r/shortstories • u/OldBayJ Mod | r/ItsMeBay • Mar 07 '21
Serial Sunday [SerSun] Serial Sunday: Courage!
Welcome to Serial Sunday!
Please be sure to read the entire post before submitting; there are changes!
To those brand new to the feature and those returning from last week, welcome! Do you have a self-established universe you’ve been writing or planning to write in? Do you have an idea for a world that’s been itching to get out? This is the perfect place to explore that. Each week, I will post a single theme to inspire you. You have 850 words to tell the story. Feel free to jump in at any time if you feel inspired. Writing for previous weeks’ themes is not necessary in order to join.
This week's theme is Courage!
As we explore the overarching theme of ‘change’ for March, we will focus on “courage” this week. Courage comes in all shapes and sizes; big and small and dark and light. What fears will your characters face this week? How will they overcome them? Are they heroes of the people or simply heroes in their own mind? What effect will their choices have on the world around them? These are just a few things to get you started. Remember, the theme should be present within the story, but its interpretation is completely up to you.
Theme Schedule:
I recognize that writing a serial can take a bit of planning. Each week, I will be releasing the following 2 weeks’ themes here in the Schedule section of the post.
- March 7 - Courage (this week)
- March 14 - Distortion
- March 21- Resistance
How It Works:
In the comments below, submit a story that is between 500 - 850 words in your own original universe, inspired by this week’s theme. (Using the theme word is welcome but not necessary.) This can be the beginning of a brand new serial or an installment in your in-progress serial. You have until 6pm EST the following Saturday to submit your story. Please make sure to read all of the rules before posting!
The Rules:
All top-level comments must be a story. Use the stickied comment for off-topic discussion and questions you may have.
Your story must be written for this post. You may do outlining and planning ahead of time, but I encourage you to wait until the post is released to begin writing for the current week. Pre-written content or content written for another prompt/post will not be allowed.
Your story should be 500-850 words. Use wordcounter.net to check your word count.
The deadline to submit your story is now 6pm on Saturday. That is one hour before the beginning of Campfire. Stories submitted after the deadline will not be eligible for rankings and will not be read during campfire.
Begin your post with the name of your serial between triangle brackets (e.g. <My Awesome Serial>). You must use the same serial name for each installment of your serial. If not, the bot won’t recognize your serial installments.
Submissions are limited to one serial submission from each author per week.
Each author must leave a comment on at least 2 other stories during the course of the week. This is mandatory! That comment should include at least one detail about what the author has done well. Failing to meet the 2 comment requirement will disqualify you from weekly rankings. You have until the following Sunday at 12pm EST to fulfill your feedback requirements.
While content rules are more relaxed here at r/ShortStories, we’re going to roll with the loose guidelines of "vaguely family friendly" being the rule of thumb for now. If you’re ever unsure if your story would cross the line, feel free to modmail!
Reminders:
Make sure your post on this thread also includes links to your previous installments, if you have a currently in-progress serial. Those links must be direct links to the previous installment on the preceding Serial Saturday/Sunday posts or to your own subreddit or profile. But an in-progress serial is not required to start. You may jump in at any time.
Saturdays I will be hosting a Serial Campfire on the discord main voice lounge. Join us to read your story aloud, hear other stories, and share your own thoughts on serial writing! We start at 7pm EST. You can even come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Don’t worry about being late, just join!
You can nominate your favorite stories each week. Send me a message on discord, reddit, or through modmail and let me know by 12pm EST the following Sunday. You do not have to attend the campfire, or have read all of the stories, to make nominations.
Authors who successfully finish a serial with at least 8 installments will be featured with a modpost recognizing their completion and a flair banner on the subreddit. Authors are eligible for this highlight post only if they have followed the 2 feedback comments per thread rule (and all other post rules).
There’s a Super Serial role on the Discord server, so make sure you grab that so you’re notified of all Serial Sunday related news!
Note About Rankings:
Rankings are currently suspended due to lack of feedback on the thread. Feedback matters; it’s how we improve and grow as writers. It’s also a requirement for this feature. In the same regard, rankings depend on your nominations, so please make sure you send me a message here on reddit or on discord with your favorites before the deadline next Sunday. Thank you to everyone who has given feedback week in and week out. It doesn’t go unnoticed. I hope to see a lot more participation this coming week.
Subreddit News
Sharpen your micro-fic skills by participating in our brand new feature, Micro Monday
Looking for critiques and feedback for your story? Check out our new sub r/WPCritique
Join our discord to chat with authors, prompters, and readers!
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u/acaiborg Mar 08 '21 edited Mar 22 '21
<Abyss>
[FADE IN]
EXT: MOON SURFACE
WIDE SHOT of Moon Drill driving slowly across the Randon's surface. Midway through the shot, the drill stops, and out steps The Director, in a full spacesuit. He removes his helmet, showing off his pearly white smile.
[CUT TO]: MEDIUM CLOSE UP of THE DIRECTOR
THE DIRECTOR: Thanks to your dedication, Project Cosmos is now prepared to look at the stars beyond! We are now looking for scientists, engineers, and potential exonauts for our next mission on the beautiful Randon B-5!
