Just a writer writing for the people who worry they've missed the window to be whimsical. We all deserve to get lost in a daydream that brings a smile to our face and lose ourselves in stories where our friends are made of ink and live between pages.
Daily writing promptDo you believe in minimalism?View all responses
I dislike minimalism in a certain context. While I am a firm believer that less is more and that having things for the sake of having things is… a lot, I also think that their is something to be said for curating the space around you. My space looks like a Pinterest board. Books. Plants. Knickknacks. Craft supplies. Fish tanks.…
Bad Bunny performs at the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 08, 2026 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
I wrote this for a challenge in two hours, didn’t edit, just hit post. Hope you all like it and please excuse any errors/typos. It was a warm up.
Jane
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She was distracted as he kissed her, his mouth sloppy on hers, his teeth clashing against her own, his hands clumsy as he brought them to her face, nearly poking her eye out as he attempted to brush her hair from her face. Jane allowed the…
Not thrilled with the whole amazon Ai in Kindle unlimited thing. Can't even opt out as a creator. It's becoming a landscape where you either consent to being robbed by ai scraping your work, or struggle to find and connect with an audience.
Was trying to avoid publishing through Amazon and had posted this elsewhere before, but no one read or bought it so now I'm trying Amazon lol.
Anyway this is Scylla's Sunset, it's free with kindle unlimited. It's a post apocalyptic sort of deal where humanity (mostly) leaves the Earth because we RUINED IT and now are living on a planet named Scylla and have not learned our lesson. A short story of loss, found family and growth (trigger warnings for family loss.)
I thought I'd post chapter 1 here too for all of my fellow people hesitant to click random links to random websites (even though mine is legit I get it. )
Here ya go.
Alric
There was a simplicity in youth. As his life played out before him in the glint of the edge of a blade that he’d awoken to find at his throat, Alric decided that he’d not appreciated that simplicity enough when he’d had it. That simplicity had been so short lived that it was nearly forgotten.
Until that moment.
In that moment, all of that simplicity, the joys and sorrows, the heartbreak, every pain that he’d pushed back and forgotten rushed back to him and met him with a force that stole his breath.
In youth, it was always expected that Alric would grow up to be a farmer like his father, or a blacksmith if he was lucky enough to get training. No one asked what Alric wanted, because choice was a luxury for those with the coin to afford it, for people like Alric, they simply made money however they could, even if it was as a simple farmer. In his heart of hearts though, what he truly wanted was to be a scholar like the ones he’d see pass through town in their fancy silken clothes, books tucked away in fine leather bags and the both of them hidden mostly away in large ostentatious carriages.
While other children played at being knights and heroes, little Alric dreamt of looking over the little scribbles that he’d seen on pages in passing and understanding them; to have the magic to pull sound from the little symbols and tell a story or a decree or anything really. Every night he’d dream of writing a story to read to his mother as she would recite the fairy tales from memory that he loved so much. Both of them would be wrapped in a threadbare blanket that only warmed him thanks to her body heat as her raspy voice lulled him to sleep in their tiny, drafty shack of a home and he pictured the day he would read to her. Those simple nights when he was pressed tightly to his mother’s side so close that he could hear her heart beat, his lids would fall closed with an ease that only a child unburdened by the weight of the strain of life could have. As his eyes would tug shut he’d picture his dream life.
His dreams more mostly consisted of speaking to the king, reading this and that to him with all of the disjointed nonsensical nature of a child’s dreams, but what had been the most exciting part of the dream had been the social status. He dreamt of his bullies that teased him for his father’s drunken rants bowing down to him, of his mother being proud of him. He dreamt that with the money he’d make from his work, he would by his momma a great big home, so big that she’d get winded just walking from one end to the other. There would be no draft, no threadbare blankets, no more missed meals, no more of her crying over his father… He pictured her in fancy dresses with tables that overflowed with fruit and meats that he’d only ever seen as they passed them in the markets, from a distance and through the thick curtain of the servants shopping for the nobility that could actually afford it.
None of that happened of course. Rather than find the opportunity to learn to read, at the ripe age of ten he instead had the life altering opportunity of watching his home burn down while his family had slept inside. His father’s gambling debts had come for them and in the end the cost of debts and belligerence that he’d run from had been paid in full at the price of their lives.
He wasn’t even supposed to have been out that night. Alric had sneaked out to play hiding games with his friends in the neighbors tall crops of corn of one of the neighbors despite his mother telling him a million times not to do that lest the neighbor would ring his ears for ruining his crops. Alric of course had sneaked out anyway and then committed the mortal sin of having stayed out too late. He’d crept towards the house expecting a tongue lashing if he was unlucky enough to be caught sneaking in, expecting to see the dim candle lights of the dark house winding down for a good night’s rest.
You could imagine his surprise when he approached his home and instead found a ball of flame and ash, the heat of which warmed his ruddy face from the main road where his feet had planted themself. He froze in shocked silence, the chill of the cold season’s air carrying embers on the breeze as he stood petrified in horror. He swore he could hear his mother calling for him, something in him urged him to move forward, but his feet were rooted to the spot.
