{"id":845927,"date":"2026-08-06T19:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845927\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T19:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:26:14","slug":"a-sweet-but-scary-monster-faces-a-cruel-world-in-this-sci-fi-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845927\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sweet but Scary Monster Faces a Cruel World in This Sci-Fi Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine<\/a>. Once a month, we feature a story<\/a> from Lightspeed\u2019s<\/a> current issue. This month\u2019s selection is \u201cLegs\u201d by A.M. Maris. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

On September 15, Lightspeed will be launching its first Kickstarter campaign in more than a decade to fund Year 17 of Lightspeed and Year 15 of its sibling magazine, Nightmare. Visit the campaign pre-launch page<\/a> for a sneak preview of what\u2019s to come and to sign up to be notified when the campaign launches.<\/p>\n

Legs by A.M. Maris <\/p>\n

He called her Legs. \u201cLegs for days,\u201d he\u2019d say, his voice thick with wonder. When he spoke to her, she was filled with a warm, heady feeling that made her purr and rub against him. She had to be careful when she did, because she was still growing into her spikes and she\u2019d already drawn blood more than once. His skin was so flimsy, so tearable. She marveled he didn\u2019t end up a shredded mess just from going about his days.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s what you\u2019re for,\u201d he said, recovering from his momentary flare of anger at being nicked. \u201cTo protect me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

He called her other things, too. Legolas. Leggo My Eggo. Leg Cramp, if she was being obnoxious, which she often was. In her defense, she was little more than a toddler trying to get the hang of her many-legged body. She seemed to sprout new limbs every week or so. He kept a log of her milestones in a grid-block notebook, recording the date and measurements of budding appendages, lengthening tails, sharpening spikes, the coloring and roughening of her hide.<\/p>\n

At six months old, she\u2019d grown into her body. She didn\u2019t trip so often over her string bean, seven-jointed legs. She no longer accidentally impaled things with her spikes or urinated on the carpet. For a while, she was very good, and he was proud of her goodness, and she was proud of his pride.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

He brought her around to show off to his friends. She was so eager to impress them, she did everything they asked: jump, bow, roll over, stick out your tongue. Some acidic drool got onto one of the hands poking around in her mouth, burning through the glove. (She\u2019d just come into her salivary glands.) The owner of the hand howled and leapt away, shouting obscenities.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re sulking, aren\u2019t you?\u201d her keeper said on the way home.<\/p>\n

She couldn\u2019t speak in the way he did, but he could always tell what she was thinking. She didn\u2019t like being touched so much, at least not by strangers.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d he said, rubbing her head. \u201cThat idiot shouldn\u2019t have stuck his hand so far into your mouth. And they all agree, you\u2019re beautiful. The most impressive mongrel they\u2019ve seen in ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

She unfurled under his praise, leaning into him.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Legs,\u201d he said, \u201cyou miracle, you freak of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

Legs was unsure of her origins. She heard him say she was grown in something called a lab, which\u2014she was less than pleased to deduce\u2014was a kind of dog, those horrid, furry, four-legged things she encountered on walks. She didn\u2019t understand how she could come from something so stupid, and with such few legs. Dogs seemed to have two brain cells, one for peeing and one for barking. They usually did both when they saw her.<\/p>\n

She once witnessed a dog eat a literal piece of garbage. She growled and raised her hackles, letting it know she was offended and astonished they shared even one strand of DNA.<\/p>\n

\u201cEasy, Legs,\u201d said her keeper, as the dog went berserk. \u201cYou could kill him in one bite. Mangy ass lab.\u201d<\/p>\n

So this, then, was her pathetic lineage. She felt a deep thrum of shame, but he assuaged her mood by reminding her how smart, beautiful, and capable of murder she was.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

