by submission | Jan 23, 2026 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
There is no way to get rid of me, not once I take hold unless the host, and that is you, is versed in an ancient lore that has already been lost for centuries. Well? No, you can’t be free of me, not now I have wormed my way in.
I will settle in your gut, somewhere warm and fetid. I don’t need to grow but I do have to change and the Adaptation is a lengthy process. It is important that I am comfortable and have the space to stretch and weave my way.
If this sounds in any way subtle rest assured that it isn’t. But then you already know this – after all you are the host although I have always had a problem with this word. Host doesn’t seem the correct way to describe what is happening to you and what you are about to become. It seems to imply that some essence of you will remain and that it is possible you may return, but this isn’t the case. I will take everything and there is no coming back. When I am finished with you and it is time to move on, all I will leave behind is a broken shell.
You are all too aware of me now, lodged in the pit at your centre. I needle my way in, and you feel it in each and every one of your sinews, and with every breath that you take and it is painful, excruciatingly painful. The last thing I will take is your mind, but just before I do and the Adaptation is complete and I rise to the surface you will feel the slightest of shivers, just fleetingly for a few seconds.
It is the last of you.
by submission | Jan 22, 2026 | Story |
Author: Rhett Pritchard
I thought humans were a myth, something you tell kids to keep them away from the outer boundaries of reality. Those are the stories I grew up on, listening wide-eyed and curled up with my brother in the loft of the motor home. Stories about how humans had an evil touch, conspiring with their minds of mush and their hands of flesh.
Up until a few days ago, I’d never seen one, and I’m not sure what to do with the one we found. Those stories and parables had no lessons for this. My brother and I liquefied it, put it in a specimen jar, and decided we would reconstitute it when we figured out exactly what to do. The liquefying was something of an accident. A reaction. A defensive maneuver learned in our childhood. It made no noise as it melted. It doesn’t seem at all like the humans in the stories now. My brother is convinced we can put it back together, molecule by molecule, atom by atom. I’m not convinced we should.
It came wandering into our encampment, and I’m not sure if it even knew where it was. It seemed lost. A husk of flesh. Father did such a good job of concealing us. It staggered into our little circle begging for water. I’d learned they can’t survive without it, which doesn’t seem reasonable considering how much of the jar it filled.
I’d debated going to pour it out in the sand while brother was napping. Let the baking sun dry it up and take it out of here. Let it become clouds. Transmute like we do. Let it become a little more like us. I think that’s what father would have done.
But my brother was always so damned curious. I caught him smelling at the jar yesterday and just this morning, I could have sworn he took a sip of it. He denied all of it.
Now he sits around a small fire he built, singing a strange tune. Father always warned us about fire when he was still around. Said it was a human creation. I remember when brother argued that humans aren’t the only thing that creates fire and pointed up to the hot desert sun.
He didn’t have any interest in blending in with the scorpions or basking in the sun with the lizards today. He didn’t even think twice about becoming cacti with me. He just brushed me off when I asked. I sat there absorbing knowledge through roots, and he just sat around the fire, singing.
Just before sunrise, he asked me if I had ever considered why we had to stay out here, away from them all.
I told him no. It’s not my place to consider these things. I didn’t think it was his place either.
“It’s because father thought god couldn’t find us out here,” he said and put the fire out, “But that’s not true, is it?”
I was confused. I asked him what god was, and in the murky light of dawn, he held up the specimen jar, uncapped and empty.
by submission | Jan 21, 2026 | Story |
Author: David Sydney
Cupping his eyes, squinting, Ed pointed to the sky with his free hand.
“Up there, Edna… Is that a bird?”
“It’s not a bird, Ed.”
“Is it a plane?”
How many times did she have to tell him it wasn’t a bird or plane?
“Stop it, Ed. It’s not a plane.”
In their small backyard, Edna could be near her garden with its petunias and cherry tomato plants. Ed had his outdoor chaise lounge and above-ground pool. Typically, Edna enjoyed the outdoor experience more than Ed. The pool was dented. Its water needed to be changed badly.
“Don’t tell me… It’s not Superman, is it?”
“Okay, I won’t tell you, Ed.”
After 42 years of marriage, there were some things she didn’t need to tell him.
Her straw hat shaded her eyes, so she could get a better view of the heavens, from which, it is said, comes all help. But on that Saturday morning the only help, if it could be called that, was just another UFO.
“It’s just a damned UFO, Ed.”
“Did you have to say that, Edna?”
She knew he was hoping for a bird or a plane. Fat chance either would be around when the UFO was up there, over their backyard with its uneven brick patio, Ed’s failed attempt at home improvement 15 years before.
And Superman? Where was he when they needed him?
No, it would be another Saturday. Edna, who was such an avid bird watcher, had no birds to see. Ed, who enjoyed the occasional plane and vapor trail, wouldn’t enjoy either that Saturday.
