Perhaps

Derek's wedding day had arrived. As a child of divorce he desperately wanted to know that what he shared with Mandy was true love. So on the morning of his nuptials, he visited Solanaca, the neighborhood witch.

Solanaca was known for her ability to read the future and cast hexes. For 100 dollars, she offered a potion that would compel the imbiber to answer one question truthfully.

Derek gladly paid the cash. Superstition prevented him from seeing Mandy before the ceremony, so he waited until the reception to slip the potion into her champagne.

"Do you truly love me?"

"Perhaps."

The Bequest

Matt arrived at the reading of Grandfather's will ready for his moment of ascendance. As the only living male heir, the family's wealth now belonged to him.

During the ceremony, Matt's seat was eclipsed only by that of the adjudicator. Grandfather was known for his love of pomp and grandeur, so it was only after many arcane rituals and benedictions that the adjudicator cracked open the will. "The heir shall find his bequest inside the labyrinth."

Next thing he knew, Matt was naked and bleeding at the center of a hedge maze. This was not the inheritance he'd been expecting.

Great Minds

Despite my dread, graduation blasted through the calendar. The ceremony was lovely; I felt something strange in my heart. After I got home, I gravitated to my room and turned on my computer. I opened an old chat program, scrolled down to his name. Our last chat, both online and in real life, was more than five years ago. I saw him sitting in the front row an hour ago.

I read our conversations, laughed, forgot his vanishing act.

Suddenly, the grey icon went green.

Soccer93 is typing….

The message vanished.

Soccer93 is typing….

“Great minds think alike, I guess.”

From Guest Contributor J.R. Night

Good Bye World

The blood of the homeless worked nicely. I was able to refine the unimaginably gruesome ritual and it worked, I stopped aging! I am writing this to repent for my sins and to warn others. Now the only life I will take is my own, to ensure that the minute details of the sickening ceremony die with me. Always remember that one virtuous short life is worth more than a hundred long lives of evil like the one I have lived. I now say goodbye to the world I have known longer than anyone else in the history of man.

From Guest Contributor Kevin Pentalow