ScribeBox
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The Cold Inside the Steel
Ike stood in the middle of the desert. He was looking at a door that should not be there. It was a slab of gray metal tucked into the side of a hill. Most people would see a bunker and think about safety. Ike saw a coffin. He was a guy who used to build…
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The Crushing of Light
Vince sat in the blue glow of the last room left in the universe. His fingers hovered over the glass screen. They were shaking. It was not the kind of shake you get from being cold. It was the kind that came from knowing you were the one holding the eraser. Outside the walls of…
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The Nails in the Floorboards
Silas believes he is a god because he can draw a straight line. I think he is a vulture. We are stuck in this rotting house because he wants a promotion and I want my life back. My career died three years ago. A roof I designed collapsed under heavy snow. Nobody died, but the…
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The Gears of Forever
Sy sat at his workbench. The air smelled like oil and old wood. He looked at his hands. They were thin and spotted, like a map of a place he no longer knew. He was the best clockmaker in the world, or so the papers on the wall said. But today, the names on the…
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The Rhythms of the Deep
Kaleb was the kind of man who bought a one-way ticket to a rock in the ocean because he was tired of people. He was thirty-two years old and already finished with the world. He had a face like an unmade bed and a heart that felt like a heavy stone in his chest. When…
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Untold Epic
The Breath on the Glass Saul had a stain on his thumb that would never wash off. It was the color of a bruised plum. Every time he used the ink, he lost something. Last week, it was the sound of his father’s laugh. Yesterday, it was the smell of the ocean on a summer…
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The Ink in the Bone
Vince was a mess. His brain was like a house where someone kept moving the furniture while he was asleep. One day the keys were in the fridge. The next day, he forgot how to tie his shoes. He was an investigative reporter, or at least he used to be. Now, he was just a…
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The Blood in the Ledger
Leo sat in a cubicle that felt like a coffin. The air in the bank was recycled and thin. It smelled like toner and the expensive perfume of people who never had to worry about rent. Leo was a forensic accountant. He spent his days looking at digital ghosts. He followed money until it turned…
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The Rust and the Glory
Mona wanted to be the kind of person who made children cry. That was her goal. She spent four hundred dollars on a black leather suit that squeaked every time she breathed: which really ruined the scary vibe she was going for. She sat at my bar every night: clutching a glass of cheap rye…
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The Man Who Stole Sunday
Gabe was a man who had forgotten more things than most people ever knew. This was not because he was old or lazy. It was because the King’s mages kept sticking a brass straw into his ear and drinking his childhood. Every Tuesday, they pulled out a birthday or the smell of fresh bread. They…