Love
Going Home
There is so little that is left now to remind us of what once was. There was no grand event that ended civilization like there was in the movies we once watched. No atom bomb, no invading force, no disease that wiped us out. No, instead it was just us and our endless, selfish desires.
By Caileigh Pettifer 3 years ago in Fiction
Cries Of The Barn Owl
He watched as smoke twirled upward from the glowing tip of his cigarette, twisting and turning against the silhouette of tall chestnuts that lined the back of his garden. He filled his lungs with the rich, heavy warmth of tobacco and exhaled a large cloud, swallowing up the spiralling streams as they danced toward the night sky.
By Gary Ragnarsson3 years ago in Fiction
A Gift from Afar
Meela Hahn was dreaming of food when she was awakened by the day's first three blasts of the toxicity sirens. She wasn't frightened by them any more. They had been a part of her life now for many years and were, in her imagination, loud screams that she pretended were hers.
By Brian Freeman3 years ago in Fiction
Finding Mr. Wrong (1)
Cambridge, UK - 2012 Sara let out a long sigh that was a mix of resignation and sadness. ..mostly sadness. ‘I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. How does someone put that much effort into things and then just…I mean someone with a job like his. Like, you know, he literally saves lives, works 23 hour shifts and he woud still make time to come over and go out with me knowing full well he would have to get up at six a.m.the next morning for work.’
By Ashley Somogyi3 years ago in Fiction
'Til Death Do Us Part: A Tale of Two Lockets
Sloan Evans drummed her fingers anxiously on the armrest of her office chair. She had painstakingly assisted countless clients on completing the questionnaire she now faced herself. Sloan and Edgar had yet to set a wedding date, but nothing could move forward until they submitted the pre-nuptial forms now mandated by the federal government.
By ALEXA L. DAVIS3 years ago in Fiction
In Light of All Things
The sun rises somewhere in the distance, and light pours like milk on the horizon. The air hangs listless and viscid, and the stillness bores its way to the edges of my chest. It's not a silence that resounds as some moment of tranquillity but a hush that lays heavy with dread. Nothing should ever be so quiet. I don't know why I am telling you this; if you did find a way out, you know this as well as I do. No birds on the breeze, no leaves in the wind, no faint chatter or promise of life as yet unfound. To exist without interruption in the vacuum that remains of the world.
By Daisy Kelly3 years ago in Fiction
On Salt
On our drive across Eastern Europe, Aubin and I found ourselves in Krakow and decided to stop for a few days to look at some castles and the ancient salt mines. On one of the evenings there, we found a restaurant and were escorted to a table next to a foggy window. Rain fell against a dim streetlamp and every drop that landed on the window did so with a tired agony of spirits from the past. We took off our heavy coats and hung them on the olive velvet chairs. Aubin ordered an orange old fashioned, and I asked for a small decanter of vodka and a plate of gherkins. Once our waiter returned, Aubin and I cheerlessly raised our glasses to the past and thus our communion begun. I inhaled my drink and bit into the salty gherkin. Aubin licked his lips and lit a smoke, while I, having satisfied the first itch of a craving, looked around the empty room. An electric chandelier softly threw its light on oak tables and fake tulips, while an old record-player was rasping in the back. A sign in Polish read, ‘Smaczniej Niż Nieśmiertelność.’ Ever since the successful merging of individual human consciousness with artificial intelligence, most people decided to transition themselves onto the cloud, thus eliminating with a single stroke both suffering and death. Those who decided to opt out of the Transition of Human Intelligence program, were left to decline immortality and walk towards the cool shadows of death. At first, the heavenly cloud provided its virtual dwellers a painless and divine existence, but over time the novelty of such intangibility wore off and the immortals decided to return from their heavens onto the earth. But they were unwilling to sacrifice their immortality, and since artificial simulations proved inadequate, they decided, in an act of switcheroo, to merge artificial intelligence with harvested biological bodies, creating a future version of Frankenstein’s creature. Synths, as they came to be known, repopulated the earth and once again could enjoy the physical melting of an ice cube in their mouths. This, I learned as part of early education, and later, that the synths used a cryogenically preserved supply of sperm to artificially inseminate and grow biological bodies in labs, and, in the process, took precautions to allow a percentage of those bodies to mature and develop their own individual consciousness, unmarred by those from the cloud, in order to avoid the depletion of sperm banks. Synths are infertile and so I was born in a lab – unclouded and mortal.
