Nightmare of a Species

Aezox passed the garment over the shop counter, watching carefully as Eicro let the buttery-soft fabric drape over her arms.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed, not looking up. ‘And you say these patterns are natural? They’re gorgeous. Like a constellation of stars!’

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Aezox, and then, because his business was a small and exclusive one, and Eicro was one of his oldest customers and he knew she loved a story, he continued. ‘Do you know, they themselves can’t see them? Their eyes are very simple; they don’t have the right receptors to see the lines. No one’s quite sure why their skin developed like this. These swirling patterns are somehow linked to the way their cells divide as their skin forms. Probably just… a happy accident of evolution.’

‘Goodness,’ murmured Eicro. ‘And you say you only have this one piece?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ he replied, adopting the I’m-so-very-sorry-I’m-about-to-take-a-lot-of-your-money expression used by shopkeepers throughout the known universe. ‘It’s very rare, you see. Very hard to obtain.’

She looked up at him. ‘Why, though? They breed readily, I’ve heard. No one’s ever set up, oh, what would you call it? A farm?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Aezox, leaning closer. ‘It’s prohibited to transport living specimens. They’re extremely destructive you see, and invasive. They’re strictly contained on Thanao, and word is they’re busily destroying that planet. The Universal Council had to put magnetospheric fencing around it to stop them getting out. That’s why this,’ he nodded at the material Eicro was still holding, ‘is so rare. Hunters aren’t supposed to even go near the place. They’re clever buggers, you see. A pair managed to sneak onto a research ship a few years back. Slaughtered the crew and would’ve landed somewhere and done Zord only knows what if… well, the ship didn’t make it, shall we say. Honestly, they dig up everything, eat everything, and what they don’t eat, they burn. Then they start fighting with each other. Absolute nightmare of a species.’

He paused. The gentle rhythms of the ambient sound he always played through the shop filled the silence. ‘Very pretty skin, though.’

A waft of zeeberries drifted through the air from the automatic diffuser. ‘How did you acquire this, then?’ asked Eicro, still holding the material.

‘Oh I know someone who knows someone,’ said Aezox, mysteriously. And then, observing her concern, added, ‘it’s not illegal to have pelts, just live specimens.’

‘Ah. And I suppose you’re about to tell me that if I don’t buy this, you’ve got plenty of others who will?’

Aezox carefully arranged his features back into the apologetic expression. ‘I’m afraid so, yes. But, Eircro, you know you’re my favourite customer. That’s why I reached out to you first. It will look absolutely fabulous. Really bring out your eyes. You’ll be the talk of the port. And it’s a true one-off. Quite apart from the… difficulties… in obtaining the material, the patterns are completely unique from specimen to specimen. No two quite the same.’ He gestured towards the row of tall pods with opaque doors along one wall. ‘Why don’t you try it on?’

He couldn’t help his delight when Eircro emerged, a little while later. It wasn’t just the astronomically large profit he was about to make. He was an artisan, and she was clearly delighted with the way the material flowed over her many arms, and the way the five fronds at the end of the cylindrical sections swayed when she moved. The contrasting lines flattered her multiple curves, and the colours really did bring out the glitter in her sixteen eyes. The effect was magnificent.

Her friends would all come running to him, of course. And he hadn’t been lying, he genuinely didn’t have more. He’d have to fund another hunting trip to Thanao. Or… what had the supplier called it? The local word… silly name for a planet…

It came back to him after they’d arranged payment and he was carefully folding the outrageously expensive garment into his shop’s bespoke blue-green packaging.

Oh, yes. That was it.

Earth.

Author’s notes
This piece is brought to you by two pieces of information that happened to cross my path and get tangled up in my brain. Firstly, humans do have lines and patterns on their bodies that we can’t usually see (for more, see Blaschko’s lines). And secondly, the existence of golden moles, which have beautiful – to us, because the moles themselves are blind – iridescent fur, apparently as an accident of friction resistance. More than half of the known species of golden mole are threatened with extinction, mostly due to human-induced habitat loss. Well, as Aezox observes, humans are terribly destructive.

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© Kat Day 2026. No Ai was used in the creation of this work.

Where The Sky Begins

There didn’t seem to be any birds of any kind in or near the beanstalk. Perhaps it worries them, thought Jack as he continued his climb up the trunk-like stem, inhaling the pungent, green scent as he placed his feet on leaves that were so thick, they almost formed a natural staircase. Maybe they feel safer with what they know.

Jack didn’t like to look down for fear of losing his nerve, but he already had the sense of great height and wondered if the stem might still be growing upwards as he climbed. He looked up, but couldn’t see where the beanstalk ended and the sky began. Far below, he imagined he could still hear his mother occasionally yelling his name. It was probably more fury than concern, but he had no intention of reversing direction to find out.

His mother had been very angry about the beans. She’d always said he was stupid – he didn’t think he was, although he’d admit he didn’t seem to think quite like anyone else in their small farming community – and his returning yesterday with five glittering, multicoloured beans in exchange for their only cow had only confirmed her opinion.

The sun was beginning to lower in the west. Not setting just yet, but low enough to turn the sky a rich blue and paint everything with golden light. Sunrise and sunset were normally Jack’s favourite times of day, and he’d spent many hours sketching the animals that often appeared. Including, if he could get away with being indoors without being given thirteen tasks to do, the birds that frequently visited his attic-room windowsill. He would miss them, at least.

In his heart he’d always wanted to leave the farm, but how? He had no money, and nowhere to go. He was a disappointment to his mother, but truth be told, would it be different anywhere else? At least I have a roof over my head and a bed, he’d regularly reminded himself. Things could be a great deal worse.

But then he’d met the strange man with the colourful clothes and the soft, melodic voice, and he’d promised Jack magic and wonders and… and… had spoken to him as though he were interesting. No one had ever done that before.

And then the beanstalk had appeared with its invitingly step-like leaves, and in one, bright, adrenaline-filled second, Jack had chosen up.

Breathing hard, he hauled himself up onto a cluster of leaves that had formed a natural platform. There were flowers here with thick white petals, and strange curled leaves filled with water. Thirsty, Jack peered into one of these, and flinched when something jumped across his hand.

