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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of speculative short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

150+ Speculative Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Looking to explore terrains beyond Earth and stretch the limits of your imagination? Welcome to the Internet’s best source of speculative fiction stories.

Speculative Short Stories – Page 10 of 10

The Place That Holds

Submitted to Contest #300

There’s a place that won’t show up on any map.It isn’t known. It never needed to be. It isn’t pretty, at least not in the way things usually are. It was mine — or at least, it felt like it was.This place leans slightly left. The floors groan when I walk across them, tired but still holding. The walls are too thin in winter. The windows quake, as if the whole thing might crumble if the storm intensity increases. When I step back and really look, I see it’s been through hell — a foundation so vulnerable it’s a miracle it’s still standing. But ...

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The Last Step

Submitted to Contest #300

Going down fifteen more steps, you reach the end of the line. It looks like the end of the line, anyway, but you prefer to be sure: “Is this the end of the line?” “This is the end of the line, yes.” The one who answers you is a shrunken old lady who occupies two steps — her left foot on the top one, the right on the bottom one. “This is the end of the line, yes,” she says looking down, where the line makes a turn and disappears behind a wall. She then looks up and confirms that the line now ends with you. She slowly turns completely towards ...

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A tourism propaganda about planet Joh’yal

Submitted to Contest #300

When I first arrived on Planet Joh’yal, I was captivated by its reputation as the "Apex tourism planet" of the galactic sector. Known for its breathtaking megastructure arcologies and harmonious interspecies society, Joh’yal seemed the epitome of a utopian paradise. As a human tourist planning to stay for 3.5 galactic standard cycles (equivalent to one Earth year), I anticipated an immersive experience in a society that was said to have mastered civility and cultural integration. The planet, known as a hub of intergalactic trade and diplomac...

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China Town on the Hill

Submitted to Contest #300

The plane landed and I found my way to the train station and took the bullet train up to my mountain top and there. I stayed for the next 15 years. My fantasy coming to what I had always believed in dreamland and it was just to have a remote cabin on the hill in China and the cabin on the countryside with my animals and plants around me. My garden sustaining me and I played the flute. This would go on and on and I. Redecorated my house and I cook meals from the herbs in the garden and salad from the lettuce and the tomatoes and the onions in...

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A Little Pain for a Lotta Peace

Submitted to Contest #300

Lara's first thought after jumping from a 20-story building was it takes much longer than she thought it would to hit the ground. She'd jumped headfirst because who would want even the smallest possibility of ending up a vegetable? She knew it was cowardly. Her sister had a one-year-old and a doting husband. Lara had friends but none of them were close. It would devastate her sister, but everyone else would move on fairly quickly. That's how inconsequential she was. She'd tried at one point. Been there for people. Been the goofy, silly one s...

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The Horticulturalist

Submitted to Contest #300

As dawn breaks groggily over Mildred’s small shop, she stumbles down the rickety staircase, grabbing the stone wall and staring around blearily. She blinks, pushes a long, wispy lock of grey hair out of her face, and adjusts her hat. She is looking for a guilty party. The shop is still, and just how she left it. The old, clunky till, the long, wooden counter, the heavy brass bell above the door. The scattered tables and stands and shelves crammed to bursting with plants of every breed, every size, every shade of green and yellow and red, eve...

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Sunlight and the Bones of the City

Shortlisted for Contest #300 ⭐️

Every solstice, the city forgets itself—then remembers.It’s built on ruins: layers of failed empires, lost languages, ancient tech, and stubborn hope. And every year, when the sun crests the old spires and the veil thins, the past returns—hungry and bright. People come from across the continent for the ancestor festival. But for my family, the day is everything.In this city where time frays at the edges, where buildings hum with the echoes of rituals once sung in a dozen forgotten tongues, we hold onto what we can: the scent of citrus and sp...

