Fiction

Fantasy

In its dreams, the thing they call “Kos” sleeps deep and drowned in the clutch of the ice-cold trenches, where the pressure is a loving clasp around its arms and tail, where it is near-disintegrate, more spirit than substance, more magic than meat. Then it wakes up in the bathtub. The deoxygenated water filters tepidly through Kos’s gills. It gasps, coughing through a windpipe and lungs that weren’t meant to be so exercised, even with the “humidifier” that pumps clouds of soft wet air into the bathroom. Irina had set it up the fifth night, when Kos had started coughing lacy bright red sprays of blood.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Science Fiction

City of One

by Stephen S. Power

In City of One, the object is to avoid being seen. You begin at a random point in the city. If you are seen, you die. You cannot leave the city. If you try, you die. Your wellbeing starts at 1 out of 100. At 0, you die. To maintain your well-being, steal food, water, and shelter. If caught, you die. Remaining unseen does not increase your well-being. Sleep does not increase your well-being or decrease your exhaustion. Remember: You are surrounded.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Fantasy

On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting

by Bogi Takács

Dear Dr. Erzsébet Krajcsik-Nagy,

I am contacting you as a member of the general public, and not as a fellow scholar, though I must say my chosen field of art history does have certain similarities to yours. I read the interview with you in the online edition of the Plains Dispatch with great interest, and went on to seek out your research article mentioned therein, titled “On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting.” I believe I have additional information which could shed light on the case study you mentioned.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Science Fiction

The Girlfriend Experience

by C.Z. Tacks

Author spotlight

The company man’s smile showed off his perfect teeth. Evie hated that smile; it meant he was going to kill her again. Him staring down the camera above the Manic Pixie’s door didn’t help. Even with the dead pixels mildewing the monitor, Evie got the full gut-liquidating effect.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Fantasy

Apeiron

by Cadwell Turnbull

Author spotlight

Outside the cabin, there was snow. There had always been snow, far as the eye could see, and further still. It might be true that the snow extended forever in every direction, sitting heavy on mountaintops and green pines, on frozen lakes and frigid tundra. Asha hadn’t tried to go very far from the cabin. […]

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Science Fiction

The Place I Came To

by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko

The place I came from, the port across the sea of stars, the isle town edged with sturgeon scales, was built on basalt. The place I came to, the city at the centre of the field of view, the once-ringed origin of dreams, was too large and too important to answer to a single kind of rock, but the first I encountered there was an unpolished railing of coarse-grained granite—the kind that leaves little slivers behind in your palm, but when you go to investigate you find they are only imprints where stone has been.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Fantasy

Beginning Before and After the End

by Jake Stein

I’m going to explain everything, I promise, but we don’t have much time. For now, you just have to trust me. In three seconds, I need you to raise your right hand. You know, like you’ve got a question in school. (Shouldn’t be too hard; I know you’ve got tons of questions.) Okay—wonderful. By now you must have raised your hand, or we’d both be gone already.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Science Fiction

Last Meal Aboard the Awassa

by Kel Coleman

Author spotlight

Gardener ladled dark-purple porridge into her primary digestion sac, staring absently out the viewport at black space and the distant smudge of the planet they had come to study. The simple meal and the gesture it represented soothed her after a long, thorny morning in a section of the growth bay that was in full flower and had needed hand pollinating. Though the other crew members around the mess made do with the usual break time assortment, Cook had steamed and spiced osard grains just for her before going off shift to nap in their rooms.

In Sep. 2025 (Issue 184)

Fantasy

Anti-Capitalism vs. the Man of Flowers

by Naomi Kanakia

One time at a convention I ran across the Man of Flowers, the Superman of Daffodils, a long-haired guy, indestructible (of course), who slept in his car and drank a lot of cough syrup and didn’t really fight crime, unless the crimes were happening pretty close by. He was old by then, maybe fifty years old, but with stubble and green eyes and that ageless Tom Petty So-Cal face, and we’d gotten used to the idea that this particular ubermensch was more super-hero vibe than actuality.

In Aug. 2025 (Issue 183)

Science Fiction

To Access Seven Obelisks, Press Enter

by V.M. Ayala

Author spotlight

Zan’s supervisor tossed the glass square onto their rusting desk. A glass-rendered construct of a silver ticket hovered in the air, text shimmering. Zan held their breath as they re-read it until they were sure their credentials were correct.

In Aug. 2025 (Issue 183)