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
Memory
516 free-to-read stories tagged “Memory”
The Regent rules as a tyrant, and he has separated Saffron from her husband to force him to bake the amazing confections that let you relive bits of the past.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Salman pursues the truth behind stories his grandfather told him about an impoverished princess he used to know back in Pakistan and the Jinn that protected her.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Hannah watched her sister Melanie die, incinerated with her own magic. Hannah can't accept that and sets out to use her own magic to put things right.
Content warnings 4
abusedeath-of-a-loved-oneself-harmsuicide
In 1888 a woman suffering a hideous deformity was murdered in London. Today, her descendent wants to find the culprit.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Adam has 70% of the memories of the man who created him, but something vital is hiding in that missing 30%.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
June’s sister Wanda suffered some kind of brain damage in an experiment aimed at learning the nature of reality. Two other people died in that experiment, and June would like some answers.
Content warnings 1
death
"The form is one page long. No back. Just a front. It should be longer. There are six copies of the form, all different colors. Like I’m working my way through the rainbow to the end where I’ll finally find peace. Red. A parent or guardian. I meet my...
Content warnings 3
abuseillness-and-pandemictransphobia
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
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
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
"i am a memory. i am an METI carrying a memory. i am an METI (Message to Extraterrestrial Intelligence) carrying a memory beaming through the vacuum of space. Because i am an METI, i presume my purpose is to communicate with extraterrestrials, should i find them."
Content warnings 2
deathwar
A photographer’s obsession with an unsettled subject exposes two friends to a darkness that won’t be contained by frames…
Content warnings 3
child-deathsuicideviolence
More than a hundred years from now, an arborist fighting to save the last remaining forest on Earth discovers a secret about the trees—one that changes not only her life, but also the fate of our world. Inspired by the real-life “Future Library,” a...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Graff just had an accident so severe that he can no longer keep the secret that he’s a cyborg from his crewmates and his lover.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Humanity is under attack from intelligent creatures we never knew about from the abyss of our own oceans. Cally is a researcher trying to communicate with them when the underwater facility she’s on is attacked and she has to escape before it disintegrates entirely.
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-contentviolence
In Eastern Europe between the wars, Klara works as a kitchen maid. One night she admits a woman she thinks is a lost fairy-tale princesses into the castle.
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
"Hunter’s Moon rises fat and golden over the burned-out husk of the CN Tower. Excitement ripples through us, making us forget, for the moment, the hunger that gnaws our insides. The sign for the Library appears only on clear, full moon nights, and it’s...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"Can someone get the doors? Thanks. Please remember we’re on an honor system for chairs—if you’ve eaten today, please leave them for someone who hasn’t. We don’t need another fainting incident. First of all, if you’re looking for a technical look at...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorcannibalismviolence
The sister of an abducted child is haunted by a sinister figure who may or may not be real…
Graff isn’t quite human. His people move through the galaxy collecting memories and experiences, recording their lives and passing them on. Then, one day, he breaks: he discovers a chunk of his memory is missing. This should be impossible—he’s never...
"I’d always known Calam would run. He had all the signs. A taut restlessness, body brittle as an overstretched lute string, when we stayed too long in one place. A gloom in his eyes, as we drifted through stretches of dead space. A sullen crease between...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"They were all hard at work, preparing for the long sleep. The sunlight-scattering sulfate aerosol constantly injected into the atmosphere since the time of the Geoengineering Generation had not been enough, providing little more than periodic acid...
Content warnings 1
death
"Charlie wasn’t a ghost standing in the corners of the house, but at the same time he was everywhere. He had been haunting my thoughts since we received Uncle Jamey’s emails and the plane tickets. Now, everyone gathered at our mother’s house, my childhood...
Content warnings 5
deathracismsubstance-usesuicideviolence
"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
"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
"This is the eighth floor of the Al-Ahli Memorial Library, my favorite place in the building. When the elevator door opens, it’s like walking into a quiet circle of glass. So, as we walk, I’m going to whisper. People are reading, writing, drawing—it’s such...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathwar
"It is two days since our original projected mission end date. We are running out of oxygen and we are trapped in the throat of a god. Technology and a prudent safety review panel have kept casualties on deep dives low, but abyssal layer dives have always...
Content warnings 1
death
"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
"Six hours left. “What do you want to eat sweetheart?” She looks at me expectantly, holding out her phone to show me the menu. “It is your special day. I’ll get you anything you want.” I smile, shake my hands. “Eomma, it’s fine. You don’t have to do this.”...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
"Memories of Memories Lost" by Mahmud El Sayed is a story about the price of the things we choose to forget. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by Mahmud El Sayed, edited by Isabella Kestermann. Audio edition read by Karim Kronfli and produced by Lian...
A 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
"A man who will be given a second name in ten thousand years and a man whose name will be forgotten sit in a forest, or perhaps a grassy plain, or perhaps a cold tundra. It is a biome that will not exist in ten thousand years but whose footprint will be...
Content warnings 2
mental-illnesssuicide
"Imagine: purple-haired girl shooting down the moon.” I type the prompt into the black screen as if making a request to God. The blurred shape of a head appears in four variations over a pixelated ocean of gray. The eyes, corrugated whites, slowly take...
Content warnings 3
abusesexual-contentviolence
"In July 2088, shortly after I woke up from cryosleep, I received a copy of 2181 Overture. Assuming the book was science fiction, I didn’t even bother touching it. My only concern was how I could adjust to the new world I found myself thrown into. After...
Content warnings 2
deathillness-and-pandemic
"You ever love the pretty right off someone? When I was a kid, had me a BMX, bright red like a candy apple. I rode it all summer long, cresting hills trying to catch the perfect gleam in the sunlight."
"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
A woman who fears she’s failing as a painter and as an artist seeks inspiration from one of her favorite poets and finds something even more wondrous, but also more impossible to capture on canvas…
"I didn’t expect the trailer to feel so small and that some of the blood would still be wet. But I must have expected some blood because I cuffed my jeans before going in. And I didn’t expect the cats would have come back—a window was open, its screen...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"When they ordered me down off my pedestal, I had nowhere else to go. Life as a statue is easy. They make you ascend the pedestal, turn you to stone, remove your ability to move, and leave you to watch the turn of the seasons in a world you cannot touch or...
Content warnings 2
abuseviolence
"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
"It’s not a real baby,” Jain says flatly. “And we should kill it.” Another sunless morning in the Waste. She and Stromile have woken up to a gift: a canister of pepto-pink fluid with an infant inside it. The tiny figure is chubby and squirmy and perfect,...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"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...
"Your grandfather is dead. Your instance gave you the news: a phone call in the dead of night that woke you from a dead sleep. “Hello?” you said, accented with slumber. “Is this Soyoung Kang?” your own voice said, accented with Korean. “Yes,” you said. The...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"I’ve got a signal,” Cora said. “Elena, come look!” I rushed to Cora’s bank of computers. For six long, working-into-the-evening days, we’d gotten only the faintest of quantum signals, nothing usable. Our grant only gave us three weeks on the TU Delft...
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
"As the people began to die, desperation drove us to the depths of the sea for cures. We mined mineral-rich vents until the tube worms went extinct, stripped polymetallic nodule fields bare, squeezed sludge out of sea sponges to treat the new diseases,...
Content warnings 2
deathillness-and-pandemic
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.
Even as a grad student, Sarah Levy focused on her research to the detriment of her family, and things only get worse when she makes a breakthrough discovery.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Awenato is the only Uma’u on the space station after terrorists kill the rest of the diplomats from his world, including his lifemate. He wants revenge, but first he has to figure out how to just get by.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
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
On his deathbed, a man implores his son to visit his plaque at their ancestral temple—which appears to exist in virtual reality.
