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Latest Stories

July 08, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Dance Of Death

CHAPTER ONE 1940 Chief Inspector Kenneth Langford offered the Commissioner a crisp salute, and then walked back through the labyrinth of passageways to his own small office. Langford was a member of the London Metropolitan Police, commonly referred to as…
July 08, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Winter Blues

the winter blues has a grip on me, all so tight Its icy tentacles wrap around me and squeezes freezing my fingers and toes with its nasty frostbite staving off the cold is a battle, an endless fight it brings forth an assortment of nasty diseases The winter…
July 08, 2025
Horror Stories Sushma R Doshi

Deliverer Of Messages

A loner in my childhood, my scrawny and weak figure prone to being bullied by sturdy and robust boys, I tended to wander around places frequented by few. Those curvy roads which fell into darkness after evening without street lights, the area near the pond…
July 08, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

With A Side-Eye I Cherish

for Brittany ma amour Up to my neck in sadness for something just out of reach and she came along and fired up my life with kisses and the physical. The moment I looked into her eyes I didn't want to share her with anyone else and keep her all to myself. In…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Days Of Future Dreams

the days of future dreams the flames once rose high thinking our lives would end up supreme thinking our future seemed a far of dream but in the end nothing is what it seems many times the winds of changed has blown this way one minute we`re lapping the cream…
July 03, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

Bad Girl

Part 1I lost the entire manuscript when I assassinated my laptop with sauvignon blanc as I rubbed the lower back of a woman who dozed drunk on my bed, sweating. She was crazed, somewhere between screaming and lying about the orgasm. Bree was a miracle to me,…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Nelly Shulman

Black Is Our Colour

“I swear she could have been you. Look! This girl is your long-lost twin.” Fi nudged me, and I smiled. “Never had or wanted one.” I stood up. “Let’s go, or the bargain hunters will clear the shelves before us.” We dived into the vintage emporium across the…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Transformation

"I need a brake" words that twisted my heart- shattering the dream that we would never part. I asked myself 'what ever did I do wrong? sad, gloominess could`ve easily been my song. I wouldn't let the anger and misery grow or cultivate- uprising feelings I…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Jae

It was Jae’s birthday today. She turned eight. What a beautiful sunny girl! Hyo planned a surprise or two; Li, his wife, did too. Birthday cake, a puppy and … Don’t forget, they grinned just before he drove off. Traffic was intense. A long call came from…
July 03, 2025
General Stories Matias Travieso-Diaz

Fear

Leandro stood outside the Kroger, leaning forward as he shivered in the early March dawn. He hated this moment: the cold, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness, the anticipation of another day ahead at his degrading job picking collard leaves under the…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Mihko Askiweno

Found You

Panic gripped her as she staggered up the steep, rocky incline, breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. Sweat streamed down her face in torrents, her hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks in disheveled clumps. Her legs trembled with exhaustion, molten fire…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Lost On The Path

But alas; sometimes I think we've lost our way- too many strayed opinions...one too many a survey. Walking on the road ahead, just following the herd of sheep- with a hypnotised mind, wide awake yet very fast asleep. While yelling...join the team of the…

"Yes? Yes? Who is it?" said Brendan. He approached the door slowly and leaned forward as if to listen.

"Men of the King." said a voice, and his tone was stubborn and angry. "We seek but a word. Open this door, or it shall be struck down."

"Oh, okay sir." said Brendan in a friendly manner, playing dumb with the solider. "No need for any aggression or any such things. I'm just being careful, need to be around these parts. Hold on a moment and I'll fetch me keys"

Brendan turned quickly to Maria and grabbed her by the shoulders delicately but pushed her with force into the kitchen. He handed her a large knife that was sitting on a counter.

"Go! Go now! Run up the hills through the forest and don't turn back" he said "I'll talk myself out of this, I promise, now go!"

But Maria would not turn to go out the back door.

"No, I won't leave you." she said firmly. "I've left too much behind. Come, come with me."

