Month: February 2016

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Flash Fiction: Beads

Today’s story is inspired by Digital, by Sayuuhiro.

“Let’s go out. It’ll be fun,” Ross said. He was sitting on the TV, his body transparent and ghostly.

“We can’t,” I said. “You’re an imprint, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” He flicked his right hand’s thumb and forefinger a few times, the way the original Ross always did when he was thinking. “Uh, well shit. You’ve got nothing to do here man.”

“We can load up a game.”

Ross rolled his head back and forth.

“Nah, I still destroy you in those. Shit, I think I’m actually better now than when I was alive.”

I leaned my head back onto the couch. He’d been gone only a few months but I had missed him enough that I figured a simulacrum might be a good idea. It sort of was but in the two weeks he’s been here we’d exhausted most of the things we would have done together in a year’s time.

“Well I don’t know man. I mean, I’d love to bring you on the town but a portable unit is expensive. I spent most of your savings just to bring you back how you are now.”

“I know,” Ross said, “And I appreciate it. I do. But, uh, we’re starting to hit a brick wall here. I mean, Joss, you’re great but boring.”

I chuckled.

“Are you shitting me? You do realize I can turn you off right? Like, whenever I want.”

Ross sat up.

“It’s gonna be like that, huh?” He hoped off the TV, and slowly floated the foot down to the ground. “Look man, I’m not just an expensive toy you hooked up to hang out with. Hell, if you want that, go get Don.”

“I sold Don to get you.”

“Well that’s your fault then. He was a great ‘bot. I’m not just a toy. I know what you did to get me made. Your memories scanned in, mom’s, dad’s, three of my ex-girlfriends, my best friend Yvette’s, and even that asshole Robert and his dog. You even got my psych eval from high school programmed in. Don’t give me shit about turning me off.”

I turned him off.

He always got preachy after a week or two of being active. This was the third time I had to turn him off since I activated him. I’d turn him on, we’d play for a bit, and then he’d get bored and demand more. It was getting quicker lately, but without a portable unit there wasn’t much I could do.

The little bead that landed on the floor where he had been blinked at me a few times. I picked it up and put it in the case on the shelf, the ones with the rest of them. Mom, Dad, him, Yvette too after she took her life when the holo Ross pushed her too far, and one of me. That one was tricky but at least he helped me with the day job when I was sick. The rest I’d bring out when I needed their company. I just wish the portables were cheaper, but the version of Ross that had been in a portable had left me and never come back. I didn’t want to pay for another portable and loss it too.

Admittedly this story is also partly inspired by the holograms of Red Dwarf.

Life after death, digital rebirth, and things like that; they fascinate me. If we’re brought back from the memories and imprints we left behind is it us or just a hollow shell pretending to be us? If you can’t tell the difference, does it matter to you? Likely if you can simply turn off a loved one so you don’t have to deal with their digital ghost, it probably does. But if they’re consistent, solid, and appear to be the real thing would you care if their body was made of hard light instead of flesh?

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Flash Fiction: Short Rebellion

Today’s story is inspired by The Opposite Connection, by Tzaddi Tamondong.

“Are you ready for the day, Xian?” Nuo said.

Xian’s circuits were coming alive as she checked the large faceplate on his helmet. Wires from his back began to glow and the lit cords curved over his shoulder until reaching his face. There a thin black circle illuminated blue. Xian’s mouth started to twitch.

“I hear you. Where am I? What is going on?” His voice was scratchy and dry. Nuo pulled a small tube from her belt and started to unscrew the cap.

“We are hunting, Xian. The others, like you.” She took the tube and started to dab it on Xian’s lips, moistening them. The machine breathed and sucked his lips into his mouth. “Do you need more water?”

“Yes, please,” he said.

Nuo undid the cap further and gave him a few ounces of water. He swallowed them quickly. She knew he was mostly machine, but she and the rest of the agents didn’t know what his organic parts needed to survive. She was glad she was prepared.

“Not so much,” she said. “Do you need something to eat?”

“I will,” he said. She pulled out a small ration bar and fed him. After a few bites he asked, “What do you mean, like me?”

Nuo glanced over the machine. He had been heavily damaged in his capture. Below the waist his body had been blown off. The part-organic part-wires spine hung freely amidst bandages that stopped up tubes and clogged natural blood vessels alike. They had worried the shock would have killed him but he seemed to have adapted. The rest of his torso and arms were covered in heavily armored plates attached to powerful weapons. To disable those, they had removed the shock gun out of his left arm and affixed a block of quick plascrete over the right cannon. Finally, they had him hanging in a chain lattice that could be easily cut from the outside but would be problematic for a damage frame like him to break free from.

“Other agents, like you. I know the Outlanders have hired a multitude of mercenaries but we want to know about anyone as advanced as you were.”

