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    116 Results in the "Burned Cover" category


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      26 – The Brier Patch

      26 – The Brier Patch Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika leaned out the window of the moving SUV, squinting through the violet glitter. She could almost see that deep red sun hanging over the distant mountain. Uncountable flickers of shadow soared over the bramble patch, doing their best to blot out the sun where the glitter failed. Armed with her bat in one hand and gun—loaded with regular bullets—in the other, Erika gnawed on the corner of her lip. “You can’t reapply this misty stuff? Cast the spell again?” she asked as she tried to figure…
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      26 – Prison Break

      26 – Prison Break Cover
      by Tower Curator “I doubt you got visitation approval on such short notice,” Erika said. It was a bit surreal to be seated in a restaurant in the middle of downtown Chicago, happily open on Christmas Eve, while just down the road stood a tall concrete skyscraper with narrow slits for windows—the Metropolitan Correctional Center - Chicago. She had driven past it at least a dozen times, probably more, and knew what it was, but it was still just odd to be sitting here, having a sandwich, while six hundred people were…
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      30 – A Surprise Visit from an Unwelcome Guest

      30 – A Surprise Visit from an Unwelcome Guest Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika checked her watch, mentally counting how long each second took to pass. Normally, time moved at a fairly regular pace of one second per second, but her watch accelerated after she broke things. Starting four hours behind real time, she had until the watch caught up to the current hour before the ripples of her power would propagate, thus becoming detectable to The Mummy. The tests with the cubes had gone on for an hour, breaking all five of the cubes during that time. She had also performed a few…
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      13 – Saying Goodbye is a Complicated Affair

      13 – Saying Goodbye is a Complicated Affair Cover
      by Tower Curator “Why didn’t you text?” “No signal in this place.” Rick did not look happy with that response. Erika wasn’t all that happy with it either. The whole reason she had come here was to get a better feel for these ghost hunters… and to help out and maybe see something interesting, she supposed. Mostly, it was for evaluation. The fact that they had been out here for almost an hour without checking in didn’t bode well. Erika wasn’t all that happy to disparage her gender, but Rick seemed…
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      16 – The Closing of a Door, The Opening of a Window

      16 – The Closing of a Door, The Opening of a Window Cover
      by Tower Curator Varn’s bustled with activity when Erika finally pulled up to the old arcade. The cramped parking lot out back didn’t even have room for her truck. Rick’s van took one spot, a smaller SUV took another spot, and the final parking spot was occupied by Leslie’s oversized truck. She had to park behind them, blocking them all in. Erika stepped out of her truck in a fresh outfit. A simple tank with black mesh layered on top, a short pleated plaid skirt, and some chunky platform boots. A long trench…
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      17 – i – The Stalker

      17 – i – The Stalker Cover
      by Tower Curator The Stalker pulled a dress from her closet and looked it over. Black and lacy, transparent in all the right places to be enticing. Was it too much? She held it up to her chest as she turned to her mirror. It would certainly accentuate her curves, but… It was too flirty. This was a business meeting. She wasn’t sneaking off to meet The Hanged Man again. The Stalker tossed the dress aside, lumping it in the pile with all the other clothes. Why was everything she had so slutty? It was The Hanged…
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      11 – A Brief Moment of Abnormalcy

      11 – A Brief Moment of Abnormalcy Cover
      by Tower Curator “Hello!” Erika called out. “Anyone home?” The aged wooden door creaked, long and squeaky, as Erika pushed it open. A darkened foyer greeted her. One musty rug sat on the floor while massive webs clung to the corners. A grandfather’s clock, frozen in time, stood just in front of a set of stairs. A heavy scent of mold hung in the air, thankfully swept away by a sharp draft that blew in from behind Erika. She stepped inside, taking in the environment. It certainly gave off a perfect spooky…
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      12 – To Value the Time We Have

      12 – To Value the Time We Have Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika sat at the kitchen counter of the Walker rental house. School was out, Thanksgiving was tomorrow, which left several days without her having to worry about pretending to care. She really should just stop going—having a GED meant she wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place—but it was a decent place to meet up with Daniel, hear gossip from Kassandra, and otherwise have some amount of normalcy in her life. She certainly wasn’t getting any normalcy here. Leah—and Erika was…
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      22 – Everything, Nothing, A Baseball Bat

      22 – Everything, Nothing, A Baseball Bat Cover
      by Tower Curator Layer by layer, sense by sense, Erika felt herself peeled apart. Sound went first: the gunfire, the shouts, the screech of metal birds all stretched and warped, then snapped into a cacophonous silence. The bridge, the van, and her allies smeared into streaks of color, then into impossible geometries—shapes that hurt to look at, their colors did not exist. Smell and taste followed, but not quietly. The spiciest curry paled compared to the taste of reality. A violent explosion of every taste at once…
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      27 – Did It Work

      27 – Did It Work Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika’s skin tingled and burned, rubbed raw from her scrubbing. The water running down her skin felt exquisite anyway, and yet it wasn’t enough. Two empty body wash bottles littered the floor along with three bottles of shampoo, but Erika could smell the bile and sludge. Some still circled the drain, sticking to the edges of the stream where the water pushed it aside; the stench was as strong as ever. “I think I got it up my nose,” Erika groaned, rubbing around the interior edges of her nose.…
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