A Single Dad’s Guide to Things That Go Bump in the Night By Sarina Dorie “Excuse me. Ahem. Excuse me,” a high, feminine voice said. Something poked my feet. I blinked at a pink glow of light and sat up. A frazzled woman in a shepherdess costume stood beside the couch where I slept,…
The Half-Life of a Broken Heart by N.R. Lambert We hear the nursery long before we see it. Feel it too, despite the heavily insulated walls. Deep metronomic concussions roll down the corridor and crash through us. When we reach the entry, marked simply, “Hearts,” the door slides open and a technician ushers us…
When the Tides Bring You Back by Hayley Stone If I knew their names, I would sing to them of my little island home in the sea. I would sing until the inside of my throat began to peel like the skin of a grapefruit, until my words became one long screech, the kind…
Evilla, Mistress of Pestilence, Queen of Consumption, Bringer of Death Must Regretfully Decline Your Invitation to Be Another Tortured Antihero By Garrett Croker Evilla the Mistress of Pestilence squirmed as her backstory began to fill in. For so long, she’d reveled in her fairy tale role as the harbinger of death without once needing…
Move Fast and Break Things by Beth Goder The smashing field stretched out for miles. A wasteland of things. Qape brought her foot down on a lamp, which split in two. “Nice,” said Ada, who’d found a bat and was swinging it at a dresser. Sweat stood out on her new skin. They stomped…
Peace in the Valley By Rebecca Birch The effort of walking to the open hatch of her rusted lifepod made Margaret’s body ache. Fighting a wave of dizziness, she gripped the edge. Sunlight broke over the mountains, illuminating the valley she’d inhabited for the last three years. The tart scent of the ubiquitous blue…
Okuritsuridashi by D.A. Xiaolin Spires The earth shakes and a deafening silence fills the sacred space of the Ryōgoku Sumo Hall, as India-hailed Monsoon Maker squats and watches everyone lurch in the audience. The ceiling cracks open and large chunks of plaster fall. Screams break through the silence, as audience members fan out from…
The Bee Who Would Not Dance by Thomas K. Carpenter In the time of smoke and brush, when the fire-poems sung their destruction across the sea of flowers with increasing frequency, the Empire of the Five Eyes came under attack by the flying eaters. Though many wings were dispatched to fend off the colony’s…
Leap Day by Mandi Jourdan Clark stared down at the bold red letters printed on his palm, which still stung from the lasers used to etch them. “Murder/suicide. February 29, 2188.” “There has to be a mistake,” he managed. When his brother Ivan had taken the PropheTest, he’d learned he still had thirty-five years…
Half Prince by Chloe Garner The lights were… clever. She stopped at the entrance to the garden, watching the way the lights shifted, creating motion and shadow everywhere around her, things rattling bushes, dashing through gaps. It was all fake, but she couldn’t take all of it in and be sure none of it…
