274 free-to-read stories tagged “Fragmented”
"It is 2091, and Grace is staring at the rabbit in the corner of her visual overlay. It is an Angora rabbit, fluffy and white, and when Grace picked the icon out, she did not realize how much she would come to dread the sight of it. She moves, and the...
abusedeathmental-illnesspregnancy-losssexual-violencesuicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
body-horrorchild-deathdeathviolence
Sam’s ability is modest, but he’s still excited to be accepted into the Super Team. Now he just has to figure out how he can make the biggest difference—assuming he can do more good than harm.
violence
"This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration. The first time you get our message, you only / find one thread. It mimics your language in / its simplest form, a single strand of words / laid end to end. You will have to...
death
A plague killed all the colonists before Saki’s ship arrived, and she has to investigate it while mourning the man she loved, who died down there.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Rhye a bitter ex-supersoldier, fights to rescue Rack, her hacker partner in crime, after the criminals they're working for kill Rack's body while his mind is in cyberspace.
body-horrordeathgoreviolence
In a world desperate for wood for fires and paper, a man and his brother look for a tree good enough to make a world-class violin.
illness-and-pandemicviolence
The town barely survives the vicious weather because of the young people who turn into “weathermen,” leaving their families behind.
death-of-a-loved-one
"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.
deathsubstance-useviolencewar
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.
body-horrordeathviolence
The girl he killed was much more than merely human, and there will be consequences.
deathmisogynysexual-violenceviolence
The vampires aren’t even the worst part about being a teenage trans girl on tumblr.
abusechild-abusedeath-of-a-loved-onegoremisogynysexual-violencesubstance-usetransphobiaviolence
Hannah watched her sister Melanie die, incinerated with her own magic. Hannah can't accept that and sets out to use her own magic to put things right.
abusedeath-of-a-loved-oneself-harmsuicide
"A ship glides through the night, behemoth mother, swollen with ten thousand human lives. Her path is a single shining vector. There has been no stopping, no rest for the decades she has traveled, and there will be nothing but void for the two years to...
child-deathpregnancy-lossviolence
"Once a decade, a titanium-nosed shuttle plows through the rings of the planet Tartarus with a new batch of prisoners destined for the Orpheus Factory. The debris that makes up the rings is so thick that it thunders like a hailstorm, deafening the...
body-horrordeathviolence
"At first I thought something had broken in my book. I didn’t notice until the afternoon light from the windows began to recede. I tried to increase the brightness settings of the page, but no matter how I thumbed the margins, they would not change. For...
death-of-a-loved-onesubstance-useviolence
"WHEEP-3 (“Dr. Weep”), probably the most renowned AI AI-critic of the last two decades, was retired by the Shallow Laboratory at Stanford University last Wednesday. Created by Dr. Jody Reynolds Tran more than two decades ago, the experimental generative...
death
"Bloodsoaked and grinning, the Soldier climbs to the summit of the ruins. The wind is mountain-top fast. It grabs the strands of her hair that have escaped her ponytail and sticks them to her ecstatic mouth: the slick surface of teeth, the gloss-wet of...
violence
"It was half past midnight when Olga heard the Devil cry. They were supposed to be wild tonight, the three of them. Cassandra had led the way and Maria and Olga didn’t put up much of a fight. They would visit the Devil’s bridge—anything that claimed to be...
body-horrorchild-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
abusebody-horrordeathgoreracismsexual-violenceviolence
Lola (aka Eliza) has had problems dealing with people ever since she was a child, but she's always been good with snakes.
abusechild-abusedeathdeath-of-a-loved-onesexual-violenceviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
body-horrordeathsexual-contentsubstance-use
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.
mental-illnesssubstance-use
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
child-death
"Your mom loves you,” Cassie’s father says. They’re in an elevator. They only ever talk about Cassie’s mom in elevators, or when they go hiking and Cassie’s father leaves his watch at home. Cassie doesn’t know if her mom actually doesn’t listen, then, or...
abusesexual-violencesubstance-usesuicide
"Thuỷ stood in her cabin in The Goby in the Well, her bots arrayed on her shoulders and clinging to her wrists, and watched the heart of the nebula. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it: the Great Mulberry Nebula was large, sparsely dotted with...
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
deathmental-illnesssexual-violencesubstance-useviolence
Stick was made to pilot Phoenix in the war against the apostates. Stick never feels entirely human, but the final battle approaches, and Stick looks forward to it.
abusedeathviolencewar
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
body-horrorchild-abusedeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
In 2001, just before the attacks, a girl out West has a very close encounter with space aliens.
body-horrordeathgoresexual-violenceviolence
Evan is suddenly coughing up bones, like, A LOT of bones, but that’s not even in the top ten strangest things that have happened to him since he moved into his new (possibly haunted) duplex...
In mid-winter, a skeletal stag comes to the village begging for food, but it eats anyone foolish enough to talk to it.
body-horrorcannibalismdeathviolence
Donny is a young teen in high school, but his augments give him an intimate connection to the Internet—and put him at odds with his teachers and other students.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
child-abusedeath-of-a-loved-onesuicideviolence
"Upon my return to the village, it was my husband, Adamet, who took me gently by the arm and guided me across the docks spanning our marshes until we reached the preburial cottage overlooking the sound. We stood side by side in the shadows of the cottage,...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"You’re asleep in dreams of your father holding your head underwater, so the call from Magnolia Assisted Living goes to voicemail. “I didn’t raise a son of mine to count on his fingers,” your father says in the dream—because ah, yes, it’s all of your worst...
abusechild-abuse
"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...
body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"i am a memory. i am an METI carrying a memory. i am an METI (Message to Extraterrestrial Intelligence) carrying a memory beaming through the vacuum of space. Because i am an METI, i presume my purpose is to communicate with extraterrestrials, should i find them."
deathwar
"Start at the cleave of it, not at Zed’s meat death or Ep’s centuries-long destruction, but at the moment that Zed halves his own mind and walks away. Or as was reported in the internal memorandum, the moment when Pilot-Commander Zeta San Tano killed...
