A friend recently pointed out that, I do in fact have a medium of publication, this VERY account.
Luckily, due to the Best Jackett Server’s Scottvember, I have been pumping out short stories for about a month straight. So there is actually something to share.
Each day a prompt was released, the following stories are named after said prompt.
There is no rhyme nor reason to which stories are where, they just are.
So… let’s get on with it.
Apocalypse
Deep below.
Where the blue swirls and stops, ceases its hue and becomes black.
Fathoms below 20,000 Leagues, far too many to count.
Tumbles and spins a single cigar shaped vessel. Emblazoned on its sleek hull, a flag. A war of secrets and threats waged above, on the mainlands. Spies and sycophants, proxy wars and politicians split the globe into two cardinal directions. This heraldry marked the submarine as belonging to one of the nuclear titans.
It was alone. 25 men in a coffin. Not even barnacles could survive down here. But every now and again, sonar would glance the alien inhabitants.
If the men aboard had eyes of sufficient quality they would see the Depths as its people did. A churning realm of near solid water. Bejeweled and beautiful in its darkness. Things moved in balletic strides, unrestricted by gravity's usual planar limitations. Life was cruel and concise here.
The men's days were equally simple. Check the radio. Check the systems. Keep floating. 10 men asleep. 10 men awake. 5 men in between.
The days rounded to 243, that was when the routine was shattered. It slipped through the radio in gurgling through static. Screams. On every channel. Screaming. The kind that continues beyond breathlessness until your screaming blood. The men murmured in quiet horror.
And then... The light. The port holes, mere... Compromises for the safety of their sanity lit up as if dawn had broke. Something above, far above, was casting light so bright...
It made its way down here.
Below.
Americana
We found it four cycles ago.
It was damaged as you can imagine, sandwiched under forty kilo-urrs of dust, debris and coiled foliage. The subject was detected by a bio-drone, its wings clipped by said foliage's defense talons, it managed to make landfall and unfurl it's landing leg. Its homing shriek was picked up by this very vessel.
We were on a regular spice run. Check the nodes, it's all in order. We culled the plants, stripped them for roots and juice. Some dust here and there, down and down we spiraled. Nothing notable until... Our picks hit something else. It wasn't bark or the thorns, we shredded the thing. This was different. The axe slid, like it slipped on ice. I scattered the dirt, trying to see what was underneath. If I had some sense I would have gotten the others to help but something just...
Propelled me. My pace and perspiration didn't go unnoticed, the Aleph's orb on me started to glow. They crested the pit we made, calmly walking down the sheer drop. Their hands behind their back, not in a rush as I just kept digging. When I saw the smoothness, the... colour. The Aleph chirped.
"Having fun?" I froze. Their six fingers curled on my shoulder, one by one, before I was thrown back.
I stumbled to my feet, my gyro-shoes assuring I didn't fall. The Aleph called a pair of bio-drones down, they fluttered and darted around my work.
Something was said, information shared. But I couldn't understand it. I couldn't see it. It wasn't meant for me.
The Aleph turned and said to me, words I'll never forget. Something I never heard before, from one of them or... anything.
"Good job."
They sauntered off, and with a wave of their hand the bio-drones attached their legs to the subject and began to lever it out. It looked like a fat arch, a smooth calcium-like crown. Stout and sturdy. Embossed with figures of beautiful women and alien trees. Its glass visor was shattered, but through it...
I saw its innards.
Needles and arms and stacks of what looked like dark circular slices. Like midnight laid out in columns.
On its face were buttons, analogue. Like the roaming Teeyes, clicking in the Southlands. The bio-drones shunted the subject into the corner. The Aleph gave us our rations, and we all ate in the hole we made. But I couldn't stop staring at it. I needed to know.
I stood, I walked to it, I couldn't breathe not knowing. All I could hear was my own heart, thumping in my ears. My ears were deaf to the others, red and twitching with anxiety. I let out a long breath and pressed a button. The thing sang and it was... beautiful:
“The warden threw a party in the county jail The prison band was there and they began to wail--”
Lovecraftian
I found a book.
It was small. Travel sized, like those you'd find in an airport duty free. It stopped me in my tracks. Its not like litter is uncommon, it's a city after all, ill kept and bordering on anarchy.
But something was off, at the base of my skull the nerves were screaming.
Their vibrations echoing and bouncing from synapse to synapse.
Node to node.
I had to.
I needed to pick it up.
I knelt down. I took the book by its spine. I don't know if it was from the street gutter or the book itself, but there was a film to it. A slimy substance that resisted my pull. It wasn't strong, but notable.
I turned the book over, expecting a pulp fiction cover or maybe a bold pronouncement of the authors name and the story's title. Nothing.
No, that's... Not true. It was scrubbed. Like someone erased it. Angrily. Furiously. It was cracked like volcanic land, criss-crossing lines and uneven gaps of white.
It was then I noticed the silence. Quiet. It was late, yes. But it was a city street. Something, someone should be moving, making sound, laughing, living. Something!
My breathing sped up. I began to sweat. I rushed to my flat with a speed I didn't possess.
The silence. It was... Painful. It hurt.
Like someone was slowly, methodically, peeling my ears apart. Layer by layer.
I put the book down on my table with a thud and began to pace. I stopped.
A thud?
I picked the book up again. And I put it down.
Thud.
I did it again.
Thud.
It was getting louder. Heavier. The noise, not the book. But the noise. Even my sigh felt small in volume to it. That buzzing returned. This time a drum beat. The thud remixed and reinterpreted into a marching score.
Thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud.
Over and over and over and over again.
Thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud-thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud-th-thud!
I don't remember opening the book...
...I found a book.
I think that’ll do for this instalment,
So as always
Thank You For Reading.