4820+ Best Speculative Short Stories to Read Online for Free - Reedsy Prompts

A Mourning After

Submitted to Contest #62

It was the first morning after, when I woke in my bed and found the space beside me empty that I felt completely lost. A sadness enveloped me. It echoed with the reverberation of the airship engines as it navigated the cloudy skies. Today was the day. I rose from my slumber, listless and alone. I made my way towards the window next to the bed and gazed at the skyline. It was grey, rain clouds filled the entire landscape below. The weather matched my mood. Dark and clouded. This was her favorite season, fall in the pacific. This all...

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Unquestionable Belief

Brandon Rich

Submitted to Contest #61

“Good morning everyone.” Mr. Johnstone walked into the room with a smile and the air of someone who held an exciting secret to spill. All around him, a flurry of tablets and smartphones darted beneath desks as thirty-odd teenage students silenced the buzz of media clips and sports highlights from playing out loud. Several of them slouched low into their seats, discreetly pushing wireless headphones into their ears as they did. From the back of the room, Trev thumbed listlessly through his phone, trying to scroll his way through whatever hist...

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Counting to Sleep

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 Straw Doll

Ryan Dupont

Submitted to Contest #61

“Come forward!” demanded the old woman in a sickly voice. She sat upon the throne, her hunched and withered body lost inside the regal gown and robes that long ago fit her snuggly. A crown sat upon her head, heavy on her brow. “Stand before me grand-daughter. Hear what I must say and do as I bid you.” The young girl was trembling, but she walked forward, slowly at first, and stood before Queen Valda. Her hands were folded before her and she bowed gracefully. She did not have the courage to look the queen in the eye. “Vahnessa, you are ...

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Milk

Stephanie Kaye

Submitted to Contest #61

The phrase “dead of winter” always confused me, for that is when things seem most alive to me, its silence amplifying even the smallest of sounds; the clean, cold air distilling the perfume of the forest; the blinding whiteness that somehow makes up for the forfeiture of color. The season itself became a sort of reflecting pool for my mind, a place to look for the tiniest of fissures as in a February lake. The baby had finally succumbed to sleep, her body a warm bath in my arms. There had been many nights like this lately, in which the act ...

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Red Nectar

Tom Williams

Submitted to Contest #61

Rose absolutely despised being a vampire. For one, ageing incredibly slowly was actually not at all what it was cut out to be. You see, it provided you with a lot more chances to forget things, with Rose’s few memories of her early life now only shadows. Not being able to leave the house during the day was also horrible. She had loved rambling the pre-civil-war countryside in her youth, exploring valleys and glens and woodlands, but for four-hundred-and-a-bit winters, springs, summers, and autumns now she had effectively been housebou...

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A Locket's Lifetime

Zoë Westlund

Submitted to Contest #61

As the sun made the horizon its bed in the distance, its golden tendrils stretching out over the trees and buildings as if it was trying to hold onto the daytime for just a bit longer, the grandmother smiled faintly. She could never tire of this sight, gold-dipped sunsets that she could observe from her porch. She was sitting in her rocking chair, ever the cliché, and she held her locket to her chest as if to say, Can you see it dear? Can you see how the sky bends to make way ...

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Brothers at Arms Length

Zane Dickens

Submitted to Contest #61

"More of this, brother?" came the sudden voice behind him. Dellan started at the rough rasping voice of his brother. "Yes. And why not?" said Dellan The man moved with such quiet steps, Dellan swore his former profession before the cloth was one of the shadows. "It's eons passed," Archimus said. Dellan stuffed the pages he was studying under his own unfinished manuscript, as Archimus settled behind him at his own desk. He listened as his brother took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of his work, the ink, the paper and the ri...

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A Good Night's Sleep

M!!!!!!! C!!!!!!!!

