Sci Fi
Lilith, Chapter Three
The bleak star had become visible in Nottingham’s heavens. It filled the sky. Earthlings and Solidity were side-by-side, any fighting forgotten now as they gazed wordlessly to a man. Even the Vernderernders of Toothfire had no illusions about eliminating this threat through their usual means, so hunched on the summits of buildings like the vultures they resembled and merely watched. A hush fell across the land as preternatural night began.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
The Four Heroes, Chapter Four
Joe and Dylan arrived at their sinister rendezvous. Behind them the circumference of Earth shone in space, while ahead stretched a ghastly cobweb whose strands were giant fungal tendrils and whose nodes the wrecks of a million battle-starships. From this obscene interconnected hugeness seethed the infernal tempest that still darkened Nottingham’s heavens, its roiling fury held for the moment in check, but which unleashed would be akin to a runaway star colliding with the planet such that no living creature could survive.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Lilith, Chapter Two
Neetra and Gala had scrabbled upright at the bottom of the cliff to confront each other once more across a stretch of several feet. The latter was facing the rocky slope, while Neetra’s back was to it, such that behind and above our heroine’s head the baby atop the elevation was within Gala’s line of sight.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Grandmother's Stories
The rumble of the clouds sent panic crashing through Alexa, to be caught in the rain would be death. She would never make it back to the cave before the storm broke. She stood in a forest full of contaminated trees grey, rubbery, and grotesque. Her grandmother had been alive in the Before and she had told her that trees had once been brown and green and not at all gross looking. Her grandmother was full of stories, but Alexa wasn’t sure she believed all of them.
By Katie L. Oswald (BookDragon)5 years ago in Fiction
The Four Heroes, Chapter One
It was like the first time they saved Nottingham. Night-black hung the firmament above, its tempestuous vaults churning to herald some deadly threat that would scream down and wreak devastation from the city’s towers to its rooftops to its streets. Yet then, uprising before these scudding realms of dark as if to split the vaporous mountainsides and scatter them over the sky, leapt The Four Heroes as one.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
A revelation from the future
“Ana, for god’s sake, will you stop being so silly and go do your chores?” Ana’s mom was already beside her self that hot summer afternoon. Her daughter refused to get out of her bed room where she was busy doing some ballet moves. Her mom banged on her bed room door again.
By Jane Diokpo5 years ago in Fiction
Broken Memories
She doesn’t remember them very well anymore, just the fuzzy memories of the time they would go visit her mom’s parents out on the farm. Strangely she remembers the smells, the hot muggy air, the musty smell of the hay drying in the fields, the smell of the manure in that old barn, the barn where she met him, the boy with the crooked smile. She remembers his face, that tousled, sandy coloured hair that fell over his forehead, the blueness of his eyes in the sunlight, how when he saw her that crooked smile would light up his face. A tear slips down her face and she wipes it away with the back of her hand. Just to see her parents once more, funny how the memory worked, you remember people who were in your life for just a moment, then gone… yet the ones who raised you, sometimes they are a blur, a image no longer there, like a vhs that was scratched, blurred and remote.
By Josiah Mosher5 years ago in Fiction
Practice in Deception
Char smiled as the last heavy lift drone detached from its cargo and took off. Using her internal rig to fly it into the cave mouth several kilometers away she landed it gently next to the four that were already there and wiped it’s GPS data before powering it down. She’d have to remember to head out to the cave in the near future and seal it up until she needed the lifters again but for now, all was good.
By Brian Gracey5 years ago in Fiction
Impostors
Henry had just finished feeding the family dog. It was his very last chore each day, and it was always a sign his work was done. Finally, after a long day working in the hot sun, he could have a seat on the front porch and relax. His father would usually join him, and they would both have a well-deserved break before his mother called them inside for dinner.
