Peering just above the berm, her finger on the trigger, she spies a fast-approaching force, more powerful and bigger. Squinting through her rifle sights, she takes a steady bead, while trying hard to focus on the soldiers in the lead. She squeezes off a burst of fire from her AK-47, sees Russian forces now reduced by ten – perhaps eleven. But now her spot’s been compromised – must move to higher ground, she raises up her...

Every horrible act of violence is only exceeded by the endless media hyping that inundates every moment following it. The constant competition for ratings and trying to “outdo” each other for viewers is overshadowing the main issues that need to be addressed. Gun control leaps from the mouths of those involved. Take away all guns leaps from others. While the NRA and its hardline supporters in Congress tout gun ownership w...

Two young brothers are left at home, All by their lonesome selves, The older one notices a new toy, Sitting high up on a shelf. He climbs up and brings on down, What he believes is a toy gun, He thinks about the games they’ll play, Boy this sure will be fun. He aims the ‘toy’ at his little brother, And shoots him in the head, But that gun was not a toy at all, And soon the three-year-old is dead. When a child dies, All th...

Everyone needs some kind of sign to help them believe everything is going to be all right. Everyone looks to the sky; to some deity. The funny thing is there is something out there and no matter how much we cry out it whispers back that it didn’t create us in order to fix everything wrong with us. He gave us the ability to cry…to feel pain because he also gave us the ability to heal those in pain. There is no better feeli...

4THE PIT BOSS When all was said and done, what mattered most was the end result. Nothing was more important than ensuring the bottom line was in her favor. Rising through the ranks of a criminal organization meant producing more profit than the next criminal. To her, this was life in its purest form. This was why she embraced an existence of villainy. Stripping away, what was to many a fabricated sense of nobility or wors...

3THE PIT During his first visit through the so called underbelly of society, Kaszbein found it difficult to hold back the gagging his body demanded. Mixtures of blood and sweat combined with an assortment of animal and human feces; a retched concoction born from basic human vices. Yet now Kaszbein’s senses were fully acclimated to the atmosphere of lust and brutality. A different world pulsed with activity near the southe...

2 THE INQUIRY Rorbel emerged from the wooden carriage and immediately stood tall, revealing no signs of fatigue, frustration, or fear. Even though what lay in front of him had unconsciously widened the eyes and lowered the jaws of many a soldier; this was Rorbel’s fourth visit to the royal palace grounds. Still, no matter how many times his eyes had taken in the awe-inspiring sight of Vandaria’s capitol, hiding his amazem...

To those who would know, yet would not want to know. To see what one does not want to see. Hear what they don’t want to hear. During the future or in the past? What is true desire? When does difference become the same? When does it repeat? When did it first draw breath? Creation is always forgotten. Wondrous during its infancy. Adored and then finally forgotten. Time dilutes. Now and then become the same. And yet human be...

We use clever pictures, witty words,And celebrity quotes to say the things We are unable. Tragic moments bringOut the worst side of us. There is noHeart in what we say, only the convictionOf what we believe to be true. Are weRight? Does it matter in times like these?The blood of innocent children had not yetTurned cold and we proclaim our rights.We are like a child too, guilty to the pointWhere we have to make a stand bef...

In the valley of Moethere's a town you never heardwhere it'd always snowtill a plague quite absurdtumbled from the downspokeand sliced off the headsof all the townsfolkwho dashed around like undeads.With the town disabled,a copper sage cameand overtook the fabled.He was the one to blamefor the sharp windthat fell upon the townand did them all in.On a throne, he sat downHe had his foxescollect all the capsand store them in...

I must have passed out again. Either that, or what followed was too horrible to remember, which is my guess, seeing as my last memory is of a trio of the little fucks chasing after me waving cat fetuses impaled on tent stakes and turning the landscape into a bloody Jackson Pollack painting. I was sure that the little bastards had been smoking viagra laced crack and were going to violate me and then cut me open like a scie...