"I’m strapped in a mechanical cradle, watching greasy engineers scrambling to build my body, piece it together like some sort of puzzle. A coil of guts spills out from my kneecaps, twisting cables and jet-black rivets."

"In just the last two days, he had found out what it felt like for an elephant to pluck sweet grass from the ground. From a buffalo, he felt the sense of safety and community that came from traveling in a herd." Experience an animal's life in Closer Closer by Eddie D Moore.

"Like everyone, Tal watched the quasi-documentaries that speculated about life on the surface of the planet, invisible from the fleet due to a troposphere thick with cumulonimbus."

Take a spin in virtual reality in this enhanced sci-fi tale from Liam Burke with music from Equal Extremes.

"My days and nights were an endless looped reel right up to the point of being ripped out of my unremarkable, sterile home, a nest of mind-numbing boredom."

A lone, starving, hopeless spider discovers his first feast, bringing pure joy.

"Snow dusts the shadowed edges of the houses and that's how he knows it's not real. It hasn't snowed in years."

Would you give up painful reality for a gentle fantasy?

"My comforting visions drained down to the gutters. I was left alone. Out in the cold with reality." by Fanni Sütő

“I’m sure you all are here because you read that SPA is looking for specific genetic traits,” he addressed the small group.

What perfect genes trap you?

Does the world inside the earth need you? "Joe put his palm against the wall. It was cold and it felt like metal. He put his ear against it and listened."

"I clear my throat and he cocks his head sharply to the side as if curious whether I'm attempting to communicate." Trapped in a lunar tube with an alien terrorist doesn't allow much hope for the future -- or does it?