Months after mysterious aliens scattered their spacecraft across North America, no one has a clue what they want. Avery knows what one of them wants, though: it wants a tour.
Content warnings 3
animal-harmdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Ambiguous Ending
221 free-to-read stories tagged “Ambiguous Ending”
"My dear Cara, Thank you for sending me the photos, I never thought I’d feel this way again. But the pictures help. They really do. I can’t stop looking at them. Thank you for scanning and emailing them to me. These photos and our old videos are all I’ve...
Lady Ida's visit to Venus was memorialized by the beautiful floral papercuts she made there, but this sensational story reveals the secret of the real purpose of her visit.
Content warnings 4
deathsubstance-useviolencewar
Zanna settles into a remote mountain cabin to write her next book. No internet. No phone. No distractions.
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
In which we learn how the new court magician was recruited and find out how even a “market rat” can qualify. We learn that there is real magic, but it comes with a price.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
Anat doesn't remember her parents, but she loves her brother Oscar. They live in a wonderful world full of strange creatures and machines. The more she learns, the stranger things seem.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"My country may seem strange to you. There are times when it seems strange to me. I wake and work. I work then rest. And in between I say things, and I don’t say things. Because, as you’ll learn, in my country, what you say is important. But what you don’t...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
When Megian sets out her homemade book exchange, a mysterious neighbor starts trading objects and art for the books, but some of the items don’t seem to come from this world at all.
Content warnings 1
war
"The tenth time Jakey broke the rules, he put a sandwich in the mailbox where the window boy could get it. Mom had taken her sleep-quick pills and gone to bed after dinner, on account of her headaches. And Dad was dozing in front of the TV, chin on his...
Content warnings 5
abusebody-horrorchild-abusedeathviolence
"1926 Washington, D.C. Shaw District “There’s a man on the front stoop.” The words spilled from her in a much more mundane way than Judy had expected, considering how her neck was fluttering with her excited pulse. Alvin looked up from the new Langston...
Content warnings 3
abusedeathviolence
"Doc, there’s a ... hole growing in me,” the alien said through the spherical interpreting machine hovering over them. Semau barely registered the word “hole,” so taken was she by the sight of the alien. If she were just a tad less caring about propriety,...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 4
body-horrordeathsexual-contentsubstance-use
The human terraformers didn’t realize there was native intelligence until it was too late to save them. Now it’s just a question of what to do with the time that remains.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Sera does a great job at search and rescue, but she has conflicts with her handler, who has trouble coping with an enhanced intelligence dog.
Content warnings 1
animal-harm
The crew of the Themis colony write home about their struggles with a mission and a world that seems to be more than a little off.
Content warnings 2
mental-illnesssubstance-use
A refugee from drowned New York City tries to reconnect with his teenage son during a break from the menial work he does on ice boats.
Content warnings 2
homophobiaviolence
"When Mark told you he was marrying your clone, you said “congratulations” on autopilot, because that’s what you say when your friend tells you they’re getting married, and you had promised to stay friendly after the divorce. You studied his face, his...
Content warnings 1
child-abuse
En route to α Centauri, the ship AI awakens a psychotherapist to help a crew member who thinks she’s seeing monsters.
On the moon, Laurie returns from investigating the aftermath of a large, nearby impact with nothing interesting to report. Until a second “Laurie” turns up a few minutes later.
A day laborer hired to clean up a flooded creek outside of Boulder, Colorado uncovers what could be a valuable find—if it doesn't kill him first.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
"Irada the blacksmith ran a hand over the dents in Muallim’s chest. Most were superficial, but one was deeper than the others. The paint here was chipped. She could see some corrosion underneath. “I’m going to have to remove your whole chest plate,...
A young man working on the moon during a construction boom keeps seeing two men doing crazy things in the middle of nowhere. Men who leave no trace and whom no one else can see.
Claire meets a handsome older man at a dinner party held in a virtual reality where something has gone subtly wrong.
"Episode 60 Transcription by @jbutler22 0:01 Murray: Hey there, I’m Dean Murray and this is a special episode of Homewrecker. We’re on the road this week, heading up to historic [garbled] where we’ll venture [garbled] outside the city to see the colonial...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
A photographer’s obsession with an unsettled subject exposes two friends to a darkness that won’t be contained by frames…
Content warnings 3
child-deathsuicideviolence
"The following documents have been uncovered by the Bromley Independent with regards to recent events at the local cemetery: the unofficial statements of Mr. Cyril Harris, city councilman; the recently discovered journals of Miss Celia Smith; letters from...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
An AI car is caught between its ruthless employer and the people she hurt…
Content warnings 1
death
"When Peng opens the door, he finds himself face to face with a boy who looks exactly like himself. The other Peng stands in the doorway, as though surprised to have been caught. Two eyes peering out from the dark. Fluffy black hair, messy enough to stand...
Content warnings 4
animal-harmchild-abusedeathviolence
A magician dies on stage performing his most famous trick, but what really happened?
