Dreamer

“Are you not scared to die like them?” the strange man asked her, his dagger at her throat.

The young woman smiled, soft and sad. “This is not when I die,” she replied.

“It is if I say so,” the stranger said, the blade pressing closer against her skin.

She did not move. “Even you cannot ignore someone’s destiny,” she said. “This is not when I will die.”

Curious now, the strange man lowered his blade. Around them on the ground were her traveling companions, slain and dead for their food and supplies. The strange man had crept among the four of them during the night, killed her brother first, who was on watch, and then the elderly couple they had been traveling with. The young woman had awoken to the elderly woman dying and stood up to face the strange man, fearless. “How do you know such a thing?” he asked of her now.

“I dreamed as a girl that I would not die until I was old and in love, with children grown and left,” she answered him plainly.

“And how do you know that this dream was true?” he demanded, scornful. “It was just some little girl’s fantasy.”

“No,” she replied. “I have dreamed when all those in my family will die.” She pointed to her brother, slumped over near the log he’d once sat on. “I dreamed long ago that he would die tonight and said good-bye to him before I lay down to sleep. I knew that my mother would die of sickness and my father from bandits years before her.”

“Truly?” the stranger asked, intrigued now. She saw a flash of greed in his eyes then and knew what he would ask. After all, the man who knew how he would die was forewarned and mayhap could cheat his death when the time came. He raised his dagger once more. “Tell me, witch, how will I die?”

“I am no witch,” she replied, “only a young woman, now traveling alone.”

“Tell me,” he said again, ignoring the rest.

She shook her head. “I cannot,” she said. “I can only dream the deaths of those who have a place in my heart. Why should I care when you, a stranger to me, will die?”

He considered this for a moment and then sheathed his dagger. “Then, you shall come back home with me and be my wife, and when you come to love me, you will dream of my death.”

“Yes, I will,” she agreed.

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What is the cost of a dream?

She dreams the deaths of those she loves. He wants that power. And so, their life together begins, but all knowledge has a price.

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The Final Truth

I lay staring at the roof of the cellar. The thought resonating in my head is simple. How could things possibly get any worse?

Immediately, as though in answer to this half-formed thought, I hear a vehicle pull up outside. My host has returned. And even though I know who it is, I can’t help but wish for just one minute that someone else has arrived at this nondescript house that was nevertheless the scene of my many childhood adventures. Someone else. Anyone else.

But I hear the familiar click of the heels above me, and I know that my hope is in vain. Anxiously, I strain my ears to figure out which direction she’s moving in. The bathroom would be fine, the kitchen even better, but no. My heart sinks as that repetitive rhythm comes closer to the door shut tight above the stairs to my left.

There isn’t even a lock on the door. A lock isn’t necessary. It swings opens with little noise, and I close my eyes against the sudden light, not wanting a repeat of the pain from last time. I can still hear her anyways, walking carefully down the cellar stairs. Again, I vow to myself that if she would just come a little closer this time, I can overpower her, somehow get free from my bonds. It’s a lie, I know, but right now, it’s all that I have to cling to.

She is standing on the hard, cement floor that I am now reacquainted with so thoroughly. When I can finally see her, I am horrified to discover that there is a child in her arms, awake but silent, tear tracks still wet on his cheeks and eyes very wide.

“No,” I whisper, or try to, but not even my own ears can pick up the sound that passes my lips. I repeat myself, this time a mere breath louder. “No.”

“Isn’t he precious?” she beams at me, a small but genuine smile forming on her lips. She runs one hand through the silent child’s hair and then drops a kiss onto his forehead before she sets him down. He stays where he’s put, curling his arms around his legs and cuddling them close to his chest. The light hits just right so that I can now see the bruise already darkening over one of those blue eyes. The sight doesn’t surprise me, but still, a low coil of dread writhes in my stomach.

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"When does lying for someone else's sake become lying for your own? How far is too far, or is the liar damned right from the beginning?

A chilling tale of the cost of lying, both to others and, especially, to ourselves.

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The Man Whose Name is Carl

The last thing Carl wanted to spend his evening doing was waiting around one of the smaller rooms down the hall from the main office until they got confirmation to go load up the merchandise from warehouse eleven into a truck and then haul it back here. The night air was chilly this late at the best of times, and if he bothered to turn his head slightly to his left, Carl would be able to see that frost had already formed in thick layers on the outsides of the windows here, never mind out at the docks.

Still, Carl found himself staring blankly at the rather large TV screen in front of him, not taking in what was actually playing but just letting the low sound wash over him as he thought longingly of being home instead, sound asleep in his bed, his wife’s light snoring in his ear as her hair got caught in his mouth or up his nose. It’d been over three weeks since he’d been home early enough to eat dinner with her and their daughters, to hear how everyone’s day had been, to argue about whose turn it was to wash the dishes or just to sit in front of his own TV, a beer in hand, and not pay attention to his own set as he listened to nothing in particular.

“Want something?” one of his coworkers asked, stuck here late like him, and Carl looked up at Luke to give him a slight, tired smile.

“Nah,” he answered, waving a hand at the vending machine in the corner that housed a variety of sports drinks, flavored waters, and energy shots. “Not in the mood for anything but a bed.”

Luke sighed in agreement and pushed the button for his own selection. The machine made noises like it was dying and then coughed up an energy drink. “Know what you mean,” he said. “These late-night shifts when the shipments come in kill me.” He opened his drink and took a long swallow, then, unexpectedly, smirked. “And if they don’t, my girlfriend does when I finally walk in the door.”

