Trees in Autumn
By John Schultz (received Honorable Mention in the 2026 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards)

Sometimes, when the Autumn leaves grow brown and crusted on the trees,
When I walk my walks, my black hair blowing in the breeze,
I find myself walking past the black pond, 
To the top of the hill, 
Where memories have grown fond,
And some have festered still,
I gaze, amazed, at the crooked branches of the pines,
Like a rabid animal, clawing at the sky.

Such climbable trees, 
Such sturdy bark,
I hear the buzzing of bees, 
The hum of the park, 
But those are unnoticed, as I remember my younger times, 
When it was I who reached my hand into the sky.

With a rush, I attempt to climb, 
My hands already ashen with dust and grime,
But oh, my knees, and my thighs, 
Burn, and hot sweat stings my eyes.

Defeated, I stumble to the ground.
But my head jolts upright to the sound, 
Children playing on the tree next to mine,
I hobble over and find,
A young boy, only seven or eight, 
When he sees me he looks as though he might faint,
But he recovers and looks at me straight.

“Young man, d’you know how to climb a tree?”
“Yes sir! Wanna see?”

Remembering Summer
By John Schultz

We camped on a little rough plateau, 
The rocks cold under our little toes,
And I, I found myself engrossed,
In the tidy ants and their manching rows.
We hiked all day under the scorching sun, 
And although our journey had just begun, 
My mind became overrun, 
With memories of tired lungs, 
And of muddy trails and ladder rungs.
Off we went, our shoulders bent, 
As overhead black bats swept,
To warn us of the night which crept, 
Over the hills, raising hairs on my neck.
I look back now, walking off the bow, of the middle school ship which I’m aboard now,
And don't just see the rough plateau, 
or the rocks cold underneath my little toes, 
But paths tread never again,
Relationships made tighter than that of my closest friends,
And finally the path that never ends,
That is life, death, and resurrection which I defend.
So you ask me what I would see,
In the mysterious spiritual realm, 
And I say all these things and more,
For the camping trip I did adore,
But I would see my father for sure.
He would say: “Son, you’ve just begun,”
“Keep your friends and make new ones,”
“And always remember where you’re from”
And that, my friends, is the end, 
But there is so much more to see in my life ahead,
So I hope you’ll appreciate the poem you’ve just read.

The Dreamers
The start of a science fiction novel, by John Schultz (received Honorable Mention in the 2026 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards)

Sev’s waking is a violent one, spasms lapsing from his core like ripples in a pond. When you wake from the Sleep, the itching is the worst; Sev felt it now, his rotting skin peeling in some places. He could imagine it, in grey fixtures all along his belly. He feels soft hands around his neck, lifting him into the artificial light. He feels the fear within him laxing, the pond becoming still. Memories flood his brain as adrenaline is manually injected by glinting needles into his neck. Memories. To Sev, memories are things to be cast away, to be rejected as figments of one’s imagination. Others keep memories as treasures, but not Sev. Sev doesn’t treasure anything. 

The first good feeling that greets Sev now, after waking from the Sleep, is but a simple one. He lies on the cold slab and releases into his waste tube, emptying his bowls of the hundred-year-old excrement that inhabited them through his years of cold storage. He blinks his eyes open, tries to clear his mind. Kill the past. Jessica loved him; Jessica is gone. Focus on your mission. Beside him, his teammates groan, pain coursing through every cell of their gravity-compressed bodies. Sev doesn’t groan now. Sev doesn’t feel pain. He blacks out.

One hour later. Sev’s conscious mind revives as he and his team are led to the only room in the space station dignified enough to be called a conference room, flickering lightbulbs letting out their ghostly entrails as they slowly make their way down the hall. For the first five hours after Sleep, soldiers regularly black out, coming to and dropping off as their bodies are controlled by their AIs, their mission is prepped, and their skin and muscles regenerated. I'm back, program, thinks Sev. His and his team’s nylon boots make tiny squeaking sounds as they come into contact with the floor. Who's really the program here?  Sev wonders.