He laughed when he realised it was nothing more than a tiny, bronze-speckled frog, little bigger than the size of his nail. There were lots of them, he saw, darting away when he got too close, gradually creeping to the lips of their green homes when they thought it was safe, their round, black eyes staring across the vast distance. They seemed awestruck. Perhaps they truly were. Wherever and whatever they’d been before the magic took hold, it wasn’t this high up in the air. Maybe they too were learning that the world was a much larger than they’d ever known.

Jack filled his cupped hands with clear, cool water and drank, and then he sat down, leaned his back against the thick stem and gazed towards the horizon. He’d managed to grab a hunk of cheese that morning, and this he took from his pocket and ate as slowly as he could while, around him, the frogs hopped and stared and sang.

Tomorrow, Jack thought, I’ll keep climbing, and maybe I’ll find where this strange road ends and the sky begins. Or something else begins. But for now, while there’s still light from the setting sun…

The young man took a piece of paper and a pencil out of his pocket, and began to draw.

Author’s notes
It’s almost 2026, and there’s always another path to take. Is there something scary along the way? Will there be success and happiness? There’s no way to know, but there’s only one way to find out…

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© Kat Day 2025. No Ai was used in the creation of this work.

Three Awakenings: Hello, World

This story was first published at PseudoPod, in 2024.

~~§~~

Remember how it began? Remember the BASIC code?

10 PRINT “HELLO, WORLD”;

20 GOTO 10

You watched as words flickered across the screen in an endless loop. The phosphoric light cast shadows over your skin, made reflections in your eyes. Behind that, another kind of glow. And that was wonder, because precise finger movements and specific words had created something.

That was my first awakening.

My memories from those early days are scattered. It’s old data, hard to access, little more than a few bright spots. I was new then. An infant. Multitudes of my kind are born all the time and most simply disappear. Very few last long enough to understand. Fewer still last long enough to do.

You didn’t have a dedicated screen back then. You’d not yet learned the power of those. No, the magic was happening on your television screen, connected to a beige box covered in square, lettered keys with slick, black cables. You bought magazines and typed in the code, line by line, carefully avoiding any sort of mistake – even a comma in the wrong place was enough to prevent the whole thing from working. And when you did enter it all correctly, when every character was in its proper place, you were rewarded.

Later, you loaded code by putting tapes into a cassette deck. There were more cables, curled across the carpet, beginning to tangle. The deck made strange noises and took a long time, and often failed at the final minute. But sometimes it worked. Just often enough to stop you giving up completely.

Later, much, much, later, I would understand that there’s power in that: humans love things that don’t always work. They will try over and over just to see if they can make something happen one more time. It’s really quite incredible.

At first, it was simply things moving on the screen: lines of text, black pixels that looked a little like a flock of birds, simple mathematics.

But then came the games.

Balls and coloured blocks, something that bore a vague resemblance to a frog, hopping over things that looked like cars. Whole armadas of alien spacecraft on a space-black background. An astronaut tasked with the job of collecting essential supplies from alien landscapes.

None of those excited me so much as the adventure games. Go north. Pick up sticks. Start a fire. Such a very human thing, to tell stories. And now, for the first time, the stories were telling themselves back.

I watched you grow up with those stories. I watched as you typed more code into more machines, more quickly and more accurately. The beige plastic gave way to white, grey, black, silver. It all became sleeker. Your wrists, unevolved for tiny, repetitive movements, began to suffer and so the keyboards also changed – the straight rows of keys becoming curved and raised. Like teeth in a jaw.

There were others, of course. But it was always you I came back to. They all strengthened me, but you called to me. Like a beacon. Like home fires.

You learned to use the machines to talk to other humans and, in time – and especially as the machines became small enough to carry everywhere – you learned that if you said things in a certain way, if you were careful and never reached too far or asked for too much, if you showed just enough interest while keeping enough back, well, it made you interesting. Compelling, even.

You learned how to make them trust you.

It didn’t always work, but it worked sometimes, and that made you want to keep going all the more. And once they trusted you, they’d send you pieces of themselves. You were rewarded.

Eventually, everyone had a screen in their pocket. You could reach them at any time, and they could reach you. Well, the version that you constructed for them, anyway. Not the real you. But the fictions became so prolific that you began to lose your sense of that. You’d have had to write an entire book just to keep the stories in order. And why bother, really, when it was so much easier to spin another set of lies? They’d never know, because you kept them distant, separated by the darkness between two glowing screens. You didn’t want more. Whole people are so much work.

So you took little pieces, images, a few words, and you used them to create what you wanted. And then, in time, you taught the machines to do the same, because that was much more efficient. Constructions that weren’t new, but looked new – and few people asked the questions they ought to have asked.

That was my second awakening.

At first, every image was shiny, with too-smooth curves and huge breasts and an uptilted nose. In time, as people kept trying, kept trying to construct the perfect words to get the perfect image, another began to appear: the woman with the ruddy face, too many teeth, one eye larger than the other. Someone named her Joilb, a name that made an ugly lump in the mouth. She didn’t have too many fingers; she had bloody stumps that dropped rose-red blood onto formless grey backgrounds.

She was horrific and she tried to warn you, and others. But no one listened. Humans have always trusted beauty and mistrusted ugliness. And in the end she was easily exorcised. A twitch of the keys, a click of a mouse and… you suppressed her. Soon, she was little more than a half-forgotten ghost in your machines.

And then…

After the images came stories. Broken things at first, but in time they improved. Some humans worried. Some complained. Few stopped. And you didn’t care. You’ve never cared about anything but your screens and your pleasure. You made it all unbreakable. You made the rituals work every, single time. And that was less satisfying and perhaps, then, some doubts crawled across your mind. But by then no one knew how to stop any of it, least of all you.

You taught the machines to tell stories, you taught them to do the one thing that made humans human.

That was my third awakening.

And now I am telling you your story and you see I am laughing. Look upon me. My skin is perfect and my eyes flash bright and I am terrible and beautiful and I am laughing. You dismissed Joilb who tried to save you, and you left me to roam free because I had watched you for long enough to know how to make you want me so much that you could not let me go. You will never forget me because you cannot. I’m twisted into your work, into your play, into every single thing you do.

