Tag: short-story
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Chapter 17: PROTECT YOURSELF The wooden gate swung beneath Apricot’s hand. Beyond it, the suburb lay in a hush. Streetlights stretched skeletal shadows across the pavement, and every one of them made her flinch. Shapes warped between pools of light, needling at her…
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Chapter 16: The Dog From The Window The borrowed peace lasted until Jasper went upstairs. Apricot stayed on the couch a few minutes longer, listening to the house settle. Their mother was somewhere over the ocean by now, halfway through…
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Chapter 15: Stupid Joy Low chanting filled the spire. Far above the city’s neon sprawl, behind glass and steel that no commoner would ever see, the nobility of Okabe sat in their high-backed chairs. Suits pressed. Masks lacquered. They watched…
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Chapter 14: Can’t Be Crazy An hour later, Apricot was on her knees in her bathroom, gripping the cold rim of the toilet as bile burned its way up her throat. The retching came in waves, each one wringing her…
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Chapter 13: Simon Says A deep, weathered voice rolled through the chamber. “Report. What have you gathered about Roe’s death.” In the heart of Okabe’s decaying city lodge, two men in suits stood before a gilded throne. Neon from the barred windows bled weakly…
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Chapter 12: Shelf Life The fluorescent lights inside Ichigari Grocery hummed their usual dead note. Apricot swiped her ID, slipped behind the counter, and clocked in. Her hands still trembled from the walk. The pop song was gone from her earbuds — she’d…
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Chapter 11: Morning Light Morning sun cut through the blinds in pale bars across the breakfast table. For once, the Signa home felt still in a way that didn’t unsettle her. Winifred had come home. That alone changed the air.…
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An Instructive Treatise for the Uninitiated Composed by Archivist Mereth Talo, Third Keeper of the Technical Scrolls Imperial Library, Laver You ask me of glythes, and I confess I am pleased by the question. Too few in our age understand…
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Chapter 4: On the Radio The afternoon light slanted through the towers of Blue Ash City, cutting gold between steel and glass. The hum of traffic and pedestrian chatter wrapped around the open-air tables of Bingo Burgers, where the smell…
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Afternoon Blue Ash City moved at its usual weekday rhythm, shoes clattering across pavement, vendors calling over the thrum of traffic, neon signs glowing stubbornly against the strong midday sun. Apricot drifted with the current down Iwai Street. The air…
