LT is ten when the alien seeds fall, and he spends the rest of his life studying them as they take over more and more of the planet.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Lyrical Prose
427 free-to-read stories tagged “Lyrical Prose”
Tabitha has been walking a long time, trying to wear out seven pairs of iron shoes; Amira has been sitting alone on a glass hill that suitors try to climb.
Content warnings 2
abuseviolence
"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...
Content warnings 6
abusedeathmental-illnesspregnancy-losssexual-violencesuicide
"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...
Content warnings 1
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.
Content warnings 3
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.
Content warnings 4
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.
Content warnings 2
illness-and-pandemicviolence
The town barely survives the vicious weather because of the young people who turn into “weathermen,” leaving their families behind.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Even the ghosts have abandoned the ruins of the space station once known as the City of High Bells. All but the faithful temple cat, who sees a starship reenter the system after many long years.
Content warnings 4
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolencewar
In a magical Old West, young Ellis has a love for the desert and an affinity for dead things. Both of these attract unwelcome attention from strangers visiting from back East.
Content warnings 4
abusebody-horrordeathviolence
"I will always remember the view of Paris from his window. Snow, pure and untouched, softens the outline of the buildings and covers the grime of the streets. White, the color of beginnings. His canvas is primed and ready to be painted, and stark winter...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onewar
Lady Ida's visit to Venus was memorialized by the beautiful floral papercuts she made there, but this sensational story reveals the secret of the real purpose of her visit.
Content warnings 4
deathsubstance-useviolencewar
In this provocative and rich retelling of the Greek myth, Orpheus, the musician son of Apollo and Calliope, successfully rescues his wife Eurydice from Hades after her untimely death.
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
Until a visiting starship arrived, the other mermaids thought Essarala was silly for wanting to explore the galaxy.
Content warnings 1
death
A young hustler discovers that he's supposed to play a big role in transforming New York from a city to a City. If he can survive it.
Content warnings 3
deathracismviolence
Teenage Tetley lives in a human settlement (one of the last) built on a miles-wide floating garbage dump. She explains why everyone hates her now.
Content warnings 4
deathsexual-violencesubstance-useviolence
Anat doesn't remember her parents, but she loves her brother Oscar. They live in a wonderful world full of strange creatures and machines. The more she learns, the stranger things seem.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
While learning the ropes from a crafty Jazz Age bank robber, a young stowaway discovers their authentic self, a hidden gift, and that there are no straight lines when you run the fox roads…
Content warnings 3
deathracismviolence
"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...
Content warnings 3
child-deathpregnancy-lossviolence
A key scientist in the Dai Viet interstellar empire has died, and three people who were close to her mourn her passing in different ways.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"There’s a woman outside of a town called Sheridan, where the sky comes so near to earth it has to use the crosswalk just like everybody else. … There’s a woman outside of Sheridan and she is eating the sin of America."
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Long ago, Sylvie turned herself into a tree to avoid rape, but she wonders if there might not be a better way.
Content warnings 3
sexual-violencesuicideviolence
"For the whole of the year that I now look back on as the best of my life, Susanna Miller’s act began twenty-three minutes after mine ended. I went first, to warm up the crowd, followed by the dog trainer, the hypnotist, Susanna, the twin acrobats, the...
Content warnings 2
mental-illnessmisogyny
When her master dies in the American Civil War, a teen-age slave girl murders the rest of his family to gain her freedom, but she unwittingly opens a door to the spirit world, and she has to deal with the thing that comes through.
Content warnings 5
body-horrordeathgoreslaveryviolence
Madeline is having an adverse reaction to an experimental drug--she revisits episodes in her past.
An immigrant is distressed because her mother’s ghost is confiscated at the border.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Thuy seeks her daughter's remains in the twisted parts of unreal space where salvagers pick over the remains of wrecked starships.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Surreal tale about the loves and losses of Violet Wild, a girl from the purple country, who crosses the spectrum accompanied by a unicorn, a sorrow, and a herd of time squirrels.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"When I met the young Mr. Turing, I had not yet ascended as Autumn’s King. Nowadays it has become fashionable for the sons and daughters of the lesser fey gentry to improve their position in the shifting hierarchy of the Courts by virtue of intrigue,...
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-contentsexual-violence
"There’s nights in the deep end of summer so hot and thick and wet you can feel the dark wrinkling up your fingers like bathwater—and my last night breathing was one of those. 2 a.m. came to ring my bell and found me perfectly awake, swinging back and...
Content warnings 3
abusebody-horrorviolence
"There is no limit to the number of curses in the world. For each one the monks try to exorcise, ten more take its place. We are not here because we enjoy it though. Please don’t misunderstand. As you dip into steaming bath waters, entwine your bodies...
Content warnings 4
cannibalismsexual-violencesuicideviolence
A two-person crew embark on a mind-bending deep space mission inside a living wormship capable of burrowing through space. What lies on the other end is unknown—as is what they will do once they get there.
Content warnings 2
body-horrorviolence
"Thuận Lộc stared at the cup. It was dark, and mottled with the characteristic patterning of silver-eye fungus. The tea inside was trembling—the faint vibrations from the Mausoleum, the dead ships’ atrophied motors that would never again allow them to...
Content warnings 2
child-abuseviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 5
deathmental-illnesssexual-violencesubstance-useviolence
As Lily dies from tuberculosis, she relives fantasies from “Through the Looking Glass,” by Lewis Carroll
Content warnings 3
child-abusedeathillness-and-pandemic
Mika is lost at sea, but lost in time, not space, landing at her home port over and over at different times spread across almost two thousand years as she tries to get home to her children.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
In one small town, the delicate balance between predator and prey is threatened when five girls are murdered on prom night.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
"Once, in a certain kingdom, at a certain time, a river flowed under a bridge. It flowed under a bridge and past a willow tree, and in that willow tree dwelled the spirit of a girl who had drowned. I dwelled in that willow tree, and I was content."
Content warnings 1
death
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 4
abusedeathgoreviolence
All its life, a small monster with emerald scales has been a source of never-ending food to larger and more powerful creatures who feast on the small monster’s limbs each time one regrows. This is the story of how the small monster meets an industrious...
Content warnings 4
abusebody-horrorchild-abuseviolence
In mid-winter, a skeletal stag comes to the village begging for food, but it eats anyone foolish enough to talk to it.
Content warnings 4
body-horrorcannibalismdeathviolence
She wants to get out of Hell, but all the boys she has in mind keep letting her down.
A vast fleet of "jalopies" carry individuals on a one-way trip from Earth to Mars. People do it for different reasons, some of which we learn about in this story.
Content warnings 2
deathillness-and-pandemic
Claire meets a handsome older man at a dinner party held in a virtual reality where something has gone subtly wrong.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
death
"I think of you most when the sun sets on Atlas. The skies are so bright there you can feel the colors on your skin. I find myself repeating this to my granddaughter, Lila. The night she was born, I took her onto the terrace to watch the daylight roll back...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"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...
Content warnings 1
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...
Content warnings 2
violencewar
"Big Edie was a useless piece of shit. Johanna Telle found the most significant relationship of her life on a Saturday afternoon in late May, sitting on one of those excruciatingly handmade quilts crafty stay-at-homes used to make out of their precious...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
In a sad, future Sri Lanka, the narrator watches his/her city die from the effects of sea-level rise and abandonment.
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
An ice-age girl who learns to play the flute has an unusual connection with a future girl starving in a flooded city.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Mebuyen doesn’t get many lost souls anymore—modern Filipinos have moved on—so when a bunch of young people start showing up whom she can’t send along, it’s time to visit the Earth and learn what’s going on.
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathviolence
When the princess marries, Amira’s duty to her will end and she’ll be free. But she doesn’t want freedom on those terms.
Content warnings 2
body-horrorviolence
A sad tale of how, unable to bear losing your dog, you travel back in time to visit her again and again.
Content warnings 2
animal-harmdeath-of-a-loved-one
Excelsior lives to write songs, and Nightingale was made to sing them. But the decadent city of Owl Abbas does not deserve either one.
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
In 12th-Century England, six-year-old Ada flees the vicious reptilian wastoures who swam the countryside eating people and animals alike.
Content warnings 4
body-horrorchild-abusedeathviolence
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...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
"We used to cage them in the tide pools, when they were still small enough to capture in our little hands. Pull them out and snap photos that we could pretend to sell to magazines just like Papa. Them, gasping for breath, unable to see, fins fluttering. We...
