the ceremony
Every young doe and buck loved the autumn festival. But every young doe and every young buck also feared the autumn festival. Once a year, in October, before the snow made travelling difficult, the tribes all came together. It had been like that...
incubation
"... Warning! Evacuate! Hull breach! Emergency power low. Life support critical! Warning! Evacuate!...." Lurien jumped up, sweaty and shaken. Her helmet had hit the instrument panel in the cramped cockpit of the prospector shuttle. There was no...
consequences
Arden had enough, crying, both sad and angry, he kicked a stone into the nearby property, hoping it would destroy something. Maybe it made a dent in a car, or hit a window. He half hoped for the sound of an impact, but there was only rustling of...
Sometimes failure offers the best prize
Teth?ula breathed deeply and clenched his hands into fists. His heart was beating a mile a minute and his body was shaking, his eyes clenched shut. Around him, all was silent. He was alone in a wooden hut, told to get himself ready. He had to calm...
The Black Soul
"'Aight, bro. You up." Lil' Gilly stretched, rubbing the back of his head and staring at himself in the mirror. This was wrong. Fucked up. His mother taught him better than this. Fuck, why did he go along with this? He could feel his hands...
The Wish
"Useless brat!" The hand cleaved across my face, and my cheek stung with his insult and the back of his palm. It took every ounce of my courage, every ounce of my strength not to stumble and fall. The room swayed around me as my temper rose, but it...
Easy Grade
"So when you're all finished up, you'll give me an A on my paper?" "What? Absolutely not." With a pouting frown, the 18 year old university student removed his tongue from the tip of the teacher's length, a hard glint in his eyes. His professor,...
Coming out of the tent
He'd made Shannon Connelly cry, the bastard. Nobody messed with Shannon Connelly, because there was no reason to do so. Everybody loved her. She was head of the film club at school, and had the best taste in film. You'd think that's not objective, but...
The Birth
They never mentioned how cold it would get - how the sheer lack of heat would pervade my everything - and I guess that that's not terrible; it just seems like more cheating: Yet another bit that girls everywhere might revolt against if they were...
Cursed, Eternal Wish (By MouseJ)
It seemed like the most logical wish to make at the time. Back then, all those millions of years ago, people lived only to be 25 or so before they got claimed by dinos or infection. So, the most logical request to make when you approach a meteorite...
Your Mother Wears Army Boots (By Avoozl)
" **Your Mother Wears Army Boots"** **By Terry Echoes** I've got a love-hate relationship with cameras. They love to watch me, and I hate that. I suppose lots of people could say the same, and I'm probably not much different from the next person who...
Bored Meeting
**"Bored Meeting"** **By Terry Echoes** At least twenty years had passed since Calvin Phosphene had been a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed recent college grad excited for his life to be given an opportunity with Wellerbeans Ltd. Inc. Co. He did not...