Author: Brynn Herndon The man next to me on the bench wears a crisp suit, creased where it should be, and smooth where it’s meant. My shorts have long ridden up. A splinter digs into my thigh. The world ended yesterday, and the bus is late. You might assume that’d be ...

Author: Evan MacKay I loved a man. I can’t say much more than that. What does it mean to love? A parent loves their child unconditionally. A spouse love’s with nature’s own fierce determination. A friend loves in a way which sometimes makes no sense. I was neither parent ...

Author: J.D. Rice "Will it hurt?" The boy looks up at us with tears in its little eyes. We understand that this could mean fear, sadness, confusion, or a myriad of other emotions at this stage of its development. We use the eyes of the father unit to examine the boy's ...

Author: Majoki Every galaxy has its Dismal Nitch. Every member of the Expeditionary Force knows that, yet Wuten, even with her many cycles of service, had never seen a planet quite like this. It was literally raining vermin. Shiskovny had christened the gliding spider-like ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I hold the bottle up and watch the faint shadows cast by the rising sun through it. There are still sirens in the distance. That always made us laugh. There’s never enough traffic to delay anything. We joked the sirens were to make sure ...

Author: Jordan Mcclymont The last remaining light of the star dwindled, right about the time the slow motion drugs kicked in. For a time, I forget the star and lay belly down, smelling the flowers for several of your lifetimes. Then, the heavens ignited and I was ...

Author: Celso Almeida On the crisp evening of February 9th, 1986, Leo, a 13-year-old with a passion for astronomy, stood in his backyard, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Halley's Comet. The new moon cast a perfect stage for Leo's celestial observations, a moment he had ...

Author: Ian McKinley In technical forensics, the worst place to work is a university. There you find sophisticated, cutting-edge equipment, with interfaces so user-friendly that application requires no fundamental understanding of their operational principles. Such kit is ...

Author: Jaryd Porter I gripped my reclining chair’s arms. She hopped up and down, hair cascading across her shoulders–a happy dance. “It’s almost time,” I said. I bit into my bottom lip. Blood. Our apartment door beeped and shifted upwards. A four-legged drone entered ...

Author: WF Peate Thunder shakes the ground leaving an ozone smell. Rain clouds stream across the sky like whales. I’m holding my Quantum computer phone to my left ear with my left hand while casting my fly rod with my right. A shiver goes up my spine from standing in the ...

Author: Majoki Setzer was sure of it. He’d checked the instruments numerous times and taken thousands of readings. The signals were real. Something was out there and coming his way. What to do? He thumbed the chipped edge of his mug and took a sip of coffee many hours ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “You stabbed me with a corkscrew.” Gabby turns with a look of wide-eyed innocence. “You told me to do a convincing betrayal thing if they came for us.” I take the clean pad she offers and switch it for the blood-soaked one I peel away ...

Author: Ethan Kahana Erika Glass sat nervously on her wood-frame bed with her back hunched while the celebration was at full force just outside her window. Like every other bedroom in the city, the walls in her room were covered in an array of checklists and a relatively ...

Author: James Callan In the cozy confines of a VR cell, I can become anybody. When the warm water rises to engulf me from head to toe, when a backwards count of thirty seconds reaches zero and my eyes reopen to take in what world it may, I am, in those transitional moments, ...

Author: Samantha Walsh The burst of light was brief, yet all-consuming in the dark which enveloped the very stars that the light seemed to fall from. A descending orb of brilliant flame rocketed towards the ground, striking the dirt with a harsh crack! that startled both my ...

Author: Rick Tobin Rufus Carrington was a man of excess. His fortune was built on AI and robotics, technologies that displaced hospital nurses while tearing apart his marriage. His wife, Angela, came from a long line of nurses. The guilt of her husband's success ate away at ...

Author: Ken Poyner Ever since I learned to shut down the code that monitors my tracking beacon, I have been periodically slipping in and out of freedom. I am careful to make sure my owner does not miss me. There are times of each day that he is occupied with something else, ...

Author: Majoki “Tommy, don’t pick at your food,” his mother complained. “I don’t like asparagus,” the blonde boy argued. “You’re just being finicky. It’s good for you.” Tommy grabbed one of the limp green spears on his plate and shook it at his mother. “I’m sick of ...