by submission | May 2, 2026 | Story |
Author: James Gonda
At the hotel in West Texas, a low structure with a lobby that smells of citrus and air conditioning, I unpack my bag: one pair of walking shoes (the soles caked with dust from Jordan), three dress shirts, a pack of almonds, and a paperback, its bookmark a receipt from the Reykjavík airport. I set my passport on the nightstand and wonder if it will be needed beyond the mesosphere.
The pre-flight center is white-walled and emptier than imagined.
There are five other passengers. We do not converse beyond what is necessary.
A nurse checks our vitals with the detachment of someone measuring weather.
Numerous techs in zippered vests move through the room with practiced economy. They do not explain what they’re doing; the work, checks and small corrections, speaks for itself.
A safety officer repeats the phrase zero gravity until it sounds like an apology. Weightlessness, she explains, will be brief—which I already know. Brief was my stay in Phnom Penh with a fan that refused to rotate. Brief was the hand of a stranger passing bread through a train window somewhere in Slovakia. They dress me in blue—not sky blue, a darker, institutional shade that resists metaphor.
Outside, the rocket stands like a giant Sharpie marker pointing toward the sky. Its curve resembles the silos I passed on a Greyhound through Nebraska.
I told my children what fit their image of me: eccentric, stubborn, mostly benign, careful with details. It was easier that way. But why space, Dad? Because I haven’t seen space which in my language means because it hasn’t seen me. The truth? I want to be small again. I have grown too large in the world; too known in places I do not expect to be remembered. A waitress in Kyoto once brought me tea without asking. A boy in Fez waved from a rooftop. A woman in Buenos Aires touched my shoulder and said, You always leave.
The harness clicks shut across my chest.
The cabin hums.
At T-minus ten I remember a footpath outside Nairobi where a girl showed me how to balance a jug of water on my head. I feel that uprightness again as the countdown ticks by. I have counted many things in life: Pills. Currency. Visa days. Steps across an unstable bridge in Bhutan. But never so publicly or to the rhythm of machines.
At liftoff, the cabin shakes. The push feels more like pressure than motion.
I let it take me.
Then a sudden hush when the engines drop away.
The harness holds me, lightly; it’s a negotiation with a new set of terms.
I peer out the little window and through the fragile lid of atmosphere look for the outline of coastlines. I search for the house in Ludhiana where I was born but it’s in another hemisphere. I breathe more slowly, as if my lungs require less.
Before too long there’s the faint return of pressure, the suggestion of gravity.
The harness tightens.
The hush thins and, in its place, a low, gathering sound.
Back on Earth, I sign a form to acknowledge the trip and accept a pin shaped like the rocket. The flight took only eleven minutes. In the bathroom’s mirror, I adjust my collar and consider no one is ever ready to come back so soon. But time, like light, bends. And somewhere in that curve I saw my whole life as a single, uttered thing.
by submission | May 1, 2026 | Story |
Author: Zoe Lin Pal
100 years ago, the world was lost to the sea.
Glaciers, once frozen in time, collapsed into rising tides, swallowing cities whole.
Only a fraction of humanity remains, building lives on the edges of what the water has spared.
The ocean took everything.
And still, it kept secrets.
– – – – – – –
“Okay. I’ve got this.” Kelcee stepped onto the small platform, her weight unsteady. “Should be easy.”
Water sloshed against the bow as she shoved off.
Her fingers grazed the tooth at her neck—an ophthalmosaurus tooth, worn smooth with age.
Her father had given it to her the night he died.
Kelcee shook her head, forcing the memory down.
“Wait!” A familiar rat’s nest of brown hair stumbled into view.
“Marcell!”
He wheezed. “I’m coming…with you.”
“No! You said it was too dangerous.”
“I know.” His green eyes glimmered, bright as the sea. “But you were right. We don’t even know what’s out there. We’ve just…assumed it’s bad.”
Kelcee hesitated. Her father used to say that. “Hop aboard.”
“Thanks, Kels.”
She nodded, fumbling with the sail until the fabric flew open, rippling as it caught the wind. The sharp cliffs began to recede from view.
“So long,” Marcell murmured.
She plopped down. “We’ve got about four months of food. Well, less now,” she added dryly, huffing a strand of hair from her face.
Kelcee leaned over the boat to trail her fingers across the water. Her father had reminisced about uncharted islands thriving with tropical fruit and exotic animals. He believed there were still islands, places the sea hadn’t yet claimed.
No one believed him but her.
The water was calm. Too calm.
Suddenly, the boat pitched forward. Kelcee’s foot slipped, slamming into the mast. Saltwater sprayed against her cheek. “Oh, great.”
They screamed as lightning shattered the sky.
