The conference room clock ticks three seconds behind the hallway clock, which runs seventeen seconds ahead of my phone. The discrepancy creates a low-frequency hum that I seem to be the only one who notices—temporal tinnitus that started six months ago and has been worsening ever since. "Riley, are you with us?" Janet's voice cuts through the chronological static. I blink back to the present moment, which is 2:47 PM accor...

In desert’s barren, scorching light, The Tempter came in shadowed might, To Christ alone, no fruit to yield, He stood as Eden’s fate revealed. The serpent’s hiss then echoed clear, In Eden’s garden, whispered near, To Eve and Adam’s fragile trust, The taste of sin would turn to dust. Christ faced the thirst, the hunger’s sting, While Satan’s words would promise kings, A kingdom vast if He would bow, Yet Christ refused the...

I used to see the blinking cursor on a white page, domineering, overbearing, sneering at me. At my lack. At the spaces I dared not take up. I could almost hear it saying, "You're always like that. Parking me at this point in a huge, open white space. You set the plan, the time, and the possible sources of inspiration. But still, here I stand. You always cower to make me move." So now I am here, making the cursor run on th...

Mei noticed the glitch on a Tuesday. The timestamp on the coffee shop surveillance feed jumped backward 37 seconds, then forward 94. To anyone else monitoring the citywide network, it would have registered as simple packet loss—the mundane hiccup of digital infrastructure. But Mei's brain didn't process time like others did. Where they saw continuous flow, she perceived discrete frames, each with its temporal signature. T...

Lieutenant Commander James Reed gripped the wardroom rail as rain pounded the deck above. The table before him bore Admiral Sinclair’s rough chart: Pointe Verdure—a narrow cove along Normandy’s silver coast—and, barely a mile inland, the Freya radar station at Cap d’Épine. “Last month,” Reed intoned, “five U-boats picked up convoy signatures here. Losses: over forty merchant ships. Our mission: land at 0130, breach the pe...

Chapter 02 - The escape and the crew acceptance I walked fast, running from a corner to an alley, from a shadow to another, and when I reached the docks, I could see that the non-Spanish ships were already recalling their crews to leave at the first lights. Most of them would carry a number of citizens with them when sailing. And the Galleon, alone, wouldn’t be able to chase any of them, mostly quick merchant brigs made f...

Celia Parker arrived just as dusk bled into the forest, the sky a bruised purple above the tallest pines. Fresh snow carpeted the narrow track, erasing any hint that others had passed this way in days. She pulled her hood tight, the howl of wind pricking her senses as she crossed the threshold into the rental cabin’s pale glow. When the door closed behind her, the sound snapped through the silent room like a gunshot. Insi...

The Peace GardensThe rosemary sounds like static when it's angry—seventeen years of Margaret Chen's voice, crackling with accusations about ungrateful children and wasted piano lessons. I planted it next to the sage three days ago—sage that hums with the same woman's whispered apologies to empty rooms. Now they're doing something I've never heard before. The rosemary's static is softening. The sage's hum is getting strong...

The last embers of the range war still glowed in Luke Corrigan’s mind as he spurred his mount down the winding trail. Dust-clogged valleys stretched behind him, punctuated by the smoking ruins of homesteads—silent testaments to a conflict that had finally died in blood. Corrigan, tall and barrel-chested, rode like death astride a roan mare, twin Colt .44s resting in polished holsters, a Springfield ’63 carbine stowed in a...

My grandmother could taste memories. The first occasion I experienced this was when I was seven years old. We gathered around her kitchen table, with sunlight streaming through the timeworn lace curtains. She scooped up blackberry cobbler with her spoon, brought it to her mouth, and shut her eyes. Her expression changed—not merely with the enjoyment of sugary taste, but with a more profound emotion. "August 1962," she whi...

It’s hard driving a hundred miles with you on my mind It’s difficult to keep focus and leave the road behind It’s hard driving a hundred miles with you on my mind Every song on the radio just reminds me in kind. I can’t wait to hear your laughter To see that smile break through I can’t wait for the moment When I’m finally next to you. I’ll put my words into meaning As my arms pull you near But if you try to hide your joy...

Chapter 1 – Introduction and betrayal “Keep your guard up higher, Cyndria!” “But father, I’m tired! And why should I learn brawling or using swords and knives? I’m a woman and I don’t need it!” In the beginning, I found it fun to exercise with my father in fighting and swordsmanship, so as to have some dedicated time with him, but now it was getting boring. It’s A.D. 1780 and I’m the barely fourteen years old daughter of...

Chapter Twelve: Into the Pit June 2024 – Donetsk Region, Ukraine The military checkpoint had been evacuated the day before they arrived. No warning, no explanation—just boots, tire tracks, and one soldier’s abandoned rosary half-buried in churned mud. The villagers near the trenchline wouldn’t speak to Eleanor or her team. Not even to ask why an old blind woman, five strangers, and a heavy case of ritual tools had come to...

Chapter Eleven: The Inheritance of Ash and Blood May 2024 – Eastern Ukraine / Suffolk, UK Peter stood at the lip of the yawning sinkhole in the Donbas forest, the wind whipping his collar as if to warn him away. He’d told himself he’d returned for the story—an exclusive on the frontline’s new horrors—but every dream since he had visited Eleanor had driven him here. In sleep, roots writhed beneath his skin like living fing...

Chapter Ten: The Eyes That Remain March 2024 – St. Joseph’s Residential Care, Suffolk, UK 50 years after the Belgian Spiral The world had grown quieter for Eleanor Mercer. Not silent—never silent—but quieter in the way winter muffled sound: dull, heavy, soaked in memory. She had been blind for over four decades, her eyesight gradually fading in the years after she had battled Eitar and still, her dreams were painted in vi...