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…
Thought Adjuster By D. J. Moore Melanie looked across the room at Jake. He was already staring at her. Once he saw she was looking at him, he flashed her his famous smile that made her feel excited and embarrassed all at once. She shyly smiled back before quickly looking back to the teacher….
Tears Not Lost to Time by Chris Behrsin Adam died drinking at a solitary table in a pub called The Angel and The Scythe. It wasn’t so much the vomit that killed him, since the patrons had been quick to turn him on his side as soon as he collapsed, but the stroke that…
For the Next Curator By Helen French The robots were exactly as Eleanor had left them but for one difference. Robot Jora had a white envelope on its serving tray. Printed words on it read: For the next curator. Eleanor picked it up, wondering. She’d been in charge of the collection for two months…
Adaptation by Jennifer R. Povey Elaine had been to plenty of crazy planets, but this one took the cake. For starters, it was in a binary system, and that always made for extra weirdness. Two suns overlapping each other in a way that kept night always short. The natives did not seem bothered by…
We Live in Dreams and All the Dreams Are Dying by Michael Haynes It’s simple as this — if Stephanie stops dreaming, we die. ~ There’s me, Hez, and Lil. We play the roles in Stephanie’s dreams. Last night I was a tiger, Hez was a cobra, and Lil was the ballerina who tamed…
Spare Parts By Brynn MacNab The first time I visited the engine room, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. The rest of the ship ran to sleek lines, clean corridors, and a kind of quasi-military minimalism. But when I opened the round engine room door, my sense were assaulted with…
If Issue 1 brought me excitement, releasing Issue 2 brings me joy. It means we are still going strong and people want to read us. Issue 1 brought a lot of success, at one point crashing our website for about ten minutes. That was exciting, but also terrifying. It proves that the issue was more…
