The Last Dancing Leaves — Leah Cutter

The adults claim that the electro-magnetic-pulse (EMP) knocked the world offline.

But nothing came back online afterward. And so the old world died.

Something important had changed. Rifts opened. Myst pooled in the cities and other places men lived, killing everyone, everything that didn't flee.

Dark things live there now.

Evil things. Magic things.

But the kids know that not just evil creeps out of the myst. Good creatures come too: like the cat-woman with the tattooed fangs, the eight-legged dog boy, and the witches.

Brendon watches for the witches every year, hoping the Winter Witch will bless the blue-dragon-eggs he gathered, will hatch the beings hidden within.

For he knows they need something more to fight the myst and the creatures crawling out of it. Or else humanity is doomed.

Be sure to read the novel inspired by this story, "Of Myst and Folly."