"In the beginning of me, I was a bird. A magpie, although I’ve since been a jay and a red-tailed hawk and even a big, black crow, crying tok-tok-tok at every passerby. But the magpie was special: on my first day, I saw those flashing blue wingtips, and I...
death
"In the cloud forests of Paek Sigma II, the inhabitants do not keep time, but stretch and slice it. The first humans who arrived on the planet were amazed by the fauna. There’s the stone-armored petradrakon, draped in twenty thousand scales each a meter...
violencewar
"Once upon a time, a little girl had to die. It’s just math. Wrong place, wrong time. Bad luck; too bad, so sad. We’ve all heard such stories, told them, shared them, collected them. Not in the way that we collect trinkets; more like how a sock collects...
death
An ice-age girl who learns to play the flute has an unusual connection with a future girl starving in a flooded city.
deathviolence
In a future Canada, a woman talks to her political-prisoner mother but wonders if it’s just an AI simulation of her.
illness-and-pandemicmental-illness
The soprano playing Liù keeps trying to change the opera’s gruesome plot, starting with her own death scene.
deathsexual-violenceviolence
A choose-your-own-adventure story in which you navigate the clinic on a space station full of aliens.
body-horrordeathviolence
Author : E. M. Linden Narrator : Louise Hewitt Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums PodCastle 879: The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead is a PodCastle original. Content warnings for grief, infant death, and a reference...
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
"There’s nothing quieter than the sound of dreams not coming true. The moment when reality sinks in and Gwen realizes she’s never going to have the one thing she’s been yearning for since high school—the thing she made so much space in her life to...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
body-horrorcannibalismviolence
"A hoodie is what a Soucouyant give birth to when she trick a Midnight Robber.” Or so Rose calls herself. Passed off to orphanages. No idea who her mother and father were. Didn’t know the source of herself. Because she wasn’t given a proper foundation to...
suicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
deathmental-illnesswar
"They were all hard at work, preparing for the long sleep. The sunlight-scattering sulfate aerosol constantly injected into the atmosphere since the time of the Geoengineering Generation had not been enough, providing little more than periodic acid...
death
"Charlie wasn’t a ghost standing in the corners of the house, but at the same time he was everywhere. He had been haunting my thoughts since we received Uncle Jamey’s emails and the plane tickets. Now, everyone gathered at our mother’s house, my childhood...
deathracismsubstance-usesuicideviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
body-horrorsubstance-useviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onegoreviolence
We follow this history of black people from prehistoric Ghana all the way to a lunar colony.
abuseracismslaveryviolencewar
Meant to clear plastic from the sea, the artificial “squids” have put the oceans off-limits to humanity. Not everyone takes that lying down.
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.
child-deathdeathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
body-horrormental-illness
"It turns out you’ve missed your favorite season. Your wheelchair rolls along a path strewn with ginkgo leaves, and you catch sight of the SWAILS building complex: fourteen dome-shaped structures surrounding a flat monument of what looks like black marble....
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"The aquarium is different every time I die. Exhibits reshuffling like a deck of cards. The blood loss, though, that’s reliable. Death ninety-three was the jellyfish room: all those ghost bodies and moonsilk, limned radiant in the blacklight, jetting about...
abuseviolence
"Memories of Memories Lost" by Mahmud El Sayed is a story about the price of the things we choose to forget. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by Mahmud El Sayed, edited by Isabella Kestermann. Audio edition read by Karim Kronfli and produced by Lian...
"A man who will be given a second name in ten thousand years and a man whose name will be forgotten sit in a forest, or perhaps a grassy plain, or perhaps a cold tundra. It is a biome that will not exist in ten thousand years but whose footprint will be...
mental-illnesssuicide
"Imagine: purple-haired girl shooting down the moon.” I type the prompt into the black screen as if making a request to God. The blurred shape of a head appears in four variations over a pixelated ocean of gray. The eyes, corrugated whites, slowly take...
abusesexual-contentviolence
For Grant Rutherford, work is both life and legacy — but when he dies a mere week after his wife, what he leaves behind will have metaphysical reverberations he could never have foreseen. Content warnings: Grief, medicalized illness, death of a loved one...
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemicsubstance-use
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
death-of-a-loved-oneracismviolence
A generation ship arrives at its target planet only to discover a civilization has arisen in the centuries since it was launched. The captain sends the navigator out to explore the planet and see if there’s a place for them there.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
The story of how Belezal, a war refugee in Khalem managed to escape to a better country and how he came to terms with having lost not one but two homelands.
The narrator undergoes a special treatment that lets her revisit (and change) key memories that trouble her—all of which involve people she had sex with.
sexual-contentsexual-violencesubstance-use
A crew member describes the songs he and his friends made when they put together a band centuries from Earth and centuries from their destination.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
The narrator’s homelife has fallen apart since she told her husband she’s asexual, so they order a device that looks and talks like her, but with “improvements.”
mental-illnesssexual-contentsuicide
Edgar Allan Poe’s writing has brought a creature into this world and it inhabits a young woman who wants to be rid of it. It has its own agenda.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
abusedeathgoreillness-and-pandemicsexual-contentsubstance-usesuicideviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
body-horrorcannibalismdeathgoreviolence
"The apartment is dark when I return, the blackout curtains doing their job of keeping the late afternoon sun out. It doesn’t matter, though. The air is stifling hot, thick and oppressive. Sweat gathers on my skin, sticking clothes to flesh. But I welcome...
death-of-a-loved-one
"Flyer 247-3 hasn’t flown in five days. In these five days, she has become accustomed to the hum and whine of the air filtration system cranked to its highest setting. She has become accustomed to her cell, four paces long, four paces wide. Its lack of...