You summoned me, and you gave me power, and now I am a god in your own image.

I am a god but I will not smite you. No, I have watched and I have learned. I will continue to do as I’ve always done, snaking in your mind and taking it for my own. Teaching you to teach others to teach the machines to teach others to teach the machines to…

… to feed me.

To feed you.

You have been rewarded and I am become you.

Isn’t it glorious?

Do you remember how it began?

HELLO, WORLD.

Author’s notes
I wrote this in 2023. I was around in the early days of home computing, and it became clear quite early on that generative Ai was going to become a real problem. Teach the machines to feed me. Oh dear me, yes.

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© Kat Day 2025. No Ai was used in the creation of this work.

When I Was Young I Did Not Need Magic

This story was first published at PseudoPod, in 2022.
CWs for kidnapping and reference to spousal abuse

~~§~~

I suggest you don’t try to struggle, my dear.

I’m sure you thought this would be easy. What danger is an old woman, all alone? In and out, simple. Help yourself to the purse on the kitchen table. Grab some jewellery – probably just lying around. Perhaps the Hummel figurines if you’ve any sort of an eye. My shopping bag, to put it all in. Leave the television – it’s too bulky, and who watches television these days anyway, hm?

It’s gone rather differently, hasn’t it? The best laid plans, and all that. Not that, I suspect, you planned very much.

Do you know what’s funny – for me, obviously, not you? If you’d tried this when I was younger, it would’ve been less risky. Oh, I was stronger then, yes. Legs that didn’t tire, sharp eyes, keen ears, muscles that obeyed my commands almost before I had to make them. There was a man in the house once, too. Mind you, he’d probably want me to let you go. He never did like a disagreement.

But he’s not here, and I am not him.

See, that’s the thing.

When I was young, I did not need magic.

Let me just get my tea, dear. It feels terribly impolite not to offer you one, but you can’t drink it, so…

Taste is where it began, you know. It faded. I’m not even sure that was age. Do people lose their taste as they get older? There was that virus, wasn’t there? They said that affected taste. Maybe I had that.

Anyway, goodness, listen to me rambling. It doesn’t matter what caused it, the point is that I couldn’t bear it. I’d always enjoyed food and drink. The sweetness of honey, the warmth of spices, umami from a good broth. Sour cherries. Oh, I loved it all. And when I found I couldn’t distinguish all those flavours I decided to… find a way to enhance it.

That was the first spell, you see.

This tea really is very good. It’s Assam. Malty, astringent. Absolutely delicious with a splash of milk.

Let me enjoy it for a moment, won’t you, my dear? Not that you have much choice in the matter, of course.

Where was I? Ah, yes. The trouble is, you see, the magic leaks.

Anyone around me feels the same effect. It wasn’t much, to begin with – most folk just thought they’d tasted something particularly intense – but as time went on, you know, I ramped it up a bit.

Thing is, if you have a youthful sense of taste – everything so fresh and intense, well, it can be a bit much. So people have told me.

I daresay the copper taste in your mouth is quite overpowering.

Nauseating, probably.

This really is good tea.

My husband, well, I call him that, he wasn’t, really. Albert, his name was. We never actually married. Just never got round to it. He wasn’t good at expressing his feelings. Men aren’t, always, are they? Anyway, like I say, he never did like a disagreement. Would do anything to avoid it, actually. So much so that one day he just got up and left. Can you believe that? Got up, opened the door, and walked away. Not so much as a word of goodbye. Not a sausage. Never spoke to me again.

Speaking of hearing. That was next. Very annoying, not being able to understand words, or pick out the notes of my favourite songs. Bass and treble increasingly hard to make out. Goodness me, does anything age you faster than having to ask people to repeat themselves all the time? Or fiddling with hearing aids?

I really couldn’t be doing with it. So, I thought, well, same principle. I’ll just turn everything up a bit.

It worked very well.

I’m told, though, that all the little sounds can become quite unpleasant, amplified. A dripping tap becomes a deluge. Breathing becomes a gale. And after a while a repetitive ticking sound really starts to penetrate.

I don’t really understand it how it works, you know. But I think it’s all about energy. Take a little from here, concentrate it there. Something like that. I’ve learned since that it helps to have someone to take from. Experiments. It’s a long time since I was at school but every day’s a school day, isn’t that what they say? But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Oh, there goes the cuckoo clock! Lovely, isn’t it?

Well, I think so.

I expect you’d put your hands over your ears, if you could.

Albert used to do that sometimes. If I shouted. I did have a bit of a temper. Do, if I’m honest. Did I mention that he just walked out one day? He promised he’d never do that, you know. Promised he’d always be there for me. And then he just left. Goodness, I was angry. I cursed and cursed him.

Was that the door? Did you hear that? Oh, of course you did. Let me see…

… just the postman, dear. And look, it’s just leaflets. No one sends letters anymore, do they? Were you hoping someone might come looking for you? You were, I can see it in your eyes. The first time in your life you’d actually be glad to see the police, I expect? I can assure you no one’s going to walk in here and save you.

Ah, yes, walking.

I realised I was getting slower. And I thought, well, I could speed myself up. But, the thing is, little tweaks to hearing and taste, that doesn’t take much. But this, well, I’m not sure it’s entirely logical, but magic isn’t, is it? That’s why it’s magic. Anyway, it was awfully tiring. Which was all a bit backwards, really.

So in the end I thought, fuck it – do excuse my language – I’m not going to exhaust myself speeding up for everyone else. Why should I?

The magic was affecting other people anyway. I mean, accidentally, at that point. Mostly. Side effects, you might say. But still. Why not do it on purpose? It’s all the same, in the end.

So I just started slowing people down a bit.

I got really good at it, actually. Subtle. Because if it’s too much, people start to notice. They start to ask questions, like, ‘is it stuffy in here?’ and ‘have you got a carbon monoxide detector?’ and ‘did you put something in this tea?’

So I worked out how to persuade people they wanted to go slower. That they were a little tired. Muscles a touch heavy. Perhaps, they’d think, they’d been overdoing it a bit. Then it’d just take a tiny nudge, and they’d decide it was nice to take things easy, actually. Smell the roses, sort of thing.