Wind howled as she scrambled for the sail, hands fumbling to secure it. Marcell clutched the side of the boat, panic clouding his eyes.
The boat lurched.
“Kelcee, get down!”
The wave hit.
She threw her arms over her head before everything flipped upside down.
Pain flared in her abdomen as she struck the tiller.
A hand clasped hers.
“We shouldn’t have come out here!” Marcell cried.
Green eyes.
Her grip slipped.
“No!”
All she saw was clouded night and falling raindrops on her already soaked face before a flurry of bubbles rushed to meet her.
– – – – – – –
Kelcee blinked against the sting of saltwater and froze.
The old world.
The yellow paint lining asphalt roads ran like faded scars, dim beneath the veil of drifting silt. Algae clung to the carcasses of silent buildings, while shoals of silver fish wove through rows of abandoned cars. A traffic light tilted sideways, its red glow long dead.
Life had claimed them.
Not the kind she knew. But something much older.
An ophthalmosaurus. Its long, slender rostrum was unmistakable. Its glassy eye fixed on her for a moment before slipping past. Kelcee let out a small laugh, bubbles spilling from her lips.
Impossible. Extinct.
Except it wasn’t.
Overhead, long-necked silhouettes drifted by. Plesiosaurs.
Smaller, armored creatures crawled along the seafloor.
Life from another era thrived within the broken ruins of her own.
Her father was right.
The realization hit harder than the water filling her lungs.
The ocean had taken her world.
But it had also preserved one.
Hidden it.
And she’d just found it.
Her thoughts halted.
Marcell! She looked desperately towards the surface.
A low, guttural growl reverberated from behind her.
Kelcee turned, chest cinched with dread.
A mosasaur.
Its jaws opened, big enough to devour her in one bite.
“Kelcee!”
She didn’t look away.
by submission | Apr 30, 2026 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
I was lying on a beach, naked under a blanket, having just made love to my wife, and we were gazing at the stars. An intense fireplace of driftwood crackled in a hole scooped out of the sand and the only other sound was the soothing pulse of the waves breaking on the shore. We were high or drunk, I don’t remember, but as we slowed our breathing, our backs to the cool granular earth, we took in the expanse of celestial bodies that stretched out above us like an endless sparks splattered canvas.
“God, they’re beautiful,” Nina said, a trickle of a tear leaking from her eye and sliding down her cheek. I could not disagree. I was not crying, but I should have been. Our close friend Samuel had just died. He and I had laughed and enjoyed each other’s company a hundred times, and Nina and Samuel had been intimate from a past relationship. We had all still been friends and always had the best time. He had been killed in a senseless act of violence, and we came here right after the funeral and family dinner to the beach, one of our favorite spots to party, and left our black dress clothes in a pile on the dune.
“Do you think he’s up there looking down at us?” Nina asked.
I scrutinized her wonderings for a few seconds. “In the stars?”
“Or heaven. Same thing, right?”
“I don’t think so.” I was not sure if I was responding to her first or second inquiry.
We didn’t say anything after that, but I felt her quite sobs on my shoulder as we drifted off.
In the morning the sunrise was the most spectacular thing I had ever seen in my life. The sun emerged from the azure sea and filled the sky with a color that was so heartening that I had to wake Nina and show her. The sparse clouds shined like billowy spirits enjoying the spectacle. A lone seagull wafted through the tapestry before diving out of sight. We stared at it for a quiet minute, then brushed the sand from our skin, dressed, kicked over the smoldering wood and left.
The dawn of another day that would see us go back to work as well as the rest of our lives.
Now, on a seemingly endless journey, moving through the universe at a propulsion that bordered contemplation, I blankly stare at the boundless stars, through this triple aluminosilicate glass viewport, at a night that never ends and a dark morning that no longer contains a sunrise. No wife beside me. Only memories of memories. And years of dawns gone by that I took for granted.
“They’re only stars, no heavens.” I finally answered Nina’s question.
by submission | Apr 29, 2026 | Story |
Author: Elliott Fielding
“I need to think about it.”
“But can’t you just pick now? You’re the tiebreaker and we’ve got to decide.” Jene was worried. Making a group decision was stressful; prices changed fast.
“Dude, I told you, I need to think about it,” Kol huffed.
“Fine. When can you let me know?”
“In an hour or so.”
“Okay, but can I hang out here? I won’t bother your… thinking process. And I’m curious.”
“Sure. I need to do a little maintenance first, you can watch.”
Kol turned on a loud filter that blew clean air over an enclosed workspace then opened an incubator with blue-gloved hands to unplug and slide out one of the large trays inside. The surface of the tray was covered with a convoluted pattern of curving ridges. It almost looked like the wrinkles of a brain, Jene thought with a shiver, especially since it was bathed in red liquid.