[CUT TO]: WIDE SHOT of Randon B-5. It looks very dusty and moon-like.
VOICEOVER (THE DIRECTOR): Well, it’s not beautiful on the outside. But!
[CUT TO]: MEDIUM CLOSE UP of THE DIRECTOR
THE DIRECTOR: If we’ve learned anything from splitting the atom, it’s that it’s the inside that counts.
[CUT TO]: CLOSE UP of THE DIRECTOR
THE DIRECTOR: So come on down to the Los Angeles Aeronautics Center today and see if you’re fit for our team!
[DIP TO BLACK]
~
“Colonel, do you read me? Colonel?”
Static.
Frustrated, she set down the radio and decided to look around the rest of the area. The cave-in could have only done so much damage, right? Only one way to check.
General shelter, check. Tap, check. Greenhouse, check. Generator and flashlight batteries, check for now. Exits? Nope. Emergency drill? Crushed. Other people? Probably dead. There wasn’t a single heat signature, aside from her and some sort of electromagnetic disturbance from the depths below.
She estimated that she was about 50, no, 60 miles below the surface of what the federation called Randon B-5, a hellscape about 300 light-years away from Terra Prima. In other words? Doctor Melanie Hux was screwed, 30 times over.
She didn’t understand. Supports and scaffolding were in place everywhere. Exowave detection showed no signs of a possible quake anywhere near her side of the rock. One thing she did understand though, was that the further they went into the moon, the further they were getting to something. Whatever it was, didn’t want them going any further than it did, throwing obstacles at them with every step they took. Something was down there, down in those depths, that the federation wanted their hands on, no matter the cost. What exactly was it?
“Classified information,” said her superiors.
“You don’t wanna know,” said her fellow scientists.
“Fools’ gold!” said everyone else she knew.
And while following the rules seemed tempting, the Pandora's Box lying in the chasms below was begging to be opened.
~
Small index cards ruffled into a cacophony of wood-skins as The Director attempted to make his statement.
“We are here today to…” he lost his focus and gazed into one of the cameras. Was there a spaghetti stain on his shirt? He jolted himself back to focus and looked at his cue cards. “...Here today to recognize the catastrophic failure which has berated us in these otherwise silent hours of the dawn.”
The camera crews and news journalists stood, watching, waiting. The Director knew whatever he said would be an utter disaster in the public eye. Putting it flat was the least he could do for them.
“At approximately 4:28 AM, Pacific Time, we at Project Cosmos detected a major quake originating a mile off from our B-5 Moonbase. The spread of the damage is unknown at this time, but it would be a true miracle if anyone were alive. At this very moment, we are scanning the structural integrity of the moon to determine if a rescue team is even to be considered. We thank you for your time.” He folded the cards up, put them callously into his pocket, and staggered off stage, only to rush back in and mumble the following:
“There will be no further questions.”
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u/MossRock42 Mar 08 '21 edited Mar 13 '21
<Sam Bowyer>
Part 1: On our own
I was born on a late winter morning, down in Missouri. Dad was a farmer and a truck driver. He got killed when the tractor rolled over on top of him. Mom was a fiery Christian woman. She was short but made up for it when the time came.
Mom ended up going to jail for assaulting the banker Mr. Riley. He propositioned her and she let him have it. She broke his nose and was beating him senseless when they dragged her off him. He was in the wrong, but he had a lot of influence over the Judge in the case. This left me and my older brother Danny to fend for ourselves. We were only teens at the time, but there was no one around anymore to look after us.
People said Danny wasn’t right in the head. He wasn’t retarded, but he took some beatings while growing up. One day he had what the doctors called a mental breakdown. He tore off all his clothes and took off down the road buck naked. After that, he spent time at the hospital. When they sent him back home they said he was stable, but to me, he was a lot different than before. He obsessed over the Book of Revelations and the end times. People called him the doomsday preacher and others ‘Slick’ because of the way he wore his hair.
I was more into hunting and fishing. For a while, we were able to get by on what we could catch and hunt. Then one day the banker Mr. Riley showed up with the sheriff and a notice of foreclosure on the farm. He said we had to get our stuff and get out.
We didn’t have much, to begin with. So we filled some backpacks with some food and some gear. They took everything else.
We hitched a ride to a friend's house and stayed there a few nights. Danny got into his preaching about the end times. This caused a bit of a ruckus, and the old man of the place said we best be on our way. I offered to work for him, but he shook his head.
We ended up working for a guy in an old junkyard. We took things apart and he paid us piece by piece. The 'Junkman' we called him. He drank a lot and was a mean drunk. He always had this scowl on his face like he was mad at the world for being born.
One night we were playing cards after work. I won the hand fair and square but he accused me of cheating. I said I would meet him outside if he wanted.
Then while I was looking at my cards, he sucker-punched me. It knocked me out of the chair. He came at me again but was too slow. I rolled out of the way, then got up and punched him in the face. He came at me again, I dodged his swing. Then I hit him hard. This one landed on his nose. I felt it break and could see the blood start coming from it. He yelled, "Ok, goddammit!" Then he backed off.