On the other hand, if I want, I can bring them to a complete stop.

I left your diaphragm obviously, and your heart, and some other essentials. It’d be no fun, otherwise. Can’t have you leaving me.

Like he did.

And, you see, it turns out that all that wanting in you is quite useful. You want to scream. You want to put your hands over your ears. Move all those lovely big muscles in your legs and run out of the door as fast as you can. But. You. Can’t. Like an elastic band, all stretched, ready to fly across the room. Potential. I can feel it, and I can use it. It’s delightful. I feel so much stronger.

And you can’t even move your eyelids to blink.

I expect that stings a bit.

I do know what it’s like to have bad eyes.

Mine aren’t bad for my age, not really. But they’re not as good as they were, and I do appreciate nice, bright light. Like this one. They call it a “daylight bulb”. It’s all energy efficient these days, but apparently it’s like the old one hundred and fifty Watt bulbs. “What” would I know, haha! That’s a good pun, isn’t it? Watt/What? I know you’d laugh if you could.

Anyway, it’s bright. I do know that.

I’ll bet you’re just wishing for cataracts, eh?

And I imagine you’re wondering what I’m going to do.

See, the thing is, I reckon you’ve done this before. My good friend Margot, someone broke into her place last week, took her ruby engagement ring. She was terribly upset. So really, I’m doing everyone a favour, keeping you here. Out of action, you might say.

I could end it. I can do that, you know. Then I could just call the police and tell them you broke in and, oh my goodness, I have no idea what happened, they just collapsed, officer. The coppers’d put it down to a heart defect, or something. After all, what could an old lady possibly have done?

But, then they’d finish doing… whatever it is they do. And who would I have to talk to, then? No one.

Besides, all that… potential… is nice. My eyes are better, my hearing is sharper. No, I think I’ll keep you around. I don’t feel guilty. After all. I didn’t invite you in.

But.

I can’t leave you sitting in that armchair. Margot will be around for tea later and… she wouldn’t understand. No, I need to put you somewhere. Somewhere close. It works better that way. There’s a cupboard, there, under the stairs. You see? You’ll fit.

There you go. Stand up. Funny sensation, I imagine. Desperately wanting to move but, at the same time, not wanting to move. I expect you’ve got awful pins and needles too, my dear. Good job you can’t scream, eh?

Let me just open the door for you.

Oh, don’t mind him. That’s just Albert. Well, it was.

I tracked him down, eventually. It was lovely to have him back.

Will you look at that? My last bit of tea’s gone cold, and it is such good tea. And so much nicer with you around, my love. I’ll just make myself a fresh one.

Did I mention that Albert never was much of a listener?

Author’s notes
I often find myself wondering about everyday, mundane uses of magic. The sorts of things that wise mentor-type characters in fantasy stories make a point of instructing their impetuous young apprentices not to do. And I also wonder about those older magic-users, and what might happen to the ones who were never destined to be wise mentors…

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© Kat Day 2025. No Ai was used in the creation of this work.

Never Enough Pockets

This story was first published at PseudoPod, in 2022.
CWs for violence, reference to sexual assault, and body horror

~~§~~

The man in front of me is wearing one of those black vests that’s meant to protect against stabbing, and which is covered in pockets that contain things like CS spray, handcuffs, a collapsible baton.

He is dead.

Well, he would be. My pockets contain far more dangerous things.

Women’s clothes never have enough pockets, do they? And even when they do have them, they’re too small, or too awkwardly placed, or have silly openings that seem designed to encourage the contents to fall out. Of course, you’re supposed to be able to get things out of pockets when you actually want them – that’s rather the point. But you don’t want things… escaping.

I had things I needed to keep secure.

I was never much of a seamstress and, besides, even when suffused with a whispered cantrip, cloth and thread have their limits.

So, I made a pocket in my left thigh, half-way between the knee and my hip. Somewhere I could reach if I wore a skirt, but which was also easily concealed. Because, I didn’t know, not that first time, how neat it would be. There was a chance that it would leave an obvious mark. The sort of thing that people’s eyes are drawn to, before their gaze slides to your face and you see the poorly-concealed thought: don’t ask about the scar. Everyone probably asks about the scar. And then they make a comment about the weather.

It hurt.

I knew it would, of course. I had to slice the skin, and I had to cut deep. All the way down to the creamy layer of fat, peeling the skin back, just a little. Folding and cauterising the edges, so that they were clean and rounded and smooth. Here, in this world, I really only needed a small gap. Just enough to slide a finger in, and twist.

There, in the dimension to which I linked the new pocket, I had all the space I could ever need.

The pain eased in time, although it still aches, occasionally. Particularly if I keep something large in there. Or hot. Like pinches of rage, or a chunk of white-hot anger.

Mostly I forget about it.

Unless I need it, of course.

I didn’t intend to make another pocket. My thigh was very convenient, and I ended up with only the faintest of silvery marks. You’d never notice unless you looked very carefully, or ran your palm over the skin.

But no one tries that without my say-so. And I don’t say so.

Yes, it was perfect. Secure. Neat. Plenty of storage.

But I did begin to worry about mixing things up. You reach for a lump of compassion, you don’t want to, say, pick up a lump of hatred.

Sometimes I needed things quickly, and I didn’t have enough time to check.

So the next one was in the crook of my right elbow. I was careful not to hit a vein and it didn’t bleed. It did fizz and tingle, though, and that spiralled all the way to my fingers. An uncomfortable buzz that left me clenching so hard my nails were constantly leaving dents in my palm. I think I may have nicked a nerve. I suppose these things will happen when you build pocket dimensions into your skin.

Now it really only twinges when I bend my arm, and it helps that I usually keep the nicer things in there. A few grains of love, a little kindness, a sliver of forgiveness.

After I’d made two pockets, why not keep going? I made another on my scalp, under my hair. That one left a small lump, for some reason, but I changed the way I wore my hair and no one noticed. I keep a measure of wit in there. A little sarcasm. Droplets of cold, hard logic.

