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The Goodbye

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on December 2, 2025

He stood at the edge of the beach taking in the expanse of wide dark sand, peppered with rocks and stones. The high tide mark near his feet had deposited a raft of plastic bottles, some blue rope and a chewed foam body board. The constant drizzle meant the beach was empty other than two people at one end, too far to make out faces, heads were bent to the sand searching the beach.

He fumbled with his rucksack, rechecking the contents, his hands numbed by the wind and looked back to the old Fiat, its windscreen cloudy with salty drizzle. Mandy still sat, a study in sullenness, in the passenger seat, arms folded and mouth tight with frustration. He’d had to work hard to convince her to come this far and now his brain failed him when he thought about how to get her to the water’s edge. Let alone actually in the water. He looked at the waves crashing lustily onto the beach, unlike their usual gentle teasing. It wasn’t going to be easy. Easy? Impossible more like.

B.E.A.U.T. – Scenes 1 & 2

Published by Martyn Winters on December 2, 2025

The BUREAU of EXTRATERRESTRIAL AND UNEXPLAINED TECHNOLOGY One. The Interview Whitehall, Lundeinjon, UK – Geola 12th, 9 BAI.[1] It was a grand club once. Now it smelled, to Colin, of ancient soldiers dwelling on their historical conflicts; of cigar smoke infused into the panelled oak walls, the heavy Regency furniture and the men themselves; of gin spilt onto the maroon carpet with its pile trodden in places to an ice-rink shine; and of centuries of boiled cabbage and beef gravy, port and potatoes, semolina and suppressed sexuality. Portraits of men who ignored death only to find it had not, after…

Additional Scenes for The Missing and the Found:

Published by Janet Johnson on December 2, 2025

By Janet

This scene comes somewhere at the beginning when the girls are found to be missing, and the search for them starts:

As she drove further along the dirt road, clouds of red dust in her wake and the highway a distant memory, Eleri was grateful for what3words and the Jeep Rubicon she had picked up at the airport. Although she had managed to sleep on the plane, she desperately needed some fresh air to clear the fog in her brain. The last 24 hours had passed by in a blur; one moment she was curled up on the sofa watching Race Across the World, and the next she was catching the red eye to Albuquerque and a 3-hour drive to the Chaco Canyon. The girls had already been missing for five days, and Eleri knew, more than most, that the hope of finding them alive decreased with every additional day after the first 24 hours. Not far now, she thought as the location pin on her phone appeared. The road curved right, and in sharp contrast to the loneliness of the drive there, a hive of activity now presented itself: police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and uniformed personnel filling the parking lot at the Information Center. She parked the jeep carefully; her boss wouldn’t appreciate any bills for damage, the jeep itself was costing enough, and asked a young officer for Sheriff King. The Sheriff turned as she approached. She could see him appraising her suspiciously before a flash of understanding.

S’Uba

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on December 2, 2025

by Jason

S’Uba watched The Fang trace slow circles around the perimeter of the chamber, starlight glinted off their glass-like scales as their large, sinuous bodies moved in the opposite direction to the shifting walls. The Herald glowed with his kind’s petty defiance and close to him the Collectoris looked as if they wanted to fly away. The Many disappearance was unfortunate, that would need to be dealt with, again. Their defiance had grown of late, but it had been knocked out of them before. And as for the human, it gazed in dumb wonder at the scene. It is a miracle that that thing is still conscious, thought S’Uba. Dumb little creature. The others seem to think it is somehow special! Another one of their saviours. Look at it, practically dribbling with ignorance. Barely conscious. Ridiculous to hold these specs of matter in any regard what so ever. Anyway, these are the performers at my disposal. Very well, let the concerto begin…

Birth by Sandra

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on September 9, 2025

I was born at uhta, that time just before dawn when the mists roll in across the low hills and, some say, the wihts are abroad.

I had refused to be born, so my sweat-soaked mother had to strain harder than she had with any of my siblings, to push me out. Uhta, being neither dark nor light, and my reluctance to join the world, clinging instead to the otherworld, was the reason that, as I finally made an entrance, Mim-mim spied two creatures watching from the edge of the woods, across the sweetgrass meadow: a heorot, standing firm and sound, with eyes of soft brown and a wulf, eyes dark and ravening.

These were my birth omens.

Of course I didn’t know any of this then, I was too busy objecting to the slaps, taking my first lungfuls of air and expelling them on angry wails.