The narrator undergoes a special treatment that lets her revisit (and change) key memories that trouble her—all of which involve people she had sex with.
Content warnings 3
sexual-contentsexual-violencesubstance-use
In 2028, Kitty has a role in a play about a mass murder committed in 1978, but when she visits the setting of the crime, she’ll pulled into the past right before the crimes take place.
Content warnings 3
abusedeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
A crew member describes the songs he and his friends made when they put together a band centuries from Earth and centuries from their destination.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Connor works at a restaurant in New York where he has a magical touch with food (literally). Problems with his family keep interfering with his career, though.
The carpenter on a Nantucket whaler hears a dreadful warning from an African god his ancestors once called upon when they were taken into slavery. But will anyone listen to him?
Content warnings 2
deathracism
At age 9, the narrator and his best friend discover a dangerous alien on an island near their homes, and they spend the summer fighting it with their friends. But is it real or just their imaginations?
Detective Connolly is a dog in a world where some animals are “knowledgeable” and can talk like humans. A human professor hires him to help cover up a murder . . .
A mother talks to a scan of her daughter taken just a month before, ah, something happened. It’s a short conversation but it packs quite a punch.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
After memory-loss plague strikes the world, Gouda helps clients track missing family members they can barely remember—even though she can’t even remember her own last name.
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.
A woman found an alien space probe in the dry valleys of Antarctica, and three generations of her family try to decide what it really means.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 6
body-horrorchild-abusedeathdeath-of-a-loved-onesubstance-useviolence
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
The narrator’s homelife has fallen apart since she told her husband she’s asexual, so they order a device that looks and talks like her, but with “improvements.”
Content warnings 3
mental-illnesssexual-contentsuicide
Ben Clarke travels to Hollywood to settle his late brother’s affairs. He learns a variety of things about his brother, but the biggest surprise is what he finds in the bedroom.
Content warnings 3
deathsubstance-usesuicide
On the planet First Foot, the small town of Joe's Corner faces conflict over building a radio telescope close to local alien artifacts.
Aliens decide to rule the Earth indirectly, picking a middle-aged woman from an insurance company to be their intermediary.
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
An aging robot, on a journey to visit a friend, reflects on their adventures together.
Content warnings 1
death
"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
"They cut off Auréle’s head and they put it on a pike above the city’s third best bridge. To me, that seemed a shame. I had only just got his nose right. It had a crook in it, Auréle’s nose. A sporting accident, from his days at the Academy. He’d been...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"Dear Dr. Erzsébet Krajcsik-Nagy, I am contacting you as a member of the general public, and not as a fellow scholar, though I must say my chosen field of art history does have certain similarities to yours. I read the interview with you in the online...
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
"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
As a young scholar sets out on a research project to find the stones where the settlers of Iceland made human sacrifices, a long dormant volcano rouses…and other, long-sleeping horrors might also be stirring.
"The moon was full that night in the summer of Meiji 29 when three hundred and sixty new stars appeared in the sky. Glowing even brighter than the capital’s newly installed electric lamps, they formed a nineteen-by-nineteen grid. My wife, Tsuru, and I were...
Content warnings 1
illness-and-pandemic
"The Alamgir Dynasty has been guiding the Kingdom of Hindustan through centuries of peace, prosperity, and stability. Yet, credit does not rest solely on the wisdom of our modern kings; from the earliest days of what was then called the Alamgiri Empire,...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"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
"On the high plains of Kansas in a tiny town worn down by drought, I stop at a roadside diner. When I ask for water, the waitress pours me a glass of ice water, presenting it with obvious pride. “We have our own well,” she says. “And the wind turbine on...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
Even death is no match for a trio of elderly, stubborn, ever-sparring sisters, who refuse to rest in peace while their grudges live on…
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Unknown forces attempt to stop Judge Dee and Jonathan from transporting a mysterious and possibly dangerous prisoner, who holds a secret about the Judge, to an executioner in France…
"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...
An engineer who frequently travels for her job, suddenly finds herself in airports other than the one she arrived in…
"For anyone who’s used the Skip system to travel more than once or twice, delays are simply part of the process. The one following my transit to Olympus lasts longer than most. I pass the time by looking for a way to bend the causative incident behind the...
A sculptor struggles when he is commanded to perpetuate the lies of a deceitful and cruel king…
Content warnings 1
death
A comatose patient undergoes an experimental procedure that uses favorite childhood stories to pull the patient back into consciousness—but the experiment doesn’t go quite as planned…
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
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
In "Kwong's Bath" by Angela Liu, Kwong is visited by the ghosts of the people she has trouble letting go. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by Angela Liu, edited by Sachiko Ragosta. Audio edition read by Lauren Kong, with casting and production by...
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-oneself-harmsuicide
"Umeboshi" by Rebecca Nakaba is an exploration of what it means to be connected through heritage—and chain email. Copyright khōréō magazine 2023. Story by Rebecca Nakaba, edited by Sachiko Ragosta. Audio edition read by Heidi Tabing, with sound design by...
Content warnings 1
body-horror
"Your mother spends every evening working on her machine. It looks like no other machine you’ve seen. A hunk of metal on the ground, with wires stringing each section to the next. Like the inside of a giant robot’s belly, if someone cut it open to expose...
"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 generation ship never grows. Our faces—varied as the stars that swaddle us, far from everything we knew—never age. Do we learn, cut off from all the past? Do we change? I’ve asked myself these questions, and so many more, over the...
Content warnings 1
suicide
"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
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"The little girl was blonde and had very blue eyes. She stood on the steps to the house and stared at Mara without expression. “It lives in the closet,” the little girl said. “Klara…” her father said. He looked apologetically at Mara. “Please,” he said....
"One day, the Curator salvaged a robot. It was a model ST-19, a military machine, designed for search and destroy missions. The Curator found it outside in a knee-deep snowdrift. The robot’s ship had crashed into a hill two kilometers away, the explosion...
Content warnings 1
death
"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
"Herein is the account of the evening the crew of the Forever Trying invited the Grand Faerie Lord of Vast Space and Its Great Mysteries into our home. I, Felix, Chronicler of the ship, endeavor to capture a true and accurate record of transpired events on...
"The last nectarine from the spaceship glistens in Riley’s palm, an imperfect globe smelling like summer. She nestles among the blue-tinted ferns of Ekara C, cupping the nectarine like a tiny sun. The first bite is primal, her mouth swollen with juice that...
"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
"Down here among the dead, our fairy tales begin at the end. So Skullbone—hero, trickster, corpse—plans to dive into the great Maw that rends the sea-ice far beyond our gravelled shores. Against the frozen waves’ mottled blue and glassy white, the Maw...
Content warnings 1
death
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"Patricia could hear them gathered on her front porch, the kings and popes and saints, gossiping and chattering and generally having a good time. She turned. King Solomon lay sprawled across the bed like it was his golden throne. He raised his head to...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"This much was clear. At some point in my future, I would have access to a time machine. This was a ridiculous sentence and a tragically irrelevant concern while my wife Judi was on the floor and possibly dying, but there it was: nonsense, in the presence...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
"Time is absolute. My son is born and there is blood, screaming sweet as rain, tears, and joy. I hold him. Things precede. Time is a straight line that exists independent of observers. My son’s second birthday follows his first. He walks shortly after his...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
A student of multiversal time travel slips from one version of New York to another, discovering that love may transcend timelines, but so too can heartbreak…
"There was a shop in old Haifa that specialised in Treif artefacts, so that was where Mili went first. Haifa sprawled along the side of Mount Carmel. Successive waves of regeneration didn’t do much to change it. Now adaptoplant buildings sprouted like...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"A small asteroid swerved in a most un-asteroid-like way and pierced the hull of the archivist’s ship, as though it was determined to drive her away. But she was just getting started. She slammed the emergency foam release button, holding her breath even...
