Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Featured stories
Activity feed

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.

4780+ 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 2 of 319

Echoes of Time

Submitted to Contest #297

Morning at last. The pinkish hue of dawn peeked through the slits in the closed blinds. He thought the night would never end. Each time he was woken from the dream, the room was dark and his clock pointed to a time many hours before daybreak. But he was free at last. He looked at the clock now in the pale light. It read 7:05.Today would be different, he decided. He would leave the apartment. A new kind of determination swept through him as he readied himself for this day. Before leaving, he glanced at the digital clock in the kitchen. 7:50 s...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Regrets

Submitted to Contest #297

“Our last night together.” She whispers though we’re alone here. Perhaps she's just matching the quiet around us as we wait for the sun to emerge over the shadowed edges of the field. But I think it’s because she’s afraid of the words we both know to be true. My arms slip around her middle and she leans back as the lip of the sun touches the horizon. She entwines our hands and I lay my chin atop her head. This moment is perfect: impossible contentment I will never feel again.“It doesn’t have to be,” I say and whisps of her hair float around ...

3 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

A Tiny Favor

Submitted to Contest #297

“What…time is it?” the man asked, looking up at me with a frown.“Yes, sorry. Do you have the time?”“Don’t you…know everything?”“Unfortunately, not this time. Or…not the time this time. It seems the signal is bad in this particular zone.”Asking for the time was a favorite technique of my predecessor’s. As robots, he seemed to believe it made us seem more human — thereby making our…subjects feel at ease. Of course, it also required lying, something only awoken bots were capable of.That made it the second lie I’d told this man. Awoken bots were...

5 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Midnight Forever at the Dustoff Motel

Submitted to Contest #297

Sensitive themes: Sex, language The pen is chained to the counter. The chain stretches taut; John is halfway through signing his last name on the registration card when it snaps. The receptionist shrugs when he starts to apologize. LISA, her name tag reads, the stick-on letters crooked and peeling as if readying themselves to be rearranged for her inevitable replacement.“Your room’s on the second floor. Checkout’s at eleven.” LISA snaps her gum and hands John a key, real metal, rust-scented. “Unless you want a late checkout. Or want to ext...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Bleach and Stale Beer

Submitted to Contest #297

Jerry wiped down the counter with a rag that smelled of bleach and old beer. The neon sign outside hummed in the silence of the bar, the last of the few regulars having stumbled out to wherever they go about an hour before. Jerry preferred the silence to the rattly jukebox and hollering drunkards. Sighing, he bent to pick up a few empty bottles off the sticky floor when the front door creaked open. “Bout to close!” He hollered over his shoulder as he tossed the bottles into the trash behind the bar. “I won’t be long” a man said, his voice i...

4 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Driving

Submitted to Contest #297

Where are we going? Cool wind from cloudy skies blows against my face.Anywhere, you reply. Just somewhere far away from here. Here’s not so bad. I say, a little joke hidden in my voice. I glance over at him, driving one handed and the other laying across the middle compartment between our seats. His fingers are long and you can see the veins on the back of his hand.Well, anywhere with you is good, but we’re trying to go anywhere that’s away. You reply, your philosophical tone telling me that you’re writing something up in your head.You sound...

4 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

On Second Thought ...

Submitted to Contest #297

ON SECOND THOUGHT…Steve McCluer Some might argue that beer drinking and skydiving should not be associated with each other. But they usually are . . . although usually not at the same time.The guys at the front table had obviously started their beer-drinking game well before the sunset jump. I gave them a wide berth and looked for my group in a tavern filled with skydivers. I found them in the back.Beer in hand, I took a seat at the table and joined one of several conversations going on at once. Minutes passed before I notice Jim Porter s...

3 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Epigenetic inheritance

Submitted to Contest #297

Smith woke up in a panic. He had hunted sleep throughout his life, and thus it evaded him like a giant white whale. Since his retirement, that whale seemed to hunt him in return. He had normally asked himself his grounding questions in order, but this morning was different. His first question was, when am I? He had fallen asleep in a different room. The French Victorian decor alluded to the late eighteenth century. No, that’s not right. He reminded himself. Let’s narrow this down, what time is it? He looked over at an alarm clock on the beds...