Still in her adolescence, exhausted from all the growing, she\u2019d sleep for most of the afternoon, until he came home. His arrival was the best part of the day, when he squatted and let her wriggle excitedly in his lap (she had grown hard keratin plating behind which she could conceal her spikes, almost always at will). The scent of him filled her nostrils, her very being. She purred so hard she thought her vocal cords would seize.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy beauty,\u201d he said, scratching the soft innards of her ears. \u201cMy smart, smart girl. We\u2019re going to go far, you and I.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came the second-best part of the day, when they went out for a walk or a drive. She preferred drives. She hung her head out the window, lapping at the air, tongues lolling in the summer wind. On walks, he tethered her with a cord, which was worse to navigate than a new limb because she couldn\u2019t even feel it. She was always getting tangled in the cord, and her lack of coordination made him angry. Otherwise, walks were delightful.<\/p>\n

Everything on two legs crossed the street and everything on four legs barked like crazy. The smells were excellent.<\/p>\n

The bigger she grew, the less often they walked around the neighborhood and the more often they drove to a wide, open field. She loved its vast emptiness. She could almost recreate the face-in-the-breeze feeling by running as fast as she could, although he got angry if she did too much running and not enough of something else. She was never quite sure what the something else was. He yelled \u201cDefensive shield!\u201d and \u201cSpikes out!\u201d and threw tennis balls for her to catch in the air. He was always changing what he wanted. If she couldn\u2019t manage to produce his desired outcome, he\u2019d get upset, which was terrible, and she\u2019d get a shock from her collar, which was worse.<\/p>\n

The third-best part of the day, which was rapidly becoming the new second-best part, was dinner. He fed her new, thrilling foods: spider crabs, bats, live snakes with delicious, crunchy mice in their bellies.<\/p>\n

After dinner, she lay at his feet while he watched TV. She was usually too sleepy to enjoy the evenings very much. She disliked the TV shows he watched, where people put their bodies together and made sounds like they were being injured. She had the vague impression they were ashamed of how few legs they had, that by combining their bodies they could exorcise this wrongness, this absence. It made her sad in a small, hollow way, because his two legs were muscly and beautiful, and he needn\u2019t be ashamed. If he was, she\u2019d give him one or two or three of her own. She tried to fall asleep very quickly, so he wouldn\u2019t notice how sad she was and think it had anything to do with him.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

One morning, she was left unsupervised in the backyard. It was autumn now, cool enough to be outside, but he\u2019d forgotten to feed her breakfast. She waited to be let in, whining and pacing by the door, her hunger approaching ravenous levels. As the sun crested the roof of the house, she realized he must have left for the day. The neighbor\u2019s chickens clucked and rustled in the next yard over. Legs hated chicken\u2014too lean, more slimy than bloody\u2014though as the hours passed, her need for food eclipsed all previous distaste. She tore apart the chain-link fence and feasted for several glorious, feather-filled minutes until the neighbor came out screaming.<\/p>\n

She was startled, then guilty, then afraid. The neighbor raised a gun and shot her several times. The bullets bounced off her plated armor. \u201cJesus fucking Christ!\u201d yelled the neighbor.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t know what to do. When she couldn\u2019t figure out a command in the field, her keeper called her to heel (she was very proud of her recall) and she lay at his feet while he kicked her. After he cooled off, his next instructions were usually clearer.<\/p>\n

\u201cDennis!\u201d the neighbor shrieked as Legs came toward the house, \u201cDennis, your science experiment is going to kill me!\u201d<\/p>\n

So his name was Dennis. Her master, her diviner. What a marvelous, perfect name! She couldn\u2019t believe she was hearing it for the first time.<\/p>\n

The neighbor took careful aim and shot her again. The bullet pierced the soft skin beneath her throat. She collapsed in the dirt with chicken gristle still in her teeth.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

Dennis raged and threw things at the walls. He didn\u2019t touch her\u2014she was recovering from surgery, her throat itched terribly and all nineteen of her legs were encased in cloth so she couldn\u2019t scratch it, and also she was extremely woozy\u2014but she wished he would.<\/p>\n

She deserved it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can never do something like that again, do you understand me?\u201d he shouted. \u201cYou could hurt someone. They\u2019ll take you away from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legs whined in her nest, her cloth-swaddled limbs jerking lethargically.<\/p>\n