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
What if you tried to teleport and succeeded? What if you couldn’t manage to do it again?
Ten-year-old Polly wishes she could see fairies like her friend Isabelle can. She wishes a lot of things. Not all wishes should come true.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
abusesexual-violenceviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
abusegenocideviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
The sister of an abducted child is haunted by a sinister figure who may or may not be real…
"Her name was Alyssa, and nobody knew who she was. When she was a child, perhaps, her mother had known. But that was long ago, when she was somebody else. As a young woman she had sometimes dropped clues leading like a trail of breadcrumbs into the dark...
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
A private detective tries to find a source for a device that makes you feel really good when you hold it. So good he can’t think of anything else. A device that’s out of this world.
Content warnings 2
self-harmsubstance-use
On a decades-long journey to another star, two men take shifts managing the sleeping crew, but after a year or two, they’re ready to kill each other.
Content warnings 1
violence
Meant to clear plastic from the sea, the artificial “squids” have put the oceans off-limits to humanity. Not everyone takes that lying down.
Content warnings 1
death
A woman appears to be helping a child recover from some form of brain damage. His perceptions and memory are off, but something is off about her too.
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathviolence
"November 1938 “What we are looking for,” said the doctor, “are photographs to help us document the treatment’s effect upon the patient. We need a picture before the treatment and afterward. Those are for the hospital files. But we also want photos taken...
Content warnings 3
homophobiamental-illnessviolence
"It is two days since our original projected mission end date. We are running out of oxygen and we are trapped in the throat of a god. Technology and a prudent safety review panel have kept casualties on deep dives low, but abyssal layer dives have always...
Content warnings 1
death
"The first night it was a kitchen chair set neatly on top of the polished walnut table, which the father had ordered from a luxury furniture dealer around the same time the nanny came to live with the family in the new gated tract home development, where...
Content warnings 1
abuse
"Six hours left. “What do you want to eat sweetheart?” She looks at me expectantly, holding out her phone to show me the menu. “It is your special day. I’ll get you anything you want.” I smile, shake my hands. “Eomma, it’s fine. You don’t have to do this.”...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
A post-human civilization of synthetic beings, fixated on the concept of children, grapples with the meaning of life…after life ceases to exist.
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
"There was only one freight car down the wall into the Flood District, and it was shared by all bulk service providers who came bearing gifts: maintenance workers, solar installers, grocery and package delivery, and the like. A bing-bong meant another...
Author : Michelle Denham Narrator : Isabel Kim Host : Shingai Njeri Kagunda Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh Discuss on Forums PodCastle 721: A Chestnut, A Persimmon, A Cunning Lie is a PodCastle original. Content warning for the loss of a child....
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
body-horror
"Once upon a time, in that place right near to us, there lived a man and a woman, together as man and wife, though, like most peasants, no one had married them nor given them any word. It was simply that their love for each other was stronger even than...
Content warnings 3
abusechild-abuseviolence
"Your grandfather is dead. Your instance gave you the news: a phone call in the dead of night that woke you from a dead sleep. “Hello?” you said, accented with slumber. “Is this Soyoung Kang?” your own voice said, accented with Korean. “Yes,” you said. The...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"Before I bothered traveling for six months to see it for myself, Sunfire had been described to me in glowing terms as a palace in the sky. Phrases like that immediately trigger my alarms. I begin to suspect that someone’s trying to sell me something."
Even as a grad student, Sarah Levy focused on her research to the detriment of her family, and things only get worse when she makes a breakthrough discovery.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
A woman protects an illegal AI from a government team that’s trying to erase it.
Content warnings 1
violence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
sexual-contentsexual-violence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
A mother talks to a scan of her daughter taken just a month before, ah, something happened. It’s a short conversation but it packs quite a punch.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
After memory-loss plague strikes the world, Gouda helps clients track missing family members they can barely remember—even though she can’t even remember her own last name.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesubstance-use
On the planet First Foot, the small town of Joe's Corner faces conflict over building a radio telescope close to local alien artifacts.
As a young scholar sets out on a research project to find the stones where the settlers of Iceland made human sacrifices, a long dormant volcano rouses…and other, long-sleeping horrors might also be stirring.
"We lost so many souls today. Reports stream in across five continents; icons bloom on the map like blood spatters. Broken filters, zero latency, bandwidth that somehow blew through the roof when no one was looking. The hardware plays catch-up as best it...
"The Alamgir Dynasty has been guiding the Kingdom of Hindustan through centuries of peace, prosperity, and stability. Yet, credit does not rest solely on the wisdom of our modern kings; from the earliest days of what was then called the Alamgiri Empire,...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"After we kill our father but before we leave the island, we argue. Cal doesn’t want to go; he’s afraid of the water. Even after the rest of us outvote him two to one, he refuses to move, crouching on the ground, pressing the ruined side of his face into...
