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Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-onefatphobiasexual-content
Family
308 free-to-read stories tagged “Family”
"We stepped out of the theater to a gust of unseasonably raw wind. Late September in Boston is usually pleasant, and we’d all dressed for the summery day we’d left behind. Cordelia’s two classmates, Gwen and Marissa, shrieked. “Let’s hurry to the car,” I...
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Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
animal-harmchild-deathdeath
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Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesubstance-use
"The ship was a billion years old, and it was dying. The incalculable energies that had forced open the metric to permit its passage were all but spent, and now the relentless quintessence was taking over again: pulling the metric tighter, so that from...
Young Garrin, bastard brother to King Ciar, is sent to find Queen Ella’s stepsister and bring her to the castle. Not everyone lives happily ever after.
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Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"On the island of Manhattan, there’s a building out of time. I can’t tell you where it is, exactly. It has an address, of course, as all buildings do, but that wouldn’t mean anything to you. What I can tell you is that the building is called The Oakmont."
Content warnings 1
war
En route to α Centauri, the ship AI awakens a psychotherapist to help a crew member who thinks she’s seeing monsters.
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Content warnings 3
racismviolencewar
Benji was an ordinary terrier until his master decided to have him sentientized.
Content warnings 2
animal-harmviolence
Mia marks her birthdays as powers of 7, which gives her lots of time to work out her issues with her mother.
A young woman is murdered in Armstrong City, Luna, and both the police and organized crime want to understand why. Captivating.
Content warnings 1
death
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Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesubstance-use
Dan loses his job and goes looking for something that hasn’t already been automated away. There’s not much, and what he does find is rather strange.
"The first thing she knew was that smells didn’t have the same shapes or colors anymore. Not wrong, exactly, but different. Even her own scents—rawhide and dirty paws and bits of grass that had brushed her belly—were changed, not just undercut with the...
Content warnings 2
animal-harmsuicide
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Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Police Sub-Inspector Ferron jerked her sandaled foot away from the floor with a muffled shriek, wishing she had worn boots, despite the weather. She balanced on the other leg and cradled her injured extremity in both hands. She was momentarily heedless of...
Content warnings 2
mental-illnesssuicide
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Content warnings 3
deathhomophobiasuicide
A Russian fighter pilot in the battle of Stalingrad comes back from a mission to find a wounded alien stuck under the wing of her airplane.
Content warnings 2
deathwar
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Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
In a post-apocalypse US, Enid investigates a household that is reportedly hosting an unapproved pregnancy. Note: This story stands alone; it is not part 3 of anything.
Content warnings 1
abuse
"Thomas stood at the top of the weedy stone path that led down the gently sloping hill to where a ramshackle cottage sat sprawled out against the backdrop of a hostile, unforgiving sea. The lingering gray of the morning’s storm had not yet fully let go its...
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Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Darla Revere was born to live her whole life as part of a conversation, the outcome of which she would never know. She was raised to be certain of three things: 1. The leviathan will come for you. She will come suddenly and without warning. 2. You will...
Content warnings 2
deathslavery
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Content warnings 3
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneself-harm
"Jacqueline theorized how to build a private video connection for the three of us from broken baby monitors, trashed cell phones, and digital displays; I collected her shopping list from Dad’s junkyard, and Selena took Jacqueline’s scribbled plans,...
Alien technology has been a big boon for some Americans, but everyone else has slid into poverty. Little Jennie knows things should be better, and over time, she tries different ways to change her world.
Content warnings 2
child-deathviolence
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Content warnings 3
body-horrorchild-deathviolence
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Exchange of pathogens has largely replaced traditional sex, but the archipelago has run out of new diseases, so four friends go to the mainland in search of new plagues.
Content warnings 3
child-deathsexual-contentviolence
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Content warnings 3
abusedeathsubstance-use
Over eleven years, a farm boy grows to a man on the Canadian prairie while new technology utterly changes the world he lives in.
A gifted young man is obsessed with flying machines, not least because they’re outlawed.
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.
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Content warnings 3
abusegenocideviolence
"The rocket ship blasted off from the Devereaux Airstrip on the outskirts of Ottawa and headed straight into the stratosphere. Ruth Mulu, one of four passengers, stared at the cappuccino machine and tried not to throw up. Adeline Devereaux, the Canadian...
Content warnings 2
homophobiasexual-violence
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"The reading of Ma’s will marks the first time I’ve seen my mother in fifteen years. She looks frailer than I’d remembered, almost childlike, her limbs like disposable chopsticks under her gown. Her hospital room is decorated entirely with inoffensive...
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Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
In an alternate 1950s with robots, spaceships, and flying cars, the US Army sends a robot father to the son of a dead soldier.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
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Content warnings 2
body-horrorchild-abuse
Tonight the hero risks her family to battle the Kaiju Maximus, one of the enormous aliens that drove most of humanity underground.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
Mikkel isn't very bright, but he cleverly supplements his janitorial job by scavenging useful items his superiors discard and bringing them home to his wife--then one day he brings home a mutant baby.
Content warnings 1
child-death
"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
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"A four-hour drive between me and my parents is a distance that works well for everybody. I can come back for a weekend, but they don’t call me back for every little thing. So when Mom did call me at work in the middle of the day and said, “Your father is...
"So, what do you think?” “I think they are the crappiest aliens ever.” The dunes, as well, were nothing like Bo had imagined dunes ought to be. They were just ugly humps of sand with grass, mostly dead, sticking out of them in patches. The vague path wound...
Content warnings 1
violence
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Content warnings 3
body-horrorchild-abusedeath
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Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
body-horrorchild-abuse
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Content warnings 3
deathmental-illnessviolence
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Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
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Content warnings 2
animal-harmchild-death
Original humans killed off all the people on Karalang 15,000 years ago, but the captain of Karalang’s last surviving warship just woke from cryosleep to get his revenge. But there’s an intruder on the ship.
