Dear Colin,

Help. I can't seem to escape from stories.

I swam through ours last night, poring over emails and journal entries. It felt a little like passing a car crash and being unable to look away. I finally closed my dry eyes at 3 a.m. So, this morni…

John liked coffee shops. They were places to focus, to drown himself in business and caffeine. Except, not this morning.

Laptop open to the annual report, he wondered about the people in their pocket worlds: the three girls--students, a study group; the …

"I knew I'd find you here."He said with a cunning grin as she sashayed by with purpose dressed in an ensemble that had not seen a morsel of neon light in quite some time. As if his sureness didn't scathe her in the least. In her quiet shock, she headed to…

At long last, Orthael returned the sword to its guard position and stood quietly for several seconds before realising there were no foes left to slay. That was not to say that he was alone, however. There was someone in the clearing beyond the trees, a si…

Onwards and forwards, path guided by faith, Orthael strode on. He did not see where his feet fell, he did not know where the end of his journey lay, he did not drive the weapon that tugged him onwards on its lethal dance. The golden light at the tip of th…

I handed my coupon to the receptionist who showed me to a room. I'd never visited a spa and was grateful for the privacy to undress and don the fluffy white towel that barely covered my vulnerability for the next 2 hours.

Dear Janey

I entered the saun…

There is a journal where I laboriously wrote what she did and how it made me feel. Torn in two, because I admired her and wanted to continue to learn from her, yet she held me in her control and made me think and do things contrary to my soul.

I wrote to…

She heaved, great, gasping, shuddering sobs, still clutching the sword in her hand. Her tears that fell on the blade glistened and glowed blue, etching fine, dark lines into the metal as they traveled along it. She was oblivious of the carnage she had lef…

The forest lay in perfect stillness around her, the bodies of the beasts she had slain strewn haphazardly all about. She stood, head tilted forward, listening for the next attack. It never came. She held the sword aloft, the blue raging flames towering ov…

Orthael stopped by a small crossroads, the signpost and its accompanying shrine to the Fire covered in a sick, black tar. It oozed away from the point of Judgement, peeling back wetly when he swung it close and returning when he lifted it away.

Distantly…

Malika danced. Creatures emerged from the darkness all around her, and she whirled among them. Her steps were light, quick. She never remained still, never allowed the beasts to reach her. She was driven by need, fueled by the sword's own desire.

Blood …

The old officer's expression was open. Instead of mockery, I read nothing but pain.

I stepped back, momentarily confused.

"I - I should go."

Poryse nodded quietly and drained the last of his coffee, as if the past ten seconds had been entirely imaginar…

Wonderful Auntie,

Beautiful Jean,

Oh, how I will miss you,

You'll never know what your friendship did mean.

Sleep well, my friend,

Jehovah saw all you did,

In His loving memory,

is where you'll be hid.

Your positive attitude,

Your loving spirit,

Will no…

I've got a monster in me.

A lazy, hungry one. A liar.

He's like the evil Pooh bear sitting on the kitchen counter, always beckoning. His voice is the most insistent at night, when I'm alone, or when I'm already feeling crummy. It whispers clearly, “Come…

In the days of the league of awesomeness when we had over 9000 members, we followed some simple guidelines. These were kind of the standards for awesomeness.

1. You should have four times as many comments as stories. Even though some people, like the fame…

The cylinders braced along the underside of Millie's forearms weren't heavy exactly, more bulky. For being small. they seemed to get in the way a lot. Whenever she stopped paying attention to them, they bounced off her thighs. Supposedly you could snap yo…

With a speed and grace divine, Orthael spun to receive the blow to his shield. His foe held close, as if embracing a lover, hissing wildly.

The shadow was humanoid like its puppets, for it too had once been a man. It was a flickering silhouette of a thin…

Orthael was not entirely surprised when the first creature stepped out from behind a tree, not far ahead. It had once been a man, but grossly elongated arms led to a soft rustling from knuckles dragged along the forest floor. A few others joined it, all-t…

Malika stepped back, spinning to her left as another creature lunged out of the darkness. The sword in her hand sang with need, and she swung it up in a swift, arcing motion, ramming it into the creature's chest. Its momentum as it slammed into her knocke…

I watched the captain leave and turned to face the bridge windows again. Poryse kept my hands in his view, I noticed.

"Relax, man. There is no danger to the ship from me."

He carefully held his expression neutral.

"If that's true, then you won't mind m…

Nyquist's channel was squawking again.

"Break break break. Enfield One, Sphinx. High priority redirect."

"Enfield is holding the dockside end of the boarding tunnel, awaiting all-clear. Send traffic."

"Boarding tunnel may be about to open to vacuum. Sphi…

The man was always watching. Bryant almost couldn't leave his cubicle as he always felt those eyes on him.

It started the very day the man was hired. Bryant was asked to show him around the building.

"So, is this your first job in the big city?"

The ma…

We used to believe things when I was a kid; I'm only 17, but that's plenty old enough now. We used to believe we would live forever, and things would would work themselves out. We used to believe this was our planet.

The year is 2040, and now we know…

There was something about his eyes. Not dreamy or wistful. Not deep and romantic, or glassy and vacant. Not even something about the color, an unremarkable gray. It was hard to put your finger on, the thing about his eyes.

They were...oh, bother. Pe…

Birds, hundreds of them, squawked and chirped in a frenzied cacophony. Bigger ones used their wings to violently bat against their cages. I'd never seen so many in one place, much less in doors. All manner of birds in cages lined the cavernous hallways fo…