A Button for a Soul
Dad told me, “Never insult a fairy, or it’ll steal your soul.” He didn’t warm me fairies take even the tiniest tease as an insult.
Greetings from a soulless peasant boy!
Fantasy
Guardian of the Gates
Izai regarded the long line of souls waiting at the crystal gate, all jabbering away like chaotic playmates. Of all the jobs to get, she was assigned the most boring. In and out, every day, new souls arrived from all corners of the Great Beyond.
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Gilded Finality
As I finish the preparations to remove the sweet child I had raised, my eye catches on the glinting of the crown. I want to smash it. If he hadn’t been royal, he’d be alive. The crown seems to agree—if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was weeping.
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The Harvester
The tall stranger sauntered through the dark alleyway. His long fingers trailed across the rough brick of the buildings on either side of him, and his arm span filled the alley. He moved at a lazy pace, no hurry to be anywhere. His stroll this evening wasn’t about destination but discovery—about finding someone, finding the one, the perfect specimen to assuage tonight’s hunger.
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The Pet Rock Named Dave
“Please look at me, not my body.” Dave’s voice came from behind her, rather than his open, motionless mouth.
She turned back towards the amulet. Two googly eyes glued to a fist-sized rock stared back at her. Karen squinted. She gave the rock a tight smile.
“You look different, honey.”
The Curse of Jasper Throe
“You’ve got to be pulling my ever-loving, god-forsaken tail.” Jasper Throe grumbled upon seeing the Gray Book. He unceremoniously plopped down the groceries.
The apples were going to be awfully bruised.
This vellum-covered grimoire had the audacity to splay itself on his kitchen counter as though it were a cookbook.
NewU Life Agency
“Thank you for calling NewU Life Agency, where your dream life is only a phone call away. This is Zoran.How may I be of assistance?” The demon stifled a yawn with a clawed hand.
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Second Honeymoon
“Come on Lianna, I got you.” I gripped her hand as I led her down the boulders. We descended toward a deserted cove surrounded by white cliffs where glistening sand beckoned us to play among the turquoise waves. Wearing flip-flops, Lianna hadn’t planned to do any rock climbing on this trip, but she rose to the challenge with a grin and her teasing line, “I’d follow you anywhere, Bo.”
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Beautiful Corpse
He wants to dig up the body.
“This is a bad idea,” I whisper to my father beneath the light of the moon.
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Of Life and Breakfast
The man stood on my front step, white suit hanging over his unnaturally tall, thin frame, my morning paper in his hand. I pulled my bathrobe tighter and blearily glanced from his rainbow wig to my paper as I processed his greeting.
“So… you said you’re the grim reaper?”
Theosis
They couldn’t execute my second son because I couldn’t conceive him.
I burned for a second son. I burned like my first son had burned on his pyre: head tilted towards the sky, mouth open and gasping for air, neck tendons standing out like cords as the fire licked his skin and devoured his heart.
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Dead Magic
The man came to a stop in a beam of sunlight struggling through the dust-smeared windowpane, and the glow peeled a mask of shadow off his face, revealing white skin pulled tightly over his skull and teeth visible through paper-thin lips.
I clutched the countertop to keep from staggering. Okay. Not Indy. “What are you?”
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