A Slightly Different Sunrise from Mercury, Nevada
ShortStory 4,416 words Recommended by 4 award/anthology sources
"One hundred and eighty days. Today was it—the longest Annie had ever managed to stay at one job. The last time she had texted Charlie, it was to tell her “Charlie” was the name of a bomb and “Annie” was the name of another—this hadn’t gone as well as she had hoped. Now she had another excuse to reach out, after work."
Content warnings 2
illness-and-pandemicsubstance-use
Quasar links out; the story lives on Strange Horizons, where the author gets the click.