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, …

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…

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 …

"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…

Story is marked as mature

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 …

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…

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 …

All of our moments captured in song

All that we were has now become wrong

I will remember and we will be ever

A moment in time which has now become never

June, July, August, October, September,

Remember, remember, sixteenth of November

As was his custom, Orthael watched the life of Trien go about before him while he thought about Malika's questions. The baker haggled with a farmer for a box of vegetables, a thatcher pushed a cart of straw and ladders past them, and at the edge of his vi…

After the service was over, Orthael sat next to the swordmaiden on the grass and looked out into an overcast morn. He waited a while in silence, but in the end he broke it with a sigh.

"Varenniel's Candle should be lit, swordmaiden, but it sputtered when…

"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…

Orthael was pleased by the turnout. A few parishioners had come to introduce themselves and give their requests before the start, which he had made careful note of. Herrin had done well with the reading, and then he asked the collected faithful to bow the…

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…

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 …

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…

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…

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 …

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…

I breathed her in.

A storm of quicksilver lightning, and winds so cold they burned hot, rushed into me, consuming me. Trapped with pulsing, unchecked energy, I was helpless as a terrible violence expanded in my chest, rising to my head. This was her whir…

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…

“Your hair looks nice.”

It slipped out of his mouth into real space. What had he done? Stupid, stupid, stupid! He tried to throw his headphones back on and lower his eyes before she felt the need to respond. One of the fat black ear cushions fell off an…

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…

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…