Israphel Loffyr would never dare claim to be your typical moon elf.

Standing several inches taller than the species average, with a far more muscular build than is common for the typical elf. His long black hair is interspersed with strands of stark whit…

Rachael's eyes could not focus. Where was the glass wall? Where was the bathroom door? It all appeared to be in a fog. The stripes slowly rose up the vanity. The thrumming fan and her syncopated heartbeat lulled her into a vague, uneasy gray of dissociati…

Her faded blue jeans--faded through use, not by chemicals at a factory--seemed to be slit into strips by the oranging sunlight as she crept across the bathroom floor, sticking to the mat and the towel on the floor, wincing at every creak of the old wooden…

Rachael slipped into the bathroom, eyes on the hallway beyond. She rested her back on the shelves and tensed her thick soled shoes against the door. Stupid place to hole up, she figured. The door didn't even close properly, let alone lock; there was a k…

My future, furious, lunges

With weapons sharp and bright

To fell me where I stand.

--

A single blow would serve

To make this “now” my last,

But many more will land–

--

For some will smite my heart,

Already weak and weary,

And let its contents spill,

--

Wh…

Has your mind ever been so loud in thoughts, that when something makes you stop thinking.. you realize how deadly silent the air around you actually was? That's how I felt today.

Silence

I never realized how busy my mind was- whether in lists of to-dos,…

I wish I could tell them how beautiful the funeral was. The things everyone said were so touching. Even Aunt Agnes, though I know she was full of shit, talked sweetly about her "beloved nephew" (that she hadn't spoken to since I was 5).

I wish I could te…

My new apartment felt like it was part of my old neighborhood. The details differed, of course. A Mexi-mart instead of a 7-11 on the corner. Out front, Carson Street stretched out instead of Fallon Street. But sometimes new streets shared the same faces, …

Story is marked as mature

Darkness.

Endless darkness, all around you. You swim through an obsidian ocean, searching for some distant speck of light. You hear their voices tugging at you.

You're just lazy...

Maybe if you just tried...

Look on the bright side...

And the d…

Damaran wove through the crowd with a thumb in his belt and glare for anyone that would meet his eye. It was a calculated posture designed to ward off would-be thieves. The sly ones would note the proximity of his hand and the apparent thinness of his mon…

Anthony fingered the thick woolen blanket that nearly suffocated him with stuffy heat. The fabric was rough, well-worn from use by his grandmother who had passed it down to his mother. Now it was his.

It was foolish to be wrapped in wool during the hotte…

Pulsing with the knowledge of our bodies

and power of majesties coursing around every corner,

fragrant and blue-green-red and warm resided in us all.

I can't help but imagine

some vampyric figure picking his teeth

with capillary tubes,

the very same ones …

Bevin hurried down the corridor, barely glancing at a group of noncoms in his haste. Five

minutes later he was in the observation room overlooking the tank. David still floated, lifeless in the blue liquid.

“What’s our temp, Wil?” Bevin asked the techni…

Instructor Bevin waited until David’s thrashing subsided and the man fell still. He turned to the recruits, and while their faces betrayed no emotion, he saw hints of tears in more than one set of blue eyes. He couldn’t blame them – they had trained with …

David glanced down at his bare feet as the blue liquid flooded the tank he stood in. It had the consistency of glue, and felt cold. Very cold, as if it was seeping into his bones, freezing him from within.

The rest of his squad stood outside the tank, th…

I crouched behind a fallen pine, breathing in the soft smells of moss and damp wood, watching the fawn as it rooted for acorns beneath the snow. The crisp tang of fear in its scent was absent, a testament to my caution as I moved like a shaggy gray ghost …

A million people surrounded me on the First Day, faces lit with terror, their eyes burning with the fever of zealotry.

“Lifegiver!” one screamed, weeping openly. “Why is this happening?”

These were my people, my creation. I crafted each with love and pa…

A lone bead of sweat wound its way down the side of Jon’s cheek, but that was the only sign of discomfort. His face betrayed no emotion. The entirety of his life was spent in training simulations which culminated in the simplest of tasks – pressing a sing…

I was alone and confused, my mind and body numb, suspended in darkness. Memories were fragile and tenuous, like cobwebs dissolving at the slightest touch. Panic rose in my chest, and I groped blindly, for something, anything in the oppressive blackness.

…

Inhale. Exhale slowly. His finger rested gently on the trigger of his Barrett as the crosshairs settled in the center of the old man’s chest. 50 caliber, he thought. This is going to be messy.

He reviewed in his mind the briefing his top client had sent …

Awake for an hour, asleep for a year. That was the summation of his entire existence, ever since he had agreed to this mad experiment as a way to avoid a boring life sentence without a chance at parole.

Every year, on New Years Day, they would wake him u…

The three men approached the gnarled tree hesitantly, wary of the body that hung from its twisted limbs like a bloated, rotten peach. The dead man’s eyes bulged in their sockets, his tongue protruding from blackened, swollen lips that were frozen in a fin…

I laugh in their faces as they flip the switch once more, their faces becoming even more desperate and confused. Thousands of volts course through my body, yet though my clothing begins to char and smoke, the pain never comes. This is not their first atte…

Ryan and I cruised down the interstate at 2AM, laughing and talking about inconsequential things, radio blaring some long forgotten rock song. I turned to speak, but never had the chance, as blackness enveloped us.

…

I raised my head from where it was r…