Arcade Girls

 Maya had heard whispers of it, but never believed it was true. But here, in front of her, was a creepy old arcade machine, shining blue and white and yellow in the darkness as though it was lit up with a spotlight. The rest of the room was darkness and Maya looked back back to the way she had come in, just a rectangle of light and sounds that was the doorway to the outside world.

This machine was rumoured to randomly appear before gamers, giving them just one chance to win the grand prize, a golden ticket to exchange for whatever they could think to ask for. Maya wasn’t exactly a pro gamer, she’d been coming to the arcade in the months since it’s grand opening in the shopping centre near her home. Arcades were cool again, apparently, and she’d been dropping in to play the occasional shooter, fighting game or DDR, and that’s where she had overheard the talk about this game. It had happened to a friend of a friend of theirs, always in a different arcade. Most stories said they lost the game, but some won and asked for something impulsive like a year’s supply of chocolate or a Playstation 5.

Could she win? Maya took a step toward the machine and it seemed to get brighter, another step and it intensified again. How much brighter could it get before it blinded her? It didn’t seem to hurt her eyes at all, just took over her entire vision, every sense filled with the retro machine. It was faintly bleeping and the screen buzzed, the metal panel cold to the touch. Her hand slid over the three red buttons, the joystick. 

Text on the screen flashed in front of her and she stepped back in surprise.

Insert coin to begin

Coin? Did she have one of those? She came to the sudden realisation that she had been absentmindedly flipping a copper coin between her fingers.Where had the coin even come from?  It was warm from the heat of her hands as if she’d been holding it the whole time, and looking at it closer, she could see the coin had her face stamped on it. She felt the slightest hint of dread, maybe the game wanted a piece of her. 

Returning her gaze to the screen, she saw there was some much duller text underneath.

Turn back to forfeit game chance

Forward or backward? Play or forfeit. She didn’t even know what the game was, how could she choose? Was this dangerous? Why had that thought even popped into her head, it was just a game. But … where was she, even? What room had she walked into? She didn’t actually remember coming in…

Maya glanced back at the open door again and took a deep breath, returning to the console. She flicked the joystick a few times, and then noticed the second set of controls. This was a two player game? Was it a competition?

The name at the top of the machine lit up with words that hadn’t been there previously ‘Smash Fighter.’

“Okay then,” Maya mumbled to herself. Not the most creative of titles.

The text on the screen flashed and glowed brighter than before, growing in size and seeming like it would burn through the screen.

INSERT COIN

It actually seemed a little impatient, somehow. She clenched the coin in her fist, knowing she’d already made her decision, but needing the push for that last step forward.

Enough thinking, she shoved the coin into the slot and waited.

Another player appeared next to her, and she jumped. 

“Where did you come from?”

“Don’t waste time!” The new girl didn’t look away from the screen, and was already moving the joystick and pushing buttons. “Play.”

One small blonde avatar in the game was inside a room, punching and kicking shadowy henchmen coming from the corner of the screen. Another brown haired girl that was obviously her avatar stood outside the door, doing nothing as the timer in the top right of the screen ticked down seconds. 

Okay, there was no time to stand and think. Maya grabbed the controls, firmly in command. Move, punch, kick, kick, punch. She was in the zone, taking out goon after goon as they swarmed into view. The KO count in the left went up as the timer on the right went down, and then the 8-bit room was empty. First room clear.

In the space of a blink, Maya was standing in the middle of a well-lit room, arcade screen no longer in front of her. 

She froze, scanning the room with just her eyes.

A frustrated sigh from beside her reminded her that she wasn’t playing alone.

“Come on, girly.” the other girl grabbed her arm and attempted to drag her forward.

“Wait, where are we?” Maya asked, pulling back.

“Inside the game, and the timer is still going. We can’t hesitate.”

“Wait, I need to fight? I don’t know how to fight, I’ll lose.”

Positioning herself in front of Maya, the other girl leant forward so their foreheads were touching. She took a deep breath and Maya followed suit.

“You should still be able to feel the controls in your hands.”

With a jolt, Maya realised she could still feel them, like she was in two places at once. She tipped the joystick sideways and also moved easily to the left.

“Weird,” she said, looking at her hands.

