future
Exploring the future of science today, while looking back on the achievements from yesterday. Science fiction is science future.
X3: 215
Kerry Dutter Dystopian Story X 3: 215 Naomi Blunt plugged the code into the computer, lifted the boxy machine onto the table and waited. It began silently whirring. The readout on her timer showed seconds, minutes, and most importantly the captured energy output. Within 5 minutes the whirring slowed and stopped. Energy output: Zero. Blunt looked at the previous thousands of codes she had entered and sighed. Someday she thought, someday. There was no urgency to get this done now but she knew it was coming. As an MIT trained chemist and researcher she was employed by the Government of the Americas to find alternative food sources. Food, inside the bubble they lived in was too scarce, due to a lack of sunshine, water, and earth to grow anything in. If her superiors knew about her real research, they would kill her. She thought about that a minute, and remembered what her father had told her, “Everyone knows they’ve got to die. No one wants to do it today.”
By Kerry L Dutter5 years ago in Futurism
The Exhumed
The desecration of a grave was a crime when my grandfather was young. I recall being a small child sitting in his lap while he told me about “wakes” and “funerals” about how it was common practice then to bury people and to respect the dead. Even though it’s morbid, death has fascinated me since I was a child. My favorite story was the story of his mother’s burial. She was laid in a white, silk lined oak casket. She was adorned with her pearls and her favorite blue chiffon dress with white glass buttons down the front, her arms folded neatly across her chest, surrounded by the orchids she so fondly grew in her flower garden. My grandfather was only 8 when she passed, my great grandmother was only 34. I’ve seen pictures of how beautiful she was, she had the same light brown shoulder length hair and iridescent green-blue eyes that I have. The same athletic build and slightly above average height, We even share the same name, Evelyn Allston. I've always felt a deep connection with my great grandmother, I tend to wonder if she would despise or respect me for my job. Especially as the years rage on and I creep nearer to the age she was when she passed on. Now at twenty eight I cannot fathom only having only six years left of my life, but the harsh reality of the world we live in, that may be pushing it.
By Tyra Mitchell 5 years ago in Futurism
She Stood Still
It was the last day. The immortal sun slowly rising above the horizon. Flat. There were no rolling hills or cracks of mountain splendor rising from the earth. Not in this wasteland. There were a few trees rooted in rank soil, leafless and dying. And that blazing blurry zone just above the line where soil meets air. Dreamy and blurry. Or it was just her weakened eyes struggling to take in light after a night so dark. Last night had been without stars. A simple void. It was more than surreal. It was nothingness. And in that nothingness, her companion had mis-stepped. In that one slight there was an unforgiving sound of blade striking bone. The sound that came after that was haunting as it hung in a brief whisper of seconds and then just “thunk.”
By Judy King Sylvester5 years ago in Futurism
The Silhouette of Freedom
To the person whose window lights up in the night, It’s really quiet now. I think that’s the thing that has stood out to me most these days: the marked sense of stillness. We’ve all been given the space to think and ponder. We can sit outside in the middle of the day and just take it all in. I don’t think we ever understood what that was before. The world was loud, fast-paced, and everyone was stuck inside their own egocentric cyclone, glued to a device or an agenda and never obtaining the capacity to step out of it. We’ve been given the gift of perception in the wake of the end of the world. For that, I am grateful.
By Sophia Cousino5 years ago in Futurism
Kelly's Diary
Prologue Before the apocalypse my mother gave me her heart shaped locket, that had been passed down the generations. I never really understood what was so special about this locket until the post-apocalypse. It happened all at once, the end of the world. It all started with war! War between all the countries there were bombs and nuclear explosions. We were killing each other. So a few select people who were against the wars, were chosen to go to the island and stay there until the war was over. That island would be a safe-haven till the war was over, just over 30 people were sent to the island with pets and animals. But, somehow the location was compromised and people came to the island and killed everyone on it. A few people hid and were able to survive. My mother was killed. I was one of the few people who lived.
By Lori Brandt5 years ago in Futurism
The Two Halves
ABIGAIL DAVIDSON, THIS LETTER IS OFFICIAL DOCUMENTATION NOTIFYING YOU THAT YOU ARE HEREBY LEGALLY DRAFTED INTO THE SERVICES OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE FREE REPUBLIC. YOU WILL REPORT TO YOUR LOCAL MILITARY REGISTRATION OFFICE WITHIN 24 HOURS. FAILURE TO COMPLY IS A SERIOUS OFFENCE AND WILL INCUR SEVERE PENALTIES.
By Sophie Carter5 years ago in Futurism
2024
She scratched a line on the wooden fence with a sharp piece of quartz. It was the 17th mark she had made since her first day arriving here at the ranch. She traced her fingers over the remaining marks, ticking them off like the days til Christmas only backwards towards the last moment of normalcy. Or at least, her own normalcy, the rest of the world was in chaos with no virtual peace in sight.
By Destiny D Mitchell5 years ago in Futurism
Blossom
It was too hot in the day for Rex to go out. He could only leave at night. It was still stiflingly hot when he climbed the stairs at 2AM that night, the November moon hung despondently in the sky - as if apologetic for illuminating the ruins that Rex inhabited. It was dusty, bleak and all-too-familiar to him, a drudging chore to creep around his silent town night after night.
By Reuben Wood5 years ago in Futurism
Our Rise. Our Fall.
I remember the locket most of all. Heart-shaped. Silver. A bit tarnished, but what wasn’t tarnished at this point? And there was a small scratch on the side where it was once scraped against something. It was a minor imperfection that reminded me that nothing is ever, nothing can ever be, truly perfect. It was a reminder of what we had tried to achieve.
By Scott Kessman5 years ago in Futurism
The Library
She asked for a story again. I don’t dare do it again. The first time I got caught telling her a “story” because I was telling her about Florence Nightingale who started the International Red Cross and became a nurse against the societal norms of the times. My punishment? My daughter was taken from me for 6 months. It was supposed to be longer but the someone on the council went to the judge and warned that without a child libraries were known to falter. So … they took her away from me because I told her a story.
By Melissa Burke5 years ago in Futurism
Origin Story
Lithia leaped from one rock to the other careful not to land on cracks or fall from the more broken pieces. While in a loud sing-song voice, she exclaimed, "step on a crack, break your mother's back." Scanning for treasures as she sprang about. The rocks and rubles had cast long jagged shadows all day as the sun beat down on the scarlet desert. Now shadows from forming overhead clouds began consuming the points into one massive shadow. Lithia sighed in defeat. Dark days weren't good for scavenging; the good stuff like metal was more easily found from distances by the sun's reflection.
By Ashleigh Sexton5 years ago in Futurism
