Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
Deify
No one believed in them anymore. No one believed in much of anything anymore. Felt foolish to when every day was met with new losses. But, they rose anyways. The Morrigan stripped the invaders of their health until bones were the only trace of their former existence. Her crows feasted on those unlucky enough to survive. No one could breath around Aether who deemed the outsiders unworthy of the air. The humans left in the resistance looked on in equal parts awe and horror, as the old gods rose in fury to defend their territory. Sinew and blood spilled over the land, running in rivulets as the invaders were sliced into pieces, boiled from the inside out, and burned with the wrath of every interpretation of endless suffering that existed. This…this might be worse than the first apocalypse.
By Becan Hennighan3 years ago in Fiction
Searching for A Heart of Gold
I’m getting headaches again. It feels like we are all just animals in the zoo. It turns out the scientist in Israel who tried to warn us about the Galactic Federation wasn’t really so crazy after all. He was actually trying to tell us about the good ones. Apparently, in the same way that humans have “good” and “bad” people, intergalactic beings do too. The “Galactic Federation” are the good guys and the not-so great guys insist on being called “Masters”. We call them “Masters” when they are around, but they're just Phobots. Just Dirty Phobes. They love watching wars and spend a lot of money to sow chaos, and the Galas just keep on protecting us. Our inter-planetary ambitions have finally paid off! Except, human hubris genuinely believed we were the most advanced species in the universe.
By Messtiza Noire3 years ago in Fiction
The Beginning of the End
The Beginning of the End. They called me an alarmist or conspiracy theorist back in 2021, but I hate to say it but, I was right. Back in 2021 the Russians became partners with China to develop their space program together. I had told people that this was just the beginning. See Russia and China already had a partnership that was developed in Sri Lanka over 20 years ago. See the Chinese was making a large port bringing sand from the bottom of the ocean to make the huge Port of Colombo.
By Veronica Somaratna3 years ago in Fiction
Regrets
Regrets - by Tom Pistone The days were getting colder. The gray clouds would sometimes take on hues of green and red through the day as storms would rage and wane in our self-made nuclear winter. It’s been seven years since a Russian computer virus went rogue and sent our entire world into the dark. The idea was simple enough, Russia wanted to play some games on its Chinese and US rivals after yet another set of sanctions by the UN. They sent a virus through an attachment in an email to poor sucker named Charlie Brown. I kid you not, a guy named Charlie Brown, an engineer over at the Seabrook Plant just north of Boston, caused the Nuclear Apocalypse by mistaking a Russian Virus for his daily political meme making fun of all those Liberals he couldn’t stand. Once the virus took hold, it was only supposed to give the Russians visibility into our grid and analytics with a kill code to shut down the grid in case of a war level event, but the virus had some flaws in its code that ended up turning it into the deadliest computer virus the world would ever know. A developer somewhere in Siberia forgot a simple semicolon in his code, and it sent an infinite loop of damage throughout the system, eventually making its way into the reactor coolant systems. By the end of the day, Seabrook was a Chernobyl level event. By the end of the week the fallout blew radioactive death-clouds across the Atlantic to Europe and eventually right back to Russia. Thousands died in the Northeast from the initial blast, but the fallout killed a million more in radiation poisoning, birth defects and cancer. After that, the fingers pointed, the voices grew into anger, and War was declared. Not against Russia… no this was across the isles of the Capitol. Civil War. Conservatives wanted to go to war with Russia in retaliation. Liberals wanted to take a more conservative approach and apply more sanctions before bloodshed. A protest broke out in front of the Capitol, it turned ugly. A high profile conservative talk show/blabbermouth got a Molotov cocktail to the face right on live TV, burning its reporters with live mics and cameras on. It was brutal. And it was the last straw. Governors in the South held rallies. Politicians began talks of secession and declared war on the North. They sent troops, and shot rockets at NYC. It was pure chaos. And a scary time to be alive. Well our Civil war turned into a unique situation for all those other world powers looking to assert themselves. More finger pointing, more shouting, and then more rockets. But this time across the ocean. Rockets were shot in all directions by an itchy trigger finger turning cities into rubble and turning our world into a cesspool of radioactive pollution and decay.
By Tom Pistone3 years ago in Fiction
Goldblood
TW; Heavy Gore and Sexual Violence ………………………………....…........Chapter One……….....………………………………. It’s cold and pitch black here. The walls press in on me from both sides, the narrow never ending hallway stretching out further than even I can see. I keep walking. Further, and further, and deeper, and darker down into the black.
By Rebecca Sexton3 years ago in Fiction
The Locket
A quick flash of light catches my eye. Finding any metal, besides a discarded food wrapping, is rare. I try not to draw attention as I don’t want the other scavengers to notice my sudden excitement. My dirty hands sift through the trash heap. I pull out a plastic cup and put it in my knapsack, which was once a bright red, and now is more of a dingy brown. I adjust the sack so that it is in front of me so I can swiftly conceal the unknown treasure to examine later. Quickly, I grab the small object. I place it inside the cup and add a plastic bag inside so that it won’t chance making any noise while I walk. I also cannot risk it falling through a hole in the knitting of the old bag.
By Emily Chhouy3 years ago in Fiction
Ruin
I knew they had it. I knew they had my locket. It wasn’t enough that the world had fallen into rot and ruin, the water tainted, the skies the bleak color of ash and smoke. It wasn’t enough that food was scarce and field rats had become a delicacy. It wasn’t enough that sickness and war and death were now as common as the tulips in the Netherlands used to be plentiful.
By David Paulsen3 years ago in Fiction
STRAYZ
“Ready?” she asks, before pressing play on the voice recorder. The prisoner pulls the oxygen mask from his face and throws it on the table. The wrinkles in his caramel-colored, weathered skin, fold around his mouth as he cracks a smile. He runs his hands through his tightly curled, salt and pepper-colored hair, slicking it back, before reaching for the box of Tasty-Kakes. Slowly, he opens the box and removes a pack. He flips the plastic wrapped Krimpet over and begins lightly rubbing the butterscotch frosted top on the steel table, in a clockwise motion, before unwrapping it.
By Michael Hadfield 3 years ago in Fiction
The Night of Long Shadows
Everything that ever happened to them happened only in the house. They were young enough to focus on the simple magic of the house, the deep shadows within the house, the secret rooms, the strange sounds that crept up through the floorboards. They watched as the light flickered, distending, pushing them into a haunting, thought-like sequence that was unknown, yet unavoidable. Their untainted fears had started from some imagination, from a lucid memory of fiction and fear. Their parents told them stories at night, and then they dreamed intensely, starting from where the stories had left off, now exchanged for the bright and weird lands of their sleep. It was hard to tell a dream from the real thing to them.
By Justin Fong Cruz3 years ago in Fiction
Shiny Golden Links
Every night, through the only window in our small apartment, I spend one or two hours looking at the stars and the oval-shaped shiny golden link that goes around our "country" all the way connecting to the next one. It's stunning. Looking from down here, it seems to measure 10 meters wide - but of course, it is much bigger than that. And the length is impossible to guess as part of it is hidden by the clouds.
By Vinicius Monteiro3 years ago in Fiction
Heart Shaped Secrets
My name is Winnie. I am 16 years old. My birthday was last week and Mom had found some moldy cheese in a gutter. This rarity was presented to me on a leaf, like one of the Old Way, five course meals on a silver platter that my mom had shown me in some banned movies from an era, long dead and gone.
By Winter R. Wright3 years ago in Fiction