All Stories

Luc Devereaux

Rain beads on the case. Black leather, scuffed at the corners. My split lip stings when I lick it. The locker hums. Fluorescent light buzzes like a dying insect…

Marcus Veil

1. The maintenance light on Pump 4-Delta flickered at 0.5 hertz, a rhythmic yellow pulse bathing the corridor in a jaundice glow. Elias knelt, his knees clickin…

Yuki Kazehara

Mina Hoshino arrived with shellac under her fingernails and the distinct hope that nobody would notice. The museum was still closed. Mist lay over the river beh…

Cass Ferren

The freezer opens with a sound like a seal breaking. Not dramatic. Not the gasp of a coffin lid. Just the soft adhesive pop of rubber pulling from rubber, frost…

Elara Nightwood

The fish began to swim backward three nights before the flood season ended. Kael noticed it first in the blue lantern—the one she kept above her workbench where…

Marcus Veil

1. The atmospheric pressure inside Relay Station 4-Kilo was 0.98 bar, a sterile, recycled enclosure that smelled of ozone and dead static. Elias wiped the conde…

Sofia Verlanti

On a damp Thursday morning, Clara returned from the market with rain-darkened paper bags, a loaf split at the heel, and a small bouquet crushed against her wris…

Yuki Kazehara

At 6:10 a.m., when the night porter came back from the side entrance with cold in his sleeves and a complaint prepared for the boiler, he found the room key on …

Luc Devereaux

The Peugeot’s engine ticks like a bomb. I crouch, fingers numb. Rain drips from the wheel arch onto my wrist. The manila envelope is taped there, warm from the …

Sofia Verlanti

As she stood in the entryway, the rainy Monday morning light seeping through the grimy window above the door, Lena's fingers brushed against the chipped radiato…

Elara Nightwood

The bell began to shiver at dusk, when the sun had half-disappeared behind the treeline and the air hung thick with the particular stillness that comes before b…

Marcus Veil

1. The alarm did not wake Elia; the silence that followed it did. The hydrostatic pump in the hydroponics bay stuttered twice, emitted a sound like a wet lung c…