Kylie Wagoner - University of Arkansas

Joan leaned against the warm brick of her apartment building’s entryway, squinting against a slant of spring sunlight. Her face was squeezed into a tight pout as if she were nursing a hard and bitter seed in the red pocket of her cheek. In the parking lot, her ex-roommate Robin was getting into a moving van with her new boyfriend – just a month after she and Joan had both signed a lease together – leaving her with an apartment they had promised to decorate together, and a load of the dirty laundry Robin had forgotten in the dryer. (In which Joan had not felt generous enough to remind her of. There was a shirt she liked in there, anyway.)

Star Zuniga - University of the Incarnate Word

Council

We don’t go outside the containment zone. That would be treason. Our rules are simple: be civil with one another, reside in your assigned area, and don’t go outside. Our solemn vow is to protect the wandering adults and children who have not been shown the way. We have not been outside the silo since we were born, and we all live very comfortable lives as the council. We admit that our living quarters are neater and more organized than the others who inhabit the silo, but we feel as though we deserve it because of the difficult decisions we have made on behalf of everyone in the silo. Each of our assigned areas is elevated and isolated from everyone else, so we can hold private meetings that cannot involve interruptions by the others who live in the silo among us.

Rae Ackroyd - Western Washington University

Last night I dreamed I was lying at the bottom of Hirshman’s Harbor. There were barnacled rocks underneath my back, and I was looking up through shafts of light to the dancing surface. The water around me was cold, but I didn’t mind. It was peaceful to feel my hair moving gently around me in the liquid breeze. To feel the little crabs rushing to find shelter in the protected drifts beside my legs. I thought I saw a man’s hand break the skin of the water and I wanted to call out to him. But all I could do was gaze up – my words were lost in silent bubbles of air that floated to the surface. I thought it had been my father.

Sophia Flamoe - Seattle University

There was a boy who was said to have no fear. He was scared of nothing and no one, and thus, he believed himself invulnerable.

His name was Cygnus Bane, and unlike the legend, he was not always so fearless.

Cygnus Bane came from the worst sort of family for a boy like him; the seventh son of a seventh son of a poor farming family. Cygnus was all but guaranteed a life of no acclaim and no fortune. But Cygnus wanted more from his lot. He had heard whispers of a witch in his village, a woman said to be able to do unexplainable magic and grant any wish the heart could desire.

Kade Morgan - Western Washington University

There’s an octopus painted on the wall in blown-out strokes of spray-paint, with long, liquidy limbs and big, gaping suckers. It’s blue and green and orange and stands out against the crumbled gray building it adorns. You don’t pass it a second glance. I can’t stop looking at it and thinking about your tiny hands and how gentle you used to be.

The last time you or anyone else saw a real-life octopus was on your third birthday. You told me recently that you can’t remember anything before age 7, but I think that’s understandable when you consider how trauma fucks with memory, especially in children, and when you consider how the world as we knew it, as you had only barely known it, was ending.

Ania Fierro - University of Texas at El Paso

On a windy October morning, Aracely woke up to an empty bed. She avoided looking at his pillow or the emptiness that lingered beside her. His side had remained untouched since the day he left. She began pulling herself out of bed when a scent escaped from between the sheets. The smell rose from the gap between her skin and her comforter, and it wrapped itself only around Aracely’s uncovered face. It settled between her nostrils and made itself known. It was rancid. Horribly pungent and strong. If Aracely had not known any better, she would have guessed a skunk crawled inside her bed, cuddled with her, and died before it could escape, leaving behind this foul smell. But besides Aracely, the bed was empty. She had washed her linen the night before and gone to sleep on pristine sheets and comforter. Wherever it came from, it was real, and it had chosen to make her bed its home.

McKenna Seiger - University of the Incarnate Word

I loved the way she said my name, the way the corners of her mouth curled up at the side, how my name sounded warm and rich from her lips. I would stare at her mouth whenever she spoke, and daydream of what it must feel like to lay on the curve of her upper lip. I loved it when she’d lean forward across the library table when she talked, like every phrase was a secret she only shared with me. Sometimes I would make her laugh while we studied together. I loved the way she would tilt her head back, allowing you to see all of her teeth without embarrassment. I loved that she was never embarrassed, sometimes I would get shy at how we must’ve looked to the girls we went to school with - if we looked more than friendly. Sometimes, I caught myself hoping that we did.

Faith Monesteri - Montclair State University

Once Upon A Time, there were seven folding chairs, all in a circle.

In one of the folding chairs sat a girl without her heels. In another chair was a girl missing her toes. Together, they were Sisters with two full feet. Their eye sockets were empty voids, not an eyeball in sight. The Sisters held each other’s hands with white knuckles, jumping at any sudden noise.