Every year, one person is sent to the moon. This year, though you hid in terror, it is your turn to enter the rocket.

Posted in Science Fiction on Jul 17, 2021

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✍️ 125 stories

“Familiarity is a Dangerous Thing” by Victoria Mashburn

Submitted to Contest #52

Tears cloud your vision as the sound of the rocket’s engines fill your ears, and the knowledge that this would have happened eventually does nothing to soothe you.Your name had been drawn three months ago, and though you had hidden well, they had found you, as they always do with the runners. You go over the mistakes you made in order to distract yourself from an itch that you cannot scratch. They had started paralyzing passengers ten years ago. The company line was that it made for a safer journey for the passenger, but as the rocke...

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“Stowaway” by Ken Coomes

Submitted to Contest #52

We stood there, all 500 of us, waiting for the big announcement. I looked around at my fellow high school graduates. At first, all I saw were eager faces. Young women and men, ready to face whatever the world had to offer. Then I noticed others like me; nervous, unsure, perhaps hoping against hope that ours would not be the name chosen. “Congratulations, class of 2133!” The Dean stood beside a large glass bowl. A bowl that could have held about three or four dozen beautiful goldfish. But it didn’t. It was three-quarters full of pieces of p...

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“One Thousand Miles Per Hour” by Eliza Vargas

Submitted to Contest #52

I am someone who is always very careful. Since the day I was born nothing I had ever done wasn't methodically thought out or done without the utmost extreme caution. So the day I was selected to go to the moon I had failed. Or something was very wrong. Let me go back and explain. Since the last moon launch in 1972, the people decided that they no longer saw the point in continuing to take these trips to the moon, so they refused to pay for any funding. About twenty years later a government association was hell-bent on the idea that it was d...

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“I love you to the moon and back” by Gently Suited

Submitted to Contest #52

Look, I'm not... Scared okay? There's a reason I don't want to go. There's a reason I'm here, I swear! I- ... I can't even explain this to myself huh. Every year one is selected from a voice in our heads. The voice, we have to follow. Have I heard it? Thank god, the answer's no. The voice seems to make you do things... And I'm trying to block it all out. I have to avoid the Gnelof - they won't stop looking for me at this time so... Right, right I need a plan uh... OK, OK that That should be fine uh yeah okay ok ... Shoot what the ...

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“Ready to Go” by Morgana Nair

Submitted to Contest #52

January 12, 2100 Their footsteps thundered past me as I cowered under the bushes, trembling in fear. Not me… not me… please not me. It’s not like I had anything to live for; I am a young man in my 30s living alone at home with no family and not very many friends. But I was comfortable with my life. We had global warming destroying people with floods and sunburns as well as people dying of all sorts of weird diseases. Basically you could tell there were not many people left on Earth. The Coalition which consisted of World Leaders who had c...

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“Dear Opal” by Reese Barwick

Submitted to Contest #52

The pan sizzled and smoked as Eris prodded the meat and vegetables with a stick. Morning light graciously filtered through the drapes leaving hints of the sun on the dark floorboard. The couch was sprawling with various pillows and blankets each one seemingly more comfortable than the next. Under any other circumstances, the cabin on the mountain may have been considered cozy, warm, or even relaxing. It was a shame those weren’t the circumstances. Eris turned off the stove top and examined her makeshift meal one final time. She flinch...

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“The Cradle Of Humanity” by Zach VanderGraaff

Submitted to Contest #52

The President’s Own Marine band was blasting marches like it was a parade. And it was a parade in a certain sense. Michael walked down the aisle in the hot sun. They marched together towards the podium where the President was giving her speech. Four soldiers flanked him, two on either side. Michael was on display for the whole world to see. President Carlson was a beautiful woman at the start of her term, but the pressures of the office were not kind. 16 years is a long time to serve. She navigated emergencies that would have crushed other...

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“The Moon Witch and Atonement Day” by Hailey Monnie

Submitted to Contest #52

I am crouched in one of the many storage closets of NASA, shaking. The events of the last several days have given me little time to sleep or process. Well, now I am processing. And processing. And processing. I have been in here for several hours, going over what happened, again and again, and my legs stiff and cramping. Five days ago, was Atonement Day, an annual event. I was standing in the living room with my older brother and mother. Father was gardening in the yard, his way of de-stressing. The TV was on national news, a reporter in ...

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“The Chosen” by Cheyenne Niel

Submitted to Contest #52

I pace back and fourth in front of my door waiting for the letter. The letter that would be my deciding fate. The letter that would say "You're next." I knew that it would come today since tomorrow was the day that it would happen. Tomorrow was the day that I had marked on my calendar. The day that I would go to the moon, but never return back. I nervously bite down on my finger nails. Maybe I'll get lucky and not have to go. Maybe they'll change their minds and choose another poor soul. I hear a knock at the door and rush over. I quickly op...

