Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
Life On Mars
A371 rubbed her eyes as the overhead lights began their sunrise simulation. She always woke up right at the start of the daybreak sequence. She didn’t mind. It meant she was first in the showers. She climbed down the ladder from her fourth-story bunkbed and padded quietly across the large dormitory, past the many rows of bunkbeds where other women were beginning to stir and stretch. She stepped under the water and enjoyed the early morning peace. As she continued out the other side and into the changing room, she saw the queue beginning to form at the entrance to the showers.
By Jenifer Nim5 years ago in Fiction
The Birds
I pull the sleeves of my hoodie back down as Matthew gets out the tablet to turn on the news. The chill came from the west. I don’t even realize there’s the roof is half missing. The small group gathers around while I lean slightly against the wall outside the circle. It passed. It had the president’s support and both houses. His Holiness was now the commander and chief.
By Heidi Fisher5 years ago in Fiction
Silicon Valley
“What a piece of junk,” Aurora said, tossing the tarnished heart-shaped locket aside. It clattered on the broken tiled floor. She flipped her long golden hair over her shoulder and dug through the other drawers and register tills of the abandoned Best Buy, but there was nothing useful. Diane delicately picked up the golden locket, her well-aged hands caressing the metal almost lovingly.
By DarkRandall5 years ago in Fiction
The Instrument of Emanations
Nysa ran her fingers over the pitted silver of the locket around her neck. It had become a nervous habit. If she were playing a round of poker with the vandal kids in the mess hall it would be her tell. She’d kick herself after losing the few credits she had managed to hold on to and swear to never play another round with them again….but this wasn’t a poker game. She wasn’t in the mess hall, tucked safely away underground with the rest of the resistance and the stakes of this game were much higher.
By Helen Ward5 years ago in Fiction
2041
It was 5am on a Wednesday morning in Springfield, Ohio, and the crows caw shook the wake into Christopher’s bones. He threw stale white bread crumbs to the drift of pigs snorting in joy and tumbling themselves on top of each other for the morning feed. He sat perched on the rotting back steps of the porch facing into the morning fog hanging over the fields. Kathleen’s footsteps grew louder as they approached the back door. The metal doors hinge squeaked and slammed shut behind her. The clink and flare of her lighter interrupted the silence of dawn. The flame sizzled and cracked as it burned her cigarette.
By Sage Carey5 years ago in Fiction
The Silver Heart
Samantha was running down the tunnel, her hair dark as new obsidian flowed behind her caught up in windless current, water could be heard periodically dripping in the distance, between the sounds of her heavy breathing her pale skin shifting with every movement over her taunt muscles from pumping her legs and arms as fast as she could, echoes of her footfalls reverberating around her; Every dozen or so paces there was a burn less fire on the ceiling. To see so many burn less fires at once would be incredible if the situations wasn’t so dire. Samantha didn’t understand why they were there the intersection wasn’t for a couple hundred more steps, and the pin pricks of light was just enough to ruin anyone’s vision to adjust to the darkness. This could have been the reason she tripped on grate that was askew skinning her hands and knees before getting scrambling back up. Clutching the silver heart shaped locket to her chest to make sure it still hung around on necklace made of her own hair. After taking a deep breath, she continued her mad dash. Inside the locket was a they key, “the key of being Human” her father would say, until he was taken.
By Lake Conklin5 years ago in Fiction
Human Skein
Ash drifts across a broken landscape. The skein’s pearlescent, silk-seeming web below my feet shades the husk of our world pale white. Everything, now, is seen through the gauze of the skein, both protecting and muting. It’s like a hand across the throat, stifling; and like a mother’s breast, too. I love and hate it.
By Bradley McCann5 years ago in Fiction