One of her first memories was of shredding Dennis\u2019s linens to make a nest, and of the chill silence that came over him when he saw it. She understood instantly she\u2019d done something wrong. He called her to him, soft-spoken yet firm. Once she was at his feet, he hit her over the head with a kitchen pot. The metal dented against her armor. He shouted, flinging the pot across the room, impotent in his anger. He hit her with an iron wrench until she lay whimpering, too afraid to move. After the beating he stood over her in a state of shock. At length he knelt, touching her head. She nuzzled him in relief. It was okay, they were still learning how to talk to each other. He bought new linens and she kept the ruined ones for her nest.<\/p>\n

Now as before, Dennis wore himself out. He sank to his knees, his eyes wet and unfocused. He lay his head against her belly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my sweet, hurt girl,\u201d he mumbled into her leathery hide. \u201cLegs, I\u2019m so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

A few months after the chicken massacre, Legs succumbed to puberty. Puberty was nothing short of hell. She would be going about her day, sniffing in the yard or grooming herself or taking a nap, when some animal urge would flood her brain, and her traitor body would carry it out. Run around! said her brain, and she scampered for hours about the house, scuffing the already-scuffed floors, until her brain said, Sleep! and she fell, snoring, into her nest. One day, seized by the urge to chew, she stripped the living room couch to its wooden bones, gnawing until her gums filled with splinters. Dennis put her in a cage when he left the next day. Escape! ordered her brain, affronted, so she chewed through the cage. Dennis found her hours later in the yard, doing Run! again.<\/p>\n

Fuck! said her brain. She vigorously and assiduously humped everything she could possibly hump, including Dennis\u2019s sleeping body. The sound he made when he woke beneath her frightened her so much she peed, even though she hadn\u2019t had an accident in months. She scuttled to the living room, cowering in her nest, trying to say she was sorry before he started in on the hitting. Seeing his figure backlit in the doorway, she laid an egg out of fright.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh,\u201d Dennis said. \u201cThat\u2019s interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

Dennis announced she was going to have a playdate. This was cause for great celebration, and she dashed about the house like she hadn\u2019t since her puberty days. Dennis didn\u2019t share her enthusiasm. He was nervous, on edge.<\/p>\n

In the car, he put her in a cage draped with cloth, which he told her in no uncertain terms not to shred.<\/p>\n

She was carsick on the way to the playdate and nervous from being carsick. Dennis was too distracted to be mad about the vomit. He put the tether on her, even though they were inside, in a parking garage. He put more horrible cloth over her snout, avoiding her eyes as he did so.<\/p>\n

They got into an elevator, descending deep below the garage. Some of Dennis\u2019s friends greeted them at the doors. She recognized them from all those months ago. She thumped her tails, trying to lick them, tasting only the dreadful cloth.<\/p>\n

\u201cRestrain your mutt, sir,\u201d snapped the one whose hand she\u2019d burned.<\/p>\n

Dennis dragged her bodily into the room. It was full of people, and movement, and overwhelming smells.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegs, listen to me.\u201d He crouched before her, cupping her head in his hands. She managed, just barely, to focus on him. \u201cThe other mongrel will try to kill you. You can\u2019t let that happen.\u201d He gripped her head tighter. \u201cDo you understand?\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t. Dennis pulled her into another room, removed the tether and muzzle. The smells were hot and rank, blood and adrenaline. She didn\u2019t like this playdate. She wanted to go home.<\/p>\n

A door opened at the far end of the antechamber. Something massive and saber-toothed screeched on the other side.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

Legs won the fight. She won because she had to, but it wasn\u2019t hard. She was good at engaging her armor when a blow was coming and retracting her plates to hit the tiger with her spikes. And dodging her opponent\u2019s poison spit was similar to catching balls in the air.<\/p>\n

She hadn\u2019t wanted to kill anything, even though the chemical rush of her final bite to the jugular was nice, a startling clarity. She sat licking her wounds next to the mongrel\u2019s corpse. All at once the smell of death caught up to her, the ancestral knowledge that she killed this animal and now would eat it. There was no conscious thought between her realization and the act of eating. She leaned over, burying her jaws in a hunk of shoulder.<\/p>\n

