Sci Fi

The Polchinski Locket
The Stormers bear down on me with endless fire. Golden, glowing shards of plasmic metal whistle past me and strike my armor, which won't hold up to an endless barrage such as this one. Weaving between cover, I have no hope of escape. My weapon is nearly empty, and my lone searing knife won't do much good with a group of enemies.
By K. T. Scott5 years ago in Fiction
A Cure For Malice
Ash. Soot. Crumbling stone walls held an air of something grand clinging to a shred of existence. A house once stood here; one large enough to house Pinnacle’s security division. In this era of cramped charging hubs and Lilliputian living spaces, long removed from when such places were more than rubble, Malice couldn’t imagine another purpose for such a large space.
By Sadie Clements5 years ago in Fiction
To Pluto
He slid his fingers over the cold metal. It wasn’t beautiful, by any means. The chain had tarnished and rusted long ago. He could see that the heart shaped pendant used to be ravishing. It had a dismal green tint behind the years of dirt and grime. The blackened silver hugging the stone still clung onto its former beauty, still trying to shine. He sat there for what felt like an eternity, admiring the beauty of the jewelry. He,mindlessly, turned it over and over in his hands. He wondered who it belonged to and what the story could’ve been. He turned it over in his hands one last time and saw something. If he wouldn’t have looked down at that moment, he would’ve missed it. It was the smallest twirl. It seemed to have been burned into the metal. An inscription, perhaps? He thought. It definitely didn’t look professional. It was shaky, messy, and a stark contrast to the elegant front.
By Hope Davis5 years ago in Fiction
Bamboo Gardens
7/9/2024 "Pass me the skin," were the last words my father ever spoke to me. The waterskin wouldn't have saved him anyway. Red-rot had set in long back.
By Tyler Torgrimson5 years ago in Fiction
Programmed Priorities
Plumes of smoke had eclipsed the sun for centuries. So long, in fact, that the residual clock battery in the TA-96 had died many years ago.
By Joseph Cieslak5 years ago in Fiction
The Cost of Hope
Day -01: Preparation Grubosh cubes weren’t the best tasting food and I suppose that’s the idea, but at least we had plenty of them. The pale white cubes with tiny Gs on all 6 sides were easy to store, which is why I obtained so many. I stuffed the last of the water purification trodes into the second duffle bag as I heard a noise in the front room. I grabbed the bags and quickly threw them into the closet.
By Steven Allen5 years ago in Fiction
My Dystopian Promise
The world was silent. The sky was dark. The life was gone. We walked with hurried steps through the empty street. The chill of the air made my anxious beads of sweat freeze down my back as they moved quickly. We couldn’t afford to be late.
By Lydia Booker5 years ago in Fiction
From Darkness Comes
Sweat slicked hair kept stinging her eyes. Hands far too deep in the dust and grime of this experiment, the only option was to endure because attempting to push it back would likely leave her blind. She puffed air from her supple cheeks in an effort to keep focused. Every little detail of this contraption’s wiring had to be perfect. If she failed, the only thing worse than the rip in the universe that could happen was the sheer disappointment of failure.
By Jin Exelixi5 years ago in Fiction
Samaria
I woke up under a dying tree with caustic ash dried to my lips and teeth. The ash was no worse than the dried rubble that I walked through or the leathery feel of my skin. I was dragging my leg at times and finding difficulty managing an upright posture. My clothes have been charred from the fire. Surprisingly, they had held up. I see fires in the distance behind me raging above the sparsely treelined horizon and hear explosions reverberating. There will be no survivors, nor should there be. I have been frozen for years in the deep freeze lockers in the pharma biogenetics deep lab basement. An apparent malfunction of the ancillary power grid changed that, because they had no intention of releasing anything that was fabricated at this particular plant of horrors and human experimentation gone extremely wrong. Experiments no one in their right mind would have done. They locked it down and closed it like a time capsule after selling the most horrendous of these mutated freaks to the most sadistic people inhabiting earth. Had it been for the fact this lab was unmanned I wouldn’t have gotten away. I am sure my exit breach set off the series of explosions. They didn’t expect anything to escape. The trip wires tell me that their intentions were to kill anything coming or going.
By DEEJAY 5 years ago in Fiction
The Unnamed Child
The planet was dying, and Ward Ad1 welcomed it. She longed for it, especially in the evening when consciousness returned to end her drug-induced slumber. She fumbled for the eyedropper next to her bedroll, opened the face shield on her helmet, and winced as the moisture coated the lens of her eyes. Pink tears slid down her cheeks as she sat up and took her first painful breath of the day. The oxygen from her tank pierced her lungs. She sipped stale air, eventually gathering enough strength to sit up, the sharpness of her breathing slowly subsiding. She nudged the lump in the bedroll next to hers and elicited a soft but unmistakably angry grunt. Ward Ma3 cracked her dry, dust-encrusted eyelids open just enough to glare at her bunkmate.
By Erin Benson5 years ago in Fiction
The Thing With Feathers
Hope strained her muscles and pushed the pedals of her bike the last 200 yards to the safety of the shade of the former four-stall car wash. The idea of wasting water for vanity's sake was a ludicrous notion to Hope. Still, her people had put the building to better use. A grow house. It warmed her heart, thinking of all the plants that large of a building could maintain. The solar panels appeared cared for, and the roof was of special greenhouse glass. The air purifier was attached to the side building. The old "Holiday" sign still stood, beckoning long-dead travelers to its doors. Not much for travelers these days. This location was a part of H.O.P.E. Heal Offer Protect and Educate. A last-ditch effort for the survival of life on earth. Their fight was an uphill battle. Some chose a nomad lifestyle, trying to survive however they could instead, often stopping through posts to trade goods, news, and even act as a postal service. Nomads were always a risk, and special precautions were taken with those that had not taken the oath. A nomad could become a scavenger if they grew desperate enough. While H.O.P.E. was against the destruction of any living thing, those that preyed on others were a cancer that could not be tolerated. Even names were safeguarded against strangers. Hope was the name of all that brought it to others.
By Jessica Spates5 years ago in Fiction
De-Unification
We were digging up the potatoes when Maggie-Mae collapsed. She slipped silently to the ground between the neat green rows - I don’t think anyone else saw. I didn’t want to draw attention, so I kept digging as I moved closer to her position, near enough to see she was still breathing. Her soft, gray hair clung damply to her cheeks, and she made a rasping, phlegmy sound with each shallow breath. It was clear she was unfit for work.
By Angel Whelan5 years ago in Fiction