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“The Next Sacrifice” by Karen N

Submitted to Contest #52

Prologue It’s that time of year again, when one person is chosen as a sacrifice to be sent to the colony on the moon. It started almost three hundred years ago, when one of the landing parties from Earth discovered an underground lair by drilling into the moon’s surface. They disturbed the beings that had been peacefully slumbering beneath the moon’s surface, and they reigned down terror and destruction on the Earth. So much was destroyed in the long war between Earth and the Moon. We never knew that it was actually a ship, and that the cr...

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“Little Tim” by Ankita Chaurasia

Submitted to Contest #52

Once upon a time, in the beautiful town of Paintstopia lived a little boy named Tim. And though the town was full of colourful characters, the story is really about him.In all of his seven years on earth, little Tim had never once learned to colour right. But, for all his callousness, he loved to colour. And the colours loved him back. Colours red, yellow, blue and those resulting from mixing those hues rejoiced as he scribbled and splashed, etched and daubed across the boring white page.Boxes and boxes of crayons, tubes and bottles of paint...

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“The Silence of Space. ” by Ramore991 Amore

Submitted to Contest #52

Every year it was the same story. Another person gone into the twisting nether. Never to be seen from again. Part of a colonization experiment that’s been ongoing for twelve years now. At least that’s what they told us. Lord knows what was actually going on. I was hiding in a friend’s house up in the country. He had left for the weekend. It was well past midnight one July evening when a knock on the door broke the cricket’s chorus. You can tell a lot by the sound of a knock. This was not the sound of a friend who wanted to stop by for s...

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“To the Moon?” by Jenna Cuomo

Submitted to Contest #52

“The announcement of Annual Moon Lottery of 4018 ‘s lucky winner is drawing closer. “ The voice on the age-beaten radio was overlapped with a static tune. “On the 31st the launch will--” Ari withdrew her hand from the radio dial and cautiously made her way to the window. To see through the overgrown vines, fallen plaster, and boards crowding the glassless pane, Ari pressed her face against it. The splintered wood brushed her skin, adding more scrapes to her already battered appearance. She heard voices, ...

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“Space Pioneer” by Cameron Palmer

Submitted to Contest #52

Devon tore out of the gymnasium; his heart was racing, and he could feel the tears burning in his eyes. He raced into the first open classroom he could find and hid himself behind the desk at the front of the room. “It’s not fair,” he thought. “With almost 50 million other kids in the country, they picked me.” Devon could feel his legs and arms shake as he curled into a ball and pressed his face into his knees. “This has to be a dream,” he thought. “There is no way they could make him do this, they were asking him to leave his family and h...

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“The Mission” by Sandra Rey

Submitted to Contest #52

The sand cliff rose at a very sharp angle as I stood at the bottom. The gorse bushes with the bright yellow flowers that grew everywhere had left it barren, sure that nothing could grow in its sifting slopes. I climbed up and came down with long weightless steps. This was the closest I had come to flying. The sand flew effortlessly through my bare toes, lifting me up as I felt the air whooshing past me. I was free and couldn’t feel my legs, knees - I was one with the sea breeze and the afternoon sun, streaming all around me. Every time...

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Every year, one person is sent to the moon. This year, though you hid in terror, it is your turn to enter the rocket.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 125 stories

“Familiarity is a Dangerous Thing” by Victoria Mashburn

“Stowaway” by Ken Coomes

“One Thousand Miles Per Hour” by Eliza Vargas

“I love you to the moon and back” by Gently Suited

“Ready to Go” by Morgana Nair

“Dear Opal” by Reese Barwick

“The Cradle Of Humanity” by Zach VanderGraaff

“The Moon Witch and Atonement Day” by Hailey Monnie

“The Chosen” by Cheyenne Niel

“The Next Sacrifice” by Karen N

“Little Tim” by Ankita Chaurasia

“The Silence of Space. ” by Ramore991 Amore

“To the Moon?” by Jenna Cuomo

“Space Pioneer” by Cameron Palmer

“The Mission” by Sandra Rey

🌟 Similar prompts

Twenty minutes before you are about to get married, you find your mother and your fiancé kissing passionately.

You thought he was dead, but there he is, right in front of you on the street, smiling at you.

"Come with us,” two burly men in gray suits say, grabbing you by the arm and handcuffing you. “You know what you did.” But you have no idea.

You are the only one in the supermarket during a blizzard. Feeling creeped out, you decide to leave, when suddenly you find a baby abandoned on the floor.

Contest #52

Enter our weekly contest!

$50

Prize money

958

Contest entries

0

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

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