I kept looking at my cell phone, but it lay silent and black. Let her make the first move. It was always me before, texting, finding the right ice-breaker comment or picture to share. It was a show of love, but it was beginning to feel one-sided. Was I a …

Annette whirled on Mike. "Get out of my shop!" she yelled.

Mike took a step back, raising his hands. "Woah, woah! I'm here to apologize."

"Apologize?" She almost laughed. "Apologize for which time, exactly?

"Well..." he started.

"For sleeping with my …

I watched in horror as the smoke billowed high. I followed the plume to the leaping flames high above the roof. Flames and smoke poured from every window, every door. I fell to my knees.

The flames were put out, the firemen left, the sooty timbers were …

Taking your heart in your hands, you leap over the line of fire. You're right up against the doors, but not yet touching them. They are glass, with a frame of metal, and there is a pushbar that is also made of metal.

"So that's what that does," I said as the stars went out, "I'd always wondered."

5:31 A.M.

My heart races, and I immediately chastise my brain into generating 5 things to be grateful for. The list is the same as last Monday morning. The sun rose. I get a chance to start over. I have a warm bed. There is food for breakfast. I am.…

The blank page stares at me. I have to write something. Anything! I promised myself that I would do it. Maybe someday the things I write will be coherent again. For now, they're just something to make sure I hold myself to my promise to write again.

…

If Drow Elves are a rare sight in the surface realms, Half-Drow are all but unheard of.

Most humans have never seen a dark elf, and with his dusky grey skin and stark white hair, a lot of people assume Hraz'Elarion is one of the notoriously evil Underdar…

Loping along the highway in a bustle of activity and a Winebagel Scampmaster, Ossiary Lefthook sprang bodily towards the Arkansas border, more or less staying upon the tarmacked line of road that went by the name of Interstate 83.2, or "The Tagliatelle Ba…

I hadn't quite expected Neptune to escalate quite so dramatically. Perhaps the great ship-of-the-line had already been in the area, perhaps the captain owed favours. Either way, we needed to get out.

Ryle squinted at the slowly banking silhouette.

"We c…

This laptop has served me well over the past few years, ever since I picked it up from the on-campus IT store. This makes it all the more depressing when I manage to break it.

I don't know how I did it, exactly, but a piece of plastic that shouldn't exis…

"Telemetry from the probe has been parsed and analyzed, Captain," Lady responds. The ship's voice is a soothing alto, designed to accommodate for the crew as they recover. "The data has already been uploaded to your stations and synced with your datapad…

There was shouting behind us, and the sound of hooves on cobbles.

Ryle held a hand to the window. Two fingers. Pause. Five fingers. Five fingers.

Two horsemen. Kill them. Ten seconds to shot window.

I knelt down in the coach, loading the rifle with …

The old man wasn't the only person in the van. In the driver's compartment, Trinity Keane switched between police stations. The content was almost entirely banal - robberies, traffic, drug possession, et cetera - but now and then, the interesting happened…

There's no experience quite like it.

The rush of being free...

...

She'd done it. She'd actually done it. That lingering pressure in the back of her mind-- gone. She didn't have to worry about the fight being worth it anymore, because it was.

...

Ri…

There are no sensory nerves in your brain; you cannot see, feel, smell, hear, or taste anything that goes on there. By the time you first became aware of the Story, it had already insinuated its tentacles throughout your brain and it was far too late for …

I had to go, I could not take him with me. I left him in his cage.

Something happened. It happened almost too fast to react to it. As I drive down the freeway, I think about him. I left Oscar in the care of a friend, even though I knew my friend was not …

I've been straining to stretch my smile

clenching my cheeks along with my teeth

as sweat soaks my smooth armpits

and my straight spine begins to spasm

-

exhausting myself to keep my comfortable life

of useless meetings and endless paperwork

as I content…

There's a joy in anticipation, you know? In already composing the email response you're hoping for before you even open your laptop at the diner?

I've sent off hundreds of pieces for publication before. My poems and essays and shorts are scattered ac…

It had been fourteen days five months and one year since her last Ficlatté. She'd nearly forgotten how to write one. Most pieces she had been writing were Tweet length, capturing and enrapturing a new audience. Then there was the collection of short stori…

"Take care of her, Woost," said the faerie, lifting off from the pillow and flitting to the window. "She's important in ways only she will be able to understand."

"I will be the very air she breathes," the elemental promised.

"I know you will." And then…

The calendar says today is the first day of fall. The pumpkin candle in my office says that leaves will soon turn orange and red. Pumpkins will be carved. Sweaters will be worn. The temperature will drop. The world will become cozy once more.

But as…

They strolled into the mess hall nonchalantly in dress blacks that had the exact opposite effect of their understated design. The crowd opened up for them, the same thought flashing through the entire room.

The corporation's special forces were the stuff…

The snow blew violently in my face and tried to lift the hood of my coat off my stocking capped head. The dog pulled on his leash and jogged to the nearest tree trunk, forcing his owner, me, to jog behind him. He lifted his leg and marked the base of the …

ME: Hey, I heard that Karl Urban, the actor who plays Dr. McCoy in the new Star Trek films, is the twin brother of Kieth Urban, the singer. That's pretty amazing!

NEIL: Oh, for Pete's sake, Joan, you can't believe everything you read! That's just an Urban…