Main Dishes

“Ladies don’t get call signs,” the colonel smirked. “Iron Ten” made every officer in the room freeze. I’m Elise Carrian, thirty-one years old, and I earned a call sign that made admirals take notice before I turned thirty. For years, I showed up to every family gathering, smiled through every insult my stepfather threw at…

I collapsed from overwork and woke up in the ICU. “My family abandoned me and flew to the Bahamas to scout my sister’s wedding venue.” Seven days later, my mom returned to request the discharge procedures. The nurse handed her the visitor log. Her smile vanished when she saw one name repeated every night. My…

Part 1 The digital timer on the massive glass wall glowed with a menacing, blood-red intensity. Eighty-seven seconds. Eighty-eight. Eighty-nine. Ninety. A high-pitched, metallic whine pierced the air, followed immediately by a violent shudder that vibrated through the soles of everyone’s shoes. Then came the click. It was a final, pathetic, dying sound. The Prometheus…

Part 1: The Invisible Woman The morning air cutting across San Diego Bay always tasted the same to me. It was a sharp, distinct mixture of salt water, damp concrete, and the heavy, metallic tang of JP-5 aviation fuel. For most people, it was just the smell of Naval Base Coronado waking up. For me,…

PART 1 The Greyhound terminal in Tucson, Arizona, smelled like burnt coffee, cheap pine cleaner, and old diesel fuel. It’s the kind of place where everyone looks like they are either running away from a broken past or running entirely out of time. I stood near the boarding lane, leaning my weight against a chipped…

Part 1 The silence in Morrison Auditorium was the loudest sound Jasmine Carter had ever heard. It wasn’t a peaceful silence, but the heavy, suffocating kind that presses against your chest and refuses to let you breathe. Jasmine’s hands shook uncontrollably as she smoothed the synthetic fabric of her black graduation gown for the hundredth…

PART 1 The ache in my knees woke me before the alarm clock had a chance to try. It was a deep, familiar throb, a permanent souvenir from a lifetime lived violently and too fast. I lay there in the dark of my tiny, single-wide trailer on the outskirts of Oceanside, listening to the hum…

Part 1 The first thing they noticed about me was never the prosthetic leg. It was the way the patient stopped screaming the moment I laid my hands on him. But of course, they never gave me credit for that. In the sprawling, chaotic ecosystem of Seattle General Hospital, I was just Ava Hale. A…

Part 1: The Dark Garage My name is Wesley James Parker. I am twelve years old. I have never spoken a single word. When you can’t speak, the world decides very quickly that you can’t understand, either. People talk over you. They look right through you. Eventually, you become a ghost in your own life….

Part 1 The air in the affluent gated community of Oak Creek, Virginia, was thick with the scent of blooming jasmine and freshly cut grass. It was the kind of neighborhood where the wealth was whispered, not shouted. The driveways were paved with imported cobblestone, and the massive, stately homes sat back from the street,…