Content warnings 1
illness-and-pandemic
"The intact remnants of Tess’ pressure suit sat alone at the bar, slumped before an untouched pint of beer. No one around the Waystation blamed Hae’cera for what they did after the reactor blew. According to the logs recovered after the accident, the blast...
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 infomercial jangles for DoubleSpace were never quite as catchy as the ones for its more expensive alternatives, and yet, you and I would hum them indiscriminately, little heads bobbing, lips vibrating, as we ran about the house. The day the installers...
Content warnings 2
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Author : Kel Coleman Narrator : Hollis Monroe Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Delete Your First Memory for Free was originally published in FIYAH Magazine Issue 17 (January 2021). Delete Your First Memory for Free by...
"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
"That first autumn it felt as if the whole world had been made for them—which, of course, it had. They walked down the avenue of oaks that reached above their heads like Gothic arches, red leaves drifting lazily down to collect at their feet. Ashwin was...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
"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
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
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
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
An occult detective and a creature work and love together across multiple lifetimes.
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-contentviolence
As Charlotte’s husband sinks into early Alzheimer’s, he becomes more and more obsessed with a cult religious figure known only as The Reverend.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
J11-L arrives at the target planet 95,000 years after the race that built it died, but it proceeds with its terraforming mission nevertheless.
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
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-violenceviolence
When it sees its neighbors torn down, a smart building appeals to the government not to let it die.
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
Kleave’s life is upended when a freak accident disables all three of the archives where he stores copies of his experiences and memories.
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
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
Summer of 1955, the last summer of high school. Mike remembers his girlfriend and how wonderful it was being in love. And he remembers the awful things that happened at the end.
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
In the future, lottery winners will get their hearts’ desire, whether it’s turning into a bird, going to Mars, or vanishing into thin air.
Content warnings 1
violence
A member of a group of powerful beings who make stories real tells us the truth about Solomon Grundy and why he had to die.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
In alternate-history America, an uplifted chimp gets certified as a person and goes to the moon.
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.
A lonely old Chinese man gets involved in the fight against smog--without government approval.
Content warnings 1
illness-and-pandemic
In 1915 Ohio, 14-year-old Emmett's night terrors get worse after he finds a dead body in an abandoned well.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"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
Espie Droger dreams of war. What else can he dream of? There is nothing left. He has dreamed of world travel and expensive Scotch and lithe young women and sudden uncontrollable laughter. But his vitality has seeped from him like fluid from a dying tree....
Content warnings 3
deathillness-and-pandemicwar
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
"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
"Before you hear what I’m about to tell you, I need you to understand two things. Firstly, I do not know how to swim. When you live in the place I do, it’s more or less a useless skill. I mean, the deepest water around is up to my shoulders at best, can...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathgore
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
Following a mysterious world-wide event that makes ghosts visible, a young woman is invited to attend Ghost Camp.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
"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
"Oscar’s Digital Double comes two hours, thirty-eight minutes, and eleven seconds late. Maxine snatches the package from the delivery drone and doesn’t tip. She rearranged her day—went to HMart right when it opened, skipped the gym, cooked Grandma a quick...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathsuicide
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
"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
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
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...
The spirit of a recently deceased young boy helps a group of ghosts seek revenge on a corrupt and abusive town minister.
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathviolence
"What lies beyond the Sea of Beasts is known to few, for few are foolish enough to try and cross it. This is not because of the beasts, which all died so long ago their bones have turned to stone, but because it is ghastly. Most of the fish are spiny and...
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-contentviolence
"Hey there—comrade—are you also part of the—Space Industry—Development Program—First Cohort? I’m Zhang Haoyu—second lieutenant—pleased to meet you.” The man in front of me spoke in choppy fragments. He extended his hand, heedless of the puzzled looks...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onemental-illness
"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...
"In the pre-dawn light she lies in bed, gazing through the window at graceful trees silhouetted against a turquoise sky. The air is still, the pretty room orderly and calm. She lies motionless except for her eyes, the soft blue quilt rising and falling...
Content warnings 1
death
"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
"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...
"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
"Black Quadrangle, Mesolithic era Unknown Charcoal on sandstone This work, created c. 15,000 BC (17,000 AS), precedes earliest surviving written texts. It was rediscovered alongside human remains and burnt carbon deposits, suggesting a role in a burial,...
"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."
"A syringe with a magnetite needle that would frighten even the boldest of souls. A torture device. But for my sister Kata, it would be a piece of the divine that shouldn’t be on the Aldarish Society Museum for Byrnyan Culture. That pretty much sums up how...
"It slips, now—I know it slips. There are men in my parlor, in uniforms, crisp navy, badged. Police. Beyond them Eveline wavers in a yellow nightgown, hands clasped to her chest, eyes wide and worried—no, no, she doesn’t, she’s not here, I’m dreaming her,...
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
"If it was the first time I saw a house mourning? No, my dear. Not at all. Yet, it broke my heart to enter House and hear her parquet floor moaning, see the toilet sink weeping, feel her foundations shuddering ever so slightly. I put the plastic bags on...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"Driver, gharivala, beta, bhai-jaan, baba. All the words used to address me; so rarely do I remember being addressed by my name. Not to complain. I don’t think people ever meant to be disrespectful. But having someone to respectfully, lovingly,...
"She’s walking by the river on an overcast day, when sweat runs down her palms, goosebumps all over her neck. The breeze stills. The gray sky turns blood red. Instead of the Sun, through a clearing in the clouds, she finds the Eye. Veins branch across a...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorsubstance-usewar
"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
"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
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"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...
"The alert comes screaming in on Jana’s implant, bright light lancing through the fog of REM sleep: [New glyph. Intersection of 148th and Cliffton.] When her eyes snap open, it’s there, the only thing fully in focus. A blurry image of the yet-untitled...
"He is King Lear in the window’s sunshine. There is pastina boiling on the stove in a kitchen as familiar as his soul. Mad monologues push against his fogged oxygen mask, vibrating with his tremoring lips, his ragged breathing, the impossible weight of the...
Content warnings 1
body-horror
"Even though the armistice has held for nearly a year now, I know it could shatter at any moment, trapping me here behind enemy lines. The war raged for nearly fifty years—the simple inertia of violence dictates a renewal of hostilities sooner or later....
Content warnings 2
violencewar
"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...
"The low rumble of the train cut through the night and the living flesh of The City, carrying its passengers ever further from the gleam of parliaments and providence. The stop towards Wild Park grew ever closer, represented along the wall of the train by...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
"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
On a trip to Italy, a woman stuck in a crumbling relationship discovers the city she loves holds a secret that could change her life…
"You are an exile.” “Yes. And no.” Confined in the narrow neck of the vase, Asmidiske’s voice was tiny and metallic. “An oracle is ambiguous.” They considered and rejected terminology: galaxy, light speed, time warp, circumpolar orbit. “There are not words...
Commander Niaja vrau Erezeng is up against an enemy that doesn’t just destroy all the beings, ships, and planets in its path, but also consumes their greatest arts, scratching them from existence everywhere…
Content warnings 2
deathwar
"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...
"It’s six weeks ’til Going Time. I never really got used to that naming convention. The phrase has “Going” and “Time” in it, the latter carrying the entire weight of the definition. The former is vague. Going where? Beneath the crusty morass of our...
Content warnings 1
death
"She tells the children to call her Kade Makasi, and if this was one of her stories, she’d describe herself as bent and wrinkled and spider-like for a touch of myth and poetry … but she’s none of these things … she’s tall, thick-browed, with two braided...
Content warnings 1
mental-illness
"The young rag-smasher halts on a terrace. He chases his breath, gazing down on the waterfront. Even from this distance, the bustle lends him an odd calm. Brisk trade means things are running. No one’s starving, not even beggars. Down there, people...
