Short Story
Dystopian Dilemma
It wasn't the inferno burning around me, consuming homes and humans alike, that snapped me back to reality. It wasn't the crack of the gunshots that slashed through the paper of silence that brought me back. It wasn't the screams of my brothers and sisters in arms or the terror boiling up like bile in my throat. It was a single, guttural, horrific moan. The kind that you would hear from a dying animal who had given up. The kind that sneaks into the cracks of the armor and takes you apart from the inside. It tugged on my heart, pulling my being towards itself, dragging my eyes across carnage and pain to the face of a small girl.
By Quinn Voss5 years ago in Fiction
Treasure of the Golden Locket
The golden locket lay covered in rubble, a few links of chain betrayed its place within all shattered things at the Institute of The Genetic Norm, buried under the palace grounds. An earthworm with two heads and vestigial feet curled about the locket's coolness, licking and biting with oddly human teeth seeking sustenance within swirled carvings on the heart shaped locket's surface. The locket was closed, tossed with the flick of a wrist blown apart in a blast to end all blasts. Truly, it had been held in a fierce grip as if she knew the coming of the final surprise, and the shape of the curve of the woman's cheek was burned onto the locket's golden body. Inside the locket, a sealed compartment lay beneath a watch used to note time instead of events beckoning to the abyss.
By Eldon Arkinstall5 years ago in Fiction
Shattered
“Sixty years ago, the world went to war for the final time. Billions of people lost their lives, homes and the beauty of this once magnificent place, where everywhere you looked there were new majesties to behold. My wife and I had been married for five years when the government ordered a nuclear war and for the citizens of our country to get into hiding, but by this time, they have been saying this for years. So, no one really took them seriously. We had all become complacent with our thoughts that a nuclear world war would ever transpire. Oh, how horribly wrong we were. On that fateful day, my wife and I were out enjoying a picnic looking out over the ocean. We had ourselves a nice pasta salad with our special homemade vinaigrette, some grilled ham and cheeses that we made on a portable hot plate and some quite refreshing blush champagne. We were talking about how we wanted to start a family but we needed to find a better home that would be suitable for more than just two people. We were dining and talking, smiling and laughing, having ourselves an amazing and unforgettable afternoon when our phones had beeped at us, telling us that we needed to get into hiding, that a war to end all wars, and civilizations was imminent. My wife and I looked at each other, held each other and kissed. We stood to our feet, my anxiety and fear causing my body to shiver like I was in the arctic and my wife, her beautiful blue eyes weeping because she knew we had nowhere to go. We were unfortunate and nowhere near well off to afford such a place like a bomb shelter, let alone one meant for nuclear fallout. So, we went to the only place we knew, our home. We sat there in waiting for what seemed an eternity. A bright flash radiated out on the horizon and I reached into my pocket and pulled out a gift I had forgotten to give her earlier. She opened the small velveteen box and with tears in her eyes, she took out the locket, opened it and saw a picture of the two of us. The locket was a rose gold heart, with a blue sapphire setting. As she was weeping, I helped her put it on. We kissed what would be our final kiss and goodbye. The shockwave of the blast had made our home shake like it was in the middle of an earthquake. We stumbled around trying to get to the bathroom, we didn’t have any better ideas. We grabbed a mattress and covered up in the tub. Our home, that we spent the last five years making our own, crumbling down all around us. Then everything went black.”
By Dustin Willis5 years ago in Fiction
Just a locket
The horizon was white as paper. If 6 year old Q (as her parents called her) had not been so distraught, she would have liked to reach out with her small hands and draw on it, just as so many times before she had drawn on her parents walls with her many stumps of crayons. She lived a happy wonderful life, until 20 minutes ago when the sounds began. Deep rumblings that seemed to shake everything that existed. Her parents were nowhere to be found, and this light, this brilliant white light was consuming the once black sky. Streaming from homes like ants from a hill were all her neighbors. Terrified gasps, petrified screams. What was this? As Q fell to the grass, her breath barely coming in stabs through her wracking sobs. She clutched at something warm in her hand. It was the only thing important to her now. Then everything faded.
By Aaron Bush 5 years ago in Fiction
The Manor
Dear reader, If you have encountered this, I presume you unwell. To hold it lightly in your palms, the sensation of pressure that pulls uncomfortably at the hairs on the back of your neck, you have found yourself inside the Manor. Conversely, I suppose this piece of me, hoping to salvage the pieces of you, perhaps made its way beyond this house.
By Kay Source5 years ago in Fiction
Endure
The walk towards the scrapers had been long, and particularly hard on the old sandals Hitoshi was wearing. Travelling in the heat, across the rocks, they'd basically become no more than flaps of fabric, barely held together by the tape he'd lucked upon on his journey.
By Cassie Mason5 years ago in Fiction
Back to the World
Jones walked by the shattered storefront long bare of all goods, and paused. The city was silent. Jones had always like noise; noise let him know what to listen for. It was a false comfort, of course, like sitting with his back to a wall in a restaurant. In reality that just limited his options for when a nutjob inevitably kicked in the door and started shooting. Inevitable in his mind, of course, such a thing happening was always more rare than his stacked mountain of untreated disorders forced him to believe.
By Kenton Solether5 years ago in Fiction
Aiken Park
Malcolm Bello met a girl from the inevitable future in one of his walks. Malcolm Bello walked in the morning. There weren’t too many people in the park at 7 A.M. So, Malcolm felt at ease. His vitality in the morning was not necessarily because of a goodnight's sleep but from his habit of drinking instant coffee. He was an avid consumer of instant coffee, and after years of drinking that type of java, he found out that it did not affect his balance, in reference to his nerves. It did not make them worse. Malcolm Bello was born with mild cerebral palsy. The exercise (although he had just taken it up) was a great remedy to improve his body equity.
By Ted Guevara5 years ago in Fiction