Content warnings 3
deathgenocideviolence
The prince’s huntsman finds himself trapped in an abandoned castle, prisoner of a once-human beast.
Content warnings 2
violencewar
Technology has made Alan healthy and active for an 84-year-old, but it’s also made him unemployable. After his wife leaves him, he and some other seniors decide to start a biker gang.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
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Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesubstance-use
A combination of teenage hormones, a rare gene, and the right stressful event turns a few kids into superheroes. Liam wants to be one too.
"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...
"Licensed psychologists follow a set of ethical standards enforceable by law. Don’t fuck your patients, commit no felonies, refer out if you don’t know what to do, stuff like that. Then there are aspirational principles. More like ideals, inspiring better...
"He supposed he must have been daydreaming, but whatever pleasant distraction had occupied his thoughts a moment before, it was gone now. In fact, he could not recall the state of mind from which his mind had wandered, though he must have been paying...
"Dirtsiders mostly do not understand orbital mechanics. They say stupid things like, “Space travel is a racket. My cousin emigrated to Mars last year and her trip only took three months. Now they’re saying I have to pay for seven months transit. Spacers...
Content warnings 3
child-abuseviolencewar
"Half-painted in the angled mirror, I ignore my mother’s calls and sweep blush onto my temples. The face of Luz Divinity takes shape beneath my brush. My mother tries again as I tug a wig onto my shaved head, the unit sleek and long, and again as I zip a...
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Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onewar
"It’s a little awkward,” Major William Bristol said, after they’d been briefed. “That your ancestors owned my ancestors?” Captain Johnny Winstead raised an eyebrow and tilted his chair back from the conference table, which had been painted sea green. “I...
"Roy Harris perched on a stool in front of his new shop door, very carefully filling in the letters that Martha had sketched out on the window. She had a steady eye for that sort of thing. He could stay within the lines, but don’t ask him to put the lines...
"Inevitably, they found her. She came back to her tiny apartment and clicked on the light to find a massive young man, wearing the signature black jeans and sweatshirt of Combine, standing in her living room. The dim light glinted off his earpiece, the...
Content warnings 2
child-abuseviolence
"Folake Adeyemi was slowly digging her index finger into the base of her afro and staring at the row of remote subsurface exploration monitoring screens when she heard the explosion. She’d let her mind wander for a few moments, subconsciously clenching her...
Content warnings 1
death
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Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"It takes a Black woman to tell the truth about another Black woman, whether she likes that woman or not. If the woman in question is loved, the story reaches mythological heights, she could do no wrong, she was brown skinned and beautiful, intelligent,...
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-contentviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"This is the dead thing becoming the body. This is the dead thing opening the body’s eyes. This is the dead thing rising from the grave. This is the dead thing saying “What the hell—I didn’t ask to be summoned. I was having a great time being dead and...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"The toy robot danced wildly to the music being played. It flailed its limbs and spun around as sound poured from the ceiling, motions programmed by the laughing boy watching the dancing toy. His older brother, Carlos, flung the door open to the small room...
"Snow was falling in dithering flurries, spilling from the clouds like a shower of white confetti. The accumulation on the ground was already deep, and the horses pulling the sleigh were struggling, their hooves sinking into the drifts as if wading through...
"Tell me again about the night I was born.” Li Shing drags the comb through her daughter’s oil black hair. Impermeable, like a starless sky reflected against a dense sea. Or a fish’s opaque cloudy eye as it gasps at the bottom of a boat. Li Shing’s fist...
"We hunt for the structure of the universe in its ghosts. – Dr. Michelle Francl / In the beginning / In the beginning was the trigger warning: / Prepare for insects. Prepare for words in Latin and Spanish. Prepare for science and other species of the...
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-oneracismviolence
"Dominic Vadas hadn’t set out to break records. Hadn’t intended to become the furthest outpost of humanity in existence, or famous in any way. He’d simply wanted to slip away from the rest of humanity unnoticed. One billion miles from Earth, 2.5 hours of...
"Rath van Dorn groaned and rubbed at eyes that were sore and red, his long brown fingers prying grit from the dry corners. ... How the hell did they expect him to concentrate on reports when his wife was missing? Had been missing for weeks. He tried to...
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
abusechild-abusesexual-violence
On a struggling colony in the Trojan Asteroids, young Alaya’s family needs more water than their ration allows, and her grandmother has a plan to get more.
Content warnings 1
gore
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Content warnings 2
abuseviolence
Hortensia works in the Venerean atmosphere, building a floating city, when a puncture in the aerostat threatens the whole project unless someone can patch it before a sulfuric acid rainstorm begins.
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.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathsubstance-use
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Guaranteed basic income has divided society into Doers and Don’ts. Jacob’s circle of Don’ts spends all their time playing video games, but their harmony is broken when one of them starts dating a doer.
Nuhu bought his wife from the Djinn, but she hasn’t turned out to be what he wanted, and now the Djinn want’s his first-born child in payment.
Content warnings 2
misogynyslavery
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In the wake of her husband’s death, Anke leaves the Oort cloud for a job on Callisto, bringing her kids with her. A planned side-trip to Triton goes awry, and they made a hard decision.
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Content warnings 1
misogyny
Teenage Marisol wants a Razzibot so she can stream her life online in ways that always make her look good.
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Content warnings 3
child-abusechild-deathviolence
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
body-horrorself-harm
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Content warnings 2
body-horrorviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
death
"Grace had just tucked herself next to John on the wooden bench with her morning tea when she noticed a puff of dust rising from the access road. She stood and placed a hand on her husband’s arm. “John—someone is coming. Down by the bottom of the road.”...
Content warnings 1
illness-and-pandemic
"He took the elevator up to the nineteenth, just like the email said. Elevator ding, white tile, and he crossed the hall through a set of glass doors. “Can I help you?” the receptionist asked from behind a curving white counter. “I have an interview at...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"Instead of indulging in the festivities, I spent the evening evading Lamprecht, while Herschel evaded me. I had come to Bath not just to soak my body in healing waters, but to bathe my mind in new thoughts, to browse with the great William Herschel at the...