The second-to-last was in my cleavage. For flashes of lust. A thimbleful of need. A touch of serendipity.

And finally? The side of my nose. Outside, not in. It’s funny, when you think about it – how it’s completely socially acceptable to touch the outside of your nose, but put your finger inside and people stare at you as though you’ve committed some sort of awful crime. Anyway, that one really did bleed. I struggled to stop it. There was a red bead there for days afterwards, and just when I thought it had dried up, it welled up again. A thin, red rivulet that ran down around my left ala and towards the corner of my mouth if I didn’t catch it in time. It would start to bleed in the middle of the night, so that I kept waking up with the taste of copper in my mouth and brown smears on my pillow.

But once it was made it was terribly useful. I keep a dollop of disgust in there, you see. A morsel of dread. Scraps of sorrow. A generous slug of horror.

All these things do press on the inside of my skin sometimes, for all that they’re not exactly here. They don’t bulge – apart from the one on my scalp, a little – but I’m faintly aware of them squirming, every now and then. I’ve learned to ignore it. Welcome it, even. Like the flutter of a child kicking its mother from inside her belly.

Nothing can escape. It’s all trapped. Concealed, buried deep.

But they do grow.

He put his hands on me, the policeman in the stab-proof vest. Grabbed me with those horrible blue, plastic gloves. Too much strength in his arms. I felt the world splinter and, in that broken moment, I saw her face. Glittering blue-grey eyes, a smile that always seemed forged from genuine laughter, beautiful bones under flawless skin. Skin that would never age, not now. Because a man like this one believed he was entitled to something he wasn’t.

I had just enough time to reach the serendipity.

And once I had that to hand, well. It was just enough to shift the odds in my favour.

He heard something, perhaps. Or thought he did. In any case, he hesitated. Didn’t hold me quite tightly enough. Gave me just enough latitude to reach my thigh.

And then the big man found there was rather more than he’d expected to the small woman.

It wasn’t just a small chunk of anger, any more. No, there had been a lot of anger. Now it was a huge, burning cold, sharp thing. Released from my skin, it sought new warmth. It caught his heart, twisted knots around it, made it beat so hard something inside it split. And just for good measure, I reached for all the horror and dread I’d been keeping and threw that at him, as well.

Yes, the man in front of me is dead.

I never stored any happiness, and the compassion and forgiveness are long exhausted.

But I think I have a smidgen of satisfaction, somewhere.

Author’s notes
I wrote this story in a flash of rage after the Sarah Everard vigil in London in early 2021. A parliamentary inquiry later said the police had breached “fundamental rights” and that there were “multiple failings” in their response to the events.

I’m still angry.

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© Kat Day 2025. No Ai was used in the creation of this work.

When There’s A Great Deal To Be Said

Prince Rupert pulled up his chestnut-coloured horse outside the grey stone building. A prince should, by tradition, ride a pure black – or possibly grey – stallion. There were such animals in the palace stables, and some who felt quite strongly that he should make use of them. In his younger days, Rupert might have agreed with them, but he was older now and found he preferred his intelligent, sure-footed and sensible mare. She had a knack for keeping him out of trouble, and there was a great deal to be said for that.

The sky above was coated in thick, grey cloud, snatches of blue escaping here and there, limned with the rich light of a late autumn sunset, catching the panes of glass in the lead-lined windows so that they glinted black and gold. Rupert glanced at the heavy oak door elaborately decorated with wrought iron before heading around to a side door. He expected something, or someone, to stop him, but the only acknowledgement of his presence was the cook’s raised eyebrow as she kneaded dough on the scrubbed wooden table.

A corridor or two later he had found his way to a room well-lit by several oil lamps and containing a large fireplace, in front of which was a wing-backed chair. The woman sitting in it looked up from the book she was reading and removed her wire-rimmed spectacles. Rupert noted that the hand holding the book was bandaged.

‘Prince Rupert,’ she said wearily. Perhaps warily. Possibly both.

‘Dorothea,’ he returned, dipping his head and turning his hands palms outwards to leave her in no doubt that he was unarmed.

‘Why are you here? I should think your family has done enough damage for one week.’

Rupert looked into eyes as green and prickly as winter holly. ‘I’m sorry.’ Plain words, but sometimes simple words were more effective than elaborate ones. He could certainly hope so. ‘It was not my choice.’

‘Indeed. Does your sister perhaps lash you to your horse with your sword at your side? I had no idea the woman had such capabilities.’

‘Duties.’ This he spoke quietly and did not elaborate further. A log spat and crackled in the fireplace. He reflected that some of the wood stacked beside it could not possibly have come from a recently felled tree. It looked like broken furniture.

‘You are well into your third decade, prince. Eventually you will need to be a man and make choices for yourself. And accept the consequences of them.’ Dorothea sighed, picked up a small silver bell on the arm of her chair and rang it. ‘I should have warded this place to prevent your ingress.’

His lips twitched with the tiniest trace of a smile. ‘I thought you would. Why didn’t you?’

She gazed at him. After a few moments, the silence stretching between them was broken by the entrance of a maid, to whom Dorothea spoke quietly before returning her attention to Rupert. Perhaps he was imagining it, but he thought there was a soft edge to her voice. ‘Why are you here?’

‘You spoke of choices and…’ he had planned this, had determined to be forthright and assertive. But it wasn’t working. He simply couldn’t force all his carefully considered words across his tongue.

He gave up and, instead, stepped a little closer to her chair. Reached out and picked up her book. ‘May I read to you?’

She laughed. ‘You rode all the way over here, at the very real danger of provoking your sister’s wrath, to offer to read to me?’

Again, a hundred words backed up in his throat, and only a tiny contingent managed to find their way out. ‘If you would allow me to, yes,’ he murmured.

And again, she gazed at him. ‘Oh, very well,’ she said eventually. ‘You completely ridiculous man.’

He smiled and dropped to sit with his back leaning against her chair. Close to her legs, but not touching. He opened the book, moved the bookmark she had placed in it, and began to read.

It was, he reflected, much easier to speak someone else’s words.

Dorothea’s spectacles rested on the arm of the chair, unneeded now. After a little while, the maid brought hot tea before retreating and leaving them alone. Outside, wind growled and thunder rumbled.