The other girl grabbed her hand this time. “No time to think!” she said with a grin, pulling Maya onwards to the next room. 

Maya grinned too, running along with her.

The next room flooded with black-cloaked bad guys. More cannon fodder. Punch, kick, kick, punch. Maya could feel the controls under her hands, but also feel the impact of her hits on other bodies. It was exhilarating, and she actually laughed. 

A shiny patch on the ground caught her eye, and Maya reached down into it. A bat materialised in her hand. 

“Ooh, ooh. Throw it to me!” the blonde girl called out when she noticed. Maya tossed it, and the girl let out a whoop as she swung it forward, letting out a thunderous blast of a special move. The room was empty again. 

“Wait.” Maya grabbed her arm as the other girl headed towards the next room. “Who are you?”

“Ah…” the girl lowered her head. “Sarah.”

“And why do you know so much about this game, I thought people could only play it once.”

“Yeah, everyone … except me.”

“Are you … trapped here?” Maya felt the dread from earlier coming back.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry!” Sarah waved her arms around in a panic. “You can’t get stuck here, it’s just me.” Realising what she just said, Sarah held up her hands. “Let’s not dwell on that though. Let’s keep playing. You want to win, right? You want the prize? We’re running out of time.”

“If you win, do you get out of here?”

“Sure, let’s go!” Sarah held the bat in front of her and charged towards the next room. 

Maya was about to follow when she noticed a shimmer in front of the doorway to the previous room. “Sweet.” She reached for the item and then sprinted after Sarah.

More mooks surrounded Sarah – this time thugs with bandanas. It seemed the bat would only take out three fighters in the new room when she swung it in an arc in front of her.

Maya approached from behind her with her new equip: power gloves. The smirking thug she punched went flying backwards and took out two more of the same-faced enemies. Their bodies fell to the floor and disappeared, and Maya let out a whoop. 

“How many more rooms are there?” She asked Maya as she punched a second guy.

“After this room: two.” Sarah swung for another triple KO combo. 

Focusing back to the arcade room, Maya took a second to glance at the timer in the top right of the screen at the timer, then over to the KO count on the top left, and underneath that number was the number 3.

Three more rooms, three special powerups.

“I’ve never actually seen those gloves before,” Sarah said as she roundhouse-kicked the last thug of the room and an extra two minutes was added to the timer for the start of the next level.

“I guess you had to go backwards a bit to see them, and you’re usually moving forwards, aren’t you.”

“Yeah, I’ll know for ne–” Sarah stopped herself mid-sentence. “Next time I play a game, I’ll look out for things behind me.”

Maya frowned, but didn’t mention she had noticed the slip up. 

“Well,” Sarah gave a big smile and took Maya’s hand. “We’re making good time, onto the next room!”

The next room was robots. They were powerful, and there were no KO combos happening in this level.

Punch, punch, a robot went down, punch punch. 

The opponent Maya took on made a massive swing of its steel arm, and although some of her previous enemies had gotten a few shots in, this one took Maya by surprise as she flew backwards and into the ground, stunned. 

“Maya!” Sarah bonked the attacking bot on the head before it could get in another hit, and she reached out backwards with a hand to help Maya up again, swinging her bat wildly in front of her with the other hand to give them some extra time. 

“I think it’s time I started to dodge…” Maya’s vision was blurring between the arcade and the metal room in front of her. She tried to steady herself, letting Sarah have her hand back. “... Or… it might be time for something stronger.”

Focusing on the arcade controls, Maya launched her combo. Punch, punch, special move. She crouched and smacked the floor. The whole room shook with an earthquake and the robots fell prone, some of them disappearing, but others holding out. Maya jumped forward, grabbing onto Sarah before she could topple to the floor. 

Sarah in her arms, Maya felt like the hero. 

“You were holding that one back for the right moment then?”

“I wanted to impress you.” Maya winked.

“Well, you got it. I’m impressed. Now just let me go so I can finish them all off.”

The bat was highly effective against prone bad guys, and Sarah made short work of them, and they were ready for the moment of truth: the boss room. 

When the two girls entered, the room was quiet. “What kind of boss is in here?” Maya whispered.

“Uh, you’d have to see it to believe it.” Sarah replied at a normal volume.

