Sci Fi
Time and Time Again
The sky was an orange haze dotted with long black clouds and he could see the buildings of the city silhouetted in stark blackness against the burnt horizon. Fires raging everywhere, he thought, a whole city blazing. Out here in the suburbs the smell of smoke loomed in the air, it crept down the street touching everything as it went, leaving its oily black print on the quiet abandoned houses. The homes had not yet been touched by the creeping fires so despite the derelict nature of the streets and the ever-present soot, one could almost imagine it was just a quiet Sunday in the neighborhood. Lyle knew better though. No-one would ever live here again, no children playing outside, no weekend barbecues, nothing. This town was dead now. Like the rest of the country. Maybe even the world for all he knew. He sat in the wicker rocking chair and sipped, a healthy pour from a bottle of old whiskey he had found in the cupboard of whoever’s home he now took temporary residence in. He drank and watched the city burn in the distance.
By Brent Gough5 years ago in Fiction
Follows
The weather was sunny that day. It was the day Jonathan gave her his heart. He knew Angelica loved him as she had shown it in so many ways. Some say you cannot love when you are so young, not the everlasting kind anyway. But he knew better. And, in her own way, she did too. However, that he would choose to love anyone after Tania was a miracle in and of itself.
By Sunshine Lee5 years ago in Fiction
B.I.N.D
B.I.N.D - Dystopian short story. Prejudice, crime and discrimination have escalated so much that eye contact between people has been made illegal for the past 300 years. People are now only permitted to communicate by wearing specially designed hi-tech blinders called B.I.N.D. They cover nearly ¾ of the face with limited eye view restricted to staring at the ground. The technology was created by an elite tech group who are the current ruling government. The abbreviation of the party meaning - Blinding If Notice Discrimination.
By Catryn Scantlebury5 years ago in Fiction
The Forgotten One
Ellie quickened her pace, the sun beating down on her back, already drenched in sweat. She glanced down at the NavCom strapped to her wrist to double check her coordinates. She was almost to her destination. Six months of careful planning was finally going to pay off. At least, she hoped it would. To be honest, she had no idea what she would actually find when she arrived. She just knew that she had to satiate her curiosity. That someone wouldn’t have kept and hidden the information she discovered if it wasn’t important. She scanned the horizon’s surface for anything that would indicate that she was close. She was running out of daylight, and she didn’t want to be caught out in the open after sunset. Even in a remote location such as this. Raiders were everywhere. The world had gone to Hell in a handbasket long before she was even a thought. The Great War, they called it. From what she could see, there was nothing great about it. There was nothing but struggle, pain, and dust. Everywhere was dust. She had read old articles on how things were before the war. Green, lush. More than enough for everyone, yet the people were filled with greed and selfishness. They didn’t know what they had. How blessed they truly were. Or maybe they did, and they just stopped caring and took it all for granted. In the end, it didn’t matter. Not when bombs were raining from the sky and the whole world was burning. Not when bodies were piled high in the street and the stench of death hung in the air like a miasmic cloud. Ellie thought it was all such a waste. Yeah, they killed their enemies, but they killed the earth as well. It was years before the fires stopped raging, and all that was left was ash. And the dust. Even after the war ended, the death count didn’t. The number of deaths after the war were more than triple the amount during, as people died of radiation poisoning, disease, and famine. What was left of civilization fled to more remote locations in search of water and land that was nontoxic. Large metropolises became too radiated to venture into, as they were hit the hardest with the nukes, and new ones sprang up in their place as viable lands were discovered. Over eighty years have passed, and the effects of the war were still apparent in the ruins that littered the landscapes of this once thriving nation. And yet, the memory of those that remained was short and before long greed returned out of necessity. Everyone was just out for themselves as food and water became scarce. Only the strong survived. It seemed some things never changed.
By Aimee Lupo5 years ago in Fiction
The Solution
She wished he'd let her keep bunny. This is what she thought whenever it was her day with the locket. The locket was small and offered no comfort. Bunny was soft and warm. Bunny was her friend. The locket was a cold, hard piece of a childhood that was no longer hers.
By Chris Mulligan5 years ago in Fiction
Farling
Farling Part one: Terra Beta “Epoch? Has Morn ever told you much of the time before?” Farling often asked questions more like invitations to her present imaginings and this instance was no different. “A little” replied Epoch “but it all seems quite strange; hard to understand. Do you remember it much?” Farling paused and resumed her glance in an upward trajectory as though the answer lay somewhere in the clouds. “Only from what she’s told me,” Farling mused “I was too young to really remember it but I sometimes see things, you know… memories.”
By Lucas Bartlett5 years ago in Fiction
A Girl Named Katie
The worldwide pandemics began in the year 2047; for decades, it raged a fury. Year after year, the virus mutated, each mutation stronger until most of the world population was gone. The few that have survived have been enslaved by a Draconian alien race. The elite has formed a secret government allowing the Draconian to rob earth's natural resources and enslave the human race. Earth's only hope is the Freedom Fighters.
By Linda Kelso5 years ago in Fiction
Remembrance
The walls were white. Always white. Empty. Fluorescent lighting buzzed like sandflies and added to the cacophony of moans and sounds of discontent. Unhappiness and apathy permeated the ward, but these were the roles everyone played – depending on your point of view.
By Connie O'Brien5 years ago in Fiction
The EMP Heart
Drained, if there was one word to describe the world around me, that word would come to mind. It’s the one explanation of how we all become emotionless, lack connection, and allow robotic monstrosities to feed off us. Similar to what our ancestors called vampires, the creatures made of metal and wires suck our life force as we sit, while our eyes are mesmerized by the blank screens. Tubes latched to the back of our skulls like leeches, mysteriously yet unfailingly pull our life force to the center of our city, this center called the Hive. Hive gives the monsters the energy they need to continue the process of turning our world into a giant computer system, and it’s there that I must save my people and snap them out of their imprisoned daze they are in.
By Tay Gallagher5 years ago in Fiction
