Fantasy
Seven Days a Week, I Return to Her
I usually wake up before my alarm sounds off because she hums before dawn, not audibly, but in the way a thought hums when it has been rehearsed so often it no longer needs sound. The apartment is dim, the city is still deciding whether it will wake me or leave me alone, and I pad across the floor to where she waits. She is matte black and silver, unassuming in profile, yet somehow radiant when the light hits the curve of her handles. I place my hand on her console the way some people touch a pulse point, and the day aligns itself. Seven days a week, without fail, I climb aboard and let the rhythm find me. This is not an exercise. This is a return.
By Anthony Chan2 months ago in Fiction
Our Song. Runner-Up in Rituals of Affection Challenge. Top Story - February 2026. Content Warning.
Evening has given way to night. Gently, I settle next to you on the comfortable, old love seat and reach for your hand. You snatch it away, again. It cuts me to the quick, but I hide the pain, understanding that the reaction is but part of your demented state. Since the accident, your presence here in our cozy home has been clouded by a haze I can't see. Nevertheless, I feel the frigidity of your expressions and it serves as an excruciating reminder of the immeasurable distance between us.
By Dana Crandell2 months ago in Fiction
Stories Before a Wedding, or The Happily Ever After of Cinderella. Top Story - February 2026.
Cinderella had always dreamt of marrying a prince. She had dreamt of nothing else since she was a small girl. Now, however, as the Prince’s wife of three days, she had to admit that the reality was not as she had dreamt it to be.
By Dionearia Red2 months ago in Fiction
Joseph, Doom bringer. . Content Warning.
Joseph stirred awake in a dark stone cell. He felt an eerie sense of betrayal and anguish. His memory felt hazy, and his bones ached as he moved his sore, stiff joints. He raked his mind, trying to make sense of the strange situation he’d found himself in. Why was he here? What had he done?
By Olivia Stephenson2 months ago in Fiction
Yelling for the Sheep
You think you know the story of the old-country farmer, but there’s a whole other side lost to history. In the late eighteenth century, in a small village seventy miles outside of Valladolid, Spain, there was a young man named Ramon Marin. He had just inherited a small sheep farm from his father, Antonio, who passed away seven weeks ago. His mother, Alma, had died years before, soon after he came of age.
By Gabriel Shames2 months ago in Fiction
Myth No More
Wilmington, Delaware in winter always marveled the mind of Pollard Hedrich. Wrapped in brown skin that rivaled the inside of matchbooks, his mind had always been afire. He walked with his friend Tyrell Frankman, the color of charcoal, along a field with a clear path, snow surrounding them.
By Skyler Saunders2 months ago in Fiction
Where Do You Go When the Story Doesn’t End?
Sometimes stories end because the book is actually finished. Others abruptly stop because the reader has fallen asleep. But sometimes the story keeps going simply because it's developed a mind of its own, leaving you to keep turning the pages without noticing.
By Shannon Hilson2 months ago in Fiction