By Kevin McMechan5 years ago in Fiction
Locational Dissonance
Aliens. It must be aliens, Jackson thought as he rummaged through bales of hay in the old barn, searching for some sort of secret switch. He paced the interior of the barn, looking for anything, opening the door periodically only to find that his situation had not changed. He's seen spy movies. There's always a secret switch. But that doesn't apply here. This is more Doctor Who than James Bond. There were no mirrors, making it impossible to check for a Quantum Leap. He'd been beamed up, Scotty, and he wasn't the only thing in the crosshairs. Closed eyes. Opened eyes. Barn. Closed eyes. Open eyes. Barn. Click the heels, there's no place like home, but this still wasn't home. What happened? How did this happen? His mind raced back to aliens before opening the barn door to make certain he wasn't dreaming. He wasn't. This was a nightmare. What had once been the path from the house to the barn had been replaced by sand. A blank, empty desert from horizon to horizon. He had heard a noise in the barn, checked it out, and left to go back to bed, only to find the bright sun beating down on the Sahara-like dune. His mind had raced for logical explanations, of which there were none, leading him down the path of fiction. The problem being that fiction couldn't explain his very real situation. He didn't want it explained though. He wanted it fixed. He wanted to be back in his bed. He didn't even necessarily need the barn back. It hadn't been used in at least a generation, save for a place to unwind and get away from the world. So that settled it. Whatever outer world entity or mad science nut had resulted in this was free to keep the barn as long as Jackson was free to go. A fair trade, Jackson considered. It was a nice enough barn. In fact, Jackson came into this deal with nothing, so the other side was only getting a barn without having to give up anything they already owned. Yes, that would make for a good bargaining tactic. Wait a minute, Jackson realized, bargaining. A stage of grief. Does that mean it's over? There's nothing to grieve if Jackson isn't spending the rest of his days here. No, surely something would be figured out. Unless that was denial. He opened the door. Sand. Not even any cactuses. Just sand. Yellow, bland sand. He closed the door. Insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. He'd like to see even the strongest of men not go a little insane when faced with the fate that befell him. No! Not befell, he thought. This is not the end of my story it is merely a chapter. But is it the final chapter? No. He had to tell himself no. Besides, this wasn't even the worst situation he's been in. No, that was a lie. This was by far worse. Worse than breaking his arm slipping on ice when he was 8. The arm healed as he knew it would. Worse than any breakup. There were other fish in the sea. Worse than getting fired as he'd always had a job lined up. This was so much worse. Should he start walking? It's not like this barn had any food for him. But there was the old adage of staying put if you get lost. Although that may only apply when people are actually looking for you. He'd decided to lie down on a hay bale and try to sleep. Maybe sleeping in a dream would kick him back to reality? If this was a dream. Denial. He closed his eyes, but his mind raced. Clearly. Impossible to get any kind of sleep here. He got up in a huff and opened the barn door again. Kicking at the ground, he became desperate. On his hands and knees, Jackson began digging. Sand crumbled into his digging spot to be thrown aside again, with the goal of making headway to something. Anything. Center of the Earth if he had to. About a foot from the surface and the digging got harder. No, not harder, impossible. It felt metallic. He cleared an area of sand away to reveal a sheet of metal with rivets running along it and a straight handle. Freezing in disbelief, Jackson acted. Gripping the handle with his dominant hand, he turned. A click, a jolt, and he was sent rocketing back into the barn by a bolt of pure electricity running through his body. He landed with a thud in the middle of the barn as the door swung back closed. Darkness fell in his vision. Light again as he opened his eyes. No clue how long he was out, Jackson surged upright and opened the door to reveal a very welcome familiarity. He was home. His own yard. His barn was exactly where it was supposed to be. Jackson absentmindedly wandered the two hundred feet back to his house, opened the door, and made his way to the bedroom, finally at peace in his home yet again. He had decided to call it a dream. Although he knew it wasn't. The overwhelming evidence to the episode being reality was a handle-shaped burn mark on the inside of his dominant hand. But no. Denial suited him. It was a dream.
By Hunter Beebe5 years ago in Fiction
