The morning the witch decided to shed her skin like a lizard and become someone else, she prepared by

I got a sweet new Galaxy phone, with a glittery purple case. It’s got an app that cycles through colors in synch with a beat. I made the beat on my Acid808 app, also on this phone. Hook it up to a projector and sound system and I will rock the house. I’ll be the brightest star.

I’m the freshest spiral galaxy in this quadrant. I’m clouded in purple gases, I sparkle with newborn stars, and a pulsar at my heart flashes in time to the rhythm of the cosmos. The only problem is I have no one to talk to. I’m amazingly lonely.

I’m ready for the festival. I have a purple tracksuit and a silver tank top. I have fresh new silver sneaks. And I have a bucket hat that cycles through colors in time with the music. Everyone is a star at the festival, but I’m going to shine very brightly!

Saturday night, early spring, 1988. We were bombing into the city in a 12 year old sedan, blasting our favorite mix tapes. We had no specific plans but we were going to have some fun.

He typed furiously on his phone. He was using a collaborative storytelling app called “Myline”. He added to stories every day, and sometimes he started new ones. But the stories he started never turned out the way he envisioned!

I pressed play on the tape recorder then waited. A white noise filled the air for a few seconds, then shifted into a dull buzz as a woman’s staticky voice came into focus. “Melody Pendras,” she said “May 17th, 15:45.” I strained my ears for signs of the song in the background.

“Are you of the intelligent sort? I suppose not.” “Well, I can assure you that I am a distinguished gentleman and scholar.” “Is that so? What, then, is the sum of the numbers nine and ten?” Why, that’s an elementary question! I spent no time figuring it out and loudly proclaimed,

The 20th of April had come at long last, I looked at my joint and I gave it a blast, I travelled so high in the sky oh so fast, visions of wonder and shadows were cast.

OK, OK. Deep breath. Take inventory. What do I have? A spacesuit, with enough air for 2 days. A propellant pack. Water and nutrient gel in helmet tubes. A radio link to ground control. What I do not have is an intact spacecraft or a way to safely return to Earth’s surface.

It was a brisk fall day in New England. School buses all over town, crossing guards on every corner. Scarlet, uncharacteristically nervous, looked out for children before backing out of her driveway. As she drove, she thought about the troubling assortment of gourds in her trunk.

The crab kingdom had existed for hundred of years in the bountiful bay. The water was salty, there was plenty to eat, the crabs scurried and played the days away. Until the event happened and changed everything.

I’m perfectly satisfied with half a bagel for breakfast. Put a hearty smear of cream cheese and some capers on it, and I’m ready for the day. Yet I can just as easily eat a whole bagel and not be too full. How is that possible?

Grims Grigglesby hated space travel. It wasn't just the constant queasy grav orientation adjustments - just when you'd convinced your body up was still up and down was still down you transferred to a platform where down was now sideways and who even knew where up was - it was the

"I'm going to tell you my secret shame. I get Kool and the Gang mixed up with Earth, Wind, and Fire. And vice-versa. All the time." I blushed. "They've threatened to kick me off the roller disco team over this."

It was there and then, that I had lost the only person that I ever cared about, In that barn, near the door, with the cubblewood fence...

Once upon a time in a isolated island, where a small but prosperous kingdom existed, there was a king who was a kindhearted man, everybody loved him, except one person...

Or so I think my father thought. I wouldn't know exactly because that was the last time we all saw him. He knew he was risking his life out there, but when he promised me that he'd be back, he looked like he really meant it. Or maybe it's because I believed him that I broke down.

Alice was in trouble. She was floundering. She was sinking. The worst possibilities her friends had suggested were no longer abstract potentials. They were concrete and absolute. Waves of probability had collapsed and now formed the violent landscape she had failed to navigate.

So it’s like that, I thought, letting the letter flutter to the ground as I tossed my head back in exasperation. This was not the first letter of this sort, but this one seemed urgent to the point of coming off threatening. Should I even justify it by acknowledging it?

Hi, guys, my account is temporarily suspended can someone email byline cuz I can not and tell them to let me write again plz

An anthropomorphic whale sat by itself on the beach. It admired everything around: the waves, the cliffs nearby. What a lovely world it had created. That was, until that stupid creature found it’s way out of the water. The whale was supposed to be the only god around here.

I looked around the shed at what the previous owner had left behind: a hoe, the reel for a hose, some stakes, chicken wire... ah, just what I need! Gardening shears! I picked up the tool and tested the blades, then headed towards the overgrown hedges at the front of my new yard.

Laia laughed bitterly. "You're all utter fools," she spat. "I'm the most powerful witch here." The judge in the center shook their head. "Maiming other competitors is strictly forbidden." Later, shaken witnesses would say the only warning was Laia's eyes suddenly glowing red.

Once upon a time, in the fruit-filled jungles of Twibby-Dibby, there lived a giant snail known as...

The Case of the Want my Life Weirdo

Monkey pressed the key with a single dot on it. It had used this one regularly over the last few weeks. But now it didn't feel like typing. Monkey looked up. In every direction, as far as it could see, there were others - all with the same keyboard. Suddenly, a siren sounded and

"Happy birthday!" they sang—but it wasn't my birthday.

"I only agreed to this because you told me Danny DeVito would be here!"

Martin awoke to the sound of car horns blaring from the street below. Pulling on his robe, he down from the bedroom window and was surprised by the volume of smoke rising up from the intersection near the highway. Something large and dark appeared to be in the center of the