By Uladzimir Kulikou3 years ago in Fiction
The Price of Happiness
The leaves crunched underneath Evelyn’s feet as she walked. They would meet at a restaurant or cafe to catch up on their lives. Life wasn’t the same since the virus but some things were starting to return to normal. Most of the damage happened when she was a child but she knew that people were finally feeling a little safe again.
By Ben Schmidt3 years ago in Fiction
Locket of Hope
As the awaited detonation occurred; Reese curled up and held on tightly to the heart shaped locket. He could feel the floor underneath him tremble as if it were holding onto something too. The ground shook for another thirty seconds after the initial burst. After a minute of trying to pull himself together, Reese could finally stand up and check his surroundings. As he looked around the small florist shop, he saw the shattered windows, all the arrangements and vases all over the floor. This made him distraught about his love and hoped she was safe. Reese finally decided to walk out of the florist possessing a single rose. As he walked down the street, he saw all the devastation made by the nuke, cars up in flames, bodies of stragglers and even more destroyed businesses. He arrived at 25th street to his family’s general store and glancing into in it he sees all the shelves tipped over. He then thinks about his mother and father; he checks his phone…no service. Glances to the left outside of the door on the sidewalk and sees a bike that was in decent shape. He hopped on the bike and rides to his house. For the hour that he is pedaling he feels his father’s presence and remembers the times when they would ride bikes through the trails in the mountains; through all the streams and over that bridge going across the river. He hoped a month ago would not have been the last time he spent time with his father, but it certainly felt like it. By the time he got to the house, Reese was depressed and anxious to see his parents. As he pedals into the driveway and hops off, he sees a tree that landed through the middle of the house, laying through the living room, kitchen and his parents’ bedroom. He started sprinting to the front door that was untouched, he opened to find his mother kneeling down, sobbing. Laying in front of her was Reese’s father, taken by one of the rafters. Reese kneels beside his mother and holds her. After a while Reese leaves his mother there and heads back onto the bike. Searching for his girlfriend, he pedaled until he got to Briar Lynn High School and the sight of the building made Reese uneasy, but without much hesitation and a good grip on the locket, he ran into the front doors and down every hall. Until he heard alarming voices coming from the direction of the library, he then rushes to down the English hall to the last doors on the left. He then barged through the doors and he saw her, with a bookshelf on top of her and her study group trying to assist. Reese then rushed over to them and served with every muscle in his body to move the shelf. As Jane was freed, she had a glow in her eyes and as Reese helped her get onto her feet, he had a huge grin on his face, although Jane had a discomforting smile and sharp pain in her right arm. They stood there staring into each other's eyes, in tears, they embraced each other. After the minute of contact Reese stepped back and looked around… no one was there he then asked, “Where did they go?” and she replied,” Who? We are the only ones here.” Reese stood there looking around, confused. After a couple minutes of trying to figure out what happened he finally looked at Jane and said, "Jane... I am so glad you are okay...", he hands her the locket and the rose, "This is for you." he added. Jane struggled to open the locket, so he opens it for her. Reese hands it back, "I love you, Jane." She blushed and smirked as she gazed upon the small picture of them from their first date on the top of the Ferris wheel. She then looks up to him and says, "I love you too, Reese." He then grabs her by the waist and pulls her in for a kiss and she drops the heart shaped locket...
By Christen Schiel3 years ago in Fiction