Fantasy

Marcus was seven problems deep into his homework when Mara barged her way into his room. He had been despairing slightly over indefinite integration - definite numbers had been alright, but it was the vastness of the numbers and formulae that was starting to fry his brain. By the time she had arrived with armfuls of manga in tow he had begun to google “jobs that don’t require math”, a trancelike state interrupted by the smacking of cracked spines onto the desk.

“I wanna play pretend at something!”

Ariyaan’s knees tremble as we stand before Lord Shiva. It is a sight to behold, a moment to cherish, and a victory to savor that his penance to seek Shiva’s boon has finally borne fruit. He drops to the ground, lays flat on his stomach, and prostrates before the Cosmic Destroyer.

Parinda raced through the jungle, hot rain pelting her face, sharp thorns scraping her legs. The villagers' angry voices echoed through the jungle; they’d been chasing her all night. Trickling sunlight warmed her face. She pushed through wet leaves and stepped out of the jungle. The Cliffs of Ascendence lay just ahead. The ancestral place for her people to complete the transformation.

Carrianne smoothed down the front of her apron while she waited for the last few seconds to count down. The tomato timer sprang to life, the chime vibrating it across the Formica countertop; she pulled the tray of fresh melba toasts out of the oven, resting them on the cooling rack, and finally silenced the tomato. This was the last thing before the guests arrived, to top the hors d’oeuvres.

His ass was the first thing I noticed.

Spice plums will soon enter their multi-year blooming phase on Laligurans and should be edible soon. Experienced gourmands know the younger buds have less of that delicious peppery nectar but are also the least likely to fight back. Plan your timing with risk tolerance in mind.

After long deliberation, the Exobiological Taxonomic Association has officially categorized the Tiktalufi chimera as fruit! Don’t let their screams fool you - that is air escaping as they deflate, and the trashing will stop within an hour of being plucked from their Life Vine.

She walks with feline grace: bare-foot and silent. Come closer now and look. Look into the fire and see what I see. See how her measured steps leave no trace on the frost-bound earth. Or perhaps that’s simply a trick of the light? The same trick that makes her eyes flash silver as she passes the warm glow of the cooking fires into the woods beyond.

I met the Devil once in a bar on 54th street. Funny little fellow, wore a striped suit and tie that had seen better days, kept drinking water and calling it wine. And he said to me, the Devil did, he said: “You’re Death, man. It’s who you are. It’s what you do.” 

I battled with deStruct-O on the edge of the volcano he was trying to reactivate. Toxic gases plumed and rocks flew. Dodging a careening boulder, he ever so slowly lost his balance and toppled into the caldera. I swooped down, scooped him up and deposited him outside the hot zone for the Agency team to deal with, then plunged back into the lava to deactivate the magma enhancer.

This story originally appeared in Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine in December 2021