Dystopian Short

What would you sacrifice to keep a secret? Sage Indarra’s third year at the Institution is off to a rough start. She’s still horrified by what she had to do to protect herself at the end of last year, and she’s pretty sure one of her instructors hates her. Her former mentors are giving her the cold shoulder, leaving her unexpectedly isolated, and she’s not sure whether or not she can trust her newest friend. Despite these challenges, she’s determined to uncover the secrets Eprah doesn’t want her to know. But when Sage finds some unusual artifacts at the Archives, she makes a ...

The makeshift army of Alinn fought valiantly against the invading alien force, but they were no match for their numbers. Worse yet, Lacey was kidnapped by the aliens, taking the riviere with her. Alex, Matt, William, and their friends must find a way to rescue Lacey without magic or find a way to use magic without the riviere. Luckily, hope comes from an unexpected source. Will they be able to rescue Lacey and save the dark dimension? If so, will they put Lacey’s dimension in jeopardy?

13 scary short stories. Stories filled with things that go bump in the night. Do you dare read this collection without a nightlight by your bedside? The Lot on Route 6 Kill for me. A terrifying request, but Gavin will take this request and do his best to complete it. He will suffer. He will reach the edge of his sanity. He will live in pain. But he will do all he can do to protect the people and the town he loves. Fear of the Scarecrow A desperate man is hungry for revenge. Sometimes revenge comes with a price. It Sleeps at Dawn A Vampire stalks the Appalachian Mountains. A traditional ...

In the peninsula country of Raktsthaan, protruding from the India and Pakistan border in Asia, the draconic government decided that they, come what may, would build the tallest statue in the land. A monument for the god Taahya. Construction of the statue began, and the people of Raktsthaan, a poorer nation than its surrounding neighbors, by order of the dictator President and his commanders, were made to surrender all of their gold to the building of this monument. As the days passed, even more gold was forced from famine-stricken hands and malnourished stomachs. Intellectuals who opposed ...

Spanning multiple locations and times, and rendered in fine detail and vivid color, this transportive, expansive collection shows what it means to live as human inhabitants on our one miraculous planet. Lyrical, at times hilarious, and always heartfelt, each of these ten stories is a reflection of individual choice in the face of man-made apocalypse: in a near-future Seoul, where air pollution has become so fatal that the city has been encased in a translucent biodome, a civil engineer charged with its upkeep contemplates an arranged marriage.

A runaway biological effect begins to rapidly increase oxygen levels across the planet, transforming the very air we breathe into a ticking time bomb. Forests ignite spontaneously, and fires rage unchecked as the increased oxygen feeds their voracious appetites. The world plunges into chaos, with cities becoming infernos and the natural order spiralling out of control. High above the stricken planet, two astronauts aboard the International Space Station bear witness to the unfolding catastrophe. Ellie and Sergei, left alone in orbit due to the increasingly hazardous atmosphere, have little ...

The Deeper She Goes Undercover, the Deadlier the Truth Becomes. With the truth about HealthSync’s lethal neural implants starting to unravel, the resistance is closing in on their next target: Dr. Anthony Sickle, the mastermind behind the technology’s government approval. The key to exposing the conspiracy? Veronica Lake—a cunning elite escort with a talent for getting the answers no one else can. Tasked with infiltrating Tony’s world, Veronica sets her sights on his one weakness—his favorite restaurant, where she plans to seduce him into revealing the dark secrets he’s been ...

Short Circuit Time by Diane Saxon In the year 2086, Zaphira is alone, the last survivor of biological warfare on Earth. Before he died, her scientist father promised other survivors would come. Nobody has. So when a horribly mangled android shows up claiming to be her father’s assistant, Aiden, who has been sent through time to rescue her, she’s both frightened and astounded. The last time she’d seen Aiden, she’d been sixteen, head-over-heels in love with him and had literally thrown herself at him, leaving her devastated by his rejection and him running for the hills. The following...

