Lisa found a pallid yellow seed on her pillow. She rolled it between her finger and thumb, speculating that if planted, a good husband would grow. One that didn’t drink or stay out all night. One that wouldn’t smoke, swear, shout and scold. Her man would come, different to the others.

The seed cracked and an ocher fluid seeped onto Lisa’s fingers. She licked at it as the crack repaired itself. The fluid was hot on her tongue. It erased all the thoughts she had of the perfect spouse and replaced them with images of sleeping pills and razor blades.

From Guest Contributor, Horrorshow

The sound startles me from my dreams. Instead of the toasty, glowing sands succumbing to the fall of my weight, I hear the dry pricks of teensy feet against the cool tile on which my bed rests.

I unwrap myself and step down to search for the culprits. I don’t even take a step when I hear the wet crunches. Too tired to clean my foot, I crawl back in bed.

From Guest Contributor, Bradley Sides

Bradley Sides holds an M.A. in English. His fiction appears (and is forthcoming) in Belle Rêve Literary Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal, Boston Literary Magazine, Freedom Fiction Journal, Inwood Indiana, Literary Orphans and Used Gravitrons. He is a staff writer for Bookkaholic. He resides in Florence, Alabama, with his wife, and he is working on his debut novel.

When the brown moths would gather on the ceiling, you would take them up in your hands and set them loose outside. Yes, I miss that. And you are right. It is true that I was vengeful. It is true that I was impossible to pin to the carpet. And I used rhetoric to slip out of body. But what you wouldn’t hear, what I tried to tell you, was that I felt like a fish on the shore, begging for water. Love me, please, hear me, please, see? You kept saying, “The sand is water, so swim in it.”

From Guest Contributor, Addy Evenson

When I woke up this morning, no way in hell did I think I would wake up feeling like a wrecked ship on the shore. I was the girl that was found emotionally dead in the shallow part of the ocean but was never found in the deep part of her mind. I wanted the water to swallow me whole rather than people find me with my sanity slowly disappearing and my virtue stolen. My white dress was pure but now it has a layer of dirt. Who knew that a dress could express exactly how I feel right now.

From Guest Contributor, Kenzie Nicole

The little girl waited. She waited in the casket where her mother had gently placed her before they were discovered. She couldn’t see anything from within and could hear very little, but dared not make a sound. She kept instinctively mum. She heard rapid footsteps approaching their caravan, some voices faintly saying, “There’s the witch, burn her alive.” She felt a stone bouncing off the casket and screaming accompanied by sounds of something being dragged. Much later a pungent smoky odor started filling the casket, but she still dared not move. Laboriously breathing she waited for her mother to come.

From Guest Contributor, Manjiree Marathe

On the first day, they took everything. On the second day, they took everything else. On the third day, I had nothing. (Least of all myself.) This was going to make it really difficult to get everything back. But only if I really wanted it all back.

I think they had taken all of everything from me due to an error of some sort. Some algorithm got confused. Ink bled into a ledger and a decimal was dropped and they took everything. And everything else. (Including me.) They possess even my will to have it all returned. So I’m okay.

From Guest Contributor, Russ Bickerstaff

6:17 am. Chilly out. Her teeth, against the pink roses on the gold-leafed rim of her chipped tea cup with matching saucer cradling renegade drops of Lipton’s–headquarters in Hoboken–clink and chatter. Behind her, tractor wheels first crunch and smash the little stick fence, cracking like femurs, then pummel the daisies, until finally the front door splinters apart. Empty Campbell cans and Hellman’s jars, lost tin and remnant timber crash the family photo, not hers, from a Sears’ catalog, but nonetheless… Miss Dallyworth takes the last sip, while the gentrification continues on, at her new address: the curb.

From Guest Contributor, Jennnifer Sarah Cooper

My new swim trunks were still crispy and smelled of a fresh paint. I plunged into the warm Hawaiian water, ready for my long-postponed vacation. And then I saw Her.

Luckily, my swim trunks remained completely intact: Sharky did not like their taste.

From Guest Contributor, Olga Klezovitch

Olga is a scientist who lives in Seattle. Her previous work has appeared in 50-Word Stories, Necon E-Books, and A Story in 100 Words

The elevator doors close with a ding. Alone inside, she hums and checks the mirror. The speck on her cheek looks unsightly, like a coal mine bent forward and kissed her.

The elevator doors open.

From Guest Contributor, Indu Pillai

Indu is a commercial writer based in Bangalore. Her fiction has appeared in Mash Stories and 50-Word Stories. She delights in all kinds of stories, written and unwritten. Twitter: @InduPillai01

I did it. I killed her in cold blood. I hesitated at first, but she finally got on my nerves.

My office is a “No-Fly Zone.” No exceptions.

From Guest Contributor, Olga Klezovitch

Olga is a scientist who lives in Seattle. Her previous work has appeared in 50-Word Stories and Necon E-Books.