Tie | Johanna Ziegler

"Today, you have your sport in common. You’re teammates. But in the future, it’s her you’ll have in common. One of you will be her best friend. One of you will be her boyfriend. And one of you will hurt her enough to be arrested for it."

Spruce Traps | Jordan Marzka

"Buried in a pit of snow was the place to begin, so it began. The weight pressed downward on the body, as the body yielded to the mind. The mind pressed itself against the narrative of it all..."

Sweet Cherries | Zdravka Evtimova

"Theo watched the thin, long thread of a woman. The more he studied her face, the more he suspected she was not all there. The most amazing thing about her was her appetite. She constantly ate..."

The Shadow of Dorothea Politis | Maria Kassandrou

"The figure distorts and changes size according to the position of the lamp in relation to a particular spot on the floor, close to the far left corner of the room, where there should be a woman sitting. But there is nobody there..."

In Exchange | Chelsea Utecht

"...the rumors of the crone were whispered on the periphery of my life. It was a sharp intake of breath, my mother then too tired and weak to cry out, that pushed me past hope and into desperation..."

Paradoxes, Borders, and Tragedies | Lillie E. Franks

"The prison warden says to the prisoner, 'You will be executed sometime during the next week. It will be on a day you do not expect.' The prisoner concludes that they cannot be executed on the last day of the week, or they would expect it..."