Rize Short Story Anthology, Volume 1

"There Will Come a Train" by Feng Gooi During World War Two, the Japanese forcibly sent prisoners deep into the wild mountains to build the Siam-Burma Railway now also known as the Death Railway. A party of Malaysian prisoners find that freedom may be possible when one of them starts receiving strange visions of the future. "Virgil in Kingman" by Inbal Gilboa Virgil in Kingman is a whistle-stop tour of the state of Arizona and a katabasis to the Underworld, beginning in Phoenix and ending past the Salt River. At the helm of this roadtrip, Sleeper Car, the driver, and her navigator, a talking tarantula by the name of Jacob Schwartz, travel from one end of the state to the other in search of the entrance to Hell through a copper mineshaft, seeking to fetch the soul of Sleeper Car' s companion. Meditative and surreal, the only guarantee for this journey is that they will not, by any means, stop at the Grand Canyon. "Welcome to Hicksville" by Porsha Stennis They often say down in Hicksville, you' ll never make it out alive. Either a gun, jail or poverty will kill you, and seventeen-year-old Tobias is on the verge of finding out his fate. Just days before his senior graduation and summer approaches, he begins to take a good look around at how he exists in this place he once called home and questions everything he' s ever known; his mother, his race, and the one unresolved mystery since birth-; his father. This is only the beginning of a summer filled with life altering events. Welcome to adulthood, Tobias. Welcome to Hicksville. "Death After Life" by Alex Hulslander After death, there is judgement to determine if one is worthy of Heaven or damned to Hell. But Hell is not what everything thinks it is, as for many it is simply a continuation of life without worry. However, for one woman it is a place of confusion. Without her memories, she must navigate this new life with the help of Lucifer to determine who she was before death and who she is meant to be.