by Gretchen Tessmer The ground was frozen. Permafrost settled deep in its bones, where the veiny sinew of tundra grass roots pushed through frosted earth. And snow. Snow dusted the landscape from horizon to horizon. White flakes of snow fell from the sky and swirled in the air. There was nothing but snow. And a fox on his way home.

by Ian Madison Keller Fairies can kiss my white-tailed ass. I never liked fairytales, even before I found out that fairies were the ones responsible for my “condition.” As soon as I was old enough to talk, I peppered my parents with questions about why I couldn’t go play outside like the other children. At first my mom placated me with vague platitudes of “when you’re older” but eventually the truth came out. I’ve been cursed by a fairy. No really. There was even a video of the fateful event. My mom let me watch it after finally letting it slip one day. I think it was after watching one…

by Tim Susman The food smell led Shadow a way he hadn’t gone before, so he placed his paws carefully among the jagged pieces of brick and concrete. He stayed to the shadows where he could, letting the darkness hide his black-furred form, and he kept his ears perked high for any noises other than the skittering of little rodents and the buzzing of insects. An 80-pound German Shepherd could handle most things he encountered these days, but not all, and even if he won a fight, he might sustain an injury more serious than those mapped in scars around his body.

by Larry Hodges The T-Rex stared down at the duckbill he’d just killed. He was sorry for the harm he had caused it, but what choice did he have? He took the first chomp out of it — but it only made him more ravenous. Sometimes at night he’d stare up at the stars and wonder what monster had created this evil predator-eat-prey system. But it was eat or die.

by Nina Kiriki Hoffman You know you’re in trouble when you have dinos on your doorstep.  Not just because they’re extinct.  They’re also clawed, scary, and they make you regret messing with that time machine, because introducing anomalies in your own time stream never ends well. “Carson Wheeler?” said the feathered Deinonychous at my door.  Her voice was raspy and came out of her throat instead of her mouth. She wore what looked like a police uniform, though I didn’t know the language or writing on her badge.  She had a lot of teeth in a head shaped like a football with one end split open, with a feathered crest…

by Eliza Master Cepha’s mother Octavia was harvesting algae when she got caught in a net made by humans. It dragged the octopus upward and out of the ocean. Underneath, a school of smelt watched. The youngest fish, Osme broke away from her siblings and rushed to report the sad news. Cepha was heartbroken. She puffed out a cloud of black ink in sorrow. As news of Octavia’s death spread, many fish visited Cepha’s home as if it were a museum. Cepha showed them her mother’s office. The ceiling was made of pink coral and the walls were coated with yellow sea moss. Inside were piles of crystalline sand and…

by Karter Mycroft The finless must go down. Those are the words. The Agent mutters them to herself as she wades through the murk, reaches the door, knocks and waits. She repeats them, aloud this time, when the rock slides open. A young one, shimmerwhite with brilliant pink wings. “Indeed they must,” he says, nodding at her badge. “You’re with the census?” “I am. How many have you got?” He stands up straighter, backs away from the threshold. “I live alone. You’re free to have a look around. Anything you need.”

by N. R. M. Roshak “But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.” —Shakespeare, As You Like It (V.ii.20)   I should have known that something was wrong when I found Teese in the back yard, staring at the sky. It was sunset and the horizon was a particular shade of pale teal. At first I thought Teese was just admiring the sunset, but then I realized he was trembling all over. His eyes were wide, and irregular patterns swept over his skin, his chromatophores opening and closing at random, static snow sprinkling his skin. I touched his shoulder. “Are you all…

by Tamoha Sengupta If legends of lost cities were true on Earth, some credit for these tales went to the whales that lived on the planet of Starym, situated outside the reaches of the Milky Way. * * * Mahi swam through the endless swirls of stars and planets, the universe expanding endlessly around her. This was the first time she was carrying out the annual tradition of Starflight. Her mother had been the previous Starflighter, and her grandfather had been the first to carry out this noble task. She was proud to uphold family traditions in something this important.