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For once, I have the kitchen to myself. Mama’s gone, Paolo’s picking wedding things up from out of town, and Abuela went to visit an old friend while she’s back in the area. I start by clearing everything from the countertops and wiping them down. I put loud music on, the kind I can sing […]
Who is the most beloved person alive? Is it one of those actors who plays superheroes? Is it a political leader? Maybe you’re a galaxy brain and say Beyoncé? No matter who you pick, you know you’re wrong. There’s always that better person who we love so unquestioningly that we forget they’re there. Sometimes, we […]
Liên’s first duel at the Phụng Academy was bewildering, and almost unfair in its simplicity. She let Mei—the fey, mercurial schoolmate half the academy seemed to avoid—take her to the arena. They paused at iron-wrought gates with a huge lock and a clear sight of what lay beyond: a crumbling platform by the river, overgrown […]
My parents taught me to lie as soon as I could speak. Before I knew the meaning of the words, before I understood heat or fire, and long before I felt the pain of singed flesh, I learned to tell strangers that I burned myself by grasping a hot iron pot. Once a day, my […]
Content Note: Child Abuse My fingers danced in the air as the embers faded. Only the tell-tale scent lingered which was why I chose to partake outside in the first place. The ledge framing my bedroom window was little more than a concrete slab, but it was wide enough to sit on, to escape the […]
She is light. Until she is not, and the lighthouse goes dark as the waves crash against the cliffside, the rocks at its foot jutting and jagged, a peril to even the most skilled navigators’ ships. “Fuck me,” I swear at the sudden black spot in my vision. The lighthouse, which burned so bright not […]
Inside the stasis gel, I awaken to Mother’s incoherent ravings corrupting my circuits; heart detonating in exponential elevation. My lungs fight to expel the thick gel and I shouldn’t be able to gain consciousness before the rising solar radiation levels announcing morning trigger the gel’s breakdown process. As my body convulses—leftover organics labouring at the […]
Content Note: Threat of Sexual Assault, Casual Violence “Ooh, let me show you the pictures.” Bayzoth the demon scrolls through his cell phone and holds it out with pride, raising his voice over the noise of the party. “She was the runt of the litter—only two heads—but she’s just the sweetest floof.” “Awwww,” Asphos […]
You don’t know who we are, but we promise you we are harmless, and we made this village for you. Well, for you and for us, and for all the others that might follow. Each of us built their own little house. Some are made from hard candy, with gingerbread window frames and a door […]
After I came in from the thorns and the princess wept sight back into my scarred eyes, we were married. The chapel was full of people but I cared only for the doves that coasted from rafter to rafter, and as we approached the altar and the organ music faded, my eyes—unused to seeing—drifted closed, […]
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