Fish Out of Water

Sadie Harper is barely keeping her life together. Between the heat, the exhaustion, and the constant feeling that she’s falling behind, she’s convinced she’s just one bad day away from breaking. But when a strange symbol forms in the sky — sharp, metallic, and pulsing like it’s alive — Sadie realizes the world is breaking first.Her phone begins rearranging its own numbers. Clouds twist into shapes that point directly at her. And no one else seems to see it.As the sky’s signals intensify, Sadie is pulled into the hidden world of the Watchers — rare individuals born with a connection to the sky’s ancient language. Some can bend light. Some can stabilize storms. Some can read the patterns that shape reality itself. Sadie, however, is something different. Something the Watchers haven’t seen in generations.Her awakening draws the attention of an older force — a presence that has been waiting for her since before she was born. It knows her name. It knows her past. And it knows what she’s capable of, even if she doesn’t.Now Sadie must navigate a world she never asked to enter, uncover the truth behind her connection to the sky, and decide whether her gift is a warning… or a weapon. Because the signals aren’t random. They’re a countdown. And Sadie is the one they’re counting down to.

WARNING: This story contains themes of domestic abuse, loneliness, torture, and love.     Life must go on when Ariana Vernan's parents pass away, even if it means moving to a new country and leaving old memories behind.   Unaware of the monsters in disguise she calls family, Ariana begins to suffer abuse from her three brothers behind closed doors.   Whether at school, where no one knows her, or at home, where she's abused, Ariana lives under a fake identity, Apple Rye, and leads a lonely life.   But when she has to share a room with Roman Vault, the principal's son and her brother's best friend, on a school trip, could it change her life forever?

A previously unknown species of seahorse is discovered by oceanologist Drew Boone and his daughter Karissa in the small New England coast town of Seaside Cove. Karissa is a troubled little girl, anti-social and withdrawn since her parent’s divorce. She is with her father for their summer visitation to stay with him and his mother. Karissa is the first of the coast kids to make contact with Star, a sea creature who is a unique hybrid of a seahorse and a normal horse. Drew speculates Star is the result of seismic activity that has been occurring around an offshore oil drilling platform. Karissa is brought out of her shell by her friendship with Star. She soon becomes the envy of the other coast kids. Before long more kindred seahorses join Star on land from the underwater passage. Every coast kid claims their own seahorse like a family pet. The parents turn to Drew for answers regarding these beguiling visitors. Overnight he becomes a seahorse authority of sorts. One of the children attracts the attention of the oil company president, Martin Thompson, who owns the offshore drilling site. Thompson sees him when he is out riding his seahorse on the ocean. Thompson tracks all of the seahorses in town and confiscates them. He puts them in glass tanks and plans to open an aquatic theme park which will feature the seahorses as its main attraction. The children are heartbroken and their parents are helpless to do anything in light of Thompson’s legal possession of the seahorses. The seahorses are miserable being cut off from the outside world and their youthful companions. Karissa organizes the coast kids into a peaceful protest of the theme park. On it’s opening day the children stand in a “ chain of life “ at the entrance to the seahorse attraction and garner major media interest. Infuriated, Thompson uses the police to run them off. The opening of the theme park is disrupted by the appearance of Father, a gargantuan 250 foot tall seahorse. A tidal wave generated from his surfacing smashes the park. Karissa is put in jeopardy by the resulting flood but is saved from drowning by Star. Father gathers his seahorse family and they return to their home at the bottom of the sea. Karissa is reunited with her father and grandmother. The community of Seahorse Cove unite to expose Thompson as the cause for all of the problems and run him out of town. One day while she is on her father’s research boat, Karissa is reunited with Star, who returns to her in a Pegasus like form. Their friendship is far from over.

## SHE WASN'T LOOKING FOR A BREAK. SHE WAS RUNNING FROM A STALKER.  Sloane Mitchell has everything. Wealth, success, a picture-perfect life. But beneath the surface, she's suffocating. When she meets Harper Grey, a woman who looks uncannily like her, Harper makes an irresistible offer: swap lives for three weeks. No strings attached. Just a chance to escape.  What begins as a thrilling adventure becomes a descent into terror. Because Harper didn't tell Sloane the truth. She wasn't looing for a break from her boring life - she' was running from a stalker who has been watching her every move for almost a year. A man named Jared Mills who doesn't just follow his victims. He owns them. ###  She's The Stranger She Became.

