What is winning? What does it mean to win or lose? To triumph or fail?

Many people would call this cliché but to win on a moral stand point is to learn from your past failures so that you never really lose but also winning should not be a definite solution. Winning is a philosophical idea that has been around since the dawn of the human race.

The fittest, strongest, and smartest aren't always the victors. There are those who while not brave or strong or smart, that triumph over the odds and life thus building their own victory.

Hope this isn't confusing :p

The pure intimacy of a lover, of a person who is indescribable to those who do not know love. The love for a person so strong that it tugs at you and pulls you in their direction. A hand running down your back, softly tracing the curve of your back. Their gentle breath melding with the cold air stream from the ceiling fan, the sensation making your brain fuzzy with happiness.

A tear rolling down your cheek as their hands move up and down your back. Their soft, warm lips cupping your neck. They get up and position themselves against your body. You reach your arm over them and pull them closer into you. Their hair tickles you chin, and the smell fills your nose. This moment here, this precious moment is where you want to be forever. The feeling your their naked body against yours after an intimate action.

This person, this lover, this beautiful thing that's called a partner is your world. You long for their company and yearn to hear their voice. You need this person. You feel like you can't survive without this person.

This is the pure intimacy of life and love.

I hope every single one of you can find that whether in yourself or in another person.

A Festival of Light

Celebrate we might

One candle for the Earth

We shall gather round the hearth

Two candles for Grace

Her life is like a race

Three candles for you

For you are so few

Four candles for more life

Five candles for less strife

Six candles to be born

Thou shalt not mourn

Seven candles for me

I hope I'm happy

Eight candles born anew

The years goes by on a canoe

Terrible poetry but I hope you enjoy it!

In 900 BCE, the Etruscans fled the collapse of the Hittite Empire. Their leader Aita was the God of the Underworld in disguise. He disrespected the entire group by insulting them and in return gave them places in his Paradise. Little did the group know, that when Aita insulted them Aita himself insulted the other gods. He endured the gods' wrath for years and was eventually shut out from the Council of Gods and was represented by a messenger.

In his spite, Aita decided to create a holiday called "Disrespect Day", on this day he would encourage people to insult each other so that he may take them to his Paradise one day. The Etruscans eagerly passed this tradition down for the chance at eternity in Paradise. Today, it is extremely popular among children, teens, and young adults as an excuse to disrespect each other and their elders.

As I sit in this class

this unfathomably boring lecture

the light on the windows shines

the trees outside are tempting

I long to go outside and climb

I long to be outside and run

and laugh and shout and have fun

but alas I am stuck in this Biology Class

The Idea of Death and Life

Mustn't be headed

Death is the reaper

Life is the seed

Death sows Life

and Life gives to Death

together they are one

divided they are none

Life and Death are often stigmatized into being set ideas or beings. They are the givers and takers of life and yet we don't know what comes after life, or more accurately what comes at the beginning of death. Death is not one event but it is your second life, your reincarnation, your Heaven. You will spend the rest of eternity in Death. Whether Death is Heaven, Nirvana, or some other place is yet to be determined by the living but one thing is certain, death will come. It will come for everyone.

Chapter 18

Ben

The truck was on fire. Amy was blacked out in the driver’s seat. Jason was already out of the truck and firing upon the other car. Mike was trying to get Amy out of the truck and behind some cover. I was soaring through the air. Large black wings like those of a dragon coming through my back.

I could feel scales growing on me. I was shifting into something. I had been genetically modified by the scientists at the prison.

Swooping down at the enemy car I tore at the roof with my claws. Pulling the roof back like the lid of a can of sardines I opened my mouth and shot fire into the interior of the car. I launched myself into the air again as the car exploded.

Pieces of shrapnel flew everywhere. A few pieces imbedded themselves into my tail. The rest went flying into the forest, hitting into trees or killing any unfortunate animal that happened to be in the area.

A scream split the air, turning I listened for another. I tried to discern the direction it had come in. Then, blood, lots of it. The smell hit the air and beckoned me to follow.

The scent brought me around the cars. Through some bushes on the side of the road and behind a large tree. The source was Amy who had been hit by the shrapnel and now needed serious medical attention. Neither Mike nor Amy had noticed me yet.

Deliberately I snapped a twig a few feet from them then sat. Both reacted by snapping their heads in my direction. “What was that?” Mike asked.

“I can’t see anything,” replied Amy.

“I’m right here. Come on you guys, can’t you see me?” I said. A look of confusion crossed both of their faces.

“Where are you Ben? I can’t see you,” Amy said.

