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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.

4830+ 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 186 of 323

The Mango Pendant

Submitted to Contest #147

Sithara:It was a night when the masculine and the feminine forces of this world joined together to create a period of endless possibility. They say that, on these nights, Lord Shiva performs his cosmic dance- the Shiva Thandavam- a wild, mystical series of movements that enthralled beings of both the heavens and the earth. A night of abandon; a night of thrill.I stepped in between the thin curtain that separated the world of the dead and the living and walked the earth again. It was a fitting night for the job to be done.Pausing in front of ...

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A Higher Plane

Submitted to Contest #147

I had been riveted by the images on the screen to pay much attention to the man sitting next to me. The initial jolt of our otherworldly encounter had worn off soon after we started watching the narrative of my life on the large white screen – from diaper days to salt-and-pepper adulthood.When the lights came back on, I blinked to readjust my vision to the bright light and, subtly, inched away from the stranger’s elbow. He offered an opaque smile and stepped around the coffee table, making himself comfortable in an armchair across from mine....

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The Time Tunnel

Submitted to Contest #146

Just because an action may be outlawed, doesn’t mean it will never be carried out. For instance, detonating a neutron bomb maybe banned, but still, it is possible for someone to commit such a deadly act. Even if you ever heard someone even suggesting such an insane idea, you may say, “That’s ludicrous! Why would someone do something so dangerous?” And you’d be correct in your assumption if it was one’s intention to wreak havoc on the world. But what if you were wrong? What if this individual want to prove Einstein’s theory of relativity by ...

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Junebird and Love

Shortlisted for Contest #146 ⭐️

Love crept in through the window silent and unannounced, like a mouse tip-toeing its way along the shadows of a dimly lit room. Or at least, that was the effect that she had been aiming for. What happened instead was a clumsy maneuver that involved stumbling over the roughly hewn wooden sill and landing on the floor of the treehouse in a crumpled heap. That was the way she made her entrances— it was the same way she had entered my life and it was the same way she greeted me everyday— stumbling, and messy, and beautiful. She smiled ...

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One Corinthians Thirteen

Submitted to Contest #146

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1st Corinthians 13, The Bible. I was making up the bed the other day and I remembered how when we were first together we did that together.  Just the little things like that about you made me even crazier for you. I wondered what ha...

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Radiant Reality

Submitted to Contest #146

I didn’t think it would end this way. I thought the ability to transcend space and time would elevate humanity to a new level of existence. Now, everything is ending.  I don’t know where this message will find me. Perhaps there’s a version of me in these nexus points of reality with the wisdom to learn from these mistakes. Unfortunately, I cannot see the potential of each version of myself. There are countless branches forming the tree of existence that continues to expand from every decision made. It is the balance of reality. It gi...

14 likes 1 comment 1
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The Door

Submitted to Contest #146

“So, is this the best you have on offer?” a sceptical voice inquires.I am jolted out of my corner, from my meditative mood. I put my pen down and smile.There is doubt in slit eyes, pursed lips and the tilt of her head.Oh! This one has high expectations.I see her eyes wandering through the world in my corner. The mountains, the rivers, the deserts. And a mixture of happy, sad and every other variation of characters going on about their lives.She shakes her head. And checks her catalogue.“It says an authentic experience,” she sounds cheated. P...

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To Influence the Past and Save the Present

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear Elliot Zion. I know that when this reaches you, it will not make sense. These words will only ignite your curiosity; that ambition to learn and discover is what will eventually make you become a master practitioner of the arcane arts. From the moment you found your latent power, both you and I recognized that you were destined to become a mage; I want to tell you how far you take that ambition and warn you of the darkness you may face. The elements of fire and ice are your tools of both destruction and creation. The earth you walk a...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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A piece of lightning

Submitted to Contest #146

I was walking home yesterday, and I saw a piece of lightning sticking out of the ground. I squinted at it, looked behind me and back. It was really real, that was for sure. Between the bus stop and the corner, it was.I looked at it.I pressed my pupils on it real hard; I didn't want to miss a single detail.It went up into the sky.Man, oh man, lightning is hugely huge!"Jesus, how did this get here?" I asked.Nobody answered my question.I approached one slow step at a time. I went with caution. As you would. I mean, who knows what it might do.Th...

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Popcorn Kernel Tigers

Submitted to Contest #146

She lost it, that one thing everyone cared so very much about. People were like the last few kernels of popcorn, rolling over and over again in the microwave, always loud and always a surprise. Unexpected visits popping up at unexpected hours to express their concern with cheerful grief at her misfortunes. Polite conversation was all they were after. She wished they would all go away so she could search the house for the thing she had lost. They’d ask her about it, lean forward like crouching tigers—their eyes would glow and she thoug...

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From Me to Me, and Me to You

Submitted to Contest #146

warning: depression, unreliable narratorTo Whom This May Concern,Sometimes I think about the future. And it can be good — and then it can be bad. Sometimes I think about the past. And it can be good — and then it can be bad. Sometimes I think about the present. It can be good — and, yes, bad too. So, where in time is it always good and never bad? Nowhere in time, probably. This is only my personal experience, and my personal experiences might not overlap with yours. Perceptions aren’t like two metal rings that can be interlock...

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The Midnight Un-Masquerade

Submitted to Contest #145

I wake up in somebody else’s shoes.  The reins of sleep still encircle my wrists and throat like strands of pearls, but this single ray of knowledge slices through the veil like the glint of a sharpened jewel. I know nothing else, but on this my faith is unshakeable— these are no shoes of mine.  Like sheaths of molten ruby cradling the arch of my foot, grasping my ankles with clinging, bloodied fingers, they feel like an ossified skin encasing my tender flesh.  I peer at them through the single standing mirror leaning agai...

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Meditation, mindfulness and me

Submitted to Contest #146

Mindfulness vs. Mindlessness The room is a cool green, minty, or aquamarine, a colour which encourages the atmosphere of comfort and relaxation which, I believe, because I am told, is central to any mindfulness therapy. We are told to close our eyes and think about our bodies in relation to the chair, the floor, the ceiling, the window; anything really, except the other people in the room: those others (why are they here?) whose eyes dart about, who shift uneasily, who avoid eye contact. We are asked to imagine that we are walking beside a...

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The Station

Submitted to Contest #146

The room shakes as the trains chug past. It’s loud but i barely notice it anymore. The floors rattle and the pictures tap on the walls but i don’t look up from my work. If I did, i know what i would see, the barn-loft style flat with its wooden A-frame rafters stretching away long and narrow, somewhat like a train carriage itself. The whole place would be shaking. Maybe I would see the dust dancing in spotlight beams of afternoon sunlight. And if it were dawn, the light would be muted and cold, the sun having to reach right across London to ...

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A Good Week

Submitted to Contest #145

Jaxon was odd. He liked that. Some people even would call him crazy. He liked that too. His name was odd too, though he didn't like that. He hated his name because he thought of it as the only part of oneself that one has no control over. His mother had said that she had been drunk when she had named him. Jaxon knew that was a lie. His mother had never been drunk in her life. She had never experienced the wild, confusing, freeing feeling of drunkenness. He knew his mother had never lived. He knew she had missed out. He liked that. Jaxon was ...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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