Short Story
Wrong Identity
Curtis didn't blink. The "Jake" side of his consciousness was screaming, terrified by the cold void where his emotions used to be, but the "Curtis" side was simply calculating the distance between himself and the exit. He could see the structural weaknesses of the lighthouse—the salt-eroded mortar, the leaning angle of the spiral stairs. He could see the way Elias's synthetic skin twitched a millisecond before he moved.
By Forest Green4 days ago in Fiction
Wrong Identity
"Elias?" he called out, his voice sounding thin and foreign in the small space. The radio didn't answer with words. Instead, the melodic humming shifted, modulating into a series of precise, rhythmic clicks—almost like Morse code, but faster, more organic. As the sounds pulsed, the dashboard lights of the sedan began to flicker in synchronization, the needles of the speedometer and fuel gauge dancing in a frantic, synchronized ballet. Jake felt a sudden, sharp pressure in the center of his chest, a magnetic tug that mirrored the pull of the briefcase in the backseat.
By Forest Green4 days ago in Fiction
Wrong Identity
Elias sighed, a sound that was perfectly timed to evoke sympathy but lacked any actual breath. He stepped toward the center of the foyer, his gold eyes shimmering as they caught the rotation of the lighthouse beam overhead. "You're fighting the transition because you're clinging to the fragment of a man who never existed. Jake was a beautiful sketch, Curtis. But the painting is finished. Give me the drives."
By Forest Green4 days ago in Fiction
Wrong Identity
He stared at the radio, then felt the weight of the I.D. card still clutched in his palm. The name Curtis Penhaligon seemed to pulse against his skin. He remembered the feeling of the coast, the blinding white light of the cliffs, and the sense of freedom he had felt just days ago. Now, that memory felt like a carefully constructed lie, a layer of paint slapped over a canvas he couldn't see. If he wasn't Jake, and if Elias wasn't the friend he thought he was, then the last three days weren't a road trip—they were a transit.
By Forest Green4 days ago in Fiction
Wrong Idnetity
The salt-marsh detour was a claustrophobic gauntlet of waist-high grass and stagnant pools that mirrored the overcast sky. Jake—or Curtis, or the thing that was both—felt the sedan shudder as it navigated the muddy track, the engine straining against the resistance of the terrain. Every few seconds, the radio pulsed with a low-frequency hum, a sonar-like ping that seemed to map the landscape for him, highlighting the safest path through the mire.
By Forest Green4 days ago in Fiction
Wrong Identity
He didn't knock. The iron door yielded with a heavy, pneumatic hiss, sliding open to reveal a foyer that smelled of cold stone and ancient wax. And there, exactly where the ledger had warned him, stood the mirror. It was a towering thing, the gilded frame carved into the shapes of weeping willows and eyeless fish. As Jake stepped past it, he felt a violent surge of vertigo. He didn't look—he couldn't—but the periphery of his vision caught a glimpse of the glass. The reflection wasn't delayed; it was accelerated. He saw himself walking toward the door before he had even taken the step, a ghost of a second leaping ahead of his own body.
By Forest Green4 days ago in Fiction
Wrong Identity
"Why the gap?" Jake asked, his voice steady. "The memory loss. The motel. Why let me forget?" "The 'Jake' persona is the camouflage, Curtis. You can't move through a coastal town for three days looking like a Chief Logistics Officer for a shadow agency. You’d stick out like a sore thumb. We needed you relaxed, untethered—essentially a tourist in your own skin. It lowers the heart rate, keeps the subconscious from flagging the surveillance."
By Forest Green4 days ago in Fiction
Small Changes
Flying with my sisters offered me the greatest sense of peace and freedom. Serenity in the slipstream as we hunted and gathered for our tribe. As idyllic a life as one could hope for. The climate was temperate, with a glowing yellow sun beaming down on us, lifting our spirits and easing any aches and stiffness in our muscles.
By Paul Stewart4 days ago in Fiction
The Machine Chose Me
You spend the first hour cleaning machinery you will never be allowed to touch again. Black grease smudges across your sleeves as you crawl beneath the service corridor where the command platform sits behind two meters of armored bulkhead. The maintenance cart digs into your hip each time you drag it forward, with the inspection lamp slipping from its bracket as you work around the hydraulic lines.
By Tim Carmichael5 days ago in Fiction
