Written by Jonathan Wojcik
2017 CREEPYPASTA PREVIEW!
Our yearly fiction writing contest is still accepting entries until New Year's eve, which at the time of this writing means you've got just thirteen days to get yours in! ...Though we often end up taking a few extra to put up the final list.
Most years, I also preview a handful of stories by the beginning of December, but it's been a weird year, and things are running a little late this time.
At the moment, we're up to about 170 story entries, and they're an interesting selection. Perhaps because we outright said this time that it wasn't a requirement, far fewer of them qualify as "horror" than any previous year, but I think you'll still enjoy the resulting mix of pure fantasy, science fiction and bizarro entertainment with a dash more optimism than you might be used to...
First up, however, is a classic sort of technological scaretale, with a mysterious gif of a gun barrel that's said to fire a real, actual bullet if you stare at it long enough. We've seen that sort of setup before...but not with this twist!
In a not too distant future, technology finally allows us to peer backwards through time. Naturally, the first thing humankind wants to see are living dinosaurs, but as we all know, not everything leaves a fossil.
An astronaut faces unusual challenges in an even more unusual world. This one runs a wild gamut of emotions from the cute and comical to the sweet and sorrowful.
I personally found this one of the darkest and most saddening "end of the world as we know it" scenarios I've read in a very long time.
In a strange and dismal biopunk future, engineered diseases are the hottest consumer trend and a widely respected artistic medium... but the more things change, the more they stay the same, and the people at the top are as debauched, corrupt, and full of themselves as ever.
To make up for posting this so late, have another one with dinosaurs in it! This one is by one of the cookoff's most popular and productive writers, and if you're a fan of escalating oddities in list format, this might be one of your new favorites.
This is only the first of four parts submitted, and naturally, it's the least strange. You're truly never going to guess the places this far-future fantasy is going to go, and you'll just have to wait a couple weeks to find out!
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