Monica Mistaikov
I stood on the old wooden bed I always slept in. There was always a window up high and I would always look up to it at noon and see the clock chime. There were so much out there waiting for me to learn. I wanted to go out there, explore the world, make friends. But I couldn't, because I can’t. Where I am from is a powerful city, Nastavbriki. This city, we have to protect it with our lives so no rebels come. But my anonymous parents dropped me to an orphanage when I was very...
When we reached the top, we were so dizzy from the thin air we'd forgotten why we had to climb and headed back down the mountain.
At the bottom, clear-headed, we remembered why we had to climb and headed back up the mountain.
This continued for the rest of our lives.
Absent. The roots were absent but you could still see them. When you burn a stump, you often end up with a chunk of its heart that doesn't turn to ash. The interesting thing is how the fire always seems to follow the roots, no matter how deep they go, burning away every trace of them. Sometimes, even a year later, a fire can rekindle from deep in the earth where it was banked in some hidden location. Looking down from above, you can see the faithful reproduction of the root system only it's just air. Hollows that disappear into...
We waited for the curtain to go down, some patiently and obliviously to the palpable tension between Fran and I. Once again she'd tried to force me to go into the final act without the correct props. Once again she'd sabotaged, or rather tried to sabotage my costume. But I wouldn't be held back. I was going to upstage her no matter that my backside was revealed to the entire audience. She thought I wouldn't turn and face her? Apparently she was unaware of my tenacity and forgot that I'd seen her in action before. To that end, so to...
The floorboard creaked. The house came alive and... walked.
It did not walk as people walk, as things designed to move would move. No, a house is not meant to ambulate, not meant to be in a place different from the place it had always been. That was the first trial, overcoming years of inactivity, millenia of tradition.
But the house was determined to leave its lot, after its lot in life had fallen. All around it, other houses had fallen, eaten away by neglect, time, disuse. And while this house had not had resident or human inhabitant for far...
"This dream - it was better than waking."
"That's incredibly flawed. Inherantly flawed. You can't control the dream - for all you know, in the next few moments, you could've... You could've turned up to someone's wedding. Someone you hated. Or worse, someone you loved."
"If that's the kind of dreams you have, I'm not surprised you can't understand how a dream could be better than waking." I made a face. "That's really the best you can come up with? Oooh, a dream wedding." My nose wrinkled. "Is that a pun?"
"A very strained one." She replied, going to make...
“Over here! It’s over here! I’ve found it!” yelled James, pointing frantically at the area to his left. “Honestly, there’s gold over here!” The shout seemed to fall on deaf ears. After months of searching the island for the treasure, and getting nowhere except lost, no one got too excited about so-called finds anymore. They would wander over in their own time, and usually they would kick at the jewels lying on the ground, or in the hole, or under the tree roots and declare them to be fake.
James, as the youngest on the expedition, still held out hope,...
Midnight on the roof. She stood alone, shivering, cold, the wind blowing her hair across her face, blanket wrapped around her. It had gone all wrong at the party, and she knew it. She had meant to approach him, to say she was sorry, to ask him to forgive her. But instead, she froze, watching carefully from across the room while her friends chatted on, oblivious. He never once looked her way. Did he know she was there? Could he feel her presence? The truth she had spoken aloud in anger only a few days before seemed not so true...
She was the most delicate girl in town. But looks could be deceptive. Ruth knew he was somewhere in the house. Unfamiliar surroundings would make it difficult for easy location of prey, but that wouldn't delay the inevitable. She was as confident as she could be that no help would come. The old place was too isolated; one of its charms. Ironically, it was what had attracted her to the place. The appeal of sole occupation. Nothing to disturb her work.
Fortunately, she'd made it to the Kitchen and its drawers of sharp, clean, very clean knives. Ms. (note the...
There was blood on my pillow.
My nose was dry. I hadn't bit my cheek. I hadn't somehow lost a tooth. A quick examination of my skull told me that it remained intact.
Oh, duh, I have DNA-Vision. I forget sometimes.
I scanned the blood on my pillow. It wasn't mine.
So where had it come from?
"Ah ha! It was me!" yelled someone from the foot of my bed.
It was my arch-nemesis, The Hemophiliac. Of course!
"What have you done?!" I roared.
"I snuck into your bedroom last night and bled on your pillow! But don't worry; I...