[Complete. Wattys 2023 Winner] The Redding takes you if it knows your name. That's the rule that's kept Meg alive --- or awake, rather --- since the night the world went to hell. Nobody knows where the red stuff came from, but it acts like water, it's in the water, and it falls as rain every night. The people it captures drop like puppets with their strings cut. They're asleep, not dead, and you can wake them if you say their name again. But then they just try to kill you. Meg and the other survivors she's befriended think they've found a stable equilibrium, six weeks after the catastrophe began. Nicknames become real names, and Meg knows she's getting better at identifying safe houses. Her crush discovers that Morse code, like writing, is a safe way to say a Sleeper's name. It's the night after learning it that Meg wakes up just as the nightly rain is starting. Raindrops, as it turns out, can make dots and dashes, too. The Redding can talk. And it's telling her to run. ❖❖❖ Complete. Wattys 2023 Winner. Featured on: @Wattpad - Embrace the Fear: Horror Stories @WattpadExplorer - Embrace the Fear: Scary Stories @Creators - Scary Stories to Read in the Dark @Wattpad Explorer - From Our Creators @dystopianapocalypse - Featured D&A Stories @Wattpad Explorer - Why Not Buy Some Flowers @Fright - Featured Stories Comments and critiques are both welcome and appreciated. I write characters from many different backgrounds, with many different experiences. If you share those traits and find that I have misrepresented anything, please let me know! I am feedback-friendly and here to learn :)

Avaryn Alastors life couldn't possibly get any worse. That's what she told herself the second her feet crossed the threshold of Crestwood Academy. But boy, was she wrong. She'd never wanted to attend the most prestigious stuck-up school only made for the rich and the smart. She'd never even wanted to apply. But tragedy struck her family and it had always been her moms dream. The first day she's there she makes a fool out of herself in front of the most popular group in all of Crestwood. And to make matters worse one of them is her roommate! They call themselves the Devara. (Stupid, she knows). And yet she can't help but feel drawn to them. Drawn to everything about them. So Avaryn does what she does best, she investigates. Only what she finds is a whole other dangerous world. A world of secrets and pain and even magic. The Devara is supernatural. They come from a whole other world. Not only that but they are heirs to this world. They are royalty. And with royalty comes enemies ... And now these enemies want Avaryn. And the only way she'll survive is sticking with the Devara. That is ... If she doesn't kill them first. Mystery, romance, death, lies. A plot twist you won't see coming. Shadows of Ash and Gold.