Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
Hear the Monsters Cry
The sky was an infinite stormy grey. Debris littered the street, the black asphalt peeking out from underneath the carpet. Cars were scattered and left to rot. Their windows shattered, roofs and doors dented, some were even discarded upside-down. Buildings were falling apart, the crumbled mess on the pavement; smashed windows wept razor-sharp shards, leaving behind gaping holes. The most unwelcome of these sights were the corpses rotting in amongst the debris, their putrid stench infiltrating the streets. The sounds of gunshots were no longer a surprise. Wailing, screaming and cries for help resonated through the stagnant air even though they knew no one would come.
By Telisha Reid5 years ago in Fiction
The Left Behinds
June 26th, Year Unknown. Country Unknown. Place Unknown. ‘I don’t know how long I have been walking for, nor do I know why I travelled in this direction. All that I have with me is my worn down backpack, a dodgy memory and a rusty heart shaped locket that I have carried with me for as long as I can remember. What I do know, is that I need to take shelter, hunker down, so that they can’t chase me. Who is they? I hear you ask. I couldn’t tell you. All I know is they have been relentlessly chasing me for three nights now and I need some sleep.
By Joey Shabadoo5 years ago in Fiction
STAR GONE
The last thing that hung in the red little town was a weird insect-like voice that hugged and bugged the closed doors with a dramatic push, and the roads bumbled with vivacity, and everything was tossed up and wild. Then, in the distance you see a car coming, and it keeps its thundering for a long while before coming to a stop at Mission Bay. He entered Mission Bay, filled with white technology and giant flowers that hung in huge vases on the rock walls. Then, you see people come inside the building, talking quietly, all about the same thing, that they only had seventy hours before the meteorites hit their bay, which belonged on a moon, a time in the future. Emerald Captain ordered important messages to the star elites, and everyone obeyed him and does his or her specific jobs. He hired Cake Williams to lead the team past the star grass, which was a term that was known in the red little town to be a space in time where the matter they will pass becomes smaller than they were, and lasting a lot longer. It was known that while passing through space grass, one tends to lose himself in the infinite bored momentum of a feeling of forever that was only stuck for a few years in real-time on the moon. Cake Williams ordered his first assistant, a young Jupiter kid with great big eyes and wearing the color blue, his name was Bleek, to search the long lights up ahead for the pilot's wrongfulness in a stretch in time. "Keep a close watch, Bleek," Cake Williams said. Then the meteorites came and blew everything up, and a lot of people died, and then there was only a few left in the population in town, and there were about forty or so left, including Cake Williams and two of Bleek's seeds. Bleek died soon later in a short mission past the first wave of the space grass. The mission was labeled a stupid mission, a term that was known in the town. The mission talks about the sleeping self passing under the space grass, rather than above, and thus, mirror a small enough piece of time as to render his or herself safe while passing through the grass. But Bleek never made it back out, and Cake Williams was most struck by this tragedy. Then more meteorites came and took out seven more men. They passed through the space grass for fifty thousand years. "When will this ever end." No one dares answer back, not even the dogs. The red star blows red dust into the air and you can feel a small red metal thing drilling into the back of your neck. You will feel this sensation for fifty years, then fifty years more, always repeating. The town never left the space grass, and only three survived the bending's end. Cake Williams was one of the three survivors of the "Thousand-Year Sleep" which was a term that was only known to the three survivors including himself.
By Justin Fong Cruz5 years ago in Fiction
A Forager's Peril
Her legs burned as she raced through the trees, lungs gasping for breath, every muscle in her body begging her to stop. But to stop was to die so she pushed forward. Nothing like danger nipping at your heels to get in a good workout. Not that she’d recommend this regime to anyone.
