Drive

Ariana took the lead tube from the floor. The man slowly stood up from the ground and looked at her, as if he wanted to kill her.

But she was beyond that. The girl tightened her hand around the tube and, before he could do anything, hit the man on the head once and again and again.

When she stopped, he was dead, his blood forming a small pond that grew larger by the minute. She ran from the place, not letting the tube go.

Half an hour later, she got to her house. She finally let go of the bloody tube that hit the floor hard. She slowly took her coat off, trembling a bit, remembering how he looked after she had killed him.

No, she didn't felt pity or remorse. She just couldn't. Ariana had promised herself never to be a victim again and she had taken steps for that not to happen. She went to a martial arts school and began doing yoga, although she failed miserably at the latter.

Fighting, the inexplicable drive she felt when hitting another body, was to her like a drug. A brand new one she discovered to be very addictive.

So that night, when she killed a man that had attempted to rape her, she felt powerful and strong, filled with adrenaline and ready to take the world by her rules and not by the ones society imposed. She was fed up by the feeling of fear and hopelessness. No, she decided to take action.

Many people, mainly man, were afraid of strong women. Days after the killing, she went out with a former lover called Richard, by her request. He had stated she was different somehow but that he liked it. She just smiled, not really understanding what he had meant.

News of the murder filled the papers soon but the man was a reported rapist and many of his victims were thankful for his demise. Some actually said they were happy as that was what he deserved. Others just wanted time to heal, both physically and mentally.

But Ariana had already healed, or at least that was what she said to herself. Before the first attack, the one that almost made her insane, she was just a fearful girls just sailing through life, not really counting on anything. The attack just made her even more shy, more scared and she even lost the will to live.

Now, however, she had taken the bull by the horns. Richard, now her boyfriend, was specially surprised by how much she had changed over the years. He knew hair as the bookish, rather dull girl in high school. To be honest, he never paid attention to her back then.

But now it was impossible not look at her: she had blossomed into this sexy and daring woman. Sex was wonderful and even better was sharing long talks with her. Ariana had always loved reading, so she had decided to open a small bookstore. She did it all by herself and just a year after she was a favorite in the neighborhood.

Richard moved in with her and they shared even more than before: travels, memories, experiences and more. One day she finally told him about her rape. Richard was an even better man that she taught. She kissed and hugged her and promised to be there forever.

Of course, sometimes she still remembered everything: the rape, the aftermath and the killing of that man, in a dark alley. That was her biggest secret and she never told anyone. Ariana never felt guilty for what she had done but she knew it was a sin with which she would have to live forever.

And she did. She lived a full life, doing what she loved, living life by her rules. The man that loved her shared her feelings for the beauty of life and the horrible events of her life never tainted the powerful drive to keep on going.

The Summit

They were almost there. Raul, the guide, had said it was only a hundred meters or so to the tallest point. Or so they thought he had said. Hearing wasn't an easy task, as the wind blew stronger in the altitudes Breathing was also difficult and the freezing cold made it even harder.

It was the first time any of them, except Raul, had attempted to hike such a tall mountain. It had been called Ritacuba Blanco and the name was fitting: the place was covered in a think layer of snow, that confused every sense and the mind.

Again, Raul, who was the first in the line to the top, yelled something but this time no one heard him. The wind appeared to be muting all of the members of the team on purpose, although that was obviously preposterous.

They walked another fifty meters and then they understood what Raul had said. Laura, the scientist from Pasto, fell in a crevasse and pulled everyone else into it. Luckily, Raul and Juan had their tools ready and held strongly on the white floor. Fast, the others helped Laura getting out and avoided the crevasse. Franco put a red flag by the gap on the floor, pierced the snow with all his strength.

They continued for a few minutes until they made it to the top. Raul warned them, breathing with difficulty, that they could only stay for a few minutes. As they had no oxygen tanks, staying more than necessary could mean dying there or on the way down.

There were six explorers, seven with Raul. They all sat on some rocks that overlooked the cliff, on which the tallest point was located.

Juan, as experienced as he was, took just one moment to see the scenery and then went back to Raul and started talking about the descent. It wasn't that he took it all for granted, not at all. Juan was just thinking of so many things at same time and seeing mountains from the top of another mountain didn't do anything for him. He had a wife and a baby girl to think of. At the cost of loosing what he loved most, he had to choose either a well paid job or loosing them both.

Laura, however, sat on a rock and filled her lungs with the purest air she might ever breath. It was true that oxygen was scarce, was somehow it felt cleaner and better than anything else. She loved how the mountains looked and how beautiful the world looked like this, just peaceful. It was different of what she had known her whole life, and the fact that this beautiful place existed not that far from home, was overwhelming to her.

