Short Story
Asleep
You know that feeling when everything is going great and you’re seemingly on a cloud of bliss but like a knife a part of you cuts in reminding you not to get too attached or warning you something bad is probably around the corner? It was like that. My entire family had been taken away in the night. I awoke from my dream in the refugee camp to the smell of smoke and fires and they were all gone from their beds, only crumpled blankets remained. They must not have seen me. I did always sleep with my face covered; I could not stand the sound of mosquitos buzzing in my ears.
By Sally Martin5 years ago in Fiction
The Illusion of Happiness
I do not know if I have ever felt such peace. The sound of crunching gravel under my thick soled shoes pleases my ears as I am walking down a path with tall oaks on either side. There are blades of sunlight slicing through the small spaces in between the emerald treetops. The songs of various birds echo around me. A welcomed breeze passes and cools my skin under my light tan suit. The smell of damp earth fills my nostrils. The path curves to the left, and the trees open to a bright field of pink and violet wildflowers.
By Maya Wayne5 years ago in Fiction
This Is Our Way
This Is Our Way My only escape is to drift off and remember the child utopia of my youth on the surface. Protected by structured walls made of strong rock, metal scraps from the previous life, and clay formed by our Elders. Everything in the Oasis is green, lush, and vibrant. Our bellies full and our every want or need met. There was laughter and joy and love in each little soul that walked the compound. Stories from the Great Elders and Academics passed down generation to generation give us roots to the cause of survival and progression now. Things used to be much different. A virus swept the earth in 2020, and when our people saw the light at the end of the tunnel, a bigger wave of catastrophe cascaded through the whole world. Viral variants multiplied, rushed vaccines had dire consequences, and worldwide power outages destroyed many populations. Civil unrest and war ran rampant before nature took over and started to heal itself from decades of destruction. The wild flourished like it had in ancient times. The beasts of the forests and jungles finally got the upper hand, and we were at their mercy, forced to go deep underground for protection. Our only saving grace was a genetic mutation found in an extremely rare number of us that gifted immunity to the superior viruses. Still, we were left severely outnumbered. The child sanctuary was nothing like the Elder’s times. Simple, basic, but everything you need to be strong and healthy and nurtured. The land was vast but the walls were colossal. Sunlight entered the valley during peak hours in the afternoons when it was at its highest point. Fresh water, hills, and vegetation flowed beautifully, and these memories are what keep my mind intact while I am physically confined in the dimly lit cavern the Expectants live in.
By Taylor Kaszas5 years ago in Fiction
Only in the Face
It always got its blood. He was chubby but in that stocky way a man gets when they aren’t tall and thin and gone to fat but have a hidden layer of old muscle on their bones. Probably had been a laborer or furniture mover and now he was drinking a six pack a day and downing a bag of Cheetos while watching big time wrestling on channel 2. He was covered in hair, dark and thick, his head and jaw unruly and except his upper lip which he must have shaved quickly, probably only minutes ago. It was stubbly and had red spots of fresh blood coagulating on it. The beard was shiny, and she wondered if he’d bothered to use some kind of fancy beard oil on it or if it was just sweat.
By Arthur E Nickles5 years ago in Fiction
The Locket of Humanity
On September 19,2040 a worldwide warning went out with a race against time to find the stolen heart -shaped locket. It was not just any locket, it was “The Locket of Humanity”. But who would go on this mission to find the locket of humanity to stop the world’s dystopia? One brave commander and his team of soldiers volunteered to go on this mission. Commander King, Lieutenant Da Goat, Captain Lady G and Sergeant Beast Mode headed to Mount Savior to set up the heist to get the Locket of humanity back.
By Denise Garrett5 years ago in Fiction
Loved
September 9, 2025 They were coming. I could hear them. Heart pounding, lungs aching, I sprinted from the cover of the forest into the tangled field. I trained for this. I trained for this. I willed my breathing to slow, my mind to focus. Guilt battered at the edges of my thoughts, but I pushed it aside. Focus. She knew the truth, and she would believe me. I just had to make it home. I had to see the one who knew me, who only had to look me in the eye and say my name, and my soul remembered. I drew strength from speaking her words to the pounding of my heart.
By Rachel Frampton5 years ago in Fiction
Bacao
From an early age, Bacao had a faint, but curious suspicion that his world was not quite what it should be. Walking down the street, he would peek into minivans and see mothers coddling cell phones and talking into their children. He would see lips sometimes where eyes should be, and eyes at times on the wrong side of a face. He would grab his mother’s hand only to find it wasn’t a hand at all, only a glove in the shape of one. People he passed saw only straight ahead. Look at me, he would think, and he would dance and shout but they wouldn’t look. When he was crossing the street, only then would the cars stop, and when they didn’t his mother cursed them and they would disappear forever. When he returned home, he would sit in the backyard and watch the trees grow, but they never grew. He’d be there all day and into the night, and besides the occasional leaf that was knocked off a branch by a brief gust of wind, nothing really ever changed. The stars never seemed right either. There were too many or too few, and when he counted them, new ones kept appearing and those he had already accounted for were nowhere to be found. Sometimes the sun and the moon would trade places, sometimes they’d melt into each other for a moment, and sometimes they were gone altogether.
By Isaiah Kane5 years ago in Fiction
