This time last year, I kissed you for bringing me a sandwich at work. You had already begun educating me on the vast world of classic rock, starting with disbelief when you found out I had no idea who the Grateful Dead was. Then Lou Reed died, and you gav…

At last Malika leaned away from the stranger, shrugging off his embrace like a cloak. She wanted her pain, needed it in order to do what must be done. She reached down and plucked Morduth from the ground where it had fallen.

Mistress, are you alright?…

The Lesser Dead in all their varieties watched as the swordmaiden passed, followed a moment later by the holy man, now made impotent by their master. They allowed both to escape unscathed. Indeed many still held the swordmaiden in fear, for the way she ha…

I was wishing for October today:

Summer heat in the crooks of my arms;

On my cheeks and my neck,

And the weight of long evenings heavy

In my hammering head.

I longed for the cool of the Autumn time,

For the turning leaves and their crispness

Beneath my b…

Complicated and stressful,

Every day is more than you can handle.

They show on your face,

All the thoughts you've come to hate.

Like a disease with no cure,

Controlling everything you do.

When the days end

And the dark descends,

You settle into your refu…

Home was so close. Dahlia stumbled down the overgrown path. Lights from nearby houses dripped through the leaves of birch trees and cast eery shadows on the ground, scattered as it was with shards of glass and discarded fast food wrappers. She slurred the…

Malika shivered. The events of the night still weighed heavily upon her, and it was difficult to wrap her mind around the loss of her village, the fight with the Lycanders, the destruction of the lesser deathless, and the conflict with the greater deathle…

Story is marked as mature

A few heads turned to look at her. She ignored them, focussing on Nick. "Put this on," she said, handing him an identical suit.

"What the hell?"

"We don't have much time. Quickly!"

He looked at the hazmat suit, dropped it, and ran to the front of the bus.…

My name with foul insinuation's tarred

By people who seek easy victims meek

To charge with crimes in public. Life is marred

And razed for me. Now, everywhere I seek,

.

I picture enemies in friends I knew

Before this whole fiasco. Do they now

Believe tho…

The rain trickles lightly down your umbrella

Your steps in perfect sync with the beats of my heart

Ah what a scene

Your perfect figure against this dismal landscape

Grey concrete pillars and abandoned stores

The depression of recession still apparent

Yet…

The cabin boy, now Master of the Ship, walked alone

stepping over the glass-eyed corpses of meat and bone,

men who had once been, the only fathers he'd ever known.

He cried for his own loss and the light-lost souls forever gone.

The ship shuddered and cr…

Sonia hesitated, glancing around. Every single person in the small shop was looking down, or away, or busy.

Go, they said silently. We must know!

She dusted off her apron, wiped her hands and followed him out into the street. There was a moment of …

The ship heaved high, breaking through the waves,

the dark hell of night's clouds and the sea's spray

Stars cloaked by a devil's veil were hidden away

and the once mighty captain was lost and afraid

The crew revolted pledging their wails to the winds,

pa…

Grafham Road; left into Cable Street.

The sun was sinking. The flow of people on the street ebbed as people sought warmth and the company of their families.

Tessa drifted onward, the sound of cracking pavement filling her head with every step she took. …

Orthael came back slowly, as if he had been diving in a lake and sought the surface from deep below, and found himself gripping Judgement in his right hand. This did not surprise him: he had always assumed implicit, even in the warm domestic comfort of hi…

At first it had caused surprise and alarm; now it was simply part of the normal flow of life. At around midday, two trucks full of guards would materialise in the square. Quietly and efficiently, they would fan out with their weapons drawn.

After the fir…

Same city, different station.

Enter Nick Llewellyn, coming into stage right at about thirty klicks an hour. He's looking at his hands, and turning over in them a sheet of pink paper.

He's been fired. Specifically, he's just been laid off from his job, wor…

There's dust gathering on the bed frame

Interspaced with gaps left by careless and infrequent touches

A chair piled high with jackets worn but once

or crumpled on a cold floor

Sheets collect long hair on the left side

unwashed dishes pile on the right

T…

The sky over the city was still pitch-black, even at five in the morning, with forty-five minutes to sunup and a clear sky. They made their way to a parking garage downtown, a few blocks from the scaffold-ridden visage of the Megaspire, with forged securi…

Sun up, tools down for the day, it was a good time for a walk through the oaks. A learned man might sink down with a book, but a man of little learning who needs to settle his thoughts must leave that job to nature.

He took a leak against a tree. The st…

Devin hungered for conversation. That didn't happen much when he was around people. He tended to be the quiet sort and when he did say something it was usually the wrong thing. Two days out with nothing but a couple of dozen head of cattle as company and …

The man was always watching. Bryant almost couldn't leave his cubicle as he always felt those eyes on him.

It started the very day the man was hired. Bryant was asked to show him around the building.

"So, is this your first job in the big city?"

The ma…

“This place looks like it got puked on, Viv.” I chuckle to myself, putting on my sunglasses so I can take a better look at the rotting lumps of detritus that once was a city.

I can imagine Viv’s smart aleck comeback about not hurting the city’s feelings…

I drink wine from cereal bowls.

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