Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The mist-shrouded marsh is spotted with steaming pools of purple liquid, which, unlike the mud, won’t grip you like glue. It’ll either wash the blue-black slime from your boots, or you’ll disappear into it, never to be seen again. Some say ...

Author: M. M. Kaufman “What is the color of seashell?” I made a loud hmm noise and scanned the paint swatches spread across the rug. If Tea Olive kept this up, she would have the entire apartment covered in no time. That’s if I could find more colors. I picked up a few ...

Author: Zannier Alejandra There is comfort in routine. Wake up, pray, shower, and get dressed. Regulation boots, black cargo pants, black shirt, and, lastly, the hood. Mollifying inertia, the only thing that keeps me going. One hundred and thirty-eight. That’s my number. ...

Author: Nilgin Yusuf I had so much more to do. Physically, I’d almost reached the seventh milestone and according to the Decree of Zenith, that was it. Show over. But mentally, no. There were planets I still wanted to visit: Copernicus, Vellium, Quadus; men I wanted to ...

Author: Andrea Goyan In the stark examination room, I cradled Maxine. When I kissed her forehead, her bitty fingers grabbed my nose, and she giggled. My six-month-old miracle baby. “There are worse things,” the doctor said. I kissed her again. “I don’t think so.” Penner ...

Author: Jeremy Marks No safety or surprise, the end -The Doors Our city was built to live with water, water and ice. Our city was an engineering marvel, a hydraulic metropolis. It managed the drainage of two rivers, two giant serpents slithering ...

Author: Ken Carlson As mayor of Chathamville, a small town, Collette had to work late often. Don and the kids adjusted. She was in her office to spend a few minutes on a Sunday. She wasn’t due back ’til Tuesday, but she liked to make sure nothing caught her by ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I’m free of traffic and clear of the city. Time to open this beastie up. I press the accelerator and the response is like a gigantic hand pressing my body into the seat. In the stowage space I hear bullion smashing into the boxes of gems ...

Author: John McNeil The weather was too good. It should be twenty degrees with snow on the ground, but it was sixty-five and sunny. Milo hiked the forest outside Edgewood with unease. Edgewood was a mean, hypocritical, self-regarding city, a place of enlightenment so bright ...

Author: Rick Tobin “Who brought that thing on deck when we’re closing in on the ORC?” Captain Telsey snapped at his first officer, Eloy Thompson. They were a generation apart with Thompson’s massive athletic structure a contrast to the wizened, gray-haired ...

Author: Elizabeth Hoyle Sloane sounds like a sea monster after he emerges from cryo. Not that I know what one actually sounds like. Humans are mostly composed of water, so I figure I’m technically accurate. “Date and time, CompBot?” He asks, more growl than question. “And ...

Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks Poor me, the Israelite -Desmond Dekker When the trawlers made their move, shaking off dromedaries and clumps of grass, none of the old fishers noticed. In Kazakh and Uzbek cafes, places where patrons sat on stools made from salvaged steel and ...

Author: Robert Beech The water off the point that juts out from the beach at St. Cabo is deep, really deep. The fishermen who sit out at the end of the point all day talk about the strange fish they have brought up sometimes, fish with huge eyes to catch the dim light far ...

Author: Connie Millard His eyes are going. The images on the other side are blurry when he attempts to peer through walls now. He squints. Is that the criminal or a floor lamp? Sighing, he decides that he can problem-solve when he arrives and bounds off the ground with a ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The world burned. Several places only did so until they sank. Congregations sang paeans to the skies, the fires, the waters, or the earth. The rest of us listened to what we had while we could. All of us heard the songs coming from distant ...

Author: Steven Lombardi He boarded the ship, trailed by gray robes that hid his emaciated frame. An escort of guards met him in the docking bay, and per the Astronautical Law, he requested that they replenish his ship’s fuel, water, and oxygen. Then he relished the sweet, ...

Author: Madeline DeCoste The silence is unbearable. So too is the darkness, so too is the light; all are absolute. The primordial and the pseudo-holy converge from all sides. Like warmth, like humanity, the stars and home are unreachable. This is the wild, lonesome ...

Author: Beck Dacus I watched the luminous tails of thousands of ships decelerating into the Alpha Centauri system from all directions. A stray few of them fell prey to my frag mines, but most maneuvered or blasted their way through. *Good,* I thought. *Keep them cocky.* ...