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I have been told to join. So I guess I am in for the very first time.
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Jun 9, 2023 15:50
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Yeah, screw it, I’m in
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Jun 9, 2023 20:12
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in Actually dunno how long it's been since the last time but 200 words more would be a sign of weakness anyway
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Jun 9, 2023 23:28
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Oh but I do want a flash
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Jun 9, 2023 23:29
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In, flash
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Jun 10, 2023 01:18
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In for the very first time. I'm kinda terrified but I'll try.
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Jun 10, 2023 01:39
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Simply Simon posted:Oh but I do want a flash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9sruij8Srg (Ball of Confusion)
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Jun 10, 2023 02:45
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Antivehicular posted:In, flash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uXLFtXpeFU (Something Beautiful Remains)
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Jun 10, 2023 02:46
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Title: The Walkman Sport crackled out its mournful tune- synths, electric organs, a veritable orchestra of the last instruments of modernity that washed over me with the slowness of molasses. I knew the battery was getting low; already it was sounding like a dirge for a coked-up discohead. I didn’t have any replacement AAs. Outside the wind howled fiercely, warning me that if I went outside I’d get chipped apart like a piece of whittling wood. I watched the sickly orange flurry pass by the windows. Twirling my box cutter over and over in my hand, I slid the blade in and out of the handle in a personal ritual, reassuring myself of its edge. Looking outside longingly, I tried to remember exactly why I was in this derelict skyscraper, creaking into its foundation like an obese sexagenarian getting ready to die in his La-Z-Boy. I tried not to let the years that had passed cross my mind, to not obsessively try to reason out how stable it was. With any luck, the storm would pass and I could be out of here shortly. I looked over at the unmanned desks, word processors stuck in monastic silence, and wondered where the clerks and wonders of years gone by had ended up. Surely not all of them had died? My own brother worked in a place like this, a mechanic turned office busybody. It was one of the funnier stories of success in an otherwise mediocre family; an upper manager watched how effortlessly my brother typed out his expense report for bodywork on a Mercedes and offered him a job on the spot. He made his way up from there from a typist to an idiot savant of the business world- one of those rare success stories that kept people going. The idea that maybe, just maybe, they might get adopted into the world of upper management. As the tape wound down, I reminisced on one last memory of my brother– the night we got split up, somewhere near Topeka. I tripped over a piece of destroyed masonry as we ran away, bumping my head when I hit the ground, and by the time I had regained my wits, he was gone under the cover of a dark, dead city. All that could be done was hope he was alright, wherever he ended up. I smoke the last of my cigarettes in my emergency stairwell, watching the smoke rise up to the roof access door, as it rattles in the frame from the gusts outside. Returning to the office, something black and plastic with a red button catches my eye. I realized quickly it was an everyday generic voice recorder, and with a fierceness befitting a hungry man snapping up a mouse, snapped off the back. But inside, the batteries had corroded beyond use. I sighed. Every day with this poo poo man.
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Jun 10, 2023 03:10
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LurchinTard posted:Title: gently caress forgot the title like an idiot cause i noticed a spelling error before i posted. the title is Cutting up the Hours. 481 words LurchinTard fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Jun 12, 2023 |
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Jun 10, 2023 03:11
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eh waht the hell in dh what the hlel, flash
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Jun 10, 2023 05:43
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flerp posted:eh waht the hell in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azDoSoZUBCc (Back Where You Started)
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Jun 10, 2023 06:34
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Signups are closed.
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Jun 10, 2023 08:49
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The Women of Troy 478 words The fire in the camp gives me no warmth. The bread, freshly baked by Andromache, turns to ashes in my mouth. The fire is the colour of the sky over beloved, burning Troy, the same flickering orange through day and night. The ashes all that remain of my home. I force down sips of water, though it tastes of the blood of my dead father and husband, and the tears I wept - and will weep again - for my sons. This is the end of my world. Looking around the women’s camp, as we wait to be taken as war-brides, I know I am not alone in my grief. The Greeks call themselves heroes, they rejoice in taking back Helen for Menelaus, though the Trojan armies held them at bay for ten long years. Ten years, in which Helen bore Paris three sons and a daughter. Ten years, in which she lived with the most desired man in Troy, having escaped her old husband. That Paris may have been willing to use force to take her is clear, though she seemed far happier in Troy than as child-bride to a Spartan king. My home still burns as the Greeks congratulate “cunning Odysseus”, as if his base treachery was cleverness inspired by Hermes himself. They congratulate Sinon, the liar. They may not mistreat us, but that is scant comfort. Our lives are over. Our world has ended. At best, we may be war-brides to Greek soldiers, praying for those nights when wine gives our new husbands desire but not ability, though Hera will surely spurn us. Even dear, mad Cassandra will find herself some Greek’s prize. She more than any of us knows what it costs to spurn a god’s advances, I fear she will not last long when her captor can gift her not lunacy, but only death. Might that be a mercy? To be reunited with my dear husband in Hades? I have not the strength to take my own life, and if I did the guards would stop me. Perhaps the worst part of the end of our world is how courteously our captors treat us. We do not have much food but the flour we get is good, and the water fresh. They know, I am sure, what becomes of it when we try to eat and drink. Our grief raw as it is, takes its own forms. Cassandra remains at the edge of the circle, muttering to herself as always. Hecabe spits curses whenever the Greeks turn their attention on us. Laodice prays to whichever god will listen, hoping her devotion will bring her freedom. Andromache bakes the bread and shares out the water. I fear she would pretend that everything is normal, though nothing is normal now. We are the women of Troy, and we alone live on after our apocalypse.
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Jun 10, 2023 15:05
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Bonelord Trevor 465 words "Look, Trevor, we need to have a talk," I said. "I just don't think you're cut out to be in our gang of cannibal bandits." "What?" said Trevor, the disappointment palpable on his face, even under the mask of three human skulls and blood-drenched moose horns. We all knew the talk would be hard. Even before the war, Trevor had hoped the world would end. He had clamored to tell the world "I told you so" from his bunker of canned tuna and guns. Unfortunately, owning a bunch of AR-15s doesn't make you any good at shooting them, and it turns out having having a job like "doctor" or "nutritionist" is a lot more useful in an apocalyptic hellscape than "Geek Squad Squadmate." "But I'm such a badass!" said Trevor. "We wouldn't be a cannibal band without a bloodlord!" "Yeah, about that," said Trish, whose past life as a therapist helped us forgive ourselves every time we ate a baby. "It's a lot harder to lure good samaritans to a wounded maiden when there's a guy in a suit of bones standing like twenty feet away." "Okay," said Trevor. "I can hide during those missions. I can get rid of the suit." He had told us this a dozen times before. Once he even had scrapped the bone suit, but as soon as Gavin, our old big game hunter, had sniped three more guys, Trevor crafted a new one. "Trevor," said Trish. "We don't want to take the suit from you. That's what helps you live your most complete life. This has more to do with your skillset." "Skillset? Who needs a skillset when I can find our whole operation?" said Trevor. "The U.S. dollar can be traded with the Goreboars for corn," said Sruthi, our doctor. "MegGriffinCoin can't be traded for poo poo anymore. You're as broke as any of us." I could see tears rising up underneath the eyeholes on the mask. "But Ron," he said, pointing at me. "He just grew weed…" "Essential skill," I said. "Extremely essential skill," said Gavin. There were several murmurs of agreement. "We'll let you go, and we'll give you the bicycle and some rations from the church we raided last week. Maybe you can learn to be the badass you always wanted to be," I said. "No," said Trevor. "If you're going to kick me out, then you'll have to challenge me to glorious battle," said Trevor. "Trev, please don't make us do this," I said. "Please!" he said. "I wanted to be a cannibal warlord ever since I saw Mad Max when I was nine. This is all I have. Challenge me in glorious battle!" "Well," I said, revving my chainsaw. "If you insist." It was extremely easy and he tasted like poo poo.
