Short Story
Justin
Kayla didn’t like going to Mama June’s. Mama was a bit creepy, and there were always some men at the outpost. She was tempted to stay in her home, safe with her friends, but she’d recently made a good haul, that she knew would earn her some nice things. Mama June paid really well for glass or mirrors, and things like that. Kayla had found a house with several whole sheets in the doors and windows. Not only that, but she also found some fresh fruits and vegetables. She knew Mama couldn’t pass those up. She packed a wagon full of goodies scavenged from the old farm, including the pieces of glass, wrapped in blankets to keep them from breaking. While most of the canning jars she’d come across, were filled with preserved food, she did include several empty jars, with perfect lids, those would fetch a good price too.
By Brian Amonette5 years ago in Fiction
You, me, and her
I look at the clock kept on the side table, it's 2 a.m and I am still wide awake, conscious of everything that’s taking place outside and inside of me. I can hear some faint noises outside, but my thoughts are very loud, deafening in fact, that it's hard to make out anything. Aware of the fact that I am moving a lot and can disturb the person sleeping beside me. But it's not under my control. Nervousness And anxiety are boiling inside me as if I were ready to explode any second now. Moonlight entering the room, falls on my wife, enhancing her beautiful features. She is sleeping peacefully like an infant. The innocence on her face makes her even more pretty. She is not very close to me but not very far as well, I can feel her breath on my skin, and the warmth of her hands on my chest. I want this moment to last forever, if not forever, then at least for some more time, although I don’t know how much time is enough. I want to preserve it, at least in my memory. Looking at her beautiful face I cannot stop myself from kissing her forehead. As I kiss her chills run down my spine, I can feel my pulse elevating. I’m terribly frightened, frighten to lose her. Although somewhere deep inside me, I know that I don’t belong here anymore. But in any case, I want her in my life, by my side. All these thoughts are shaking my entire being but I manage to sleep somehow.
By Simran Chimaniya5 years ago in Fiction
Memory
The tragedy of the end of the world isn't that the world ended. It isn't that humanity died out in the billions, or that once great civilizations full of potential collapsed to nothing. It isn't that we were so close to colonizing space and ensuring our immortality before we fizzled. The tragedy of the end of the world isn't even that some of us survived, though that's starting to get closer to the truth. No, the tragedy of the end of the world is memory.
By Vicente Vasquez5 years ago in Fiction
The last lottery on Earth
They told them it was a lottery. There was only enough space for specific people, the ones that would be able to rebuild the world. They were to tell no one and they boarded ships that were on the seas for several years. Families would be split up and children were left for dead by their parents, if they didn’t get into the lottery. The part they weren’t told was that there had been several different lotteries, and even the children that got left behind would be able to live as the world slowly died around them. Some went ashore sooner, but they all had a different land they were docked in. Each one had different criteria making them a perfect fit for the group they were in. One family was in charge of each group, they were supposed to help and give guidance for the group to survive and create a cohesive civilization. After the first generation of the groups had passed on, some of the others in the groups no longer wanted one family to control the aspects of the group. Although they didn’t want to leave their responsibility the families left the groups in fear that retaliation could break apart everything they had already planned. These groups became the control groups; there were only six of them, but the goal was to rebuild the world with these groups and create a better civilization. The thing that none of those groups expected was that society was continuing on without them. They were nothing more than experiments, thought up by the ruling families in the world and yet they continued to create their own societies bit by bit for hundreds of years. The families that had started the different colonies had simply left when the people started questioning them. They worked together with the governments and hid the experiments from common knowledge. They helped create technologies for the societies to help them create a structure once they forced the families out. The problem with the experiments spanning several generations is that the families that controlled them got bored of watching them create their own structure without intervention. At some point the experiments became less about a possible utopia and more about what a society can handle before it crumbles. The only experiment that continued on its original course was only because the family that had started it tried to leave too late and were mutinied resulting in their imprisonment and ultimately death within the same society. As only one family was assigned to each experiment there was no one able to take over, the society separated females from males and continued on coming together only for certain occasions which resulted in future generations. One of the experiments was now testing a theory on how long radiation in low quantities will result in disease and death. The Family in charge was the Brandt family, Riley being the head of the family since his father’s death five years prior. As a child he was always interested in the experiments and often asked the other families about them as they all stayed in touch with each other. The experiments could only be passed through the sons as they didn’t want any emotions to come in the way of the results and they worried that with daughters who couldn’t carry the name that would be the case. The females within the families didn’t know about the experiments and neither did the rest of the world. One night while Riley was reporting on the radiation levels his wife had come in to ask him a question and found out what he was doing for work even though he had said he worked for the government she never knew in what capacity. She had stopped and waited until Riley was off the call and when he turned around she was in tears. He moved to hold her in his arms.
By Morgan Tucker5 years ago in Fiction
You’re home
It was calm. The sweet light of day had faded out and I saw flashes. Calming flashes of warm rays and dreams… were they dreams? Were they reality? Which way was up and how far was down. I drifted on. Rolling through all the pain and pleasure that life could give. There was no need for worry or pain… Or sorrow. I finally felt like I was floating along the silvery river of my dreams. ”Can you see it!? It’s right there in front of you…“ a voice from inside my heart spoke softly to me. It was only a distant prodding, but it was still as clear as a bell and beckoned me to reach my hand out and touch what I could only possess for a short time. I let my hand slip from my side… and drag across the sweet waters that flowed around me… I was snagged back with a jolt! Writhing and twisting my body flailed in the pull of the damp shirt on my back.
By Robert Helma5 years ago in Fiction
The Rebuilding
1 The wind pressed down hard on the roof of the old shack, making it creak and tick. It was winds like this took the shack down last time, all them years ago, before the rebuilding. Powerful wind. The kind that moans so sorrowful and loud, makes a man think of ghosts and ghouls passing by.
By Callen Reece5 years ago in Fiction
Femme Fatale
"I want to live," said Florus. A moment of silence ensued as the entire class of 16-year-old boys stared at Florus from behind his seat in the front row. Florus' cheeks suddenly burned red and he felt hot beneath his collar. It was the truth though, and he didn't care that he might suffer for it. If God were to ask him what he wanted most, that's what he would say.
By Marc Peraino5 years ago in Fiction
Remembrance
An extraordinary crimson sunrise illuminated the forests south of what used to be Portland, Oregon, high in the Cascade Mountain range. The light crept through the blinds of the second-floor window of a young woman whose eyes fluttered awake at the touch of the morning sun. Rolling to her side, she sighed before pushing herself up to face the day, her sixteenth birthday. Her room was plain with white walls, a sturdy oak door, a vanity from before the collapse, and her bed, another relic of the recent past. The only real point of interest was the window that she marveled at every morning. Pulling up the blinds revealed the sprawling forested mountains that the cabin nestled itself in with. A large garden sat between the house and the edge of the forest ripe with the spoils of fall.
By Zach Sanford5 years ago in Fiction
Doggone
Entry 1 A dog barked. I crossed the rooftop in its direction, stepping over detritus that stirred lightly in the breeze and walking in a diagonal so I could look down different streets until I found the animal among the piles of refuse and corpses that lined the street. The bullets in my pocket clinked against each other as I lifted the sniper rifle, keeping my head as low as I could, and peered through the scope.
By Sarah Shea5 years ago in Fiction
