Nowadays some readers are in a hurry and if you are among one of them who wants to finish a story in no time, then there can’t be a better option than picking flash fiction stories.
Related: 101 Flash Fiction Prompts
Flash fiction has always a good reader base as people want to complete a story as soon as possible and this’s what flash fiction stories provide.
Related: 500 Words Microfiction
Contents
What is Flash Fiction?
Traditionally, any work of short fiction written under 1000 words (max 1500 words) is called flash fiction.
Flash fiction is termed as a fictional work of extreme brevity, short and quick reading pieces of fiction that can entertain the readers without killing much of their time.
When defined by word count, it created many new story terms like six-word stories, the 280 character stories aka twitterature, the dribble aka minisaga (50 words), the drabble aka microfiction (100 words), sudden fiction (750 words)
Related: 100 Short Story Ideas
Examples of Flash Fiction
Sheamus the Great
(1000 Words)
Once there lived Sheamus, a ruthless king of a large empire.
His great, brutal army had helped him in conquering any land coming his way, resulting in extending his empire to far places.
His people used to call him, ”Sheamus the Great” and also ”the invincible King” as no one had ever defeated him.
Whenever his huge army moved, either the rival kings ran away to save their lives or surrendered their monarch to save their people from the merciless army of Sheamus.
Those days every king used to pray to god to save their kingdom from coming to the notice of Sheamus.
One day Sheamus was getting ready to go on a quest of invading a smaller kingdom hidden behind a mountain range.
Then, something unexpected happened which was going to change the fate of the invincible Sheamus.
Sheamus’ beloved son Liam suddenly got severely ill.
He wasn’t opening his eyes and was struggling for every breath.
Sheamus had never cared for anyone except his son.
Brutal Sheamus was unexpectedly a good father and loved his son a lot.
But, now the only person whom he loved was dying in front of his eyes.
Liam was suffering from an incurable disease.
Sheamus couldn’t watch his son struggling for his every breath.
Sheamus’ wife and queen Ezina blamed him and said that it was the result of all his sins which had now come as a curse for their child. She believed that God was punishing him for all the bad deeds he did in his whole life.
After watching his child’s suffering, Sheamus became insane and more brutal.
He killed every physician in his kingdom as they had failed to cure his dying son.
Soon, he ordered his guards to abduct all the best physicians from other kingdoms and present them before him.
Later, after four days the guards presented before him the twelve best physicians.
The abducted men were the most proclaimed physicians from other kingdoms, famous for saving many lives.
Sheamus said if his son dies, then he will kill every physician and asked if they want to leave the place alive then they had to save his son’s life.
Every physician was given a bag containing all kinds of herbs to prepare any medicine.
Soon those miserable and scared magicians of medicine started preparing something to save Sheamus’ son’s life as well as their own.
At night they all presented before him some medicines except one physician named, Toby.
Toby didn’t come with any medicine.
King Sheamus got extremely angry to see Toby with empty hands and said, ”so you are not interested in saving your life, but don’t think I will give you an easy death”.
“King Shemus I have seen this incurable illness earlier”, Toby replied, “I want to tell you a harsh truth, no medicine prepared by my fellow physicians or anyone is enough to save your son’s life so I felt worthless to prepare anything”.
“Oh! , you know everything about my child’s illness, so tell me where you had seen this disease earlier and what happened to your patient, did he died like my son will die soon? ”, Sheamus asked in his angry voice.
“No, he survived, and right now that patient is standing in front of you”, Toby replied.
“What do you mean? ”, Sheamus asked.
“I was that patient who had suffered this disease when I was a young boy and my father had saved my life”, Toby replied.
“You knew everything about the cure and now you are telling me all this”, Sheamus got very angry at Toby and continued, ”I will take your life right now for your idiotic behavior, just tell me how did your father saved your life and where is he now”.
Toby replied, “King Sheamus, my father is no more, but what he did to save me? I think you won’t do that, that is why I thought it worthless to tell you and accepted my fate of death by you”.
Sheamus shouted in his heavy voice, “don’t try to puzzle me, explain to me everything clearly how your father had saved you otherwise I am barely holding myself to take your life at any moment”.
