“I’m really happy you decided to join us, Sam,” Sarah said as he climbed into the back seat of Maurice’s car.

  “Eh, it’s Saturday. I’m ahead of my studies, and Erianna has an assignment she needs to finish and can’t train me, so it was either this or cultivating.” Sarah and Maurice had just come back from visiting Esther Livingstone, who had been granted a short leave to New Terra in order to meet her newborn niece and was due back on the front on Monday.

  “Esther and her family send their well wishes,” Sarah said as the car started moving.

  “I don’t even know her family,” Sam complained. “I barely know her.”

  “It’s the thought that counts,” Sarah chided him.

  Maurice shrugged. “I agree with Sam. I wouldn’t send my well wishes to someone whom I’ve never met before.”

  “Well that’s because you’re even more antisocial than he is.”

  “Hey,” Sam objected. “No one’s more antisocial than me. Besides, we’re going to this meeting, aren’t we? How’s that for antisocial?”

  “It’s a big step,” Sarah reassured condescendingly. “And stop acting the grump. You’re going to have fun. You’ve never even met any of the other Taken. It’s about damn time, if you asked me.”

  Sam caught Maurice smiling in the rear-view mirror. “When Sarah was returned, we were all already adults. So a lot of the other Taken at the time treated her like some sort of foster-daughter, or maybe a goddaughter. Those that lived in Transit often dropped by, and some came to visit when they were in the area.”

  “Farah babysat me until I was thirteen.” Sarah laughed. “Her grandchildren were adults by that time, and I was the only person she could pamper.” Her smile turned wistful. “It’s a shame you won’t get to meet her, Sam. You would’ve loved each other.”

  “I’ll admit to acting childlike,” Sam said. “But wouldn’t my antipathy towards children prevent us from holding common ground?”

  “She was every bit into pre-integration Terran pop-culture as you are. You would’ve probably spent hours talking about TV shows and internet memes.”

  “No one talks about memes in real life. So who’s going to be there today?”

  “The three of us, obviously. Then there’s Angela and Jiro, who live in Transit. Parvesh might come, but he hasn’t been feeling all that well lately.”

  “He’ll be there,” Maurice said. “You know how he’s always sending me the latest updates from his doctor; acting like he wants a second opinion? He’s been asking a lot about Sam lately. And about you. I’m almost sure he’ll make the effort to come.”

  Sarah nodded with a smile. “So from the five that live in Transit that just leaves Lantira who’s unfortunately visiting family in Centauri and won’t be able to make it, and Carlos, and who’s going to be there thanks to you.”

  Sam shrugged. “I didn’t really do anything.” And he hadn’t even tried asking Farris to involve himself with the fifth and final modern Taken involved in the military. But Roman Vlasenko, the sole Ruler Taken currently alive and not in stasis, obviously had enough pull to get a day’s break to come to New Terra, much to Sarah’s delight.

  “Besides them, Roman, is also going to be there, as you already know. Maria is coming from Maynil. And Yolanda and Malomo are coming together, they decided to take a road trip, apparently. And that’s everyone. The rest… well, people have their own lives and obligations, you know?” She squirmed in her seat. Sam hadn’t needed Maurice to tell him that Sarah had certain social expectations of her fellow Taken that weren’t always met by them.”

  “So we’re going to be eleven overall? That’s a big party.”

  “We ordered a private room at the restaurant. You don’t need to worry,” Maurice said.

  “The only thing I’m worried about is paying.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I still don’t understand why you keep worrying about money when you haven’t even come close to the spending limit the government’s given you. Outside your first month here, I don’t think you ever came close to actually spending more than what the academy pays.”

  “And you know how I managed to do that? By mooching off of others. Which reminds me, isn’t that government account supposed to be closing right about now?”

  “It’s for about two years,” Maurice said. “You’re not a child, so you never really had to interact with the department in charge of accommodating Taken. I honestly think they kept it open so long because they didn’t know what to do with you. At the start, of course, you should’ve gotten the usual help, but then you immediately joined the academy, and three days after that had Farris Ninae as your patron.”

  “Wait, you mean to say that I could’ve also been bumming off of Farris for money?”

  “Don’t you keep a supply of snacks for Erianna in your room out of your own pocket?” Sarah asked with a smirk.

