Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Fiction

Fantasy

Instructions for the Broken Hearted

You Will Need: – a Heart in a jar; – a Knife (sharp); – a Tarp. Prep: Lay down tarp on clean surface. Place prybar and knife within reach. Place self on tarp. Instructions: Think of your most recent ex. Now, take the knife in your dominant hand.

Science Fiction

Money in the Bank

“I lined up a new gig for you,” said the Glovemaster. “All you have to do is protect one special guy.” I sat in my trailer with my Bluetooth headphones on and my laptop perched on an Amazon box. I wore a boonie hat with a militia logo.

Fantasy

You Will Not Live to See M/M Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension

SETTING: The adyton at the Temple of Delphi. Smoke rises from a vent in the floor, partially obscuring PYTHIA, who is sitting on a high stool carefully positioned behind the smoke. ACHILLES stands, supplicant. Behind him, the CHORUS looks at their phones.

Science Fiction

In the Nest Beneath the Mountain-Tree, Your Sisters Dance

Dr. Nirwater Leera only agreed to study Mr. Girat because he is supposed to be dead. Tomorrow, they will meet in person for the first time. But today, Leera wastes time by staring at a cellophane bag full of Girat’s vomit.

Fantasy

The Boy Who Ran from His Faerie Heart

Here is a boy, barely thirteen, broken, lying in the road, twisted metal around him, twisted metal in him. Here is his heart, pierced by the shrapnel of the truck, a truck no longer, now a confusion of tangled wire and torn steel and glass pebbles.

Science Fiction

Monopticon

I am thinking of a word. I will not tell you what it is. I will tell you a few other words. The words you were looking for, though not all the words you were hoping for. Some of the words you were hoping for, I’ll let you have. Such as these: You were right. Doesn’t that feel good?

Fantasy

All the Colours of the Death Knell

What is the colour of pain? In the growing carmine tide that creeps in her heart-mind, Mathilde would swear all that hurts is red, like her scratched hand, her wounded wrists, her slashed ankles. It’s the blood trickling from her fingers.

Science Fiction

The Letters They Left Behind

My dearest Evie: I am so terribly sorry, my darling daughter, but by the time you read this letter, I will be gone. I wish I could have delayed my departure long enough to attend your high school graduation as I always promised I would, but the timing was outside of my control.

Fantasy

The Blade and the Bloodwright

The soldiers slit the woman’s throat every evening before bedding down so they can sleep without worry. She mocks them but never fights the knife coming to her. Two of the men still take turns watching her in case she heals before the rest of the cadre wakes.

Science Fiction

The Things You Can Maintain Yourself

Jill wiped xylem from her gloves and closed her car’s leafy hood. She’d kept Snapdragon on the road for almost twenty years, and if the world would leave her alone, she could keep him alive for five more, easy. It wouldn’t, and she couldn’t.

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