Tina’s Story

Chapter 10 – Echoes and Futures   “If the sun refused to shine I would still be loving you If mountains crumble to the sea There will still be you and me” Led Zeppelin   ….. So  what happened to the rings ……   The culprit remains unidentified. Though the probable assailant is known to […]

Chapter 9 – Trial of the Enchanted Realm Cortina stood alone in the glade. Light filtered through nature’s canopy, its source indistinguishable. Every tree, rock, and slope of the hillside was cloaked in a thick layer of moss. Before her stretched a verdant blanket of green, broken only by the stream that rushed by her

Chapter 8 – Stillness and Solace Stillness and solace are all that remain in Cortina’s life. Her thoughts and emotions, once so vivid, are now faint echoes, like whispers in an empty room. Her brain barely functions well enough to regulate her body. She is aware of so little.   Her breathing is steady, her

Chapter 7 – Into Oblivion’s Mist While the clouds lingered in the sky, Cortina remained acutely aware of her surroundings. She grew increasingly confused by events, struggling to weave her experiences into a coherent understanding or craft an appropriate response. Her mind was that of an adult, fully grasping the reality around her, but as

Chapter 6 – Gathering Clouds It all started so innocently, or so it seemed at the time. The darkness was coming, taking its time, creeping forward ever so slowly, hidden behind a shroud of apparently normal symptoms for someone worn out by effort and eroded by age.   Cortina was approaching 60, the age when

Chapter 5 – For Crying Out Loud For a few months, everything was going well—very well, really. Cortina was successful in her new job, the children were settled, her new domestic arrangements suited her, and she was immensely proud of her little house, which she was transforming into a home. Life felt comfortable and controllable.

Chapter 4 – The Tinkering of a Subtle Architect Cortina may have been content and grateful for her new life, but I was not, and for two reasons. Firstly, and quite selfishly, since her life and my future were intricately bound via the Essenscape, I needed her to do more, and I knew she was

Chapter 3 – Dormice, Otters and Elephants So it is done. I am committed; my future will be determined by a random being from another world. I am bound to wait decades before I know my fate, constrained in my ability to affect the outcome. It was exhilarating, building up to the Essenscape, but despite

Chapter 2 – Eveline the Dahlia At this point in our adventure you may well be asking why I, a manifestation from another world, is narrating a story that seems to unfold within the mind of one of your humans? Let me explain.   My name is Eveline, and I met Tina by accident when

Chapter 1 – The Pea Soup Turns Toxic For days now, perhaps even weeks, though it’s hard to tell, Tina has been too debilitated to move, too weak to stand and too confused not to try. And today, or was it yesterday? Or last week? She has become powerless to move more than her fingers