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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about a character preparing to go into stasis for decades (or centuries).

Posted in Science Fiction on Oct 15, 2020

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✍️ 108 stories

“Crusader” by Sam W

Submitted to Contest #62

My capsule is not metallic white or plastic blue. My capsule is not made of synthesized materials, nor is it surrounded by a human facility full of expensive machinery and even more expensive brains.My capsule is to be leaf-green. It is to be filled with the purpose of the Sky.I was born to the Sky, born to its purpose. I was born to be a crusader-and I am sacrificing an eternity to this capsule, so I can become one.Because that’s how long I’ll be in there. An eternity.I’ve worked hard and traveled far to get here.But now that I have…I’m sca...

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“The Bear” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #62

The Bear is going to sleep. She picks up the phone and calls Roger at the cave. Roger is eating a dead rabbit and when the phone rings, he looks up, rabbit blood pooled at the corners of his lips, and decides not to answer. Roger is aware that the Bear is just about ready to go to sleep, because it’s that time of year, and the rabbits are getting clumsier, but also less tasty, and so he knows that the Bear is going to hibernate soon, but for much longer this time, because she’s getting tired of waking up, and he knows he should answer th...

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“Human Cycle” by H Pearcey

Submitted to Contest #62

I sat in the waiting room, mentally preparing myself for my life’s greatest adventure. I had already physically prepared for what will happen today, but no amount of meditation has eased my nerves for the moment ahead. “Julieta Bautista?” I hear my name called and I stand, shakily to my feet. The woman smiles. Her cold violet eyes contrast with her warm inviting smile. “We’re ready for you.” I nod my head trying to return a smile, but failing. She leads me down a long plain corridor. The overhead lamps swinging with the tremors of the gr...

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“2020” by S. F. Brooke

Submitted to Contest #62

There were three options after the war. One: go back to your family, if you had any left. Two: reenlist. Then there was this...option number three. Something the scientists called Cryo Stasis. Camden Gillis stood looking at the pamphlet, the sign-up sheet with barely five names on it. It was a week after the war, the newspaper was calling it The Great War.  Gillis stood still in his fatigues, having just gotten back from his enlistment at the front lines. His civvies still packed in the duffel bag at his feet. The war had taken everyth...

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“The Long Journey” by Greg Gillis

Submitted to Contest #62

           It was the beginning of the twenty-fourth century and much of the world had been destroyed. Nuclear devastation combined with inconsideration for global resources had sent the population into a downward spiral.            A small, privately-owned research facility located somewhere beneath the Arizona desert had been anticipating such a worldwide catastrophe and started on the design of a long-range passenger aircraft capa...

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“Farewell sinners, I go to paradise.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #62

“Why would you think I would miss this world as it is when I have the chance of emerging into a world of artificial intelligence and rationality? I have been posed this question many times before and it surprised me that it even had to be asked. Just look about you and tell me that this world is ruled for the benefit of the majority of its inhabitants. What is spent on armaments in one year would feed and house the destitute almost in perpetuity. We make cluster-bombs and cruel and despicable explosive devices that can be picked up by childr...

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“Arks of Ice” by Meredith Lindsey

Submitted to Contest #62

Have you ever wondered what the world would look like without ninety percent of its population? No one walking the streets, no cars driving friendly neighbors, not even the twitch of a curtain pulled tight over houses now as lifeless as the dead. The dead are the ones that have it easy. They don’t have to watch as the world crumbles to pieces all around us. A world without hope is a very ugly place. Not that I see much of it anymore, anyway. Those of us that are left have been surviving in bunkers, hiding from the promise of disease on t...

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“Endless night” by Vameerah Darren

Submitted to Contest #62

I always knew my stasis night would come.Ever since I was a child, my mentors have been training me and preparing me for it. Today is my 18th birthday, tonight, at midnight, I will climb into a chamber, and be put to sleep for 57 years. "Saylish."I looked up from my journal and acknowledged my mentor, Howard,"Yes, sir?"He glanced at the open book under my hand and I closed it quickly, giving me a slightly disapproving look, he gestured for me to stand."We must go, you have one last training session before tonight, then you will finish p...

