Night Flight Journal

Welcome to Night Flight

Night Flight is an Online Literary Journal that showcases the best in original fiction and non-fiction writing, poetry, art work, photography, and videos submitted by members of the Embry-Riddle community.

Night Flight is aimed at opening the door for expression. The students, faculty, and staff at Embry-Riddle are remarkable, and each has stories worth sharing. Night Flight is a creative platform that will inform, entertain, and inspire.

Current Issue

Volume 7, Issue 1 (2026)View issue

Featured Content

  • featured-article
    Poetry
    24 October 2025

    Ash Mountain an Ekphrastic Poem by Nicholas Patterson

    Nicholas Patterson
    "Ash Mountain" is an ekphrastic poem that details the iconic World War II photograph of the Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima. Told through the eyes of a veteran reflecting on sacrifice, unity, and legacy. The poem transforms the still image into a living meditation on resilience. The moment captures six Marines, indistinguishable as individuals, collectively enduring a hard-fought battle. Their motion becomes both literal and symbolic, depicting the struggle to lift not only the flag but also the weight of war, memory, and national identity.
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  • featured-article
    Short Story
    31 July 2025

    ENTRY #426

    Joshua Lee
    Entry #426 is a short science fiction story told through a recovered log from a salvage crew investigating a derelict mining vessel in restricted space. As routine operations give way to unexplained events, the line between report and confession begins to blur. A tense, atmospheric narrative about isolation, perception, and the dangers of the unknown.
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Current Submissions

    • Short Story25 May 2026

      Who I Used to Be

      Jonathan Nieves-Luiggi
      This short story explores the lasting effects of childhood fear and emotional pain through the life of Luis, burdened by painful childhood memories and the fear he carried for years in silence. Moving between memory and the present, the narrative follows the story as it becomes a moving journey of healing, self-acceptance, and the realization that he no longer has to hide from what once hurt him.
    • Short Story30 March 2026

      In This Skin

      Mackenzie Covey
      In This Skin is a short story that explores the quiet and often unspoken emotional journey of postpartum identity. The story follows a mother as she navigates the physical and emotional changes that come after childbirth, particularly the way motherhood reshapes her relationship with her body and sense of self. Through everyday moments, the story explores the tension between who she once was and who she is becoming. The story is about self-acceptance, the transformation that accompanies motherhood, and learning to see strength and meaning in a body that carries the history of bringing life into the world. 
    • Short Story30 March 2026

      Freedom Doesn't Knock

      Emmah Schuster
      Freedom Doesn’t Knock follows Mara during the first day after leaving a strict religious community that once defined her entire life. Alone and uncertain, she moves through ordinary moments, ordering breakfast, sitting in a park, stepping into a clothing shop, that slowly reveal the emotional weight of losing her family and identity. Through these small but meaningful experiences, Mara begins to realize that freedom is not a single dramatic moment, but a series of quiet, uncertain steps toward rebuilding herself.
    • Short Story30 March 2026

      Blood & Law: A Forbidden Desire

      Corneisha Davis
      When Isabella Ferrari returns home after graduation, she expects a gilded cage—not a federal raid. The reluctant heir to a powerful legal empire, she’s spent years shielding herself from her father’s ruthless world. But on the night of her lavish welcome-back party, a charged encounter with Luke Drakos—her father’s enigmatic confidant—ignites a forbidden attraction she can’t ignore. Hours later, SWAT storms the ballroom, cuffing both men on charges that threaten to dismantle everything. Suddenly, Isabella isn’t just an heiress—she’s the only one left to defend her family, navigate a dangerous desire, and decide whether loyalty or justice will win. Blood & Law is a taut literary thriller of inheritance, betrayal, and forbidden passion.
    • Short Story10 February 2026

      The Sky’s Indifference

      Emmah Schuster
      The story follows Jamie Harper's first solo flight as it shifts from exhilaration to diorientation and fear when he loses radio contact and becomes lost. As he struggles to navigate an unfamiliar landscape and worsening conditions, the narrative highlights themes of isolation, human vulnerability, and the limits of courage in the face of an indifferent natural world. His fatal crash serves as a sobering reminder that ambition and determination do not always guarantee survival.
    • Short Story4 February 2026