People yelled in disgust and delight.<\/p>\n

The look on Dennis\u2019s face when he came to retrieve her was pure reverence. He hugged her, skinning himself against the grain of her hide. \u201cYou did it,\u201d he said thickly. Tears streaked his cheeks. \u201cLegs, you were brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

The fights occurred irregularly, every few months. The more fights she had (Dennis insisted on calling them playdates, and he also insisted on saying things like \u201cIs this line secure?\u201d when discussing said playdates), the less she got to go to the field, or on drives for the sake of going on drives. She began to dread the car, the cage, and being covered in cloth. Worst were the injections Dennis gave her, which predated the fights by several days and made her even more ill than being carsick. Inoculations, he said. He rubbed her neck after every shot. His touch did little for the nausea and everything for her heart.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

There was a new person in Legs\u2019s life. Her name was Amelia, and Legs hated her. Her smell was all wrong, artificially floral, tainting the familiar scents of the doorknob, the TV remote, the toilet paper. Dennis acted strange around Amelia, trying to seem relaxed. Legs could tell he was tense from the way he kept scratching the back of his head. She whined and padded at his heel as he moved from the kitchen to the living room, bringing Amelia a margarita.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you tell that thing to go away?\u201d said Amelia, eyeing Legs with distaste.<\/p>\n

\u201cHush, Legs,\u201d Dennis said traitorously. \u201cGo lie down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dennis and Amelia went into the bedroom and shut the door. Legs paced the hallway, anxious, alone. It was too much, really: all the fights, the terrible car rides, being sick everywhere and never going outside, and now this new, floral-scented change. Sounds leaked from the bedroom, quiet grunts quickening into a strangled moaning. Finally Legs couldn\u2019t bear it any longer. She let her nausea coalesce into raw epinephrine, the way it did in the antechamber before a fight. She broke through the door and there was Dennis, lying atop Amelia, their four legs tangled in the sheets.<\/p>\n

She howled in dismay, groveling on the carpet. Amelia was hurting Dennis, taking advantage of his two-legged shame, and she, Legs, had failed to protect him. She jumped on the bed. Amelia screamed, flailing in the sheets. Dennis flung himself between them, wrestled Legs to the ground, and stuck her with a needle. She felt her muscles go numb.<\/p>\n

It was all going wrong, Legs thought with her head pressed against the shards of the door. The threat, the intruder into their peace, was on the other side of the bed, couldn\u2019t Dennis see? It had only ever been the two of them. Hadn\u2019t she been good? Hadn\u2019t her love been enough?<\/p>\n

After that, Amelia refused point-blank to come into the house if Legs was in it, so Legs began to spend a lot of
time in the garage.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

A year after the first fight, Dennis came home in a good mood.<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy birthday, Legs!\u201d He squatted down and let her rub against him like he used to do when she was little. \u201cI can\u2019t believe my little monster is two. Want to go for a drive?\u201d<\/p>\n

They went for a drive in Dennis\u2019s new cherry-red convertible. The wind came from all directions. She couldn\u2019t get enough of it. He laughed at how her tongues lolled behind her like the ends of a scarf.<\/p>\n

They pulled into a gated estate far nicer than their own neighborhood. Dennis parked the convertible in the circle drive.
\u201cCome on, birthday girl. I have a surprise for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

They went around the back of the house, through a gate humming with electricity. There was nothing, just grass and dirt and trees. Legs was confused until he said: \u201cTen acres. All for you. I figured you\u2019re tired of being cooped up in the garage.\u201d He grinned. Legs quivered with pleasure.<\/p>\n

The shade beneath the trees was full of sticks to chew and snakes to catch. Beyond the trees was a long, unbroken field. She sprinted ecstatically through the grass, leaping and pretending to catch a ball. This field was even better than the old one, because there was a slight hill on one end, and she could go so fast down it. Where was Dennis? Oh, he\u2019d be so pleased to see how fast she could go.<\/p>\n