Emyr learns a lesson by Jason

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on September 9, 2025

This is Emyr’s “mirror moment.” It will take place during the sequence in The Haven when Emyr is being trained by The Herald and the Sirens, just before The Many attack the music shop and kill Mags. There are parts of this that you may have read before…

Things to ponder…

Do you think this is a convincing mirror moment?
How does Emyr come across in this scene?
How do The Herald and Carol come across in this scene?
Does the emotional content feel real/true/consistent?
Is the scene repetitive?
Any other thoughts…?

The Herald’s form reflected the pastel glow of the Haven, “Your mother…”

“Aah yes, my mother, my oh so special mother! Who, as you would have me believe, birthed me for one express purpose,” Emyr’s body tensed as he tried to hold his anger in check. “And you! You have been some kind of protector, always hiding in the shadows, just out of reach. Except you couldn’t seem to stop the nightmares, could you?”

“Sweetheart,” Carol stepped in between The Herald and Emyr. “There are limits even to…”

“Oh, fuck off Carol!” furious spittle flew from Emyr’s mouth. “And what have you been doing all these years eh? Guiding me? Pushing me? Herding me towards some uncertain fate! All because my stupid mother heard some fucking space whale singing in the ether! Oh my god! Do you hear yourselves? Do you? And to top it all off, none of you, none of you, really know what you’re doing or are even sure that this was going to work!”

“Do not speak of your mother in that tone,” The Herald’s face glowed with a fierce fire. “I will not allow it.”

The Smell of Death – by Janet

Published by Janet Johnson on September 9, 2025

DS Stuart Carter exhaled deeply as he closed the door of the Chief Super’s office behind him, the tension of the months of deliberation that had led to this point slowly melting away. He’d been expecting it, the boss had said, thirty-five years on the Force takes its toll, but he’ll be sorely missed. He thanked him for waiting for the dust to settle after the Parker case. A year’s notice was appreciated, plenty of time to recruit and settle in a replacement. and he reluctantly supported Stuart’s caveat as compensation for this.

As he entered the shiny lift on the top floor of the newly opened out-of-town investigative hub, the white and chrome a far cry from the tired, mildewy dilapidation of the old headquarters in the city centre, he hesitated. Should he go back to his desk and inform the team? No need, he thought, as soon as Carl, the Chief’s Assistant, had seen him go into his office with an official-looking brown envelope, the rumour mill would’ve gone into overdrive. He pressed the button for the basement.

The End of the Road by Martyn

Published by Martyn Winters on August 26, 2025

Part I of V

At the edge of the village, the gallows stood abandoned, ropes idling in the desert breeze like tired sentinels. The air smelled of dust and rust, as if even the memory of their past depredations had dried and cracked. Doctor Muhammad Hosseini watched the ropes and pondered whether they would ever be used again. Since the rest of the world had vanished, crime had faded into a mere background hum—still present, but far less noticeable—an edge of unresolved fear replacing it with an implacable weight.

He remembered the fear in the first few days, men hiding in the shadows like whipped dogs, women pulling their veils tighter, as if to protect themselves from djinn, children quietly moving from house to house without play, or the regular raucous laughter that used to characterise the ambience of what was a happy village. The laughter was all gone, and even now the atmosphere lay heavy like a blanket of unrealised expectation, a terror ready to pounce.

Sale or Return

Published by Janet Johnson on August 11, 2025

Cassy looked at the pictures filling the screen, the latest celebrity couple smiling broadly, their white teeth gleaming as they presented their perfect new baby to the World. They’d used a surrogate, of course, why ruin your figure when somebody else would take one for the team, at a price.

She thought of that exchange between George Bernard Shaw and Isadora Duncan when she had apparently suggested to him that if they had children together, they would have the perfect combination of her beauty and his brains. The risk is that they get your brains and my beauty instead, my dear, he had countered, laughing. That was then and this is now, Cassy thought, there would have been no such chances taken with this baby.

Dead Man’s Alley

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on August 11, 2025

I looked at the dead man, his body lying half in, half out of a puddle of water in the alley. At least, I hoped it was water, although there was the pungent aroma of urine perfuming the air. His eyes were open, holding a look of confusion as if his death had come as a surprise, which to be fair, it must have done. But I felt they were directed at me, which wasn’t fair at all, although, I suppose I was sort of death ‘adjacent’.

I looked at Sally, standing to one side; her dress, if such a small amount of material could be called one, was dishevelled and she was on the verge of tears.

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