"I ask you again," Malika said. "Who be you, and how be it you come to be here, just at this very moment? Be you a final test, holy man or not, to confirm my resolve, to baptize me in the fire of purification against the forces of Ashmar?" She could feel …

Crush fresh melancholy with a pestle dusted with self doubt until a paste forms. If paste is too watery, add more self doubt until desired consistency.

In a small bowl, whisk your favorite sad melodies vinaigrette with two handfuls of uninterrupted time.…

Story is marked as mature

The old crone shuffled along the stacks of Building Ashrack, in no hurry to arrive at her destination. She looked at none of the row letterings, having no need for such things. She had been here many times, and she would be here many more times after. Alw…

Anthony blinked a couple times, hard enough that fireworks of white light appeared across the dark space of the inside of his eyelids. He'd read the same sentence four times and he was still stumbling across the words like he'd never seen them before. He …

The little girl entered the forest, armed with nothing but her courage, her grim determination, and the rusty sword strapped to her back. There were monsters in those woods - she could hear their howls, their cries to one another - but she was not afraid.…

The forest lay in perfect stillness around her, the bodies of the beasts she had slain strewn haphazardly all about. She stood, head tilted forward, listening for the next attack. It never came. She held the sword aloft, the blue raging flames towering ov…

"I can't get back to the tunnels. We have to find a place to crash." Hard Drive said when the top sealed over the convertible. He made a few hard turns, zig zagging through town to try and lose the last drone. It crashed into the side of a building with a…

I carried my father's post on my left shoulder as I walked back to the front of the property. I took care to avoid the golden post, though I knew it would not harm me. It was merely an omen, a message from the gods, but it was better not to tempt fate. In…

Each spadeful of dirt opened the earth a little further. It never seemed like much but it added up bit by bit. It always felt like it took forever. Patrick had lost count in the eighties at least three times. His mind was slow now. He supposed this kind o…

"Hey," came a less than confident voice, "How about you stop, or else...you know...the fighting, and stuff."

Three surly thugs looked from their would be victim, a timid businessman, to see a lone figure clad in impossible armor standing under the street…

Grosser looked away. Averting his eyes didn't help. It didn't stop Marnie from flinging his accusations at poor Julia. The woman had seemed near a breakdown after the expedition's second night.

“Where did it go? What did you do with it? Cause I'm damn s…

I can see the stars, but I don't have the fuel.

My trajectory is set, but I'm gazing off to the side.

I'm going somewhere, but not where I'm looking.

The possibilities are limitless, but my choices finite.

I started too early, and I'll be too late.

W…

It's one of those mornings--an anything-is-better-than-pretending-to-sleep-while-I-actually-just-worry sort of morning.

It's the third morning of its kind this week. I'll be into work two hours early. Again.

I've flipped through the radio stations, a…

The guard in front of the incubator chamber checked Alan's ID carefully, moving it to see the holograms dance. Mother as always hired the best. For herself.

“Sorry for your loss,” the guard said.

“She'll be back soon,” Alan replied, staring at the seedp…

Onwards and forwards, path guided by faith, Orthael strode on. He did not see where his feet fell, he did not know where the end of his journey lay, he did not drive the weapon that tugged him onwards on its lethal dance. The golden light at the tip of th…

With a speed and grace divine, Orthael spun to receive the blow to his shield. His foe held close, as if embracing a lover, hissing wildly.

The shadow was humanoid like its puppets, for it too had once been a man. It was a flickering silhouette of a thin…

It's so frustrating not knowing why things are the way the are. I'm on a familiar street. I think it's my own but it's hard to tell. It looks and feels like I should know it but there is no sense of recognition. It's night time and the street is dark, alm…

Chaz raises the weapon he holds in his left hand. He can feel the Weight of it dragging his arm back toward the earth, but it is that very same Weight that allows him to wield the hand cannon at all. When he first claimed the Kraken, when he first held th…

"Not who you were expecting?"

The snake dropped from the branch, out of view before emerging mere heartbeats later - as a wolf. Its cold yellow eyes weighed heavily on Rahmi's neck.

"I doubt there are any other shape-shifters here, so I'd wager you are e…

Tamori Heru paced frantically. He hadn't slept in 36 hours. He wasn't aware of any birth taking this long in recent memory. His wife, Leneya, has been in labour for the past 27 hours, and Heru was starting to worry.

The door creaked ajar and the nursewif…

The last thing I remembered was driving . . . somewhere. Somewhere important. I think to meet somebody. Through one window, the rocky face of mountain frowned at me in slow motion. Through the other, the sea nodded in groups of white-capped heads that mur…

They come for you at night, you know that?

They come and they take you. They bring you to their ship or their lab. They put things inside you. Little machines. Little machines so that they can talk to you. Tell you things. Tell you that they are in contr…

I’m caught in a raging sea of should’s, helplessly flailing against the tide I've created. Through the roar of the sea, I hear his childish laugher. “Da…nny. Wh…hy. Danny.. Why...you?” I’m swept beneath the waves of regret…

It’s peaceful in this cold da…

"How do you kill an Empress?"

I steeled the muscles in my face, and let my eyes rest on the man's shoulders. If this turned into a trap, I would make sure to take him with me into the void. Leaning back, I wormed myself into the chair's thick cushions, l…