“Alright I’m coming forward a little,” I said. Stepping forward slightly I brought my head down to face level with Mike and Amy. “Here I am,” I said with a grin, well less of a grin than me baring my teeth.

“Jesus Christ! What the hell are you doing?” Mike asked, seemingly unfazed by my being a dragon.

“Bruh, do you not see me?” I asked with a twitch of my wings and thump of my tail. I held out my claws to Mike and Amy, hoping they would realize what I was.

“Holy, hell. You’re a dr-dra-dr-dragon!” Amy screamed.

“Shhh! Not so loud! We don’t need the entire world to here about this. Got that?” I said.

“Yeah, we got that,” Mike said. Looking to Amy, I gave her as much of a questioning look as I could.

“Alright, fine. I just can’t believe that you’re a dragon. Why didn’t you tell us?” Amy asked.

“I’ve been feeling strange for the past couple of days. Last night, when we were attacked, I saw the woman that exploded. She said that my mom was still alive and being held captive. She also said that I would find the power I seek in Anchorage.”

“What would that mean?” Mike asked. “I mean, ‘the power you seek’ can mean anything.”

“I think the woman was sending me a message. Maybe the power I seek is being a dragon. Maybe its finding my mom. Maybe it’s getting rescued and taken back home,” I replied.

“Have you ever wanted to be a dragon?” Mike asked.

“Well, I did when I was a kid,” I replied.

“Then, there you go. That’s the power you seek,” Mike concluded. This statement gave me pause because Mike was never one to jump to conclusions let alone about something so big. Mike was always rational and logical, looking for a way to make his decisions on logic not emotion.

“Okay... how do you know that?” I asked carefully. I was treading on thin ice right now and we both knew it. There was something that Mike was hiding.

“I just … know,” Mike replies hesitantly. I can see from his face that he is indeed hiding something but won’t tell me without some motivation.

“What do you want Mike? I know you won’t tell me anything unless you get something out of it. So tell me, what do you want?” I watch his face shift into an expression of thought.

“You have to take me to a place.”

“What place?”

“It is in Mexico,” Mike replies.

“I need more than that,” I say.

“What more could you ever need?”

“I need more information. Where is this place? What city or town? What address?” I ask. “I can’t just walk into something without sending scouts. You know I’m not that dumb.”

“Alright fine. The address is one this paper,” says Mike as he hands me a small slip of paper.

“I’ll look into it when I can. But first you must tell me what you are hiding,” I say.

“I used to work for the US government. I was the Senior Military advisor to President Solomon.”

“You were the president’s right hand man?!” I yell. I take a step toward Mike, ready to rip him apart.

“Stop! I know what you want. I know what that woman said before she died. I know you saw her earlier,” Mike said frantically.

My eyes grow wide. “How? Was it part of her . . . implant?”

“Yes, all implants are controlled by the president personally and are programmed to keep the soul of the wearers present even after they die,” Mike said.

“What in the Hell??” I say. “Let me guess, the US government has the technology to travel from one end of the universe to the other in a few hours or something.”

“Actually, yes. I personally oversaw the project and the government currently has seven star systems under it’s control.”

“You have got to be kidding me. So, this war that I’m fighting is going to be in space too?”

“Yes. Eventually the US government will get bored of you and will call on it’s space fleet to blow off the face of the Earth. That place I want you to take me to? It has the blueprints and scientists of the project. They went into hiding after the government tried to kill them,” Mike said.

“UGH! So, 1.) I am a dragon which means there is probably a natural species of dragon. 2.) I need to build a space fleet and conquer entire star systems or make treaties with whatever species that I encounter. 3.) I need to rescue my mom. 4.) I need to deal with the war here. And finally, 5.) I have to figure out the implant situation,” I say.

“I can help with that,” Mike replies.

“What in the actual fuck?? So you’re telling me that I need to shoot my ass out into outer space and shoot a bunch of Star Trek geeks?”

“Well that’s one way to put it. We should get back to your army first. That way we have the resources to plan an operation to save your mom and retrieve the space fleet researchers and blueprints.”

“Okay, Mike. Just tell me one thing. Am I high?” I ask.

“Nah, man. I know it’s hard to believe but it is true. You need to advance the technology you use if you want a chance at saving your mom and winning this war,” Mike says dryly.

“So you’re telling me that I need to trust someone who I barely know to help me win my war?”

“There is nothing to be done about it but you do need to trust me,” Mike says. “I know it sounds stupid but I know someone who can help us with your dragon situation.”

“Who?”

“Someone I like to call Anubis the Elder.”

Chapter 19

Anubis

The flash of scarlet scales in the arid desert landscape catches the eye of Anubis. The hot desert sun beats down on Anubis’ human form. Finally, Inferno is here.