“Is that blood? Is that your blood?”
“No, jeez, it’s synthetic growth medium, with vitamins and sugars and antioxidants. Brain food, haha.” Kol set the covered tray into the clean workspace. As Kol worked, Jene listened to the drone of the filter fan and the click and whirr of valves and heaters cycling on and off. It all seemed so complicated.
“Is all this worth it?” she asked.
“Yeah! It’s great to offload some thinking while I do other things. Distributed Intelligence is the future.”
“And you think it thinks like you?”
“Definitely! You’ll see. Well, usually. Sometimes things get a bit weird.”
Kol stopped talking to focus on removing and replacing the red liquid. After sliding the tray back into the incubator and reconnecting the leads, he turned to Jene. “That was the dorsolateral tray” —he tapped his forehead— “part of the prefrontal cortex.” He pulled out the next tray. “And this is the amygdala. See that part, that hub at the center of the biocircuit? That’s the basolateral nucleus, great for weighing risk versus reward.”
The names were meaningless to Jene, but it sounded smart. “Where’d you learn all this stuff?”
“Grad school, what a waste of time. But the DI system salesperson was really impressed when I knew all the lingo.”
Once all the trays were complete, Kol pulled off his gloves with a snap and tossed them into a red biohazard trash bag already half full of sterile single-use pipettes and bottles.
“Okay, it’s good to go.” Kol rolled his chair to an adjoining computer workstation. “I don’t even need to input all the parameters; AI can do that.” Kol typed into the search bar, took the stats from the AI overview and dragged them into the DI window, typed one more question, then hit the enter button with a decisive smack. “All this info is being translated into electrical impulses: action potentials that trigger neurotransmitter release, that’s how brains work. It should only take a few minutes— oh, that was fast, here we go.” They both watched as words appeared in the answer box on the screen.
>>> Yo dude, go to Cabo obviously. It’s going to be an epic vacation!
“See?” Kol crowed.
“It does sound like you! Wild. But who still says ‘epic’?”
“Not me. Like I said, it’s a bit weird sometimes.”
“So, Cabo it is.”
“Cabo it is.”
“I’ll let everyone know.”
“Epic!”
by submission | Apr 28, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
While Mr. Patella lectured on quantum entanglement, Jeremy’s right hand almost slipped through his desk. His fingers and palm were halfway through the scratched laminate surface before he noticed. He felt himself gradually slipping through the rigid plastic of his chair.
A prickly panic edging down his spine, he looked around to see if any of his classmates noticed what was happening to him. They were not. They were floating in their own daydreams. Jeremy placed his forearms carefully on the top of his desk and spread his palms wide. Maybe that increased surface area would provide the leverage to stop him sinking further.
With a strange sense of pride, Jeremey thought how Mr. Patella would appreciate this line of reasoning to solve his strange problem. He cautiously leaned onto his forearms and outspread palms. The desk felt firm. He bore down harder and pushed with his legs. He felt his butt and thighs begin to rise. He pushed harder, sure that this approach was sound. Pure physics. Equal and opposite reactions. It seemed to be working.
Until the seat of his pants sprung from the surface tension of the plastic seat. It was like a rubber band snapping and Jeremy jackknifed forward and over the front of his desk.
Mr. Patella looked at Jeremy sprawled on the floor by his undisturbed desk and then looked calmly away as if to acknowledge that something like this would never happen in his AP Physics class. But when his gaze returned to Jeremy and the plain evidence before him, he frowned. “What’s going on, Mr. Lott?”
Jeremy looked up helplessly.
“Are you hurt?” Mr. Patella strode closer.
It was a good question. “I don’t think so,” he said and tried to lift himself. The thinly carpeted floor held—for the moment—and he squirmed out from the legs of the desk and sat up.
“What happened?” Mr. Patella stood over him and Jeremy felt his weight and the weight of his surprised classmates on him.
He didn’t have to pretend to be dazed. “I was feeling funny. I think I might have fainted.”
That was plausible. Maybe it was true. He did feel light-headed. Maybe the last few minutes had simply been the result of a cloudy head. He knew he hadn’t slept well last night. Had even felt like he might be getting a cold. Scratchy throat. Full head. That was the way out of this. He was getting sick. Maybe the flu. That was a much more plausible explanation than the foundational laws of physics breaking down around him. Much simpler. Occam’s Razor and all that.
Sitting on the floor in front of his classmates in a moment of what should feel embarrassing, Jeremy felt a sense of pride that he had reasoned it out. Mr. Patella would be pleased at how he was using scientific methods to get to the heart of his unusual morning. Learning didn’t get more authentic than that.
“If you’re feeling faint, I’d like you to go to the nurse’s office.” Mr. Patella extended his hand. “Are you able to stand?”
