The diesel motor ran loud. It drowned out the rattling of the nearby chain link fence. The distant cars in the review mirror slid by noiselessly.

And still we waited.

The dry drone of the news complained of the usual terror attacks in other countries: a…

"... happy hunting, boys!"

I looked down in time to see the LAUNCHCON light flick from red to green. Lifting the safety cap off the switch below the tiny glow, I waited my customary three heartbeats and flipped it upwards.

The locking arms released us …

Klaxons. Klaxons everywhere. Truly this was it.

After months of combing through this enormous abandoned spaceship, we’ve all started to lose hope. But V’Ru kept pushing us, and she was right to do so. If we were to make any use of this monstrosity of a v…

"I am Togua, true leader of Avorhelis, and with this authority I banish Tyris from this city. His selfish acts have caused great devastation to our home. The direct deaths of dozens of citizens, as well as hundreds of injuries and damages are upon his hea…

Birds, hundreds of them, squawked and chirped in a frenzied cacophony. Bigger ones used their wings to violently bat against their cages. I'd never seen so many in one place, much less in doors. All manner of birds in cages lined the cavernous hallways fo…

"You should have let me kill the child, a kinder fate for all."

Heru looked down from the balcony, watching the toddler chase a fox.

"Except for our daughter, who would be dead, of course." Leneya would.

"Life is not so kind a fate, when marked by misf…

I'm trying to care less about what other people think of me: trying not to perpetually perform for an imagined audience, trying to forget all the invisible eyes on me.

4am in the dark lair of my study, two locked doors between my face and the world...

…

As I sat on the train to Atlanta, my mind was full of doubt. Not too long ago, this very train had taken him out of my life. Would I ever be able to find him again? What was I going to do in Atlanta? I wouldn't make a good recruit, but I didn't have any s…

Start with a knife, a tree, a candle, a corpse. Start with a dead bird and its dead feathers spread out about it, mites crawling across it.

Start with the spark of a match being struck; the brown honeycomb scraping, smudging phosphorous and chlorate toge…

Grey mist sails past his face, and it is enough to shake him from his reverie. His mind is sluggish, slow, as though he is awakening from a dream. Perhaps he is, but then he has woken into a nightmare.

He looks down at his hands, outstretched before him,…

This is a work of non-ficly-tion. Like a tenant who finds the locks changed on his return to the house he lived in for years, I came back to Ficly and couldn't get in. Last contribution, nine months ago. A gay pirate scene with a massive innuendo.

I blu…

There's a lot of junk out in space in orbit around the Earth.

Even though the crew of the Refuse Recovery 3, or RR3, a play on Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, had been out picking up space debris for 7 years, they'd never seen this before.

Frozen, every non-met…

She walks down the street in a red dress. Her long, black hair, emerald eyes, and pale skin catch me, even from across the street. How is it that no one else notices her?

She turns her head, looking directly at me. A smile, a wink, and I'm frozen in plac…

Dinner was spent silently chewing while the TV shared the latest in the attacks on the planet by the Croatone.

Father cleared his throat. "I think it is time we consider moving into the town bunker."

My Mother pushed the last of the season's peas around…

The doorbell chimed.

Confused, Mina rose from her chaise, disturbing her cat, who airily strode off to preen. She wasn't expecting anyone, nor any packages. Frowning to herself, she turned the deadbolt, twisted the knob lock, and slid the chain lock back…

Social situations were fraught with problems that invariably led to people getting hurt and so Bob went out only to get the necessities of life and was never out for long. He was also a hoarder. His residence was littered with the remnants of past meals n…

Matthews woke up, head flat against his desk, arm curled around a bottle of apricot brandy. It was the scream of the work whistle that did it.

Moving nothing but a shaking hand, as if it were the spider-hourglass emblem of his Ministry of Spies badge, he…

I woke up flat on my belly, a rocky and uneven ground pushing uncomfortably into my stomach. My body was stiff and cold. Just out of reach was a familiar meat cleaver, its handle rising out of a puddle.

The world seemed to be two places, overlapping echo…

You sometimes lost your way, but when you make it to a place like this, arriving without knowing how and why you arrived, you know you're not lost anymore. The air has an inimitable quality to itself, seemingly contained with the light of a day beginning …

A friendship gone

Forever lost

Indiscretion

Brought the Frost

So much in common

Yet years apart

So many differences

Lies of the heart

Deception takes on

Many forms

Resulting in

Abandoned norms

Out of sight

Not out of mind

Ease of pain

A Difficult fin…

"I know this sounds weird, but I really do love my husband."

"You love your best friend," the bartender argued. "There's some serious chemistry."

"Do you have children?" I asked her.

"Yeah. Two girls."

"Congrats. Do you love them both?"

"Yes, but kid…

Malika stepped back, spinning to her left as another creature lunged out of the darkness. The sword in her hand sang with need, and she swung it up in a swift, arcing motion, ramming it into the creature's chest. Its momentum as it slammed into her knocke…

I wanna write on fire.

Not with fire like a sparkler in the night.

Not like some imaginary, magical way of literally writing on a fleeting flame.

Writing with abandon, with freedom, with vigor; that's what I want.

No more tiredness, mental fogginess, …

Grims pulled the corpse of the kid from the post, allowing it to flop to the ground. There was no dignity in death, not that the Korpskys had any dignity in life, either. Once again he heaved the body over his shoulder and made his way among the weeds and…

I need to get my mind under control,

Or else I might not ever find success.

But when I try to focus, dread distress

Engulfs me. Like a damn’d, eternal soul,

I seem to see a future filled with fear

And torment, doomed to fail the friends I cherish.

My faul…