#30secstory

[easterbii]

Early Dinner

Hey, do you remember me? I think you don’t. Let me remind you.

We were in different classes on high school. But we used to skip the history class every Wednesday aftenoon together. The last time we skipped class, you took me somewhere.

It was a ground full of reeds. You took something from your pocket: a knife. You started growling. I brought myself walking backwards, but you kept moving forward.

When I reached the wall, slowly but surely my bloods started come out. My body was torn. Last, you were having an early dinner with fresh tripe.

Remember that?

[ericlangeauthor]

Morning Routine

I check my phone for notifications and… nothing from work! It seems like today is going to be a good one.

Heat and stimulants make for a fine cup of joe. Damn, this is good. I thought this went bad a week ago? Well, maybe it gets better with age. They must want you to throw it away before it gets really good. Even the cute barista, who winks at me when I come to her store, has never made one this good. Maybe it was just a twitch, the winks. Either way, time to head out.

Cup in sink, keys in hand, out the door I go. The air smells good, which is odd, like a fresh cut lawn. Who would cut their lawn this early? Bob, it has to be Bob. Probably some new productivity thing he’s trying out. Why can’t he be like everyone else? So weird. He should be out here by now. Staring at me as I head to work, mimosa in his retired hand. Where is he?

Look left, look right, looks like, no traffic. Holy shit, is it the weekend or is today a holiday? It can’t be the weekend, and phone says it’s not a holiday. Could this be the mythical twenty minute commute I’ve heard all about? And, of course my car won’t start. Turn the key. Clunk, clunk, hiss. No luck.

I pull up a towing company’s number and give it a call. Phone rings endlessly. Well then, better call into work and take a sick day, again. No one there either. Maybe it is a holiday, and I’m just dumb.

Oh shit!

"Haley, you shouldn’t sneak up on adults like that!" Why is she just standing there, staring at me?

"Hello Adam." Don’t look into her creepy doll eyes. Where the hell are her parents?

"I have something to tell you, Adam." Oh God, she’s going to kill me. Demon in a child, how cliche.

"And what is that?" Right now, no one else is here. I’m going to die, on a holiday I didn’t even know about.

"You’re the only one left. In fact, you are the only one period." Clunk, clunk, hiss. Car still won’t start. "You were a test… to see if we did it right."

"Did what right?" Don’t look at her eyes, just keep trying the car. Damn it.

"Made you." Well shit, if the car won’t start, I’m dead, might as well try to fight back. Whoosh goes the door, and whoosh it goes right through her like a hand through a misting sprinkler. I’m so dead. Least I could do is listen now, I guess?

"You were a test of our latest design. We fabricated you and everything here. All of it was a simulation." This was getting too real, too quickly. "Sadly, you were not quite what we were expecting. We needed another species to enter data for us. We believe we got the number of fingers wrong. Twelve, would have been optimal." Cue ghostly floating screen depicting a human-looking model typing away at some strange interface. I’m probably dreaming.

"Okay," “So now you have three choices, Adam.” Cue Quantum-leap-esque glowing rectangle, just big enough for me to walk through. “You can come with us, as a flawed design, but a sentient one nonetheless,” she said pointing at the doorway, “Or you can continue to live in this fantasy.” The barista, Bob, and my mom are here now standing behind Haley. Why are they waving at me? It’s only polite to wave back, so I do. “Or we can terminate this whole thing, including you,” and now a curtain of black has engulfed my house. It’s a scary curtain.

"So Adam, what are you going to choose?"

[ericlangeauthor]

Epilogue

Kroso stepped over the motionless lich’s body and stood in front of the gaping trans-dimensional void. They had lost. The lich gave whatever unlife it had left to open the portal into the realm of the elder gods. All of the work, all of the effort, all of the sacrifices made were cast aside now that the world would end. Kroso opened his arms in an wide embrace to welcome immediate oblivion for he was not strong enough to see the world suffer before him. Then he waited.

The others in the room frantically searched for a way to shut the void. Some inscription or artifact that could reverse the spell that opened it in the first place. It was likely a fruitless effort for the lich would have erased any solution long before getting to this point, so they took to waiting for the end to come.

The void churned and bubbled with ancient power. Infinite beings of unimaginable terror lurked just a moment away, but nothing happened.

Kroso opened his eyes and searched the other side for the doom that was to befall them. He could see an almost infinite amount of horrible creatures and beings that he could find no suitable description for, yet none of them seemed the least bit interested in coming through the gateway provided to them.

“Why are they not coming through?” Korso roared to no one in particular. “The gate is open, yet they sit there, going about as if nothing happened?”

“Maybe it takes time?” Luna said. She read through several of her notes on the lich’s prophecy but was unable to find any mention of precisely when the beings would pour through, only that it would happen once the portal opened. “They have lived since before the creation of the universe, maybe another day, or millena for that matter, is meaningless to them?”

“Damn them,” Kroso said, the flaming crown hovering above his head burned white hot with his rage, and he clenched his war axe so hard that the blisters on his hands popped against the handle.

“So, you’re saying that they probably won’t come in our lifetimes?” Elda asked Luna. She felt tension unwind itself from her shoulders.

