Author: John Albertson The dinner bell rings, and we line up in pairs. My pair today is Veronica. I don’t like her. I take a plate from the VendingLady - brown MEET, maybe synthbeef, with powdery mash and what they call gravy but my mum would have called dishwater. ...

Author: Stuart K Watson As I wake, I think: Today would be a great day to start the next world war. I look outside. The lawn is still there, with the neighbor’s scooter lying on its side in the middle of it. Unwarranted incursion. The trees are still standing. Birds still ...

Author: Alzo David-West Cold rain was falling. A man in a worn jacket entered a private clinic. He put his broken umbrella in a stand by the door. The young receptionist at the front desk asked if he had an appointment. She handed him a form and asked him to wait. He sat on ...

Author: John Chadwick He lays his hand upon the lever, the cold metal sinking into his palm as his fingers slowly wrap around the handle, feeling as though the rigor mortis was already settling in. Thoughts swirl and smash inside his skull reminding him of the mechanized ...

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 ...