Content warnings 1
violence
"It forced itself to take that last step onto the ferry. Every step further from land felt like falling. Through space, through time, through every place it had ever been. It kept its eyes open, its features arranged in what it hoped was a neutral...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"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
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
racism
"Almost everyone has, at some point in their lives, encountered a door that was not there before. A little girl sits up in bed, staring at the two identical closets in her bedroom. She feels certain there had been only one when she fell asleep. A salaryman...
Content warnings 2
cannibalismviolence
"The cadaver drone makes an incision along the inside of each finger. My stomach curls, waiting for the blood, but of course there’s none left. The body has been dead for days, all the blood drained and replaced with a sweet-smelling formaldehyde formula....
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
A weary resilience worker should know better than anyone: no one is safe when the world is always ending…
Content warnings 1
death
"It is the shared birthday of the isle of Barradwyth. As a gift, Cyfris has promised his granddaughter Cydovan the one story he has never told her. They are sitting on the balcony of their home on Barradwyth Station, overlooking a street paved with mosaic...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"Azahn had been the ninety-third Imperial Foresight to the Dynasty of Silken Flame for only three weeks when he was forcibly retired. His body had been blessed by the holy waters of the Sky-Vein River, and he had earned the named-blade Stalwart Thy Mind,...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"I am waiting for Helen on her fiftieth birthday. On the table, there’s a crystal drinking glass and a vase with rare orchids; I can’t tell if the flowers are genuine or not. Faint piano notes and a cold scent drift in the air. Beautiful men and women sit...
"War meant a new life for refrigeration unit B3RT4A—or Bertha, as her now-dead family liked to call her, before they’d been buried in the rubble of their kitchen. It meant she had to listen to the bomber-planes flying overhead day and night, had to hide in...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onewar
"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...
"Latent summer stirred while spring lay dormant. April had come to the Kingdom of S’ong and brought with it spells of rain. Tadpoles in the pond recently developed hind legs; above, a stray shower had been drumming at the water pit-a-pat. The rain-rinsed...
Content warnings 2
deathwar
"Hi, we were both in Central Square on Friday, around 9:30 PM. I’m a tall trans lady with brown hair and glasses. You were standing in front of Sonia with some people. You were looking at your phone and then you looked up at me. Our eyes met for—I’m sorry,...
"By now, you've received your Portal Ticket confirmations and ForeverFete™ Mas Pack, which should include essentials such as several period correct costumes; one-dose capsules for various ailments common amongst the British West Indies population during...
Content warnings 3
deathracismviolence
"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...
"That dying anchor said some mysterious ‘he’ was looking for her. Chakatie tried to think of who that could be. When she’d been an anchor in charge of her own land, she’d thought she’d been even-handed. But traveling with the day-fellows had revealed to...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
"In Greece, we have a saying: You must eat the body part you want to grow stronger. Or maybe that’s just something my grandmother used to say. After partying with friends until the early hours, Katerina and I take a detour before we go home. The meat...
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
"The Grieving House rises like a lighthouse from the artificial snowdrifts, its windows blazing honeyed gold. The clean lines of it look too much like a grave marker. The House was built to give the bereaved some sense of togetherness and let them guide...
Content warnings 2
violencewar
"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
"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...
An artist’s work attracts the eye of Andrey Porgee, a notorious gangster, who becomes her best customer. But when he commissions a painting based on a childhood photograph, the artist fears his reaction to the final product.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"The Exhibit of You is the central attraction of an institution you could call a museum, in a population center you could call a city, beloved by creatures who you could call people. We know that this is annoying sentence structure. If you cannot penetrate...
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
"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 dome star was the only light in the nighttime sky. Ben Stokes watched from the tower at the center of the common area as the star flickered and buzzed. Bulb is about to burn out, he thought as the soft pulses of light feathered the edges of park...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
A reporter travels to the Norwegian Arctic to cover an unusual sled race with the undead leading the living into unknown territory.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
"James had always been able to tell when Camille was eavesdropping. Even though she kept her eyes carefully focused on the messages on her band while she poked at the remains of her salad, it would not have fooled him. He wouldn’t scold her in public, but...
Content warnings 1
death
The 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
"You are the unalive thing possessing her body. Her body was printed three days ago from blueprints transferred moments before the motorbike crash over the bridge. Her flesh and fat and keratin and bone are accurate to prior specifications, except for the...
"Matt tells the waiter he’ll have his eggs over easy. They come back scrambled, a neat glistening pile framed by perfect triangles of toast, a lacy froth of hashbrowns lurking across the plate. He doesn’t notice he’s chosen to move until he’s already...
Content warnings 1
suicide
"For Future Generations" by Rachel Gutin What do terrestrial traditions mean when you have to leave the only world you've ever known? This contemplative sci-fi explores the choices a rabbi must make for her congregation. Copyright khōréō magazine 2021....
The year is 1915, and a young man hired to shout the words on title cards for silent films experiences the magic of movies. This spurs him to edit some of the worst dialog, leading him in a weird direction that utterly changes his life.
"Ti came to see me, you know. Three four days before she died. Knocked right on my door, and I’ve never been so surprised in all my life. This is a woman who when we were on tour would have the driver drive her halfway down the block rather than walk to...
Content warnings 1
death
"We met on the 107th floor of the South Tower. She was standing in quiet contemplation, watching fire spread through the building across the plaza, smoke and paper billowing out into that baby blue sky. I was nursing a thunderous hangover, neglecting my...
Content warnings 2
deathwar
"They say Omma’s in there, but she’s not, she’s not. It’s just an empty metal capsule they’re lowering into the ground, and the rain is too wet and the flowers too bright and the wailing of the mourners—it’s so much, too much, and Na-Yeong slaps Appa’s...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneself-harm
"I have experienced some tastes of my afterlife as a crustacean. In it, I am one of many, on a beach with purple sand abutting a sea that could be water but might be some other liquid entirely, beneath stars that seem larger and brighter than any I see in...
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
"She was different. She was distinguished by the oracles. She spoke to the gods, who descended on her in disorienting, frightening fits that made her vision blank out and caused her to fall down. As God’s Wife of Amun she had been closer to the gods than...
Haunted by stories he hears while on jury duty, a documentary filmmaker finds himself in an abandoned mall at the dead of night.
"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
"Kia ora te whānau, Welcome back to term 3! I hope you are all safe and well. I’m sure the holidays were a little different from usual. My name is Kara and I’m the teacher allocated to the year 1 to 3 children in your sector. I know it can be hard...
"You never expect to meet one of the refugees. You aren’t a scientist or a politician, you’re a middle school history teacher. The story of the refugees from a destroyed parallel Earth... should fade into the background of your life like every other major...
Content warnings 1
death
"Stars snap into place outside Lura’s cockpit. A red giant twenty degrees off her ship’s nose has visibly shifted position. The nebula above her has grown more diffuse. She exhales, clicks the button to log another successful breach, and lets herself blink...
Content warnings 1
death
"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
"Marlowe is going to outlive him. Of this, he is sure. He has seen him on the streets of Blackfriars, of Southwark, in Bladder Lane, near Aldgate… He can pretend to be anything, young Kit. Not so young Kit. The two men are of an age: born the same year...
"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
"For as long as I can remember, I have always been two people. My earliest recollection is of myself as a three year-old boy, Danny—and at the same time as a girl of the same age, Cristina. Another early memory is of playing in the rubble of the...
"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 song begins like this: “Once there was a fishgirl who sacrificed her heart and life and voice for a prince, and her reward was a path to heaven.” All those stories, about fishgirls yearning for legs... Are human storytellers really so arrogant,...
