Author: Kei Lynnette "Is it just me or do power and tea go just wonderfully together?" The Empress's companion laughed and replied, "It's just you Empress, and if you don't mind me asking, how did you come into so much power?" The Empress only smiled. "Don't tell me it's ...

Author: Germain M. C. I’m meeting Tili’s assistant tonight. Tili’s too busy to meet me herself, but I don’t mind—her celebrity, her beauty would eclipse me anyway. Headlights approach my vehicle in the dim, empty parking lot. They crawl up beside me as the driver’s ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Slowly revolving like Christmas decorations, sparkling under the spotlights of the Seacole. The barbarism of those we face brought an old quote back to me: ‘An honest soldier will regard the battlefield as dawn breaks across it on the ...

Author: Andrew Davis Bo buried their head in their hands and screamed. Fuck Jay, fuck his beautiful hair and his pretty face, fuck him, fuck him... they still really wanted to fuck him. Angry breakup sex was supposed to be a thing, that's what they'd been told, but when ...

Author: Alfred C. Airone They never really believed me. After fifteen years, I can say that. And now, of course, it’s too late to prepare for what comes. I had hoped that somehow, unexpectedly, I had changed time for the better. Maybe I did, but the enemy later ...

Author: Kristina T. Saccone It might have seemed like a lot of trouble to hide his LP’s in an airlock. Darren thought it was a necessary sacrifice to keep the vinyl untouched after the time Devok borrowed Pearl Jam’s Ten without asking and returned it with a scratch. There ...

Author: MG Gallows Alex came home at 3 AM. He wasn’t alone. Two sets of boots stomped down the trap door in our kitchen. Creepy vinyl music drifted up from downstairs. It was so weird, like he was embracing the stereotype. I pulled my pillow over my ears, but there ...

Author: Christopher Aguiar The door to the morgue bursts open. I hold my head against the desk in my office and hope it’s a bullet wound. The robots whir and beep, their usual custom, before lowering their brethren onto one of the tables. I eventually stroll out of my ...

Author: D J Lunan Hemmings stopped walking briefly, bathed in a swift glimpse of moonlight, and endured the sustained scream echoing across a forest sucked clean of landmarks, inmates, and healing energy by the storm’s whipping tail. He recognised that something or someone ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “Well, now. What do we have here?” I yelp in surprise and shoot him. He disappears from view. There’s a splash. “Did he just fall into water?” “Definitely sounded like something wet.” “Does that mean we’ve arrived somewhere ...

Author: Andrew Schoen Diana plucked her heavy bow from the infinite abyss. With its tremendous weight suddenly lightened, she extended her weapon high overhead, signaling that the hunt was about to commence. But this was not any ordinary hunt conducted by earthly bodies. ...

Author: Abi Marie Palmer As even more swampland is polluted by the humans, swamp monsters such as you and I must leave our natural habitats to pursue careers in the city. This is the end of an era for our kind: Gone are the days when a creature of the sludge could make an ...

Author: David Barber The humans are back! This time there were no deaths. We surrendered the moment their spacecraft landed. A carefully orchestrated show of humiliation and ritual throat baring. Now they stride amongst us, arrogant but wary. How are we to be trusted ...

Author: Ádám Gerencsér Happy End. Damn. I had reluctantly become the Hero, went on a journey that changed me, prevailed over the oddest of odds, put a distressed damsel out of her misery, defeated the menacing genius and renounced the spoils of victory, save for a ...

Author: Kelly B. Johnson The clear pot of water came to a boil. Wiping his hands clean on his apron, Monty waved a two-finger gesture over the stovetop’s controls, to lower the heat as he walked past it. He stopped short of the adjacent T-unit. “Hey!” with an ear given to ...

Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer Dorothy sighed and pushed herself back from the gurney on which her husband's motionless body lay. Not for the first time she wondered if she shouldn't just throw in the towel and buy a new one. His head plate removed, and the ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “You have to understand. He is an exemplar of all that is godless in our society. He and his ilk will lead us down the road to perdition.” I reached out and lifted his chin with a finger. “What will you do afterwards?” He looked ...

Author: D J Lunan From open-cast cobalt mines to litter-foraging on landfill, BudBot’s rental armada of vaguely-affordable ‘displacement robots’ were sanitising the human labour from the most awful, unsafe, and extreme jobs. Sitting in her mother’s basement in suburban ...