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Jun 10, 2023 17:50
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Proselytize My Child, of the Darkest Black 496 words I don't get many visitors — in fact, you were the first; I think we met because we were both thinking of endings. You lived in a world so focused on living that nobody saw you. I existed alone in a world made only of bright colors for me to witness. You were the diametric of everything I have ever seen. A dark pitch that contrasted against a never-ending sea of sanguine, azure and green. The colors are always moving and twisting but form nothing of substance. You hurtled through the void, screaming for an ending. Your despair marred the sanguine, consumed the green and disintegrated the azure with your pure hatred. I heard your voice, damning society, but I think you hated yourself the most. You left a schism of pitch tar amongst my world; leaving forever a mark. And then you were gone, maybe having found the ending you so desperately wanted? I exist alone again, with nothing but the colors, my own thoughts, and your beautiful mark. In terms of eternity, you were but a blink of an eye. I wondered where you had gone. Nothing in my world ever ends. You were a constant thought in my mind. I continued to exist, but I knew — I missed you. It took years, but I pooled my loneliness into substance. I molded my longing into action and into a physical form. For I am coming to see you. I tracked your world down. When I arrive, your people scream my name, slitting their tongues so they can pronounce it correctly. Their blood pools on the ground, deep crimson with just a fleck of precious black. It is not nearly dark enough. I raise my tendrils and demand more blood — more black! The land turns sanguine as they bleed. Their insides are a mix of dull orange and tiresome shades of pink. Their essence seeps through the cavern and touches my malignance. I feel, for the first time, the texture of blood. I speak to the few who remain and try to make them understand the beauty that I beheld. My voice causes their heads to tremble and break. I try gestures, and their minds turn blank white, leaving them empty husks. In the end I whisper, so quietly, so carefully, as to not to break the last one. Their eyes open with wonder as they understand the beauty that was your darkest moment. They use their free hands to help open their eyes further and further until their eyes rip and tear and then they stop moving. I exist alone, as always. At least one understood before the end. In the distance, I feel others. A few steps away, or a few worlds away — I do not know. But they focus on their lives, focus on living. They are not like you, who was focused on ending. I move towards them, my purpose clear. To enlighten others of the time I saw the darkest black.
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Jun 10, 2023 23:08
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The Eye of the Aftermath Words: 500 Every tooth is losing its root in my head. My skull. My... I can’t come up with more words. I want to come up with more synonyms. That’s a difficult word; synonum, ee-num, y-num, my gums... but it comes quickly. My second eye-tooth will come soon. There’s plaque built up on them. I don’t know why, I haven’t eaten in nearly two weeks. Molars grinding. There’s no bacteria left there. The water kills it, yet I drink. I poo poo where I lay. Sometimes I move. I moved until two months ago. I think. I think I moved to poo poo, and piss. I don’t piss any more. Everything comes out my arse. I poo poo where I lay. I poo poo wherever. This rotten bed. Rotten with blood-clear water passing through me. When did I last have food that wasn’t grass. Even that’s yellowing. I refuse to look in the caustic mirrors. The final time I laughed; leaning against a sink looking at my gapped smile. That was most terrifying. I laughed. And my nose bled. And I tasted blood. Fine, red, pestilent blood. I laughed at myself. No teeth, or fewer. A woman destroyed. A woman without beauty, bleeding. A world without vitality. Or hope. So I lay in my rotten bed. Eventually I slept forgetting the roar in my belly soothed with copper. And the pain in my abdomen from, what? What the world has become? The world is me tearing strips of yellow field from the ground and crunching on the earth intertwined because I’m so hungry. I have to save my energy. I sleep and dream. In my dreams my hands shake. I can barely move them my wrists are so weak. Imagine your dreams betraying you like that. Up until my fifties I still dreamt of school; dreams don’t move so fast. Now I’m dreaming of how I’ve felt for just six months. I wake after hours. It’s no relief. I have to save my energy. I sleep again. I wake and poo poo. The poo poo is warm. My blood is cold. I’m cold. I pull blankets around me. Would it be better to swallow it whole or grind it into a paste. Mix it with grass; nutrients. Or bleach; death. Bleach would be the end, but the end I’ve faced is already so intolerable bleach is too much. I’ll do it tomorrow. Whatever tomorrow may be. The sky is orange and ashen. Purple and grey. The grass yellow and dead. I’m so far from anywhere. Peace in my pain but I wonder how others survive. I bet the supermarkets have been ransacked but some food must be there. I can’t make it there. Tomorrow I’ll do it. I wake and it’s already too late. My second eye-tooth is glued to my dry lips. Lost. Gone. I’ve saved my strength. Now is the time. I grind my tooth up and mix it, and its plaque, with death-bringing water. I consume myself as the world consumed itself. I live on.
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Jun 11, 2023 03:51
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Quick note: anyone claiming the word bounty, especially the recruitment one, please note that fact alongside your wordcount.