By Emma Brown5 years ago in Fiction
"Absolute Zero"
Dear Diary, My Life wasn’t always this chaotic, you know. Before the emergency alerts came in and before the virus got here I was a normal teenager. A prized student at a good school, decent home and parents who loved me. Plenty of friends who looked up to me, a bright future even I couldn’t imagine. But it can all be taken away from you within a blink of an eye. Hi, my name is Ohara Holomon. And I am one of the few survivors of the virus H296 aka “Absolute Zero”. It hits you within minutes, attacking your nervous system and leaves you fully vulnerable before finally taking all of you for itself. Sort of like a football field sized volcano erupting in the middle of New York City. A complete wipeout without any notice at all. Starts out differently for everyone, some may experience a cough, severe fatigue, and maybe a bloody nose. Others are paralyzed instantly and all motor skills are dysfunctional. But the ending results always seem to be the same. Consumed and lifeless. Many people ignored their symptoms until it became too late. My mother worked on the frontlines of it all. Senior MD biochemist at the local hospital. She gave all she had to try and help find a way to stop “Absolute Zero”. All her attempts made a difference but only for a small quantity of time. Dampening the inevitable long enough for a last farewell. Four months in and countless lives lost. With all of her attempts and research my mother was finally able to complete a Serum that counteracted virus H296. It puts the virus cells of H296 on pause long enough for your fighting cells to attack the problem properly. However before she was able to share her research with the world she too was consumed by H296. All her research now lies within the flash drive inside this heart-shaped locket I wear around my neck everyday to remind me this fight still isn’t over. My mother’s last words were “ Only within the right hands can the truth be safe”. At that moment I had no clue what she meant by that. On the other hand, I’ve learned to conquer things I couldn’t conceptualize. If I allow this research to get in the wrong hands the world itself could go completely extinct. If I get the research into the right hands the world can be restored, and life as we know it can be on the rise for the better. Myself and the others keep isolated within our own environment so H296 isn’t contracted. Despite the fact that we still have no idea how this H296 comes about. But like many others we have our theories. Airborne? Science? Mother nature? Or maybe we are just being punished for all of our bad sins. Questions and statements none of us are able to answer. I’m determined to get my mother’s research in the right hands. Nevertheless I’m also worried that the right hands may not be the right hands to trust completely. Who can you trust when the world no longer has the laws and peace you once knew? Who can you trust with the last hope humanity has? “Absolute Zero” has taken too many lives that crossed its path already, too many families have been destroyed by something we didn’t have the materials to fight. Now we have everything we need to build a better future to learn to become better people. I have a second chance to continue what my mother fought for and I sure won’t waste it. Would You?
By Tanekia Shanice Waters5 years ago in Fiction
Found
When you see it it’s wrapped around the bent corner of a sorry looking chain link fence. As is the case with most found trinkets, it could be something, but it could also very well be nothing. You aren’t as good at separating the junk from the treasure as Ashni is. Ashni’s neighbor is a Forer so they have a better idea of what to look for.
By Emily Louise5 years ago in Fiction
Flight of the Broken
A heart-shaped patch of healthy flesh stood out against the burn scars that dotted my upper body. It was where the locket had protected me from the explosion. It was also one of the few parts of my body that was still human. The rest of me consisted of mismatched prosthetics that gave me a hideous limp and hands and arms that only worked half the time. But my wings… my wings always worked.
By Joy Nelson5 years ago in Fiction
Anthropological Joy
Oca struggled through the ruins, joints creaking with overuse. These monoliths of metal and plastic never get easier to traverse, especially given their instability. Just last cycle, she broke her arm trying to observe the unique orbs floating above the large complex, bracketed by colorful tapestries with a strange braided symbol in the middle. Something that belonged to an Auntie Anne apparently. Everything about the past was fascinating. A grin spread across her face at a further opportunity to learn about the society that build these complexes. With all the individual spaces, perhaps they were used as living spaces? Oca turned away to survey another space when a flickering light caught her attention. She began to scan this strange box when it attempted to initiate a conversation with her.
By Becan Hennighan5 years ago in Fiction
The Northern Wars
LYONS Autumn It was a quiet evening in the imperial farmlands of southern Legion as the early onset of the dark drew the day to a close. The weather was fairly warm for an Autumn night, even in the mild Aerbonean midlands where the rural farming town of Lyons rested north of the Svanean-Legion border. Summer had just passed a few weeks before, though one would be hard-pressed to tell the difference in the southern climate. Jean found himself locked in a heated discussion with his older brother, Pierre, as they argued furiously in the dark of their room. They spoke in hushed tones back and forth within the comfort of their family’s cottage- sharing a room between the pair of them. The family home was no more than a small two bedroom cottage that they lived in with their mother and father. The brothers were the sons of a poor cattle farmer who was swamped in debt to the king of those lands, King Louis IV; the fourth King of the line of Louis Delaunay, founder of the Kingdom of Legion.
By Kelson Hayes5 years ago in Fiction
