SHORT STORY: SAILOR

[artwork by Timo Grubing]

I always enjoyed fishing right before the sun came up, a tradition started years ago with my father. He’s been gone for two decades, but I still carry his old spear with me, despite having moved on to fishing rods. Something about the presence of that steel harpoon comforts me.

When I first saw her, I thought she was a fragment of my sleep deprived imagination. The sun had just started its ascent when the waters stilled. It was then she broke the surface, slow and silent. Large blue eyes stared at me with curious assessment and I blinked, unsure if what I was seeing was real. Before I could get a closer look she’d dipped back beneath the surface, vanishing from sight.

SHORT STORY: MIRROR IMAGE

 

There’s a woman in the mirror who haunts me. She’s not my reflection, but an entity all to herself. Something like me, but not quite me.

It’s been over two years since my wedding day, that’s when this all began. From then on I’ve feared for my life because I know what she wants and what it is she’s trying to do. In the company of others she pretends and hides her true self, seamlessly mimicking my expressions and gestures like she’s supposed to. But when we’re alone and it’s just the two of us she refuses to play the part. Instead her face contorts into something misshapen and her mouth opens in silent screams as she claws at the surface.

She’s trying to get out, trying to exchange places, trying to put me inside the mirror.

SHORT STORY: WHISPER

[artwork by loish]

The world will not end with a bang, but with a whisper. I should know, I’m the one who’ll end it and I don’t plan on making much noise.

You see, I’ve been here since the beginning, the very beginning. Watching as the great beasts froze, as man lost his hair and walked upright, as metal took to the skies and seas.