Storyfeather

Two siblings end up in a shared dream and explore it according to their priorities: eating food and making friends. Genre: Fairy Tale, Fantasy     Excerpt : As Astra kept staring at the sign, the characters began to shift into ones she could read. She grinned and started reading aloud. "Dream Sector Alpha. Basic fantasies. Opening gifts. Eating rocky road brownies—wait, I don't like rocky road bro...

To preserve their endangered houses, Black Radish, Purple Carrot, and Green Garlic send envoys to reach a garden hidden beyond the natural world. Genre: Fable, Mythology   Excerpt : Soil and sunlight, water and worm. These were still needed for the growing of plants in ancient times. But in those times, to truly live and to thrive as they were meant to, plants also required a nourishment that not...

A young man boards a train to visit family, only to learn he is a day late for his visit, but just in time to suffer disaster. Genre: Mystery, Fantasy, Science Fiction   Excerpt : A man laughed and said, "Just shuffle the cards."  My heart skipped a beat. I saw a bright flash of light.   I heard an intense, painful screech.   The train car lurched.   People screamed, and then—   What story or stor...

A researcher comes across a magnifying glass, but it doesn't magnify, it makes magnificent. Genre: Mystery, Mythology, Science Fiction   Excerpt : I looked through the glass, at my crinkled, folded over, flagged, and dog-eared notebook, expecting to see the unintentional thumbprint on the edge of the page in fine detail. Instead, I saw some kind of roller coaster in a dozen shades of blue. Some gl...

A kitchen mishap leads to the accidental invention of the most powerful ice cream in the world. Genre: Science Fiction     Excerpt : His portable, miniature laser beam healing aid flew out of his hand and landed in the still-open container of vanilla ice cream. Arthur pushed down the momentary surge of panic about the electronics in the laser. He reached out to pick the device out of the ice cream...

Two adventurous friends offer to help a scientist whose revolutionary invention for all mousekind isn't exactly authorized. Genre: Science Fiction, Fable   Excerpt : "What happened to gravity?" Matchstick asked, as he pushed his legs against a stone. The stone moved away from him, and he, moved away from it, and toward the other two mice.  Mischief reached into her satchel for her pencil and pad....

A studious, non-mischievous fairy fulfills her forbidden dream of traveling to the human realm...straight into a convenience store. Genre: Fairy Tale, Fantasy   Excerpt : She passed her least favorite quill partly through the mirror and pulled it back to test. The quill appeared undamaged. So she next passed her least favorite finger through the mirror, gasping at the watery chill that passed thro...

Weatherman Cliff Blazer is always receiving blazers from his fans. But the latest one he receives really takes the cake.   Genre: Fantasy   Excerpt : "So far, five people have come in complaining of difficulty breathing, and producing a strange croaking sound. Now, they're still being treated, and the hospital staff is hesitant to speculate on what could be causing this, but the reason we're repor...

A god loses half her powers and is cast out of the heavens for the crime of sharing those power with mortals. Genre: Mythology     Excerpt : She was far too kindly, and therefore looked upon with disdain by her fellow gods. The other gods feared that the balance of power was being tipped too much toward mortal creatures, to whom the kindly god had given many gifts… To teach her a lesson, the other...

Mythical flying horses couldn't possibly be real; but there is one that we all may meet in our most vulnerable hours. Genre: Mythology, Fantasy, Fairy Tale   Excerpt : They emerge from the shadow-light of the moon mist. I resist the urge to reach out.   I gasp and shiver.   The room has grown cold.   Not the crisp cold of winter.   Not the numbing cold of ice.   Not even the cold of night.   It is...

A group of curious and ingenious humans build a spyglass to peer into the realm of the gods, to find out why the gods are not governing the world as they were expected to. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt : Not in the beginning, but early in the history of the world, many mortals suspected that the ones who called themselves gods were shirking their duty of properly governing the world. Some responded b...

In an age long past, death was not a mystery, for a palm tree once grew upon the earth that served as a path between life and afterlife. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt : He came by sea in ships laden with his forces… By day he attacked, and by night he attacked. They knew that they must destroy him. And they knew that they could not destroy him, for he was now too powerful.   What story or stories am...