      The Passenger in 12A

      Cristopher Cando
      This short story follows Mateo Alvarez, a TSA officer whose life has settled into a rigid routine, and Elena, a passenger beginning a new chapter in her life. Their brief interaction during a routine security screening becomes a quiet but meaningful exchange, which centers on kindness, memory, and the courage to move forward. As Elena carries her father's journal with her on a flight toward a new opportunity, Mateo is reflecting on the choices he has avoided and the life he has placed on pause. Through parallel perspectives, this story explores themes of transition, human connection, and the impact of small moments between strangers.
    • Short Story31 January 2026

      Risking Reality

      Henry Westfahl
      Two kids find a game of RISK, and dive into an immersive world of imagined word domination and conflict.
    • Short Story29 January 2026

      The Casket Maker

      Robert Burke
      In the gaslit, cobblestone town of Vole, master craftsman Calhoun Vesper navigates a precarious existence under the thumb of an aristocratic monstrous elite. His quiet life of meticulously crafting caskets is shattered when a revolutionary flyer appears on his door. This flyer signals an underground movement growing that is dangerous for everyone involved. Two of Calhoun's monstrous clients visit the same night the flyer appears, underscoring the oppressive reality of his world. A world where humans are treated as mere resources. However, when a personal tragedy strikes, forcing Calhoun to confront the brutal indifference of his overlords, his grief transforms. A burning desire for retribution pushes the Casket Maker toward the very revolution he once feared.
    • Short Story29 January 2026

      The Luminous Beyond

      Julia Mikkelsen
      After a catastrophic event devastates their world, five stranded scientists race against time to contact the planetary coalition and signal for rescue. As their mission unravels, they are harrowed by fractured relationships, failing technology, and the inexorable pull of a nearby black hole. They must confront not only the limits of survival, but the very bonds that hold them together.
    • Short Story29 January 2026

      The Glass Planet

      Eimile O'Hara
      The Glass Planet is a speculative science fiction short story set on Virellen, a world made entirely of living crystal that communicates through sound and resonance. When a young human researcher detects a dangerous anomaly beneath the planet’s surface, she forms an unlikely alliance with a member of an alien species to prevent the reawakening of an ancient crystal intelligence. As the planet destabilizes, the story explores themes of cooperation, balance, and the consequences of ignoring warning signs in unfamiliar worlds.
    • Short Story17 January 2026

      The Warship

      Caleb Ramage
      When cargo hauler Captain Solin Keer wakes from cryosleep to find his ship boarded by an alien vessel, he freezes, just as he did twenty years ago when his brother died behind a closing blast door. Now, as four hundred colonists vanish into the void, Solin faces a choice: remain a coward, or finally act.

Popular Submissions

  • Photo
    19 May 2021

    Sunset Familiaris

    Chelsea LeNoble
    Sunset Familiaris depicts a Carolina Dog, rescued in Florida in 2012, standing on sandy ground in Seminole County, Florida that will be turned into a subdivision neighborhood. Behind him, a silhouette of trees line the horizon below a sunset sky. The dog, the earth upon which he stands, and the sky above them both are all nestled in stillness despite transition. Somewhat domesticated, somewhat wild.
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  • Photo
    19 May 2021

    Electronic Medical Record- Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

    Tyleka RIddle
    What constitutes intelligence, “if” human factors experts believe that no artificial intelligence are intelligent independently, rather, in a functional system of human intellect. If machinery are intelligent and can think, how does one compare a machine to a human? Is it through the encoding process - the individual process for learning material or retrieval, what happens when an individual recalls material. e.g. the progression in artificial intelligence are enforced in tasking replacement to hierarchy of intelligences in predictability of analytical skills in the relation of importance servicing for employees “double-edge impact” for a softer analytical, intuitive and empathetic system. Keywords: constitute, intelligence and individual Reference: Goldstein, B.E. (2019). Cognitive Psychology, Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience: Fifth Edition 2018. Boston, MA: Cengage.
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