Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
54 free-to-read stories tagged “Faith”
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
A gifted young man is obsessed with flying machines, not least because they’re outlawed.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Astronomers spot what appears to be a new cluster of stars, except that it’s growing hour by hour.
Bilqis, the only real doctor in a dying community of religious exiles, finds something strange when she examines a pregnant woman.
pregnancy-loss
"Loire Valley, 1520 Estienne’s shadow fell over me, and I could not, of a sudden, recall the stitch I was making. He had invited himself onto the ladies’ porch without announcement. Odette’s voice faltered. “Take—” She was reading from the Queen of...
misogynysexual-violence
"Later, when she thought about how the semester ended, Ms. Milspaugh couldn’t decide whether the student teacher’s question about why the class would spend two weeks on one piece of literature started the story, or Andrew and his EyeCaps. It could have...
"Sergey hummed under his breath as he walked to the Marith temple. His steps retraced a path he knew so well, he could have walked it at night, in the dark, even under assault. Yet the Marith enclave was the most peaceful place he’d ever been—so calm that...
child-deathviolencewar
"I had never been in a printing shop before, so it was a shame that my first sight of one was ruined by all the blood. When I went down to the main room of the palazzo that morning, I was not anticipating murder, and I was certainly not thinking about...
"The muse calls me ‘Digenia.’ It is not my real name; that is suspended while I am traveling through these verses, now some 690 years old. To pass through this realm of allegory and myth, of device and symbiotics, one needs to carry a standard. Mine is of...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
body-horrorhomophobiaself-harm
In a world where the dinosaurs never died out, Rekek and his adopted son accept a commission to lead a paleontologist to fossil-rich sites in the black hills of what’s South Dakota in our world.
The Arch Hierophant of the Cooperation needs to handle the question of a dead prophet’s divinity, so he doesn’t need the distraction of dealing with an illegal civilization in a distant star system.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
On the edge of the ruined land, village people worship Orcas as gods. Unbeliever Kelb is up to something, and Adze tries to help him because she loves him.
animal-harmdeathviolence
"Jesse mopped up the gravy with the last of his bread, gulped down a final mouthful of tea, then took his mug, plate, and utensils into the cooks’ tent. Henry looked up from the dishwashing tub and nodded to him amiably. “What have they got you on now?”...
slavery
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abusebody-horrorchild-abuse
A couple of children are lost on the dangerous Barren Isle, which still has the original flora and fauna of Coyote. The search and rescue team will have their hands full.
child-abuseviolence
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abusechild-abusesexual-violence
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When the portal collapse isolated the colony, the colonists struggled to survive on a world where the dark forests lured people to their deaths, turning them into “demons.”
body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-onesexual-violence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Given Rebecca’s hunger for blood, our hopes being complimentary seemed unlikely, yet Auntie Regina’s blessing poured over us both from head to toe. Never before had I felt closer to my sister. The warmth penetrated deeper into our skin, past the second...
animal-harmbody-horror
edited by Amanda Helms The first god on our list wears the skull of a polar bear. The god is shrunk to the width of my little finger and almost transparent. Darkness seeps like squid ink from their eyes. “Sir,” I address the tiny god. “Can you give me an...
Content note (click for details) Threatened harm to women and children; non-graphic mentions of death by drowning; poverty edited by Ziv Wities The monster came out perfectly. The head of an ass. A human left arm, delicate in comparison to the elephant’s...
death-of-a-loved-one
Author : Meridel Newton Narrator : Alexandra Rose Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 1054: Takahata-fudo is an Escape Pod original. This episode is sponsored by Sleepphones! Use code ESCAPEPOD and get 10% off your purchase....
You are: A disillusioned mathematical physicist with a wet open mind. Desperate for knowledge. A neo-masochist. A willing sacrifice.
“God” is not the word I’d use. But it is the only one that suffices. There are all kinds of gods: the old and the new; the useful, the useless; the capricious and the dependable; the wrathful and the meek. They all had one thing in common—whether they were...
sexual-content
Author : P. H. Low Narrator : Jo Moran Host : Eleanor R. Wood Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Previously published in Fantasy Magazine, March 2023 Rated PG-13 The Will of the God of Music by P. H. Low You hear the door open as if in dreaming. Back when you...
body-horror
“Devil Is Fine” was first published in Cosmic Horror Monthly, in January 2025 C/W: strong body horror, gun violence, animal harm Author notes: “I was still pretty drunk on the experience of playing Red Dead Redemption 2 when I wrote this story and wanted...
animal-harmbody-horrorviolence
Maria Haddid looked like she was screaming. I’ve heard singers say that’s all singing is deep down, but if you’ve seen enough screams you won’t often get them mixed up. The faithful gathered around her in the picture—the soccer mom, the children, the...
substance-useviolence
Long after the final attack on the Automatous Abbey, long after the enemy, repugnant and resplendent in their flesh and blood, had fired their array of weapons at the undefended structure, long after the Abbess had sounded the klaxons and evacuation...
deathwar
You’re eighteen. Your fairy godmother just fired you, because after three balls, the prince has grown bored with you. Tonight you stepped on his foot during a gavotte. “If you’d been cleverer,” the fairy godmother says—her words silver chimes girded with...
