Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers – Page 8

Dark Sun: The Dawn of Earth’s Twilight by Martyn

Published by Martyn Winters on October 21, 2024

Chapter 2: Part 1. The Founders

As Tenvoice Desire made first dayfood behind the soft-fence surrounding the Zheek science mission’s compound, he listened to the morning cries of the flying creatures inhabiting the forest in which they pitched their laboratory and marvelled at the wealth of diversity their small expedition brought to fruition. In less than a Long Thought (8 x 10^7 orbits), his companions transformed the flora and fauna of their study world, elevating ferociously mindless, land-dwelling plate-backs into semi-intelligent avians, who were doppelgangers of the Zheek’s own evolutionary precursors, and carpeted the floor of the world with brightly coloured flowers. He hopped from foot to foot, joy spreading through his hearts, as their children zipped and zoomed through the canopy, chirping and cawing their delight at being alive.

“You look happy,” mate Timeless Wanderer said. She was leader of their clade, and the visionary mind behind their project to re-establish the slowly dying Zheek as the galaxy’s pre-eminent species. He glanced up from his preparations and noticed her back feathers were flat and the two red patches near the intersection of her hard-lips and wattle were vivid. She was in a mood to mate, albeit fruitlessly.

This is the end by Zin

Published by Zin Shandi on October 2, 2024

Her hands reached up, pleading for mercy from God, as tears dripped onto the heavy bedsheet, creating a pool on the floor. In the silent room, her silent screams echoed as her trembling lips whispered, “Yes, I’ve wrapped my feelings and gifted them to the universe, embracing the unknown. I don’t know how much damage I can repair in this heart, but I know I am ascending with no hope for the present or the future.”

Suddenly, the laughter of her two children filled the air, their innocence a stark contrast to her turmoil. Leen realized that her children saw life as pure as their hearts. She wondered, “Who am I to destroy their perfect world? Who am I to tell them that I have to leave the only familiar place for them? No, I’ve had my share of distractions in this world. I’ve had those who prophetically worked day and night, torturing me. No, let my birds be free from pain. I couldn’t save myself, but I will be their savior.” She said this while bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders to balance her children’s lives.

The Attic: A chapter. By Sandra

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on October 1, 2024

Agatha brought the food from stove to table, laying the plates on the bare wood. The room was plain, with the wooden walls of the self-built house unadorned by paint, or decoration, except for the Christ figure on his cross, looking down sombrely upon the family gathered for their repast. Now the only sounds were the occasional clatter of cutlery on the plates and the chewing of food.

At the head of the table, William ate in precise movements, cutting the meat into small chunks and chewing until it was well masticated. He looked at his family from under lowering brows. Agatha ate as he did, she had learned to appreciate what food the Lord gave, as had all his flock.

The children were young and yet to fully understand this precept, and he watched Joesph as he pushed his green beans around the plate. Agatha had seen too; he saw her look of concern. Well, the boy would have to learn that waste was not tolerated.

Join Me? By Jason

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on October 1, 2024

Join me?

Like a bewildered shoal, the words emanating from the Artefact swam round and round in her head.

When the Youngling had first reached out and touched the alien object, she had experienced everything. In a single second, she saw the majestic wash of space and time, it was as if she were watching the motion of an atom from inside the atom. Dizzying. Infinite. Incomprehensible. Terrifying in its beauty and complexity. A vast endless ocean, with new and stranger tides, chaos and maelstroms, reefs and shallows and storms and uncharted depths. It sparkled like fresh stardust and raged like a clamour of broken harpies.

The Cuckoo – Parts 3a, b and c by Janet

Published by Janet Johnson on October 1, 2024

Lucy is haunted by her dreams. They were fleeting images of people and places at first, but as the months pass, images are replaced by increasingly more detailed and graphic scenes. It’s as if she is watching a film playing in her head. None of the things she sees are familiar and they scare her, she’s afraid to fall asleep. The psychiatrist isn’t unduly worried. It’s normal, she reassures. While the brain is building connections with the transplant it is bound to get some things wrong, but with time, things will sort themselves out. You just have to be patient, she says.

As Lucy sleeps, my memories emerge.

