There are comedies, there are tragedies, and there is Fate - who enjoys a laugh as much as the next man, and has a lot more power to make it happen.

That, and a sort of quiet fuming, was what was on my mind when I stepped out onto the glass concourse. I …

Story is marked as mature

There's a little girl that peeks her head out the doors. For a second she almost looked like Viv and I bite my tongue from calling out to her. A woman joins the girl and she looks like she's yelling to someone behind her.

I hear teeth gnashing behind me …

I don't sleep with the lights off, anymore.

A little over a year ago, I worked as night security at a psychiatric institute. There was one guy who would freak out if the lights were off. On nights when I was on my own doing a walk-around, I would stop by…

Ryle stepped over the broken bodies littering the floor in order to retrieve the knives.

"Ryle, do you ever think about the men you've killed?"

He didn't answer immediately, instead choosing to wipe down the hard black blades with the edge of the dead m…

Isn't it funny how things you do in your youth come back to bite you? What is it the New Agers call it?

Karma! That's it.

Like when you're a teenager, and you hit-and-run someone's car. Then, as an adult, some kid slams into the new car you just bought,…

Smoky morning eyes made the light blur,

but I knew where I was.

I was home.

I woke just before she left,

just before she came to gently shake me

to tell me goodbye and

that she loved me

and that she'd be back in the evening.

The holes in my socks and ne…

I broke the mountains majesty

To get beneath her skin

To show the truth of buried beauty

And the gold that lies within

-

But she wont thank me for my effort

For she does not understand

How her pain could be called “progress”

And her rape could have been p…

I stare at the picture a few seconds longer. Anyone else would just think it's another ghetto teen couple in cheap Hawaiin garb in the middle of a dirty city.

A grin spreads across my face. She's hideous in her coconut bra and grass skirt.

He's lost all…

Sigh. Scream. Cry. Maybe wordlessly, certainly breathlessly. My jaw is locked, my lungs crunched up like paper bags. My fingers dropped off one by one. By rights, my brain should have shut down too.

And yet it moves.

Matter in motion. And a universe wit…

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…

Sun up, tools down for the day, it was a good time for a walk through the oaks. A learned man might sink down with a book, but a man of little learning who needs to settle his thoughts must leave that job to nature.

He took a leak against a tree. The st…

She wasn't the prettiest girl that he knew, or even the kindest. She plied her razor tongue on the "stick insects" and "puffed up princesses" that he had crushed on and asked out and been dumped by. But she had a sharp and hard morality that left her appa…

Aery Bergun was a soaring construction braced against two sides of a narrow canyon. An arch constructed out of huge lumber spars spanned and supported the width of the Aery, which looked more and more precarious as the Silver Skies made its approach.

I…

It was the captain.

"Captain. What a pleasant surprise."

"Quite so. There is a communication for you, monsieur. My communications officer tells me that it is addressed to your good self."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Monsieur."

"Yes?"

"You are not going t…

The Silver Skies was surprisingly spacious, for a clipper. Wooden crates lined two cargo bays in the side of the ship, while a larger stern bay housed two launches and the larger items of cargo.

"The captain would like to apologise for the mess," the f…

Ryle handed the reins to the head butler, nodding, and we rolled off the coach at the next available turning. The evening was well advanced, and it was a simple matter to merge into the deepening shadows.

The Silver Skies was hardly a difficult ship to…

It's the strangest thing.

My dog, a little Pekingese cross I got about a month ago, isn't eating. I've tried everything to get him to eat, but nothing I try works. Dry food, wet food, he just turns up his nose. In the last three weeks, I've bought over $…

There was shouting behind us, and the sound of hooves on cobbles.

Ryle held a hand to the window. Two fingers. Pause. Five fingers. Five fingers.

Two horsemen. Kill them. Ten seconds to shot window.

I knelt down in the coach, loading the rifle with …

"Excuse me, little boy." Tommy jumped at the sound. He thought he was alone in the backyard. He turned around, seeing a large, heavy set old man behind him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you," the old man said, smiling.

Tommy looked over his shou…

Cerian was silent while the coach spun silently towards the dock structures. She was pale and expressionless, and watched me carefully as I wiped off the knife.

"So this is who you are, now."

I sensed the many layers to this not-quite-statement, and hes…

The coach receded into the night. Heartbeat slowing from its frantic pace, I suddenly felt the weariness of the day settle onto my shoulders at last. I had been granted a reprieve at Master Lorenz's knock, and no more.

It's a silly dream, I told myself…

We were stopped at the huge dockyards where wooden crates lay waiting to leave on outbound airships. Three men, wearing the royal hawk on their jackets. One respectfully bowed as Cerian lowered the window.

"We're sorry to trouble you, ma'am, but there ha…

"Illy, at the airship docks there is a clipper by the name of Silver Skies. Captain Jerem is taking a package to some friends of mine in the Raventops, and leaves very soon."

I nodded, frowning. The only friend she had out there would have to be the de…

"It's only a scratch." She says, and she stumbles. We both know that's not true, since we both are aware of what a head wound can do.

She inspects him, and I know she's trying to find any claw marks or bites that punctured skin. If the mutants came into …