Stories - Long Story Short Award - 2026 - page 1 - all works

Short Fiction

4 min

By Her First Name

She stepped onto the soft sand of the Peneus. Rather than look, she preferred to listen, breathe, touch. She let the summer wind pass through her hair, the heat press against her cheeks, the warm ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Metal Doors

Heidi Kellam

The last penny dug from the sticky console of my 1991 Mustang got me there. I had negotiated the price down to as far as she would allow, and now it was time to pay up. "Let's review the rules," she ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

The Witch and Her Beloved Robot

Frank L. Fan

I'm a robot. Before sunrise, I burned her body.
The old lady was my first customer. She had asked for euthanasia three times in a week. Normally, once is enough.
I scheduled a late injection ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Prey For Me

Kaci Collins

JULIA Julia counted distance without thinking. Twenty yards to the creek. Forty to the clearing. Whoever she was following had begun favoring the right leg. Nothing moved. No birds. No wind. A dark ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

The Life I Almost Remember

Michelle Lin

Before the sun gathered strength enough to gild the limestone, the city belonged to the sea. Its breath drifted through the narrow alleys, threading salt between stone houses and stirring the linen ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

The Hand Remembers

Margaux Curtes

The room is nearly black, my lamp casting a small yellow circle across the desk while my computer screen glows harshly against the darkness. The Google Docs page in front of me remains ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Reunited by Time, Somehow

Connor F

This didn't look like the small yard by his apartment. As he sat up in wind blown grass, he realized this wasn't anywhere near home at all. This looked like an outpost, somewhere in the outskirts ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

Yesterday

Steven Sax

Everyone knows time travel requires extraordinary discipline. People used to think alternate outcomes were impossible, mere science fiction imaginings. Many believe in fate and other such nonsense ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Not a Rick and Morty Adventure

Sam Sam

"Oh Rick, are we really gonna do this? " Morty's one hand covering his mouth, another too anxious to stay still in the air asking the old man in the garage.

"Yeah Morty! We ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Beige Gray Blue Gray

Katherine Strong

Beneath all of the hurt there was the beautiful reality that she had gotten exactly what she wanted. That the beige-gray-blue-gray cake frosted new walls in the new house buoyed by the white plastic ... [+]

Short Fiction

2 min

'Trading Places'

Timothy Lopez

As I surveyed the dozens of empty tables spread across the void deck, it dawned on me how the last few days had seemingly passed like a blur. Friends and relatives must have come and gone, and yet ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Come Inside

Diya Mutha

Some inheritances come in a will. Mine came at five in the morning, in my chest.

I woke up coughing, and it wasn't my cough.

It sat low, heavy and wet, like something had moved in and ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Seasons

Maddox Salmans

I can tell it's spring by the way her boots smell of plastic and pollen. I can tell from the way light filters in, casting shadows, illuminating the air with particles of dust and cotton. He ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

Please Teach Me How to Swim

ming chan

In the second decade of the new millennium, with January barely half over, K and I were scouring Nathan Road for masks, powerless to guard ourselves against an unknown plague. At dusk we stood on the ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Until I became you

Josephine Oduraa Attafuah

Maa Afia dropped her bags on the thick woolen carpet in the room that was supposed to be her new home in the coming years and sighed. The 16-hour journey across the Atlantic had finally come to an ... [+]

Short Fiction

1 min

She died and left me waiting

Yi Bei Yeap

When he wakes up she is standing near the edge of the bed, on the side with the bureau. In the semi-darkness of the room he sees the stark white of her shirt, a slash of light that announces he ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

The Big Brawl

Angelina Dang

Girl A eyed girl B's sleek black ALO leggings, cream yellow Lululemon jacket, and pristine pink UGGs. Girl B looked like the kind of girl who would buy $500 worth of merchandise if she felt even ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

Ghost

Nic Buccilli

Waking up in Seattle an hour ago felt like being home after drifting soullessly through the Midwest, a return to the clarity I had felt living here three summers ago. Except, one thing was unclea ... [+]