Dtrain415

CHAPTER 1 It was a harsh day in the desert. The hot winds whipped the sand in to an obscuring fog around the small oasis. Outside the tent a horse whinnied its complaint as its master negotiated with the old man inside. "Fifteen coin is plenty for this work," Tagecaf said standing over the older Udaga who was fiddling with a crudely sewn hood where he sat on the floor across the small table. "It's not much to look at." Old Udaba lips cracked to a smile on his wrinkled face. "Ah, but don't let its appearance fool you." He turned the hood over, looking at the rough stitching fondly. "I'm not much of a tailor, that is true, but my true craft,

Charlie lay in her bed, her fingers idly tracing patterns on her gravid belly as she watched TV in her bedroom. She felt a twitch and her belly dropped flat like a rapidly deflating balloon. She frowned in slight disappointment and reached over for the stop-watch and digital audio recorder on her nightstand. After turning the TV off, she started the recorder and stopped the watch. "October 22, Friday. Bedroom. Time is 10:37pm. Belly's gone back to normal, start time was 4:03pm for time of..." She pursed her lips in concentration as she mentally calculated, "Six hours, thirty-four minutes." She lay her hand on the bare skin of her stomach, "As

Charlie squirmed to the side. There was a pain right beneath the left side of her ribcage where something was poking. Someone. She stopped walking and grimaced for the third time, pressing her fingers against a distorted swell on the left side of her gravid middle. Rubbing the offending spot she balanced herself by holding on to a bike rack. "Ow, quit it." She lifted the hem of her shirt over her swollen middle and looked at it critically. It was annoyingly lopsided. Everything had been going fine up until a few minutes ago when she happened upon someone to join the original guest she had snagged earlier that morning. The second one seemed t