"Got a new one for you,” the mover said. Small man, in neat overalls, wheeling the box on the stacker. That’s what the robot saw when they opened the box and let it out. It stepped cautiously out into sunshine. An unfamiliar city skyline, a boxy...
deathwar
"If a robot stands alone in a field, staring into the forlorn distance as it obeys the last order it was given by a human, that order being, “Don’t move until we come back for you,” which it can remember uttered with a cruel sneer by a man who has taken a...
abuse
"Never forget you are their monster. That’s the first rule we tell you, crammed between us in the back of Paola’s dad’s vintage ’22 Dodge Challenger, his project car he lets her borrow, with slick wheels and faux-leather seats that make our Sangrona noses...
deathgoreviolence
In "Kwong's Bath" by Angela Liu, Kwong is visited by the ghosts of the people she has trouble letting go. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by Angela Liu, edited by Sachiko Ragosta. Audio edition read by Lauren Kong, with casting and production by...
death-of-a-loved-oneself-harmsuicide
"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...
body-horror
"Our generation ship never grows. Our faces—varied as the stars that swaddle us, far from everything we knew—never age. Do we learn, cut off from all the past? Do we change? I’ve asked myself these questions, and so many more, over the...
suicide
"The seven siblings sit in a place beyond the boundaries of space and time, where everything is made of stories. Even them. Especially them. People are made of stories too, but only the versions of their stories that they tell themselves. Curated, limited,...
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"Time is absolute. My son is born and there is blood, screaming sweet as rain, tears, and joy. I hold him. Things precede. Time is a straight line that exists independent of observers. My son’s second birthday follows his first. He walks shortly after his...
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"The truth is that I lost my arm the same summer I lost my brother. Lost is a euphemism. In fact, my arm was retrieved by the paramedics and brought to the hospital, along with the two fingers severed from my left hand, and the various parts of my...
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Sorrow Farregon is a master perfumer, but the Queen wants something to make her conceive a child—which is challenging when the King is a clockwork automaton.
deathsuicide
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.
misogyny
A century into its journey, a ship’s cameras transmit images of cannibalism back to Earth, and the authorities debate sending a destruct signal.
cannibalism
Four different groups of people explore the pros and cons of different ways to reproduce in the future.
death
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
deathsexual-violenceviolence
In which grown up Gerda and Kay from “The Snow Queen” get separated, and she goes after him again, finding that much has changed and yet a lot is just the same.
misogynysexual-violenceviolence
They say that when women throw themselves into the sea, they turn into seals. Teen-age Louise, dying of tuberculosis, finds a magical seal skin that turns her into a new person. Then the owner shows up.
abusesuicideviolence
An alien brain transplanted into a human child’s body serves as an involuntary translator. It’s not supposed to have volition or memories, but things don’t always work as advertised.
sexual-violenceviolence
Zayred and Meiri used to be close friends and powerful magicians who could win battles through singing, but now they’re devoted to destroying each other’s reputation.
deathwar
Meshee is one of eight pregnant women whose babies are being auctioned off against their will.
body-horrorpregnancy-lossviolence
A member of a group of powerful beings who make stories real tells us the truth about Solomon Grundy and why he had to die.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Young scientist trying to develop time travel encounters an alien intelligence that lives outside of time.
death
All the imaginary creatures a young person could want to make apartment life more pleasant.
"Once upon a time,” outputted the algorithm, “there was an AI. “It generated recipes and ingredient descriptions for an online grocery store. The website said that this recipe was not just a squash soup recipe, but it also was a good diet recipe / keto...
"On the necropolis space station of the Tau Andromeda planetary system, the keepers of the tomb attended to the dead and the dying. They cleansed, prepared, and prayed over the bodies. They performed the last rites, paying intricate attention to the...
death
Espie Droger dreams of war. What else can he dream of? There is nothing left. He has dreamed of world travel and expensive Scotch and lithe young women and sudden uncontrollable laughter. But his vitality has seeped from him like fluid from a dying tree....
deathillness-and-pandemicwar
"They are travelling in the great dark before them nothing behind them stars just the two of them the man that captains and the ship that sails darts flies through space —whoever said space is empty did not know what they were talking about space is full...
body-horrorsexual-content
"High above the Amazon Rainforest, Hynd circled, her massive wingspan only visible by the shadow she cast on the battlefield below. She felt the wind pass across her wings, whispering of torrential rain coming; not her concern, so far above the clouds, but...
body-horrorviolencewar
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...
child-abuseself-harmviolence
A transnational adoptee is haunted by the ghost of his birth mother. Content warnings: Self-harm, suicidal ideation Copyright © 2025 khōréō magazine. Story by Woody Dismukes, edited by Isabella Kestermann. Audio edition read by Sam Cavalcanti, with...
body-horrorgoreself-harm
Two ex-military nurses, one human and one alien, share a friendship in a city following an alien invasion.
racismviolencewar
"Post-flight debrief. Subject: Michael Ackine, of the Astronomic Endeavors cargo ship, Zephyr One. Introductory notes: Mr. Ackine is the only survivor of the Zephyr’s maiden voyage. Z-One landed safely, five Earth days overdue and two kilometers from...
deathgoreviolence
Following a mysterious world-wide event that makes ghosts visible, a young woman is invited to attend Ghost Camp.
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"The buffet was infinite. It existed in a pocket dimension, via some sort of technological jiggering of the sort that you have heard about before and, unless you are totally anal, don’t want to hear about now. You could probably summon an explanation that...
cannibalismgoreviolence
"At 5:43 a.m. this morning, residents of Grackle Pointe Apartments awoke to a malfunction in their complex’s multi-spatial engine due to an unprecedented derecho that swept through the Montrose area of Houston. This resulted in tenants being mentally and...
body-horrordeathgore
"The first time through this cycle, Devaki does not believe he will go through with it. Kasma is her brother, after all, and for all his fears, he didn’t kill her when he had the chance. So as her baby grows inside her, the first fruit of her marriage to...
child-deathpregnancy-losssuicide
"The Starsinger, the Starsinger, the Starsinger, he sings. His histories have long been recorded—in every pit stop he has visited. In every station he has stayed. It may be just a minute of the traffickers slapping the Bini out of his mouth, or them...
child-abuseslaverysuicide
Author : Ruth Joffre Narrator : Julia Rios Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Dean Kidd Discuss on Forums PodCastle 916: Woodpecker, Warbler, Mussel, Thrush is a PodCastle original. Rated G Woodpecker, Warbler, Mussel, Thrush by Ruth Joffre Yesterday, I...
