Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers – Page 8

Otelia’s Party – Zin

Published by Zin Shandi on December 3, 2024

Five years after her divorce, Otelia finally decided to heed her friends’ encouragement and celebrate her birthday at the spring festival. Known for her empathetic nature, she often poured her energy into caring for others, yet when it came to her own well-being, she would make a contract with the devil to trap herself in another level of anxiety, and then she would find herself trapped in a cycle of anxiety that would dim her happiness.

Fast forward to the scene of her friends bursting into her home, accompanied by a nanny to look after her son while she enjoyed the night out. They swiftly helped her get ready for the festival, and thankfully, she didn’t require much preparation—her natural beauty radiated vibrantly, needing no artifice. Just an hour later, they arrived at the festival, ready to embrace the evening’s festivities.

The Empty Advent Calendars

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on December 3, 2024

Tiny Tim opened the door and scratched his crotch. ‘Yeah?’ he asked, his mouth hanging open, eyes uninterested in the small vision standing on his doorstep; pink from her cerise hair to her cherry froufrou skirt.

‘Oh, hello,’ the voice was as soft as candyfloss and just as sweet. ‘Are you ummm…’ the speaker’s eyes travelled the 6ft 5 inches of height and the gargantuan belly that was at eye-level, ‘…Tiny Tim?’ she finished, looking hopeful.

Tiny Tim chewed a bit of his bacon sandwich that had been lurking, scared, behind one of his teeth and he masticated it thoroughly as punishment before swallowing. ‘Nope,’ he said and slammed the door. Homes under the Hammer was starting in a minute and he didn’t want to miss any detail of peeling wallpaper, knackered kitchens and revolting bathrooms, especially as he lived in a house very like them. It cheered him up to think there were others in the same boat.

A Post Turkey World – Jason

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on December 3, 2024

The turkeys had all died.

I mean all of them, across the entire world, they ALL died. Taken by a particularly virulent variant of bird flu, which also took chaffinches and parakeets and a host of other species with it¹. This was made sadder and even more depressing by the fact that the very last turkey in the world, Sven, died on Christmas Eve that year. A fact that devastated much of western culture and dominated the Christmas news feeds, but failed to really register in other parts of the world, especially during the brutal monsoon season of that year which had barrelled in after the worst droughts in living memory.

Vegans didn’t really give a fuck.

Sci-Fi Course Wk8 Writing Exercise. Martyn

Published by Martyn Winters on December 3, 2024

Part II – Futuristic version – SciFi.

Special Marine Hua Jin rides through the lanes, the ancient Harley she stole from the Autarch Voss, straining against the tug of Voss’s traction beam, and the noise of the gathering ion storm, her left arm trailing behind her like a rag in her slipstream, a pattern of needle points in her rapidly deadening shoulder, where the darts from the Dzarb caught as she cut through their line. Her black uniform flaps noisily in the wind, as fronds from the roadside vegetation slap against her thighs. Tucked in her breast pocket below the gold and red dragon insignia of her unit, nestles the thumb drive containing the data Voss needs to set the planet-breaker device in motion.

A Dzarb soldier drone rushes from a hedge, its grasping tentacles and slavering bi-fold maw full of intent. Jin drives straight over it with her engine thundering.

With a crooked grin on her face, she yells, “Hell yeah, no-one messes with the corps.”

Bod by Sandra

Published by Sandra Lloyd Lewis on November 20, 2024

The door is partly open, and he can see the darkness behind it.

Hello?

No answer. He stands on the wooden porch for a moment, listening. Silence.

The invitation was for 7pm and its quarter past now, so he’s not too early.

Hello? He says, louder and he pushes the door, against the objection of the hinges.

The hallway is cool, and dim and he can see straight through to the kitchen where he can make out the corner of a countertop.

There are no lights. There should be lights, surely. Or if not lights, then candles, the signifier of a convivial evening, but this hallway has the stillness of an empty house. Half-light from the fading day seeps in. The air has an edge of dampness, as though the house has been uninhabited for a long while.

The Cuckoo – Part 5 – Additional Scenes. Janet

Published by Janet Johnson on November 19, 2024

Scene 5a – Part of Lucy’s backstory

It had been Richard’s idea to hire a Winnebago and take a trip into the Outback. Why would he want to put them all in danger like that, the snakes, spiders, dingoes, isolation and relentless heat? Rachel thought, but she’d seen the excitement of the adventure on Lucy’s face and had to agree, against her better judgement. She didn’t want to be the one who deprived her daughter of this experience and hated for it. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t worried, fussing about everything and preparing for the trip like it was a military operation. She let as many people as she could think of know their itinerary, stacked the van with enough food and water to keep an army alive for a month, far more than was needed for the week they planned, not to mention the mini hospital first aid kit and the litres of sunscreen.

From the music shop to the pub – Jason

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on November 19, 2024

With a sigh, Julie put down her shopping bags. In all her years she couldn’t remember seeing weather like it. An old newspaper streaked past and whacked into the side of a rubbish bin, pinned against the dirty metal for a moment before being pulled down the street. Julie turned to the elderly woman stood next to her. With a nod to the wildness on the street she said, “Have you ever seen the like?”

The call of the void. By Martyn

Published by Martyn Winters on November 12, 2024

The Gnome Office squad room is unpretentious; two ancient partner desks set at not quite right angles to each other, atop a threadbare carpet, which has seen better days, three one-way windows facing Number 8 Downing Street’s thronging protestors waving their “Gnomes Go Home” banners, and a surfeit of briefing papers covering every surface, each emblazoned with “Urgent: Office of the Prime Minister” and stamped in red with “PLEASE IGNORE – Office of Queen Flaxmain.”

The noise of disco music coming from the Serious Frog Office in the adjacent room seeps through the walls as a dull thrumming, just loud enough to create compression waves in Ironbell’s Bracken-Tea.

“Umros, could you ring the frogs and tell them to turn that racket down?” Inspector Camden Ironbell says as he plumps his flattened seat cushion for the third time that morning.

The Cuckoo – Part 4 – Janet

Published by Janet Johnson on November 5, 2024

“Where the hell are my keys,” Rhys says to himself, hunting around his flat.

He’d chosen a modern apartment block with a video door entry system, an open-plan kitchen-living room, two ensuite bedrooms, a large terrace, and underground parking, easy to live in but soulless. Rifling through the piles of papers covering most surfaces, he searches in the vain hope that he might catch a glimpse of his car keys, at some point soon, he’s already running late. A scratching noise from the kitchen disturbs his search.

“Oh God, sorry, Rufus,” he says, looking at a white rat with pink eyes staring at him from its elaborate cage, a labyrinth of tunnels and wheels, “I nearly forgot you.”

Reaching into the cage, he removes the food bowls, ensuring that Rufus doesn’t escape, and fills them with special nutty-smelling rat nuggets from a bag found under the sink and clean water. As he puts the bowls back, he spots his keys lying beside the cage.

“Rufus, you’re a lifesaver,” he says, grabbing his keys and smiling and waving at the rat as he hurries out of the apartment. Distracted by his food, the rat isn’t interested in Rhys’ departure.

Haven Part 2 by Jason

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on November 5, 2024

Emyr is a boy alone, cast adrift, a lone figure facing…

Energies rotate and build, turning and folding around themselves, a twist of melody here a spiral of incandescence there. The Harmonicus Universalis moves in stately time crystal sphere pushing itself over crystal sphere, sparks rain down from the heavens. Galaxies parade and dance, planets spin into eternity, the pulsars and quasars and magnetars burst with penetrating radiation, pushing life into the void like a virus.

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