The floor and walls of the room started to shake and there was the sound of booming footsteps past the door ahead of them. The rumble stopped for a second, then the whole wall splintered open, revealing a robot double their size. 

The boss monster had a black robe, the hood down, and a bandana on its head over a silly goon face.

Maya expelled all of her tension into a short cackle, and Sarah shot her an I-told-you-so look, then they both steeled their expressions and turned their attention towards the final stage.

“I’m starting with the earthquake, and we’ll save my last shot for if we get into trouble.”

As the strange robot-goon was letting out an anachronistic animal roar, Maya powered up and let loose her shockwave. The boss wobbled, but didn’t fall. Although what did fall was the rest of the wall and the ceiling, leaving the boss dazed. 

The two girls launched themselves in the opening, Maya with a flurry of punches, and Sarah getting out slow but powerful swings of the bat.

The boss didn’t seem to know who to attack at first, but it was just a matter of time before he made a huge sweep with his arm, going for the both of them. They jumped to the side in opposite directions and continued on the offensive. 

It was the second attack, aimed directly as Sarah wound up for another hit, that connected and sent her flying. Maya wanted to check on her friend, but also knew the best way to help was just to defeat the boss. 

She took a deep breath and focused more into the controls. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap with the buttons, left, right, left, right punching, then a flick of the joystick to the side to dodge a swing from the boss’s arms. Maya was so engrossed in fighting, she suddenly realised that it had been a long time and Sarah had not returned. With a quarter health bar left, it seemed like this was the right time to use her last trump card. 

Maya powered up the combo and let it loose right into the metal stomach of her foe.The shockwave ran throughout his body, and Maya finally had the freedom to turn and check on Sarah. She was holding her bat aloft, it glowing with a red light that let off sparks.

The two girls grinned at one another, and Sarah charged forward, letting her special move fly.  

Back in the arcade room, the lights all came up suddenly, flooding Maya’s vision and flinging her whole consciousness back into the room. 

Where it had been complete darkness before and during the game, now the room was all light, which was still its own kind of eerie. Completing the creepy vibe, there was a golden ticket draped over the control pad buttons. 

Maya looked to her left and right, but Sarah was nowhere in sight. She spun around and upon seeing no one, she grabbed the side of the machine. Sarah was supposed to come back with her, that was how this was supposed to work. Maya considered ignoring the golden ticket and just leaving, but she had come so far. 

With a sigh, she picked up the ticket, and in the corner of her eye, a long desk materialised: the prize desk. It was a familiar counter, a glass case with various useless knick-knacks lit up to make them look attractive, and behind the counter more glass display cases with expensive prizes. Nothing in the cases was recognisable, they were blurry almost-items. An imitation of the real thing, and only for show. 

As she approached the desk, a hooded figure stepped forward. They didn’t speak, but the hesitant way they had their face turned away inside the cloak made Maya realise she already knew who it was.

“Sarah?”

The hooded figure didn’t respond, and Maya slammed her palms on the glass case, the golden ticket shining as it seemed like all of the lights pointed toward it.

“I’m exchanging this golden ticket for you, Sarah.”

The person behind the counter faltered and let down her hood.

The Seer (part 2)

Part 1 is here

Karina sat on the end of her bed, staring into the open doorway at the wood panelling that lined the hall. She hadn't had a vision for a few weeks now
– not even in her dreams – and so spent a lot of time contemplating the meaning of what she had seen so far. She'd seen a man fighting a dragon, the birth of a baby, a boy leaving his home with tears in his eyes, a massive tavern brawl ...

    They were all pieces of a puzzle, lengths of a story she had to put together. It was important somehow. Karina had always been plagued by her blackouts, a problem she had always tried to hide, lest anyone see her as a defective orphan, not worth taking on as a worker. But ever since she was a child, she had never been able to stop her best friend, Dee, from seeing that she sometimes went away for a time. It was the blackouts that had somehow sparked off the visions, a fact that had only made her all the more determined to find meaning behind her peculiarities.

    Dee appeared in the open doorway, a black bag slung over her shoulder. "You ready?" she asked.

