by submission | Dec 27, 2025 | Story |
Author: Andrea Tillmanns
The colony had called for help, and we had come – with a heavily armed spaceship. But there was nothing here for us to fight. The planet was empty, except for the long-decayed corpses of the colonists.
And the shadows that first invaded our dreams after landing and then became more and more visible during the day, whispering, threatening, finally not letting us sleep for a second, until the first of us reached for their weapons in madness.
Then the planet was empty again, except for the shadows and a spaceship that would take them to Earth in a few weeks.
by submission | Dec 26, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
“Citizen. You are called before the Court of Will.”
“What’s my crime, Counsel?”
“Your crime, Citizen, is that of being born outside the Will of the State.”
“My birth was out of my control. I had no choice in it.”
“No, Citizen. Your parents, who were banned to reproduce, fertilized what would be you, and from there, you were responsible.”
“Responsible? My fertilization? It’s a law of nature, biology. I didn’t control any of it, not even how my cells divided.”
“That is wrong, Citizen. The innate will of your life is your own. Had it not been so, then you would not have been conceived and here today.”
“I wasn’t even a person. I was a zygote. I wasn’t yet me.”
“You were then, as now, a life, Citizen. A life with your own will and way.”
“I wasn’t conscious, Counsel.”
“You were still a life, a potential consciousness, which became a sensory consciousness and then a personal consciousness.”
“But how can this make me guilty? No one’s born out of their own free will. It’s an accident of life.”
“You are right, Citizen. Your birth was not the Will of the State.”
“I can’t understand this. It’s all a circle.”
“There is no circle in the Court of Will.”
“Then, explain it to me. I at least have the right to understand, shouldn’t I?”
“The people exist for the State, not the State for the people. The State plans life; the State conserves life; and the State ends life.”
“Why? Tell me why. Because my parents were unauthorized to have me? Because birth incriminated a child? It makes no sense. I’m a citizen with an ‘r’ number. It’s r902504. I’m a working person. My life is authorized.”
“Your individual life was conserved for the necessary duration in State life. Now, your conservation is surplus. Your life is unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary? I’ve lived forty-five years! I’ve done everything as a loyal citizen of the State! My parents’ personal decision wasn’t my crime!”
“Your emotions are unruly, Citizen. You are in contempt of the Court of Will.”
“Everyone … has emotions, Counsel.”
“They are an added penalty to your crime.”
“Let me say something. Please. Let me appeal my right to live as a citizen.”
“You are unauthorized to appeal. That is the Will of the State.”
“Then, if that’s the case, I’ll say it anyway since it doesn’t matter, because it’s all ‘unauthorized’ and has always been ‘unauthorized,’ from the day I was a decision in the minds of two people who the State didn’t approve.”
“That is correct, Citizen. And all further statements you make shall reconfirm your anti-State crime.”
“I’m a citizen of the State. I’m not unnecessary. I’m a sovereign social being regardless of anything the Court says.”
“Our sovereignty is the Universal Power to preserve our unified integrity of individual persons, with the citizens organized in the Great Organic State, whose mass right to rule is exercised under the Universal Will of State life and its mass bodies.”
“Nothing you say changes who I am, or that I’ve experienced, or that I’ve known what it is to be sad and to be happy, or that I’ve lost and worked, or that I’ve dreamed, or that I’ve … loved. Nothing, nothing changes the fact that I lived until today, because those are the facts that happened, and they’ll never change.”
“Upon the closing of this hearing, you, your ‘r’ number, your record, your domain, and your memory shall be permanently erased. There will be no unnecessary facts. Do you understand, Citizen?”
“And after I die, do you really believe no one will remember me?”
“No one will remember because the State wills it. Our integrity will forget you and that you ever were.”
“You too, Counsel? Will you forget what you saw and heard before your eyes today — this shameful mockery, this sham hearing, this outrageous show trial?”
“Yes, Citizen, I, too, will forget all.”
“It doesn’t matter. The facts don’t change. So I’ll die. We all die. Then, one day, you and all the Silent Witnesses before us here, and out there, and everyone else will die, too. We’ll all be equals in death. Then, the new world will replace you. That’s something none of you can ever change.”
“The Court of Will is now concluded, Citizen. The verdict stands and is reconfirmed. You are unnecessary.”
by submission | Dec 25, 2025 | Story |
Author: Daniel Miltz
They live remote, because living remote they remember everything. The neighborhood leans inward like old men listening, and the people hold faces that don’t blink. During the day, the ghosts come out wearing the habits they died in: a man still counting coins that lost their value in another country, a woman gripping grocery bags filled with nothing but regret. They don’t float. They linger. They’ve learned the city’s most important rule, don’t take up space unless you have to.