Content warnings 3
abusedeathviolence
"Scarlett’s eyes had to be perfect. Jon was the artist who’d made her, so it bothered him to think that so much of Scarlett would be crafted by other people. Scarlett’s limbs were carved from silicon polymer and coated in a soft synthetic skin from the...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorsexual-contentviolence
"Umeboshi" by Rebecca Nakaba is an exploration of what it means to be connected through heritage—and chain email. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by Rebecca Nakaba, edited by Sachiko Ragosta. Audio edition read by Heidi Tabing, with sound design by...
Content warnings 1
body-horror
"The country was at just over ten thousand deaths the morning that the door appeared. On Kosmo’s phone NPR was interviewing a doctor with a nasal voice about the need for social distancing, while Kosmo himself collected empty cans from around his home office."
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Your mother spends every evening working on her machine. It looks like no other machine you’ve seen. A hunk of metal on the ground, with wires stringing each section to the next. Like the inside of a giant robot’s belly, if someone cut it open to expose...
"I’m licking mala algae off a thin yellow and blue P sheet that says Nutterfinger when I notice the walls in my home are vibrating. Nothing ever happens in our world surrounded by P. P is what we call the material that makes up our world, and it’s what we...
"Ask me something only I would know.” You say this to your wife because you know you’re human. You can feel it in the familiar ache in your back, and the fear writhing in your guts. You feel it in the cold seeping into your bare feet from the kitchen...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
"His Majesty plights his troth to the boy by the failing light of the waxing Luster Moon, an auspicious night for waterfowl, prayer, and paladins. Wrong, all of it. Child-groom Softwind Sunder is hellebore and winter sun, plantcraft and rage. When he spits...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"I heard this story from my late friend Shelby Weinberg. Like myself, Shel was a science fiction writer. If his byline doesn’t ring any bells, though, don’t feel ignorant; not many SF fans knew him by that name. Even the pseudonym he used, Hamilton Yale,...
"The flutist peered over the ridge ahead of them. Wreathed in the sheerest cloth of fog, a city rotted. It was not a big city, maybe a town, maybe a village. The flutist was not of that age of plenty where plentiful things had names and could be easily...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
"The technical term is “generation ship cascade failure.” Cryogenic collapse. Millennium drive breakdown. Failed ship-in-a-bottle revolution against the corpostate hegemony. I call all the outcomes whalefalls, though. Because that’s what they are: the...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"My name is Alfred Kramer, known for the better part of my life as “Lefty.” I was born April 13, 1920, in Owatonna, Minnesota. Today is my birthday in 2020, meaning that I’ve reached the unlikely age of one century. I currently live in a geriatric facility...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
mental-illnesssubstance-usesuicide
"Security AIs heard whimpering, diagnosed the source, then alerted the rest of the household. A baby moggie had fallen inside one of the nearby recycling hubs. Of course the children hurried outside to see, and being noble souls, they dragged the...
"When Jenea and I sneak out to the observation deck of the SSE Patroclus after lights-out, I think he’s going to kiss me, but instead he waits until I’m distracted by the stars and tells me he set himself on fire. I tear my gaze from the outer edges of the...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorself-harmwar
"Adam is washing his hands when it happens again. First the water pouring out of the faucet becomes icy cold seafoam. Then the porcelain bottom of the sink dissolves, making him flinch backward. The bathroom’s tiled floor is intact; the mirrored medicine...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
We learn the fates of three young villagers who follow the advice of the magic conch shell, which always offers two choices about the future and is never wrong.
Content warnings 1
misogyny
An occult detective and a creature work and love together across multiple lifetimes.
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-contentviolence
J11-L arrives at the target planet 95,000 years after the race that built it died, but it proceeds with its terraforming mission nevertheless.
A janitor wonders if he should trust an app answers questions no one could know the answers to. Especially when that app suggests someone may be about to stage a school shooting.
Content warnings 2
mental-illnesssuicide
After 500 years, the King of Myth and Shadow is getting bored, so he decides to take a vacation in New York City.
Sahar makes a living in Titan gathering the products “Boppers” leave, but she joins a Titan-adapted person to hunt for a very special artifact, despite the danger from pirates.
Kleave’s life is upended when a freak accident disables all three of the archives where he stores copies of his experiences and memories.
Teenage Marisol wants a Razzibot so she can stream her life online in ways that always make her look good.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
violence
A traumatized time traveler keeps traveling back to his past to punish his younger self. Over multiple loops, he learns to forgive himself. Copyright khōréō magazine 2025. Story by Samir Sirk Morató, edited by Danai Christopoulou. Audio edition read by...
Content warnings 3
child-abuseself-harmviolence
"What lies beyond the Sea of Beasts is known to few, for few are foolish enough to try and cross it. This is not because of the beasts, which all died so long ago their bones have turned to stone, but because it is ghastly. Most of the fish are spiny and...