Content warnings 4
abusebody-horrordeathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorcannibalismviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
slavery
"At the center of every starship was a bonsai starship. It rested in the starship’s command garden and provided the magic that propelled it. Novice Kei had known this longer than she had known her own name, especially since she was the eighth Kei who...
"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...
Content warnings 1
suicide
"A girl has lost her soul down deep in the City. It wandered away while she chipped out another grave in the catacomb brickyards. She set down her pickax, wiped grit from her cheek, and noticed how empty her body was. Looked down at her wrist and found it blank."
Content warnings 2
self-harmviolence
The aliens occupied and controlled the bodies of animals, destroying most of humanity. A few survivors in a ski resort pass the time preserving the bodies of friends who didn’t make it.
Content warnings 4
animal-harmdeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
After eighteen years, a colony ship reaches Neptune, and the children born on board wonder what their future holds.
In an empire obsessed with war, a healer married to a warrior seeks to escape the endless fighting, killing, and dying.
Content warnings 4
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolencewar
Two top-notch time-travelling assassins get an assignment to expose a corrupt aristocrat by killing a magistrate and later bringing her back from the land of the dead.
Content warnings 3
deathsubstance-useviolence
As the last stars in the universe are dying, an entity piloting an enormous starship that used to be the Earth tries to decide what to do next.
Content warnings 1
death
On a cold October midnight, teenage Susanna takes her dog and a musket and sneaks away into the woods. Things happened ten years ago when she got the dog. Bad things. And now the reckoning is due.
Content warnings 3
animal-harmchild-deathviolence
Bilqis, the only real doctor in a dying community of religious exiles, finds something strange when she examines a pregnant woman.
Content warnings 1
pregnancy-loss
She was only ten when they kidnapped her to train as an assassin, but now she’s sixteen and she needs to prove herself.
Content warnings 1
violence
The Dunyshar are stranded on an outpost, but NuTay dreams of going home to Earth.
A young, newly minted witch meets an equally green knight, and they go off together in search of dragons.
Content warnings 2
abuseviolence
Raised by her grandmothers, Aviya thinks about her future, and thinks about trying to find the source of a magical scrap of "cloth of the wind."
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
What if rhinoceroses behaved like human beings and talked about their upcoming extinction during book club meetings?
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"You used to be in a band. Now you cut hair. The Institute hired you because you’re the daughter of the Floating City’s Founder’s fourth mistress, the one who always cooks up trouble when she gets too hungry. You don’t like the work, but you like all the...
Content warnings 2
abusesexual-violence
"Do you remember being born? I expect that you do. After all, it happened only a very few minutes ago. Sensation comes first. Perhaps it was my voice you noticed—a ragged voice, new-carved. These are your first sounds. Sandpaper words, and the even temper...
Content warnings 1
death
"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....
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"Dead gods,” says Aunte Gull as she heaves the shimmering nets, “are almost as useless as live ones.” We work together, numb to the sea cold. We haul our catch back to shore, and I save my breath for work, knowing my aunte’s way of speaking. She is...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"No signs protect the backyards in this part of town from the Marl Pits Forest. There’s no treeline either. Of course there isn’t. But even in the dark, you can’t really miss where the forest starts—not if you’ve lived a childhood in the wilderness here...
Content warnings 3
child-abusedeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"Not all the ghosts of Chornobyl died in 1986. Some died years—decades—later, bodies ravaged by mutated cells. They were a hundred kilometers away, not realizing their favorite mug was doused with irradiated atoms from the destroyed reactor. I died in...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
"They even took the violins. Every last one of them: Amadeus, Josephine, Mulberry, Nestor. They came into the house through the front door, guests without a host, a peculiar band of invited thieves. Plugged into my power station as a seemingly...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"The sun sets again over Chang’an. The remaining light of dusk shines through thick clouds like melted gold, flowing down over the glazed tiles of the palace roofs. The first drumbeat of the evening rings out from the Cheng Tian Gate, followed by a series...
Content warnings 1
death
A post-human civilization of synthetic beings, fixated on the concept of children, grapples with the meaning of life…after life ceases to exist.
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
"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...
Content warnings 3
abusesexual-contentviolence
"Lacuna knew winter. Winter was the vast distances between the stars. Winter was the cold of space. You couldn’t measure cold; it was not a thing in itself. It was only the absence of heat. As darkness was only an absence of light. Yet both of these—the...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"Metal parts that survived fire and shrapnel are no match for the saltwater rushing through the gaps in my armor, spilling between gears and wires, tainting my battered shell with the inexorable creep of rust. Corrosion is a ruthless god. The waves surge...
Content warnings 2
deathwar
"You ready?” asked the first man, his face pockmarked, lips leering, eyes sullen. “Light’em up,” replied the second. The third nodded his head and produced the gasoline. They knew the children slept inside. No one had to tell them. The Freedmen’s School in...
Content warnings 3
child-deathracismviolence
Fear was already on the street waiting for her. Tulaya had seen this purge-and-nightmare Manifest before in Fatih, tagging the footsteps of an old man in the spice market with its shadow like claws.
Content warnings 1
death
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-oneracismviolence
"Today one of the minders rolls one Veena Kaur Chan into my hairbay for a shampoo and cut. New client, transferring in from Palliative. Brainstem stroke. Unsuccessful rehabilitation. Pancreatic cancer. Ouch. Triple whammy. As the newly implemented...
Content warnings 2
deathillness-and-pandemic
"Yennie glanced out the window. An ice storm, a froth of glassy dust, was blowing in over the bone-colored hills. He was on Enceladus; his therapist was on Mars. He wanted to describe how sometimes his body felt hollow, and other times he felt his skin...
"By the time I hear that my brother is looking for me, and has somehow scraped together enough credit to get on a commercial flight to New Tel Aviv, and that he’s also brought his three-year-old daughter on her first interplanet trip, my insides are...
Content warnings 3
deathsubstance-useviolence
"Seated on the balcony of the house across the street is a man. He is slumped in his chair and has remained unmoving for several hours. The tattered frays of his agbada spreads about his person like an old sailcloth, snapping in the wind. His equally...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
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.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Teenage Jack, the cook’s boy, and Roderick, Lord Robert’s son, are unlikely but unshakable friends, even when Roderick has to marry a grown woman. Even when Jack has to venture to elf-land to rescue them.
The night watchman was warned not to look at the imprisoned witch, Kalmashi, but it was hard not to, and now he’s having strange dreams.
Content warnings 2
deathwar
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
body-horrorwar
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.
Jorren gets a dangerous commission for magical clothes. One that might let her recover much of what she lost when she fell out of favor decades ago, but only if she can figure it out. And survive it.
Isiuwa survived the apocalypse, and its people live on in the middle of a desert. The chief says leaving means certain death, but Nata thinks he’s lying.
Content warnings 1
violence
Attacked by endless flocks of ravens, the Bjebu people flee their village to a strange place controlled by a strange god, who grants them safety in exchange for “three offerings of sorrow.”
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Jeri’s ready to trade her old spaceship for a new, more efficient model, but she loved her old ship and wants to be sure she doesn’t end up scrapped for parts.
Content warnings 1
violence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
Sa races in dangerous places throughout time and space, but she’s getting old, the challengers are ruthless, and there are a lot of ways to get hurt in this sport.
The last living human being lives with her aunts, who are all incarnations of the last survivors of various extinct species.
Content warnings 1
death
A group of women have been chemically altered to set cities on fire from a distance. Not everyone thinks this is a good idea—including the women themselves.
Content warnings 4
child-deathdeathillness-and-pandemicviolence
The Life Tree protects the villagers, at the price of human sacrifices. When it takes Jiteh’s brother, she starts looking for ways to escape.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorchild-deathdeath
The world is gradually being destroyed by what seems like an alien plague that attacks people and software alike. Caitlin lives in a seaside Scottish town, nursing her dying lover.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
A dead woman sees her doppelgänger watching over her remains and wonders what she's up to.
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-violenceviolence
Eleven years ago, the Blue-Lily plague devastated the Empire. Now Yen Oanh attends to unfinished business with a dead mind-ship and a living survivor.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"I heard you’re returning to our world again. What do you want here exactly, Orhija? The Earth is dying slowly. It’s losing its sheen and glow. The blackness of the soil that you used to say was as beautiful as mine has changed since you left. It’s redder...
"A scream rises from the bush. One last call to the living: a warning of pain. Katarina’s heard that same sound more times than she’s had hot dinners but still a ribbon of unease unfurls in her gut. She sets her cleaver down for a moment, shifting from one...
