Early morning Damsel fly
by MattO

Comment:
Jimmy glared angrily across the foliage at his flight instructor. For months the guy had been on his case. For months he'd done everything possible to make sure that Jimmy wouldn't pass. Now, it was the day of the test, and Jimmy had been sent to platform 20, a platform well known for its existence in a troublesome area of cross-winds. A platform that had been the site of many a devastating and tragic crash.

This was to be where Jimmy was to perform his final flight evaluation. It was a set-up designed to see him fail.

Well that failure would not be his. Not today. The instructor would rue the day that he had messed with Jimmy the Dragon. Today, he would FLY. Jimmy flexed his wings, set his face in a hard and determined glare, and launched into the air...

Pride
by Nikolai1024

Comment:
When Sam was elected President of the United States, he broke the most amazing barrier that had ever existed.

That people only voted for him because he was an Eagle never entered his thoughts, never made a difference.

However, when he implemented his Free Salmon for Every Eagle initiative, the economy went into the toilet, the environment was devastated, and Sam was eventually impeached.

Sam lived out his remaining years shamed and disgraced under a government led by the great President Jack Russell Terrier.

Fall Fun
by Jason_Cross

Comment:
It was a warm and sunny autumn afternoon. A light breeze whisked through the trees, and caused a few leaves on the ground to curl around in a dance of color and dreams.

James ran outside, finally getting to enjoy fresh air for the first time in days, as the rain and chill had kept him indoors due to his asthmatic nature. He joined in with the other neighborhood children, playing and chasing and laughing through the grass and scattered leaves that had begun to fall.

It was then he saw it. A giant pile had been raked together on the lawn of the old, battered house just a few doors down. This was a house that all the neighborhood children knew. It was a forbidden house. Dark, foreboding. The rumors were that it was abandoned, yet strange noises could be heard on dark nights. That lights could be seen where no lights should be able to shine. James knew these stories, and believed them with the fervor that only an 8 year old boy could, yet something caused him to remain there, staring at that pile of leaves.

That pile. James stood there alone, the other boys he had been with long since running off down the street in a game of tag, and tilted his head. The fears of the house draining from him as water through a sieve. A step, and then another, towards the pile. His mouth grew slack, his arms dropping to his side like a rag-doll as he went closer and closer. To someone watching from afar, they would be reminded of a zombie stumbling towards it's prey in a bad B-Movie, but nobody was watching.

James reached the pile, and a grin spread on his face, almost absently. With a shout that would have shocked a sane person into a massive heart-attack, James suddenly leapt into that leaf pile and sunk up to his neck. For a few moments he lay there, that silly grin still upon his face. Then, with a crackling, shushing noise, the pile pulled him under, without his ever uttering a single sound.

The search the next day only ever revealed two things. A scattered tossing of leaves that was nowhere near any tree in the area with a tattered piece of cloth among them.

Dawn Escape From Fire
by 1m1A

Comment:
As it burned, they tried to flee. They drove, they walked and ran, they scrambled any way they could away from the devastation.

It was humanity's way. The instinct of survival. For years, they moved on from their little hiding holes and places of sanctuary as the destruction advanced, found them, destroyed some more. Even as they continued to dwindle into smaller and smaller numbers, becoming more and more savage, territorial, and devolved in the centuries to follow, they survived.

In the end, that survival failed, but to the alien peoples that destroyed them, it was a testament to a will that astounded them. It had been hopeless, but they'd fought and struggled and hid and moved to the single last person alive.

The final piece of the earth burned, and they moved on, hoping to find a foe as worthy again.

The Ninth Month
by Makka

Comment:
It was their first child. Long had they tried to conceive, for it was the dream of them both to become parents, and it was when they were at the end of their options did the miracle begin.

Now, she posed glowingly, soon to become a mother. Soon to complete a journey that she had almost given up ever believing she would take.

What would they have thought then, had they known that this child would become the savior of mankind? That he would grow to lead humanity to their greatest achievements. That he would be the inventor of interstellar travel, and become the most revered being in all the universe?

What would they have thought then? At this moment, it mattered not. All that mattered was that this was the beginning of a journey that had seemed impossible, to begin another life anew.

Kayden's First Pictures
by chrisgoddard

Comment:
A laugh, and the the face is buried in the softness of the fleece, allowing only a glimpse of the inner joy in those eyes, before the face disappears fully to rub through the fabric for sensations known only to her. Known only to one that is newly discovering the world around her. Yet she somehow knows how to play the person with the camera. She somehow knows instinctively the movements, the sounds, the looks, that get the reactions she craves. That get the results she wants.

Another peek, another giggle, another flirty game of hide and seek, and that person with the camera, that person that feeds her and snuggles her and loves her, that person laughs with her, and she knows she has won this game.

In the Shadow of Notre Dame
by scarbrd

Comment:
They gathered in droves. This was a new thing that had appeared at this ancient citadel of the lord. This ancient place of piety and sanctuary. A giant wrapped statue of what seemed to be liquid silver, suddenly there where nothing had been before.

They gathered for hours, and stared. They whispered and talked and gazed in awe. Nobody knew where it came from. Nobody dared to touch it. Was it some kind of promotion? Was it some sort of announcement of a new Parisian artist?

After what seemed an eternity, the crowd suddenly gasped as the wrappings began to move of their own accord. They shimmered as they began to fall from the figure and wrap at its feet. In a sudden movement, the silvered wrappings fell away, to reveal an otherwordly figure. Human-like, but not human. No. Not even someone painted could move like this one. Like quicksilver over open flame.

The figure's head, if you could call it that, seemed to look around and gaze at the crowd. Then, slowly, it opened its arms wide, as if in an embrace.

Then, without warning, it... shattered. Liquid silver flew in every direction, and where it touched, devastation reigned. The crowd was cut down in seconds, and every drop that touched a solid surface began to grow. To transform. To become another of these figures.

The earth never stood a chance.

Masquerade
by awpollard

Comment:
San Pablo De Bernidard leaned against the wall, goblet in hand, and grinned slyly. This ball, put on by the King, was supposed to be the beginning of a grand time for the kingdom. It was a celebration of the announcment of the marriage of the King's daughter, Princess Margarite. Little did the King, or the Princess, know that it was to be the last Royal Ball.

San Pablo took a sip and nodded to a guard by the far door. It was time. They were in position, everything was ready.

As the Duke of Bordeau walked by him, San Pablo quickly sunk a dagger into his throat, signalling the rest of his men to action.

It was Revolution.

The Sundial
by HighNooner

Comment:
Like the tales of Rip Van Winkle of old, Roger awoke after centuries of sleep, to find a blasted wasteland below him, where before had been a lush and living valley. How long he had been asleep, he would never know, for every last living person was gone, and time ceased to have any real meaning.

As he tried to survive after waking, his thoughts returned frequently to those he had just after he emerged from his epic slumber...

... That must have been SOME beer!

Falling
by Tom

Comment:
In the year of Twenty Two Twenty two, as the people of our society were finally beginning to come together. As peace and happiness were becoming the order of the day. As families gathered around their dinner tables, and laughter rang out, and children played, and the bustling of humanity went on. As all of this happened without a thought that it could ever end, they came. They appeared in the skies above every major city. They appeared in the skies above the farms, and the fields, and the forests.

They appeared in the skies and they descended from them, bringing with them fire and destruction.