  “I’m going to give her a bill at the end of her stay here. Just doesn’t make sense to squabble over pennies on a day-by-day basis.”

  “I’m sure she’ll love that.”

  “It’s money. Emotions don’t enter into it. The only thing allowed to operate in the arena of commerce is the cold, calculating motive for profit. So is it going to be just us Taken? No one’s coming with a spouse or children?”

  “If Parvesh comes, he’ll have his caretaker with him,” Maurice said. “But only to bring him to the table and be at call if he needs anything. It’s the whole point of the ritual. It’s a meeting just between us, Taken. It started this way long before I got here. It just… dwindled as the years went by.”

  “I imagine that in the first years after the Integration there really wasn’t any point to a meeting between just Taken.”

  “Not as much as today, no. But you forget that not all of the older Taken were returned immediately. Some of them still ended up missing years of their lives. Something like that leaves its scars. Even if the Integration War had left a much uglier scar.”

  Sam twisted his lips in dismay. The thought of the Integration War always left a sour taste in his mouth. “True enough. Thankfully, we were saved from having to suffer that particular scar, then.”

  “Only time will tell.” Maurice smiled.

  “Stop it, you two,” Sarah chided. “There’s no reason to be so glum.” She turned to Sam. “And there’s no reason to talk as though the Epirak War will suddenly turn into a fly-or-die war like with the Harots. This is supposed to be about having fun and relaxing. Reminiscing with the only other people who can truly understand what we went through. I won’t have any more of that sad talk.”

  “Well…” Sam started but then regretted it.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No nothing, come on. What were you going to say?”

  Sam sighed. “Alright, but don’t take it the wrong way. I’m not complaining or anything, OK?”

  “Just come out with it.”

  “Well, it’s just that your guys’ experience and mine aren’t exactly the same, you know?”

  “Oh.” Sarah’s lips pursed. “Right, of course.”

  “Like I said, I’m not complaining, and it’s not like the difference is so gigantic that we don’t have anything in common. As you two both know. But… there’s a reason why I’m one of a kind, at the end of the day.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Sam,” Maurice said.

  “I just said I wasn’t worried.”

  Maurice smiled. “Even so. Despite being taken as teenagers, all of us feel a deep connection to the world we left behind. In some of us, that translated to immersing ourselves in the history and culture that we missed, either because we weren’t there to experience it, or because we weren’t old enough. You’re going to find your fair share of kindred minds here today, I assure you.”

  “I already said I wasn’t worried.” Sam harrumphed as Sarah laughed.

  “So how did your combat session with Erianna go today?” she asked.

  “The same as every other session so far. She kicked my ass, then we spent some time practicing how not to get overwhelmed by information.” His voice turned saccharine as he said, “Maybe in a month we’ll start working on how to actually make use of the Sight while fighting. Wouldn’t that be swell?”

  “Stop being so grumpy. It’s only been a week. And Erianna said yesterday that you have been markedly improving. I bet you’re just annoyed because you thought the days of starting to train from zero were behind you.”

  “Well, shouldn’t they have been?” Sam grumbled.

  “No such thing,” Maurice said. “There’s always something new around the corner. Especially for someone with as high ambitions as you.”

  “‘You two,’ you mean,” Sam said. “I won’t have none of that placing me on a higher pedestal than Sarah, thank you very much.”

  “I’ll place you on whichever pedestal I very damn wish,” Sarah said.

  “Some people you just can’t win with.”

  “You’re the last person who gets to say that.” Sarah laughed.

  “I was talking about myself.”

  After a few moments of silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts (although, hopefully not Maurice), Sarah asked. “So, is Erianna also planning to stay here for the end-of-year break?”

  Sam shrugged. “That’s what I was led to believe. She figures that the same logic as the previous two times still holds, and she’ll still get to visit her mother and grandmother before the Muster.”

  “And she gets to spend more time with you.” Sarah smirked.

  “With all of us, including you. Or are you saying you’re leaving straight after you win the tournament?”

  “Of course not. Military Training only starts three weeks after the academic year begins. I’ll stay with Maurice until then. I don’t want to spend three weeks in an empty barracks with nothing to do.”

  “There you go. We’ll all get a little more time with each other.”

