What do you think? Would you read a saga set in this dystopian world?

Let me know!!

A First Look at a New Project was originally published in Whisper Publications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The rat vanished on live television, and the audience gasped.

“What you just witnessed,” Marcus told the host, “is the world’s first successful time travel demonstration.”

The host leaned forward. “Where’s the rat now?”

“She’s in 1987. Sensors confirm arrival.”

The host smiled. “Okay, I’ll bite. Bring her back.”

Dev typed the recall sequence. Nothing happened. He typed it again. Marcus recalibrated the receiver. Still nothing. The silence stretched long enough to become its own punchline.

“We’re still working on the return,” Dev said.

The host turned to his audience. “They’re still working on the return.” The laughter was enormous. “Gentlemen, you’ve invented the world’s smallest, most expensive, one-way bus ticket.” More laughter. “I hope that rat enjoys the eighties, because she is staying there.”

The young inventors smiled through it, shook hands, and didn’t speak in the car ride home.

The next three years were quieter than the laughter, which was somehow worse. They tried reversing the magnetic sequencing. They tried quantum-locked anchoring, borrowed from a physicist in Helsinki who stopped returning their emails. They tried seventeen variations of the recall algorithm, and each time, the chamber stayed empty. Rats arrived in the past, the sensors confirmed it, and not one of them ever came back. The grants dried up. The forums mocked them. A late-night comedian sent them a Christmas card with a cartoon rat waving goodbye. Marcus threw it away. Dev kept it, though he couldn’t explain why.

“Nobody takes us seriously anymore,” Dev said one morning. “We’ve become a joke that the scientific community repeats at conferences.”

“So we stop?” Marcus asked.

Dev looked at the machine, then at the empty cage beside it. “Yeah. We stop.”

They covered the machine with a tarp on a Thursday. By Friday, they were updating their resumes. By Saturday morning, Dev was making coffee when Marcus called.

“Turn on the news,” Marcus said.

“I just woke up — ”

“Turn it on, Dev.”

Dev fumbled for the remote. A crawler moved across the bottom of the screen. A reporter was speaking very carefully, the way reporters do when they don’t want to cause a panic while causing a panic.

The crawler read:

CONFIRMED: MOUNT EVEREST-SIZED ASTEROID ON COLLISION COURSE — IMPACT IN 4 DAYS — ALL LIVING BEINGS WILL PERISH — ALL NATIONS…

“My God,” blurted Dev. “We are all going to die!”

“No,” Marcus said softly. “Others will die, but not us.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes.”

Dev set down his coffee.

“Marcus.”

“Yeah.”

“The rats,” Dev said slowly. “The rats never needed to come back.”

Check out my other story:

The Arian Way

One Way Is Enough was originally published in Whisper Publications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ethan was there for Daniel — a high school classmate he hadn’t seen in years. Walking through the grand doors, he stopped dead. Above the entrance, a gilded sign arched over the room: Daniel Harrington & Sophia Reyes — October 18, 2031. Below it, the hall opened up in a way that stole the breath out of him.

Towering arrangements of white orchids and blush peonies rose from crystal pedestals, their petals so perfect they barely looked real. Cascading greenery spilled from suspended hoops overhead, interwoven with thousands of tiny warm lights that made the entire ceiling shimmer like a living constellation. Ivory and gold ribbons twisted along the walls between dramatic arches wrapped in thick magnolia branches. At the far end, an enormous floral backdrop — deep burgundy dahlias packed tightly beside pale champagne roses — framed the altar like a painting. A string quartet played something achingly beautiful — slow, swelling, the kind of melody that made strangers feel sentimental.

“Stunning, isn’t it?” A woman appeared beside him, her floor-length sapphire gown catching the light as she moved. The fabric clung at the waist before flowing out in soft, layered waves. Her hair was pinned up in an elaborate twist, and her makeup — sharp cat eyes, a precise nude lip — looked professionally applied, every contour deliberate and flawless.

“I can’t find the right word for it,” Ethan admitted, leaning slightly toward the music.

“Try impossible.” She extended a gloved hand. “Vivienne.”

