"Shoot me," she screamed.

He did.

........................

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…

The storm was rising, fine red dust obscuring everything, but I checked my compass one last time before spotting Building Arrethe just ahead. The combination of night-vision and rubber gloves made me clumsy and slow, but it was better than the alternative…

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…

Story is marked as mature

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, …

Jorge stretched out his legs until his joints popped. He sighed as he relieved pressure he hadn't consciously felt. It was hard not to fidget on the plastic-y surface of the reclining chair. The rest of the room was antiseptically boring, so sterile it ma…

F sat there, in that uncomfortable position, half-leaning on the windowsill, still gazing outside. It took her a while to notice the tears on her cheeks. Myriad raindrops appeared under a street light, to be illuminated briefly before disappearing again. …

I have erred.

Jeopardised my mission in a way I haven't for so very long. Cleaned it as well as I could, didn't I?

I did.

Yes I did.

No matter - they will find it, with their crime scene specialists and their Luminol and their databases and their traine…

Nothing.

A vast expanse of unknowable darkness.

I saw it. My feet may have even dangled towards its embrace. Tiny shards, the whole of my heart broken long ago, tumbled easily down the well. Perhaps I should have grasped for them. Perhaps they will …

He can see her there, standing just on the other side of the glass. She's next to him, of course, there but not here. He can reach out with a hand and touch her shoulder. She smiles at him. Warm. Affectionate. But also sad. Because he is not truly there. …

I don't know me now but I remember what I used to be. I was one of them, a super. Notice that I didn't say hero, though some people certainly thought of me as one. I was the Operator, named after the switchboard connectors of the first half of the twent…

The cold in her shoulder withdrew. Malika hadn't even been aware of it until it was gone, but it eased some of the pain from her injury.

Some of the darkness from the Greater Dead leeched into your body when you struck it, Morduth said. It seeped in m…

Mistress. Morduth's voice whispered into Malika's mind. It seemed distant, far away, echoing far back in the recesses of her consciousness. It was odd hearing him like that. Before its voice had always been so strong, so vivid.

But that was before. Bef…

Polishing her well-fingered nails against a strip of garish colored sandpaper above the visor, Ossie tromped her best L'Oeil and went gangbusters, head for leather, on her hurtling passage of Rite. She would need no rite aid today!

Bucksnifter Lentilsgree…

A wholly imaginary girl appeared at the end of his desk as he typed. His mind immediately jumped to the word "girl" but she was in fact a "woman," by any real definition. He had just always thought of her as youth personified. A late teen for all eternity…

Story is marked as mature

Raised voices from inside greeted his booted arrival announcement, but it took him a few seconds to realize that somehow no-one seemed to have heard him.

Grims paused, halfway up the porch steps, one foot raised - a pointer-dog parody.

Grims listened.

“W…

"This is Tonto. Anyone receiving, over?"

"Tonto, this is Sundance. Good to hear someone else on this freq, over."

"Likewise, Sundance. We're headed to Fort Benning to regroup. You have any news?"

"We're from Benning. The whole place is gone."

"..."

"…

Sheriff Briggs eyed the man leaning against the dark Chevy. The pocket of tobacco in his lip had started to sour. "Been round here long?"

"Nope, just passing through."

"Hunting?"

"Nah. Wouldn't know what to do with a deer if I caught it. Hate to waste …

When I try to picture a faultless face

I see smooth marble curving easily over defined musculature

The epitome of beauty, of strength

and I long to hold that perfect promise against my weathered features

But when my fingers reach that unmarred surface…

I saw you walking yesterday

The sun setting on your back

And as you ventured on your way

I noticed a lightness to your step

A happiness to your demeanor

Your strides were long and true

Not seeing where you were going

Or who you were walking to

Then I re…

I have suffered brutal betrayals these past months, betrayals no one should have to endure. I have wept and bled and fought and clung to life by any excuse I have been able to find.

I have endured betrayals of the mind and body. Depression. Anxiety. Para…

The old crone shuffled along the stacks of Building Ashrack, in no hurry to arrive at her destination. She looked at none of the row letterings, having no need for such things. She had been here many times, and she would be here many more times after. Alw…

Captain Adriana Milosovic felt the deck tremble beneath her feet. It was subtle, barely even there at all, and yet it was enough that her senses came to high alert. She glanced around the bridge at her crew, but they were all engaged in their own tasks. N…