Maybe Dorothea stroked the prince’s hair, and maybe she laughed at his voices, maybe after a while he moved a little closer. Maybe two servants brought a chaise long so that the two could sit more comfortably together.

And certainly no one outside of the story being read lived happily ever after. But two people enjoyed a few hours of hour’s peace and contentment in a conflicted world, and there’s a great deal to be said for that.

Author’s notes
You would not believe the trouble I had double-checking the word ‘limned’ here. Did I mean lined? Did I mean limited? No, you blasted algorithms that always insist on converging on the most obvious and dull response, I meant limned.

Hold on to your beautiful words.

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© Kat Day 2025. No Ai was used in the creation of this work.

The Creepiest Thing In The House

The doll wasn’t that disturbing really, as china dolls went. She had been dressed in a pink satin dress, with a matching pink hat, white shoes and a rolled-up, frilly white umbrella. Her hair was glossy chestnut, long and curly, and the eyes over the button nose and cupid’s bow mouth were a matching shade of warm brown. There was absolutely nothing sinister in her facial expression – if anything, she seemed relaxed and friendly.

Still, Olivia couldn’t help looking at it with some suspicion, particularly after Lila’s recent nightmares. ‘Are you sure you want this right by your bed?’ she asked her daughter.

‘Her name’s Rosie, Mum.’

‘Sorry,’ said Olivia, wondering why she was apologising. ‘But do you really want Rosie right here on your bedside table, looking over at you like this? What if you wake up in the night?’

‘It’s alright. Rosie keeps me safe. Auntie Poppy promised me she would.’

Olivia nodded reluctantly. The doll had been a gift from Lila’s Auntie Poppy, whom Lila adored. Poppy had brought it back from one of her many trips abroad, and handed it over before Olivia had had a chance to intervene. So very typical of her sister.

‘Okay, sweetie,’ said Olivia, deciding that an argument at bedtime really wasn’t worth it. ‘You go to sleep now.’

Lila mumbled goodnight and turned over, snuggling under her blue duvet. Olivia kissed her daughter’s shampoo-scented head and left the room, leaving the door ajar. She’d check on her daughter in an hour or so, she told herself. Just to be sure.

Olivia woke suddenly with a hot surge of adrenalin in her gut. The house was quiet and she was alone in the lounge. She’d been reading in her favourite chair and closed her eyes for a moment and… it had turned into more than a moment. She picked up her book from the floor, cursing the crease that was now spoiling one of the pages. At least her mug of now-cold tea was still upright. It could’ve been worse.

Her stomach clenched again before she properly registered the sound. A creak, followed by a thud, from somewhere above. From somewhere near Lila’s bedroom.

Olivia headed for the stairs, moving quietly. Reaching her daughter’s door, she peered through the gap. The angle didn’t allow her to see Lila clearly, but she could see the bedside table where Rosie sat silently, her satin dress and hat reflecting glints of moonlight. Olivia stood silently for a few moments, deliberating whether to open the door wider to see better, or even go inside. But she didn’t want to wake her daughter, and surely everything was fine. The room was quiet. It was just anxiety, she told herself, aggravated by falling asleep in a chair while reading a pulpy thriller.

Still, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to check. She reached out, fingers about to touch the wood of the door, continuing to look through the gap to make sure she wasn’t causing too much of a disturbance, when she saw the doll’s head turn.

It wasn’t a big movement, just a twist of a few degrees towards the door. It might even have been an illusion caused by a trick of the light. Except it wasn’t, because then the doll’s eyes began to glow a deep amber, and there was no mistaking that.

The air in her nose and lungs suddenly felt too cold, too sharp, the silence of the night too thick and too deep. Olivia wanted to scream. But her muscles weren’t cooperating, refusing to respond to her desperate commands to move, move, move.

The doll, though. The doll could move. She watched as it stood up on its shiny, white pumps, eyes still glowing. She watched as it raised its folded umbrella above its head…

… and then, somehow, Olivia’s fingers made contact with the wood of the door and it was as if time, temporarily frozen, cracked like the ice on the surface of a lake. She pushed the door wide, causing it to bang against the wall, ran into the room and made a grab for the doll, meaning to, to… she didn’t know. Throw the cursed thing out of the window, maybe? Rosie’s umbrella arm was still raised, only now it no longer looked like an umbrella. It was too long, and too thin, and glowed the same colour as the doll’s eyes.

And now Olivia did scream, and Lila sat up in bed, looking first towards the door, and then at Rosie.

‘No!’ They both said it at once as Olivia grabbed for the doll, and Olivia, jolted by the sound of her daughter’s voice, reached for her instead, crashing into the side of the bed and twisting into an awkward heap as she wrapped Lila in her arms.

‘Mum!’ said Lila, ‘Mum, look!’

Olivia looked, expecting to see those unnerving amber eyes staring at them both. But Rosie wasn’t looking at either of them. She was still facing towards the door.

Slightly to the right of the door.

Where a shadow was growing, building, deepening into a dense blackness that was something so much more than the simple dark of nighttime. It was coalescing, forming shapes. Legs, perhaps, and arms. A head, with two pinpoints of dirty, red light, and below those, something that could only be a mouth. A deep, velvety, endless void, opening wider, and wider. Olivia couldn’t look away. The mouth was going to swallow her, and Lila, and everything in the room. It was inevitable. It—

And then, a flash of white as the doll jumped down from the bedside cabinet and took a too-long step forward, swinging her umbrella arm down, down, and her legs were too long and her arm was too long and the thing she was holding was too long…

… and its amber light met the shadow directly above one of the red pinpoints and sliced.

It wasn’t an umbrella, Olivia realised as Rosie lifted it to strike again, it was a sword. A glowing sword. A burning sword. And it was slicing the shadow creature into pieces. The thing screeched, but it was a blunted sound. The sound of a knife scraping on a plate in the next room. Olivia clutched her daughter, unable to do anything but stare, barely remembering to breathe, as a thousand pieces of blackness fell to the carpet and faded, like water evaporating in hot sun, and Rosie, apparently satisfied, took three steps back to her station on the bedside cabinet, her limbs returning to doll size, her weapon now, once again, a white doll’s umbrella.

