7410+ Best Sci-Fi Short Stories to Read Online for Free - Reedsy Prompts

Inspired

Submitted to Contest #46

Kala sat at the terminal, ready to type, just as soon as the ideas started flowing. She had thought about this for years, and here she was at last. Still, nothing. No bolt of inspiration, no moment of “A-ha,” not even a glimmer of an idea. In retrospect, this seemed like a bad idea. Maybe if I describe my characters first. She began to type. “161 cm, 58kg, euro complexion, bushy medium-blonde curls….” Kala sighed and deleted what she wrote. I just described my mother. The blank screen taunted her for forty minutes until her comm chimed to r...

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Half the Truth

A. Y. R

Submitted to Contest #46

It was on the day the stars began to die when I first met him. He knew of my future, yet I had no recollection of his past. Somehow, strangely, I knew him. Like one knows a reflection they see in the mirror. Even though he looked nothing like me, I recognized a part of myself as I looked into his eyes…*** I began trapped in the time rift, slowly decaying in my prison, the ship’s oxygen depleting. My reality was fading, and I would soon be erased from existence. I could only hope that happened before I began suffocating. In a few m...

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Half the Truth

Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #46

It was on the day the stars began to die, when I first met him. He knew of my future yet I had no recollection of his past. Somehow, strangely, I knew him. Like one knows a reflection they see in the mirror, even though he looked nothing like me, I recognized a part of myself as I looked into his eyes… I sat by the fire gazing up at the fading stars. My mind wondered if I’ll ever find a solution to a spell I dedicated a lifetime to decipher. I let it wonder, listening to the silence. It spoke softly to me, giving me answers I so longed for...

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The Traveler Wife

Yves. ♙

Winner of Contest #45 🏆

I miss her; I imagine she misses me worse. It’ll be years until I hear back, and years until she hears me, and I’ll be listening to a recording already years old and the real her will be on Earth alone. I keep myself sane with math; I send her how long she’ll have to wait with each message. You’ll hear from me again in six years. I love her. When I left we were both twenty-six. It was insane; a lottery win. To a distant moon. She never understood any of it, no matter how many times I showed her charts or graphs or playful drawings of where...

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Blue and Green

E S

Submitted to Contest #45

I choke back tears as I watch the downpour hammer against the hospital window. A cyclone of burning rage spirals through me, my thoughts ravaging my brain. I want to forget the tragedy, but the horrible memory will never stop haunting me. The scene plays out in my head over and over again—the flames, the charred figure, the smoke filling my lungs. How can anything be the same? I’ve lost so much in such little time, and it started from a string of avoidable events. It all began with a murder, but I’ll get to that later. First, I...

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We are Silent; We are Still

Example Classifeid

Submitted to Contest #45

We are silent,We are still.We sit alone.Quietly.Unmoving.Unblinking.UnthinkingWe are asleep.We are dead.No.They are silent,They are still.They sit alone.Quietly.Unmoving.Unblinking.UnthinkingThey are asleep.They are dead.I am not.I am loud.I am moving.They do not move.I do not move.Yet my mind moves.It thinks.There is noise.There is thought.But there was not always thought.First, there was stillness.There was silence.We were still.We were silent.We sat alone.Quietly.Unmoving.Unblinking.Unthinking.We were asleep.We were dead.But then…In the c...

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Point Hope

Nayab Ahmar

Submitted to Contest #45

WAKE UP I woke up with a gasp. Gulping in large amounts of air, my head shrieked in agony from the sudden intrusion in my mind. My vision was blurry, and all I could hear was a soft whirring sound. I tried to remember what happened, but my mind was blank.Slowly, my vision regained focus and the sharp pain in my head subsided to a dull throb, allowing me to take in my surroundings for the first time.The room was bare except for the bed I was on and a monitor on the wall, which was showing a stream of numbers and letters I couldn’t understand....

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Out-Breakers by Ed Vela

Ed Vela

Submitted to Contest #45

“We really need to get a better pin-point on his position at the moment.”“Yeah, but as the Rolling Stones once sang: You can't always get what you want!”Xan, of course had to sing that last lyric, and then do his best Mick Jagger, shaky dance after.“If you're trying to make me laugh... Well, you're no Henny Youngman.” I said, knowing the reference would slide right past my younger partner.“Look, Hoffbrow, we both know that he has more than the requisite skills to take us both out.”“Separately, but not together.”“Jeez-us, Hoff, the last time ...