A child who falls through the cracks in a world run by machines and politics, might be the savior of all humanity…
substance-usewar
"El detonated the EMP against the feeder’s sensor, a delicate organ that he had only seen in fragments, suspended in cytology slides the shape of dominoes. The lab just days ago had been inundated with new specimens, washed up on the long white beaches...
body-horrordeathself-harm
"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...
deathsexual-contentviolence
"The Henrietta, passenger, cargo, and slave ship, was routinely used to transport goods from the Florida Keys up as far north as Rhode Island, and is also said to have made at least six voyages transporting enslaved African peoples from the Gold Coast of...
racismslavery
"1. To kill a language, you must first rip it from living throats. Don't look so askance; you knew it already. The dead can't speak unless called and the only way to prevent our enemies calling upon their own hordes of dead ancestors is to strip their...
sexual-violenceviolence
"Tyler Moore’s spells strive to exist in and of themselves. They make no excuse or justification for their existence: no promise to speak to the dead, predict next year’s grain or gold prices, or read the mind of lawyers during a hostile takeover. They are...
"Salty swell over my head, tugging me back, the raw and tender creases of my elbows against the forearms they're linked with. Brine up my nose, in my mouth. The anchor of my feet in the sand holds me fast with the rest. The water recedes and we breathe, a...
body-horrordeathsuicide
"Black Quadrangle, Mesolithic era Unknown Charcoal on sandstone This work, created c. 15,000 BC (17,000 AS), precedes earliest surviving written texts. It was rediscovered alongside human remains and burnt carbon deposits, suggesting a role in a burial,...
"A syringe with a magnetite needle that would frighten even the boldest of souls. A torture device. But for my sister Kata, it would be a piece of the divine that shouldn’t be on the Aldarish Society Museum for Byrnyan Culture. That pretty much sums up how...
"It slips, now—I know it slips. There are men in my parlor, in uniforms, crisp navy, badged. Police. Beyond them Eveline wavers in a yellow nightgown, hands clasped to her chest, eyes wide and worried—no, no, she doesn’t, she’s not here, I’m dreaming her,...
deathmental-illnesssuicide
"She’s walking by the river on an overcast day, when sweat runs down her palms, goosebumps all over her neck. The breeze stills. The gray sky turns blood red. Instead of the Sun, through a clearing in the clouds, she finds the Eye. Veins branch across a...
body-horrorsubstance-usewar
"You’re not meant to fix what happens in the time loops. Doctor’s orders, and that comes even before they give you the survey and the spiel and the confidentiality speech. The psych fiddles with his tablet in his cozy, yellow-couch office, and talks to you...
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
"The last picture that Karu has of her father alive is on the day of her graduation. She has this big smile that by the placing of her dimples makes it obvious that she is his daughter. He stands next to her holding her waist in the space between his...
death-of-a-loved-one
"The man in the navy Cosmo Corp suit calls it Self-Reconciliation Therapy, this place they’ve dumped you, where the walls are made of mirrors. But they aren’t mirrors, are they? Sure, you raise a hand, and the woman in the not-mirror waves. God, her...
child-abuseself-harmsexual-content
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
body-horror
"Deng Baolin is my paternal aunt, my father’s little sister. Dad says Auntie was beautiful when she was young, with a bright-eyed gaze, pure yet alluring, and a slender, curving waist. When happy, her face was like springtime. When sorrowful, she was like...
"In the belly of the ship, the Machinist toiled. Beyond the walls of her workshop, ships of dark metal pursued her across the Atlantic, their hulls unaffected by the gnashing teeth of thunderstorms. Lightning flashed horizontally across the bay. Those dark...
deathviolence
"Rally is a dance on wet gravel to the roar of six cylinders and the flutter of turbochargers but I say again, Rally is a dance. I remembered when I discovered this truth, when I stopped jogging in place and began to ice skate on narrow back trails, not so...
deathviolencewar
"The low rumble of the train cut through the night and the living flesh of The City, carrying its passengers ever further from the gleam of parliaments and providence. The stop towards Wild Park grew ever closer, represented along the wall of the train by...
body-horrorgoreviolence
"Welcome, Stranger! This is a story for you, you who wait for my words to fall into your ear, so that we can share being and become more than we are alone. The tales I have to tell today are woven into this fabric that unrolls before you as I work my Loom....
child-deathracismsexual-violence
"She tells the children to call her Kade Makasi, and if this was one of her stories, she’d describe herself as bent and wrinkled and spider-like for a touch of myth and poetry … but she’s none of these things … she’s tall, thick-browed, with two braided...
mental-illness
"The young rag-smasher halts on a terrace. He chases his breath, gazing down on the waterfront. Even from this distance, the bustle lends him an odd calm. Brisk trade means things are running. No one’s starving, not even beggars. Down there, people...
violence
"and in a strip mall parking lot off a side road in some Baltimore suburb my hand is trembling as I take the last of the voidwater in its little bootleg dropper and I peel my eyelid back and though I am so careful and try so hard a bit of the precious...
self-harmsubstance-usesuicide
"Latent summer stirred while spring lay dormant. April had come to the Kingdom of S’ong and brought with it spells of rain. Tadpoles in the pond recently developed hind legs; above, a stray shower had been drumming at the water pit-a-pat. The rain-rinsed...
deathwar
"Lamia knows hunger. She has known it since the harvests withered, since water stopped falling from the sky, since the animals fled. Even so, she continued living with her family in the cabin on the riverbank. There were four of them: father, mother,...
body-horrorchild-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"On the first floor of a Colonial-style house constructed last century out of planks of old growth cedar, a monster is dragging a woman’s husband from room to room. The specific path this monster takes will be evident the next morning from the gashes in...
abusesexual-violence
A reporter travels to the Norwegian Arctic to cover an unusual sled race with the undead leading the living into unknown territory.
deathviolence
"Home brews coffee; black, no sugar. She maintains the temperature of the coffee at precisely sixty degrees Celsius. Most of the coffee sloshes over the jagged edges of the half-shattered mug. Rough holes have been torn through the matte plastic back of...
