by David Agyei-Yeboah

“He pushes his weight onto the floor and lies prostrate, then kneels and lifts his eyes to the ceiling, mumbling for his sister to return from the dead.”

by Kate Forbes-Riley

“He’d quizzed her on her favorite Otis song. Put her on the spot…”

by Zia Musgrave

“And there we hang. I fall and I rise, but at least I never have to look away from her beautiful face.”

by Karen Walker

“The table became elbow to elbow to elbow, and, to make room, I was shoved to the back of the highest cupboard.”

by Mikki Aronoff

“As he lay quiet in the dawn of his dying, I pressed my ear against his scar. It sounded like hush. When I brushed my frantic fingers over the thick of its tissue, it almost felt like touching.”

by Sumitra Singam

“You rub my back, and there is something achingly familiar, a muscle memory of me holding countless vomit bags, rubbing endless revolutions of the clock on all the overdose girls’ backs. “You’re okay,” you say.”

by Adam McOmber

“Remember the past is merely an invention of the present.”

by Michael Minassian

“Elephant brains are four times larger than human brains. I wonder why an elephant is not President of the World.”

by Louella Lester

“You wake up on a roof—no idea how you got here until you see the ladder, as spindly as a daddy long-legs’ legs, and there’s no one about, except the cat licking your face…”

by Ivy Nabangi

“The only thing she knew for sure was that her baby loved the sky. She knew he loved staring at the stars, pointing at them and drawing the various constellations. Her motherly spirit took this as a sign that he was probably more capable than he was given credit for.”

by Amir Szuster

“A year later, watching her bleed, I thought: How long does it take to empty a human body?

I still do not know.”

by Kit Zimmerman

“This…lingering—it’s harming others, too. Those you love. You can endure it. They cannot. Try to remember that.“

by Luanne Castle

“Where she expected to find smooth keyboard geometry, she discovered a grotesque smile of cadaver ivory inset between the ebony keys…teeny bits of gold, silver, and porcelain sparkled…under the fluorescent light overhead.”

by Katie Goto-Švić

“ …they thought you’d go far. They didn’t think it ever needed to be said. You’re gonna go far, kid.. But now…with gentle pity, they tell you how well you’ve done just getting out of bed this morning.”

by Rachel Racette

“…she watches the swirling vortex of darkness and death. A massive blackhole that’s slowly sucking in the other darkened ships filled with soon-to-be-dead passengers…She still hears them --those agonized screams over the screeching sirens…”

by Courtney Burton

“I was a tall buxom blonde with a Sagittarius tattoo on my hip and you were a lean, tan silver fox with a cigarette perched between your fingers.”

by Dodge Zelko

“Not since Hellraiser had he seen so much flaying, whipping, and gouging, though to be perfectly honest, Hellraiser hadn’t made him half as queasy. Maybe it would’ve if he’d watched it with a twelve-year-old.”

by Roger D'Agostin

“The last two weeks of August were good.  Her grasp on my bicep was gentle.  But on the first night of autumn, Mary covered her ears and complained about the crickets.  Her nails left marks in my arm. “

by Nolan Knight

“The detective flashes his penlight over a slick of blood. Eyes the busted back door, scans the yard. Body was moved. That’s three this week. Or was it last week?”

by Walter Weinschenk

“The sea is a tumult, a terrifying process, and I’m too scared to venture out, too afraid to move, but too afraid to be alone…”