Ur-brother 17 and ur-brother 23 plodded through the wet tunnel, ignoring the pooling water sloshing around their ragged boots. Deep inside the Blackwood mine, their dark-sighted eyes searched for the perimeter they weren't allowed to cross. They traveled shoulder to shoulder, spanning the width of the rounded corridor, until suddenly the path ( Read more... )

"Stop sending me this crap! Santa Claus stories, REALLY?" The slush editor stopped typing and lit a cigarette immediately, blowing out the first lung full in a long, expanding cloud. She added aloud, "Fuck it," and clicked the Send button.

"Here we go round the mulberry bush," Mr. Donaldson muttered as he opened the door to the mayor's office building. Across the wide open floor of the lobby, the mayor, Amy Stewart, stood at the reception desk talking to several people, all of them dressed professionally, one taking strenuous notes. There was a photographer nearby snapping ( Read more... )

Biscuit waded through a dark, foggy daydream. In another tunnel, water dripping relentlessly from the ceiling, he realized the light guiding his way was projected from an apparatus strapped to his forehead. He swung his head groggily from side to side and almost his head on a rock sticking out from the wall ( Read more... )

Prompt text: Your protagonist is inexplicably terrified of something. What are they afraid of and how are they confronting it?

"How do you like your iPad?"

The question startled me, and I raised my finger from the screen far earlier than I intended.  On the display the yellow bird flipped impotently to the ground in front of the sling shot.  I ( Read more... )

Mr. Donaldson was waiting for Snoball when the elf appeared at the shop the next morning, just after sunrise. The bells at the top of the door jingled as he walked in while staring at his phone. "Good morning, boss," he said without looking up. He was wearing a white short-sleeved buttoned shirt, black tie, grey-blue slacks pulled halfway up to his ( Read more... )

When the sun went down, Mr. Donaldson sent Biscuit out for the dinner and shut himself in his office. From the lower drawer of his desk his found a bottle of golden liqueur and a square glass. He also found a metal cigar flask. He twisted off the top of the flask and let the cigar inside slide out. From the pencil drawer, a clipper to snip the end ( Read more... )

"This is what I like to see. A hateful young elf hitting rock bottom." Cane stood in the doorway to the small apartment shared by Unocello and Biscuit. He paused before entering as the smell of the room wafted over him.
            Unocello stood ghostlike in black soiled clothes that looked like rags in the raw sunlight. "Cane, just the person i ( Read more... )

Like a nightmare, ghosts started to appear in the tunnel's fog. Biscuit thought he was hallucinating -- he felt like he was hallucinating -- but abruptly the ghosts became more Dwarvonians, carrying a stretcher carrying a young girl. She was maybe 10, a while she wasn't dead, she looked drained almost of all color. Her eyes followed his as she ( Read more... )

Snoball sat behind the counter of Donaldson's Toy Store. After a busy afternoon, the customers had all finally gone home, and in thirty minutes the shop would close. Snoball pushed at his fake glasses, adjusting them on his nose. At least he had been able to take lunch during the hour when Mr. Donaldson and the soldier, Cane, had closed the store " ( Read more... )