Could Kaitlyn be the last native Earthling left? #ScienceFiction #YA

Alone I Walk
by Julie Wenzel


I would like to start off by saying that I wore the ugliest shirt I owned that day. And for that, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. I'm not a fashionista by any means, but I do like to look at least half ways put together.

It wasn't that I was running late for class and grabbed the wrong shirt. I didn't even show up for class that day.

The problem was the washing machine...again.

I had the quarters. I went to the campus store, bought a notebook and a box of pens, and then asked the cashier to give me five dollars worth of quarters while she was at it.

But, like any other typical day there was an “Out of Order” sign written in faded marker on a notebook piece of paper, across the machine.

So at the end of my washing machine production, wearing my ugly shirt, with a pocket full of quarters, I missed my parents all the more. College wasn't the easiest thing in the world. It wasn't the classes, or making friends. It was the homesickness. I missed the home cooked meals.

As a kid, I took the washing machine in our house for granted. Laundry detergent and fabric softener always magically appeared the next day when we ran out.

I missed how my dad would fill my car up with gas every time I ran low in high school. For a while in my life, I was able to pretend that the world was a happy place. Sure there were bad in the world, but it was comforting to know my parents would be there for me.

Problem was, no one was there to take care of my parents.

From "Cryoskip's Footprints" by Jason G. Anderson

While searching the complex they had spent several weeks traveling to, Derek and Butch make an unexpected discovery...

Derek stared with mixed emotions at the room Butch had found. It was a room all too familiar to him. To both of them.

Four large coffin-shaped containers sat in cradles on one side of the room. Vats of chemicals connected by snaking tubes to the enclosures sat behind each cradle. Unlike everything they had seen so far in the complex, the equipment in this room had power. Lights and readouts were visible on the ends of three of the coffins.

“Those sons-of-bitches. I can’t believe it. They did it again. They screwed with more people’s lives!” Derek stormed toward the nearest cradle.

“Wait! Don’t touch anything! If there are people inside, we might be able to revive them.”

Derek turned and stared at Butch for a few more moments. Memories flooded through his mind, memories of waking in a room filled with coffins like the ones in front of him, alone, unsure of where he was or what had happened to him. Memories of his wife and son. After a few moments, he shook his head to clear it, then turned back to the cradles. His face softened.