Splintered

by Tom C. Underhill, Nick Wisseman

Without warning, the ceiling above Jason’s hospital bed bends, collapses, and then vanishes all together as another dimension fills the void. But the transition isn’t about replacement: impossible as it seems, the two worlds are merging into one. Jason flees the hospital just in time to avoid the final, violent implosion... only to return to the resulting portal when the mysterious stranger who saved him insists there’s no other way to prevent the same thing from happening to every version of the universe.

“Splintered” first appeared in Bewildering Stories, issue 443, August 2011.

Genres: Short Stories

17 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 3, 2011

About the author

Tom C. Underhill (real name: Nick Wisseman) lives in Bear Lake, Michigan with his wife, daughter, fifty cats, twenty horses, and ten dogs. (Okay, so there are actually ten times less pets than that, but most days it feels like more). He's not quite sure why he loves writing twisted fiction, but there's no stopping the weirdness once he's in front of a computer. Eventually he hopes to merge this stubborn surrealism more fully with his academic training to produce something in the historical fantasy line. But for now, he's content with the purely speculative fiction he's published in magazines like Allegory, Battered Suitcase, Bewildering Stories, The Cynic Online Magazine, and Mysterical-E.

Reviews

[Infinite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Splintered is a story that appears at surface to be a clear cut sci-fi story. As the story shifts from environment to enviroment the plot begins to be less straightforward and the reader is forced to ask themselves: what exactly is going on here? The reader will be startled at the end of the story as the entire tale comes to an abrupt halt, leaving a startling revelation behind. It’s a perfect ending to a thoroughly maze-like story. Splintered will have a definite appeal to people that like endings that are unpredictable.
Disclaimer: Story was obtained from author for review.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't say too much without giving this one away, but the writing here, the descriptions of the worlds overlapping and blending into each other is beautiful. And the twist at the end, I read the last sentence, and went "no... wait..." went back and then just grinned and went "oh nice..." Just read this one.