Content warnings 3
child-abusedeathviolence
"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...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathsuicide
Author : Eden Royce Narrator : Laurice White Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 914: The Magnolia Returns is a PodCastle original. Rated PG The Magnolia Returns By Eden Royce The Magnolia blooms out of nowhere at any time of year it...
Content warnings 2
abusebody-horror
"Even after Uncle Sulim died, he remained occasionally intolerable. “Did you check the pollen count inside the base?” “Yes, it’s at the higher limit of the acceptable range. Within two basis points.” Nika’s response was almost devoid of irritation. “I’ll...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
PseudoPod 963: Mavka is a PseudoPod original. CW: cannibalism, suicide, starvation, use of second person perspective You pray to forget this. You pray to forget the cold. Even under two wool blankets you’re always cold now. Skin and bones, you. A February...
Content warnings 3
cannibalismchild-deathsuicide
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoresuicide
"I ended up on Pluto on the night of my nineteenth birthday, after breaking my own stupid heart. It wasn’t even over anything important. All I did was jump in a pool, and then the chlorine got in my nose and I came up coughing on the side of the tiles, and...
Content warnings 1
sexual-violence
"Notebooks, Conchas, y Un Café con Leche Those are the items that make up your world the day the girl with the side buzz and brown bomber jacket says to you, in the back of a crowded cafetería, “Explícame pues—¿Qué sabes acerca del concepto de la...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Barber Gio Monsargo has learned to stay quiet and keep his head down, offering shaves and haircuts, not political opinions. But when a high-ranking military official of the Empire begins visiting his shop, Gio finds himself tested in ways he could never imagine.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"After we kill our father but before we leave the island, we argue. Cal doesn’t want to go; he’s afraid of the water. Even after the rest of us outvote him two to one, he refuses to move, crouching on the ground, pressing the ruined side of his face into...
Content warnings 3
abusedeathviolence
"Don’t start with the birth certificate. No, take an obituary-out approach. Pick an age, a date, what to do in lieu of flowers. Yes, she must die. I know how hard it is to kill her, but the spell won’t work without it, for every story ends in death. We set...
"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...
"Nate doesn’t often receive wedding invitations. This year, he gets seven. To be fair, the first one is work, so he doesn’t even get to pick his outfit. But an olive-scented breeze squirrels joyfully through his hair; waiters bring out little triangles of...
Content warnings 1
death
"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...
Content warnings 1
abuse
"We were waiting for the sunset, sitting on the porch of the bleak stone house that was filled up with our longing. The sky was empty. The air, when I sniffed, was cold and bleak. There were no clouds, and we knew it might be a night when we’d see what we...
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-onesuicidewar
A mother, left behind on Earth, receives a birthday card from her son, who is worlds away. How much time do we have together with the ones we love, especially when they grow up and away? How much is remaining? Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"Umeboshi" by Rebecca Nakaba is an exploration of what it means to be connected through heritage—and chain email. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by Rebecca Nakaba, edited by Sachiko Ragosta. Audio edition read by Heidi Tabing, with sound design by...
Content warnings 1
body-horror
"My cat hops up to his favorite spot by the window to observe the nebula, the pitter-patter of his paws and the low hum-rumble of the engine the only sounds in the room. Misty tendrils amble past, glimmering and cloudlike, carrying an entire medley of warm...
Content warnings 1
death
"Long before you came along, I was myself just a seed in Raffa’s pocket, something she fumbled with as she stepped on the plane, her other hand clutching her mother’s. Small as I was, I sensed her fear. I tried to hum reassuringly. Above the ocean, I...
Content warnings 2
abusedeath-of-a-loved-one
"Our storytellers sing that the Great River Gimamu brought life to the world when the gods first stepped out of it. But when I saw the ships that morning, I knew that it also brought death. As I sat at my stall, weaving the final threads of a new basket, I...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"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,...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"His Majesty plights his troth to the boy by the failing light of the waxing Luster Moon, an auspicious night for waterfowl, prayer, and paladins. Wrong, all of it. Child-groom Softwind Sunder is hellebore and winter sun, plantcraft and rage. When he spits...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"The flutist peered over the ridge ahead of them. Wreathed in the sheerest cloth of fog, a city rotted. It was not a big city, maybe a town, maybe a village. The flutist was not of that age of plenty where plentiful things had names and could be easily...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
"I find Aleda’s scale, sticky with ichor, tucked between the tentacles of our pink anemone bed. I tweeze it out from the undulating appendages with my thumb and index finger and flounder against my escalating heart rate. Aleda’s swishing back and forth,...
"Grandma died last year, yet she comes every Saturday to have lunch with me. When she was still alive, she loved telling everyone that we were roommates. She would say to her embroidery club friends that her roomie had landed a very hip job in the city...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions—slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. Adventures are always interesting, but they’re...
A boy, desperate to escape the drudgery of life in his small town, gets caught up in the machinations of a traveling time keeper, and slowly watches his town and his life unravel by the seams.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"It is in the summer, during the monsoon season in Taipei, when the pigeon keeper’s daughter moves into the apartment on the top floor of a building on an alleyway in Wenshan District. From her window, she sees not only Taipei 101 in the distance with...
"There’s a story that sounds completely fantastic and yet is true. It happened here and in the neighboring lands. It goes like this: Once upon a time, there was an ocean, deep and cold. And in the ocean there was salt. For a long time, salt did not know...
Content warnings 1
pregnancy-loss
"Nostalgia died a quiet death, wrapped in cellophane and power cords. The future had killed it. The ghosts of yesteryear’s fragrances no longer haunted, no longer hung and clung to the passersby. Instead, those ghosts lay shriveled like salted slugs in the...
"The first time I saw her, she stood in the arch of the gate, a black spindle against the open stretch of road. I looked up from where I was kneeling in the garden and couldn’t look away. Head to toe in black, her face veiled. The air smelled like new...
"The first thing I asked, when the mage-king gave me a mouth, was whether he had given me a soul. His people’s beloved king, who held back the lords of the undead when they came roving; by whose conquering hand the strongholds were fed in the long fallow...
Content warnings 3
abusedeath-of-a-loved-onesexual-violence
"There had to be other islands capable of supporting human settlements, Alain told himself. Life should be possible beyond the shores of Heora. That was the article of faith that drove all Exploration. They simply haven't sailed far enough to find a new...
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
"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...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"The egg must have hatched overnight, though he could see no sign of a hatchling anywhere. Only empty shell bits remained, strewn here and there across the tatami."
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"I called it "yearning" at first, but by the time word had spread to all twenty-two of us croppers, a divide had resulted: half called it firesouling, and half called it firesailing."
Content warnings 2
sexual-violenceviolence
"They say the universe was created when a Giant lit a matchstick. That her great sigh fanned the flames that danced and wept into stars and constellations. They say some seas are blue and Slugs are naturally submissive. They also say that I cannot exist....
Content warnings 1
child-death
"A pause only Winnifletch herself notices, a twinge in her guts as she unsacks the gull that Gert Mews has lugged to her sea-spindle shack. Dazed but not dead, the bird crawks down onto her workbench. Think of shearwater honey, Winni tells herself, with...
Content warnings 1
animal-harm
The narrator tries to find the path to the impossible ocean at the top of the mountain to dispose of the ashes of his/her parents, but there are obstacles in the way.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Truth be told, I have not done much with the entryway. It keeps up appearances. I am told it is a perfectly acceptable facsimile of a standard human receiving room. My handlers nod approvingly when I sit them on its low velvet cushions and shallow couch...
The Augur can tell your future just by studying the skin on your body. His prophecies are detailed, and he’s only been wrong once. But when he raises an orphan girl, he’s bothered that she wants to follow in his footsteps.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
death
"Now, dry and dead, the gardens sulk in the center of the city; not our pride, but our shame. Now the beds and planters are dry with dust, the carvings are chipped away for lime, the paths are run only by rats and ragged dogs. Now it is a place where no...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Every Halloween, an elderly woman hands out candy to a young trick-or-treater who’s dressed as a witch each time, looking exactly the same age. With each passing year, the woman grows more attached to the little witch and her odd nature. But she is no...
Content warnings 1
death
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.
