Tight bindings held her fast to something upright and cold. She stood blindfolded before her captors. Sweat trickled over her eyebrows, infiltrating throbbing eyes, and then eroding mascara into rivulets over her black cheeks and paralyzed quivering…

“Thanks. Here’s–” The short alien that looks vaguely like an anthropomorphic armadillo shuffles away before I can offer him a tip. At no time while serving me does he make eye contact. That was out of respect. And fear. I’m nobody important. Just a …

Opening my eyes, I’m still standing. There’s a bleeding body at my feet that hadn’t been there when I closed my eyes. He rolls over. He looks up, tears streaming back into his hair. via Pocket

The Children of the Lonely Moon charged, screaming their bloodlust. The Crimson Champions hewed them down, blades flashing, muscles bulging, armor gleaming. Adam Firedrake banged his sword pommel on his shield, taunting a troll, while Lyra darted in…

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The pink young woman was followed by a green man. A deafening explosion and hundreds of sparkly green dots illuminated the night sky. His features could be properly distinguished against the darkness. A middle-aged frowning man; he wore glasses and …

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I see her shoulders tense, then one hand releases as the other arm swings out and round. Ashes form a plume on the wind. “He’s gone, Darion. Free at last.” Essa blinks back tears as she smiles at me. There’s a release in her eyes, a relief and a par…

Sure, he’s not exactly the same. There are small differences. Some easy tidbits that I picked up on. Like, he’s right-handed. Ian was left. And this morning he asked if I wanted to take a week off. Save up for a get-away. via Pocket

Thirty breaths, and then my world will be over. I know I will die from the moment I know anything at all, an understanding so innate, so instantaneous and thorough that it seems to precede me, which makes sense, as it was coded into my mind before y…

Solinsky sat upon the mountaintop and watched his hometown die. As the sun set at his back, the farthest outskirts of the city fell into shadow first. Solinsky had his telescope trained there, upon the edge of town. He gasped to see the first of the…

I wake up sweating, check the alarm clock. Three fifty-nine? Too light. I fumble for my watch. Almost 10. I come back from Kyle and Lisa’s across the street. “They don’t have power either. And there’s no Sunday paper. Must be out across town.” via P…

It doesn’t feel real. I don’t feel connected to any of this, out here alone amidst all this nothing. Shadow coloured stones crushed and scattered under sneakers. Our passage unheard, we had slipped silently across the rooftop expanse to its eastern …

Doctor Jessup is terribly polite. We’re stirring our coffees before he asks his first question. “You asked what started it. That question is the answer. I can’t remember when it became an actual question, though. via Pocket

You had to fall into mine. Lord, but you are a sight for jaded eyes. Hair like liquid night, eyes a man could drown in, lips that form a bow Robin Hood would kill for. via Pocket

Some say it was bound to happen. But people no longer talk about it. After years of governmental and military alien cover-ups, who could be shocked at all? We saw something, that’s for sure. But what? via Pocket

She sits at the console, the warm glow of beading sex sits at her lip and the sleeping monster it shifts and turns in her bed. Silently her fingers glide, swirling across the holographic keyboard that projects from sensors embedded into their tips. …

These bite marks on my forearm. Just below the crease of my elbow. They’ve always been there, even as a child growing up on the colonies of Ganymede. via Pocket

The snow is so fine it sometimes drifts about for hours before finally settling. The result is a mist that makes everything vague before fallen snow obscures it completely. This being acid snow, obscuring may become erasure when thawing drenches eve…

A well-dressed woman flung the office door open and collapsed onto the sofa across from me. I pretended not to stare at the woman whose body appeared completely artificial. She had cosmetic work done to accentuate what I supposed were her good featu…

The nine-year-olds repeat the Camp Haven creed and then take their seats, gaze never wavering from the flag. At the head of the class, a strapping man swells with pride at the sight of these glowing youth. “Hi boys and girls! My name’s Sergeant Wall…

She sat down on the bench, overlooking the local park. She and James used to meet here. It seemed a fitting place to say goodbye. After the operation, she might never come here again. Worse, she might never want to come here again. At 13, it had bee…

When pigeons deviated in mid-air and windless leaves rustled, the hidden dreamers were about. Carpeted with warm dappled light, the Italian Piazza was filled with coffee drinkers, buzzing scooters and devoted artists. via Pocket

Author : Rollin T. Gentry Dr. Morris turned away and tapped a few times on the holopad projected from the bracelet on his left wrist. via Pocket

I’d like to remember her the way most ex-boyfriends remember their exes. That is to say, when I’m drunk and missing her, I want to remember that space right under her ear, her easy smile, and that way that she’d hiccup if she laughed too much.…

Blue. That’s the colour I remember the most in that operating theater. It was the last honest colour I would ever see. I had them installed as part of my training. It was something I had a choice over. I regret that decision now but it was a one-way…

When he opened his eyes, it was a special kind of dark. The sky was a dull purple, and what light there was came from the ground beneath its stygian spread. He sat up stiffly in a sea of trash, a vast junkyard. via Pocket

“Relax. Breathe through your nose and count backward from ten,” said the technician. She was wearing a white isolation suit, one gloved hand twisting the flow regulator of the anesthetic, the other on my arm in a sterile and entirely unsuccessful at…

Reach into me and fix the leak that’s dripping my youth away. The creams, the antioxidants, the buckets of ice baths—what good have they done but stall the crawl of age? My first wrinkle, curving upwards from my left brow like an evaporating tear. A…