She turned around and saw the stars. It was a carpet of deep velvet with pinpricks of beautiful light shining above her head. The only sounds were some night birds and the slow ticking of the engine of the car as it cooled down.

This is the place she ca…

Celesta let out a breath and tossed the shovel aside. The hole was deep enough now.

She walked back to the wooden cart, and lifted a large crystal out of it. "Here we go."

She gently placed it in the hole, then pressed on it a little more firmly, making …

Jim reached up, fingers searching for the next handhold in the sheer face of the cliff. Large patches of sweat clung to him, gleaming like armor. By his reckoning, it was the last obstacle of this night's Hypnagogia.

Little by little, he ascended.

By …

The flutes surrounded me in a way that, despite ideas of reality and sanity, made complete sense. Notes fluctuated, voices trialed in and out, distanced claps, all-enveloping smiles. It worked in the same sense drowning in a pool solves every problem you …

"You're dead."

The bishop nods sadly at me and swigs his pint. "Sorry about that," he says, "I held on as long as I could."

"I had hoped for more," I say, unable to keep the anger and disappointment out of my voice. I had hoped for more, but cancer ha…

(Blame the rum). God damn, I dreamed that I swallowed a pin. And the point took my throat and my voice all at once. And I lay in my bed as my own brother hammered out my brains. And the blood made the walls the sweet colour of Autumn, and abuse, and ali…

"Sophie Claire, my darling, you were always bereft of deliverance," he said, as he took the last drag off her cigarette before extinguishing the remaining embers of redemption. She tittered at his cheekiness. "Always a Tybalt!" Just be satisfied!" she wh…

It's always sad when you lose a loved one. More so if you're there when it happens. And the how doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter if they're suddenly struck down by a heart attack, or spend years wasting away from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The los…

"Whatever happened to that 20 minutes of decluttering thing you used to do?"

"I gave it up when you signed me up for hot yoga. The class time overlaps with decluttering by 15 minutes, and who can get anything done in 5 minutes?"

"Very funny." She moved…

"Fetus said we could reboot his memories," I said sadly staring off in the direction of her body.

"If we can find his backups!" C:\ declared.

"I've never been to Acrylic's hideout," Hard Drive confessed.

"I have." I said quietly.

"Good! Start there!" C:\ …

Orthael rocked backwards, groping blindly for the presence of the All-Consumer, but he found naught but dreadful nothingness. He was alone, he could not live with his mere humanity, and the night seemed dark and deep and filled with terrors he could not f…

Reina browsed through the “curiosities” sure that everything in the store was junk. Wandering down an aisle between shaky-looking shelves, she heard the sound of a whisper, like a gentle shush or a snake sliding among tall grass but all she saw was an emp…

I think I'm about to cut loose from these troublesome people

I need to take care of myself and prioritize myself and my mental health above others'

hard as that is

and did you know

that at some trying times

the heart will grow

and cross the bound'ry line…

NASA has predicted that in 15 minutes, the sun will have reached the red giant stage. While temps have already forced all humans underground for centuries, in this stage, the Earth will change orbit even more than it has in the last 100 years, and all li…

In the fog, shapes are unclear. Shadows move in and out of wisps of gray; darker spaces undulate close and fade back into the swirls. My senses are alert, but every soft breeze sends panic down my spine. I close my eyes and put my hands out.

There is no…

And pretty soon I, being a suave sort of kid, I said to the chick, I said, those aren't badgers, and she lets off slappin my thigh like it was henny bloody youngman, are you following? and smiling we took off the seatbelts and hung onto the hand straps an…

Jacqueline, never Jack or Jackie, swirled the ice around the dregs of her mojito. It was her favorite drink, she had ordered them all around the world, from Mexico, to London, to China. Hell, she'd even taken a couple of barrels with her through the Andes…

Story is marked as mature

Story is marked as mature

I'm in a fun house. I've always like how the good ones play with perception. It reminds me of the Get Smart opening: expectation and subversion in a fun way. And they're so enthusiastic. Not the operators necessarily, who've seen this millions of times, b…

It was hard to swallow her pride and her real feelings. Seeing that huge smile and those two brown eyes so crinkly with joy warmed her heart. She loved Mr. Brown Eyes. Seeing the two blue eyes above two rosy cheeks and a line of baby teeth was supposed to…

A wolf I will claim

yet a dog I became

there was no other way to describe

I did all that you said

as your little pet

ignoring my pride

I lavished affection

at your beck and call begging

for your hand upon my furry hide

At the time I confess

that I love…

This was the moment. Orthael reached out and connected with Varenniel's presence as if clasping the forearm of an old friend before drawing them into an embrace. The High Angel's power was a steady and comforting warmth, assuring him that the Flame had al…

She was getting used to running and climbing. Climb up. Find the light. Climb down. Run.

It was like System Management. It was easy. She could do this. What she couldn't do was understand the pain. It was this entirely new sensation and it was overwhel…

The world had disappeared. In the brightness, there was no longer light. In the sound, there was deafness, and in the heat, there was nothing to feel.

Had I lost myself?

I wished for the fog back. At least fear was something. I wished for the wall, some…