Author: Emily Kinsey I was trapped. I awoke from a dreamless sleep with a start, unsure how the fire started. (Although, if you ask me, it was probably my brother’s fault.) Flames licked through the open bedroom door and thick black smoke obscured the lone bedroom ...

Author: Rosa May M. Bayuga It was one of those days when she thought she had a great sense of smell. Freshly-baked bread, raindrops, laughter, screams and wounds and hurts, she could smell them all. She could smell the smoke from the pyre of fallen leaves that her father ...

Author: Soramimi Hanarejima I’m getting a cup of coffee in the office kitchen when suddenly there you are—as the image of yourself you’ve created by projecting your thoughts into mine—fully occupying my attention the way you always do: with emphatic presence. This time in ...

Author: Majoki Generals like to look good. Even in the 34th century. Even after a thousand years of war. They like polish and shine and finely fitted uniforms, so they like me. Their tailor. Otherwise, how could a simple tailor expect to live through the entire Sidereal War. Only ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Yet again, we’re a long way from home. As usual, I get everyone’s attention with a short blast of the klaxon, which - also as usual - prompts a round of rude guesswork over the comm as the likelihood of me ever having another sex ...

Author: David Dumouriez The fourth initiation, if you got that far, was where it started. Where you found out what you weren’t. The first was just a basic exercise in establishing the proper mindset. Donning the skins. Adopting that grinning mask. And, let’s face it, if ...

Author: Kevin Eric Paul “Hey. Mister,” a melodious voice called to me. I kept my eyes closed for a moment and did not respond. Confusion. Anxiety. Dread. And a gentle, warm breeze. Bright light penetrating my eyelids. Where am I? I thought. What the devil is going ...

Author: Jørn Arnold Jensen “Do you know who I am?” The question was left hanging in the air. The tiny girl struggled to understand what loomed in front of her; taller than the grown-ups in the kindergarten, and the height accentuated by feet hovering several centimetres ...

Author: Mary Lynne Schuster “I’m stuck.” “You’re not stuck. Just get up,” Dylan said, disgusted. “I feel like I’m stuck,” Sara muttered. She knew she could just – get up. Stand up, get a shower, get dressed, get something to eat. Or do a dish. Just do it! she thought. ...

Author: Karen Schauber The massive harvest table swelled with Soylent, Guinea Fowl, Sicilian oranges, Pule cheese, pandemain, honey, cloves, and black cardamon for the wedding. The dead bride propped in the cathedra. Her garland of Delphiniums shrivelling. A suckling pig, ...

Author: Colm O'Shea He types: I see you around. I’m too shy to say hi, so I’m hiding in this avatar. Hope that’s not creepy. Cyrano-Premium converts: Salutations! One cannot miss your radiance as it sweeps the environment, much as the sun rises and obliterates the stars. ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Carlo looks about suspiciously, looking for those he knows are watching his every move. Turning his gaze back to Doug, he takes a drag on his vape before continuing, talking through a cloud of strawberry-scented fog. “You see it’s all an ...

Author: Adele Evershed Revelation 21:1 “ and there is no longer any sea” Fifty miles from what used to be shore, Jonah found a whale still inky black and awesome. He said it was an omen. Of course, Jonah meant it was a sign from God, but he was kind like that, knowing ...

Author: R. J. Erbacher He was armed to the teeth. A pulse rifle in his right hand, extra power cartridges on his hips. In his left, a bolt gun, a drum magazine of ammunition plugged in, able to fire one-hundred-forty-four rounds of piercing, fifty-caliber bullets, two spare ...

Author: Mark Renney Jackson needed to decompress. The Hyperion delegation had lingered over their coffee and his afternoon schedule had been so tight he hadn’t managed to grab as much as five minutes alone. And now Jackson was parked in a side street, a kilometer or so from ...

Author: David Barber This was after the calendar was changed, sometime in the binary centuries, when space exploration became popular once more, flitting from star to star in the blink of an eye. The acausal drive itself was fashioned by silicon, though the rest of the ...

Author: Arwen Spicer and Haley Black Entangled voice comm to NLS Convoy Ship 27 By Hasumi, Harmony Outpost, Planet Blue Jungle Walkabout Log 34 – Update on the Untree Colonial Organism I wish you could see them. The plumes of these towering Untrees are pulsing like ...

Author: Bill Cox “They’re spraying again out there.” I look out the window. On the horizon I can see a sickly yellow fog, with small black dots flying languidly overhead. Behind that there is an orange haze, otherworldly, not quite right. “Do you think we’ll have to ...