The whispering grew louder, finally comprehensible, and he realized then what they were commanding him to do.

The yellowing leaves blew across the rain-soaked empty streets.

Once jaded, the accident had made her see life in a different light and like a newborn, everything was again new under the sun.

Deadlines were a deathtrap for Walt.

The harder we tried to replicate nature the more artificial it ended up looking.

Will didn't wear a costume to the party but everyone just assumed by his red MAGA hat he was dressed as a right-wing nut job.

The sheer volume of the choices available always stopped Sheilla in her tracks and prevented her from making any decisions.

It was a celebration of the stupid and a repudiation of rectitude.

Watching the news that night, Paul began to seriously wonder whether he'd somehow slipped into a parallel universe.

His path was lit by forest fires, his entrance heralded by heretics, and his "royal" vestments dyed in the blood of the innocent.

Something slithered inside her heart.

Was it just a trick of the light?

News of his death tore a hole in my soul.

The dogs of war turned on their own.

His ghost haunted social media.

Not only had she made a mess of her life, she'd then slipped in it and banged her head on a counter before hitting the floor.

It seemed as if it was only a matter of time before the Night of the Long Knives was to have a sequel, eighty-five years later and half a world away.

Phil plunged into a darkness of his own making, mostly out of boredom. 

Perhaps we'd made killing too easy.

We watched the fires burn and the wars rage as if it was all just another reality tv show made for our amusement.

His vitriol couldn't forstall the bloody rising tide.

Darkness had come to stay.

Like a rollercoaster in the dark, she knew not when the wild ride would end.

The toadies silently slipped back into the swamp.

He turned his back on us to embrace our enemies.

They no longer recognized one another across the vast distance of the great political divide.

The world, like a depressing foreign art film, was dragging itself across the finish line of a very unhappy ending, Warren thought. 

The cult of celeberity overshadowed all.

He was rich in spirit but poor as hell.

Lost in a roiling sea of her own making, Lara knew the weight of her past would eventually drown her.

The stink of dirty money clung to him like grease on a fast-food worker's uniform.