“She stays up?” the last member of their moving crew asked, coming back into the room from making a call to check on his babysitter. Carl knew that George was raising a small boy all by himself, the mother having run off with a younger man before the kid was even out of diapers. George hated these long nights more than Carl and Luke combined, hated having to ask a babysitter to stay over practically all night and hated not putting his boy to bed, but the overtime they got paid during these few weeks was worth the hassle, just barely.

Carl was also surprised at the news that Luke’s girlfriend stayed up waiting for him. Sure, sometimes when Carl crawled into the bed, it woke up Patti, but she barely did more than grumble and roll over. At that time of the night, after a full day at her own job and being the only parent in the house to sort out whatever their daughters decided to argue about that day, there was no way that his wife had the time or energy to stay up waiting for him to come home.

Luke snorted, but was still smiling slightly. “Sets the alarm for when I’m supposed to get in and then hits the snooze if I’m not there yet until she hears the car pull up,” he said. “Then she comes out to berate me, heats up some food, sits there and yells at me some more while I eat it about how stupid it is to sign up for these graveyard shifts just to earn a few extra dollars that we really kind of need, and then makes me take a shower ‘cause I ‘smell like a bloated fish’. Then I finally get to go the hell to sleep.”

Carl laughed lightly. “I think my wife’d smack me upside the head if I suggested she do the same,” he replied wryly, and George snickered. Luke saluted them both with the rest of his drink and then chugged it, tossing the empty can at the trash, where it missed widely enough that Carl and George laughed louder at the scowl on Luke’s face as he grudgingly stalked over and picked up the can again in disgust.

The beeping of the intercom caused Carl to motion to one of the others to turn down the sound on the TV, even though it was already quiet enough to barely hear. Pressing the button on the side to talk into it, he cleared his throat slightly. “Yes, sir?” he spoke into the speaker.

As usual, the woman’s voice that came on the other end was perfectly clear and sounded as crisp as if her day had only started an hour ago and it was not the middle of the night. “The chairman says that the merchandise has now been unloaded from the docks,” she announced. “Please retrieve all the boxes in warehouse eleven and deliver them to storage room seven.”

Although her last sentence contained the word ‘please’, it was clearly not a request.

The same instructions as every other night, besides the numbers being different, and Carl was actually kind of impressed that the woman didn’t sound as bored by saying her instructions as he was of hearing them. Pressing the button again, he replied, “Will do.” The line went dead and the intercom silent. He turned around and shared an exasperated look with the other two, shaking his head. “Come on, then.”

“So eager to freeze,” Luke grumbled, but only halfheartedly, and then they all left the room, glad that the last week of this season’s shipments was almost behind them.

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Luck

"Really, I can’t think of anything worse after a night of heavy drinking than waking up next to someone and not being able to remember their name.

Or how you met.

Or why they’re dead."

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Tim's not having the best start to his day, and must now figure out the mysteries of where he is and who the dead body is in the room with him, and most importantly, what happened the night before.

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The Deal Maker

Everything’s over.

Oh, he’s cold now. Darien hates to look, but he can’t help himself. He wants one last glimpse of Nate’s face, even in this setting. The bath water is still running over the edge of the tub, gone cold now and stained red. Everywhere is stained red. The floor, Darien’s knees.

Nate’s face seems haggard even in death. The dark smudges under his eyes, from days of little to no sleep, have sunken in, and he looks half a skeleton already. It’s all wrong. Darien wants to see Nate’s eyes, one more time, but he also can’t quite bring himself want to touch him. His meddling has hurt his lover enough, even though all Darien tried to do was save him.

Well, best laid plans, and all…

What should he do now? Part of Darien realizes that he should get up, call the police, do something except kneel here on his knees and watch the water spread farther over the floor. He should at least turn the tap off. Instead, Darien just sits there. A note is clenched tightly in one fist, Nate’s familiar scrawl across the paper uneven but recognizable. Darien almost hadn’t even looked at it, didn’t want to unfold the note when he saw it sitting on the kitchen counter. What would have been the point? He already knew what it said.

Still, Darien had picked up the note and brought it with him into the bathroom, only opening the paper after he fell to the floor. At least there was a note this time. He almost wants to think that this is better. That everything’s better this way. But it’s not. Nate suffered so much these last few months, and so many more people died than they should have. And Darien is responsible for all of it.

Even Nate’s death, now. And he can’t stand that thought.

“I know you’re there,” Darien says softly into the quiet. Because of all the things that he should be doing right now, there’s only one thing that he really wants to do. The one thing that he thinks he still has the strength to do, even after all of this.

“I’m always here,” a voice answers. A shape appears out of the shadows in the corner of Darien’s eye. He doesn’t know what it is, not really, only what it has done. Is it Death? It never introduced itself to Darien, only offered him a deal. That’s why he’s taken to calling it the Deal Maker in his head.

“Can you send me back?” Darien asks, tired.

“Again?” the Deal Maker asks. “Nothing will change. This is how manipulating the past always turns out.”

He nods. Darien understands that now. Slowly, he straightens up and stands. “I don’t want to change things anymore,” he admits. “I just want to stop myself from starting all of this in the first place.”

There’s quiet between them for a few moments. Of all the possible responses to what he’s said, Darien is definitely not expecting to hear the Deal Maker start to laugh. Softly, like the distant chime of bells. It should sound beautiful, but Darien feels like he can’t breathe again until the last echo stops.