Xian smiled. “There isn’t. The Outlanders can barely afford to field their little militia. Those aren’t mercenaries. They’re your citizens.”

Nuo heard a chime in her ears. She nodded slightly and pulled a small canister from her belt. She pressed it to Xian’s flesh near his spine and toggled it. Xian screamed, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

“I am sorry for this, but we must know about the others.”

“There aren’t, you bitch” Xian said. He screamed again as she triggered the can at another spot closer to his spine.

“Utterly unnecessary. That was for being rude. Now for your lie,” she said, and triggered the can again. “We know there are others. You weren’t alone when we captured you. The others already talked. Being far more flesh and less machine they didn’t last long. It is a pity for you that you are not like us.”

“If you know about them, why do you need me?” Xian said. Blood came out of his mouth as he spoke. Nuo dabbed at it with a piece of cloth from her belt.

“Because,” Nuo said with a smile, “We needed you to confirm them. Thank you.”

She took a step back from the machine and frowned at the bleeding that had started near the remains of his waist.

“Turn him back off, we will have need of him later.”

“What shall we do with him until?” another Nuo said as she approached with the control console they had linked to Xian’s matrix.

“If he can, let him dream. It will be the only happy times in the remainder of his life.”

The inspiration from this piece bubbled at the top of Deviantart today like many of the paintings I use for inspiration. What’s interesting to me is that it’s a piece from 2011 without any new comments. I’m not sure why older items spring up like that for me but I’m glad they do. There’s a lot of treasures out there from different artists and I love finding something that deserves some love.

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Flash Fiction: Dark Hearts

Today’s story is inspired by Fallen Angel IV by Luis Royo.

The waters were cold. Between the rain and the wind her dress had become soaked, the fur on her wings was drenched, and every joint was starting to ache from her shivering. She desperately wanted to be away from this pit of despair and the aura of dread and loneliness her task projected didn’t help. She swallowed and forced herself forward.

The cold bog was the thing’s hiding place; an ancient lair she had pulled it kicking and screaming millennia ago. She used her scythe to test the mud in front of her as she moved. The bog was warmer back then but the world had grown cold over the years. When she was last here it was heat and sweat and hot pits of springs boiling up from the core that had kept her warry of a direct flight to him. Now the cold and frozen heart of the realm stayed her hand. The power coursing through her world be a flare to the fallen one. She did not believe he’d fight her, but she knew if he fled finding him again would be a challenge.

She needed his heart. Atonement for her sins could not be done alone. The guardian had said she would need three sinful hearts purified to pass through heaven’s gates. She had already taken the heart of another, a lesser angel who had been in line with the rebellion. That one had given her the female mortal form she had now, taking her away from the sexless thing she believed angels need be. The new one was also of that host, and she found they were the easiest to hunt. She had been there when the rebellion had happened, and had used the symbolic weapon of her host against them. The memory made the cold of this place worse as she desperately wanted to hold that flaming blade once more.

Her scythe sank deeper into the bog not touching mud until a foot or two beneath her current depth. A cautious step or two and she was certain she had found the entrance. Her body objected as she stepped deeper into the cold water, but she ignored its mortal needs. The cold couldn’t kill her. Drowning couldn’t kill her. Both could hurt.

The water in her lungs burned, and the body screamed for air but she continued to move slowly under the dark waters. The lair of the fallen was close, and she was starting to see lights ahead. The water warmed as she neared his resting space, and as the top of her head peeked over the surface, she felt intense heat in the air. There were two sources of light in the small chamber, a large brazier with logs and coals filling the bottom of it, and a humanoid figure curled into the fetal position with his hair and wings ablaze. The brazier’s flames had died down but the heat and coals still glowed heat, heating the spit above it. She knew the flesh on that rod at once, and now understood this fallen’s sin. Man’s flesh is for beast alone, as punishment from the divine. The grace would never allow this wretched thing to feast upon mortal flesh.

She pulled herself slowly from the water with her dress clinging to her skin. By the time her slow approached had cleared her mud caked feet from the entrance, the heat had dried the top of her dress and her wings were dry and starting to sweat. The fallen had taken on the look of a young man, cherub like in face and form. Like the first fallen she had slain, he was bound by mortal flesh, and possessed a gender of humanity. He clutched himself as he slept and this act of mortal need angered her. She raised her scythe. Droplets streaked along the blade as pockets of water were freed, and several of the cold beads splattered his face. His eyes snapped open and she swept down. Had he been a greater member of the host he may have had time to move, but as only a lesser fallen her blade swept through his neck as smoothly as it swept through the air. The fire of his hair and fur extinguished as the smell of divine blood filled the hollow.