    Dee had only breached the surface of Karina's contemplation with her appearance, and Karina looked to her own bag at her side to bring herself back to reality. The bag was full of everything she owned; she was never coming back to this farm, and the thought of making her own way in the world was scary. "I guess so." She mumbled.

    She must have stared at the bag for a little too long, or answered in the wrong tone of voice because when Dee sat beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, her voice was concerned. "What's wrong?"

    Karina didn't look back at her. She shook her head. "It's just ... so strange. We're going out there, into the world, to live a real life. Our own lives. Freedom." She continued to stare at the bag. "I hope we're ready."

    "You know ..." Dee said thoughtfully, shifting her position on the bed and dropping her bag. "I think we've been ready for a long time."

    "It all reminds me of my visions," Karina sighed wistfully. "That boy was leaving home in one of them."

    Dee took her hand away and pulled Karina around to face her. "You're not still dwelling on that." Her voice was cracking slightly. "I thought you hadn't had one of your episodes for weeks now?"

    Karina looked calmly into her panicked gaze. "Yes, that's right." She paused, letting the words sink in and smother Dee's fears of a lack of honesty and trust between them. "But they're important. I think–"

    "No." Dee hardened her look. "Don't think about them, you'll just bring them back. It was all just a consequence of stressing about our final exams, and that's all there is to it."  She turned her eyes away.

    Karina gave a questioning look to the side of Dee's head. She wanted her friend to understand. "Why would I see a boy I've never met in my visions?"

    "I don't know." Dee sounded agitated, and she stood up abruptly, standing over Karina as if the extra height would bring Karina around to her point of view. "Anyway, didn't you see me being born the first time this happened? What does that have to do with a boy? They're all disconnected, and you have to stop thinking about them."

    Karina looked down at her hands. "I wish it was that easy."

    Taking on her gentle air again, Dee fell back down into position next to her. "It will be. Like you said, we're going to have new lives. It won't be a problem any more."

    "Yeah." Karina sighed and finally looked back to Dee. She gave a tentative smile. "Who knows what we'll meet out there in the world? There's no point in worrying about the things in my head."

    "That's right." Dee patted Karina on the shoulder and stood back up, looking pointedly between her friend and the full bag beside her.

    Karina grinned and slung it onto her shoulder, Dee mimicking the action.
     "Besides," Dee said. "We'll always have each other."



The two friends had made an agreement with a trade caravan on its way to Mana, the capital of magic. The journey was to take a week, as they stopped at smaller towns and villages along the way. It wasn't strange for young people with no place in life to head to the city of magic, because it was the best way to find a place, whether in academics like Karina and Dee, or in labour or services. Trade caravans to Mana usually had an entire cart reserved for travellers, and while it hadn't had many passengers when they first departed Gaville, it was full by the time they had their last pick up before approaching Mana.

    They were still a few days' travel from Mana when the city was visible on the horizon. The road sharply inclined for quite some distance, and when it levelled, the view of the city from so far away was truly breathtaking. Buildings reached up as if they were trying to touch the sky. All of the young travellers were mesmerized, Karina and Dee included. How was it even possible for a city to be so huge? They started chatting excitedly amongst themselves.

    The excitement died down when the city in the distance became a staple on the horizon and they had to stop for the night again. What had been energetic chatter was murmured awe in the late afternoon when they finally reached the outskirts of Mana, the passengers crowding the side of the road in front of a station building.

    As the caravan finally left their large group behind, they all took their first proper look from inside the city of Mana. As an orphan, Karina knew she had been in the city before – all children were taken to Mana before being re-homed – but she no longer had a child's eyes, and her grown-up eyes were excited at what she saw.

    The station building they were dropped at was as big as the Academy building, the biggest landmark in Gaville, but where all the buildings of her home town were dwarfed by the school, the station was tiny in a sea of giants. The huge but sturdy shining structures blocked direct sunlight and cast a massive shadow over the old stone building she stood in front of.
      Dee stood beside her, looking just as awestruck.

     The two girls stood and stared for longer than was strictly necessary, and it was Karina who finally broke their trance. "Well, I guess we'd better get started." She checked their map and nudged Dee with her shoulder to get her going and they started walking.

    The city was like the future compared to Gaville. Or maybe Gaville was just stuck in the past. Alongside the horses and carts on the streets, driverless machines whizzed by, delivering people and goods to their destinations. Karina found it hard to keep her mind on her own destination with so many things to look at.

