The Fall Of The Roman Empire

Frank stumbles down the street in broad daylight. The crisp air helps dull the pain in his wounds. Lightheaded and off balance, he is reminded of late nights in college, wandering drunkenly back to his dorm room. His vision now has the same tunnel focus that causes him to lose sight of his surroundings.

He'd never finished that final essay for History of Rome, but Professor Dutton had allowed him to pass anyway. She'd always liked him. Maybe it was her fault that he'd never learned any discipline.

What a weird thing to remember as he is about to die.

Afterlife

People say when you die you see a tunnel. A bright light. Angels. Pearly gates. Or hellfire and brimstone, depending on your earthly deeds.

Lies.

There is no tunnel. No welcome by ghostly outspread arms. No river of milk and honey.

Instead, I see a river of blue. Vertical lines of binary code, scrolling endlessly in the void. The emptiness is so vast, it tugs at my soul, a remembrance. Grief.

I begin to walk, seeking. I push back the lines of code like a curtain. And then there you are. Your ocean eyes, your quicksilver smile.

“Welcome home, love.”

From Guest Contributor Heather R. Parker

Recovery

The healing came slow. A damaged psyche doesn’t show like a bruise. Her little boy needs her; she is everything to him and he is the world to her. But she needs to be whole for him.

More than a month of repair to start the recovery. Participation in daily activities was the first sign. A faint light at the end of the tunnel, but a light nonetheless. Her posture showed confidence. Then her gait picked up a bit. A twinkle returned to her eyes. Her journey would be long and arduous, but she was on her way to recovery.

From Guest Contributor NT Franklin

NT Franklin has been published in Page and Spine, Fiction on the Web, 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, CafeLit, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts, 404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Entropy, Alsina Publishing, Fifty-word stories, Dime Show Review, among others.

Happiness In Heaven

I walk down the abandoned streets as the slightest beam of light begins to brighten the unlit sky. The brisk wind forces a stubborn tear to stream down the side of my cheek and crystallizes from the absence of warmth. In the fog filled skies of New York City, I take my last exploration before I restart my life. I stumble down the stairs that stand before me and I make my way into a desolate tunnel that fills with light the longer I wait. A loud horn echoes. I guess now is my time to fly away from here.From Guest Contributor Lilia Onstott

Lilia is an English student at Pikes Peak Community College. She spends her free time by allowing her mind to express itself within many artistic fields, like writing, photography, and music.

Return To The Primitive

A hunk of meat sizzled on the broken fireguard atop a rusty oil drum which served as a brazier-cum-barbeque.

Badger’s friends gathered round for warmth. He didn’t know why they called him that and, being relatively new to a sub-society which had welcomed him with open arms, he hadn’t pushed the issue.

The subway tunnel reeked of smoke, sweat, and human waste, but it was home to the evictees.

Tonight they shared their good fortune with any who followed the aroma, irrespective of rivalries.

Badger’s landlord had barged in, demanding the spare keys.

Long pig had never been so descriptive.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

The Perils Of The New York City Subway

As a child, Jaime loved the subway. No car seats. Strange people. Traveling underground in a long tunnel. She couldn't wait to be old enough to ride into the city on her own.

She remembered how fucking innocent she used to be. Now she hates the subway. Especially the strange people.

Today for instance. The only available seat's in the corner. Right next to the cocoon. It's been growing for weeks. It used to be a rider, but now he's pupating on the D Train.

Jaime sits. It's not the grossest thing she's witnessed on the New York City subway.

Dandelions

Passersby might have been forgiven for thinking the playground was host to a psychedelic staging of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but it was just Cassie and Bobby, who'd rubbed dandelions on their skin until their faces were streaked with yellow. They wanted to camouflage themselves like the soldiers on TV, but all they had was mud and flowers and imagination.

When the real life soldiers came, Cassie and Bobby hid in the drainage tunnel as they'd been taught. The gunshots echoed like firecrackers in the air around them while they waited in vain for their parents to find them.

In the Paris Catacombs

My tour is just two thousand meters of the hundred kilometer labyrinth that forms this subterranean ossuary.

The tunnel walls are stacks of femurs, tibias, scapulas, et alia, interspersed with grinning skulls.

Six million dead unceremoniously disinterred, generation upon generation, from centuries ago.

Good, evil, male, female, beautiful, ugly, aristocrat, artisan, everyone has attained an undignified égalité here.

I could laugh myself to scorn at this macabre absurdity. Not a ghost in sight, merely piles of bones!

Back in the land of the living, I emerge into the rush hour: busy throngs of stick people, all sharing the same destination.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

Ian studied English Literature at Oxford University many years ago. He has had short stories published in various genres in Schlock! Webzine, Schlock! Bi-Monthly, Short-story.me, Anotherealm, Under the Bed, A Story In 100 Words, and in anthologies by Horrified Press and Rogue Planet Press. He is an Affiliate Member of the Horror Writers Association.

Colonial Malaise

We milled about the tunnel, waiting for instruction. Our day always began this way. No one seemed to have the initiative to do something on his own.

I'm not sure about the others, but my inaction wasn't for lack of impetus. I knew I should be outside gathering food and fighting off invaders. And every day was identical, so our tasks weren't that complicated. It was just that for whatever reason I never felt very motivated. Based on their apathy, my brethren were similarly predisposed.

This was probably the reason why our colony was consistently named the world's worst anthill.

Urban Spelunking

When they went urban spelunking in the abandoned tunnels of the city’s old subway system, they were prepared for anything and everything: forgotten homeless, horrible mutants, over-sized rats. But they were not prepared for what they actually found.

The giant mirror blocked the tunnel and made further progress impossible. Then one of them discovered they could walk right through it.

When they resurfaced several weeks later, the world was exactly the same as before, except everything now was the opposite.

Mark liked that he was now rich but life as a black woman was hard even when you had money.