I hate it. I open the door, and there's a grid of doors behind it. Each sub-door opens into its own sub-grid of even smaller doors. Somehow, I can fit through them all

We think of hot water bottles as squishy, comforting vessels. Consider, instead, a hot water bottle made of spikes, thermally intense needles—some ailments must be cured by pain, not softness. By kiki instead of bouba

Non-cephalized aliens have no concept of "face", but they usually do have a concept for "skin", "outer emoting surface"—to empathize with them, imagine your visage stretched over your entire body

You don't have a shoulder devil and a shoulder angel. You have two shoulder devils executing their good cop bad cop routine

neoltitude Angel's advocate

God can't tell whether its creatures are alive or dead. It spends hours talking to the tree stump, the withered rose, the corpse of a little fawn, rapt in the beauty of the rotting song

It's really telling that most necromancers choose to remain alive. Statistically there are way fewer lich kings than you would expect. They don't use their own technology

Lich king in orbit, on a satellite rock garden. Rearranging crystals for eternity. Shaping them like flowers and mice

Preparing for the skeleton ball, the bone-folk polish themselves until they gleam, apply whitening and iridescence powders, and replace lost fragments of their bodies with interesting stones

Feral cats gather at the construction site, shining like grey and white stars on the beams. When the building is finished, it will be forbidden to them; in the sawdust and between the walls, they enjoy their last taste of the space

Descending into the shimmering waters of the halo, trying not to make any ripples, lest the floating, sleeping angel wake

The faerie blushes and its cheeks turn the color of peacock feathers, dilating like layered drops of ink—and you don't know whether it's shy or flushed with anger

I can't sleep without a specialized tool that twists the blanket around me like a candy wrapper

The halo is liquid, each angel suspended at the center of a freckled golden drop. Demons are simply those who escape their viscous sphere

The angel is forced through the rock-crusher, and turned to shining gravel. Its opal self-shards are then coated in asphalt and steamrolled to surface the road; this is believed to reduce vehicular mortality

Stagnant halo, full of mossy growths. Cyanobacteria has turned its gold to blue; a few blackened lily pads float on its surface, dying

A brain like low-res fire, cotton between the embers. All its brightness and prophecy pixelated; only destroying heat remains

they're going to process my body into a xylophone and the children will learn to play songs on me