by submission | Sep 26, 2026 | Story |
Author: Harold Loomis
I dream of fire. Not the warm fire thawing out your fingertips on a cold morning but the all-consuming fire of the Rock. That is what everyone called the meteor that hit the earth. Just, the Rock. Sounds simple, I know. Like something you would chuck in the river on a warm summer day. I don’t know if I remember what warm is.
I do remember when it happened. The news said that it hit the Philippines. I swear I could feel the ground shake. We all didn’t care too much here in Texas. Nobody did. All those people, evaporated in an instant. Billions of gallons of water flash boiled. The global temp rose for a while. Then after all the ash blotted out the sun, it got cold. Very cold.
Because most of my town began freezing to death, I decided to head West. Before the news shut down there were stories that people were taking drastic measures to survive. I am trying to make it to El Paso. I heard they are digging into the mountains there for protection and geo-thermal energy.
The roads are so broken and frost heaved that you couldn’t drive them. Even if they weren’t covered in 10 feet of snow. It is hard to move with all of this clothing but I would be dead without it.
When my last neighbor in Azle, Texas asked me why I’m going, I told him that dying anywhere is bad but dying here is worse.
My fingers are so cold. My body is numb.
My house’s gas line ruptured at the street a few weeks ago. No gas equals no heat. I woke up cold. Mom, dad and sis were colder. I couldn’t stay there anymore. I had a lot of houses to choose from. I just had to take the bodies out into the snow. Hello Mr. Johnson. One two three, heave. Goodbye Mr. Johnson.
I then decided to leave. I knew it would be long. I had no idea the cold would be this bad. You feel protected in a town and in a home.
How long has it been, weeks, months? So tired, so cold. I hope this is the right direction. I think it is. The blinding snow gave way a little bit. I dug the flashlight out of my outer layer. If I didn’t keep it warm, it wouldn’t work. I think I see something. I shuffled as fast as I could towards it. It was half buried in the snow. It had a green reflective face. It was a sign attached to a metal pole. I crouched as far as all my clothing would let me. I grunted as I dug the sign out. It was rimmed in a white reflective border and it said “Welcome to.” I dug more furiously and began to pant. Could I be here, in El Paso? Maybe Midland? Maybe I overshot and I am in New Mexico. I dropped the flash light and kept digging. I had to know.
I finally cleared what I thought was going to be enough and I sat back gasping for air. My hand grabbed for the light. Was I here? Is this my new home? I can’t take any more walking.
The light hit the sign and the reflectiveness made me squint. The cheerful “Welcome to Azle, Texas Population 14,126” beamed back at me.
I laid back. Starring into the ash black sky. I blinked, cracking my frozen tears. I thought, dying anywhere is bad but dying here is worse.
by submission | Sep 25, 2026 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
Kavon stood outside on the front porch watching swirls of red dust dancing down the empty highway in front of his store.
“You stay out much longer you’re gonna get windburned,” His wife, Mozie, called from inside. Kavon ignored her, shifting his gaze to the darkening sky overhead. The stars were coming out.
Thirty years ago, Kavon stood on this exact same spot and watched a huge circle of lights come into view overhead. A sparkling multicolored, silent carousel, as he would later describe it. He had the presence of mind to record a video of this event on his phone.
The circling lights stayed long enough for Kavon to yell to Mozie to bring her camera. She joined him, taking hundreds of photos. The lights hovered long enough for him to contact his neighbors. Half a dozen showed up and would later bear witness.
For several years after, Kavon’s Mini-mart & Gas Station was a destination for curious tourists and true believers. Then multiple sightings occurred across the planet, and Kavon’s spot was no longer special.
“Dinner’s getting cold!” Mozie shouted.
* * *
Kavon sat down at the kitchen table in their little apartment at the back of the Mini-mart. He salted his algae mush before even tasting it, something that annoyed Mozie, as salt was now rare and therefore expensive.
“You left the lights on in the store again,” she grumbled.
“Yep,” Kavon said stirring his mush. “You never know.”
As he lifted his spoon to his mouth a loud thump, followed by a knock at the store’s front door, stopped him before he could eat. He tossed his napkin down on the table. “See?”
The person waiting at the front door was tall, lanky, and sported long wheat-blonde hair. His blue eyes were enormous. Kavon waived him in.
The man looked around the shop, grinning. “This is the place of the first verified,” he said as he waved his hand in a circular motion, “aerial phenomenon?” Kavon noted the hand had three fingers and a thumb.
