Reddit Writings: Old Gods and Dying Stars

Have a bunch of writings I'll be throwing on here soon! Also, the game I've been working on for 2 1/2 years is out! Check out Octodad here!

The old gods have abandoned us but demand worship. A new pantheon ascends, representing present day mortals. [prompt submitted by InvokingTheAncients]

Ashley lit a small candle before she rolled her makeup kit out. With each application of a powder, cream or glitter she thanked the Beautiful One. When she was done she blew the candle out and kissed the statue of the androgynous idol.

In a corporate meeting room a CEO places one thousand dollars in a dish. The CFO lights the stack on fire. Members of the board take out their cellphones and scream "BUY!" and "SELL!" at the top of their lungs while the green paper burns. With any help, The Powerbroker will bless their 3rd Quarter earnings. 

Inside a small barn in Kansas a mother shows her son how to slit the throat of a calf so it feels no pain. The two drag it through the fields, blessing the seedlings in the ground and invoking The Harvester.

Carlo places the gun against his heart. Outside, in the blasted ruins of a city with a name he couldn't pronounce, a battle rages. The sound of an Abrams treads encourages him to pull the trigger. The gun doesn't fire and he knows he is blessed by the Warrior, and will not die today.

*** The stars begin to fade after the jump ***

Reddit Writings 2

Flash Fiction:"I have fallen but the Sun has not."
     Do you remember the Winter nights? The tales of Autumn and Spring? The lusts of Summer?

     Aye boy, you don't. You've only lived in the sands and the wastes. You've only felt the coarse kiss of the wind as she picks herself up and whips through the valley.

     Do you know of darkness? No. The last time you felt darkness you were in your mother's belly, but even then Light came through. Burning you. Readying you.

    This is where the chariot fell. There was a time he ran through the sky and true, real darkness came, and then the the sun would reappear, gentle and soft. Not now. Now the sun leers at us, turns us dark and sick. Drinks water from our bones.

    It is here the mighty hunter Orios came and claimed he could bring down any game here or in heaven. Hearing his hubris, the sun rider himself shouted challenge from the sky above.

    Orios took aim, and proved himself that day the world's greatest hunter. The chariot that pulled the sun came crashing down. The the great steeds dead and the god himself choking on his own divine blood.

    'I have fallen, but the Sun has not'

    A curse. For the sun has not set, and darkness has not come for one hundred years. The sun will not move, for the rider is dead.

(More after the jump)

Reddit Writings

Due to my crazy hectic schedule writing can be get hard. Just writing small things can be hard. Then I discovered Reddit's writing prompt subreddit! There users put up a short prompt or ask for flash fiction and the other users respond. Real simple. I've been writing some responses and I thought I'd throw them up here.

Check out two more after the jump!

An incredibly intelligent person is trying to tell someone something important, but is losing their extensive vocabulary. Fast.

     The letter sat on the table. A glass paperweight held it down against a breeze from the open window next to the desk. Andrew picked it up.

      We were doing great things, Andrew. Through our extensive research we'd found a remedy to not only Alzheimer's but a variety of other memory degenerative diseases that came with age. We would've been heroes, Andrew, but we fucked up.

      I don't kno how the it escaped the lab. The cure was less of a pill more of a virus. The literl fountain of young youth. The problem was that it regrass it made you younger too fast. The body stays normal, but the brain begins to dwindle

     I am sory Andy. we just wanted to be nice. we just want to fix the wurld.

     im so scared i

     Andrew put down the note and sat in the chair. He knew there was writing on the paper, but he'd forgotten how to read. Mom read to him, but that was usually at night, right before bed. It was still day.

     Andy began to cry.

Check out two more after the jump!

Finding It's Way Back

Like, the unfinished, Ash Addicts, this was the start of a series of shorts in its own universe. It's more likely that I'll finish AA before adding anymore Lockeheart Stories.

I don't know what to do. I've removed it. It was messy. A left molar is sitting on blue plate, with happy little flowers painted on it. Spit and blood really seem to ruin the effect.

I can hear the lights again. I know that sounds ridiculous, but you have to believe me. They buzz. Like florescent lights, but, softer? Deeper? Like, you can feel it in your bones, hum.