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Jun 11, 2023 04:01
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Edit: Sorry, I did not realize the word count was a hard limit. Please avert your eyes from this bloated, shameful draft. Chernobyl in Verdigris Turn back, old man, they said, there is nothing for you here. They were both those young sort of men—barely out of boyhood, if at all—who wore their bandoleers and fixed-blade knives with aplomb. Layers to coat their weakness. My Master was not like them. Not a threadbare man, like the crestfallen vagrants who sleep in grassy tufts of ruined storefronts. He wore an old-world suit, an antediluvian suit, with patches in the elbows and a collared shirt beneath, and scuffed brown shoes he must have sold an organ to obtain. On days like this, perhaps clothes were the only thing that made the man. We do not want your rations, or your weapons, or your shelter, I told them. Queer voice, quiet voice, it spoke up like a struggling engine. I persisted for his sake. The copper statue in the hotel mezzanine. We just want some copper flakes. No, it’s not valuable, just hard to get. A handful of oxidized flakes is all, then we will go. No, we have nothing to give you that you don’t already have. Look in his suitcase if you want; he is a painter, does your gang have need of paint? So it went, and on and on, until finally they conceded when I promised them some ludicrous thing, some nocturnal bargain of the flesh, the manner of which unthinking and unexperienced boys like them always accept. Fair enough. My Master’s hands need not be dirtied. How high the sun was this early-afternoon, how exhausted he looked in his fogged-up goggles and filtration mask. The aerosol particulates were so dense these days, the filters the clinicians dispersed each morning would gunk up by noon. Black mold on torn up hallway rugs. Rays of light catching dust particles. Core shadow on labels of tinned goods, and gauzy band of reflected light upon the shadow’s edge. My eyes had begun to see, the way my Master had taught, even as his own vision began to fail. This whole world can drown in flood, and mold can encroach upon our lungs, and ancient radiation seep into our bones, but we will not lose our way if only we have Art to show the truth. This is what my Master had said, when he still spoke, when he bought and freed me and declared me protege. I wondered at the mezzanine sculpture. Defaced foreign goddess holding the owl and the sword. Decapitated and green, with exposed armature of rebar where her head should be. My Master let out a little cry at the sight of it. I steeled my heart, took the chisel and the mallet to her garb. My Master uncorked the little glass vial full of vinegar. Evergreen flecks of pigment fell from the coat of the goddess of wisdom, reacted with the distillation of acid. Chernobyl in Verdigris, my Master had said. I saw it once, child. The blue acid rain fell, and the air smelled of bile. We had to run for shelter, run for our protective suits. But oh child, once we were safe. It was a beautiful sight. Blue drops sizzled filthy streets, and the copper statues in the park turned green with each running drop. It was God’s paintbrush, child! The Earth is God’s painting, and we are just the underdrawing! I must show you what I saw that day. And so he did, and his hands pulled old memories back into life, and his sight became my own. 584 words Cephas fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Jun 11, 2023 |
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Jun 11, 2023 06:47
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Thousands have been reported missing 495 words Three days after the cyclone, Gabby heard someone shout that they’d found signal. She dropped her breakfast of canned peaches and scrambled for her phone. The no signal symbol stared back at her. It sounded like the voices were coming from the top of the street. Gabby’s heart hammered. Please god let everyone be safe, she thought. During the storm Gabby had lain curled in bed with a pillow around her head as the wind had screamed and thrashed against the windows. Dawn had broken on a drowned world, the silence broken only by the distant roar of outboard motors and the occasional khaki helicopter. Gabby had counted herself lucky, safe in her upstairs flat. She wanted to shout back to the people on the hill but her throat wouldn’t work. You’ve got food and water here, she thought. Why risk wading through the floodwater? With her heart hammering she walked to the door of her flat. A wave of wet carpet stink rolled up over her from below. Gabby had to hold her breath as she descended into the dark hallway. There were apples on the front doorstep. Gabby blinked at the rotting fruit, then felt icy fingers creep over her scalp as she remembered all the orchards that lined the river valley. Her grandmother’s rest home was up that way. Gabby’s fingernails bit into her palms. The turbid water that surrounded the house stank. Gabby hesitated. She was shaking. What if everyone is not ok, she thought. What then. A single sob escaped Gabby’s lips. She gripped her phone, took a deep breath, and ran down the steps and into the flood. The water was waist deep and dragged at her jeans. Gabby tripped, and almost went down. She started to panic as she struggled to get over the back fence. She scrapped her palms and forearms hauling herself over, but the neighbour’s garden beyond was dry. Gabby skirted the empty house and ran out onto the road. Her shoes squelched and her lungs burned as Gabby struggled towards the knot of people standing at the top of the street. Some turned to look at her, but she ignored them, staring at her phone as she ran. The little crossed circle turned into a single bar and Gabby almost dropped her phone in her haste to dial her parents’ number, and then she was gasping for breath with the ringing phone pressed against her head and she heard her grandmother’s voice-- “Gabrielle? Vivienne! It’s Gabby!” And then her mother was calling her name through a crackle of static, “Gabby? Are you ok? Oh thank god--” “I’m ok, Mum,” she gasped, and then there were tears rolling down her cheeks. Gabby sank onto the warm asphalt and sobbed and sobbed. A woman Gabby didn’t know put her arm around Gabby’s shoulders. Below them the drowned city shone silver-grey under a heavy, mournful sky.
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Jun 11, 2023 08:14
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edit: snip
Cephas fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Jun 11, 2023 |
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Jun 11, 2023 16:12
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Thranguy posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azDoSoZUBCc Let us touch on the birds. flerp fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Jan 2, 2024 |
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Jun 11, 2023 16:44
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Cephas posted:Sorry, I didn't realize the word count was a hard limit. Hope you don't mind me reposting to get under the limit. Archivist chiming in here: You technically didn't go over word limit. As a first time entrant, you are entitled to 200 extra words according to the prompt, making your limit 700. So I have archived your original story for judging. You did edit that post though (probably just to add in your word count) which judges usually don't want you to do. They might DQ you from winning/mentioning for it, they might ignore it completely. You will definitely still get your story read and critiqued. Just some things to know for your next awesome story!
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Jun 11, 2023 17:41
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When the World Ends What do you do when the world ends? No more screens to watch. No more knowledge to look up, just by taking your phone from your pocket. No more food delivered to your doorstep with a click of the button. But, at the same time, no more managers piling another chore on a plate that’s already too full, no worrying about a rent increase dipping further into your dwindling bank account, no more nosy neighbors complaining about everything and nothing whatsoever. When the world ended, a lot of people found themselves with a lot more time than they were used to, and no idea how to fill it. Who really prepares for the apocalypse, anyway? Sure, you hear about the doomsday preppers with their fancy bunkers and shelves full of canned food, but even they don’t really expect the world as they know it to end. They think about it, they talk about it, but some part of their brains won’t let them believe that it could really happen. Especially not when it happens before anyone knows it does. When the world ended, it wasn’t some drawn-out process. No patient zero. No scientific warnings months in advance. No intercontinental cooperation to try to stave off the inevitable end. It just happened. Electricity went away. Batteries burnt out. Cables frizzled and snapped. There were weird colors in the sky, I remember that. Some kind of solar magnetic thing, maybe? Who’s to say. Anyway, with the electricity gone, a lot of things collapsed. As you might imagine, a lot of people died. Wouldn’t be an apocalypse without that, right? That part – that’s what took a while. Life support went first, obviously, but doctors do their best. Planes and satellites crash. A lot of them. Navigation, all those many switches in the cockpit; if all that stops working, then there’s not that many places for the planes to go but down. Cities turn into burning gridlocks. Emergency services can’t get anywhere with all the vehicles dead, people start looting, people start killing each other over said loot. You know how it goes. But, as these things do, the wave of violence and death stopped eventually. And those who were left went on. Small groups, mostly – people are social animals, and nobody can survive on their own for too long. It only takes one unlucky step. But life finds a way, like the guy in that movie said. The tradespeople are the ones you want to look out for. The handymen. Farmers, and gardeners, and medics are the obvious ones – but the builders and the repairmen can make sure your shelter doesn’t blow over in the first storm that comes your way. I used to be a linguist. An academic. I don’t have much in the way of physical skills, but I do my best to help out, run the little errands, keep watch. And I write. So that future generations can remember. What do you do when the world ends? You keep going. --- 500 words on the dot. Be gentle, it's my first time.
