Monsters Among Us (Deception Series Book 1)
Page 18
But, they would survive!
It should all be ready, when the young ones were old enough.
Gem could hear the dinosaurs in the distance, the large cats, and wolves, calling to, or threatening, each other. She was glad that Loni, and the other men had so prepared ahead. They were above ground, and safe.
The Hydra had vanished, unable to get to them, for the sewer ended at the cliff. Off in the distance, when it was light, you could see the many mountain peaks, each the head of a dome, each one smoking, as the damage had spread throughout the system. Until the poisonous air had dissipated, it would be unsafe to scavenge deep within the earth. There would be no more rescues, nothing.
Besides, every once in a while, the ground still shook with tremors.
Also, if ever they were to venture back in, a new bridge back to the ledge needed to be built. They need not hurry with that.
Scar was quite willing to remain with them, and they to forgive him, but even he, felt the guilt of the many deaths he had caused. He resided, either with his barnyard collection, or in a housing dome by himself...he was the only one who seemed unhappy.
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About the Author
If anything, Margaret Afseth is a survivor. She spent most of 2014 battling Cancer, a tumor pressing on the optic nerve. Now she counts herself among the rare few who, in her words, conquered the 'Beastie'. Though now sight restricted, with the aid of her daughter to publish, she continues to write.
From an early age, she was making up stories. While raising her four children alone, she wrote her first novel...in long hand. Unfortunately, she gave the only copy of the manuscript to someone of the opinion, she should not be writing at all. He burned it.
Discouraged, she went underground, not surfacing again until her senior years, when at the age of seventy, 2013, she rewrote and published, as a three part series, the lost novel, calling it The Aopato Chronicles.
Since then, Margaret has gone on to write the Noor Chronicles, published 2014, the last book of which was written while she was undergoing Chemo and Radiation treatment.
In her next set of novels, the Deception series, much of what is wrong in our medical system is mirrored...
Margaret is a widow, with four grown children, five grandchildren, and one great grandchild. Her experience comes not from academic education, but from the great reservoir of knowledge, gained from observing human nature.
Discover other titles by Margaret Afseth here :
Aopato book 1(Aopato Chronicles)
Remedy book 2(Aopato Chronicles)
Turn Back book 3(Aopato Chronicles)
Hidden From View(a short story)
Gentle Beast book 1(Noor Chronicles)
Soul Saver book 2(Noor Chronicles)
Healer Nest book 3(Noor Chronicles)
If you enjoyed this book, here is a sample of book two of the Deception Series, coming soon:
FIRE AND ICE
By
Margaret Afseth
PROLOGUE:
Three tiny treasures,
Fragile new life;
Two golden brown;
The last blue as ice.
First one orphaned,
Second forcibly taken;
Third scarcely living,
But none forsaken.
Two speak as one,
Mind words too fast;
First understands not,
Yet has knowledge from the past.
Bring these together,
Whether sister or not,
Seeking a weapon?
Beware! Better not!
Chapter 1
Brad was not going to grieve; he simply was too angry! She should not have died like that! She had cancer...brain cancer! She wasn't supposed to drowned, especially not way out in some ocean.
What was the plane doing in the Bermuda Triangle, anyway? That is nowhere near the coast of Canada where they were supposed to be heading.
But that was where they had just recently found the empty shell of the plane...at the bottom of the ocean, on the opposite side of the world.
And now, he was in a grave yard, with his motherless daughter, burying an empty box in a tiny square hole in the ground...so they could finally, have a place to bring flowers...and mourn.
They would place a slab of concrete over the hole, a marker that read with her name, and call it her grave, but...
No way! I won't believe she's dead, until I see her body! And...I'll go to the bottom of that ocean to find it, if I have to...whether it takes me the rest of my life, or not! I won't come back until I can bring her home with me!
Chapter 2
From an early age she had always been told, she had never actually been born. At seven months formed, a Physician aborted her.
Nitha's first vague memories were of probes and forceps; being cut away from inside her mother...the gushing blood; and gasping at air...
They first grew her in a test box until she was large enough to breathe on her own...and suckle...
But, then...she had been rescued...
She remembered her real daddy's great, giant hands ripping her from that glass and metal chamber, removing the tubes, needles, and wires, then soothing her, holding her, naked and shivering, cuddled against his huge chest.
I can still feel that first touch...if I concentrate...
She'd been told, Papa was brown. Momma Jewel has pink skin, and that is why Nitha's is a golden-brown...a combination of them both.
Papa had been simple, and couldn't talk; her real Momma stutters...because of that, Nitha too, rarely speaks.
The Scientists had been experimenting on her; as a result Nitha developed into a telepath.
In Papa's thoughts, she had always been his belly bump. His was the first mind she had ever entered.
Now, her best friend, Thea, talks for her; they communicate mind to mind. That's how Nitha learned to vocalize out loud.
Proudly, Nitha thinks:
We are as sisters; though each is from a different momma.
Thea laughingly cuts in:
Momma Gem calls us girls, Fire and Ice...
All six of us, the four boys, and us two girls, have two mommas between us, but...just one Papa...
Daddy Da died shortly after her birth, as he tried to carry away the boys...
That dreadful Hydra monster got him!
Silence followed. Finally Nitha added:
There is another coming. She will complete the circle...
"Say what? You see that? In the future? Is it a baby?"
Nitha shook her head.
No!