Fiction

Reading Time: 4 minutesBranch by flexing branch, Mike climbed higher. Powdery bark stained his fingers green. At the top, he laughed and drank in the view, from his family’s tiered concrete blockhouse to the river’s patrol boats. “Come on up here, Sim—” Mike almost fell when a freckled face appeared beside him. “This is dangerous,” Simon said. “We should go home.”

Reading Time: 2 minutesWhile what we were about to do was arguably harmless, it was definitely illegal. I kept wondering whether we were right to do this at all.

Reading Time: 2 minutesIn the small town of Nowhere, / on a swampy river shore, / appeared a young woman, / covered fully in gore. / She danced through the streets / with a twirling step, / blood dotting the ground / wherever she leapt.

Reading Time: 4 minutesAzabelle pulled the pins that held up her hair. Dark curls tumbled around her face. She felt Shadow’s presence, of course, but she’d felt it so long she barely registered the danger.

Reading Time: 4 minutesShe kept her eyes shut. She ran deep into the wilderness. And as the sun flickered out, and the sky went black, and she held all the light of the world behind her eyelids, she tried to pretend she could bury her pain, and she wouldn’t die alone in the cold of the mountains.

Reading Time: 4 minutesThe vet said that my grief would modulate over time and eventually become a part of who I was, something I would cease to question, like the existence of my own arms.

Reading Time: 5 minutesI decided to go find Death myself. It was 2023, and a lady could do that. I didn’t need to wait around for someone to fetch me. I could do the fetching.

Reading Time: 4 minutesShe wondered if she should even say it. She didn’t even want to think it. But Wyx definitely had to know, had a right to know probably. “There’s someone else on board.”

Reading Time: 3 minutesHe used to have choices; now, he has a hunger. He needs to find his fiancée.

Reading Time: 4 minutesKen’ichi’s white hazmat suit shines like a beacon as he breaks over the ridge, even through all the rain. His gait is slow and uneven. I never expected to see him again.

Reading Time: 4 minutesNo magic in it. She didn’t need any. She just turned around looking some kind of way, and bung he went. Sometimes, a person sees their future in stark clarity and chooses to roll off the coil while the going’s good, and that’s the best thing that could be said about Amajane’s father.

Reading Time: 5 minutesIdyllic was the only word Brody could think to describe it. How had he missed this bit of paradise so close to camp?
“—ody?!” The static hiss of Control cut sharply through his helmet, killing the serenity settling upon him. Brody sighed. His last check-in couldn’t have been, what? Fifteen minutes ago? 

Reading Time: 4 minutes“What’s mechanical, Papa?” I asked.
“What you said. The neurons,” he replied.
Neurons? Then I remembered.

Reading Time: 4 minutesMarco backs away until he hits a door. He reaches behind him, turns the handle, and falls into the room. The door swings shut. He backs away, waiting for Big Bob to come through it, running through the best next words to choose.