Sci Fi
A Husband and Wife
She was dead. Her face was blue and her body was rigid. Her heart shaped pendant hung around her neck like a noose. He sat across the room from her, whiskey in hand. It wouldn’t be long before the dogs would come. He knew his fate, he was reserved to it. He shouldn’t have done this. But to him, she deserved it. He’d given her the world. He’d Shown her the shining city. They’d dined above the stars. He’d given her a job at the ministry of money. He would have gone to hell and back for her. She would never have returned the favour. She didn't have a history. No date adorning her arm. He believed it to be a mistake. He was wrong. He peered down at his arm, and checked the clock. It was always going to end this way. He had five minutes. Five minutes of life left. As soon as the time came to be the same as his marking, he would stop. His life would end. He should have seen it coming. He knew now it was always coming. She was a lie. A pretty face in a red dress with the devil in her eyes. She’d lied to him for years. The anger built inside of him. She’d sold him out when the ministry found a data leak. She claimed innocence and pointed the finger. He dined alone whilst she toasted success. It was only invertible. Four minutes. He tried to calm himself. He didn’t want to waste the last four minutes of his life in anger. His thoughts turned to his mother. She was always wise and always there. And now she would bury her son, her only son. He didn’t have a will. It was redacted by the ministry. How would she pay the expense. There would be no holodeck for him. Just a hole in the ground. He chuckled slightly at the thought. His father had always told him the ministry would leave him in the mud. Seemed after all he was right. He always was a smug son of a bitch. Three minutes. He began to ponder how she had kept it from him. How did she hide her intentions? She was helping the worst people, yet came across like a saint. It baffled him. He knew what the machine was. They were taught about it from a young age. A group of hateful people, looking to bring the ministry down. They were told they could turn anyone into a weapon. He never thought it could be true though. She was sweet and innocent and full of life. Yet they twisted her into a monster, willing to hurt her own husband and destroy their life. For what? Revenge for the take over? Or was it just spite? He would never know now. Two minutes. A bittersweet feeling arose in him. She was evil. She had ruined him. Yet, he still held love for her, even now at the end. He wondered why that was. Maybe he was defective. Maybe he should have been sent down south. Or maybe it was just love. He didn’t know and nor did he have the time left to rationalize his feelings. They did not matter now. Nothing did. One minute. The sirens sounded like a deafening hiss. He could hear them now. They were at the door. He knew it was time. His final thought turned to his life. He had wasted it. He had spent all of his life doing what others told him to and now, it had gotten him killed. The dogs burst in. Their metallic guns shining from the spotlight. This was right, he knew it was right. He smiled one last time as the muzzle of a gun flashed. It was over.
By Connor Davidson5 years ago in Fiction
Summer, '69
It was December, so the hills were on fire. Colomatta they were called once, those mountains that rose up from the plain. Myle had been told of eucalypt cathedrals, piled high into air so blue it seemed suffused with the very spirit of the gods. But fallen now, and swept away as ash they were remembered only as the hollows and ridges of some great buried monster, grown over with thin, greedy shrubs that spread out from half-yearly burnings, constant as a tide. While a scorched concrete wall kept the flames at bay the smoke spread up, and out, until all the air was a haze and the tendrils that were sucked inside the coach crept under the corners of Myle’s mask, burning his lungs with each breath. As he rattled through the Belt – crushed between the glittering towers standing sentry on the bay and the long, low barns of corrugated iron that stretched out into the firebreak, humming with machines – the night sky was a tie-dyed mass. Garish purples, greens and blues spilled out of floodlights at the tops of the towers that reared over, rising like chemical candles above the squat, blank tenements that lined the street. Though it was midnight the air baked, and most windows hung open, shrill voices tumbling out from television sets and radios. And the coughing, the spluttering, the heaving and the hacking. That was there too, and it never went away.
By Angus Chapman5 years ago in Fiction
The Perfect, Broken City
The Perfect, Broken City Day 1 Before recently, I have never had an issue keeping my thoughts from the Rebellion. If something has changed, I cannot identify what it is. Perhaps reviewing recent events will help me distinguish the error and revise it before something more sinister takes root.
By Dawnetta Henzman5 years ago in Fiction
Farewell Olivia
Approximately 1500 miles to the northwest in a Montana town known as Whitefish, there was a woman named Charity that was married to some mechanic twice her age. Why she married that guy wasn’t a mystery to me; he did have money. However, I knew exactly why she had invited me over that day. She knew that I was leaving for 7 months and wanted to see me one last time before my trip. I honestly didn’t know whether or not her husband knew about our rendezvous, and I was always afraid to ask because if she said “no”, I might feel guilty about making love to her while he was away. I image that they simply have an open relationship and she likes to have sex with someone her own age sometimes. I open the door to Olivia’s house and give her a peck on the lips. Her short red hair was very shiny today; more so than usual. She smelled like peppermint. A new scented lotion maybe? I have to admit that there was always something more enjoyable about a married woman being attracted to me. I wouldn’t have been as turned-on if she were single.
By Steven Allen5 years ago in Fiction
Paywall
The metal of the pendant is cool in the palm of his hand. Jamal runs his thumb across its surface absently, helping to dull the faded edges of engraved work even further. A simple golden locket with a rose engraved on its surface; tiny lines, meant to resemble vines, he supposes, emanating from the flower are etched into the heart-shaped trinket in a somewhat intricate pattern. He knows that it had once belonged to his mother, although he was not sure where she had gotten it herself, before giving it to him once he was old enough that he was no longer allowed to live at home.
By Averie Clifton5 years ago in Fiction
Cryptid-Apocalypse
Tessa was huddled up to a coffee table in the cool basement of an old farmhouse, drawing in her journal by soft lantern light. She held her silver heart shaped locket in her fisted left hand, while concentrating on every detail she could remember of what she saw earlier that day. The locket was etched with intricately shaped flowers with two small amethyst chips embedded into the metal. The amethysts were from a summer trip where her and her family had stopped to pan for the beautiful purple stones. Her mom had them set into the locket and she gave it to her for Christmas during her senior year in high school. It was the only personal item she had and it held the only pictures of her parents, so it was her prized possession. She had found a nice replacement chain in the upstairs bedroom and gave the previous owner her heartfelt thanks. Her original one had broken a while back. Biting her lip, she flipped the page and wrote down some more details of what she had seen the day before.
By Amie Green5 years ago in Fiction
Destiny
"I love you so much. I'm going to miss you." Anya's emerald eyes fill with tears. "I'm going to miss you, too. But we both know this needs to happen this way. We'll be back together soon." Joseph wipes Anya's tears away. "I got you something." He pulls a small red box out of his coat and hands it to her.
By Casey Gibbs 5 years ago in Fiction
Reclaiming the Power
I didn’t sign up for this shit. Do you know what happens when you kill a virus that reanimates the dead and use it to make a vaccine? That’s right, it reanimates. We should have known better. Someone should have known better. But just off the heels of a third pandemic, the anti-vaxxers had learned their lesson and seemingly everyone rushed off for the untested vaccination again.
By Jay Villin5 years ago in Fiction
The Two Worlds War
“The date is December 20th 2285, this is Doctor Jane McCoy with Tech specialist Eric Petters, Tech specialist Jeffery Michaels and Tech officer Ronda Chen, we’re in an old underground military bunker in Navada. We got the old terminals up and running and found some personal logs that were encrypted on the server, the encryption was easy enough to brake, one folder is labeled Earth, the second is labeled Moon and a third which is the newest log from January 1th, 2171, the day of the accident. This is strange because no one was left alive, the colony was destroyed.
By Robert Kegel5 years ago in Fiction
