The Lights of Wonderland by Rebecca Birch It’s never truly dark here on Rigel Five, or Wonderland, as Alison and I re-christened it upon making landfall. Nighttime is a heavy blue blanket softened by the bioluminescent fungus forest, its mushroom caps gleaming rose, periwinkle, and violet. We wandered among the thick blue stalks, swathed in…
Exchange by Katherine Quevedo When I got to Mario Reyes’s dorm room, I heard him scuffling around, opening and closing drawers as if he had a girl coming over. I smirked as I knocked. If he’d seen my room, he wouldn’t have bothered cleaning. He opened the door. “Hello, Leland,” he said. “Please come…
At Least No One Else Will Suffer By Dawn Vogel The king will be dead before the end of this celebration of our marriage. In the days to come, some will say that I married him, and murdered him, solely for my own benefit. Who else stands to gain as much as the queen,…
A Salamander’s Wisdom by Rebecca Birch It didn’t hurt much, dying. A sharp, bitter taste when my teeth broke the red berry’s skin. Tingling on my tongue and the insides of my cheeks. A sudden tightness in my chest. No, dying didn’t hurt—not near as much as living while my daughter wasted away…
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…
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…
Phoenix, Fallen By Rebecca Birch The Phoenix Corporation complex perches atop a volcanic ridge overlooking the Pacific. Its vari-copper cladding catches the rising sun, turning the buildings to flame. I used to love to watch the building burn like its namesake, but today can think of nothing but Kokua, plummeting through the atmosphere, his…
