Sci Fi
Be Better
The Department of Emotional Stability and Public Sanity had voted that sentimentality was no longer useful. The debate had been quick, and the Department Chair had appeared on TV that Friday announcing that "another microchip would be made mandatory to stop sentimentality from corrupting us from our present missions". Most citizens had taken this announcement in good stride, and those who questioned it were asked to do so with a Department Representative. No one ever did. The microchip installation would happen at the Department's main building. So, Steph and David had decided to go together, once again , so they had developed a quaint routine to the installations. They would stop for strawberry milk at the Milk Bar, talk about something trivial and small and then Steph would pretend to be concerned about what the chip would do. Steph would usually pay as David had lost another job.
By Sofia Viruly5 years ago in Fiction
The Best Life in Lowton
The fire cracked and popped in the broken and crumbled hearth. A child swaddled themself in a tattered blanket against the chill of the drafty shack while smoke from the burning refuse stung the eyes and cloyed at the nostrils. The crackles and pops of the fire disrupted the whistling of the wind through the broken walls and the low rumble of hunger that coursed through the girl. Outside on the streets, people scurried past in the night, with their heads cast down as they hurried about their business. The girl shivered and shifted closer to the sputtering fire and stared into the flames hoping that the noises and hunger would burn away if she gazed long and hard enough. Despite the smoke stinging her eyes as she watched the flames, something stirred in her stomach. At first, she thought it was just hunger, but there was something different about it. It felt familiar and new at the same time, like a secret she had forgotten.
By Octreyvian Killian5 years ago in Fiction
Morning
It was still dark but the moon kept me straight. I saw the garden first. The once was garden. Little bits of hidden order if you looked hard enough. Raised beds now sinking ships. Wild vegetables no longer tended resting contently in a sea of weeds. Nothing is tended now and everything is better for it. I am reassured of this as I bite into a tomato straight from the vine. Red nectar singing down my throat. It was in my searching for another that I spotted the house. The unmistakable glimmer of a glass window through the overgrowth. I tried the door. Locked. If only they knew how little that would matter. I start to look for another way in. Glass breaking always upsets me but it must be done. Shards glint against my headlamp, welcoming me in.
By N.V. Hardy5 years ago in Fiction
The Man and The Automaton
The Man and The Automaton It’s early morning, after breakfast, and a cavalcade of news is rushing down to our unit. Our boys across the border are struggling, they don’t have a consistent supply of rations, ammunition, meds or any combination of the three to keep soldiers afloat. Before I make my way out of the mess hall I take note of a locket, my locket. Its warmth and affectionate shape, a cartoonish heart, provides comfort as a striking contrast to the weight I feel while holding it, an unyielding mass almost buckling my knees when pondering about its burden. I proceed through the strain and move outside. After receiving that fantastic piece of info letting me know I’ll be deploying three days earlier than expected, I see lots of people, soldiers like myself. Some I recognize, K-jay's defining features, unkempt facial hair and rust covered prosthetic makes it easy to pick him out of a crowd, but there are lots of people here who I’ve never seen before. Now, “never seen” doesn't mean they’re strangers, I know all of them, or at least the majority, it's a pretty tightly packed unit. They just look different, I don’t know how but it's something with the eyes, how they twitch at a moment's notice, switching up and down, across every axis. It's the strangest phenomena, it's like a phase or a transformation that occurs for the older sergeants. It's almost robotic in the way they navigate the barracks, not willing to make eye contact with anything other than their current objective. In an effort to get out of people watching I decided to make my way to Robotics to get acquainted with our new guests.
By SwivelSkittle5 years ago in Fiction
Ad Astra
Ad Astra. That was what inscribed on the heart shaped locket he held. Many years ago he had found it in one of all to many abandoned houses that now inhabited the world. His mother had given it to him before her passing, and her mother had given it to her. It would have gone to one of his two sisters presumably if they were around at the time of her passing, but as with so many children, they did not survive childhood.
By Chandler Dicken5 years ago in Fiction
The Young Man
THE YOUNG MAN By Patrick Seaman The Young Man eyed the field nervously. Standing in the tree line, just inside the covering brush, he was invisible, he hoped, to any prying eyes along the opposing field. He scanned up and down, looking for any movement that could be a threat. It was quiet. That was normal, given the lack of birds and other wildlife. The wind blew through the trees above him. His father had told him about birds, how they once flew constantly through the air, perched in trees, and sang their cheerful songs. They were all gone now. He had told him stories of the woodland mammals; squirrels climbing up and down trees, foraging for nuts to store for the winter. Chipmunks running about through the leaves on the ground. And the deer, majestic, trotting silently through the forest-the bucks with their beautiful antlers, and the does with their little spotted fawns. The Young Man looked forward to a day that he could see them for real-not just pictures in an old tattered book, or videos on the computer. He wondered what they would smell like. Snapping out of his thoughts, he refocused on the task at hand. It had taken him months of travel to get to this point, and he didn’t want to fail now. The Raiders could be hiding anywhere. Ambush was their specialty. Cannibals who killed and ate unwary travelers between the domed cities. The Young Man wondered what meat tasted like. Even human. He had never had any meat at all; he and his clan, like everyone else, subsisted on plants-fruits, vegetables, nuts & seeds. After the Shift, as his parents called it, there were no more animals to eat. And very few humans to eat them, as well. He was an Outsider-part of the small percentage of humans left who didn’t live in a domed city, protected from the Raiders, and other outsiders.
By Patrick Seaman5 years ago in Fiction
