Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
Our Lady Queen and the Brotherhood of Eternal Life
Bryan stumbled down Collingwood Boulevard past the decayed remains of homes, and businesses. He had managed to find Our Lady Queen but was still unsure as to how he was going to get inside, the brotherhood had put up a makeshift wall surrounding the old cathedral and had guards posted everywhere. He had decided to make his way back towards the burnt-out shell of what had been a library up the road to try to come up with a plan and to rest for a moment before attempting any sort of rescue.
By Jarred S Baker5 years ago in Fiction
The New World
23/4/2050 Dear diary, I write this as my first and last entry. This is my testament as to how the world was destroyed and how we were able to rebuild it. If you are reading this and there is life flourishing once more then you know we are alive, if no one ever reads this then I guess I failed, but here goes…
By Nicola mcfarlane 5 years ago in Fiction
A Penny for No Thoughts
A bad penny always turns up. Or is it a penny saved is a penny earned? Funny how the penny coined multiple phrases, yet we were only faced with those two. Two sayings for two sides, just like the penny. Except these sides lacked the innocence of choosing between heads or tails. These sides unknowingly determined of our fate: life or death.
By Jamie Smith5 years ago in Fiction
The Dream Wolf
Young children often times have scary dreams, dreams that can induce the most horrific panic driven cries for help. Sleepless parents often wonder what protection they can offer their children besides the comforting feeling of being squished between them in the parental bed. While I was not a youngster that experienced many bad dreams, as an adult I have had more than my fair share of heart pounding, sweat dripping, creature features. The most insidious dreams for me are the dreams that seem etched in a warped reality so close to waking reality that my sleep self can't help but wonder am I really asleep? Enter a story that is hopefully silly and quirky enough to work in real life while being applicable to the young and older alike.
By Brittany Miller5 years ago in Fiction
Heart shaped locket
When she released the quiver we know it was a good shot, Mom is the best shot on base. As we approached the animal, it got up and ran off. We didn’t’ think we would have to track it that far. The trail led us off our lot. It is kind of an unspoken rule to hunt your own lots. We couldn’t let it go to waste, we knew it was going to die. We found it, cleaned it out and were heading back. It was already dark now, dampness was setting in. It was slow going carrying it and not knowing the area at all made it worse. There was a chill in air and we could hear an owl in the distance. Then out of no where we heard them yelling, telling us to stop. It was a group of 3-4 men from the neighboring lot. We dropped the carcass and started running. I heard two loud bangs. It had to be gunshots but I had only heard that sound once before and it was years ago. We thought they would see the carcass and just be glad they get to eat it, but they kept chasing us. Still holding my hand she slowed down to a walk. I did not realize one of the bullets hit her. She started to stagger, then fell. We had ran for so long. My lungs were burning from the cold air. If I had known I would have stopped sooner to try to fight them, probably why she didn’t’ want me to know. We have never been shot at for hunting off our lot. I didn’t think anyone had guns anymore. She was struggling to try to talk. I tried to calm her ”mom, stop don’t talk, just catch your breath”. I only had the light from the moon to try to look at her wound. “Mom, it’s bad, we need to get you back to base so we can fix this.” She pushed my hands away and touched my face. “ No, you have to go on without me” she said while gasping for a breath as the pain was setting in. We didn’t have much time. They weren’t far behind us now. As she laid there taking her last breaths she told me “the locket I gave you, it’s not just a trinket. Open it, it’ll help you find your father”. I tried to ask “Mom what are you talking about?” but she was gone. Tears running down my face, I wanted to scream and curse the sky. I could hear them getting closer I had to leave her there. I pulled some brush over her body in case I could come back to give my mother a proper burial. I started to head back to base. I had so many questions now. We never really talked much about my dad after he left. She only said that he left to try to makes things better for us. Would he even want me to find him? When she gave me the locket she told me to keep it safe. I thought she didn’t’ want me to lose it while training or hunting. I didn’t realize it was more than just a gift. I remember that day like it was yesterday. It was my 15th birthday and I had just come back from a hunt. Mom and the rest of our tribe were in the dining hall. I brought in the rabbits and gave them to her. “Hey” she scolded, following me into the kitchen “you know better, you kill it you clean it”. She knew I hated skinning them. I made a face as I snatched them back from her. She grabbed a knife to help and smiled as she chased me outside with it. It was a perfect day, I loved hunting alone, it always put me in a good mood. Mom enjoyed the time alone but she was always in a good mood. She was happier than usual. As we started cleaning the rabbits, she started telling me how much I had grown. Until that moment, I thought she had forgotten it was my birthday. We never really made a big deal out them, with little money all we had to trade was what I hunted. She told me silly stories of when I was little. Dad was in a couple, she had a way of including memories of him. She said he would be proud of me. We finished up the rabbits, and were heading inside when she stopped me. She hugged me and wished me a happy birthday then placed the heart shaped locket in my hand. She told me to keep it safe. She seemed so happy to give to me. It was hers as long as I could remember. She got teary eyed as she followed me inside.
