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…

She sighed. Exhausted. Exasperated. Emotionally drained. More than a little demoralized.

And yet. All this and yet she was alive. She was both physically and mentally here. Not absent. Not somewhere else.

She was capable of listening. Of feeling.

Or at…

Story is marked as mature

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…

Jennifer waited expectantly for an answer while staring at her phone. Her mum had warned her about talking to strangers on the internet but it was 2018 and the world was far more connected than ever before. Besides it wasn't like she had given her number …

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…

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…

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 …

I stood squinting up at the main mast. It was clear sailing and I saw Lookout Lenny in the galley. That meant the crow's nest was empty. I checked over my shoulders and gripped the shroud. I always wanted to do this. The crew did it all the time.

I eased…

There are experiences and ideas that we have as children that are vivid and real. Some stick with us for a while before we shed them like dead skin cells. Others live within us dormant; lurking. In my neighborhood, every kid's parents warned us not to go …

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…

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…

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…

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 …

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…

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…

"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…

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. …

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.

"Ain't natural, Karl."

"'Course not."

"Fog's 'sposed to burn up in sunlight, not pile up against the edge of a man's property like it's beatin' on a wall."

"Ever'body knows that, Carl."

"Yeah? Well somebody 'parently forgot to tell ol' man Hemp. Ain't n…

“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…