THE INNOCENT’S STORY
by Nicky Singer
A contemporary English teen has a permanent out-of-body experience, prompting her to re-evaluate her life as well as the world around her. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Cassina and her younger sister make a fatal detour into a CD shop where they are killed by an explosion detonated by a member of T’lannis, a fanatical religious group. After the explosion, Cassina discovers she has evolved from a “solid thirteen-year-old hominid” into a small, shapeless patch of mist. To exist in her new para-spirit state, Cassina needs a human host and soon invades the brains of her grieving parents, her dog and eventually Ahim, the young T’lannis member who killed her. Occasionally encountering other para-spirits, the invisible and powerless Cassina witnesses the world from the perspective of her hosts. When she realizes Ahim is about to commit another act of terrorism, she takes the only available action. While this original paranormal story raises compelling moral issues, Cassina’s graphic journeys through nasal passages, cranial cavities and pulmonary crannies push the willing suspension of disbelief to the limit. (Fiction. 12-16)