"Ti came to see me, you know. Three four days before she died. Knocked right on my door, and I’ve never been so surprised in all my life. This is a woman who when we were on tour would have the driver drive her halfway down the block rather than walk to...
death
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"They say Omma’s in there, but she’s not, she’s not. It’s just an empty metal capsule they’re lowering into the ground, and the rain is too wet and the flowers too bright and the wailing of the mourners—it’s so much, too much, and Na-Yeong slaps Appa’s...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneself-harm
"Stars snap into place outside Lura’s cockpit. A red giant twenty degrees off her ship’s nose has visibly shifted position. The nebula above her has grown more diffuse. She exhales, clicks the button to log another successful breach, and lets herself blink...
death
"Sister," pants the white fox as it dangles upside-down from the railing, its tail like a question mark, its grin like something the devil had won from Saint Peter. “You’re getting soft.” I pinch my midriff and shrug, winking an eye. “I’ve been busy.” “No,...
violence
"Attached, please find your personal company-issued Breathing Apparatus, for immediate use within all corporate campus unfiltered air locations! This includes all outdoor locations, such as: the parking lots; the parking garage; the smoker’s hut; the paths...
deathviolence
"Tom called Adriana Honey-Bunny, and she called him Pumpkin. A moment by a window. An orange California morning. Tom snapped his fingers, the waiter understood and came and refilled his cup with fragrant coffee. The sun shone on their table and the street...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"And I am a curious thing. “Are you broken?” they asked by way of hello, in the direct way children have. I shook my head, neck creaking and scraping with the movement. “No, child. Just old.” “Oh.” The child looked me up and down, trying to decide whether...
"Nobody remembers exactly when it started. Probably back in the ’90s when they cloned that sheep, back in the ’10s when they started working on cloning people on the DL, back in the ’20s when the retrovirus broke our genetic virginity. If you’re rich you...
sexual-content
"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...
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Noah is a busy man with a lot of work to do on the moon since he and his partner went independent, but his wife’s illness is a big distraction, and there are hints that other things are seriously wrong.
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Someone from our era look back to 1888 London and the Jack-the-Ripper murders.
deathgoreviolence
No longer entirely human, Luis revisits his childhood home and reflects on how the world ended.
deathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
While one man spends all his income on dreams, another works hard creating those dreams.
death
A grieving father tries to recreate the son he lost.
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Cyber-terrorists used Aki, a humanoid robot, for their attack on Sentionics Corp, and now the police need to figure out what they did and how they did it.
deathviolence
An account of various famous artists, writers, and musicians who lived in Manhatttan in the 1930s.
A few years ago, the Gray Sun killed millions to silence the subversion of Li Sin’s revolutionary poetry. Li Sin faked their own death to escape, but somehow the Gray Sun learned the truth, and now it hunts again.
deathviolence
They say the mountain women have “unnatural habits” so when Katrin falls in love with a lowland man, no good can come of it.
deathviolence
Hand-written notes in a book about imaginary places tell a woman’s story of her attempt to survive a fascist takeover of the United States.
In which a chorus of time travelers give us advice, in the paradoxical way of time travelers.
"On Miphre, a planet hardly larger than a moon, jagged mountaintops stab above the cloud cover and harbor small ecosystems in the palms of their hands: rock eels and ribbon mosses and seabirds with rodents clutched to their breasts, each one nestled...
animal-harmbody-horrordeath
"USER: this is a message for Milwaukee Elementary’s curator Jude Towers, I hope this is the right address. anyway thanks for the story you had RIGHTR generate for my 10th graders’ Empathy Week. it was really great! can you tell me more about it? CURATOR: I...
mental-illnessracismtransphobia
"Valentini doesn’t flinch when the purple-bellied storm shakes the house, heedless of the film being shot within its derelict husk. Scene fifteen, take three. The Hollow Places crew rushes to stop the windows’ skeletal rattling before the atmospheric...
child-deathgoreself-harm
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
goretransphobiaviolence
"Children don’t generally assume their father will abandon them to die in the snow. But under certain circumstances, they might get an inkling. If their mother had died the year before, and their father brought home a woman with a sweet voice and cruel...
cannibalismchild-deathsexual-content
"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...
body-horrorgoresexual-content
"Udo Gehler saw his next opponent was the Virgin Bitch of the Resistance and didn’t even blink. He’d been curled up in his personal ARMOR lounge, holo-projecting the replay of his last match frame by frame, noting every instance he’d lost momentum or ceded...
sexual-violenceviolencewar
"You are no poet. The rest of your clan were. But that was before Half-Brilliant came and began eating them. Before Half-Brilliant began chewing up your people and their minds and spitting the bloody remains over snow-white canvases. Now It is the only...
body-horrorslaveryviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"The ferryman’d had a poor, cold day, is how it starts. There’s other ways to start this one, but this time, we’ll start with the ferryman. It was shadows-eve, the coldest, longest night of the year, when the blackbird breathes all over the world. He’d...
child-deathracismviolence
Nothing tears two women apart like the men who want and take indiscriminately. In this retelling of “The Crane Wife”, a makeup artist and her actress lover struggle to stay together as the glitz and glamour of old Hollywood transforms into a cruel and...
abusemisogynyviolence
"My spirit aches. Reality is severed. I’m trapped in a glass room. Time is water, streaming by. I’m underwater in the current of time, watching time float by. My hand on the room’s thick glass, unable to shatter it, unable to get out. Even if I escape,...
body-horrorracismsexual-content
"You, on the day of your birth. You blink into existence, and the first thing you hear is: We are at war with the Uilai. The Uilai must be eliminated. Well, “hear” is an understatement, for the sentiment is injected through multiple channels: auditory,...
abuseviolencewar
"One: My lipstick. The shade is Heart’s Blood. Morbid, if you ask me. I wanted to know if it was really the color of heart’s blood so I bought beef heart and tried dabbing my lips. Close enough. I emailed to congratulate the lipstick company on their...
