The first blow hits you in the upper chest. It hurts, yes, but it's okay. There's a lot of muscle there, a lot of flesh, and you managed to pull back enough so that it's not strong enough to break any bones. The next blow isn't so lucky, it catches you on the side of the head, makes it sing, already your ear feels hot and cold and numb at the same ( Read more... )

"Come with me," he says, "I want to show you something... something impossible." His eyes are bright, his face glows, and his breathing is is shallow. You think he has been mixing his, cough cough, medicines again, and has a spot of wall he wants to introduce you to. The business prides itself on customer service though, so you follow him and smile ( Read more... )

The poet is incapable of reading his poems... he DELIVERS them, hitting the notes, riding the crest of each waving stanza, going quiet, loud, soft, hard, following some invisible, unwritten score, and god help you if you get up and try to read his poem, you'll miss all the marks. Each inflection and stress only compounds the poem, redefines the ( Read more... )

Many of the dead are, in fact, zombies. They're just more comfortable where they are, and can't be bothered to claw their way out of the ground. Or, in the cases of those unburied, they're too lazy to get up. Being dead, as it turns out, is VERY comfortable, wherever you are, whatever your position.

It started with the end of the world, before it got worse. Not the literal end of the world, of course, but when your son, your only child, the only thing you have left after your wife died a few years ago, is murdered, well, it certainly seems like the end of the world. You're a good man, though, so you have faith that although you will never see ( Read more... )

It was a ( Read more... )

Adam reached out a hand, brushing it lightly against Beth's face. Adam still couldn't believe Beth was real ( Read more... )

The evil magician has the hero/warrior at his mercy, and, in a fit of pique, decides to not kill the warrior, but to turn him into a wild beast instead, to mock how he lived by his muscles and instincts. The magician turns him into a wolf, laughs, and is very surprised when a wolf rips out his throat 10 seconds later ( Read more... )

In the mornings and for the rest of the day, he would caffeinate himself with a disturbing dedication, mug after mug until he attained a steady hum.

Come evening, and the end of his obligations, he would pound drink after drink, heading for an alcohol-induced oblivion with almost sickening efficiency.

"... so, I suppose I'm long dead by your age ( Read more... )