Luna paged through her notes and made some mental calculations, “According to this, most likely not. From context that I have found, one hundred years of our time feels like only a second to them, and they don’t seem to be in a rush.”

“This isn’t how it was supposed to end!” Kroso screamed. “We either succeed and the portal never opens, or we fail and the world is done immediately! There is no longer a narrative for us!” He thought about the amount of his life he had spent to become the savior of the world. Now that it all could end at any moment or a thousand years from now, anything anyone did would not matter. Every action taken, building constructed, or life lived did not have context in the grand scheme of things. Everything would continue to exist solely for the purpose of existing and nothing else.

“That doesn’t seem too bad to me,” Elda said as she packed her bag.

“Then live your tiny life at the mercy of some wretched thing,” Kroso said over his shoulder. The flames dancing around his head cooled to a smoldering red. “I refuse to carry on like that,” and he lept into the void. Elda and Luna did not even have time to yell after him so instead they watched, out of mourning that they had just lost a companion and out of morbid curiosity to see what happened next. Kroso floated further and further out into the inky black, axe held high over his head, ready to strike. Further and further he went until all that could be seen was the dim light of his flaming crown, until that too eventually disappeared.

[ericlangeauthor]

Inspection

Bob worked as a night security guard at the cargo dock. His goal was to keep people out, or at least that is what they paid him for. Every night, Bob would walk down the aisles of cargo containers checking for trespassers. He did not have much authority to do more than shine his flashlight and pretend to chase them away. A cushy job for a natural night owl. Bob walked down a row of crates, rapping his maglite on each one as he passed. It would have driven his coworkers to file complaints to HR, but he was the only one who had the nightshift. His taps were precise and methodical. Each tap would echo or thud, an echo would mean an empty container and a thud would mean a full one. This applied only most of the time. He walked halfway down the length of a twenty foot container and tapped. He paused for a brief moment to listen to the full metallic echo rebounding in the container. Satisfied with that being the only sound, he continued on. Before he walked past the container completely, he heard a tap on its inside wall. “Shit,” he muttered. He turned back around and walked up to the entrance of the container. With a clack, he undid the simple lock on the container’s door and hinged it open with a rusty screech. He used his maglite and worked the light down the container. He saw it when he got halfway through. This one had scales, red eyes, and a frightening grin. It blinked at the light and its grin spread down the entire length of its body. Bob fumbled his maglite and switched it over to its custom-built function. The spotlight on the animal flicked from a dark yellow over to a impressive black. The animal howled, revealing that it was indeed made of mostly mouth. It began to sizzle and pop. It pushed itself back into the container and out of the flashlight’s range. Bob squeezed through the door in pursuit, knowing he only had a few moments to finish the job. He struggled through the opening and lost contact with the creature, it made an opportunity of this and vaulted over Bob and past the opening. It loped down the alley of containers and was out of sight before Bob could struggle free. Bob flipped open his phone, took a deep breath, and pressed ‘2’ on his speed dial. “Hey, it’s Bob. Yeah, again. It was small-ish, watermelon-sized, with green scales. I think it was mostly a mouth. Mhmm, lost it when I tried to get closer to him with the beam. Yeah, he took off heading North. Oh, ok. I’ll wait for him to call me then,” Bob shut the phone. He took a wet seat against the container and made himself comfortable, this was not going to be a short or pleasant call.

[ericlangeauthor]

Outdoor Friends

“You don’t like him, do you daddy?” Marcy whined.

“No sweetie, of course we like him,” Marcy’s father crept closer to her and reached for her hand. “It’s, just that, you know we told you we were going to wait a while before you got a pet,” he grabbed Marcy’s hand.

The creature sitting next to Marcy watched her father’s hand with an intense gaze, as if it were a fly in the air seconds before a frog ate it. It had blue fur with orange spots clustered in pinwheels all over its six-legged body.  

“Dear, did you call A. N. I. M. A. L. C. O. N. T. R. O. L. yet?” Marcy’s father shouted. The creature growled and electric sparks hopped out of its mouth and danced like arc lightning across the kitchen floor. He tried to pull Marcy closer to him.

“They’re on their way, hun!” shouted Marcy’s mother from the parlour room.

“Daddy, who is Mommy calling?” Marcy asked. She pulled against her father and tried to reach out to the creature.

“Oh, just some of Mommy and Daddy’s friends from college!” He pulled Marcy into the air and scooted away. The creature looked on with its red eyes and bared its needle-teeth. It stalked after them.

“Daddy!” Marcy said, and she struggled to break free from her father. “William isn’t happy when I go away!” The creature gave up its stalk and began to trot after them.

Marcy started to cry, and the creature growled again. This time, pillars of lighting lept from its mouth and anchored themselves to pieces of metal in the kitchen. One of the pillars hit the room’s light and blew it out. The beast leapt at them.

Through an incredible feat of parental agility, Marcy’s father somersaulted backwards out the kitchen and closed the door behind him. He got up, locked the knob and slid a dresser in front of the door.