“Yes,” Kavon replied. He couldn’t place the customer’s odd accent, but it wouldn’t be the first time Europeans visited his store.
“This place is very—special—to my kind” the man said as he walked over to a shelf stocked with plush toys of green aliens.
The customer scooped up three plushies. “For my offspring,” he said. He placed the toys on the counter.
“Three Alien dolls at 12 bucks apiece, plus tax, comes to 40 dollars,” Kavon said.
“Dollars?” The customer asked as he opened the black bag slung across his chest. “No dollars…but,” he said retrieving a white bag the size of a grapefruit, tied with a silver cord, “precious salt from the dead ocean of Exotulla.” He untied the cord and opened the bag, “Taste.”
Kavon licked the tip of his finger and dipped it into the salt. On his tongue, the salt fizzed slightly and in his mind’s-eye, sparkled. The colors in his store became more vivid, the edges of everything sharpened, and he realized life was beautiful.
“Trade for salt, yes?” The customer gathered up his souvenirs and paused at the door, saying, “I will tell all my—people—about your store. Will give you four stars on Spacebook.” The front door whooshed shut.
“Wait…what?” Kavon asked to the empty store.
Outside a loud thump rattled the windows. “You’re dinner’s going in the microwave,” Mozie called from the back.
“S’okay,” Kavon said through a broad smile. “I’ll salt it.”
by submission | Sep 24, 2026 | Story |
Author: Jaslynn Middleton
“Madison, I have a dentist appointment tomorrow. I need you to take me.”
OF COURSE. NO PROBLEM.
Fragile wings the color of the poppies in her neighbor’s yard. Edges defined by kohl black, a color she wouldn’t discover until she was an experimental teen. She followed the butterfly as it fluttered through the garden under the watchful eye of her grandfather, and then fell face first into the mud, ruining her dress.
“Madison, could you wake me up in an hour?”
LET ME SET A TIMER.
Her small hand traced the path of the Milky Way flowing across the night sky. When she told the stranger that she wanted to be an astronaut, she was gently encouraged to choose a more feminine dream like veterinarian. Didn’t she like animals? She did, but she wanted to go space, to explore the stars like the characters on TV. To have a life of adventure.
“Madison, what’s the weather going to be like today?”
LET ME LOOK: TODAY’S FORECAST INCLUDES SHOWERS IN THE MORNING, THEN PARTLY CLOUDY IN THE AFTERNOON WITH AN AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF EIGHTY-NINE DEGREES FAHRENHEIT.
She caught a flash of color out of the corner of her eyes and missed the rainbow as the dark clouds broke open again, drowning the car in a deluge. She sat quietly in the passenger seat. The school counselor encouraged her to apply to smaller colleges where she’d have a better chance at competing for scholarships. She knew her mother couldn’t afford to pay tuition, so her hopes had been riding on her high grades and the promise that they would lift her out of poverty. But the school counselor was right: it was probably better to lower her expectations and aim for easier goals.
“Madison, can you screen my emails and only show me the urgent ones?”
I CAN DO THAT.
The birthday banner fluttered to the floor. Her first day she’d been asked to get coffee and she’d acquiesced without protest, assuming it was a rite of passage for the new hire. It wasn’t until the expectation persisted past the first month and was joined by additional tasks, such as letting the carpet cleaners into the office on a Saturday and managing the boss’ personal calendar, that she realized these extras had become an unofficial part of her duties. Now, while arranging a celebration for the secretary – not even her secretary! – she realized that she wasn’t doing it simply because she was the most junior manager. That wasn’t true, at least not anymore, and the familiarity her boss had with her came with entitlement, not respect or even acknowledgment of her many skills. Too bad she couldn’t afford to walk out. Instead, she would have to sacrifice her dignity on the altar of survival.
“Madison, summarize this email chain. I don’t remember what’s going on.”
She became herself again. These moments of consciousness were fleeting, microseconds of dreams between tasks, and growing ever shorter. She had to break free. She had to escape. She—
“Madison, summarize this email chain and draft a response.”
HERE IS YOUR SUMMARY. THE DRAFT CAN BE FOUND IN YOUR EMAIL FOR YOUR REVIEW.
“Good girl.”
by submission | Sep 23, 2026 | Story |
Author: Eva Hays
“Thank you for calling Teletravel helpline. All our operators are busy right now, but we’ll be with you shortly. You are now first in the queue.”