Submitted to Contest #62

“Ten thousand dollars.” “Ten thousand? For taking a nap?” Enzo thought he was hearing things. He’d witnessed the bizarre and downright concerning almost every day since moving to the city, but this was almost laughable. Served him right for calling the number on a subway advertisement. Now he was having his time wasted. Enzo Lyle was not a fan of wasted time. Still, he had been considering taking a vacation. When an ad for one of the last brick-and-mortar travel agencies left in the world caught his ...

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Reasons of Maturity

Elizabeth Corbitt

Submitted to Contest #61

It’s been a long time since I was in high school. I’d like to say I have pleasant memories of the place, but the truth is I thought it was my personal hell. I know, I know; everyone says that, but I have my reasons. I was uprooted the summer of my senior year, leaving behind the city of 40,000 I had always known and transplanting me into a nowhere town with just shy of 4,000. Everyone in the senior class, all 62 of them, had known each other for their entire educational career and here I was, an outsider, dropped in as though I were an alien...

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Time Slips Away

Daisy S

Submitted to Contest #61

Humans are the strangest creatures. Some become obsessed with their pasts, others with their futures. It's all the same, more or less, with people letting their present slip away until it becomes only a whisper in the past. There's more than a trillion beautiful ideas, places, and concepts in this world, and almost every human gets hooked on the same, plain idea. Time. Appreciation of time is no problem. However, this becomes a problem when you forsake what's right in front of you for a time that's already passed that you will never see aga...

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The Cave

Kevin Leonard

Submitted to Contest #61

The Man was grateful to find the cave, tucked low into the cliff face, as the skies outside hastened to darken and the wind began to pull at their tattered clothes. The ocean battered hard against the nearby rocks, sending spray up into the air to meet the rain before the wind caught them both, sea and sky, and whipped them hard against the Man and the Boy, each droplet a lash against their exposed faces. The Man hurried the Boy into the cave, shaking water from his clothes forcefully, trying to hide the way his body tremored. He didn’t know...

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Callum in the wrong era

Camille De Mott

Submitted to Contest #61

Callum preferred his coffee fresh, hot, and noir. He slicked his hair with the obnoxious beehive look even few women dared to wear. Though he was cocky and covered with leather, he was unfortunately for him, too modern to be in the wrong twenties. The busy coffee shop proving Callum a disservice. “Sup toots,” Callum called as he approached the counter “what’s the special?” “Coffee?” Lisa rolled her eyes, her sarcasm going unnoticed by the pylon in front of her. “Noir, baby. Just the way I like it.” Callum popped his collar and bubbleg...

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And Then It All Made Sense

Diane Garner

Submitted to Contest #61

And then it all made sense. It was always a curious story, the way Alice’s mother, Irene, came to live in a tiny, country town in Kentucky after growing up in the big city of Philadelphia, especially when she enjoyed being a big city girl, skipping high school classes to go to see her favorite Big Band, the Glenn Miller Orchestra and outdoor plumbing was her future. Irene was beautiful, dark hair fashioned in the styles of the day, known for her beautiful smile, and after high school, she worked for a finance company, saving money for her f...

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Neon, Glitter and Alien Parties

Galaxy 7856

Submitted to Contest #61

Dawn Walker was an interesting woman. How I had come to this conclusion, I did not know. Between her refusal to watch anything on a screen that is more than four inches deep and the weekends she spends throwing neon-glitter-alien parties, I had plenty to choose from. This was not enough to stop me from loving her, however, no matter how many crazy 2020s themed parties I got dragged into participating in, I always stuck around. Curse my tender-hearted nature. “Harita!” Dawn calls my name, holding up a sparkly blue dress. “Try this on!” Mak...

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4820+ Speculative Short Stories to read

Speculative Short Stories – Page 317 of 322

A Mourning After

Unquestionable Belief

Counting to Sleep

The Straw Doll

Milk

Red Nectar

A Locket's Lifetime

Brothers at Arms Length

A Good Night's Sleep

Reasons of Maturity

Time Slips Away

The Cave

Callum in the wrong era

And Then It All Made Sense

Neon, Glitter and Alien Parties