Announcing “Encore: Animal Kingdom” Flash Fiction Contest Winners!
Announcing the winners of the “Encore: Animal Kingdom” July 2026 flash fiction contest!
Read it nowAnimal Kingdom
When Lions Fly
“His mama left him.”
I fumbled to take off my reading glasses and blinked at my seven-year-old nephew, hoping the creature in his arms might turn out to be a puppy or barn cat. Alas, the round ears and dark spots peppering the buff-colored fur said
The Nature of a Dragon
Kazimir reveled in power that exceeded expectation. Mind-control of the dragon he found in the mountains empowered him over nature itself. He now possessed the ability to destroy what is, in order to recreate that which could be. He was a god!
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Oh, Possum
I have nobody to blame but myself for bringing home that blasted opossum.
Last week, I gazed down at it, sprawled wounded and unmoving in a cratered building.
My conscience wouldn’t let me leave it.
So I brought it home.
Playing nursemen for the criminal cyborg started
Ants
They came back the year the soil softened.
Not the birds. Not the stray cats. Not even the neighbors who had long since decided the lot was cursed.
The ants.
At first, it was a line—thin as a thought—threading
Jojo and the Curse Case of Molting Holt
Jojo the long-eared jerboa was terrible at serving tea. No matter how carefully he carried the porcelain pot across the floor, his uneven gate always caused sloshing onto the fine oriental rug. The slow, wobbly progress was painful to watch, yet
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Nothing But Trouble
“Whoa, whoa, slow down!” Siobhan tried to calm the hysterical little girl who’d introduced herself as Kate before dissolving into tears. “What happened to your kitten?”
“A sock gremlin took her!” Kate wailed, covering her tear-streaked face with her hands. “I’ll never see her again!”
The Walrus and the Carpenters
Whilst applying fresh caulk to the hull of the first-class whaler, Penroyal heard a walloping thump.
Not a bump, nor a splat, plop, or slosh. A thump. In his experience, that meant only one thing.
“Ye put down that rum, John Clarence,”
My Emotionally Supportive Kaiju
When the doctor said I needed an emotional support animal, I expected to be assigned a typical house pet. A dog, maybe. A cat if I was feeling ambitious. I was okay with something that shed, but not something that could be detected by satellite.
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Assigned Name: Scout
Humans. Scout crouched in the narrow gap behind the couch as the two guards passed.
“Probably a glitch,” the guard that smelled like coffee said. “No one’s here.”
Scout’s ears twitched in amusement. He must’ve missed a motion sensor, but it didn’t matter. The employee lounge of CB-TED’s
While the Dragon Sleeps
A woman strode into the dragon stable beside the stadium, then paused in the stone building’s dim light because a young girl stood in front of the stall containing a Tenebrous dragon. Warily the woman advanced.
The girl startled. “I didn’t think
Wallace with Bagels
There was no point in thawing bagels when the twenty-foot-long alligator you were babysitting preferred them frozen.
“Make sure Wallace eats one before the moon is out,” Frank had said before leaving for work. “Whenever it’s a full moon, he gets very hungry.”
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