He lifted the tiny infant from the abandoned basket, thanking the gods for their gracious gift. Dressing him in golden cloth, he ennobled the child, proclaiming him his son and heir. The boy grew tall, strong, and powerfully capable.
But the king, in hopeful desperation, had overlooked the unusual eyes.
Karen Robinson is a flash fiction and poetry scribbler living by the sea in Devon, England.
I put them away. Into the leather suitcase with the stains and the very sturdy locks. No layers of bubble wrap, no scented tissue paper, not even a handful of mothballs. I shoved it in the darkest corner of the closet. And, ignoring the scratching noises, I locked the door.
Amy lives where the high desert is shadowed by the soaring peaks of the Sawatch Range, also known as Salida, Colorado.
My mother says that monsters do not exist.
She claims this with such confidence.
She tucks me into bed and says that there is nothing under my bed or in my closet. But she hasn’t looked.
If she had, she would have found the decaying body of her actual daughter.
Mia Bammann has been writing ever since she could hold a pencil, and even before then, she would tell fantastical stories. She loves reading, singing, drawing, and being creative! She strives to publish a novel sometime in the future as well as graduate college with a degree in elementary education.
Slurping. Groaning. Mud in your eyes and mouth. Teeth aching.
Clambering onto the riverbank, you cough up a whole fish then a beetle.
Your reptile skin slithers off, glinting iridescent in the sunshine.
You shove and jostle into your human frame and shuffle on trembling legs towards the silver city.
Dettra Rose writes flash fiction and tiny poems.
Her pieces have won and been shortlisted/longlisted in a number of esteemed competitions, including: Bath Flash Fiction Award, Reflex Fiction, Retreat West, the Australian Writers’ Centre and TSS Publishing. Dettra is working on her first novel. A born-and-bred Londoner she now lives in Australia and calls both places home. Find her at Dettrarose.com.
“When I was little, I dreamed of being a mermaid,” Emily said, “with shiny scales and silky, long, blonde hair. Such a silly fantasy.”
She smiled, revealing fangs, then she lurched away with a flick of her tail, passing beneath the “Beware: Bunyips” sign and slithering back into the billabong.
G.B. Burgess resides in bunyip-infested swampland where she runs a drop bear sanctuary with her pet Thylacine.
My skin isn’t pleasant to look at. Ignoring the looks I get has never been easy. Living with it isn’t easy either. It itches constantly. Even without the gawkers when I leave the house, my skin gives me trouble.
Thank goodness I can take it off when I get home.
George Aitch is a writer from Blackheath whose short stories have previously been published in Massacre, Horla, and elsewhere.
Wrapped inside a chrysalis of excrement beneath the dry earth she slept away black centuries in a semi-gelatinous state. Gradually an exquisite shape formed inside the foul pupa, regaining consciousness only as vital organs shifted sluggishly, painfully into place.
Soon it would be time to emerge, and she was ravenous.
Sarah has been in love with short stories all her life, but most of her writing energy is focused on her blog.
The girl stood in the garden, staring at the strange red flower growing from the white rosebush. As she reached to pick it, its petals uncurled into wings and two small black eyes stared back.
The creature took off and disappeared into a nearby rosebush.
She laughed and chased after.
Sophia Netterfield is a university student studying Psychology because brains are bizarre.
Darla’s commute was awful: it took two hours to get from her downtown apartment to the wastelands, where she hunted the secret dragons.
Her friends thought she was a paralegal. They might ask uncomfortable questions if she moved to the suburbs, and it was already hard enough hiding the scars.
There is a monster in the mountains that preys on bumblebees, daffodils, and woodland creatures, swallowing them whole into its enormous belly.
Some say there’s a garden in there, a paradise where the flowers bloom and the wildlife lives on, frolicking. They’ve forgotten that the monster once swallowed a bear.
This story was based on the prompt “in the mountains” on TypeTrigger.