If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe's wake - whether set in the years soon after the change, or in decades far in the future.

In the chilling anthology series "Elemental Shorts," Readers are transported into dystopian futures where everyday chemical elements—iron, oxygen, and carbon—become harbingers of ecological calamities. Each episode unveils a world teetering on the edge of collapse as these essential elements, manipulated by human hubris and unforeseen consequences, spiral out of control. From iron structures crumbling into rust, oxygen-enriched atmospheres strangling life, to carbon-covered ecospheres dying from lack of sunlight, "Elemental Shorts" masterfully intertwines science fiction with dark ...

The storm unearthed the dragons—Anna vowed to set them free. But with her ex leading the war against them, she must choose: the man she loves… or the creatures she was born to protect. In the aftermath of the Great Typhoon of 2030, the United States is unrecognizable—ravaged by chaos and fire-breathing fury. When ancient dragon eggs from the Pacific Ocean wash ashore with the storm, no one could have predicted what came next: the dragons awaken and unleash destruction on a scale the world has never known. The only protection? Salt and subzero temperatures. As dragon meat becomes a ...

¿Qué pasaría si el aire puro acabara por ser más valioso que el oro? ¿O si robots sufrieran crisis existenciales? ¿O si las plantas pudieran hablar? "Futuro Salvaje" nos acerca al futuro de un planeta cuyos recursos hemos explotado sin piedad. Presentamos una audioserie con tintes de comedia pero también de terror, una utopía distópica que nos descubre cinco posibles futuros, a cada cual más dispar. Y, sin embargo, todos plantean las mismas dudas que tenemos ahora: ¿qué será de nosotros? ¿Cómo podremos sobrevivir?

From New York Times best seller Mira Grant comes Countdown, a novella prequel set in the thrilling and treacherous world of Feed. The year is 2014, the year everything changed. We cured cancer. We cured the common cold. We died. This is the story of how we rose. When will you rise?

The protected escapees of the blood-farm experiments are free, secure, and set for life. Kind of. Because there’s something new to fear in this short thriller, the twisting finale of the Young Blood Trilogy.

A scientist suffering from PTSD is faced with the terrible knowledge of the impending destruction of our species. In his desperate attempts to prevent humanity's fate, he commits violent acts and is branded a terrorist. How far would you go to save the planet from annihilation? Where do humans come from and how did we get here? Scientists have theorized about the human race's origins for many years. But no one was prepared for what was found in orbit, seven ancient alien probes that have been monitoring the planet for billions of years. The data and video images recorded inside them show ...

This is a SHORT STORY set within the ongoing THE UNSEEN franchise. Potential spoilers ahead! This action-packed thriller stars Jillian Moon, recapping her initial encounter with the Unseen inside New York’s Museum of Natural History, an event that occurs during ORIGIN (The Unseen Book 1).

In the Shadow of the Towers compiles nearly 20 works of speculative fiction responding to and inspired by the events of 9/11, from writers seeking to confront, rebuild, and carry on, even in the face of overwhelming emotion.

Family meant everything to Ayden Stratton. It always had even when he didn’t always allow it to show. Because of that, he understood the fury in Tobias Blaise’s eyes when they learned that his sister had been dragged out the backdoor of her restaurant despite every effort to stop her from being kidnapped. Fury didn’t begin to describe what he saw in his brother’s face. Cassidy Blaise might be Tobias’s sister, but she was Benjamin’s entire world. Tobias Blaise never expected to find any woman he wanted to spend his life with, let alone one who looked at him the way Ellis did, ...

Into the darkness within; or else the light.... When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry in the Dystopia Triptych, more than a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.

To Chinese American teenager Chuntao, New Lake is a beautiful haven where she can hunt for treasures once swallowed up by a big flood. But when she’s caught scavenging by her biology teacher, a woman whose own past has been swept away, Chuntao is faced with an imponderable question: Which world was better - the ideal one she never knew or the destroyed one that now belongs to her?