Private Morlane glanced at the watch that he'd taken off and left on the small table by his cot, rubbing his sleep-weary eyes as he noticed what time it was. Fifteen minutes until dawn, or at least until when dawn was slated to be, according to all of the records that he had read over the last few mornings.

The last few mornings had been early ones. They were camped next to a large farm, with a broken-down wooden fence surrounding the grounds, where a large rooster loved to perch at sunrise and crow so loudly that every living thing...

I couldn't sleep with her next to me. Her gentle snoring, calming to almost anyone else, was absolutely maddening to me. It was nails being dragged down a chalkboard, squealing and begging for everyone for miles to be quiet long enough for the mouse dragging its nails to be heard.

I wasn't in love with her. I didn't even love her, not for even the briefest of moments. A marriage of convenience? Who was this marriage convenient for? I knew that she slept with other men behind my back and, conversely, I knew that I slept with other men behind...

The pistol was cocked, ready to go. The young man stared down at the gun which was now locked and loaded, closing his eyes and taking several long breaths before looking over to where his older and more seasoned counterpart had been standing.

"We're going to die, aren't we," the young man commented, the hand holding the pistol starting to shake as his older counterpart exhaled heavily.

"We're all going to die someday," he mused in return. "So what if today is our day."

The young man sighed and looked back down at the gun in his hands. "I don't...

It was the fall that surprised me the most.

I had been running, running so hard so fast that, when I finally stopped behind the closed fire door, I could feel my lungs burning from the cold air filling them with each harsh breath that I took. Placing a hand against the cold metal door I leaned over and peered down the dirty stairwell, the only sound that I could hear was the sound of my own panting until a door several floors down flew open, echoing loudly as it hit the brick and mortar wall.

I hadn't said a...

She stared down into the shallow pond from where she stood on the banks, and sighed. There was world just below the broken surface of the water, a world that she longed to understand. The lillypads floating on the surface seemed to hide their world from hers, but she knew better. The world below, it was alive and well. It was something that she could feel, from the tips of her fingers, up her arms and across her heart, and all throughout her entire body.

All she had to do was jump.

Though the pond was only a foot or...

"Ugh," Shiloh said, rolling her eyes over the steaming cup of coffee that she had been holding for the last twenty minutes.

Her boyfriend Micah looked across the table and couldn't help but let out a very quiet laugh. "What?" he asked, still laughing as he did.

"Don't what me," she replied softly, shaking her head as she took a very long sip of her still piping hot coffee. "Don't, Micah. You know exactly what that ugh was for."

After Micah had graduated from university with a degree in chemical engineering, he had convinced himself that he didn't want a...

It started as a joke.

Ralph was one of the few people at the camp who had a vehicle, who had a vehicle that was heavy enough to roll through the massive amounts of snow that often fell here over the course of an entire winter, and whose vehicle was actually fit enough to start on a cold morning.

Sally had a sled. She had a sled and a length of rope, and one day thought that it would be amusing to tie the length of rope to Ralph's bumper and let Ralph take her for a ride. Though Ralph...