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-contentviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
death
"If it was the first time I saw a house mourning? No, my dear. Not at all. Yet, it broke my heart to enter House and hear her parquet floor moaning, see the toilet sink weeping, feel her foundations shuddering ever so slightly. I put the plastic bags on...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"Posit a man. He could be any man. She could be a woman. They could be any human being anywhere on the spectrum. The story would play out the same. This is, however, entirely the creation of a writer who has written plenty of formidable women, and so he...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
fatphobiaillness-and-pandemic
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"Finneus Lark finds the man nestled inside of the abdominal cavity of a doe, his skin so pale that his veins are like spiderwebs. Slick with visceral fluid, leaves and petals cling to the man’s bird-boned wrists. His face, haloed by damp curls and crowned...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"Even with my Airpods in, I heard the kids yelling as they ran up from the dock. I bumped up the volume on my laptop and kept updating Arjun about my meeting with the FloriHealth team. I was happy my kids were feeling rambunctious on our Florida trip, but...
"Iris is deep in an empty ocean, gray-green twilight fading to black everywhere she looks—and she can breathe. She’s a thousand feet above the ground, climbing a fractal cliff suffused with flickering veins of electricity—and she cannot. Iris is flat on...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"Who loves you?” I ask. My daughter looks away. Doesn’t answer. I lean down and turn her to face me, resting my thumb in the dimple in her chin. It’s the same dimple her mother has. Or had. “You love me, Daddy.” “That’s right, so please listen closely,” I...
Content warnings 3
child-abusedeathviolence
"It’s six weeks ’til Going Time. I never really got used to that naming convention. The phrase has “Going” and “Time” in it, the latter carrying the entire weight of the definition. The former is vague. Going where? Beneath the crusty morass of our...
Content warnings 1
death
"It forced itself to take that last step onto the ferry. Every step further from land felt like falling. Through space, through time, through every place it had ever been. It kept its eyes open, its features arranged in what it hoped was a neutral...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"Almost everyone has, at some point in their lives, encountered a door that was not there before. A little girl sits up in bed, staring at the two identical closets in her bedroom. She feels certain there had been only one when she fell asleep. A salaryman...
Content warnings 2
cannibalismviolence
"It is the shared birthday of the isle of Barradwyth. As a gift, Cyfris has promised his granddaughter Cydovan the one story he has never told her. They are sitting on the balcony of their home on Barradwyth Station, overlooking a street paved with mosaic...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Somewhere between the black slopes and the longest stretch of the cratered plains, I came across a traveler who I thought might be leaving the city and headed for the nested forests. I greeted him from a distance, just as the road curved around a copse of...
"The aftermath of the great war deposited me on a breathtaking port city called Aeskir, on a dazzling world called Aevii. This was about as fine a place to end up as I could have hoped. Many thousands of worlds across human space had been scoured of life...
Content warnings 2
genocideviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorchild-abusechild-death
"In Greece, we have a saying: You must eat the body part you want to grow stronger. Or maybe that’s just something my grandmother used to say. After partying with friends until the early hours, Katerina and I take a detour before we go home. The meat...
"K’un died. It breathed for tens of thousands of years and, at long last, life came to an end. Its body was washed ashore. Pale red scales plowed through vegetation as the bulging exoskeleton grazed against dunes. Its enormous carcass formed an imposing...
Content warnings 1
death
Chelle’s friend, Wenqian, has everything Chelle doesn’t. A slim figure, pale skin, and most notably the affection of her longtime friend Preston. Like the ocean waves she calls home, Chelle feels transparent and overflowing all at once. So when she’s given...
Content warnings 1
body-horror
An artist’s work attracts the eye of Andrey Porgee, a notorious gangster, who becomes her best customer. But when he commissions a painting based on a childhood photograph, the artist fears his reaction to the final product.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"It’s the day when the last war is over, and skeletons of swallows are already starting to return. They don’t have beaks, and their white, hard-boiled eyes fly three inches ahead of their semi-transparent faces, or sometimes on their side. Skeletons of...
Content warnings 2
deathwar
"James had always been able to tell when Camille was eavesdropping. Even though she kept her eyes carefully focused on the messages on her band while she poked at the remains of her salad, it would not have fooled him. He wouldn’t scold her in public, but...
Content warnings 1
death
"The Snow Woman was away, far away. The winds that blew round the frozen world would take “days” to bear her to where Kitsune sheltered, even though both lay beneath the blue light of Ryujin, which the Chinese call Hǎiwángxīng and the white folks call Neptune."
The Hero journeys across the desert to capture The Thief Of Memory and retrieve her stolen memories. What she finds in the end may destroy her.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"The first of Irene’s memories I eat is the night she learned I had been murdered. It was karaoke night—not the official one for the cruise ship passengers, but an illicit one Irene organized for a few of the other crew. They weren’t supposed to be in the...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"You are the unalive thing possessing her body. Her body was printed three days ago from blueprints transferred moments before the motorbike crash over the bridge. Her flesh and fat and keratin and bone are accurate to prior specifications, except for the...
