Bittersweet Nightshade

Cheshire lived in a world of childhood fantasy. Books had fed her comfort through the rough years of adolescence. They had become her friends and companions. They comforted her in the darkest hour of the blackest night when no lullaby could hush the fear that crept up from the shadows. It was her upcoming graduation that made her realize that the world her books had created was crumbling. She would soon have to abandon the lyrical realm of fantasy, that fi lled her with hope, for the melancholy reality which dictated her future.

Graduation was a funeral march. The only thing that Cheshire had to look forward to was the after party that her friend Seanna had coerced her into attending. Cheshire would rather have stayed home in the comfort of one of her paperback companions, but she would follow Seanna to the end of the world. That was the power Seanna held over her. It was at the party that Cheshires world took a turn into a realm of confusion, deception, and the painful struggle for survival. There she met Mario.

Mario made her feel alive. He made her feel whole. She felt that she could handle the darkness of reality with him beside her. Mario would be the death of her. Cheshire had never suspected the journey that destiny had planned out for her. Thrown into a world of beauty, overshadowed by a dark sorceress, Cheshire must uncover the power that was given to her at birth. She must overcome her fears and self-doubt to free the world that she spent her entire life dreaming of. Cheshire never would have thought that, in death, she would have to fi ght to keep her dreams alive more than she ever fought to live.