When she came back to the gate, it was locked. Dennis and Amelia stood outside the enclosure, arguing. \u201c\u2014afford this?\u201d Amelia said. \u201c\u2014eggs?\u201d Amelia said.<\/p>\n

Dennis took her by the arm. \u201cOw, Dennis, Jesus,\u201d Amelia cried, jerking away. Dennis didn\u2019t let go. He brought her up the hill and into the new house without so much as a backwards glance.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

Amelia sometimes came down to the enclosure after a round of inoculations, when Legs was lethargic enough for her to feel safe. She threw mice through the fence. Legs hadn\u2019t liked mice since she was about four months old, but she understood it was a gesture of apology and ate them dutifully. They tasted ashy, fried from the electricity.<\/p>\n

Amelia didn\u2019t smell like herself anymore, jasminey and chemical. She smelled sad. She wore heavy, caked makeup and long sleeves even in the summer.<\/p>\n

When Legs was injured in one of her fights (three limbs amputated after being crushed in hippopotamus jaws), Amelia brought her a bucket of writhing snakes and changed her bandages. She knelt over Legs\u2019s body, making soothing sounds and scratching Legs\u2019s velvety ears.<\/p>\n

Legs couldn\u2019t help herself. She let out a little purr.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

Still she had not lost a fight, though she\u2019d come very close. She was in the major leagues now. Every match was more brutal than the last, every opponent more experienced and bloodthirsty. She was four when she skewered a giant beetle thing which, on death blow, burst apart into a hundred fang-toothed worms. The worms burrowed under her armor, into her flesh, heading straight for vital organs.<\/p>\n

\u201cFucking parasites,\u201d Dennis raged. \u201cThey won\u2019t call the fight until you\u2019re cleared of infection. Even if\u2014\u201d he paused, eyeing her. He swallowed. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to fight like hell, girl. I might have to split the pot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022\u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n

The worms would not clear. Legs was loopy with antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and fever. They brought her into the house where they could keep an eye on her. There was blood in her urine, worms in her vomit. Amelia cleaned it all up while Dennis raved in the next room.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetirement!\u201d he bellowed into the phone. \u201cI\u2019ll show you retirement!\u201d<\/p>\n

Amelia wiped Legs\u2019s brow with a wet cloth, the first tolerable cloth she\u2019d encountered. There were deep bruises patterning Amelia\u2019s neck. Her eyes were yellow, her mouth thin and lined.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmelia!\u201d Dennis said from the doorway, hand over the microphone. \u201cCover yourself!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the point?\u201d she said viciously. \u201cI never leave the fucking house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUpstairs.\u201d Dennis glowered. \u201cNow.\u201d He looked at Legs, his gaze softening. Into the phone, he said, \u201cWe were never sure of the life span for something like her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t die, but she was never quite the same. Something funky had happened to her kidneys, and her vision intermittently blacked out like poor cell reception. If she ran for too long she got dizzy and fell over. \u201cYou will fight again,\u201d Dennis told her. \u201cYou will.\u201d But she wouldn\u2019t, and they both knew it. Dennis watched her failure with stony eyes. They moved her back into her enclosure. Amelia did not come down from the house.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

In winter, Legs experienced being cold. She\u2019d been cold before, though she\u2019d never been unable to warm up from the cold. She was fairly skeletal now. Nights were awful, spent shivering in a nest of dry leaves and bark. During the day, she lay out in the sun, moving every half-hour as shadows chased her across the yard. Snakes and lizards dozed with her. She had no energy to catch them anymore, and no desire to eat them.<\/p>\n

Amelia came to visit. She brought no food, no gifts of surrender, only one long, slender needle in her hand. Wary of the needle, Legs sheathed her spikes and rolled onto her back, tails thumping in the dirt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWant to go for a walk?\u201d said Amelia.<\/p>\n

Legs always wanted to go for a walk. They went through the trees, now bare and letting a lot of light through their branches, and into the field. Run! said her brain, and she gave in to the urge, running until she was overcome with joyous convulsions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Legs,\u201d said Amelia. She was crying. \u201cHow did we get here?\u201d<\/p>\n