Content warnings 2
suicideviolence
"Tom called Adriana Honey-Bunny, and she called him Pumpkin. A moment by a window. An orange California morning. Tom snapped his fingers, the waiter understood and came and refilled his cup with fragrant coffee. The sun shone on their table and the street...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
"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
"So can you do it?” The artisan hesitates, about to turn the page of the sketchbook given to her by, she is realizing, the most important client she might ever have. “Not alone,” she says, and her own honesty surprises her. “Most of the design, what you’re...
"And I am a curious thing. “Are you broken?” they asked by way of hello, in the direct way children have. I shook my head, neck creaking and scraping with the movement. “No, child. Just old.” “Oh.” The child looked me up and down, trying to decide whether...
The Path Through Time” is Jules’s favorite part of the museum, a marvelous exhibit that brings the past to life, from the present all the way back to the prehistoric. Tonight at his aunt’s wedding reception as Jules walks along the path, it comes alive...
"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...
"But think—if we succeed, I’ll acquire a whole boxful of memories. Big, jewel-like memories whose sharp edges will tear my master’s world around me like old silk. I’ll escape. Eat a whole orange rather than a mere pip. Oranges are bright, like the sun. Do...
"Disaster, betrayal, and the ship already blasting its horn. The family clusters around the packing crates, destitute, stunned. We must go regardless, says their father, this is the last ship, what else can we do? Their mother nods, frowning so as not to...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"The best way to hide a red mouth is to know exactly when your gums start to bleed. If you check your teeth every so often with a quick swipe of the tongue, and you get a bit of that saltiness, you’ll learn to take a swig from a canteen and rinse before...
Content warnings 1
substance-use
"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...
Raphael, a prototype humanoid robot, tells us the story of his life.
Content warnings 2
deathwar
"Start with a romance: a man and a woman who are wildly and irrevocably in love with each other. Or two men. Or two women. Or two people, because life is beautiful and complex. Just know that these Lovers are important. The fate of the galaxy rests on...
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
You just drive the getaway car, for the same heist, over and over, trying somehow not to break the artifact that resets time.
"In the winter of 19–, having newly arrived in England, and still recovering from the nervous indisposition which had afflicted me greatly ever since my circumstances during the war, I responded to an advertisement placed in the Yorkshire Post, for the...
"It is said that Archimedes was asked by the King of Syracuse to authenticate a manuscript. King Hiero had received what purported to be Alexander of Macedon’s own copy of the Iliad, brought out from the Library at Alexandria itself. He sent envoys to...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Old Plant thinks very slowly, but it’s the oldest on the planet, and it thinks profoundly. It struggles to communicate with a group of very short-lived creatures, though, and they seem to be changing the planet.
Gorman travels the galaxy engaging in all the risky sports that only the very rich can do, but he’s haunted by an annoying robot that keeps trying to interrupt him with a birthday card.
Three little girls look for Martian monsters in the empty lava tubes under the Mars Colony. It’s off-limits, but there can’t really be anything there, can there?
"Dong Fang still clearly remembers the joyous love of that rainy night. It seemed quite bad at first. After three years of dating and two years of marriage, their formerly shy and sweet explorations had become routine business. Nevertheless, he was in the...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"The notion of the quantum mirror was first floated by two graduate students (Sapna Gupta and Mark Shaw) over a fourth round of beers in a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and therefore one should consider the role of intoxication in its initial...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
"Pinander has been reciting “Song of Manifold Suns”all morning, in overgrown, forgotten garden nooks or neglected library aisles, far from the mutterings of other desperate students. Ancient knowledge comes to life within him."
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
Gil teaches students how to communicate with the Numens, vast, star-spanning alien intelligences indistinguishable from gods.
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
After the AIs won the war, they still found ways to keep humans busy, and Cal’s starship is responsible for finding and evaluating human colonies that were lost during the war.
Content warnings 3
body-horrorchild-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"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...
"They’d built a new Vault of Potions after the flood—of course they’d had to, with the thaumatically cursed mess that had become of the old one. Still, it made me twitch and reach for my wand, walking along the familiar tree-lined quad and hearing the...
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
A wealthy woman has the multiverse searched for divergent versions of herself who’re near death, offering to add them to her personality, and they always accept. Up until now.
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
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
Deff and his team hunt the countryside for illegal Heroes, whom they kill and then sell the body parts. Something truly terrible happened with these “Heroes” in the recent past, and it’s not entirely done.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 2
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
"We are good Mothers, or at least we will be once the embryos emerge from their confines. They dangle from the spaceship’s ceiling in pink bulbs like silkworm cocoons. Now that we landed, Ship will become the bones, sinew, and flesh that will birth five...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeathdeath-of-a-loved-one
When Lady Mary marries the mysterious Mr. Fox, a jealous suitor follows them to their castle.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
Benedetto makes his living running a calligramancy shop, where he makes magic via writing. Today, he snapped, closed the shop, and started an elaborate spell of unknown purpose.
Content warnings 1
child-death
Marq knew their spouse would die from the intelligent alien parasite they’d accepted some years ago, but now that the time has come, they have a lot of trouble dealing with it.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Faith’s daughter, one of the first born on the ship, doesn’t look like the other children, and Faith wonders if it’s related to the strange dreams she has.
On an agricultural planet, on the night they celebrate the harvest, a young man plans a secret rendezvous with his forbidden lover.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Teenage Dorothy accompanies her father across the US in search for the mythical Viper-King, a giant snake whose fat confers wisdom on the first person to eat it.
Content warnings 1
violence
The narrator works to salvage the memories of someone who’s upload to virtual reality didn’t go smoothly.
Content warnings 1
death
A young couple has enough relationship troubles without a mischievous dog that appears to have telekinetic powers. But there seems to be a pattern to its mischief.
Noah is a busy man with a lot of work to do on the moon since he and his partner went independent, but his wife’s illness is a big distraction, and there are hints that other things are seriously wrong.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Phoebe goes to her late Mother’s townhouse to dispose of her effects and to reckon with the feelings she’s never been able to articulate.
Someone from our era look back to 1888 London and the Jack-the-Ripper murders.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
No longer entirely human, Luis revisits his childhood home and reflects on how the world ended.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
In the Third World, a teenage girl sees her whole family killed and flees with her brother. In Washington, an old woman gradually gives up on life. Somehow, their paths cross.
Content warnings 3
deathillness-and-pandemicwar
The Great Freeze has left the Earth almost lifeless for 20,000 years, but robots have awakened a genetically modified human to start a warming process—if they can figure out how to.
Content warnings 1
death
The narrator paints the best portraits, and her work commands the highest prices. But she needs a lot of money, and she puts her work to a darker purpose.
Content warnings 2
deathsuicide
In a world we can only reach in our dreams, the Stranger rides a train through a dangerous mountain pass while a troupe of bandits plans to attack it.
Content warnings 2
child-deathdeath
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 3
deathsexual-violenceviolence
Two children and their aunt travel across the ruins of war-torn India in search of a camp where there’s food and security. But something deadly is waiting for them.
Content warnings 2
violencewar
Someone killed the last member of an intelligent species, and Greysl investigates on behalf of the human-led Partnership.
The thirteen masters of the Academy meet to hear a mediocre student apply for the highest degree based on his claim that he can raise the dead.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Quányuán colony struggles because the planet is much drier than expected, but the last colonist born on Earth likes taking walks outside, and she’s joined by a young girl who’s curious about her world.
Content warnings 1
death
A terminally ill astronaut begs everyone she can think of to give her a chance at one last mission so she can die in space.
Content warnings 1
death
A grieving father tries to recreate the son he lost.
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
The Golden Crusader must be getting old or something. He’s not so fast anymore, and he never flies higher than the sixth floor, but he keeps doing super deeds. Or trying to.
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
A young man fleeing the ruin of his career returns to his home village seeking the first girl he ever loved and a resolution to a mystery that has haunted him.
