StoryTellers’ Short Story Collection: Personal Stories
One Chance
Ilaria Chiellini didn’t know how long she’d spent grieving all that had since been lost. It was the 5th of May, 2050, but she never looked at the calendar, not anymore. She felt no need to. What would the calendar do for her, besides remind her of the past?
No, better not to strain her neck. It’d make it harder to get into a position to sleep. But not eat.
That was another thing that Ilaria didn’t do very much anymore—eat. But occasionally, when the repetition of the clock as it ticked became deafening, her stomach would give a sound, and she’d nibble on whatever rations remained onboard. She was the only person on the spaceship, for everybody else, to put it bluntly, was dead.
All of them. Dead, the word rang in Ilaria’s head. She’d thought it so many times it had nearly lost its meaning. Deceased, perished, fallen, killed, taken. “Taken” stuck with her a bit more—it reminded her of what had been taken from her, as everyone else was killed. Made her realize how utterly empty she felt without them.
In her hand she held a fractured picture frame that held the person whom she’d most dearly loved, her best friend Mattia Marchesi, the person whose death solidified her status as the last human alive.
She had auburn hair cut long and straight, Mattia, delicate eyes full of sympathy, eyebrows always slightly raised as if she were about to ask a question. She had tanned skin, and was Italian, like Ilaria.
She remembered how Mattia’d be outside all day, as she’d wanted to be on the soccer team. Though this dream faded as she grew older, she never ceased her time outside, be it walking her dog, swimming at the local beach, or just for the sake of it.
And in Mattia’s hand was a little robot figurine—although it was less of an actual robot than a robot body. For there was a human inside of it, controlling it, steering it. Ilaria remembered it was from some sci-fi show that Mattia had loved since she was a kid, one she had never understood (in honesty, she had despised it, but she never let Mattia know).
It was this that eventually got Ilaria out of bed, with a creased eyebrow and a balled fist. Outside. Soccer. Mattia. Freedom. These words bounced around in Ilaria’s head, and eventually it was Outside that rang in her head, the slowly rising motivation she’d felt so long ago bubbled to a peak, and she felt a sudden urge to do something about what had killed them all.
For it wasn’t just random chance that all of humanity had disappeared in such a short span of time. It was the, well, thing that killed everyone. There was no name for it, as there was never a chance for humans to give it a name.
The only two things Ilaria could remember was a deep, complete darkness that had engulfed the Earth. A total absence of light. It was hard to remember, even if not that long ago, how she’d navigated such a barren landscape.
The second thing she’d remembered was unexplainable. It was an urge, if anything, to run. A feeling that something was there, a presence. But before it had arrived, she’d experienced what felt like a premonition that something terrible, something horrid was coming; it was that that’d scared her more than anything else.
But no, there was a third thing too . . . vague memories rose of screams—distorted, grisly screams. Somewhere beneath those screams she could have sworn she heard a child. Screams. Just as the thought arose, it was pushed back. Ilaria started the engine of the spaceship.
She had made the decision.
Kill it, just have to kill this monster. Vengeance. Avenge Mattia, she thought. She wiped her face and walked over to the console. She knocked over a vase in vexation, although truly she felt fear. The ship was equipped with bombs, so she’d start with the probes—spaceships, not dissimilar to hers, that now patrolled Earth in large amounts.
She flew, and she flew. But, much sooner than she’d expected, she saw a grand show of tiny little lights. Hundreds of thousands of them. She checked her navigational device. She was nowhere near the Earth. It was just those lights. She drew closer, to investigate, going at a slower pace. And eventually, she could see what she could now identify the lights were probes of some sort. It was beautiful, really. The spherical ships drove in perfect formations, each with a place to go, a thing to do. And so, so many of them, filling the empty landscape with something brilliant, something illuminating. It distracted her for a moment from her troubles, all her grief. But suddenly, one of them started moving toward her swiftly, bright lights in front turned red.
And it shot something. It missed, but whatever it shot—it looked like a blob of light—exploded near her. She felt the shockwave, and a new wave of fear enveloped her. She was still for a moment, then instinct kicked in.
