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Sophie’s Misfortune

by ~MirellaBailey

“Will you run away with me?”

“Yes.”

I hadn’t expected him to say yes.

-

We were far from home before I had the courage to ask why.

“Why not?”

“Haven’t you anything back there?”

“Yes. But I want something more.”

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By the Highway

by ~theByb

The trees were all dead. No leaves, bare fingers stretched towards the sky in a twisted sort of prayer. The houses below them had no prayer – not even one coming from a tree – that could save them. They were ramshackle, they were peeling paint and broken pipes. They were forgotten glass shards embedded in a crying toddler’s foot, or cold wind blasting its way through a broken window. They were everything that a house should not be, hazardous and inhospitable and ugly.

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FFM4—Challenge

by ~WocketPocket99

“Microchips?”

“You don’t need those. These are chronically enhanced ladybugs.” The man pointed to a red painted camera. “That’s one, there,” he said.

Jack squinted. “Genetically enhanced?”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever. Anyway, come inside. We’ve got more.” He motioned to the door.

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The Great Wall

by ~shebledgreenink

When papers ask me where I’m from, I write “Seattle,” because they don’t want to know the real answer. When people ask me where I’m from, I say “downtown,” and they take a good look at me and take that to mean “Chinatown.”

My parents run one of the zillion dim sum restaurants here. They’re what the white kids at school call “fresh off the boat.” Most of the people here are. They don’t speak English at home, and they try not to at work. They don’t watch anything on American TV; they read the local Chinese paper and watch the one Asian channel, pausing to turn off the TV in disgust whenever one of the five daily Korean soap operas comes on. On Saturdays they go to the market and complain about the terrible selection. When they manage to find chicken’s feet, they declare a feast day and eat it with reverence, like it fell from the heavens just for us.

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A Christmas Kitten

by ~tigertailzlc

She came today. 

She hasn’t come for a lot of days. It’s too cold. But today she came. Today is Christmas Eve and she came for me. 

She is happy today. She talks a lot – endless chatter as she sticks a handful of food in my cage, which I gratefully eat up. I am hungry, and it’s cold. 

She doesn’t stop talking. I don’t know what she is saying. She knows I don’t know. Or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she thinks I know. But anyway, she doesn’t stop talking. I listen to her, glad of her voice in the glum silence. The others listen too. They are lonely, like me. 

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Grey and Gimble in the Wabe

by ~scarletbird

The ground was soft beneath his feet. It squelched and popped beneath the pressure of his determined stride, and sometimes crunched on a creature that hadn’t been able to get out of his way quickly enough. Hadn’t been able to, or hadn’t wanted to—it was hard to tell, in a place like this. Barren, and yet alive in its own way. Wet, always wet, but with a sickly damp that worked its way into his clothes and his hair and his lungs. Flat and endless like an empty chessboard. In the distance stood figures that looked somewhat like trees, except they were too round, too perfect, like the tops of some ghastly fungus. If the man ever paused long enough to stare at them, they might move, just a bit. But it was hard to tell. And the man never did stop long enough.

“Why are you following me?” 

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Barbaric Treatment

by ~Lytrigian

The noontide sun gleamed off Hrothgar the Northman’s rippling thews, and his shaggy mane of golden hair shone. The cheap tunic he wore could not conceal the hard, rangy lines of his frame as he stood astride the path through the narrow pass he had made his own.

Voices reached his ears; ears that, although attuned to the clash and clangor of battle, had never been deafened by the clatter and bustle of what men called civilization and so remained alert to the slightest threat: the padded footfall of the wolf, or the quiet hiss of a blade drawn from its sheath. But these were careless voices, chattering and laughing, heedless of the peril that loomed before them in the barbarian’s mighty person. His grip tightened upon the hilts of the sword which he held before him, its point resting upon the stony earth; and his nostrils flared in fierce anticipation.

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Wayward Ch1 

by =Emrose88

For the life of me I could not remember. 

In the darkness, I waited. I let my mind calm down. I counted to ten. I tried everything I could to move, to scream, to even remember my name.

I just could not remember anything.

Let alone move anything.

It felt like hours had passed me by. Then again, I was virtually senseless. I could not see, hear, taste, or feel anything. How was I to know how much time had passed in the abyss? I started to question myself, pry further into my mind, but the more I pushed, the harder it was to remember.

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Becoming the Tiger

by *Leonca

October 7th
Bob Cartman kept a tiger in a cage behind his house. He also had a big Rottweiler that lived on a ten-foot chain in the front of his property, and slept with a loaded shotgun propped against his bed. No one knew if he lived under a constant paranoia of being robbed or if it was the result of an overdose of the natural desire to display his machismo. No one bothered to ask.

The tiger was a massive male of the Siberian variety. In his ever-abundant creativity, Bob had dubbed him Stripes. The dog didn’t fare much better. His name was Killer.

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