And Superman? He preferred not to look at Ed, with his rounded stomach, stretched out on the chaise lounge next to the pool.
That was the difference between Superman and the aliens who kept returning in the UFO that resembled a sausage with lights strung around its sides. In their exploration of the Milky Way galaxy, they had never seen in such a compact space anything quite like Ed, his stomach, his rusted chaise, his pathetic patio, and the stagnant above-ground pool.
by submission | Jan 20, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Moraton Drax did his funky jig, as I stood nearby in his basement that was part computer temple, part electronics graveyard. Exotic circuitry, motherboards, cabling, drives, fans, casings were sculpted in mysterious formations, channels and conduits, like Angkor Wat fashioned from molded plastic, copper, aluminum and silicon. And in the middle of it, Drax danced his smug little dance.
“I did it. I did it.” Left, left, right. “I did it. I did it.” Right, right, left. “I’m in. I’m in. I’m in.” One hand up, two hands up, sprinkle fingers down.
“That’s great, Drax. And only you know what you’re talking about, unless you finally got admitted to the Fairhaven Psych Ward.”
Left, left, right. “Better. Much better.” Right, right, left. “I got in. In in.”
I knew enough of Drax’s mania to be patient and let him do his dance.
High kick. Left, right, left, right, left, right. “In in in in in.”
He twirled twice and stopped, glittering beads of sweat collecting on his high forehead. “Genius is hard work. But it’s all paid off. I’m set now. I’m in.”
“Sure,” I soothed. “You’ve told me that about a dozen times. Where’d you get in?”
Drax went rigid and backed up two steps almost knocking over a teetering stack of glowing components. “Why do you want to know?”
I knew this paranoia, too. One hint that you were angling to snatch one of Drax’s secrets, which were legion, would clam him up. I’d found the best approach was to be honest. “I want to steal your secrets and ruin you.” This was true, but not in the way he understood.
Drax frowned and his eyes darted to his desk where his notebooks lay open, then his brow loosened and his long-fingered hands danced in front him. “Of course. Of course. Let me show you.”
He guided me to a phalanx of sleeping monitors above his desk. With an abracadabra wave to unlock them, Drax awakened the panels which resolved into clusters of source code denser than the center of the Milky Way. Ultra cryptic.
I don’t think my jaw dropped, but Drax’s smirk told me that he was pleased at my shock. I couldn’t feign cool disinterest any longer. “What am I looking at?”
“Heaven.”
“What?”
“Heaven. You’re looking at heaven. I hacked it. I’m in.”
I couldn’t go there with Drax. I had to believe he was talking about some kind of hacker’s Grail, finessing his way into the servers of some tech giant like Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Huawei, or Alibaba. These were the web gods he’d once worshipped but now railed against. His tirades and manifestos on digital self determination, on neuro free will, on panopticonless privacy were infamous beyond the net neutrality firewall. A self-proclaimed techgnostic, Drax was a first class prophet and crank.
As always, I tried to humor him. “So, you cracked the password to enter the Pearly Gates?”
“Right into the Almighty’s source code. His boot files.”
“How?”
“Let’s just say The.9.Billion.Names.of.God is not a very secure password,” Drax offered.
This was a level of Drax mania I hadn’t experienced before. “Whoa. Let’s back up. Why does Heaven have a password? It’s not a website. And though my catechism may be out of date, I still believe God is considered omniscient and omnipotent which would seem to dispense with the need for broadband connectivity.”
Drax’s long fingers performed a tricky entrechat. “You are thinking too prosaically. The Internet is not our doing, any more than the earth or galaxy is. We arose within it. We are the stuff of stars and not just hydrogen and heavy elements. At its core, we are information, the ability to access, manipulate and transmit data. That is being: transactional substantiation.”
He stepped towards me, and I drew back as he whispered, “Thus, the Supreme Being is the sysop for all creation. And now I know the back-door code.”
“Not possible.”
He waved away the phrase as if it were a pesky gnat. “No longer in my lexicon. Come, you must see.”
“Heaven?”
“Eventually, but like I said, we’ve got to go through the back door…actually more of a trap door.”
“What do you mean?”
Drax swiped at his screens in a cruciform motion and the room went dark. “We gotta go through Hell first.”
My eyes bled as we were ravaged by lolcats.
by Julian Miles | Jan 19, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Sometimes, when I try too hard, the words abandon me. It’s frustrating, sitting at an untidy desk with a mind free of story clutter.
Just think, I would say. Just think like you’ve got a pocket muse who you can call upon. I’d go and make a coffee while thinking about that, trying to make a story about it. Coming back, I set the coffee and biscuits down, then slowly took a seat, but words still didn’t flow.
What would I do, I thought? Well, I’d extend a hand like I was reaching for someone who just came into the room, a dear companion: someone who I wouldn’t be startled to find in my home at three in the morning.
What would I say? Back then, I thought of asking about a fantasy realm. But I hadn’t found the key.