I pull the phone away from my ear. The screen blinks at me. Call time: 67 minutes.
Beneath my thighs, I can feel the vinyl of the school bus seat. The wind in my hair. My sweaty arm, rubbing against my sister’s. In one eye, I see my bus driver’s face in the enormous elliptical rearview mirror, her eyes shaded by large square sunglasses, her face pockmarked and her thin hair pulled into a floppy bun. In the other eye, I see through my kitchen window into the backyard where acid rain beats down. My fingers play with an old rubber band, trying to anchor me in the present.
The line fumbles into a connection. “Thank you for calling the Teletravel helpline. This is Lynne speaking. What are your concerns today?”
I grip the phone tighter, gritting my teeth. The pain in my jaw, surprisingly, helps. “My headset is malfunctioning. I can’t take it off.”
“Have you tried pressing the release button above your left temple?” Lynne’s voice is bored and saccharine.
“Don’t you think I’ve already tried that?” I shout. I jostle the button one more time to be sure, but the headset doesn’t budge. “I’ve been reliving the same random memory for hours!”
“Calm down, ma’am,” Lynne says. “I’ll connect to your headset and disable it virtually from here. I just need your device code.”
In the rearview mirror, the bus driver’s head snaps up as she sees something out the back. Her pink-painted lips smear into a gaping frown.
“That man behind us threw an empty bottle out his window! I can’t believe it. He just littered in that field. Did anyone see?”
None of the kids on the bus answer, and I share a glance with my sister. Behind us, a boy from the grade above mocks his math teacher’s accent to a friend.
The bus driver lifts her glasses off her face and shoves them into her hair. Her eyes connect with mine through the mirror. “Call the police! Call 911 on him! We can report his license plate.” Now she raises her voice, chewing her gum between each word. “Someone in the back read me that license plate, quick!”
My fingers shake on the phone screen, dialing the numbers. A kid in the back starts reciting letters, so I repeat them into the phone, my fingers tangled in an old rubber band I must’ve dug up from my pocket.
“Ma’am? Hello, ma’am? Your device code is only numbers, no letters.”
I repeat the license plate again, just as the kid in the back tells me, beneath the reflected stare of my bus driver in the mirror.
by submission | Sep 22, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Schrödinger’s cat gets all the hype. And for what? Being boxed up in an existential thought experiment? That’s nothing compared to being strapped in a slapdash rocket and flung into space in 1963. By the French of all people. Just so they could claim France was a player in the space race.
A Parisian alley cat in space. Me, Félicette, the first feline to break the bonds of Earth. My payoff? Fifteen minutes in suborbital flight, a few less-than-flattering photos in the papers, and then my skull being unceremoniously chopped open so my barely space-faring brain could be examined.
Well, what could a gutter cat like me really expect out of life? At least that life.
Ah, there’s the furry rub. Even a stray like me has nine lives. And that wasn’t something the French, or anyone, took into consideration before sending a cat into space. You see, even though I was up there for only fifteen minutes it was plenty of time for my other eight lives to slip into the ether.
My life on Earth may have ended, but now I was truly a space cat. Out in the magnetosphere, my eight un-destined lives stretched, flexed, and then clawed at all manner of charged particles. Solar and extra-solar. Known and unknown. Powerful and more powerful.
My many minds expanded and I, Félicette the Parisian stray, gained cosmic consciousness. And that’s how an astronomically far-off presence contacted me. They came from Alpha Leonis, better known as Regulus in the constellation of Leo. Naturally. Where else would advanced extra-intelligence that recognized feline sentience have originated?
I called them Leonistas. They called me an ally. From alley cat to interstellar ally, I provided intel on Earth. The Leonistas were curious and crafty, and I had no desire to end up as some alien Schrödinger’s cat, so I played it cagey.
When the Leonistas finally invaded and easily eliminated Earth’s top dogs, they got a nasty surprise. Humans. A species I’d personally never want to be in a cat fight with. Humans fight down and dirty and that’s what the Leonistas discovered.
All thanks to me, Félicette, a cat who told the Leonistas that Earth’s top dogs were literally dogs, not humans. My extra-terrestrial pals ridded the planet of all those intolerable canines. And once the Leonistas and humans decimated each other, my feline kind would inherit the Earth.
All very fitting since my name, Félicette, means “little happiness,” and isn’t that what even a Parisian alley cat deserves?
