Tara poured over all of the details of the map, one inch at a time. The light from the flashlight gripped in her teeth gave off a focused cone of light, shedding very little extraneous light. The sound of moving water was echoing through the chamber around her. Tara grabbed the flashlight out of her teeth, swallowed, and looked up at the ceiling above.

The glowworms brought the stars indoors with their shimmer. After traveling from the Isle of Man to Machu Picchu, she had stopped briefly at Cape Horn before realizing she was at the wrong location and catching the next flight to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Even after all of that traveling, she hadn’t bother to look up at the night sky in the last few weeks. Now she was in the heart of New Zealand’s north island, at the Waitomo Caves looking at the larvae’s version of the night sky.
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Penny threw another shirt onto the pile on the bed. She was pacing back and forth between the bathroom and closet mirrors like a squirrel collecting nuts. She curled out her bottom lip and exhaled quickly, sending her bangs into the air for a moment. She looked into her full walk-in closet, “There is nothing to wear!”

Penny grabbed a navy blue dress with medium white polka dots all over and pulled it off of the rack, laying it flat against the rest of the hanging clothes. “Too flirty.” She tossed it toward the bed and pulled out another dress for scrutiny. “Too shiny.” She selected and then disregarded another 5 dresses before returning to her pacing. The decision was tricky; she didn’t want to seem to anxious, but also wanted to still draw some of his attention. If it was just a normal date, she would have chosen the polka dot dress and known that she would have had his full attention. The trouble was, this wasn’t a normal date, it was an invitation to a group outing. She wasn’t sure how many people would be attending, but she still wanted to get his attention. After all, she was sure that she wanted him.
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“But Dad, I’m tired! Can we stop, please?”

“No honey, we are still on the Lorax’s property. We will be able to stop soon enough.” It wasn’t a lie, but he had left off some very important details. When the Lorax had sent the Brown clan of Bar-ba-loots away, it wasn’t an act of compassion; it was a threat.
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Jack glanced down at the timer wrapped around his wrist: 4:59 and dropping fast. “Shit.” He was in a full on sprint down the trail, leaping from rock to rock while bracing against the scattered trees along the sides of the path. His hands were covered in sap and dirt and a few small cuts from the dried bark of the trees, but Jack was ignoring the pain and focusing on staying upright as he descended.
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Natalie sneaked up behind Matthew and wrapped her hands gently around his head, covering his eyes. “Guess who,” she said with a flirtation tone as she pressed her body against his back. A smile crept along Matthew’s lips, “I don’t know, but I’m going to call the police and report you for assault.”

Natalie pulled her hands away and slid her body around him, looking up into his eyes with a demure look. “You wouldn’t do that… would you?” She raised her hands to his chest as she spoke, walking her fingers up towards his face slowly with each word. Matthew looked at her, trying to stay serious as Natalie’s fingers bopped him on the tip of his nose.
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“And then he says to me, so when do you want to go out again?” The table exploded in laughter, with Fiona doubling over, arms clutched around her stomach, her face turning a bright shade of red. Shayna continued as her eyes welled up, “I must have had the biggest shock on my face, because he immediately looked like a puppy that I had just scolded.” She could barely hold in her laughter, but reached for her glass of red wine to attempt to wash it down her throat.

After a few seconds, Marcy looked up at Shayna with a dead serious look and said, “So did you go out with him again?”
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The night air was cool, flowing gently around Julie’s bare legs as she strolled down the narrow side street. The sound of her heels echoed off the cobblestone street and brick walls as she kept a relaxed walking tempo. Her dress was loose and flowing from the waist down, the fabric moving with her shape and rising and falling from mid-thigh to her knees as her arms brushed along the fabric. Usually she would have walked down main street on her way back to her flat, but a rowdy group of boys were spilling out into the street in front of Lollipop night club, and she had no desire to deal with that lot.

The street lights were mounted on the rooftops as opposed to independent poles, casting circles of light separated by 20 feet of darkness. Each light was placed on alternate sides of the street, creating a zig-zag pattern of light which Julie followed with her footsteps. Each time she stepped into the light from a dark spot, she hopped over the edge and directly into the light, making a loud clang with her shoes.
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