Keb Rogers
Bio
I am a writer who focuses primarily in the science fiction and fantasy genres. I'm excited to share my ideas, stories, and worlds with you all! I look forward to the feedback from this lovely community's vast sea of talented writers.
Achievements (1)
Stories (18/0)
Custodians of the Cradle
Jericho’s Cradle isn’t real. It exists on no map nor claimed by any kingdom. The town is impossible to find if searched for and doesn’t appear in any place twice. Crazed lunatics swear up and down that they’ve seen it, even bringing the pies they’ve acquired, but when they lead eager onlookers to where they saw it, gone, vanished like a cloud of smoke. It is nowhere, yet everyone knows its name. I had no intention of finding the famed town – it found me.
By Keb Rogers4 days ago in Fiction
Mother Stone
It was an autumn morning and I found one. There have been so many passing along the ground that it’s hard to remember which day I found this one among the myriad, but it was autumn because I remember the leaves turning. My mother stone. She collected them to paint, some to keep and some to leave, always the same shape but sometimes different sizes. They found me regardless of my looking or not. I never collected them; they were better left untouched or for someone else to see. Touchstones across the world each a kind word from my mother destined to brighten the day of an unknowing soul, at least that’s what I thought they were. But it was autumn when the leaves began to change to their brilliant warm hues and trails of steam rose from my warm cup of coffee as I sorted through my packed belongings. Staring at it through the steam of my coffee brought me back to the flight deck of a naval carrier, its steam pouring through the cracks making it hard to see the small rock with painted-on hotdogs and pizza she’d sent me among other gifts. The heat, the sweat, the loneliness, the exhaustion all rushed back. The unpainted stone rests in my hands.
By Keb Rogers4 days ago in Writers
Camp Coincidence. Content Warning.
There was no end to the amount of kids jumping in that pool. Being a good summer camp, there’s always a place for them to go and blow off steam, at least we thought so. We couldn’t have them cooped up doing crafts or learning about which berries were okay to eat. It was a big pool, plenty of space for all of the kids to swim. It was the best part of camp, for them, for us, we all loved it. It’s closed. The young ones won’t stop shitting in it. Four times they’ve let a log roll out and four times we’ve closed it. It all happened in such quick succession the camp manager decided it wasn’t worth keeping open. One hundred and twenty kids and twenty-two counselors without a pool. It was tough to imagine the camp without a pool.
By Keb Rogers4 days ago in Fiction
The Ones We Lean On
The Sun used to peek around the mountain and onto the small plot I’d built this cabin on, but not anymore. I couldn’t even remember the last time its light had shown anywhere around my home, like it had forgotten I was there. Its neglect allowed in the cold, an unceasing cold that lingered no matter the layers, furs, or fire used to combat it. It siphoned life from everything. Spindles of dead trees and dense brambles of lifeless shrubs surrounded the cabin in a bed of withered spikes, and the ground was brittle and frozen, incapable of producing even sparse grass let alone crops.
By Keb Rogersabout a month ago in Fiction
Down the Aisle
I often wonder what life would have been like. If it’s possible to even conceive it without you, or to imagine any other universe, any other thread of reality where we didn’t make sense. The same answer dances throughout my mind like a flowing dress in a field full of flowers. No. It could never make sense, you and I apart, because what would life be then? The faint memories of feint love linger not as wounds but as lessons on what love could never be. Remnant cuts from failed attempts scar my soul, and yet, they brought me to you. I could not be more thankful for those mistakes. You gave me purpose, you gave me peace, you showed me love that may forever keep.
By Keb Rogers3 months ago in Fiction
Good Memories. Runner-Up in Whispering Woods Challenge.
Every morning for the past six years Henry has walked through the Havenwood forest alone. He wore a loose-fitting button up shirt tucked into slacks, and in his hand a picture of his late wife, Lora, smiling with a glow warmer than the Sun. She was out here somewhere in the woods; he was sure of it. People just don’t disappear into thin air, and the cancer in her pancreas wouldn’t have allowed her to travel far, but she vanished this exact day six years before. No trace, no footprints, nothing. Just gone.