By Jessica Barber5 years ago in Fiction
The Commune
I wake up to the smell of sweat and shit; my faithful alarm clock. You have to be in a deep sleep to block out the noises and the smells of the commune. By the time morning rolls around I never am and so I wake up to the aromas. I get up, I dress, I rinse my face. The bowl of water I use to clean myself is getting brown with dirt; I’ll have to refill it soon. I don’t like going to the edge of camp though and it’s something I try to avoid. A few days without washing won’t kill me. It must be an old ritual of how life was before, wired in me from a time I can’t even remember. Most of the other residents of the commune don’t wash so much, but I refuse to look like a dog in the mud. Maybe it’s my way of scraping together the little dignity I have. I keep my black hair cut short for convenience, and I try to keep a little clean. I don’t keep anything that’s a reminder of life before, probably because I can’t remember shit, and I find that sentimentality hypocritical. We’ve created a terrible life for ourselves all because we wanted to be liberated; we wanted to change the world, change the unequal distribution of wealth. Yet here we are poorer than ever, clinging to the little useless possessions we have, sounds like bullshit to me. That’s only the older generations of us though; they’re the ones that know what happened, the rest of us are in the dark, just like me. I don’t even know my own name.
By Faith Thurnwald5 years ago in Fiction
Judas
Nora stares blankly at the image of her with her parents as memories spent in their embrace and running through the house in the past years float through her mind. Closing the heart-shaped locket she looks up at the scene before her, her large, childish eyes blank to the commotion. Her parents scream out for help, begging to be released. Though Nora can no longer hear them, she can read their lips. "Why? How could you do this to us?" Nora looks up to her right where the commander watches the scene, his face stoic and unmoving while his hand rests on her opposite shoulder, almost in a caring, fatherly way.
By Young Machi5 years ago in Fiction
On Salt
On our drive across Eastern Europe, Aubin and I found ourselves in Krakow and decided to stop for a few days to look at some castles and the ancient salt mines. On one of the evenings there, we found a restaurant and were escorted to a table next to a foggy window. Rain fell against a dim streetlamp and every drop that landed on the window did so with a tired agony of spirits from the past. We took off our heavy coats and hung them on the olive velvet chairs. Aubin ordered an orange old fashioned, and I asked for a small decanter of vodka and a plate of gherkins. Once our waiter returned, Aubin and I cheerlessly raised our glasses to the past and thus our communion begun. I inhaled my drink and bit into the salty gherkin. Aubin licked his lips and lit a smoke, while I, having satisfied the first itch of a craving, looked around the empty room. An electric chandelier softly threw its light on oak tables and fake tulips, while an old record-player was rasping in the back. A sign in Polish read, ‘Smaczniej Niż Nieśmiertelność.’ Ever since the successful merging of individual human consciousness with artificial intelligence, most people decided to transition themselves onto the cloud, thus eliminating with a single stroke both suffering and death. Those who decided to opt out of the Transition of Human Intelligence program, were left to decline immortality and walk towards the cool shadows of death. At first, the heavenly cloud provided its virtual dwellers a painless and divine existence, but over time the novelty of such intangibility wore off and the immortals decided to return from their heavens onto the earth. But they were unwilling to sacrifice their immortality, and since artificial simulations proved inadequate, they decided, in an act of switcheroo, to merge artificial intelligence with harvested biological bodies, creating a future version of Frankenstein’s creature. Synths, as they came to be known, repopulated the earth and once again could enjoy the physical melting of an ice cube in their mouths. This, I learned as part of early education, and later, that the synths used a cryogenically preserved supply of sperm to artificially inseminate and grow biological bodies in labs, and, in the process, took precautions to allow a percentage of those bodies to mature and develop their own individual consciousness, unmarred by those from the cloud, in order to avoid the depletion of sperm banks. Synths are infertile and so I was born in a lab – unclouded and mortal.
By Uladzimir Kulikou5 years ago in Fiction
We Broke The Earth
In January the birds fell from the sky like fat, melancholy raindrops. In January the floods stole my family. In January Mother found me lying twisted on the cold concrete floor. News articles flashed through my head, permanently seared into my mind: “Climate change is amplifying deadly heatwaves”, “Sweltering temperatures melting permafrost across Siberia”, “Floods worsened by climate change”.
By Nika FitzGerald5 years ago in Fiction
Razor Edge
Razor Edge by
By Querus Abuttu5 years ago in Fiction