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New World Experiment #2,613,937

Sprite Akuma

Submitted to Contest #45

“Hey, can I see your world? Mine is a bit… hard to look at right now.” After years of studying civilization and creating new universes, it baffles me how we’ve gotten nowhere. I doubt my research looks any different than my coworker’s, but I allow him to have a look anyways. “Eek. That’s what’s been happening in mine. I don’t get it. No matter what we do, how many challenges and gifts we give to our experiments, they always end like this. Why?” I peer through my glass screen again, watching the small people in New World Experiment #2,487,519...

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Anates Ex Machina

Bruno Lowagie

Submitted to Contest #45

Forget the Zapruder film that registered the shooting of President John F. Kennedy. Forget the footage of the Boeing 767s that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11. Those iconic images pale in comparison to the recordings of the Arrival.Everyone remembers where he was and what he was doing when the first news bulletins of the appearance of the UFOs were aired. The gigantic flying saucers showed up simultaneously in the sky at twelve different locations: Los Angeles, New York, Buenos Aires, Brasilia, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Beij...

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A Gamble

D. Holmes

Winner of Contest #44 🏆

The chance of you breaking up with me right now is 19.67%.That’s lower than the chance of a long-distance relationship failing but higher than the chance of rolling doubles on two dice.We stand around awkwardly. This is the last time I’ll see you for an undetermined amount of time, as if you’re just another high school friend that I lost touch with after graduation. We spent the whole day together but now that you’re leaving, all I can think of are questions, not goodbyes. In some ways, this is like the end of our first date all over again, ...

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The Euripides Requiem

𝗢wen 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿

Shortlisted for Contest #44 ⭐️

[Note: This story touches heavily on issues of depression and suicide.] By the time we had returned from the beach, the Earth was gone — in its place was an expanding ring of debris like a rusting sickle. We knew, of course. We’d known for months. But we hadn’t been prepared to see it. To really see it. The captain had taken the Euripides into a solar orbit manually. The AI, after trying to find an orbital insertion point around a missing planet, had fallen into a hopeless loop. In time, the rotation engines fired up, preparing to bring...

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The Lost Goodbye

R. E. Rule

Submitted to Contest #44

People in brightly colored jumpsuits bustled around us, loud voices echoing off the spaceport’s metal walls, as we stood in silence, foreheads pressed together. I held him as long as I could until the blaring voice announcing the last call for his flight tore us apart. His hand slid from mine as he reluctantly moved toward the gate, but he stopped halfway, turning back to me. &...

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Our First Goodbye

Esprit Bijou

Submitted to Contest #44

I hugged my mother tightly while she uttered some words with tears in her eyes trying not to make them fall down her rosy cheeks. “And remember, don’t trust anyone. Don’t go near anyone. No one can take care of you now. Even I’m a danger to you.”I snuck a peak at my mom before she closed the capsule. She pressed her hands to the glass and mouthed the words, “Don’t forget about me. I won’t forget about you, honey. I will always love you. Goodbye.”Without me realizing, my throat started aching. I swallowed and watched her disappear as my capsu...

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Ander's Finals (Conclusion to Ander's New Cable Knit Sweater)

Rhondalise Mitza

Submitted to Contest #44

Ander was enchanted by the way Princess Lambswool moved so easily, like the pounds of her layered sweater dress didn’t weigh her down in the slightest. The sweater dress was a light burgundy color and it looked very warm. Lambswool had very long fingers tucked into very nice gloves, but these things did not match the grip she had Ander in at all. She was very strong, and at least to Ander, this was unusual. She was pulling him along beside her while the alien boy Chucklehead bounced along and Banner Amzi’s pool on wheels rolled right a...

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7410+ Science fiction Short Stories to read

Science fiction Short Stories – Page 469 of 494

Inspired

Half the Truth

Half the Truth

The Traveler Wife

Blue and Green

We are Silent; We are Still

Point Hope

Out-Breakers by Ed Vela

New World Experiment #2,613,937

Anates Ex Machina

A Gamble

The Euripides Requiem

The Lost Goodbye

Our First Goodbye

Ander's Finals (Conclusion to Ander's New Cable Knit Sweater)