Author: kodyboye

My mother once said that only the Beautiful Ones survive. This is because, in the war-torn Great South, beauty is a currency, and to have it means you will never have to worry about a thing. The only problem is: beauty is judged by our capital’s Gentlewomen, and there is no guarantee that we will pass their test. Every year, the Gentlewomen of the capital leave the Glittering City to oversee the … Glittering City to oversee the annual Procession. They travel settlement to settlement selecting girls, aged sixteen and older, to become Beautiful Ones. If chosen, we will be lifted into…

I was never afraid of monsters—at least, not until They came: the visitors from outer space. Six years later, at the age of seventeen, I’m just about to graduate from school and declare my career of choice. The Midnight Guard—who protect our community from the vicious things that lie outside our walls—calls to me, and a shortage of applicants instantly lands me a spot in their ranks. But when I … their ranks. But when I am bitten by an alien on a supply run, I begin to dream of things not of this world—and will soon find that my life is about…