    She saw it coming up: from a school in the country, to a school in the city. The university was the centre of this bustling city: a place where the magic that made this all possible was studied. Karina and Dee would have to prove their magical proficiency in order to attend the school, but Dee was amazingly intelligent, and Karina ... she was talented, at least.

    In the same way that the Academy towered over Gaville, shockingly, the university did the same with the city. It didn't seem possible to dwarf the already enormous buildings, but the university did it with ease. Karina and Dee stood in front of the massive front doors, open-mouthed and once again in awe.

    As the two girls stood staring, the giant wooden doors opened of their own accord, inviting them inside. This was magic, this city was the pinnacle of the world according to magic. The invitation for entry given, Karina and Dee had no more time to stare in wonderment, they entered the most gigantic building they had ever seen to embark on the biggest enterprise of their lives.

Animal Spirits (1)

Raine was on holiday with her four friends. They’d toured and trekked and played, and now they stood in a bustling marketplace, eating food from a street vendor and wondering where to go next. Zane pointed to a storefront down the street. There was a sign board out the front. Find your spirit animal.

“I want to find my spirit animal!” he said.

The five friends strolled towards the tiny shop. It seemed to sell crystals and power stones, incense and other spirit-inclined goods. The sign at the front seemed to be a temporary promotion. They all looked at one another. There was certainly no harm.

Tory shrugged. “Depends on how much it costs, I guess,” she said indifferently.

The others nodded in agreement.

“As long as it doesn’t break the bank, I don’t care how much it is, I’m finding my spirit animal!” Zane was really pumped, and his enthusiasm was infectious. The five of them squeezed into the shop, brushing past wind chimes and bells, creating an accompaniment for their movement.

When all five had somehow manoeuvred themselves into the space in front of the counter, a smiling woman appeared through the beaded curtain to the back of the store.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Despite his enthusiasm, Zane didn’t take the lead, and Raine stepped forward. “We’re here about finding our spirit animals.”

The woman gave a glance back at the beaded curtain. As though he had been listening and waiting for this, a man made his way out. He didn’t look at them or say anything, but gestured for them to go through to the back room.

Raine hesitated for a moment when Tory gave her a meaningful look. “About the cost …”

The man looked straight into her eyes and gave a wry smile. “For a group? There will only be one cost.”

“Sounds good to me.” Zane was the first one to go through the beaded curtain. Dave and Adam followed behind him, then Tory. Raine was transfixed by the eyes of the man. They seemed to glow. Tory pulled on her hand to drag her along behind them, and Raine managed to tear her gaze away.

The back room contained a table and two chairs, and they all filed in and stood in a semicircle around them. The man came in last. He stood in front of them all.

“I am a shaman, from a long line of shamans. I shall unlock your spirit animals, but you won’t find out what they are here today.”

“Unlock? The sign said we’d find our spirit animals,” Zane said.

“And find them you shall. It’s not an instant process, though.”

“Then what are we paying you for today, then?” Tory asked.

“Today is a spirit ceremony allowing your animal guide to find you,” the shaman said solemnly. “If you would prefer to come back and pay me once the results have appeared, I wouldn’t object ...”

“No, it’s fine,” Raine said. “We’ll pay you to conduct the ceremony, it doesn’t matter about the results for now.”

The shaman met her eyes again and gave another of his small smiles. “Then the subject of payment? I would say four dollars for each of you who I manage to unlock a spirit animal for.”

“Four dollars? You’re not in this for the money, are you?”

“It’s a group discount. I only need to complete one ceremony for all of you, and that brings the total to twenty dollars. Unless some of you do not possess a spirit animal, then I might lose out.”

“How will you know if we do or not?” Adam asked.

“The ceremony will reveal it.” He bowed his head solemnly. “I will get things ready.” He opened the back door and walked out, leaving the five friends in the room.

“Well, he’s creepy, isn’t he?” Dave shrugged. “Looks like we’re paying for the whole experience.”

“I was kind of just expecting to sit down at the table and for him to give us an animal each, but this is better.” Tory said.

