Fictional Worlds

At one time, people launched the ashes of their loved ones into space. Now they launched memories.

“I want a wound,” I say.

Content Note: This story explores themes of stalking, harassment, and violence against women.

To: LMAmerchandising

Climbing up the basement stairs with a duck carcass, holding the slippery neck far enough away from his body so that his knees didn’t clank into the dangling...

Mei’s contract specified she would only get paid if both the bride and groom, along with at least fifty percent of the guests, survived the wedding. Against ...

Even a half-brain like me can see that Celia misses the hell out of her left index finger. It’s a tiny loss in comparison to folks who’ve auctioned off muscl...

Dear Gatekeeper,

The wheat-haired man crouches in a clearing, his breath a tuneless whistle as he turns a few dials, points the antenna correctly. “Activate relay.” A crackli...

They came from below.

The fourpad exploded, chunks of meat flying and a burst of hot blood. It died silently, the beast with the tufted swirl on his head, and oddly enough, that w...

During the day, the canopy turned everything below into aqueous green shimmer that didn’t raise blistering welts on Geoff’s skin. He avoided the faint specks...

Coming up from a numbpatch is always the same. Like dawn, a thin crack of gray at the very edge of the world, the nanos getting the signal to bring you back ...

I hadn’t laughed like that since… well, since far before I was implemented. The Projekts beats any hilarity out of you soon enough.

Carsona was a corporation town. It was also close enough that the skimmers could have been raiders picking through its refuse, or even inhabitants out for a ...

Stars, those faraway nuclear fires you never see through a city’s statveiling, glittered on velvet blackness. Our tiny noises, fourpad paws shushing along sa...

He marched right up to the bar, a loose limber stride just a touch too long to be natural. It took him out of strike range, and the peculiar grumble of subau...

At first, I thought the township was a worm.

He didn’t complain, even when the sunlight worked through the wrappings and raised blistering weals on pale skin. He would have gone until he dropped from th...

“I told you, a wolf’s head can still bite.” — Lady Iboshi_, Princess Mononoke_

The bar was dim, full of fauxsmoke. Modern ersatz cigs don’t kill you like the old ones, and synthetic liquor doesn’t bite either. Cushioned, to keep warmbod...

Psyche has given up and signaled for the check by the time Cupid pulls up on his red scooter. He runs his fingers through his hair, grimacing as he works the...

I hate it when it’s kids. I hate it when a new saint is wheeled in and it’s an eight-year-old hollowed out by their sanctity and turned monstrous with growth...

Betty was hanging wet towels on the clothesline when a faded blue Plymouth Roadking came up the drive. Someone had donated the car to the Six Sisters orphana...

On the twentieth anniversary of the end of the world, Andrew lit a candle.

The worst part is getting onto the train.

When Aduaa and Lakeisha started dating, one of the first things they discussed was the difficulty of being together as human and as chrysilinid. Specifically...

There was a squirrel skeleton the morning before it really started. Mandy’s parents were in too much of a rush to get to Starbucks and return texts to notice...

I have a habit of meeting people right before they get famous and don’t need me anymore. I met Rock Morris two weeks before his book came out. I met Cindy Ve...

She gave me an hour to save the world.