim forced from his legs was painful. He was baking alive. He did not care. He kept moving. The whispers were in his lover's chambers.

"Ma-ma?; Ma-ma?; Ma-ma!--Mama!--Mama!"

The fire was licking at his boot heels and the smoke was now at the level of his eyes. He had to stoop. The murmur was a whisper, now, and the roar of the fire made it feel as if it was trying to dive into his ears. Reah was screaming in child talk past the edge of reason. It might have been in pain. How could she possibly still be living? There was a thing in Taim that was breaking.

The door had warped. It was on fire, but thick and still intact. He was almost to it. He could see it. How could he open it? If he grabbed the handle it might melt through the flesh of his hands. He was running, now. When had he started doing that? His right shoulder felt stabbed. It shattered itself against the door to the room of his lover and the door fell to pieces.

All of the room was on fire. The floor was an inferno and all of the walls were an inferno. There was no smoke rising to the ceiling. Impossible. The ceiling was an inferno as well. Nothing remained of Lili's life but the bed in one corner where she and her daughter had slept. Everything was devoured but that.

Taim stopped. The heat split hairs on the back of his neck shivered: a response to mage-craft. It must have been hers. Lili. Alive? The thing inside of Taim broke completely: Lili was dead.

The edges of her bedsheets were on fire. The rest of them were slick and red. There she was. Lili's body stole the focus of his senses. He could smell her perfume and her inert blood and the cold sweat of a struggle. Her neck must have been snapped to kill her. Hung? Her head perched loose on her neck. Her neck was swollen and black. Her daughter must have positioned her mother's head on the pillow after Jasper Fulke had departed. Had she hidden? Lili's head did not look like it wanted to stay where it was. There was a drastic protrusion in the swelling on one side of her neck and he could see a gaping O in her skin there, breached by the column of her spine. He felt numb. How close was he to--when he had loved her each of her movements had been a music he could pick up with his ears, but there was no music now, just the murmur...

Of a child.

Reah had stopped screaming. She must have exhausted herself with it. Small. She was wearing a white dress. Her night dress. Oversized. She had her mother's skin and dark brown hair and what must have been her father's odd brown eyes. Taim had teased the girl that her mother had fashioned her from an otter's pelt and that that was what made her all one color. She had asked him what an otter was.

Lili's room was a fire sinking forward to devour her daughter. The girl had her head pressed to her mother's chest.

Taim stepped forward. He could not think, now. His boots were not steaming, now. They were burning. His feet were burning inside them. He did not notice them. His eyes were on the bed with the fire and the blood and the baking corpse of the love of his life and the living body of her daughter. There was an updraft from the heat and the girl's long hair was blowing upwards in it in coils.

The floor was sinking beneath the weight of Taim's feet. Was he really walking through fire? Was this what it felt like when you could feel no pain? There was finally smoke rising from the floor and the bed to the ceiling and Taim could see that the girl's hair was about to ignite. The bed was sinking into the floor. Just like Taim was sinking into the floor. Taim could not smell anymore.

But he heard as the floorboards stopped groaning beneath the weight of the bed. Reah looked up and Taim could not see if there was anything in the little girl's eyes as the floor collapsed beneath her. He was in the air now, leaping. In the air he exploded and he was terrified because he knew that his organs were about to come out of his mouth as he reached for the girl who was falling into fire.

You can't break fate. You can't break fate. You can't...

His hands were in front of his eyes:

They were turning to claws.