Night Soil, of course, is human feces, but the salvagers to more than just collect that; they deliver other things too—if you’re willing to deal with them, that is.
Red Riding Hood escapes the wolf after years of living together and finds asylum with Beauty while the Beast is overseas on business.
abusedeathviolence
Young Mira has a gift: gemstones sing to her. She wants to use it to help her family, so she leaps at the chance to join a young man who’s hunting for a long-lost ruby mine.
deathgoreviolence
Unexpectedly, you woke up female this morning, in someone else's body. Now you have to decide what to do about it.
misogynysexual-contentsexual-violence
An interview with a simulation of the dead artist, Satka, who still has a big online following years after her death.
deathsuicidewar
Out on Europa, Marius has vanished and Kotto has come to rescue his partner, Bolaji.
body-horrordeath
An Arab-American girl and her mother wander the Dakotas while the girl tries to get in touch with a boy she once knew.
death-of-a-loved-onewar
1. A photograph in black and white, taken with a Zenit vintage Soviet camera. Taken outside what would much later become Tong Yun City, in the days when it was still just a cobbled-together mass of crash-landed jalopies, connected with primitive tubing...
death-of-a-loved-one
I am not here to talk about how i got my arm, i am looking for hel p trying to fix it . Apologies for typos the f fingers lag a lot
body-horrorviolence
When you look out from the garage doors of the corrugated steel warehouse where the Fort Springwell Community College soccer team made their heroic stand against the forces of darkness, the view at first seems . . . idyllic. A rocky shoreline, uncommon for...
body-horrorgoreviolence
Teresa finds the first site right after she gets back from maternity leave, Daniel snug in a baby sling at her chest. He’s quiet as far as babies go, sleeping […]
death
This episode features "Archaeological Evidence for the Time Traveler" written by Tia Tashiro. Published in the May 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
death
This episode features "Crosstalk, Elysium" written by Carolyn Zhao. 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/zhao_03_26 Support us on...
deathviolencewar
Layla was bleeding out. Her neurons began to supernova and transmute into a new electrical form. A maglev of old memories zipped past her. She was thinking about that one […]
body-horrorgoreviolence
This episode features "Decimation Circles" written by Raahem Alvi. Published in the May 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/alvi_05_26 Support us on...
body-horrorgoreviolence
Personality Disorder (Not Otherwise Specified) My patients called me Dr. Holloway. My friends called me Jason. I won’t tell you what my three ex-wives called me but I’m sure you can guess. I was a psychiatrist (and a damn good one seventy percent of the...
mental-illnesssubstance-usesuicide
Author : Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko Narrators : David D. Levine and S.B. Divya Hosts : Alasdair Stuart and Tina Connolly Audio Producers : Summer Brooks and Adam Pracht Escape Pod 1031: The Anatomy of Miracles (Flashback Friday) is an Escape Pod original....
Author : Premee Mohamed Narrator : Dani Daly Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “More Tomorrow” was first published in Automata Review, March 2018, and previously published as Escape Pod 713, in January 2020. A few grade-A curses. More...
body-horrorviolence
After the braiding, a low buzzing remains in Memoire’s ear. It reminds her of the low buzzing she heard while they shampooed her hair. They told her she could never submerge her head in water after the braiding. No more swimming. No more drifting on her...
body-horror
The first time you killed me, I cried like a baby. Stupid, stupid, to cry over something make-believe—stupid and ugly and pathetic, too, when already the only thing I wanted in the world was for you to find me pretty. I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t expected...
abusegoresexual-content
Notes on specimen “Efren Vargas” 1022/204.27.3: >> Supposed to be married to “Joan Dimagiba,” his fiancée. >> Was in bed with some other woman* a week (in human time) before […]
This episode features "Human Studies 401" written by Abby Nicole Yee. Published in the April 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/yee_04_26 Support us...
Maybe we overestimated ourselves, I thought, watching the ferries hum against the wine-dark sea. Even if we floated above it, we were still bound to the ocean, engulfed in all its weight and inescapable history. To believe otherwise was a kind of hubris....
Author : Audris Candra Narrator : Zilla Paramita Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Discuss on Forums PodCastle 925: The Immortal Rabbit is a PodCastle original. Content notes for homophobia, violence, the death of a spouse, and second-person...
death-of-a-loved-onehomophobiaviolence
Author : Natalie Zutter Narrator : Valerie Valdes Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 930: Parsley Girl, Parsley Girl, Let Down Your Trichobezoar is a PodCastle original. content notes for pregnancy loss, post-natal depression, and...
body-horrormental-illnesspregnancy-loss
Author : Anna Kahn Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 932: Carina is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13 Carina by Anna Kahn “I’ve had a baby. Still feels strange that you don’t know that — I’ve been looking...
Author : Mar Vincent Narrator : Rosie Sentman Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Wilson Fowlie PodCastle 936: Ananconfabulation is a PodCastle original. Rated G Ananconfabulation by Mar Vincent Our homes are buried, so we built tunnels. From Tomas’ window...
Author : Victor Forna Narrators : Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Munashe R. Goromonzi, Wanini Kimemiah, Tahnia Barrie, Soila Kenya and Opie Ogundiran Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Previously published by Apex Magazine Rated PG Kɛrozin Lamp Kurfi...
violence
Author : T. R. Steele Narrator : Jordan Kurella Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 943: At Death’s Door is a PodCastle original. content notes for suicidal ideation and second-person narration Rated PG-13 At Death’s Door by T. R....
mental-illnesssuicide
This episode features "Scion" 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/ha_03_26 Support us on Patreon at...
body-horrorgoreviolence
I have done my best to transcribe the account found in the recently excavated cenotaph, but, as you’re aware, these experiential simulations don’t easily lend themselves to direct reproduction. Nonetheless, […]
death
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...
