I – TOMATO DISTRICT Mezie adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and tried to look inconspicuous as he stalked the back alleys of Tomato District. This side of town, apartment blocks were squeezed so tightly together they were often misconstrued for large living complexes. The congestion meant everybody knew everybody, and his […]
Lyssa She let her mask dissolve only in the ephemeral chill of the Starsea, where she was alone. Where she was not required to be Strisa, castellain of the Broken Fang. Not required to be Lissara, vapid noble of the Koruz desert. Or any of her masks and false names. Where she was just herself— […]
There were two out-of-towners gawking at Adalène’s window when she sat down alone at the table in her shop. She’d had a pair of seamstresses to work for her, once upon a time, to do all the fussier piecing and hand-sewing. Sacred seas, she’d had customers once, too. A hundred years’ sleep had changed those […]
1. The Voru Throughout the four years I had photographed the Voru shapeshifter, Cuzwast, I never knew that he had another family across the galaxy or how they got word of his death. But they came looking for answers while I, on the other hand, had been looking for a way out of the rain. […]
“They are so handsome, these soldiers, it’s hard to keep away from them.” “Well, see that you take precautions next time,” George Morris washed his hands as his patient buttoned up their shirt. “You don’t need a lecture on sexual health. At your age, no less!” “Perhaps I might need a remedial course. The […]
Content warning: death and suicide ideation Here Dustin “And this is the control room!” Dustin stifled a yawn. His new employer bounced on her toes, sprightly for a predawn start. Her coily hair bounced along with her. Akeza, her name was. “Do you like it?” she asked. “Looks like it’s in functioning order.” “Killjoy.” The […]
When the ship restarts my newly thawed brain, the first thing I do is panic. I open my eyes and see the star-spattered void, and I pinwheel and tumble, trying to swim in microgravity like an idiot. I drift out of the open lid of the stasis bed, dizzy and nauseated. I finally manage to […]
Szkazy forced her attention back to the candle, the flame weak and flickering in the breeze from the ship’s air duct. Somewhere in the computer bowels, the clock was ticking away her allotted minutes for kindling an open flame. She’d had the dispensation renewed last month—and yet it still felt as if the ship itself […]
The wind-chimes of my heart prelude Jerry’s arrival. “There’s two of you,” the man says over the slinking bassline. City people don’t believe in fairytales, but they like stating the obvious as long as they can make a pick-up line out of it. Jerry digs her chin into my glitter-coated shoulder. Her auburn hair has […]
I’m pulling the wok off my bike and setting it on the butane when I spot Emilio standing in the shadows like a vulture. He’s still wearing that trench coat, all waxy on the bottom from years of wading through Diyu’s deepest calles. Emilio is the reaper he looks like, tall and gaunt, neuros creeping […]