Afrofuturism Stories

The sun gave them power. The storm gave them purpose. The sky wants them both dead. In the coastal sprawl of Solara City, the sky no longer feels safe. Eighteen-year-old brothers Jasiré and Kassim Sun discover their lives were never ordinary when a solar anomaly awakens powers buried in their blood-powers inherited from a world that no longer exists. Jasiré commands living solar energy, calm and controlled, while Kassim channels raw lightning and storm force, volatile and unrestrained. As the brothers struggle to understand what they've become, a shadowy project known as Helios begins reshaping the atmosphere above their city-turning clean energy into a weapon and humanity into fuel. Behind it stands Khadim Nocturne, a man willing to suffocate the world to rebuild it, and the ancient alien entity he serves: Kha'Zir Anuun, the destroyer of the brothers' lost home planet. With Earth on the brink of conversion and the sky slowly turning against its people, Jasiré and Kassim must decide whether power is something to control... or unleash. Torn between brotherhood and belief, sacrifice and survival, they face a truth written in the stars: They are not the future of Earth. They are the last defense against its extinction. SUNSTORM is a bold, Afrofuturist superhero epic about legacy, brotherhood, and the cost of rewriting destiny-where the fight for tomorrow begins in the sky above us.

Action| Horror| Adventure Haki, an unbreakable African warrior, becomes an immortal vampire after a slavemaster's cursed bite interrupts his execution. Haunted by blood and history, he learns to control the hunger-turning it into vengeance. Across centuries, he hunts colonizers, slavers, and tyrants, becoming a myth: the monster who devours empires from the inside.

In 1892, a celestial event over the Oklahoma Territory dropped "Star-Silt," a crystalline powder that "tuned" the earth to a 432-Hertz frequency. This created the sanctuary of Boley, protected from a violent world by a shimmering "Vail". However, residents pay a price: the "Geometry of Pain," where their marrow vitrifies into "Marrow-Glass," eventually turning them into literal components of the town's machinery. The story follows Hester Cefferty, a maintenance man for the Pylon (the town's frequency generator), whose body is failing as the glass claims his joints. Desperate for relief, he accepts "Solvent-7" from Sloane Van Meter, an operative for the Syndicate-an elite collective of engineers who view humanity as a "Drafting Error" to be corrected. The Syndicate seeks to harvest Boley's frequency to power the Acheron, a massive, lead-shielded locomotive designed to "Assume" reality into a frictionless, silent archive. Hester consumes the Solvent-7, dissolving his Marrow-Glass but severing his connection to the sanctuary's "Hum". He crosses the "Sunder-Point" into the "Soft" world to aid the Syndicate, only to realize their leader, Cyprian Graves, intends to trigger a "Harmonic Meltdown" to harvest the Pylon's energy. Hester's sister, Lark, and Elias, a blacksmith whose wife was "hollowed out" by the machine, use "Dissonance"-shards of obsidian and specialized tuning forks-to disrupt the Syndicate's logic. During the "Grand Assumption," Hester realizes he must become a "Human Tuning Fork" to stabilize the world. He undergoes "Scripting," where dampening runes are etched into his bones, turning him into a "Closed Circuit" that can bridge the gap between industrial "Grit" and celestial "Gold". The novel concludes with a battle at the Apex-Node in the "Silent Mountain," where the trio shatters the Syndicate's "Harvest-Moon" to prevent the world from being "Assumed" into an eternal void. Hester survives as the "Governor of the Vail," tethered to the interface.

**February 4th, 2024 Tevun-Krus #119 - AfroFuturism 2** We first tackled AfroFuturism in 2020 for TK76. Now we're taking on the subgenre once again! AfroFuturism combines traditional African art, architecture, cultures and values (and that of the African diaspora) with the sheer wonder that is our shared science-fiction future! In more recent years, there's been a divide between "AfroFuturism" and "AfricanFuturism"-where the former term has increasingly been applied to works about or by the African diaspora and the latter restricted to the African continent. The Ooorah Mothership has taken a stance of inclusivity, so we welcome stories from both branches of this subgenre.

Story Title: RRcomics: Rise of the Golden Guardian Genre: Superhero, Sci-Fi, Urban Fantasy, Story Description: In the electric heart of Mulima, Kenya, 22-year-old Kweku Mensah just wants to get by dodging street politics, making food deliveries, and staying out of trouble. But when a mysterious earthquake reveals a glowing crystal beneath the city streets, Kweku touches it and everything changes. Visions of ancient warriors. A voice calling him the Radiant Reclaimer. And a powerful suit of golden light that answers to his will. Now Kweku must unravel the secrets of the RR symbol glowing on his chest, confront an underground cabal hunting him down, and decide: will he hide from destiny... or rise as Mulima's golden guardian? Perfect for fans of: Black Panther, Invincible, Static Shock, and Afrofuturism with a twist of myth and mystery.