While Glen mourns the recent death of his baby sister, he gets a CD in the mail with a custom program she had someone design before she died.
Content warnings 3
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemicsubstance-use
Hengis knows his civilization will collapse when technology fails and magic takes its place, but there’s one last case he wants to solve before the lights go out.
An account of various famous artists, writers, and musicians who lived in Manhatttan in the 1930s.
They say the mountain women have “unnatural habits” so when Katrin falls in love with a lowland man, no good can come of it.
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Kingfisher searches an endless icefield for a woman he can’t forget. He’s been searching a long time—tens of thousands of years at least. But he’s not giving up.
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
Zhang Xuan steals a starship to go hunt for her brother Kai, who went off to look for living alien civilizations in the galactic core and never came back.
When James was dying, he and his wife, Cat, worked to build an AI based on his personality that could keep her company in his absence. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Rourou is a Chinese little girl who loves her papa but wonders what happened to her momma. And why she can’t remember anything before age 5. And why she speaks fluent English.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
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.
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Hand-written notes in a book about imaginary places tell a woman’s story of her attempt to survive a fascist takeover of the United States.
In midwinter, just after midnight, the narrator hitches a ride with a strange woman as cold as the night itself.
Content warnings 2
body-horrordeath
In which a chorus of time travelers give us advice, in the paradoxical way of time travelers.
Charlie's team has been out of touch with the Mars mission for a month. While she's attending her mother's funeral, a mysterious 47-second-long message arrives.
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
There's a quiet war in Boulder between hikers and cyclists, but whatever ripped two hikers' throats out must have been the cyclist from Hell.
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
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
In Elizabethan London, an entrepreneur skilled in identifying legitimate antiquities ends up with a bottle that happens to have a demon in it.
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
A two-man team must risk a spacewalk when meteoroids threaten crucial portal-spanning telecommunications cables that hang a hundred meters beneath the ocean…and forty-five billion light years away.
"…but what is it like, having a war criminal as your past life?” Sadie Salazar, Licensed Life Speaker, should have been professionally above the prurient interest lighting her hazel eyes, and much too old for the giddy excitement that lifted the corners of...
Content warnings 3
sexual-violencesuicidewar
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...
"Here at 123aiLOVEu, we take all the guesswork out of dating. With personalized chatbots trained on social media and chat histories, we put you in conversation with hundreds of potential matches... and you never have to say a thing! Sandra was watching the...
"She should go back inside the watchpod. Maree and Blaise didn’t have to be dead. The air hadn’t been gone that long. And even if their current bodies were hopeless, damaged beyond repair, probably the back-up system was uncorrupted. Probably its uploads...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoresexual-content
"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
"The angel Azrael rode the dead horse across the broken land under the light of a half moon until he came across a graveyard that seemed to have no end. Wooden crosses stretched away to the horizon, more than he could count. Many of the crosses were bent...
Content warnings 3
deathgoreviolence
"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
While all her friends’ fish are changing into mermaids, is 12-year-old Anissa’s fish becoming something else?
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
"You were six the first time you had a vision of someone’s death—your parents. The vision came when y’all were walking to the park and you were between them, holding their hands and heading towards the monkey bars. The vision was blurry and foggy like...
Content warnings 3
child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesexual-content
"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
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
Content warnings 1
illness-and-pandemic
"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
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
"One: My lipstick. The shade is Heart’s Blood. Morbid, if you ask me. I wanted to know if it was really the color of heart’s blood so I bought beef heart and tried dabbing my lips. Close enough. I emailed to congratulate the lipstick company on their...
Don Jacinto flees when he gets a letter from his crazy brother, not wanting to get involved in his quest to wake a supposed sleeping god.
Content warnings 3
goreviolencewar
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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
"Really, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Shamans drag away poor farm girls from the outlying provinces all the time (particularly in seasons of great calamity, as everyone insists we are in now). Even then their lives stray little from their...
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
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
death-of-a-loved-one
Jing and her father climb a mountain to find and kill a Snake-Devil that has been killing people and goats, but she’s not exactly what they expected.
Some nights shining lights appear atop hills in urban areas, and people who walk into them disappear—some say to fairyland. A cop who thinks otherwise tries to talk a young woman out of trying it.
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Hiding from her own problems, Winona volunteers at the local ornithological museum after she hits a bird with her car.
Content warnings 3
abusedeathracism
An interview with a simulation of the dead artist, Satka, who still has a big online following years after her death.
Content warnings 3
deathsuicidewar
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.
Shi handles elderly clients who are recruited to help steer starships through space. Her job is winding up, and one of her last clients presents a special challenge.
Content warnings 1
mental-illness
Tamalat has come to a priest to find out how to restore her friend Brio's shadow, in the hopes it will restore him to what he once was.
Content warnings 2
suicideviolence
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
When newlyweds Courtney and Josh rent an old Victorian in Baltimore, they're told to stay out of the attic. But they hear noises up there at night. Footsteps.
Content warnings 1
violence
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
A man sets out on a voyage accompanied by his fiancée's right arm. Content warnings: Violence (graphic), threat of bodily harm, covert misogyny Copyright © 2026 khōréō magazine. Story by Natalia Theodoridou, edited by Isabella Kestermann. Audio edition...
Content warnings 2
body-horrormisogyny
A young scribe joins a voyage to hunt sea creatures in waters that once belonged to the feared Northerners, but the truth behind the Northern myths is more complex than they first believed. Content warnings: Animal cruelty and death, use of the r-word...
Content warnings 3
animal-harmgoreviolence
Gerry and I didn’t have kids though we’d tried. I’d lost those babies in the fourth month, the fifth month, the fourth month again. By then I was so exhausted by hope and disappointment that I didn’t want to do it again. Gerry didn’t push me since we had...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
When you look out from the garage doors of the corrugated steel warehouse where the Fort Springwell Community College soccer team made their heroic stand against the forces of darkness, the view at first seems . . . idyllic. A rocky shoreline, uncommon for...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
Teresa finds the first site right after she gets back from maternity leave, Daniel snug in a baby sling at her chest. He’s quiet as far as babies go, sleeping […]
Content warnings 1
death
This episode features "Archaeological Evidence for the Time Traveler" written by Tia Tashiro. Published in the May 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
Content warnings 1
death
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 […]
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
When we moved Dad to the care facility, his only complaint was the Wi-Fi. “Laggy,” he called it when he was having a good day. “Fucking piece of shit,” he called it the rest of the time. At first I was relieved. I’d been worried that he’d bristle at the...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
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
This episode features "Decimation Circles" written by Raahem Alvi. Published in the May 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/alvi_05_26 Support us on...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
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 : Tim Pratt Narrator : Isabel J. Kim Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “The Many Rebirths of Karina Morita” first appeared in 2025 on Tim’s Patreon Sponsored by Mixtape Stories The Many Rebirths of Karina Morita by Tim Pratt My...
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 : Sharon Joss Narrator : Torin Andrus Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Love in the Time of Dust and Venom originally appeared in 2013 Fiction River – Time Travelers. Includes a form of assisted suicide. Sponsored by Mixtape Stories...
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Author : Premee Mohamed Narrator : Dani Daly Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “More Tomorrow” was first published in Automata Review, March 2018, and previously published as Escape Pod 713, in January 2020. A few grade-A curses. More...
Content warnings 2
body-horrorviolence
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 : Kiran Kaur Saini Narrator : Kaushik Narasimhan Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Amrit originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2023. Kiran Kaur Saini https://kirankaursaini.com/ Kaushik...
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...
It’s the second Thursday of the month, so I spend the evening regenerating my skin. The procedure is painless but dull. I often fall asleep. It’s fine to do so; […]
Content warnings 3
deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
This episode features "Eternity in Their Hearts" written by Katherine Khan. 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/khan_04_26...