As they enter the conference room, Sev tries to blink his low-rez on. The room is made from sheer black marble, with a plastic frame to prevent damage to the rare, seldom-used material. To the normal eye, it would be as dark as night, but the implants should in theory allow Sev and his team to see the dormant AI brain in the center of the room, but, like Sev, most are still waking up. Sev blearily watches as Private Richards reaches out to the AI brain and slides all eleven of his thin fingers over the helm. His eyes close, and the wrinkles in his forehead grow grossly large, as shivers jolt up his arm, enlarging the exposed veins there like balloons. Vibrations rock the core, bringing the outdated AI brain to life. Sev glances around at the rest of the team – tee shirts, gaunt eyes. All just awakened. Longing for something that a civilian couldn’t catch. Sev was well acquainted with war. The AI brain hummed for a moment, then began to speak.

“Over the past years, America has been monitoring ancient dormant Chinese drones in the skies above the Republic of New India.” The AI brain abruptly droned, not pausing between words, yet somehow understandable. “Yesterday evening, at exactly 6:00 AM Pacific Standard Time, they were contacted by an AI signal. They struck down from orbit, carrying a massive nuclear payload. Due to its Shields, New Delhi has survived the attack, but many other Indian cities have been destroyed and affected by radiation. Exact number of survivors: Unknown.” The AI brain paused in its rant, as if to receive affirmation from its disoriented audience. 

“According to treaties signed with the Republic of New India, the United States is to respond with military action against any attacks against the state. It is clear that the AI was communicating before the attack, and we have found that the channel it used was coming from an ancient Chinese bunker, which was thought to have been destroyed.” The AI brain pauses, raising its voice as ancient speakers crackle. Sev looks down at his scarred, war-worn hands. One more mission. 

“You are to air drop to the South China Sea, take a hover drone to former Mainland China, avoid all radiated zones, and destroy the bunker and its central AI core before it activates more drones for strikes. Japanese forces are advancing on the location as well, and they mean to use the core to benefit their AI program. You cannot let that happen. Is that clear?” 

All members of Sev’s team mumble their understanding, and the AI brain sinks into the table, like a massive cobra. Sev looks up from his hands, the faint scent of cleaning detergent filling the air around him. He had heard rumors of the Japanese enlarging their military before he had sunk into cold sleep, and he wonders now how far the Japanese have gotten; their nanotech has always been far more advanced than anything the US possesses. Nuclear strikes? A part of Sev wants to feel something, but he can’t.  He remembers something his old friend on his squad has said to him once after World War C went nuclear:  “When the numbers get this high, numbness ain’t just logical, Sev my friend - it’s biological.” 

Sev remembers this, and more. As he and his team shuffle out of the room silently to the weapons bay, they heal. As each minute passes, they become more awake and whole, their decomposing skin growing pink vai rapid cell regeneration, their minds sharpening, their hands clenching, tingling. Sev blacks out again, but comes to as they pass rows upon rows of cold sleep chambers, a silent testament to how far the US was willing to go to win a war. The last time he had been woken, Sev remembers, he had been sent to oversee the annexation of the European Union. Sev isn’t even sure if such a region exists anymore, and he doesn’t care; this was going to be his final mission, he was sure of it. After this, he would regain his citizenship, and he could live in a penthouse in a megacity like San Francisco. After all, when you’ve been in cold sleep for as long as he had, your investments reach the trillions. Sev sleeps again as they head for the Drop Ship.

