Short Story
The Blaze
The first generation after the Blaze had more life skills than a boy scout with all his badges. Their geographical knowledge put Google Maps to shame. They could give you turn by turn directions on how to get from the sunny beaches of Siberia to the tundra of India or from the snow covered Morocco to the prairies in Hong Kong. Everyone living spoke seven languages with perfected fluency, but there was one word they didn't know in any language: drought. The children had no knowledge of the world their parents lived in or of the event that killed ninety-five percent of humanity. They had not a single clue as to what happened during the decade rain didn't come. None of the survivors could ever bring themselves to relive and envision the smell of the burnt terrain or the stench of faceless bodies decomposing on dry land, or about how every single day they learned of another death and another uncontainable fire.
By Megan Weidle5 years ago in Fiction
4 Wars Old
The scariest dystopian aren’t the ones built off imagination, but history. Doomsday isn’t some new idea; Doomsday isn’t something that snuck in on the small family. Doomsday was something they lived with every day. Sometimes they say the oldest child is four wars old, lived through a bombing on their first day of life, a mass murder on their fifth birthday - at that time the child was only minutes from meeting me. The next war defined the child’s future.
By Lex Colwell5 years ago in Fiction
Tin
In '99, we were just kids, fourteen and thereabouts. Like most teenagers where we come from, we was always raising hell, getting into all kinds of shit. Most afternoons we'd spend taking baby sips of whiskey and spinning on the swings until we almost puked. Liquor was never hard to come by. Once the jobs peter out, folks start to drink. Not a dime for rent, but they could scrounge enough for a bottle, and they would get so damn blitzed, it was easy enough to fill a couple coke cans with booze. At least enough to get our scrawny butts toasted. We were stupid little dick-wipes and like stupid little dick-wipes, we didn't know where the train was headed. It had just turned summer, school was done, and we didn't know how we were going to spend all that free time. We certainly didn't expect the summer would end the way it did, with that girl dying.
By Mack Devlin5 years ago in Fiction
Vera
The Collector peels open her lids as the beginnings of the morning light creep through the window slats. She drags a dirty hand down her face, stretching her legs and climbing out of her cot. Sand batters the sides of the railcar that she calls home, casting a smoky shade over the rising sun. She pulls on her worn leathers and too small boots, throwing a rifle over her shoulder before stepping out into the wastes.
By Kaitlyn Burnett5 years ago in Fiction
That Day, That Woman
There she was in all her infamous glamour. Red acrylic nails with a weave flowing down her back; typical. I hated her. How could he bring her along today? He only graced us with his presence once a week since he moved out a month ago and I was still adjusting when he showed up with That Woman in the passenger seat. My pearly whites betrayed my sinking heart. Smiling while having a dagger plunged and twisted into my core was now common. I craved for my mother’s nurturing at that moment, but I had to be strong and set an example for my three siblings. I swallowed every painful word that wanted to escape and held on firmly to every salt laced drop that begged to stream down my innocent cheek.
By Miss Walker5 years ago in Fiction
SADIE
She closed the locket, running her fingers along its heart-shaped edge. So much she had lost over the past year, but this one hurt the most. Looking out at the leaden sky, she felt a heaviness. The world had changed and she hadn’t been able to stop it. She would soon suffer the same demise as Henry, but she had water for now. For now.
By Melissa Haley5 years ago in Fiction
