by submission | Sep 24, 2024 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
We spend most of our time within the game. Until less than a year ago, I had been one of the majority and I believed that the opportunities we had were unlimited. It is all right there at our fingertips. All we have to do is simply reach out and grab it and we can do whatever we want to do; climb Mount Everest or swim the channel or trek across the Sahara. There isn’t anyone alive now who remembers a time before the game. All those old arguments that, whatever we do within it, isn’t real, that it doesn’t count or matter are of course redundant. If you decide to climb the mountain you have to be prepared and committed because you will experience every single footstep. Every second of the journey will feel authentic and the experience will be real.
But it isn’t the big stuff that concerns me, or at least it wasn’t to begin with. It was the small things, the mundane and everyday rituals that hardly register with us. Sitting and reading a book or newspaper, watching television or a film, listening to music. We all do these things but only within the game. But of course, it didn’t matter, everything was available, and our choices were infinite and then I discovered my grandfather’s list.
I found the list tucked in a drawer whilst sorting through my mother’s belongings. I presumed at first my grandfather had recorded his reading habits for that particular year, although there was a no preamble or introduction, and he hadn’t reviewed or rated any of the books. He had simply listed the titles and the names of the authors, none of whom I recognised.
It was a printout of a blog post but when I looked for the site on the outside it had been deleted. I was intrigued and decided it would be interesting to read some of these works and was surprised when I found they were all unavailable within the game. But I assumed that when something fell out of fashion and was forgotten it was removed. After all, the game is all about what we want and what is relevant. Anyway, I could easily find the books on the outside.
The game is a vast online continent where we all reside, and the outside is the abandoned wasteland that surrounds it. Equally as vast, it is the continent that hardly anyone now visits.
I was shocked to discover that the books were also missing on the outside. Some of the writers were fleetingly mentioned in a few articles and reviews but there was no real information about them. No biographies or obituaries. And I couldn’t accept that, because something had been forgotten, it could disappear entirely.
I was determined to find the books and I have begun to search out in the real world, where there are still mountains of old books and although hardly anyone buys or reads them, there are still shops and libraries. These places are often hidden away and difficult to locate but I will seek them out wherever they are and whenever I am able.
I still spend time within the game of course but my heart isn’t really in it, not anymore.
by Julian Miles | Sep 23, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Time of death: five twenty-one.”
Ben glances away from the clock as the doors of the operating theatre swing open. Three figures in grey suits enter. Following behind them is a cadaver drone.
The foremost points to the body on the table.
“Ours.”
Ben’s about to obstruct the intruders when Nurse Kino grabs him by the arm.
“Let them.”
The nearest figure turns slightly and inclines their head towards her. Ben notices the rest of the surgical team have stepped back.
The drone opens to reveal a padded bench. As it does so, the body on the operating table lifts into the air. Implements and equipment drift down to settle gently on the table. Sutures and staples spring from the body and alight like feathers.
With the shedding of medical sundries completed, the body floats into the drone and settles on the bench.
The rearmost figure speaks.
“Thank you for your respect.”
Before Ben can formulate a reply, the three visitors exit, drone in their wake.
The doors swing to.
He looks about, watching the others exchange glances.
“Somebody care to tell the contractor what just happened?”
Nurse Kino hastily releases his arm, then pats it lightly.
“That was a retrieval team from Re:Life.”
He pauses, smirks, then bursts out laughing.
“Okay. You caught me with that. Don’t try following up with cryogenics, though. Who were they?”
Senior Nurse Clara steps across to back Kino.
“She wasn’t joking. You just encountered the Beings from Heaven.”
Ben raises a hand.
“You’re serious. You believe those were Angelics?”
“They exist. Third time this year they’ve come for the dead.”
Ben looks about. He sees nods of agreement.
“I thought they only turned up for the rich?”
Nurse Naront waves a tentacle in disagreement.
“It is said they come for those who have made an arrangement with them. Others do say it’s down to being able to pay. Yet some say they’re being taken to pay for another’s sins. A few believe it’s selection by genetic purity, but there’s no agreement about criteria. The truth? Nobody knows.”
Ben dodges the nurses and runs through the doors. Only way to find out is to ask, because it’s clear the surgical team haven’t. He calls to a nearby orderly.
“Three suits. Drone carrier. Which way?”
The man points back past him towards the grav shafts, then points up. Ben races that way and throws himself into the ascent shaft. Wafting rapidly upwards, he thinks about which floor: long term care, premiere ward, Skyline Restaurant, or landing pad?
“Landing pad.”
Exiting the grav shaft, he jogs along a short hallway and arrives on the open roof, chill early morning air cutting through his scrubs to make him shiver.
The pads are empty.
“We don’t need vessels, Ben.”
Ben spins about. One of the figures stands nearby, a portal of sparkling energy at their back.
“We merely avoid witnesses.”
“Why?”
“Secrecy. The truth you want is simple: some beings deserve a second chance, free from the ties of their previous existence. We provide it.”
“How much?”
“Nothing. We choose.”
“Why bother to talk to me, then?”
“You’re wasting your talent because of one mistake.”
