by Jordan Chase-Young

Candice sneaks into Dad’s lab using the passcode she watched him enter through her binoculars.

The lab is cold and dark, hissing with fluids and stinking of formaldehyde.

What greets her first is a cross between cat and spider. She doesn’t know whether to pet it or run.

“Winston?” she whispers. “Is that…you?”

The spidercat’s ears twitch; eight moist eyes ogle her.

The next thing is a mix of garter snake and goldfish. Her goldfish.

More hybrids come out of the dark, one by one, crowding her.

One speaks: half-pillbug, half-boy. “Daddy said you’re not meant to be here.”

Jordan Chase-Young

Jordan Chase-Young is an American-Australian SFF writer. He’s obsessed with the future: What will it look like? What sorts of creatures will shape it? His stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, F&SF, Escape Pod, and many other publications.