When Sev awakens again, he is in a drone carrier flying through the night sky, its sharp tip cutting through the black like a knife. He feels alive now, humming with regenerated muscles and skin underneath his mech suit. No more sleeping, Sev tells himself, and sinks deeper into his new body. For some reason, at this moment, Sev thinks of his children, long dead, their burned bodies black and smoking.  For a moment, he feels pain, but this passes. That is no longer me, he thinks. I have had many skins since then. He stares out of the window and wonders if he has great-grandchildren, people who would have no recollection of him, no knowledge that he was still alive, a Cold Sleep Zombie Death Machine flying in the night to China. He imagines the silent craters below, the land devoid of life except for the surviving biomasses wandering the landscape, trying to connect to Chinese military bunkers that no longer exist. Monsters below, monsters above. 

Suddenly, the sun is in the horizon, and the fog recedes. The view below unfurls, the half-melted plastic shells that had once been houses dotting the landscape. With wonder, he realizes that this had once been a city, and then he spots it: the hulking black mass jutting out in the distance. As tall as any skyscraper, writhing and twisting every second, shimmering folds expanding and contracting. A Spire. A living thing, comprised of discarded nanotech from Chinese battle armor, civilian vehicles, and everyday appliances. Once the nanotech AI had realized that it was serving corpses, it had abandoned its former masters and, slowly, clustered together to form the Spires. No one knew why they clustered like that, except that they seemed always to move, like grains of sand in a vast desert, piled high and brought to life.  Sev had heard of the Spires, but he’d never seen one. Not even on VR. When Sev became a soldier, he suddenly found his VR account restricted, and when he asked his AI helper, Tsari, why, it told him that after the Russian incursions into the VR accounts of many senior officials, all active military personnel were forbidden from possessing such accounts. 

Sev winces. VR. That was what had destroyed his family before they had died in China's attacks. He had slowly lost contact with Jessica and his children, for they had been lost to the virtual world, immersed in fake jobs and games that didn’t even matter. He remembers America, once host of thriving cities, its streets devoid of life, and the broken-down houses. He remembers walking on the street and seeing a house, its wall burnt down in a fire, and its owner, an elderly man, sitting on its fungal-infected couch, locked into the VR world with his rusted helmet, completely unaware of what was going on around him. Every thirty minutes, an AI-controlled robot would clamber into the room and insert more food into his IV. That is how people live back in America. Dreaming, they had called it, back in training camp; in the military, ‘Dreamer’ was an insult. Many soldiers viewed the annexation of the United States by VR as humanity losing its dignity. Sev sees it as an opportunity. 

From the account of Tsari, Sev’s AI assistant; Entry: 43568029

Note: This AI is connected to Sev’s nervous system and thoughts, but tends to fabricate stories. Please consider this wisely when reading.
______________________________________________________________________

The drone was hard to miss. It had been following them for three minutes, bouncing back every scan that came its way. The carrier fired the occasional round at the drone, but it was too fast, a silent blur, one which even the seemingly omniscient drone AI couldn’t catch. The impact jolts Sev out of his seat and sends him crashing to the hard fiberglass floor of the drone. Sev instinctively glances up at Private Richards, only to find him slumped in his chair, a piece of shrapnel poking out from where his neck used to be. Most of the carrier has already been engulfed in flames, boxes of gear making little jittering sounds as they break free of their straps and begin the long descent to the ground. With horror, Sev realizes that every man in his team is dead. High on adrenaline, he yanks open the door and jumps. 

Wind. Cold. Falling. Sev pulls the cord. Too late, too low, ground coming, ground coming ground . . . . His descent ends abruptly, knocking the wind out of him and sending his pain nanites into overdrive; needless to say, Sev blacks out. Five minutes after his fall, Sev had expected to be in a courtroom in Heaven, or perhaps on a welcome tour of Valhalla. Instead, he is in a field that was growing around him, as if time had sped up. This field is pitch black, as if something had malevolently sucked all the color out of the world. He feels soothed by it, as his nanites inject much-needed morphine into his bloodstream. 

