Science Fiction
AITA for Using My Side Hustle to Help My Boyfriend Escape the Clutches of Death?
Posted by u/DeathBecomesHer one week agoI (29F) have a side hustle, selling a 100% herbal restorative that I operate through word of mouth. I ONLY accept pets — despairing owners bring ailing Mittens or Rover to my backdoor when traditional veterinary science can do no more, and one thousand dollars and a dose later, the […]
Fifteen Minutes Past the End
The armor comes off, piece by piece. A strand of Kessia’s long red hair has twisted itself around the latch of the left pauldron. There’s no untangling it, caked in blood and gore and God knows what else. Kessia doesn’t flinch when I cut through it with a knife from the kitchen. She doesn’t do […]
Machine Love
My neighbor spreads a blanket on his grease-stained garage floor, easing down with a grunt.“You okay, Bob?”“Oh, just fine. She’s so beautiful, thought I’d take a little nap with her.”He’s referring to his lawn mower, a simple apple-red push-mower. The old man’s losing it. I finish my morning walk and go inside to get some […]
This Will Not Happen To You
I got sick.This will not happen to you.They have an anti-fungal now. They know how to kill all the little spores when they start to creep into your tissues, your lungs, your eyeballs, your liver.I didn’t know quite what was happening to me.This will not happen to you.All the signs and symptoms are well-known. You’ve […]
Breathe
Woke up dopesick, shakin, wrists still bleedin. Couldn’t open my eyes for the frost. Glaciers had crept down to Dallas by then. Kick in my ribs. Lady standin over me. Said she saw me bleedin, needed someone what had empty wrist connects. Heavy work. Deep Black work. Work you ain’t comin back from. Sounded good […]
Bread of Life
It was dangerous–traitorous–for people to speak aloud of their memories of Earth. It meant they risked giving the Dendul exactly what they wanted. And yet, people often couldn’t help but dismiss that peril when they entered Sonya’s Earth Bread Shop. Sonya looked up as a man entered her business. He was the typical sort. In his […]
A List of Forty-Nine Lies
My name is not Levi. I am not afraid. The machines that hover in swarms over the streets cannot read the thoughts inside my head.I am not running from them. I have nothing to hide. Citizens who have done nothing wrong have no reason to run or to hide from the machines.The New Dawn has […]
The Ecology of the Engineered Oyster
We strapped the breathing jellies to our faces and walked into the thick soup of the sea, each step forward a slog until our legs breached the thinner water beneath. Above us, the flare clock tolled, so bright the seascape blanched translucent for a moment, so loud the water pulsed down to the sea floor, […]
Flash Fiction Flashback: “Seed” by N. V. Binder
March 2012. Gas prices in the U.S. had reached $3.83 per gallon. The Midwest was dealing with record-breaking heat. The first Hunger Games movie premiered. The Encyclopedia Britannica announced that they’d no longer produce print versions of their books. And here at Flash Fiction Online, we published a climate fiction story by N. V. Binder […]