Psychological
The Longest Night
8:47 PM The sun was dying slow behind the tree line, a dark cherry bruise spreading across the fading ember sky. Phoebe killed the engine of her VW van, listening to the ticks and pops of it cooling down as if it would cool her nerves along with it. The urn on the passenger seat gleamed like bone in the growing purple light.
By Ellie Hoovs6 months ago in Fiction
Shore Leave. Winner in Everything Looks Better From Far Away Challenge. Content Warning.
I. Landing Reed stood on the porch and stared out at the view like it was behind glass. The cabin was perched high enough above the fjord to see its whole serpentine length stretching out into the distant horizon. Water like hammered silver. Pine trees lining both banks like a sea of dark velvet. Sunlight poured in low from the west, gold-plating the hills in a way that would have made a photographer weep with joy. A gull cawed overhead. Something rustled through the grass. Somewhere, distant, a dog barked twice and then fell silent.
By Aspen Noble6 months ago in Fiction
The Cursed Memory
The Cursed Memory It was late, the kind of late where the world feels empty. The road ahead was well known to everyone; it was the border between two municipalities. During the day, a hectic stretch of road lined with eager merchants, both big and small. My hands rested on the wheel of my ’72 Cortina, the engine humming as Gary Numan’s song “Cars” blasted away with far too much bass on the old a.m. radio.
By Bruce Curle `6 months ago in Fiction
The Ghost and the Hack
Thomas Mcoy, no second C, is a name you’ve probably never seen. Maybe you’ve spotted “Tommy M.” buried in the acknowledgments of a bestseller or scrawled on a Starbucks cup while he tapped away on a Chromebook in a corner booth. But you won’t find his name on a book cover.
By Muhammad Sabeel6 months ago in Fiction
The Rear View
The desert is watching. The moment I lift my new vape to my mouth, a gust of hot wind flings my hair into the chapstick on my lip like a gentle slap in the face. I know I should stop. I’ve tried. I’m always so close to getting away, too. I buy gas, go inside to buy a drink, tell myself I’m not getting anything else, and there they are behind the counter, strategically arranged so they’re impossible to ignore. Every vape is going to be my last, and then it isn’t.
By Rosie Ford 6 months ago in Fiction
The Secrets My Mother Kept
Once safely back in his room, Alex ducked under the covers with his new treasure and flipped the flashlight back on. It shown brightly through the thick wool blanket his aunt Sydney had given him on his seventh birthday. He had gone through a mighty big dinosaur phase then, represented by the green outlines of pteradactyles, triceratops, and Tyranosaurus rexes that cluttered the black cloth he had grown up in.
By Parsley Rose 6 months ago in Fiction
