Fluorescent light gleamed on cold, metallic walls. The white and grey sterile corridors were freezing, as if the whole building were a giant refrigerator. There wasn't a soul in sight. Then a door was flung open and four figures burst out at tremendous speed: a mad-looking man in a tattered coat and scarf and three... Continue Reading →
All around, there is sand, ash, dirt – stretching on and on to the blood-red horizon and the jagged outline of the desolate mountains. The earth is dry as old bones. Everything is dead here. It has been dead for a long time. But there is the garden. White flowers spout from grass, turning their... Continue Reading →
George was certain that the yellow car – bright as a canary's feathers, smooth and sleek like something from a gangster film – was hunting him, stalking him through the skyscrapers like a tiger through the trees. A glance out his window at lunchtime showed it was there, waiting, but he decided to risk going... Continue Reading →
They glowed like a field of stars: a net of lights, swaying gently in the breeze from the open window. As she looked at them, she wondered how much they'd cost and how long they'd taken to put up. They're beautiful, she thought. The whole house was beautiful: the curving staircase, the wide window she'd climbed... Continue Reading →
There was no top and no bottom. There were only the stairs, climbing upwards and downwards, a vertical eternity. How long had they been climbing? Vicki asked herself this question every night as they made camp upon a turn in the endless stair, breaking a bannister for firewood and cooking whatever it was they'd hunted... Continue Reading →
Filled with ash, the marker sat at the heart of the courtyard, surrounded by squares of dew-bright grass. Each night the flame was lit; each morning the flame was naught but ash. That was the way of it: that the orange light of the cracking fire would give way to the spreading crimson of dawn. To... Continue Reading →
Estania walked carefully along the passageway, torch in one hand and string in the other. She had said that it was to knit herself a wedding dress: a dress over which she slaved more months, secretly hoarding the spare string like a squirrel hoarding acorns in a hollowed-out tree. Now she had enough to take... Continue Reading →
In the tiny, dusty room, there lay two round stones. They'd been there as long as she could remember: too heavy to move. She didn't know what they were and she'd never really had time to ask. She was too busy: roaming, begging, hiding, stealing. She'd found the room abandoned, the perfect place to hide... Continue Reading →
Lieutenant Jeffries knelt in the trenches, watching the silent battlefield before him. It was a world of mud and blood and rain, a wet and murky place where the nights rang with laser fire and thunder. Lightning flashed over the distant mountains, barely visible through storm clouds and gas clouds. A bitter chill filled the... Continue Reading →
They were rectangular buildings around a rectangular stretch of flat, featureless artificial grass, a world of straight lines and right angles.Under the light of the city's false sun, they'd built it, carefully planned and structured down to the last detail, but soon found that the people were driven insane by its orderly construction and perfection.... Continue Reading →
