Fictional Worlds

Author: Reba Elliott The sun rises and sets, then the other sun rises and and sets, and then the planet rises and the sun rises and the planet sets and the other sun rises and the sun sets and the other sun sets. There is light everywhere. Leaves grow long and wild and in all […]

Author: Hillary Lyon “So we’re outside, drinking on the patio like we do sometimes after work, when Ellie looks up at the sky and goes—” “I said, ‘What is THAT?’” Ellie laughed awkwardly. From his seat next to the sofa, the interviewer, Mister Guest, leaned towards her, holding his small recorder. He wore a black […]

archived 23 Oct 2022 22:38:30 UTC

Author: Anna Jackson I couldn’t look at it, but it stood tall and imposing before me, like it was begging me to see. I knew it was time, I knew that I didn’t have a choice, but that didn’t make it any easier. The Gateway was open and it was my turn to step through […]

archived 23 Oct 2022 22:34:28 UTC

Author: Benjamin DeHaan The Delta 21’s hull creaks as she slows and comes into view of the alien space bubble, a pink translucent sack hovering in outer space. At its current rate of expansion, it will enter the stratosphere by nightfall. By next week all of Earth will be swallowed. Our team has worked around […]

archived 23 Oct 2022 22:32:20 UTC

Author: Bill Cox Hi Ted, let me tell you my story. Some of it you’ll know, but some will be new. I fervently hope that it’ll become your story too. In 2006 the New Horizons probe was launched from Earth. Its goal was a flyby of Pluto, which it achieved on July 14th, 2015, after […]

archived 23 Oct 2022 22:28:05 UTC

archived 23 Oct 2022 22:28:50 UTC

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer There’s always warning. No matter how sneaky they are, they can’t help themselves. The urge to see our reaction means they telegraph every strike. If our side managed to spot that more often, it’d be hilarious. “Four o’clock low.” I flick a glance that way. That twinkling is lenses aligning. […]

Author: Tim Goldstone I first met you at that stage where I couldn’t sleep because I needed to stretch and stretch and stretch but it’s never ever enough all night long, every night, and I know the only certain way to achieve relief is to stretch so far so violently that my bones burst out […]

archived 23 Oct 2022 22:21:59 UTC

Author: James Callan Picking up the pieces is useless, a failed enterprise, like eating bisque with a fork. The bits that were my lover are like autumn leaves late in the season, too many to count, frayed, half-liquefied, one with the mud. I hold what may have been her brains, the organ of her sharp […]

archived 23 Oct 2022 22:19:49 UTC

archived 23 Oct 2022 22:18:12 UTC

Author: Bill Cox “Hello, my name is Fragog”. The voice was the deepest I’d ever heard. I’d been playing in the garden with some action figures, as you do at age seven and looked around to see who’d spoken. “Oh, I’m not there on Earth,” Fragog explained, somehow sensing my bewilderment, “I’m on the planet […]

Author: Ross Field “It’s time Mason”. His flip flops slapped down the hallways, they seemed as foreign to him as the hands holding his shackles and shoulders. Hands crawled all over his body as soon as they dropped him into the chair. Restraints were winched, electrodes connected and veins impaled. After the years and appeals […]

archived 23 Oct 2022 22:16:00 UTC

Author: Alastair Millar Look, dying on Mars is easy. Equipment failure, sudden illness, inability to follow the safety instructions, they can all lead to the same (you must excuse the phrase) dead end. Making something look like a genuine accident is tricky, but it’s doable, especially with practice. Oh, that won’t do? Okay, I understand. […]