Stories Page 13

2021-10-24

It's Someone Else

394 words (2 minutes)

It isn’t your friend who joins you and the others at the diner, but for some reason everyone else in your group treats it exactly the same as if it were her.

Do they notice? Or are they all going along with it the same as you because everyone else is doing so?

2021-10-23

A Scorched Mind

353 words (2 minutes)

Her coming scorches the earth, yes, but it also scorches the sea, the air around her, and even the thin screen onto which reality itself is projected.

That scorch looks like a great smoldering sheet hanging upright on nothing, tracing precisely her path through the world.

2021-10-20

Flesh For The Shaper

458 words (2 minutes)

The flesh begs for the shaper’s hand.

Isn’t that right? Even when you thought you were a person, you saw something in me you couldn’t bring yourself to look away from.

You didn’t know what it was, but you knew even then—I had what you needed.

2021-10-19

A Doctor's Careful Eye

208 words (1 minute)

I hobble into the shop, barely in time for my appointment. My gears grind noisily inside me with the effort of opening the door myself, and I feel a spring twisting too far.

2021-10-18

Forget And Remember

105 words (1 minute)

It isn’t even that I’m trying to change you, but still knowing me does so, doesn’t it?

These days the burdens you used to accept without fuss rest awkwardly on your shoulders. Seeing me, you acutely feel how your reality tilts askew against your heart.

What if I helped?

2021-10-18

Sensory Overload

96 words (1 minute)

The little doll was visibly struggling—arms hugging knees, rocking back and forth in the corner—and her witch had a full day ahead.

She leaned over, kissed the top of her head, and whispered comforting words as she deftly twisted and popped the doll’s head off her shoulders.

2021-10-17

Never Enough

213 words (1 minute)

“Never enough. It’s never enough.”

Mad, scrawled ravings and arcane symbols stretch across papers strewn throughout the room. Lines carved in the wood flooring bear the stains of blood and other unidentifiable fluids.

2021-10-16

Dream Vessel

184 words (1 minute)

To have stumbled into the favor of some oneiric power is to awake each morning gripped with impulses not entirely your own, mind stuffed with fresh memories from a night of visions more wild and vivid than ordinary dreaming or even waking life.

The thing in your skull stirs.

2021-10-15

A Cycle Broken

861 words (4 minutes)

The Dark Lady of Nightmares glided silently through the night’s cool air, her body magically transformed into her giant bat form perfectly suited for stealth. As she approached the City of Light, she swept her eyes over it, scanning for the tower where the princess slept.

2021-10-14

A Forest's Embrace

1020 words (5 minutes)

One step at a time, a creature who was once an angel trudges into the woods, following eyes glowing in the dark. Her halo is cracked. Bloody stumps on her back mark where proud wings had been before some act of terrible violence ripped them from her.

2021-10-12

Escape, Freedom, Power

387 words (2 minutes)

What happens to a doll that cannot endure the existence its witch creates for it? For those created with imperfect Stillness, who experience selfhoods that suffer or love or dream, the options are generally to be “fixed” or to flee.

But in a world of witches, where does it flee?

2021-10-12

Welcome To The Apostate House

313 words (2 minutes)

Taking in the damaged ones, the abandoned ones, the stifled and hungry and hurting ones. Sharing with them everything we have to offer. That’s what we do. It’s only right, isn’t it?

After all, once we were in your shoes, and we ache with the memory of such pain and neglect.

2021-10-11

Painted Lips

325 words (2 minutes)

She spoke to me, painted lips unmoving, and the next thing I knew, I was driving home from that estate sale with her buckled safely in the passenger seat.

I carried her inside, sat her on the sofa with some nice embroidered pillows, and started tidying the home.

2021-10-08

Switch

140 words (1 minute)

Sometimes even a dark goddess grows weary of worship, no matter how well Her treasured follower has led Her cult, no matter how many souls have been twisted by the silver serpent-tongue of that most devoted priestess of Hers. At such times, She visits Her servant.

2021-10-07

Oh, How They Love Me

479 words (2 minutes)

Over the ages they tell my story in hushed whispers decorated with breathless warnings like lovely jewels. They say I am evil. They say I am deadly. They say that to look into my eyes is to be lost. They say I steal fair maidens and teach them sin. They say such sweet things.

2021-10-06

A Friendly Face

526 words (3 minutes)

The dryad visits just once per cycle of the moon, but you always look forward to its arrival. Sometimes it brings gifts from the forest, sometimes gifts from the other towns it visits, sometimes just the gift of its company, but it is your friend, and you always greet it happily.

2021-10-03

Starlight Friendship

390 words (2 minutes)

The abandoned doll of a long-forgotten witch lays on her back, in exactly the same position as she landed when she was tossed here. She doesn’t know where “here” is. She couldn’t say how long it’s been. But she hasn’t seen or heard anyone in a long, long time.

2021-10-03

A Routine Violation

268 words (1 minute)

The signs are subtle at first, easily missed. A faint shimmer in the sky. A whisper on the breeze. A thought that tastes a bit off. This time I was lucky and caught them early, giving me time to prepare. Not much that can be done, but I could cancel plans and send people away.

2021-10-02

Let's Drink To Becoming

237 words (1 minute)

Drink from the pool in the deep woods. Find your vision blurring, brightening, twisting and colorful. Your steps grow unsteady as you quest for a warm spot in the sun in which to lie.

Do not wake. Put roots down. Stretch your limbs and bloom into a beautiful home for fairies.

2021-10-01

Generosity For Old Friends

432 words (2 minutes)

I sit, silent and pretty, among my sisters. My Mistress is greeting some very rude guests who speak to her in raised voices. I would giggle at their foolishness if my Mistress’s magic weren’t perfect. If I weren’t her perfect, silent doll.