My sixth birthday and my small body is fizzing with excitement. There’s an enormous cake with pink frosting, just for me. One big puff and the candles are out. I can’t wait for a taste of its delicious sugariness. The apartment door slams open. Cussing and angry, my father, drunkenly stumbles in, demanding his dinner. Eyeing the cake, he flips and in a blind rage picks it up and throws it at the wall. I scream. My mother yells, then crumples to the floor crying, the red imprint of his hand on her cheek. Warm pee trickles down my legs. The baby’s pissed herself, he jeers. My birthday is forgotten. I hate him.

Defeat by Martyn

Published by Martyn Winters on September 22, 2024

“Defeat, when it came, was like a pall of smoke hanging over our heads, lowering our horizons,” Yeltsin said, sitting back in his chair, one boot on the boxwood table in the centre of the otherwise empty room. He lit a cigarette and took a deep draught, the livid scar near his mouth pinching into a white line as he inhaled. “That’s why we did the things we did. You would too. Anyone would.”

The Attic – another chapter by Sandra

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on September 17, 2024

There, that was the last of it. She poured the bleach down the sink, the bottle giving a few asthmatic wheezes as she emptied it. She hoped that would do it, but it had been a couple of weeks since moving in and she still couldn’t get rid of the smell.

It had intruded on her notice by degrees, the olfactory equivalent of seeing something in the corner of the eye. Just a whiff every now and then as she walked past the kitchen door, or in the hall, or the bathroom. The suggestion of overripe cabbage, or a piece of fish left too long or spoiled meat. She had tried white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, down the plugholes but that didn’t do anything. She graduated to bleach which seemed to work, at least at first. She had checked the kitchen, the fridge, the most obvious culprits for rotting food, then the oven, which she scrubbed so thoroughly she broke through the baked-on crust to the shine of metal. She thought that had solved it, but over the next few days, the smell had grown more persistent, evolving from a faint hint to a definite statement. The smell evoked childhood memories – the dead mouse found under the stairs; a bird, lying broken among its scattered feathers; a sheep in the fields near the house, that announced its presence on the wind long before the encounter with its wretched woollen carcass, the cavernous stomach putrid with ooze…

Dark Sun: The Dawn of Earth’s Twilight – the real effin prologue – by Martyn

Published by Martyn Winters on September 16, 2024

Prologue: Sede Vacante

When the dust of the universe finally settled, Father Vincente Mariani looked back at this day and realised he was mistaken. What mattered to him at the time would prove trivial, and what seemed trivial would in fact be a harbinger of peractum est. And the events of the day, as devastating as they seemed, were just the beginning of a long trail through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The day began brightly enough, with sun and fried eggs on the small patio at the rear of his cottage, a bracing walk around the shops; chatting and blessing as he wove through the women in their faded best, laughing with the men and artists in frock coats and football shirts; and penultimately, but gloriously, a celebration of Mass in his small church high in the Italian hills, just fifty kilometres north of Rome.

Siren Scenes Additional v1.3 by Jason

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on September 16, 2024

These first two extra scenes will be inserted into the story at the ends of chapters 1: Megan and 5: the Clock Shop. The aim with these scenes is to establish the Sirens a little earlier – I do reference them in other scenes but it feels like they are plonked in out of nowhere with the “Aunty Carol” chapter and I wanted to show them as part of the story sooner. The last bit “Tea and Biscuits” is a new scene that will come much later in the story but I had the idea to write it this week and couldn’t resist it! J x

The Attic by Sandra

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on September 4, 2024

Some of this is previous work and the middle piece is new. This is the rough order, but with other chapters to be added.

Pages 1-3 are previous work some of you will have seen.

Pages 4- 7.5 are New

The part ‘A later chapter’ is also previous work.

The Attic

‘Are you going to be ok?’ Joe put his arm around Mags’s shoulder and squeezed.

Mags nodded, her eyes on the floor, whispering ‘I’m fine’. The sleeves of her jumper were frayed where she’d plucked at them. If she told him what she was thinking, he’d get worried she was unravelling again. Nevertheless, wasn’t there an inevitability about this flat? She felt Death had been close to her, all her life. Not close like a friend, because who was friends with Death? No one living, anyway. Death was nearby, then, like she could put out her hand and touch it and here yet again, death had been present when the previous tenant had killed himself.

‘Well, I’m not sure I am’. Joe turned to Mrs Hardy, the estate agent, ‘Bit of a climb that, wasn’t it?’ he laughed, and Mags felt a rush of affection for him, always stepping in to lighten the mood.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Posts

Chapter 2: Part 1. The Founders

Prologue: Sede Vacante