"Well, at least we’ll finally be able to get some hours.” “Ruthless.” “I’m serious. Maybe they’ll finally be forced to make one of us full time.” “It’ll never happen. They’ll just hire another part-timer.” The two workers were in the break room. In the...
"The first time Gabriel Halstead tried to kill me, everyone thought it was an accident. So did I, truth be told. That kind of thing gets a couple people a year, even here. The number of EVAs we all do, you don’t even need a failbuddy to cause it....
"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...
"The forest whispers of my sister’s arrival long before I sense her. Birds flutter between pink-girdled maehwa trees, mocking her voice in the tongue only shamans understand. Seonbyeon, Seonbyeon, they repeat mindlessly, and this is how I know my sister is...
"Back when I was a kitten, existing inside a hypothetical box a scientist had trapped me in, one where I might be dead or alive, from here or there, pansexual or not, I was definitely a fan of The Guest Cat, an audiobook that the young scientist, Soni,...
Content warnings 3
abusebody-horrorchild-abuse
"The beheaded tilapia nudged teasingly against the riverbank in a bloody soup, staining the lush weeds beneath the little girl’s feet. Oblivious to the stench, she squatted beside the muddy water, her gaze tracking over the dead fish. There were a dozen of...
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
"Zeke came home to find wires dangling from the ceiling over the dining table. His light-fixture repair, abandoned mid-process. It hadn’t seemed important earlier, but now he couldn’t bear it. It was like the heart was ripped out of the duplex. Theory of...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"My mother was born in a place where your age and the number of trips you took around the Sun were synonymous. That changed for her once she set foot on Mars. She was thirty-two. On her fifth sol on this planet, there was a drone that went rogue for an...
Content warnings 1
suicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorchild-abusechild-death
"Nobody noticed the first few. They walked. One by one, in the beginning. Isolated instances. On every continent, mid-meal, mid-shower, mid-work, mid-fuck, right out the door of a pulled-up car in the middle of a freeway—ordinary people turned their backs...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"Last week, in a tangerine raincoat that did not suit her pallid skin tone, Phylicia Wimby smiled through her lies. There is an 87% chance of rain for tomorrow. Due to the high probability of unpleasant weather for the entire week, we predict the Cousins...
"Zayyan meets Cecilia on the first day of freshman year. He does not believe in love at first sight, but he does believe in the scientific method, and what is this moment if not empirical evidence of the former? She is like no one he has met before. Black...
"In the folds of banyan trees, between the treeish world and ours, are markets. Real markets, not the pale human sort that happen every week, as if things that are worth buying happen every week. A banyan market occurs one day a year, which is as often as...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Walking, crossing, moon-kissed streets, black top, blue jeans, unwashed. Her afro is home to a million brown-winged birds, everlastingly chirping. There’s a baby boy, eight months old, asleep in her arms, and maybe he dreams of beautiful spinning...
Content warnings 3
abusedeath-of-a-loved-onesexual-violence
"There are always three: the father, the unfather, and the child. That’s why Vriskiaab threw my unfather off his back after she bore my baby sister, or so Vriskiaab tells me when he stops in the shade of a dune, his massive scales warm under my calves and...
Content warnings 1
violence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
"Ninth. It is a few days before your suspicions are confirmed. Perhaps it is the baggy trousers your daughter has started to wear, or that she picks at her food. She will lie if you ask her outright, this you know. You throw her bedroom door open without...
Content warnings 3
misogynypregnancy-losssexual-violence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
abusesexual-contenttransphobia
"You wished to see me, Minister?" A lone figure stood in the center of the auditorium, an amphitheatre with sloping sides and row after row of indentations that at the moment were occupied by only a few senior officials. "Yes, Nurse. Thank you for coming...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
racism
"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...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
ableismabuseviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Bob, one of the bat-like Zoeys on New Horizons, helped architect the peace treaty that ended the war with the humans, but some Zoeys who don’t want peace plan to use his son against him.
"It is said that Archimedes was asked by the King of Syracuse to authenticate a manuscript. King Hiero had received what purported to be Alexander of Macedon’s own copy of the Iliad, brought out from the Library at Alexandria itself. He sent envoys to...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Over 100 years in China, we track Qiao Fue and his illegitimate daughter Lian Mee as they separately try to revolutionize AI and bioengineering.
Content warnings 1
ableism
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
abuseviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneracism
After the asteroid destroys the Earth, Aleja escapes in a life pod good for one month, but surviving long enough to find a real colony isn’t going to be easy.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
You find a lifepod with a near-dead young man in it, and you decide to find out where he came from and why.
A nobleman offers Navid’s family a vast fortune if they’ll make him a magic coat more powerful than anything they’ve ever made, and in the span of a single month. It will change their lives, one way or the other.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesexual-violence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
pregnancy-loss
In a world where children’s genetic makeup changes to match a step parent’s, a divorced father deals with the imminent loss of his child.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-oneself-harmsuicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
animal-harmbody-horrorviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathillness-and-pandemic
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathsuicideviolence
Child, parent, and grandparent: each stands at a threshold in "Unname Me at the Altar" by Ashaye Brown, a tender and brutal story of unbreakable bonds and unspeakable loss. Copyright khōréō magazine 2022. Story by Ashaye Brown, edited by Kanika Agrawal....
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
abusemisogynyviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
sexual-content
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
suicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
racismviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
mental-illness
Fifteen-year-old Cillian finds the love of his life buried in the peat of an old bog where she died long, long, ago.
As famine hits southwestern Nigeria, a family is forced to battle not only hunger and disease, but an insistent curse. Content warnings: Death, non-graphic body horror Copyright © 2026 khōréō magazine. Story by Jesutomisin Emmanuel Ipinmoye, edited by...
