19 Results in the "short stories" category
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The Night Immortal
It was past four a.m. and he hadn’t slept. He needed to be up in a couple hours if he was going to make the meeting with his editor. He couldn’t postpone a fifth time. The storm had been raging since he’d gone to bed. The curtains were thick enough to block the lightning, but coastal storms always unsettled him. He could never sleep through the wind. He turned over, shoving a pillow over his head, but he could still hear it. His mother had called him a night owl since he was a child—better…-
4.2 K • Completed
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Verity
She’s got a broom in her hands and is sweeping dirt from the lowest stair when he walks past. Seeing him doesn’t surprise her anymore. When he first went by—years ago now—she felt the shock like lightning in her stomach and in her chest. It was his back that she saw, but she knew him at once by the color of his hair, the deep rust brown that hung past his shoulders, out of style her whole lifetime. The particular motion of his step, always favoring his right leg. An accident when he’d…-
6.1 K • Ongoing
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Bluebird
He came with the rain, decades ago when the forest here was still saplings, back when we were growing sod and Mama was crying every night that the drought would ruin us. I heard him before I saw him that first time, a cheerful whistle coming up the road. “Don’t talk to him,” the neighbors whispered. “That boy’s bad luck.” But he’d been friendly and young, as young as me, the only other person under thirty anyplace I could get to on foot. A year older, maybe two. I’d never asked.…-
2.2 K • Oneshot
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Trees
They emerged together in a new life as twin saplings in the damp, black mulch. Their seeds had spun down the previous autumn and lodged in the soil. They hadn’t blown away like the others. She was alone with her consciousness, an innate sense of being; she had been once, twice, a hundred times before; so had he; and they had been—together. Without eyes or mouths, they could no longer see or speak to each other and they were too far apart to touch, but beneath the soil, their roots spread and twined…-
1.3 K • Oneshot
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The Demon Tree
Rose’s seat was the third from the end on a continuous desk that could seat seven, but she was one of only two that morning over her first cup of coffee. The desk faced the back of someone’s monitor; to her right was the senior writer, Ania, who had given her a tour yesterday in a banana-yellow sweater. Today, they wore gray and black leggings and had not looked up when Rose said good morning. Most of the paper’s staff worked remotely. That meant an empty office but no one pressed up on…-
4.4 K • Oneshot
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In Flight
Ray visited his brother more often after his death than he had for a decade. On Saturdays, he’d pick up a bouquet along with a week’s groceries and after lunch, carry it on the five-mile run that took him past the cemetery. He’d kneel before the grave, clear away last week’s flowers, pinch weeds slithering up the headstone. The fresh engraving was almost sharp to the touch. Simon Fisher, beloved husband. Ray hadn’t seen anyone else here since the funeral—not even her. The adjacent plot waited,…-
4.2 K • Completed
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a change in the weather
prompt: a change in the weather – As the sun stroked the last of a flower’s faded petals, it said “Don’t be afraid” and it said “Go to sleep; you’ll see me again after the winter.” From a nearby garden another flower whispered, “But isn’t that one an annual?” “Shh,” beamed the… - Story
TNI & In Flight
A pair of stories set fifteen years apart about a man dealing with different kinds of heartache. -
Chapter
in another life
prompt: in another life MDZS modern AU, xiyao. References a canonical death. – The sword plunges through his chest and he wakes gasping. “What’s wrong?” Xichen mumbles from the adjacent pillow. Although Xichen’s skin is hot where he touches it, Meng Yao shivers. “Nightmare.” “No more horror before bed.” Xichen’s arms engulf him. Against Meng Yao’s ear, his heart beats. Beats. “I asked you to die with me,” he whispers. “It’s only a dream,… -
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