Story is marked as mature

Glowing green magic flowed out of the green-haired girl and into the rocks, lighting up the etched runes.

Pain shot through her body, and she let out a high-pitched scream. It hurt more than losing the limbs in the first place. She grabbed the bed sheet w…

The small creature jumped up on her shoulder, faintly glowing, perfectly poised with its chest slightly puffed out.

Oh, that was actually a neat idea! The girl picked up her phone and typed a few notes, before setting it down and returning to homework.

Sh…

Dave’s sister answered the phone with a cheery hello.

“I’ve talked to him,” Mara said, skipping the social niceties. “He’ll get in touch with you soon.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Jo asked. Belligerence was clearly a family trait.

“If he doesn’t, then he’…

I twiddled my mustache. Simply because I had a mustache which was very twiddle-able. It curled in a way that laughed at gravity, without wax of any kind and no roustabout would be able to ever knock it askew.

I toweled the sweat from my brow like so many…

It's the heart; the best part. I saved it for you.

I protected it, made sure it stayed whole and as innocent and full of light as possible. I used it only to build you up, to raise you from the darkness. I used it to praise you and to welcome you with op…

The pile of rejects on the end of my desk grew with a haste I wasn't quite expecting. This was the first I looked down to see that sometime through the day it spilled down to the floor under my feet. Of course picking it all up meant I sat reading them ag…

Cicadas sang in the heat of the day. Mostly. But it was well past sundown and the night was far from silent. It overflowed with strange sounds, as if the darkened woods themselves were awake and agitated. It wasn't just the pulsing buzz of the cicadas e…

I'd write you a song

And trust me I've tried

But it never works out for me

How do I write something I don't get

~

You're rocket fuel in my veins

You're dead weight on my mind

You're a strange new beat

Seems I've got two left feet

~

Sucks to be me

But look…

Five men stood around the pool of greasy black tar that used to be Zach Cho. Everything had happened so fast. Even with their suspicion, no one could have foreseen human flesh blackening and sagging like hot taffy. There weren't any bones or organs. All t…

"Oh, there you are!" her booted feet clacked audibly across the shaded concrete. "I bought you a coffee."

The beverage slid roughly across the metal mesh tabletop. I eyed it warily. "I don't drink coffee."

"I know, but I do, and I figured once you warmed …

Last Friday, I went to see my grandmother. Growing up I didn't find it funny that our name for her, Popo, was pronounced how some people say dad or grandfather.

Even though her hair was wispy and mostly gone and her speech was much more slurred, she stil…

She'd never seen Elora that upset before. Never worn one of the necklaces? She wasn't really much of a jewelry person. Elora knew that. This one was special.

She waited a few minutes before pulling out her phone.

"El, please, don't be like this. You can…

"What a pain." She pulled the scythe back out. Not a drop of blood on it, and not a mark left on his body. Not by her scythe, anyway.

Eris walked off. She'd become numb to death by now. Being there and collecting the soul was just part of the job.

A cou…

I had a dream

Of a familiar face.

An acquaintance? A friend?

I searched for what I knew.

The face gave nothing away.

The friend said nothing.

.

At first, I pleaded,

Then I shouted.

I tried to reach out,

I couldn’t move.

.

The closer I looked

The more that…

The glowing lights of my destination blaze fearlessly on my horizon

Clearly defined against the dawn of my new day

Glorious in their attainability

Except

I keep wasting miles

meandering down roads with no outlet

taking left turns at intersections whe…

Isn't it funny how things you do in your youth come back to bite you? What is it the New Agers call it?

Karma! That's it.

Like when you're a teenager, and you hit-and-run someone's car. Then, as an adult, some kid slams into the new car you just bought,…

Beckton stepped through the fourth row of bombe racks, trying valiantly to ignore the incessant clicking of the cryptologic machines as they crunched their way through yet another coded message. He drew from his right pocket one of the large box magazines…

Malika felt no joy at the destruction she had wrought, only a grim satisfaction. She had spent enough of her anger to bring it back under control, and in the process she had cleared much of the surrounding forest of the evil that had once lived here. It w…

Orthael breathed out evenly, nodding. He had known, rationally, the moment that Varreniel's Candle had snuffed out. But it was another thing entirely to hear that it confirmed, that all the wards and defenses of a cathedral of the Flame had failed against…

The lantern was burning low, putting an orange-gold cast on the cabin. Ryle was pouring us a drink of a very fine twenty-year Presagian whiskey. It was his one indulgence; many a night did we spend far from civilisation sipping on the finest drinks availa…

The air was crisp and the dew barely settled on the grass when Orthael left the house. He closed the door behind him with just the clink of his chain shirt and took the stairs up onto the wall two at a time - relishing the lightness of foot and freedom of…

Apparently, the principal had told Lumen to find Toria, she learned later. Lumen was more than happy to eagerly sign all sorts of things at Toria. It was strange.

Toria mostly just listened as Lumen talked about some of the places she'd been, and things s…

Malika was suddenly overwhelmed by the cleansing intent and purity of Flame. It flowed through and over her like an all-consuming heat -- and as it did, it drew much of the pain and fury from her slight frame. She shuddered and screamed, both in relief an…

Orthael felt the glow of satisfaction from Judgement, who had spent lifetimes as a wrath-filled harbinger of death. It had dreamed of doing more, indeed feared that it was no longer capable of anything but destruction. The Flame had swept such darkness as…