Sprints

He didn’t need to risk removing his glove for a sure diagnosis. The brickwork’s fever baked through the leather, radiating faintly against his face even at an arm’s-length distance. The…

I want her to wake up and see, even if it would be the death of me. To know I would do anything for her. Not the way a maid…

Finding out which animal you could transform into was a matter of glorious destiny. Of royal bloodline, all its strength and nobility made manifest in flesh and claw. Or so…

The rule for surviving the night out here is simple – ignore whatever calls for you from outside. Keep the doors and windows locked, the record player braying brassy cheer…

The world had been safe and ordinary one step ago. He’d been walking the ordinary bridge from one place to another when his foot had caught fast and refused to…

Acknowledging that the world was ordinary was part of growing up. Accepting that it was ordinary felt more like part of dying. So he never had – he kept taking…

The worst part was that they couldn’t remember whether it had always been that way. They should have. It should have been obvious. If the door to their bedroom had…

It’ll be temporary, they all told him, like a comfort. Or a deadline – a demand that he should be himself again, the him they remembered, before his dazed, unfamiliar…

“All right, now. I want you to look at this and tell me what you see.” She kept her scoff in the back of her throat, where the doctor wouldn’t…

Every brave fisher or traveller waved away from the harbour and never seen again was a question unanswered. A prayer on their loved ones’ lips late at night. Promising anything,…