Jeremy nodded and took Mr. Patella’s hand. His grip was firm and reassuring. Solid. No slippage. Jeremy rose with a smile. “Thanks,” he said.
Out in the hall, Jeremy took a deep breath. Everything would be okay. He was solid. The world around him was solid. And then he began filtering through the hallway floor only stopping when his hips were well below the scuffed tiles.
It made him smile to picture his feet dangling from the first-floor ceiling. He wiggled his feet, just in case someone below was there to watch his descent. He felt nothing. Am I a ghost? he thought. Did I get hit by a school bus this morning? Am I dead?
As he continued to seep, Jeremy wondered at the strangeness of the moment, at the surprise he felt, at the calmness that overcame him. He never lost consciousness, if that’s what he could call it anymore. He felt composed, though not present. His mind had grown large, spread out. It was if he could move anywhere through anything. And that was what he did.
He did not end up on the first floor. He filled it. His being extended the length of the hallway. And then beyond. Jeremy was outside and inside, his personal galaxy of particles sifting through the vastness of quantum space. And he felt freed by the final thought that he’d never wanted to feel dense in Mr. Patella’s AP Physics class and now he never would.
by Julian Miles | Apr 27, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The evening sky is barely lit by the last ghost of sunset when Fern answers a knock at the door, pistol in the free hand behind her back. The world tilts as she recognises the figure standing there. Willing herself not to pass out, she says the first thing that relates to the impossibility before her.
“I put flowers on your grave today.”
There’s a nod and a smile.
“I know. We saw.”
It sounds just like Pete. Smiles like him, too. Why isn’t she hysterical? Always happens: calm in action, fall apart afterwards.
“Why not meet there?”
“Too weird. They’d insisted on being sure you weren’t being watched, anyway.”
“Right. Would’ve been weird. Wait. Back up. Who else might be watching me? Why?”
“Assorted agencies: the usual paranoia.”
She nods.
“Are you dead?”
He looks startled, then shakes his head.
“Thought I was when the tether broke, but when I didn’t collide with anything, I was relieved. Then I realised the comms were down and I was headed out of system. Right there is when I became convinced I was going to die. Spent a few hours debating with myself over popping my suit seals and ending it quickly.”
The man they told her had died a hero, saving crew before the ISS8 finally exploded, shrugs.
“Couldn’t do it.”
She shakes her head.
“How are you here?”
“The Tyongshad, a free trader attracted by ISS8 exploding. Their records say Earth is a dead-end civilisation that’s given up on interplanetary ambitions. So a blast that big in Mars orbit made them curious.”
“You were rescued by a UFO?”
“I think they’re only UFOs in-atmosphere. Off-planet, they’re just alien spaceships.”
Unable to help laughing, she waves a hand helplessly, white-knuckle grip on the pistol easing.
“Oh, that’s alright, then. Only an alien spaceship returning my space-lost partner to me.”
“It can’t stay long.”
She looks at him.
“What do you mean?”
He points upwards.
“They’re not allowed to contact Earth, you know? Our societies are too primitive. But the occasional chance encounter is allowed. Me being an astronaut is a bonus. I finally talked them into giving my favourite sergeant a chance to ship out. We watched longer because I needed to be sure you and Trev hadn’t… You know.”
Fern smiles.
“He wants to, but wasn’t there when I needed support grieving over you. He never does the hard work, and that won’t do.”
He nods.
“Same old Trev.”
Fern leans forward to see the sky, then stares wide-eyed at the vessel parked against the kerb. It’s so wide it touches the opposite kerb.
“Thought it’d be bigger.”
“It is. That’s one of our shuttles.”
She grins.
“Orphans in space?”
He chuckles.
“More Firefly than Star Trek, despite there being a Federation. It’s one of several Empires, and there are multiple Rebel Alliances.”
Fern checks her boots, dons her jacket, and grabs her go-bag.
“Who’s our new jefe?”
“Captain Hedelpha. We’re crewmembers eight and nine. ”
“They weird or humanish?”
“More weird.”
Stepping outside, she hears distant sirens. The spaceship at the kerb flashes incredibly bright lights.
She kisses his cheek.
“Best get going. We can do the hugging and hysterical sobbing later.”
He smiles. Same old Fern, too.
“Oh, just so you know: ‘Tyongshad’ means ‘Sun Fart’.”
“You’re joking!”
“Came out as ‘hot gaseous emission from the depths of a system hub’ according to the translation A.I. in my suit.”
“Wait. Plasma… From a sun? The A.I. came close linguistically, but you got the semantics all wrong. It’s probably ‘Star Flare’.”
He chuckles.
“Oh yeah. That makes more sense.”
