Fantasy
Mud Maidens Rise
At first, it was the not-quite-hidden things. Worms suspended from sticky silk, tree-trapping the unwary. Glassine jointed lines, half-helical, hardly seen vitreous shadows. Diamonds caught in fallen leaves.
Advertisement
Flash Fiction
Science Fiction
The Aliens Said They Wanted to Party
It was close to midnight on the second day of Diwali when we got the message. From deep space—far out past the Kuiper Belt and Pluto, which is not a planet anymore and probably pissed about it—a radio signal penetrated the atmosphere and reached our big-ass dishes in the desert made for this type of thing. Props to NASA, they only took four hours to decode the encryption algorithm.
Fantasy
A Guide on How to Meet the Deity of Many Faces
Here’s a list of items/materials you need for this journey. Please note that these items vary from the purpose of your meeting. Below is a breakdown. — If you have suffered hurt from a miscreant, plunderer, been swindled in trade, or assaulted in any manner, this section is for you. Buy either a three-month-old native brown broiler or a seven-year-old he-goat.
Science Fiction
The Only Writing Advice You’ll Ever Need to Survive Eldritch Horrors
1. Second Person POV: You’re a good person, although your ex doesn’t believe it—and here you are, writing in the second person, which your ex says is a limiting, even off-putting POV, simply to get his attention, to tell him your side of the story. Your boyfriend broke up with you last week after confessing he had doubts about your character. What really hurts is that since the breakup, he’s left your emails and texts unread.
Science Fiction
Chaos Theory
I want to tell you everything. I should tell you that you’re the greatest accomplishment our people have ever produced. I should tell you that you’re loved. I should tell you that even when you finally receive this message, I will still miss you every day. None of that is nearly enough. When I first discovered you, I told a friend. I won’t record her hash, in case everything goes wrong, but I call her Ruta. We don’t use our hashes when we whisper out of earshot or in the safety of our own minds.
Fantasy
And the Dreams That You Dare to Dream
Gemma checks and rechecks the stories and songs, but she can’t find anything that says you have to go back. There’s a lot of stuff about how you should, but most of it is about souls, and Gemma is pretty sure she doesn’t believe in that shit. Souls are for people who fit, and she never has. Souls are what they threaten when you don’t do what you should.
Science Fiction
The Last Thing They See Is Laika
So much for Shapcott’s harbinger of astronautical doom. He hasn’t seen her at all. Or anyone, obviously. There was a lot of chatter just after the accident—Mission Control and half the experts on the planet trying to find a solution, any solution. It’s quiet now. They’ve figured out what he knew from the moment it happened. It’s all down to physics, as usual. Force, kinetic energy, and gravity. The debris that made an unannounced appearance at his EVA.
Fantasy
Done Deal
As with Robert Johnson, a lot of people who believed in the devil also believed that Jack Malagan had made a deal with him. Jack was a six-string prodigy, getting pulled onstage by the likes of Grohl and Kravitz by the time he was twelve. He could swing the blues as hard as Bonamassa, but it was just the foundation for his love for rock.
Science Fiction
Limping Toward Sunrise
Lester swung his chainsaw, mowing a path through the mob of needle-toothed quantum parasites, while Kit batted clean-up with her Louisville Slugger. Across the plain of dark rock, their destination: a whirling, gnashing portal that could doom all humanity. It wasn’t ideal timing for an awkward conversation, but it never was.
Fantasy
Salemo
There is a city called Salemo. Salemo sits atop a cliffside at the edge of a sea. The water of that sea is always clearest blue, except when it is clearest green, or clearest purple. The colors change with the tides, but the waves are always safe to swim in, with schools of luminescent fish dashing between the coral reefs. In Salemo, you can spend your days lying on its pristine beaches.
