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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.

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 4

Fatal Biodata

Natalie Laharnar

Weekly Contest #362

Barbie adds a warm tone to her words as she starts to read a set of terms and conditions on the transfer of biodata. UserJQ126571 wonders why she bothers. He supposes she is programmed to behave that way when the content is particularly dry, or important, and may not hold his attention. This is why humans no longer read anything themselves. Their attention span is so short, the mind wanders after only a couple of words. But UserJQ126571 must listen now. His life, and, more importantly, his happiness may depend upon it. UserJQ126571 is well a...

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Greed's Curse

Weekly Contest #362

As Julia passed by the herbalist’s tent at the market, she stopped when something caught her eye. Among the shelves of dried herbs and tiny vials of potions, she saw a book. The vendor was nowhere to be seen, probably behind the canvas curtain in the back of the stall. When she entered, the cool shade washed over her. The book just sat there on the table, drawing her in. Waiting to be stolen. It was made of brown leather, trimmed in gold. No title graced the cover, just a gold crescent moon. She knew what it was, even though it was obvious t...

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Independence Day Dinner  - July 4, 2031 -  The 255th Anniversary of the United States of America

CC CWSCGS

Weekly Contest #362

July 4, 2031 Julian Lewis began with the bread. In twenty-one years cooking for the elite, he had always begun with bread, even for men who expected caviar before they unfolded their napkins. Bread told the truth before anything else did. If the yeast was tired, if the water was wrong, if the room was too cold or too warm, bread said so. It rose, or it did not.Tonight, it rose. The loaves opened at their seams beneath the hard white lights of the kitchen, releasing the breath of flour, salt, and steam. Butter softened in porcelain bowls. Ros...

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Making Room

Robert Egan

Weekly Contest #362

Steve noticed it first in the onions.Not that they were burning. Burning happened. Kitchens were built on the edge of burning. It was the hesitation that unsettled him—the quarter second between reaching for the knife and knowing how to hold it. As though someone else had borrowed his hands, then politely returned them.He blinked.The rhythm came back.Dice, gather, slide. Dice, gather, slide.The line cooks orbited around him in the organized violence of late afternoon service, each station keeping its own tempo while somehow contributing to a...

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Cooking with a Ghost

George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Weekly Contest #362

I have had many people in my life who have tried to teach me how to cook, but the one teacher I can never forget is Roger Hatfield. After all Roger is a ghost. As far out as that may sound to you, this really happened to me. You are looking at me right now thinking, “Is this guy whacked or what?” Maybe one day I might agree with you, but looking back, Roger was a really good teacher whether you choose to believe me or not. It happened when I was in college. I was eying a girl in my cooking class that I was really interested in hooking up wi...

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Gofio

Adam Guzman

Weekly Contest #362

The flame was performing. One moment it would shrink down to its most vulnerable, introverted self. The next a small wind would sneak in, swirl around the walls of the cave and the flame would step out, unafraid and bold. It would take the cave on as its Salsa partner. Buried minerals would sparkle back in applause. This trip was Benny’s first time around a live flame. He thought back to the holographic ones back home and how they were doomed to dance alone. He was envious of his Great Grandfather. Benny’s home was calculated. It had no roo...

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The Not-So-Bad Omen

Corey Sitkowski

Weekly Contest #362

The small village of Krutyń is normally pretty quiet. I guess I should say always quiet, so when there was a streak of light and a loud crash as evening fell last night, it caused quite a commotion amongst the townsfolks. I was working behind the bar when it happened. The mug I was filling from the cask on the bar overflowed as I watched all my patrons rush to the front door to see what was happening. Wiping my hands on a towel, I followed them outside and onto the cobblestone street. The clamor of people’s voices was mixed with excitement,...

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Madame Beaussant’s Café of Curiosities

Blake Eby

Weekly Contest #362

Amelia stopped in front of the faded red door. Was this the place? She replayed the directions Sarah had given her for the hundredth time in her head: “It was a few blocks from Jackson Square, down an alley just off Toulouse Street. Look for a red door. Oh, and the building had one of those balconies with the cute curvy railings.” Unfortunately, that seemed to describe half the buildings along the labyrinthine streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Amelia rubbed her temples. I’m in over my head, she thought miserably. She was tired, h...