  “I’m certain that she’ll make sure to utilize that time well. Make sure that you’re all trained up before she has to leave you.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “I’m not a lost puppy, you know? Besides, she’s your friend as well, you’re not going to spend any extra time with her?”

  “Of course. So long as I won’t disturb your training.”

  “My training will be just fine, thank you very much. And since when did you become the sort of person who worries that I’m not spending enough time training?”

  Sarah shrugged. “With Erianna there to corral you, I don’t need to worry about you overworking yourself.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Oh yeah, that makes sense. Send a toddler to watch over the baby.”

  “That toddler made sure that your essay in dwarven patterns didn’t go completely out of bounds.”

  Maurice chuckled. “This reminds me, Sam. I was recently sent a paper on a new method of replenishing blood loss, which involves, in part, dwarven patterns. It’s still unpublished, so I can’t send it to someone with more expertise on the subject than I, but I was given allowance to show it in an unofficial capacity; ask you to help me decipher them. If that’s alright with you.”

  “Happy to help,” Sam said. “But Sarah also took the course. I’m sure she’d be able to help as well. Again, not that I don’t mind helping.”

  Sarah smiled. “No, you just mind people thinking that you’re better than me. Well, I did try looking through the patterns. I only half understood them, and not well enough to really help Maurice.”

  “OK, I guess I’ll give it a go.”

  “Good,” Maurice said, “the paper’s in my bag. Sarah, if you please?”

  Sarah laughed and handed Sam the papers in question. Sam skipped over the general stuff, and anything that had to do with medical magic or seemed too complex for him, and quickly got to the part of the method that involved dwarven patterns. At first glance, he saw why Sarah had problems with them. He couldn’t make head nor tail of their structure, much less their effects.

  “Can I write on this?” Sam asked.

  “Go ahead,” Maurice said, and Sarah handed him a pen.

  It took him the rest of the drive to decipher the meaning behind the patterns, most of them at least. He ran through some semi-patterns and calculations, but he was pretty sure that he figured out the gist of what they were supposed to do. As for how they connected to the overall treatment method, that was up to Maurice, who thanked him as Sam finished explaining what he understood as they stepped into the restaurant.

  Already waiting there for them was Angela, a forty-nine-year-old working in the magical development department of some New Terran industrial conglomerate. Jiro, who was reaching his retirement age and had spent the last three decades working in the republic’s foreign office. Maria, who was closing on sixty and worked as a marine biologist, travailing through Maynil’s great oceans. Malomo, the recently retired high-school teacher, was currently in the bathroom. And Yolanda, the army officer who had retired a few years before Malomo and who had driven them both here, was currently looking for a parking spot.

  “So the refusal to pay for parking despite a person’s material means is still a universal constant, I see?” Sam said after Angela finished introducing everyone else.

  Angela laughed. “I would say that the military simply doesn’t pay as well as the private sector. But that’s not really true anymore.”

  “We’ve all done well for ourselves,” said Malomo, who had just come into the room as Angela was finishing her introduction. “Pleased to meet you, Sam.”

  “You as well.” They shook hands, and Sam greeted Jiro, who, instead of a handshake, responded with a hug.

  “It’s very good to meet you in the flesh, Sam.” Jiro smiled. “My colleagues in the Sarechi department have been talking about you almost nonstop. Only good things, of course.”

  “Must have gotten some wrong information, then.”

  He laughed. “They have made some great diplomatic inroads that should’ve taken years thanks to you.”

  “Really? How come?”

  “The royal family has always been friendly to us. But Farris’ interest in you, and the fact Princess Erianna came to New Terra, has strongly signaled to the Sarechi bureaucracy the direction the Palace intends to go. We career civil servants are always attentive to which way the wind is blowing. And the recent currents have allowed greater freedom of action to the more pro-Terran factions in the External Ministry.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that I’ve managed to grease the wheels of bureaucracy with my mere presence.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Yolanda!” Came a sudden commotion from outside the room. “I may be infirm, but I’m still not an invalid. That’ll take a few more years.” The pair who entered were quite stark opposites of one another. Yolanda, tall and straight, looked twenty years younger than her age, and it was evident to Sam that she hadn’t abandoned her military fitness. Parvesh, in contrast, would’ve been short even before his current hunch came in full force, he was half-carried, half-helped by the younger Yolanda, who side-by-side made him look like a hundred-years-old.