Tonight, though? Fantasy and more. I need…
“Heroes that fly fast. Things that explode. A future with elfin pilots and creeping evil. How do they tuck those pointy ears under their flight helmets?”
That’s the key: ask an impossible question.
The air about me fills with little sparkles, like microscopic fireworks, and a laughing voice comes from my right.
“They don’t wear helmets, silly. Rarified air is nothing to them, and the G-forces involved aren’t a strain for the elder races anyway. They’re the Kestrels of Dhonn Magfal, and they only cede sky to the named dragons.”
I look her way.
“You know, most people would call me mad.”
“Unless they could see us, right here, right now. Then they’d call the police.”
“Why the police?”
“Because your planet doesn’t have the Ministry for the Apprehension of Rogue Mages yet,” she grins, “and I’m very happy about that. MARM are a miserable bunch. No fun at all.”
Wait just a moment.
“You come from a place where they exist?”
“A couple of realms over, actually. But they’re always meddling in realities where they don’t belong.”
I look about my tiny attic bedsit.
“You got opportunities for storytellers back home?”
She leans in close, violet eyes shining.
“You thinking about a change of career?”
With a grin, I lean forward until our noses touch.
“Same career, different reality. Make a change for me to visit you.”
“Seems like it’ll be more than a visit. What about the Kestrels of Dhonn Magfal? They sound like a fun story.”
“Let’s save it as a fallback in case I don’t adapt.”
“Plan B being ‘Reappear as if by magic and hope no-one noticed’?”
“If I’m not screaming to come home after a month, I’m never going to, and an unexpected month away can be glossed over and apologised for.”
Twenty-first century with no family? I’ll be shocked if anyone notices that quick.
She kisses me on the tip of my nose.
“Leave a mysterious note.”
I look at the pad in front of me. What to write?
Going on a trip. Back eventually. Probably.
That’ll do. My last words on this Earth – hopefully. I put the pen down. For once, it doesn’t roll off the pad.
“Let’s go.”
by submission | Jan 18, 2026 | Story |
Author: Kiley M. Campbell
“Less than twenty percent is still intact,” said Rehwa.
“For the entire precinct?” Komaer boggled.
Rehwa nodded grimly. “I’d guess the whole province is roughly the same. Nothing’s left of the city. The last of the outer expansions are collapsing. By next week,” he shook his head, “the precinct will be done for.”
Komaer sighed heavily. “Sulfur dioxide spreading through the air from the West, temperature increasing six percent each week…” he began packing up his emitter, “deterioration’s progressing faster than anticipated.”
Rehwa stared up at the pewter sky and the charcoal clouds. The Sun was concealed behind the atmospheric muck– light feebly seeped through in a sickly yellow haze.
He picked each of his four legs up one at a time and let them settle back on the craggly rubble that used to be Qurtha–to Mountain.
Somewhere down there, Rehwa thought to himself, underneath that sea of rock and dust… He did not like to think of the dead, but they haunted him nevertheless, especially during surface trips like this, and the thought of standing on top of it all… At rest, crushed miles underground… Their bones would rest in the planet’s broken layers for all eternity.
He became conscious of the heat– the wind carried hot wafts and the suit was becoming uncomfortable. Even with the tri-visor– invented before the quake and therefore designed for full-strength light– Rehwa was squinting his three eyes tight, almost shut. Even after a year, he still felt pangs of longing for the old life. Taking all things into account, he thought, the salvaging of the species had gone as well as could be hoped for– the last of the evacuations were scheduled to depart in three days from the remains of Xulwaq down in the far South. All the citizens were gone; the only ones left on the planet were administrators, military leaders, scientists like him. The government and the military men would leave soon enough; he and the rest of this group and all the other Analysis crews scattered across the ghostly continents would remain. Week after week, they would still descend, gather samples and readings, keeping close watch as the planet entered its death throes and then, only when it was truly dead, they would leave it behind. Forever. The alliance between the two political coalitions was tenuous, but they had managed to make certain agreements quickly. There was zero further travel permitted to Dui Al– once the Analysis teams left, that would be it. Rehwa pictured the engineers planting surveillance drones and mine clusters in the planet’s outer atmosphere. Anyone who survived would be spotted and hauled away. And that would be the fate of Dui Al: languishing as a molten, broken, choked former world with nothing left behind to let the universe know life had once flourished there.
“Okay, everyone,” Komaer patched into the radio, “back to the shuttle.”
The seven members of the Qurtha–to team made their wobbly way across the wreckage of the mountain, back to their shuttle, which cut through the poison clouds like a knife and floated back up to the orbiting habitation vessel.
Five days until the next trip down. From his quarters, through his personal viewport, Rehwa could see the massive fields of lava that spread across the molten remains of the Zhelho–to Range, the borders of the roiling seas as more and more coastline plummeted into its depths, the grimy storms that choked the skies.
It wouldn’t be long before Dui Al was completely dead.
