Microfiction by Cage

Unholy air a wicked trap Insidious Faerie dust abounds For while it heals, still yet it saps Its victim's breath and slowly drowns

The Djinn of the Sands, however, is no genie; joy gives way to despair and the boy weeps tears of flame as his body turns to ash.

Today I paid a visit to my childhood home. It looks just the same as I left it - same garden path, same trees, same smoke-blackened walls, same smoldering beams collapsed over charred bodies.

Today I paid a visit to my childhood home. They're building an addition, a new wing - I suppose they've taken on new patients.

In a last-ditch effort to save the Kingdom from its horrific attackers, the King ordered his wizards to create the perfect weapon, capable of terrifying destruction but only usable by the righteous to keep it from enemy hands. After many long years, the wizards cast the final spell and rejoiced in their success, only to find their cries of joy turn to ash in their mouths - for though the Weapon was finally complete, there were none in the kingdom able to wield it.

I blew all of my money on hookers and cocaine tonight, because absolutely nothing matters any more. For when the airborne bacteria released by my company's corner-cutting, ineffective quarantine measures hits the first major city, nothing will be able to stop it.

It's cold and lonely on the side of this mountain, and all the flight crew and passengers have been stuck here for months. I, as the captain, am the only person who knows how truly tragic our situation is - for hidden in nondescript boxes in the cargo hold is the very last of the anti-zombie serum.

The crystal shard from outer space landed in our backyard; while at first the scientists flocked like geese and studied it with every device known to man, they went away once they realized it was simply an inert chunk of rock. But recently, in the dead of the night, I have heard it creaking and crackling as it settles in more comfortably and begins to whisper to me.

His heart pounding loud enough to burst, Taylor collapsed at the base of a sheltering tree, safe for a moment from the ravenous dogs baying in the distance. The crackling noise caused him to look up just before he was ripped limb from limb - the tree not a tree at all but a grotesque, monstrous hand.

Sadie died in the first battle of the Machine War, a victim of insufficient military intelligence and garbled orders. After the humans finally won, the people of her hometown would occasionally wonder amongst themselves why she sat contentedly in the corner of the bar, seemingly unaffected by the ravages of time and war - almost like she was waiting for something.

James screamed in terror as the monster's exoskeleton opened up and swallowed him whole, molding itself to the contours of his body. He allowed himself a modicum of composure when he realized that he could still breathe, but panic soon ripped his sanity to shreds when the shell around him began to bend his limbs back as far as they would go...and then even further.

Nobody knows what called the boatman away in the middle of the night; some say lust, some greed, still others simple curiosity - a will o' the wisp perhaps. While the legends hold that he wanders the marsh still, his ferry stands here to this day and though my legs failed me a century ago and my arms creak and groan at every pull of the rope, I must remain to man the crossing - for the curse of the ferryman is such that his post may never be empty.

His first lucid dream allowed him to fly high above the city, swooping and soaring amongst the clouds - and his second was even more realistic. In fact, he could even hear the plane's engines as he was sucked into the jet turbines moments after realizing that it wasn't a dream after all.

The new headphones had a crispness and a richness she'd never experienced before. As she finished the song and pulled them off her head, she felt a tearing pain inside her head as two long, sinuous, thrashing tentacles tried to worm their way back inside her ears.

Her plan had been a complete success, and dumping the body in the river had signaled an end to her days as second flute. Why, then, could she not seem to stop playing?

The summoning ritual was finally complete, but nothing had happened. Secretly relieved, all the members of the coven dispersed and chalked it up to nerves and imaginings when their shadows began to move strangely.

In the middle of the night, a horrible stench filled the air as a dark, hulking mass rose creaking from the swamp. It left a trail of flattened buildings half a mile wide as it dragged itself through the town, all the while crying for its mother.