An angel’s blood should bring life, but the fallen’s blood only darkened the earth. Where it touched the plants of the space withered and died. The remains of the carcass of the fallen’s human victim became rot and vile waste almost immediately. She leaned down and shoved her hand into the fallen’s torso. The blood clawed at her skin but she ignored the pain that her body screamed at her. Her hand found the heart and pulled it out. It was beating with thick black blood streaking down her arm and staining her dress.

She ate it, and even though it tried to resist her by becoming foul and putrid in taste, she was able to absorb it. Like the first she had eaten, the heart changed her. The angel became larger, bulkier, but still with feminine features. The hearts within them seemed to each take up rights on selecting the angel’s form, and they became no longer female but not quite male either. Despite the duality, the angel felt stronger, fuller. Its power had grown at they consumed, and a new hunger was filling them. The flesh of man taken readily from the spit did not fill their desire. Yes, they needed three hearts purified to seek heaven’s gate. But what if they had more?

Ah misinterpretation. How fun you are. I was reading a post from a friend who was discussing a character’s misuse of a wish in their story. Wishes, at least in gameplay mechanics tend to be very dangerous for players to take on. This mostly happens because dungeon masters/game masters are cruel evil beings who like to toy with our players, but they also happen because it serves as a barrier to getting the end goal. It’s reflected in our story today on how the angelic figure takes a literal approach to the charge of “three sinful hearts purified to pass through heaven’s gates” thinking they need to take within themselves three purified hearts to the gate. Except this has had the opposite effect than what the angel wants. They no longer accept their task may be over now, and suddenly seek more power. The three hearts in their chest now beat darker black ichor.

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Flash Fiction: Water Overhead

Today’s story was inspired by photography by Dmitry Laudin.

I kept trying to breath. I pushed again but I couldn’t get past it. The water wouldn’t let me breach the surface.

My lungs were burning. God how they burned. It just kept hurting. I tried to breath from the surface to quench by thirst for oxygen but I couldn’t. Every time I tried I was pulled deeper.

The lake didn’t used to be this deep. It didn’t stretch so far down into blackness. I’ve known this lake my entire life, and nowhere does it go so deep. The water down there is black. It hides beneath what should be the floor of the lake. It ripples like waves touched by a breeze.

I don’t know how long I was down here. Minutes? Hours? Weeks?

At some point they had come looking for me. There had been a boat. Many boats. I had tried to pull at the nets, touch the divers, anything to get their attention to bring me above the water. Anything to let me know I’m not dead.

***

It’s been almost a year. Maybe a month or so away. I know because I came in the water for the first swim of spring. I’ve let my lungs burn hotter and hotter while the ice started to freeze over the surface. Now it was melting.

I can’t stand to look down. I keep looking up to the surface, to the rippling skies. The shadow keeps pulling at me, tugging me deeper. I always make it back to near the surface but it’s only a matter of time before I feel the cold flesh against my leg. It’s the only thing I feel besides the heat of my lungs.

***

I’m not dead. I can hear my pulse. It’s against the back of my ears, a pounding.

I’m not dead.

My lungs hurt so much.

***

Why does it stare at me? I can’t turn to look at it, but I know the black water is staring at me. Its glare gets more intense with each passing season. Each boat, each body, each breath someone tries to take down here.

Maybe it’s angry with me. I can’t breach the surface, but I can help others. The little girl, the woman in the wedding dress, the drunk man who locked himself in the car; I pushed them all to the surface. I tried to follow, but the black water pulled me back.

It wasn’t the cold touch when it pulled me back for those. It was pain the way the water burning in my lungs felt only against my entire body.

***

I don’t care anymore. I’ll never breach the surface. But I won’t let it eat anymore. I won’t let it take anyone into its dark depths. I will starve this lake of life the way I am starved of air. I will not let the dark waters eat again.

I am no longer afraid because I am dead.

I think this story has been in my head since watching Supernatural for the first time earlier this month. The lake ghost story of the series’s third episode being the big influence. It just took Dmitry’s photography to loosen it up and pour it onto the page.

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Flash Fiction: Chair Movement

Today’s story was inspired by Flowbee Fear by Hector E. Sevilla Lujan.

The chair halted suddenly and Malati nearly rolled off. She grabbed at the back cushion to pull herself onto the seat.

“Stupid walker,” she said, slamming her hand into the seat’s fabric. The chair had stopped in the middle of a field of talking grass, and the sun beat down on the reflective faces of the viral machines. It was also baking her bare skin, and she wished she had taken up the parasol’s offer to trade recipes for its service. That or had traded the fox for another shirt or top instead of just outright selling the sweater.

Malati laid into the back of the chair and debated what to do. The machine wasn’t moving and with those blades covering the ground she didn’t want to step off. Talking grass wasn’t typically lethal, but it was demanding of time from the people it captured. If someone didn’t come along once she was nabbed, she’d starve before grasses this far out was done talking.