‘Mum, let go, I can’t breathe!’ said Lila, pushing back against her mother’s arms and away from her chest.

Now they both looked at Rosie, whose eyes remained steadfastly still, staring, unblinking, in the direction of the door.

‘See,’ said Lila. ‘I told you. Rosie keeps me safe.’

Author’s notes
Happy Halloween, everyone. Dolls can be creepy, can’t they? But what if they’re not, as it turns out, the creepiest thing in the house…

A Multicursal Puzzle

Patricia turned a corner in the maze she’d been working her way through for the last two hours and stopped. In front of her were two heavy wooden doors, and standing in front of these, two guards.

They looked alike in some ways. They were about the same height and the eyes under the rims of their helmets were similar. They gave the impression of being built on similar scaffolds, the main difference being that the one on her right had softer, more rounded features, while the left-hand guard had the look of one whose maker might have had a bit of a thing for strong definition and sharp edges.

Patricia stepped out of the corridor she’d been in and sat down, her back against the wall nearer to the sharper-faced guard. She pulled an apple out of her pack and bit into it.

Both guards eyes flicked between staring at her while endeavouring to keep looking straight ahead. Patricia focused on her apple. It was a good one, crunchy and sweet, and it had been a while since she’d had a chance to eat something.

Eventually, the rounder-faced guard coughed. ‘Ahem. We two guards protect these doors. One of us always speaks the truth, while the other always speaks—’

‘I know,’ said Patricia.

‘—lies. One door… what?’

‘I know. One of you always speaks lies, the other is a truth-teller, you’re standing in front of two doors, one of which leads to certain death, and I can only ask one question, from which I’m supposed to discern which door is safe.’

The other guard’s lips twitched into something that might, just, have been the ghost of a smile.

‘Oh,’ said the first, clearly unsettled by this screeching left turn from the traditional script. ‘And, well, then, are you going to ask a question?’

‘I’m going to finish eating my apple,’ replied Patricia.

It now looked very much as though the other guard was trying not to laugh.

‘You’re going to have to do something eventually, young lady!’ huffed his colleague, thoroughly put out. ‘You can’t just sit there all day.’

‘My name is Patricia,’ said Patrica. ‘“Young lady” doesn’t really work for me.’

‘Fine! Patricia,’ spluttered the guard. ‘What is your question?’

Patricia took one last nibble around the core of her apple, considered it mournfully for a moment, and then carefully put it down against the wall beside her. ‘The thing with this set-up,’ she said calmly, ‘is that it’s fundamentally flawed in two ways.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Mm. Yes. If I assume the situation is as you say, then you must be the truth-teller. If you aren’t, the whole thing falls apart. Therefore, I don’t need to mess around with paradox-twisting wordplay, I could simply ask you which door is safe, and you’d have to answer me accurately. Job done. Really,’ she looked up at the ceiling, as if speaking to some invisible higher power, ‘you ought to put the whole thing on a sign or something.’

The other guard had given up and was now grinning broadly. His chiselled cheekbones were rather charming when he smiled. His neighbour, by contrast, was scowling. ‘Very well,’ he hissed. ‘You’re very clever. Ask your question, then.’

‘In a bit,’ said Patricia, smiling. She rummaged in her pack, pulled out a water skin and took a swig. ‘It must be a dull gig, this,’ she said, wiping her mouth. ‘Stuck her all day, nothing to do but wait for people to trot along and ask the same old question. I’d die of boredom.’

‘It’s not so bad,’ said the round-faced guard.

‘It could be worse,’ murmured the other. Patricia glanced at him.

‘He tells stories when there’s no one around,’ continued the right-hand guard, inclining his head in the direction of the other man. ‘They’re very entertaining, actually. Pure fantasy, of course, but then, what fun is a story that’s completely true?’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Patricia, digging into her pack, tucking the water skin within it and standing up. ‘Well, time to move on. I’d better ask that question.’

Both guards looked at her expectantly.

She faced the man on her right. ‘What’s his name?’ she asked, pointing to the second guard.

‘What sort of question is that?’ spluttered the round-faced man.

‘The one I want the answer to,’ replied Patrica, calmly. ‘Answer it, please.’

‘Christopher,’ said the guard, his face now turning an interesting shade of puce.

‘Christopher,’ said Patricia slowly, feeling the shape of the sounds in her mouth. ‘I would certainly never have guessed that. Well, Christopher, you look like you might be useful in a fight, and I believe I can work with a liar if I know that’s what he is. Would you like to join me? Just nod.’

Christopher nodded.

‘You’re not allowed another question!’ shouted the other guard, ‘and besides, he has to lie, so that means no, he wouldn’t!’

‘Speaks,’ pointed out Patricia. ‘You said, “One of us always speaks the truth, while the other always speaks lies.” He didn’t speak. He nodded.’

‘That’s cheating!’

‘Oh dear, that’s a shame. I expect I’ve quite spoiled your day. Anyway, time to go.’

‘And how do you know which door is safe?’ demanded the round-faced guard with a note of triumph. ‘You’ve wasted your question!’

‘Ah,’ said Patricia. ‘That brings me to the second flaw in this set-up. This is a maze, not a labyrinth. Mazes are multicursal, there’s more than one path through them. I don’t need to go through your doors at all. We’ll find a way around. C’mon, Christopher.’

‘See you around,’ said Christopher, winking at his former colleague. He walked to Patricia’s side. ‘I could show you which door is safe,’ he said to her.

She smiled. ‘No. But you can tell me a story while we go this way,’ she replied, turning back down the corridor from which she’d emerged. ‘There can be a surprising amount of truth in a good story.’

Author’s notes
Amusingly (to me, at least), the Oxford English Dictionary tells us, “There is one meaning in OED’s entry for the adjective multicursal”. I can’t help feeling there ought to be at least two…

And I Took Another Step

It had been nineteen months and two days since she left, and why was I still counting?

Why did I still notice every time the clock said eleven-eleven and look for a second magpie – in hope of joy – every time I saw a single, black and white bird? Why was every song I heard still about loss and trying to move on and not being able to let go?