“Yeah.” Raine looked over to the beaded curtain. Something about the whole situation was making her nervous, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go through with it. She opened her mouth to say so, but a cloud of pink smoke billowed in from the open back door.

“Nice!” Zane said.

The shaman walked back into the room through the smoke, waving a stick of incense and chanting something softly.

He approached Raine first. “Breathe in the incense, and it will attract your spirit guide to you,” he whispered, waving the stick in front of her face. He didn’t need to tell her, she had no choice but to breathe it in. It smelled sweet, and left a sweet taste in her mouth, too. The shaman moved onto Tory and whispered something to her as well, waving the stick in her face, too.

He went to each of the five crowded in a semi-circle, and then stepped on one of the chairs to get onto the table, chanting again. The room filled with the incense and the pink smoke, clouding everything. Raine felt a slight twinge in her chest, and suddenly the room was clear. The shaman was sitting at the table now.

“All of you had spirit animals to unlock,” he informed them.

“Surprise, surprise,” Tory muttered.

The shaman’s gaze moved over to Raine again. “Your spirit animal is special, though.”

“What does that mean?”

He tilted his head in a shrug-like manner. “I’m not sure. It is something I haven’t felt before. It should be amazing.”

The five friends paid the shaman and exited the shop, excitement buzzing around them.

“Well, that was an experience,” Adam said.

“Yeah, and that shaman was totally hitting on Raine.” Tory nudged Raine.

Raine felt her face get hot. “No, he wasn’t. It was totally creepy.”

Zane stepped out in front of her. “You’re the chosen one,” he said, wriggling his fingers in front of her face.

Raine smacked his hands away. “I am not.” She looked up into the sky. It had been around midday when they’d entered the store, and now the sun was low in the sky. “How long were we in there for, anyway?”

“Longer than we thought,” David said with a frown. “He shrugged. “Oh well, back to the hotel. It’s time to drink away our last night here!”

There was a cheer of agreement. Raine cheered to, letting the whole shaman experience sink to the back of her mind.

Three months later, Raine sat on the beach beside Tory, reminiscing about their trip.

“Remember that shaman?” she said, and laughed. “He was totally hitting on you.”

“He was not!” Raine laughed and slapped her shoulder.

“Hey.” Tory suddenly stopped laughing and looked into the distance. “What’s that?”

Raine looked over in the direction Tory was looking, confused as to what would change her mood so abruptly. The beach wasn’t busy, there were a few sunbathers and a couple of surfers in the waves, but Tory was looking over at the rocks to the side. Raine couldn’t see anything.

“I can’t see what you’re seeing. What’s what?”

Tory got to her feet and started walking over to the rocks. Raine jumped up to follow her. Tory had set a fast pace, and Raine almost had to run to keep up.

“Hey, hey, what is it?” Raine asked, worried.

Tory just stared straight ahead, driven by something Raine couldn’t see. Once they got to the rocks, Raine was already a few steps behind, and Tory managed to pick up her pace.

“Tory, be careful!” Raine had to slow down, trying to find footing on the uneven rocks, and her friend pulled even further ahead. Tory reached the water’s edge and bent down. Raine sighed, relieved that she was finally still, but Tory jumped into the water. She disappeared from view, and Raine scrambled to get to the edge as quickly as she could. Her friend was no longer visible, and Raine frantically searched the water’s surface for any sign of her.

“Tory! Tory!” Raine didn’t know if she should get in the water after her. If Tory had been taken by something, wouldn’t she be caught, too? Panicked, she could only look around. Minutes passed, and it felt like forever. Then Raine saw someone surface quite a distance away from the shore, on the other side of the breaking waves.

Tory waved at her, completely calm despite the situation. Raine jumped into the sea after her, feeling a strong motivation to slap her friend, or at least yell at her.

“What do you think you’re doing!” Raine demanded as she approached her friend. She would have grabbed Tory’s shoulders, but they were both swimming at the moment, and it wasn’t exactly the smartest decision right now.

Tory tilted her head slightly. “I’m following the seal,” she said, as if it were obvious.

“Following … you’re … what?”

In the face of Wen’s confusion, Tory just got excited. “My spirit animal guide, Raine. It’s a seal!”