Up on the controls, and she was off. Her ship was a quick one, and it hit 950 knots soon, gaining fifty per second. This probe couldn’t quite keep up, but it continuously shot the light bombs. Ilaria steered from side to side, up and down, even in a loop attempting to dodge the bombs, making her a difficult target.
It worked, she got away.
For about three seconds, that is.
A few other probes in a different location saw her, then a few more. She sped up even faster, and now had a line of a dozen probes chasing her, as fast as they could go. None of them could quite keep up with her; they were able to use their numbers to their advantage, and position themselves in front of Ilaria, getting an easy angle on her.
But Ilaria would not let it happen. I can’t die here. Not when I realize I have so much to do. But. She thought. She weaved in and out past a probe to her right, another on the top. But now, I have no clue how to do it. The probes . . . there are so many.
Ilaria detected a field of asteroids nearby. Risky, but I might be able to lose them.
She sped off towards the field, and the probes began to crash, Ilaria carefully navigating through it. Eventually, she was alone. Ilaria sighed deeply. This ship, it’s going to run out of gas one way or another. It’s rather small, and I’ve been out here too long; it wasn’t made for expeditions, just quick scouting missions. If I don’t land soon, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . Ilaria ceased the thought.
She looked out the window. I’d much rather, at least, die trying to kill the monster a step at a time rather than out here, doing nothing. It’s probably impossible, but what else can I do? Her eyes were watery. I just wish the odds weren’t so impossible, I wish there were others to help. I wish Mattia was here. She got out of her seat and grabbed the picture frame.
She sat, and looked at her for a while, staring deeply. What would you tell me to do, Mattia? What advice would you give? She sighed again, contemplation turning into frustration. She slammed her fist on the console, and grasped her hair with firm hands, back hunched. She heard something behind her. In the back window, she saw a probe. But it was a different kind of probe. It was labeled “D” on top, with a smiley face drawn on the side, painted an odd deep violet with dark yellow stripes.
Ilaria immediately jumped into her pilot seat, but as she was starting the ship back up, an intercom said “Wait.” in a monotone voice she’d grown to know as a text-to-speech voice on a website of that matter.
She stopped, and waited.
“Despite the similarities of this probe to that of hostile probes, my only intention is to help. Please board this ship so I can further explain.” the voice said. Ilaria thought of Mattia, and the scene of her death played out again. She, too, was a pilot, and they’d flown long hours together on shifts at their old job—they’d often purposely try to get the same tasks when they started the job, and eventually their employer recognized this and did them a service.
Through the intercoms they’d talk, long looping conversations that they enjoyed dearly. Really, it was no different when they flown together when the apocalypse had begun, and they’d shot out to space.
And as fate would have it, they had been the last two alive, as each of their pilot friends were taken out, one by one. It started out similar enough. A probe had come, said they wanted to help, and such.
It lured Mattia away, despite Ilaria’s advice not to follow. She had boarded the probe, and— Screams. She didn’t like to think about it much. As the probe came further, her instinct told her to fly away.
And she would have. But somewhere, she felt a new deep, profound desire to destroy, end the probe. No running. I’ll just have to kill it myself. Her eyes went nearly blank, her body quivering. Mattia’s death would not be meaningless. But only action could prove that, she thought.
And so she let the probe reach further towards her ship, as it slowly came to a stop, letting, at least, her anger control her. If time had legs, it must have tripped, as she felt her legs travel across the boarding platform, her lightweight space suit on. With a new sense of determination, she walked quickly, and into the probe she was. Her focus immediately diverted to the sleek, modern machine that piloted the death machine.
“Hello. I’m s-sure—” that same robotic voice came. But it was a small ship, and Ilaria was on the robot in an instant. It backs away slightly.
“My ap-pologies, but if there is a matter you want to discuss, please, let’s talk about it in a p-patient manner. It would only be best.” it says. Metal on metal, you killed her, you killed her, you KILLED HER.
She’s lured away, the air-tight door is shut. Vengeance. Avenge her. Justice. Kill it, kill this evil. An explosion, a faint cry as she must have been torn apart. No, there wouldn’t be any justice until evil is eradicated, would there? Ilaria pulled out the yellow, taser-like gun she had grabbed, and shot at the robot. A flash of light, and a pulse of electricity.