Content warnings 3
abusecannibalismillness-and-pandemic
An astronaut caught in the accretion disk of a black hole sends desperate messages to his lover and children back on Earth. But time is running out to escape — and there are forces in the universe far stronger, and stranger, than love. Content warnings:...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorhomophobiasuicide
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
“The rain isn’t working.” Kamal sighed. He traced the dive a hefty droplet as it swelled from a wispy microcloud high above and landed with a loud splash onto the yellow-tipped leaves of a tea bush. Moments later, a second oversized drop fell—missing the...
If every effort to bring down your child’s fever is unsuccessful and the doctors cannot diagnose anything wrong with her, then you should seek other means to alleviate her health. Before you help her into the house, if you notice that her shadow refuses to...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
This episode features "A Life Measured in Seconds" written by Anne Wilkins. Published in the June 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/wilkins_06_26...
Content warnings 2
abusebody-horror
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
It was all the gossip in the marshlands when the youngest wife of the Hisanha chain brought home a young man from upriver. The young man, whose name was Aigistha, […]
Content warnings 1
sexual-content
This episode features "And So I Open My Fists" written by Rachel Sobel. Published in the September 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/sobel_09_26...
Content warnings 1
sexual-content
This episode features "Burning Day" written by Samantha Murray. Published in the June 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/murray_06_26 Support us on...
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...
Content warnings 2
animal-harmbody-horror
Content note (click for details) oppression of marginalized groups, references to self-harm edited by David Steffen The antler people are exceedingly rare, but I’ve made sure my daughter knows about them. Not just as myth or stereotype, but as people like...
Content warnings 1
self-harm
Content note (click for details) Homophobia, transphobia edited by Hal Y. Zhang On October 19th, 2019, Stonewall Productions released Coming Out to Your Parents on PC and PlayStation 4. While it was the studio’s first major title, it took the gaming...
Content warnings 2
transphobiaviolence
Content note (click for details) Implied sexual assault of a teen, death of an animal edited by Hal Y. Zhang I toss the keys on the green Formica counter. I always aim for the same spot: that ugly, little brown ring—bubbled up and cracking—where Bill had...
Content warnings 3
abuseanimal-harmchild-abuse
edited by David Steffen The bay air felt strange on Domenico’s skin. He’d been here every evening for weeks, but this was the first time in a while — years, really — that he’d taken his body with him. He’d forgotten the kiss of breeze on flesh. The rental...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
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...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
edited by Ziv Wities Content note (click for details) Body horror; extended description of assisted suicide with dubious consent The attractive blonde technician responsible for your death smiles lovingly, and a smooth plastic pen slides into your gnarled...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathsexual-content
Content note (click for details) Graphic depictions of violence, violence against animals edited by David Steffen We are killers in search of new hunting grounds. We fear only starvation and others of our kind. We are wolfish comrades, strong in our...
Content warnings 3
animal-harmdeathgore
When the surgeon showed me my pearl, the pearl that was to be mine, I thought it was a joke. The dragon pearl was a pinkish, milky drop the size of my pinkie nail, made of some jelly-like substance somewhere between liquid and solid. It was contained in a...
There exist places where the walls between worlds grow thin. Places like this one, where two villages press together like lips on opposite sides of a glass: Renna-tal and Renna-ba, both perched on the edge of the lake called Mirror. Built in the same...
Content warnings 1
war
He had a second life, one spent in the river in laughter and play.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
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....
Author : Kathleen Schaefer Narrator : Heather Thomas Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 1059: A Little Freedom Makes Us Rebels is an Escape Pod original. Mild mentions of parental abuse This episode is sponsored by Sleepphones!...
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abuse
And now I’m home, standing over a recycled Home Depot bucket in my kitchen closet, crumbling bits of old bread into her maw.
Wine breathes, down here in the dark. It breathes, it ages. It is a living thing, the same as us. Inside each bottle is an ecosystem: a dark sea that […]
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cannibalism
My wife sometimes asked what had gone wrong with us. She had always been our bank of compassion, the caretaker of our marriage, the one who diagnosed what was needed to keep us on track, and made sure that it was provided. I evaded the question. How could...
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body-horror
There’s a wolf where my brother used to be, a beast absolutely hellbent on ruining my life. He plunges his broad snoot into the Wednesday night spaghetti, and neither Mom nor Dad cares when half the bite slides off his nose and onto the table, to later be...
Rachel sat at the edge of the sparkling pond in the secluded glen that had taken her five years to find. The air smelled of roses and lavender and pine. Tiny white sparks, like fireflies, floated upward, almost as if they were watching her.
My mom was sixteen when a band of boys took her out to the woods and bound her to a tree and tortured her to death, like in Jennifer’s Body , so you see her womb was kinda already out of commish by the time she got around to wanting to have me. A year ago,...
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cannibalismsexual-violenceviolence
Feast #1 We stare at Judar of the Island, stunned, as he picks up a piece of roasted chicken and bites into the place where thigh meets leg, the marinade smearing the corners of his mouth. His teeth sink into the flesh again, then again, then again, until...
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body-horrordeathviolence
This episode features "Nesting Behavior of Imported Species Troglodytes aedon on Planet Americearth" written by R.L. Meza. Published in the July 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
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body-horrorgoreviolence
When I was eight years old, two things happened to me: I realized I wanted to hurt my cousin, and in that same moment God or the Devil or some other force in the universe kicked my consciousness out of my human body and into a fly that circled and alighted...
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deathgoreviolence
“All clear, go!” yelled Klara from beyond the plastic confines of the ball, and I came tumbling. Water sloshed against my feet, and adrenaline rushed from my stomach up my […]
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death-of-a-loved-one
This episode features "Piece de Resistance" written by D.A. Xiaolin Spires. Published in the August 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/spires_08_26...
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death-of-a-loved-one
Author : Erin Keating Narrator : Heather Thomas Host : Kaitlyn Zivanovich Audio Producer : Wilson Fowlie PodCastle 954: The Grief Eaters is a PodCastle original. Rated PG The Grief Eaters By Erin Keating There was a time when grave dirt could summon grief...