When it starts I screw my eyes shut and get under the table with the dish. I can hear the small metallic worm thing attached to the tooth whipping around, scraping the clay of the plate. The house is shaking. The windows are rattling. Something like a high pitched pig's squeal begins to fill the cabin. It reaches a frequency and I'm terrified that when it finally stops, I'll be deaf.

Can't open my eyes.

The sound stops.

"Stover! Come in! Terry! He's all fucked up! Chief, pick up. Chris-" My radio blinks. Deputy Markus' voice crackles to a stop. I don't know why I haven't turned it off yet. What's left of the hum finally dies and I count to one-hundred before I slowly open my eyes. The cabin is dark again. THEY didn't find the body, slouched on the opposite wall from me. His head is back, mouth open, red saliva running down his chin.

Moving out from under the desk I notice the metal worm has stopped twitching. That's good. Always good when THEIR objects stop moving. It means that THEY are gone for now.

I open the door to the small cabin and warm late Summer wind blows in, but it doesn't console me. Gooseflesh runs down my arms as I see Lockeheart below me, at the base of the small mountain the cabin is on. The town is on fire. Smoke hangs over it. I want to scream out to the people, but I know better then that.

The smoke and fire aren't right. It begins to reverse. The smoke is pulled back down into the buildings and cars and shapes I can only assume are people. The fires begin to die and fade as the family homes begin to rebuild themselves. St. Micheal's, the only hospital in fifty miles, begins to grow out of the rubble, back to its normal shape. The charred bodies stand. Skin and clothes melt in reverse back onto their charred shapes. They begin to walk around. The cars start up and drive.

It's like Lockeheart wasn't a blasted crater just a moment ago.

I want to go down there. I want to go to Sal's and get a big greasy burger. I want to see my husband and kids.

Sounds of life from the town drift up to me. Stepping in, I close the door and try not to cry.

"Hey, chief, we're getting lots of reports of strange stuff this evening. Danny Whitehead said someone tried to break into his house tonight. Martha Bell said she's been hearing someone screaming out in the fields by her and Terry called back again. He found his dog, but the poor thing has been torn to shreds. Probably coyotes. Just going to be one of those nights." I listen to Markus' voice on the radio while I stare at his body, head back, mouth open, molar missing.

The dead man on the radio laughs. "Yeah, one of those nights."

It has been April 27th, for three days. The sun hasn't risen.

Every four hours THEY return and kill everyone.

Then Lockeheart finds its way back.

Night Time Wanderer

This story falls into the same vein of the two before. Night Time Wanderer is a story I crafted specifically for No Sleep. I enjoyed writing this story more than the last two and I think it has a little more...meat.

I knew they loved me. My mother. My father. My sister, Vera. I knew they cared for me and just wanted the best for me. I'm the one that was broken. The one that isn't right. Normal people don't hear talking in their head. They don't hear screams in the dead of night that no one else hears. They don't catch snippets of conversation from people out in the middle of nowhere, while they are completely alone.

No. I'm the one that was broken. It came as no surprise when they finally sent me to St. Mary's. I fought and kicked and screamed. Yelled that they didn't love me. That there were other ways. I grabbed Vera as they pulled me out the door and she gave me big watery eyes and said nothing.

Jenny Sever and Johnny Stitch

I started this blog a while ago and somewhere between then and now I began posting my stories over at Reddit No Sleep. Some of my stories would get really high ratings otherwise would get nary any. Jenny Sever and Johnny Stitch were my attempts to write stories that fit in the No Sleep style of writing and characterizations.

These are my second and third highest rated stories. That being said, they are not my favorite and I don't think they are written well, but this is a repository of work, so here they are. Despite my thoughts both stories fit into the No Sleep mythology. 

Jenny Sever

We're all connected to the things and people around us. The strings that bind us to family and friends are dark blue. Thick little bastards. Strum it and it thrums with potential. Smaller strings connect us to our things. Little and green.

Then there are the hidden threads. The ones that tie us to more conceptual ideas and memories. Lines that connect us to happy birthdays and embarrassing tumbles. To heartbreak and love. Then there is that tiny silver one. Life. So very delicate really.

Not many people can see the strings.

I can.

The Station

(Feel free to listen to this as you read or listen to this.)

“How much longer?” Donny asks, the shovel rests on his shoulder, stained with dirt.

“Two minutes!” Sara calls back. She grips a tire iron with both hands. A few strands of blonde hair hang down over her face.

“You guys are kidding right? This is a joke. Dig up the dead guy and scare the new ki-” Carlos starts, but Donny hisses at him.

