An Even Greater Cold to Come
ShortStory 3,600 words Recommended by 2 award/anthology sources
"It’s cruel of the soldiers to come when Mama is so sick and so pregnant. I tell this to Dijkstra, and she agrees. Then she goes to Mama and clambers into her lap, which is now too small to hold me and almost too small to hold Dijkstra, and says it in a sweet sad voice as if it’s her thought, not mine. Mama smiles and strokes my sister’s straw-colored hair."
Content warnings 3
body-horrorchild-deathviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Clarkesworld, where the author gets the click.