Author : Priya Chand, Featured Writer I put two bottles and two cards in front of the NGO lady. She scooped them and nodded. “Karen Wallacho. Your sister isn’t here?” “She’s eight. She doesn’t get …

Author : Alicia Cerra Waters We were lost in the desert on Omega, sitting under one of those skeleton trees, slowly drying out like everything else around us. They call Omega the first and the last…

Author : Anthony Tedeschi “Okay, so look – I don’t do nitrous anymore.” Sirius Dunbar whispered through a weaseled grin. He sat on the splintered wooden floor within the cabin of the fl…

Author : Aaron Koelker Two Cardinalis cardinalis, the northern cardinal. Five Zenaida macroura, the mourning dove. One Toxostoma rufum, the brown thrasher. And the highlight of the excursion – one …

Author : Mark Cowling I had Dad drop me off at the rear of the complex. Last time I didn’t know better and rolled up to the front, got swarmed by the news-crews and the paps and like a thousa…

Author : Sam Davis I think I’m a robot. Hi. I’m Arthur. My parents, well I guess I should say the people that own me, they like to call me Artie. All my friends here at school call me A…

Author: Mina Dr Carlson looked up wearily as the last patient of the day came in. She was a new patient, Emily Mitte-Kunagi. He noticed that her body language and her clothes were aimed at not draw…

Author : Thomas Desrochers I found her on my way home from a party. She was sitting in the middle of the park’s square in the four shadows of the four streetlights, and she was hugging her kn…

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer “My mum said that wouldn’t fly.” She stands there, looking up at me, hands behind her back, daisy-print summer dress blowing in the hot breeze. “Why did she say tha…

Author : Saurja Sen The scanners showed signs of the same life-form across the galaxy, so it was safe to assume that the species, whatever it was, had discovered space travel. Thus communication wi…

Author: Jae Miles, Staff Writer A savannah night is interrupted by the snarls of attacking lions. I hear screams, see flashes of weapons as wielders fall. They keep popping in. I’ve become adept at…

Author : Rebecca L. Brown They hop-scotched their way to work, jumping between the numbered squares and collecting coloured stones as they went. The inner child told them they had to. On arrival, t…

Author : Bob Newbell It’s rotating. It doesn’t look like it, but instruments show that it is. Right now it takes around 24 hours to complete one rotation. Since it’s just over two…

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer Shore leave at last! Ensign Pull Crimson was wide-eyed as he made his way through the dirty bustling streets of Port Tidaria. Thousands of aliens, both humanoid …

Author: Mark Joseph Kevlock No one ever supposes they’ll witness a miracle. Mary Ann McBlake witnessed one when she was ten years old. And then she had to live with it for the rest of her lif…

My hands are sweating something fierce, even though they shouldn’t be. Just nerves, I guess since I’m here under false pretenses. Got arrested on my birthday for violating societal acts of moral turpitude. Federal law stipulates you can’t stay a vir…

Max had started the day with anti-anxiety medication, some painkillers and a mild sedative. He was so relaxed that the nurse had to practically pour him into a wheelchair to get him down to the transfer station for the procedure. via Pocket

Henry became suddenly aware. Aware that he was sitting upright in a comfortable chair, wearing comfortable clothes made from warm white fabric that he did not recognize. All around him was whiteness, save for a wide bay window across the room that l…

Captain Dean returned home late. The welcome party had already made coffee and spilled through the halls and rooms to talk in bursts of stories. There was the initial buzz of salutations and welcoming home. Cups were raised and health was toasted. v…

Anywhere else in the fleet she would be an impossible escort. Her dull-black skinsuit was topped with a spiked leather jacket, her hair gelled into liberty spikes, her face painted like a skull. She still showed her rank and rate, but the only name …

Author: Alex Z. Salinas Something nobody says anymore. So when a guy behind me at the café whispered that in my ear, I turned around and shushed him. Put my hand over his mouth. I told him we could get killed if somebody heard that. via Pocket

The Sergeant sat down across the table from me. “Hello Mr Ambrose, I am the Legal Resolutions App for ExcellentWear,” she said. “You used one of our copyrighted words three times without permission. Would you like to pay the fine now? There’s a ten …

How did everyone miss a cabin in this Protected Nature Zone for so long? The windows are covered in ivy and the veranda is thick with brambles. via Pocket

A gust of wind found us while we were walking in the park. She opened her arms, skipped backwards, pretending to be a kite. Like you used to do. Before you got sick. Before you helped them create her, your dying gift to me. via Pocket

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer “I don’t give a damn,” bellowed Senator Orcus as he slammed his fist onto the conference table. via Pocket

“What a strange way for an Arkansas farm boy to die”, he thought. He could imagine Gramps shaking his head and saying, “Son, you are a caution”. via Pocket

The cryocrate rested unobtrusively in the corner of Sanitation Engineer Edward Holmes’s broom closet. It was metal, like most cryocrates, and marked only by the blinking temperature meter and a yellow sticker declaring CAUTION: MAN-EATING SNAKES to …

I am sitting outside the Department of Surgery & Smart Implants and I can see the operation theatre beyond the glass door. Radha is clasping my palm tightly. via Pocket

Are you familiar with the musical composition called a canon? It’s a piece where the main melody is repeated over and over in counterpoint, with some kind of transformation. Sometimes, it’s delayed in time. Sometimes, it’s played backwards. via Pock…

For centuries clever clever men have sought in vain to authenticate the future invention of time travel. But I have proof. via Pocket