Sci Fi

Survival
1. She stood out in the crowd. Nate’s eyes easily picked the young woman out from among those rushing to get home before curfew. He could see the humanness of her with his unique sight, but even to the others who scurried to and fro, she would appear out of place with her lack of visible augmentation. She even wore a mask to help her breathe the polluted city air, unlike virtually everyone around her, with their implanted filters. Nate himself wore no mask, having stopped breathing long ago.
By Craig Williams5 years ago in Fiction
The Corruption
My hands trembled as they wiped away warm beads of sweat that dripped down and burned my eyes. The taste of copper still lingered in my mouth. I frantically ripped the wires from my scalp and torso that tethered me to the motionless body laying before me. My blurry vision began to clear, and I could feel my face contort with disgust as I scanned its features. It was like staring into a mirror, a cold lifeless version of myself. Down to the thick black locks of hair and brown pear-shaped birthmark below its left eye, she…it was identical. Its almond-shaped eyes, wide open, staring back at me; they looked just like my own, but this person…this thing was not me; it wasn’t even human.
By Tiffany Ervin5 years ago in Fiction
Follow Your Heart
Everyone is running. It’s nearly the end. Buildings are crashing and wildlife is burning. The whole world is crashing right in front of my eyes yet I stand so still. Everything feels like it is moving faster than it actually is, but for some reason I feel like I’m moving in slow motion. People are screaming and crying but I can’t hear a thing. I feel so numb. The only thing I am capable of moving are my eyes.
By Kortni Smyers-Jones 5 years ago in Fiction
Mandelbrot: Event Zero
“Candyland” “Shenanigans” “Parcheesi” Vinnie Genzianna tapped the wobbling master fuse on his chin lamp, and the tiny amber bulb crackled out, then on again, more brightly, casting a faint, jewel-like glow on the objects. He wiped from the remaining stacks of charred boxes the soot and dust that was consequent of Mandelbrot: Event Zero. He quietly scoffed at the obsolescence and frivolity of the moldering toys and games, then felt a subtle churn of nausea swell in his belly.
By G Lampa5 years ago in Fiction
Pilgrimage of the Nine-ites
The glaring rays of the sun fell at a slight angle on the powdered steppes. Everything withered under its eye, save for a slice of deep valley cutting through the hills. While offering some relief from the heat, it was still bone dry in the shade; the small band of travelers was easy to spot by the lazy cloud of dust that followed them.
By R. Wayne Gray5 years ago in Fiction
Event of the Unknown Consequence
My name is Kelsie Anders and I had just turned 15 the day before it happened. The day they disappeared. My friends and I went to the local pizza parlor to hang out. I rode there on my new mountain bike my parents gave me for my birthday. It was just an ordinary day like any other and nothing stood out in my mind as being different. We were laughing and joking around, and it seemed to be taking a long time to get that greasy, cheesy pizza I loved. I look back and remember the pizza that never came, and the loud growl of my hungry stomach brings me reeling forth into the reality of the hovel of a motel I had been camping in for the last few days. I snuggled closer to the makeshift metal fire barrel in the corner of the room, a window cracked open to let the smoke out that only had embers left burning. It was getting cold now in the autumn air. As I rubbed my belly trying to make the hunger stop, my mind went back to that day. We had just started eating when a scream from the kitchen took over our conversation of planning our summer fun. A waitress came running out, her skin was pale and her blue eyes wide with fear. She had a phone in her hand and was screaming, “They’re gone”! She quickly showed us her phone where an emergency alarm was sounding from the screen for a few seconds before a bewildered and obviously shook reporter began to announce that people from all over the world seemed to have simply vanished. One second someone was talking and the next they were gone. There was so much confusion running through my brain that the only thing I could think of was to get home. I immediately tried to call my parents, but everyone must have been thinking the same thing because the lines were overloaded, and I could not get through. Without a word, I ran out the door, got on my bike and headed home.
By Katie Kahre5 years ago in Fiction
The Hum
“Mummy…?” No answer. “Mum?” again, no answer. Tyler Osei called and called again for his mother. He’d waited as long as he could, but not now he wanted his mummy. Tyler had spent the last forty-eight hours in a cupboard, wedged right at the back behind the hanging clothes, nestled between two piles of shoeboxes. A small kid, well hidden, he might have even managed to avoid being seen if the person who opened the cupboard door didn’t empty it entirely. As it so happens, someone did.
By Sam Hosseini5 years ago in Fiction
The Secret of the Locket
Have you ever wanted something so much that you were willing to give up everything you had on the off chance that you might achieve it? Weary long nights and fevered days spent in pursuit of a dream that no sane man would believe, have you ever done that? It can be so freeing, pursuing your longing without care. That feeling of freedom almost makes up for the fool’s errand that was my own when I decided to leave The City.
By Damien Rivera5 years ago in Fiction
The Stranger
SunJohn7 felt the work timer vibrate against his wrist: only half an hour to go for the day. He didn’t need the timer; he could tell the time almost to the second by the location of the red dot in the sky, but it was regulation. He yanked at his wheelbarrow to turn it around and head back down the mountain. “Not a bad day’s bounty,” he mused, surveying the contents.
By Cindy Morrison5 years ago in Fiction
Lulutopia
At first, I feel bad for the iguana. I’m almost surprised that the drone tagged it. On infra, it’s barely yellow; just a tepid, scrawny blob clinging to a vine, suspended over brutal surf. For all I know, it’s the last of its kind in the New Grenada Atolls.
By P. D. Murray5 years ago in Fiction
A Dead Life
What is to become of humanity? Will we struggle over the cusp of a cliff to find haven on a flat plateau? Having reached a place of such stark contrast to the rocky cliff, that we sink our sore heels into the soft soil and call it home. Do we not cast at least a cursory glance to the next cliff in our catch? And what if we are to fall? From the first cliff or the second? Will we rise like a phoenix from the? Reborn to a fresh start, retaining our previous risks and rewards? Or perhaps our ember, and all energy spent creating it, will fade to blackness like the closing of a tired eye.
By Ryan Clarke5 years ago in Fiction
Doomsday Diary
It had been 18 years since the End War, and nothing had changed. The system was managed by slaves who suffered greatly and landlords who reaped the benefits while also living in terror of invasion and murder.
By Worn Edges5 years ago in Fiction