Author:
M.J. Swenson has been writing stories since elementary school and earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota. Besides writing and reading, M.J. also enjoys playing music and video games.

The wind ruffled the red and orange leaves of the half-wire trees, and strangers walked on either side of Lysandra, keeping their heads down, never once casting a glance at her. A perfect day for masquerading. If only every day could be as perfect as this one.

Lysandra’s skirts swished around her ankles, and she held them up just slightly with her hands as she ran. She parted the crowds on the street with hardly a motion, and no one even looked up to wonder why she ran when they didn’t. The wind rushed through her long auburn hair, catching it on the breeze just as it caught those leaves on the trees around her, real or not.

The wind did not rush through her hair when she sat in the window back at her father’s house—the screen blocked it. And her father’s servants seemed to think it was unbecoming of her to stare dreamily out the window in the first place.

Rewriting Memory

Lysandra stumbled back so quickly that she almost fell over the desks behind her.


"I wonder who'll shoot first?" the slow, mocking voice asked.


"What the hell are you doing here?" Lysandra hissed through her teeth.


"What do you mean? Obviously you two were looking for me, so I decided to return the favor," Morpheus told her with a shrug. He weighed his own gun in his hand, a shiny rifle that looked like it hadn't seen much use. Appearances could be deceiving.


"I'm - I'm going to end you," Lysandra gasped, reaching for the gun. "My father, my mother, Cale, me - you've wronged all of us, and then some. I have every right to shoot you this very moment."


"And who's to say I don't have that same right?" Morpheus asked. "Oh, wait, I can't kill you. I need those memories back. The ones I gave you not so long ago."


Lysandra's hand froze in midair. "What memories?"


Chapter 45