After being robbed by the caravan meant to guide him across the vast desert, an affluent man is left to die beneath an indifferent sun. As starvation, dehydration, and isolation erode his body, his mind begins to fracture alongside it. To survive the unbearable agony, he recounts the life he left behind: a refined home, a kind wife, and a brilliant but cruel son whose arrogance he believes he cultivated through years of emotional distance. The desert strips him apart piece by piece. Hallucinations blur the boundaries between memory and imagination. He agonizes over the man he should have been and for the son he believes he destroyed. Part survival story, part psychological horror, and part tragedy, this story follows a dying man whose journey across the unforgiving desert becomes a devastating confrontation with memory, guilt, and identity. Exploring the way shame reshapes memory, the stories we tell ourselves to survive our own failures, and whether redemption remains possible once every illusion has been stripped away.

Thomas Rogers had resigned himself to a life of obscurity, preferring to fade into the background. One day, he stumbled upon a single wish that held the power to alter his destiny. Suddenly, he's transported to a different world, where he's frantic to find a path back home.

To those who have felt the crushing weight of societal expectations, the seductive whisper of digital validation, and the gnawing ache for a life that feels undeniably *real*. This story is for the dreamers caught in the gilded cage, for the navigators of blurred lines and curated realities, and for anyone who has ever questioned the actual cost of chasing a dream that glitters but may not satisfy. May you find your own truth beyond the screen, your own voice in the silence, and your own irreplaceable worth in the quiet spaces between the curated moments. May this narrative serve as a mirror, a cautionary tale, and ultimately, a beacon of hope for those seeking genuine connection and a life lived with authenticity and courage. To the unwritten chapters of your own story, may they be filled with purpose, peace, and the undeniable beauty of simply being.  Curated Self: The idealized, often selective, presentation of an individual's life,\ particularly on social media platforms, designed to elicit positive external validation.\ Digital Footprint: The trail of data left behind by a user's online activity, encompassing\ everything from browsing history to social media posts and digital transactions.\ Fulfillment: A state of deep satisfaction and contentment derived from living a life\ aligned with one's values and authentic self, rather than the pursuit of external validation\ or idealized outcomes.\ Societal Pressures: The external expectations and norms imposed by society regarding\ success, appearance, behavior, and lifestyle, often amplified by digital platforms.\ Vulnerability: The quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of attack or harm,\ either physical or emotional; in the context of relationships, it refers to the willingness to\ share one's true thoughts and feelings, even those that are imperfect or uncertain.

Kieran Ashford embraces a new body and destiny as he discovers to master his magic and become known as one of the greatest wizards of Valterra

Elijah Weatherspoon's world is turned topsy turvy when he unknowingly releases a genie from an old clock he had just bought. Just a plain old windup clock in a brass housing which is formed in the shape of a castle. Who would have known what was inside the old clock?\ \ But now here he was sitting on a park bench, and on a bench across from him, the strangest of characters. A genie, so it turns out. But now that the genie is free from the clock which had been his prison for more years than he would tell, he owes Elijah the customary three wishes. But will he pay up?\ \ Genies are not all the legends and old stories tell them to be. One can not always expect them to fulfil their promises. Three wishes? Elijah Weatherspoon was soon to find out the true nature of those promises. A comic tale of facing mizerhood head on, and learning what really matters in life. When one is fortunate enough to find a mysterious lamp, rubbing the lamp will free the genie who has been imprisoned within that lamp for a thousand years. Out of gratitude, the genie is empowered to grant you your desires in the form of wishes. Usually three wishes. But what happen if the genie has a whole different idea about gratitude for his release and your wishes are turned upside down? Instead of good fortune, you receive the opposite. And the genie seems more interested in playing tricks on you than on granting your wishes. That's what Elijah Weatherspoon found, to his dismay. Seeming all misfortune contrary to the wishes he asks for. He asks for riches. He asked for good health and a long life. He asked for prestige and influence within the circle of important men. What comes his way seems to be the very opposite. Now his world is turned topsy turvy. And he wishes he had never bought that cursed clock.