This episode features "Shelter" written by Nadia W. Aldsen. Published in the April 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/aldsen_04_26 Support us on...
body-horror
1. I’m sorry, my lord. 2. I miss the sound of your voice, deep enough to shake the mountain fortress’s stones. I miss feeling it rumble in the soles of my feet. I miss the glow of your eyes while you paced the Chamber of Mysteries, lava burning in the...
abusemental-illnessviolence
She assures them, again and again, that she acted under the best—the very best—of intentions. Oh, yes, she can be a bit dramatic at times—she won’t deny that. And she was hurt—very hurt—by that mess with the invitations. She won’t deny that, either. But...
deathviolencewar
Open your eyes. Look down at your hands. What do you see? Your life is never the same after you get into the car with that bitch Sophia, who was […]
abuseself-harmsubstance-use
Draw a rectangular shape. Put a cylinder around it. Add a few small rectangles to any lines, such that they straddle them. At least one on the rectangle, and another on the cylinder. These are airlocks. The engine should look like a lighter stacked on top...
body-horrordeath
This episode features "Those Who Left History" written by Wanxiang Fengnian and translated by Stella Jiayue Zhu. Published in the March 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
self-harmviolencewar
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? […]
deathsuicidewar
The Tree Man’s Rebirth At the threshold to the Kuiper Belt in the outer solar system, Deep Space Gate was the largest station humanity ever built. The station psychologist Chu […]
abuseanimal-harmviolence
Abuelita has been feeding me her memories. Yesterday, it was the time she trudged up the mountain carrying a basketful of offerings for Pachamama (flowers, incense, a llama sculpted out of animal fat and adorned with gold leaf) in hopes the Earth Mother...
deathillness-and-pandemicsubstance-use
I beg you, let me tell you about my daughter. My brilliant daughter will be one of the four people who survive their airplane crashing into a giant. Or, more accurately, a giant swiping their airplane out of the sky. Perhaps it meant to catch, or caress....
death
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...
self-harmviolence
You know you are fucked when you see fragments of the broken radio on the floor. Your damaged ship lay nose caked into the sand, and coupled with your sprained ankle that hums an excruciating pain, and slight concussion on your head—your chances of...
The Combat Pilot's Dictionary By Arden Baker Boot Rookie pilot. See also - nugget. You called us ‘boots’ when we turned up to the flight deck that first morning I laid eyes on you. The halogen lighting shone down onto the makeshift parade ground with a...
deathviolencewar
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...
body-horrorsexual-contentviolence
Author : Kal M Narrators : Valerie Valdes, Eric Valdes, Dominick Rabrun and Alasdair Stuart Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Butter Side Down originally appeared in Writers of the Future (volume 40) – May 2024. Butter Side Down (Part 1 of...
violence
Author : Kal M Narrators : Valerie Valdes, Eric Valdes, Dominick Rabrun and Alasdair Stuart Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Butter Side Down originally appeared in Writers of the Future (volume 40) – May 2024. Butter Side Down (Part 2 of...
violence
Nerves Into Circuits By Lyra Meurer Metal arms descend to press skin-soft conductor strips over my shoulders. The Neurasuit has been in warming mode for a few minutes–my overwrought senses accept the lines of heat like a gift. Despite my anxiety for the...
body-horrorsuicideviolence
"Damian Marshall was a prisoner to his own brain. He was beating his fist against the glass of his cell, hoping someone could hear that this was not the real him. It was never meant to be this way and, truthfully, he had a heart swelling with love to give....
mental-illnessviolencewar
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
violence
"At 2:26am, police were radioed in to a casualty at a residence in (redacted), according to witness accounts and the child present at the home, a woman was found deceased at the bottom of the stairs. There were no signs or history of domestic violence....
abusechild-abuseself-harm
"DIRECTIONS: Fill in the correct letter with a #2 pencil on the answer sheet. Do not use ink or ballpoint pens. Questions left blank will be marked incorrect. Completely fill in each circle."
Author : Tim Chawaga Narrator : James Kaku Pierson Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 938: Chug the Tea Leaves, Chuck the Ads is an Escape Pod original. Chug the Tea Leaves, Chuck the Ads by Tim Chawaga I wake up to a message and...
deathsuicide
Author : James Patrick Kelly Narrators : A Kovacs, John Cmar and Pamela Quevillon Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Appropriate for older teens and up due to erotic imagery and war criminal comeuppance Bad Dogs Escape By James Patrick...
deathsexual-contentviolence
The Scientist Does Not Look Back By Kristen Koopman Feb. 17, 3:40 AM. Audio notebook for new project: revival of a clinically dead patient, 36 year old male, died of hypothermia and shock. The technician at the morgue hesitated when releasing him to me....
body-horrordeath
This Little War of Ours By Arden Baker SECURE PRIORITY COMMUNIQUE distribution SOLITAIRE, keyword MASQUERADE, source PENTACLE FROM: TRIPLE INTENT TO: ASPHODEL BEGIN CONTENT Even if you’re my enemy, I’m glad to hear from you.
suicidewar
Code Switching (Part 2 of 4) By Malon Edwards (...Continued from Part 1) [JEAN-MICHEL] ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PERFORMANCE OUTPUT JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. KINSLEY CHASE Lòske jounalis sa yo gade m— Hold up. Let me say that again. I'll wait. Y'all go grab y'alls paper...
racismwar
Code Switching (Part 3 of 4) By Malon Edwards (...Continued from Part 2) [JEAN-MICHEL] A SWEET-ASS HELICOPTER AND TEN STATER STRANGERS? JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. THE NAUGHTY NINETY-DAY FANDANGO I'm feelin' this Bell 525 Relentless like Ellen Gilchrist playin' bid...
