What the River Leaves Behind
In the quiet Lowcountry of South Carolina, where tea-dark rivers wind beneath moss-draped oaks and memory lingers like humidity in the air, one woman begins to understand that survival is…[...]
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There Was a Wise Woman Who Talked to the Fish
The sun was just starting to set behind the hill, and the lightning bugs and mosquitos were rising from the grass. Magic and mayhem, delights and bites, coming at you…[...]
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The Hunger
The Hunger Laura’s body was there in the darkness, a pale outline in the dirt. My eyes overflowed with tears as I wrung my hands, wanting to touch her, wanting…[...]
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Asphalt and Ashes
"Remember, little one, the Earth will be angry.” Grandmother said, the wrinkles on her face like furrows in a farmer’s field, timeless eyes like the sea and the sky and…[...]
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The fourth sun
A constant humming filled the bar. It was a typical Saturday evening. “The Anchor Point” kept its promise.Sam stared into his glass. Ice turned into water. Water turned into whiskey.Ha,…[...]
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The Darkest Point of Night
Every bit of starlight we see is ancient. The night sky is a tapestry of twinkling relics flung across millions of lightyears, eons from when they first burned. Even after…[...]
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Is Anybody Out There?
Captain Paul Chalmers was woken by the sound of the proximity siren ripping through his skull. “What the fuck?” he murmured, opening his eyes to see the strips of lighting…[...]
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Make No Mistake
If you limit your actions in life to things nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much. - Lewis Carroll Bekky was a miracle to behold. She…[...]
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Quick Deaths
Kael armed the forbidden gas at 03:47 local time, fourteen minutes before the bakery ovens would have been lit.The standard harvest protocols glowed amber on the console beside it. Two…[...]
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The Scent of Burnt Sienna
The Scent of Burnt SiennaBy G. Raymond SmallCycle I:The Needle and the CanvasThe studio reeks of linseed oil and charcoal dust, A hollow ribcage of blackened beams and rust.Here, Tristan…[...]
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I remember those days
I remember la chanson the birds sang that day. The fallen leaves and all.I remember people talking about their days. the flight instructors who struck me the most, at least,…[...]
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your go-to café
have you travelled far far away and need to find your way back home, darling? this would be listed among the most humane situations, no need to be coy about…[...]
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Strange Fruit
Strange Fruit By Kailey Blount A tiny pot of water we can’t afford boils on the stove and steam puffs up in spits and sputters. I lean into the mist,…[...]
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Where the Stars Kept His Name
The Archive had no floor.Not truly.It only pretended to, the way grief did when given rituals and names.Beneath Theia’s boots, black glass reflected a universe suspended above and below her.…[...]
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Suitable Behavior
The years have passed, I kept some of the pictures of mom and dad. Their younger selves still smile at me inside the frame next to the stairs leading to…[...]
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Winter’s End
His eyes fluttered open and for a brief moment, he forgot who he was. A moment of respite, with neither pain nor anguish. The room was dark and he could…[...]
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We Will Call Her Hope
We Will Call Her Hope Command Deck, Exploration Cruiser Bridger, Deep Space, Star System ED-163Mission Day 2130230 ST (Ship Time)A billion kilometers from a star, spacetime trembled with a flash…[...]
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All the Best
“Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Pat-“ “No thank you, James,” the old man said. The room was just coming round. Yesterday’s air sucked out,…[...]
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Out-of-Body Experience
My body had failed but my brain still had so much more to accomplish. That’s why I’m in this predicament now. It has been 157 years since I’ve seen another…[...]
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Hoard to Death
“You know, I feel like we have this… incredible connection,” Gary says. He’s leaning across the table to reach for my hand. I settle for the tips of my fingers…[...]
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It Knows About the Brown Butter
The signal came in on a Thursday. Thursdays were mine. Reconstituted lentils in a foil pouch, one cup of coffee that tasted like hot drywall, the methane storms rolling across…[...]
