The party encountered a hole in the ground. While the group argued whether this hole was actually a traversal into a lucrative, goblin-filled tunnel or a forgotten sewage pipe, majority-ruled that they should all enter.

While the entranceway was bathed in the soft morning light, creating tranluscent shadows below the burgeoning shrubs and trees, the inside of the hole was dark and dank. As some ...

“And you, our guest,” the voice pierces from across the table, “what is it that you do?”

My fork clatters on the plate. My voice slips past the unmasticated food and out through my curled lips and crooked teeth. “Thank you, sir, for your having me on this unfortunate night,” I say through coughs and painful swallows.

“We’ll come back to that.” His gaze looks through me. He furrows an eyebrow an...

Above, the lights from the apartment, etched with the linings of brick, flicker until only one remains. The stubborn light shines from the third floor, second apartment to the right. The windows are obscured by an orange and yellow cloth. Shadows dance and turn, obscuring the light shining through. A faint hum lazily saunters to the driver’s seat of my unassuming white sedan.

I gently hum along, ...

Francisco Sombra assumed there would be more to life than this. As a retired royal poet, and old enough to welcome his meeting with death, Francisco concluded that he had experienced all life had to offer.

He was awarded honors, given nobility status of a conquered island nation, and even witnessed, documented, and published the world’s only description of the panthera nautilus, a ferocious ocea...

The work of a soul suture is one of tradition, precision, and timing. Soul sutures live on the margins of past and present, life and death.

An oft forgotten, but important role for humanity, the soul suture intervenes at the moment of death and carefully extracts the soul from its corporal husk.

Timing is especially key. If the soul suture reaches its ethereal fingers into the flesh and prematu...

When Ernesto last saw his wife, it was when she was being lowered into the ground.

It was a simple funeral. Only Ernesto and the apathetic priest were present when they laid her to rest in the solemn hill.

Euphemia, the deceased, had no other family other than her husband. So, he supposed that she might find rest with her ancestors and relatives in the afterlife. His final words to her, and the...

It’s really unlike me to surprise. Most say I’m routine, consistent, normal. And that’s the way I’ve liked it.

So, when I woke up last Tuesday, right at 5:44, exactly one minute before my alarm would be predictably late to wake me up, I was surprised.

The beauty of them, surprises that is, is that everyone knows it coming except for the one surprised.

Surprise party? Meticulously planned. Org...