Fantasy
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
Moonharbor
I sit on the cliff that hangs off of Moonharbor counting the stars. My mom is working late again like usual, and my dad passed away when I was young. After he passed I felt separate from the world. Like someone who watches the world instead of being part of it. I spend days wishing someone would sit beside me, watching the stars, just like me and my father used to. I feel the wind brush my cheek, and play with my hair. The salt of the ocean falls on my tongue, as the dark night silences all emotions. I watch the waves hit the rocks, and admire the moonlight reflecting off the water. I feel a heaviness in my chest, like a stone sitting on my ribs making it hard to breath as I sit with the stars as my only company. I notice the moon is lower than usual, that's strange but we are not too different both lonely in the dark of the night.
By Christian Sanchez2 months ago in Fiction
Fires of Adversity
Kathryn, Princess of Thuirene, rose early to enjoy the sunrise in peaceful solitude. As much solitude as a member of the royal family ever got, anyway. She’d have little enough of that in the coming days, that every moment without someone demanding her attention was a gift to be savoured.
By Natasja Rose2 months ago in Fiction
The Brightness
By the time Cara reached her locker, the light had already arrived. It was rising through the floor in a slow, deliberate sheet, a pale brightness that behaved less like illumination and more like weather. Not harsh. Not blinding. Just there, pressing gently upward, filling the hallway from the ground like something patient and inevitable. It softened the edges of everything it touched. Lockers. Shoes. The thin layer of dust that never quite disappeared, no matter how often the cleaners came through.
By Emilie Turner2 months ago in Fiction