We were back on the road the next morning.
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u/acaiborg Mar 09 '21
Mossrock, I must open this by saying this is a very unique story. Not often do I see something like this in the WP-related subs.
I would also like to say, while I enjoy your opening, I feel, it is too stagnant I suppose? The sentences feel choppier than they should be, although I understand if that was what you're going for. It definitely explains itself as a southern/midwestern sort of story, so I suppose that type of style could play right into that.
"Dad was a farmer but killed when the tractor rolled over on top of him."
I would recommend putting a comma somewhere in this line.
Have a nice day! - Acai
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u/MossRock42 Mar 09 '21
Thank you for the feedback. I will probably do some ninja editing to improve the introduction.
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u/Xacktar Mar 11 '21
Hi Mossrock!
Like, Acaiborg said, I feel like you have a very interesting premise here, but you are keeping everything too far away from us readers. You are giving us the bullet points of his life instead of the story.
Try to slow your pace a little, give us details! Things that are said, seen, heard, smelled, felt. Focus on bringing us into the moment first, then work on giving us the history behind it and why we're there.
For me, this story doesn't start until the sucker punch. I think if you had opened with that and the fight, then you could have used a scene with him talking to his brother in the aftermath to explain the history. It would have grounded us into the story and helped us become more invested in the characters.
:)
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u/MossRock42 Mar 11 '21
Try to slow your pace a little, give us details! Things that are said, seen, heard, smelled, felt. Focus on bringing us into the moment first, then work on giving us the history behind it and why we're there.
That's good advice. Thanks for reading.
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u/ravenight Mar 11 '21 edited Mar 11 '21
I like the set up you have here - I'm intrigued to learn more about the brothers and it has both a unique feel and a comfortable romansbildung beginning.
The opening of this feels like Tristram Shandy or David Copperfield in the way that it builds out a character from birth. In each of those books, though, the narrator selects unique details about the birth or the circumstances of it (winding the clock, the old wives' tales about being born on a Friday) to focus attention while they fill in the background around it with digressions.
So I would recommend that if you are going to start with the MC's birth, choose a salient detail about that birth (it could be the late winter morning, though something else might be easier to work with) and make it unique in some way. Work it into the rest of the opening. Or it could be that you want to pull a later detail forward and frame the opening section as somehow inevitably leading to that detail.
I also found the sentences choppy because they are all about the same length. I don't think you want to tinker too much and lose the character's voice, but adding a long sentence or a very short one occasionally to break up the rhythm would make it read a lot easier.
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u/ColeZalias Mar 12 '21
Hello Mossrock! This is very excellent description! I feel the tone that you are trying to put across to the reader, and while I do like how the narration fits the character you have described, I don't really feel a connection to him apart from how he is speaking/telling this story.
I don't know how you're going to progress with this, or how you want this to be formatted, but if you are planning for this story to be driven by these characters I'd suggest trying to show the reader these details instead of telling it through narration. Sometimes these details are the best when they are conveyed in dialogue and it would make this very interesting plot a lot more impactful if we can get into the heads of the characters through a more grounded type of story telling.
But take this with a grain of salt because if this is your jam then I'm totally down with it, but just as a heads up in case what I've described is how you want this story to continue.
Keep up the good work!
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u/EdsMusings Mar 13 '21
I love the setting and feeling of this story, this rural American tale of brothers.
There's not much I can say that the other feedbackers haven't said already.
Great work!
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u/mattswritingaccount Mar 08 '21 edited Jun 14 '21
<<Edit removed for potential publication>>
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u/ColeZalias Mar 10 '21
<Subsidized>
Part 20: A Mirror
“It’s less than an hour until I’m expected to be out there! Don’t you understand that I’m in here trying to compose myself and your knocking does nothing to help me!”
I most certainly understood, but the rage that resonated from his voice and the terror it produced from me went way beyond my understanding. I was tempted to book it for the hallway and hope to God he doesn’t catch up. “I’m sorry,” I whimpered. “I was looking for someone.”
“Well, you can look elsewhere!”
He firmly pointed towards the door, his finger shaking due to the tenseness of his muscles. His forehead was boiling with redness and was decorated with the visible stress of the veins. My head slouched and my vision fixated on my shoes while they bashfully shuffled towards the door. It was worth a try, but as the man had said, it would be best to wait until the ceremony was over.
“Wait wait,” he beckoned, though this time with a much gentler voice. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice, I’m just under a lot of pressure at the moment.”
The weight of his previous words was easy to get over with this newfound calmness, but I was still dreading the invitation to stay in the room with him. This was Adam Bennett, the groom, i.e., husband of soon to be Ms Bennett.
And that thought terrified me.
I’ve never been a jealous type, and I’m still not, but there was a feeling that washed over me, one that was difficult to put a name on. The idea that this was the man that she’s chosen to be with. I understand it, and I’m not against it, but I can’t quite articulate it since I used to be where this guy was now. This wasn’t necessarily a person I didn’t want to speak to, but it was in fact a person that I didn’t know how to speak to. That scared me more than the volume of his words.
