Bingly Ironhart was Manchester’s most enthusiastic ironmonger—enthusiasm measured, of course, by the number of squeaky hinges he polished before breakfast. Each morning, he burst through his shop doors at precisely 6:03 am (never 6:00, for dramatic flair), straightening rows of horseshoes like they were little silver soldiers. His apprentice, young Marmaduke, tip-toed in behind him, carrying a teetering stack of coil spri...

Chapter 06 – It was bound to happen, succession plan Another year passed, and as said, after three years, we were, yes, a legend, but also the most wanted couple of pirates of the Caribbean. There was even a little fleet of more lightly armed frigates roaming the seas with the specific purpose of catching us and ignoring any other pirate ship, unless to save other ships or already engaged in combat. Caterina found what sh...

A Short Play in Three Scenes Setting: England, 1642–1643, in the early months of the Civil War. Dramatis Personae: • SIR THOMAS FAIRCHILD: A Royalist landowner, traditionalist, late 40s. • ELIZABETH FAIRCHILD: His daughter, sympathetic to Parliament, early 20s. • CAPTAIN RICHARD HALE: A Parliamentarian officer, idealistic, mid-30s. • SERGEANT JOHNS: A rank-and-file Parliament soldier, dutiful, late 20s. • LADY MARGARET: A...

Just an Old Country Boy Verse 1 I was raised where the red dirt roads, Wind through fields where the tall corn grows. Mama sang hymns on a Sunday morn’, Daddy worked the land ‘til his hands were worn. Chorus I’m just an old country boy, simple and free, Don’t need much money, don’t need much to be me. Give me a guitar, a porch, and the stars to enjoy— That’s the life of an old country boy. Verse 2 I learned young how to f...

The World’s End The last tree leaned into the wind, its branches skeletal, its leaves as brittle as old paper. Across the horizon, cities were winking out one by one, each extinguished light another heartbeat silenced. A child knelt in the dust, her palm pressed against the ground. She whispered to the soil as though it might whisper back, the way her grandmother once said the earth used to sing. But the ground was silent...

Two days passed, and He didn’t show. Her mind had been stuck on him; she realized it was happiness, he brought joy, and she was the last one to see it. She was determined to make him the best sword and had no answer to why. One sat on the counter on the third day in wait for him to stroll in. Dawn felt like she was enabling a repeat of her father, and she wanted to do it, without reason why. She wanted to make him a stron...

Chapter 05 – First real step of direct revenge The second year of our rising fame, six months after the capture of the Carletta, we had an encounter that really made me thank God for helping my revenge. I was taking a nap in our cabin when a ship’s boy knocked at the door. “Captain Ash, Captain! Captain Blackeyes asked for you to come quickly on deck, without makeup and with a womanlier attire, but still comfortable for f...

Chapter One: The Corner Jayden Reed hated standing still. At sixteen, his mind buzzed like the traffic outside his block of flats — restless, loud, impossible to switch off. School felt like a cage. Teachers droned about exams and futures, but all Jayden could see was the present: cracked pavements, graffiti-tagged walls, and the crew of older boys always holding court at the corner shop. Everyone in the neighborhood knew...

In the closest town to the war being waged, lies a rare breed, a female blacksmith. She’s good at her work; those who knew, who cared not for her being a woman, or those desperate enough, were aware of how proficient a craftsman she was. “Bless this township for having a blacksmith,” a knight exclaimed when he walked up. It was a small cottage towards the middle, surrounded by a stone and wrought iron fence He walked up t...

Chapter One – The Summons Sir Aldric of Highvale had fought in more wars than he cared to remember, but the summons from King Theodric was different. This was no border skirmish or bandit raid. The royal messenger’s words had chilled him: “A dragon has taken the king’s daughter.” Aldric rode through the crumbling gates of Eldraleth, the mountain valley where few dared to tread. The air smelled of ash. The sky, tinged with...

I still hear the roar of guns when I close my eyes—an endless thunder rolling over black volcanic sand. I’m Corporal Ira Hayes of the United States Marine Corps, a Pima Indian from Arizona, and what I’m about to tell you is etched in me sharper than any rifle scar. We hit Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. At first light, the beach looked like a nightmare—smoke choking the air, bodies half buried in ash, and cliffs bristling...

Jules Laurent glared at the tiny brass bell sharply tinkling as he stepped inside Les Petits Plaisirs de Montmartre. The bell sounded too cheerful for the early hour. He moved toward the glass case of neatly lined up macarons and felt a childlike craving for them. The croissants looked tasty too, and he finally settled on the pain au chocolat. While waiting in line at the register, his eyes passed on the bustling patrons...

1. The First Voice Dr. Lena Rourke didn’t believe in ghosts, but there was something spectral about the new server cluster. Rows of black towers blinked with synchronized lights, as if they were breathing in a slow, mechanical rhythm. When she walked through the lab at night, she felt as if something unseen was watching her. The AI project—codename Eidolon—was funded by the Defence Ministry but built under the guise of an...

Mei Lin’s reservation book filled with precise requests: “A summer afternoon in 1920s Tuscany,” “a winter’s night in 1960s Tokyo.” No names, no dishes—only ancestral experiences. She logged each in her digital ledger, tagging them Memory Transfer: Confirmed, Identity Erosion: Moderate. In the kitchen, her knife struck the board in exact intervals, a rhythm that stilled the static in her skull. Heirloom seeds—her grandmoth...

Prologue: The Calm Before the Storm October dawned cool and gray over the approaches to Cádiz. On the quarterdeck of HMS Victory, anchored off the Gulf of Cádiz, Admiral Horatio Nelson stood as if carved from bronze, cloak billowing, telescope in hand. Twenty miles to the south-west, the combined Franco-Spanish fleet under Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve lay at anchor off Cape Trafalgar, their great hulls creaking...