Raine didn’t know what to do with the friend who was clearly having an episode while floating in the ocean. She spoke in a calm voice. “Tory, I think we should go back to shore. Then we can talk a little about the –”

“The seal!” Tory giggled like a child as the marine mammal she was just talking about made its appearance. Raine was dumbfounded. Where did a seal come from? The seal brushed its head against Tory’s arm.

“He told me you were scared and looking for me, so I thought we should meet up so you won’t worry when I go.”

“Go?” Raine was on the verge of screaming again. “Where could you possibly go? Don’t follow the seal, come back to shore with me.”

“But he’s my spirit animal guide, Raine. I need to follow him.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because he told me. I’ve never been able to understand a seal before now, so it seems logical.”

“None of this seems logical. What if you’re having a mental break?”

Tory gave this some thought for a moment. “That’s possible …”

This comment threw Raine off again. Did people having breakdowns seriously consider the fact that they might be having one? She shook her head and held out her hand to Tory. “Let’s go back to shore.”

Tory shook her head. “We let that shaman do the ritual for a reason. So I’m going to believe that this seal speaking to me is the real deal, and I’ll follow him.”

The seal seemed to give an imperceptible nod, and stared at Raine. She had to admit, the seal was acting in a very strange manner for a wild animal. This was either an elaborate prank, or it was the real deal. Raine gazed sternly at the seal.

“You’d better bring her back safely,” she told him. Then she looked at Tory. “Be careful?”

“Of course!”

With that, the seal dived down into the water and Tory followed. Raine sighed. Was she crazy for going along with this? She looked back to shore. This wasn’t exactly a safe place to be, it was a good thing she hadn’t been caught in a rip while she’d been floating out here. Exhausted, she swam back to shore, trying not to dwell on strange things.

On the beach, Raine had a new dilemma: was she supposed to wait for Tory, or just go home?

I Know Where You'll Sit (intro)

         “Hey, hey.” Emma, nudged the guy who sat in the seat next to her. She hadn’t met him before tonight, but alcohol makes friends out of many a stranger, especially when mixed with a dinner party where you don't know anyone but the otherwise-occupied host, and so she and her new friend Rob had been sharing the wittiest of witty banter over many a glass of whatever they could get their host to pay for.

           He turned to her, looking significantly less lucid than he’d been just a few moments ago, and she wondered who’d been giving him shots while she wasn’t looking. She could do with some shots, too.

          Rob blinked at her blearily, but Em decided to go for the interaction anyway. It wasn’t as if she knew anyone else at this dull dinner party. No wonder most of the guests at their table were speaking and laughing just that little bit too loudly.

           Her new friend looked expectant and she sighed. “You see him, over there? I bet I know which party he belongs to.”

           He swung his head to look at the man in a suit who had approached the front of the restaurant. “Oh yeah?” Although his eyes were unfocused, his voice was strong and confident. “How do you know that, then?”

           Emma leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m psychic. I know where he’ll sit.”

           The suited man seemed to be chatting up the waitress trying to show him to a seat, and Rob glanced sideways at her with a small smile. “Go on then, impress me.”

           The dining hall was large. And from where they sat near the front door, all the tables weren’t even visible. Emma didn’t need to guess though. She’d seen it. A couple of minutes in the future, the waitress would become so irritated with his game that she would go and stand by the empty seat she was meant to lead him to. She pointed to a table of smartly dressed people.

           “That wasn’t difficult to work out. They’re all dressed the same.”

           “Well, that’s what she thinks, too.”

           The waitress had started to move in the direction of the table and the man just stood watching her, eyebrows raised.

           “But he’s going to sit over there.” She inclined her head to a small table in the corner. A mixed bunch of snappy dressers and casually dressed men. The man shrugged and moved in that direction.

           Rob’s eyes widened. “How did you ...?”

           Emma grinned at him. “Neat trick, right? I pull it out for especially boring dinner parties.” And for entertaining easily-impressed company.

           Emma was, in fact, psychic. But all her minute-into-the-future-seeing talent was good for was as a party trick. A minute wasn't much preparation. It wasn't nearly enough time to win the lotto or save someone from being murdered. It had never worked for cheating on tests or predicting the weather. The crowning moments of her power were ones exactly like these: inebriated people being impressed that she was psychic.