“That is the correct answer,” the Deal Maker says at last. It sounds happy, of all things. “Yes, let’s make another bargain.”

Darien isn’t surprised that this is the only way, in the end. He has to fix everything. And in order to do that, he has to let Nate die the first time, when he was meant to. Darien has to go back and stop himself from interfering, from saving Nate’s life.

Darien has to let the love of his life die all over again.

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"Would you like to make a deal?"

Darien is devastated after his lover dies in an accident. Then, he is offered a deal to go back and change everything. But will it be worth the cost? What is Darien willing to pay for the chance to save his lover's life? There is a price to going against the natural order of things, and it may be steeper than Darien thinks...

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Vigilance

Nothing says a college frat party like a table covered in cheap beer cans and red soho cups and mostly empty bottles of liquor. Jason sighs, looks around at all of the people he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know, and decides that it’s past time for him to leave.

Jason only showed up to this party in the first place in order to get his older sister, Cathy, to stop nagging him. Well, okay, Cathy doesn’t nag. She just asks, during every single phone call, if he’s enjoying himself, getting out of his room, meeting people, maybe even going to a party or two. Anything but spending all of his time in his room alone.

The fact that Jason prefers the solitude most of the time doesn’t stop Cathy from worrying that Jason’s going to forget how to speak if he goes long enough without talking to someone else. Or forget to eat, if there’s no one around to remind him.

She worries constantly about him just because Jason collapsed from exhaustion once. And because he’s the only family that Cathy has left, after their parents died last year. And because she loves him. And because he’s going to college three hours away.

Jason understands that Cathy’s scared of losing him. Still, he’d offered to stay home and not go to this school, but Cathy wouldn’t hear of it. He’s got a scholarship for here, so that’s where he’s going, and she’ll just have to deal with her silly anxieties, in her own words.

Her worries aren’t silly, in Jason’s opinion, but he does wish that there was some way of reassuring Cathy that he’s going to be fine.

Well, he will be fine as soon as he gets out of this frat house. The music is too loud, the screaming, drunk people everywhere are too loud, and Jason’s really done with being here. At least he can tell Cathy that he tried, though. He attempted to socialize. It just didn’t go all that well.

Jason’s in the entryway trying to find his jacket from the large pile of them when someone stumbles down the stairs. He thinks that she’s just another drunk college girl at first, and is planning on ignoring her, but then she sees him clearly about to leave and grabs his arm. Her grip is surprisingly tight.

“Get me out of here,” she orders. Her voice is… not steady. That’s when Jason looks at her more closely.

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How much can one interaction matter? Strangers meet all of the time without consequences. Can one meeting really be so important?

Jason doesn't know it yet, but he's someone who is at exactly the right place and time in order to change someone else's life for the better.

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Dominoes

When Jordan comes home, there’s a note from her mom left out on the kitchen table.

I’m sorry.

Jordan feels like there’s ice water flooding her veins. No, this can’t be happening. Frantically, Jordan tries to take a deep breath and calm down. This can’t be what she thinks it is. After all, there’s no way that Jordan’s mom could have left a note out on the kitchen table.

Her mom’s been dead for three years, and Jordan’s the one who killed her...

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Jordan arrives home to a mysterious note from her mom. There's just one problem. Jordan's mom is already dead...

How did the note get there? What events does this note set off? And what exactly is haunting Jordan? Find out inside!

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Born from the Sea

There is a monster in the sea. That is what the humans call it, anyway. Sailors who see a flash of scales, who see the currents of the water change abruptly, who see a long, dark shape underneath them and pray that it passes them by.

Everyone who spends time out on the deep sea feels its presence, sees its shadow, feels the fear of something so much more than they are living in the darkness beneath.

In truth, humans are wrong. There is no monster in the depths. It is something better and worse, and so much more. There is a Goddess who lives in the sea, large and dreadful and terrifyingly beautiful. Her body is long and grey, her skin is scaled and covered in the detritus of her world. Algae, seaweeds, even some small crustaceans, all make their home along her body. They pay homage to her power.

She is ancient. The Goddess was formed when the waters first started to create furrows in the Earth’s surface. Back then, acid fell from the sky, and the Goddess had to be tough to survive its fall. Her eyes are luminescent now, to see better in the dark depths, but in the beginning, they were fire, and her claws contained poison. Her breath was a plague to everything in her path.

The Goddess has changed over the years, as all things do. Even immortals. Her teeth are more deadly, her tail has grown enormous, and her claws are long enough to tear through a ship’s hull with barely a thought.

Since the water first started to fall, this has been her whole world and all that she has known. One day, she grows curious. The Goddess is old enough to remember that not everything used to be as it is now. She wonders about those beings above her, the humans who have crawled out from the depths of her world and slowly adapted to another one.

The Goddess senses a yearning in herself, which does not happen often, and she journeys through the waters until she reaches the edge of her domain. With barely a thought, the Goddess changes her shape, something that she has not done for a very long time. She could never forget how to shift and form into something new, though, and so she does.

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There is a monster that lives in the sea. That is what people call it when they catch a glimpse of its monstrous body and sharp claws and teeth. They pray that it shows mercy and passes them by. It is old and terrible.