  “Ugh!” He waved her hand off him after she helped him sit down in one of the chairs. “I would’ve been fine on my own,” he said as she put his walker by the side.

  “Where’s your caretaker, Pari?” Angela chided him.

  “He’s outside. I gave him time off to grab something to eat.”

  “I saw them as I was entering, and he sent him off immediately,” Yolanda said with a smirk.

  “Well, he shouldn’t have to wait hand and foot on me. Besides, this is for us Taken, isn’t it?! No moderns allowed!”

  “Hi Uncle Parvesh,” Sarah said as she bent down to give him a hug. Sam smiled at the scene as he exchanged a very firm handshake and greetings with Yolanda.

  “Sarah, our angel.” Parvesh hugged her back, depositing a kiss on each cheek. “Truly, you are the only one of us who’s still worth something.” He frowned at Maurice. “Since someone is still pussyfooting about doing something meaningful with his life.”

  “I just want to make sure I’ll have the best tools available when it comes time to save your life.” Maurice smiled.

  “Pah! Who gives a shit about me? I’m not going to be of any use to anyone anymore. Level 10 ain’t worth crap when your body can’t get out of bed on its own. Should’ve pushed harder to Ruler.” He wagged a finger at Yolanda. “Watch my words. You’ll regret it when you’re old and withered like me.”

  “That’s good, so I still have sixty years left to live, then?” Yolanda said with a smile.

  “You’ll see. It’ll creep up on you soon enough. On all of you, old farts. You need to be more like Sarah here. She’s going to be a Ruler before she’s thirty. Probably before you, Maurice.” He coughed out a laugh. “Now, which of you bastards I’ve to say hello to? Jiro, Malomo, good to see you. And where’re Roman and Carlos?! They’re bloody late.”

  “They still have a few more minutes,” Jiro said. “Besides, didn’t you forget someone?”

  “Don’t you tell me what I did or didn’t do, Jiro. I’m not one of your compliant deshar diplomats. I don’t need someone as amazing as the Silent Seer to watch over me so I’ll know how to wipe my ass.” He smiled crookedly. “So, then, let’s have at you.” He waved Sam over.

  “Sam Anders, pleased to see you.” Sam reached his hand forward.

  “Bah! None of that. I’m an old man with arthritis. You shake my hand, you’ll crash it.” And he gestured for Sam to bend down. Sam complied with a wry smile and received in compensation a surprisingly strong hug and the same two kisses that Sarah did. “By God, you’re a nice specimen. Why’d they wait so long to send you here, I have no idea.”

  “I didn’t know there was another meeting like this since I was returned.”

  “I’m not talking about this bullshit meeting. I’m talking about your return! Why the crap couldn’t they have sent you back sooner? Would’ve made a hell of a lot more difference. Bah! What do I know, though? You’re probably needed right here and now.”

  “Forgive Parvesh,” said a new voice from behind Sam. “He’s an atheist who believes in destiny. I’m Roman.” The Ruler shook Sam’s hand before bending down to give Parvesh a hug. “How are you doing, old man?”

  “Better now that Sam’s here. With him and Sarah, we modern Taken might actually make some use of ourselves.”

  Roman shook his head at the group as he stood up. “Even being a Ruler isn’t good enough for him.”

  “Become a Chosen and I’ll let you talk. Plenty of other Taken made it to Rulers. That doesn’t make you special.”

  Sam let out a laugh as Roman went to greet the other Taken. When he hugged Sarah, he told her, “Mylo and Nestor have been asking about their big cousin. I told them she was working hard and can’t come visit them in Koshed.”

  “Did you tell them I’ll drop by in a couple of months?”

  He smiled. “Yes, they were very excited.”

  “Carlos said that he’ll be here in two minutes,” Maria said. “Portal traffic.”

  “Typical.” Parvesh huffed. “And these are the people who run our military.”

  “Let’s take a seat and look at the menu,” she said and sat down next to Parvesh.

  Sarah signaled to Sam, and he sat between her and Maurice. “This has gotta be the largest table I have ever sat at,” he said as he touched the slick wooden surface of the round table.

  “What about the mess hall?” Sarah said.

  “You know what I meant.”

