I laughed along with him, and envied his certainty. Beyond the Quarter, where men gathered amid the hoarded scraps of their old lives, the island and its inhabitants were still foreign to me. Hardly hostile, but it was obvious that the lamia villages were not designed by, or for, human men. I didn’t know where I fit. Was I retired now? I didn’t even know if I could really hold a job here.
Well, moving to an unfamiliar country is always challenging, and I’d survived culture shock before. It wasn’t like I could go back now. My old life was buried under a stone with my name on it, somewhere in a Virginia cemetery. I doubted that anyone had left flowers…
—
An original tale set in Okayado’s Monster Musume world.
Life in the Lamia villages has its pleasures…and its perils. Culture shock is only one of the many challenges in Mark’s new life.
Mark and Madiyan return in the sequel to “In From the Cold”.
