By Andrew Winter As yet we below had heard nothing of the Endtimes, though I remembered perfectly what I had read about it in life. For hell sharpens all things, not least the memory of grief. So we heard Time had begun to limp down the last ridge into its grave, and some said its fate was worse than ours, but we could only imagine, … Continue reading The Tomb Robber
By Aryn Joy Tomasetti They call me Henry, it’s been two years, and I’m still ten. Kids don’t think about time the way adults do. We don’t count it quickly and we’re not visited by the ghosts from our childhood. We are the ghosts from our childhood; we just haven’t made it to the future yet. All the same, I thought I knew what Dad … Continue reading Out of Play
By Andrew Winter The cold had by now numbed and confused my mind, and I could not deny it. I tried to think only of the food for my love. I had it, packages and packages of it, pound upon pound, piled on the sled. In the near-pitch darkness I was now almost a quarter of the way across the great Blackwisp Lake, eight inches … Continue reading Silence of Water
By Isaiah Sasser Weathers followed the faint trail through the undergrowth. A broad bear print impressed softly upon the loam caught his eye; a left paw, pointing north. Four claw marks scored the earth. The claw second from the left was missing. Weathers nodded to himself. His breath quickened and his pace increased. The lever-action rifle strapped around his shoulder jostled with the forceful, deliberate … Continue reading The Crows Will Pick Clean Our Bones
By Aidan Jones Black clouds gathered over Wawel Hill, twisting like the dragon that, according to popular legend, had once called the hill home. All throughout Krakow, citizens cast worried glances toward the sky, bidding quick goodbyes to their friends as they hurried homeward. Certain there would be no more business that day, the shopkeepers in the Cloth Hall shuttered their booths. Even the old … Continue reading Storm Over Krakow
By Andrew Winter Mallery flung the map onto the dashboard, tearing it just at the point where a little dot said San Diego. “Why not just drive off the cliff right here and be done with it?” she said. Nub kept his eyes fixed forward, though he was not as calm as he seemed. “How many fights did we have growing up, and now that … Continue reading Creative Writing Awards: “One-Point-Two Inches from Eighty Feet”
By Elizabeth Hoppel “I am tired—that’s the trouble, yes…just tired,” she thought, sighing deeply as she washed the dirt from beneath her fingernails in a large ceramic sink, filled to the quarter mark with soapy water. In the window’s reflection she saw wrinkles drooping down her face, every line etched like a tally mark, won in thankless labor. She began counting her wrinkles with her … Continue reading Creative Writing Awards: “No Time for Sparrows”
Hillsdale Forum 