“Shut up and get ready!”

The lights of my dad’s hatchback bathes the whole scene in a strange, clinical way. The grave was recent, so the dirt was easier to move. Donny and I had been digging for most of the night; we managed to get the coffin out just as Carlos rolled up. At first he freaked, but who wouldn’t? We handed him a bat and told him that he’d see.

(Read more after the Jump)

Eyes in The Dark Acts I-III

Shit man...shit! I don't know, ok? They...they were some theater troupe from out of state. They needed a little black box theater and mine had gotten some good publicity lately and was becoming...I don't know...trendy?

So the director of the this troupe he finds me and pays me in cash, big bills, for them to use the space. I told him he'd be better off contacting one of the more major theaters, but he refused. I gave him the space.

I wasn't allowed into rehearsals. Told that it was going to be a masterpiece. The theater scene was abuzz about it before opening night and then...

Christ, I've never seen so much blood. So much violence. They had tried to run. Police said there were fingernail gouges in the door. Yeah. I still have a copy of their script. It's not long. I'll let you look at it sure. Just...just buy me another drink.

(Read the play after the jump)

Ten Dollars

 

Ramsay puffed his cigarette by the window. Smoke curled from his nostrils and mouth creating disfigured, ethereal faces in the gloom of the apartment. The tip of the white stick burned bright orange, and served as the only real source of light in the apartment. The rest of the light came from the occasional flash of lightning or the streetlights below trying to leak into the house.

He had not stopped smoking since Nellie told him what she was going to do. He was angry. In the middle of him yelling at her he ran out of wordcred and did not want to rack up a huge debt to The Factory, so he stopped. His credits would refresh at midnight. Nellie continued to scream at him. She had wordcred gold due to her job as a lawyer. She could use and waste as many words as she wanted.

 

(More after the Jump)

Church Candles

The sky overhead is slate gray. It's been that way for three weeks. The weatherman swears it's going to snow soon, but the clouds right now are just offering a vague threat. I stand outside on my balcony in the morning gloom watching bustling little people drive and walk to work. They move quickly and with intent. A briefcase or portfolio in one hand and a cigarette or coffee in the other.

Gotta get that fix in before work. I know the feeling. I grind out the stub of my cig and let the wind carry it down to the street. Sticking my hand into my pocket I find and pull out the nearly empty pack. One left. I pluck it out and put it in my lips.

If I need another I'd have to go inside and that would probably wake Jessica and she'd want to talk about last night and I...don't want to do that right now.

I hold the lighter up and try to spark it, but end up knocking the cig out of my mouth instead. I watch in abject horror as it tumbles to the sidewalk below. It rolls but then stops against a trash can. I look back at the apartment. Maybe I can dash downstairs and grab it. I wouldn't have to go into our room and risk waking Jessica. I decide it's a good idea.

The busy little bees give me strange looks as I come and poke around the trash with my sleeping clothes on.  Finally I find the cigarette and tug it out from under the can, but it catches and tears. Carcinogenic guts spill out and tumble across the sidewalk.

I'm about to swear and curse in anger when something about the torn cig catches my eye. On the inside tube, where the tobacco would be, is writing. I gently pull the rest of the now empty paper open and hold it close to read:

Kaslo Renila Zs'ta

Long live your glory and your word

Let this prayer reach you

Let its sound awaken you

Bring your fury and fire

Cleanse the world

We offer this vessel to you

It's a prayer. Like a church candle. Burnt in hopes that God...or something else hears it. I look around and see the workers buzz to and fro. Cigarettes hanging from their lips and their hands. All of them secretly praying to something in hopes that it will awaken.

How many packs is that? How often? My hands start to shake and the torn little thing flies away on the wind. What is the vessel? The cigarette? Or me?

Above me something in the sky swirls.

Next To The Bed

bought a chest for my new apartment at a secondhand store. Got a great deal for it. I was going to keep DVDs and games in it. Trick it out a little by adding a few shelves that unfolded when you opened it displaying my little digital library.

While working on it I noticed something strange. The bottom was thicker than it should have been. It was also a different kind of wood than the rest of the chest. I started pushing at the edges of it and it popped up revealing a little compartment in a false bottom. Inside was another box. Polished and lacquered wood that almost glowed from reflected light. Next to it was a little black notebook. Picking it up, I flipped to the first page.