Content warnings 1
death-of-a-loved-one
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
The first time you killed me, I cried like a baby. Stupid, stupid, to cry over something make-believe—stupid and ugly and pathetic, too, when already the only thing I wanted in the world was for you to find me pretty. I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t expected...
Content warnings 3
abusegoresexual-content
Amelia’s favorite time of day is before dawn, when all the beauty is hidden by shadow. She rises from her bed every morning, shivering in the hushed air, and gets dressed in the dark. Sometimes she has to redo the buttons, but she doesn’t turn on the light...
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
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
Before the world ends, Miri’s family saves up enough money to escape to 2004. 2004: a safe haven. The year lilts off the tongue, like a promise. Miri and Lise spend their last evening together in their favorite spot, sitting on the top of the holotower at...
Kate was cursed by her cousin on his deathbed to never stay. She and her cousin Bo didn’t hate each other—far from it. They’d grown up together: same small farming town in the inland northwest, population 394. So small that when Bo finished high school, he...
Content warnings 2
deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
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
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 : Mar Vincent Narrator : Rosie Sentman Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Wilson Fowlie PodCastle 936: Ananconfabulation is a PodCastle original. Rated G Ananconfabulation by Mar Vincent Our homes are buried, so we built tunnels. From Tomas’ window...
Author : 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 : T. R. Steele Narrator : Jordan Kurella Host : Matt Dovey Audio Producer : Eric Valdes PodCastle 943: At Death’s Door is a PodCastle original. content notes for suicidal ideation and second-person narration Rated PG-13 At Death’s Door by T. R....
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mental-illnesssuicide
Authors : Gregory Marlow, RJ Aurand and Jeanna Cammarano Narrators : Karen Menzel (née Bovenmyer), Rosie Sentman and Dani Daly Host : Wilson Fowlie Audio Producer : Wilson Fowlie PodCastle 950: FLASH FICTION EXTRAVAGANZA: Reapings is a PodCastle original....
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child-deathdeathsuicide
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...
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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
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-onesuicide
I have done my best to transcribe the account found in the recently excavated cenotaph, but, as you’re aware, these experiential simulations don’t easily lend themselves to direct reproduction. Nonetheless, […]
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death
This episode features "Scion: Afterword" written by Thomas Ha. Published in the March 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ha2_03_26 Support us on...
She assures them, again and again, that she acted under the best—the very best—of intentions. Oh, yes, she can be a bit dramatic at times—she won’t deny that. And she was hurt—very hurt—by that mess with the invitations. She won’t deny that, either. But...
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deathviolencewar
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 […]
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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...
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death-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...
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deathwar
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...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
This episode features "The Scent of Memory" written by Zhao Haihong and translated by S. Qiouyi Lu. Published in the May 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
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...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
Jacey Watkins’s fingers were shaking as she stared at the five remaining questions on her Advanced Temporal Disruption Midterm. She was already exhausted from responding to ten “short” essay questions. Now she hit the “long” essay questions and as she read...
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...
1. Sky of Change Three hours ago, Dharsh had woken in his seaside colony with little more than a vague sense of himself. Now, he teetered on an obsidian ledge […]
This episode features "The Trajectory of Memory is Forward" written by Rajeev Prasad. Published in the April 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
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body-horrorviolence
Content Warning: Mentions of hurt children On Saturday morning, Amélia received a call from the Santa Minerva Nursing Home for the Empowered Elderly. They didn’t use to call except for urgent matters. It could only mean one thing: Vovó had passed away....
This episode features "Those Who Left History" written by Wanxiang Fengnian and translated by Stella Jiayue Zhu. Published in the March 2026 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker. The text version of this story can be found at:...
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self-harmviolencewar
From his exclusive residence, Zhou Xiaoliang’s diary: I know you will never read this, but I have to pretend I am writing for you. Or else what’s left to do? […]
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deathsuicidewar
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.
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child-deathillness-and-pandemic
On the morning Gwen woke with the ability to manipulate time, it was already too late. She didn’t immediately realize she could stretch or compress time—that would come later. At first, all she knew was Dianne was gone, and she wasn’t coming back.
Dear Members of the Community, As we begin yet another fall semester in the throes of the rogue timestream unleashed on our campus, I cannot help but take a moment to marvel at just how vibrant our community has become. In addition to our current...
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slaveryviolence
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...
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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....
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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...
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sexual-content
Not reviewed by Rocket Stack Rank.
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death-of-a-loved-one
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...
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abusedeath
The Girl Who Came Before By David von Allmen When me and my family pulled into our driveway, my five best friends were waiting in our front yard, waving glittery poster-board signs that read “Welcome Home Sam!!!” and jumping around with full-on 13 year-old...
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child-deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
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...
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deathviolencewar
Baron Quits The Payloaders By Renan Bernardo This story starts with a gig. Half a million people from all corners of the galaxy, hands in the air, heads banging to our vibrant noise. You probably saw the venue on some feed already. It’s the Amplitude, our...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-onepregnancy-loss
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...
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body-horrorsexual-contentviolence
Once Abandoned By A.P. Hawkins Sappel whistled as he walked to the construction site, the sound echoing off nearby buildings in a muffled way. It was early spring, and the city was bursting with the vibrant green of new growth. Wild edibles sprouted from...
Author : Dale Smith Narrator : Louise Ratcliffe Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Joy” was previously published in Interzone Digital (June 2023) Joy by Dale Smith Joy knelt on the promenade, shifting the rifle into her shoulder to get a...
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 : Holly Schofield Narrator : Kae Mills Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “The Robot Whisperer” first appeared in Fighting for the Future cyberpunk-solarpunk anthology in 2023 The Robot Whisperer by Holly Schofield Emilia heard the...
Author : Ryan Cole Narrator : Elie Hirschman Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 985: The Interdimensional Rift at the Lucky Sunrise Bingo Palace is an Escape Pod original. The Interdimensional Rift at the Lucky Sunrise Bingo...
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death-of-a-loved-onehomophobia
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...
The Carina Nebula By Kelsey Hutton I heard the soft shit shit shit just when I’d almost floated past the blue hatch door that led into some kind of storage room. I had to laugh. I mean, how many times have I said that? Plus the voice sounded older, a...
"At 2:26am, police were radioed in to a casualty at a residence in (redacted), according to witness accounts and the child present at the home, a woman was found deceased at the bottom of the stairs. There were no signs or history of domestic violence....
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abusechild-abuseself-harm
The Library By N. B. Andersen Every morning at ten to ten, Dot powered on. Its hands lay flat against the thick glass of the reading room window, which let the photoreceptors on its palms feast on the sun. The window overlooked a modest lot where cars had...
Author : Renan Bernardo Narrator : Julia Rios Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks This story was originally published at Apex Magazine #134 in December 2022. The Walking Mirror of the Soul by Renan Bernardo My desire was written all over...
Author : Tim Chawaga Narrator : James Kaku Pierson Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 938: Chug the Tea Leaves, Chuck the Ads is an Escape Pod original. Chug the Tea Leaves, Chuck the Ads by Tim Chawaga I wake up to a message and...
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deathsuicide
Author : Grace Chan Narrator : Isabel J. Kim Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu” originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine (May 2022). Contains some harsh language. Nobody Ever Goes Home to Zhenzhu by...
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deathgoreviolence
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...
The Scientist Does Not Look Back By Kristen Koopman Feb. 17, 3:40 AM. Audio notebook for new project: revival of a clinically dead patient, 36 year old male, died of hypothermia and shock. The technician at the morgue hesitated when releasing him to me....
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body-horrordeath
Sturdy Ladders and Lanterns By Malka Older As a freelance marine behavioral researcher most of Natalia’s jobs went something like this: She swam around in some large but controllable environment with a cephalopod, paying attention to its body language and...