In truth, it is not a monster at all, but a Goddess - ancient and wise and, yes, terrible and beautiful. She was there even before water started collecting on the surface of the Earth and gathering together to form the deep sea. She is made of the sea and from the stars, and one day, she decides to walk among the humans and see what has become of them.

What will she discover, this Goddess from the sea?

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New Skies

I am rough, broken down into the smallest parts and pieces of me, but I am free.

It’s just the bus, I tell myself, but I’m still anxious. It’s something else new, something that I’ve never done before, and so I wait with strangers and slowly climb the steps when the bus arrives. I don’t know how much the bus will cost. I don’t know if they accept credit cards or if they can handle change or what.

I ask. I purposely wait until I’m the last person to get on the bus, and then I lean down awkwardly and ask a few quiet questions. The driver doesn’t sound mad or scornful, but I still can’t help feeling like I’m being a huge imposition on him. The people around me don’t look mad, but I still feel their eyes on me, watching me as I try to find a seat without anyone else nearby. No such luck, of course.

I sit next to someone who looks near to my age and stare straight ahead. Everything’s fine. I just have to make it through this bus ride. It’ll be okay.

I can’t relax. Even knowing that my stop isn’t coming up right away, I can’t stop worrying about missing it. I can’t do anything but sit as still and quiet as possible, though. I really hope that no one talks to me.

This is fine, I remind myself. People take the bus all of the time. This is something that I’ll get used to.

Maybe I should learn how to ride a bike. Or drive a car.

There’s no one here to teach me, and I don’t have the money to buy a car, anyway. A bike should be doable, maybe. I could find a cheap one and learn on my own. It can’t be too hard. Maybe I could walk to my new job instead. That would take a lot longer, though.

For every day, that seems like a lot. That’s why I’m sitting on this bus and concentrating on not having a panic attack.

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What's the value of a life? What is worth living for? What is most important in life? In freedom?

A close and raw look at someone picking up the pieces of their life and--hopefully, slowly--putting them back together once again.

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Secret Door

Anne Hudson is 28 years old when she rents an apartment alone for the first time. She feels desperate to be on her own, by that point. Sure, having a roommate was fun during college, but the longer she lived with someone else after school, the longer Anne felt like she wasn’t moving forward with her life.

Her finances aren’t the stuff of dreams, but she can afford a nice apartment on her own. Nothing large, but not small, either. She’s comfortable there and likes the furniture, and everything works. It’s good enough for her right now.

Over a month passes in her new place. Anne meets some of her neighbors and unpacks most of her things. Her friends all come over and help her move in her belongings and assemble the few things she didn’t already have and bought cheap from Ikea.

One night, Anne’s sitting on her second-hand but still very comfy sofa and trying to politely respond to a work email while still letting her boss know that the latest situation is honestly not her fault. She hates getting work emails outside of work hours that she has to deal with right away. All that she wants to do right now is relax.

She leans against the armrest, trying to get the wording just right so that she doesn’t sound rude or offensive and pretty sure that she’s overthinking the whole thing but not able to stop herself from rereading the email for the hundredth time. After another minute, Anne leans her neck over the armrest, until her head’s hanging upside down, and she closes her eyes. Maybe if she stops looking at it for a few minutes, she’ll be able to focus better.

When she opens her eyes again, Anne starts counting to 30 in her head while she aimlessly looks around the room. She’s not searching for anything in particular, just trying to clear her mind. Her gaze is caught by something odd on the wall, though, and Anne frowns. She squints, trying to see clearer. There’s definitely something off about that section of the wall.

Anne really hopes that it’s not water damage or mold, or something awful like that. She sits upright again, reads over the email quickly and decides that it’s not going to get any better in the next half-hour, presses send, and then sets her laptop down on the couch and gets up.

She looks at the wall again, and now it seems perfectly fine. Did she just imagine something weird on the wall? Was it a shadow? She’s not going to turn her head upside down again just to see some spot on the wall. Anne almost ignores the whole thing, but she really doesn’t want to deal with water damage. If it’s just starting, then it could be an easy fix, but if she left it to rot, then it would become an even bigger mess.

Sighing, Anne walks over to the wall and slowly starts running her hands along the surface around the area where she thinks she saw that weird spot. After a few minutes, she feels something different on one section of the wallpaper. Anne crouches down and looks carefully, and part of the wallpaper is wrinkled, showing a little sliver of the wall behind it.

Well, there could be a lot of different reasons why the wallpaper’s not straight right there. Most likely, it just wasn’t smoothed down completely when it was put up.

Anne tries to lift the wallpaper away just a little bit more to check if the wall is damaged behind it. She’s really surprised to find out that the wallpaper is covering a hinge.

Why would there be a hinge in the wall?

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When Anne moves into her new apartment, she's definitely not expecting to discover a mystery. Why is there a secret door in Anne's apartment, and where does it lead? Why was it hidden in the first place? Anne doesn't know the answers to these questions, but she's determined to uncover the truth of the secret door.

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The Out-of-Towner

The building that advertises drinks within looks brand new. Then again, all of the buildings in this town do. He tries to ignore that, and to instead focus on finding some way out of there.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. Can’t even remember how long he’s been trapped there.

Warily, he looks around, but he’s alone. For now. Being alone is better than those things coming back to attack him again. He doesn’t know what they are, and has only ever been attacked during the night so far, but whatever those things are, they’re completely silent until they attack.

