[ WATTY AWARD WINNER - INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING ] Lily has been on her own since she left high school, and she ventured towards the vast wilderness of the Grand Tetons where she became a waitress at a diner, met her two best friends Amaya and Bennet, and planned to start over in a more-than-hipster cabin in the foothills. The tranquility she has felt is bound to vanish eventually, and the disappearance of fellow neighbors and the arrival of strangers is what brings her peace to an end. [BOOK ONE. BOOK TWO IS "The Anomaly of Gavin Wilde".]

Sometimes all you really need is a place to call home. *** Claire is lost and scared and utterly alone. Her family is in shambles after the death of her older sister Ina, and she's left to pick up the broken pieces of herself as her life heads into a downwards spiral of loneliness. Her heart leads her to 5:48, a little cafe by 33rd street, where she finds her new home. With a broken heart and a speech disability, Jasper has his heart and mouth sewn shut by the winding threads of hurt and fear. Painting and serving coffee in cafe 5:48 are one of his last few saving graces, but the smile he's been painting on himself will soon fade away as everything he's ever held dear slips away from his grasp. Ezra is out-of-sync and oddly cold by the way life has treated his young self. Abandoned by his single mother at an early age, he has grown up thinking that he is a mistake. His constant shaking hands are a reflection of what he often thinks of himself, but the delightful pastries he bakes for 5:48's customers are a reflection of what others see of him. Drew is a quirky rarity. He is a dash of loud, a pinch of exuberant, and a cup of eccentric - just like the meals he serves in the cafe as the only chef there. Behind his playful grins and outlandish clothes, however, are his jutting ribs, hollowed cheeks, and too-thin arms. Sometimes he cannot stomach being in his own skin as much as he cannot stomach food. This family has gone a long way from finding each other, and they'll be going a long way together too as reality comes catching up to them, threatening the newfound happiness they've found with each other. Secrets are revealed, pasts become presents, and lives are changed. Slowly but surely, they find their way back home. *** NOTE AS OF 08/2026: This is the old version of the story from 2012, posted in FULL. Another story that will be considered a reprise of this old version is in the works, and will be posted under the name "Hiraya House."

They weren't supposed to meet. But life does that sometimes; it throws in a couple of new faces that bring you the utmost of joys in the most unlikeliest of places, and every now and then, you'll come across someone who changes you - someone who's genuine and wonderful and full of hope; someone who changes your perspective on the things that you had stored away in the cardboard box sitting in the dark corner of your closet, someone who opens up your eyes to new things; bright and beautiful things that you can't believe you hadn't seen before, someone who's iridescent. And once you meet them, nothing will ever compare.

Sometimes it snows, and sometimes you meet beautiful boys with cameras, and sometimes it snows and you meet beautiful boys with cameras. // #20 in short story //

"Photography is all about secrets. The secrets we all have and will never tell." -Kim Edwards Eleanor Morisette doesn't speak. She doesn't have an illness that causes it, and wasn't born mute; she just chooses not to talk. What reason is there to say words when no one's there to hear them? Instead, she expresses herself through the art of photography. Obsessed with the beauty in the world that overshadows her own problems, all she wants is to someday capture life to its fullest; without having to worry about her parents' declining love and the loneliness of being an outcast at school. But what happens when she accidentally takes a photo of a boy who she can't take her mind off? Will he be the one to open up her shell? Or will she continue wandering lost in her world of lonely magic?