In the neighborhood, the ghosts blend in better. They sit on stoops and smoke air. They argue in languages that were supposed to be left behind, arguing about land that no longer belongs to them, about who suffered more, who survived, about how things used to be better when everyone knew their place. They haunt the house windows, staring down at kids who don’t say hello anymore. The ghosts call it disrespect. The kids call it survival.
The children are alive, but only technically. Rotten behavior grows well with some of them, like weeds through cracked concrete. They shove each other for no reason, laugh too loud at pain, talk about everything except their own emptiness. Their attitudes are armor, thick, loud, sharp-edged. They learned early that kindness gets stolen, that softness gets you laughed at, that selfishness is the only thing nobody can take from you. The ghosts watch them with tired eyes, recognizing the pattern. This is how haunting starts.
In the parks, the ghosts spread out. Parks are supposed to be for breathing, but the city forgot that. During the warm months, old men play games against opponents who died years ago, slamming their fists down like they can still win something. Mothers push invisible strollers, humming songs from the words worn smooth from repetition. The grass is thin here, trampled by memories that never learned how to recognize them.
Some ghosts don’t know they’re ghosts. They still punch clocks, still complain about prices, still shove past strangers without looking. They don’t move on because moving on costs energy, and the city already took most of that. They carry old rules into new streets and get angry when the streets don’t obey. They say, “I earned this,” even when nobody knows what this is anymore.
The city itself is the worst ghost of all. It remembers every promise it broke. It taught people to hurry, to hoard, to harden. It rewards selfishness with survival and calls it success. It doesn’t ask you to be good, only efficient.
Sometimes, late at night, a living person pauses in the neighborhood. They feel the weight of all that staying. They breathe, really breathe, and for a moment the ghosts quiet down. One or two fade, just slightly, unsure. Moving on is contagious, but so is staying.
By morning, the city will be loud again. The ghosts will return to their homes. The kids will keep acting tough. And somewhere between the park bench and their domains, a new ghost will begin, still alive, already stuck.
by submission | Dec 24, 2025 | Story |
Author: Keisha Hartley
Amara’s head knocked against the cold car window, jolting her awake. Her fingers were numb from clutching the long black case on her lap. The Uber driver sped down the winding path unbothered by the rain. Ahead, the dark spires of her grandmother’s home jutted above the crest of the driveway hill the Corolla struggled to climb, tires sliding on the slick gravel.
Jorge, she reminded herself as she checked the app, grunted.
“I don’t know what business you have here, Miss, but do it quick. If you’re thinking of asking me to wait, the answer’s no. I don’t mess with that freaky shit.”
“I won’t.” Her voice cracked. She hadn’t spoken in days.
Jorge pulled to a sharp stop in the circular drive. She managed a weak “Thank you,” but he was already gone. She stood alone in front of the massive house, rain dripping into every uncomfortable seam of her clothes.
“Hey, Grandma,” she whispered toward the empty windows as she dragged her suitcases up the steep wooden steps. She fumbled through her wool coat for the heavy set of keys mailed to her with her grandmother’s will. Dust clouds rose as she shoved the door open and pulled her things inside.
She had always done what she was told. Her parents demanded it: classes, sports, instruments, clothes, friends—every decision theirs, never hers. Now they were gone. Everyone she loved was gone. And still she obeyed. Her grandmother’s will had been clear: if her parents were dead and she herself had passed, Amara was to inherit and live in her summer home.
She remembered it fondly. Running through gardens, gathering flowers her grandmother pointed out. Never caring what the neighbors whispered about shadows moving where they shouldn’t. Here, she had felt free. But now, she felt numb. Her muffled sobs echoed in the hollow rooms. She needed to find a place to sleep. Cleaning could wait.
A sharp clang paralyzed her. From the kitchen.
Heart hammering, she crept in. The room looked unchanged; the same weathered wood table where she and her grandmother spent hours cooking, pots bubbling, laughter rising with the steam, scent of dried flowers and medicinal herbs all around.
On the stove, a pot simmered. Heavy soup spoon on the floor. She edged closer. The warm, savory scent of pumpkin soup washed over her. Exactly as she remembered. But how?
A thin shiver rippled up her neck as a soft humming filled the room. A familiar tune—the first song she had ever played live on the flute. Martinu Sonata. The humming cut off right before her favorite part.
“No, no, no…” Panic rising, she ran back to the door, shoving her suitcases, looking for her black case. She snapped it open. Inside lay the one thing her parents had left her. A vintage flute.
She pressed it to her lips and picked up where the humming faded.
The sound returned, now weaving with hers.
Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks.
She wasn’t alone.
by submission | Dec 23, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Well into the neopandemic I noticed the countdown. Inside my left eyelid.
A faint image, like a digital timer flickering. I couldn’t make out distinct digits in the rolling blur of numbers so there was no real way of knowing if it was counting up or down.
But my gut knew. Immediately. Things were headed down.
It was impossible to say at what number the countdown had started. No way of knowing when it would end. But the numbers kept spinning. Floating somewhere in my left eye.
