We found her under Vauxhall Bridge, our unicorn. Her horn had snapped to a jagged nub, her flanks sodden like wet felt. Someone had covered her with a blanket, stained and reeking, as if she was already dead.
We took her home.
She thrived at first, on a diet of green tea and chicken Pot Noodles. But a week later, her eyes glazed over. One morning she was gone, along with Archie’s fake Rolex and all the coppers in the coin jar. The last we heard, she was seen heading west on Harrow Road, ruined horn raised to dying sun.
Author bio: Ian Steadman is a writer from the south of England. His stories have most recently been published by Black Static, Unsung Stories, Storgy and The Year's Best Body Horror. You can find him at iansteadman.com, or he sometimes manifests on Twitter as @steadmanfiction.
Home is part of 101 Fiction issue 18.
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