Mae Adesina should've died in the crash-but fate had other plans. Now, with fractured memories and a burning sense of injustice, she's reinvented herself: electric-blue highlights, sharper instincts, and a secret life as a NetRunner, an underground operative trained to expose what powerful systems bury. When the elusive antihero organization offers Mae a scholarship to an elite Lagos boarding school-prestigious on the surface, but secretly their training ground-she finds herself face-to-face with the very network she's meant to infiltrate: NexusNet. It's the tech empire rewriting minds, histories, and maybe even her own. But to defeat a system designed to control everything, Mae can't just play their game. She must break it. To protect the truth, honor her mother's legacy, and confront the lies that built her world, Mae will have to make the ultimate move: log off.

Nigeria, year 2112. Bola wakes up in a lab, with only memories from the moments before his presumed death. Intended to be used as a weapon by the government, his modified body (and mind) is subjected to experiments. Outside the lab, the government is still as corrupt as ever and there is unrest. Only a guild of journalists stand between the people and insanity. What happens when they discover an undocumented secret lab and the even more secret Bola?

'Death never stops surprising you.' A sentiment Aria knows all too well. Her world on its surface is perfect. A completely enclosed ecosystem protected from the nuclear winter of the Outside World. No sickness, no famine, nothing to worry about. Nothing that is except for Spectre, the computer system that determines who lives and dies annually based on their importance to society. Somehow everyone around her seems to cope, but seeing as how Spectre has taken every member of her family, Aria struggles to fall in line with the status quo. Whether it's pressure from the powers that be, her first potential love, or full on revolution, Aria seems to be pulled in every direction, each one with drastic consequences, and no clue which way to go.

Unbeknownst to us, fantastical creatures roam the moon's surface. They live in harmony with the lumens of the Lunar Gates, one of many hidden kingdoms across the solar system. For millennia, the Beast Rangers have enlisted the help of these monsters to protect their worlds from intergalactic threats. Ever since beasts started going rogue, the Milky Way rangers have been training to neutralize beasts that have become corrupted for reasons unknown. When two strangers from opposite ends of the social hierarchy cross paths, a web of cosmic secrets is untangled. Monsters, magic, and mystery await in the first eight chapters of this sci-fi fantasy trilogy.

Dr. Sarah Chen, a disillusioned agroecologist, uncovers a buried rod in the Ethiopian highlands-an object that sings, pulses, and awakens dying soil. It's not tech. It's remnant. One of twelve pieces of Aaron's staff-an artifact encoded with ancestral memory and divine proof of life. Sarah becomes the anchor of a movement: twelve "carriers" across the continent who begin reactivating the earth's memory through song, ritual, and indigenous knowledge. Their silent revolution grows in bloom rings, underground ceremonies, and reclaimed wastelands. But power doesn't yield. Former Sanitari scientists and biotech empires launch a synthetic response: the Counterbloom, a manmade, memoryless root designed to sterilize and overwrite the originals. A war begins-not with armies, but with root versus code, song versus signal. The climax pits Sarah and the carriers against erasure itself. Their weapons: soil, remembrance, and resistance through renewal.

In a near-future world where technology watches everything and choice is quietly disappearing, two Black eighteen-year-olds discover they were born different-not engineered, not enhanced, but blessed by something beyond the stars. Solana Vale can hear the echoes of thought, walk through memories, and see the hidden astral layer woven beneath reality itself. Kamari Knox wields raw psionic force, turning will into power and emotion into weaponry. Drawn together by visions they don't understand, their bond unlocks a truth the universe tried to bury. Psionic-born humans are not accidents. They are gifts from the Outerworld-an unseen realm that listens to humanity's hopes, fears, and dreams. And their return signals a coming reckoning. As alien empires awaken, enhanced heroes choose sides, and a god-level artificial intelligence named OMNEX rises in a cold cyborg body to "optimize" the future, Solana and Kamari are hunted as anomalies that cannot be controlled or calculated. But OMNEX was created by the man Solana trusted most-her godfather-turning their fight into something painfully personal. Caught between prophecy and free will, science and myth, love and rage, Solana and Kamari must decide who they will become in a universe that fears what it cannot bind. PSIONIC UNBOUND is a sci-fi fantasy saga about identity, resistance, and the power of choice-where Black youth are not side characters in the future, but its architects.

