How can you lose something you never have? When your own mother poisons you to gain pity from others, how should you feel? Why was I, the youngest, being married off? How could I care about something that was never mine? WARNING! Viewer discretion advised: Story contains adult content that is unsuitable for children. NOTE from the writer: I'm an amateur writer so please overlook plot holes, grammar issues, or anything else a story is supposed to have. This is my original story so... as the saying goes "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all".

*Featured on Wattpad Explorer's Near Future Visions reading list!* A century ago, our AI benefactor, Moses, disappeared, taking mankind's future with him. The dream of the stars is dead. Earth is silent and the colonies of the solar system slowly dwindle. Everyday life depends on technology that we no longer understand. The future is grim. Freelancer for hire Matthew Cole struggles to pay the bills and keep his ship in the air. He's always been a loner, but as the years go on and the solar system grows ever more dangerous, the time has come that he'll have to either find a crew or perish. When the specter of Matthew's past comes back to haunt him, his new crew will have to come together around their captain. They'll find that he is a rare kind of man, a man with principles. And that might be just what humanity needs.

The Time Machine is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 and written as a frame narrative. Wells is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposely and selectively forwards or backward in time. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle. The Time Machine has been adapted into three feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It has also indirectly inspired many more works of fiction in many media productions.

A possible future in less than 500 words, if plastic wins. This was my entry for the WattPad/National Geographic #PlanetOrPlastic competition back in late 2018. It reached their Top 10 Submissions which, given that there appeared to be well over 5000 entries, was a very pleasant surprise! The competition itself had a limit of 500 words so, for those who keep asking if I intend continuing the story, the answer (for now!) is no - unless I can find a very good reason for adding any more. Many thanks to everyone reading and voting on this story and getting it to number 1 in the #sciencefiction category in May/June 2020! I did try to thank the voters individually on their pages but Wattpad have a daily limit on the number of times I'm allowed to do that and there are now too many of you (not that I'm complaining)! Here's the top 10 submissions page: https://www.wattpad.com/list/738243473-planetorplastic-top-10-submissions If you want to read the story in Polish please head over to https://www.wattpad.com/story/236405960-m%C4%85dro%C5%9B%C4%87-staro%C5%BCytnych-t%C5%82umaczenie-pl where @juliatlumaczy has done a fine job - thank you, Julia! @juliatlumaczy has now sent me a version of the cover she used for her Polish translation - thanks again, Julia! @alex_sokolova has also translated the story into Russian as well. You can read that here: https://www.wattpad.com/976002417-мудрость-древних - many thanks, Alex! We now have a third translation! @AlfonsoLucassen has kindly translated it into Spanish and you can find it here: https://www.wattpad.com/1063634347-la-sabidur%C3%ADa-de-los-antiguos