Excerpt
Upending
Here are all of the ways I am not going to fulfill your ideas of a dystopian heroine. I’m not the girl who doesn’t know she’s beautiful. I’m not the tomboy who grew up with just her dad and knows how to throw a punch and fix a car. I’m not quiet and smart and inherently good. I’m not the poor girl everyone is rooting for to catch a break and conquer the world.
By Danie Nordahl3 years ago in Fiction
Fool's Gold
I don’t remember the first time I was standing in this place, but I remember the second. The sun had set, and we had just eaten dinner as a family in the ornate dining room of the grand, white-stone villa in the leafy borough of Annely that I used to – and, sometimes, accidentally, still – call home. I was late to dinner that night. I couldn’t bring myself to leave the balcony that was in my bedroom. Couldn’t bring myself to leave the sight of the city sprawling before me, with its endless valley of white-bricked houses and buildings, its year-round lush green grass and palm trees, the lavender-scented balmy evening breeze, and its cloudless blue sky, shattered by the molten gold of the setting sun and hues of pink. It was heaven, a moment so perfect and serene that it seems only logical that the moments to follow it would be so exceedingly hellish, if only to even the scorecard.
By Seannine Henderson3 years ago in Fiction
Rich and Poor
The new virus negates everything we learned from Covid. Instead of isolation and endless sanitizing, we must cohabit with family or, in the absence of that, with strangers. The danger of the Proximus virus lies in the increased desertification of the skin fauna. Funeral directors notice it first. The bodies don't decompose as fast as usual.
By Christian Klump3 years ago in Fiction
Where There's a Will, There's a Way
As she kneeled on the ground, hands up, gun pointed at her head, Rebecca clasped the heart-shaped locket that was around her neck. Suddenly, memories started flooding her brain. She remembered when he gave it to her for her 21st birthday. Inside the locket was a picture of him on one side and her on the other, both in their bathing suits. It was in memory of their first vacation together in Cabo. Then she looked down at her hand and saw the tan line where her wedding ring should be. Even though he had been gone six years, she still wore it. She had taken it off that morning to wash her hands and forgot to put it back on in the scramble to gather the kids and any supplies they might need as the emergency alarm blared deafeningly. These items were the last two physical pieces of her husband that she had and now there was only the one. And this crazy, terrified man was yelling that she should give him her treasure in exchange for her life.
By Briana Krueger3 years ago in Fiction
The Shortening
My mother told me stories when I was a child about how many women, long ago, lived in fear of men in some form or another. She told me how men were violent, greedy, and sexist to their female counterparts. She threw around the word “rape” and “harassment” often. It seemed as though she didn’t have a single positive thing to say about them. These are the stories told to us in our history. And yet, men are so precious to us now. They serve a vital role in our communities. Without them we cannot survive. This is what they teach us in school. The teachers tell us that men are necessary to sustain life on Earth and that they have a unique gift that women need in order to bare children. This is why they live at the special centers all across the country. Academies built and run by some of our most powerful and strongest female leaders. It is for their protection. It is for the value they bring to our community. It is for their essence. It is for the greater good. These are all lies.
By Lauryn Gullberg3 years ago in Fiction
Good Neighbors
"Good fences make good neighbors." I think of that line, everyday when I wake up and walk my stretch of fence in the morning. It's an old line from an old poem, I don't remember it's author or where I found it, probably in school, it seems so salient to my life now.
By Rylan Alexander3 years ago in Fiction
A Peaceful Interlude
Maisie stares out at the horizon before her, her feet dangling over the edge of the bridge. Tears brim in the corner of her eyes, a few falling errantly down her cheeks. She knew this would happen, that she would end up here, watching another sun rise alone. As soon as the council spotted Anna, she knew what was coming. She knew there’d be questions and that they’d pull Anna away from her and send her…she doesn’t know what they’ll do with her. “Damnit,” she whispers cursing herself for being so reckless, for daring to dream, for allowing Anna into her heart knowing it would end up broken.
By Carly Gibbs3 years ago in Fiction
Trapped In An Imprisonment Of My Own Making
Dear Diary, Day 1 June 18, 2009 I had a choice. I should have known better. How can someone lie, and be so deceitful? If only I hadn’t lost something so precious and rare. I can’t forgive myself for losing it. I knew I shouldn’t have gone back to the one place that felt like home, that made me feel safe...
By Brittaney Privitera3 years ago in Fiction
Taysir’s Warrior
Erix should really be asleep. They still have a long journey to the dockyards and they all have to be up early. After today, Erix should honestly be out cold by now; but his mind is still racing from earlier. A lot had happened. A lot that Erix wasn’t used to.
By Jeanine Kaye Hila3 years ago in Fiction
Guild of Nightmares
P The light was quickly fading, night fast approaching, and with the dark the Nightmares would surely follow. I ran. I had been stupid, leaving it so late to travel back. I should have stayed in the town, or found a travelling companion. But people would wonder, especially at the unusual cloak and net mask. No, this was my own fault, my stupiditiveness. Oh my, now I’m making up words, I thought to myself.
By Morgan Christy Rickards3 years ago in Fiction