The rain hit my bedroom window like a handful of gravel, throwing distorted shadows across the walls. It was just past midnight. The four of us—Caitlyn, Jade, Serena, and I—were huddled together in a fortress of blankets and pillows on my floor. My parents were away for the weekend, leaving […]
The Prom Queen’s Legacy Read More »
The bloody throne hall stank of wet iron and rot, and at the heart of it sat Kortul. She had taken her tusks years ago, ground the stumps smooth so that nothing of the common orc remained in her face. What was left was colder. Her skin was the pale
The comment was buried so deep under my latest video that I almost missed it. Try Dimer Ridge. Nobody comes back alone. No likes or replies. Not even a profile picture attached to the account. Just that one sentence sitting underneath a video where I’d spent twenty minutes walking through
The roman forum was beautiful. The painted marble gleamed in the spring sun and there was a breeze fluttering through the trees. Great flowers climbed the concrete buildings and flowered with all the colours of the rainbow.Such a lovely day for such a melancholy event. A magpie sat on the
Ilza walked at the center of the line, where the others could keep her between them. She was young for an elf, not yet into the fullness of her years, and it showed in the unfinished sharpness of her face, all angles that had not quite settled. Her skin was
The campfire crackled, sending orange sparks up into the heavy canopy of pines. The night was thick and dark, smelling of pine needles, river mud, and burnt marshmallows. Five boys sat on rotting log benches, huddled close to the heat. They were deep in the woods at Camp Whispering Shadows—a
The Best Father’s Day Catch Read More »
The sky had been normal again for a good amount of time, but Jacob still caught people looking up at it sometimes, just checking to make sure it hadn’t gone crimson again. He had watched the broadcast like everyone else. Sitting in his apartment in Chicago, he was eating reheated
A Prophet Of The Truth Read More »
WHEN I FOUND OUT my husband was having an affair, AI wasn’t the first thing I turned to. I confronted him about the panties I found in the front of our car, the extra money being spent out of our joint checking account, and the texts I saw on his
Using AI, I Hired A Hitman. Now It’s Blackmailing Me. Read More »
The leather chair in Dr. Mitchell’s office always squeaked when I shifted my weight. I stared at the geometric patterns on his rug, trying to find the words. “It’s the same dream, Dr. Mitchell.” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Every single night. It always starts the same way.”
The Oakridge Field Trip Read More »
They call her the queen of mischief at King City High School—a title she earned with little effort. No one matched her audacious, rule-breaking nature. Fear held everyone back, for good reason. She didn’t dread getting caught, being exposed, or facing what terrified others. The absence of fear was what
Don’t Trust the Ones Who Protect You Read More »
The highway above groaned with morning traffic, and Greg woke to it the way most people wake to an alarm, grudgingly and with his whole body fighting the process. His tent was a single-person backpacking model with a broken zipper, held shut with a braid of zip ties he’d threaded
A Needle In The Vein Read More »
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. I have read Joel 2:28 maybe a hundred times in my life. My grandmother had it cross-stitched on a pillow in
A Disciple Of The Messiah Read More »
Martin pressed the record button on the handheld unit and held it close to his mouth as he ducked under the rope the patrol officers had strung between the trees. “October fourteenth, 1972,” he said. “George Washington Park, Centralia. Arrived on scene at approximately nine forty-five in the morning. Initial
A Speaker Of The Trees Read More »
The camera didn’t look like something that should still work. Didn’t feel right from the start. When my sister handed me that box on my birthday, I could tell it’d be a pile of garbage. She’d always been a cheapskate, the woman can’t walk past a yard sale without stopping.
Followers of the Flaming Hand Read More »
The ad appeared between a promoted post for a meal kit service and a video of someone’s cat, unremarkable enough that Freya almost scrolled past it. Paid Research Study, it read. One Week. Two Thousand Dollars. All accommodations provided. Social behavior observation. Apply now. She stared at it for a
A Scholar Of The Arcane Read More »
I stepped out into the quad, salted caramel latte in hand to savour the brief moment of peace between my lectures. The air smelled faintly of salt and seaweed that drifted in from the bay and a light fog had settled overhead leaving droplets of condensation on benches and the
DIVICORE TECHNOLOGIESInternal Maintenance & Operations SystemDocument Type: Maintenance LogAccess Level: Internal Use Only – MAINTENANCE LOG 0216Date: 02-23-2026Time: 16:42Department ID: SI-PNW-04Employee: Boris MorozovEmployee Number: 4471Division: Server InfrastructureRank: Senior Maintenance TechnicianLog Type: Incident Report Today’s failure rate for RAM units across the floor has doubled compared to the daily average. I
A Fire In The Server Read More »
Zoe had not left her apartment in almost four months. The last time had been a Thursday, a trip to her primary physician to check up on a worrying rash that was developing on her calf. Her father had given her a ride. She had to stare at the patterns
A Frog In The Terrarium Read More »
Henry Callum had made this drive so many times he could have done it half asleep, and on some of the earlier mornings, he nearly had. Forty miles out of Centralia on roads that stopped being roads about twelve miles in, just packed dirt and gravel cutting through the Douglas
A Ritual In The Forest Read More »
My name is Frank Delacroix, and I am seventy-four years old. I am not a violent man. I have never been a violent man. I have spent the better part of my life volunteering at soup kitchens, attending mass, and doing what I believed to be the work of a
A Meeting At The Church Read More »
The house appeared in her search results on a Tuesday morning, nestled between listings that were either too small or too far from town, and Abby had stopped scrolling. She looked at the pictures for a long time. A craftsman-style two-story in Ridgefield, Washington. Good bones, the listing said, and
A Door To The Basement Read More »
The bus reeked of fast food wrappers and recycled air. Benjamin had been sitting in the same position for so long that his lower back had developed a dull, grinding ache he was certain would never fully go away. He shifted in his seat, pressed his forehead to the cold
A Restaurant On The Cliff Read More »
The apartment was quiet at 5:47 in the morning. The kind of quiet that sits in a room like a held breath, broken only by the quiet drone of the refrigerator and the distant moan of traffic on the street below. Clarissa moved through it the way she always did,
A Mirror In The Bathroom Read More »
I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of my phone going off. It wasn’t that of a phone call or a text, or even an alarm, rather, it was the familiar chime of the notification that I would get when my front doors’ doorbell camera
