Calling All Writers
Join For Free, Promote Your Book,
Meet Other Writers, Share Your Writing!
Science fiction short story
In a post-apocalyptic society plagued by dwindling resources and radiation-induced birth defects, Ganthr sought to restore hope to the People and validate his own perfect birth by defeating a great warrior sent as a divine test, a gigantic brown bear. Though the great beast lay dead, Ganthr is also slain in the battle and awakens in the presence of his god, who demands of him his soul for his failure. Meanwhile, Ganthr’s body rises from seemingly fatal wounds and returns a hero, but is it truly him? Afflicted with a strange burning rash and not wholly sane, his memories of the People and his own family have been replaced by those of a man who has been dead for five hundred years, a programmer for a secret government project that destroyed civilization with Nuclear fire. A man calling himself Elijah Manning. Kemet the Elder wants to kill him, thinking him a threat, but Jana must protect man she loves, even if he no longer remembers her. Driven by an irresistible urge, and fleeing from Ganthr’s brother who will surely slay him on his return from the hunt, Elijah flees with Jana into the mountains. Searching deep in the earth among the sacred places, he hopes to find an answer both for himself and for the survivors he has come to love. For Elijah knows that the radioactive wastelands of the American West are not the only foul legacy left by his ancient leaders; computers hidden deep in the earth are now working to rip the very souls from the survivors of the holocaust, and replace them with their own identities, an evil Elijah himself helped create.