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death-of-a-loved-one
Author : Lia Lao Narrator : Curtis C. Chen Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Wilson Fowlie PodCastle 956: Revolutions, as Told by a Humble Rice Farmer is a PodCastle original. Content notes for famine and sibling death Rated PG Revolutions, as Told by a...
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deathwar
Author : Chaitanya Murali Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Previously published by Kaleidotrope, 2024 Contents Notes for colonisation, enslavement, torture, racism, and references to sexual assault Rated R Of...
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racismslaveryviolence
Author : Angela Liu Narrator : Pine Gonzalez Host : Raul Bimenyimana Audio Producer : Wilson Fowlie Previously published in khōréō issue 3.2 (August 2023) Content note for references to suicide Rated PG-13 Kwong’s Bath by Angela Liu The visits start a week...
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deathsuicide
Author : Claire Jia-Wen Narrator : Rebecca Wei Hsieh Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 961: A Thousand Finer Foldings is a PodCastle original. Content note for terminal illness Rated PG A Thousand Finer Foldings By Claire Jia-Wen 1....
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illness-and-pandemic
Author : Ferdison Cayetano Narrator : Trey Nakamura Host : Eric Valdes Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Previously published in The Map of Lost Places Anthology, Apex Book Company Rated PG-13 When I Cowboy in Puuwaawaa by Ferdison Cayetano When I cowboy in...
Author : A. E. Lanier Narrator : Peter Adrian Behravesh Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Wilson Fowlie PodCastle 966: Closing Aperture is a PodCastle original. Content note for grief Rated PG Closing Aperture By A. E. Lanier The shapes and colors in the...
“Playing Tricks” was first published in It Was All A Dream: An Anthology Of Bad Horror Tropes Done Right, edited by Brandon Applegate, and later in Angela Sylvaine’s collection, The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls C/W: mental illness, gaslighting, child...
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abusechild-abusemental-illness
“The Song of the Living” was originally published in 2025 in an anthology Tonja edited titled, “If Fists Could Speak: A Black Speculative Fiction Anthology” CW: harm to animals Please see the host commentary below for notes from the author. When the trees...
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animal-harmbody-horrordeath
PseudoPod 1041: Graves Basin is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “I’ve heard many times, from people wiser than me, that a horror writer fares best when they don’t waste their time trying to figure out what scares other people, but instead write...
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body-horrorgoreillness-and-pandemic
PseudoPod 1047: Growing Life is a PseudoPod original. C/W: strong body horror, death of a parent Lucy didn’t immediately notice her dead Mama in the middle of the playground. She had been busy having fun for the first time since Mama’s funeral. Sprinting...
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body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-onegore
We'd only lived in Arizona four years—it was our retirement place. But I'd died there, and she'd dumped my ashes out in the desert without fanfare, without any poem or prayer, unless you considered, “Jesus, Marty, don't leave me. Why'd you leave me, you...
Aunt Jackie had warned me to be careful with Trey, the highest ranked male alpaca in her flock. His magical wool is so soft, we tolerate his posturing bullshit. I took the necessary precautions, sending a well worn shirt a week before I would arrive to...
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violence
This episode features "The Animator and the Glazer" written by Ju Chu and translated by S. Qiouyi Lu. Published in the July 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
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body-horrordeathself-harm
CW: none. My friend and client Hana, before she passed away, used to tease me about my fear of the dark. Hana was DeafBlind, and when I’d come to her home to work with her in figuring out some new appliance, or going through the mail, or whatever errands...
This episode features "The Floating Republic" written by Rebecca Campbell. Published in the June 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/campbell_06_26...
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deathviolencewar
He hates the birds. There are two, a breeding pair. Their eyes are red as devils’. On land they’re stupid, little feet pushed so far back on their bodies that they can’t escape by running. Yet they glide over the water, glossy mottled boats. Their chicks...
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animal-harmviolencewar
“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 […]
The day before the blind missionaries first arrived in our village, we had been raided by one of Jurgen Blanco’s enforcement squads. Blanco’s people were all the same—gaunt, lupine-visaged mockeries of men and women with broken, half-formed grins that...
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goreviolencewar
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....
The golem who cares for my mother is patient, as I am not patient. The golem who cares for my mother is kind. It is precise. I took everything I wanted to be as a daughter, and am not, and I put it into the golem. I’m still afraid I am failing her.
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illness-and-pandemic
The railcar rumbled as it descended into the sewer levels of the fortress city, Aguiyi. The cramped railcar smelled strongly of bleach and grease. Hazard and Safety Commission workers filled the available seats, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, with...
01 The first time I saw her, she was trying to prove to a water dispenser that she was human. The dispenser wouldn’t give her any water because she still […]
Of course I could kill him. If I wanted to, I would not hesitate to unhinge my jaw around his neck, skewering his trachea with my tusks and locking my […]
This episode features "When You Give a Dokkaebi Taco Tuesday" written by H.H. Pak. Published in the August 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
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abuseviolencewar
This is the story of you, a man—simple, uncomplicated, perhaps a little stubborn, getting on in years, but still vital. And some of the stupid fucking choices you've made.
A father bumbles his way through family domesticities as he makes his way to the airport. His children do not know he is not their father at all, but a stranger with a gruesome past, hard-earned advice, and a primal longing for a stolen life. Copyright...
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violencewar
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
An unnamed narrator takes an unusual journey home. "Homeland in Verse" by Naomi Day explores loss both, individual and diasporic, and what it means to arrive home when home is a concept you've forgotten. Content warning: Intensive body modification...
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death
"Trees Can Have My Soul; In Return, Let Me Have My Grief" asks what a mother tongue is when survival requires assimilation. Content warnings: Mild body horror, grief, death of a parental figure, racism Copyright khōréō magazine 2024. Story by Rukman Ragas,...