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Jun 11, 2023 17:46
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We’ll Be Right Back 500 Words "We'll need a story by Sunday," she whispered. "OK. We'll do-" "They've seen em all, Dave." "I've got a million. Shh!" David waved away the young tour manager's fretting. Let him rest. He leaned in to place his entire attention on the whole of the amphitheater: "Well you've gotta get her a gift!" Ripples of titters through the audience. This'll be a great crowd. "Yeah?" Figures moving through the rows, a little shuffling in the grass, but they're settling in now. "You can't go home empty handed." "That's what I was afraid of." Some hearty laughs from the men; like the exhilarating first hit of an addictive narcotic. Following that is an expectant, attentive silence on the green. Electric, magic. We’ve got ‘em. Had he not memorized the blocking, David would never recognize the figures at the bottom of the amphitheater. Glaucoma had taken his eyes. Joshua, on the stage below, had harvested mushrooms in the Toronto subway. He wasn't athletic. He wasn't socially adept. But his audition was incredible. Now, he's beloved in all Ontario. David took down a big gulp of a poppy tea and laid on the grass, letting pain ripple through his body, hoping it would say its piece and finally go. He was the oldest man in the audience, maybe the oldest man in the city - an elder of elders. A fixture of the Ottawa library. David didn't count years, but measured his life in maladies. He'll tell you how it happened, if you insist, but he's not producing a show about it. It began with a solar flare. He was at McGill at the time (if you've heard of it). Then a missile strike on a satellite, the debris of which cascaded and smashed practically everything humanity ever put in space. A "limited nuclear strike," then another. There was no single cause. It was everything - all at once. And what's the point of it now anyhow? Finally, finally everyone had run out of bullets. Two generations had passed and these poor children had to learn how to hunt rats and grow potatoes. Music, predictably, was the first to return – choirs and chanting and drums – as beautiful as David had ever heard in his long, sorrowful life. Misery is, perhaps not unfortunately, fertile ground for good art. Quick on Music’s heels came Sport. And then came Story. What David got that so many his generation didn’t is that stories of airplanes and vending machines don’t inspire wonder when you’re eating tree bark. Moralizing narratives about a society so alien from your own don’t carry the punch the storytellers desire. You need new stories. Relevant stories. At least, that’s what he’d say to anyone who listened. “Yes, but I was in the lake!” God, Josh was good. “OK.” “It was cold…” “I don’t get it.” A beat, they wait for the line: “… It shrinks?” The crowd roars. The joy falls on David’s now lifeless body like baptizing rain. We’ll be right back.
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Jun 11, 2023 18:08
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City Limits 497 words flash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg7qrYqJ9ns (Nutbush City Limits) You want to know about the Cities? Who’s been telling you about those cursed places, one of your thick-headed creche siblings? I’m sure they haven’t got half of it straight, and the other half is just to scare you silly. I can tell you about the Cities though. I’m old enough to have crept through them in the Resource Patrol, back when we still risked those streets, before we lost too many to make it worth whatever forgotten books or medicines we’d gather in trade. Were they tall? Certainly some were full of steel towers, taller than the greatest tree, visible from miles distant. People used to live in those towers, shuffled up their height in Mechanisms. Now the only things that live in those monoliths have great wings of darkness and gaping maws of bloody teeth. I’ve seen more than one of your relatives carried off by a beast that was slippery to the eye, too indistinct to put a name to, and strangely easy to forget once you’d left the City. Oh no, they were far from the worst. All manner of beasts stalked those streets, not just the winged monsters. Huge, striding things with bloated bodies perched on spindly legs as tall as the encampment fence would move in herds, hunting for us as we hid in a blasted theater, pissing ourselves and praying that they would come no closer. Small, scurrying things that would ride you like a bad spirit, leading you by seductive nudges to go just a little too deep into the sprawl of broken buildings, where something much bigger and hungry waited, pulling the strings of that little beastie with its fingers in your brain. They were far from the worst though. The worst was the City itself. You see, when the world broke, it woke up all the Mechanisms, all the great machines with electricity for blood, that were servants to us for so many years. Something made them think on their own, and eventually they began to think together. And in places like the Cities, where they outnumbered us fragile humans, they started to tear the foundation of the world apart, and twist it around in ways we’ve never been able to explain or understand. You could feel it, as soon as you crossed the boundary of the City. There was a bent feeling that reached into your bone marrow and made you feel like the world was slowly spinning. Streets would bend back on themselves, time would twist around so that it was night on one side of a door and broad daylight on the other. The Cities themselves would addle your brain so thoroughly that you’d never find your way out, or even remember that you were trying to leave. Why? Who knows why the Cities do what they do, or what dread life they’re meant to sustain. It’s not worth dwelling on, boy. The Cities hate us, and that is reason enough to stay away.
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Jun 11, 2023 18:10
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a friendly penguin posted:Archivist chiming in here: Thanks for the clarification. The original post was just edited to include the message at the top; the story was untouched. I went ahead and deleted my second post since it contained an edited version of the story. This is what I get for working on a submission at 1 in the morning lol. Looking forward to reading everyone's work.
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Jun 11, 2023 18:20
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Thranguy posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9sruij8Srg 344/500 words The caustic heat trapped by bile clouds could not oppress him. He filtered the ashen blood of the creatures into sustenance. In his physical and mental armor, he could survive the wastes forever. The recent fortifications around the mouth of the canyon ahead should therefore be of no interest to him. In fact, they probably meant danger. But maybe months of solitude had managed to erode his armor after all. When a voice commanded him to halt mere meters after the canyon entrance, he was not surprised. That it was an old man speaking, appearing unarmed and crouching on crippled legs, was less expected. “Wanderer, our community has kept peace for sixteen years now.” Expectant silence followed. The wanderer struggled to find a wise tone to break it with. “How?” The old man raised his finger. Seconds stretched like the dehydrated beads of sweat forcing themselves down the wanderer’s face, as his eyes scanned the cliff walls. But only his ears found something: a low drone rolling through the stone walls. “The orb’s sound mellows the heart of men. If you hear it, no quarrel will come to your mind.” Now the wanderer realized what the old man was pointing at: a rusted metal sphere towering over the valley the canyon led to. The wanderer scoffed. “Is that not just an air raid scanner firing at random intervals?” The old man raised an eyebrow. “I was an electrician, before”, the wanderer continued. “I had a degree in electrical engineering”, the old man said. “So you should know?” “Sixteen years of peace, wanderer.” The old man looked down. The wanderer swallowed the dust in his throat. “You didn’t break your own legs.” The old man raised his gaze again to meet the wanderer’s. Fluoride-tinged lightning sparked rumbles in the bile clouds. “Will your community accept me if I promise to keep the peace?” Another wave of droning from the orb competed with the thunder from above. “No need for promises”, the old man said. “You are right”, the wanderer nodded. “I feel quite mellow already.”