His lunch crawled up his throat and splattered on his his worn cloth shoes as his life burned before wide, watering, uncomprehending ten year old eyes.
The neighbors watched from afar, too scared to help him and bring the same misfortune upon themself, so instead he stood alone through the night and watched his family home burn to the ground until night turned to daybreak and his life, like his home, turned to ash.
Life was unkind after that. At times he thought that he should have died with them, at times he wished he had …
Then there was no one left who might have asked what he wanted to be. None of the children were aloud to play with him anymore, not that he had time to play. Alric had to work now that his family was gone. He picked up odd jobs around the town, mostly muck work that no one else would do and more often than not he slept under the bridge that led to town. No one offered to help him there was no charity. No one cared what the tragic son of the debt riddled town drunk wanted to be.
At some point, not even Alric cared.
With his mother, his father, his sister, his two brothers all dead, his dreams were buried. His hopes for his life had been charred in the fires and the ashes of that misfortune had marked him as an outcast in his small village and one could only get by on odd jobs, bread scraps and a sack under a bridge for so long, so he left for a coastal city with a plan.
At twelve Alric figured that if he could join a merchant ship and do the muck work for them since he was already used to it, his life would be made. Being an errand boy on a ship meant that he would be fed and sheltered at the very least. Even if it was not the life of luxury he’d dreamt of in his youth, it was better than eating scraps from rubbish bins and sleeping under bridges and being ridiculed by the town.
With no one to share a tearful goodbye with, Alric left his small town and made for the city where he joined the first ship that would have him far more quickly than he’d ever hoped for and it had surprisingly been good. The work was hard, the crew was cold, but there was a cat in the storage area where he was made to sleep that he’d befriended, his belly was not regularly empty and there was a roof over his head; all more than he’d had in a long time. He’d been content for a month.
Only a month.
While his past had burned up in flames, his future had drowned on that merchant ship. The chance for him to be anything more than a criminal had been robbed from him when he woke one night to screaming, to the sound of the men who who was beginning to befriend dying above deck. He’d hidden with the cat in his storage closet, his clothes wet from his own profuse sweating as he prayed not to be found… And then the storage room door swung open and the cat sprinted from his arms to cover, and that one eyed pirate with his cold regard, rotten teeth and a cruelty that rolled off of him as heavy as the stench of booze fixed his one good eye on Alric and smiled that wicked smile that became a staple of the nightmare that was the next five years of his life.
“Oh look.” He’d chuckled as warmth trickled down Alric’s leg and pooled below him, “The welp’s wet his britches.” He walked closer to Alric with his tell tale hobble from what he later found out had been a gunshot to his knee.
“Ya’know, I’ve always wanted a son.” The old pirate scratched at his dark beard thoughtfully, “A ward to raise in my image. Never much had time for raisin’ babes though. Maybe you’re lucky and I spare you.” He looked at Alric’s cowering form in obvious disgust, “Maybe you’re lucky and I make you strong enough to carry on my legacy.” His twisted smile somehow became more cruel as he held out a hand to Alric, a hand that Alric had not hesitated to take because in the man’s other hand had been a gun.
The years that followed had been a blur of hard labor and senseless regular beatings that had been all in the name of making him strong.
Somewhere in the middle of those years, he’d become something of his own nightmares. The kid had once been was so far removed from him that he had not seemed to remember that child had existed until now with the blade in his face and him facing the same fate the captain of the merchant ship had faced when his ship had been hijacked and sunken.
But he was no merchant ship captain, was he?
He snarled in disgust of his own nostalgia, his hand coming to his waist to grab the blade that he’d kept tucked there even when he slept because there was no rest for the wicked-
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Ice hit his blood when he’d heard that clipped, silken voice that dragged him back to the world of nostalgia with a force that froze his movements before his fingers ever found the dagger. Squinting in the dim light of his dark quarters he studied the concealed face of the figure before him.
It couldn’t be. If it was her...
His eyes strained to the point of aching in the glow of the oil lantern on his desk across the room as the last dregs of the grogginess of sleep left him. The face was covered, hair and mouth wrapped in a dark cloth meant to hide her identity, but that voice and those eyes– he could see it in the striking blue eyes like two lagoons that stared dispassionately back at him.
If it was her–
A memory returned to him with the force that he could not brace himself for. Umber skin smooth like silk, bright eyes twinkling up at him as if all of the stars had been captured in them, corded hair splayed out on little yellow flowers, the curve of a smile on her lips against his as he pressed breathless stolen kisses to them that left him feeling drunk from the rush of them, the thrill of her pressed against him like she was meant to be there, the passionate, clumsy, unskilled tangle of youth.
No.
It couldn’t, be her. She was gone. He’d seen her go, risked everything to see her go and prayed she’d made it far from this place and had lived the simple life that he never could. It couldn’t be, please don’t let it be her-
“Callista?” He heard the dull thud of the half step he took towards her without feeling it, without feeling the nick of the blade as he did so. Those impossibly blue eyes went impossibly wide as the name tumbled from his cracked lips.
