Story is marked as mature

Rain pelted the windshield of our station wagon and the wipers carried the water away in wide flat arcs. The radio was turned way down low until it was little more than a generic hum. Dad's fingers tapped the steering wheel as if he could still hear it. D…

Pressing into the mirror, I slid into shadow. Coldness suffused every cell of my body until the pain of freezing became numbness and unable to breathe, I drowned.

Ghostly presences, silent and eerie, faded in and out around me. Seeing details was hard, l…

I awoke with a start to noise from downstairs: a series of thumps punctuated by broken glass, as if someone had tipped out the contents of my liquor cabinet.

Throwing on my camisole, I slipped through my bedroom door and crept among the darkness of the u…

Red sunburned skin scored the rounded edges of my shoulder blades, along the outsides of my forearms, across the middle of my face and topped it off with a giant patch on my head where thinning hair had failed to protect my scalp from the sun. With a gene…

I stepped of the Rail and dropped down to street level. Anticipation quickened my steps. My presence triggered storefronts auto-advertisements causing neon signs to pop into view. Swatting off a nude model offering discount massages, I crossed a street gr…

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…

Darnell unclipped his laser torch and used the butt to tap on the door. He didn't hear anything. Pressing his helmet against it, he tried again. There was a hollow tonk tonk tonk but no answering sound.

He radioed Bach. “Been knocking and no answer, an…

Story is marked as mature

The wind picked up around me, growing denser as smoke from the burning city below infused it. Particulates filled the air with enough irritants to give my lungs a tickle without quite forcing me to cough. I worried about long-term exposure but the activit…

It's a nightmare to see you. If I catch a glimpse of you without warning, my heart gives a panicked lurch, like a frightened cat trying to bolt every which way at once. Yet I placed you on the face of my phone so that anytime I use it, I see you smiling, …

Descending down the stairs to the basement, I almost gagged on the overwhelming funk that permeated the air. It was the rank smell of a high school locker room just after summer practice; unwashed bodies and stale sweat.

The missing men's clothes lay sca…

When I woke, I found my body folded up around my stomach like a clam. That was where a hardening pearl of pain thundered, building pressure I couldn't ignore even while unconscious. My brain tried to get a sense of my surroundings at the same time as anot…

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…

Although the night was clear and cloud free, the streets were dark. A summer wind brought a refreshing coolness off the ocean and I stopped my midnight wanderings to lean against a building, letting the air wash over me. It was sweeter than expected, almo…

Rain poured down in thick sheets, dense enough to severely limit visibility. I couldn't see the enemy troops--not a single soldier, tanks, or mech--but I knew they were out there ever since my radar and communications equipment stopped chattering. The sto…

“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…

It's late and a thin, wispy fog has settled atop the streets. I don't know when it happened. Last I remembered, the sun was mid-set in a darkening sky. Now every street ended in a gray void. Did the fog creep in, floating like some otherworldly horror, or…

The second dream vanishes from memory the instant I wake up and stays gone for five hours. When it comes flooding back without warning, I lose all sense of place, trapped in the realization that I have dreamed about my ex again for the second time this we…

Messenger dings again, the three inside the bubble becoming a four.

She wants to talk and still I don't want to bother her. Because I love her and I know she doesn't love me. She's reaching out for the first time in years. I don't want to fail her but wh…

“Please. Go away.” Her voice was irritated.

“Nah, girl. I can't leave a sweet thing like you here all alone. There are wolves around, you know what I mean?” His voice was smooth, insistent, and sure.

I didn't know who he was but I knew her. She had been…

Stuck.

A blinking cursor mocked me from a blank screen. This writing thing wasn't going well. I wasn't ready to give up but the joy that once energized me was gone, replaced by a bitter numbness and a persistent sense of failure.

Motion at the door drew…

Two people had gone down in the attack by that white dog-like thing which had driven the five of us deeper into the caves.

The wild barking had ceased and we used the reprieve to catch our breath. Slinging my backpack around and I reached in to get a bot…

“Here.”

I barely caught the stranger's phone as he waded against the crowd flowing past us. “The password's zero five five seven, record everything that happens.” I rolled the phone over in my hands. Top of the line and brand new, it was a beauty, worth …

“How is this possible?” Marcela asked, her hand gripping the bare skin of the opposite shoulder and rubbing for warmth.

Here inside the house, it wasn't just cold, it was freezing. Every piece of furniture gleamed as sunlight from the open door ricochete…