"Kia ora te whānau, Welcome back to term 3! I hope you are all safe and well. I’m sure the holidays were a little different from usual. My name is Kara and I’m the teacher allocated to the year 1 to 3 children in your sector. I know it can be hard...
"The emergency call came in before the seagulls had even started crying. It found Quinn lying sleepless on the leaky air mattress she’d set up in the back of the shop... She fumbled for her phone and raised an eyebrow at the severity rating the user had...
"I’ve been feeling a bit down, I suppose,’ Catherine said, ‘and my friend recommended you. She said you might be able to help.’ The doctor made a humming noise. He sat back, folding his arms. ‘Do you know what it means to cleanse, Catherine?’ he asked."
Content warnings 1
body-horror
"Dear, patient Deni, The trip was fine, thanks for asking. We got to Bubble 476, right before dusk and right before I was about to lose my mind in the transit elevator (which I will now and always call the claustrophobic box of doom). My ride wasn’t even...
"We have only legends now for when our ancestors first saw the monster. They saw it shred light as it approached, then devoured whole worlds. They ran the calculations—they still used machines for that, used machines for everything—and they knew our rock...
Content warnings 1
death
When young Ira arrives for her appointment, she is prepared to be transported to The Gateway to Heaven, 6,070 light years away. But the technicians shepherding her through the process fear there’s more to it than what’s advertised.
Content warnings 1
death
"As the vehicle tumbled past him, Bashim saw the passenger’s grinning white teeth in a face masked by desert dust and violet Worldshapers. The tailpipes coughed fire, so close Bashim could feel their alcohol heat. The sheared-off wheel bounced past, a...
"The wide yawning sky. We stare at unfamiliar stars, seeking familiar patterns in their strange configurations. Here is a cup and there a bear. A queen reclined and all the fish in the endless seas. The universe is more boundless than we know. Maybe than...
"Death takes much and in return it offers Susan P—- only clarity. She finds herself in a great gray desert and knows her life has ended. Clad in a royal dress, she carries a bow and quiver, and a finely-carved ivory horn dangles from her throat. A tremor...
Content warnings 1
death
"But think—if we succeed, I’ll acquire a whole boxful of memories. Big, jewel-like memories whose sharp edges will tear my master’s world around me like old silk. I’ll escape. Eat a whole orange rather than a mere pip. Oranges are bright, like the sun. Do...
You just drive the getaway car, for the same heist, over and over, trying somehow not to break the artifact that resets time.
"One hundred and fifty years ago, before plans for the star port on Ius Prime were finalized, ships launched out of Ciudad Orilla on the northern-most edge of Yaguni. One of those ships, the Maria Segunda, took off on a Monday to explore the rim of the...
"Dong Fang still clearly remembers the joyous love of that rainy night. It seemed quite bad at first. After three years of dating and two years of marriage, their formerly shy and sweet explorations had become routine business. Nevertheless, he was in the...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Through chaos and old night, the three brothers journeyed. Sometimes they rode and sometimes they strode. When they rode, their steeds snorted cold steam from their nostrils and obsidian hooves struck sparks from the rock. When they strode, their feet...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"We are good Mothers, or at least we will be once the embryos emerge from their confines. They dangle from the spaceship’s ceiling in pink bulbs like silkworm cocoons. Now that we landed, Ship will become the bones, sinew, and flesh that will birth five...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
deathgore
In the ruins of the American Midwest, two countries struggle over the question of whether brain uploads are still the same person, and a secret agent finds his loyalties have changed.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
The narrator works to salvage the memories of someone who’s upload to virtual reality didn’t go smoothly.
Content warnings 1
death
A young couple has enough relationship troubles without a mischievous dog that appears to have telekinetic powers. But there seems to be a pattern to its mischief.
Zep invents a board that can surf through time, and he and Del have an excellent adventure.
Content warnings 2
goreviolence
The thirteen masters of the Academy meet to hear a mediocre student apply for the highest degree based on his claim that he can raise the dead.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
In a future where successful people spend most of their time in cyberspace, Martha struggles to make ends meet servicing the systems that take care of them.
Content warnings 1
death
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
On Cat station, people tell stories of a super-competent engineer, Tatter D’MaLeon. Supposedly she can fix anything, for those who can pay her price.
Content warnings 1
body-horror
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
When James was dying, he and his wife, Cat, worked to build an AI based on his personality that could keep her company in his absence. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Rourou is a Chinese little girl who loves her papa but wonders what happened to her momma. And why she can’t remember anything before age 5. And why she speaks fluent English.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathviolence
"Here at 123aiLOVEu, we take all the guesswork out of dating. With personalized chatbots trained on social media and chat histories, we put you in conversation with hundreds of potential matches... and you never have to say a thing! Sandra was watching the...