Octavia survived banishment to the crushing depths of the Trench by carving away the merman she was expected to be. She's managed to build a life for herself where she is genuinely happy and able to give back to those less fortunate than her. And what does she get for it? Deadnamed by her brother-in-law and blackmailed by her trashy niece. She gives her niece legs in exchange for her voice so that the stupid girl can go to the surface and try to bag a prince. But the girl's beauty was a trick played by the distortion of water. She ended up a drooling mute with bad hair and trollop vibes. So Octavia says goodbye to her hips and watches her own breasts fade as she stuffs herself into a man shaped suit and heads to the surface to help the helpless. But the Prince is a Queen, so to speak and he has other plans. Based on Andersen's *The Little Mermaid*, this campy and irreverent fairy tale retelling pays homage to John Waters and the late Harris Glenn Milstead with a girthy celebration of drag and filth that is not the fish story that you're used to.

Jake Miller is living the best morning of his life. Pancakes, laughter, his wife's hand in his, his daughter buckled safely in the back seat. He has no idea it's about to become the worst.  When tragedy strikes on an ordinary Wednesday, Jake wakes up the next morning to find it's the same Wednesday again — 6:12 a.m., the same golden light, the same choices waiting to be made differently. He's the only one who remembers. And no matter what he changes, the day seems determined to take something from him before it lets him go.  The truth, when it finally surfaces, is worse than anything supernatural: someone built this. Someone patient, brilliant, and devastated — a woman whose life's work Jake's own hands helped destroy, and whose grief has spent years hardening into something with a plan.  As the walls close in — a stranger's car parked down the street, a note left in the dark, a friend who pays a price for helping — Jake has to face not just what's coming for his family, but what he's already done to deserve it.  Some debts don't get canceled. They just wait for the right Wednesday.

When a new Guardian Angel makes an old man’s love of fantasy become frighteningly true, they both have to learn to live in a strange new world. And nothing will ever be the same again, not for them and not for the world.

\*\*SYNOPSIS: BORN INTO DESTINY: LUCIFER'S FOLLY\*\*   Rabbitt works as an errand runner for Jimmy Ray, a small-time Dallas operator who humiliates him for sport. When Jimmy Ray smashes Rabbitt's Gibson underfoot and mocks him for it, three years of degradation reach a breaking point. The next day, sent out with Jimmy Ray's Cadillac and a sealed package he's told not to open, Rabbitt keeps driving north instead of coming back.   Outside Tulsa he picks up a hitchhiker, Jessie, headed to see family in Lincoln, Nebraska. He has nowhere else to be, so Lincoln becomes the destination. Jessie brings him to a house party, where a guy named Greg — magnetic, vain, impossible to read — needles him in front of a crowd, then abruptly claims he can get Rabbitt a record deal. Ten minutes later Greg returns with a burned CD and plays "Happy Together" — the first song Rabbitt ever learned on guitar, a fact Greg has no way of knowing. It's the first of three signs that convince Rabbitt he isn't dealing with an ordinary person.   Rabbitt moves in with Dave and Sarah, the couple hosting the party, and spends weeks orbiting Greg's world. Greg asks him for a ride and, in the car, produces the exact knife Rabbitt carries — same make, same warning Rabbitt uses to describe it — before returning it to his pocket without menace, just proof he already knows everything. The ride ends at a brownstone reached by fire escape, where a woman in lingerie greets Greg at the door and a room of more than twenty beautiful women lie in a trance across six canopy beds, reaching for him and going still the instant he's out of range. He retrieves something from the last bed and leaves without explanation.   Back at the house, the second sign arrives: Greg brings home a leather-bound book with a blank final page bearing Genesis 28:15 in Rabbitt's mother's handwriting — the same verse from a letter Rabbitt tore up and buried in the trash an hour earlier. Separately, Greg's two oldest friends, questioned alone and days apart, give Rabbitt the identical unprompted answer about why they stay near him despite hating him, word for word. Rabbitt decides to run to his aunt's in Bettendorf, Iowa. Before he can leave, Greg shows up asking for a ride and unfolds a map with a pentagram already inked over Bettendorf — the third sign, and confirmation that nowhere he picks is his own idea.   Snowed into Lincoln for two weeks with no way out on the highway, Rabbitt finally starts the Cadillac and drives anyway. The snow that should have buried the car parts in front of him. He makes the six-hundred-mile run to his mother's house in Tulsa on half a tank of gas, and somewhere along the way the stolen package disappears from the seat beside him without explanation. He tells his mother he's met the devil, that God is real. She isn't surprised; she already knew.   Days later, driving back through Oklahoma, he's pulled over and arrested. A three-month jail stretch follows — a legal non-event, except for one night in the group shower, where another inmate slashes both arms open at the elbow in a suicide attempt. Rabbitt takes charge in the emergency with no authority to do so, directing strangers to press towels, twist tourniquets, and hold the man's head off the concrete until paramedics arrive. The man survives. Rabbitt sleeps that night without dreaming of the amber-eyed visions that had followed him since Lincoln — not because they're gone, but because, for the first time, he answered them.   The book closes without resolving whether what happened was destiny or coincidence, divine or demonic — Rabbitt leaves that verdict to the reader, the same way he was left to reach it himself.   \---