racismviolencewar
Code Switching (Part 4 of 4) By Malon Edwards (...continued from Part 3) 12. THIS IS THE TRUTELL MICHAËLLE-ANNABELLE FEAT. JEAN-MICHEL I strap into my rig, take a really big swig from my hydration dispenser tube I call The Ultra Black Vig, and settle back...
racismviolencewar
Author : Linda Niehoff Narrator : Heather Thomas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 883: Just Us and the Mannequins is an Escape Pod original. Brief mention of suicidal ideations Just Us and the Mannequins by Linda Niehoff It was...
suicide
Author : MKRNYILGLD Narrator : Premee Mohamed Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World” originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine (September 2022). Abortion,...
misogynypregnancy-losssexual-violence
If My Body Is a Temple, Raze It to the Ground By Lauren Ring Thea helped me with my upload today. Decent response speed. Props to whoever designed her—so realistic! — anonymous customer review for Acheron Uploads, four out of five stars I know, I know....
abusemisogynyslavery
Author : Andrea Phillips Narrator : Julia Rios Hosts : Valerie Valdes and Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike originally appeared in Fireside Magazine in February 2017 and first played on Escape Pod Episode...
violence
Author : Amal Singh Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “A Series of Endings” originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (December 2021) A Series of Endings by Amal Singh This is the story of Roopchand...
death
Challenges to Becoming a Pro Dragonracer in Apapa-Downtown By Uchechukwu Nwaka The gear is too expensive. Honestly. There isn’t enough competition in the market. The Immersion® console alone costs an arm and a leg. Ọmọ. You’ll sweat to even get a...
abuseviolence
Author : Phoenix Alexander Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 832: Mouthfeel is an Escape Pod original. Mouthfeel by Phoenix Alexander 2050 After she left him, he found cells of hers...
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
deathviolencewar
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
war
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
child-abuseslaveryviolence
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
slaveryviolencewar
Across the River, My Heart, My Memory By Ann LeBlanc 1. I am Michelle’s artificial pancreas, stolen cleanly and carefully from her gut. The surgeons are quick; before I can finish my hard reset, they place me inside you. I don’t even have time to say...
deathviolence
Dandelion By John Shade Before the border wall, we scatter. Dandelions. The nanomachines grind us down and we float up and through the cracks, molecule to molecule, like holding hands. Leena hesitates, is left behind. She stands apart on the wrong side of...
deathgoreviolence
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...
abuse
Author : Amal Singh Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “A Home For Mrs. Biswas” previously appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (April 2021) A Home For Mrs. Biswas by Amal Singh Once she saw the red sands stretch...
death-of-a-loved-one
Author : Patrice Sarath Narrator : Tatiana Grey Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks The Way of the Laser (Vernacular Books, May 2020) Don’t miss Spider, Part One Spider (Part 2) by Patrice Sarath Nguyen “Attention. Attention. Stay in your...
deathviolence
Balancing the Equation by Justin C. Key June 18, 2031 Lauren led her two-year-old son, Sean, slowly to their car while carrying three full bags of groceries. "Up," Sean said, showing her his palms. "Up, Mama, up!" "Ask one more time and you're getting a...
child-deathdeathracism
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...
cannibalismchild-deathsuicide
Author : Marika Bailey Narrator : Eden Royce Host : S.B. Divya Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums “Seed Vault” was originally published in Strange Horizons (Nov 2019) Seed Vault (Part 1) By Marika Bailey 1. FIRE I should tell you about the...
deathviolencewar
Author : Marika Bailey Narrator : Eden Royce Host : S.B. Divya Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums “Seed Vault” was originally published in Strange Horizons (Nov 2019) Seed Vault (Part 2) By Marika Bailey The desert rain has lulled me and I...
deathviolencewar
Author : Catherine George Narrator : Abra Staffin-Wiebe Host : Benjamin C. Kinney Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (December 2019). Annotated Setlist of the Mikaela Cole Jazz Quintet...
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Death, the Universe, and Everything By Sherin Nicole The morning after it happened for the first time, I-- I’m not sure if I should tell you, but maybe you can tell me. If your understanding of reality fundamentally changes, does it change you? And how...
deathmental-illnesssuicide
Hard Mother, Spider Mother, Soft Mother By Hal Y. Zhang “Did you see the report on the spy from Aberdeen? The game is a-foot.” I mumbled something like “No, sounds interesting.” All I remember is my usual annoyance at her ability to pronounce hyphens where...
mental-illness
Authors : Ash Beker, Summer Fletcher and Alasdair Stuart Narrators : Imogen Harris, Marty Perrett, Wilson Fowlie, Peter Adrian Behravesh, Kaitlyn Zivanovich, Mur Lafferty, M. M. Schill, Alex Hofelich, Shawn Garrett, Scott Campbell, Kat Day, Graeme Dunlop...
goreracismviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
deathviolence
Chasing the Start (Part 2) by Evan Marcroft ͼ-Sa, this is a bad fucking idea-ͽ Sa would die to admit it, but she must agree. This was perhaps a bit much for squashing a spider. The air boils with radiation. The sky is all storm, great scarified burls of...
violence
Consolidation By Langley Hyde Lot 1796. Adult. Human. Female bodied. Standard limbs/digits. Immune/health function: class 7, can accommodate high-risk activity. Personality type: reactive/adaptive, ideal for customer service/high-level social interaction....
body-horrorviolencewar
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.
As climate change destroys Australia, the people sacrifice climate-change deniers to the giant koala bears that are attacking the cities.
deathgoreviolence
Cyd’s suicide brings his friend Kelvin to Albany for his memorial.
body-horrorsuicidetransphobia
Teenage friends Domei and Hano live in a refugee camp for survivors of a war fought with dragons.
body-horrorviolencewar
Deep under the lightless ocean of an alien planet, you study the only lifeform ever discovered there.
body-horrordeathgore
Erheani wanted to be a master storyteller, and the first task her teachers set for her was to update an old classic tale. But there are tales within tales...
slavery
A scientist mourns the failure of scientists to anticipate the consequences of making contact with an alien race.
child-deathdeathillness-and-pandemic
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.