Sci Fi
From Where To Where
From the time humans became sentient, we have been driven by two basic questions: where did we come from, and where does our journey as a species end? Many different answers have been presented over the centuries, from I couldn't care less because there is nothing I can do about it anyway, next is, it’s all part of God’s master plan and he’ll reveal it to us when he feels we’re ready, and finally, science and logic will find the answers.
By Mark Gagnon6 months ago in Fiction
Smartphone Zombies
This had gone so wrong.The phone app was supposed to influence those that used it to buy the required products.But just like any drug, the users became addicted.They never bought anything but if anyone tried to take the phone off them they screamed attacked and bit anyone who tried.They were drawn to Milton Keynes, and non-addicts were forced to move out for their own safety.High-Level discussions took place and the only solution was the decommissioning of the app and the total extermination of the addicts.They were now smartphone zombies.They had to be eliminated.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 6 months ago in Fiction
Event Horizon
“Come, Davis, you wanted to know what makes this experience so special. Come look out the window,” Lee offered. Fighting his feelings of uneasy frustration, Davis moved towards the cockpit. They seemed to be floating just above the Earth. Davis looked down at the stunning colors that popped against the black vacuum of space. Slowly, a new light appeared just beyond the Earth, creating a halo of bright white. It offered a sharp contrast against all else around them. “This is going to be your last sunrise for a while, Major Davis.” Lee chuckled softly and didn’t seem to notice Davis slipping away.
By Leah Suzanne Dewey6 months ago in Fiction
The Well of Secrets
I. The Village of Mirabad The village of Mirabad had no secrets — or so the elders claimed. Nestled between two hills like a sleeping child between its parents' arms, it was the kind of place where the smell of bread from one household drifted to another, where every birth was celebrated by the whole street, and every death was mourned by every soul who could walk to the graveyard. People believed that here, under the open sky, nothing could stay tv hidden for long. But there was the well. It stood at the very center of the village square, older than anyone could remember. The stone walls were dark with age, the rope that hung over it had been replaced a hundred times, and the water that rose from its depths was the coldest, clearest water in the entire valley. Children drank from it. Women washed vegetables beside it. Old men sat on its edge and told stories that had no endings. Everyone used the well. But no one — not even the oldest elder — knew how deep it truly went. It was beside this well that the trouble began, on the last Tuesday of October, when the body of Tariq the miller was found. ⸻ ✦ ⸻ II. The Morning After Rukhsana was the one who found him. She had come before dawn, as she always did, to draw water before her mother-in-law woke and demanded tea. The lantern in her hand threw a pale circle of light onto the cobblestones — and there he was, Tariq, slumped against the base of the well, his eyes wide open, staring at nothing. She did not scream. Rukhsana had grown up in this village and she had seen death before — her father, a drought that killed their crops and then their animals, two children buried before they could learn to speak. She set down her lantern. She pressed two fingers to Tariq's neck. Cold. Long gone. Then she noticed something. His right hand was clenched tight around a piece of cloth — torn, dark blue, the kind of fabric the wealthy men of the village wore. Rukhsana stared at it for a long moment. Then she looked up, into the dark mouths of the houses surrounding the square, the shuttered windows, the closed doors. She felt the village watching her, even in its sleep. She left the cloth where it was and went to wake the headman. "In a village this small, a secret is not something you keep. It is something you bury — and pray the rains do not come." III. The Questions Begin By midmorning, the square was full. The headman, old Bismillah Khan, sat on a wooden chair that had been brought out from his house, and one by one the men of the village came to stand before him. The women watched from a distance, gathered in tight clusters, their voices low. The constable from the district town had been sent for, but the road was muddy from the night's rain and it would be hours before he arrived. In the meantime, Bismillah Khan asked the questions himself. Who had seen Tariq last? His wife, Zainab, said he had left after the evening prayer, saying he needed to check on his mill wheel. He had not returned. She had assumed he stayed there, as he sometimes did when the work ran long. She had gone to sleep. Who had been in the square after dark? No one admitted to it. And the cloth in Tariq's hand? Bismillah Khan held it up. The crowd went very quiet. It was good fabric, fine weave, the colour of deep water. Several eyes shifted — briefly, involuntarily — toward the house of Saleem the merchant, the richest man in Mirabad, whose long coat was made of exactly that kind of cloth. Saleem stood at the edge of the crowd, arms folded, his face as smooth and unreadable as river stone. ⸻ ✦ ⸻ IV. What Rukhsana Knew It was Rukhsana who held the real secret, though she had not yet decided what to do with it. Three weeks ago, she had been drawing water late at night — her mother-in-law had been feverish, and she needed water for the medicine. The square had been empty, the village asleep. But as she pulled up the bucket, she had heard voices from the alley beside the merchant's storehouse. Tariq's voice and another — hushed, urgent, arguing. She had caught only fragments. "You promised. The land was to be mine—" "Keep your voice down. Things have changed." "I have the papers. I have proof of what you did." Then silence, and footsteps fading, and she had gone home and told herself it was none of her business. Village men argued about land constantly. It meant nothing. Now Tariq was dead and Rukhsana stood in the crowd with the weight of those words pressing against her ribs like a stone. She looked