A ghost in the machine. In my mind.
That’s not something you tell anyone. Especially when folks are so uptight already. Besides, everyone was counting the days, hours, minutes, seconds until life as we knew it could resume.
Which is bogus. Life as we knew it. That’s gone. You can’t unknow a pandemic. Can’t unknow how fast everything changes.
Maybe that’s what I’m experiencing when I close my left eye. Maybe my internal clock has gone haywire. Or maybe I’m beginning to see what was always out there: the time left.
To me. To us. To the notion of humanity. To the notion of time.
When the neopandemic shut us in our homes again, when its covidian rhythms disrupted our circadian ones, the thought of going off-clock, off calendar, messed with me. Totally disoriented my days.
Then it didn’t. I reoriented. That’s when I confronted the construct we’d lived with long before the virus and all its variants made us vulnerable to our very primitive concept of being.
Past. Present. Future. These are merely conventions humans adopted long, long ago to dodge a dire truth. We’re time bound. Shackled by yesterday, today, tomorrow. Our temporal framework is not an existential cornerstone, it is a cage.
We’ve become perilously time bound.
And we’re all counting down.
I don’t think that’s a startling or brave realization. We’re all on the clock. That’s not a surprise. What spooked me was when the numbers on my left eyelid became sharper, and I could plainly see the countdown clock was actually counting up.
So when does counting up equal counting down?
Think zero. Zero us.
The count under my left eyelid was in sync with the number of worldwide neopandemic deaths. And the daily numbers were spinning faster and faster, ripping upwards.
Zero us.
It made me blink.
by Julian Miles | Dec 22, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Jingle bells my ass. Actually, if I’d had one, the ex-wife probably would have. Covered it’s harness in fairy lights, too. She loved sparkly tat. Guess that’s why she hooked up with the bright-eyed pretty boy I used to be. Then she got pregnant and we both got ugly.
I raise a dirty glass.
“Cheers, Madeline, wherever the fuck you are.”
Finishing that one off, I top up again.
Actually, what we made was two separate lives joined at the kids. They noticed, we didn’t. Kept on living a lie that hurt us all. Changed us, too. I’d like to say I got stronger. What I actually got was meaner and drunker.
Timing. Another one down.
Refill!
Right. Maudlin reflections on Christmas week: repeats, of course. Isn’t that what maudlin is all about? Circling a drain you never quite go down, but can’t pull away from.
Where was I? Oh yes. Kids: Alison, Rebecca, Jason, and Kyle. Would have been more, but we finally realised fucking wasn’t a solution to the problem that outside of sex, we didn’t like each other.
Four new lives. Kyle was the first. Grew into a teenage charmer with no morals. Nothing slowed him down. Not me, not Madeline, not his siblings or even his girl. Who was she? Lilly. That’s her. Gentle. Sweet. Haven’t seen her since his funeral. Pretty sure it was her family that did him for stealing twenty kilos of marching powder, but past is past and she seemed to really care.
Jason. The boy. Gay and changed my mind about all of that. Duncan, his fella, is a bouncer. I haven’t seen either of them since her funeral…
Her. Rebecca. Happily studying for grade seven music while cancer ate her guts. Everybody found out too late. Saddest funeral I’ve ever been to. Nobody was ready. Fucking awful.
Alison. Well, now. Back to yesterday evening. Just let me down this…
And top up.
She’s in hospital. A drunk put here there: me. I spun the motor off a country lane. She was in the back, her fella next to me. When I saw the state of her, I lost it. Put him in the driver’s seat, set it up proper, then got the fuck out of there. Couldn’t get locked up, she’d need me.
Coppers woke me this morning to say she’d been in an accident.
“Why do I try, yet always do so bad?”
Truth?
“Because it’s always about me.”
And that’s usually… Wrong.
“What a fucking time to realise. Too fucking late, again.”
“That’s my cue, if ever I heard one.”
Why is it bright in here?
“Did you know you’ve got wings on your back, miss?”
“That’s because I’m an angel, you sad case.”
“Oh, that’s alright, then. Come to smite me, have you?”
“She doesn’t smite people at this time of year. Tries to lead by example. That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m drunk, shiny miss. You’ll have to explain it slow.”
“Think of me as a gift for Alison. She survives. You own up, then get yourself straight. She eventually gets a real father – or as close as you can get.”
Harsh… Truth.
“What if I fail?”
“Smite.”
Oh.
“This is a one-time deal, Mark. Fuck it up and she’ll smite you flat like any other petty, selfish, irredeemable drunkard.”
I hear that.
“Should you be swearing?”
“I speak all tongues. Fuck translates well. Rarely gets misinterpreted.”
True enough.
“Okay. Please save my kid.”
“Shall do. Merry Christmas, Mark.”
I’m sober.
She’s gone.
I get up slowly, then empty glass and bottle into the sink.
“Fuck.”
