I don't understand. I must be going crazy. My heart is pounding so hard, I'm sure everyone in the restaurant can hear it. I have a million questions running through my head.

"How?" is all I can get out.

She smiles at me. A smile that has brightened my l…

No more the bleary wake to chimes, the racing heart, the fight for time

No more the early morning smile, the secret kiss, the frozen tile

No more the bitter triumph felt at closing of all business dealt

No more the daylight tryst or walk, or waiting for a…

I stood on the back deck, looking into the trees. In the silence, the outdoor world was alive with bird twitterings, squirrels frolicking, and busy ants when you looked close enough.

"Oh, here you are!" called Everett. "What are you doing out here? The p…

I stretched out, hand reaching languidly for the sun. I wanted to pluck the bright golden ball from the sea of blue and cup it in my hands. Having just woken up, for a moment I was a child again. And in that in-between of dream and wakefulness, reality s…

Being adrift in space in a rescue pod is freaking scary. First, you just lost your HOME in space in some disaster, all your stuff, everything that kept you alive. Second, you were floating out there after you ran out of fuel sending a distress signal out …

Piles of sparkly litter are all that remain of the gifts that are never good enough

The bittersweet scents of home saturate overdone hair and deliberately ugly sweaters

Sugar substitutes for joy as we cheat and plan to widen our waistlines

-

Clenched tee…

No amount of wishing would give us the time we wanted: we turned, at last, onto an avenue that was as familiar as my favourite book. I could have closed my eyes and counted the paces to her apartment block, even in the soft patter of rain.

She paused at …

"HELP! Help! Help...."

There is nothing you can do for whoever was calling out. It's probably too late already. You never realized that you weren't alone in that building.

Feeling obscurely guilty, you stumble to your feet and move away from the rema…

She had first seen him in the ruins in Berlin, trailing Sadie's point man. His power, dimmed in the course of day, still cast hard shadows outside her position. She dropped down silently behind him in an explosion of magic, the ordinary stillness of the w…

A

Apple

(Sounds like) Orangutan

Monkey

Apes?

Jeff Corwin

Celebrities

Cooking stars

Chopped

Guillotine

Execution

French Revolution

Armies

Three musketeers

Movie

Disney

Mickey

Goofy

Pluto

Planet

Dwarf planet

Cognizant planet

Bullied planet

Unstable planet

D…

Beckton applied pressure to the wound through Newkirk's wadded-up coat, leaning in and using both hands. His attempts were met with no success, even after Silvertown joined him.

A noise came from behind, a rhythmic thump of boots against a wooden floor. …

We spotted dozens of other traps as we progressed, avoiding each with ease. They were not well hidden, seeming to be laid more as an annoyance than as to be any genuine threat. And yet we took no chances. We treated each one as potentially lethal, until f…

The floor leveled out and opened up into a cavernous space. We held our lanterns aloft, as high above our heads as we could manage, but even so there was not enough light to chase away the inky blackness. In the shadows around us we could hear things movi…

Sleep... eludes me.

I am not the master of my own time.

Events occur around me, unbidden, unwilled. Control is an illusion.

Do not believe, children. Do not believe what your elders taught you. You exist only as an instrument of entropy, your will is not…

I watch the paramedics work. They’re trying so hard. I can’t see who they’re working on, but they’re determined.

I try to recall what happened. Everything flashes by in a blur. The party. Taking the keys from Tom. Driving him home.

We started arguing. I…

I think it was the protractor that first caught my attention. Not many of my team of friends in the Roleplayers' Club are that engrossed in nostalgia for where they come from, as it's so much better here. And those who do keep souvenirs with them usuall…

I knew no matter how I dressed I would find a way to regret it, so I chose comfort, since that was the one thing which would be in short supply.

And right I was, after a quiet greeting, from the moment I was admitted into the foyer and we walked along the…

Nellis Air Station was our first stop, the closest site to Yucca Mountain with the facilities to handle our transport plane and the little half-squadron of robotic deathbirds that had followed us.

Now we were cruising over the Las Vegas suburbs, stuffed …

There are times like this when I feel you've drifted so far away that I don't know you anymore. The disconnect is so complete that I can't guess what you are doing right now. Your schedule and mine no longer sync up, our timelines are separated, and histo…

Story is marked as mature

Lenn poured soup into the thermos lid that doubled as a cup. “I guess we'll start with broth first. All the good stuff is staying at the bottom.”

Liv wrapped both hands around the proffered cup and sipped. Lenn took to the other side of the bed causing i…

Astarlane emerged into her safeguarded mental space instantly, watching in third person as Tenever caught her body in physical space and lowered her to the floor with what she thought was unnecessary gentleness.

She barely avoided jumping when there was …

Sad, I picture myself cutting the sugary crust with my stainless steel fork. When it cracked apart there'd be a sharp sound of metal against porcelain. The crust, dark brown seeping to deep red, is softer, gooey, nearby.

There is a ring of pineapple again…

At the restaurant, I sat across from him, fidgeting with my straw wrapper. What was I supposed to say to him? Up until five minutes before, I had never even seen him in person. He was just a name in my phone contacts, a person I'd texted a few times ea…

"Is it correct that those present are only: Lieutenant Georgia Whitmore and Chief Petty Officer Boris Nenashev?"

I tapped "yes" on the onscreen prompt.

A synthetic voice began reading along as further text appeared.

"Voice interface authorized. Lt. Whi…