Category: 400 Words

Reading Time: 2 Mins In the space between heartbeats, everything was gone, as if the wick of time itself had been snuffed out. In the after we roamed, souls without form, at one with the cosmos, aimless, until the shadowblack of spent stars found their shape again and awoke. We were aware of all things…

Reading Time: 3 Mins They had been stranded on the small island for weeks and Goran was working Paul’s last nerve. “Take it down,” Paul said, referring to the woven flag Goran had planted in front of their shelter. “Why?” Goran said. “It’s patriotic. This place needs a flag.” The flag had left a tart…

Reading Time: 3 Mins “I don’t know why the gods have chosen to speak through me,” Wally Boylen said to the reporter with a slight hiccup, thanks to the 10 a.m. gin and tonics he’d convinced himself he deserved. “I don’t even pray.” But the signs were hard to refute; Wally knew things. He knew…

Reading Time: 3 mins “What do you say, can you make one just like it?” I needed this to work and Eddie was my last resort. Potions were more his thing, though everyone knew he was a charmer on the side, if you had the money. Hell, for the right price he’d even dabble in…

Reading Time: 2 Mins. The panic in her eyes was so powerful it even made me hold my breath, waiting for what would come next. She stood still as stone. She looked down at the red on her hands, dripping onto her white tennis shoes. This was an unforeseen response to the new code. Not…

Reading Time: 2 Mins. “You must come now, and quickly.” Spoken just above a whisper but in the iron halls of prayer they echoed into a scream. This was not a place where words were spoken. The Elder, whose name had fallen out of memory, was the first to break the silence in 15 years….

Reading Time: 2 Mins It was the smell of our sweat and the dried blood caked on our arms that drew the bugs to us. Up to our waists in stagnant water, packs lifted high above our heads, we tried to ignore them and failed. The flare went up 100 yards in front of us….

Reading Time: 2 Mins. It was Tovi’s idea to rob the central account. Leading the Advanced AI software building team gave her the inside track on the soft spots and the access to build in back doors for any that were caught by the team and closed up. It was Liam’s job to clean the…

Reading Time: 2 Mins. Not all good people are innocent. Take Shari for example. They have a secret. Sometimes you find you’re in a situation where you have to choose between bad and worse. When the story leaks, you can only hope people listen long enough to understand the context. Shari was a fledgling packer…

Reading Time: 2 Mins This was it, there was only moving up from here. His next pay would not only show his new promotion, but this was the last one showing the garnish on his wages from his tax troubles for the past five years. It was time to start saving for something great. Gustav…