They also have very sharp claws. Grimacing at the memories, he ignores his wounds as much as he can, the deep lacerations slowly scabbing over along his right shoulder and thigh. Those damn things were trying to disable him. Or dismember him. Either way, they almost succeeded.

Luckily, he’s carrying some knives and a gun, though he’s out of bullets now. Has been for days. All that he has left are his knives, and his sanity, and maybe not even that last one.

There’s no rational explanation for why he can’t leave this town. Hell, he should be able to just follow the road and end up somewhere else. Instead, he always winds up walking back towards the town again. He’ll pick a random direction and start to walk, run, climb away, but he’s always back on the same road leading towards the town before too long.

There’s got to be some way out, though. He clings to this assertion with all of his remaining mental strength. After all, he got there somehow. He doesn’t remember exactly how, but he’s there. All that he can recall is driving, and then the car wreck, and then…

Waking up there, however long ago. He’s lost track of the days. Knows that it’s been more than a few weeks. At least. He can’t think about that too much, though, or despair starts creeping up on him all over again at his many failures so far.

No, he’ll get out of there. He has to. He has shit to do, and he can’t just die there.

If those things out there don’t kill him eventually, it’ll be because he’s either escaped or killed himself first, and isn’t that a depressing thought.

There’s got to be an exit, though. He just has to find it. That’s the only thought that’s been keeping him going all of this time. He just needs to hang on for a little while longer.

The buildings around him are of no interest. He’s been through them all already. Looking for signs of life, maybe a clue as to where he is and how to leave, but there’d been nothing. The whole town looks brand new, filled with modern buildings and clean streets, like something out of a damn suburb. Or a nightmare. Both, probably.

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This is the town that no one can escape.

He wakes up with no memory of where he is or how he got there, and the town is still and silent. There's nothing but fog in every direction, and no matter how hard he tries, he can't seem to escape. There are creatures in the dark that attack him, and a cemetery that he doesn't want to go near, and all the while, he's trapped in this place.

This is the town that no one ever leaves, and he is the out-of-towner who is about to learn the reason why.

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The Present

Lucy doesn’t like going to visit her grandparents very much.

She doesn’t remember them, because they both died before she was born, so it’s kind of boring to stand in the cemetery and visit them. Lucy also doesn’t like how sad her mom is after they go.

Still, Lucy is five years old now, and so she’s old enough to understand that sometimes you have to do things that you don’t really want to do. She makes a flower crown that morning, and lays it on her grandma’s grave when they arrive. She also has some flowers tied together in a bundle for her grandpa, and puts them down on his. After that, though, there’s nothing else for Lucy to do.

Her mom stands beside their graves for a long time. She always does this, and then she always starts crying, and Lucy doesn’t like that at all. She walks a little ways away, looking at the other graves and wondering whose parents are buried there. She doesn’t go too far away, but she doesn’t like to look at her mom while the woman talks with her mom and dad.

It’s sad that they’re dead, and Lucy wishes that she could have met them, and sometimes she does tell them about something that’s happening in her life while she and her mom visits. There’s nothing new going on right now, though, so Lucy is silent. She’s not having a birthday anytime soon, and she’s already been in school for one whole year. What else is there?

“Hello, there,” someone says suddenly.

Lucy looks up at the sound of the voice, and an old lady is smiling down at her. Her hair is really pretty, and so are her eyes. They remind Lucy of her mom’s.

“Hi,” she replies. Lucy isn’t supposed to talk to strangers, but this is a cemetery, so the rules might be different. Besides, her mom is still standing only a few feet away.

“Are you here visiting someone?” the lady asks her.

Nodding, Lucy points back at her mom. “We’re talking to my grandparents,” she says, making sure to speak slowly and enunciate each word carefully.

The lady looks over at Lucy’s mom and smiles sadly. “It’s difficult to lose loved ones,” she says. “You seemed lonely, so I decided to come say hello.”

Lucy thinks that’s very nice of the lady, when she probably has other things to do. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says, because Lucy knows how to be polite. “My name’s Lucy.”

“Lucy is a very pretty name,” the lady says, and Lucy smiles happily. She likes that this lady thinks her name is pretty. “Well, Lucy, I have a gift for you.”

The lady reaches up to her neck and takes off her necklace, and, to Lucy’s delight and astonishment, the lady holds out the necklace towards her.

“I can really have it?” Lucy wonders.

The lady nods. “Yes, I think it’s perfect for you.”

Lucy reaches out a hand, and the lady drops the necklace into her palm. It’s yellow, and Lucy thinks that it’s gold, and it has a small, red rose hanging from the chain, and it’s the prettiest thing that Lucy has ever seen.

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Five-year-old Lucy is at the cemetery visiting her grandparents with her mom when she’s given a very special present by a mysterious lady. Now, every day is an adventure for Lucy, as she tries to help the strange people around her who seem to appear and vanish very suddenly!

The past merges with the present in this fun, yet haunting, short story.

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The Ways We Love

The Ways We Love

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Takako Ishii is very excited to be attending college once the new term starts. She’s also relieved her grades are good enough that she’s been accepted into her first choice of university. Sure, there are plenty of colleges to choose from, but not many that specialize in preparing young adults for entering into law enforcement.

Takako’s mother still isn’t completely resolved to Takako’s career choice, she knows, but at least her mother is willing to let Takako have her way for now. Probably, her mother is hoping that Takako will meet a nice, young man while away at college, get married, and forget all about choosing such a dangerous job.