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
Meena’s plan to send a tiny starship to Alpha Centauri with a downloaded copy of her own mind goes awry when the starship hits something when it’s just a fraction of the way there.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
In a hostile, ruined Earth, a teenage girl struggles with the consequences of the death of her twin sister.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
The Arch Hierophant of the Cooperation needs to handle the question of a dead prophet’s divinity, so he doesn’t need the distraction of dealing with an illegal civilization in a distant star system.
A half-ghost gets a premonition that the Emperor has died, and his ghost ship flies off to Homeworld because whoever gets the Emperor’s ghost first gets free wishes.
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-contentviolence
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.
Content warnings 3
misogynysexual-violenceviolence
A young god buys a common patience stone from a crow. A girl takes the task of removing a thousand needles from a sleeping panther. Both of their lives will change forever.
A songwriter and her boyfriend seclude themselves at his old family cabin back in the woods to work on a new album. But in the isolation, she has trouble getting work done, and reality itself seems a little off.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
A vignette about what happens on a Venerean cloud colony when an old man dies in his sleep and those who love him come to bid him farewell.
Content warnings 1
death
Adriana’s going to be all alone when her best friend moves away, she’s bracing herself to be all alone, and she’s starting to have strange dreams that affect the real world.
Content warnings 2
deathillness-and-pandemic
Everyone has a timer on their wrists counting down the years, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds until they meet their soul mates. Fiona’s just 24, and her timer says she’ll have to wait 40 years. So what to do until then?
Chime’s husband is also another woman’s wife. The sharing isn’t a problem, per se: she has her own wife when she’s male. The problem is that she keeps getting him back in increasingly beat-up condition.
It’s been a long time since Ravi left Guyana, but he’s sure he recognizes a Jumbie, even in New York, where they don’t believe in evil spirits. And it’s following him.
Content warnings 2
sexual-contentviolence
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.
Content warnings 3
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.
Content warnings 2
sexual-violenceviolence
Snow White’s life with the prince isn’t going so well, and her wicked stepmother—now a prisoner—seems determined to torment her about it.
Content warnings 3
child-abusedeathviolence
Xin’s orderly life on Eighth Colony changes forever when she ushers a mutilated body through the portal.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Young scientist trying to develop time travel encounters an alien intelligence that lives outside of time.
Content warnings 1
death
All the imaginary creatures a young person could want to make apartment life more pleasant.
From childhood, Flora, painted disturbing paintings, and her nurse fears the young lady carried this obsession into adulthood.
Content warnings 2
deathillness-and-pandemic
"Dear Francesca, First off: I know that’s not your name. I haven’t gone and mistaken you for another woman—one of my many conquests, I imagine you imagine (what must imaginary you think of imaginary me?). You’ll notice, if you glance ahead, that I’ve...
Content warnings 1
sexual-content
"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...
Content warnings 1
death
The First Emperor was the first and last of true immortals on earth, and no winter touched his realm. No autumn wind blew. His orchards bloomed and fruited and bloomed again. In his court, death and old age were shut out. And every day, he drank a cup of...
"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...
Content warnings 2
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...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorviolencewar
"Wendy knew it wouldn’t be long now before her daughter was taken. She had put the idea from her mind as long as she could, but now Jane was days away from turning thirteen. From the window of the nursery, Wendy saw Jane wobbling her way down Kensington...
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-oneviolencewar
"Sing. Sing the world into being. The world’s misty valleys and sunlit hills are described by the song of all things. So is the work of skilled hands and the begrudging march of soldiers’ boots. Every action, every object, in the past and the present and...
Content warnings 1
violence
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...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreself-harm
"My ghost bled through the shadows, an icy wind stirring the leaves. Eyes like candle flames shuddering and crescent moon mouth, it had found me as a girl and never let go—the only thing that was really mine. It led me to an overgrown graveyard, pelts of...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesexual-violence
"The city of Nan Rhok stands on the ridge of a great mountain, where a gullet of steaming water flows from volcanic hot springs. The ridge is narrow and the mountain chill, so the city hews close to the spring, building high its granite towers. The name of...
Content warnings 2
child-deathdeath
A woman returning to her family’s home town for a wedding discovers why people in Connorville—including her family—might be more than they seem.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
"Seven months since the war and two since winter should’ve ended, and Lake Erie is still frozen thick enough for me to walk out and gather care packages dropped from orbit. Soon enough, those metal husks will spill out harvests from Luna, Titan, Mirabilis;...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
"Night to day. In Diyu, the Earth Prison, Chun Wei opened her eyes. “Day” in the realm of the dead registered only as a less pervasive chill to the stagnant air. Not that Chun Wei needed to breathe any longer. She unfolded from the lotus position she’d...
Content warnings 1
death
"I learned from Bernadette that there are two ways a star can go supernova. The first is in a double star where one partner dies first, turning into a white dwarf, and the surviving partner swells in grief and dumps mass onto the compact star. But the...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"A garden is a joy, but also a labor. It is no small thing to call forth life from the desert; do not imagine any but a witch could do it so well. Every day I draw flowers from sand, shrubs from sand; I turn sand to grass as rich as cream. The garden is...
Content warnings 1
slavery
Mel relishes running the “Enchanted Jungle,” a roadside attraction in the Everglades filled with live parrots, concrete dinosaurs, and other unexpected wonders.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"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...
Content warnings 3
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...
"We called it the monster because we could, though none of us found the label to be particularly satisfying. After a certain point, Yerim started calling it the Logos Pilgrim. Which was understandable, seeing as how she was the most mystically inclined...
"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...
Content warnings 2
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...
Content warnings 2
sexual-violenceviolence
"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...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathsuicide
"1.8 billion miles from the sun, my roots dig deep into the soil of a small garden. I am a curious thing—an aspiration. Everything else on Miranda is ruthlessly utilitarian, but I am ornament. I am beauty. This garden nominally exists to facilitate some...
"Good stone, like water, wrought truce by necessity. Here, the river became a waterfall and ate the earth like honeycomb. Here, teardrops of flint washed up at a stone knapper’s feet. Bands of every people in the vastness of the world came for the stone....
Content warnings 3
animal-harmgoreviolence
"Yesterday, I didn’t care much about much. Back then, there hadn’t been any cars in the parking lot. We didn’t see any muddy footprints stamped into the dirt. Not even the hoofprint exclamations of deer. The weather was partly to blame, but really people...
Content warnings 3
deathracismviolence
A deluxe riverboat welcomes the galaxy's wealthiest tourists to the drought-ridden Amazon — but no one's seen her mysterious captain. "The Maiden Voyage of the Piranha Belle" is a flash exploration of colonization and survival. Content warnings:...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
"When I leave home at seventeen, my mother tells me three things. Not to care too much. To keep my gift a secret. And to get used to being alone. “You’ll see what it’s like,” she says. “Out there in the real world.” None of this is good advice."
"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,...
Content warnings 3
deathmental-illnesssuicide
"Two hours out of deadsleep is too soon to be staring at the butchered corpse of a dead god. Neel looks down as the kalipeeli begins its descent to Chowpatty Beach and feels his stomach flip."
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathgore
"I spent my first summer as an orphan watching cicadas fuck, scream, and molt. Wasn’t long before I plucked one of the cicada skins from the dry village soil. I brushed it clean against my secondhand clothes I was already beginning to outgrow. Dappled by...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoresexual-content
"Good morning, Akasma.” I say these words to my spaceship every day, whether it is a good morning or not, because she is the only being I can safely talk to, and she has said she likes my voice, froggy and raspy though it may be. My spaceship is not, for...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Joy catches my eye, shuffles my direction. Her face lights the dining room. Her curly gray hair is the sun’s corona, and she seems to float above her walker, needless of her stiff little legs. In seeming slow motion she arrives at the seat across from me....
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
"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...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
"Finneus Lark finds the man nestled inside of the abdominal cavity of a doe, his skin so pale that his veins are like spiderwebs. Slick with visceral fluid, leaves and petals cling to the man’s bird-boned wrists. His face, haloed by damp curls and crowned...
"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...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"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...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"The women of Dejima Island could never pinpoint when their dreams began to change, but they knew it had something to do with the tradesmen’s tales. The foreigners who arrived at the docks were hard men, chiseled by salt and wind and all the horrors of two...
In the small city of Mehranpur, the Nawab suspects there may be a connection between the slow wasting of a beloved tree and the fate of the city itself.
"I am running out of Words. I stumble down the temple steps, clutching my wounded side. I had been too slow to use my fourth Word and the prison guard’s spear had drawn blood before he choked to death under the weight of my suffocation spell."
