Stories

I pressed my palm onto my chest and said, “Marie.” I pointed at my mother, took a deep breath and braved her abyssal eyes, asking, “And you? What is your name, Mother?” I shouldn’t have been in her…

For nine straight miles, the hot-rolled steel rails cut a path through the woods, a metal chain thrown into soft mud. Discarded, rotting railroad ties littered the tracksides, the stench of creosot…

The aquarium is different every time I die. Exhibits reshuffling like a deck of cards. The blood loss, though, that’s reliable.

Author: Majoki He hadn’t planned on becoming a ghost hunter, but that’s what Mordem Letac felt like now. A trained naturalist, he’d come to the northern reaches of the Yukon Territory earlier in the summer to study migration patterns in the face of ecosystem collapse related to rapidly accelerating climate change. In some ways studying […]

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer George is waving his arms about again: never a good sign. Neela catches my eye and nods towards him, raising her eyebrows and frowning. Receiving the ‘sort it out’ message loud and clear, I take a last drag, then stub out my smoke. His voice fades in as I approach. […]

Author: James Callan The holographer did more than tell us who was next on their list to be murdered, though that alone would suffice as unnerving. They didn’t mention names at all, opting for an artistic approach, something avant-garde to demonstrate their next dreadful slaughter. The holographer had their modus operandi, their eccentric, sadistic show-and-tell. […]

Author: Joann Yu A woman sat on a plane next to a man. He had blond hair tied in a tiny bud, wore a blue sweatshirt, and a black mask covered half of his face. She didn’t know if he had blue eyes. She didn’t dare to look at his face. On the plane, she […]

Author: Liv The need to write has become urgent. My thoughts, once manageable, are now turbulent, like the incessant ticking of a clock, warning of something terrible. I haven’t slept in days, and I bite my nails to the flesh. The cause of my horror is real. My name is Carmélia, 26, and though there’s […]

Author: Mark Renney The moment is almost here. At last, after all the speculation and rumour, the grand reveal. A cage has been wheeled onto the stage, sitting at its centre, covered by a white sheet, pristine and perfect. Everyone is certain that, when the cover is pulled away, it will be intricate and ornate […]

Author: R. J. Erbacher Scott heard the girl’s scream and thought, ‘Oh crap, not again.’ He was taking out the boxes from the new gadgets he had bought for his recently acquired apartment, bringing them into the alley to be disposed of properly. Scott figured it was still too early in the night for the […]

We soared through the yellow-tinged sky, spinning in the dizzying freedom of flight, winds buffeting us and tearing at our jet-powered wings until we broke f...

“Attention all customers. Please proceed to Area 7 for the Singles Mixer, and have your e-chaperones on standby. All human chaperones are required to wear th...

When the boy opens his housing unit’s steel door and the incandescent lights pour into his face, he does not blink away. “Little suns” — this is what everyon...

Cosette awoke in the dim faux-dawn to a blinking notification. It was her sixteenth birthday, the end of childhood, though there was no one offering to celeb...

Before the coup, Nuria heard that the descendants of the serpent ruled the city.

They left me to drown, sea salt clinging to the back of my throat.

I was at a dinner party when I became Poseidon, and it did more for me than any self-help book I’ve tried. I mean, look at me now. My agent’s even mentioned ...

Lily is too pretty a name for a girl like that. Lily-White, Lily-Pure, Lily-Innocent, lovely, do-no-wrong. This Lily should have been named Roxie or Regina o...

Makes one reluctant vampire hunter.

Attention, dear reader: This is a love story, complete with grown folks’ business. This is not for the kids. But there is also a moral to this story, a cauti...

"Mom on the Beach," flash fiction by Jimmy Kindree

"Time of Mother," flash fiction by Jefferson Navicky

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 […]