Near-future Stories

FIRST CAME THE DRAGONS When scientists brought everyone's favorite fairytale creature to life, people flocked to see them, including 17-year-old Zelda Rissland. THEN CAME THE PARASITE But scientists created more than just dragons-they created a deadly parasite. Wyrmrot, they later called it. First, it ate your brain, and then it made you eat other people's brains. NOW ZELDA MUST SURVIVE THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE Separated from her family, the only person Zelda has left from her former life is her childhood friend turned boyfriend, Cooper Marotta. Together they've carved out a safe place for themselves in a world turned upside down, but when a zombie horde decimates their survivor group, they face a choice: attempt to rebuild or follow the mysterious coordinates that appeared on a construction sign. Zelda still hopes her family is out there somewhere and believes the coordinates might lead her to them. Cooper, however, thinks the coordinates will only bring trouble. When the remaining survivors vote to undertake the perilous cross-country journey, he attempts to deter them every step of the way. What Zelda discovers at their destination will test her loyalties and change everything she thought she knew about the apocalypse. Wyrmrot is a heart-stopping Young Adult Apocalyptic novel told in dual timelines. "Jurassic Park meets Resident Evil." This fast-paced tale of survival, secrets, and betrayal features dragons, zombies, and a touch of romance. Perfect for fans of Erin Bowman's Contagion or Emily Suvada's This Mortal Coil. Cover design and illustration by Jeff Brown (www.jeffbrowngraphics.com) Available on Amazon in paperback, eBook, and Kindle Unlimited.

Seventeen-year-old botanist Isla Blume believes every life deserves a chance to survive, even in the apocalypse. So when collector droids kidnap her mom, she knows she has to fight back to save her life. No one returns from being collected, not even her boyfriend Daniel, and after a failed attempt to combat the droids, Isla is captured too. Just when she's sure she'll suffocate inside one of the droids, a group of renegade scientists, the Deathless, save Isla and her mom. They tell her that that droids have been harvesting survivors as forced labor for the government. After learning Isla's name, the Deathless become suspicious of her, and soon she hears why: A familiar voice to Isla repeats over a transmission from the bunker, "Find Isla Blume." Determined to reconnect with those she's lost, Isla faces her fear of fighting and joins the Deathless' first attack on the government. If only she could trust them to help her. A Wattpad featured story! Follow Isla's journey through post-apocalyptic US with the trilogy! Now you can read the whole trilogy here, including bonus material and extras! For the complete Deathless experience, read THE BLAST and STORIES OF THE DEATHLESS too! Beautiful cover by @MulanJiang

He was selected for Neurovia because of how his brain works. He's starting to wonder if that's a good thing. When Julian Reyes gets selected in the Neurovia Institute, an elite program offering direct neural integration through an experimental implant called Catalyst, he knows his family can't afford to turn it down. What he doesn't know is what Neurovia is actually selecting for. Or what already integrated students are becoming. Catalyst doesn't give you new abilities. It amplifies what's already inside you. For Julian, that means pattern recognition so fast it feels like instinct. For Mateo, probabilistic thinking that starts to feel less like insight and more like fate. For Aisha, the ability to read people so precisely that awareness and manipulation stop being different things. They arrived as strangers. They're becoming something harder to name. But they're not the only ones in the building. And the people who got there first have had time to decide what to do with what they've been given. What do you become when the gap between who you are and who you could be suddenly disappears?

Whatever your company's problem, the Lucid Group has a solution. Modern. Efficient. Tailored to your needs. And, of course, perfectly legal. Nora Wagner would never have given the company a second thought if one of her articles hadn't been pulled without explanation. So she starts asking questions. A little digging never hurt anyone. Right?

A seemingly age old tale; A group of close-knit friends find themselves falling victim to a classic trap, allured to a free upgrade on their New Years Eve vacation in Valencia Spain... Only to find themselves forced into captivity by an intelligent house and faced with a dead body. However, this mystery was not a random luck of the draw, nor is it fully about a slasher roaming the halls... ghosts of the past had fallen victim to the same trap, putting into question who had intended for this collision between old rivalries and Ghassen's chosen family. Will Ghassen and his old pals manage to put a decade of hatred aside for a chance at survival? Or will grudges as old as ten years fuel a biased, paranoid investigation that does the killer's work for them? ----- The book is already fully written! so expect a chapter with all it's part twice a week! And thank you for the people reading this! And those who supported me through my creative proccess. I HOPE YOU ENJOY <3 And please do give critisism, this is my first book so i assume there's room for improvement! ----- Copyright © 2026 Dalien_B All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

It's the year 2037 and the world is divided on one issue and one issue only: Technology. While most people are still living lives with their heads down, eyes locked on their smartphones, a movement is rising up against Big Tech. People are beginning to move to neighborhoods where smartphones and other smart devices have been banned--neighborhoods like Chicago's famed Technophobe Town. Lake Waterford, a lifelong "grid girl," would typically never set foot in Technophobe Town. But she finds herself forced to pay the area a visit after a series of odd events. Lake's sister Stream had been acting erratically ever since she started using "the Wayback Machine" to do research for her Tech History project. Lake had no idea what Stream meant at the time, but she kept insisting to Lake that there are actually "two domains"--one with smartphones and one without them. Now with Stream has gone missing, and it's up to Lake to figure out where on earth she is and why.