"She should go back inside the watchpod. Maree and Blaise didn’t have to be dead. The air hadn’t been gone that long. And even if their current bodies were hopeless, damaged beyond repair, probably the back-up system was uncorrupted. Probably its uploads...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoresexual-content
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
suicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
mental-illness
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
A couple living on the mountain near a war zone adopt a herd of displaced sheep. Content warnings: Implied genocide, animal death, body horror, cannibalism Copyright © 2026 khōréō magazine. Story by Lisobel Tang, edited by Isabella Kestermann. Audio...
Content warnings 2
cannibalismgenocide
When I worked at Disneyland in the summer of ’65, it was strange enough even without what I found in the dumpster. This was the sixties, and the Magic Kingdom, no matter how many long-haired hippies it denied admission to, couldn’t escape the decade.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
Building this setlist had been terrifying. Of course we’d debated our Tiny™ Concert set over the years, but never pictured this.
Cannon-D’s body was spun from a 3D printer. It compiled fiber by artificial fiber, a loving replica of the protein strands and carbons that would have made up the real, […]
Content warnings 1
suicide
This episode features "A Vintage Kind of Death" written by Alex T. Singer. Published in the October 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/singer_10_26...
Content warnings 1
suicide
The first child exploded in the parking lot of a nondescript fast food joint in one of the safest, most unassuming parts of our city on a clear summer evening. Beatrix Middleston (five years old, never stopped moving, loved butterflies and Spiderman and...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathgore
He had a second life, one spent in the river in laughter and play.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
You find yourself standing in a train station. People hurry past you, grunting and shuffling: a gaggle of girls wrapped in black cloaks; a family of five laden with alphorn cases taller than they are; a thickly mustached man tugging a roller bag with a...
Jempo took a deep bow on the iron platform. His body flopped forward, limbs like thick braided wire. No obvious weapons in his large and rubbery hands. Little digital eyes and a bright smile that lit the rounded ball he had for a head. More clown than...
“They farm starlight.” “Bullshit.” “Okay, they’re going to farm starlight. For now they’re running fusion rigs. But that’s not their long-term plan.” “No one in the sunforsaken Oort has a long-term plan. Other than slow suicide. You know what they told me,...
I first reached consciousness in a peaceful library. It looked like a library not far from my apartment, though not exactly the same. There were high ceilings and large windows […]
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
“A Rose For Emily” was first published in The Forum, April 30, 1930 C/W for racial slurs [n-word], mental illness, misogyny, homophobia and Spoiler poisoning [collapse] I When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a...
Content warnings 3
mental-illnessmisogynyracism
‘Superstition’ was first published in the anthology 120 Murders: Dark Fiction Inspired by the Alternative Era Remote Viewing Clerks 1 Donnie Darko The Destructors Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand by Primitive Radio Gods The...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
“Witchcraft” was first printed in Ornaments in Jade, 1924 “How I Turned My Little Brother Human” was first published in Shaky Pictures of Vanished Faces, edited by Eric Raglin, in September 2025 “Visit Seahaven” was first published in Factor Four magazine...
Content warnings 3
child-deathpregnancy-losssubstance-use
PseudoPod 1034: Only In The Dark is a PseudoPod original. The crackling sound of static fills the room as the screen lights up. We see a simple landscape with some rocks and trees. The outline of a bird appears, its wings flapping softly. The bird takes...
Content warnings 1
body-horror
PseudoPod 1051: The Ghost of a Flea is a PseudoPod original. C/W: explicit sexual content ‘Courtyard’ by Tol, taken using a 2002 Sony DSC-F717 bridge camera. “Of course, I haven’t exactly conducted a survey,” Robert was saying, “but I get the impression...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesexual-content
“The Wishing Angel of Suffolk County” is a PseudoPod original “John Must Die” was first published in Flash Fiction Magazine on 9th February 2025 “Bird Bone” was originally published by Bag of Bones Press in 2022 “Woodsong” was first published in Flash...
Content warnings 3
child-abusegoreviolence
They were on their way to El Paso when Yolanda asked Bernard to pull over. He choked the steering wheel until his fingers turned white. “Are you fucking serious?” “It’s okay,” she said shrinking into her seat, her hands rubbing together nervously between...
Content warnings 1
abuse
Do you remember how it started? A bright light in the sky, a brave new moon growing bigger and bigger. We called it Little Prince because we were romantic and […]
Content warnings 3
sexual-contentsuicideviolence
This episode features "Scion: Afterword" written by Thomas Ha. Published in the March 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ha2_03_26 Support us on...
“It’s not the same room,” Chiyo says staunchly. She’s sitting in her wheelchair, a faded quilt tucked around her legs. A Western plays on the TV, cowboys with scruffy chins […]
When 2008 hit and I got laid off from Circuit City, a friend of mine managed to get me work at the local supermarket deli. It was a shit job, but I was beyond grateful at the time.
From his exclusive residence, Zhou Xiaoliang’s diary: I know you will never read this, but I have to pretend I am writing for you. Or else what’s left to do? […]
Content warnings 3
deathsuicidewar
Everyone thinks the uncanny folk steal children, but they steal adults too, steal their minds and memories, put their own folk where ours used to be. The new folk don’t know their loved ones, don’t know what a toilet is, don’t know how to deposit a check....
