Inner Worlds Issue 3

Jun
02
Multicoloured sunset sky with silhouetted black trees in the foreground with a small figure of a witch and two cats

Editor's note

Welcome to issue three of Inner Worlds. These fourteen short stories explore subjects including trauma, psychosis, dissociation, and compulsion, as
1 min read
Jun
02
Golden apricots

Things Elan Reacquainted Himself With After Breaking Out of His Single-Day Time Loop, by D. A. Straith

Content warnings Parental emotional abuse; Trauma; Food. 1. The colour ochre, painted by the city mageguard around his front door
4 min read
Jun
02
Shop window full of naked mannequins with their backs to the camera

New Immortals, by Lex Chamberlin

Content warnings Apocalypse; Gender dysphoria. The steel bodies are all beautiful, and I see myself in none of them. “It’
4 min read
Jun
02
Circular white lace doily hanging on a worn wooden frame

Written in Lace, by Samantha Rich

Guardswoman Ysris brought her along to the captain’s tent, which was exciting in a way. Teys had never been
10 min read
Jun
02
Abstract image of marbled black and green liquid

Subsume, by Chase Anderson

Content warnings Dissociation; Anxiety; Divided sense of self. The advent of You was foretold by the spectral whinging of springs
2 min read
Jun
02
People dancing in a nightclub under a cloud of white and blue smoke

Nexus, by Xan van Rooyen

Content warnings Self harm; Alcohol; Drug use; Mentions of death. The entry fee is paid in blood, carried in thimble-vials
4 min read
Jun
02
Blurry abstract image with red, green, pink, and yellow lines

Halogen Lullaby, by Shubh Mamtora

Two machines meet after a decade apart. “I brought your things.” “Thank you.” “I’m leaving for the Moon tomorrow.
3 min read
Jun
02
A piranha with shimmering scales

Inconvenient Anxiety Fish, by Priya Sridhar

Content warnings Anxiety; Parasites mention. Anxiety woke me with sharp nibbles. I cracked an eye open. Piranha teeth latched onto
9 min read
Jun
02
White and yellow mushroom with many stems and fruits

I march—we march the Mushroom street, by Akis Linardos

Content warnings Plague; Dissociation; Mentions of death. We know we’ve reached the right street by the Mushrooms squeezing from
4 min read
Jun
02
Brine and Possibility, by Devan Barlow

Brine and Possibility, by Devan Barlow

Familiar shouts echoed behind her as she raced through thick patches of yellow gorse, heading for the sea. Experience had
3 min read