A Masterpiece of Spite
By @john1208
I handed over my last stack of cash to a landlord missing half an ear. The deal was struck: the smog-choked warehouse in the heart of Mekara was mine, no questions asked. After my ex sabotaged my career and claimed my magnum opus as his own, I needed a chaotic, anonymous metropolis to spark my stalled comeback project and plot his absolute ruin. I didn’t plan on sharing the rooftop with Soran, a brooding, camera-toting drifter capturing the city's neon grit. Over three months of dodging monsoons and eating street food, my frozen, vindictive heart slowly thaws. It’s the perfect, low-stakes escapism. But when my secret sculpture is finished, I return to high-society Breccon to spring my trap at a mutual friend's wedding - only to spill champagne on Soran, who is suddenly wearing a ten-thousand-dollar tuxedo. As my ex’s spies close in, I find a hidden, time-locked digital diary. It proves I didn't choose Mekara spontaneously. My past, heartbroken self wiped her own memory and manipulated me into coming here, knowing Soran was the vital key to ruining my ex. If my own past played me, can I trust the feelings I have for the man standing in front of me?
4
Depth-Charged Heart
By @john1208
I was just trying to survive a mutant trench-hound attack when my blood started boiling. Thanks to my uncle spiking my oxygen rig with a black-market heat-toxin, I crashed my submersible into a luxury dreadnought and did the unthinkable: I used the terrifying Abyssal Commander Vannor to stabilize my core temperature, then fled into the deep. Now, I'm hiding in plain sight as a lowly filtration intern at his own naval base, spending my days napping in the warm water pipes while he violently interrogates every syndicate in Pelagosa to find the woman who left behind only a coral-scented compression scarf. The man is obsessed, ripping apart the city's criminal underbelly just to find me. It's the perfect cover - until a scavenger cartel manages to decrypt the dreadnought's damaged black box footage. With a double agent breathing down my neck and my uncle's shocking true motives coming to light, my lazy days are officially over. How long until the Commander realizes his most useless intern is the fugitive he's hunting?
3
The Ashen Pact
By @john1208
They stripped me of my solo-living permit in the middle of the crowded market, tearing up my ration card while the guards laughed. Marry by sundown, or face the munitions mines. I am not one to die for pride. I grabbed the most pathetic, useful man I could find: Miros, a disgraced academic shivering in the gutter. It was supposed to be a simple transaction. We pool our meager coupons, share a freezing tenement, and secure enough coal to survive the Ash Winter. While I run dangerous, blood-soaked smuggling routes across the rooftops to keep us fed, he keeps the home fires burning. But then the Pale Cough hit. Nursing each other through the fever, sharing half-empty bowls of broth in the dark, the icy walls around my heart began to crack. I finally broke down after a botched heist left me bleeding and empty-handed, and it was his gentle, ink-stained hands that held me together. We fought tooth and nail for the ultimate prize: a Golden Writ to the Inner Ward. But as the gates close behind us, we realize the elite's paradise is a slaughterhouse. Can we fight our way out of the trap we bled to enter?
3