Content warnings 3
abusedeathviolence
"The Lightning Road cuts far across the Cosmos, a streak of dazzling gold amidst the star-studded void. Paved in otherworldly stone, the road climbs over sleeping giants, past ringed planets and frozen worlds, connecting one unknown to the next. Xiaofei...
Content warnings 1
war
"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....
Content warnings 3
child-deathracismsexual-violence
"It’s only after they’ve loaded the moving truck halfway with boxes that the parents finally notice Parker’s gone. They spend three days yelling for him. Mom waits the longest, wanders the farthest into the forest in the dark. Her voice is a plea, an...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"When the Fae stole my wife, I followed them into the dark woods to win her back. Jess dropped breadcrumbs along the trail, except she had no bread, so she dropped other things instead. Not far from the house, I found a blue sweater, embroidered with gold...
"You knew from the beginning. You knew because the world knew about the intricate and fascinating life-cycle of the Svarrs, and it had been documented and discussed everywhere throughout the media endlessly. And you knew because Vo made sure you...
"Because Waigong ran out of money due to the rice shortage, he gambled away my mother, an eighteen-year-old girl known for her beauty and dance prowess. She danced like a majestic water dragon, elegant and unstoppable while flowing through the atmosphere,...
Content warnings 1
misogyny
"When I die, I want you to keep my bones.” Vasanthi floats in the dark pool, the softness of her voice punctuated by softer drops of water from stalactites. “You mean your ashes.” The best misunderstandings come from our language differences. “I’ll find...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onewar
"My sister Sera was twelve standard years old when our parents confined her to our family habitat. They kept her there for over a year, and then they died far from home (expedition, landslide). I’ll never know if they were seeking a cure for Sera, or a way...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"The soldiers slit the woman’s throat every evening before bedding down so they can sleep without worry. She mocks them but never fights the knife coming to her. Two of the men still take turns watching her in case she heals before the rest of the cadre...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
"Nogorod is built of black rock and dull iron and pale ivory, a city of high towers rising like petrified trees beside the rough grey seas. The common folk are whale-fishers, hunting with harpoons from their ships, but the nobles are all wizards, and they...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
When the waters rose, the people who stayed on the River learned they weathered the storms best together, but what happens when one of their own becomes curious about the Land?
"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...
Content warnings 3
self-harmsubstance-usesuicide
"When my lover gets the Burning, I prepare to go to the Binding Place, where the mountain meets the sea. Even in her delirium, she smells the offering meal cooking and sees my half-full pack. She begs me not to go. It’s a journey lovers and pilgrims...
"We found you, and you alone, in a universe that had forgotten to die. Or rather, a universe for whom death had been set just out of reach. When my people grew aware of our universe’s impending mortality, we developed slipspace travel, to pass through the...
"There was a small store in Manila, inside the walls of Intramuros, accessible to the wealthy and powerful, between a clothing store and a jewelry store. Children in clean crisp clothes, usually with parents or carers, stood before the store window,...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Everything the sea takes, it gives back in its own way and its own time. That was what Jess’s grandmother believed, what she’d told Jess as they stood in the shadow of the giant red cedar that had washed ashore, its severed roots thicker than Jess’s body....
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"You remember when those rappers robbed a bank and killed a cop, that summer the girls from Wing turned green? I didn’t think it was connected then—the robbery, the gold, and the hordes of teens who were rotting from the inside. But I know better now."
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
"Red for temperature. Blue for ignition. Green for airflow. It takes four hours and forty-two minutes for you to finish your transformation into a pile of white ashes. I keep a patient vigil over those three primary colors on the cremator’s monitor, making...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"We cannot go landwise. Too vulnerable for a start, and the finless watch their beaches like crabs, scuttling this way and that, their eyes pinched and ugly. They have set a line of posts on the edge of the world, deep in the sands. Each spike bears the...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"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,...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorchild-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"The multiverse broke last week. Broke is perhaps the wrong word. More accurate would be performed a state-change or found new equilibrium, but tell that to Catalina Chang, who has been popping aspirin like M&Ms ever since last Thursday, 5:54 PM, when the...
"It’s the day when the last war is over, and skeletons of swallows are already starting to return. They don’t have beaks, and their white, hard-boiled eyes fly three inches ahead of their semi-transparent faces, or sometimes on their side. Skeletons of...
Content warnings 2
deathwar
The Hero journeys across the desert to capture The Thief Of Memory and retrieve her stolen memories. What she finds in the end may destroy her.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"Witchcraft is a gift. Imelda would wave her steel spoon at Mercer and insist on this as he measured ingredients for her, whether she was boiling potions or a pot of farfalle pasta. Watch the salt, a teaspoon only, never pour too much. Don’t overheat the...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"He finds her in his grandpa’s attic, in the Big House. The hatch has been locked up tight since the day Grant Dixon was born—twenty-two years of locked up tight—and long before. He used to ask about it, between the stories his Grandpa Dixon liked to tell. "
Content warnings 3
abuseslaveryviolence
"Lamia burst like a shattered glass into the scream and scouring heat of desert wind, loosing the power that had lived in her ever since she had returned from the Refiner of the Desert. Her fire lashed across the wide plaza atop the Spire where she had...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"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,...
Content warnings 1
violence
"My brother was taken away by the bears to live with them when I was small; he existed only in the song that was sung about him. His song was sung in the summer, at Sundance, but also in the winter, on the darkest day, the day he was taken away. The trade...
Content warnings 2
body-horrorchild-death
"The day they took my mouth hadn’t been spent eating De la Rosas, or smoking, or spitting. In fact, I hadn’t used my mouth in any way that you might expect someone who was about to lose their sense of taste, their tongue, their voice, might have."
"The taxi from Guiyang Airport passed through long tunnels with curved white crescents every fifty or so meters along. It was simply some reflective material, but the bright curves leading her off into the distance through the darkness of the tunnel made...
Content warnings 1
death
"We have only legends now for when our ancestors first saw the monster. They saw it shred light as it approached, then devoured whole worlds. They ran the calculations—they still used machines for that, used machines for everything—and they knew our rock...
Content warnings 1
death
"When the doorbell first rings, I do not rise from my chair. It is one of those days when the hurt bends me double. My nerves pulse sharp behind my eyelids; my fingers, clenched around the worn wooden armrests, are full of thorns. But outside the open...
"The wide yawning sky. We stare at unfamiliar stars, seeking familiar patterns in their strange configurations. Here is a cup and there a bear. A queen reclined and all the fish in the endless seas. The universe is more boundless than we know. Maybe than...
"Death takes much and in return it offers Susan P—- only clarity. She finds herself in a great gray desert and knows her life has ended. Clad in a royal dress, she carries a bow and quiver, and a finely-carved ivory horn dangles from her throat. A tremor...
Content warnings 1
death
"Michael is afraid to go farther. Pudgy pushes him on. They walk through the shrouded city, the sound of footsteps all but obscured. Pudgy holds hard to the band of the broken fedora that perches crooked atop Michael’s bent head; the knees of Pudgy’s...
"It is not the dust that brings her tears. The Lachrymist’s house is dusty, fragments of time and memory fallen everywhere, a living blanket that drapes itself over tables and chairs and things even stranger. But time and memory are to be expected anywhere...
The Summer King wants to court the Winter Queen, even though everyone warns him that it’s a long and perilous journey, for summer and winter aren’t meant to be together.
Content warnings 1
death
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
When Lady Mary marries the mysterious Mr. Fox, a jealous suitor follows them to their castle.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
A young child visits a family friend to learn about her powers—the sort of powers her mother long ago rejected, but which are too powerful to ignore.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
A road is so nasty that it attains consciousness when it becomes aware of just how “not-nice” it really is.
Content warnings 1
death
Two selkie women, childhood friends who’ve drifted apart, get together for an adventure in an abandoned human mine.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-violenceviolence
Humanity lives in virtual reality as much as it can, but sometimes there are things you have to do in the real world—no matter how dangerous that is.
Content warnings 1
illness-and-pandemic
In distant Ruyastan a single prince survives her mother’s efforts to hold power by slaying all descendants of her sons.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
A grieving father tries to recreate the son he lost.
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
We know about the ones who walked away from Omelas, but what the heck happened to the kid in the basement?
Content warnings 2
child-abusedeath
When teenage Guerre is called to be a cropsinger, she makes a big sacrifice to serve her family and community, but her brother refuses to accept it.
