by Madas A. Hatter Squelchy and sickening snaps echoed across the frozen tundra, dulled only by guttural grunts of the silky-feathered masses. The creature below had long since stopped squirming. Its pitiful keening had faded into silence. The Great Emperors were glad to have succeeded in this hunt. Red splattered the white snow as the […]
by Dan Peacock The ice tunnel is getting narrower. I’m on my hands and knees, trying not to think about how many of them are behind me. Their beaks are nipping at my boots, but so far, I’ve been able to kick them back. My feet are so cold that I can’t feel my toes. […]
by Rachel Grifno We find him sleeping on the family’s feathers. Most are crushed under his weight, but others flutter in the winter storm. We can smell them—all the adults slain and broiled by the monster himself. We had all feared his bloodlust, but none had known his strength. Now, he sleeps, twice as big […]
by Carys Crossen After decades of global warming, the new ice age left humanity gobsmacked. The oceans solidified, the forests and fields were scoured by blizzards, oil froze into black diamonds. The population halved within a year. The penguins marched up from the south like iron filings towards a magnet. They had been shackled by […]
by Evan Baughfman The male drops his offering at the female’s feet. She examines the rock, contemplating if it’s worth starting a nest with this other penguin. Then, she realises the gift it isn’t a stone, but a human eye. On the beach: butchered “ecotourists,” pecked to ribbons by frustrated seabirds. Penguins are tired of […]
by Liam Hogan The nose is a smudge, the mouth a line, but the eyes… The eyes are huge, and wide, and a soulless black. My gaze is frozen, my hand, reaching for the off switch, rigid. When I fed ten years of anime into the AI, I thought I knew what I’d get: copyright […]
by Lori Green Jun ran her fingers down the tender flesh of her arm, the scars long healed. A gift from her father. His voice still echoed inside her skull. Buta. Nothing but a pig, an unwanted girl. Before she turned; she would have done anything for him. No matter, the hakken had embraced her […]
by Lisa H. Owens Kimmie will set me free, thought Digme, extracting the vial of luminescent drops hidden beneath his cassock. He’d traded hard-earned quiffles on the sorcerer’s promise of a life beyond reach of his cruel maester. Liquid mercury—dropped upon Kimmie’s iron-gall ink eyes—begat cavernous pools of light and the animator bowed his head. […]
by C.L. Sidell She stands by the river—silver hair gleaming in the moonlight, limbs pale as milk. Haru drops the kettle, deaf to its clanging against the pebbled shore. “Beautiful…” The kimono-clad vixen turns. Smiling, eyes twinkling, she extends a porcelain-smooth palm. Haru steps forward. Drawn by seductiveness. Blind to reason. Only as furred fingers […]
by Pauline Yates Aya, the transfer student, acts nonchalant, but beneath her straight fringe, her enormous eyes glisten with new-school nerves, and she clutches a diary to her flat chest like a life support. Fool. That diary begs to be read. Especially by me. I snatch the diary from her matchstick fingers. Flipping it open, […]