by Z.T. Gwynn

Her footsteps rounded the corner. “Is everything alright? If you found a tick, I know how to take care of it.”

by Emily Jo Scalzo

Professor McPhallen had a tendency to stop the lecture five or ten minutes early so he could demonstrate a chemical reaction. Today he was setting fire to hydrogen-filled bubbles…

by Georgene Smith Goodin

When we learned the junior high orchestra had scheduled a Memorial Day concert at the bandstand along the shore, we could not believe our good fortune. Of course, a chorale would have better suited our purposes, but who were we to scoff at our only opportunity? Beggars can’t be choosers.

by Daniel I. Clark

In the trunk I found an emergency blanket and an ice scraper. Underneath the seats were a road atlas and two pens. One was already dried up. The other I’m still using.

by Joyce Reynolds-Ward

One. Two. Three. She gulped for breath, choking back sobs so she wouldn’t betray her hiding place.

by B. Zelkovich

She’d never wanted a rural life, but it was a peaceful one. Abigail appreciated the quiet and the smell of grass in the sun and flowers on the breeze. She did not appreciate the seclusion.

by Mason Yates

In the bed of the truck, a blue tarp covering a massive object rattled before it slipped and revealed a pair of large antlers. There was a thud as the animal body shifted.

by Heather Santo

This trail had not been maintained for years. The marker was all but swallowed by branches, and the path was mostly overgrown.

by Mari Ness

…the songs from the Court of the Indigo Sun, however, the Tripoda is called a ship, and modern research has tended to follow that terminology.

by Addison Smith

They can’t have you. I love you. I have loved you since you introduced yourself to me weeks before on our excursion into the depths, where strange things live and Maya rests. Since you showed me the scale of the world and the tiny space I occupy—not tiny at all to one like yourself who can move between spaces too small for human or rodent or air.

by Madalena Daleziou

One day they’ll stop counting, Elissa knows. Her magic tells her many things, but she needs no magic to tell her that. They will simply grow bored. In this land, one can’t grow any other way.