Takako has already decided, though. Even if she meets a man who she might wish to marry while at school, she won’t agree to any permanent commitment until after she’s been accepted into the Public Safety Bureau. Takako feels like she has to try this path, at least. She wants so badly to help defend her nation, to be someone who stands for justice and upholding the law.

Her friends think that Takako sounds naive, and she’s self-aware enough to admit to herself that they’re right, but she doesn’t mind. This is the path that Takako has chosen to follow, after all. She’s eager to begin her life at school a few hours away from home, finally.

Then, two weeks before Takako is due to leave, her mother collapses.

Overwork, the doctor says. That makes sense. Takako’s mother is a single parent, and has raised Takako by herself for all of these years. Takako is at first frightened when her mother collapses, and then very relieved when the doctor says that her mother will be fine.

Then comes the worst news. Her mother has overworked herself to the point that she’s going to need a long stay in the hospital, and going back to work is out of the question for a long time even after then. They have no savings, aside from the money meant for Takako’s schooling, and they need rent money. And food. And the hospital bills need to be paid.

So, Takako is eighteen and does not go to school. This is fine, she tells herself. Plenty of people nowadays don’t attend university their first year after high school. Plenty of people get part-time jobs like Takako is looking into right now. They stay and work, and start school later, and everything turns out just fine.

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Takako Ishii is 18 years old and ready to start college when her mother collapses. Suddenly, Takako is forced to put her life and dreams on hold in order to care for the mother who has raised her for all of these years.

What does it mean to love someone? To have a duty towards them? How does someone deal with the feelings of resentment that build up? With the feeling of watching everyone else living their lives and being left behind?

Takako must decide what it really means to care for someone.

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Want to find out what happens next? You can buy the story on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y1CLHBG.

When I Was Gone

Jamie Renton, college sophomore, doesn’t really think much at the time about her roommate, Lexie, not returning her text.

Even though they’re roommates, they’re not really all that close. Jamie doesn’t think that Lexie is the type to get close to anybody, actually. It’s a shame, but Lexie focuses on her classes and stays in their room, and doesn’t really try to connect with anyone at all.

Jamie is surprised that Lexie sends her any texts during spring break in the first place. She’s out with some friends from high school when she receives the short message on her phone.

When are you coming back?

Seeing perfect grammar in a text is so unusual that Jamie stares at the message in confusion for several seconds. Or maybe that’s just from the unexpectedness of Lexie establishing communication with Jamie first, instead of the other way around.

Either way, Jamie sends back that she’ll be gone until the following weekend, and is there something Lexie wants?

No reply. Jamie shrugs off her questions for the remainder of the break, certain that she’ll find out her answers when she gets back to school

The very last thing that Jamie expects when she arrives is to not be allowed back into her room. She tries the key, but the lock is different. Did something happen to their door? Why did Lexie have the locks changed?

Jamie isn’t sure where to go or what to do next, but then something crunches under her shoe. She looks down, and there’s a folded piece of paper on the floor in front of their door. Jamie lets go of her suitcase, picks up the paper, and reads the message.

It’s from the guidance office, asking her to report to them as soon as possible. Now, Jamie’s concerned. What is going on? She looks around, but of course there’s no one else in the hallway, and no clues for her to find except for a door with new locks on it and a key in her hand that no longer works.

Jamie knocks on the door. “Lexie?” she calls out. “You in there?”

There’s no sound. Jamie really doesn’t want to carry her suitcase back to her car, but she can’t leave it in the hallway, so she turns around with a sigh. She puts her suitcase and backpack in her car, and then walks over to the administration offices. That building isn’t so far from her dorm, only half a block, and it’s quicker to walk than to drive the distance.

The whole way there, Jamie wonders what could be wrong. She knows now that there is something wrong, just not what.

When she arrives at the guidance office, Jamie knocks on the door and walks inside awkwardly. She holds out the piece of paper like it’s a test she’s handing back to a professor. “My room’s locked,” she says, which probably isn’t something the guidance office deals with anyway, but it’s Jamie’s biggest problem at the moment.

The guidance counselor looks… sad, and deeply tired, like he didn’t take advantage of the break in order to catch up on sleep at all. “Why don’t you sit down, Ms. Renton?” he says, in that way that isn’t really a question. Jamie frowns and sits, and feels even more anxious than before.

“What’s going on?” she asks, if only to get the conversation moving again. The guidance counselor looks like he could sit there and stare at his hands for hours, and Jamie wants to be allowed back into her room sometime today. Maybe she needs to call campus security about the lock?

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he says, though he doesn’t sound sorry, “but your roommate, Ms. Fletcher, took her own life on Thursday.”

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Jamie comes back from college break, and everything's changed. Her roommate, Lexie, committed suicide while Jamie was away, and now she has so many questions. Why did Lexie kill herself? Why didn't she tell Jamie what was going on? What does Jamie do now?

Jamie doesn't know what to think or how to feel. After all, she and Lexie weren't really all that close. Still, Jamie feels guilty for being gone while this happened.

Unanswerable questions are the hardest part of learning to let someone go.

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Different Paths

Different Paths

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The Beginning

This is a story with no true ending, though it has only one beginning. One night, at 12:58AM, on Friday, October 16th, Warren Brighton hears a knock at the front door.

Warren should be asleep, since he has school in the morning, but like most teenagers, Warren doesn’t always do what he should. Instead of being asleep, Warren is, at that very moment, crossing the foyer on his way to get a snack.

