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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 …

You wait, but there are no lights. The elevator doesn't seem to be working, and you can't stand to wait any more. You get moving.

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 …

Nervous but needing to do something a bit dangerous, you decide to take the fire extinguisher off its hook and carry it with you. But where will you go? Back to the window, or to the end of the hallway ...the one with the classrooms to one side and th…

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…

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…

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…

"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…

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…

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. …

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 …

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…

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…

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…

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…

Story is marked as mature

"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…

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…

“My names Lennart Larsson. I'm looking for the occupant of 163 C.”

“Goddamnit, Lenny.” A disgusted voice said.

Lenn's gut twisted. The voice belonged to Liv's brother, Ruger. What was he doing here? He didn't even live in Japan. Still, he rallied gamely…