Ben takes a step back.
“If you die without forgiving yourself, we will offer you this chance.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because if this encounter changes the direction of your life, another can be gifted.”
“How will you know?”
“Things work differently where we come from.”
“So that’s it?”
They step back through the portal.
“Yes.”
The portal closes.
Ben stands and watches the dawn, wrestling with both conscience and disbelief.
by submission | Sep 22, 2024 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
Emeril Ainsley leaned his head forward, studying the finer details of a satellite probe’s scanning transmission. Martian storms were quelled, leaving the target crater clear for deployment.
“We’ve got a go, team. Let’s make it count. One try. One win.” Captain Ainsley alerted those in the control center that the moment had arrived.
A severely pale, short middle-aged man with balding hair shook his head.
“You’re still the doubter, Carmine? A little late for that.” Ainsley made his displeasure clear, tiring of the naysaying of his assigned Moonie weapons advisor.
“We made this monster on my beloved Moon because of fears that if it was transported from Earth, and a rocket failed during ignition, the payload might fry every living thing on any continent below it. Our Moon’s helium-3 resources were supposed to help build faster computers and heal cancer, not create a ten-thousand-megaton planet killer. It’s Teller’s karma to use it.” The room stilled. Carmine played his role of tenth-man advisor as everyone else celebrated with anticipation.
“This isn’t a moment for dawdling,” Ainsley snapped back. “We need Mars for colonization soon, not a hundred years from now. The short half-life of helium nuclides from the Aqua Regia explosion will ensure all those freshwater resources we need for our pioneers’ survival, unlike Musk’s failures fifty years ago. We already tested the potential for this weapon in Antarctica using a revised W48 nuke design. It wrenched up an underground lake to the surface in a day. In two years, we’ll have people using that lake on Earth’s southern pole for further research under a helium-4 glass dome you Moonies built. So what’s your problem?”
All eyes were on the diminutive consultant, while some moved away from his corner, fearing the wrath of their short-tempered leader.
“I understand,” Carmine responded, quietly. “Hellas Planitia has the only crater on Mars already reaching the critical seven-mile depth. It’s the sweet spot. But I also know, that as of this morning, this operation was still without the approval of Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian space authorities. The Mars Treaty promised them parts of this planet. A mistake could damage their future landing sites. We have never tested weapons this large, even in underground shots. There will be no going back if this goes badly.”
“Fine, then you can sit this one out. I don’t want someone nagging at my back. We’re plenty safe in this bunker on this side of Deimos, away from the blast site. Chief, take Carmine to his quarters and keep him there until further ordered.” The security officer moved forward, directing Carmine out of the control room with little resistance.
“Remember,” Carmine yelled back. “They didn’t think TSAR Bomba would destroy tens of miles of the Earth. You’ll be judged, Captain.”
“Not by the Moonies, pal. Your race will still be sitting inside your hollow fortress floating around Earth like ghosts while Mars grows into a superpower. All you are now is a bump on the road to progress.”
Murmuring went through the room as the door closed, shutting off Carmine’s tirade. Light applause followed.
“Enough of the festivities, folks. Time to make the omelet. Let’s crack a few eggs.” The captain turned to his remote control operators flying the weapon satellite over the Southern Hemisphere of the Red Planet. “Let her rip!”
by submission | Sep 21, 2024 | Story |
Author: C.R. Kiegle
I was a genius inventor and a foolish woman. I was the mortal to transcend the bounds of my own lifespan and invent time travel, the one to beat that final constraint of the universe. I watched the classic plays of the ancient Greeks as they were first performed in Athens, travelled to planets colonized in distant futures, and spent nights at the bars frequented by my childhood baseball heroes in their earlier years of adulthood. I was limited only by the constraints of the bounds of time itself, where the final temptation waited for me.
The darkness of the before. The chaos of the silent sea that lay before the beginning of time itself. Oh, how I longed to experience it- that churlish realm before time itself first ticked, a place in which only something divine could exist in. Yet it lay beyond my bounds, as my device could travel only within time, not before it.
But it could travel to the darkness that lay in the afterwards.
The darkness of the universe after the last black hole finally fell apart and entropy claimed its ultimate victory.
I may not have been able to join the divine in the before, but with my device I could join them in the after. Carefully putting in the date I had best approximated from my travels, I set it so that I would spend just three minutes in that empty darkness.
If the before was a chaotic sea begging to be let lose, the after was distinctly not. As I sat there in the emptiness in the suit that compromised my time travel device, I was not hit by the feeling of muchness that I had expected. If chaos were the before and entropy the one to bring about the afterwards, as I had reasoned, then certainly what lay beyond the end of all things had to be that same force of chaos eating away at itself for all the rest of time.
And yet the sea I encountered was at rest. In my three minutes, I felt a sense of calm and completeness such that I would never feel again in my life, a sense that I would forever long for and find myself in pain to be without. Looking back, I think now that it was the feeling of the completion of every story that the universe had to tell. All the stories that had been held back before the start of time fueled that churlish sea, and now each of those stories had reached their ending. The majestic births and deaths of stars, the constant expansion of the cosmos, and even all the beautiful and fleeting lives of those that lived throughout the vastness- all that was meant to be had been, and never would be again. Only I and the divine could ever experience this afterwards of quiet, and in the stillness I wondered if even the divine ever dared to visit this place.
