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Set your story in a world living with the consequences of a climate apocalypse.

Posted in Science Fiction on Jul 10, 2021

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✍️ 131 stories

The Fort People

Submitted to Contest #90

We sit outside before midnight to listen for footsteps from the desert. I ask the man next to me why the spirits look like one of us. He says we can only see what we understand.  His rough hand plops down on my head.  “You ready kid?” Once the noise dies down, we stomp out the fire and shake the smoke from our blankets. I dig out the last scoop of beans and lick my fingers. The cans clink together in my bag while we walk toward our forts.  I duck my head to get inside our dusty room. My brother shoves an old wooden doo...

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As The Force Guides You Forward...

Submitted to Contest #90

The heat was so immense, waves of it bounced off against the rugged sand of the desert. What was once thriving trees and grass, where lavish homes and paved roads of concrete was nothing but an arid desert. A space full of heat that was devoid of life except for the venomous flies and acid-spewing lizards that evolved to live here. Keep moving. That was the Nomad’s belief. She had to keep moving no matter what. No matter how many establishments she passed, no matter how many would offer “fresh” water and “fresh” meat, a comfortable bed, and ...

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Black Composition Notebook

Submitted to Contest #90

July 15, 2035 It’s been a little while since I’ve updated this journal. I should really get better at it. Well, here’s to one more attempt at building in some level of discipline in my life! All in all, today turned out to be a pretty good day. Last week’s typhoon came and went, it was not as bad as XG22133, Dr. Willis said it was probably only about 230-259 miles per hour. God, I wish they would find a way to go back to actual names for these things. I guess when you have 30 or 40 a year, you run out of names fairly quickly. Anyway, th...

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God's Wrath

Submitted to Contest #90

It was a dark and stormy night. As they all were. Valerie walked as fast as her feet would allow her. She had given up on trying to protect her clothes from the furious raindrops that soaked her. After all, she walked home in that same weather every day. Over time, she had finally come to terms with the fact that there was no escaping it. The cold was there to stay. When it first started raining on that dreaded Tuesday afternoon, Valerie had tried to outrun it. She had been naive. Saw the drop as nothing more than an inconvenience that...

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The Tithing

Submitted to Contest #90

January 5, 2045 Mabel walked out of her apartment on one of those balmy New England January days. It was the type of weather where you optimistically leave with a jacket, hoping for a bit of cold. Instead, the wind and dust pick up, and if you forgot your neck gaiter, you would be retching up mucous and dust for days. New England humbles you like that. The last of the snow had mostly melted away in a gray thaw, with some plow piles remaining in the shadows - a wan, grey color littered with grit and take-out wrappers, hardly considered snow ...

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Doctor Tom

Submitted to Contest #90

I love this song! "Ground Control to Major Tom".. especially being up here on the ISS. As I monitor our little blue marble and what's going on. Some crazy stuff going on , that's for sure! So? I have my favorite tune playing. Just quiet enough for me to enjoy but not interrupt my colleagues as they go about their various experiments and observations. So Lets see? It seems the Ozone hole is doing well?... Check!... in the Pacific? Hmm? Thermals show we have no El Nino and no El Nina?.. that means no Pineapple express this year? Possible droug...

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Murky Skies

Submitted to Contest #90

His mother had raised him to appreciate the sky.  When he had been young, he remembered her taking him to the edge of the Mass where the muggy wind would brush his face as it peeled back the grey clouds and they could catch a glimpse of the murky blue. At night, if he was away from the hazy reflection of the city lights, he could even spot the moon, as dim as it was.  His mother always looked beautiful in those moments. When the clouds would break and a ray of silvery light would fall on her. Years of worry and bleary living would ...

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Happy and Seahorse

Submitted to Contest #90

The night of the same day I arrived on her planet, she sat me down to see her stars. On a rock at the top of a high hill above her underground home, she turned my chin toward the southwest.  And there it was---the peculiar constellation she’d promised me that afternoon. A formation of twelve stars tracing a minimal and yet strangely exuberant pattern. A sparse caricature ready to fully consecrate the perceptive observer. As it happened, the twelve stars seen from this planet form a happy face. No wonder these people destroyed their...

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The end of the world - is it the exact time and date?

Submitted to Contest #90

Some people don't think about when the world will end, while others are waiting for a new formal date. Mostly this consideration is due to different attitudes of issues, more or less awareness, religious preferences, but any opinion has the right to exist and the person who abides by it decides for himself. What is the end of the world? There is no definitive definition of this concept. In a sense, the end of the world is the end of life on earth, the end of different cultures and their achievements. Sometimes under this phrase the threat ...

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Climate Apocalypse-Not a small issue

Submitted to Contest #90

I am living in the world of 2050. The situation is not the same as it used to be before. I remember, in the year 2020 when the pandemic broke down, we faced a lot of difficulties and things became more complicated in the year 2021. India became the next Wuhan. The shortage of hospitals was then a common issue. But by God’s grace, the situations normalized by the beginning of the year 2022. Although we faced worse situations in the pandemic, something was healing itself-The Nature. But as it is said, “Once destroyed, nature’s beauty cannot be...

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A Sea of Red

Submitted to Contest #90

The world is changing. The ozone layer is depleting; leaving the planet open for attack from the sun’s harmful rays. Temperatures are soaring. Polar ice caps are melting, and water levels are rising. Humans may not have noticed the changes right away but I did. There are many names for me. Mother Nature. Mother Earth. I am an entity of the universe. One that sees and knows all. I am not alive. I am not dead. I am just here; balancing life. Yet, Earth is a different story. The main life forms that have dominated the planet, humans, have...

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The Solution to Global Warming

Submitted to Contest #90

She knew they would die. She did it anyway. The latest one was all blonde-haired and blue eyed. It seemed like a waste, but the ocean seemed to grow calmer the younger they were. At first, it was sad work. All the pleading. The tears and the grovelling. The madness. It grew tiring, incessant, a soundtrack etched into the back of her head as she did her laundry and her vacuuming; a drumming that followed her around as she pulled the weeds from her garden or as she stood before her marble counter to make her coffee; a symphony of scr...

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Moments

Submitted to Contest #90

  When we arrived in the forest, we did not expect to see what we saw. The trees, burnt, mangled and twisted, were being pushed aside by enormous mushrooms. Here the air seemed less murky but the soil beneath our boots felt spongy and porous.                “Should we camp here?” Alex asked as he surveyed the scene before him. Mela, tired of walking, took off her sac and placed it gingerly on the ground.          ...

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Wingless

Submitted to Contest #90

Wingless                                                                   Mondo stays even after the waters have gone and returned and gone again. He ventures out, climbing through small crevices in the mounds of bou...

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Earth Didn’t Wait

Submitted to Contest #90

My mom used to tell me this story about her home planet, Earth. She told me all about this once magnificent planet, but when I looked out of my spaceship window, all I saw was a scary ball of flames that used to hold beautiful, green trees, vast oceans, and oxygen that seemed to last forever. The humans needed to eat for fuel, drink water to live, and oxygen to breathe. Mom said that Earth was home to many families, children went to school, and everyone was happy at one point. But one day, Earth changed. It wasn’t all of a sudden, but certa...

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