Toby replied, “King Sheamus I know you will not kill me at least until something happens to your son as I know, right now my life is more valuable after your son”.
“Yes”, Sheamus said, “you are right, this is the reason you are still alive and talking to me but not so long. If one more time you tried to puzzle me, I will take your life right now”.
“I’m not here to puzzle you”, Toby said, ”so you want to know how my father saved my life, then listen he sacrificed his life to save me.
“What sacrifice?” Sheamus asked, but this time in a dull voice, “What are you talking about? Tell me clearly?”.
Toby said, “outside this kingdom in the jungles of Onuma, grows rare black mushrooms, which can save your child’s life from this incurable disease”.
Listening to this the king promptly ordered his guards to bring every black-looking mushroom present in the jungle.
Toby said, “King Sheamus, wait, I have to tell you something else”.
“I am listening to you”, Sheamus replied, ”what do you want more, just tell me?”.
Toby said, ”King Shemus the rare mushroom only will not save your son but you or the queen.
“As anyone from the blood relation of the patient has to eat that rare mushroom and then has to give some drops of his blood in the ill person’s mouth for five days”.
“But on the sixth day the person who had eaten the mushroom dies because of the poison present in it, but the patient gets cured completely”.
“Oh! So this sacrifice you were talking about”, the King replies to Toby and asks his guards to call the queen.
Toby again elaborated everything to the queen.
Queen Ezina said, “Dear king Shemus have you forgotten, I’m not your child’s actual mother, you had killed his mother many years ago for deceiving you”.
For the first time, the king felt he was not invincible and God was really punishing him for his bad deeds.
He soon ordered his guards to release everyone and went to Liam’s room.
The abducted physician hurriedly left the place except Toby, who followed Sheamus to his son’s room.
Toby saw him crying, regretting, confessing all his sins and blaming himself for his child’s sufferings.
At night the guards came with those rare black mushrooms.
Sheamus ate those mushrooms and dropped some of his blood into his son’s mouth by cutting his hand.
Liam soon started getting better every day and opened his eyes on the fifth day, but on the sixth-day Shemus died leaving all his great empire for the future king.
Finally, the brutal king got defeated by his own fate, but a great father won.
Genre- Fiction
Read: 30 Best Opening lines of Famous Books
Invisible Man
(1300 words)
It was late night when an explosion shocked everyone which soon ended with a power blackout in the whole city.
People came out of their houses to see what had happened.
The source of the explosion was found in a secret laboratory running underground in a closed industrial facility.
The next morning the police reported that they had found the dead body of Mr. John, a famous bankrupt billionaire along with twelve Russian scientists who were supposed to be working at the secret facility before the explosion.
But the investigating team was very shocked to see the explosion site and the dead bodies as Mr. John’s head contained a strange hole and his brain was missing from inside and two other Russian scientists did not die in the explosion but were shot.
The police told the press that they recovered a gun from the underground lab, which contains the fingerprints of Mr. John.
The police had yet to answer what they all were doing at the hidden facility? What was the secret of the hole in Mr. John’s head? Why was his brain missing from his body? And why did he shoot two-man?.
The team had also found some weird broken and never seen before machinery, equipment, and tools from the site.
The police also told the media that Mr. John was the owner of the closed factory underground where he had built a secret lab facility and was using it for developing some secret technology.
Later in the day the investigation team called Miss Alina, the wife of Mr. John for interrogation about his husband’s secret project.
Mrs. Alina was already in a state of shock, she told that she got married to Mr. John, just a year ago.
“A few years back, I became a business partner with Mr. John but after his wife’s death in an accident, we came closer and started dating and got married and when Mr. John went bankrupt, I brought his medical equipment manufacturing company and helped him in his bad days but except this, I don’t know anything or about his secret lab’’, she told the investigation team.
Alina was allowed to go home after interrogation, but the police said they will call her soon.
While driving the car home she was just confused and crying.
But soon something strange happened.
Her car’s back got filled with a strange smoke.
When she looked into the mirror, she found that the smoke was also entering her ears.
She thought the car may have caught fire and tried to stop, but soon she heard a familiar voice in his ears saying,
“Keep driving darling, it’s not fire, it’s me’’
Mrs. Alina freaked out, she lost her control over the car and soon the car crashed into a tree.
