A New Kind of Literary Pulse

The lightning drake, Salt, sprinted as fast as possible next to the speeding train. Her rider, Pepper, clinging to her reins and driving them faster and faster. The border was in sight, they didn't ...  [+]

It was the 98th time – or perhaps the 99th. Sienna had long lost count. What was once indelible quickly turned faint and blurry after she relived her life so many times. Her life had turned upside ...  [+]

The city is silent around you, the place that you grew up in reduced to a graveyard of silence. You never thought you would come back here, willingly. Up until a year ago, you hardly thought you ...  [+]

On the occasion in question, Halcyon arrived for work at the exact right time and performed ver duties in the exact right way. Everything to specification. No small detail overlooked. Today, of all ...  [+]

Every year, we host the annual human hunt, and every year like clockwork, we win. I originally was not going to make attendance, as I had an assignment to closely monitor a younger model. I am Model ...  [+]

There are approximately seventy-two seconds left until everything that we've ever known will come to an end.   I am sitting on the floor in front of my living room sofa, listening to the quiet hum of ...  [+]

When I was seventeen years old, Sam and I spent all summer eating nothing but boiled peanuts. Sam was my best friend, but he also had an incredible ability to flip a good day on its side. He got me ...  [+]

The old man arrived at the hospice with a battered briefcase and no family.   Inside the briefcase were ten watches — each one wound, yet stopped at a different hour.   The nurses thought him ...  [+]

Prima Facie "SEX WORKER CHARGED WITH ALLEGED MURDER OF PROMINENT BUSINESSMAN"
Merida had read the sensational article on her way to work in the morning, then heard her colleagues speculating about ...  [+]

I arrived here two years ago. I immigrated here on a work visa from Bangladesh. I left to better my life and start something new; I was all in. No one in my family had ever lived here before, in the ...  [+]

My name is not important, nor is my sport. The only things you need to know about me are that I came in second place at the 1996 Summer Olympics, I'm returning to Atlanta, and I have a time machine ...  [+]

She did always have the best advice. I believe when I'm in trouble, I miss her the most. At least I believe that's why she's been on my mind.  If you've ever felt the stress of watching a car accident ...  [+]

Otaru, a fishing port city in Hokkaido, is just half an hour northwest of Sapporo. Nestled between Tenguyama Mountain and Ishikari Bay, it is home to ski resorts with powder as soft as flour. Though ...  [+]

    Inhale, 1...2...3... Exhale and aim, 1...2...3...  Slowwwly squeeze. Remember to follow through.  
    Bang. The sound of my hot pink Realtree camo .243 caliber hunting rifle as I earned my ...  [+]

The stairwell smelled like bleach and metal. Sharp, sterile, endless. Each step clanged beneath her bare feet, echoing upward into the dark. The sound bounced back to her in strange rhythms like ...  [+]

"And that...is the story...of how I cycled...thirty kilometres at...two in the morning." My haggard breathing punctuated my sentences at awkward times, protracting the process of my struggled ...  [+]

In the year 2045, the world erupted into a worldwide conflict, just a century after the end of the last great war. A charismatic dictator took advantage of the lost youths of the world, whose ...  [+]

The dangerous wind of war bellows on my breast, and soldiers scream for their mothers, and blood dots the land.  Many are gone, good and young and bright-eyed men and women, gone in droves since the ...  [+]