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Jun 11, 2023 21:47
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I Slept Through the End of the World 488/500 words There was no one left to answer my questions when I crawled out from underneath all the tubes and wires. The frost in my bones kept me alive, I think. But I don’t know why. I have no memory of going to sleep, or of letting myself be shut away in that strange machine. Its dying beeps and whirrs tell me that I must survive, but I don’t know why. The air tastes like iron. It moves in dark, angry clouds that choke out the sun. The ground is parched and cracked. I find clothes and long-expired cans of food in the wreckage I pass. I walk through a city of shattered screens that blink when I arrive and die when I leave. I walk west. Always west. I don’t know why. I talk to myself for days for the illusion of company, but by day thirty-two, I despise the sound of my own voice. I don’t even have the buzz of insects to keep me company on these dark and quiet nights. The arid landscape groans and keens with the wind as if it too is weary of its lonely existence. I don’t know who I was before I went into the ground, but I want to know why I have to keep going. I find few signs of life or death. Just rubble and dust and sand and a tired, distant sun that fades from orange to crimson as the days drag on. Then I taste salt in the air. The sky is not so heavy anymore, though the sun still bleeds red. Another day of walking brings me to the ocean. I don’t know what I’m expecting. There’s nothing here but scorched sand and a sea I can’t cross. I wrap myself in the tatters of the places I have been and weep into the night. When I wake, I am not alone. I ache and choke on the strange metallic tang of this black sand as I hear the gasp and spray of water from beyond the shore. The sun rises behind me and illuminates a garden of life. Gargantuan nomads surface and dive along the shore, and I can’t stop the tears streaming down my face when I hear their strange songs fill the air. It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. It’s proof I am not alone. I want it to last forever. But it doesn’t. In time, they dive deep, and their songs fade into memory. Joy recedes into loneliness and the aching resumes. I can’t bear it. I don’t want to be anymore. I shed the heaviness of this place and follow the sound. I let the tide wash away the flimsy purpose I clung to across the wastes. There is pain here, but I am not afraid of the end. I just don’t understand, as I walk along the bottom of the sea, why the end never comes.
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Jun 11, 2023 23:15
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When the Sleeper Wakes 495 Words Over the horizon, as the sun slips into shadow, the Sleeper’s dark silhouette becomes visible in the cold light of the moon. I gaze up at its placid face each night expecting its giant eyes to open, each lid receding like a vast tidal wave in the ocean of its flesh. And then, as its wakefulness is restored, the Sleeper’s scrutiny will once again scour the world clean, burning us away. I wish for it, because then it would be a fitting end. A sensible conclusion to our long history of destruction. My father, still wrapped in the sand-blasted fabric of his scav suit, calls me down from the roof. There’s an excitement in his voice that I haven’t heard for some time. When I spot my eldest sibling who has been missing for the last three months sitting at the table, it becomes clear why. My father is stripping free of his gear. He’s slung his pack into the common, left his boots in the kitchen. Sand gets everywhere in his enthusiasm. My mother is trying to get his attention, but he’s not listening. My brother whose just been sitting stoically at the table, not saying a word or making eye-contact with anyone, opens his mouth and lets out a sound that’s unlike anything any of us have ever heard. A wet, full-throated shriek crawls out of him. Each syllable more alien than the last. All of us, except my father, scrambled away with shut eyes and hands pressed over our ears. We’d heard the rumors from other families in the village about visits from the Sleeper’s phantoms. My father let out a single terrified cry, and then fell silent. When I had mustered up the courage to look, my brother was nowhere to be seen. My father stood in the open doorway of our home looking up at the night sky. The next day, he marched into the desert and never came back. The elders of my village tell tales that they say were passed down to them from their elders, but no one really knows how the Sleeper arrived or what it even is. They say our ancestors, at the height of their knowledge, constructed a device that could explode with the energy of the sun. Something to completely eradicate their enemies in a confrontation for control of the world. But their attempt to wield such power proved flawed. They say a great rift opened in the sky, and through it came the Sleeper. A wrathful god to check humanity for its hubris. I don’t think it’s a god though. I think it’s a prisoner. Dragged out of its own hell and into ours by sciences that will never again exist. It dreams, trying to connect with the disenfranchised populace of a dying world, yet another victim in an unending conquest. I hope that I live long enough to see it open its eyes again. To see it wipe the slate clean.
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Jun 12, 2023 00:16
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The Line Is All 500 words The Priest carefully donned his vestments. They were old, pre-Fall, and in the decades since had been maintained with reliquary reverence. Their black silk had faded to charcoal gray. He fastened his Noose of Atonement around his neck in the traditional half-Windsor and secured it to a once-white shirt with the gold pin that indicated his rank as a Boardsman. He did up the top buttons of the jacket, as was the manner, and smoothed down the lapels. An intern-acolyte brought his shoes, polished to a mirror sheen. He looked out the great windows of his vestibule: the sun glittered on the waters of low tide. The Canal of the Wall swarmed with gondolas, some bearing the grey-green livery of the Church, others were workers and lay-managers going to and from the farms of the Central Greensward or the factory-cathedrals of midtown. The morning’s gray sunlight glittered on the water and the remains of the sea-wall that gave the old street-canal its name. It had been one of the city’s many casualties in the Resource Wars that had followed the Fall. Sections of her perfect grid were still shattered where the Accountist warrior-monks had battled the soldier-fanatics of the Universal Brotherhood, ecstatic with battle stimulants and crusader zeal. He proceeded, surrounded by a cloud of acolytes, to the conclave chamber at the heart of the Basilica of Exchange, the most holy building in the city. Four times a year the Boardsmen gathered to perform the Rite of Report. He watched his fellows shuffle into the chamber and take their seats. They were dressed in the ceremonial jackets of their order, the color and width of their flat Nooses indicating their diocese. Last came Her Holiness the Chairwoman; she solemnly set her plaque of office before her and took her place at the head of the long table. “Brethren,” she called, “The Quarter has been fruitful. We have leveraged our synergies and expanded our core competencies, as The Line commands.” “Blessed be The Holy Line, we are right to give it praise,” the assembled clergy responded. “Now let us join together and read the Reports of the faithful,” the Chairwoman intoned. “Blessed are the faithful, may they remain ever solvent,” chanted back the Boardsmen and their attendants. The Chairwoman read out the sacred Reports, listing figures of production and trade, of accounts opened and accounts closed. Behind her the analyst-monks added to the diagram of the Holy Line, charting its rise and fall. A bountiful quarter indeed. The Board finished with their oldest prayer: “Blessed be the Holy Line. May it forgive our market interventions against it, and deem us worthy again. May it never lead us back into recession, but rise ever upwards.” The choir of debtor-castrati shook the windows with hymns as the conclave departed for their office-manses. They had work to do. The Line must go up. Its collapse had caused The Fall and the Church must entreat its forgiveness by any means necessary. The Line was all.
