A curated collection of steampunk adventures short stories to read.
By Jamie F. Bell
In the sweltering heat of a late summer afternoon, the airship *Gilded Icarus* sits docked and dormant. The crew has departed, leaving only the Chief Engineer to perform the final shutdown. The silence of the hangar is heavy with the scent of hot metal and finality, until a sound that defies physics shatters the peace.
By Eva Suluk
The air in the cavernous factory hung thick and still, tasting of damp metal and a faint, acrid tang of something burning deep within the intricate guts of the contraption. Frost feathered the inside of the vast, grimy windowpanes, obscuring the pale, winter afternoon. A cold so profound it seemed to leach the warmth from bone seeped from the concrete floor, curling up around Teddy’s heavy, insulated boots. Every breath he took plumed before him, a fleeting cloud against the dim, artificial light struggling from a few bare bulbs overhead. The silence was not empty; it was a tense, brittle thing, punctuated by the shuddering sighs of the vast machine, a metallic beast of brass and iron, that dominated the centre of the derelict space. It groaned, a deep, resonant sound, like a creature in agony, and a shiver ran down the length of Teddy’s spine, unrelated to the pervasive cold.
By Jamie F. Bell
The wind, a raw, indifferent blade, scoured the expanse of The Forks. Bev’s gloved fingers, thick with the cold, fumbled with the lens cap, her breath pluming white and immediate. The air smelled of damp wool and exhaust fumes, a sharp tang beneath the perpetual frost. She hunched against the biting prairie wind, her gaze fixed on the ornate, antiquated clock tower that presided over the confluence of the rivers, a strange, anachronistic sentinel in the urban sprawl. Her camera, a heavy, familiar weight, felt alien in hands that trembled, not just from the cold, but from something far colder within.
By Jamie F. Bell
The fluorescent lights hummed a low, unsettling drone over the sterile white aisles of the pharmacy. Maria clutched her worn fabric purse, the synthetic smell of sanitiser and stale paper clinging to the air, making her stomach clench. A dull ache throbbed in her right knee, a constant companion these days, mirroring the mounting tension in her chest.