Mirage by Zerrin Otgur

When I Woke Up You Were Gone by Jon Kemsley Clark

He followed the number on the card with one finger and dialled with another, the receiver in the crook of his neck. The call was picked up but nobody spoke. He replaced the receiver after a few seconds and took a sip from the glass on the table in front of him. A thread of blood appeared in the water from where he had bitten his lip, fraying out as it twisted around itself, becoming nothing.

Mirage by Zerrin Otgur

"Now we turned away from the crushed wreck and again climbed into our planes to go on searching for him. But I was thinking, 'O you resuscitators from the land of the living, bank on the wind and fly back to your limbo called life. There is no saving one whom only death can keep alive.'"

Silent Houses by Rebecca House

Residing in Prince Edward County, (Ontario), when Rebecca is not the CEO of a busy household, traveling or freelance writing, she is plotting out my next dark fiction story. Active on both Twitter (@rhhouse) and Instagram (@rhousewriter), you can find her stories or articles published on CommuterLit.com, With Painted Words and in two upcoming print anthologies, Allucinor (ID Press) and The Stand (Polar Expressions Publishing). "Silent Houses" was previously published online at www.commuterlit.com (Dec, 2016).

144 Elm Street by Hannah Lackoff

It was a little less than two miles down Elm Street that we saw it. Blue with white shutters and trim, a large bay window and a garage attached to the house. Tall and homey, with a rolling yard and three stories of neatly painted edging. Completely out of our price range, and yet- “Ned-” I said, the startle in my voice bringing his gaze up from the map. “That house- it looks-” “Just like mine,” he said. Ned’s childhood home was a sprawling old farmhouse that had once had over two hundred acres of land, since split up and sold to different buyers. White with blue shutters and trim, a large bay window and what had once been stables or a barn only a few feet from the house. Three stories. Though I had never lived in the house and couldn’t be positive, it looked like a mirror image of the Burnson farm, notably untouched by the fire that had claimed the top two floors and the family cat just after Ned and I had started dating. The shape of the windows was the same, as was the placement of both chimneys. The basic layout of the roof looked the way I remembered. The only thing it was missing was a couple of trees out front and maybe a tire swing, but as we drove by I thought I might have seen a stump between the front door and the mailbox.

The Forever Home by Gordon White

You almost cried, but you didn’t. While you tossed and turned and the room grew hot, as you screamed frustrations into your pillow and bit your lip and ripped at the bed sheets in your anger, you never once let a tear escape. You must know, my dear, that I truly believe that your strength is one of your most admirable qualities.