When aliens land on a planet new to them, they find a population obsessed with a virtual reality and uninterested in the intense beauty of the natural world around them.

As a teenage girl stumbles upon a mysterious portal leading her to a utopian, magical world, her storyline converges with that of the author—a middle-aged, married mother of two who has come out as asexual to her husband—leading both to a reckoning with their unfulfilling romantic relationships and deepest desires.

A formerly imprisoned child seeks to understand the higher order beings in their universe.

A man begins searching for another world after being told of a place he had never heard of from a friend. What he finds reveals a secret world that exists in the present-day society.

An interstate road traveled by African souls is both filled with welcoming bazaar-style market stalls and dark, suspicious areas that most travelers and sellers avoid.

As a programmer builds a videogame world, the stars above Earth go out and reality begins to disappear one landscape at a time until nothing is left but a memory of a woman, Sarah.

A city employs people to act strangely to order to make others feel normal.

Three friends in a magical world descend a staircase into the abyss at the edge of the world and encounter forces they can't control.

An incestuous family leaves for vacation and ends up in the heart of the Olympic National Forest. Here, their traumatized daughter begins searching for the real world equivalent of the void she mentally escapes to during the sexual abuse she endures from her father.

While waiting for an unrequited love to return, an elderly woman ruminates on her role in discovering an elegant alien technology. She feels death approaching and regrets not seeing her love again before she passes—only for him to arrive in the nick of time.