Short Story
Testing Times
It’s going to be another boring day. They’re always boring these days. Waking up again to the sounds of my brothers fighting. It sounds like Ben had eaten Frank’s chocolate again last night. I don’t really care who is right and who is wrong. Chocolate is a luxury and I can’t remember the last time I had any. Frank keeps squandering the little money he earns. Relies too much on the rest of us. I need to get up. I hate my job. My stupid auto assigned job. I fail one test in 17 years and this means I’m stuck to a mundane life of warehouse work.
By Melanie Baker 5 years ago in Fiction
The Facility
I cry out, but as usual they are implacable. I struggle against the restraints, but as usual it does no good. The drugs are too strong. They are too strong. They say something to each other in their language, and one of them speaks to me in her heavily accented attempt at English:
By Scott Blackmer5 years ago in Fiction
A Single Moment in History
Harriet ducked into her room silently. She crawled through the shadows until she reached her bed. She jumped from her knees and landed on top of it, sending a cloud of dust and dirt into the air. She coughed as the dust entered her lungs. She placed a hand over her mouth in a desperate attempt to silence it. Her breathing settled and she froze, watching and listening for any sign of movement. Was she noticed? Did they know that she was there? She hoped not.
By Jade Stephens5 years ago in Fiction
The World Must Be Peopled
Overhead – a falcon; kestrel? No, a buzzard. Two: One each. In her delirium (she was still drunk with that arid fatigue which the permanently dehydrated subsist in) she pitched her foot against a rock and gave a yelp of pain. The buzzards took no notice of the blood which oozed like water from a stone struck in anger.
By Tristan Stone5 years ago in Fiction
The Nurse in the Downfall of Healthcare
The nurse walks down the near-empty hall of the cardiac intensive care unit. Her brand-new black clogs clack rhythmically on the marble flooring. She hums to herself as she logs out of work and waves good-bye to the arriving night shift. Today was rather slow. The only patient in the unit is a man in his late fifties who just got out of heart surgery. He had had an arrhythmia that was repeatable under stress testing, and the doctors ordered the implant of a pacemaker. The implantation was successful, and the patient is being watched for a few days.
By Hayley Roberts5 years ago in Fiction
The Golden Locket
The world has fallen into chaos. Fear is creating an impenetrable wall of lies. I am desperately trying to save the world. I am now known as Wanheda, one of god's chosen leaders for The Great Army. I used to have a typical name and a typical life. That changed once my higher power came to me and showed me the truth. The chosen ones have been waking up and jumping into action. Our reality is grim. The world is ending and only some of us have been able to see the coming tragedy. Most of us are alone, keeping distant contact with each other when possible. We are working in the shadows to save whomever we can before reality hits the world. My higher power has been guiding me without abandon. I know what I must do. It turns out that I am becoming a loud, but sneaky soldier in an inevitable global conflict. The fear of nuclear holocaust is real. The fear of the masses is real. I have found myself having a difficult time assembling my own strike team of allies. I have been working alone day and night fighting for the greater good. I no longer have friends or family, just allies.