Smoke came out of the back panel of the robot, and a distorted voice said, “No, w-w-wa—”, stuttering and then cutting off. Ilaria’s eyes glazed over. She was gasping for breath, her heartbeat twice as fast as it should have been. She fell to her knees, hands flat on the ground, and sat there. Vengeance. Avenge her. Justice.
The words took over her consciousness, as she tried to regain control of her breathing. They slowly lost their meaning, creating uneasy white noise in her brain, loud and prevailing. Waitttt. A hint of urgency, horror, despite the monotonous voice. All at once, her breath amazingly returned, her heartbeat suddenly normal. She looked up, and for what seemed like the first time, looked at the interior of the probe. It was simple, minimal, as hers was. But plastered all over the walls were posters, inspirational quotes, and picture frames.
This . . . this wasn’t. This wasn’t a robot.
It couldn’t have been. It couldn’t have been. She found and read a digital poster, newly updated somehow. “Number of humans oppressed in ‘robotic enslavement capsules’ has been reduced to just one, hopes high as the search for this last sentient human continues. (DRAAI, Divergent Robot Association Against It, 5/5/50)”
That stutter. Waitttt. A single tear fell down Ilaria’s cheek.
Death’s Final Grant
By: Pratibaa Prabhakaran
A girl sat on her bed, staring into space. Police sirens wail outside. A boy sat beside her, watching her.
Besides the boy stood a prominent, tall, black figure, with a black robe and skeletal figure. The boy turned to look at it.
“Are you here for me Death?” Asked the teen boy.
“I am,” replied the Grim Reaper. The boy sighed.
“I thought I’d at least be able to live to 60.” said the boy.
“Not everything goes as planned,” replied Death.
“No, I suppose not,” the boy conceded.
Suddenly the girl got up and walked out of the room. The boy and Death followed her out.
She walked down the stairs, with an awkward limp, and into the parlor room. There sat three people, a mother, a father, and a son. All three turned to look at her as she descended the stairs.
The mother stood up and regarded her daughter with a solemn expression. She walked over and gave the teen girl a gentle hug. She said nothing when she parted. The mother simply went to stand beside the father. The entire family remained silent.
The girl sat left of her brother. Her face vacant of any expression.
“I-I’m so sorry, for what happened to your friend,” said the brother. The girl said nothing, just nodded as she turned to the window where police officers roamed the streets.
“She seems very sad,” said the boy blankly.
“It looks as if she is in shock,” regarded Death.
“That she does,” said the boy. He then turned towards Death. “I suppose they are unable to see us.”
“That is correct, the two of us are just two souls drifting around in the world of the living. We don’t belong here. Especially not you, I have to bring you back soon,” said Death gently.
“Could you make her see me? When her family is gone, I want her to see me,” asked the boy.
“I could do that, it would be your final wish after all. If it puts you at peace with your death, then I am happy to do it.”
The boy smiled for the first time since his death, “Thank you Death.”
Death nodded.
The girl slowly got up and walked to the kitchen island. Her father looked at her.
“We’ll leave you to it, remember that we are here for you.” He got up and hugged her from behind. He then left the house to talk to the police. His wife and son followed.
The girl was alone in the house.
She looked to make sure no one was watching, and then from inside her shirt, she pulled out a bloody knife.
“Hmmm, I think I’m beginning to see what happened here,” said Death with a wisp of surprise.
She brought the knife to the trash and dumped it in while piling multiple pieces of trash on and around it.
“Can you do it now Death?” Asked the boy as he settled on the couch opposite the kitchen.
“That, I can do,” said Death. He waved his hand.
The boy smiled as he watched her rise up when she finished with the trash bag, her eyes traveled to him as she reached for the sink.
She gasped loudly, falling backward. Her hands caught her fall onto the counter.
“What’re y-you doing here?” she asked in shock.
The boy gave a malicious smile.
“Checking on an old friend.”
“But…But, you’re dead,” she gasped out, her body shaking.
“I am. I suppose you’d know that better than anyone… after all you were the one to kill me,” said the boy with a sadistic grin. He then stood up and turned around. On his back were multiple stab wounds.
“How-why…” asked the girl.
