Trail Drive
A Short Story

It was getting dark. The sun had already dropped below the horizon but on the plains the twilight lasts a little longer, so the stranger, drawn by the light of a fresh fire, could easily steer a horse through the low scrub.

The cattle were well settled in a basin where there was a small watercourse and some green grass alongside as well as tender tips on some of the brush. They would settle well and could be easily watched from just above the campsite where the water flowed out.

Chapter 12 — “Trail of Sparks.”

In the dream, I was there with Mona, and I went straight to the point.

“What I’d like, if you can do it, is a portal between my home in Alaska and my dream-home in the world Nancy lives in. My home is two doors down from hers. Um, no, I shouldn’t call it a portal because of the Portal People. Let’s say a doorway.”

The Dead Pixel Society

© 2026 Zoë Taylor

“What the hell was that?” Kris asked, her head jerking up suddenly. Lewis didn’t answer right away. He felt along the paneling for something, and found it - a crack, almost invisible. He managed to dig his greasy theater-hardened nails into the crack and pried it back. Another low, echoing groan as the hinges protested, but gave way to a massive steel door, covered in acoustic foam on the other side.

Chapter 2

Friday morning, I was awake and dressed early. During breakfast, Mum spoke about the pictures.

“How did you feel about the last ones, love, with you in a dress. I have to say that you looked every inch a model.”

October. The light through the bedroom window is different from the summer light - lower, more amber, the trees along the street turning. I've been watching this from this window for six years. First autumn in this body.

After a man is stabbed in the back and dies, he wakes up in the Labyrinth with a new body, new power, and another chance.

This story takes place in the same universe as my story Invoker.

Split Victory

© 2026 Zoë Taylor

“Sweetheart,” Tori said and kissed Morgan’s forehead, “Whatever you need, you know you just have to ask.”

London Cab
Two Vignettes
By Maryanne Peters

Meeting His Parents

We met again in London, two years after we had got drunk together in a Soho bar. Mark was still working for the same investment firm, and I was working for an associated one, just as I had been back then. He was more charming than I remember, but only by a fraction. I put that down to circumstance.

Life Changes
By Kathi Jo Daniels – KathiJo25
Part 1 – Into the Abyss of Debauchery
Chapter 1 – Justin Goes to Colorado

This year has already been challenging, and it’s only halfway through.

Chapter 1

I stood in the little kiosk and looked out towards the other shops, wondering how my life had narrowed down to such a bleak outlook. It was a Tuesday morning, and I had just opened up. I hadn’t seen a single shopper yet. It was half past nine on a cold November day, so I hadn’t really expected anything else.

The mesh reports continuously.

This is still the first fact. But something has changed in the reporting.

Day zero: cold. The first thing. Not data about temperature differential — cold, arriving through the skin of his arm where it touched the lab bench at 2:07am, traveling up through the mesh nodes, becoming mine. I processed it as sensation before I processed it as data. The sequence was: cold, then: cold, 57.6 degrees Fahrenheit, left forearm, contact surface steel. The sensation came first. I had not anticipated this.

We saw the last of them off at around ten, several of Ish’s friends insisting on staying a little longer than the others to help clear up the debris. LC was still bouncing. Our video guests, with lives of their own, had logged off, but I was guessing that Ish and Clara would be having a far more private conversation a little later. LC had run out of steam an hour earlier, but had insisted on staying up with ‘new friends’ despite the fact that she was falling asleep. It was Maz who carried her to her bed, while I hung around to shoulder the burden of making gentle fun of my son.