by Mary Elizabeth Hankins

Gathering his purple cloak around him and fastening his satchel securely to his belt, Tomas ran. With a stumbling urgency, he continued to run through the heavy brush, around giant trees, and over frightened mutated animals. His head was now spinning, he was running a high fever, and his heart was pounding loudly as his hand continued to swell from the poisonous sting. Tomas was hallucinating badly, and he was tired…so tired. Bad turned to worse as Tomas began to fall. He stumbled, tumbled, and bumped as he fell and just kept falling. The darkness and fear overcame him, and Tomas waited for the end. Tomas had been banished from his beloved Evermore Village by the Village Watchers. Could he conquer the unconquerable mountain to be allowed to return to the village and to his beloved Grace, or would the angry land in which he found himself prove to be the conqueror?