  Carlos ended up being more than three minutes late—a fact which Parvesh was very happy to point out—and he apologized profusely as he took a seat next to Roman and Maria. But not before he made sure to shake Sam’s hand vigorously. “Good to finally meet you, Sam. We’ve all heard a lot about you.”

  “Likewise,” Sam lied as the older man sat down.

  “And of course I have to thank you for my being here.”

  “I’m sure you would’ve managed to make it anyway,” Sam said as he gestured to Roman.

  “Don’t bet on that.” Roman laughed. “Rulers get to bend the rules more than just ‘regular’ generals. So General Ninae had to come to your rescue, then?” he asked Carlos.

  Carlos nodded. “Sakina Asun made a phone call and got me released from the exercise. Which is something I think they were both happy with, considering General Ninae agreed to send an elven attache in my place.”

  “Leave it to Inner Web Command to organize a training exercise in the case of an incursion from the Empty Plains and not include any other nation in it.” Roman shook his head with a laugh.

  “Well, we’re all here now,” Parvesh said. “That’s the important thing. So let’s raise a glass to each other, to Earth both old and new. And of course, to the new member of our exclusive club. Cheers!”

  “Cheers!” They each raised their glasses. The conversation soon turned mundane as everyone took their time to look over the menu and decide what to order. Sam couldn’t help but notice that the others, through some sort of unspoken agreement, seemed to be dividing the time they could each ask him something. One of them raised a question, or prompted Sam to speak about something, and then another would continue from there. A sort of an egalitarian mode of getting to know someone, he figured. The only exception was Parvesh, who, for some reason, fell silent and was focused more on his food than any of the conversations being carried out at the table.

  Eventually, after the main dish was finished, and they were waiting for dessert, Parvesh grew tired of his own silence and lashed out at his fellow Taken. “Why are none of you addressing the elephant in the room?” He waved his fork at them. “Ask him about being a Thread-Weaver! About not being a child when he was taken!”

  “Not all of us share the same conspiratorial views as you do,” Carlos said with a smile.

  “Bah! How can it be a conspiracy if it’s for our benefit? Face it, you guys don’t want to admit that Sam being here is proof that I was right all along.”

  “Right about what?” Sam asked.

  “That they’ve been wasting their time with inane stuff instead of making use of their unique physiology to fight the fucking Epiraks, of course! We all have a purpose; that is why we were taken, and that is why we were returned when we did. The first Taken helped save billions of lives on Earth. Maybe even Terran humanity itself. By contrast, what did we ever do?”

  “Not all the Taken who were returned during the Integration went on to become fighters,” Maurice said.

  “So? That just means that we have free will. Free to bloody well do stupid shit that doesn’t make a difference.”

  Sam sent a worried glance towards Sarah, afraid that the atmosphere was getting heated, but she calmed him down with a gesture and a smile. “Don’t worry about it,” she bent to whisper. “Apparently, he became like this after I was returned. And from what I understand, he doesn’t actually mean anything negative towards anyone else. He’s just railing at himself.”

  “Of course I’m railing at myself!” said Parvesh, whose hearing had apparently not diminished at all. “Wasted my bloody life working my way to level 10 and then just stopped there. You four better not do the same thing.” He pointed with his fork and Sam, Sarah, Maurice, and Carlos. “Well, I know that Sarah won’t. And Sam obviously won’t. It’s really you two lazy bastards. Don’t let my lesson go down in vain.”

  “No one’s going to let it be in vain.” Carlos placated him with raised hands and a smile. “But none of us can be assured of becoming Rulers. I know I’ll try and am trying my hardest. That’s all I can do.”

  “None of us can. But Sam definitely can. He’s a Thread-Weaver. The minute he reaches level 10, tak!” Parvesh snapped his fingers. “New Terran Ruler. Which obviously means that something is going to go down soon.”

  Sam tried to hide his gulp. The conversation was turning towards avenues he really wasn’t comfortable discussing with people who shared half of the same fate as he. Parvesh was raising almost all the points of thought that Sam had about himself being a Taken. Why return him only now? And not straight after the Integration was over? Or even twenty years ago? Why make anyone a Taken who wasn’t going to become a fighter? Sure, they could help advance civilization’s magic, the criterion that Web-Web claimed usually determined who’d become Taken, but some of them avoided dealing with any magic at all.