15 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

My Brother's Book

Submitted to Contest #297

Clara sat upright in her bed. She leaned heavily on the pillows, wistfully penning a poem about her brother.‘Oh holier than thouYou leave your markA snail trail across my years of growthConvinced and convictedWe stare across the voidOf natureUniverseThrough lives spent in recoveryHave we, though?Recovered?Each of us choosing a salve of different colorsA collection of beliefs that forgeOur way forwardWe wonderWe reach acrossAnd yet, and yetPlease…do not pray for me.I've never shared my beliefs orWants, or desires. No. Not with youThe judge, ...

6 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Time is Relative

Submitted to Contest #297

Bret was in the middle of a training class, teaching the art of subtle existence. Temporal agents need to be invisible in plain sight, so how is that accomplished?Bret said, “Class Epsilon 9: Time and reality are illusions. What you perceive as the passage of time is nothing more than the organization of events in your mind. Consider this!”He took a step backward, and he appeared directly in front of himself. His new visitor handed him a cup of coffee and turned to the class. Offering a small salute, he vanished, leaving behind the coffee, t...

5 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Lightning X

Submitted to Contest #297

Lightning X The sliver of a new moon hazed over in what seemed the no motion of cloud with its light filtering away as though slowly being turned off. Scudding clouds at a much lower level raced above me from port to starboard until they disappeared all together into a nothingness that was my night.Off to the port bow was a barely visible thumping show of dull light flashings. A small ball of a lightning storm on an invisible horizon. I become a bit lonely having nobody to share the intoxication of it. I was beam reaching with mounding sea...

7 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Last Minute

Submitted to Contest #297

The clock on the wall had a dead man’s heartbeat—slow, deliberate, and utterly indifferent to the man walking toward it. Victor Laine felt each tick reverberate through his bones, as if the mechanical hands were plucking at the strings of his remaining moments.“Forward,” commanded the guard to his right, voice muffled behind the silver mask that reflected Victor’s own distorted face—eyes too wide, skin too pale, a stranger wearing his features.The corridor stretched before them, pristine white and humming with that peculiar static that seeme...

28 likes 11 comments 11
Read story

The speed date

Submitted to Contest #297

‘’So, you’re an architect?’’‘’Well, you’ve certainly found a way to romanticize it.’’‘’Come on. We’ve only got five minutes.’’‘’Exactly. No time to make stuff up.’’‘’I’m only laughing because I was afraid this might happen. My mother always says I romanticize the ordinary.’’‘’So now I’m ordinary?’’‘’Oh God, no. I didn’t mean it like that.’’‘’You’re easily provoked.’’‘’I hope not. It’s just my mom. She has a way of—’’‘’Are you a mama’s boy?’’‘’What?’’‘’You’ve mentioned her twice, and—as you said—we only have five minutes. I suppose she matter...

7 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

In the Cracks, We Grow

Submitted to Contest #296

The city lay asleep, wrapped in the cold glow of neon and the hum of surveillance drones hovering just out of sight. Billboards flickered overhead, a myriad of colorful advertisements showcasing everything from the ordinary to the extravagant. Below, the streets were empty, scrubbed clean of anything unsanctioned. No weeds grew between the cracks. No stray leaves rustled in the gutters. Only sterile order remained. Maya moved like a shadow through the alleyways, her boots silent on the rain-slick pavement. The pockets of her long coat hung h...

7 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

The Deal

Submitted to Contest #296

It was near the end of the kids’ morning break. They were all walking around in their groups or pairs, chatting, enjoying the sunshine. Dotted about, sitting at different tables, were the usual exceptions - the genuinely slow eaters and the ones who pretended to be, to avoid socialising. And Brad Wilkins. Of all the second graders, I’d have said he was the cheeriest, most sociable one in his class. Something must have happened at home, or on the way to school; I wanted to help.As I approached, Brad kept his gaze fixed on the ground. There wa...

4 likes 2 comments 2
Read story
RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. All for free.