By Keb Rogers4 months ago in Fiction
Winds that Bind. Top Story - April 2024.
Under an iron sky, a silver-leafed dragon holds the key to peace. A hailstorm of burning of the Frellian force’s unceasing rage slams against the Golden Dome. Each impact forces the wavy currents of hazy, golden air to scatter erratically for a moment before returning to their perpetual breeze. Each impact fuels my urge to run, but leaving would only ensure the fate I wish to avoid. Licking flames dance just outside the protective haze, like worshipers before the Great Khal during ceremony. The fires closest to the dome burn the brightest. Stacks and stacks of bodies, the men, women, and children from lesser castes, field workers and farmhands who couldn’t afford city life pile against the translucent golden wall. The surprise assault afforded little time to evacuate from the countryside and into the city. Charred hands reach and beg for sanctuary, the guilt of survival is heavy against my soul. Even in death, they worship the Great Khal, the only one who may grant their entrance to the afterlife, their God King, their supposed protector. If he falls, the souls of Marowar are forfeit, destined to wander listless wastes of the grey. They will be nothing more than experiments, playthings for the devious Frellian shamans to tinker with --- a fate far worse than death.
By Keb Rogers7 months ago in Fiction
Paid Off
I despise crowded stores now that I’m older. I feel the dominating weight of anxiety roll off me like boulders down a hillside when I feel the air’s gentle greeting upon exit. The relief is short however, the sweltering Georgia heat grips my throat and paints my back with sweat. The untamed chaos within the store muddled my mind and I can’t remember where I parked. A large Chevy Suburban passes me, the pilates mom clutching her tumbler probably filled with wine scowls at me when I finally walk to the other side of the street. I am all for the haste of general errands, but this woman’s face was so scrunched that one could have been convinced she smelled fresh garbage. I hold my keys in the air, pressing the lock button that would prompt the horn of my car. Still nothing. Am I that far away?
By Keb Rogers11 months ago in Fiction
Seek and Destroy
Purpose is a funny thing. We were all made to join the war effort, but we were not all meant to find ourselves in its cause. Perhaps I am biased to my station, but let me say, there are so many tired mouths I have heard speak of their longing for home and the end of war. While I can’t argue with their logic, I can resent their burning desire for someone else to end it for them. Their faces are long and weary and pained by the inevitability of untimely death or unremembered service. To them, all they were – all their worth – was but a number and their initials on a page without even the decency of writing their full name upon this ledger of Britain's sacrifice. Still, I often found myself wondering why I wanted to wake up and penetrate skies riddled with so many offenders of peace and prosperity. It may have been my hate for the detestable, despicable Nazi regime or my unwavering sense of national pride for our great motherland of Britain; no, I always came to the same conclusion: it was the skies, my terrible love for the freedom above that only the clouds could bestow.
By Keb Rogersabout a year ago in History
1:30 PM
There was no such thing as rest in Cala – only the clanging of swords, the felling of foes, and the excitement of spoils fueled its adventurers. Cala’s dusty pathways sliced through the thick woodlands, riddled with snarling creatures and terrible beasts for the hunters to kill and pillage their useful bits to aid them on their quest to attain the pinnacle of glory: killing Volaris, The Demon King, atop the dormant volcano known as Hell’s Wake. Leena hoped she would one day have the chance to smite this monstrosity and save the lands from his terror, but today, she sat leaning against a large oak tree, as she had done so many days before, unable to move.
By Keb Rogers2 years ago in Fiction
PROJECT: Oracle
We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin. The drive hadn’t been terrible, apart from my growing worry that our tired BMW wouldn’t be able to power through the declining weather. I hadn’t been on a vacation in years and couldn’t wait to unwind — I knew Sally and Ember had been excited, too. I opened my car door to a rush of swirling chill and snowy confetti bursting through with the cold, crisp air that stung my nostrils as I deeply inhaled. I stood up and dramatically stretched my arms out wide with another loud inhale, my body rejuvenated from the chilled nectar of unbothered mountain air.
By Keb Rogers2 years ago in Horror
Subscribe to my stories
Show your support and receive all my stories in your feed.
Send me a tip
Show your support with a small one-off tip.