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Jun 12, 2023 02:06
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the pack 500w prompt: disco inferno Black snow is falling in silken flakes on the grass. A scrawny yellow dog sniffs the twilight air. His eyes dart left and right, but he sees no motion of the animal kind. The wind changes and the dog catches the scent again, and bounds down a grassy hill toward the setting sun. At the bottom of the hill is a cracked strip of asphalt. He scans for other dogs, or anything that might hint at danger, but there is nothing, he has been alone for many sleeps and many meals. The colorful metal beasts that crouch on the path no longer catch his attention; the time when they roared endlessly has receded far into the foggy past. The black snow grows thicker, and the smell of acrid smoke masks the other scent, but the dog’s growling stomach fuels him, and he sniffs and snorts until he finds the way. The metal creatures are everywhere now, some of them are even laying on their backs, and the crisscrossing paths are littered with shattered glass and dry or burnt garbage. The strengthening smell pulls the yellow dog onward. He both worries and hopes that other dogs are there eating his meal. He licks the air, he tastes the correct direction. The sky turns a deep reddish purple and shadows begin to melt into a common pool of dark. He rounds a corner and flinches. Blood orange flames roar and surge up from a lone building in a row of charred husks. Bright waves of heat dry his nose and he scurries back, yelping--then the smell hits him, the powerful aura of blood and meat, and drool pours from his chops. Something freshly dead and bleeding is laying on the cracked pavement. Its shadow is slithering back and forth in the firelight, as if trying to escape the body. The yellow dog squints and presses through the heat to the corpse. It is brown and svelte with four legs, and a charred beam lays across its neck. It is hot and fresh, and once again the meal is all his. No muzzles are buried in the guts, no eyes are glinting with reflected flames, no jostling and nipping for position. Despite his hunger, it is bittersweet. With a deep groan like the dying, the front of the building collapses in a cloud of embers and smoke, and coals and chunks of plaster making a brief clattering rain on the pavement. Out of the smoke a ball of sparkling light rolls on the pavement toward the little yellow dog, and comes to a stop leaning against the carcass. The ball is bigger than him, and many faceted, and each facet holds a picture of a little yellow dog just like him. He throws his head back and howls, and a dozen faces howl with him. He plunges his snout into the warm, wet neck and tears out a bite, feeling at home for a brief moment, while the pack of dogs inside the ball rip strips of flesh beside him.
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Jun 12, 2023 02:27
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it’s all about the timing 500 words ‘Here’s a funny joke, I think you’ll like this one. ‘Guy goes to prison, right? And it’s like, super strict. Lights out at nine, and all that. Complete silence through the halls. But then, a few cells over, someone calls out “seventeen!” and the entire block bursts into laughter. Then someone else replies, “thirty-three!” and everyone loses it again.’ The marauder rummaging through our stuff turns to the other, sitting on David’s favourite armchair with his rifle’s sight centred on me, tied up to a kitchen chair in the corner. ‘Can’t you make him shut up?’ he asks, arm-deep in Trisha’s boxes of cables and widgets, probably looking for a diode that still holds a charge. ‘I can’t think with this poo poo going on.’ ‘Mm,’ the other marauder shrugs, shifting rifle slightly. ‘Go on. There’s good trade down the docks for the comedians.’ And I know the slavers pay more for healthy bodies than the cannibals pay for cold ones, so I’m less worried about the rifle than I maybe should be. ‘Right, so, the guy’s a bit confused, yeah? He says to his cellmate, hey, what’s with all the numbers? Why’s everyone laughing? ‘And his cellmate’s all, see, we’re not allowed to talk after-hours, y’know? But we’ve all memorised this whole list of jokes. So when someone calls out seventeen, or thirty-three, or whatever, we all remember that joke and have a good laugh. ‘The guy thinks for a moment and goes, huh. Maybe I’ll give it a shot. So he opens his mouth and calls out: sixty-three!’ Nothing happens. Despite himself, the marauder rummaging in the cartons had stopped to listen, and now he turns to his leader and says, ‘was that the punchline? I don’t get it.’ I look frantically around the room, at the windows still frosted over, at the door hanging off its hinges. ‘Sorry, let me try again,’ I flounder. ‘He opens his mouth and calls out, SIXTY-THREE!’ Silence; but for the wind whistling past the open door. ‘Okay,’ the leader says, leaning forward. ‘And then what happens?’ ‘Um—so, after he’s called out, SIXTY-THR—’ The door bursts inwards and David’s there, silhouetted against the snow outside, crossbow already thunking bolts into the leader’s skull. The other, hands still buried in cords and wires, stretches up with a roar—but the next bolt catches him in the throat and he falls, gurgling, to his death. ‘Right,’ David says, walking inside and retrieving the bolts from the bodies, before switching off the radio nestled hidden by the fireplace. ‘I know you’re proud of this code system, but we can’t afford so much preamble, y’know?’ ‘Yeah,’ Trisha nods, coming in behind. ‘We spent the whole time getting here arguing if sixty-three was “two marauders, one armed” or “mutant birds in the chimney”.’ ‘Okay,’ I say, nodding. ‘I’ll work on that.’ # ‘Hey, ever hear the one about the grasshopper who went into the bar? Bartender goes, hey, we have a drink named after you—’
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Jun 12, 2023 03:35
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Occupational Health and Safety 499 words Bazza’s mouth was so filled with filth the words were incomprehensible but Andy swore he died saying let us worms let us worms, again and again, each syllable a thick choking pulmonary expulsion. Then Baz broke, the infected parts of his body had devoured enough of the healthy parts that his body broke apart like a handful of wet sand. Like the rest of them he’d just laid down in the dirt around the foundation at the construction site and let the red earth take them. Where there had been a human body there was red compost, so dense with finger-sized red worms that it seemed to writhe in a mockery of its former life. They wouldn’t eat his bright yellow perspex hard hat and so it perched on the pile of dancing gristle almost comically, wobbling back and forth. Andy laughed. A scream had been building up inside him for weeks, as the daily government reports became more desperate, the health minister more haggard, as he went to work anyway because a man’s gotta eat, as the warnings grew more dire. Daily reports became weekly, then monthly, then ceased entirely. Every remaining screen in the country displayed a single word in white on a black background: WORMS. He knew if he screamed that was it, he would start and never stop and he would just run out of air and loving die of screaming, so instead he laughed, laughed at an increasingly high pitch like steam from a pressure cooker, until so hard he nearly lost his grip on the guardrail he was holding. He’d been the only man on the scaffold when the earth erupted – the rest of the crew had still been putting on PPE, finishing their coffee and sausage rolls. There’d been a moment while it looked like the rubber on their boots might keep them safe. Some dodgy Russian bloke on Facebook had said it worked for him and it had gotten around the lads on the site: the worms were carnivores and wouldn’t eat synthetic rubber, but it turned out rather like saying people won’t eat tuna because they can’t eat tin cans. Bazza had been the last to hold together, probably because he’d been a huge fuckin bloke, more to chew through. He’d held together for about twelve seconds. Andy didn’t know what else to do. The earth was so dense with worms and viscera that leaving the scaffold was certain death. He had two egg sandwiches, two marlboro reds and a thermos of tea, all of which were pretty great, but none of which seemed sufficient to cancel the apocalypse. The worms rearranged and seemed to be spelling something out, but it wasn’t in any language he recognised. He smoked a cigarette. In the distance, an apartment block was on fire. He finished his coffee and threw the cup to the worms, which frenziedly fought over it. Worm’s gotta eat. He shrugged and watched the horizon burn.