Content warnings 1
death
Mixie’s family makes food for the dead to get them to come back to answer questions for their loved ones. She’s surprised her ex-husband’s widow wants them to do this, though.
Content warnings 1
death
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.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
How a knight errant sought a dragon, they fell in love, and she loves it still, despite the fact it set her on fire once.
Rielle accepts an offer from her husband’s rival to play accompaniment for his daughter in a competition. They need the money, but there’s something too perfect about this daughter.
Lia’s mother wants her to dress like a lady, but their city is about to fall to the enemy, and what they really need to do is flee.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
A young woman discovers she has the ability to fly, just as her mother did. But her father thinks there’s something shameful about it, so she tries to suppress it.
Content warnings 2
abuseself-harm
A doomsday weapon has changed the laws of physics on Earth, and most of the population has perished. Liyana spends her time trying to have a baby and studying elephants, who have started to spontaneously combust.
Content warnings 2
deathpregnancy-loss
Refugees from the destruction of their own planet, the Dragonflies struggle to find a place in a world that doesn’t welcome them.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
In early 20th-Century India, an old woman and her son are forced out of the forest and try to make a new life in the city.
Little Kalyani might be autistic, but no one in her village knows what that means. A passing sage offers her a boon, but it’s not at all a cure.
The destruction of the new Space Elevator puts human expansion into space at risk.
In 1949, researchers attempt to harness "oriental lovebird energy" to cure human comas.
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-oneracismsuicide
Maria is a super model in a future that doesn't hesitate to modify the bodies of the models for maximum impact.
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
A Greek free diver finds an ancient shipwreck where there was nothing at all just days earlier.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Surreal science fantasy, in which three goddesses come to Paris, prince of a mathematical Troy, and ask him to decide to whom to award an apple.
Content warnings 2
deathwar
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"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...
Content warnings 3
animal-harmbody-horrordeath
"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...
Content warnings 3
child-deathgoreself-harm
A woman losing her sight turns to small family magics to save the lives of those she loves the most.
Content warnings 1
war
"She rose, feeling the aches where the dead had touched her, and gathered him in her arms. She’d hold him tighter this time. Oh, he’d fight her all the way, but they could get back on their way to the isle and the elf-king, and it would be over at last."
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"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...
Content warnings 3
cannibalismchild-deathsexual-content
"Outside the viewport, light and shadow stitched a tapestry across the surface of Himalia. The shuttle ticked the countdown, thrusters firing to control descent to the docking cradle at Base Camp. I videoed everything, but the footage looked like a million...
"I watch the King sleep beside me and worry over the rapid movements behind her eyelids. The air in the bedroom smells faintly of something burning. My mouth is dry—I wet my lips and hold my breath so as not to disturb my King’s sleep. I can hardly see the...
Content warnings 1
death
"Kuyom stood at Death’s door, shuffling from one foot to the other. She patted her head impatiently. She had gotten rid of the lice a week ago, but she still felt the phantom itch. They’d crawled into her hair while she was sleeping under a mango tree in...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathsuicide
"I remember the night I became a ghost. My husband, the Emperor, served the tainted tea himself; my punishment for giving him yet another girl-child. I was not the first Empress to drink from this cup. My newborn daughter lay on my bed, wailing. The...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"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...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorslaveryviolence
"Not so very long ago but before you were born, an idle lordling went riding through one of the great forests that sweep across the Isles. You may guess which forest, and which man, but I will not tell you. ... None of the stories his mother had told him...
"On a Thursday night in Harvestmonth, when the moon rises round and bronze as a new betrothal promise watch, is the warlike thrice-veiled Mother of Mákhesthaines, crowned in her black silk mantles embroidered with skulls, permitted across the Holy Square...
Content warnings 1
death
"You don’t know who we are, but we promise you we are harmless, and we made this village for you. Well, for you and for us, and for all the others that might follow. Each of us built their own little house. Some are made from hard candy, with gingerbread...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"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...
Content warnings 3
child-deathracismviolence
"Do you remember the war? No, of course not. You were too small, a solemn-eyed toddler in Má’s arms. You were born in the year of the rat, a lucky, ambitious year. I was two years older, year of the dog, loyal to the end. You were little souris, little Em,...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onewar
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...
Content warnings 3
abusemisogynyviolence
"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,...
Content warnings 3
abuseviolencewar
An acclaimed musician and her apprentice travel to the newly freed country of Skinnere to play a complex and culturally fraught song that will lay bare the wounds of empire, occupation, and sacrifice of its players and listeners.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorracismwar
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
death
After war destroys their homeland, the Butterfly People come to Ksmal as refugees. They’re welcome, but only if they assimilate, and not everyone is happy with that.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onewar
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.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
abuse
Red Riding Hood escapes the wolf after years of living together and finds asylum with Beauty while the Beast is overseas on business.
Content warnings 3
abusedeathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Long ago, some people leapt from a slave ship, and something transformed their bodies so she they could breathe water. Today, her descendants try to cope with a changing ocean.
Content warnings 3
goresexual-violenceviolence
In early 19th-Century New Orleans, a teenage boy learns he can fly, but doesn’t understand why he must keep it a secret.
Content warnings 3
sexual-contentslaveryviolence
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.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
Hiding from her own problems, Winona volunteers at the local ornithological museum after she hits a bird with her car.
Content warnings 3
abusedeathracism
She was 15 when a dragon abducted her. 16 when a prince rescued her and married her. Now she's 55, returning to the cave where she was held.
Out on Europa, Marius has vanished and Kotto has come to rescue his partner, Bolaji.
Content warnings 2
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.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onewar
You are a lonely ten-year-old boy living in an old house with your mom when a man claiming to be your uncle arrives and strange things start to happen.
Content warnings 2
abusesubstance-use
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...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
When her mother is absorbed into the local flesh monolith, Kayla struggles with her identity and looks for a way in. Content warnings: Violence, nudity, racism/discrimination, body horror Copyright © 2026 khōréō magazine. Story by Mary Miseon Wu, edited by...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorracismviolence
A woman slowly smokes herself to death to protest an atrocity. When her cigarette supply runs low, a local kid grappling with both the protest and the atrocity brings her a cigar. Content warnings: Self-harm (smoking), references to genocide, a dead body,...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathwar
A woman returns to burn the last of her mother's body, in the wake of her mother's death — an effort to escape a dark entity that has sealed itself to the bones of three generations of Thai women. Content warnings: Racism, ageism, self-harm, blood,...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorracismself-harm
There once lived a boy who paid for a fortune. Nassim wore carob hair and eyes severe like cardamom. He spent his days scouring the souk for unique trinkets he liked to collect or counting the uneven stones of Jerusalem’s cobbled streets as he passed...
Content warnings 3
sexual-violenceviolencewar
You’d expected the gravity on Vixiv-11 to be fractionally more than that on Earth. It is not something you ever notice much, even in the beginning, beyond an exhaustion that […]
If only Serthe'P had been able to fit in, maybe she could have protected —. No. This thought was dangerous. Mnth’R had helped her understand that their isolation had more to do with the Raja’s exploitation of their cast’s fears than any shortcomings of...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
Tell me a story where it all goes right. Say that we only ever stopped at the station with the largest wingspan and busiest fuel pipes, the fifty-something spears jutting […]
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Despite the two hundred and fifty-two million years that separate us, I feel close to you tonight, dear trilobites.
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
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 : Victoria N. Shi Narrator : Tatiana Grey Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “milt” first apeared in Fission #5 by the British Science Fiction Association (June 2025) Contains Injury/body horror, climate grief, implied sexual...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorsexual-contentviolence
Author : S. C. Mills Narrator : Hugo Jackson Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 1040: Gods and Spirits Our Witnesses is an Escape Pod original. Loss of an infant Sponsored by Mixtape Stories Gods and Spirits Our Witnesses by S....
Content warnings 1
child-death
Author : Sierra Bibi Narrator : Laurice White Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Escape Pod 1043: The Smokejumpers is an Escape Pod original. Includes wildfires and peril. The Smokejumpers By Sierra Bibi When Fern jumps from the plane into...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Author : Rati Mehrotra Narrator : Joe Moran Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Adam Pracht The Library of the Apocalypse was first published in Clarkesworld, May 2025, Issue 224. Includes death and cursing. The Library of the Apocalypse By Rati Mehrotra...
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
Author : Kameron Hurley Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “When We Fall” was originally published on Kameron Hurley’s Patreon, and also featured in Escape Pod 611 in January 2018. Intense, life-threatening...
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...