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"When We Make it to Bet-Zelem" is a profound meditation on hope and what it means to seek something that may no longer exist. Content warnings: War, violence, starvation, mass killing, animal death, displaced persons Copyright khōréō magazine 2024. Story...
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deathviolencewar
After learning the true history of her land, a young woman returns to her isolated hometown to dispel the propaganda they were told. "Child's Tongue" interrogates our silences and complicity in colonial narratives. Content warnings: Sexual harassment,...
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misogynyracism
An endless beam of light arrives and splits the sky. In the turmoil following the resulting global EMP, aging immigrant Demetri's family collapses and he must grapple for a place in a shattered world. Content warnings: References to the death of a child...
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abusedeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
The Wolf is Piroska's sister, and they play with bombs in the backyard of their new home. Is Piroska wolf enough to survive? Content warnings: Threat of violence, imagined bodily injury Copyright khōréō magazine 2024. Story by Varju Izzy, edited by Kanika...
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war
A family living under oppression hides their magic in a song passed down the generations. Take Up Thy Mother's Song is a story about when to choose survival and when to fight back, and when these are one and the same. Content warnings: Graphic violence,...
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deathviolencewar
A family vacation in the mountains takes a weird turn when they are forced to choose what to bring and what to leave behind. Content warnings: Violence, war, animal cruelty, death, intergenerational trauma Copyright khōréō magazine 2024. Story by Leslie...
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child-deathdeathgenocide
Nuran struggles with her mental health and an abusive household. Is escape possible with a voice down the well? Content warnings: Mental Illness, death Copyright khōréō magazine 2024. Story by Esra Kahya, translated from Turkish by Aysel K. Basci, edited...
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abusechild-abusesexual-violence
"In the Age of Fire" by Ana Rüsche follows the journey of a boy from Panama to the United States, through the immigration crisis and the climate crisis, to meet creatures from future generations in the caldera of a volcano. Content warnings: Discrimination...
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deathillness-and-pandemicracism
My entry into her apartments teeters entirely on this precarious pair of facts; one, I am small; and two, I am armed with Mother’s message.
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animal-harmbody-horrorchild-abuse
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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child-deathdeath
He craned his neck, trying to see above their spiked shoulder pads and fitted caps. At the door, security gods brandished assault rifles.
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deathviolence
We drive iron nails through my sister's feet and into the dusty floorboards below to keep her from flying away.
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Tina's life is a series of dominos falling toward the creation of the ultimate invention—with unforeseen consequences. Allison King's "Tina Yu and the Karaoke Time Machine" is a meditation on the power and fragility of music, memory, and family. Content...
In April, the dead return to spend brief moments with their loved ones. But what happens if the one you love doesn't come back? "In April, the Dead" by Natalia Theodoridou is a touching flash story about loss and family. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023....
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"Come Back, Crocodile Bird" by M.S. Dean follows the story of Arnaz, navigating a flooded world that leaves her both stuck in the past and trying to move forward. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by M.S. Dean, edited by Zhui Ning Chang. Audio edition...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesubstance-use
"The Abode of the Palms" by Karim Kattan is a story of the desert and jinn, of siblings and family and wishes, and what it means to be born second. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by Karim Kattan, edited by Kanika Agrawal. Audio edition read by...
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A standalone excerpt from a novel-in-progress, "The Blue Glow" is set in Hiroshima in 1945, in the aftermath of the atomic bomb. Sen, a sixteen-year-old suicide pilot who lived, returns to his home city, where gods now crouch disheveled among the...
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deathgorewar
PseudoPod 853: Oni in the Box is a PseudoPod original. Now, Sobo was our late father’s mother. By our mother’s accounts she was mad, if not wicked. Gossip ran muddy in our family. One relative, now deceased, told me she was once the personal Tay? of the...
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deathviolence
PseudoPod 857: Of Dark That Bites is a PseudoPod original. CW: Traumatic birth “Where do we go when we die?” asked Bea. She was in her car seat, a masterpiece of straps and safety standards that did less than nothing to assuage the mad patter of Lucy’s...
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body-horrormental-illnesssuicide
“The Curious Story of Susan Styles” was originally published in 1893 The Society for Psychical Research was formed in 1882, 11 years before this story was written “Susan Styles,” the name is not a romantic one, and yet it is associated in my mind with a...
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child-deathdeath
“Litany In The Heart Of Exorcism” originally appeared in Flash Fiction Online, and is due to appear in Dutch translation in Speculatief “He’s Just Like You” is a PseudoPod Original — “‘He’s Just Like You’ stems from the anxieties of being a father and the...
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animal-harmdeath
PseudoPod 867: Chainsaw: As Is is a PseudoPod original. Gillian King-Cargile grew up in the land-locked, corn country of Illinois, but every summer she’d visit her grandparents on the Jersey Shore. She swam in the Atlantic Ocean like a fish and body surfed...
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goresexual-contentviolence
“Bitter is the Sea, and Bright” was first published in Daily Science Fiction, November 2018 “Fishing Season” is a PseudoPod original — Fishing Season: I went fishing at a nearby reservoir, and I didn’t catch anything except water willow and the wisps of...
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deathgoreviolence
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...
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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...
Content warnings 3
deathsuicideviolence
PseudoPod 878: The Son (El Hijo) and The Feather Pillow (El almohadón de plumas) is a PseudoPod original. “El Hijo” was first published under the title “El padre” in La Nación, 15 January 1928. “El Almohadón de Plumas” was first published in the magazine...
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body-horrorchild-deathdeath
“Resilience” was originally released as episode 704 of PseudoPod. Jason gets home while I’m at the sink. He comes up behind me, holds me around the waist, and tickles the side of my face with his soft new beard. We watch the young squirrels shake a tree...
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body-horrorchild-abuseviolence
“The King in Yella” was originally published in Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign edited by James Chambers. It won the Ditmar award in 2022 for Best Short Story. I’m always returning to Rapptown in my thoughts. Unbidden, unwanted, I’m...
