"Alone tonight?" The bartender busied herself with mixing drinks while I sat at the far end of the bar nursing the drink I'd ordered 40 minutes ago.

"Yep."

"Where's your handsome sidekick?" She meant my best friend. We had been meeting here on a weekly …

Story is marked as mature

You are adamant we are forever. That we're the tempest and the anchor. We're each other's sky and flame. And even though I don't want to believe you...

Could it be possible that you are the one that understands the inner squeaking cogs of my ticking hear…

Story is marked as mature

And three heartbeats later she was back.

"Impossible," I breathed, my voice barely audible. This shouldn't be happening. She was so weak. She shouldn't have been able to resist my attempts to banish her. And yet...

She was here. Again. In defiance, it s…

It wasn't possible. I put the block in the Vena Cava of Chakra No. 4. There should have been no energy-body link for her to be there.

I knelt beside her and arranged her body in Vitruvian fashion. She needed a scan. I lowered my hands over her until they…

I'm pretty certain now

That I just can't do this anymore.

It's not some talent I found,

But a skill I had forged

In a fire of restlessness

And self-doubt.

Somewhere i found a voice

Instead of lines on a page.

So I made the choice

To put aside this way

Of…

To dream such dreams,

to banish despair with the conjured light of face and form,

drawn perfectly from decades ago--

such is the magic of faerie wings and moon beams.

In that twisting and infinite moment,

perhaps a reflection of what was in another time …

I would like to suggest and invite people to intentionally give this a try, especially as Ficlatte is so well suited to this.

I (anyone though, but I'll give it a try myself) write the beginning of the story, and tag another Ficlatte person to continue it…

He wanted something.

Didn't get it.

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

Some people think of troubles as burdens. Like their only purpose are as inertia against life's upward progress. But I preferred a different outlook. I would look out from the wide, bright windows of the coffee shop on Fifth Avenue and look at the people …

The name given to the ship of Gwen and Bass is The Sound of Silence. In drawing the picture, I took inspiration from the Simon and Garfunkel song, and from the story of Sleepless Domain

The Inner Barrier is from the night that Alchemical met the ele…

The young woman staggered backwards into the wall – the people in the room idly glanced over at the sound of the impact and got back on with their business – and slid into a sitting position. Elbows on knees, arms crossed, forehead on arms, she sat, tremb…

"Son," he rasped, laying in his bed, sweating through the sheets.

"I'm here, Dad."

"Son, I need you to make the delivery."

"Dad, I'm not part of this family business! I made my life elsewhere!"

Coughing erupted from the old man and lasted for a full 30 se…

The next time we'd scheduled a meet-up, my best friend's girl suddenly had a work emergency. She posted pics online of her out drinking with friends and my best friend, late, after work.

We rescheduled but I got sick, and while I got plenty of "that's to…

"Anything?" Bantu asked.

"Gimme a sec," replied Shari. With a gloved hand she reached into the mist hovering before her, dipping a small test tube into it and filling it as best she could. With the other hand she stoppered it before withdrawing it and ge…

Egg shells feel like feathers - softly, gently ground beneath behemoth tongues. Leviathan laughter echoes.

Abstract butterflies take the brunt, wings turning to kaleidoscope dust in the nuclear wind.

Eyes see strangely through scorched sclera, strands o…

"Where are the time travelers?"

Excuse me?

"Where are they? Shouldn't they be crawling all over us?"

Oh, you're worried about the Temporal Fermi Paradox?

"Like, 'where are the aliens' but for time travelers? Yeah."

The same things apply, but it's wor…

The lights flashed red and I raced forward. Car horns and the screech of tires blared at me, scolding me. Careening towards the woman that stood opposite me on the crosswalk. She registered me with a look of surprise, then she smiled and spread her arms …

"Do you guys always have to show up with such inconvenient timing?" she asked the monster, not that it could answer or even understand her.

Aria slashed it with her axe, the monster emitting a strained cry as she made yet another gash in its side. Elect…

I push, I pull, I dig my nails in, anything to make the solid wall move in any way. I had to get out of this eternal fog. Shadows pressed in close, but I couldn't tell if they were urging me on or trying to stop me.

I began to hear some sort of anguished…

He pulls the knife across his own skin, lightly parting the flesh above his navel. Blood wells up but does not quite spill over. He uses the tip of the blade to complete the sweeping arc of a symbol that represents just one of his sins. There are dozens o…

When you get to the main stairs, you see a cloud of black smoke rising before you. Moving cautiously closer, you see flames leaping up the stairs!

Good grief, this will never do!

However, though you are frightened of the fire, you see that it is still on…

Story is marked as mature

Aria jumped and slid down the roof, doing another small hop to get over the rain gutter, and landing on the soft, wet grass. She gently shook off some of the water, wet from chasing the monster through the sprinklers. Her least favorite part about fightin…