Tag: fantasy
-
Whiteout at Silver Peak
The storm arrived faster than anyone expected.By the time the last ski lift shut down at Silver Peak Resort, the world outside had turned into a wall of white. Winds screamed against the timber walls, rattling windows and burying doors beneath drifts taller than the snowcats. No one was leaving—not tonight, not tomorrow, and probably…
-
The Department of Placement
The Department of PlacementFor nearly a year, 23-year-old Maren Collins had been living in a loop—wake up, check job boards, send applications, wait for rejection. She tried everything: revising her résumé a dozen times, rewriting cover letters until the words went blurry, pleading with hiring managers, applying for positions far outside anything she studied.Yet her…
-
Freight Train Breakdown
The dispatchers’ voice had sounded calm when it came across the radio, but you could always tell when calm was covering panic. “Nearest repair equipment from Havre can’t even get a track warrant until tomorrow morning. best case we’re looking at thirty-six to seventy-two hours. Hold tight.”Hold tight.The engine had blown a main bearing forty-even…
-
Perfect Ingredients
Elias Moreno had been a line cook for almost fifteen years at Bella’s Hearth, a small neighborhood restaurant tucked between a laundromat and a bookstore. He wasn’t famous, didn’t chase culinary awards, and had no dreams of opening his own place.What Elias did have was an obsession — a quiet, stubborn quest to create the…
-
The Greenhouse the wouldnt let go
The Greenhouse That Wouldn’t Let GoDr. Elara Winslow worked in the Briarhall College greenhouse for nine years. She knew every vine, every petal, every delicate dependency on each of the plants she dedicated her life to.Or so she believed.The greenhouse sat behind the science building like a glass cathedral—humid, bright, and always buzzing softly from…
-
The Quiet Line
The Quiet Line Samuel Reeves had lived on the border between Juneau, Alaska and British Columbia for thirty-four years. His weather-worn cabin sat so close to the international line that he liked to joke he could fry eggs in Alaska and eat them in Canada without standing up. He liked the quiet.He liked the isolation.He…
-
The Ledger
Detective Marcus Dwyer had worn the badge for 22 years.Long enough to see partners retire, rookies turn seasoned, and entire precincts change leadership twice over. Long enough to make mistakes. Mistakes he never admitted.Mistakes he never atoned for.Mistakes he buried beneath paperwork, favors, and silence. But retirement has a way of shaking loose the dust.…
-
The Moon Colony
Beneath the Grey The first generation of settlers called it Haven-1, a domed outpost carved into the southern rim of the Shackleton Crater. It was meant to be humanity’s quiet foothold on the Moon: laboratories, greenhouses, sleeping quarters, and a small team of twenty-two scientists and engineers. But within a month of landing, they discovered…
-
The Golden Ticket
Sam Rourke had spent twenty-six years working in construction in the city of Crest Field. He built half the new downtown skyline and patched nearly every pothole in the county at least twice. Everyone knew him — the quiet guy in worn boots, strong hands, and no-nonsense attitude. But no one, not even Sam himself,…
Saturday Afternoon 