When Mrs. Alina opened her eyes, she found herself in a hospital bed.
But again, she saw smoke entering his room.
Mrs. Alina tried to shout, but soon she heard a voice saying,
“Hey, It’s me, John, no need to panic again’’.
Mrs. Alina freaked out to hell after hearing this.
She started crying and said,
“Where are you, John? How are you doing this? , please stop it, they lied to me that you died in that explosion, I just want to see you right now’’.
“No, they didn’t lie, I’m biologically dead’’, the voice said.
“I can’t understand anything’’, Mrs. Alina shouted.
The voice said, “As you know darling our whole body is made up of atoms of different elements and the same as our brain and its neurons’’.
“After a year of research, my team has created a technology in our lab, which can turn our brain into gaseous form, and now our whole brain can exist independently in the air working more powerfully’’.
“Currently this room is filled with all my brain neurons in a gaseous form’’.
“But why did you create this weird technology’’, Mrs. Alina asked in her trembling voice.
“My technology defeated death as now my brain is no longer part of a body or a cell so they will not age, neither will I and makes me immortal’’, the voice replied.
“But John because of your weird experiment many people have lost their life’’, Mrs. Alina said.
“Honey, I really feel sorry for them, my team was really brilliant’’, the voice replied.
“But why you kill your own people?’’, Alina asked.
“I really didn’t want to but they were not ready to start the procedure as they said the machine was not ready and it may lead to an explosion if we begin but I was running out of money’’.
“I got bankrupted in developing the technology and even after secretly using all your money I had no more resources left to continue the project and I didn’t want to quit after coming so close’’.
“By the way, they are not the first people whom I’ve killed for achieving my goal’’.
“Even I killed my first wife, Sussanne when She somehow found out that I am doing weird experiments on people who are dying from it and she was going to the police, so I killed her in a road accident before she could have opened her mouth’’.
“It was not an easy thing to do, but great inventions need great sacrifices’’.
“I hope you can understand all this Alina’’, the voice said.
”So you can see me?”, Mrs. Alina asked in her scared voice.
“This smoke is scanning everything in the room right now and even going into your body with your breath so I can see you and even can read your mind through your brain neurons and I can feel you are very scared right now’’, the voice said.
Suddenly the doctor came and the smoke disappeared.
Doctors said to Mrs. Alina that they are taking her to the MRI room to check if she has got any internal injury.
While in the MRI room Mrs. Alina found that the smoke was nowhere around her.
She said, “are you still here John” but got no reply.
Soon she asked the doctor to give him a pen and a piece of paper as she wanted to say something but was having a problem speaking.
She later asked the doctor to deliver her written note to the police as soon as possible as it contains a crucial message.
The doctors called a staff member and did what Mrs. Alina asked.
After an hour when she came out of the MRI, the doctor said she is completely fine and can go home whenever she feels good but soon some police officers came into the hospital and said they are arresting Mrs. Alina as they have been found evidence of her helping his husband in his weird experiments and secret scientific project.
Later she was put in a special closed cell.
At night she again saw the smoke coming into his cell.
“Soon the voice said, “don’t worry darling they can’t charge you with any crime as you are not involved in anything wrong’’.
“But you were’’, Alina replied and soon the guards closed all the air vents and her cell and turned on a vacuum suction machine.
All the smoke was then trapped in airtight equipment and so was Mr. John.
Mr. Hudson, the head of the investigation team came and thanked Mrs. Alina for telling them about Mr. John’s crime and revealing the secret of his lab, his weird scientific project, and his missing brain.
Mr. Hudson said, “Mr. John might have become immortal now, but he will live all his life in this metal bottle and this is his punishment for his evil madness’’.
But two years later Mrs. Alina received bad news.
A police officer called Mrs. Alina and told her that someone in their department had mistakenly opened Mr. John’s box while shifting it to a safer place and today morning Mr. Hudson and three other police officers have been found dead due to some suffocation.
Soon at night, Mrs. Alina saw the smoke entering her room, but this time she didn’t get scared as she knew what she had to do.
Genre- Sci-fi Horror
Flash Fiction Examples are by Neel Rana
Copyright © Neel Rana
(This literary work can be used for academics purpose, only) .