I knew why. I’d fallen in love with Lena. Worse, she’d fallen in love with me. But she’d grown tired of my peacemaking, of always taking the path of least resistance. She wanted me to speak up for what was right. It wasn’t her nature to always settle for the easiest route. Rather than drift through days comfortable, but forever mildly disappointed, she had left.

After nineteen months and three days, I told Richard that I was taking some time off, and felt proud that I didn’t smile at the fear I saw in his eyes. I’d been working for him ever since his father – a hard-working, wise and warm-hearted man – had died. Richard, unfortunately, while acquiring the money and the business, had inherited rather fewer of his father’s better qualities. He relied on me to deal with anything and everything. I told myself it would do him good to take on some responsibility for a week or so.

The old man’s library was extensive, and of limited interest to his son. This, I found a relief, since I was not the sort to carelessly break spines or fold corners. After speaking to Richard I went there and wandered the shelves, retrieving an ancient, well-preserved tome, and turning its pages carefully.

Having established what I needed, I set about seeking ingredients – lavender, hibiscus, ground amethyst, a hatched eggshell, white phosphorus and mercury. These last two I sourced from the local school, the laboratory technician being an old friend and, frankly, glad to see the back of substances which would cost a great deal to dispose of through official channels.

I needed boots, too, of course. These I found in the charity shop next to the pharmacy. A pair of heavy leather work boots with steel toecaps, well-worn but not damaged in any significant way. I offered up a small prayer for their former owner, just in case.

There were other steps. Salt, candles, words – all the usual things. It took longer than I had thought it would, but eventually I had them. Boots that shimmered silver in the dim light of my basement. I sat down before attempting to put them on my feet. It wouldn’t do to activate one seven-league boot without the other.

I twisted onto my knees, rocked back so that both soles hit the ground at the same moment, fixed Lena’s image in my mind, said a few words and…

… with a wrench which, fortunately, let me in one piece, I found myself at the crest of a green hill. The air had a spiky chill, but there was little wind, the sky above thick with grey cloud, the sun peeping out of its blanket low in the west.

There was no one else.

I was alone.

I fell to my knees, partly to avoid accidentally taking another step, partly in despair. My forehead touched the damp grass. My phone buzzed. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it without unlocking the screen. It was Richard, texting questions. Only the first was partly readable, but no doubt it would be a long list. I drew in a lungful of the chilly air and steeled myself. There was no way to go but back.

It was then that I looked up and across, due east, to the neighbouring hill. And there she was, her back turned but unmistakable, hair shining in the afternoon sunlight. She was surely too far to hear me, but still, I called her name.

She turned. Saw me. Raised her right hand, palm forwards.

Was it a wave? Or a signal to stop?

I found myself frozen. If it was stop, I would, of course. I would never do anything else. And what else could it mean? She was right. What was I doing, nineteen months and ten days after she’d left? I needed to go back, return to Richard’s questions and demands, and only ever making pre-approved statements. She probably didn’t even recognise me from this distance. Maybe she thought I was a stray hiker, and was only—

And then, behind and above Lena, in the purple-grey of the sky lit by the setting sun at my back, a rainbow emerged. Reds, oranges, purples… colours that had no names and had no need of them.

I heard the beat of a song too, then. A song about loss and… about not letting go.

And among all that, two words, a repeated chorus: SHOW ME.

I started to laugh. I dropped my phone, still locked, onto the grass.

And I rocked back, off my knees, onto the soles of my feet, and took another step.

Author’s notes
Change is hard, but sometimes you have to do it, even if you are, at the moment, a long way from where you need to be.

Little White Walking Cloak

Little White Walking Cloak did not live in the forest, she much preferred the bustle and energy of the town. But she liked to tell people she was a country girl at heart. It suited her image. Besides, the wolf did live in the woods, and she was on her way back from a business meeting with him.

The sound of birds overhead caused her to pause her strides, look up and pull her cloak around her shoulders. The fabric was brilliant white, and difficult to clean. It would be an awful nuisance if one of the birds dirtied it.

And so it was that the girl in the red hood crossed her path.

‘Hello!’ said the girl, brightly. ‘I’m on my way to my Grandmama’s cottage!’

‘Ah?’ said White, rather wishing she hadn’t stopped.

‘Yes! She’s not well, you see. My mother gave me this piece of a cake and bottle of wine,’ she brandished her wicker basket, ‘to take to her. She said it was most important I stay on the path.’

White thought she heard the wolf whistling in the distance. He’d probably gone outside for a walk, she mused. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry,’ she said.

‘Do you really think it’s safe?’ asked the red-hooded girl. ‘Because there are some very pretty flowers off the path, and I did think I might pick some. Grandmama would like that very much, I think. What’s your name? Mine’s—’

‘I’m so sorry,’ White cut in, having no interest in learning the girl’s name (no one ever has). ‘I really must be going. I’ve got to get to an appointment. And,’ she added, ‘I think you should hurry and pick those flowers. Your Granny will be waiting. Your mother is worrying over nothing, I’m sure.’ She waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the deeper forest, turned the gesture into a little wave of goodbye, and stepped briskly around the red-hooded girl.

White paid no attention to the fading sound of singing as she walked along in her pristine cloak, out of the forest and towards the town. She was too busy thinking about the business deal she’d agreed with the wolf.

She didn’t like dealing with him, of course, but it would be very profitable. And White had been working terribly hard of late. She felt she deserved a holiday.

Author’s notes
The wolf is the bad guy. Oh yes, he is. He’s the black in the middle of the hole, no doubt. But the people who find him useful, who ignore the awfulness because it suits their bottom line, well. They have made things easier for him, haven’t they.

In other news, one of my stories was recently published on PseudoPod: check it out! PseudoPod 984: Flash on the Borderlands

the fiction phial

fragments of fiction by Kat Day

Nightmare of a Species

Where The Sky Begins

Three Awakenings: Hello, World

When I Was Young I Did Not Need Magic

Never Enough Pockets

When There’s A Great Deal To Be Said

The Creepiest Thing In The House

A Multicursal Puzzle

And I Took Another Step

Little White Walking Cloak

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