And We Will Sing into the Void — Part Five
By Samantha L. Strong
Uncanny Newborn stares into the sun, unabashed and unblinking.
That taste.
It’s coming through the baby’s cord!
What is this? What is happening? I am evolving, but how? Why? I am static; I am eternal.
Am I not?
As the newborn rolls over in its mother’s arms and snuggles in, I realize that’s it. The answer to my solemn plea to the implacable stars.
I cast my awareness near the Bloated One, singling out the points of consciousness most pure and sensitive to one another. One bears a scar on its southernmost side. Another is warped, ovoid. All that I choose glow with vibrant colors, jeweled and shining—I catch glimpses of each one through the others.
“Drink,” I whisper through the cord. The sun’s rays are warmer than usual. Something is different, and if I want to survive, I must act, seizing the moment, no longer thinking.
Some hear me, none know where my subsonic voice emanates, but nearly half I choose obey.
My core surges; the scent of jacinthe gives me strength, reminding me of the smoky constellations now directly over my second segment.
The Bloated One shifts, its bulk overshadowing another covey of my children. My core turns white with fury. Can’t it see what it’s doing? Smugness skitters up its cord.
Samantha L. Strong writes dark and beautiful SFF stories about complicated characters. Like many Elder Millennials, she’d like to become an herbalist and live in an abandoned, haunted nunnery somewhere far away from people.
Samantha’s short fiction has appeared in Amazing Stories, AE: The Science Fiction Review, and elsewhere, and she’s the former Executive Editor at Flash Fiction Online. She has four novels out about angels and demons: her Fallen Redemption trilogy and a companion novel. You can find her on Instagram and TikTok @SamanthaLStrong, and more of her writing is available on her website www.samanthalstrong.com.
Copyright © 2025 Samantha Sabovitch