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Here Be Mermaids

By: Alexa Donley

You can hear it, from the safety of your pod.

The singing.

Not from the tapes that they sent into space before they sent you, but something different. Maybe people like you, sent up here and forgotten in the void. Maybe a trick of the loneliness that wraps around your ship in the uncountable days, staring into the stars.

It’s so clear out here. You can breathe in the stardust. 

They look like eyes.

You don’t have to be alone.

Here be dragons, they wrote on the old maps, and now you write cover your ears and begin to understand.

© 2025. Alexa Donley

Alexa Donley is a speculative fiction author living in Washington. When not writing, she can be found traveling to new places or walking in storms. Her first book, The House on the Rocks, is available now.

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