Aethloft, Chapter 1 The Silver Lark glided through the aether, its polished hull gleaming under the magenta sky. Below, the desert realm of Vash’kara stretched vast and empty, a golden expanse broken only by jagged rock formations and the occasional ruin half-swallowed by shifting sands. In the distance, the ice mountain loomed, the Sleeper’s Veil […]
Mostly Harmless Magic, Chapter 1 The town of Bramblehook was tiny compared to the Capital, yet still she was lost. Rue’s pointed ears poked out through a frizzy tangle of hair as she dragged her cart over another bump in the road. Plant cuttings tumbled over books, and both nearly tumbled over her. The town […]
Aetherloft, Prologue The desert night howled like an offended god, wind shrieking through the Qirathi camp, slapping loose tent flaps and rattling bone charms that hung from wooden poles. In the center of a large group of tents, Elder Zahrek sat before a low-burning fire, his fur bristling from the cold—or possibly from the weight […]
The Ocean Just Gets Me, Chapter 2 Time slips through my fingers like water. I spend it in my room like I always do: forums, the game, forums, the game, sleep, repeat. Every moment is like the last… Until one night when Mom asks me to come eat with her and Dad in the dining […]
The Ocean Just Gets Me, Chapter 1 The walls in this house are paper thin. Their voices seep through the plaster like rain dripping from a cracked roof. I lie in bed and let the words soak into me, cold and familiar. “She can’t keep living like this,” Dad says. His voice is low, even, […]
Juniper Carver stormed into her editor’s office, her heels clicking against the linoleum like tiny gavel strikes. “Max, tell me you’re joking,” she said, dropping a stapled memo onto his cluttered desk. “Snowflakes and Soulmates? Seriously?”
Max Stevens, a middle-aged man with a coffee-stained tie and the air of someone who’d been in the newspaper business long enough to lose the sparkle of idealism, didn’t even look up. He clicked his pen twice, underlining something on a manuscript. “Nice to see you, too. How’s the holiday season treating you?”
Once upon a time, in the land of the Ainu, there lived a fox named Poyn and a tiger named Tora. One day, Tora the tiger, feeling bold and strong, challenged Poyn the fox to a race. “Let us race from the top of the world to the bottom,” said Tora. “Whoever wins shall be […]
Anchor: Good evening, and welcome to tonight’s edition of Global News Network. I’m your host, Sarah Williams. Our top story tonight: the rising concern over AI-generated avatars, known widely as simulants, on the popular cam-site, VirtuaCam. Recent reports suggest that an increasing number of users are abandoning the platform, feeling deceived by artificial performers posing […]
“I’m surprised you guys are open.” I shrug, shaking a mixer and turning to face the newcomer. It was a cop who sometimes patrolled outside the club. I’ve heard stories about him from Leeroy, the bouncer. The Final Pour is a bar that serves people from the fringes of society, and a lot of cops […]
“Did you finish that AR game I asked you for, yet?” Morgan asked between bites of his breakfast. If he didn’t think too hard about it, the rat meat wasn’t half bad.
“I’m still working on it,” Sam replied. “But I should be done sometime this afternoon.”
Aetherloft 