He pauses at the knock. Warren wonders who could be at the front door so late at night. Warren didn’t invite anyone over, and his parents have been asleep for a couple of hours. Both of them have to get up for work in the morning, and as tired, hard-working adults, they usually try to go to bed as early as possible.

Warren opens the front door, because he is not afraid of a strange knock in the middle of the night. Warren is over six feet tall already, muscled and athletic, the star of his school’s lacrosse team, and he has never learned to be afraid of strange or unexpected things happening around him.

When the door opens, it reveals Lee Withers. Lee goes to Warren’s school, but they’re hardly friends. In fact, Warren has been known to bully Lee every once in a while. Nothing serious, if you ever asked Warren. Just making some rude comments, laughing whenever Lee jumps at loud noises, or knocking Lee’s books out of his hands. Warren is just being a typical popular teenager, though, in his opinion.

Normal, everyday high school life. Nothing to be upset over. Still, Lee would say differently, and part of Warren realizes this, because he’s stunned speechless at the sight of Lee standing on his front step in the middle of the night.

Lee is shaking from his head to his toes, and now that Warren looks closer, the other teenager also has some visible bruises on his arms. Lee always keeps his arms covered during school, but he’s wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt right now, and sweatpants. He’s not wearing any shoes.

Before Warren can gather his wits about him and ask what Lee is doing knocking on his door, Lee mutters, “I didn’t know where else to go.” He promptly passes out, right there on Warren’s front door step.

This is how it always starts. 

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A choice must always be made.

When Warren Brighton comes across something very unexpected, he has a choice to make. Each option will have different consequences that Warren cannot anticipate. Follow along and see the different paths that Warren's life could take.

Which choice would you make?

Want to read the rest? Check out this short story here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T6JTCCS.

What Grows Under the Ground

One day, Tilly decides to grow a garden. She wants a beautiful garden, with lots of flowers. She wants to plant them right outside of her bedroom window, so that she can see them whenever she likes. Tilly can almost smell their fragrance and see the riot of colors already. She has time. It’s spring right now, the perfect time to grow a garden.

“Sounds impractical,” her mother says, when Tilly mentions her plans. Her mother is busy with her morning coffee and doesn’t look over at Tilly, so she doesn’t notice her expression turn from excited to withdrawn again. “Gardens are hard work, you know. You should plant something more useful, like some vegetables. Not flowers.”

Tilly walks outside and stares thoughtfully at the spot in their yard where she wants to make her garden. She imagines rows of carrots or lettuce instead of pretty flowers that smell nice. It doesn’t seem half as appealing to her, and so Tilly decides to ignore her mother’s advice.

She walks to the nearby village. This is quite a walk for Tilly, who usually does not venture much outside of her room during the day. At first, she’s pleased. It’s cool out, but the sky is clear and blue, and the fresh air feels good against her skin. Maybe she’ll walk to the village more often.

Except, when Tilly reaches the village, she’s reminded all over again why she rarely goes there. Too many people are around. Everywhere she tries to walk, Tilly almost trips over someone. Why are there so many people here? She can’t imagine living like this every day.

Eventually, after much effort, Tilly manages to free herself from the press of the crowd and arrives at the market. She wanders around for a little while longer, and finds someone who is selling flower seeds. The person selling them is someone Tilly knows. They are friends, she thinks. A girl her age named Missy.

“What are you doing here?” Missy asks in surprise.

Since Tilly has never been here to buy seeds before, she looks over the selection carefully. “I want to plant some flowers,” she says, wondering what ones she should buy. All of the seeds have little signs with their names on them, but no pictures, and Tilly doesn’t know which flowers look like what she’s seen before.

“Flowers take a lot of work to grow,” Missy says. She’s standing behind the display and looks quite bored. “I don’t know if you can do it.”

Tilly doesn’t know, either. She’s never made a garden before. Still, she wants to try.

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Meet Tilly, whose garden never grows. No one has ever taught her how to make a proper garden. She toils and toils every day, but everything that she plants always dies. Instead of helping her or offering some advice, though, everyone around Tilly berates her for failing. Still, Tilly tries, again and again, to create her own garden. Will anything ever grow?

Want to read the rest? You can find the short story here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07S7FD8LQ.

Lost & Found: The Tale of Gwen & Henley

This definitely isn’t somewhere that I’m familiar with. Not that waking up someplace strange is anything new, sadly. I wonder where I am. I wonder how long I was gone, this time. What day it is. At least I’m dressed. I hate waking up naked. I hate looking at my body.

Still, these clothes aren’t anything that I’d wear. They’re too tight, and fit much too closely to my body. Just being here, in these clothes, is very uncomfortable, and I’m alone right now. I can’t imagine being around people while wearing this.

I’m going to be seen, though, aren’t I. I have to figure out where I am, which means walking out of these woods. What the hell was Henley doing all alone in these woods, anyway? I don’t know, and I can’t ask. Not without risking her coming back and myself going away again so soon.

I really want to know how long it’s been this time. Have only a few hours passed? A few days? Weeks? Longer? The longest time that I’ve missed so far was three months, and it was terrible. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror for weeks afterwards, disgusted by what I saw.

My therapist says that I looked healthier then. That’s not what I saw, though I suppose she’s right. I know, really, that she’s right. That I have an eating disorder. Anorexia. That what I see when I look at myself isn’t the same as what everyone else sees. Sometimes, knowing this helps.