The eyes are the window to the soul. Rita possess the most beautiful soul  I've ever seen. Her eyes cast the world in a way that I wish I could understand. There is more beauty there, more passion in those twin reflections than exists here. I love her.

I flip through the pages. Little circles are drawn within circles. There is a haiku or eight describing the way light refracts into her eyes, painting a picture of an impossibly wonderful place.

We stand on the pier, her and I. I mention that the lights bouncing off the dark water looks like someone has tossed treasure into the ocean and it sunk to the bottom. She laughs and looks down. Her hand slips into mine. I look over and see those lights in her face, her eyes, and I'm in heaven.

I flip to the end, which is not quite the end of the notebook.

She is in the shower now, and will be out in a few moments. Oh, Rita, I am so sorry, but those eyes are just so beautiful. I cannot stand to be away from them. I cannot bear the thought of something happening to you and having them taken away from me.

That is why I'm going to take them out tonight and place them in a box next to my bed.

My stomach drops. I look down at the box. It sits innocently in the chest, the false bottom propped up next to it. No way there are eyes in there, right? I mean they'd be rotting, or stinking. Unless the box was sealed tight.

Gingerly I set the notebook down and pick up the box. This is a joke. People do this all the time; secretly alter a piece of furniture and then re-sell it. Troll internet forums wait for a 'spooky story' about it to show up.

Firm in my resolve I open the box and scream as it clatters to the ground, open. A small note falls out next to the withered human heart.

He had already given me his heart. I just found a box to put it in.
-Rita

Ash Addicts 1

This is something I've been working on for a while and really enjoy writing. This is definitely a work in progress and is being expanded and reworked everyday. I'm excited that it's longer then most of the stuff I put out and what I throw down here is only a section of it. I might put a new section up every other week if I can actually keep on top of myself.

We've seen how good I am with that.

  My father is holding my hand tight. My sister can’t quite contain her excitement. She babbles, but it just sounds like a high pitched lullaby. She is in the middle of exclaiming when a mechanical squeal drowns her out completely. A huge shadow falls over us as the rollercoaster rumbles by overhead. I can just barely make out her own yip of excitement and I feel the need to contribute my own.

Now I’m standing at a podium. Capped and gowned blobs stare up at me. I’ve been speaking words of wisdom. They begin to clap and stand and hoot. I’m flushed with gratification. 

I’m in the hospital. He is holding my hand, telling me it’s going to be ok. I can barely hear him. The pain is so intense. Its over. He is holding her and handing her to me. I smile at the baby. Clearly I can hear myself say “Roslin”. He smiles.

More images like these pound away behind my eyelids. Sweet moments and awful ones. I’m in the hospital again, Roslin was in a crash, we wait to hear if she is ok. Jump ahead, he’s died, I held him as his last breath left and said I love you. Finally I’m laying in bed, looking up.

This is my least favorite part. I can hear Roslin in the next room. She’s crying. I try to say her name, but my lips are too dry. What comes out sounds like a paper bag being crushed. Black.

“Christ, Trey, are you about out of it yet?” Jack’s voice burbles at first, but becomes more clear. The “it” rings especially clear, like a bell, and my eyes open lazily. The room swims into focus. Jack is spooning a bowl of cereal into his mouth and staring at me. His hair, usually spiked as high as it can go, was drooping, making him look like a tired punk wannabe.

“How long was I out?” I begin to orient myself on the leather couch and fix the world. Everything at the edges of my vision blurs like bad video. When I’m upright I fumble out a cigarette, it finds my lips, and I light it.

“Five hours. Who was it?” His voice is becoming more clear. I can feel reality reasserting itself like a child throwing a tantrum. I grab around the cushions of the couch and pull out a small ziplock bag with a name written across it in sharpie.

“Cindy Travis. Huh. Two first names.” I ball the bag up and throw it towards the trash. I miss.

“Cindy? I fucking love Cindy, man. When what's her name...” He snaps his fingers. His mouth is full of half crunched sugar shapes. “Roslin? Yeah Roslin. When she gets married. Man, I always lose my fucking shit. I think. I know Cindy does. Man. Cindy.”

“Well I hope you enjoyed her while she lasted. We’re all out.” I motion my cigarette to the slowly unwrapping ball by the trash can.