Elara moved through the settlement with a careful quiet that was almost second nature, the worn soles of her boots tracing familiar paths across the rippling surface of the Great Wanderer’s back. Evening light pooled in low hollows, settling into a dusk...
PseudoPod 970: At the God Show is a PseudoPod original. 6:15 A.M. “It’ll be Pternoch the Fisher,” Sheila overheard one pilgrim say to another. “Why did we bother coming?” “May the Green Damsel stitch your mouth shut until your blasphemies cease,” said the...
cannibalismdeathviolence
The unsettling arrival of war and how hope in tales pass from generation to generation. Content warnings: War, orphans, implied trauma due to armed conflict, death Copyright khōréō magazine 2024. Story by Tania Chen, edited by Aleksandra Hill. Audio...
deathwar
“Two Black Bottles” originally appeared in Weird Tales, August 1927 Not all of the few remaining inhabitants of Daalbergen, that dismal little village in the Ramapo Mountains, believe that my uncle, old Dominie Vanderhoof, is really dead. Some of them...
body-horrordeath
This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is...
deathviolence
This text was extracted from McClure’s Jan 1911, illustrated by Henry Raleigh. The short story was adapted by herself into a novel in 1913; and again adapted into an opera and numerous films (including one by Alfred Hitchcock) and radio plays. “THERE he is...
deathsuicideviolence
“Ba’alat Ov” originally appeared in The Jewish Book of Horror In the night, the spirits spoke with hisses and gurgles like serpents wrapped around my head. I awoke covered in sweat, barely able to breathe, so afraid of what they would ask me to do. They...
body-horrorgoresuicide
“The Parricide’s Tale” is an excerpt from a larger work, the notorious Gothic Novel Melmoth The Wanderer (1820) Wikipedia article on Melmoth The Wanderer This week’s quote It was in the midst of one of his most licentious songs, that my companion suddenly...
cannibalismdeathviolence
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...
child-abusedeathviolence
“The Green Scarf” originally appeared in The London Magazine, August 1926 When the Wellingford family became extinct the days of Wellingford Hall as one of the great country homes of England were already numbered. The estate passed into the hands of...
PseudoPod 835: Trickin’ is a PseudoPod original. It’s time. Nestled beneath the rolling peaks from the mountain ranges, honeycombs of caves spread out in their like swollen slugs providing shelter from the weeping clouds. Raoul emerged from one of those...
deathgoreviolence
“15 Eulogies Scribbled Inside a Hello Kitty Notebook” originally appeared in Carlie’s debut collection, You Fed Us to the Roses, published by Robot Dinosaur Press in October 2022. February—Liam I didn’t know him well. Nobody did, really: he was the new...
child-deathsuicideviolence
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homophobiaviolence
PseudoPod 743: Flash on the Borderlands LIV: Stage Three: The Bargain is a PseudoPod original. Content warning: Spoiler Racial slurs, systemic racism [collapse] “The Kid Learns” was first published in the New Orleans Times Picayune on May 31, 1925 “The...
deathracismviolence
“Rattlesnake Song” originally appeared in July 2019 in the the anthology Triangulation: Dark Skies. The Last Picture Show came to the movie house on the square in the fall of nineteen seventy-one. We snuck in with warm cans of Pearl and sat on the back row...
body-horrordeathsuicide
“Notes on a Resurrection” was originally published in Strange Horizons (July 2019). The Feast Day of Lazarus is March 17 for the Eastern Orthodox Church. the reporter I heard about the story from the friend of a friend of an acquaintance, and didn’t put...
child-deathdeathviolence
PseudoPod 774: Vanity, Vanity is a PseudoPod original. The author had this to share about this piece: “Gothic rural horror and the amorphous disposition of evil have long preoccupied me. Moral and spiritual diffidence have weighed on my mind more recently....
animal-harmchild-abuseviolence
“On Seas of Blood and Salt” originally appeared in The Jewish Book of Horror This is what Reb Palache does when he finds a ship crewed by the dead. He does not know it is crewed by the dead, not at first. He is in his cabin, discoursing with the nameless...
body-horrorgoreviolence
“I Will Not Walk in Darkness” originally appeared in the anthology Georgia Gothic and “High Water Slack” was first published by the IGNYTE Award Winning publication NightLight The song in “I Will Not Walk in Darkness” is Empty Bottle, Empty Bed by the Mini...
deathgoreviolence
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