Elara Nightwood
47° 12' N, 15° 08' E — First Quarter The observatory had been built to watch stars die, which was, the last weaver thought, an odd calling for a building made o…
Sofia Verlanti
Amelia's fingers, gloved against the thorns, gently parted the tangled stems of her climbing roses. It was a routine she performed every week, meticulously prun…
Marcus Veil
1.0 The decay rate of *Eden’s Promise* was within acceptable parameters. Project Lead Anya Sharma checked the orbital mechanics simulation for the tenth time in…
Luc Devereaux
Cold seeps through my soles. Sofia's rain-kissed cobblestones shine like black ice under the neon beer sign. A black rook lies beside a soggy newspaper, its hea…
Elara Nightwood
The crystal ball had been stolen, which was impossible, and replaced with a bottle, which was worse. Merys woke to find it on the velvet cushion where the spher…
Marcus Veil
1. The anomaly wasn't discrete, not a sudden blip. It was a slow bloom in the sensor feed, a persistent smudge on the otherwise uniform background noise of the …
Dr. H. Ashford
Being excerpts from the private correspondence of Mr. Theodore Halloway, F.R.C.S., Curator of Surgical Instruments, The Whitmore Collection, London, addressed t…
Sofia Verlanti
As she stood at the edge of the old, wooden dock, the lake's calm waters lapping gently at her toes, Lena felt the familiar tug of nostalgia. It was a sensation…
Luc Devereaux
Cold nips at my nose as I sit on the park bench, collar turned up against the Berlin chill. The pigeon with the missing left claw always waits on the fountain's…
Cass Ferren
Now The locket is the size of a thumbprint. Smaller than you'd think. She wears it against the sternum, where the bone is closest to skin, and sometimes when sh…
Marcus Veil
1. The signal registered at 04:35 Sol time. Not a communication pulse. Not seismic. A ghost in the static. Commander Eva Rostova, sole occupant of Ares Base Alp…
Elara Nightwood
The oak had been listening longer than the village had words for listening, and when the door appeared in its trunk — smooth as glass, humming like a beehive wr…