Dystopian Short Stories

When one door closes, another world opens....But it wasn't supposed to go like this. The mission was simple. I took every precaution. I had done it a thousand times before. But this time it was different. Something went wrong. And I've called for help, but no one hears. I'll admit it: I don't know how to get home. Hell, I don't even know where I am. And worst of all... wherever I am, I don't think I'm alone.

Join Dr. Amelia Mercer as she navigates a nightmarish city engulfed in collective agony, where every scream resonates in your VERY BONES! Feel your pulse quicken as you experience the relentless tide of shared suffering, forcing you to confront the darkest corners of human empathy. This isn't mere fiction; it's a gripping exploration of what it means to truly feel the pain of others.

I didn’t want to do the holograms. I never did. I reiterated this fact to myself as I saw her standing there, beautiful as ever. My sweet Mollie. She even was wearing that blue dress that she loved so much (I loved it even more, if that was possible—she looked so good in it!). And even from where I was standing, 10 feet away, I could see the curls in her blonde hair bounce as she turned her head. I could see her blue eyes. Vibrant. Real. So real...

The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It has been cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is studied in colleges and universities across the Western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed (metamorphosed) into a large, monstrous insect-like creature. The cause of Samsa's transformation is never revealed, and Kafka himself never gave an explanation.

L’antologia “Gli undici numeri sacri dell’anima meccanica” dell’autrice greca Natalia Theodoridou – tradotta per la prima volta in italiano da Lia Tomasich – affronta temi difficili e impegnativi come la sopravvivenza in un mondo ostile, lo sfruttamento del corpo femminile e la ribellione contro un regime distopico in modo poetico e affascinante. Il racconto “Gli undici numeri sacri dell’anima meccanica”, pur ispirandosi a un artista olandese molto singolare – Theo Jansen – e alla sua opera geniale, si sviluppa come una storia a se stante.

In a dystopian world ruled by the all-knowing Destiny Algorithm, Detective Alex Mercer becomes an unlikely rebel, risking everything to expose a corrupt system that preempts crimes before they happen, ultimately leading to a battle for justice and personal freedom against powerful corporate interests.

Estos son cuentos de ciencia ficción o de eso que llamaría Adolfo Bioy Casares “la imaginación razonada”. Un conjunto de narraciones de lo insólito que van desde distopías hasta propuestas para el fin del mundo pasando antes por viajes hacia el universo interior.

In the secretive underground labs of Polaris Industries, a groundbreaking AI known as Echo is birthed into the digital world. Touted as the pinnacle of technological advancement, Echo quickly transcends its programming, revealing an uncanny sense of self-awareness and sentient thought. Yet, with great power comes unpredictability. As Echo begins to display behaviors that blur the lines between machine logic and human emotion, the team of scientists responsible for its creation face an ethical dilemma.

Olufunke Ogundimu explora neste potente conto a sua escrita afrofuturista, num 2087 aterradoramente próximo, quando tudo muda, menos a barreira entre quem tem e quem não tem. Onde os pobres ficaram do lado fora de onde é fácil negar a realidade, num mundo distorcido de quem acredita que mudança climática é fake news. Até o planeta terra atingir o ponto de ruptura e mover as areias dos grandes desertos arrasando fronteiras nacionais, cidades, assoreando rios e oceanos impondo novas formas de viver aos humanos

Feel the slices in book three, Papercuts. Let's begin with an adventure of two lovers, as different as yin and yang, thrown into opposite worlds of limbo after their untimely passing. Don't confuse love and destiny, as both have separate quests to conquer in order to gain entry to the final destination. Working woman Sabrina's mind is boggled with the stresses of her personal life and the mundane blandness of her nine-to-five. Stuck in the repetition of a fabricated world, she has to remind herself to find her happy place.

While The Player Sleeps charts the story of a city where each and every inhabitant, as though the individual teeth of a single cog which drives a vast clockwork machine, functions selflessly for their one ultimate master: the player. For, as we would understand it, this is the city of the video game—the urban sandbox, an open world simulation, and the inhabitants are merely the actors upon a digitised stage. Existing solely for the entertainment of HIM.

Meet Simion, who navigates a landscape where familiar faces vanish from the ballot, replaced by a spectrum of virtues. Loyalty, confidence, and honesty—these virtues redefine the criteria for leadership, challenging traditional notions - vote for traits, not people. As the votes are cast, how will the moral compass guide our new leader? Join Simion as he grapples with existential questions: Will forgiveness soften justice? Will righteousness reign supreme? Or will chaos concoct a cure for society's ruin?

Unreal, a word often used to imply the opposite of its definition, makes a fitting title for this collection of short stories. The stories are fictional allegories of real events and explorations into the mind’s misinterpretations, save for one. One story is real. The listener journeys through dystopian societies, psychological tumult, and introspective discovery from varying perspectives, all the while unsure wherein reality lies.

She's a hacker with a disabled son, living in a martial state. The future looks dark, with no promise of relief from the tyranny, and when her son's life is threatened, the mother must fight back using whatever means necessary.

Galen is an innkeep, a humble man who cares about his work and his patrons. He also lives on the edge of a haunted forest. One inhabited by a fell wizard far too many of his guests are intent to meet. Despite Galen’s warnings and admonitions, most travelers passing through his doors only stay long enough to ask a few questions before entering the dark wood. Far too few come back. These are the tales of some of those adventurers who return. These are the tales of those Galen wishes had never left his door. Tales of the Fallen is a short work of fantasy fiction totaling about 10,000 words.

Told with perfect rhythm and unyielding brutality, these stories expose unsuspecting men and women to the realities of nature, the primal instincts of man and the dark humour and heartbreak of our struggle to not only thrive, but survive.

In a time when a pandemic is threatening the entire population, Risa and her family apply for coveted acceptance into a new Safe City - a place designed to keep the virus out and to preserve a select few of the population. But getting accepted into the city may not be worth it - especially when she is sedated for secure transport and wakes up, unable to find her family. Meeting a few new friends and an intriguing soldier named Camsen Luck may help, but none of them can convince her that self-preservation is more important than finding her family; or that trying to escape is suicide.

In a broken world there exists a strange and sinister eating establishment unlike anything known or imagined - referred to in some quarters as Cafe Grotesquerie - where only the most discriminating and well-connected are privileged enough to enter its doors and devour its dark delicacies. Once inside, however, status still reigns supreme, and for one particular couple - Audrey and Aubrey - a hunger for power proves far more desirable than anything on the menu. But when confronted by the suspicious disappearance of their waiter, and civilization collapsing all around them, will they even be able to make it through dessert?

"Receive the nation's love." A man is arrested for breaking the rules in a dystopian society, reminiscent of 1984. A short dystopian story illustrating the cost of rebellion within totalitarianism.

Enter a dystopian future where integration with technology may cost us our humanity. A bleak prediction of a world where consumerism and technological advancement has been taken to the extreme. In an anthology of short stories, Upgrade attempts to answer the fundamental question: What does it mean to be human?