Fictional Worlds

The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2QDYSlh

The mountain dreams pain. Cold iron vibrates purple-blue deep in the stone while tongues made from rot and rust bite and gnaw and hunger ever deeper. The dam...

Your awareness of magic is dying, and now Grandma is dead, too. The two losses are not directly connected, and yet they are. via Pocket

The mountain dreams pain. Cold iron vibrates purple-blue deep in the stone while tongues made from rot and rust bite and gnaw and hunger ever deeper. The dam, buried like a tooth in the mountain’s narrow gums, holds back the great burgundy ocean. vi…

Well, this would have been about three years ago now, just before my stepdaughter went into first grade. She was still in the process of getting used to me back then. There’s nothing quite like having a five-year-old girl think you’re the anti-Chris…

With the thunderclap, I dropped my spoon. Sinigang soup bled into my jeans, spreading in darkness, like the shadow covering us all. Everyone looked up. From the spacecraft, a creature emerged. via Pocket

“And until then?” Wolf asks, sitting patiently among the roots of the forest while dwarves forge unbreakable chains. Wolf does not want their limbs bound or their jaws muzzled, but Prophecy has told them this is also their purpose. “What do I do?” v…

I walk like my father. He has a long, swinging stride with a bounce in the balls of his feet. A cheerful walk but not one that brooks much argument. I am twelve years old and my mother thinks it’s time for me to learn to walk “like a girl. via Pocket

On Good Friday the Raven Washes Its Young via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ONlNJ0

I’m staring at the skew on the third floor of an incredibly beautiful eighteenth-century building when I burst into tears again. The floor isn’t a floor anymore–it’s slid sideways, I can see the place where the load-bearing beams have snapped inside…

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Selected by guest editor Daniel José Older

They brought you back because they want something from you. Maybe one day they will bring people back because they can or because it’s the right thing to do ...

“Please O Gods, reveal unto me your wisdom.”

Margot shivered again. She wouldn’t stop shivering.

“You should eat more.”

The Gods Whispers woke me in the night. My eyes opened and at first I grabbed for Marc, but I stopped myself before my hand could land on my sleeping husband...

The moon was dark the night our Prophet died.

You didn’t think I had it in me, did you? On the Island Tikpiti’i there is a way of doing things and a way of not doing things. You, Harold Onyame, are a pri...

“Alright Meka, I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Gina said as she made her way onto the bus. Meka waved goodbye and turned to walk the rest of the city block t...

I wait at the fence with the other kids, bare toes in the dry dirt. Someone spots Liana’s lavender wings in the distance and squeals. Fairies technically are...

The Gods Whispers woke me in the night. My eyes opened and at first I grabbed for Marc, but I stopped myself before my hand could land on my sleeping husband...

The moon was dark the night our Prophet died.

When Junebug’s clippers bit the nape of De’Vontay’s neck, my boy didn’t flinch. The three old men waiting their turn to my right — their dark faces weathered...

Until the last moment, I do not know if I will dance.

High in the tower, the witch bent over her spinning wheel.

It is a curious thing to live long enough to hear the story of your life go from a gossipy tale told by people on the periphery to a myth that frames you bot...

Content note: This story deals extensively with issues of child abuse and alcohol abuse.

Fall From Grace

Violet carved her hate into her flesh one name at a time.