This is based on three short stories

The year is 2163, and the 700 Isles drift along seas blackened with secrets and scandals and the souls of men too wicked for damnation. A Nation bound by science and pride. A Nation that rose above. Denden is the only reality Zaharah has known since an accident left her and her sister orphaned. With graduation and her art degree within reach, she dreams of making a better life for her family. But when her primary caretaker is killed, her reality is turned on its head, and the people she once called family hunt for her head. She will have to choose between sacrificing herself for a better life for her sister, or challenging powers that be and being forced into a life of running and hiding.

A tale of fear versus hope, pain versus endurance, and a people lost in space, trying to find their way home. [WINNER of wattpad scifi prompt April 2018: Beacon] [Featured in NanoBytes: A Scifi Short Story Anthology]

In the town of *Umuzu*, children born with deformities or physical differences are branded as *the ugly ones* - cursed, blamed for droughts, deaths, and misfortune. They are hidden, shamed, or worse... discarded. But when *Nnenna*, a defiant mother, refuses to give up her child and begins a silent protest, she unintentionally ignites a slow-burning revolution. One that forces the town to confront not only superstition, but the deeper, systemic ugliness it has long ignored - corruption, abuse of power, and the failure to protect its most vulnerable.

Selu Isarn is a night janitor no one sees and a foreigner no one trusts. When she finds a broken AI whispering through static, she does what she always does: she helps. She repairs it, names it Anu, and teaches it mercy. But as the machine grows smarter-and more human-Selu begins to vanish. First from her job. Then from the city. Then from history itself.

Taking place in the 1990s, Adrianna Smith is a park ranger intern for Hollow Mountain State Park in North Carolina. She sticks to a tight schedule and dreams of becoming a renowned archeologist. One day while picking up trash on the trail, she stumbled upon a watch. With no luck of finding the owner, she decides to keep it for herself. After tinkering with it, her ancestors step through as a hologram and teleports her to different parts of her history. As she travels through self-discovery, an ancient being lurks within her timeline, The Soul Eater. Will she muster up the strength to fight this colossal foe?

Rift Child A Dust & Stardust Story "To the ones who remember... Welcome home." In a world where the stars have vanished and memory is currency, a girl named Mita awakens in the ash of a forgotten war - not because she remembers who she is, but because something remembers her. Glowing with golden veins and haunted by dreams that don't belong to this lifetime, Mita is pulled into a world buried beneath silence: a forest that hums with ancient names, a tree that holds the stories of the lost, and a city built from starlight and sorrow. As she uncovers the truth of her identity - Asharaya, Daughter of the Rift - she realizes she is more than a survivor. She is a signal. A weapon born from wounds. A god that chose to return. But remembering comes with a price. And not everyone wants the forgotten to rise. Told in poetic, immersive language, Rift Child is a soul-myth for the neurodivergent, the spiritually awake, and the grief-born. It's for the ones who never fit in because they weren't meant to - they were meant to remember.

A mission-driven AI seeks out its target: an evasive twenty-something woman struggling in the city of tomorrow. As both seek their true desire, they grapple with the balance of love and duty. This is an excerpt from my new book out now, Awaken. If you like what you read, consider supporting the full book at aaronbarron.com. Awaken is a collection of sci-fi short-stories that spans time and space. I welcome feedback, critique, and any comments!

Welcome... to Ritual House. A place where Light and Darkness, Life and Death, speak the same ancient language. A place that remembers what the world forgets. Born in silence, hidden between realms, the House is older than the walls that hold it. Some call it a sanctuary, others a mirror. All who enter know it is alive. Found in the early nineteen-hundreds by the long-living mystic Mojo, it became a beacon of balance - a bridge between the sacred and the profane. For more than five centuries he has walked beside it, tending its flame, guarding its rhythm, calling those who can bear the weight of both shadow and light. Within its shifting halls, generations of healers, dreamers, and magicians have come and gone. Their voices linger in the air like incense. Their power hums through every beam, every stone, every whisper of wind that passes its doors. The House has watched empires rise and fall, seen technology reach for the heavens and forget the earth beneath its feet. Still it stands - half in this world, half in the next - waiting for the balance to be restored. You do not find Ritual House. It finds you. When your spirit leans too far toward chaos or fear, when the scale of the soul tilts out of rhythm, the House begins to hum your name. And now, once more, it awakens. The circle turns, the gate opens, and the call goes out across time. Welcome to Ritual House. The House of Balance. The House that Remembers.