Short Story
Solitude at the End of Days
I wiped the sweat from my brow as I stood, looking up at the stars through the forest canopy, acutely aware of the calm breaths on the ground behind me.
Michael MasonPublished 3 years ago in FictionBevin's Spring Break
“Bevin, are you ready for the meeting?” That was an excellent question. Was I? I sat on my bed staring at all the clothes strewn around my floor. Mostly flannels, but a few gay pride shirts as well. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I gripped the side of my bed. The meeting started soon. I wanted this. It was just information. Why was I nervous?
Huckleberry RahrPublished 3 years ago in FictionFrom Forest To Floor
When I was about 10, I used to play in the woods across my fields all the time. They weren't very big woods, so I knew them WELL. One day up on the property line, I found a little "fort" that was naturally formed in the vines and brushes and that I could fit inside with room to spare. I had been pretending I was an explorer and was looking for a place to set up camp while I "mapped out the rest of my journey", how perfect?
The Intern
He wore my face in a clumsy expression, with eyes that lingered on the floor and an intern’s meager voice that echoed off the walls built on tradition and nepotism. Their wings clipped by the room’s noise of fashion degrees and wealthy parents, his words stumbled, then fell from his tongue in my familiar way and landed squarely on the meeting table. The table’s selection of tailor’s shears and fine fabrics became macabre instruments of a post-mortem examination on those words that died the moment they left his throat. They might have buried them on the spot, another intern’s corpse beneath the corporate floorboards, had the central London, Savile Row address not been too rich for his blood.
Nathan HutchinsPublished 3 years ago in FictionMonsters
Meg pulled the chain over her head and gave the locket a quick squeeze. She untangled her wet hair from the chain. “You dressed yet?” Paul’s voice echoed in the steep canyon.
Kelly J EricksonPublished 3 years ago in FictionSurvival
The war was inevitable. Everyone saw it coming, yet nobody was able to figure out how to stop the missiles from screaming through the skies. Nobody could create peace to stop death. The only ones that still slept were the nuclear missiles. It seemed the only thing anyone could agree on was the fact that the planet needed to be livable for when the war was over.
Patrick O'ConnorPublished 3 years ago in FictionElla's Heart
Ella awoke cold, hungry, and afraid like always. The eight-year-old pushed her dirty blonde hair away from her face. She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes hoping for a better world than the one she fell asleep in. It was not. She stood up in her mud-soaked dress gripping her dilapidated teddy bear determined to soldier on. Ella knew that she must keep walking, as she had been, for what seemed like days on end. Searching, praying, wishing she could find them.
Sean ValinotiPublished 3 years ago in FictionHer
I had never seen such fire before. It was splattered all over her body; her fierce eyes and the way that they looked right through me. Her crooked smile that somehow compliments her straight teeth. Her restless hands and her tapping feet. The passion of her voice was infectious, and it always made me smile. I didn't care how loud she was, all I could think about was what her face would feel like in my hands. She could never know how much she truly meant to me.
Olivia SelleyPublished 3 years ago in FictionThe Telling Locket
It occurred to me while watching the television that we all liked something different. Krista liked the comedy; Stefan liked the drama and I preferred the documentary. We were required by the state to watch all 5 and then vote on Saturdays. Since the mandate, people had been disappearing. At first, it was something you just heard about, then, my former bunk mate, Natalie disappeared. The disappearances always occurred on Sundays and the government didn’t seem to mind that we had seen a correlation.
Tracy PhillipsPublished 3 years ago in FictionThe Locket
The trifecta of misery hit hard in the summer of 2040 leaving the world’s population reeling from another pandemic, shortages in the food supply, and curfews implemented by the new world government. The new world government portrays itself as being for the people, the protection of the people. Sometimes, your protector is your oppressor.
Cheryl EdwardsPublished 3 years ago in FictionFireproof
The Scarcity War and the Fires indelibly changed what had once been the United States. Fires set by both factions had left scarcely a family whole, scarcely a building untouched.
TJ KlapprodtPublished 3 years ago in FictionHeart-Shaped Breasts
Even before everybody started dying from the new flu, the number of medical professionals dwindled. It was the way of formerly lucrative careers with large buy-ins. By 17, so many kids had found their millionaire status niche online, replete with earbud and automatic car sponsorships. Pursuing anything else seemed frankly foolish. Profiting parents, easily placated by their children with the promise of no student loan debt, found futher schooling unnecessary. It was a win-win for everyone but the dying and diseased.
Cali LoriaPublished 3 years ago in Fiction