Sci Fi
An Unending Vigil
Hetaeres stared out numbly at the wasteland in front of him, an expanse of ash covered hills, snow and scattered trees. The ash and soot that had been falling from the atmosphere had finally settled down, allowing Hetaeres to see further than he usually could.
By Damon Rooney5 years ago in Fiction
The Great Game
We were human once. We were human when the world wasn’t filled with creatures who clung to the shadows, afraid of the sky in the day and the night. He was the reason we had become this way. It had been years, decades, a century maybe since his arrival. No one was sure exactly when, in fact, nobody knew what he actually was. For all we knew it could have been a man-made machine, an alien, whether from outer space or the devil from hell itself. Either way it didn’t matter, it doesn’t, and it never will; he existed, while this race of ours was gradually thinning into nothingness. Soon, I thought, there would be nothing. No people, no life, just a silent earth to survey peacefully. And only after each person was gone (those who would let themselves be seen in the open) would he leave. Although, most people wouldn’t believe this. As if it were that easy; to remain hidden behind our feeble bricks and underneath our rotted roads and ancient constructions, to simply wait him out. I however, wondered the opposite, if he needed only to wait for our starvation. This was the impending doom that awaited us as we played the game, merely stalling our eventual departure. I still felt however, like many alive then, the basic instinct to survive.
By L. A. Romano5 years ago in Fiction
The Hoard
Those damn meat sacks - they did it again. They put down another two of the newly enlightened. We all have to eat; the hunger is too driving. On top of that ever driving need, now a tracking band of meat has started cutting us down. They just don’t understand. We try to tell them: to guide them, but all they do is grunt, stab, and kill. One even tried to get me today but the heart shaped locket of my own meat sack days tangled in its arm, raring from me the last vestiges of my past now forgotten. The trinket that now lays open where it was ripped from me, a smiling group of two large and two small meat sacks: a vestige of something once so familiar, now a relic unrecognizable. The artifact remained ignored, overshadowed by the fact that I had saved that horrid meat sack that tried to end me.
By Gregory sillins5 years ago in Fiction
Surviving the Collapse
Reika panted as she ran through the forest, her strawberry colored hair flowing behind her in the wind. She had been running for what felt like an eternity, her legs felt like jelly and as if she would fall over at any moment. She was running on pure adrenaline, that and her basic survival instincts. She ran and ran and ran and kept running, refusing to stop despite her aching lungs and sore feet practically begging her to take a break. She refused to be caught, she’d survived far too long in this world to just give up now.
By Alex Pennington5 years ago in Fiction
The Burden of her Birthright
Hatima sat in a wooden rocking chair under the make-shift window at the farthest corner of her room. The hole she carved in her dirt wall allowed small beams of moonlight to stream in and streak across her floor. She wanted to remember every detail of this moment— the rustling of the leaves as they twisted and turned in the gentle, autumn breeze, the roar of the evening fires, the concert the crickets were playing just for her—as this could possibly be her last night in the village. Hatima closed her eyes, focusing desperately on the sounds that surrounded her, allowing her racing mind to slow just long enough for her to fall asleep.
By Bree Alexander (she/her)5 years ago in Fiction
An Escape
I was eighteen years old when it happened. Two point five million people worldwide...disappeared over night. Some called it a rapture. Others said it was alien abduction. Either way, the world would never be the same. Whether it was aliens, God or our government, the disappearances lead to unrest. Cities burned, riots overtook the streets. We couldn’t agree before Armageddon. We certainly weren’t going to agree now. Next to rebel was nature herself. Forest fires, earthquakes, you name it. Countries started blaming each other, which of course escalated to...nuclear war. Like Oedipus, we used everything in our power to avoid our doomed fate. Yet, those same means of prevention in turn sealed the very fate we tried to prevent.
By Jacob Viness 5 years ago in Fiction
Pretend to Breed
Listening over and over again to his voicemail. On it he grunts like the moment before he comes. He would say, when he wanted her to sneak out, do you want to pretend to breed? Cammie almost always breathed, yes even though he was officially Sondra’s boyfriend.
By Patty Tomsky5 years ago in Fiction
Scrap
The sun was low and red in the hazy sky by the time he crawled back out of the hole. His breath was hot, thick, each one a struggle in the respirator that concealed his face. He’d been all day in the hole, fumbling around in the Waste, the shadow of an ancient time.
By Greg Garcia5 years ago in Fiction
Drowned
The hum of the u-vulbs was monotonous in the extreme. The light they threw around was wasteful and offended my ego as much as my retinas. They were everywhere here and their persistent existence was enough to make me pull my hat down over my eyes just to eat lunch. I could get away with it most days, as the Captain was usually too busy to bust me for a uniform infraction.
By I.T.O. Tails5 years ago in Fiction
Sassafras Moon
The crowd outside the gates had grown into a throng of anxious scabs. They stood knee-deep in red mud in the shadows of Serafina’s fiefdom on the hill, hoping for food or clean water, praying for a chance at a better life. Two red flags above the gates meant Serafina would allow entrance to two new citizens from the ranks of cave-dwelling scavengers outside.
By Hugo Lasalle5 years ago in Fiction