Vault (Part 1 of 2) By D.A. Xiaolin Spires Chenguang hikes up her sleeves before vaulting over the pile of fuzzy moss and greets Lukas with a nod. The chloropolyurethane fabric flaps in the slight breeze and the double suns beat down onto her arms. Lukas...
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body-horror
Vault (Part 2 of 2) By D.A. Xiaolin Spires (...Continued from Part 1) “Lukas?” Chenguang’s voice echoes in this expanse of dark. A vortex of light opens to her right and she sees a warped head and legs emerge from a point in the dark. It’s Lukas. As he...
Author : Marissa Lingen Narrator : The Word Whore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Originally appeared in Analog (2011), and in Escape Pod 366 (Oct 2012) Some of Them Closer by Marissa Lingen Coming back to Earth was not the immediate...
This Little War of Ours By Arden Baker SECURE PRIORITY COMMUNIQUE distribution SOLITAIRE, keyword MASQUERADE, source PENTACLE FROM: TRIPLE INTENT TO: ASPHODEL BEGIN CONTENT Even if you’re my enemy, I’m glad to hear from you.
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suicidewar
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...
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racismviolencewar
Author : Craig Church Narrator : Rosie Sentman Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 972: The Bargain of Death and Saint Nicholas is an Escape Pod original. The Bargain of Death and Saint Nicholas by Craig Church “What’s your...
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deathviolence
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...
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death
Author : Grace Chan Narrator : Andrew K. Hoe Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks He Leaps for the Stars, He Leaps for the Stars was originally published in Clarkesworld Issue 178 (July 2021) He Leaps for the Stars, He Leaps for the Stars by...
A Cosmonaut's Guide to Talking to Your Parents By Adriana C. Grigore You have (3) unopened voicemails on your personal line. Last received 31 minutes ago, Aurea Minor Time. > Read? > No. Switch to broadcast. > Engage deep space satellite? > Yes. On, say…a...
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illness-and-pandemic
Hey, George By Elizabeth Guilt "Hey, George." I remind myself that that is not my name; it never was. I will myself not to react, not to break stride, as I stroll along beside the beach. Old habits die hard, and the best neuro-reset in the world can't...
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...
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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,...
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death-of-a-loved-oneviolence
The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike By Andrea Phillips 1. THE BRIEF Corazon clicked to the slide she’d been dreading: long-term trends for brand engagement. It was dire. She focused on the smudgy mirror at the far end of the conference room, looking...
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...
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death
Author : Jei D. Marcade Narrator : Amanda Ching Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Sounding the Fall” is an Escape Pod Original, first published in July 2015. Sounding the Fall by Jei D. Marcade Sometimes, Narae can almost convince...
Bishop's Opening (Part 3 of 4) By R.S.A. Garcia (Continued from Part 2...) The Pawn was seated at the table with arms outstretched along its surface. Metal restraints held their forearms and wrists immobile. They had been stripped naked and their mask...
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goreviolence
Author : Heather Kamins Narrator : Heather Thomas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 910: Tuesday, June 13, at the South Valley Time Loop Support Group is an Escape Pod original. Tuesday, June 13, at the South Valley Time Loop...
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suicideviolence
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...
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death-of-a-loved-one
Author : Cameron Fischer Narrator : Dave Robison Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 912: The Retcon Man is an Escape Pod original. The Retcon Man by Cameron Fischer Never look for evidence of your future self in the past. Doing...
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violence
Author : Ava Kelly Narrator : Ben Gideon Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “The Confessionist” was previously published in the anthology: Community of Magic Pens, edited by E.D.E. Bell, released May 2020 by Atthis Arts The Confessionist...
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...
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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....
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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...
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death
Author : Phoenix Alexander Narrator : Nicola Chapman Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 832: Mouthfeel is an Escape Pod original. Mouthfeel by Phoenix Alexander 2050 After she left him, he found cells of hers...
Author : Renan Bernardo Narrator : Tatiana Grey Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in World Science Fiction #2: Reloading the Future (July 2021) Anticipation of Hollowness by Renan Bernardo Having...
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
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war
Author : R.S.A. Garcia Narrator : Maxine Moore Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums This story first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine (Issue 172, January 2021), and is a finalist for the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novella...
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child-abuseslaveryviolence
Across the River, My Heart, My Memory By Ann LeBlanc 1. I am Michelle’s artificial pancreas, stolen cleanly and carefully from her gut. The surgeons are quick; before I can finish my hard reset, they place me inside you. I don’t even have time to say...
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deathviolence
Dandelion By John Shade Before the border wall, we scatter. Dandelions. The nanomachines grind us down and we float up and through the cracks, molecule to molecule, like holding hands. Leena hesitates, is left behind. She stands apart on the wrong side of...
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deathgoreviolence
Author : C.C. Finlay Narrator : Heather Thomas Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Summer Brooks “Time Bomb Time” originally appeared in the May 2015 issue of Lightspeed Magazine. It was reprinted in Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy...
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abuse
The Pieces that Bind By Carol Scheina The first thing Georgia knew for certain was that the woman rummaging through the canned beans and peas in the pantry was not her grandma, even though she looked exactly like her, right down to the nasty black cigar in...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
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...
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death-of-a-loved-one
Author : Adriana Kantcheva Host : Valerie Valdes Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Escape Pod 857: Salvaged is an Escape Pod original. Salvaged by Adriana Kantcheva I have her body. If I’d also had her life, would I have lived it in the same way? I make the...
Pen Pal By Grant Canterbury December Third, 1996 Meliari Thulissia General Delivery Tharsis Station Dear Meliari, Hello!! My name is Mary and I am nine years old. I got your name for a pen pal and they said you were the first pen pal on Mars. This is the...
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deathviolence
(Continued from Part 1) Pen Pal By Grant Canterbury August 8, 2005 Meliari Thulissia General Delivery Tharsis Station Dear Thu, Well I officially graduated from high school! And I have been itching to get out into the world for a long time but right now...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-onewar
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...
Author : Derrick Boden Narrator : Ibba Armancas Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 766: The Unrepentant is an Escape Pod original. This story has content notifications for language and violence. The Unrepentant...
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deathviolencewar
The Mercy of Theseus By Rachael K. Jones Greta and Jamal have three arms, two legs, and one working kidney between the two of them. The kidney belongs to Greta. Its twin went to her little sister three years back, and now she has a laparoscopic keyhole...
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body-horrorwar
Tloque Nahuaque By Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas, translated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. —Carl Sagan I—The Particle Accelerator They built an underground temple. A well of Babel...
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cannibalismchild-deathsuicide
Author : Marika Bailey Narrator : Eden Royce Host : S.B. Divya Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums “Seed Vault” was originally published in Strange Horizons (Nov 2019) Seed Vault (Part 1) By Marika Bailey 1. FIRE I should tell you about the...
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deathviolencewar
Electronic Ghosts By Innocent Chizaram Ilo I If Nneora had died two weeks earlier, her daughter, Anaeto, would not have resurrected her ghost. That was the night Nneora ran a fever, laid convulsing in bed, a slimy froth trickling from the corners of her...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-one
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...
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deathdeath-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
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...
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sexual-content
Hard Mother, Spider Mother, Soft Mother By Hal Y. Zhang “Did you see the report on the spy from Aberdeen? The game is a-foot.” I mumbled something like “No, sounds interesting.” All I remember is my usual annoyance at her ability to pronounce hyphens where...
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mental-illness
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...
Author : Lina Munroe Narrator : Joniece Abbott-Pratt Host : Brent Lambert Audio Producer : Summer Brooks Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 808: Win Again is an Escape Pod original. Win Again by Lina Munroe “I want a do-over!” Zira crumpled her opponent’s collar...
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...