“It’s ok…” I whispered. “It’s your wedding day, it wasn’t my place to barge in here unannounced.”
“But it also wasn’t my place to scream at you.”
He turned and slumped into a nearby chair and massaged his forehead with his thumb and middle finger. I couldn’t help but feel comfort in knowing that I wasn’t the only one who was stressed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
I wasn’t surprised he didn’t know; he would have brought it up by now. “Marcus.” Though it wasn’t in my best interest to tell him, at least not yet. This would be a bad time to see if he was a jealous type.
“Nice to meet you, and you obviously already know me. If you’re trying to find someone, you’ll have more luck at the bar.”
As we continued talking, I could sense the energy in his voice begin to drain. All that intensity had escaped him. All that was left was an exhausted husk. “Where’s your best man? Don’t they usually talk you through this sort of thing?”
He scoffed. “You’re right, but he’s off chatting up one of the bridesmaids. But you know, he’s just one of those guys.”
“I know the type.”
His hands combed up into his hair where he anxiously brushed it side to side. “I should be excited, but I’m not. I feel like no matter how much I try to make this stress go away; I just find something else to fixate on. You know?”
“More than most.”
He swiftly peered up at me. I looked into his eyes and it felt like staring in a mirror. That same look of hopelessness that I saw every morning, just trying to get through this mess.
“Why should I be afraid?”
And it was then, where I felt like I was talking to myself, that I took a deep breath, and said what someone should have told me a long time ago.
“You’re afraid of failure. That you’ll screw it up. But obviously, you’ve done something right because there’s a person at the end of that aisle who wants you to trust them that they’ll make it go away. All the sadness, all the hoops you had to jump through to get where you are now. This fear is because you think you’re not good enough, and sometimes we’re not. We’re never gonna know when the hardships are over, we’re only gonna know when there’s someone to help you through them. And it appears that there is, and she’s waiting for you.”
I got to this point in my life through struggles that I overcame, but now that there were people around me to make sure I stayed on my feet, is when I realized that even when I didn’t know it, they were the ones I was fighting for. At least he knows it now.
His face brightened and patted me on the shoulder. He let out a slight chuckle of relief. “I’ll try not to screw it up.”
I chuckled with him. “I trust that you won’t.”
WC: 848
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u/Xacktar Mar 11 '21 edited Mar 14 '21
<Captain's Orders>
"This has been a very weird day."
Joe said this to himself, which was a bit rude since he wasn't technically alone. If you counted all the dead bodies around him, then he really, really wasn't alone. Joe didn't count them. He only counted the Assistant Assistant Coroner's Assistant, whose name was Robin. She was two slabs over, humming to herself as she scrubbed the gooier bits of blood splatter off the stainless steel. He couldn't tell what she looked like under the respirator and the hairnet, but her humming sounded soft and pleasant.
"I had to dress up like a barista." Joe assumed it might sound a bit more reasonable if he said it aloud. "I bribed a barista... to wear his uniform... to calm down a police chief."
He was quite wrong on that assumption.
"Yeh. Yeh. That's the overworld for you." Robin stopped her cleaning a stared at the flourescent lighting above. "Can't trust it. They have the gloves up there! Gloves!"
Joe's eyes wanted to glaze over, but instead they slowly turned toward the young woman. He checked, and she was, indeed, not wearing gloves. She'd been scrubbing bits of gore and goop and other terrible things this whole time, but not with gloves.
She wore oven mitts.
"Uh..." He tried to fight it. He knew it would only make things worse. Yet the words spilled out like black bean sauce from Chinese takeout. "Gloves?"
"They're filthy." Her whole body shivered with the word, powder blue scrubs crinkling along. "I spent years in medical school, ya know. I saw it all, finally put the pieces together. It's obvious! So simple! No one would believe me. They never believed me."
Joe blinked twice, just in case he'd fallen asleep. "About the gloves?"
"Yes, about the gloves!" Robin's mitts scrubbed harder at the slab. "Every time a dead body is brought to me, it's been contaminated by gloves! Every time! I have never seen a dead body without the gloves touching it, carrying it, even when it's just bits and pieces. Those blue nitrile gloves. They're the source of death itself!"
The blinking continued, then was joined by a brand new twitching muscle in his neck. Joe could almost see it. He could. "So, if you don't wear gloves, then... you won't die."
"Exactly!" The Assistant Assistant Coroner's Assistant tried to slam her hand on a nearby surgical tray, but the oven mitt made it more of a flopping sound. "I'm safe here, right under death's very nose and it can't get me!"
He expected a cackle. There should be a cackle after a line like that. It was calculated to be very cackle-able, so when it didn't come it led to a very awkward silence. Robin shrugged and returned to scrubbing, leaving Joe alone with his thoughts.
He didn't like that at all.
"So why would gloves-"
"Nitrile gloves!" Robin mitten-pointed out.
"Nitrile gloves, yes. Why would they cause death?"