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deathsubstance-useviolence
PseudoPod 881: How to Win a Dance Contest During an Apocalypse (In Nine Easy Steps!) is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “While I’m a horror fan first and foremost, I’m also a big aficionado of coming-of-age films and romantic comedies, especially of...
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deathhomophobiaviolence
PseudoPod 882: See That My Grave is Kept Clean is a PseudoPod original. CW for suicide Dig a hole, climb in, cover yourself in grave dirt. Not your face. You aren’t ready to join the dead, not yet. The bone men tend the graveyard, unaware they’re being...
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child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
“The Grave of Angels” first appeared in Vastarien Volume 4 Issue 1, June 2021. CW: intimate partner death From the author: “This story incorporates many of my recurrent themes–rituals, religion, the end of the world, and did not end up where I thought it...
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body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
PseudoPod 886: A Wonder of Nature, In Need of Killing is a PseudoPod original. From the author: “This story was inspired by the snapping turtle who lives in a neighbor’s pond. Each spring she crawls from the water to the shrubbery in front of our house,...
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animal-harmbody-horrorsubstance-use
“The Evaluator” was originally published in “A Breath from the Sky” in 2017 and is included in the 2023 collection “No One Will Come Back for Us and Other Stories.” It is the first of Premee’s stories to appear on Ellen Datlow’s annual ‘Honorable Mentions’...
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animal-harmbody-horrorviolence
“The Stringer of Wiltsburg Farm” was originally published in Vastarien and was reprinted in the 2023 collection Who Lost, I Found Dark Harvest novel Dark Harvest Daddy called tobacco a quick and dirty crop. Quick because it was one hundred days from...
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deathmisogynyviolence
“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...
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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...
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animal-harmchild-deathdeath
“Douen” was originally published in The Dark Magazine and reprinted in the 2023 collection Skin Thief. From the author: “This story is set at my Grandmother’s house in Trinidad. The story itself is written in dialect the way I would have spoken it. It...
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animal-harmchild-deathdeath
A teenage girl's mother makes the best samosas in the world, but all is not as it seems. "My Mother's Samosas" by Malavika Praseed is a coming of age story about mixed-race identity, family conflict, and flawed perspectives. Copyright khōréō magazine 2022....
A young woman safeguards her birth mother's name: a string of pearls she carries in her mouth. This story explores transracial adoption and the intangible ways in which we anchor ourselves to identity. Copyright khōréō magazine 2022. Read by Sam...
"Review for: Izakaya Tanuki" is a magical slice-of-life tale about yearning for that special dish from a home you can't return to, told in the form of a restaurant review. Copyright khōréō magazine 2022. Read by Rue Dickey, Produced and Edited by Lian Xia...
When you follow your dreams into the stars, there are places—and people—you must leave behind. "Sorry We Missed You!" is a touching meditation on family, identity, and dreams set aboard our favourite spaceship in the universe: The Flying Potato. Copyright...
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Charged with carrying on her family's magical tradition, Filio must choose between legacy and freedom. "Tomatoes" by Eugenia Triantafyllou is a story about roots: those we inherit and those we put down for ourselves. Copyright khōréō magazine 2022. Read by...
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A young woman visits her mother's homeland for the first time, which has since been ravaged by war. "Hiraeth Heart" by Lulu Kadhim is a touching meditation on generational memory and home. Copyright khōréō magazine 2022. Story by Lulu Kadhim, edited by...
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war
Esther and Chaviva are best friends who never expected to be each other's direct competition for an arranged match with an off-world boy whose family will pick the victor based on her baking skills. No matter which of them wins, the other will lose: can...
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...
Adam has inherited his grandmother's restaurant, where they serve sins—often covertly and illegally purchased from a nearby prison. When a customer sends back a dish, Adam is faced with questions he's not sure he wants to answer. Copyright khōréō magazine...
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racismsuicideviolence
Eliza's mother was a talented artist without much time for family—until she died. Now, she needs Eliza for her last shot at fame, whatever the cost."The Scumbling" by J.C. Changmore is a haunting tale of ghosts, family, and broken love. Copyright khōréō...
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animal-harmgoreviolence
When Alice's father finds a snake in a crate of bok choy in their grocery store their family owns, he wants to kill it. But Alice sets the snake free into their family home, one more secret for its rotten walls to keep—until they can't anymore. Copyright...
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child-abusegoreviolence
A moment of anger leaves nine-year-old Marta without her brother—but the bond between the twins has always been strong. "All Good Children, Come Out to Play" by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez is a haunting story about grief and guilt, death and moving on....
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child-death
An unnamed narrator wears different skins to navigate different parts of her life: academia, her wealthy boyfriend's social circle, and her family's rigid dynamic that she seeks to escape. But her mutable presentation brings conditional acceptance at best,...
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abuseracismsexual-content
What are stories for? In Rhea Roy's "The Storyteller," an extraordinary, headstrong woman conceives and enacts a death-defying story out of the love of family. Copyright khōréō magazine 2022. Story by Rhea Roy, edited by Kanika Agrawal. Audio edition read...
“The Rocking-Horse Winner” was first published in Harper’s Bazaar, July 1926. There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she...
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abusechild-death
“February Moon” originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies in May, 2020, and was the first in a series of monster stories I’m writing that take place in old Texas. Something killed our rooster and three of our brown hens during the night. Thin ice...
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deathgoreviolence
“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...
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cannibalismdeathviolence
PseudoPod 803: Them At Number Seventy-Four is a PseudoPod original. When body number four is discovered, Mrs Patterson thinks that surely now she and her husband will be caught. Days creep past, then a week. Two. Three. Their excitement and relief begins...