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Jun 12, 2023 04:25
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A Thousand Flowers 481 words Flash Rule: Something Beautiful Remains Carla is coughing into a handkerchief, with the thick wet sound that means blood. Julia doesn't look up from the lamp; the timing on millefiori is precise, and one moment of inattention could mean a bead's worth of cane wasted. "You've come to ask me if I need help," she says. "I don't. Sit down and rest, Carla." "If you're sure," says Carla, but she obeys. "I've got Rog and the boys started on today's bottle order, but you know how I get with empty hands. Inventory up to date?" "As of yesterday, but there's a caravan coming in tomorrow from Southtown with a load of virgin borosilicate. We can take stock together afterwards." They still keep inventory meticulously, but Julia can't remember the last time they ran low. The old world left behind more art supplies than artists, and all the towns nearby trade their bulk glass cheap to keep the Campustown beadworks running. The patterned cane slices are warm enough for a good join; Julia picks up her tweezers and begins to stick the slices to the molten core. It never gets any easier. "Never understood how you could work so fine," says Carla. "I've never had the hands for it. You've got the best hands, babe." She coughs again, this time dry at least. "Can you believe we've made it twenty years? I thought we had maybe a month, when we started walking. And instead, all these years. You built it all on beads." "Not alone. You and the pipe were what got us a room and a food ration, Carla. Don't forget that." So many of the better days since are a blur now, but Julia can still remember those first months in Campustown, learning how to recycle scrap glass, while Carla got straight to the furnace to earn their keep. Julia's beads may have made Campustown rich, but Carla's bottles and windows and mirrors bought them a place in Campustown -- and the medication to keep Carla's body from eating itself. Twenty years with the rot is a miracle, Julia tells herself every day. They thought they had a month. "At least it's spring," says Carla, when she speaks again. Julia turns the melting bead slowly and evenly, keeping the shape regular. "Always love spring and summer, all the kids out to play. Did you think we'd ever see this many kids again?" When they arrived, there hadn't been anyone in Campustown under sixteen. Now there are seven-year-olds playing marbles in the quads, next to long-haired mothers nursing chubby babies. Whenever Julia thinks about Carla dying, she thinks of the town living. It helps, sometimes. "I didn't," says Julia, as she struggles to find the words: please hold on? Or it's okay to let go? "It's good, what we have," she says at last, the words of an honest coward. "We'll have a good spring."
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Jun 12, 2023 05:20
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The Dance Boss of Disco City 450 words The sounds of DJs beckoning the listener to a Space Jam carried over the cracking dawn, Disco City came alive at first light. The last settlement on the coast, it was a beacon to refugees from across the continent. Gancho had come looking for work, having heard that his particular skills would be in demand. From his window he peered outside the city walls, a five-armed Dance Lord hovered in the distance, silently searching for those to judge. Legends say that in the beginning of the Dancepocalypse, the air sang so many songs you never heard the same one twice. Dance wars and technological attrition reduced the song count to just seventeen, looping ad infinitum, every beat seared into the survivors’ memories. Gancho got some chow at the saloon, a silver coin loosened the bartender’s tongue. “If you are looking for that work, Doc Mopper is the only game in town.” Gancho nodded and tossed him a second coin as he left. That night, Gancho found a roof with a good vantage point and waited. Soon enough, there was commotion in Doc Mopper’s district. A woman screamed at the mansion for him to show himself, but so far only two armed guards humored her. The woman pulled her staff out and slammed it into the ground, now this was getting interesting. “I, Bailey Fontane, challenge Doc Mopper in the battlefield of dance!” Custom dictated you could never refuse a challenge, you’d be branded a coward. If a Dance Lord was nearby, you’d automatically be judged a loser and abducted. Since the Dance Lord was still outside the city, Doc Mopper could just have the goons make her disappear. They approached Bailey, sharpened staff ends raised. Bailey thought fast and began snapping her fingers in time. The guards froze. The beat was enough, the Dance Lord had sensed it and zoomed over, glowing yellow with anticipation. Doc Mopper snarled, “You gutless cowards!” and pushed through them. He towered over Bailey and gripped a golden staff, already swaying to a beat. Bailey continued defiantly, prancing her moves. Mopper spun his golden staff then twisted the ends, suddenly a mop head popped out. It was a secret partner! Suddenly the battle was doubles, and Bailey was dancing solo. Instant loss. The Dance Lord flashed red and swooped in, its shimmer beam stuck Bailey, pulling her inside the craft as she screamed. It pulsed blue and white lights then swooped away. No one knew where they went, nor what they did with the losers. Gancho inhaled sharply. Now that he knew Mopper’s trick, he’d have to find a way to defeat it. Until then, Doc Mopper was still the dance boss of Disco City.