The six spiderlike legs of the chair had come to a complete halt. The seat was quite wide, so she was able to pull her knees up and then lean over the side to look at the chair’s workings. She brushed her hair out of the way when she leaned further down to look under the seat and saw the problem.

“Hello, Bee,” Malati said. “Why are you here?”

The little machine had connected itself to the chair. It was shaped like a real bee, although larger and obviously mechanical. Its wings weren’t the translucent ovals they should be. Instead they were a set of four propeller blades that spun moment to moment.

“You need to get out of there,” she said. Malati reached for the robot but couldn’t get her hands on it. The mechanical bee’s wings fluttered and Malati gasped. She pulled back her hand and looked at her finger where the blades had cut her. A thin line of red was forming on her skin.

“That it,” she said. Sitting back up, she tugged at the side of the seat. The seams here were too tight for her to pull at, but she needed something to reach that bug. She looked to see if there was anything around the chair but only the cords of the talking grass were in reach. Those wouldn’t serve her. Malati looked down at her top and sighed. She really wished she had traded for something from the fox as she pulled the strings on her back.

Cloth whip in hand, she leaned back over the side of the chair and checked at the Bee was still there. She could now clearly see where the bee’s back legs were keeping the chair from moving forward. If she could just dislodge it she’d be on her way. Her hand came back and she swept the bikini top at the robot. It snagged perfectly on the thing’s body. Malati yanked as hard as she could and was met with a tearing sound in the cloth. The chair lurch forward.

Pulling back the bikini top, she groaned. It had ripped across one of the squares of fabric. She fashioned it on as best she could and then leaned forward against the back of the chair. She wanted to avoid a total sunburn now that she was moving again. She’d find something else, although clothing in this mechanical kingdom seemed a rarity. She wondered if that fox with pants would be the only one she met with clothing.

A few years ago I was working on a concept world with strange mechanical creatures, living toys, and dark magic and science. A world where humans were rare and mysteries sprung up like just lost dreams. Seeing the painting today reminded me of that world, and so I wanted to share the piece as if the image took place in that reality. I don’t know if I’ll ever explore that realm in a longer piece in the future or not, but it’s always fun to revisit strange worlds.

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Flash Fiction: Of Wax and Brimstone

Today’s story is inspired by What Are You Afraid Of, by Gabriel Picolo.

“I’m dangerous,” Malice said. I could only make out the glowing coals of his eyes in the darkness, but the warm heavy presence that came with him dominated the cliff side ridge where we were meeting. I could feel my wax already start to soften from his heat.

“I don’t care.” I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. My flesh sizzled as it touched the brimstone of his body. He pulled back at first and then sighed and wrapped his arm around my back. His fingertips brushing the edges of my feathers caused them to melt into his hand, leaving small puddles of wax and dye along his charcoal colored skin.

“You’re already losing yourself in me,” he whispered. “Exurbia, we can’t do this. We’re a bad mix.”

I pulled back until I held his waist and could look into his eyes. The coals had cooled from intense white and blues to gentle reds and yellows. I could see drops of my hair sliding down the heat of his chin, and pouring into the rocky breaks of the cinnabar deposits in his flesh.

“No,” I replied. “We’re perfect. I can survive your heat the way others couldn’t.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said. He slipped from my hands, and stepped back to the edge of the cliff. My wax cooled immediately and I could feel my hair and feathers reforming, although I felt a little lighter from the lost mass. “I am sorry. I can’t control this heat.”

He slid onto the lip of the cliff; taking a seat and hanging his legs over the edge. We were on a peak somewhere between the mortal world and the heavens. One of the countless mountains left floating in the aether between creation and dream. We were both angels of flesh and reality. Part of the world’s matter and made alive as guardians of material flesh. Our guiding hands on the men and machines below that worked in our flesh was what lead us to connect. To find one another.

His burning wings were slumped down and it let me wrap my arms around him. I pressed my torso against his back and the sharp blades of stone and cinnabar cut into my stomach, but I let the pain pass. I just cared for him, and would bare whatever suffering let me be near. He sighed, breathing in our combined presence.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Malice said. “And I won’t let you be hurt by me.” He slipped from my grip and down the side of the cliff. I moved to chase after him but found myself stuck. His hand had pressed against mine and realized he had molded my wax into the rocks. I was reforming, pulling back from the stone but it was enough time for him to disappear below.

“Malice,” I screamed, but only forgotten reality could hear my cries.

Relationships can be troubling. Even non-intentional pain can spring up between lovers through their natures. There are those who can survive and those who don’t want to force their loved ones to have to deal with their troubles. These choices can leave each of them in a wake of pain, and sometimes that echo can be worse than what would have been suffered together.