“Ethan.” He shook it, still scanning the room.

Everywhere he looked, the guests matched the grandeur around them. Men moved through the crowd in perfectly fitted tuxedos, their lapels sharp, their shoes mirror-polished. One group near the bar wore matching velvet dinner jackets in deep forest green, laughing loudly with crystal glasses raised. The women were extraordinary — long gowns in ivory, ruby, and midnight blue, draped and beaded and embroidered. The quartet shifted into something warmer, and a few couples near the centre of the room swayed instinctively.

“Is that Daniel?” Ethan asked, nodding toward a broad-shouldered man beneath a cascading floral canopy, beaming.

“The groom himself.” Vivienne smiled. “The bride arrives in twenty minutes, apparently.”

Ethan had just reached for a glass of champagne when his phone buzzed hard against his chest. He glanced down. It was a text from Claire, his boss. Emergency at the office. Need you now.

He excused himself and moved quickly toward the exit. Near the door, a young woman in a black crew jacket stepped forward.

“Sir, we need you to return the smart glass before you leave. Policy.”

Ethan reached up and lifted the thin, frameless device from his face.

The music stopped instantly.

He turned back for one last look. The flowers were gone. The lights were gone. The arches were gone. What remained was just a hall — bare walls, bare ceiling, guests in jeans and casual shirts clutching paper cups, conversations bouncing off empty surfaces.

Ethan quietly walked out into the night.

Check out my other story:

The Purifier

Behind the Grand Doors was originally published in Whisper Publications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Take cover!” I screamed.

“I’m running out of ammo!” Mark shouted.

We were the only ones left. Everyone else was dead, the ambush had taken them all out. Bullets kept coming from every direction.

I grabbed the radio, my hands shaking.
“This is Team R4… we’ve been ambushed. We need backup. Please respond!”

Mark stepped out to shoot. He was shot straight in the head.

He dropped dead immediately.

I stared at him, my chest tightening.
“No…No…”

The radio slipped from my hand.

“Fuck… Fuck…” I muttered, pulling out my pistol. The shooting didn’t stop. It was getting closer.

I picked up the radio again.
“This is R4…do you copy…?” I said, my voice low.

For a moment, I heard nothing.

Then—

“Copy.”

The voice sounded off, like it was far away.

“Say again?” I asked.

“Can you hear me?”

The gunfire started to fade. Not all at once, just slowly, like someone was turning the volume down.

My head began to ache. Everything felt totally wrong.

“Do you copy?”

This time, it didn’t sound like a soldier.

It sounded closer.

“Dad?”

I blinked.

The battlefield flickered.

For a second, I saw a room… a small boy standing in front of me.

Then it was gone.

Gunfire again. It was loud and real.

I grabbed my head.
“No… stay focused…” I whispered.

“Dad! Can you hear me?!”

The voice was louder now and closer.

My heart pounded hard.

Another flash—the same boy. Tears in his eyes.

“Honey, come back… please…” a woman’s voice said, soft and breaking.

My breathing became heavy.

I looked at my hands. They were shaking badly. The gun didn’t feel real anymore.

“I… I can’t…” I whispered.

“Dad! Look at me!”

His voice cut through everything.

The gunfire faded again.

The battlefield began to disappear—piece by piece.

The sand.

The smoke.

All of it.

“I’m here… I’m right here…” the woman said.

I felt hands on me. Holding me, shaking me gently.

“Come back… please…”

My chest rose fast. I couldn’t breathe.

Everything went quiet.

Then…

I gasped.

I came back.

This story is dedicated to all soldiers living with PTSD. May you heal completely.

R4 was originally published in Whisper Publications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You speak with certainty
I nod like I agree
While the blackened roots of Earth
Rot beneath our feet

You point to the scorching skies
I call it a sunrise
As the stars plummet
Erasing our history

You offer the last of you
I take it,
Your weeping berries
Devoured by the maggots
That crawl out my throat

Your time and your lost soul
My time and my heavy heart
Are swallowed by the ruins
Of what we had

In the remains of us
We share one final ask

Do I know you?

do i know you? — by shad was originally published in Whisper Publications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.