in the moment
by gliphix

Comment:
Ken started to stand on his board. It was a great wave, at the end of a perfect day. The sunset was beautiful, the air warm, the moment glorious.

Within seconds, however, that all came to a crashing halt as Ken was savagely attacked by a lurking menace. The evil and dreaded Balding Bloated Surfer Muncher pounced from beneath the waves and snatched Ken right off his board.

He didn't stand a chance.

Ometepe
by wrldtrvlr13

Comment:
As the mushroom cloud began to disperse, the sky continued to radiate the color and heat from the violent destruction, and on that tiny island in the middle of nowhere, a small band of natives suddenly discovered a new god.

The rest of the world, however, had suddenly began cursing the old.

Breaking the Habit
by Blackbox

Comment:
In the aftermath of the war, the scavengers roamed the wasted lands, collecting what they could in order to barter for food and medicines. Keith was one such scavenger. He dealt mostly in scrap metals, selling them to local settlements that used it to rebuild their blasted towns, and fortify their walls from raiders.

Then one day, Keith snapped. Perhaps it was the endless and beating sun. Perhaps it was background radiations or other ills from the devastating wars. Whatever it was, the group that game upon him, smashing his hard scavenged items into mangled remnants, could only stand back and watch.

When it was over, and Keith sit wailing in the dust and sands, the group moved on, knowing that the endless horrors of humanity had claimed another.

Silver Hammer
by reephoto

Comment:
It was almost done. When Bartok the Bold had strolled into his smithy, and had demanded a Silver Hammer, Argnok could hardly contain his glee. That meant 2500 gold pieces to fill his rapidly depleting stores. Times had been tough in the village, and 3 gold here and 4 gold there for the usual studded clubs just weren't keeping his family fed.

Now though, now a hero had come to town. He had come and there were undead to battle. Argnok smiled heartily as he put the finishing touches on the handle, and gazed at the gleaming head of his most masterful work ever. Bartok would be happy, he thought, and so would Argnok.

That evening, he fell asleep to the dream of endless gold, and when the undead attacked the village in the dead of night, Bartok's hammer went unnoticed on the wall, and Argnok never woke again.

Munch, Munch
by sfalice

Comment:
He'd hit the Jackpot, thought Ralph, a veritable jackpot. All these wonderful, wonderful fungi. He ate to his heart's (and stomach's) content. He ate until he could eat no more.

Then the visions started. The hallucinations followed. The paranoid mania the finish it off.

It was a jackpot alright, a magic one.

Deer Yoga at Sunset
by jazzdude

Comment:
It started in the woods. Nobody knows how, nobody knows when, but the first signs of it began with the wildlife. Insects would drop out of the sky after frantic buzzings, birds would crash into bush and lake after seeming to be shot out of the air. Deer and other mammals convulsed wildly, their bodies contorting, their agony only ending after several minutes before dropping dead to the forest floor.

A mad scramble to discover the cause. Scientists madly working together, quarantines rising like wildfire.

In the end, nothing would save them. It ended like it began, suddenly, and without reason, and the few that were left alive could only survive, forever without understanding of the event.

Careful boys, the rocks are.......slippery.
by jomari

Comment:
They came out of the water, running, screaming, crying. They ran to their mother and sister, trying desperately to escape the waves, trying desperately to escape the thing that was after them.

"It's coming! It's after us! Help!"

One boy fell as he reached what he regarded as safety, screaming for his mother to get him away, get him away from the water, from that thing.

But she didn't listen. She thought they were playing. She thought they were being silly, foolish boys.

That was when it came out of the waves and took them all.

Lurking
by Kelli

Comment:
He rose from the depths, and looked around, eyes and flesh glowing unnaturally with an inner fire. For only a moment, he surveyed his surroundings, and then sunk below the surface again.

With a slow and methodical gyration of his limbs and tail, he began to glide toward his prey. As he came closer, the water began to steam and bubble around him as his hunger took over.

In a giant steaming, boiling spray, his prey was consumed. He slunk beneath the depths once more.

I'm sorry dad...
by Axleuk

Comment:
She stood there on the brink of the endless sea, and thought about how apt it was, for the turmoil in her mind was like that sea. As the waves crashed upon the shore, so did her confusion and indecision crash upon the shore of her consciousness.

A single tear began in the corner of an eye, and began to forge a trail down the contours of her cheek. She did not know where to go from here. She did not know where to turn. The emptiness in her heart and soul echoed the emptiness and the vastness before her.

With a final blinking tear, and a heart-wrenching sigh, she turned from the waters, and started home. Somehow, despite everything, despite the hopelessness that threatened to consume her, she began to step. Somehow, her feet began to take her down a new path, even if her soul didn't yet know the way.

Old Summer House
by Structor

Comment:
The wind howled as twilight descended, but despite that sound a general feeling of silence and emptiness penetrated Jorge as he returned from his hunting. As the familiar crimson hues of the roof of his home came into sight, he smiled and quickened his step.

It had not been a successful hunt. Few were, these days. The game had thinned out, and winter was quickly showing its dread and desolate face more and more, scattering what little game there was into distant places. Jorge was worried about the coming months, but the sight of the home he had started out here always gave him hope. He had stores there to last, and his wife and child would be there waiting.

Grinning again, Jorge began the last few steps to home, and in the months to come, to defy the winter and be renewed again in Spring. As it had been for the last few years, as it would be to the end of his days.

*edited some spelling*