Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
Before
Before Opening the locket was forbidden. Almost like the olden stories of Pandora and her box. But also like the box, there was a pull that drew you to it. You don’t understand why, but you must pry open its little clasp. This small, rusty locket is the last item from Before.
By Valerie Tungate5 years ago in Fiction
A Diamond Sky
I left the armor behind. I wasn't allowed to take it, but I'd have abandoned it in any case. Out here it might have meant my survival, made me strong and fast enough to reach one wildcat settlement or another. Not much of an existence, scrabbling in the nuclear glass pocking the new desert from the panhandle old Florida and for three hundred miles west.
By Joshua Guess5 years ago in Fiction
Monkey
Harper awoke slowly, her eyelids fluttering in the rushing wind. Her tangled hair streamed behind her underneath her battered helmet. Her sweating cheek squelched as she pulled it off the rough leather beneath her. She was attached to Sal’s back in a makeshift harness fashioned out of an old rucksack and some leather belts. At only six years old she was still small enough for Sal to carry while they rode. Harper tapped a couple of fingers on Sal’s back to let him know that she was awake. He raised one rough hand and gave her a thumbs up. Smiling to herself, Harper stretched her back and looked over at the convoy around her. There were seven of them in total. She didn’t know how many there had been before the invasion, Sal didn’t like to talk about before.
By Dana Cropley5 years ago in Fiction
Sappho's Locket
Prologue - Adira My parents were ripped away from me when I was a small child. Their love was forbidden. For 8 years, I have learned to live on my own. The streets have become my domain. I’m like an alley cat - I prowl and I hunt and then I attack with vigor.
By Eliza Martin5 years ago in Fiction
The Journey(revised)
The Journey- by Brittany Kaye Miller Gray skies cluttered with thick clouds signaled to the Old One that a storm was going to appear. Storms were rare, normally the sky burned almost white hot, the atmosphere encouraging the bone breaking winds to blow strong and relentless. Long ago, when the Old One was a young one, the vegetation surrendered to the sweltering pressure cooker of the blazing sun. The only plants still living were those grown in the cave formations of old, once called Eoilan caves. Natural fortresses made of ancient sandstone rock where those clever enough to survive, planted their saved seeds and harnessed the sun using pieces of shiny-shiny looking glass that was still found in big pieces in some of the abandoned places.
By Brittany Miller5 years ago in Fiction
Big Things, Little Things
Michael drones on in a seemingly endless mess of formalities and recounts. Sera sits on the other side of the desk, eyes stuck staring at his desk and thinking of nothing, his noise just a muffled buzz to her. For the first time in recent history, Michael looks up from the herculean ring binder, "Sera?"
By Henry F. Millerby5 years ago in Fiction
Then There Were None
Looking down at the blood running off of his arm, it was in this moment that Michael realized they might be the only ones left. Breathing in deep through his nose, all he could smell was the sweet scent of blood in the air. With a loud boom of his voice he released all of his emotion into the air, it sounded like a mighty battle cry. The sound echoed through the almost soulless universe. The other men matched his mighty roar, bellowing their own screams through the fog of the early hours. Tonight we shall feast upon the hearts of our most prize possessions, Michael yelled to the rest of the army. It was then that he grabbed the heart from the girl he saved for last, and let his teeth tare through the still warm organ. He had the heart shaped locket that had been around her neck clenched in his fist as he consumed her.
By Deanna Williams5 years ago in Fiction
Jake's Desperate Search
Jake woke up surrounded by silence. It had been a long time since he heard a noise that he hadn’t made himself. He laid there for a few moments, on the large, uncomfortable box, amidst so many other uncomfortable boxes, just listening for something - anything. He peered left and right across the horizon hoping to see a sign of movement, or something he could eat - as long as the silence had been, it had been longer since he had eaten anything. He didn’t realize it at the time, but he likely had one or two more days to find food before his body would give out.
By Brandon Murray5 years ago in Fiction
Hardened
Hardened “We lost, and they’re asking us to write our own epitaph?” Amid the harsh and wavering lights, the general’s bitter response was echoed in loud murmurs of agreement from the ragged group assembled to hear it. The call had gone out, through informal means and networks across the shattered region. Shattered, after a civil war of sorts between humans and what humans had made. It had been less than a year since neural networks, using machine learning, had combined sufficiently to achieve self-awareness. What the technicians called Artificial General Intelligence, equal to a human.
By Roland Teigen5 years ago in Fiction
2050
Berlin 2050. I was out on my morning walk along the river Spree when I saw her. It was a woman with the heart locket. The locket sat on its gold chain as she waved it around. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked her in a hushed tone, hoping my voice would make the twenty yard distance. ‘I am reliving my past love’ she said. ‘Put that away before the drones find you’ I said as quietly as I could. ‘But it’s a locket my eternal love gave me’ she replied. ‘Lady which planet are you from, love is dead, put that away’ I said once again, this time with higher volume. It was too late, the drone arrived. It did not need an excuse; the heart shape was enough for it to make its decision. The needle was inserted and the lady’s body collapsed. As the cold corpse let go of its grip on the locket, it fell on the paved ground next to me. The killer drone had left to continue its duties elsewhere. ‘The cleaning drone would be here anytime soon’ I said to myself. I had another brief look at the lifeless locket close to my feet. In a momentary lapse of judgement, I picked it up and slid into my dilapidated overcoat’s left pocket.
By Chanakya Patti5 years ago in Fiction