"Oh, it's simple, really." Robin fumbled with a spray bottle as she talked. "The gloves have become a representational omen of our collective fear of death. Yeh. The more we ascribe to the fear, the closer we come to accepting it. If we perceive death to be inevitable, then we make it so. Our society is contaminated with mental glove-etry, trying in vain to protect ourselves, but in doing so, we create legitimacy to the fear itself."
She mastered the spray bottle and honked it a few times toward a stubborn spot of dried intestine.
"But, I mean, the, uh..." Both Joe's neck and eyes, and now an eyebrow were telling him to stop, but he pushed forward in spite of them. He had to know. "...the oven mitts. Why...?"
"Oh, these are fine. They're life-mitts. They enhance my inner-immortality. Also, they're nice and warm. Always had cold hands, ya see."
"Ah, of course."
"I can make some for you, if you want. Assuming, of course, that you've kept yourself safe from the evil touch of gloves."
"Oh, I have." Joe promised. "Never been gloved, completely without glove. Gloveless in Seattle. In fact, I can safely say that my glove life is practically nonexistent."
"Wonderful!" She flapped her mitts together, vaguely reminiscent of a circus seal. "I'll make you a pair in a nice, dark blue. You look like a blue to me."
Joe looked up at the lights himself, wondering what he'd done wrong to get assigned to this sort of place.
Then he sighed and dropped his head. "Yeah, blue. Blue fits."
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u/Sonic_Guy97 Mar 11 '21
<No More Knights>
The shadow of The Table grew long as the hot summer sun kissed the horizon. Gavin had said his goodbyes to the council an hour ago but had languished in the shade after Lance’s assurance that he’d just be a minute. With that promise broken, Gavin headed home, hopefully with dinner waiting for him.
As Gavin pulled up to his house, however, a bowl of homemade chili didn’t greet him. Instead, his youngest brother Andrew jumped from the porch as Gavin’s motorcycle coasted into his spot. The redheaded and freckled 16-year-old hollered a hello as his brother slowly made his way to the front door, which Gavin responded to with a series of questions.
“So, how’d you like your first council meeting? Was it e’rythin’ you’d hoped it would be? I must admit, this one was a little less eventful than others, but you’ll get e’rythin’ from board meetin’s to fist fights with that crowd.” Gavin prattled on, clearly seeing Andrew was wanting to get a word in but was too well mannered to interrupt. After a minute of small talk, Gavin finally took a breath and ceded the floor.
“It was real interestin’. I really wanna know who the guys who ambushed you and Lance are though.” Andrew paused to stare at his shoes. “Gavin, what happened with Art and Lance back at The Table? When Lance suggested Art be mayor, I ain’t never seen Art like that.”
Gavin thought back to when he knew Art as the charismatic, strong willed sheriff that was everybody’s friend. Nobody seemed to bring up the fact that Art was sheriff nowadays, but he supposed that’s all Andrew had ever known him as.
“Art’s got a way of making things work ‘round here. He likes to play both sides of ‘good cop, bad cop’, and you just never seen him do bad cop before. Don’t worry, if you don’t get on his bad side you won’t need to see bad cop.”
“I guess. Somethin’ still don’t sit right with me, though.” Andrew turned his head up, his innocent hazel eyes staring up into Gavin’s sun-worn face.
“You don’t worry about a thing. Go to a few more meetin’s and you’ll get used to how things work behind the scenes. We better get inside before dinner gets cold.” Gavin ruffled Andrew’s hair and guided him inside to the dinner table.
After dinner, Gavin made his way out front and stared up at the clear black sky. Andrew wasn’t the only one that thought something was off about Art’s behavior. Art was hiding something about the ambush, and Gavin knew how close they’d gotten to bloodshed at the meeting. Andrew had his seat in the council partially because a new member had been just a bit too candid at the last gathering, but the young guy didn’t need to know that just yet.
Gavin blinked, and the stars blinked back. He wondered how long before he was on Art’s bad side. Come to think of it, that ambush may mean he already was. If only he knew what Art had done and what he’d planned. Hell, Art’s house with his personal office was just down the street, and Art probably wouldn’t be back for a while. If the light’s were off it would be trivial to pop inside and look around unseen.
Gavin looked down the road at the house, a single-story wooden structure much like his own. He turned to head down the road when a voice stopped him in his tracks. “You ain’t as slick as you think you is.” Andrew came out of the dark corner of the porch where he’d been hiding. “I knew you was lying about not needin’ to worry. You’re getting’ some answers, ain’t ya?”
“And what if I am?” Gavin found himself looking up at Andrew standing on the porch. “Just cause I’m curious about some of the goin’s on don’t mean you need to worry.” “But I do need to worry. I saw you durin’ the meetin’: You was scared. Hell, you was scared more than I was, so I’m bettin’ this ain’t the first time this happened, and last time didn’t end so nicely. I’m in the council, whether you like it or not, so I need to know just as much as you do.” Andrew stood above Gavin, his eyes windows into an immovable soul. Gavin gave a sly, but approving, smile, then walked up to the porch.
