Literary Fiction Stories

Yuki Kazehara

At two ten in the morning, Akiyama Rei stopped with her hand still on the light switch and looked again. The brass key should have been hanging from a thin cott…

Cass Ferren

The dresser has warped away from the wall. Not dramatically — an inch, maybe less. But enough to change the geometry of the room, to create a space where a spac…

Sofia Verlanti

As she stepped into the kitchen, the weight of the cracked teacup wrapped in a dish towel felt like a fragile secret in her hands. The evening light, filtered t…

Yuki Kazehara

At seven twelve, while the corridor still held the day’s heat like a grudge, Morita Eri found the key under a warm rice bowl. She had gone up to 3B because Mrs.…

Elara Nightwood

The box had been left open, which meant someone had looked inside and decided to walk away. Cael found her three hours before the market would close for the sea…

Sofia Verlanti

As she stepped into the apartment, the weight of her night shift still clinging to her like a damp shroud, she was met with an unexpected sight: her ex-husband,…

Dr. H. Ashford

The rain had been falling since Hexham, and by the time Mr. Gerald Poole arrived at the gates of Varden House, it had achieved a quality less like weather than …

Marcus Veil

1. 04:12 ZULU. The humidity in the hydroponics bay had breached 94 percent. Elias wiped his goggles with a synthetic chamois, but the condensation reformed in s…

Yuki Kazehara

By nine ten on Tuesday morning, the third permit had made Kuroda Mina stop turning pages. She sat at the long counter in Municipal Records with her finger resti…

Sofia Verlanti

As she stepped into the kitchen, the paper-wrapped cake still cool against her wrist, she was greeted by the unfamiliar sight of two extra places set at the nar…

Yuki Kazehara

At three seventeen, with rain fretting at the archive windows like a patient creditor, Shiba Itsuki opened the harbor office ledger and felt paper where there s…

Elara Nightwood

The bells had begun ringing at dusk, which meant Osric would climb the tower with a question he did not yet know how to ask. They rang once each, starting with …