by John Yohe

“The wind picked up even more, trees torching, blowing more embers across the line. The two fires joined to four acres and the other engine crew panicked.”

by Jayson Carcione

“It was late autumn and mamma was making chickpea soup. He killed her and did unspeakable things to her before helping himself to a bowl.”

by Margo Griffin

“I picked up the doll again, turning it over in my hands, loose threads less empty.”

by Lori D’Angelo

“Cedric, said Belinda, with branch-scratched irritation in her voice, go on home. Cedric was smart enough to tell the difference between a suggestion and a command.”

by Jaime Gill

“I had been a teacher, wife, mother, and activist. Now, I was an activist only, and my life became war.”

by Charles Vermilyea Jr.

“Standing in the middle of East 221st Street facing west, I can hear the elevated train. Its rattle and clack brought to me on waves of yellow summer heat.”

by Iruoma Chukwuemeka

“Back in this house again, the absence of him engulfs her good reasoning.”

by Mehreen Ahmed

“The vibration shook the heavens and the earth. Its mysterious ways eluded Rifaat, who only stared at this spectacle, nothing short of a divine sighting.”

by Paul Allatson

“He watched them moving in through his rusted iron roof, their threads slowly joining up and sealing the holes. Most were dropping down to find drier surfaces, seeking out the darkness that sustains their kind.”

by Madison LaTurner

“If you could move into someone’s basement for a year and become a hermit, that’s what you would have done…Who needs to live out their dreams? Neil deGrasse Tyson is an asshole anyway.”

by Stephen Wunderli

“The girls imitated the grand gesture, then rose and rushed to gather around this naked stranger, to touch the skin of her slender arms and the shaven legs smooth as soap…”

by Noah Giles

“A plastic bag twirled in the wind…The bag was red. The dancing caught the Quirk’s attention. God hadn’t given up on him. That was the sign.”

by Christopher Nicastro

“He had crossed a threshold from which he could never return. No longer beyond thought. No longer existing on instinct…His hands never looked right again.”

by Patricia Q. Bidar

“You and your sisters climb spiraling metal stairs with boys from Wilmington and Harbor City. Your mother stays gone.”

by Joshua Rodriguez

“The kid leans over, whispering, ‘Flat earth—it’s all downhill from here.’”

by A. C. Canareira (translated by Clare Gaunt)

“Lil died just after birth. The umbilical cord curled around her neck, as if she’d been hanged. Lara and Leo sobbed hoarsely in the delivery room, fully aware that the midwife was cutting the umbilical cord between them.”

by Sarp Sozdinler

“Marjo protested right away but she was easy to be bribed with another daisy to munch on.”

by Vivian Lawry

“As the spirits of the corpse flowers disappear there, only I weep.”

by by Mileva Anastasiadou

“Brother says it’s not time I keep in the bottles. He says it’s dead pieces of me I cannot let go of.”

by Diana Senechal

“No new pedagogy could ever beat sitting around a table and talking about a good book.”