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No Blue Butterfly
I saw a beautiful blue butterfly fluttering outside my window. I laughed, then cried. So the scientists were wrong, the worst scenario was wrong. The world was still intact. I…[...]
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Yet another Mars ticket
By 2142, Mars had become profitable.Priya and Ethan were sitting at their Martian desk, scrolling through the piled-up tickets. To improve efficiency, support staff had been relocated to Mars. Managers…[...]
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Eternal Explorers
Gennaro felt honored to be the Chief Science Officer on the Chrysalis for its maiden voyage. Their mission was to explore the Alpha Centauri system and to help set up…[...]
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From the brink
I had never known a darkness like this……….and this ‘muggy’ darkness would have an eeriness that would question your inner, and ‘never before used’ with such intensity, mental strength!I would,…[...]
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Coming Home
He gazed out across the vast landscape in front of him. The checkered fields of alternating green, yellow and black created a patchwork pattern of the new double-pronged rows of…[...]
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The Heartbeat in the Void
I haven’t spoken a word for three days. Not since I buried them. What would be the point? Alone in a room speaking to myself? Seems redundant. Then again, most…[...]
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Haint Blue Homecoming
By the time I turned off County Road 12, the kudzu had swallowed the mailbox whole. Green vines thick as rope curled around the post like something claiming a body.…[...]
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Hello, Eternity. I’m Isaac
A ship exited hyperspace in the middle of the starry seas of space. Frothing waves of nebulas crashed into black holes, schools of shooting stars dispersed as supernovas chased them,…[...]
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Luna’s Lunar Breakdown
Loneliness. It waxes and it wanes. I look around at all that I have. All of the moon is mine now. I had friends, but they turned into aliens. Since…[...]
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Astronaut’s Eyes
I’ve grown tired of seeing my reflection in the glass of my helmet, a stranger with her gaunt eyes and cracked lips staring back at me. At least I won’t…[...]
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Meeting in the Living Room
The air in the room was heavy with the scent of lilies and the collective weight of things left unsaid. Most of the guests wore black, a uniform of mourning…[...]
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Postnuclear Gothic
There’s two ways out of the valley and that’s north and south. If you had nothing much to carry and buckets of rope east and west would work, too, but…[...]
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Bite the Hand that Feeds
CW: Inspired by classic German Folktales, popularized by the Brothers Grimm. Nestled beneath the Arnsberg Castle on a spring afternoon, the Vehmic court was in session. The accused siblings, nervously…[...]
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Planetary Comet
Warning: Vague descriptions of gore/self-harm pertaining to the story. I could taste the light upon the walls. I could taste the purples and blues that trickled down from the moist…[...]
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A Sky Full of Stars
(This story contains suicide and strong language) I don’t remember how to look at the stars anymore. Looking at the stars may not be something you learn how to do,…[...]
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Synaesthesia
Synaesthesia The wind shrieked through the air on a cold, October night. The moon peeked in and out clouds, as if the argument that was about to unfold below was…[...]
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We’re Not Dead Yet
Caela Rhys entered the boardroom with her hands clenched into fists, the only betrayal of tension beneath a mask that remained unbroken. Emric Solen stood abruptly, every motion rehearsed and…[...]
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Still Human
Heilick sat down on the lumpy armchair, breathing a sigh of relief. He had been on his feet all day, doing recon in the Beta sector. He was sure he…[...]
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A Sky Full of Stars
(This story contains suicide and strong language) I don’t remember how to look at the stars anymore. Looking at the stars may not be something you learn how to do,…[...]
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Not My Story to Tell
It’s a funeral. I don’t know what else you want me to say about it. They all go the same way, don’t they? People are sad. They dress up, then…[...]
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He Believed in Everyone
The restaurant was called The Green Parlor because thirty years earlier a newspaper critic had praised the ferns near the entrance, and the owner, who trusted praise more than instinct,…[...]