“Alright, Hamlet, enough with the soliloquies. You’re right, I am suspicious of what’s been going on. I don’t like the way Lance and Art are always gossipin’ like schoolgirls, and I want to know what’s so interesting. So, here’s the plan: we’re gonna go to Art’s office and look around. If we find nothin’ we drop this whole thing. If we find somethin’, well,…we’ll figure that out once we find somethin’. Now, you ready to go find out what we don’t know?”
Andrew beamed at his older brother. “Never been more ready for anythin’.”
“Then let’s get walkin’.” And with that, they set off.
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u/ravenight Mar 12 '21 edited Mar 14 '21
<Apples off a Distant Tree>
Chapter 4
In retrospect, Darian should have wondered about how often local business caught fire. He didn't notice at the time because he was searching for jobs. He was searching, that is, for which types of Assemblies tended to result in fires.
Darian fingered his cloche buckle as he leafed through his parents' hoard of old papers. So many options! If an Assembly caused a fire, it probably worked with fire. He hoped. Find the right one and his split could be useful full-time.
He had almost stopped leafing. All these were lighting accidents: candle tipped over; lantern spilled; lantern dropped on stairs; lantern spilled on a tipped-over candle. Then he saw the Playhouse Fire.
Magic lantern shows used fire, of course! Not just to see or to keep the winter out but to make the show happen.
"We typically get Assembly tour requests, Mr. Weltner," Counselor Sheehan told him, "from children about to graduate, not younger students like yourself." She set him up to observe a few local playhouses anyway.
* * *
Undifferentiated stagehands throttled the lamps. Darkness rushed into the theater, smothering the roar of conversation. Gossip, a pre-show ritual, concluded with a sharp cough and a chorus of creaking seat frames.
The smoldering cherries of pipes mixed with floating after-images of the lamplight, as though the whole chamber was a fire pit waiting to be rekindled. Darian caught his breath.
Bands of color blazed across the far wall. Crowned by brilliant white clouds, a powdery blue sky dissolved into a cerulean horizon that stretched down to the tawny shoreline. The layering and detail astonished him. Both were far beyond the effect achieved by the last two playhouses he'd toured. Parasols crackled red and yellow and orange, whipped by an ocean breeze he could almost feel.
The Assemblies at those other shows had given him hope. Each one had a fire manipulator. The tight-lipped Mrs. Nance could raise and lower colored flames to light different panels. The inappropriate Geoffrey had cast aside his cloche and amplified an Argand lamp while another mate tinted the gel it shone through. Fascinating and a bit gross.
This playhouse belonged to Jerron's dad, a wealthy financier whose wife ran the city with an iron fist. Some Assembly he owned had ginned up a device that raised and lowered superheated quicklime to control the light. An Undifferentiated stagehand with a torch kept the quicklime hot. There was no role for fire manipulation, nor for Darian. He'd really wanted the show to be bad.
The changing sound was hard to notice at first. He had a spot between the blazing quicklime and the Assembly mates. Charlie--who had been very friendly--gave him an odd look, then turned back to his work.
With three split powers and a forest of mirrors to wrangle, Darian couldn't follow how they harnessed the light. But they did, and Charlie made it magical.
"Hmm, whad'ja say?" whispered Charlie. He eyeballed the swirling gel, tweaking it to tease and break and wobble the light before it burst through the colored plate and onto the wall.
"Nothing," Darian murmured. The whine of the torch was an octave too high. How had he not heard it before? He stepped back. Charlie had stopped tweaking and was staring open-mouthed at the torch. Murmurs and shuffles swelled through the crowd.
The whine stopped. Its absence rang out like the last snap of a drum beat in that moment before a gun salute.
The crowd exhaled. A few nervous laughs rasped as people found their seats in the dim reflected light. That was when the lamps erupted.
The lamps, dimmed to lazy blues, nestled in sconces along the side aisles, flared white-hot. Glass splattered out into the rows of seats as ochre flames climbed the curtains lining each wall.
A mass of flailing limbs stampeded towards Darian, who stood closest to the exits. He was riveted in place, seeing only the inside of Julia's apartment, the purple drapes that had covered her door splitting and melting in that same ochre blaze.
He was shoved, elbowed, shouldered, and squeezed between the bodies but he fought against the tide, against the shouts, against the pouring heat and smoke.
He unbuckled his cloche like the hero of half the shows he'd seen in this theater, striding forth to meet the enemy. So what if he'd split his 'noch months ago? This was what he had chosen. It was perfect. He was perfect.
Too perfect. This was too much like the fire that had compelled his split. It ran along the wood in the same liquid way. Not at all like the fire he'd caused himself last week. That one had charred and split the wood quickly, belching smoke and whipping out at him with forked yellow tongues. This fire oozed and ran in playful eddies.
He couldn't hope to damp it all. The true danger was the torch - if he could keep the fuel inside from igniting, the fire crew would surely arrive in time to contain the rest.
wc: 845 - all feedback welcome; thanks for reading!
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u/Badderlocks_ Mar 12 '21 edited Jun 02 '21
<Chthonomachy>
The hammer vanished.
“Still immortal,” Hephaestus mused, fingering the arrow. “I suspected as much, but I never really had the conviction to try it out for myself.”
