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Jumping robot swordfish

Stories in category Horror

Greetings, Humanity! Welcome To Your Choice of Species!

Greetings, Humanity! Welcome To Your Choice of Species!

(2528 words, 13 minutes)

The species pictured here is the very same one that reported you to the Commission, a species that some of you recognized as quite possibly sentient, but never quite enough to modulate your behavior. You will likely recognize them as one subspecies of terrestrial dolphin, whose testimony about you during the hearing included the most stirring tribute offered by any of your world’s unprecedented eight existing sapient races, to wit: “Some of them aren’t all bad, and it’s a shame that even the good ones have to go, but by and large, we’ve had it up to here with them.”

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A Place Without Portals

A Place Without Portals

(2148 words, 11 minutes)

She would not have reasoned that all of this would have made more sense than assaulting her with pig barbarians in plate armor and driving her to the exact place where any dark lord fearful of prophecy would not want her to go…

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Sand Castles

Sand Castles

(8243 words, 42 minutes)

Here, on the beach, sat an immense sand castle.

It had been sculpted over the course of three frenzied days by a team of artists who had seen fit to become world-class competitors at that delightful but largely irrelevant skill, who had come to the beach at the tail end of warm weather to create an ephemeral masterwork. Crowds had gathered to watch the construction in delight.

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Arvies

Arvies

(4978 words, 25 minutes)

This is the story of a mother, and a daughter, and the right to life, and the dignity of all living things, and of some souls granted great destinies at the moment of their conception, and of others damned to remain society’s useful idiots.

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The Narrow Escape of Zipper-Girl

The Narrow Escape of Zipper-Girl

(3889 words, 20 minutes)

I’m a neck man. Some guys notice breasts first. Others are first taken by long shiny legs. I notice necks. I’ve always noticed necks, the most beautiful and most vulnerable attribute women have.

Hers had a zipper.

I had seen any number of studs and implants and piercings on women, but had never seen a zipper.

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Scenting the Dark

Scenting the Dark

(3697 words, 19 minutes)

Lifting the stopper from the vial to his nose, Penn inhaled slowly. Against the neutral backdrop of his ship’s cleanroom, he picked out aromas of quince, elderberry, and bright Martian soil that hinted of blood, with undercurrents of cinnamon and Zeta Epsilon’s fragrantly sweet longgrass. He sighed, blowing the scents out again. The perfume was still out of balance.

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During the Pause

(2827 words, 15 minutes)

If it helps you to picture the devastation to come, you should imagine an uncontrolled conflagration, incinerating everything in its path and leaving no life behind.

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Pitcher Plant

(6050 words, 31 minutes)

At the end of the hall you find him. He sits slumped on a marble throne in a chamber with more dust than air. He is as old as any human being you have ever seen …

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