Sci Fi
Dust
You're peeling back your inner gloves, aching in every muscle after a twelve-hour shift, when you feel a faint pressure against the inside of your left wrist where the thick latex is doubled over. You barely have time to register the sensation before it disappears with a soft pop, and a cloud of tiny motes appears around your hand, sparkling in the harsh white lights of the decontamination room. Your heart lurches and you yank your hand back, but it's a spastic movement, directed by your terrified lizard-brain rather than the part of you that thinks, and those few centimeters of exposed skin at your wrist pass through the cloud before you stagger backward, cradling your arm to your chest. You look down to see a thin dusting of gray specks on your skin, then feel a brief, almost-painful tingling as they disappear, leaving behind an angry-looking scattering of tiny red bumps.
By Rajan Poudel 5 years ago in Fiction
The Sun Seeker- Part 7
“Jes? Are you awake?” Jes wanted to summon a snort for Hash, but that was too much emotion right now. She sat on the bed, in much the same position they'd left her in last, and soaked up the silence and dark of the room. The sun had fallen behind the horizon, and with it, her new vision was dimmed to almost nothing. There were little wisps and glimmers, but otherwise she was as blind as anyone else in this moment. It was a strange sort of comfort. A little bit of normal.
By Anna Kringle5 years ago in Fiction
"You're Heads," She Says. "You're Tails."
As I peer from the window of the third-story lab in the Bingham Building, I can just see the other guy crossing the rain-slicked cobblestones of the quad. He's hunched over, defeated. In shock, probably. He has no bags, but he's leaving forever. Everything he owns is on his back or in his pockets--a cheap suit, two hundred bucks, and a bus ticket to Topeka.
By Sital baniya5 years ago in Fiction
His 16th Face
“What's going on?” I whispered, startled in the darkness. “I'm holding you,” Christian explained evenly. Though he was familiar, the feeling of his arms around me was not. He lifted me clean off the bed as if I weighed nothing. In the rocking chair, he settled my head into the space between his chin and his shoulder. His breath feathered down my nose to settle on the moist curves of my lips.
By Stephanie Van Orman5 years ago in Fiction
The Cough Conflict (Part 1)
It had been around three years since I’d last seen my friends in person. And tonight, finally, we’d all had our boosters for the latest variant, and the restrictions were ending. Officially, they ended at 19:00 hours. And the bars of the city would actually open their doors to in-person customers.
By James Cartledge5 years ago in Fiction
Chlorophyngernails
As seen in Mammoth, Massachusetts: A Collection of Speculative Folk Fiction (Levellers Press 2023) I watched them all summer—lithe bodies, easy smiles—I would have done anything to learn their secret. Since Tabitha and I had split, I’d been feeling the need to explore, and the Horvath boys sparked more than curiosity in me. The pair of brothers seemed never to tire, they practically jogged up ladders, basked in the sun while we took breaks in the shade. What I would consider hoisting, was lifting to them. Packs of shingles were like boxes of crackers to these two. It was my second summer with Mr. Colby, and I learned being a roofer comes with a great amount of stress. Not that other trades don't, just that roofing brings with it a contention with the elements, namely the sun. That ball of fire is really something else, wreaks havoc on your system. Not these two, they reveled in the light. I run five miles every morning and made varsity wrestling as a freshman, but these guys were another level.
By Jordan J Hall5 years ago in Fiction
Quabbin Bobbers
**First published in The Spectre Review Literary Magazine-Oct. 2021** I know the real reason the Falcon Cam got taken down, and it has nothing to do with the cat, like everybody thinks. Most of us here at the Department of Conservation and Recreation contend the initial livestream was a sound idea. People from all over the globe were checking in regularly on the peregrine falcons that nested near the Visitor’s Center here on the Quabbin Reservoir. The DCR could use a bit of good press, our Division of Water Supply Protection does not get many opportunities to shine. It has been an uphill battle since the inception of the Windsor Dam and subsequent reservoir 80 years ago. A godsend for Boston: finally, a reliable and potable water source. Only snag was-they had to flood the Swift River Valley and the towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott to build it. Just 2,700 living inhabitants they kicked out, but more than 10,000 when you count the bodies that were exhumed. Turns out, they didn't get all of them. To be fair, those limbs the falcons were carrying were never under the soil.
By Jordan J Hall5 years ago in Fiction
A Planet Called Earth
by: Dennis R. Humphreys (the Dream Writer) He watched her across the room in a crowded club of people, dancing their way through the evening in an effort to forget the long week of work. She was beautiful beyond comprehension and there was something in the way she moved that made her an enchanting rhythm that glided through one's imagination like a welcomed dream.
By Dennis Humphreys5 years ago in Fiction
