Sci-Friday – Excerpt from “Sally’s Destiny”

A 3rd glimpse into my upcoming book of 6 eerie sci-fi stories

Check out the first glimpse here and the 2nd glimpse here.

Here is the third excerpt from my book of short stories in the science fiction realm that will be published soon by Wordwooze Publishing. (Great editor there, very accommodating and easy to work with.) This is a story inspired by the growing spread of a technology called “artificial intelligence” (AI), something that is certainly not intelligent, even in a fake way.

The Excerpt

“Leave that!” said Themba Maduna to his son Akani, looking in the boy’s bedroom door. “We must take only food and a few clothes. And hurry!”

Kaya Maduna looked at her husband, her brown eyes wide and seeming to ask, “Can we get away fast enough?” She knew that Themba had no answer, so she didn’t say the question out loud. She just looked at the things their son had piled on his bed to pack, chose a couple items as her hands trembled slightly, and told him to leave the rest. The evacuation order from the South African government had been expected, but it had given them only a short time to leave Pretoria.

“Oh, Mom!” protested Akani, but he could tell by the look on his mother’s face that she wouldn’t change her mind, just as she hadn’t changed her mind about him going on that hike over the upcoming weekend with friends from school.

“No,” she had said last night, and her husband had shaken his head along with her.

“But why?” Akani had whined.

“Well, we…,” but Kaya hadn’t been able to say it, hadn’t been able to tell him about the possible catastrophe to come.

Neither she nor her family knew anything at this moment about Sally or the man who would soon play a role in the Madunas’ lives. But in a few days they would all become intimately involved. At this moment, Kaya focused apprehensively on getting what they needed on their long trek northward to stay ahead of this devastation coming their way. She remembered a news headline she had seen the week before:

Mysterious Horror Continues Spreading — No cure available

The news had started with mere rumors and grown into bonafide fact. It had come to light with instances being reported in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth and traveling northward. Soon it would reach Johannesburg just south of the Maduna family’s home in Pretoria.

Kaya had heard the latest announcement on the TV that morning just as the evacuation order came:

“It starts with a tingling feeling in your extremities and quickly travels through your body, building into a burning sensation until you feel on fire inside. After that…”

The announcer had stopped, a look of horror on his face while reading the copy on the teleprompter before him. Then the station had gone to a commercial. Newspapers and internet sites were filled with stories that screamed out what the announcer hadn’t been able to say:

“…the body breaks down and starts to decompose rapidly…”

More to Come

Watch for more excerpts from the three remaining stories in the book over the next weeks. Your feedback is most welcome.

Hope you found this helpful and have been inspired to start and/or continue writing!

See my article: Publisher Agent Fiction Genres Defined, with downloadable PDF.

Please check out my author website. And thanks for reading.

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Thanks for reading. Please check out my first book of short stories (a couple are actually novelette length), newly published by Wordwooze Publishing. (I even designed the cover.)

Ebook and paperback available from: Barnes & Noble and Amazon

Ebook on other platforms shown on Books2read.

Listen on Audible.