It's 1959, and humanity is entering a new age of cosmic exploration. Four ships with crews of two are sent out into the unknown to see firsthand what lies beyond the stars. Over a year into the mission, the crew of the Silent Horizon, Dex Prullen and Lacy Carradine, have joined each other in marriage and are content living out their days just floating through space. But on the day of their anniversary, the Empire finds them. Swiftly pulled apart, Dex and Lacy are thrown headfirst into a new world led by a god-like being and his imperium of theocratic zealots. And it is only a matter of time before one of them is delivered to the Emperor himself, dooming all of humanity with them, unless they can be reunited and escape the Empire of the Void.

The Great Lakes Deaf Men's Group \[GLDMG) Retreat is held annually for deaf and hard of hearing men to learn about God, Worship God, Pray to God and re-dedicate our lives to the Lord. This retreat was founded by Chris, who saw the need for a retreat for his fellow deaf men in Michigan 15 years ago.  Our deaf men's fellowship is a good opportunity to meet and make new friends as well as keeping in touch. I love it.

*“First rule of being a Storm Chaser, don’t walk; stride. Second rule of being a Storm Chaser, don’t stride; **fly**.”*   Corbingiin Peregrine from Rook has always had her heart set on something bigger than the pastoral life surrounded by goats and horses she was born into. With her powers over the wind, water and electricity, Peri is determined to become a Storm Warden, masters of the three elements and the right hands of the Storm Warden General who rules over their large sprawling kingdom. To do so, she'll have to leave everything behind and start out as a Storm Novice, a student of the Storm Guard Academy in the Capital City. When she's told that she'll only be allowed to master wind, her natural element, due to her lack of nobility, Peri is determined to go around the rules being imposed upon her and keep her three skills sharp without the powers that be at the Academy knowing. The Academy's Instructor of Wind, Anirgiin Taymour from Ilhan, not only ignores Peri's drive to accomplish what only the nobility have been allowed to achieve, but actively encourages it - until she's taken away by the Watchers, the Storm Warden General's guard dogs, for interrogation. Left without a teacher she can trust, she seeks out one of the last of the Noble Houses from her own region at Taymours insistence, a reclusive healer named Narengiin Batu of Salhi, to aid her in her small rebellion and after wearing him down she acquires a grumpy yet effective teacher who, like Taymour, encourages her to not only hone her skills but to question everything around her for the betterment of her follow citizens. Between her training, her noble classmates looking down on her and a system that wants to keep her in her place, Peri is finding it hard to breathe, but if there's one thing a Storm Warden never runs out of it's wind. Fueled by her passion to become the first so called 'peasant Storm Warden', Corbingiin Peregrine from Rook is determined to not only succeed but soar higher than anyone ever has before.

