“Nextype”
Strange Horizons Issue 13, November 2023

Mirae sits on her bed, parting her hair with one hand and feeling for the access port on the back of her head with the other. She finds the notched edges of the cap and twists counterclockwise until it comes loose. Her eye twitches as she slides the plug into her skull. The sensation isn’t strong enough for her to say it hurts, but she doesn’t know how else to describe it.

“Set Yourself on Fire”
Fantasy Magazine Issue #95, September 2023

The chrysanthemums are dying. The yellow flowers face downward, stems wilting at the neck. Their petals curl and brown at the edges like burning paper.

I sit on the countertop beside the flowers. My mangled legs dangle in the air, one shoe on, one foot bare. Blood drips from my toes, still oozing from where my splintered shin bone punctures through the side of my calf. Each drop fades into nothing before it can reach the floor below.

“The Helmsman”
Luminescent Machinations: Queer Tales of Monumental Invention, Neon Hemlock Press

Janus is mostly deaf.

As the helmsman of the SS Endymion, their eyes and ears are the sensors and scanners of the ship, but a spacefaring vessel has little use for audio sensory instruments. The only auditory information Janus receives are the voice commands of Captain Zamora, and the input that filters through the ship’s intercom system.

But when it comes to war, there are other ways for the world to be loud.

“The End of a Painted World”
Fantasy Magazine Issue #86, December 2022

Flaming orange tongues devour the walls around us. The soldiers outside batter at the old wooden doors of the back entrance.

Gingko holds fast, the ornate mural of gingko tree branches and golden leaves glowing like painted sunshine. (…) But her light grows dimmer with each impact against her doors. Her paint has started to crack and blacken.

“A Wound Full of Teeth”
Beyond the Veil: Supernatural Tales of Queer Love, Ghost Orchid Press

At first, when Mai was born, she was normal. That’s how it always is.

Then one day, she felt a snapping sound from deep inside her skull as the back of her head split open and grew teeth.

“End of the line”
The Dead Inside: A Horror Anthology,
Dark Dispatch

“You’re doing this to yourself, you know,” the shade says. They smile, but it’s more like a show of teeth, eyes too wide for it to look right. “Hell is supposed to be other people. But there’s no one else here. Right now, hell is just you.”

The inside of his throat is a ruin, his vocal cords reduced to pulp. If he could, he would ask:

Then what are you supposed to be?

“Even Robots Can Cry”
Fireside Fiction Winter 2020

There’s a buzzing in Simon’s head. Like a dying fluorescent light.

Computational neuroscientists have estimated that the data storage capacity of the human brain to be anywhere from 1 terabyte to 2.5 petabytes. Even 1 terabyte should be enough to handle this amount of studying. That’s 1,000 gigabytes.

But all he’s physically capable of right now is sitting in his desk chair and staring blankly ahead.

“gods of small things”
Unlocking the Magic: A Fantasy Anthology, Cuppatea Publications

The rule is always five.

Insert key into the doorknob, try to turn it counterclockwise, meet resistance, then turn clockwise to hear the sliding “click” of the locking mechanism engaging. Tug on the doorknob to make sure it’s locked. Then turn the key back, counterclockwise, to its original position. Remove the key. Reinsert the key. Turn counterclockwise-.

“Click, click,” the cat says from where it sits perched on the banister of the apartment stairwell, silver eyes seeming to glow against its inky black fur. “You’re late again.”

“How To Have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”
Open Minds Quarterly Winter 2019

“Clean”
adjective
1 – Has been washed/disinfected and has not come in contact with any surface that was not washed/disinfected beforehand.
2 – The standard by which something must be in order for it to be “safe.”

“Contaminated”
adjective
1 – Unclean, unsafe, terrible.
2 – A nightmare.
This is what the rest of the world is, by default.