Fictional Worlds

It’s the best day of the year for a Consul.

This suburb has rows and rows of identical 19th century houses, but when any single home is opened, it can contain wonders.

It was Gavina’s favorite image of Edinburgh: the spire of the gothic Scott Monument rising above the skyline of rainbow-colored shop fronts on Victoria Street, with the setting sun lighting the mon…

Addie Bell was six years old when she first held colored drawing pencils between her uncoordinated fingers and made marks on a crumbling map of the old, flooded tunnels beneath the city.

At first she thought the white cloud floating across the blue sky had an interesting shape, almost like the face of a man.

Niemi misses the whales.

"The Winner Is," flash fiction by Elaine Crauder

“The Last Good Time” by A.M. Homes “Are you going?” she asks as she spoons cereal into the baby’s mouth. “In a moment,” he says, looking out the kitchen ­window—the​ sky is what he calls a winter mouse gray. “How long will you be?” He shrugs and adds a small folding umbrella to his bag. “She’s not dying today, she?” “I […]

"Beyond Carthage" from THE END OF THE WORLD IS A CUL DE SAC by Louise Kennedy, recommended by Caoilinn Hughes

Author: Bill Cox I know you came here to be entertained, to read a slice of sci-fi, but I’ve no choice. What you’re about to read is the horrifying truth. I’ve tried posting it elsewhere, on message boards and forums across the internet, but they get me every time. You might think that the internet […]

Author: Susan Jensen Sweeting Pelcretuche searched for his Xanax, grateful for all six of his tentacles, since he couldn’t for the life of him, remember in which pouch he had put it. Finally, his twelfth suction cup latched on to the shaky little bottle in the pouch just below his left belly button. Thank God. […]

Author: Bridger Cummings Scanning the reels of family videos gave LF495 some odd sensation of warmth. Was it like eating? LF495 didn’t eat, but it did need power. It was connected to a multi-layer variate array of servers across the entire planet. It didn’t really matter where you were because one was everywhere. Earth had […]

Author: Deborah Shrimplin Ben and Evelyn watched as the rescue spaceship sent from Earth punched through Planet Exos’ orange atmosphere without them. The spaceship was scheduled to return in two weeks. In three weeks, the damaged life support systems in the experimental habitat would fail. Evelyn and Ben had volunteered to be the last passengers […]

You have a ring on your door bell, and laid on your stoop is a brown papered parcel, tied with damp twine. You bring the package inside, noticing that the sky is tinged a weird green. You smell bur…

Ollie’s and my plan was simple enough: we were going to drive our grandfathers’ ashes to Alaska. Theirs had been stationed there for Cold War reasons Ollie never fully understood, and mine had always wanted to go. I had a little red car that, while not new, was sound enough to make it from Boston […]

Author: Beck Dacus Each time the floor shuddered, all our chains rang like windchimes. The shackles around my ankles were linked to the wrists of the “inmate” behind me, on and on in a long line of us marching forward. As I stumbled I pulled on that man’s wrists, nearly bringing him down as well. […]

Author: Don Nigroni Yesterday on Christmas Day, I was at my filthy rich, albeit eccentric, uncle’s house. And that’s when and where everything went awry. After dinner, he took me aside to his library to enjoy a cigar and a tawny port. “We know our current materialistic paradigm is pure garbage, yet we still cling […]

LuvHome™ by Resa Nelson

The sound of the metal grinding against the whetstone reverberated up my arms. My father was sharpening his ax, preparing for the day’s work. “I invited Mu to dinner tonight,” he said. I shuddered.

Seven subjects, Ethan thought. One of them a child. All of them physically torn into two distinct beings: a functional husk, and an abomination. He had read the doctor's journal. The subjects had come from different families, different boroughs, different backgrounds. None of them had known any of the others. All of them Raah?

On those late afternoons, when the day slipped away and the night lights came, the shades would wander out from the empty hills, down to the road. All kinds of them. People we knew. But more we didn't, moving slowly along in search of something, somebody. Wandering the road, following the lines of the dusty track. Then they would mill aimlessly until they found the broken edge of the garden wall and the thorny bushes that once grew raspberries, and they would follow that for a time, until it took them out to the field, where they could walk on.

There were more than a few of the planks that could become chairs, but Lucas passed them by. None of them were suitable for the likes of Lord Adelard. The vampire wished to appear powerful. There was only one kind of wood in the cellar that fit that description. He squeezed back, back, back, into the furthest reaches, where once mice and rats might have made a home, back before the rats and mice had found themselves in stewpots and on skewers.

Author: Aubrey Williams The cheap hotel room was draughty, the shadows ink in the recesses. Each sheet of green William Morris wallpaper was peeling in at least three places. For all the dinginess, though, it was a room, and I needed one. By a feeble light I’d tried to work, but the sound of the […]

Author: J. Scott King “Can he continue?” A familiar voice, distant, urgent. And nearer, “The Seconds are conferring, Captain.” Then, more urgently, “Come no closer, sir! Resseaux, control your man!” A gruff, mumbled reply I can’t make out. “I’ll have him done!” That first fellow again… Captain Eddings. Right. Yes, that’s the one. Never liked […]

“Whoa! Hold on, partner!” the host of the party asked with his fake Texan accent. “What is that costume supposed to be?” Of all the insufferable things, he was wearing a cowboy hat on his green…

“Whoa! Hold on, partner!” the host of the party asked with his fake Texan accent. “What is that costume supposed to be?”. Of all the insufferable things, he was wearing a cowboy hat on his green…

Author: Beck Dacus One half of the sky brimmed with stars, the Sun at one light-week’s distance barely outshining the rest. The other half was utterly dark, as if the universe ended at a sheer cliff. As I approached the blackness, detail started to emerge, my headlamp casting shadows on icy gravel the color of […]

Author: Majoki They stared right through me. It used to bother me. Now, it’s essential. I uncoupled the mag-links while Symplex’s security personnel looked past me. I didn’t fit their profiles, didn’t merit a glance. That’s what it is to be me. I live by a pair of simple rules. The fact that they come […]

Alexi Vanderbilt lived in the upper right thigh of the Colossus.

If I had only learned to drive, or better yet, refused to visit my parents in their apocalyptic bunker, we’d be happily at home, cuddled on the couch in front of the Criterion collection.