Forget the green beer. Forget the plastic shamrocks. Forget the myths of little green creatures and fairy tales. Long before he became a legend, he was just Patricius an arrogant, wealthy sixteen year old Roman British boy who cared about nothing but his own comfort. But when brutal Irish raiders tear through his home, his world is violently shattered. Dragged across the sea in chains, Patricius is sold into slavery, stripped of his name, and left to survive the freezing winters of a wild, pagan land.\ Forced to herd sheep on a desolate mountain, the terrified boy must either break under the cruelty of his captors or forge himself into something unbreakable.\ *The Confessio* is the raw, cinematic, untold true story of Saint Patrick. From a daring, near-impossible two-hundred-mile escape to a powerful, miraculous return to the very land that enslaved him, this is an epic tale of survival, grit, and a faith that would forever transform a nation.

To whoever finds this notebook… This is what really happened to Jim Hobbins, the boy lost out of Cedar Key. I’m drifting somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. Out of food. Only a couple sips left of water. And, well… I don't write a lot of stories so I might get my order mixed up.  Still, don’t let nobody tell it different. I just hope that whoever finds this notebook also finds the *Montauk* and figures out how to get it back to my family.  It's a good boat.

Stories set in a universe where time and space are not the limits but the start of wonderful adventures.

Forget the green beer. Forget the plastic shamrocks. Forget the myths of little green creatures and fairy tales.\ Long before he became a legend, he was just Patricius an arrogant, wealthy sixteen year old Roman British boy who cared about nothing but his own comfort. But when brutal Irish raiders tear through his home, his world is violently shattered. Dragged across the sea in chains, Patricius is sold into slavery, stripped of his name, and left to survive the freezing winters of a wild, pagan land.\ Forced to herd sheep on a desolate mountain, the terrified boy must either break under the cruelty of his captors or forge himself into something unbreakable.\ *The Confessio* is the raw, cinematic, untold true story of Saint Patrick. From a daring, near-impossible two hundred mile escape to a powerful, miraculous return to the very land that enslaved him, this is an epic tale of survival, grit, and a faith that would forever transform a nation.

Clyde has always known the Princess is special—perfectly imperfect and full of wonder. From childhood adventures to adult trials, he protects her, plays with her, and stays by her side through loss and hardship. Though he is never her prince, their bond endures, folding past and future into a single, magical friendship that transcends the world he knows.

After centuries on Earth searching for people like herself, Chloe knows that magic is a terrible burden. When she screams her loneliness to the void of space, she’s finally granted her wish of company as a group of magical humans appear and drag her through a portal to another planet in the future. As she tries to find her place in a new culture, she discovers she was conceived for a political purpose and that her exile to the past was orchestrated by the fascist leaders of one of the ruling political parties. Now that she’s back, they’re insisting she help them remake the government, using the emergence within her of another type of magic wrapped up in sex and mind control. The enigmatic leader of a rival party tries to support her in resisting the fascists’ control, but truly helping means risking impeachment or even assassination. With the freedom of her new society on the line, Chloe must decide if she’s willing to risk enslavement to awaken her dangerous mental magic and if she’ll trust the man learning he’ll break every taboo to keep her safe and win her heart.

INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY! Madison thought she was the only sane one in the house.\ \ Fourteen and isolated in a remote farmhouse ruled by her mother Faith’s rigid devotion, Madison is convinced the madness belongs to the adults around her. Aunt Hope urges patience. Aunt Grace sees demons in everything. Faith stands between doubt and doctrine.\ \ Certain she is being suffocated by religious extremism, Madison secretly launches a livestream channel to expose her mother to the world. The followers grow. The comments validate her. And no one in the house knows they are being broadcast live.\ \ When Grace convinces Faith that Madison’s rebellion is something darker, prayer turns to accusation. Accusation turns to restraint. An exorcism unknowingly unfolds live as viewers watch religious fanaticism spiral out of control.\ \ This may seem like just another story about a rebellious teenager and her controlling mother.  Another story about faith gone too far.\ \ But the footage tells a different story.\ \ UNORTHODOX is a claustrophobic psychological horror about faith, rebellion, and a mother who refuses to abandon her child, even when the world calls her crazy.