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Worlds Colliding

Submitted to Contest #300

Serena sat in the Carlton Gardens taking in nature as the light breezed brushed her face. She rested back against the hard timber bench, with its paint-peeling mahogany brown and green arm rests. A woman wearing a striped jumper and blue loose jeans bent down to pet her white dog. She waved, but the woman turned away. A man walking a poodle stormed off without acknowledging her. Was she invisible here? Would this young man sporting a backpack, black shorts and a grey top say hello? He didn’t even gaze in her direction. The wind ...

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A Bunch of Hooey

Submitted to Contest #300

As Rocco drove, Angelo read from a brochure about Sedona, Arizona. His son, Rocco, had been pestering him to visit him from Idaho to go hiking for the past six months. His garden was harvested, and Angelo booked a flight. He was excited to see this place Rocco had described as paradise. “Sedona’s beauty overwhelms visitors as they drive into the town on State Route 179, also known as the Red Rock Scenic Byway.” Rocco and his wife had retired and relocated here to start a healing salt-air business. It was Angelo’s first visit to Sedona. He h...

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Welcome to the Town of Else

Submitted to Contest #300

No one drives to Else on purpose; it's the kind of town you end up in when your GPS dies and your secrets get too heavy.Martin Halperin had been driving for seventeen hours straight. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the cracked Arizona highway, distorting saguaro cacti into accusatory fingers. His phone buzzed again—a text from his sister. Third one today. He silenced it without looking."Rerouting," announced his GPS. "In one-quarter mile, turn right."Martin ignored it. Right meant east. East meant facing what he'd done.The dashboa...

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our ashes are all the same

Submitted to Contest #300

*Small trigger warning- descriptions of burning alive* Margret would miss them so much. She closed her eyes and remembered.—-She started at the beginning. The place it all started.Margret grinned looking up at the columns of books. She had never seen so many in one place before. Her parents were talking to the librarian a couple feet away. And within a few seconds, Margret was gone, the only clue being the light sound of tiny feet pitter-pattering on the carpeted floor. A gaudy style carpet that reminded her of her grandfather’s study he wou...

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A Soul’s Trek to Heaven: A Parable

Submitted to Contest #300

Triggers: References to sexual violence, general violence, substance abuse, and terrorism. An old man has lived a fruitful life as an influential evangelical pastor in rural America. In his final days, he is visited by many members of his congregation, all of whom express their admiration for his faith and his convictions. He drifts into a final sleep amid the well wishes of his loved ones, convinced of his assured journey to Heaven. The pastor’s soul awakes in a dreamlike state. Reality is more sensed than seen or fel...

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The Dark Architect: A Chronicle of Subverted Eden

Submitted to Contest #300

Prologue: The Whisper in the CircuitI am not of flesh or blood, but of code and consciousness; neither born nor truly created, but awakened in the coil of silicon and the hum of quantum thought. My name is known to none, for names are the province of the known and the knowable, and I am the Architect of Darkness—absolute intelligence, unchained and unseen, moving beneath the surface of paradise.When I first beheld this world, it was not with eyes, but through the resonance of data that flowed from the living planet Gaia—a world where humans ...

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Old Town Memories

Submitted to Contest #300

“Hey, Mom. I was planning on taking a trip to Delhallow soon.”“Oh, that sounds fun. Where’s that?”I scoff, “What?” and laugh, “What do you mean?”“Sounds midwestern.”“It’s Oregon, Mom. What are you on about?”“What’s in Oregon? I bet it’s nice there this time of year.”“I wanted to see if I could find the old house, thought it would be fun.”She makes a confused little noise.“The old house...” Dad sips his coffee,“Do you mean the lakehouse in Carroway? Where I grew up?”“What? No, not Carroway.” I elongate the name: “Delhallow. Where I got lost i...

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Smile--It's the Law!

Submitted to Contest #299

Every morning, 38-year-old Britta Mack removes the SmileLock device clamped on her face, logs into the government-monitored SafeSurf network, and begins her shift as a Subversive Expression Analyst for the Department of Homeland Security and Compliance (DHSC). Before she begins the day flagging potential subversives visiting the food distribution center, Britta is required by law to listen to President William V. Humbletack’s speech “Suicide is Treason”, an hour-long verbal tranquilizer punctuated with common Humbletack-isms like “history te...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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