The Northway came to one of the huge flowing ramps that took foot traffic across different levels and the Assistant Governor stepped up, the checkpoints waving him through.

They were into the upper levels now, the Northway noticeably cleaner and better…

Parents are experts at passive aggressive behavior. Take my job, for example. I deal with students.

One such parent is actually a grandparent. The grandmother does not approve of who the mother is dating, so she refuses to babysit the student, nor the st…

Before she could challenge him, he spoke. Quietly, but firmly.

"Take care with your weapon, swordmaiden. It is more than you know, and less. Much has been forgotten about those that drew it and its kin from the forges, but what survives is enough to trou…

Merall smiled briefly, letting Deravell's stories of bloodlust and corruption of the spirit slip back into the lower reaches of his memory. She need not know, and at any rate they were only stories. Only the librarians in the Lower Archives and the other …

The satellites.

They should have known when they launched them, battalions at a time. Everything was mathematically planned. No collisions, no crossing paths or degrading orbits. Full coverage. But the little mirrors grew so numerous as to first double t…

In Retrospect

I should have shut my mouth

I should have stopped before

the truth slipped out

In Retrospect

it did nothing to heal me

I'm still broken inside

only now you are, too

In Retrospect

Maybe you aren't broken

Your flaw is that you ignore my

rant…

Story is marked as mature

Story is marked as mature

I pushed open the doors, straining my back a little, and with a creak they parted. They were thick, old and heavily lacquered, and smelled of wood smoke. The sunlight from behind me inserted itself into the hall like a surgical tool, revealing the neglect…

Story is marked as mature

Judgement was still and silent. The weapon was possessed of a long and storied history; as with any that know of the past, it knew to listen as well as speak. It did so now, with a patient devotion to detail - in Orthael's despondence Judgement absorbed t…

I'm a monster. Born of rage, that primordial scream from birth hovers at the edge of my consciousness and beats against my vision like wind-blown torrents of rain against a windshield. Some days it's all I can do to keep lips that peel away from my teeth …

The chanting turned to screams without warning. The small party exchanged panicked glances, unknowing and uncertain. The man himself shrugged in a quietly resigned manner.

"I know nothing, gentlemen, but you should not be surprised that your regime chang…

Every time I thought about her I wanted to fight her. Just a snapshot of her gorgeous eyes made me want to pluck them out. How perfectly white would her teeth be knocked out on the floor?

In sick fascination I tracked her movements. I was a huntress and …

It had been fourteen days. The painting was gone and with it my heart. Authored by an amateur it had meant more to me than any museum in the world. Each day that passed felt like a relentless excavation into my chest, letting in the outside ice and snow t…

They found the Governor waiting patiently in his office. He was staring out at the gathered crowds, but turned to face them when they came through the doors. Gareth, who had been the Foundry 2 foreman, swore up and down that he had seen a sneer of contemp…

My new apartment felt like it was part of my old neighborhood. The details differed, of course. A Mexi-mart instead of a 7-11 on the corner. Out front, Carson Street stretched out instead of Fallon Street. But sometimes new streets shared the same faces, …

The legion is probably on its way here so we should be getting a move on or a broken space ship will be the least of our problems.

The aliens had made their purpose clear upon first contact and they were not happy with our showing up unannounced despite …

"Why won't you go to the wedding?" asked the sister of the groom, with an accusatory tone.

"It would be awkward for me."

"What about HIM?! His best friend not there??"

"I'm a GIRL. I can't go to the bachelor party."

"Go to the bachelorette party," she sai…

You've been my faithful companion for so long I can't imagine.....

Not feeling

your sticky sweetness in my mouth

your crooked teeth grazing my ear

your constant whispers

and sweaty skin

always accompanied by a shiver racing down my spine

-

To cup my heav…

You come home and find me sitting here

And ask how my day is going

Acting as though I have open ears

And nothing better to be knowing

Than all about you

And all that you do

I'm the one who nags about your mess

Even though you never listen

I give more, y…

She walks through a crowded plaza, a beacon of sultry beauty. She is temptation incarnate, a temptress with but one goal. She moves slowly, exulting in the wandering eyes of the men and not a few of the women. Many crave her. Others hate her. Still more c…

"A stinkin' Drow!" Moira growled in a tone steeped with racial resentment, "Ye brought a black elf into this place of sanctuary!"

"Calm yourself, Moira" Selura urged, "You can not hold this child responsible for the deeds of his kin. Besides, I think t…

I had been there working on the same sentence for an hour when she slid into the booth across from me.

Her smile commanded my attention like I was a ship lost in a storm and she the guide light from a light house. Delightfully, I could see a garden of wh…

I made no reply, although I allowed a vague smile to suffuse my features. A few images made their way through my thoughts in stutters of memory.

A fellow Four Peaks recruit, her golden hair flowing over an immaculate dress uniform - our courtship ended …