Short-Story.Me!

Gimme, gimme - Editor

Full Force and Fury

by Billy Wong

Hank wiped his longsword and looked back through the rain, to the female warrior lying prone on the tiles of the abandoned courtyard. Her graceful hands still gripped slender swords, but her arms were splayed across the ground, and blood pooled beneath her. Had he gone too far? He walked around to her front and saw her stir.

"Good fight, little lady," he said, wiping blood from his scratched cheek. His arms ached from the pace of their duel, and many cuts stung his skin.

She looked up. Ignoring his offered hand, she struggled to her elbows and knees and spat. Blood dripped from the gash his running slash had put into her chest. "You cheat!" she yelled over the water cascading down from the gutters atop the walls. "How could you throw your sheath into my face like that?"

"You tried to drop a tree on me when I wasn't expecting it. Now, didn't you say you'd tell me where your father was if I won?"

"What? I haven't lost."

The smell was even stronger - Editor

Funeral Flowers

by Edoardo Albert

The taxi driver knew where to go.

The man paid him and then watched as the cab drove away. The driver had not spoken during the journey. The man had sat in the back, looking out but not seeing.

He was going to bury his father.

The building he stood in front of did not look like an undertaker’s office. Plate glass windows held him in reflection but he did not look as he remembered.

He couldn’t see a door. He looked around, but there did not seem to be any other way in so he stepped closer to the building and stopped. A section of the glass slid open. The reception was glass and marble and steel and the receptionist was their human equivalent: clear, calm and cool. And, of course, beautiful.

He went in, and the glass slid closed behind him. He could not see out through it. Instead he saw himself, repeated again and again, disappearing into infinity.

He sniffed. The air was perfumed, a distant hint of summer meadows sleeping in the sun. Not what he had expected of an undertaker. But even death was corporate now.

“How can I help you?” the receptionist asked. Her tongue flicked, dampening her lips. Saliva glittered like diamonds on the lip gloss.

“I have an appointment,” he said. “About my... my father.”

A gift - Editor

Twilight Warrior

by Lance Young

A curse punctured the air, followed by the dull thud of a body hitting the ground. Erik Redstorm needed to rest and this spot was as good as any. Despite running all day, he slept poorly on the cold dirt ground. Hazy nightmares stalked him in his sleep. Visions of all the men he’d killed haunted his dreams. They were waiting for him in the afterlife.

In some, they greeted him as befitted a warrior, with glass of mead and a slap on the back. But most of the time they were far less welcoming. They would claw and tear at him, till he woke with sweat running down his face. Redstorm had never given much thought to the afterlife, he believed it the refuge of fools and weaklings but now he couldn’t help wonder what awaited him.

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He woke with a grimace; the raising sun allowed him his first good look at where he had slumbered so fitfully. The valley he had passed through was rugged; mostly grass with the odd cluster of trees or jagged boulders.