"No Maria." he said "These are smart men and they ride the Kings horses. We cannot outrun them, nor hide from them. They have tracked you here, if they did not follow you in secret. But they would not have done so. They would have captured you or killed you, whichever carried the greater reward. No, you must go. Run! They will question me and be gone. Come back in the night. I'll give you a supply but then you must go North and hide, lay low."

"No!" she said and she felt as if she was about to burst into tears.

But then loud, hard smacks were belted upon the front door. "Open this door now! Or I shall personally kick it down and then kick the five shades of the Gods from you! Open!"

Brendan was stuck in thought for a moment. Then he shouted back "Hold on sir, I'm an old man, pity you! I'm coming, I'm coming!" Then he stepped to the back door and opened it. "Go! Maria, please go!"

Maria sighed through her nose and cursed and then ran out the door with the knife in her hands, and as she heard the backdoor slam shut behind her tears began rolling from her eyes. But she ran on. Up the steep slope of the pine clad hill. The ground below was soft with the cushion of dead, brown pine needles from the ancient pines overhead and her thighs began to ache. She came to the top of the slope and the forest continued onward on a level surface and she hastened, and of all that had happened she could think of nothing. The tree trunks raced past by her sides as a brown blur. But then she realised she was not moving at all fast, but still the trunks were a blur, and she looked up and all was spinning. Then a sharp pain struck her forehead, like a borer digging deep, slowly into a tree trunk. There was a great bang as if she was inside a huge urn and someone had slammed shut the lid above. All went black.

Maria woke and could hear nothing but the wind high above in the trees. Leaves began to rustle and Maria was startled and she sat up quickly to find a small deer sniffing the ground at her feet. But it bolted and ran out of sight as quick as an arrow from a bow. She stood up and shook her head and for a few moments regained her wits. Then it came to her like a war horn from afar. Brendan.

She bolted like the deer back the way she had come and when she reached the slope she ran like a cheetah through an open plain. In moments she came upon the cabin and burst through the back door.

She looked around the kitchen but there was nothing. Then she walked through the threshold in the living room, and as if that very threshold cast some magic upon those who walked through it, Maria felt a sting in her heart and gut and her forehead ached again. For though it took some moments to fully realise, Maria was indeed looking upon the body of Brendan, her oldest friend, the man who had saved her life twice before today, and today a third time. He lay face up. His eyes stared emptily towards the ceiling. Maria fell to her knees. She covered her mouth as she released a muffled scream and she cried. Then she crawled to Brendan's body and hugged him. For a while she sat there, feeling empty and at times crying again in grief, oblivious to her surroundings.

When she looked up, she wished she hadn't. Upon the floor lay some dozen dead birds. Magpies or blackbirds, Maria could not tell for they were scorched and their feathered were strewn across the floor. The threshold where the front door had stood, was lined with black all about its frame. But the door was gone. A small pile of ash there was in the middle of the threshold.

Of all these things Maria cared little, despite their oddness, for he who she loved lay dead in her grasp. But then there was a sound of water steaming, or of a snake hissing, and Maria looked about bemused. A swarm of flies, or so it seemed had gathered in the opening of the threshold. But it was not flies, but the ash coming seemingly to life and Maria looked on with a raised brow. The ash swirled around like a murmuration of starlings and danced within the living room, darting this way and that. But then it stopped, and the noise it made fell dead and the ash, eyeless as it was, seemed to look upon Maria, pondering the woman. Then it looked away and busied itself. Maria soon realised it was weaving itself into a fixed shape and after a few moments it stood black, dead and soundless. She looked upon it and realised it spelt out words and  reading it she looked to the floor and made no sound for days, not sound did she make again until she was far away.

 

Thou may run.

Thou may hide.

But thy fate is declared.

Live thy last given moments,

ere I feel the time right,

to prove your soul mere.

 

Author Bio: Darrell Monks is a life-long fan of high-fantasy. His favored series include a Song of Ice and Fire and many works of Tolkien. He is a student in horticulture, passionate about plants, music, birds and storytelling.

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