1. Ainulindalë
Posthuman of the Rings, part 1.
Read MoreA Date with Darin
“Look, I’m not really the best person to have a relationship with. I can be selfish as fuck, I break my promises more often than not, and I suck at making compromises.”
Read MoreA White Death
A boy, somewhere in his late teens and with brown reddish hair, lies motionless on the ground.
Read MoreChildhood’s End
Even after nine years, people still stare at us.
Read MoreColonization
They were lovers and geniuses, two of the greatest military and administrative minds humanity had ever produced. They knew the art of war; they knew how to run a province; they knew when to please a populace, and when to wield an iron first.
Read MoreCryoshift
Case #6-694-39245: Michael Jones.
Read MoreFiery Skies
Some sort of dystopian fantasy. A birth.
Read MoreGerdian
An arctic werewolf.
Read MoreIn a Billion Years
Their embrace is wordless, simultaneously physical and mental.
Read MoreThat Old Man
The only thing we ever knew him as was "that old man". Our parents might have been able to tell us his real name, but none of us really cared. He wasn't that interesting, really - he'd just sit on a bench, basking in the sun and rarely paying us children any attention. He wasn't of the "nice, child-loving grandpa" type, but on the good side, he wasn't of the "awful, child-hating bitter old guy" type, either.
Read MoreThe Chamber of Sounds
I stand here, in my small closet, locked away from all other life.
Read MoreThe Flailer
A cold wind blew as Shaelin watched over the landscape.
Read MoreThe Gallows Tree
It's always a sunset by the gallows tree.
Read MoreThe Listener
The family had finally gotten their new house built. One of the first things they did was to throw a housewarming party and bring in the Listener.
Read MoreThe Phoenix
Mielea closed her eyes, silently drawing a deep breath. As she did so, the sharp, pungent smell of the volcano’s toxic gases made her throat and nostrils burn, the acrid feeling spreading down to her lungs. For a long moment, she held her breath, savoring the pain. Then she exhaled, the gas burning almost twice as much as it made its way over her throat again. Slowly she opened her eyes,...
Read MoreTo Live and Die for the God-Emperor
The party in the Menovian asteroid belt has been going on non-stop for ten millennia now.
Read MoreUnion
It began with simple emotion implants. I loved my girl more than I could ever express in words, and it pained me to know I could never communicate that feeling adequately enough. I watched her eyes when she said she loved me, and I knew that she was suffering from the same.
Read MoreWe’re Running Out of Adults
"We are running out of adults." The words were first heard in the office of the Minister of Weather, but few people paid any attention to them.
Read More[Invisible Networks] Goblin Marketplace
"The Goblin Marketplace is that way. Assuming that you have ears on your head, you can't miss it." The expression is not metaphorical: even if you were deaf, you _would_ hear the sounds of the Marketplace. That is, assuming that nobody had cut your ears off.
Read More[Invisible Networks] Psyche-Sort
There are tendrils of pain running across society, fault lines on which our social infrastructure is built. You can imagine them as huge beating arteries full of thick flowing trauma, their contents seeping everywhere around them.
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This work by Kaj Sotala is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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