Literary Fiction Stories

Yuki Kazehara

By seven in the evening, the basement smelled of wet cardboard, paste, and the particular sadness of public paper. Kisaragi Nao stood at the long sorting table …

Dr. H. Ashford

The chapel had been sealed for eleven years, which was, in Mr. Oliver Mast's considered professional opinion, approximately eleven years longer than any respons…

Sofia Verlanti

As she pushed open the door, the soft glow of the kitchen light spilled out into the hallway, illuminating the worn wooden floorboards. The air was heavy with t…

Marcus Veil

1. 08:00 ZULU The airlock cycle hissed, a wet, pneumatically forced expulsion of stale nitrogen. Elara stepped into Habitat Module 9, the magnetic seals of her …

Cass Ferren

The freezer drawer sticks. Not because it's broken — because it's full. She pulls harder. The whole unit shifts on the linoleum, an inch, maybe less, and the so…

Dr. H. Ashford

The bell pull rang at half past two in the morning, which was, Mrs. Dorothea Crane reflected, a thoroughly inconvenient hour for any occurrence whatsoever, supe…

Cass Ferren

The puddle is smaller than she expected. That's the thing she will remember later — not the open freezer door, not the blue tray face-down on the linoleum like …

Yuki Kazehara

At nine-twelve, Akiyama Mio lifted the lid of Box 14 and knew at once that someone had touched the charts. She did not know it because anything was missing. It …

Elara Nightwood

The frost began on the third Thursday of May, when no frost had business arriving anywhere. Clara found it first on the clapper of the chapel bell, the oldest o…

Sofia Verlanti

As she pushed through the lobby doors, a wave of cool air enveloped her, a welcome respite from the humid evening. The sound of her heels clicking on the marble…

Sofia Verlanti

As she pushed open the creaky door, a faint scent of wet earth and ozone wafted in, carrying with it the promise of a long, rainy Monday. The sound of raindrops…

Elara Nightwood

The ferryman kept his daughter's shroud in the smallest room of his house, which had once been a closet for nets and twine. He had moved them to make space for …