Pieces of Hell – The Bunker (story & critique)

The story A long slip on a concrete wall casted rays of light over furniture. The rest of the walls were made of porous dirt, roughly shaped with a shovel. Maps, a few steel cups and a teapot for five servings were on a simple wooden table in the middle of the room. A folding …

Children of Gliba (story and critique) FREE

Children of Gliba By Shawn   A fuzzy-haired boy slammed a tin plate with a crowbar atop the ruins. When he made a sizeable dent, he looked at the abandoned buildings. The hollow structures whistled with air. He wiped his nose with the back of his arm covered in festering wounds, gazing into the mist …

System failure (Cage Dunn version)

Passengers rocked with the movement of the train. Most were on the phone, immersed. A chubby black woman looked neither left nor right, stared out the window opposite her seat, and a drunk in the back yelled verses of a song I didn’t recognize. Someone coughed. Everybody glared at the homeless man asleep over four …

Your Rain (story and critique) FREE

On the top of a cliff with its flat side turned towards the horizon, a dozen of little lights glowed in the night. Under that rock, slippery edges and sharp rims, a forest of lumpy and long dark spikes rested. Tall, broken and hollow, not organic, but not solid, they stood. The storm was unsettling, …

Just Ashley (story and critique)

Just Ashley By Shawn My parents are kind people, always available to help, generous, virtuous. On the day I was born, they rushed to the hospital, made my father wait in the hall while the mother was in delivery. I heard a story of her smile when she heard me cry, and doctors and nurses …

Nick the Red (reloaded)

In the dawn of war, there were many that followed the Order of Hope. The great calamity descended over the shinny beacon and our ranks were decimated. There are only a few of us left, so we went into the darkness to conceal our existence. Others desperately tried to find us looking for the clues …

Captain of the Silver Feather

Flames outlined their shape on the armor as they stepped out of the darkness. "This is the ninth village, Captain. The Ashgadis have outsmarted us again, ”Nanur said plainly, turning to the Captain behind the line of horsemen. "It was as if their horses had been given wings and rushed to burn the legacy of Kord …

Collision (story and critique)

Dead of night, Lily woke up coughing and got up. She went to the bathroom hissing about the headache. Her vision resembled a light moving too fast, like an inferno rising around her. Pain in her head must have been a side effect of the treatments. The bathroom switch clicked, but Lily only saw darkness. …

Zero-day (story and critique) FREE

Zero-day By Shawn   Cashier typed in a cup of coffee the third time in a row, shook his head, scoffed, and gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry. It is the system. This is the fifth time this afternoon. We must be under serious attack“ he proclaimed and gave it another shot until he gave …

Memoirs of MBT Arthur (story and critique) (FREE)

I counted 18 425 days since my activation. Time flies when you are seeking the next mission. My front deck crackled above the cooling heart of 1 500 horsepower, while the core status flashed red. Rustling dry grass rippled in the vast dark-yellow field touched by the wind. My filters registered pollution in the smooth …