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The Final Courtesy
The message arrived just after dinner. "She’s in critical condition. It’s only a matter of hours now." It sat there in the family group chat beneath old forwarded prayers and…[...]
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Blind Date With a Demon
The late afternoon light slanted across Columbus Circle, turning the stone edge of Central Park gold. Though most people could appreciate this aesthetic–Augustin Fontenot could not–because he had been born…[...]
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What Once Was Mine
Warnings for themes of death, grief. When you’re young, you have all these dreams and passions. As a young lad, I wrote and created stories with my very best friend-…[...]
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The Seven stages of Loss
(TW: grief,death,loss,mental struggles,true story) They stand and stare at her, she-sealed behind the glass with a face white as paper and lips purple blue, lying in an oak coffin, cold…[...]
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Nobody Mentioned Alfred
Samantha Clay felt anxious that Christmas Eve. It was the first time her family was meeting her fiancé Oran. Or rather, she was worried Oran was meeting them.Samantha loved spending…[...]
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The Jaws of the Common North American Alligator
Author’s note: This story contains strong language and the views of an openly racist character, which are portrayed in a negative light. “Well, look who the gator dragged in.” The…[...]
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Therapy For the End of The World
John noticed a slight change in her voice tonight. Over the countless hours of sessions they have had over the years, Clara’s tone had become warmer. There was a clinical…[...]
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Where Do I Begin?
I don't want to start. I truly don’t want to.So I delay this task by playing WORDS on my phone. Then move onto Elevate. Nobody sees you. Nobody judges you.…[...]
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A Still Thought
It was almost the big day, the day that the Deep Cs would go on the mission. Corey didn’t really know why they were going on the so called “mission”…[...]
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Down the Hall
It was a face emerging from the woodgrain of our office door that captivated me. Throughout the workday filled with mundane tasks of checking emails, typing punch lists, and fielding…[...]
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About to Fall
A thick fog envelops Hyde Park as I ride my ginger pony around the deserted kiosk at Speakers’ Corner. Winter Wonderland closed last week, leaving its muddy footprint stamped on…[...]
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The Chromatic Curse
I have to eat colors to stay alive. Go ahead. Laugh. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. I had to figure out how to eat color. Just color.…[...]
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The Snake That Killed Eurydice
The widows’ pity gnaws at me. Their puffed lower lips, the downturned corners of their red eyes. I take a crooked pleasure in it, a masochist for their biting glances.…[...]
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The Darkest Point of Night
Every bit of starlight we see is ancient. The night sky is a tapestry of twinkling relics flung across millions of lightyears, eons from when they first burned. Even after…[...]
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A different type of remembrance day
Today is April 31Or at least I believe it to be. I’ve done my best to keep track of each day since ‘the change’ began. Ironically this all began on…[...]
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Seeing Red
I remember warmth.A life full of it. Faces of a family I once loved, now blurred and distorted. The world I first saw through rose-colored glasses is long gone. Now,…[...]
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DO YOU REMEMBER HIM? A POLICE NOTIFICATION AND MEMORIES COME BACK
On March 6, 2026, a notification from the state police arrived at the apartment in Centocelle, in a small and quiet street close to the main street of Via Castani.…[...]
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The Companions
The Companions I glanced out the window as night fell. Towering charcoal thunderheads slid low and fast toward Ravenhill House, from across the untended meadows and forests of the estate’s…[...]
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My Two-Way Ticket To Suicide Station
Trigger Warning:This story contains themes or mentions of gore, suicide, and violence. Central Florida, USA - 2026When I was 7 years old, I'd left my younger brother to die, and…[...]
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A Path Through Nothing and Memory
Is heat the absence of cold, or something else entirely? I think of fire. Heat.I recall the feeling of sunlight flickering across my closed eyelids as I would lean against…[...]
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Its bravery didn’t equal its resilience.