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“Sleep Among the Stars” by Justin Dyer

Submitted to Contest #62

The tone began to sound through the waiting halls. Gerald had tucked himself away in a darker corner of corridor 16C, further away from his housing unit than he'd ever been. It was a day that he'd been dreading since his first learning of it in elementary classes. Dark and terrifying to most, Gerald had been using his time - and his loneliness - since then to prepare himself for it. The generation before him wasn't scheduled to wake up until three more generations after him, so there was very little concrete details about the process, but w...

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“Counting to Sleep” by Ashlynn Penny

Submitted to Contest #62

Seventy two. Forty Eight. Nine. When discussing space travel, A lot of numbers get thrown around. Seventy Two percent, for example, is the statistical likelihood of waking up from stasis. Forty Eight is the number of vaccinations and preparatory formulas injected into a person’s bloodstream before stasis. Nine is the number of life support systems required to maintain stasis during the 159,140 earth-day journey to a place where the seeds of humanity were to be replanted. By the time Jerod began the reanimation cycle in the new world, everyo...

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“The Lost Wish” by Ari .

Submitted to Contest #62

Rolling hills crept past as Seo buzzed over the dirt road vein. Light glared through his motorcycle helmet as his tires bounced over gouging gravel. The sun switched off as he passed over the acre-wide shadow of the Gray Temple. All that the shadow fell upon, besides him, was stone. With hardly a second lost, he evaded an elderly pair of hikers. They had their faces turned toward each other, their smiles frozen and lost in time. He turned the corner to meet the scarlet scrawl on the side of the pyramid — thin, bleeding letters: LOST ...

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“The Old Man and the Seagulls” by Mia S

Submitted to Contest #62

They were leaving tomorrow. That was the first thought that flitted through his head like a seagull when he awoke late that morning, because he felt like it, because he could, because there was no one there to wake him up early. He pushed the idea away. No use dwelling on things that only made his head hurt. Getting out of bed was the hardest part. His knees were too creaky, his back too achy, his mind too foggy, but he did it anyway. He liked to tell himself it was because he was strong, but the little voices, the ones deep in the...

5 comments 5
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“Ice Dreaming” by Deborah Landers

Submitted to Contest #62

"Are you afraid?" Aisling looked down at the little girl who asked the question, the top of her jumpsuit still hanging around her waist. "What?" "Are you afraid of going to sleep?" She looked over at the pods, then up at Aisling again. "What if you don't wake up?" "I'll wake up," Aisling promised, patting her head. "It's just a long nap." "But it'll be cold." "I happen to like the cold." The girl frowned up at her. "No one likes it that cold. It wouldn't put you to sleep if you liked it." Aisling sighed. There was no arguing with a kid like ...

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“Before We Rest” by Lesli Williams

Submitted to Contest #62

One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. You have failed them. You’ve failed yourself, your family and your country. Staying still on the ‘Longum Somnum' – Long Sleep - has never been more difficult than it was now. This spaceship has cost you everything. All things. Kimberly and Anna are gone. Your world is gone. Literally. As if civilization had not been messed up before, we have now left our planet a cold, lifeless rock. You knew that any military grade testing on the sun wouldn’t serve anyone well, but you never questioned your sup...

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“Sealed away” by Kasper Van Niekerk

Submitted to Contest #62

Kor knew it was coming. He always did. Once the training finished, you were no longer useful, at least not for decades to come. So they shut you in a freezing tube until you became useful.He had never questioned the Silver Spire, who would? They provided for the entire city. Iuk, peaceful and green, with tall, sleek buildings piercing the skies. One could get lost staring at it’s majesty.From the very start, he had felt a sense of importance, purpose, and gave his all. It had payed off, but the cost was to leave behind everyone that made his...

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