Welcome to a world that everyone lives in but no one sees. A place where monsters lurk underneath and stranger things lurk deeper. Where good and bad constantly fight. Strange and wonderful things happen here but horrible and scary things do too. Welcome to Weird Central.

Ari Callahan has no idea how to talk to boys -- or how to talk to anyone for that matter. Enter Zac, the cute new guy in town who won't stop texting her. But is his interest real, or does he have a hidden agenda? ***** Found as a young child washed up on the beach, 17-year-old Ari Callahan has never uttered a word out loud to anyone -- not even her adoptive family. Psychologists have diagnosed her with a condition called selective mutism, but Ari can't help identifying with her namesake character, Ariel, the little mermaid in the fairytale whose voice was stolen by a sea witch. Mermaid-obsession aside, Ari's silence makes socializing tough. She's never had a boyfriend or been asked out on a date. Not until Zac, the confident new arrival in town, asks for her number. But Zac has his own reasons for texting with Ari. He's part of a movement to sabotage the artificial music app called SirenSong, threatening to render human singing obsolete. Zac's collaborators have scoured the globe in search of a singing voice perfect enough to break the SirenSong spell, and their search has led them straight to Ari's beachside town. Will her relationship with Zac help Ari find her voice and unlock the secrets of her origins? Or will he use her and leave her high and dry? Title: Ari and Zac (formerly The Mermaid Hypothesis) Content Warning: This story contains references to selective mutism, suicidal thoughts, and early childhood trauma.

For 17 year old Benna Denman, it's hard enough being the president's daughter. And when she develops a telepathic Link, life gets even worse. Her father isn't impressed with this new evolutionary ability. It means he could lose control over people's communications - in a world without cell phones, publicly accessible internet, or a postal service, it's difficult for dissent to spread and uprising to organize. That's just the way he likes it. So when the government starts offering cash in exchange for these telepaths, and Benna is under suspicion by both her boyfriend and her powerful father, she knows she's in trouble. Upon discovering that the cold Dr. Frenchwood plans to use her as a lab rat to develop a cure for telepathy, Benna and her Link, a boy named Corin, decide to try to run... First place for best fantasy/sci fi in @Gossamersilverglow's Best Fiction Competition 2016 Best Female Character @Gossamersilverglow's Best Fiction Competition 2016 Made to it the Elite Eight of @Fantasci's The Chosen One Competition 2016/17

On an alien planet, teens who escaped the prison work farm to which they were sentenced as punishment for their parents' involvement in a failed rebellion on far-off Earth fight back against their oppressors, risking their lives to free their new world.