Author: Russell Bert Waters “Push” comes on by Matchbox 20, you reach to turn it up but it is already increasing volume. You remember how you turned it up last time it played, so now it happens automatically. You walk to the cupboard as sadness washes over you again. ...

Author: Phil Manning She had watched him grow. Grow beneath her hands. Each circuit and wire placed and soldered with finesse and care. There was a team, of course, and they each had their part to play, to add to his growth and development, but she felt a different ...

Author: Timothy Goss Washed up, lifeless, the thing was battered and scarred by the ocean. Seagulls pecked and pulled at the meat squawking and cawing. Things had nibbled its extremities and something big had taken its lower half. No appendages were obvious, but there were ...

Author: Alex Z. Salinas It was the 4:30 p.m. moon, clear as a piece of holy bread on a bright blue carpet, that led him—thinking on it much later, “led” was the only word he could come up with—to kneel down and scoop baseball field dirt into his palm. He then pulled out a ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer “How long have you been here?” “Well, it’s hard to say with any degree of certainty but, maybe, ten or fifteen minutes” “Do you know when you were born?” “Well, again, it’s hard to say but sixteen, maybe, seventeen minutes ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The room goes dark when the streetlight across the road goes off. I feel her tense, then relax: rising maturity overcoming instinctive fear. When I first came here, she would hug me tight for the time between the light going out and her ...

Author: R. J. Erbacher This was bizarre. He hovered over the planet and examined it. During the last check of this planet, there were more than eight million different species. Most were instinctual but others were fairly intelligent residents. Some of those species ...

Author: Kent Rosenberger Everything was about to pay off for Riley. All of the years of planning, preparing, researching, waiting and traveling had all brought him to this particular spot on this particular day at this particular time. At any moment now the elusive Irish ...

Author: Thomas Tilton “What is the time, sir?” asked the robot, Julian. “Let's see.” I consulted my timepiece. As a gag, I wore a small sundial for a watch. “Well, as soon as we see the sun, I'll let you know.” “I see,” said Julian. “And when will that be, ...

Author: David C. Nutt “Why are you doing this to me?” The man-who-looked-exactly-like-himself, his torturer, sighed. “To get the authors attention.” “You mean God?” “Hardly. I refer to the author of your story.” “Your story?” “No. Your story. You’re the author of my ...

Author: M.D. Parker A chime signaled the readiness of the mixture. She considered it for a moment; There should be celebratory horns of cheer, she thought. If only this machine knew what it had just done. She gripped the cylinder with all four digits wrapped tight. A ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer A witch walks into a bar. Heads turn and phlegm is conjured from the depths of throats and spat from pursed lips to the floor. The sight of her simultaneously repulses and excites, and the rooms huddled patrons collectively decide that the ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer It’s astonishing just how beautiful space is, for all that it’s largely empty. “Kaelen!” Mother, mother. Even from half a light year out, I can feel you. My view narrows… There. She’s standing on a rocky promontory, guards at her back, ...

Author: R. J. Erbacher She watched Victor move off the loading platform emerging from the thin smoke like a god. The chamber was still partially filled with the exhaust from the vehicle’s landing sequence. He was lean and purposeful. Long confident strides. He was wearing ...

Author: David K Scholes “What was the cause of death?” I asked. “Well,” replied the bot medical examiner, “they may both have died from sheer fright. Both of them experienced a huge increase in heart rate and blood pressure before their automatic personal protection ...

Author: J.P. Quinn Parker flipped on her monitor. She’d definitely heard it this time, there was no mistaking it. It sounded as if someone was in here with her. Cycling through the closed-circuit, she searched the facility, but still couldn’t see anything. This was ...

Author: Janet Shell Anderson Enormous sound, heard and felt; goes right through me; my bones feel it. Shock. The sky over the Potomac cracks; the sound streaking overhead moving from East to West as if heaven’ll fall into two pale, white pieces. One breath. Two. I’m not ...

Author: Alzo David-West What Ozzie did most with his virtual reality game The Invasion was not the playing but the observing. His parents had recently moved to the big city, and they put him in a new school and a physical fitness club there. However, he was not ...