Never again had he thought he’d seen her. The turns their lives had taken… His heart ached to find that she had become like him; a criminal.
While he thought he’d never see her again, in his dreams the defied logic he dreamt that if they did reunite it would be with a tearful embrace of star crossed lovers, not with him on the losing side of them having crossed blades. However, it seemed that she was in no way as affected as he was. While he could only stare at the eyes behind the mask with a nostalgic reverence that had his pulse in his ears and his knees weak, she seemed quite composed.
“Shut up.” She barked coldly as her shockingly sharp elbow made an introduction to his ribs.
“Fuck!” He wheezed, embarrassed to be winded by the force of the well placed blow.
Grabbing him by the collar, she pulled him closer, keeping the blade between them, her eyes bored into him with an intensity that made his chest ache and he felt lost in those eyes like a map-less man in a dingy on a turbulent sea on a starless, moonless night.
“I am looking for Goldbeard the Grey. Our patron wants us to leave no survivors, Alric.” Her tone was harsh now, urgent even as the words poured into his ear, but to him they sounded like honey, his name like a song on the sea breeze from her lips and for a moment he was so captured by the reality that it truly was her that the weight of her words had not sunk in.
“Goldbeard…?” He parroted back quietly, trailing off, his eyes taking in the few snatched of her concealed face that he could find, drinking it in. Her hair was longer now, the thin dark twists escaping from the black scarf tied over her face and hair in an attempt to conceal her identity. She had thick rings of black makeup around her eyes, meant to add to the disguise he supposed, but all he could think was that she smelled the same; like jasmine and sea breeze, like hope and freedom, like warmth; like home. It had been so long and still all he wanted was to reach out for her as he had done when they’d been so very young. He longed to brush his thumb against her cheek, to pull her to him and know that she was real. That longing was so strong that it brought him to the point of distraction. She was talking again and he had no idea what she was saying.
“What was that?” He asked dumbly, dreamily. Perhaps he was dreaming, that was the only place he saw her now; in his dreams. His head snapped sideways as she slapped him across the face before pulling him closer by the collar. Perhaps he was not dreaming and she certainly was real, an idea that was somehow more confusing.
“I do not want to hurt you. Just tell me where Goldbeard is and I will let you go.” She paused her level headed speech long enough for him to know that she was hesitant to say what came next, a dark look crossing her eyes as she took in his face, “For old times sake.”
His heart sank for two reasons as he studied the look in those pools of deep blue eyes as she looked him over with all of the cold regard of a stranger. Firstly, he still could not understand why she was not as affected by this encounter as he was. Was her heart not stuck in her throat like his was? Were her palms not sweaty? Did time not stop around them for her? Did she not want him to pull her close, jump into the ocean to be at the mercy of the waves? To him being crushed to death against the ship with her seemed better than standing at odds with her alive- seemed better than a future without her now that the option presented itself.
The second reason for his discontent aside from the blade to his throat was that she was here at all. This was not the life for her. A blade in her hand was not the life he’d hoped for her when they parted. This reunion was one that even his greedy heart to want to burden her with.
“Where is Goldbeard?!” She pressed again when the silence on his end only continued, leaning the dagger in closer to his skin, her voice as lethal as the blade.
“I-” His voice cracked, he cleared his throat to work the shock of the situation out of it, “I am Goldbeard the Grey.” He admitted because he realized in that moment that he wouldn’t even mind dying by her hand. In that moment he realized that he was tired, and not because his sleep had been interrupted. Perhaps he had been tired for a long time. He hadn’t even known that he’d felt that way until that very moment.
Dying by her hand did not seem so bad. It would be better than a blade in his back when someone on his crew inevitably challenged his title, or a bullet in his face from an enemy, or the gallows if the crown caught him. Besides, he wouldn’t mind her being the last thing that he saw.
At his admission of who he was, he saw her eyes go wide in shock and then flat.
“Don’t lie to save him.” She hissed, jostling him roughly by the collar again, “He would not risk his life for you. You should not risk yours for him. I know you are not dumb enough to take the fall for this.” She spoke in the same flat, blunt, logical way she that had when he’d known her before. He found himself glad to see that this had not changed at least.
”Would you believe that I’m stupid enough to tell you the truth right now? The truth that I am Goldbeard.” He couldn’t help but smirk, even if it was joyless.
Her eyes searched his for a long moment before the pressure of the blade on his throat lifted ever so slightly.
“It should not be you.” She muttered, her eyes lifting from him and darting around the room as if somewhere in there was the answer her dilemma her brows pulling together in what looked like… irritation? Sorrow? Disbelief? He couldn’t tell.
“It’s okay.” He put his hand over her own that held the blade to his throat, “I’ve lived enough.” He smiled gently, “If it’s you and you have to, it’s okay.” He nodded resolutely.
Her hand was shaking under his as he pulled it closer to him, he could hear that her breathing was ragged, see the conflict in her eyes as they flashed from one emotion to the next to quickly for him to read what they were.
Perhaps she was as affected as he was. This made him happy.
He closed his eyes to make it easier for her, pictured her face in his mind and waited.