The seizure passed. Legs sat up. Amelia was next to her in the grass, rubbing her ears the way she liked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid you\u2019re not long for this world, old girl,\u201d said Amelia. \u201cYou should experience freedom before you go. From him, from this.\u201d
Legs was too busy purring to listen. She closed her eyes in the sun, leaned against Amelia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI left the gate open. My last gift to you, perfect girl, better than us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a grunt, a gasp, and her weight shifted. Legs opened her eyes to Amelia, keeled over on the ground, the needle protruding from her arm.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t mean to. She didn\u2019t even want to, but want had never held influence over her base instincts. Amelia\u2019s flesh was as weak as she always imagined human skin to be, pulpy and soft from the bruising. She nosed deeper, rooting for the kidneys. The squelch as she bit in, the rich iron flavor\u2014she was so involved in feeding that she didn\u2019t hear Dennis approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegs, NO!\u201d he roared, running out of the trees. \u201cDrop it!\u201d<\/p>\n

She tensed, eyeing him even as her teeth still worried at Amelia\u2019s intestines.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet away from her!\u201d he screamed. He slowed as he neared the corpse, approaching with caution, a rifle aimed at Legs\u2019s head. She growled, bristling at the gun. Digestive juices dripped from her jaws.<\/p>\n

\u201cDown, girl. I said down!\u201d<\/p>\n

She tore at Amelia\u2019s stomach, unable to stop gorging, never taking her eyes off him. He was fifty feet away, then thirty, then twenty. He wasn\u2019t a great shot.<\/p>\n

\u201cDamn it, Legs. You were never supposed to hurt anyone. If this is the pedigree, the eggs will be worthless.\u201d<\/p>\n

He edged closer: the man who made her kill a hundred times over.<\/p>\n

The threat of the gun overcame, at such close proximity, the pleasure of eating Amelia\u2019s organs. She unsheathed her spikes, lowering her weight onto her haunches. Her tails twitched. She did not blink.<\/p>\n

Dennis paused. His expression flickered from disbelief to fear to revulsion to default rage. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t hurt me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t she? She loved him, his barely-managed temper, the intensity of his fury and his affection, loved him all the way down to his sad, shame-filled core, and people hurt the things they loved. He had taught her that. Amelia, lying on the ground with her innards all over the grass, was dead because of it.<\/p>\n

She lunged. The rifle went off with a loud crack. Legs was knocked out of the air and landed hard on her side, bleeding from the throat. She hissed in anger and pain, rightening herself with flailing tails. Three staggering steps and Dennis shot her again. Blood seeped from her neck. She tried to growl, managing only a wet gurgling.<\/p>\n

Her legs seized and gave out.<\/p>\n

Dennis stood over her, still holding the rifle. He didn\u2019t look angry anymore, only stunned. He tilted her chin back with his foot.<\/p>\n

\u201cBad girl,\u201d he said, but it sounded like I love you.<\/p>\n

About the Author <\/p>\n

A.M. Maris is a speculative fiction writer from Cape Cod, MA. She is a 2025 Clarion alum and 2026 Creative Futures Cape Cod fellow. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Lightspeed and Apex. She lives with chronic illness and chronic pain: most of her writing is a rumination on the horrors of having a body. You can find her at\u00a0ammariswrites.com<\/a>, or in the woods somewhere.<\/p>\n

\"Lightspeed\u00a9 Adamant Press <\/p>\n

Please visit Lightspeed Magazine<\/a> to read more great science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared in the August 2026 issue, which also features short fiction by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Brooke Bolander, Vajra Chandrasekera, Adelehin Ijasan, Joel W.D. Buxton, Susan Palwick, David Anaxagoras, and more. You can wait for this month\u2019s contents to be serialized online, or you can buy the whole issue right now in convenient ebook format for just $4.99, or subscribe to the ebook edition here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"io9 is proud to present fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. Once a month, we feature a story from Lightspeed\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,42878,213287,213288,105],"class_list":["post-845927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-lightspeed","tag-lightspeed-magazine","tag-lightspeed-presents","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}