The cold in her shoulder withdrew. Malika hadn't even been aware of it until it was gone, but it eased some of the pain from her injury.

Some of the darkness from the Greater Dead leeched into your body when you struck it, Morduth said. It seeped in m…

Mistress. Morduth's voice whispered into Malika's mind. It seemed distant, far away, echoing far back in the recesses of her consciousness. It was odd hearing him like that. Before its voice had always been so strong, so vivid.

But that was before. Bef…

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…

"No. We're not lost."

I despair.

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

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…

How did I reach this point? My life has become complicated in the last few months.

Wow. Understatement of epic proportions.

And I have no one to talk to about it. I could probably go to a psychiatrist about it, but that would mean admitting that I'm... …

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…

I kept her at the periphery of my life, all too aware of the danger. She was a black hole, and if I dared to venture near enough, I'd be pulled in, pulled apart. Infinite gravity, infinitesimal space. No chance of escape.

I don't know where I went wrong.…

Squeak, squeak. The porch swing sways gently back and forth as my legs dangle to and fro. The evening breeze is cool as the sun sets on the ridge above the pasture.

The horses graze peacefully, stopping occasionally to look up in my direction, as if to s…

"Explain what I'm looking at."

"Timestream 8496775816-AQZ-25.13.4. We pulled it from yesterday's archives when it was flagged anomolous."

"Meaning?"

"Look here. Grid 117, Segment 16, Node 135. See that curvature?"

"Yes. Explain its significance."

"Ti…

It wasn't until they were playing "Taps" that it really hit John. Three hours of hand shakes and condolences, and it was a 19 year old cadet with a bugle that struck home.

General Larson was dead.

He'd taken a ship from McMurdo to Montevideo, a red ey…

Beckton felt Newkirk slip a handful of bullets for the Springfield into his pocket.

"Were you expecting this, Beckton? They have two heavy hitters."

"We knew they had an interest in you, but we didn't think they'd move like this."

"I can't take them. I…

Ring "Hello."

"Hey, what's up?"

"Glad you called. sigh Nothing much."

"You sound like something is up."

pause

"I wanna say I'm sorry if I was too overbearing."

"Overbearing?"

"If anything I texted or emailed left room for misinterpretation. S…

The house was still half-built, half-destroyed. It had never been completed and for every few hours of work I put into repairing it, it seemed like something new broke, or nature won another victory. Yesterday, a long brick wall that lined the dining hall…

I like her nose.

How many times have I said that to myself? It's not the sort of compliment you can hand out. Compliments from strangers are limited to: hair, dress, and nails. Anything that varies from our unspoken rule will screw up your tenuous connec…

Quick hands. Moonlight flashing on a blade. Mooncat dying on a blade.

Grims dropped the knife and reached for his rifle, all senses searching for the remaining predator, but it had vanished into the night, courage overwhelmed by pack hunter instinct.

He…

Katharine Espin Tarnath III let the door slam and dropped her bag to head upstairs. She slipped off the heavy black ceremonial robes - how anyone was supposed to wear these in the heat of summer, she didn't know - and pulled a long T-shirt over her head i…

"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…

"He's just standing there. At the bar. Drinking. Shots. Shot after shot after shot."

Her companion nodded, dark glasses concealing blind eyes. "You're sure?"

"Yeah. I've never seen anyone drink so much milk."

Today I was tutoring a young writer in Thinking Small; writing about small details to open up their writing. She then pondered the value of a penny.

When you are one penny short, you cannot buy an item. The penny seems very valuable; an unattainable goal…

Malika nodded slowly. "Very well." Her voice hardened. "What be next... Reliath?" She stumbled over the holy man's name, unaccustomed to addressing one of the clergy so casually.

"That... what did you call it? Malylech? That Malylech. Why were we unable …

Katy fought down the urge to blush, taking amber-coloured jar and directing a spoon to coat the pastries. Mitaran took the tray with a light-hearted bow and spun it on one finger, firing up the underside in a dance of blue flames with his other hand. Pale…

Captain Chessington stood behind her desk, her face stern as she listened to the report from the Quartermaster.

"You are quite sure, Mr Jones," she queried, willing him to retract even a sentence of the report he had just made to her. "I'd best do this i…

If you've never seen a Time Timer before, it's a big timer with a red wedge instead of hands on its face that shrinks as the time nears zero.

Lucy sat quietly wriggling. She pulled at strands of her hair, lifting them high behind her head and shaking her…