Maria watched the crowd gathered around her. It was too many people, too much forgotten history and buried resentments that she’d rather not remember. Let all of them leave her in peace.

Everyone else could go. These last few moments should just be for the ones she truly cared about. Leave the eulogizing for after she was dead and buried.

When I took the online family DNA test for fun, I didn’t expect to find out I have a sister. After I read the results, I confronted my mom, and she admitted the truth that she gave birth to a daughter before she met and married my dad. My heart ached knowing all these years I could’ve had a sister and didn’t know.

Will she welcome me with open arms?

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

This chipmunk has run up to me twice now. It retreats again and I crouch to tie my shoe. My eyes track my new acquaintance, surrounded by lush pines, miles of mountain-top views, and a deer carcass ransacked by the food chain about ten feet away from me. A ding distracts me from my observations–you texted me. We were meant to go somewhere an hour ago, but an hour ago I was already on this trail. The predators which are surely on this path, brush which camouflages them, and the overlook’s treacherous heights will always be more unwavering than you.

From Guest Contributor Morgan Sanders

Morgan is a student of biology at Pikes Peak State College.

Dale stares at the target. Everything is riding on him. The difference between victory and defeat. The difference between eternal glory and a lifetime of infamy.

Dale releases the ball. He doesn’t need to watch to know it’s clanked off the front of the rim.

My grandmother was a great lover of music, though her taste had calcified in the mid-sixties. She liked the early Beatles. She liked James Brown. She liked Little Stevie Wonder. But her favorite band was the Vagabonds.

I wondered if she meant that as a euphemism.

When they were at war, everything was easy. They could yell at each other, throw pillows and then sleep in different rooms, sulking and ignoring each other.

She liked to fit people into her world like puzzle pieces so she removed the note, lit a fire and watched it burn, unopened.

From Guest Contributor Will Simon

Roger has a tremendous urgency to explore. Everywhere he travels, he moves extremely fast. There are never any stops along the way, and no sightseeing, at least not in the traditional sense.

In the time it’s taken you to read this, Roger has traveled 3.35 million miles.

I couldn’t help but keep my hand on my stomach as the baby kicked inside. “Jace, you can’t tell Jeffrey the baby is yours. It would destroy him, our marriage.”

I knew from the tears in his eyes the baby was gone.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The thing about small towns is everyone knows everyone.

The thing about small towns is everyone knows who the vampires are.

If we hadn’t been watching them for years, pondering their moves, their moods, their governments; if we hadn’t probed several of their species, and winced when they inflamed their planet; if we hadn’t seen the hatred they exacted upon each other, and the disregard they displayed for the welfare of other life, we might have shown them patience, and considered their plea for refuge, when they landed their crude spaceship upon our soil. But we had seen too much, and knew all too well what they were capable of—and so we slew the humans as quickly as we could.

From Guest Contributor Wolfgang Wright

Wolfgang is the author of the comic novel Me and Gepe and the forthcoming science fiction novel Being. His short work has appeared in over forty literary magazines, including Dark Yonder, Oyster River Pages, and Paris Lit Up. He doesn’t tolerate gluten so well, quite enjoys watching British panel shows, and devotes a little time each day to contemplating the Tao. He lives in North Dakota.