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deathviolence
“Food Man” was originally published in Crank! and was nominated for an Otherwise Award, known at the time as the Tiptree Award. Dinner was the real problem. Mornings, it was easy to rush out of the house without eating; when it wasn’t, when her mother made...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorself-harmsexual-content
PseudoPod 813: A Belly Full of Spiders is a PseudoPod original. Alone in a dark basement, Davey’s learned to do much without his eyes. He can hear the groaning of a house that never settles. He can taste different flavours of humidity: rust, cloth, mould,...
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abusechild-abuseviolence
“The Goatkeeper’s Harvest” was originally published in The Dark. Special thanks to the author for helping us find a reader. From the author: “When I was seven, I spent the summer on my aunt’s goat farm, and it was quite the experience. Anyone who’s dealt...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathgore
“Balloon Season” has previously been featured in Fusion Fragment and Dark Matter Magazine. I’ve never gotten used to the sense of urgency of summer afternoons, that feeling of being drenched in the thickness of that still, blanketed heat, and trying to...
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body-horrordeathviolence
“Flowering Evil” first appeared in Planet Stories, Summer 1950 Captain Bjornson shook a grizzled head. “I never saw a plant I liked the looks of less,” he said. “I don’t know how he got it through the planetary plant quarantine. You take my advice, Amy,...
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body-horrorgore
Proverbs 16:31 – Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life. I suggest you don’t try to struggle, my dear. I’m sure you thought this would be easy. What danger is an old woman, all alone? In and out, simple. Help yourself to the purse...
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cannibalismgoreviolence
“Cockcrow Inn” was first published in the collection Who Wants a Green Bottle? and Other Uneasy Tales in 1926 Cockcrow Inn stands defiantly facing the sea. For countless years it has stood thus, holding at naught the greatest strength of wind and water,...
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deathviolence
“The Only Thing Different Will Be the Body” originally appeared in the anthology A Woman Built By Man published by Cemetery Gates Media My great-grandfather was an angel. When I told men that, they laughed. When I made it clear I was serious, they looked...
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cannibalismgoremisogyny
“No Hungry Generations” was published originally in the October 2022 Anthology, Death In The Mouth. The bird looked like the last descendent of a prehistoric mishap. Fatter than a turkey and wild-eyed even after death, it had small feet and a golden beard...
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Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Skelly's grandmother is teaching her to bake challah, an old recipe from Earth. But is preserving tradition enough when a portal to her grandmother's world beckons? Copyright khōréō magazine 2021. Story by Jennifer Hudak, edited by Lian Xia Rose. Audio...
"Green, Yellow, Red" by H. Pueyo What happens when your loved ones disappear as the world falls apart… and no one notices? A powerful dystopian tale about family, memory, and political upheaval. Copyright khōréō magazine 2021. Read by Tiago Santos,...
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violence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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Open 27 Hours By L.P. Kindred “It had pops of habanero-like spice immediately calmed by the subdued dulce of roast sweet potato. You got lemony shots of citric acid alongside amandine crunches. The dish was studded with cubes of meat I was too young to...
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“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...
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child-deathdeathviolence
PseudoPod 752: It Rises From Between My Bones is a PseudoPod original. Cancer, Chemotherapy Sitting on the toilet for the first sleepy morning pee, I felt my ovaries twist as a little piece of me trying burst through in a micro-explosion of tissue, born...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathillness-and-pandemic
“The Boulevardier” originally appeared in the anthology Love Hurts, from Meerkat Press. Each of the neighbours the boulevardier refers to in this story have appeared in their own published tales, as have others who live around the gully he refers to. David...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
“Little Worm” was originally published in the anthology Black Cranes Ping-ping-ping-ping. The incessant chiming underscored the cabbie’s music and the occasional blare of a horn. Theresa wondered what the hell it was as she braced herself. There were no...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-onepregnancy-loss
PseudoPod 760: Akiko’s Legacy is a PseudoPod original. “Mother, why are Grandma and Gramps ashamed of Father?” Akiko smoothed back the unruly curls from her son’s face. Robert needed a haircut. The tips of his brown hair had begun to feather up around his...
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-onesuicideviolence
“The Hollow Tree” was previously published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies in November 8, 2018 (Issue #264) Sevatividam would let to give a shoutout to Dan of Groundcrew Studios in Charlotte NC. She recorded “The Hollow Tree” and “Grave Mother” there and he did...
Content warnings 3
abusechild-abusedeath
PseudoPod 765: The Child Feast of Harridan Sack is a PseudoPod original. I plant a whisper in my daughter’s hair when her shoulders shake and hunch up to her ears. It’s only a story, I say. I turn the page; I’ve resolved her fears. It’s only a story. That...
Content warnings 3
abusechild-abusesexual-violence
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....
Content warnings 3
animal-harmchild-abuseviolence
“Papa’s Wrench and the Wind Chime” was originally published by Mocha Memoirs Press in The Grotesquerie (2014) and reprinted in her collection, Cold Comforts (Crossroad Press, 2019). The patch of fog on the window, expanding and fading with each breath, was...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
“The Family” was first Published in Weird Tales in January 1950 This is an abridged version of “The Devil’s Graveyard” which first appeared in First published in Hutchinson’s Mystery Story Magazine, December 1924 and was reprinted in Weird Tales in August...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
PseudoPod 786: Licking Roadkill is a PseudoPod original. Cole was licking the highway when the cops picked him up the night before Thanksgiving. Reckless endangerment, they said, and obstructing traffic, and whatever else they could come up with to get him...
Content warnings 3
deathsubstance-useviolence
“The Stories We Tell About Ghosts” was originally published in Looming Low: Volume I and reprinted this year in A.C. Wise’s new collection, The Ghost Sequences. Growing up in Dieu-le-Sauveur, my friends and I told stories about ghosts—the Starving Man, the...
Content warnings 3
child-abusechild-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
“Feast for Small Pieces” was originally published in The Bronzeville Bee in 2019 and reprinted in the collection Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy. “MeeMee” first saw print in the anthology Georgia Gothic. “The Shimmer of Trees” was originally published...
Content warnings 3
goremisogynyviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-onemental-illnesssuicide