“Oh, are we stopping it here?” Takai asked. He dropped his own bow, which also disappeared in a puff of mist. “That’s a shame; I really wanted to kill him.”
“He fired the bow,” Athena sighed. “And he can’t do that without your help, Artemis.”
So?
“So you would really kill one of your own to protect the mortal.” Athena made a disappointed sound. “How far you’ve fallen.”
Reyes gripped the bow so tightly his fingers were turning white. “What the hell is happening?” he asked hoarsely.
My siblings are having their fun. Artemis seemed as disgusted as Athena was.
“This was a joke?” Reyes asked, a sudden exhaustion washing over him. “What is wrong with you people?”
“Gods,” Hephaestus corrected as he returned to his desk and plopped into the chair. “You should be glad our father really is dead.”
“True,” Athena said. “His idea of a joke was turning into a bull and— well.”
“If it makes you feel better, I wasn’t really joking,” Takai added.
“It would have been convenient for you to die, but we don’t always get what we—”
“Enough,” Reyes snarled, cutting off Athena. “I’m done with your games. The illusions, the shushing, pretending to try and kill me— I’m done.”
He stormed from the room, then froze.
No.
Reyes struggled, but could barely move his muscles enough to take another step forward. “Let me go.”
You are bold for a mortal, but we need them. I need them.
Reyes twisted his neck slightly and found the action easier than stepping forward. The other gods were silently watching him, curiosity evident in their eyes.
“You’d admit that out loud to them?” Reyes asked.
They can’t hear me right now. Only you can.
“They tried to kill us.”
They tried to kill you. Her thought had a bitter note to it, almost hateful. They didn’t even care what happened to me.
“So why work with them? Why bother?”
They’re family.
“Yeah, so was my father. That didn’t keep me from beating him half to death when—”
This is different, Artemis insisted. And regardless, they are the lesser of two evils. Something else nearly killed us all.
Reyes stewed for a moment.
“What’s the matter, mortal?” Takai called. “Is my sister a bit more in control of you than you thought?”
“They’re going to control the world,” Reyes muttered. “That will mean an end to the reign of humanity.”
Has humanity done so well with it?
Reyes snorted, then turned around.
“Fine. Now all you’ve done is stalled over the real problem.”
“Not exactly,” Athena said. “That little diversion was a good time to think.”
“So you agree?” Hephaestus said.
“Naturally. It only makes sense.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Reyes asked.
“You know, for once I’m on the same page as the mortal,” Takai said. “I’m afraid you’ll need to use full sentences and more words if you want us to understand your mysterious ways.”
“I need to figure out what the board knows and why the Western Coalition seems to want you dead,” Hephaestus said. “I’ll use my contacts within government to sort that situation out.”
“Meanwhile, we’ll hunt down whatever killed us,” Athena said. “We’ll need to start with Hades.”
Hephaestus twitched slightly. “Hades?”
He knows of death more than most. He might have knowledge that we lack.
“Fair enough,” Hephaestus said with a shrug. “Just don’t bring my name into it.”
“Do you know where he is?” Athena asked. “And what about the others?”
He glared at her suspiciously. “In the interest of cooperation, I’ll give you Hades. The other locations stay with me, though. Last thing I need is you rounding up support for a revolution.”
“Fine,” Athena grunted. “Whatever. Where is he?”
“There’s a platinum mine in South Africa,” Hephaestus said. “I’ve got a factory down there, so I can get you shipped to the area, but past that you’re on your own.”
“And you’ll leave us alone until we complete our jobs?” Athena asked.
He nodded. “But after that, the bolt is fair game.”
Athena smiled thinly. “We’ll see.”
Hephaestus drummed his fingers on the desktop, then hit it with his fist. “It’s settled, then. I trust you can find your own way out without shooting anyone else?”
Without another word, Athena turned and walked from the office. Takai and Reyes hurried after her. She was tense as they strode into the elevator and muttered to herself almost feverishly.
Still, Reyes could swear he saw the barest hint of a smile when Hephaestus yanked the arrow from his chest and roared in pain.
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u/Leebeewilly Mar 13 '21 edited Mar 14 '21
<Otura's Whisper>
[Part 1 - Discovery]
[Part 2 - Emergence]
[Part 3 - Secrets]
[Part 4 - Misunderstandings]
Lights and voices carried down the corridor, the glow of pursuit not far behind. As they walked on, Loreel fought off bouts of laughter, and the tunnel widened meeting other offshoots. A breeze greeted Mort in the dark, one of salt, brine, and the stink of the low waterways that still spewed forth Femora’s filth into the harbour.
“It’s all been arranged?” Arnott asked Loreel at the tunnel’s end. “The boat? The Harbourmaster?” Despite staring down a gaggle of armed men, he balked at the thin ledge that spelled their escape. The narrow path along the outside wall, barely a foot wide, was marked by grooves carved in the brick for handholds.
“Of course. I did my part,” she said. She stepped aside, hands dramatically outstretched for Arnott to take the lead.
Her uncle sighed and ventured out onto the ledge.
Loreel didn’t so much as speak a word to Mort before pushing him up. Her dark eyes narrowed on his, judging in a simple stare.