  Did that mean that Web-Web’s previous incarnation, who chose the Taken, didn’t know what they would do afterwards? It made sense in a way—if you assumed that the quasi-AI wasn’t omniscient, then that meant it couldn’t account for the free will of the people it brought forward in time. Which was why it needed to be in Sam’s mind in order to affect his choices. Of course, the regrettable question that arose from that conclusion was: if the AI couldn’t account for free will, then how could it be sure that Sam was mentally fit enough for the role it gave him?

  Sam bit his tongue as he suppressed these annoying thoughts that he had grown tired of entertaining months ago and focused back on the conversation. It seemed that Parvesh was spilling his entire grand theory of what the Taken really were. So far, he wasn’t all that far off from what Farris thought, or, from the truth itself.

  “And that’s not all,” Parvesh said. “Because Sam is triply unique, there must be a reason why he was returned now.”

  “Triply unique?” Sam asked. “I was aware of just the two.” Surely Maurice had forgotten about Sam’s talking about being in a black void. Hopefully.

  Parvesh counted on his fingers. “One, you’re not a kid. Two, you’re a Thread-Weaver. The first one never happened to any Taken after their world’s integration was complete. And the second one never happened period.”

  “Right, of course. So what’s the third thing?” Being returned without a core?

  “You were returned in the middle of a Web-wide war.”

  “But that’s true for all of you. That’s true for every Terran Taken. The eastern front opened more than two hundred years ago.”

  “Sure, but that’s like calling any war in Europe a world war. It’s not a world war until it involves the entire world. And we modern Terran Taken, we’re the only Taken returned when the fate of not just single worlds, but of the whole Web was at stake. This has to mean something!” He thumped the table. “And out of all of us who were returned when the entire Web is threatened, you are the Taken with the most amazing potential in history. Something’s out there watching out for us. And it sent us to help. He sent you to clinch the deal.”

  Sam feigned a shrug. “Who knows? Even if what you say is true, who’s to say that tomorrow there suddenly won’t be a dozen other Thread-Weaver Taken like me? A full complement to seal the deal and win the war.”

  “But if there won’t be, doesn’t that mean that it’s up to you to win the war?” Parvesh smiled.

  “No man’s an island. Especially not me. I’ll take any help I can get.” Sam clapped Sarah’s shoulder. “And hopefully, the war will be over by the time I actually need to do something. Savior complex or not.”

  Roman laughed. “I assure you, Sam, you’ll have the chance to act the hero. The war isn’t going away anytime soon.”

  So, good news for me: I finally found a job. Bad news for you: I think you can guess where this is going. Currently, the plan is to start editing the 17 chapters I have written since I came back to writing. With four chapters currently set to be released, that gives me a little less than 21 weeks until the story runs out of chapters unless I write new ones. Still not sure about that, though. For now, I’ll use the two weeks I have until I start working to finish editing. If it won’t be enough, I’ll have to work on the weekends and evenings. And if it will… I probably won’t utilize that free time to write. I’ll have to see what happens once I start the new job.

  As things stand now, it seems very likely that I would be forced to drop this story. Maybe if I manage to gather enough motivation and energy, I’ll be able to power through till the end of book 3. No idea, especially since I really don’t know how much left is there in book 3. I mean, I don’t have anything in particular I want to write about until the last parts of it. So maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I don’t have to force myself to write more so that this book won’t end up much shorter than the previous two. And who knows how long the last part will take me, anyway?

  In any case, continuing to write after this chapter is a best-case scenario. It’s also very likely that this’ll be the last chapter I’ll publish of this story. I still want to make my living as a writer, after all, but to make a living from a product, that product needs to actually make money. And it just doesn’t seem very viable to even try to make money from this story currently.

  As I’ve said in the previous whiny author’s notes, if I truly decide to drop this story, then I’ll publish a chapter detailing all the plot, character, and worldbuilding developments that I have planned. It’s a pretty complete story in that respect, just gotta write it. But, that’ll probably be a decision that’ll take a long time to reach. Since I still do want to write this story and publishing that spoiler chapter would mean that I’ve decided to completely abandon it. So it might take a year or two for me to reach a final decision on the matter. I might try reworking and rewriting the story to fit the more traditional novel form. We’ll see.

  Hope you had fun reading this story and enjoyed the journey, and sorry that this is the end of it if there’s no forthcoming chapter. Thanks for reading!