Leaving was the easiest decision to make, and the hardest action to take. I had to get out of the Martian prison and home for the past six years. John, the guard bribed to allow me to escape and take secrets stored in memories I could expose back on Earth.
A ship was scheduled the next day which would take me on the long journey home but modern technological advances meant I would get back to London sixteen hours later.
I regretted leaving behind my friends, knowing their fate but someone had to expose the lies about the great new...
Until now, she never thought of herself as pretty.
Each morning she would stare in the mirror and try to pick one good feature of herself, different from the day before. It was never difficult for her, she liked the color of her eyes and the thickness of her hair but until this moment, she had never felt put together.
But in this moment, with the boy of her dreams watching her descend down the staircase in a gorgeous white dress, she felt pretty.
She felt the tears welling up in her eyes as she passed her Grandmother and felt...
My life has always been a mess. First, my parents get into a big fight and are now divorced. Then I had no choice but to go live with my cruel mother. But life changed when she gave me that hug. When she made me feel loved. Ha, that rhymes! But it was when my college axeption came that my mom started to show affection towards me. It was uncomfortable, at first. But now it's part of what makes me move on from all those times she made me feel small, and unimportant to her. Now, that I'm married and...
Sal knew his time was running out, a runaway train heading straight for him but he had nowhere else to go.
"So... will you?" he pleaded, kneeling before the woman of his dreams, heart- quite literally- in his hands. Ever since they had met at the runaway shelter, they had spent every waking moment together.
Lucy gazed, not at the engagement ring with the heart-shaped diamond, but rather at the train hurtling toward them both, it's lights illuminating her would-be fiancé like a spotlight.
"What, are you crazy?" she hissed, pulling at her boyfriend's arms, leaning back with all her...
I jumped off of a building once, and landed on the next one. I had to. The building was crumbling from the foundation up because one tiny sliver found its way across the massive concrete block and decided it was hungry. So it expanded and soon enough, the building was shifting, leaning on the right and then switching, crumbling more and leaning on the left.
It was a leaning tower and I had to jump from the sinking building if I wanted to live peacefully. Not all of jumped, though. Some wanted to stay, saying it was their home because...
Outnumbered and out of breath, I didn't know what else to do. The lives that had already been taken now stained my guilt and I didn't need more blood on my mind. So, the white flag of surrender went up and the terms were made.
Our youngest children were to be taken from us and trained to keep their families in check. We were to only have children if the king commanded to. Oh, and we were no longer able to choose our mates.
The children were brainwashed to believe that their mothers were evil witches sent to destroy the...
I held it at arm's length. Three feet long from blade to hilt it, the replica Confederate cavalry sword is beautiful. It is etched up and down the length of the blade with scrollwork and in two places with the letters CSA. My heart trembled as I held it loosely, admiring it. I couldn't believe she'd sent me this sword. It is a beautiful birthday present.
A tattoo of a shadow remains when the light recedes.
Mock the sun, then, and ridicule the clouds. They've always seemed so stupid anyway.
Clouds. The poets can have them. They can have the clouds and the sun. Where are their clouds on a sunny day? And where's their sun on this overcast morning?
That's my shadow. I always have it. I don't need the weather -- just the steady hand of a artist.
Tattooed, herself.
They crouched to peer beneath the stairs; a small boy and his even smaller sister.
"What are we looking at, Jack?"
Jack frowned and shushed his sister, pointing conspiratorially at the darkness between the slats of the steps.
They stayed that way for several minutes, scrunched up tight, necks disappearing into shoulders, rocking forwards on their toes.
"There, Arianna, look!"
He pointed towards a patch of darkness that had begun to twist and swirl in very much the way darkness shouldn't. Two yellow eyes blinked and stared back at them.
A voice like poison treacle spoke into the silence.
"It's...
'Where the bloody hell are you?' asked Colin as I picked up the phone. 'I've been calling all day. I'm with John and Sarah at the pub, we're waiting for you.'
'Don't you dare speak to me like that Col, I'm fed up of it. Why do you think I'm not answering.' Then I let him have it. Months of frustration at his obsessive calls, controlling nature and his habit of always turning up wherever or whoever I was with. On a first date....that didn't put Col off. He'd try and sit down with us. Making love early in the...