Content warnings 1
body-horror
Bring your sister and I will tell you the story of how the waters returned to Apicuya. No, bring all the children. This is important. Don’t splash. If you cannot hear the thrum of the skymill, you are being too loud. Sit in the shallow pool, otherwise your...
Content warnings 2
child-deathdeath
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....
Iridescent algae glowed upon the ice and rock of the world, signaling the start of a new day. The patterns of their light, which we had trained over many estrous […]
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
Content note: suicidal ideation I am a star, falling. “Awake now?” My eyes open to words as an unknown face greets me, small with a curious gaze. She parts full lips to bare teeth and I tense. A threat? No. A smile. I stare back. “I didn’t think you’d...
Content warnings 3
slaverysuicidewar
This episode features "Paper Airplane Poet" written by Sheri Singerling. 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/singerling_05_26...
Content warnings 3
deathgoresexual-content
LA NDRY or L UNDRY. Those were the two choices. You never knew which one you were gonna get. The letters took turns to be fickle, blinking and spluttering in a game of chance. Mr. Lee, the laundry-mat owner, was stingy with the upkeep. He let his...
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...
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-onehomophobiaviolence
Author : Jay Kang Romanus Narrator : John Chu Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 927: The One Who Carries Abinakhee Has Died is a PodCastle original. Content note for drowning Rated PG The One Who Carries Abinakhee Has Died by Jay...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Authors : Rachel Gutin, Christina Trujillo and Toshiya Kamei Narrators : Jess Lewis, Sandra Espinoza and Amal El-Mohtar “Peppermint Tea” previously published by Baffling Magazine “Ghosts” previously published in Gingerbread House Literary Magazine. This...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Author : A. T. Greenblatt Narrator : Tatiana Grey Host : Devin Martin Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Previously ran as episode 558 and first published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies Rated PG A Place to Grow By A. T. Greenblatt Lillian was wearing one of her...
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...
Content warnings 3
body-horrormental-illnesspregnancy-loss
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...
Content warnings 1
violence
Author : Amanda Helms Narrator : Stephanie Malia Morris Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 939: The Worth of Ashes is a PodCastle original. Content notes for death of family members to illness (off-page), grief Rated PG THE WORTH OF...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Author : C. L. Clark Narrator : Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali Host : Wanini Kimemiah Audio Producer : Wilson Fowlie Previously ran as episode 519 as a PodCastle Original Rated PG-13 Burning Season By C. L. Clark It was burning season in Rashid. Again. Even in the...
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
Author : Merc Fenn Wolfmoor Narrator : Sandra Espinoza Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes Previously published in Apex Magazine (2021) Rated PG-13 Gray Skies, Red Wings, Blue Lips, Black Hearts by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor A girl has lost her soul...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
Author : C. J. Lavigne Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Tarver Nova Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 951: TALES FROM THE VAULTS: ‘Til Death is a PodCastle original. Content note for grief Rated PG-13 ‘Til Death by C. J. Lavigne My dear Clarinda, They...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Louis Inglis Hall's 'Cold Comfort' read by Emmie Christie. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
The typewriter proved, at first glance, to be a poor investment for a daring aerial escape. Kallista had been drawn to the typewriter from the moment she viewed it languishing in a Museum of Curioddities, a pun that 3% of Pennon City’s citizens might...
There is no formula for forgetting. No precise way to erase the pain. Complete healing is impossible. Because there is always a little needle sticking inside. A pain so slight […]
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
This episode features "The Forgetting Code" written by Malena Salazar Maciá. 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/macia_04_26...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
The wall of the city is made of glass, smooth and clear, slippery and strong. The stranger and his dog wear a path outside it every day, watching, listening, waiting to be ready. The wall is about three times the stranger’s height, perhaps a bit taller. As...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
A year of living in the ground had not accustomed Moyer to the smell. He wondered how the French, who’d been at this business so much longer, could stand it. But if the officers who had trained his unit in the intricacies of trench life were any...
Content warnings 2
deathwar
Content Warning: religiously motivated ableism and homophobia, both internalized and external; self-harm; and depictions of ritual sacrifice including drowning, hanging, and burning, not very graphic. Alone but for the crows, the priestess peers through...
Content warnings 3
deathhomophobiaself-harm
On a wooded hillside outside Pittsburgh, where the rivers braid together and the bridges flash yellow in the sun, there stands an old private school no one ever remembers enrolling in. Ivy grips its cracked bricks. Moss blurs the leaded windows. To almost...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
The bus jerked, waking Shijun. The Greyhound was speeding down a wide North American road. What am I doing here? The coach window framed the landscape: White clouds floated against […]
The most surprising thing about my journey (well, the first most surprising thing) is that the dream I experienced while traveling lasted a thousand years, a single dream stretching all the way to the Iota star in the Gemini constellation. I dreamt of...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
In summer, when the ocean ebbs at dusk, when the sand turns to glass and it becomes impossible to discern the difference between reflection and sky, the Tide Folk emerge from their pools. You might think, if you clamber on the cliffs searching for those...
But I am no king, no man. It is a role I assumed in serving, with perfect order, those who scarcely saw fit to name me. Wild and shimmering, I hide from myself no longer. I was born twice from death. It is time to mend what was broken, even if they will not.
Content warnings 2
child-deathillness-and-pandemic
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...
Content warnings 3
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....
Content warnings 1
death
For Seanan McGuire. And Coyote. Let me tell you about the year Coyote took the Devils to the State Championship. Coyote walked tall down the halls of West Centerville High and where he walked lunch money, copies of last semester’s math tests, and unlit...
Content warnings 1
sexual-content
April It is in the floral heaviness of late-spring that his mother comes home and hands him the present. It fits well in the palms of his hands, neither too heavy nor too light. Perfectly square, perhaps—and later confirmed to be exactly—five inches wide...
Content warnings 2
self-harmviolence
This episode features "You Are Invited to Our SPRING CELEBRATION" written by Thoraiya Dyer. Published in the March 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
"At night, Olivia becomes a spider. She scurries down San Francisco streets, floats gently between cotton-candy-colored houses, and hides behind signs for trendy restaurants, like Trough and Instance. By day, she works as a software engineer for a company...
Content warnings 1
mental-illness
Author : Risa Wolf Narrator : Julia Rios Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Tigers for Sale was first published in Clarkesworld Magazine in July 2023 Content warnings: colonialism, implied genocide, psychological manipulation Tigers for...
Content warnings 2
abusedeath
Author : Albert Chu Narrator : Hugo Jackson Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “When the Oracle Speaks” was first published in Metaphororsis, July 2023 When the Oracle Speaks (Part 1) by Albert Chu One year after the war’s end, the royal...
Content warnings 1
war
Author : Albert Chu Narrator : Hugo Jackson Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “When the Oracle Speaks” was first published in Metaphororsis, July 2023 When the Oracle Speaks (Part 2) by Albert Chu Outside the warehouse, the rain fell in...
Content warnings 1
war
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...
Content warnings 3
deathviolencewar
Author : Elly Bangs Narrator : Christiana Ellis Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Space Pirate Queen of the Ten Billion Utopias” was first published in Lightspeed Magazine in November 2021 Copious amounts of casual strong language. This...
Author : Natalia Theodoridou Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Summer Brooks When They Come Back was originally published in Crossed Genres (Issue 22), in October 2014, and in Escape Pod Episode 550 Frank though not explicit...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorsexual-contentviolence
Twilight By Lilly Harper Like the tide going out, the dream slipped between her toes and carried with it the smell of petrichor and the sound of birdsong. Even without knowing she was dreaming, she had known she was waking up; the subliminal chatter of her...
Author : Hiron Ennes Narrator : Tatiana Grey Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 986: Lyra, From Many Angles is an Escape Pod original. Lyra, From Many Angles by Hiron Ennes When they came, it was in a craft the size of a golf...
Holding Patterns By Jennifer Hudak I dream about the trees sometimes. I think we all do, even though none of my generation were alive when the forest was actually growing. We don’t dream about them the way they are now—stunted and dormant—but the way they...
Eros, Philia, Agape (Excerpt) By Rachel Swirsky The objects belonged to them both, but Adriana waved her hand bitterly when Lucian began packing. “Take whatever you want,” she said, snapping her book shut. She waited by the door, watching Lucian with sad...
Content warnings 1
child-abuse
Author : Merrie Haskell Narrator : Amanda Ching Hosts : Valerie Valdes and Norm Sherman Audio Producers : Summer Brooks and Eric Valdes Originally published in Apex Magazine, February 2013, and was previously published in Escape Pod 404 (July 2013)....