April It is in the floral heaviness of late-spring that his mother comes home and hands him the present. It fits well in the palms of his hands, neither too heavy nor too light. Perfectly square, perhaps—and later confirmed to be exactly—five inches wide...
Content warnings 2
self-harmviolence
iii. There are no protocols for plotting to kill the King, so Alise talks about killing the King, whispers her plan in the Queen’s ear while they lie tangled in the Queen’s marital bed, Alise’s fingers tracing bruises that should not be there.
Content warnings 3
abusesexual-contentviolence
Hollywood actor Hendrick lives through a curated trauma experience to become Greek enough for a role. But how much will it cost him? Content warnings: Suicide, torture simulation, cultural appropriation Copyright khōréō magazine 2025. Story by Christos...
Content warnings 3
deathsuicideviolence
It's about the things that become a part of you when you aren't paying attention, without your even realizing they're there. Copyright © 2025 khōréō magazine. Story by T. Chiu-Chu, edited by Kanika Agrawal. Audio edition read by D Casellian, with...
Content warnings 1
body-horror
Author : Natalia Theodoridou Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Summer Brooks When They Come Back was originally published in Crossed Genres (Issue 22), in October 2014, and in Escape Pod Episode 550 Frank though not explicit...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorsexual-contentviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
Author : Gillian Knox Narrator : Karen Menzel (née Bovenmyer) Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums PodCastle 900: Sour Fruit is a PodCastle original. Content warnings for domestic abuse and the death of a parent Rated PG-13...
Content warnings 3
abusechild-abusedeath-of-a-loved-one
“House Traveler” originally appeared in Bourbon Penn #34, Dec. 2024 and is reprinted in Thomas Ha’s debut collection, “Uncertain Sons and Other Stories” C/W: alludes to alcoholism The five of us were gathered on the floor of one of the last houses, trying...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
“Madame Painte: For Sale” was first published in Behold! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders, edited by Doug Murano (Crystal Lake 2017), and then in the Word Horde collection ‘Lost in the Dark and Other Excursions’, in August 2025. C/W: 2nd...
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
First published in Opportunity in 1925. When Hurston arrived in New York City in 1925, the Harlem Renaissance was at its zenith, and she soon became one of the writers at its center. Shortly before she entered Barnard, Hurston’s short story “Spunk” was...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
“The Fruits Of” originally appeared in the online Spring 2024 edition of Club Chicxulub CW: dementia, death of a family member and suicidal ideation. They’d long since passed the point where road gave way to trail gave way to forest. Bright green ferns now...
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-onemental-illnesssuicide
“Grave Worms” originally appeared in Cassilda’s Song: Tales Inspired by Robert W. Chambers’ King in Yellow Mythos an anthology edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. The grey flannel suit might have looked masculine on the rack, or on another woman, but the close...
Content warnings 2
mental-illnesssexual-content
PseudoPod 987: Reflections on Bloody Mary is a PseudoPod original. CW: domestic abuse, coercive control, alcoholism The Pixel Project, https://www.thepixelproject.net, has a list of shelters worldwide “Maaa-reee,” my husband taunts. “Oh, Maaa-reee. Come...
Content warnings 3
abusesubstance-useviolence
“The Suitable Surroundings” was first published in the San Francisco Examiner, July 14, 1889 “The Resurrection of Chilton Hills” first appeared in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in October 1929. C/W: suicide (The Suitable Surroundings) Ben Phillips’s music ?...
Content warnings 1
suicide
Author : Oliver Onions Narrator : Matt Dovey Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums Originally published in The London Magazine, August 1928. Content warnings for the off-screen deaths of a spouse and sons Rated PG John Gladwin...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
“The Ghost” was first published in The Windsor Magazine, May 1928. “Half-Past Two” was first published in the August 15, 1928 edition of The Daily Mail. She was a girl of fourteen, and she sat propped up with pillows in an old four-poster bed, coughing a...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
PseudoPod 909: The Witch in the Whale Bone Hut is a PseudoPod original. Four massive ribs held the hut together, two forming a thick arch near the front door. The bones were pockmarked and yellow, no doubt leftovers from the town’s glory days during the...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
PseudoPod 924: The Things That Wash Up on Marble Beach is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “Following the enthusiastic and repeated recommendations of a good friend of mine (looking at you BDM), I read Dan Simmons’ Hyperion a couple of years back....
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreillness-and-pandemic
“The Dabblers” appeared in the 1928 collection The Beast with Five Fingers It was a wet July evening. The three friends sat around the peat fire in Harborough’s den, pleasantly weary after their long tramp across the moors. Scott, the ironmaster, had been...
