Chapter 1

My name is Alec Martin McConnell, and I don’t call myself religious, although I’ve been asking anybody who may be listening to grant my wish. Not every night, but often enough. I knew, in my mind, that it was futile, but my brain wasn’t wired to listen to reason.

Day Two

One

Sandy sat up in bed and groped for the phone, but missed, knocking it onto the floor instead. He cursed and got out of bed to find it. It had stopped vibrating, but it started again as he picked it up off the floor. Sandy sat on the bed and, without thinking, pressed accept, and nearly fainted when Overstrand’s face appeared on a FaceTime call. 

Subject: Welcome to Your Future, Lewis Chambers.
FROM: Clarity Academy Administration (No-Reply)
TO: L.Chambers_Scholar2026@ClarityPrep.edu

Welcome to the Spectrum of Excellence!

Congratulations, Lewis; your academic record and psychological aptitude scores have placed you in the top 2% of your cohort! At Clarity Academy, we don't just educate; we refine.

Your Digital Onboarding is Complete:

The Student-Link ID: Your Student-Link ID is your passport to the future! This ID is tied directly to your phone and your choice of wearable (Watch, Ring, or Athletic Shoe Tag) and grants you access to authorized student areas as well as cashless payment at the Student Union and Cafeteria. Ensure that your parents have thoroughly read the school’s Privacy Policy—in short we will never sell your data or spy on you! This closed loop NFC system is strictly for your convenience!

The Precision Wardrobe: Your "Scholar-Standard" attire has been sized based on your submitted scans. Remember: A clear mind begins with a clean silhouette!

Focus. Precision. Perfection: Clarity.

I close the door and stand in the apartment.

The same. The coat hook, the small pile of mail I haven't dealt with, the kitchen visible through the doorway with last night's pan on the stove. All of it exactly as I left it. I stand in it with my shoes still in my hand and the hair falling into my face and let the sameness settle around me for a moment.

Chapter Two: Reconstruction

Where the Sunflowers Grow
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

-10-
The First Phone Call Home

I decided not to venture into the “Eden Cafe” from the outside looking in. I could see two dozen white men in greasy overalls gathering around a few broken down tables. No doubt they were holding a fellowship breakfast for the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan. And by no means did I want to be the guest speaker or be invited to semi-weekly cross burning. I'll take my chances somewhere else.

Torn from his own world and stuffed into the body of a villainess, facing the end of a doomed route he himself wrote, "Amelia" must navigate a world she really should know - too bad she was never great at worldbuilding.

Stuck in a world she (maybe) created, Amelia quickly finds that reality has filled in the details she failed to describe. The characters who were so flat when she wrote them now have nuance, and motives. The kingdom she wrote into existence is experiencing internal strife she never even thought about. And let's not even get into the complexities of the magic system, or the demon that forced her into this situation to begin with...

Oh, and then there's the fact that she's about to be arrested and executed... but surely she can come up with a way to write herself out of that, right?

...Right?

NOTE: This story was originally posted in single large chunk. But some readers have indicated that it was hard to navigate, so I've split it into two parts.

Torn from his own world and stuffed into the body of a villainess, facing the end of a doomed route he himself wrote, "Amelia" must navigate a world she really should know - too bad she was never great at worldbuilding.

Stuck in a world she (maybe) created, Amelia quickly finds that reality has filled in the details she failed to describe. The characters who were so flat when she wrote them now have nuance, and motives. The kingdom she wrote into existence is experiencing internal strife she never even thought about. And let's not even get into the complexities of the magic system, or the demon that forced her into this situation to begin with...

Oh, and then there's the fact that she's about to be arrested and executed... but surely she can come up with a way to write herself out of that, right?

...Right?

Wasn’t that what they were calling it these days?

Another Country -16-
by Erin Halfelven

{This is a very short story by my standards}
The art of the window dresser is easy to understand. Their goal is to grab passersby's attention, then entice them to come into the store and, hopefully, persuade them to spend a lot of money. That is the theory… In practice, it only works sometimes.