By Brady Caron5 years ago in Fiction
Unearthly screeches from below
The sound echoed across the dark damp tunnel. The growl and groans of the dead outside the thin metal walls of this cramped tube were defining. Trisha age 23 had dark brown hair, green eyes, and stood about 5,8 weighed 125 pounds, and always wore a golden heart-shaped locket. had a ho for a key. "Trisha, how many do you think are out there?" She paused and looked back at me resting her 8 shot pump-action shotgun against her shoulder. "Well by the sound of it." She listens for a minute or two "I would say two hundred 5 or 6 clans" we call hordes clans bc they stay together even in a giant group like this. "That many?" He carefully placed his Full auto Assault rifle on the ground. He grabbed the magazine and popped it out, checked the bullet count then looked at his belt which had at least 10 or so full clips along with a military-grade backpack with more ammo. Trisha shifted her weight thus flexing her shoulders she nodded down the tube. They both started down the tunnel. The further they went the quieter it got the longer they walked the more of a slope the tunnel became until Trisha stopped slung the Pump shotgun over her shoulder and just slid. "Trisha-" I reached out to grasp her hand but nothing she flew down into the darkness. I sat there for a while until I saw a low green glow in the darkness far below. So I slung my rifle over my shoulder and pulled out my sidearm and slid after. I felt nothing by the rush of air and sublimely goo in my face and hair. Every little creek I heard I thought "I'm going to die" I slid into an open area around 50 feet long and 40 wide. I couldn't see the ceiling so I'm guessing a couple hundred up. "Hey Johnathan" I looked up at her sharply. I was in the middle of trying to wipe out my hair. "Ya?" She regarded me for several seconds some kind of foreign look in her eyes as she looked at me. "I'm not that attractive," I thought. "I have dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes that can glow in the dark if they catch the light right. I'm not super strong or athletic looking and I only stand at 6 feet even" I looked at her puzzled "what?" She kinda jerked her head then shook it rubbing her forehead "sorry… can I get some water?" She looked up at me. I nodded, grabbed my water bottle then tossed it her way. She fought it without a problem. Took deep gulps then threw it back at me. I caught it and put it away. "You need to conserve your water" I looked at my watch "12:34" I looked around I put my postal away and pulled my rifle down into my hands I check it and stood up. I tapped my gun twice then aimed it forward turned on a flashlight and started forward. Trisha watched me do this she pulled her shotgun off her shoulder and followed me keeping the barrel up and watching our flanks. As I moved I noted everything. "Wrench… hammer… hard helmet… skeleton… blanket… pipes…" I kneeled slapped the side of my gun 3 times waited then once more. Trisha ducked and rolled to our left behind some large vertical pipes. I stayed in the open watching ahead of us. I started clicking the single shot. burst fire and full auto as he did that he closed my eyes and took in every sound. Trishas breathing my breathing the sounds from the pipes but most of all. I was listening to the sound of sizzling skin from the clan members. "1...2...3...4...5..10...20...30-" my eyes shot open I looked at Trisha and started firing into the Darkness. bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, the sound of an M16 slowly moving into what seemed to be full auto rang loudly in my hears as I started pulling the trigger faster and faster. As I emptied the clip I glanced at Trisha and saw that she had her ears covered, I popped out the clip let it hit the ground while popping a new one in. BANG. I sat in silence listening to bodies hit the floor. Trisha Screamed, “what was that Jonathan?” she stood up so quickly she hit her head on a pipe. “Ugh!” she rubbed her head. She stood near me and all I could hear was her heartbeat slow and calm even though she was angry. She said something but my ears were ringing from the echoes of the gunshots. I stood up so quickly that my nose and hers touched my face turned bright red and I turned away. She just was shocked into silence. In that very silence, we both heard it. Dozens of footsteps rapidly coming our way from the way we originally came. “Damn it!” I took off in the opposite direction scooping up my empty magazines. Trisha followed. We ran and ran hard. Sliding under pipes jumping over them.climbing like our lives depended on it as they climbed the got to a ledge. “We can rest here” Trisha was panting as she heaved herself up onto it. They sat there listing and trying to catch their breathing. The low rumble of feet slapping against cold hard metal and concrete sounded in the distance. I stood and pulled out a grenade and a couple of C4. I tossed the C4 into some pipes and popped the pinout of the grenade and dropped in. I then turned and started to climb again. Trisha looked down then followed. We got to a point where we couldn’t go any higher and that’s when we heard the explosion then the screams of the already dead dying again. Jonathan pulled out the C4 trigger as they both looked down to see the sun-burned bodies crawling up the walls growling and groaning. I leaned in and kissed Trisha and pulled the trigger of the C4, not knowing if it would kill us or not. The building began falling apart around us. Metal crashing into metal, unearthly screeches from below. I pulled away from her lips and saw it she said something but her locket unlocked and she shimmered into stardust. I fell into the man-made flames of war and mass destruction… over a hundred and twenty years ago the sun was accidentally hit with a dozen nuclear warheads and this was enough to disrupt the sun and make it burn hundreds of times hotter killing any living thing in it. any humans would burn to charred corpses then the radioactive beams from the sun would revive us into clan members.
By Luke Grinnell5 years ago in Fiction