The shape of a dragon finally wings out of the shadows of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It would have been impossible for any humans to survive out in the Death Valley desert, but the heat perfectly suited the dragons. “Anubis! How long you been out here?” Inferno called interrupting Anubis’ thoughts.

“I been here for a few days. What the hell took you so long anyway? You were supposed to be here a day ago.”

“Yeah, yeah. Shut your mouth and listen up. We got a problem up in Alaska. Our little friend Mike has escaped and says he needs help. Something about a human being genetically modified into a dragon.”

“Who is this human?”

“You won’t believe it. You know that New Roman Republic? Their leader was captured a few weeks ago. He escaped with Mike and is the human who got modified. Also Mike said something about having to steal that stupid spaceship research from the government.”

“Soo... we need to go into space or something?”

“Yeah, welcome to the 21stcentury where wars need to be waged in space with the help of dragons.”

“Yayyy! In all of my three thousand years I never thought I would be working with a genetically modified human-dragon thingy to wage a war in space,” Anubis says sarcastically.

“Yep! So off to Alaska we go!” Inferno beams. Hopping into the sky, she beckons for Anubis to follow her.

Anubis feels his human form falling away and feels a ripple of heat in the air as his hulking form takes to the sky. Off to Alaska, Anubis thinks wryly.

Title: Big Ben (Civil War)

Genre: Fantasy Romance/War Romance/Sci-Fi

Age Range: 13-21 (Teen/Young Adult)

Word Count: 1603 (sample) and 16046 (total)

Author Name: Hunter Black (pen name)

My project is a good fit because it caters to many different genres while also providing characters that readers can connect to. The plot is invigorating and is constantly providing new twists and turns in the story.

Hook: "The sunset is a beautiful thing that many people take for granted. The soft touches of orange and red mixed with the bold combinations of pink and purple. Many people wish they could see this before they died."

Synopsis:

Big Ben and his friends are tired of watching their country be torn apart. They are tired of being told that corruption in government is normal. They are trained and ready. They have the means to make a difference. So, why not try to make a difference? Ben takes you on an action packed journey through rugged forests and dazzling cities. His troubled past mixed with his uncertain future are sure to give readers the ride of their lives.

Target Audience: Teens/Young Adults interested in Fantasy, War, Romance, and Science Fiction

Bio: I am an aspiring author who currently has two unfinished novels, one unfinished memoir, and one finished novel manuscript. I often take inspiration from smaller things then I let my imagination twist this inspiration into a story.

I currently do not have a platform as I am an unpublished author.

I am a high-school student who is currently attending classes at a local community college in supplementation of my high-school courses.

I have a quirky writing style and often veer from a set course. I tend to have a strict plan for my works but by the time I get through a few chapters, new ideas and pathways form and I often merge them into an amazing story.

I enjoy reading and writing. I also enjoy going for runs in the morning and playing with my dog. The only hobby I have at the moment is writing.

My hometown is Fairfax, Virginia but I know nothing of my time there as I was only a baby.

I would not like to disclose my age as of this moment.

Thank you for your consideration,

Hunter Black

"I've been tryna swim with both my hands behind my back. The ocean current pulling my feet down. The gentle ocean breeze blowing water into my eyes. The endless expanse of ocean opening before me. That boat, that cursed boat and that handsome sweet boy who wasn't so sweet.

I have swam for hours in a direction I do not know. I am just trying to escape from the boy who I loved. I would drown if needed. He wanted me, all of me but he couldn't stand it when I rejected him. When I told him I wasn't ready. He lied to me and told me he was scared of the ocean. He manipulated me into coming out onto his boat.

"Becky!" the voice called. "Where are you?"

I start to kick harder and swim faster, desperate to get away or die. The sound of a boat slicing through the waves like an ominous shark creeps closer. The feeling that I'll be caught at any moment is a constant at the back of my neck.

I feel a hand reach out and grab me. "There you are!" the boy said. "Now, why don't we finish what we started?"

The feeling of a knife being rammed into my side causes me to cry out. I have no fight left in me and I submit to the will of my captor. The feeling of cold wind on my skin is what I cling to as my captor stabs me repeatedly until, the stabbing stops and the sound of gurgling blood breaks me from my trance.

"It's gonna be okay ma'am. I am Agent Hunter Price of the FBI. You're safe now. We've long suspected you were in danger from Yaldo Tucker the infamous drug kingpin."

I was then sent to a hospital and put into a medically induced coma."

"Mom! Is all of that even true? I thought you loved the ocean!"

"My dear, I always feared the ocean."