The Night Shift

by Catie Koch

Six empty soda cans littered the desk when the phone rang. It was a strange hour for a call, going on four a.m., but Corey popped the tab of a seventh can and swiped the phone from its stand...

The Guardsman

by Ryan Zaff

“Dawn at sundown! The king rides home!” 

Then sounded the horns, shrill and proud, as the watchmen in their towers shouted this refrain. In the city’s center, the forum bell was rung in its tower, the long toll punctuating every horn blast…

Here There Be Dragons

by Elliott Rose

Cillian spent his childhood walking the cliffs, peering down at the rocks battered by the foaming waves. His mother would keep two fingers in his collar, never tugging too hard, but threatening it. He was the type of child who liked to test the leash. He never knew what he wanted to find down there, at least until he found the map.…

Grow Back

by Finley Witzke

He arrived in the village as the sun peeked over the horizon on a crisp, clear winter morning. His boots crunched on the frosted grass, but only barely — he was as light-footed as a deer and moved as smoothly as a snake...

False Cowboy

by Lily Griffith

 I’d been watching the man across the bar for a while now. He was at the far end, and I cut him off about an hour ago, as he had been giving me and a few others a decent amount of trouble, shouting and muttering about some woman he most likely didn’t get the pleasure of having a tango with. He wasn’t a regular, I knew that for sure...

Tongue-Tied Laces

by Mariella Elias

 The roller rink has so many people tonight—all 20 of them. Middle schoolers move in gendered groups while late 2000s music videos are projected onto one of the far walls. The skating rink was essentially a single-room warehouse that this woman converted back in 2003 on the outskirts of town, so a lot of people don’t even know it exists...

Jeans: A History

by Henry Rosen

 Sunlight spoke through the blinds with its soft and somber tongue that coated the room in its warm orange morning tones, marking that the day was floating over the distant mountains in the window down to the homes scattered about the village side like pointillism dots on a Georges Seurat painting hung in the Louvre...

The Wandering City

by David Rodriguez

I darted through the narrow alleyways of Avora, my footsteps barely making a sound on the cobblestone streets. The sun had just begun to rise, casting long shadows on the golden hue over the weathered buildings. I clutched a loaf of bread tightly against my chest, its warmth seeping through the thin fabric of my shirt...