And sometimes, it doesn’t.

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Gwen goes away inside when she doesn't want to deal with food, and then Henley takes over. They've coexisted like this for years, but now Henley is developing her own problems with eating. Will the two of them be able to find some balance with each other, or will they both just be wandering around lost in the woods forever, following a trail of bread crumbs that leads nowhere?

This short story is a modern retelling of the classic fairy tale, "Hansel & Gretel".

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Seeds of the Poisoned Apple

I

Loren wishes for a baby girl. Perhaps it’s not wise of her to wish for a girl more than she wishes for anything else, but Loren has wanted a little girl to call her own for years, and now that she’s finally gotten pregnant, she wishes.

Every day, when she wakes up, Loren wishes for a baby girl. Every night, before she falls asleep, Loren wishes for a baby girl. Her stomach gets larger, and her hopes grow higher, until one day Loren feels horrible, stabbing pains in her stomach and knows for certain that something’s wrong.

She calls an ambulance through the spasms of pain, clenching her teeth tightly together and screaming anyway because she can’t stop herself. There’s something wrong. She’s so scared, and her husband’s at work, and she’s all alone, just her and her baby, and oh, god, she doesn’t care if her baby’s a little girl after all, as long as her child survives.

Into the ambulance, and there are paramedics around Loren, asking her questions that she wants to answer, but suddenly it’s so very difficult to breathe and everything hurts worse, and the machines are screaming, and no, she doesn’t want this. It’s all too much, and she’s never been more terrified in her life, but not for herself, no.

Her baby. Please, someone, save her baby. 

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One single seed of poison can sow so much despair. Several of them can change the course of an entire life, as young Bai finds out. Who is she, and who is she meant to become? These are questions that Bai must decide for herself.

This is a tale of woe and sorrow and hope, a modern retelling of the old classic fairy tale "Snow White". Because happily ever after doesn't always necessarily happen, and wishes don't always come true, but sometimes, if we're very lucky, they do.

If you're interested in reading the rest, check out the whole story here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MCZN1TP.

A Gift of Red

A Gift of Red

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Rhea stares at the dark interior of her car, but no matter how much she turns the key, nothing starts. Her car is dead, and now Rhea is stranded in the middle of nowhere. Her grandmother is dying, and Rhea has traveled a long way to see her. The airplane was late to arrive and late to take off, and now her rental car is dead in the middle of this road.

She can’t even call anyone. Rhea left her apartment in such a hurry that she didn’t even think about charging her phone beforehand. Or grabbing her charger to take with her.

Rhea hasn’t even seen her grandmother in years, and she tries not to feel too guilty about that, but it’s hard to fight down the feeling when she’s so close to her destination and now stuck.

Well, to hell with that. Rhea gets out of the car and pops open the hood, looking to see if she can spot the problem. Maybe she can fix it on her own, and get the damn car started again. A few minutes later, though, Rhea slams down the hood in frustration. The battery’s dead.

Looks like there’s no choice for Rhea except to walk the rest of the way. She isn’t familiar with this area or

this state at all, but the GPS had shown that from this point on she only had about twenty miles left to go before finally reaching the hospital. Rhea can walk that far. She just hopes that she’s not too late.

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A wolf howls in the woods. A woman in a red hoodie struggles to reach her dying grandmother in time. She has two paths to choose between.

A modern take on the classic fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood". Rhea hopes that she can visit her ill grandmother, but her car’s broken down and she has a long, dark walk through the woods first in order to reach the hospital. Will she make it there safely, and who (or what) awaits her? Find out in this supernaturally thrilling short story! You’ll be waiting on pins and needles to see how this tale ends!

Check out this short story here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JP88FTW.

One Night Encounter

I’m sure that there are worse ways to spend the last few weeks of summer, but being homeless is the worst way that I’ve ever vacationed. I’m walking along a random street, trying not to think about how completely my life’s been screwed over during the past couple of weeks.

I thought that getting my own place for the summer would be the best kind of vacation. A friend of mine agreed, and so we rented an apartment together. Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to move across the country in order to room with my friend, but hey, it was an adventure, right?

Some fucking adventure. My friend split on me, but not before lying about paying his share of the rent. I came back from hiking one day to find an eviction notice stating that if I didn’t have my shit out of there within twenty-four hours, the landlord would call the police.

I packed up my backpack, all I could carry with me, and left. I was even nice enough to leave my key there, because I figured it wasn’t the landlord’s fault that my roommate was a freaking liar. I have some cash on me, but it’s not nearly enough to get me back home. Maybe enough to eat for another week. So now I’m spending the last of my holiday living on the streets and trying to survive long enough to get the hell out of here. I can’t call my mom, either. She doesn’t have the money to spare, and all that she could do is worry.

About the only good luck I’ve had since then is that I found a job for a week or two, just long enough to earn me enough cash to buy a bus ticket out of this shithole. That, and I got a ride my first day to work from some guy that let me stay at his house the night before in exchange for a blowjob. Not exactly my idea of a good time, since he wasn’t attractive at all, but at least I got a steak dinner out of it, too.

I couldn’t stay at that guy’s place another night, though. Didn’t want to. Since then, I’ve been holed up in a homeless shelter during the night, trying not to think about how many diseases I could catch in a place like that. Beats just trying to find some spot to sleep at on the sidewalk, though. Probably less dangerous, too. Maybe.

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Want to find out what happens next? Check out the full story here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DS69LBD.