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Starved for Power

Jacqueline Langlois

Weekly Contest #362

How she loathes the night when children are allowed to clog the streets and sidewalks once the sun goes down. In the same way as her own colonies of troops crawl over the territory and devour it, these miniature people are everywhere. Some of them are even disguised as creatures meant to resemble her, as if Her Majesty's large, intimidating insect body could be replicated in the form of a costume. Queen Meeba watches, propping herself up against a tree, with three of her four sets of legs crossing her body. She has a sense of the immensity o...

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Routine Enquiry

Ron Sewell

Weekly Contest #362

Charlie wiped the remnants of a full English from his plate and shoved the last slice of bread into his mouth. The doorbell rang. He cleaned his face with the tea towel, dropped it on the table, and strolled along the passage to the front door. On opening the door, he saw two men in matching raincoats standing on the doorstep. “Can I help you?” Charlie asked. “Charlie Todd?” one of them said. A puzzled expression crossed his face. “Who wants to know?” As if practised, they removed their warrant ca...

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The Rusty Keg

Bae West

Weekly Contest #362

Here you go handsome,” the waitress says, setting my food onto the chipped table. “Bacon Cheeseburger Deluxe, Chili Double Cheese Fries, and Hot Shot Bites with Dragon Sauce.”The smell hits me. Makes my mouth water and blurs the sounds of the busy place. Grease. Cheese. Fire-cooked meat. Something spicy.“Third time in here this week,” she chuckles. “I’m startin’ to think you’re here for the ambiance more than the burgers.”I flinch, magic crackling in my skin. I almost forgot she’s standing there. She looks incredible. Tight jeans, hugging hi...

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The Glaciers of Nyan Tolo

Weekly Contest #362

Just before sunrise on my eighty-sixth birthday, I watch Sirius climb through the hazy orange twilight like a spaceship breaching a distant horizon. A perennial reminder that I’ll be blasting off somewhere too soon. And I don’t know where that is. I do my best not to worry. It’s like Adi always says when I ask if she’s worried. She just looks at me deadpan and says, “Would it help?"I shuffle my way around Railroad Lake, with a labored cough that sits in my chest after. The cough sends the geese hissing into the water. Hot spots on the lungs....

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Sweet Tea and a BLT

Weekly Contest #362

“Your scheduled date just came in,” said Lisa Rawlings in a quiet voice. Rylee Abbott sat at her small, wall-mounted table, trying not to look as if she’d just been sucker-punched. For two decades, every time a guard approached her cell, she was terrified they would speak those words. Another ten years passed, and somewhere in the daily routine of death row life, she’d forgotten there was an end date. Now, after more than forty years behind bars, it was hard to grasp that the day had finally arrived. Rylee opened her mouth to make a joke t...

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Of Ob Der Tauber

Weekly Contest #362

There was one last ingredient we needed for my funeral on Friday. Young men with halos for hair carried it down the Middwuth Creek in the faded oranges, yellows, and blues of their skirts. Bishop Weir tried to climb the hill past them, but we had to cling to branches of the brambles to pull ourselves along. My shoulders brushed theirs, and one young man’s straw halo licked past the bare skin there. I turned and watched him go, his gold collar hanging so low you could see the nape of his neck and his spine. I watched until he disappeared. Th...

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Sardines

Josh Owen

Weekly Contest #362

Content Warning: Themes of childhood trauma, child abuse, and death. Haywood blinked against the sheets of soft orange light spilling in from the cracked windows. He gazed past a makeshift radio on the window sill, watching the leaves of a sycamore tree rustle outside. The front of the radio, dotted with old soda can caps, played a continuous stream of faint static from its two circular speakers. “Anything else to drink?” someone asked over his shoulder. Haywood’s shoulders jumped. As he tried to crane his neck back, a man strode past to ...

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