Her faded blue jeans--faded through use, not by chemicals at a factory--seemed to be slit into strips by the oranging sunlight as she crept across the bathroom floor, sticking to the mat and the towel on the floor, wincing at every creak of the old wooden…

I took pity on Ryle and spun the paper at him, watching him catch it idly with his left hand.

On it were three words in the butler's formal lettering and one in my sister's tall, elegant script. The butler's words were simple - an abbreviated version of …

I heard someone clear their throat immediately behind me. Looking over my shoulder as I grabbed a book out of the top of my locker I saw the long hair and striking blue eyes of a stranger. I only recognized her because she was friends with HER.

"It's rea…

Happiness is.

Not a moment,

but collective feeling.

You can't pick it up,

unless it has a heartbeat.

You can't define it, because

it is ever-changing.

It's a feeling that comes when you close your eyes

and receive a kiss unexpectedly.

It is also a box wi…

My body’s health is better, while my mental health is worse

If that’s a joke, I don’t feel quite amused

It feels as if there’s just no way for me to lift this curse

No matter what I do, I’m still confused

Withdrawing, I’m withdrawing from the ways I hurt…

CRACK! CRACK!

No sooner than the pair behind Hraz reached for him did a rock catch each of them across their foreheads.

Suddenly on alert, the leader of the slavers spun about, only to be met at the waste by two hundred pounds of flying dwarf. Acting …

"Well then! I suppose introductions are in order!"

"Me name's Therin Ironhammer," the dark-skinned dwarf continued, "And the people of this city take less kindly te me kin than they do te yers, ain't no goodly Duergar goin' round looking out fer people…

"'Ere, boy!"

Hraz turned to see a trio of men approaching from the direction of the orphanage.

"Were you in that fire?", the middle man asked, "Look at you, all covered in soot, people will go gettin' the wrong impression, think you 'ad somethin' to d…

Why am I tied to the bed?

Why does my crotch hurt so much?

And why is the dog wearing bloody surgical scrubs and laughing?

Hi. After storm and stress, I find

I can't do much right now

But wag my cursor back and forth

And watch the progress bar.

The screen's still in a foreign tongue:

I have to guess its meaning,

But hopefully my mind will work

After repair and cleaning.

My …

The mindspace they entered was completely dark. Astarlane and Tenever closed ranks instinctively, tracing each other by footsteps until, with a soft collision, they were back-to-back. Astarlane drew her sword, the action mirrored by Tenever's sidearm risi…

And then I saw her, the face I'd been hoping to find ever since arriving in the country. I had arrived at the airport and, walking down those stairs, I caught a scent in the air, and I knew she would be here, somewhere, probably in a crowd of people. The …

What Lord Shillingsly didn't realize was the magnitude of the gift he was to give to her in exchange for her silence. Arnold was a sure thing; no doubt of that. But when Lady Enid showed her the photorealistic scans of his date with the flower girl as an …

To me, she wasn't just from this place, she was the place. I met her gaze when we stood face to face, her peering up at my ball cap and sunglasses, squinting in the sun, and she smiled. Her various teeth shone in the shadow of my body, and I knew that w…

It is indeed a special, ineffable moment when a movie director falls hopelessly in love, but when I found her, my own scene clicked into place and its unearthly beauty seized me. Such is the power that an extra can play in just that kind of crowd scene. A…

Astarlane glanced away as Tenever broke his connection to the Lux Aeterna. She could see him from the corner of her vision, his flesh merely a cloak wrapped around a flare of primordial light summoned by his spirit.

Something deep within her own self res…

Leaving Kabura to finish clearing away their archery session, Taka gently scooped up the wounded woodland creature and examined the wound. The kit was losing quite a bit of blood, but the wound wasn't too deep. She'd read about this sort of thing. The wou…

The pair returned to their dojos and their studies, though they resolved to increase the frequency of their visits to one another, now meeting up almost every week, not to let so small a distance come between this new and exciting romance.

They each love…

The day after Keneya parted, the bullies returned to teasing Taka. They jeered at her, and they threw their stones. But Taka didn't fall. She didn't cry or scream or flee. Timid, shy, antisocial Tamori Taka, the freak cursed by misfortune turned and fixed…

Taka loved her time at the Tamori dojo. Wearing the strip of cloth her mother had given her about her eye, she was able to avoid the torments of her past life, and enjoy her lessons.

She learnt to commune with the kami, to wield the divine magics they co…

Almost the moment Mirumoto Keshintai entered the village, she found herself ambushed by a deep hug from a very excitable young Tamori girl.

The friends spent the better part of a day catching up, before Taka finally relented and let Keshintai spend some …

The rest of the year passed fairly uneventfully. The bullies were defeated thanks to Keneya's advice, and as an added benefit of the battle maiden's visit and subsequent victory, Taka was able to overcome her sorrow. She returned to reading once more, and…

"Haha, you're a natural! You were born with a horse between your legs!" Keneya commended Taka, "You'd fit in with the Unicorn, for sure."

Taka beamed at the ecomplements, "Oh, it's not all that. Kaze is an incredibly intelligent horse, I didn't need to d…

Nightly, he would walk home from work. John hoped and waited in his secret heart to see the sun break from the horizon to end his everynight.

It was almost as if the sun was hiding from him. He stopped along the sidewalk and turned to the eastern skies.

N…

The characteristic blaze of diffused hyperexplosive munitions lit up the horizon, prompting the survivors to rouse themselves. No-one deployed such weaponry without some kind of combined arms operation, and sure enough a second wave of conventional stando…