I couldn't enter where the light touched, so I descended into the shadowy part of the fishbowl.I'd crossed the black between the stars carrying nothing but the ashes of my…[...]
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The Door He Kept Knocking On
In Igatpuri, cottages were designed in such a way as to be comfortable. There were small cabins with little trails leading to each cabin, with dimly lit yellow lights showing…[...]
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Unfiltered
“No… where are you going? Don’t leave me, please, I’m your wife! Wait!!!”I can’t believe it… My baby left me!I never thought this day would come. I always thought we…[...]
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The Undead Walk of Shame
Bottles clang against each other in the distance. The stench of liquor burns my nose. I open my eyes to see the legs of tables and chairs, some turned over.…[...]
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The Distortion of Belief
# The Distortion of Belief: Section 1 The Basin’s body of water was more salt than liquid, a stagnant mirror for the orange-bruised sky. Below the ridges, BasinTown clung to…[...]
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When the Oven Gets Cold
Today is April 31. At least, that’s what it feels like down here. April 30 was yesterday but, for us, May might never come. So here we are, trapped in…[...]
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The Fugitive
Marcus woke suddenly to the loud clatter of beer cans banging together. The room was dark, and the clock on the bedside table read 2:10 a.m. He sat up and…[...]
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From the Ashes
A fine, grey powder coated the dead Earth. Ash fell like snow… soft, constant, suffocating. It coated everything: the broken highways, the hollow buildings, the silent cars still frozen where…[...]
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The Weight of the Wall
The heavy-lift passenger drone touched down at the old International Airport, its rotors screaming against the humid Jakartan air. Mark looked at the smoking horizon where his towers were tilting…[...]
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Project: Bird Cage
Today is April 31.Only two days have passed, yet it feels like an eternity.If I had known this was how it would end, I never would have held the elevator…[...]
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For as Long as it Takes
There was one person who knew the codes, Alexander Vanderhoff III, and he died officially of a heart attack at 3AM on December 17th surrounded by the half-naked, luxury-pill-popping party-goers…[...]
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The Man Behind the Badge
I have five rounds in my magazine, which is not ideal when a horde of zombies is tearing into my makeshift gondola fort. The shrieking combined with the pounding of…[...]
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One Man and the World
In a peaceful world known as Farhome, a lone human man sits at his table alone with his thoughts. Named James Rune, he had been sitting in his house for…[...]
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The Message
TW: Mild body horror. Today is April 31st. I know April doesn’t have thirty-one days because my birthday is April 30th and my baby sister’s was May 1st. Memories that…[...]
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When Nature Wins
Nature decided to rear its ugly head in a last bid to bring destruction to the very society that took too much. Grotesque vines twisted through broken windows and trailed…[...]
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Love is a Longevity Factor
“Are you sure about this, Ollie?” Olivia winces as she tightens the laces of her boots. The only thing she’s unsure about is what hits her harder; how even beneath…[...]
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Trouble in Paradise
Clarity came crashing in. She looked down at the wriggling fish, a jagged chunk missing from its flank. The mixture of briny seawater and oily flesh in her mouth made…[...]
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The Great Wind
It was the 18th Supreme People’s Committee since the high-level state steering committee was reestablished. It was a big deal, and all members of the elite cadre in attendance knew…[...]
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The Pembar
Racetrack Hollow contains a remote branch of Norris Lake cradled by the Tennessee hills. It is so quiet there that you can hear the airflow over a bird’s wings. Today…[...]
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The Hidden VC
The Hidden VCBy Lee Kendrick Captain William Sterling of the British 1st Airborne Division, had just parachuted from one of the 358 gliders for Operation Market Garden; into a blustery…[...]
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The Weight of the Laddle
The stew was bad, the fireplace was smoky, and there stood Silas. Silas was a man who would whisper sorry to the floor just for walking on it.He’s spent mastering…[...]
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