Sci Fi

The Eviction Notice
Our first sign should have been when every television, computer, phone and tablet on the planet went rogue, displaying "YOUR PAYMENT IS PAST DUE. THIS IS YOUR FINAL NOTICE!" upon every screen. However, after conducting lengthy investigations, world leaders eventually decided that they had more pressing concerns than what appeared to be an incredible but harmless hack-job. As I stated from the beginning, and we’re all now aware, this would be a colossal mistake.
By Heather Odom5 years ago in Fiction
Questions at the Edge
They shot the American redhead first, the big Latino next, both in the head, and then shot me in the leg. With the panic around us, only Binti noticed my cry of pain. She saw me stumble to the floor, blood seeping through my jeans, and jumped up on the platform to kneel next to me. She slipped off her rucksack, pulled out a clean towel -- probably her last -- and pressed it hard into the wound. It wasn’t the first gunshot injury for either of us.
By Tor de Vries5 years ago in Fiction
Aryotes-11: The End of Days
The average heart rate for a human being is seventy-two beats per minute. That was before the dark wave swept across the planet. In the year twenty ninety-nine there was a meteor shower, carrying one of the deadliest pathogens known to man. It affected over ninety-nine percent of all life on earth. As the remnants of the meteors burned in the atmosphere, they dissipated into the hazardous gas known as Aryotes-11. For most people, it caused heart failure. For the remaining few left alive, they morphed into these other-worldly mind-less creatures. These large, jagged, rock-like creatures; feed on anything with an active heartbeat.
By James Maynard Jr5 years ago in Fiction
Metamorphosis
Earth - 452 AE (After Extinction) Often I lie awake through the night while the world sleeps soundly. Most are quiet, and I’m left with the company of Nature's thoughts. Winds gust in distinct patterns, like a language, giving accent to the sound of mostly restful wildlife. In a meditative trance, I listen; studying so as to become capable of deciphering the prose.
By Neil Urban5 years ago in Fiction
A.R.
The year is 436 A.R... A.R. meaning "After Revelations." My name is Kali; I am the leader of the New Egypt Faction, the most powerful Faction in the New World today with just over one million followers. I guess you can call me the New World Moses; my people look to me for direction and understanding. I am also the father of two sons whom I love deeply. As a leader, it is sad to say that other than my boys, with their innocence and inexperience, I despise the world as it is today.
By K. Robert Allen 5 years ago in Fiction
RESIDUALS
“Residual female number 7894: Caucasian, blonde, malnourished, common ocular anomaly,” Fazon said into the stem mic below her specs.
By John A.5 years ago in Fiction
Nola
The sky has turned a dusky blue in the fading light. Clouds stained a warm purple streak across the sky. I clutch my mother’s heart-shaped locket dangling from my neck, anxiety clawing at my ribcage. What was once a lush forest has now turned into dead land. A place touched by the war years ago. Dead, mostly limbless trees stick up out of gray dirt. Flower bushes dot the land in tangles of stems. I stop for a moment to admire a flower, the center of which is a deep red that bleeds outwards into bright white petals. They’re beautiful and produce a sweet scent that reminds me of vanilla. Miri said they like to grow near dead things. Nearby one winds its way through someone’s rotted ribcage. My stomach tightens at the thought of her. Her green eyes, so dark they nearly looked black, with golden pupils shaped like a cat’s. Her sharp teeth and dimples flashing whenever she smiled. She was native to this planet that my mother and I came to nine years ago, when I was ten, along with many other people from Earth. We met when I accidentally came across her town, built in the middle of a forest. She was unlike anyone I had ever met, and it made her perfect. We only knew each other for a couple of months, but I think I was in love with her.
By Nadia 5 years ago in Fiction
The Flare
All they'd left her with was a locket, heart-shaped and now rusted by the dusty terracotta sun. As she kicked up the dirt that covered the cratered landscape before her, the familiar sting of anger rose from her stomach.
By Nati Saednejad5 years ago in Fiction
The Invasion
Their faces. All you had to do was look at their faces to see that they had taken the vaccine. They had that blank stare of a person who drank fluoride laced water for their entire life. They would smile and have small talk with their neighbors, sitting down in front of the TV to zone out mindlessly every night for hours; shells of the humans they had been before it all had gone to hell in a hand basket.
By Acacia Lawson5 years ago in Fiction
The Reversal
I am Ryan. I am writing this before I become too young to do it. See, mental faculties would not be affected by the reversal at first. If anything they would be improved, experiences and notions and memories now carving their way into younger brain cells, supple and thirsty like sea sponges. I am as wise as you might expect from someone my venerable age, 159. But the physical faculties, oh well, those would follow the biological clock to the minute since the moment the needle entered your arm, just in reverse. If you are a 5R-year-old, as I am, it won’t be long before you lose the ability to write. It’s not that you’ll forget; your hand will just not know how to coordinate its thirty-plus muscles into the holding of a pen, and eventually you’ll go back to scribbles and doodles, squiggling in your high chair to grab the pencil in front of you. By that time, the neural scaffolding supporting your thoughts and intentions will be a quarter of its original size and will be faltering and crumbling under the weight of too many firing synapses, mercifully returning you to its original blank slate. It is the most humiliating thing, I was told by those younger than me, and those final years are the ones everyone fears the most. But you know, by now I have seen so many people die helplessly wrapped in swaddling clothes --- not only family and friends but movie stars, presidents, and dictators --- that I don’t feel any fear or self-pity anymore.
By Serafina Spedetti5 years ago in Fiction
At Fault
I never should've opened the locket. I thought I could handle it, I thought- ...hell, I don't know what I thought. I definitely wasn't thinking I'd cause the end of the world. People keep telling me not to blame myself, saying I couldn't have known... I don't think I could've stopped myself even if I had known.
By Emily Bauer5 years ago in Fiction
HIGHRISE SKYLINE
The battered motor struggled to carry a rusted boat and its passenger over the outskirts of what used to be Fort Lauderdale, a concrete swamp abandoned by the corporate conglomerate that once governed it after pushing the federal government out of the southeastern states, the US losing around half their now perpetually contested land in identical fashion. The rest of south and central Florida generally suffered a similar fate as the Atlantic Ocean continued to devour the state, driving away corporate interest. Still, first counts for something, capable of withstanding the cloud of toxic spores engulfing the dilapidated ruins, mutated alligators densely populate nearly every block. The traveler locks his gaze on 4 solar-powered air boats buzzing north into the decrepit city, each carrying a duo of Riptide reclamation officers, every one of them equipped appropriately, breathable Nanokevlar armor leading up to a lightweight, corporate-grade alloy filtration helmet, the dome outfitted with a heads up display detailing vitals and environmental info, everything marked with their signature tsunami logo. The traveler’s helmet was nearly opaque from condensation. He’ll be lucky to make it through without heat stroke. A functional A/C is typically standard in even the cheapest filtration units, popular after 2064 saw the climate’s true point of no return. Unfortunately, the edentate merchant in Orlando failed to supply or mention this basic component before charging full price and vanishing promptly.
By Chris Conway5 years ago in Fiction