Sci-Fi Stories Shade Shorts 2.0 Page 3

  And now, the moment had come.

  Agon looked on, mouth open, pulse racing, as the key was turned in the lock, the lid of the box lifted and at last its secrets were revealed. There was a bewildered outtake of breath among the assembled witnesses. Agon, however, made no sound. He just frowned, uncomprehending. At his side, he heard a quiet, desperate sobbing and turned to see Grandfather Eng with tears flowing down his face.

  ‘It’s worse than Pandora’s box,’ he whimpered. ‘What greater evil could there be to face, than the pain of seeing what you have lost and can never have again?’

  Agon looked once more inside the open box, seeing now what his grandfather saw – the loss of a beloved son and daughter-in-law, of so many friends and fellow Mundians, of a beautiful world of fresh air and natural, growing things – all destroyed by war.

  In the box, all the Neronians had left was a single, green leaf.

  More great SHADES 2.0 SHORT reads:

  Crime Stories

  Funny Stories

  Ghost Stories

  Copyright

  SHADES 2.0 SHORTS

  Sci-Fi Stories

  by Gillian Philip, David Orme, Mary Chapman and Alan Durant

  Published by Ransom Publishing Ltd.

  Radley House, 8 St. Cross Road, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 9HX, UK

  www.ransom.co.uk

  ISBN 978 178127 493 4

  First published in 2009

  This edition published by Ransom Publishing 2013

  Copyright © 2013 Ransom Publishing Ltd.

  Texts copyright © 2013 Gillian Philip, David Orme, Mary Chapman and Alan Durant

  Cover photograph copyright © Redemption

  A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  The rights of Gillian Philip, David Orme, Mary Chapman and Alan Durant to be identified as the authors of this Work have been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.