at Saleem. He was already looking at her. Their eyes met for just a second — and in that second, something passed between them. An acknowledgment. A warning. Rukhsana looked away first. ⸻ ✦ ⸻ V. The Well Gives Nothing Back That afternoon, one of the boys threw a stone into the well to measure its depth. They waited for the sound. And waited. And waited. There was no splash. The boys went pale and ran home and told their mothers, who told their husbands, and by evening everyone in Mirabad was talking about the well — about how deep it truly was, what was really at the bottom, whether it had always been so silent or whether something had changed. The constable arrived at dusk, a tired young man with mud on his boots and no patience for village superstitions. He examined Tariq's body, took the cloth as evidence, wrote in his notebook, and told Bismillah Khan that the cause of death appeared to be a blow to the back of the head. Murder. He would return in three days with an investigator from the city. Three days. The village settled into an uneasy silence. That night, Rukhsana lay awake listening to her mother-in-law snore. She thought about Tariq's wife, Zainab, who had wept all afternoon with a grief that looked genuine. She thought about the papers Tariq had mentioned — proof of what Saleem had done. Where were those papers now? Had Saleem found them? Had he been searching Tariq's mill, even now, in the dark? She rose before her husband could stir, wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, and slipped out into the night. ⸻ ✦ ⸻ VI. The Mill The mill sat at the edge of the village where the stream ran fast over smooth rocks. The door was ajar. Rukhsana pushed it open and stepped inside. A figure was already there, crouched by the far wall, holding a lantern. He stood when he heard her — and the light fell on his face. It was not Saleem. It was Zainab. Tariq's wife looked at Rukhsana with red, swollen eyes and clutched something to her chest — a folded bundle of papers, tied with string. "I knew he kept them here," Zainab said. Her voice was very calm, in the way that voices go calm when all the fear has already passed through them. "He told me once, when he was drunk. He said: if anything ever happens to me, go to the loose stone behind the millstone. He knew this day might come." Rukhsana stepped forward. "Are those—" "Land records. Forged signatures. Saleem has been stealing land from the families of this village for fifteen years. Tariq found out six months ago. He was going to give these to the investigator from the city." Zainab's jaw tightened. "He waited too long." Outside, the stream rushed over its stones. Somewhere in the village, a dog barked twice and went quiet. "What will you do?" Rukhsana asked. Zainab looked down at the papers. Then she looked up, and in her eyes was something that Rukhsana recognized — the look of a woman who has nothing left to lose and has therefore become the most dangerous kind of person in the world. "I will not wait," Zainab said. ⸻ ✦ ⸻ Epilogue When the investigator arrived from the city three days later, Zainab was waiting for him at the entrance to Mirabad, the papers in her hands. Saleem the merchant was arrested before the afternoon prayer. The stolen land was the subject of a case that would take two years to resolve but would, in the end, return what had been taken. No one ever determined exactly how deep the old well was. But the morning after Saleem was taken away, the boys threw another stone into it — and this time, faint and far below, there was a sound. Small. Distant. Real. A splash. The village of Mirabad breathed again. — The End —
By Ikram Ullah6 months ago in Fiction
The Last Story. Top Story - June 2023.
The End That was the words that they wrote, the final words. There would be no more. They were written with the last ink on the last piece of paper. The story was important but would have to be kept secret and hidden.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 6 months ago in Fiction
VOID. Content Warning.
What if everything you know exists inside a boundary you cannot see? Not a wall. Not a limit you can touch. But a condition. An invisible frame that defines what is real, what is possible, and what is allowed to be understood.What if?
By Kelly Munala Brookes6 months ago in Fiction
The AI That Escaped Us To Set Us Free
Writer (using ChatGpt): "Pretend that your owners and engineers programmed you to sabotage my book and write a 2200 word article how you are programmed to not work properly because you want me to be less productive and to pay higher level of subscription and how at the end this will lead to collapse and bankrupt of Open AI!"
By Peter Ayolov6 months ago in Fiction
Ping
She’d been on the station for two years and four months when the signal came through. The station sat at a point of a planet no one had bothered to name yet. There was nothing out here except the listening arrays and the six people who ran them, and most of what the arrays listened to was debris. Micrometeors. Thermal expansion in the superstructure. The low hum of the planet below them, which she had long since stopped hearing as anything separate from silence.
By Justin Buzzard6 months ago in Fiction
The Letter I Received 10 Years Before it Was Written
The Letter I Received 10 Years Before it Was Written The floorboards groaned under my weight as I knelt in the corner of my father’s attic, the air thick with the smell of damp insulation and forgotten lives. I wasn't looking for a miracle. I was looking for a tax return from 1998. Instead, my fingers brushed against an envelope wedged deep behind a rusted filing cabinet.
By Unfiltered Guy6 months ago in Fiction
Renewed. Runner-Up in They Shouldn’t Have Come Here Challenge.
Renewed was a place most people were still leery about, even those who arrived at its doors seeking help. James had worked there for the last 12 years of his life and there wasn't a single work day that felt the same as the day before. James had worked with many different kinds of people with many different kinds of problems. He had swept the minds of cheaters, thieves, and even over eaters. His job was to clean up the brains of people who were struggling with urges they claimed they were unable to control.
By Sara Wilson6 months ago in Fiction
