Story is marked as mature

The house was silent and dark. It was the dead of night after all. Something woke me, but I knew it wasn't a sound, nor a smell. Something deep inside me told me it was time. Time to arise.

I felt it in my bones just as clearly as I felt the soft carpet…

I saw my therapist for the last time today. I expected to cry, but I only felt numb. I expect that the rougher emotions will come in time. I gave her a card with my words of gratitude, and she gave me a journal so that I can keep writing words.

Over fou…

"All hands, prepare for atmospheric entry."

It was a warning, not an order. The crew had been prepared for at least an hour.

Armored Infantry Captain Danielle Freiz was thoroughly annoyed, because her entire squad was late.

In fact, she wasn't even sur…

Maybe it's the blissful fulfillment I see in others' smiles,

or the way they've reached their goals ahead of me,

but I feel crabby tonight.

.

Perhaps it's the way that children won't listen to me,

or the way it seems everyone around me is spouting nega…

I get up and dust the bits of asphalt from my ripped up pants. Five feet behind me is Viv. I pinch my eyes closed as I turn, trying to control my accelerating heartbeat. Five feet behind me and five feet below rock, to be exact. I force my eyes open and …

The old man sits at the bar in Connoly’s Pub. In one hand he holds a pint while the other gesticulates, waiving through the air like a conductor whose music is found in the rhythm of language and stories of the old country.

A small crowd has gathered …

"You know, I work over in the cybernetics lab at ArtHume."

Great. He was following me. I angled for my ancient car, a converted antique gas guzzler now outfitted with an electric motor that hiccuped sometimes. I yanked on the door handle, pretending not …

A lifeless void. This place was had no life to be seen. None she could feel. All that remained of it were traces of life... momentos from a long forgotten past. The feeling that something had once lived here. The memories of light. The only thing that liv…

"You are swift, indeed, young Peregrine," the queen said, her eyes betraying her concern, "but I fear that not even speed such as yours will save you."

"I am strong, too, your majesty," his tone was all deference, yet his words were not.

"Strong indeed,…

I'm one person.

So many people talk about how they're all smashed to pieces, losing bits of themselves, lamenting like Humpty Dumpty at their inability to be pieced back together. I've been that person, but as time passed I learned that it's not about di…

The Archangel of Sparks.

Malika had heard of this, but she had never actually witnessed it. She had never been a devout follower of the Church, and her local vicar had never, to her knowledge, before summoned an aspect of any of the three Archangels. He …

The cell door slammed open. Kerr looked up, and locked eyes with his brother. "Gierard," he growled, contemptuously.

Gierard's voice, by comparison, gave no indication of any emotion at all. "When I ascended to the throne..." he began.

"Usurped!" Kerr…

Kam used the afro comb to pick out his tight and curly black hair occasionally patting it softly as he stared at himself in the mirror above his bed.

Today was the day. Kam scrambled around his bedroom floor for articles of clothing choosing ones of all…

The ceiling lights cast yellow pools of light, but did little to keep the space from feeling gloomy and deserted. Huge constructions of steel loomed silent and dark in the vast hangar space.

The stillness was interrupted by the opening of a door at the f…

It had been fourteen days.

Two weeks.

A fortnight.

It didn't feel like it had been that long.

It felt like it had been much longer.

I remembered it like it was yesterday, yet it felt like a lifetime ago.

I remembered clearly, the looks on their faces, …

The hidden thing inside the pipe twisted, thrusting deeper, spewing waxy slivers of ice in its wake – a fixed point around which their world revolved.

“It can’t be stopped,” he stated.

“How much further?” asked Srinin.

“A few hundred metres; a few …

I saw the sunset blazing like fire. It was beautiful, with its warm reds, oranges, pinks, purples and blues.

Splashes of yellow here and there dancing like flames between burning logs as the clouds drifted by

The wind was biting, but somehow there was wa…

"Who be you," Malika whispered once more, her head leaning still against the stranger's chest. "Orthael you may be. Paladin you may be. But you be not like the others who would have come before, the others who would have seen me yet not seen me. They be c…

"Why the movies?" Everett sounded bewildered.

"I don't know where to tell you to go, but don't go straight home. Go somewhere public. Or go somewhere and get lost. She could follow you. She probably has your license plate number."

"Great."

"How did she…

"Uh, ok."

He sat down. Normally he would have walked a bit first to avoid cramps. The blond girl served two small slices, chocolate with chocolate frosting. That was a thirsty combination. He accepted the plastic plate and fork gingerly, taking a sticky b…

I dreamed of my 17 year-old self. I dreamed that she got the boy of her dreams and that he made her laugh and that she grew comfortable with him. Everything was perfect, from their words to their date locations and the movies he picked, and even the way t…

A silent journey home.

Foxglove came over when she spotted us. "Noleka, what-"

"Please don't call me that."

Foxglove tilted her head. "What?"

"Don't call me that name. I don't want it anymore."

"But Noleka, that's your na-"

"Not anymore. Please. Call me T…

The universe let out a sigh and breathed for the first time it seemed. Like it had been holding its breath through out every epoch of history waiting for this one singular moment in time to happen.

Its breath was baited. If it had eyes in the traditional…

I saw God today.

At lunch time.

Surfing on the back of a lorry.

I was crossing the footbridge over the main road between the office and the supermarket when a figure caught my eye. He was laughing, his long hair streaming behind him in the slipstream,…