“You murdered me in cold blood, I wasn’t going to let you off the hook,” he stood up and walked towards the terrified girl, who attempted to run away from him, but stopped when she ran into Death, who gave her a wave. She turned around, but not before the boy was able to grab her shoulders and stare at her with a cruel expression. She froze.
“Remember my dear, even after death,” he leaned towards her ear, “I will haunt all your life, death and beyond.”
The girl gave an ear-splitting scream. Her family came running in. Just before they saw her, Death waved his hand once more. The duo was no longer visible.
The girl was sobbing as her family questioned her.
“Are you ready now?” Asked Death, holding out his hand. The boy looked at the outreached hand, and smiled.
“To go to the afterlife? I certainly am. I did what I wished to do.”
He turned to watch the girl one more time and then accepted Death’s outreached hand.
The Basement
Jeff wakes up cold, tired, and alone in a grungy basement, his clothes ripped, and torn. He knows not how he got there, nor anything else, all he knows is he is Jeff and Jeff is alive, otherwise, his mind is blank.
He looks in the mirror and his face is grizzled, full of stubble and caked in blood, and mud. on a small table next to him, there is a straight edge razor, and he comprehends shaving the stubble, but decides he might need the razor later and pockets it.
Jeff tries to head up the stairs, but halfway up, he falls through a step, and finds himself looking up at a him shaped hole. Now in a closet below the stairs, with the door locked tight, he checks his ankle, just to find it sprained. He is in excruciating pain, and yet he pushes through.
He hears garbled voices upstairs and tries to cry for help, but all that comes out is a weak groan. Jeff wakes up again to find that he blacked out in the closet, he finds a jug of water and grabs at it desperately, but when he opens it, all there is but a few specks of dirt. He then finds himself retching uncontrollably, the whole time in absolute agony, his body is slowly eating away at itself, and Jeff notices he has no clue how long he has been in this basement.
In excruciating pain and the unbelievable horror of this realisation he takes out the razor and comprehends ending it all, but a small voice in his head says “Don’t give up jeff!”. I must be going insane, he tells himself,
And then he hears it again, this time exclaiming “you’ll only disappoint everyone you love”.
Jeff wakes up again relieved, saying to himself it was just a bad dream, but when he comes to, he realises he just blacked out again, his body can’t sustain itself for long and he was still in the basement, although he was now outside of the closet, and there was a meal waiting for him, Jeff ate the meal and yet again he blacks out.
When Jeff wakes up he is enraged, and tired of being stuck in this idiotic basement he tries going up the stairs again, in a moment of absolute desperation but the pain of his ankle stops his movement immediately, and he remembers the bad step and how that would have just gotten him stuck in the closet once again.
He then searches the room for another way out, and finds a vent, with screws tightly secured to the wall. In a fit of rage Jeff rips off the vent door and crawls through, making it to the boiler room. He then goes up the stairs, and breaks down the door at the top finding nothing but a run down abandoned house, no clue of recent activity. He thinks to himself, if I wasn’t going insane already I am now.
He looks around the area for a source of water and finds a river, but while he is drinking the water he sees it turn bright red and a pile of corpses floating his way.
He then hears footsteps behind him, and gets hit hard on the back of the head. Jeff wakes up, yet again in the basement, but something’s different, it’s cleaner, and there’s a glint of light peeking through a slit in the concrete, revealing a pile of chains, coiled, like a snake prepared to lunge at him and kill him in an instant.
Jeff once again looks in the mirror, and sees that his face is now clean and his stubble is gone, his captor must have cleaned him up. Because of the light, he can now also see what he’s wearing, a grey jumpsuit barely fitting him, bagging and folding at each possibility it gets. He also notices that his hair is buzzed incredibly short, to the point where he might as well be bald. He checks his pockets to see if the mysterious figure left him the razor, only to find them empty.
Jeff then looks, again, for a way out, but the door at the top of the stairs is locked, and the only other opening is the slit in the concrete. This new basement has no vent, so there is no hope of escape. Jeff looks around more, and finds a metal bar, he then breaks down the door, and it breaks apart splintering as if it were a shattered pane of glass, he then sees his captor, and bashes its head in with the metal bar. He runs away getting back to the river he got to the last time he escaped, and this time…
There’s a mysterious figure piloting a boat in front of him.
Table Of Contents
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