The cyan girl struggled to no avail. "Please don't, I didn't do anything to you!"

"I told you it's not personal." She raised her scythe into the air to strike, before being blasted off by lilac energy.

The cyan girl immediately scrambled to another ro…

"Stop running, dummy!"

"You're trying to kill me, and I kind of don't want to die!" The cyan girl leapt up onto a building, shooting bright blue balls of energy at her attacker.

"Oh, don't worry so much! It's nothing personal. I hate all your kind!" the…

Casey stood there in all white, like a neon blade gleaming against the darkness of the oncoming storm. Her hair and skirt whipped about her in the great gusts of winds that battered the city with invisible fists, but she didn't move.

The thick mass of cl…

Two white ears poked out of the sand, followed by a fluffy white head, and then a body popped out. The little white rabbit shook off the sand. It failed to understand why the world had to rain sand, and then suddenly, inexplicably, it would turn on its he…

Last Friday, I went to see my grandmother. Growing up I didn't find it funny that our name for her, Popo, was pronounced how some people say dad or grandfather.

Even though her hair was wispy and mostly gone and her speech was much more slurred, she stil…

Rita jumped back, only getting the front end of her skirt lightly singed. "You're blue. Why the heck do you have fire powers!?"

"You're the one who wanted to fight," the blue girl taunted.

"First, I thought you had water powers, and second, I was playi…

"Do you guys always have to show up with such inconvenient timing?" she asked the monster, not that it could answer or even understand her.

Aria slashed it with her axe, the monster emitting a strained cry as she made yet another gash in its side. Elect…

Aria jumped and slid down the roof, doing another small hop to get over the rain gutter, and landing on the soft, wet grass. She gently shook off some of the water, wet from chasing the monster through the sprinklers. Her least favorite part about fightin…

In mathematics, a point of inflection is a point on a curve where the concavity of the curve changes, a momentary point where the slope of the curve is equal to the slope of its tangent at that point. Points of inflection mark the transitions between upwa…

That's how I became a part of the Cold Hail Battalion (Give 'em Hail!). I was never carried into battle but I was often carried out of one. My dad, the one who accepted me, tried hard to get me transferred to an orphanage or a host family, but there was n…

Rain fell hard, threatening to drown the city but never quite committing to finishing the job. Tonight there was no wind and people felt safe using their umbrellas. All of them moving slow under black domes gave the streets the air of a funeral procession…

Glowing green magic flowed out of the green-haired girl and into the rocks, lighting up the etched runes.

Pain shot through her body, and she let out a high-pitched scream. It hurt more than losing the limbs in the first place. She grabbed the bed sheet w…

The girl whimpered in pain as a man made tiny incisions in her arm. Or... what was left of her arm, anyway.

"Sh, it'll be alright soon," the green-haired girl nearby said softly to her, taking a break from what she was doing to stroke the small girl's hea…

Etril cowered in fear. This was it. She'd known it was coming, but hoped it wouldn't be this soon.

...

No gunshot came.

"Forget it," the alien said.

Etril looked up, hesitantly. "...What?"

"Forget it, I'm not going to shoot you. It's not even worth it." S…

It had only been a few months since the invasion. Aliens had killed a lot of humans, others were just missing.

Presumably dead.

Or, with any luck, if such a word was appropriate, they were still alive, but being used for research. No one dared try to imag…

Anthony blinked a couple times, hard enough that fireworks of white light appeared across the dark space of the inside of his eyelids. He'd read the same sentence four times and he was still stumbling across the words like he'd never seen them before. He …

Hunter didn't know where she was. It was hard to make anything out. Impossible, really given how exceptionally dark it was. There was nothing but the cold, wet floor underneath her, almost slick from condensation. Walking around proved useless, as it se…

She lay on her new planet. How wonderful it was to have her own planet, as she'd always deserved. Really, she had an entire solar system all her own, but it was just a tiny corner of the infinite universe.

One day, she wanted to have more. But this was en…

Pink hair again. It hadn't been pink since ... that time when ... and it all went normal again. I was normal. But not now. The dream tore through my mind, Aether burned into my skin, the skin changing, turning, petrifying. Pink hair falling. Eyes followin…

Roger had been in the cradle of the marula tree's branches for three days.

Those three days hadn't been comfortable. His body had been signalling him for the past day that it would be better off on solid ground. For now, that was unthinkable.

Nutritio…

"Humanity should be still and calm." The tall, faintly luminous figure placed a six fingered hand up to a the transparent field of shimmering green energy that showed a hazy image of a spinning planet dominated by blues and whites and greens. "We've giv…

The moment was bright and golden, like summer sunlight. We pulled off caps, wiping foreheads and setting wooden bats aside to sit down. There was the popping of bottle caps, toasts declared, bottles raised. We chatted animatedly, full of vigour at our suc…

"- Come in, I've lost your signal. I say again, -"

I stopped when my partner put a hand on my shoulder.

"You're scaring the civilians."

I let go of the transmit button with some reluctance, suddenly aware that wide-eye stares were following my pacing o…

"Morning, Aralis!" The blonde girl bounced into the shop, effortlessly slipping behind the counter and slipping an apron over her head.

"You're late," the other teased.

"By like, two minutes! The shop isn't even open yet!"

"I know, I'm teasing. Jeez Kri, …

I never knew what happened to them. I never remembered it when it happened. Sometimes I didn't even remember how I got there.

I could only figure it must be my fault. I was the only person left standing.

Left alive.

I was always unharmed, so I could o…