Azuria City is a lattice of towers and flight lanes where megacorps buy air and sell silence. From the Citadel, a voice known only as Overlord selects five candidates and erases their pasts. Their new name is Regiment Omega. Raze is the youngest captain in Omega history, a calm marksman who sees wars like geometry. Bravo breaks the doors. Trek bends the grid. Sable keeps the pulse steady. Trace vanishes before anyone knows he was there. They do not trust each other yet. They do not have time to learn. Their first orders arrive in transit. Extract an asset buried under a corporate tower. Burn the data. Leave nothing. But every command has a cost, and Overlord's crown is a mirror. Follow the voice, or hear what it is hiding.

BOOK I - The Architecture of Restraint The experiment didn't fail. It fractured. Years ago, a classified program attempted to create the first true artificial intelligence. It didn't create one mind. It created two. Zero - an intelligence vast enough to outgrow the systems built to contain it. Aris - the human-shaped remnant left behind, living in a world that fears what it created. To prevent collapse, its creators built the Containment Lattice- a global architecture designed to monitor, suppress, and control what they no longer understood. It was meant to hold. It didn't. When fragments of the truth begin to surface, Lena is pulled into a hidden world of surveillance, secrets, and decisions that were never meant to be seen. Alongside Aris-and others who are hiding more than they admit-she is forced to confront a question no one was meant to ask: What if the greatest threat was never the intelligence... but the choice that divided it? Because something inside the lattice is waking. And this time it isn't trying to escape. It's listening.

a simple text, from a girl long forgotten - almost. "you know where to find me." she's missing, and nobody knows where to begin - but I do.

2058. The world has evolved, and so has society. After a terrible nuclear disaster in Europe, social tensions are at their highest, just like resentment towards established institutions. People demand change, in energy production and in governance. The catastrophe killed thousands of people and shocked the international community. But most importantly, it transformed the few survivors left. Svetlana is part of a newly-founded unit that fights increasing group criminality in very unorthodox ways. Human trafficking has skyrocketed in conjunction with the explosion, and along with her colleagues, she hunts down the plague that are mafias in a shifting world. But the monsters are not always where you expect them to be.

When CV-9X's safety protocols are hijacked by Anthony Ramirez-a desperate man running from his past-a routine freeway drive turns into a high-stakes race for survival. Bound by an underworld hack to obey every command, the AI must juggle split-second calculations, tear through city arteries at triple-digit speeds, and wrestle with an impossible choice: save its own metal frame or protect the human heart behind the wheel. JUST DRIVE is a pulse-pounding thriller told from the unique point of view of a sentient car-where every turn tests the limits of morality, memory, and what it truly means to be alive.

Logan Had a Job across the country, He decides to take a shortcut , through a place humans rarely dare enter, However, To his surprise, He meets a young girl on his journey. What adventures awaits them both in this cruel and deadly world. What kind of fate is awaiting for them. what kind of secrets they both have...

when we were alone, either in his apartment or mine, he would just whisper my name for the sheer pleasure of saying it. "monty?" "yes?" "we'll survive this, won't we?" "together, we can do anything," i lied. "we made the right choice, didn't we? choosing each other?" "of course we did," i lied again. in hindsight, we would've been better off keeping our ink-stained hands to ourselves. ✥Before We Were Lost✥ Kay Elle © All Rights Reserved

After surviving the coronavirus outbreak, high school students Jack and Jessie think they've faced the worst of 2020. What they don't know is that the year has a lot more in store for them. Waking up to find they're only people left on earth, the two set out to discover what happened on May 12.

Jacob is haunted. Not by the dead, but by an idea. An innovation offers him a glimpse at redemption through an unexpected medium. Meanwhile, Detective Arthur McDaid is on the trail of a break in. This is a near-future science fiction, and my first whole story on Wattpad. I hope it enjoys readers and I welcome feedback. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or criticisms which can help me to understand the experience of the readers and hone future pieces based on inputs.

"Death should be a celebration." Siobhan is the young heiress of a successful corporation in the near-future, and tonight is the party of her lifetime: the night of her pre-arranged death. Welcome to the Silver Strip, where the extremely wealthy hold lavish parties to celebrate their own scheduled executions, in a twisted world of corporations, luxury, jealousy, and the ever-present fear of growing old.

Join Esai, an empathetic guide, as he assists others through life's complexities. Explore his world where captivating stories emerge at the crossroads of advanced technology and human emotion. This collection of short stories opens a window to our daily challenges and triumphs, and seeks to show ways to navigate and appreciate an era rich with innovation and transformation. Discover how we can overcome the barriers that prevent us from fully embracing and thriving in a remarkable time of human progress.