“Aw fuck man. I loved her.” Jack picked the bowl up and sucked down the colored milk at the bottom. I scrunch my face as I watch his adam’s apple bob. His skin hung a little loose there. Just a tad, nothing too visible.

Anyone looking at Jack could tell that he was using something. He had those kinds of movements, those little tics, of someone who's been away from the bottle too long. His eyes were always rimmed with circles. When we’d head out he put a little makeup on and make it all look part of his act, his persona.  Alcohol wasn’t his poison. Well at least not right now.

I shook my head. Shit. I hope I don’t look like him.

“Do we have any of Fred left?” I suck off a lung of nicotine.

“Frederick  Goldschmidt? Naw, I finished him off last night. Real strange one.” He dropped the bowl and the crash bounces around between my ears.

“Doctors always are.” I slowly stand. I’m not usually this fucked up after a snuff, what’s wrong with me? Getting old.

“You want some cereal? I already claimed the prize.” Jack shakes the box at me.

“Naw man, I’m good. I’ll grab something on the way.” With great effort I tug my shirt up and swap it out with something less covered in sweat. I mange to zip up my hoodie without pinching my fingers.

“Zeke?” Jack grabs at his sneakers and tugs them on.

“Well we’re out of everybody aren’t we?” I grab my hoodie and zip it up.

“I’m excited.” He stands and tosses the bowl into the sink. An atomic bomb dropped.

“Shit man, you stop throwing things? Fuck.” I grind out my cig on the table.

(Read more after the jump)

Maladies

Sorry for the break. According to my own logic I'd have a mouth full of infected ideas... maybe I'm mixing metaphors.

Here is a Malady!

***

“Sharp blade. Cuts smoother,” it places its hand on her shoulder, but this movement of comfort is lost on it. It is, rather, a touch of confirmation, letting the weeping girl know that the action she was about to take was the correct one. The thing did not understand comfort like we did. Comfort, to it, was not a warm bed or a hot shower, rather the cool embrace of oblivion. The ultimate sleep.

The girl began to raise the razor to her arm and where she traced it bright rivers flowed. It cocked its head, standing behind her watching her move, admiring the trails the blood it left and the shapes the splatter made as it hit the wooden floor.

Such intricate lines forming.

It took a while. Longer than it had assumed, which is strange, because this was its true passion. This willful robbery of ones own life. It shuddered with ecstasy, or whatever it had that was comparable, as the girl’s final breath was exhaled. It began to push itself down, down into that empty vessel lying before it. Embracing her, folding up and into her, giving her the love she felt she never had.

For a moment, all was still. Then the girl opened her eyes again.
 

Stronger, emboldened by the power it was just given, the thing moved from the bedroom and out into the world.

***

I plan on writing a few more of these. They are meant to be simple and short, bigger Splinters. This one is particularly dark, but what better way to return then with something grim? 

The Shepherd

Sorry for my lack of updates last week. I was working on this to post and got distracted by other things.

Elevator Pitch: Two teens scramble to save a friend from a pagan rite, but things aren't what they seem...

The Diary of Prudence Mayweather, 1764

April 3rd: It feels like the hard winter has come to an end. Samuel died last night. He fought so bravely against the sickness, but it claimed him. Father placed him in the cold earth this morning and we prayed. Mother and Father fought tonight. I held Mary and Jacob close so that they would not cry and bring Father's ire.

"This year will be different!" he had yelled. "This year we will bring up the Shepherd. I will not suffer another lost child, another winter full of hunger!".

Mother just cried. 

April 17th: In church today Father Daniel spoke out against The Shepherd by claiming that Jesus was mankind's one true shepherd. Father stood, forcing us to stand with him and he made us leave. I looked behind and saw many other families were leaving too. In the middle of a sermon? 

Behind us we could hear him crying out "May God save you folk from foolishness. May he shield you from the Devil and his tricks! I will leave this town, for it is forsaken!".

Father spit at the ground. 

April 20th: Mother and I were at market today when Father Daniel's mare came charging through town. The poor beast was all beaten and bloody. Issac, the butcher's boy whom I fancy, made mention of seeing Father Daniel being taken from his small house in the middle of the morning. Mother took my arm and we went home. 

Father came home unusually late. We held dinner until he arrived, but hunger no longer bothers me. He picked me up and spun me, something he has not done since I was a child, and smiled saying "Everything is going  to be okay now, Prudence". 

(Read more after the jump)