Chapter 22 – Girl talk

By the time we had finished work and closed up, the time was well into the small hours. I lingered over my final tasks to make sure that Connie and I would be the last to finish. Accordingly, when we got back to the dressing room to change out of our exotic costumes the others had already left.

“Looks like your neighbour got lucky last night.”

It was 5:30am and Jacinta was sitting at the dining table scrolling through last night’s video recordings from the CCTV, one of her daily jobs; she paused the video to take a look.

“Hmmm; and she’s hot.”

“Let me see.”

I fount this hard to believe.  Whereas Tom was a nice guy, and very bright, he was not exactly a babe magnet.  Shy and awkward around women, he rarely seemed to bring one back to his apartment.

“OK, but don’t start getting any ideas!”

“Nor you!”

Chapter 3

After we had stored our things and had a quick look around outside, we went over to the bigger farmhouse to help get the lunch. Apart from the three of us, there were only three others there, with Magnus, the Unit Leader, telling us that the others were all in the field.

He introduced Nora and Petra, the communications expert and the ‘dresser’. The first thing that surprised us was that when he introduced us, he gave us different names. I was Alex, Matilda was Mary, and Hortense was now Hope.

Powers
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

She just walked up to me. She must have seen that I was a guy out of place. I sure felt that way, that afternoon. My girlfriend at the time dragged me along to that “convention” – I forget the name of it. It was about spiritual stuff, like meditation, incense, crystals, whatever. She was at some stall talking with some woman about some kind of nonsense.

CHAPTER 11
“Ah!”, my wife said, grinning, “How about this one?”

It wasn’t what I expected, which would have been a swimming costume shot, but rather one from one of our restaurants, with Lil pulling a face at some crustacean or cephalopodian thing.

“We experimented with the food, girls. And boys. Why go all the way down there to revisit Chippy Lane?”

Torn from his own world and stuffed into the body of a villainess, facing the end of a doomed route he himself wrote, "Amelia" must navigate a world she really should know - too bad she was never great at worldbuilding.

Stuck in a world she (maybe) created, Amelia quickly finds that reality has filled in the details she failed to describe. The characters who were so flat when she wrote them now have nuance, and motives. The kingdom she wrote into existence is experiencing internal strife she never even thought about. And let's not even get into the complexities of the magic system, or the demon that forced her into this situation to begin with...

Oh, and then there's the fact that she's about to be arrested and executed... but surely she can come up with a way to write herself out of that, right?

...Right?

The Dead Pixel Society

© 2026 Zoe Taylor

Aria gets a temporary respite from having to return to her old dorm that might not actually be that temporary, after the storm left Clarity campus in shambles. By a vote of the floor majority, she's officially unofficially a refugee under Elaine and Kris' protections now

CHAPTER 10
Amina was pensive in bed that night.

“I can just about remember, my love. Being that young---well, younger. Being confused. Not exactly the done thing in our family, comfortable shoes. Must be so much harder when you’re in her situation. I think it’s actually harder for boys, and that’s what her family are still seeing”

I settled myself closer to her.

“Aye, but once you see her. It’s like that Maria was saying: she’s THERE, Three-D, full colour”

“Yes, but the old saying, none so blind? Seen so many girls, and boys, end up losing their family just because they fancy someone a bit, well, more like them”

Authors note: I know I said I wasnt' going to post the rest of the story, but if you can't read it anywhere else here it is. Please consider giving me a review on amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Mud-Creek-Sarah-Hillcrest-ebook/dp/B0H6JS7MW7 I know many of you can't and I totally understand, no need to buy it, just looking for reviews to try to get people to notice it.

Chapter 2

We talked about it for a few days. Dad was worried about my safety, but we both agreed that it could be an exciting and rewarding job. Mum was more worried about my safety but came around to the idea, once I pointed out that there had been no news reports about members of the unit being killed or injured.

Sandcastles, Boiled Shrimp, and Gentle Gulf Breezes
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

-1-
The Open Highway
Somewhere Between New Orleans, Louisiana and Mobil, Alabama

A few weeks ago my life had flashed before my eyes. I'd been forced to cosplay as a Confederate Rifleman for a dumb Civil War reenactment by my tyrant father. In the course of the reenactment I'd developed a second degree sunburn, was bitten by a venomous snake, became dehydrated, and finally the cherry on the sundae was the fact that I had to spend three weeks in the hospital.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2.1; Home

Time became quieter after that.

Not slower.

Simply less concerned with milestones.

Emily often realized that weeks—and sometimes months—had passed without thinking about transition at all. Life had quietly replaced the language of becoming with the language of living.

There were illustration deadlines.

Long walks through familiar streets.

CHAPTER 9
I could see exactly what she meant, for it had made up so much of her debate with Maria: if things went wrong, each could lose a friend. I had never seen anything really nasty in Maria, apart from a certain blinkered aspect when she saw something she wanted. Like Alwen.

“Got to go, love, for the quiz. Chat after?”

“Please. It’s, well, I know you see things clearly. Might help me do so”

“Later, then. Promise”

Chapter Eleven — The Ledger

Gwen smoothed the front of her own dress in the mirror — deep green, worn exactly once before and never for a reason this good — and caught Sam's eyes finding her in the glass instead of her own reflection.

"You look incredible," Sam said, turning from her own mirror to actually look, unhurried, appreciative, the particular look she'd only started giving Gwen in the last few weeks, like she still couldn't quite believe she was allowed to.

Robin, A Nail Polish Dilemma

I was still living at home, even though I was eighteen and had just finished my schooling. The last year of school was difficult for me, so any hope of a college degree was futile. I had the smarts but lacked any desire to utilize it. Usually a few weeks after I was taught the material I would have a hard time even reciting it back. I couldn’t see any use for the knowledge being taught me, I knew I would end up doing something physical to earn a living. The few friends I associated with had already faced that reality, two in construction and another driving trucks for a living.Robin,

Chapter 18 – False trail

The casino’s head honcho’s first words to me were more mundane than his air of dignity had led me to expect. “As I have heard, my dear, you have accumulated a nice little sum there.” Midas gestured towards my purse. “We always like to send our first-time customers away with smiles on their faces. What was your name again?”

“I hadn’t mentioned it, but it’s Jennifer… Jennifer Cartwright.”

Split Victory

© 2026 Zoe Taylor

Whitehall in London has many anonymous buildings that are the face of Government. In one such building, and in a large well appointed Committee Room, a group of about 20 senior naval and army officers were seated, drinking coffee and talking quietly before the meeting started formally. None were in uniform but they all knew each other. The amount of gold braid they wore on formal occasions would have stretched round the large oak table several times had they been in uniform.

Becoming Emily

Becoming Emily

Chapter Two: Learning to Stay (Part 1)

The first morning Emily signed her name instead of Aaron’s, she expected the pen to hesitate.

It didn’t.

The ink flowed across the page with quiet confidence, forming six familiar letters that had long since ceased to feel borrowed.

Emily.

She looked at the signature for several moments after the form had been handed back across the counter.

Nothing extraordinary happened.

The clerk smiled politely and moved to the next customer.

Chapter 17 – The Golden Touch