He sits up. Regrets it. With a shock, he sees that everything around him is moving, like sentient grains of sand. He feels himself sinking into the depths of it and fights against it, because this black sand reminds him of the ocean, his greatest fear. In fact, he had never been near the ocean since everybody began to get sick, and it turned out that the ocean was constantly spewing out radioactive material. Sev flails his arms, trying to hold on to the blackness as its grains slip through his fingers, and then he is in the air, launched by the blackness as he had writhed and twisted. Apparently, it had found him wanting and spat him out like a fish bone. For the second time that day, Sev falls to the ground. 

He wakes up, this time lying on a solid floor. His optics have been seriously damaged, and Sev finds that this time, there are jolts of pain that even his nanites can’t handle. The ground beneath him is wet and muddy, with no sign of any life. He turns his gaze in front of him, where he sees the blackness. It writhes and twists, towering over the landscape. A Spire, Sev thinks, with a mix of horror and thankfulness. That was where I landed. He crawls on all fours away from the revolting thing, for it frightens him that the nanotower tower could have ended him whenever it had chosen to, but didn’t. The mud and the stench and pain overwhelm him, so he stands up and hobbles to a pile of rocks and sits there, worn out, as sleep overtakes him. 

Sev jolts awake.  The sun had risen overhead, silhouetting the Spire against the vast greyness of the sky. He feels at his forehead; there had been blood there before, and now it has dried in splotches of color on his face. The blood was not his. He looks above him and sees Private Marcus, his team's technician, lying face down on a rock above him. His features are covered with injuries so severe that Sev only distinguishes him by his stark red hair color. Even that was hard to see, as his face had literally been caved in on itself, and his dark hair is fully smeared with wet blood. Sev realizes, with horror, that such injuries couldn’t have been caused by a fall from the drone, especially with such advanced nanites. 

His face now masked with realization and dread, Sev begins frantically scanning the horizon. And then he sees it. Its seventeen eyes of different sizes and colors scanning him, its sixteen, centipede-like legs twitching, and its mouth, lined with shark teeth, hanging wide open, thick globs of mucus and drool pouring out of the wretched thing. Sev remembers the documentaries from when he was a kid, and the action figures that could scare the smallest child. In the final years of World War C, the Chinese had constructed these beasts and made them attracted to European genetics, and they had hunted American soldiers through the mountains and battlefields of Asia. They did their job well, but in the end, with their masters gone, they had not all been decommissioned, and those that remained turned to wandering the barren landscape… Until they found a victim. 

Right now, that victim was Sev. He turns to run, but the beast is already upon him; he feels its horrid breath brush his cheek. As Sev turns to face death the second time that day, he catches an unexpected glint in the corner of his eye. Focused on deciding his vehement last words, he does not see that glint move. Then the beast screams. It is an utterly human scream, and from his recumbent state, Sev can only watch as the beast writhes and twists, its scream now faded into hacking and gasping. Then the bioform ceases to move, and a red line appears, dividing the beast in half, its red and purple entrails spilling out like clothes from a closet. 

Sev gazes into the steam rising from the fallen goliath, where he can make out the faint outline of a drone. As the steam and the stench clear, Sev sees that the drone was ancient and leaking fuel. Its rusted hide was like that of an armadillo, its skin cracked. Sev stared, wide-mouthed, at the stars and stripes painted on the drone’s rusted side. Then, with a final whimper of a whir, the drone fell to the ground. 

“I help you, you help me,” the drone says matter-of-factly.  It seemed to have a southern accent.  

Sev was shocked. An AI drone from the U.S.?  These had been made illegal even before Sev’s time - they were too unpredictable. It seemed to make a noise like clearing a throat. “We got to move now, soldier – Lassie’s friends ain’t gonna like this one bit.”  It adds with emphasis, “These things run in packs.” Sev checked his gun and got to his feet.  

“What do I call you?” Sev asks.  The Spires swayed in the distance.  Over the air, Sev could hear mechanized howls. 

“Call me Sam,” the thing says. Sev picks it up, and begins to run.