I never seen a transition. I know I should look away, but peering creepily through the leaves at the ethereal being stepping into the almost still water was too captivating to let me close my eyes.

The setting sun seemed to drape the night over his brown body like melting chocolate over caramel. Where his feet touched the water, I could hear a gentle crackling and bubbling as glittering scales wo...

The doorbell chimed, echoing through the house. I’m already late to work as I brush my teeth scrambling to collect my gear.

“Honey! Get the door!” I shout, garbled by the steady building froth of toothpaste.

“Dad’s already gone to work, Mom,” Rachel said, peeking her brown, freckled face around the door. Her thick mop of coils swung wildly as she dashed from the room screaming, “I’ll get it!”

...

“I think I just met the happiest person in the world!” I grunt to myself, as light assaulted my eyes from the little bathroom that she and I share. She was squawking some overly happy song from the ‘90’s, voice cracking on random “high” notes. Basically bleeding my ear drums. Our quarters reminded me of my cramped college dorm room from two years ago, but the nine millimeter on my nightstand jolte...

I jumped down from the delivery truck, head still bobbing to the bass coming from the speakers. As we started pulling pallets of supplies from the truck, my partner wasted no time cat-calling the group of ladies giggling their way into the store. I smiled and shook my head when they yelled back at him.

“Do you never get tired of being rejected, Marcus?” I asked, struggling with a few fallen packa...

It was the unexpected sound of the screams coming through the walls that had awakened him to this new nightmare. Incoherent words and phrases written in blood littered the walls of the poorly lit cell. Lucas sat trembling on the floor in the furthest corner from the door. He pressed his bare knees tightly to his chest and tried to force the warmth back in them with his cold hands.

He plugged his ...