Then the three minutes were up and I was returned to my own time. I took off my suit, put it in a box, and buried it deep under the earth. I got married, had children, watched those children have children, studied sunsets and rainfalls and breezes through green summer trees and felt nothing at all. I had turned to the last page of the book- not my own book, but the book that comprised all books- and spoiled it all.
by submission | Sep 20, 2024 | Story |
Author: Emily Kinsey
I was trapped. I awoke from a dreamless sleep with a start, unsure how the fire started. (Although, if you ask me, it was probably my brother’s fault.) Flames licked through the open bedroom door and thick black smoke obscured the lone bedroom window.
The fire blazed a jagged scar across the wallpaper to my left, unearthing a small, never-before-seen door, hidden beneath the layered paper. I could see light through the slits and alongside the crackling of fire, I could hear the distinctive sound of someone knocking…and knocking…and knocking.
The door swung open, and a woman appeared in the doorway; an entrance to a different world lay just beyond her.
“Quick, in here!” the woman said, holding the door ajar. “Now!”
Unsure, I hurled myself through the opening. Landing hard, I kicked the door shut.
The woman stood and straightened her suit. “That was a close one.”
“How did you do that?” I coughed. My nose and throat burned; my eyes blurred against the too-bright white hallway. “What is this place?”
“My sincerest apologies, we should have come for you earlier,” the woman said. “But we’re busy today. Lots of glitches.”
“Glitches?”
“They’re common this time of year,” the woman said, helping me to my feet. She turned and guided me down the brightly lit hallway. “We’ve no idea why.”
“Am I dreaming?” I peered down the long, narrow corridor. I couldn’t see a beginning nor an end, just an endless expanse of doors. “Did I die in that fire?”
The woman pinched me.
“Ouch!”
“Hurt?” she asked.
“Yes!”
“Then you’re still alive.”
“Why am I here?” I asked.
“Because you don’t die in a fire,” the woman said.
“I don’t?”
“Car accident,” she volunteered nonchalantly. “Well, here we are, door number five hundred and thirty-three,” she said stopping in front of a door only distinguishable from the rest by the glowing blue number emblazoned above it. “This is where you were supposed to be today.”
“I’m really not dreaming?”
“You are absolutely, unequivocally, not dreaming,” the woman said, checking the time on her wristwatch. “Now, here you are, your door. You just need to walk through it.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Just another cog in the wheel,” the woman said. “Now, Kate, the door….”
“Where does it go?”
“Forward.”
“I want to go home.”
“It doesn’t go backward.”
“I can’t go home?”
“You can go through this door.”
Dejectedly, I walked through the threshold. The room was pitch-black, and I was no longer standing but sitting and strapped in a chair. I regretted my decision immediately. I wanted to go back to the hallway of infinite doors.
“Kate? What are you doing here?” a voice asked in the darkness. I recognized it. It was my father. “How did you get in the backseat? You weren’t there a minute ago.”
“I don’t know,” I trembled.
“She appeared out of thin air!” my brother cried. I could vaguely make out his form buckled in the seat next to me.
“How did you do that?” my father yelled.
“I don’t know!” I shouted. “There was a fire, and a door, then a woman, and she said I’m supposed to be here right now.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” my brother said.
My father turned to glance at me. “A fire?” The car jerked to the left and a large redwood tree loomed just beyond the windshield.
“Dad, look out!” I called, but too late.
I heard fracturing metal and felt a sensation of floating weightlessly through the air, the fleeting world turning on its head, then, nothing at all.
by submission | Sep 19, 2024 | Story |
Author: Rosa May M. Bayuga
It was one of those days when she thought she had a great sense of smell. Freshly-baked bread, raindrops, laughter, screams and wounds and hurts, she could smell them all. She could smell the smoke from the pyre of fallen leaves that her father poked with a stick in the backyard of her childhood home. She could smell the flowers whose names she didn’t know from the byways and alleys and side streets and dirt roads she had ever walked on. She could smell shadows and sunbeams, failures, and forsaken dreams.
There was something funereal about the smell that came to her that day. It was a mix of melting candles, incense, and heady blooms, a certain scent that belonged to places of eternal rest. And the sad thing was that she couldn’t place where it was coming from. She looked around the room, opened doors, peeped at corners, even went outside to her little pocket of a garden to find out if there was something there. But she found nothing … nothing.
A sudden stab of pain coursed from her left chest, spread to her back, went up her neck, and traced a path through her breasts. Then and only then did she notice it, a-pouring and a-leaking, a-begging and a-mourning from deep within her. Tears, it was the smell of tears, long pent-up, long forgotten, tears that burned in pyres, tears that watered wild flowers in alleys and byways, tears of shadows and sunbeams, of screams and forsaken dreams.
She gathered the tears as offerings, and laid them, quietly and carefully laid them, before the tomb of her broken heart.