Luis, an mature hiker with a thick beard, inhaled too but many more times, as if he defied the world. Only Raul knew that Luis was dying of cancer in the blood and this journey was a way of saying to life "you can't beat me up". The mountains and what he saw weren't as beautiful to him as the fact of having being able to do it all on his own, this last few months. He was going to die, true. But he wanted to imprint his mark on the world.

Veronica, a geology student, had come with a camera and started taking pictures as soon as they had reached the summit. She was a cheerful photographer, having documented her life and her family's life in huge amounts of pictures. Digital or analog, she didn't care. She only cared about keeping memories alive forever and this was her way of doing so. She had lost her father recently, and he had promised to go hiking with him. She wanted to take the most beautiful pictures to honor her father's memory.

Marcos and Tomás thought of each other as brothers. They admired the view, never kneeling or crouching or sitting but standing up to it, taking it all in as if it was a gift that one couldn't just let pass by. Both men, still young but already working through life, had decided to take this trip to defy their bodies and test, once more, the limits of their friendship. Marcos and Tomás were not real brothers, not relatives by blood. They had lived together from a young age as orphans, on the streets and under the care of others. But they never let each other go.

The six visitors came to the mountain, each one with a kind of mission. Some of them were successful, others not so much. But what was valuable wasn't the physical prowess as such. It was the fact that they had decided to take a challenge in order to honor something, to be true to themselves.

As they returned to the base camp, near a beautiful blue lake, their lives seemed to have improved, at least a little, even for a tiny space of time. They had learned no one defies a mountain out of courage or for the need of glory. All who do it, do it just for the urge, the need to define who they are.

Empress

She was kind, beautiful, joyful and full of good wishes for here people. And they loved her back, they admire her and girls wanted to be like her.

Anyone in the planet knew about the Empress, about Alysthina Jygda. Daughter of a butcher and a baker, she grew up in one of the many villages of the marshlands. Such a sad place wasn't the place one would expect to find such a beautiful girl, dedicated to the gathering of marshons, fruits that only grew deep in the wetlands. No one really knew how, but she was very skill at navigating his spaces and she was adored for this, as marshons were the primary export of the villages.

So beloved she was that, when the prince did his voyage around the planet to choose a bride, no one in the marshlands was surprised when he decided to take her as his bride. The wedding was majestic and she was even more beautiful, if that was people.

Time passed and the couple became emperor and empress and, about fifteen years later, he died diving for pearls in their summer house. A horrible death mourned by everyone, it was the stepping stone for Alysthina to become the ruler of the planet, the caretaker of every single thing in all of the lands.

But certainly, some did not really appreciate her skills and beauty. Although small, a group of people around the planet found hard to believe that the emperor had died in such and incident, specially knowing he had lived in those same islands when a youngster.

They also spread the idea that something was wrong with the empress: in roughly twenty years the planet had know her, she had barely aged, at least visibly. But people dismissed this idea by stating that she had "good blood".

No member of her original family was alive to see her enthroned, as her parents had died some years after her wedding, of old age, and she hadn't had any brothers or sisters or any other relative that was know. Her family now was her only child, princess Sygma. She was named by her father after the star that brought its heat to the planet. She was as beautiful as her mother but with some traces of her father's features.

One day, however, the princess also died. As stated by the Empress, she had wandered through a nearby forest, slipped on a rock near a river and hit her head on other rocks. Her burial was broadcasted planetwide but, oddly enough, the Empress seamed always calm and never dressed in black. Actually, she wore a stunning pearl white dress the her daughter's burial. People fell in love again with her, more than ever.

Months after that, an ambassador from a nearby world arrived to give the Empress the condolences of his world. He also gave her a present from his king: a beautiful necklace made only of rubies.

She was please by the gift but even more by the ambassador: a young, strong man with interesting new ideas. She seduced him and soon, she announced a wedding.

This was kind of a turning point for her. The people weren't really ready for her to remarry but there was nothing they could do.

The wedding, as expected, was magnificent. But something strange happened. The first night they would expend together as empress and emperor, changed the lives of everyone in the planet.

The man escaped the castle, frightened to death. He yelled and screamed through the nearby town, stole a starship and left the planet. Every one was confused by this until they discovered the reason he had left: the day after her wedding, Alysthina appeared with dark green skin and red eyes.

The reason of her youth was revealed: as a young woman she had given her life to Omaku, the god of evil. Why? she thought rulers had been neglectful to the planet and that she would make it all better. But the pact did not contemplate a second marriage and, least of all, for love. So he took away her beauty as payback.

The empress then became vengeful and the planet soon fell in the age of darkness, waiting for someone to liberate it from the good will but bad outcome of the wish of one woman stunning woman.