Three children are determined to find out if the tales they've heard are true…that there is a god living in the middle of the forest outside their village. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt : For a moment, there hung an expectant silence. The man was watching the bard on the closest stage, but he still caught the glances between the young folk at his table. And he still noted that there was one whose gaz...

A charlatan pretending to be a healer wins the king's favor, but seems mostly harmless, until the day the king collapses and cannot be roused. Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery, Mythology   Excerpt : The royal physician, Galena by name, examined the festering bruise just below the king's ribcage. The king lay in a sleeping stupor. A state he had been in for three days, and yet it was only now, and o...

We think we know their story. The asteroid. The extinction. But one person believes that the dinosaurs may have left more than their bones behind. Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery   Excerpt : They saw it coming. And at first they were helpless. Despite how far they'd come in their hundred-million-plus years of existence, they were helpless to stop the asteroid that was headed right for them. So the...

A young woman becomes increasingly convinced that the radio receiver in her bargain headphones is picking up an alien transmission. Genre: Mystery, Science Fiction   Excerpt : And I, as always, am Glormynx. As you know, this week, I'm interviewing citizens at all levels of society—soldiers, politicians, bakers, mongrel-walkers, scientists, and of course, poets. And I'm asking what they think about...

A woman observes an unnatural change in her sister linked to a chunk of amber that her sister stumbles upon and begins to study.   Genre: Mystery   Excerpt : I heard her climbing up to check on the source of the clatter, just as I had. And when I heard Marta enter the room and scream, half of me wanted to turn around and comfort her. The other half of me wanted to keep locking gazes with the spect...

Two friends uncover the truth behind the mysterious industrial accident that shuttered an organ preservation factory and cast its owner into ruin.   Genre: Mystery, Science Fiction   Excerpt : Jordan then glanced around the room, the basement room that was part of the secret underground laboratory beneath the abandoned factory that was once owned by Sabrina's mother, Alectrona Fabron, the famed pi...

A woman with unique blood and a man with an uncanny sense of smell are targeted by a shadowy corporation seeking to shut down all research into synthetic blood.     Genre: Mystery, Science Fiction   Excerpt : Too much blood. Too much blood is dripping. He'll smell it. He'll find me. Once again, she stopped for a moment and leaned against a wall under the flashing red bulbs and the piercing alarm....

A locked door, surrounded by scandal and rumor, stands in the middle of an office. No one ever goes in or comes out. Genre: Mystery, Science Fiction     Excerpt : Every day on my way to my desk, I passed by a door with the words "PERMANENT DAMAGE" written on it. No one ever went in or came out—not that I'd seen anyway, and I'd been working at the firm for about a year. I asked people about the doo...

An inventor of a memory management device realizes his invention is showing him a memory he hasn't experienced, a dangerous memory. Genre: Mystery, Science Fiction   Excerpt : "Memories are unreliable…" Max paused, hesitated actually. He'd rehearsed aloud what he was going to say so many times— despite not needing to remember the words— that he'd fooled himself into believing it all sounded reason...

Wil Winsome is a magician-for-hire, whose newest case may involved excising a possessing spirit from a beloved and fragile grandmother. Genre: Fairy Tale, Horror   Excerpt : What I got from my mother was her hands. I am the only one among my brothers and sisters who can do real magic. It took study and struggle, true. I'm only half-fairy after all. I am also the only one because my brothers and si...

When Lucinda's dream of studying magic is dashed, she finds another chance in a grand royal contest that she's been forbidden to enter. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt : " Every spell I try turns to ashes. It was not my intention to teach myself. I merely have no other choice."     What story or stories am I revisiting in this episode? Each Season 8 episode is a standalone story, but it's connected to...

To be a beauty is both a burden and a boon. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt : Imelda's beauty—while it may not have impressed in a city or even a large town—was quite surpassing in their little village. Surpassing enough to catch the eye of those with greater means. The girl wished to be learned. She wished to explore. Perhaps her beauty could make it so could do what she dreamed of doing.   What stor...

A young woman aims to save her fairy friend—who is hunted by a demon—by creating an inescapable trap.   Genre: Fairy Tale, Fantasy   Excerpt : Victoria did not know, when she untangled a wild mouse from the brambles in which it had been caught, that the mouse was not really a mouse. And Victoria did not see that there was a cat lurking behind the trees nearby. She was too busy running from trouble...