Hybrid Mechanics - The Lost Epilogue
Author's Note: There was a time when Hybrid Mechanics didn't end the way it does in the published version. I had an idea that our primary character, Armando, would suffer a horrible fate: being forced back into the simulation (which is, in fact, our reality) and be unable to die! This isn't finished, but I thought you might like a glimpse of what I considered too much of a downer ending...
The smell inside the Lakewood Hospice Center reminded Michelle of her mother, of the week she’d spent watching her slowly fade away, a matriarchal orchid wilting in a harsh summer that had gone on too long. Mom had neither fought death nor welcomed it; she simply accepted the end of her time and waited for it, patiently, floating on a morphine haze as delicate as her blanched, wispy hair.
