Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
Mercy's Contagion
My true life began with my parents rotting upstairs in their bed while I raided every house on our cul de sac, starving. I don’t remember much before that. I was only nine and it’s been twenty-five years. I do recall searching up and down the block and several blocks over before I could finally bring myself to leave for good. Perhaps I’d lingered at home with my parents’ dead bodies because I was happy there once. But even before the Aiyana virus ravished the world and purged most living creatures I don’t think I was ever as happy as she always was, despite our dire circumstances.
By J.E. McMorris5 years ago in Fiction
In The End
It had become an unspoken rule that whoever you’d been back then – before the black steel tendrils of their ships had dropped beneath the surface of the clouds to change our world forever – it didn’t matter anymore. We were all scavengers now, desperately ransacking the burned husk of what remained and scurrying between sanctuaries like drowning rats on a sinking ship.
By Shawn Starkweather5 years ago in Fiction
The Jaws of a Rodent
Fifteen years ago, when the very ground below us became blanketed with the thick, unbreathable smog, the only way we had left to go was up. The few who didn't manage to fall ill spent months attempting to build skyscrapers to salvage all that was left. They turned out to be mostly just skeletons of a sound structure, warped wooden platforms held together with metal beams and wooden planks hundreds of meters above the ground. Despite the distance, the fog is still smothering and grey, though my grandfather insists that it was much worse during his time below. When I was younger I used to pry for information about where the fog came from, but my grandfather would often just look askance and somehow avoid my questions. I still often find myself wondering how my mom could have possibly welcomed a child into a world full of wretched smog and swaying towers, but I'd never say that directly. I'm well aware that my family does all that they can for me, despite the circumstances.
By Devyn Lofthouse5 years ago in Fiction
Epilogue
She doesn’t listen anymore- not that she ever really did. I think, sometimes, she could hear me or sense me and direct the story accordingly. Now, she simply ignores me, pays me no mind or attention. She got what she wanted, after all, she got the satisfaction of typing out a pretty, perfect ending to a tragedy she didn’t have to survive. I think she enjoyed it, honestly. She invented a world and smashed it to pieces with plague and fascist warfare. She invented me, gave me long, black curls that flashed violet in the sunlight. I should be grateful to her that she went out of her way to make me exceptionally beautiful. My creator birthed me to be perfect. Then she took her perfect creation and battered, tortured, and exhausted it. Why breathe something so lovely into existence only to ruin it?
By Laurena Fauie5 years ago in Fiction
Silent Dawn
The blood eclipse was the last thing in my mind today, though I should've feared everything about it. Today also happened to be my twenty first birthday, normally a time of celebration and drunken foolishness. Not for me however, no. My birthday consisted of darkness, the sickness and one birthday gift that would change the entire world.
By KC Enterprise5 years ago in Fiction
A TALE TAIL HEART tale no.2
Freyja couldn’t figure out how she had been caught, but she knew that Bogran must have flipped on her the second her locket started burning inside her chest. It wasn’t just the normal soul-sucking sensation, it felt like her sternum was being ripped inward as the wicked thing took sinew and bone with it. It damned near felt like it would take the earth beneath her feet if she stood still for too long. Worse than that, the one installed in Delphi was starting to send jolts and her little neck was red. She could hardly breathe. Those massive fucking assholes. Big gaping pile-stricken taint pustules… enough.
By CK Henson Hayes5 years ago in Fiction
Recoil
My alarm going off was like a bell swinging back and forth in my head and rattling my brain. Those two hours of sleep were as useful as an umbrella in a hurricane. Since my husband died last year, I haven’t gotten more than four hours of sleep in a day. I finally went to the doctors last week to try to break this cycle, and the doctor started by recommending melatonin and a regular nighttime routine. Clearly, that hasn’t been working too well. I have another appointment today where I will hopefully get something stronger for my insomnia.
By Mikayla Plett5 years ago in Fiction
The inception of the Heart-Shaped Locket USB Drive
Scott left his wife and daughter and moved to New Zealand when Trump was elected in February 2016. Scott had severe PTSD from Iraq, it made him hyper-vigilant and very sensitive to his faith, or lack thereof in the American government. He was a huge doomsday prepper from 2011, he thought the world would end in 2012. He had 37 solar panels on his house, a massive garden, and installed a French drain around his property to harvest rainwater. He had a goat, two mini pigs, 10 chickens, rabbits, guina pigs, and a year supply of bottled water, and rice, and beans.
By Sustainable Scott5 years ago in Fiction
A TALE TAIL HEART
“Move. You,” he barked to the masked man closest to him. “Clear off the table. GO people. NOW” he ordered them as his hands cooked to a deep red under the ultraviolet solar dry-scrub vent. He winced as the denature was painful and everyone scrambled as they had done so many times before but this time was different. This time the patient was an eleven-year-old girl. This was the youngest so far. No one knew what would happen if you did this to a newborn baby, but if you did it to anyone over forty-six, up till now the outcome was usually bad. After thirty-six, the outcome was better bad, but you risked a scrambled mind about half the time and a sociopath the other half. Once someone came out sort of normal.
By CK Henson Hayes5 years ago in Fiction
