Malika tossed a glare at the Orthael. "Why?" she barked. "What has the All-mighty Flame ever done for me?" Her words were barbed and full of anger. Her shoulder throbbed, and she wanted nothing more than to be gone from this accursed place.

She paced o…

The wind gusted across the dusty peak, nearly blowing Zachariah off his feet. He pulled his weathered duster closer around him, pulled his hat down further over his eyes in an attempt to keep debris out of his eyes.

The townsmen had said the climb would …

Sultana pulled Felicity up on her feet, "You know what tonight is, right?"

"Yeah, it's the stupid after party," Felicity frowned.

"No, I mean... tonight." Felicity's friend's eyes glowed.

~

A full moon lit hung in the sky as the girls undressed themselves…

Malika's rise to consciousness was agonizing. She needed more sleep, but her shoulder was like ice. The deathless' grip, it seemed, had not entirely relented, dragging her from the brief respite of unconsciousness.

She looked for Morduth and panicked mom…

Malika fled the village, passing scores of Lesser Dead as she did. Not one approached her, whether in fear of the destruction she had wrought just moments before or because they no longer deemed her a threat she didn't know.

Nor did she care. Her shoulde…

Adulthood is a series of ups and downs, or so I've been told. But what I wasn't told is how difficult the transition into this new stage of life can be. Dealing with the pressures of a full time job, a full graduate school schedule, and a sick parent ha…

"...Hello?"

"Where are you right now?"

"In my car. I'm driving home from work."

"Are you alone?"

"I'm talking to you. You're in my car, so I'm not alone. Where have you been? I haven't heard from you in days."

"Hmpf. Well, maybe that's because I'm ma…

The storm was rising, fine red dust obscuring everything, but I checked my compass one last time before spotting Building Arrethe just ahead. The combination of night-vision and rubber gloves made me clumsy and slow, but it was better than the alternative…

I have a screen door that doesn't open. The sliding glass door sit between the kitchen and the backyard patio, little more than a translucent wall. At the edge of the property is a chain link fence that separates my property from a steep grass-covered hil…

I think I've been bullied.

Maybe it's just that the person who complains about the speck in my eye needs to remove the plank from theirs.

I need to stop wanting to please them.

When they say something in a subversive manner, hint that this new way is …

There's a guy I know. We talk frequently. Every day, in fact. I want to help him, but I just don't know how.

He feels alone. He can be in a room with a hundred people, all of them wanting to chat with him, and still feel completely isolated.

He lies to …

Story is marked as mature

I promise, I did do some testing before taking this site live.

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…

She reappeared in another part of the library, a dank room smelling of moldering wood and fungus. The furniture here was in disrepair, rotten through and falling apart. She loved it.

She settled onto a pile of termite-eaten wood that may once have been a…

These short nine years,

have gone by so fast,

Our lives intertwined by-

love and trust - so vast.

From boys to books,

our friendship never

dared to forsook

because it is forever.

As we grow old-

-er, our secrets - untold,

our lives separated,

by time an…

The bearded man stood on the marble stairs of the park’s stage and raised his Big Gulp cup over his head. “Drink deeply and live!”

Five onlookers watched him with faint curiosity. This was new.

He paused to wipe rub his face on a worn and well-stained s…

"How many died?" The lighter one asked the other.

"Too many, nearly all. How many escaped?" She replied.

"Too few."

One summoned her vine-entwined rod, the other her scythe.

"We should take care of them, shouldn't we?" The lighter one asked.

"They'l…

To be or not to be?

A consciousness of stream

The weight of human ignorance

Annihilates the dream

An agony of intellect

A crisis of the soul

Wherefore art thou now

O common human goal?

To sleep, perchance to steal

As violence touches all

Our modern take…

I turn 80 today. Birthdays don’t mean much anymore, but I’ve been lucky. I'm the only one of my friends to have lived to this age, the only one of my kind who has acquired eight decades.

I’m a magical girl- or rather, a magical woman.

The nursing home a…

"No. We're not lost."

I despair.

............................

I was parked at the edge of the world. There was a hill at the very back of my parent's property that overlooked the neighbor's pasture filled with cows. It was a great place to stop and think. I had turned off the radio and watched the bovines graze. The…

It's a horrible thing, to be jealous of a dead person. You can't get angry at them. You can't even say anything bad about them. Our parents will always remember David as the honor student, as the star athlete, as the altar boy, as the perfect son.

A…

Story is marked as mature

The drone tumbled, hissing aerosol, as the pre-programmed flight plan adjusted for turbulence. Righting itself, it spewed paint from four vents, creating a comic-book-esque pointillist effect. Tile 7F, on the north face of the tower, took on a deep red co…