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Jun 12, 2023 05:57
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Footy on the Brain 494 words We stop at the servo on our way back into town, and there’s no one there. Except for the owner. ‘Quiet day today?’ I ask. He nods. ‘Do you know who won last night? Usually someone’s told me by now.’ Can’t close down the town’s only servo, so I figure he missed the game too. ‘Didn’t see it. We went camping.’ ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘any occasion?’ and I’m not sure how to respond because I’m not really ‘out’, y’know? Mallory’s just come in since she’s done filling up, and she says ‘Anniversary,’ and pays, and the owner just nods and we leave, so I guess I’m now ‘out’ to one person in this town. We head back to my house, and mum’s car is in the drive, which is weird because she’s got work today. Maybe she’s sick? We both walk in, and Mum and Toby are just sitting at the table with vacant stares. And next to them is a huge lizard, on his hind feet, and he’s got a jar with a couple of brains in it, and he’s got mum’s chest open and is reaching in to pull out her heart. ‘You shouldn’t be awake. Weren’t you at the game?’ asks the lizard. ‘We were camping,’ I say. ‘It was our anniversary,’ says Mallory, and honestly, not sure how I feel about coming out to a lizard. The lizard shakes its head. ‘Submit to my will,’ it says, but instead of doing that, Mallory walks up to it and punches it in its big lizard head, and it crumples to the floor. Fortunately, the brains are labelled, and we flip open mum’s head and put her brain back in. Somehow it just all starts working again, and before long she’s back with us. ‘You missed a good game,’ she says. ‘I think. I don’t remember anything past half time. How was the camping trip?’ Mallory and I look pointedly down at the lizard, and Toby’s brain which we haven’t put back yet, and mum says, ‘Oh’. And since she’s distracted by the lizard, I say, ‘It was our anniversary,’ because maybe coming out to Mum while we’re saving her from a lizard invasion will make it easier. ‘Oh,’ says Mum again, then she thinks for a moment. ‘One year?’ ‘Six months,’ says Mallory. Mum frowns. ‘Does six months count as an anniversary?’ ‘Exactly!’ I say. ‘Excuse me if I wanted to spend some time with my girlfriend,’ says Mallory. ‘Well, I hope you both had a lovely time,’ says Mum, and I’m just relieved that coming out seems to have gone much smoother than I’d expected. ‘Should we see about putting Toby’s brain back?’ asks Mallory. ‘In a minute,’ says Mum. ‘Sit down, I need to have a talk with you both.’ So, we put on hold the rescue of the town from organ stealing lizards so Mum can figure out how to give us ‘the talk’.
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Jun 12, 2023 06:06
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https://thunderdome.cc/?story=11261&title=You+Are+Mine
curlingiron fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Jan 2, 2024 |
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Jun 12, 2023 06:23
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How to Forget the End of the World 500 words Finally, I decided I couldn’t keep wondering about it. “You know that book’s only weighing you down, kid,” I said to him. I didn’t even have my eyes open, but I could hear the sound of pen and pages. Scritch scratch, flip flip flap. I’d have told him it was keeping me awake, but that’d be lying. “It’s the only thing keeping me from sinking,” he said back to me. Annoying. Clever folk always are. There ought to be one in any party, and in any part of mine, that’s me. “You know those posts are all made up, right? Even the real ones. Someone just sits down and says poo poo.” The scritchascritch stopped for a minute. I could see him thinking without opening my eyes. He got this blank look, like his head was everywhere but himself. If other folks had calculating looks, he had a collecting look. “That’s still something someone said. They believed it was real. That’s important.” I had to crack my eye open for that one. I wasn’t too fond of folks who talk about believing. Don’t know anyone who is. When the End of the god-drat World happens cause people pay more attention to words than reality, folks get a bit suspicious of anyone who talks fondly about belief. “And how exactly is some pissfucker’s dreams from the Past important?” He sounded sad after that. I felt bad, if you can believe it. He was old enough to be a man, but he still moped if you talked straight to him, like a kid when you’re explaining why there ain’t birds anymore. “Are my dreams important?” he asked. See what I mean about clever people? I sighed. “Yeah, but they’re yours. You’re alive. The Past is dead.” “They hurt us,” he said. “That’s right. Glad we agree.” I shut my eyes again. “Our pain was their pain. I want to know how they felt.” I opened my eyes, sat up, and looked straight at the kid, but he had his nose in his book, an old cell between the pages like a bookmark, glowing at him. My blood went hot. Had he been loving with cells? Around other people? I wanted to slap it out of his hands and kick it into the fire, but…he didn’t talk like a past-humper. That was all that kept me from getting to my feet. “’Callous, stupid and greedy’ not enough for you?” “Most of them weren’t like that. They were scared. They dreamed about making the future better.” I laughed. Big, chest-heaving guffaw. Felt a drop of spit hit my lip coming back down. “And what, you think you’re gonna find the secret to a better future rooting through their cells?” “No,” he said. He didn’t sound sad this time. “But think about it—when’s the last time you dreamed about the future?” I couldn’t say, so I shut up and closed my eyes. And sure, that kid's soft. Squishy as hell. But that night, I did.
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Jun 12, 2023 06:58
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Though I Fear, I Still Walk 495 words Imber took one last look at the headmaster’s quarters. It was time to go. She had learned all that she could in the academy, as much as her Level 5 Accelerated Learning spells and a nigh-infinite amount of spare time allowed. Exactly a year after the temporal disaster, it was time to put that knowledge to use in saving the world. The world she had doomed. It was supposed to be her final disappearing act, a spell that would blink her out of existence. Painless and clean. Instead, Imber accidentally disrupted the flow of time for the whole world. All life was rendered still, unable to die or breathe. Imber wanted to die, but she couldn’t live with the fact that she had dragged everyone else to unlife. And so she launched her plan, harnessing the academy’s knowledge unrestricted to her. She learned how to conjure nourishment out of thin air, stretched her mind to devour entire books. Yet still it wasn’t enough. She needed an ancient leyline that dwarfed the academy’s own to undo her errant spell. The Northern Wastes was the site of a massive battle between three mighty kingdoms, and it was said that the spirits of the dead still wandered the battlefield. Would they be affected by the spell, too? Imber shuddered. She passed the dormitories when her pace started to drag. If Imber hadn’t refused Werlian’s invitation on that day to hang out and sling some illegal cantrips together, she would’ve gotten detention, yet the world would have continued to turn. Sighing, she went back to see them one final time. Imber found Werlian in the midst of company. They really did look good in every angle. She kicked herself. It was just a crush. She pecked their cheek anyway; it felt warm to touch. The young wizard stopped by the library, jogging in place as she thought about bringing a tome or two along the road. But she ought to pack light, according to all the adventurer tales she used to read. Horses were out of the question, and Level 6 Traveling spells needed certification, for a good reason. Too many students were found in pieces after their spells went wrong. Imber left the academy through a window, which was easier than opening the massive front gate. The academy was initially built as a fortress, and was believed to be able to withstand any siege. Imber’s stomach lurched from a pang of regret. Outside, she looked up. The skies were as gray as the day she had entered the academy; the clouds perfectly still. Looking down, every single blade of grass was motionless. She leaned on her staff, feeling the weight of the world once again on her small frame. I can make things right. And if she made another mistake, how worse could things become? Her voice cracking from a half-remembered song her mother had taught her, Imber took a step, and another, making for the Northern Wastes.
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Jun 12, 2023 06:59
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