He peered out and looked down. In the dark, he couldn’t see a thing until Loreel tossed out the torch. It dropped down beside the waterfall from the sewer and met the water amidst rocks, barnacles and seafoam far below.
Mort gulped at the drop.
With another nudge, Loreel ushered Mort along. Though the promise of a grim wounding followed by a watery death lay at his feet, he managed the climb well. Better than Arnott at least. The broad-shouldered gentleman took small steadying breaks every few steps before he reached the end of the ledge.
Mort wasn’t far behind, one step at a time. He looked back once to see Loreel walk with ease across the ledge, her palm flat against the wall nowhere near the handholds. Like a cat, she seemed in her element, overseeing the two men scrambling for solid ground.
Once the three had mounted the dock, Arnott motioned for them all to drop low. From the way they’d come, Ysemay’s bewildered goons poked their heads out of the old sewer tunnel. After a slew of curses and some arguing, they turned back for the Limping Yew.
“Good riddance,” Arnott said, standing upright. He put his arm on Mort’s shoulder, his hand dangling over Mort’s breast pocket. “Now, about my proposition…”
Mort shrugged Arnott away. “Why would I help you? You’re the reason I was fired!”
“My good friend-”
Loreel chuckled. “You could have at least had the cartographer sacked. Would it have killed you to make a plan and then… follow it?”
Arnott sighed in a wasted attempt to ignore Loreel, or so Mort presumed.
“You’re right to be upset, Mortimer. Yes, I may have had a hand in your… current predicament and although it’s not ideal…” He turned the words over as if trying to find a silver lining. Each line sounded flaked like fool’s gold.
“Oi!” A shout called from the boardwalk’s edge above the docks. Mort, Loreel, and Arnott looked up at the silhouetted shape. A man in an unnecessarily tall hat.
“You lot!” one of Ysemay’s boys shouted. “Don’t fuckin’ move!”
All three bolted down the dock.
Loreel took the lead and just like in the tunnel, Arnott and Mort followed.
But Mort scolded himself. Why am I running? I’ve nothing to do with this, he thought as they huffed past bystanders, drunk dock workers, and sailors coming in off late arrivals. I’m not even who they were looking for!
Loreel whistled hard and sharp as she approached a small boat.
“Come with us,” Arnott pleaded at the edge of the dock. “Nothing but a wrongfully soured reputation, drudgery, and a mild amount of torture awaits you.”
“I’ve not done anything wrong!” Mort insisted.
“Ysemay won’t care,” Loreel said as she untied the boat’s tether.
Mort gulped again. Behind them shouts careened in the air.
“Live my friend! Be brave! Be foolish! Make a choice and by gods discover more than your dreary father ever did in his days. Surely, you are more a man than he!”
Loreel rolled her eyes.
“I…” Mort frowned and shook his head. “I’m just an archivist.”
Arnott shrugged. “Well, I tried.” He simply turned, walked off the dock and thumped down hard. “Set sail, lads!” he hollered at the two gruff men with oars though the boat had no sails to speak of.
Loreel stepped up to the edge of the dock and looked ready to board when she stopped. “Not all… opportunities are good or even ideal.” With a sigh, she turned to Mort. “But what you do when they arise, that's what defines you.”
Words failed him as he watched the archer step off the dock and into the boat. He blinked as it started off into the night, the thunder of Ysemay’s men drawing near.
In his head the sensible things to do flittered as a well-ordered list. Surely none of this was his fault. He was, after all…
“…just an archivist.”
His eyes widened. His heart skipped a beat as a quickening thrummed through his veins.
“Wait!” he shouted before jumping off the dock.
WC: 849 words
Edit: Missed a few rando words and typos.
[Part 1 - Discovery]
[Part 2 - Emergence]
[Part 3 - Secrets]
[Part 4 - Misunderstandings]
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u/dougy123456789 Mar 13 '21
This story is really cool and intriguing! I’ve enjoyed reading it as the story has continued.
The description about trying to find a silver lining with his words, but having it sound like fools gold is wonderful and the ending is a really nice cliffhanger.
I look forward to reading more!
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u/ArchipelagoMind Mar 14 '21
Hi Lee,
My main crit is you've managed to break the bot...
No, seriously, I said last night that there are some just beautiful beautiful phrases in here, and I genuinely mean it when I say I aspire to write like you.
My only small nitpicky things are the two things I raised last night. The time they have to escape after being spotted feels very long, and once they reach the dock they seem to lose the urgency to escape. They spend a while talking before they actually leave. I did also want to at least acknowledge the "only an archivist" reveal at the end of the last chapter. Even if it's to say you'll have to deal with it later. Acknowledge it now.
But other than that, great chapter as of always.
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u/Leebeewilly Mar 15 '21
I have to say, that's probably the nicest thing anyone has said about my writing and I am all blushy because of it. Thank you Arch!
And you're entirely right. The pacing around the convo's is a bit mucky and I can't keep kicking the can on some answers! I'll be keeping it in mind when I do bigger edits for this. Thank you!!
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u/OldBayJ Mar 07 '21
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