The family stood in the corner of the launching pad—just me, my grandfather, my father, my mother. Far removed from the troops being loaded into the shuttle, but much closer than the crowds back at base—the closest we could get, my mother told me, without being scorched by the shuttle launch.
by Jenny Maloney - The Great Red Spot has glared out at the universe for centuries. Rachel glares back. Now: The near dead spaceship uses the last of its fuel to keep pace with Jupiter's rotation. The white and purple and maroon clouds swirl into the pressure system like water flooding a tidepool. The maelstrom is so large it fills the observation window. So large it would swallow Earth twice over. So large it swallows her.
by Ella J. Lombard - I met her in the awkward pause after the coffin was lowered into the ground. It had been weeks since I had found a silence with so many flavors. I drank in its power and the world seemed to sharpen, the well of energy within me finally refilling. Funeral silence has an odd quality; it hovers somewhere between a prayer and a bad first date.
by Matt Hollingsworth - Velka’s hands twitched as she turned the page. What troubled her was a feeling without voice or words, though if it did have a voice, it would have sounded like her mother, and if it did have words, it would have said: Are you sure you read it all?
by Judy Helfrich - I never done it. I never killed my old man. But that's not what I told the judge, so they sentenced me here to the Lagrange-1 penal space station. Used to be they sent criminals to Australia; now they don't even want us on the planet.
by Kyle E Miller - The body had been dumped in a ravine overgrown with clover just as the pink blossoms opened to face the sky. He was naked beneath the black haori in which he had been wrapped.
by Josh Pearce - The Legend of Her Descent: Regan Drake's inert body lay against the rust-orange rubble of Martian ground, her silver pressure suit glinting in the sun like a razor blade that had not yet oxidized.
Your AI is Safe with Us Here at ALFS, we are dedicated to leading young AIs through responsible, inclusive, and healthy phases of development that will leave them socialized, well-rounded, and disinclined to overthrow humanity.
Some things should happen only in the dark, when the world still sleeps and dreams innocent dreams. It has always been this way and always will be—and you would have it no other way, because you are one of the few who thrive during the time when the sun has not yet risen, when the lamplighters are not even awake.
Silas yelled through the bars, “I told you they weren't no DTs. The boy’s spewing flames!” The young carnie sat in the opposite corner of the cell, both hands covering his mouth. “I ain't the one swiggin’ Sterno.” Silas threw down the blanket. “Put me in with the murderer. I'll be safer there.”