“Sweetie, next time, please ask before bringing strange animals home. That one could have really hurt you,” Marcy’s father said, the lights in the room started to flicker. The creature moaned and growled from behind the door. Marcy’s father sighed, all of the appliances in there were probably toast. “Come here,” he pulled Marcy, whose face was soaking wet with tears, into his lap. “Once Mommy and Daddy’s friends get here and take care of William, we can get a normal, soft, and tiny hamster. How does that sound?”

[ericlangeauthor]

Retirement

Daron’s foot knocked over a miniature tower of gold coins. Sounds of years of success came from their clinking fall. He looked down at the coins, his polished leather boots shone nearly as bright as their golden luster. The rest of the room was filled with chests, barrels, and piles upon piles of gold, silver, and precious gems. There was more wealth in that room alone than most kingdoms had in material assets, and that included the castle and its coffers.

Daron continued towards the back of the room and scratched at his silver beard trying to remember every detail. He passed mementos of previous jobs like the dress of a noblewoman he wore during the theft of the Kingdom of Elian’s crown jewels. He smiled as he saw a shield, full of arrows, that he wore on his back after botching a robbery of a royal trade caravan. Hundreds of these reminders littered the room. Memories of a past life. Memories that he could only share with himself.

At the back of the room, sat a pedestal with a small sack of copper coins in it and he fished a few out. Out of his hoard, he ascended a stone spiral staircase that and exited out a door disguised as a brick wall. As he walked to the front door of his humble mansion, replete with exotic animal furs and paintings of antiquity long thought lost to time, he shook the copper in his hands. When he was a youth, this would have been enough to get him one warm meal to help him survive another night on the streets. He could probably stretch them further now, with some ‘negotiating.’

The young messenger waiting at his door was about the age that Daron was when he took his first job. The boy presented a letter to Daron, something about his holdings in some faraway place he would never visit. Daron considered handing the boy’s payment of the copper coins to him but pocketed them instead. He retrieved the key to his mansion and placed it firmly in the boy’s hand.

“Take the stairs and stop at the wall that looks suspiciously like a secret door and tap the bottom three bricks once each, from left to right. Be sure to spread it around,” he said with a wink.

The boy watched Daron walk out into the frosty night and disappear into a dark alley. He had no idea what Daron meant by ‘be sure to spread it around’ but the prospect of seeing a real secret door was thrilling, and he raced up the stairs to find it.   

[ericlangeauthor]

Load, aim, release

Load, aim, release.

These three words were ground into my mind every day during training. I was drafted into the army two months after the incursion and was assigned a crossbow on account of my eyes. 

Load, aim, release,

screamed the training sergent as we shot bolts into logs covered in burlap sacks. They resembled the horrific and otherworldly faces of the enemy to get us ready for conflict. 

Load, aim, release,

was shouted during our first operation. The goal was to retake a border town from enemy knights. The enemy wasn't afraid to lose units. They were unrelenting and ferocious; they were monsters.

Load, aim, release,

were my squad leader's last words as a thrown spear took him in the neck during our retreat. We tried to give cover to our skirmishes, but we were no match for the enemy's gnashing teeth and unfaltering resolve. Our range gave us the option to run. We took it and survived.

Load, aim, release.

is what I say to myself, trying to keep calm. The enemy has beaten us back to one of our last strongholds. I, along with the last five crossbowmen of my squad, take pot shots through the structure's murder holes. The enemy scouts' flesh is soft and yielding, like ours, so our bolts make quick work of them. However, as I looked over the merlon, the scouts were just the first wave and bolts peppered our walls. I say my three words and pause, was it possible that the enemy archers were saying the same thing?

[ericlangeauthor]

Monsters under cloaks

"One Romanian plum liqueur please," the man wearing the brown trench coat said. The bartender assumed he was from Romania based on both his request and his somewhat Slavic accent. "Let me see what we have," the bartender said, and he walked off to the back room. The man in the trench coat scraped his dirty nails into the bartop. If there were anyone else in the neon-lit dump, they could have smelled the pungent stink of sweat and worry coming from the man. The bartender came back with a glass of purple liquid and placed it in front of the man.  "This is all we have. I gave it a taste, and it's not too bad. A little too sweet for me," the bartender said, and he removed a cloth from his belt and began to clean up the chips of wood the man wearing the trench coat dug out of the bar's surface. The man grabbed the glass with shaking hands and downed it in one gulp. He placed both hands on the bar, and the bartender saw what looked like Russian carved into his skin.  "Another," the man said, almost growling.  "Sure thing, man," the bartender poured another shot from a purple bottle. The man in the trench coat grabbed the bartender's pouring hand. "Woah, what do you think you're doing?" He tried to pull his hand free but the trembling man held on.  "This is Japanese," the man in the trench coat said, pointing at the bottle's label. "I need Romanian," his hands were shaking enough that the bartender was able to yank his trapped hand free.  "This is all we have," the bartender repeated and crept towards the shotgun stored under the bar.  "Not good enough!" the trench coat waring man shouted. He smashed a fist into the bartop and broke the mahogany surface in two. The bartender figured the gun probably would not help.  "Let me check, one more time," he said and ran out the back door.