Questioning
It is truly difficult to say where I am. In part, this is because nothing fits here. It has been so long that everywhere looks normal, and nobody puts a name on the normal. There are the pale red skies outside my cell, the shadows of the things whooshing about the red every so often passing through the barred windows. I can tell in my mind there is nothing right about this, but nothing seems wrong either. I can barely think of anything else. At least, not while the racket next door is going on…
Read MoreRavinous
The old man was tall, his limbs long and spindly. He sat hunched over in a chair too small to fit him well, and as he laughed his hearty laugh he nearly spilled over its back every time. His straw-like, greyed hair covered the right half of his face, concealing one of his strikingly clear blue eyes. One might suspect he did so because it was the price of some unnatural deal so long ago. He held his pipe gingerly in his hand, a long instrument engraved with symbols from a tribe far away. He was a strange figure to behold. Being only time’s short participant, I naturally wanted to know everything about him…
Read MoreWatching and Waiting
Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink… Out the viewport the countless millions of stars shone, motionless, too far away to light the dark room, but old enough to still be seen at such a distance. Blink. Blink… On the dashboard below blinked a red light, casting its glow across the empty space, yet out of sight of the stars. The room itself was sparsely populated, with no furniture save for the dashboard and a vacant chair. It was still, until the door at the back end of the room began to silently slide open. A man slowly floated in, holding a small cube, taking his place at the seat. He popped the cube into a receptacle on the dashboard, then pushed a button on the dashboard to activate the voice-com. The viewport suddenly changed from the stars to a video capture of himself, as he quickly stood up….
Read MoreWall
He sat in an ovoid room, in its wall wrought from walls into walls into walls unto walls, where one could hear nary a fall…
Read MoreSheltered
It was a cool, windy day. The wind, stronger than any I’d felt before, made everything seem surreal, as did the sea of trees up ahead of my cart. I’d never seen a solitary living tree before, much less an entire forest, and I’d never expected to see either. You can imagine my excitement when my name was pulled from the volunteer hat to transport some of the yearly harvest to the valley village (I can’t quite recall its actual name). The sprawling forest before me was a sea of reds, yellows, and oranges supposedly characteristic of the season around here, hidden behind the barren mountains I’d just passed over. As I passed into the forest, I began to feel a kind of weight over me, and I felt as if something might jump out from the endless brush and attack me. It might have been because I’d only ever been out in the open fields of the farmlands, but I just couldn’t be sure. I feel that I was lucky, though, as I remained unscathed through the journey. Even so, the feeling only grew as I neared the clearing in which the village was built…
The Sky is a Fickle Landlord
It was late in the harvest season, and my whole family would get up early in the morning because of it. I was only about eight at the time, and while my brothers and I were out helping our father harvest grain in the fields, our mother would be in the kitchen preparing breakfast. We would all wake up to the sound of thunder in the distance, and thought nothing of it. That day, however, when the winds picked up, it would become a sound we’d never forget…
The Journal of Alberton Tencent
Entry 1:
Generally, I quite enjoy walking through the nearby woods in the rain. The trees block the downpour so I don’t need to bring a jacket, but the air is still filled with that glorious Petrichor the rain brings out. The wind also helps to build an atmosphere, as the trees’ relentless rustling creates a feeling I find calming. I’m writing this, of course, because that’s all changed, and the memory’s already fading but I need to remember why…