The Rhythms of the World By Johnny Caputo As always, we’re starving to death. From our place inside the leather pouch tied to Aamsaa’s belt, our two remaining stalks ache with hunger, barely able to hold our withered green-spotted spore caps upright. We...
Content warnings 1
death
Summitting the Moon By Pragathi Bala T-7 days The moon Landed, the Rut appeared, home equity plummeted, jobs disappeared, and Ghis liked riding the moon. It was the last item on this tragic list that her wife couldn’t accept. It was the leaf that broke the...
Content warnings 1
pregnancy-loss
Author : E J Delaney Narrator : Eliza Chan Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 942: The Eye of Applethorpe is an Escape Pod original. The Eye of Applethorpe by E J Delaney Úna’s dad once said to her: “You never know what you’ve...
Author : Sylvie Althoff Narrator : Serah Eley Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 955: Endymion is an Escape Pod original. Contains transphobic slur, adult language, and brief but graphic violence Endymion by Sylvie Althoff It’s...
Content warnings 3
goretransphobiaviolence
Author : Benjamin C. Kinney Narrator : Heather Thomas Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Summer Brooks This story originally appeared in the anthology “The Internet Is Where The Robots Live Now” (Paper Dog Press, November 2018). Elegy of Carbon by...
Content warnings 1
violence
Code Switching By Malon Edwards [JEAN-MICHEL] INTRO: ALL I'M EVER GON' DO IS STAY BLACK AND DIE JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. KINSLEY CHASE Kinsley Chase sits on manman mwen plastic-covered couch. The InTell HumbleBrag subprogram Stanford Sutton Industries chipped me...
Content warnings 1
racism
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...
Content warnings 2
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...
Content warnings 3
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...
Content warnings 3
racismviolencewar
Author : Simone Heller Narrator : Hugo Jackson Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Forever the Forest” was first published in “Life Beyond Us: An Original Anthology of SF Stories and Science Essays” (April 2023) Forever the Forest by...
Content warnings 1
death
Author : Lavie Tidhar Narrator : Kyle Akers Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks This story first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (December 2020) Wild Geese by Lavie Tidhar With rustling wings the wild geese fly Round...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
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...
Content warnings 1
suicide
Zhao and the Flightless Crane By A. J. Mo Quick sapphires danced over sun-silvered water. Soundless, they zipped and wheeled to the quiet rhythm of filtration pumps. Dragonflies, Zhao thought. Other winged jewels joined the flurry, some green as spring,...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
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....
Content warnings 3
abusemisogynyslavery
Author : LP Kindred Narrator : LP Kindred Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks This story originally appeared in Anathema: Spec from the Margins (July 2022) Content warning for NSFW language, sex Wanderlust by L. P. Kindred When he first...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesexual-content
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...
Content warnings 1
death
Author : Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko Narrator : Andrew K. Hoe Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Adam Pracht The AI That Looked at the Sun originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, January 2020. The AI That Looked at the Sun By Filip Hajdar Drnovšek...
Author : Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe Narrator : Somto Ihezue Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Harvest Moon” was previously published in Solarpunk Magazine Harvest Moon by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe “We cannot sustain the farm, Gozie.” I don’t like the...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Driftwood in the Sea of Time By Wendy Nikel They'd warned us about the paradoxes, but humanity has always had a way of ignoring the things we don't want to think about and disregarding the parts that don't align with how we want the world to operate. One...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Harvest the Stars By Mar Vincent The summer Sif turned one, the starships were ripe on the vine. They hulked in fields ringing the town where Tuja had always lived. A place far from big cities, where the starlight they fed on came pure and bright. “The...
Author : Grace Chan Narrator : Rebecca Wei Hsieh Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Death By Water” originally appeared in From the Waste Land (PS Publishing, Oct 2022). It was shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction...
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
"There isn’t a more resilient thing than a small flower. Your great-great-grandmother was a yellow daffodil. Where she was born people called her narcissus. Her many heads blossomed from a loamy opening in the forest on a particularly chill spring day....
Content warnings 2
deathwar
The Wrong Side of the Sky By Raymond Roach There’s an old woman who lives in the desert, and who has lived in the desert a very long time. So, too, have her people, but many of them have gone, while she remains. She’s old enough that she should have a...
Content warnings 1
death
Author : Maurice Broaddus Narrator : Hollis Monroe Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums City of Refuge originally appeared in Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology, November 2020. Contains harsh language, violence, and...
Content warnings 3
racismsubstance-useviolence
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...
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...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
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...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Author : Renan Bernardo Narrator : Diogo Ramos Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 863: A Shoreline of Oil and Infinity is an Escape Pod original. A Shoreline of Oil and Infinity by Renan Bernardo Conchinha Charging… 87% Energy...
The Sea Goddess' Bloom By Uchechukwu Nwaka There is doubt in my heart. Here, in the Blackwater, doubt is dangerous. Doubt is rancid. Like slitting the mud-smeared belly of a catfish, only to find its guts blackened by pollution, then watching it spill back...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
"She is light. Until she is not, and the lighthouse goes dark as the waves crash against the cliffside, the rocks at its foot jutting and jagged, a peril to even the most skilled navigators’ ships. “Fuck me,” I swear at the sudden black spot in my vision....
Content warnings 2
deathsexual-content
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...
Content warnings 3
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...
Content warnings 3
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...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Ascend, Exalt, Love, Propagate, Rise! By Sarah Kumari The Glory smolders through Jehanne's bloodstream, pulsing its encouragement. The rivals who have survived along with him–officially 'Fellow Eminents' now that selection is over–twitch and moan as their...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorsexual-violenceviolence
Author : Sameem Siddiqui Narrator : Arun Jiwa Host : S.B. Divya Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums AirBody first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (April 2020), and was the Winner of the 2020 Clarkesworld Readers Poll Contains some harsh...
Content warnings 1
sexual-content
Author : Christopher Mark Rose Narrator : Tad Callin Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums “Sentient Being Blues” first appeared in the March/April 2021 issue of Asimov’s Death of a child, also contains some violence and...
Content warnings 3
child-deathgoreviolence
Author : Anjali Patel Narrator : Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali Host : Brent Lambert Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 806: Bright Lights Flying Beneath the Ocean is an Escape Pod original. Contains harsh language. Bright Lights Flying...
Heard, Half-Heard, in the Stillness By Iona Datt Sharma Ekta’s Dadi could tell the future. She didn’t read the tea leaves, or make or lay bets on the cricket. But she booked the photographer the week before the news came of Purnima Didi’s engagement. She...
Author : Erik Grove Narrator : Karlo Yeager Rodriguez Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 816: Merely Players is an Escape Pod original. Death and loss. Merely Players by Erik Grove Jester stopped his bicycle in...
"The shoes are leather with delicate lines and pointy toes. Elegant shoes for elegant feet. They might have suited her too if she had yesterday’s feet. Chicken’s feet. But today her feet are that of an otter’s, stubby and covered in wet, glistening fur....
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
"Cassie pulls her hood low over her forehead, keeps her eyes on the ground ahead of her. She wears face paint meant to fool facial recognition algorithms, though the cops think she’s dead. Her friends are. She should be. She circles the block twice,...
Content warnings 3
self-harmtransphobiaviolence
When she’s not helping study a giant alien artifact, Neela enjoys ice skating on Europa’s endless ice plains.
Where They Keep Their Promises By B. Pladek I imagine you eating the chocolate bar. It will arrive tomorrow, I hope, though the war has disrupted the medrunners’ routes between Chicago and London. It will arrive, though. I promise. I imagine you unwrapping...
Content warnings 3
deathillness-and-pandemicwar
Author : Frank Wu Narrator : Roderick Aust Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story originally appeared in Analog Magazine in November 2016. It won the AnLab Award for short story. In the Absence of Instructions to...
Content warnings 3
animal-harmdeathwar
Following the death of her mother, Fiona buys a new house in order to start a new chapter of her life, one with fewer reminders of painful memories. Unbeknownst to Fiona, this house has a melancholy history, and slightly more ghosts than she anticipated....
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
As climate change destroys Australia, the people sacrifice climate-change deniers to the giant koala bears that are attacking the cities.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
Teenage friends Domei and Hano live in a refugee camp for survivors of a war fought with dragons.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorviolencewar
Deep under the lightless ocean of an alien planet, you study the only lifeform ever discovered there.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathgore
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.