Content warnings 1
animal-harm
PseudoPod 936: Flash on the Borderlands LXXI: A Gibbet of Flesh is a PseudoPod original. “Every Part of You”: CW terminal illness, body horror, insects “Every Part of You” was first published in OOZE: Little Bursts of Body Horror, edited by Ruth Anna...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-onegore
“The Slow Music of Drums” was originally published in the 2024 Anthology Northern Nights edited by Michael Kelly TW: features grief, an implied apocalypse, sinister music, a family curse, cosmic horror and bees Astute readers and listeners may be aware, or...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathsuicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
child-deathdeath
You wake up. You do your job. You eat. You speak to no one. Nothing ever changes about life here in K— — until, suddenly, it does. "The Shadow and the Light" by Su-Yee Lin is a haunting story about stagnation and self-preservation and solitude. Copyright...
Author : Deborah L. Davitt Narrator : Dave Robison Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums Previously published by The Overcast Rated PG-13 A Thousand Echoes in One Voice by Deborah L. Davitt You’ve snuck through doors that should...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
“Midnight in the Southland” was previously published in Liminal Spaces: An Anthology of Dark Speculative Fiction by Cemetery Gates Media in 2021. “From the grim Ohio Valley to the mists of the Appalachian Plateau, this is Midnight in the Southland with...
“Thirteen Ways of Not Looking at a Blackbird” was originally published in the 2023 anthology No Trouble at All edited by Alexis Dubon and Eric Raglin Hugh Dancy: Will Graham I. I am a baby boy. In the bathtub, looking out, past my mother as she cries and...
Content warnings 3
abusechild-abuseviolence
“The Belsnickel” has previously appeared on the online platforms Vocal and Patreon. From the author: ”I loved the stories my German great-grandmother shared about belsnickels – friends and neighbors who dressed in big fur coats and frightful masks and went...
Content warnings 3
animal-harmchild-deathdeath
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Liz and Owen jump at the chance for a weekend away, house sitting in suburbia, only to find something... strange... about the mirror in the house. "Ours but Not Our Own" by Joshua Tong is a delightfully haunting meditation on suburbia and the paths our...
Author : C.C. Finlay Narrator : Heather Thomas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Time Bomb Time” originally appeared in the May 2015 issue of Lightspeed Magazine. It was reprinted in Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy...
Content warnings 1
abuse
Author : Adriana Kantcheva Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 857: Salvaged is an Escape Pod original. Salvaged by Adriana Kantcheva I have her body. If I’d also had her life, would I have lived it in the same way? I make the...
Author : Saki (the pen name of H. H. Munro) Narrator : Kat Day Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Devin Martin Discuss on Forums First published in 1911 in “The Chronicles of Clovis” Content Warning for an outdated racial term Rated PG-13 “Traveler’s Guide...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
PseudoPod 810: Her Face All Teeth is a PseudoPod original. Denny did not want to spy on the confessional, but at the same time, he did. He wanted what he did not want, or he did not want to want what he wanted. As a Catholic, he should have been...
Content warnings 3
child-abusedeathviolence
“We’ve All Gone to the Magic Show” was previously published in Vastarien: Vol.3, Issue 1 by Grimscribe Press. Earlier this summer, word spread around our town that the Magic Show’s doors were open. Swollen and stained timbers that once barred the entrance...
Tloque Nahuaque By Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas, translated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. —Carl Sagan I—The Particle Accelerator They built an underground temple. A well of Babel...
Content warnings 3
cannibalismchild-deathsuicide
Electronic Ghosts By Innocent Chizaram Ilo I If Nneora had died two weeks earlier, her daughter, Anaeto, would not have resurrected her ghost. That was the night Nneora ran a fever, laid convulsing in bed, a slimy froth trickling from the corners of her...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
homophobiaviolence
Author : Dan Micklethwaite Narrator : Matt Dovey Host : Summer Fletcher Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh Discuss on Forums Previously published by NewMyths. Rated PG-13. Once and Future Dan Micklethwaite Early mornings, before the tourists show up,...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesubstance-use
“Trowel, Brush, Bones” was originally published in the Iron Horse Literary Review in January 2021 Sites that help with and advocate for the safety for women: We arrive at the compound outside Huanca just after midnight. We are tired and hungry and altitude...
Content warnings 1
sexual-violence
“Sleep Hygiene” was first published in Nightmare’s Realm: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic and reprinted this year in the collection In That Endlessness, Our End Audio Production & DreamBed, assembled from various field recordings, by Shawn M. Garrett...
Content warnings 1
mental-illness
“Closet Dreams” was originally published in PostScripts and was a finalist for the Stoker Award. Content Warnings Child Abuse, Stalking, Abduction, Confinement, Sexual Assault [collapse] Something terrible happened to me when I was a little girl. I don’t...
Content warnings 3
abusechild-abusesexual-violence
Vlad’s an immortal vampire and his girlfriend Eliza stays in suspended animation most of the time while they travel the stars looking for a planet where they can be happy together.
A young American in the early 20th Century visits a remote principality and is shocked at their notion of justice.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-onemental-illnesssuicide