December 28, 2022 0 comments

12 Days of Xmas: You Were You and I was Me and Together Were We

YOU WERE YOU AND I WAS ME AND TOGETHER WERE WE

They were twins. Triplets once. But then there were only two of them left, the other faded away into memories that only they remembered. Nobody else even knew her name. She’d faded away like the moon on a sunlit day.

“We are the sun and the moon, and she was our star,” Hamlet murmured. He was wearing his favorite tank top, the one with the rainbow stripe across the chest. “I miss her.”

Mac sighed. “I hate that we’re the only ones that remember her. She was the most important person in our lives, and nobody knows about her but us. I don’t even think the kids we went to school with remember her anymore. We all looked the same. They used to confuse us all the time.”

“Remember when we’d all wear the same outfit and we’d pretend to be each other? She was a better me than me.”

Hamlet laughed and it sounded like tears that wanted to fall. “She was the best of us. I miss her so much.”

It was the anniversary of her death. Of the day that had taken her from them all those years ago. And yet it seemed as though her light had been extinguished merely yesterday. The ghost of her had lingered close around them, carried them through the years of her absence, been the support they had needed to function.

Their memory of her had kept them motivated. Kept them moving ever forward where she would have wanted them to go.

“She was more us than we are,” Mac said. “I hope we’ve done her proud.”

“I want to believe that we have. I want to believe that she’s smiling at us from the other side. That she’s been with us this whole time cheering us on in everything we’ve done. That even if nobody remembers her for her… they’ll remember her through us.”

“I hope they remember her through everything we ever were together and ever will be,” Mac said, holding out a glass of amber liquor. It had been poured from the first bottle ever produced by the distillery they had named after her, in memory of her, so that even those that did not remember her would know her name. Forever.

“In memory of her,” Hamlet said, sipping from his glass. “The best of us.”

“The best of us.”

=END=

~Harper Kingsley
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December 27, 2022 0 comments

12 Days of Xmas: Pleasant Dreams of Unwary Things

Content Warning: brief but somewhat graphic description of injury.

PLEASANT DREAMS OF UNWARY THINGS

Beckett screamed in rage before lashing out one final time. Lightning blasted from his fingertips but there was so much blood in his eyes he missed.

He knew he missed the second he released. He could feel it. The way the lightning left his fingers and kept on going to wash uselessly against the wall of a building. Dissipating into nothing and not saving him at all.

Because the Knife Man was right there, close enough to touch. Close enough to be touched by.

His rage became fear and agony as the knife went in. All the way in. Cutting at him. Slashing at him. Digging so deep into his flesh that it vibrated through his bones. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was spent. Powers all burnt out from overuse. As helpless as any other victim of the serial killer.

He died. Over and over again. He died. Lying there in the trash of the alley. Splayed against the icy cold ground with air that smelt of trash and the approaching snow.

He died, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

And then he woke in his bed, and it was the morning of that fateful day that would be followed by the night in which he died. And it was mysterious and strange, the idea of being given a second chance, unasked for and overlooked, but so precious nonetheless.

He woke up covered in sweat with eyes that streamed tears, and his heart pounded so heavy in his chest that he thought he was having a heart attack at first. Before he realized that he was alive, that it had been a dream. Only a dream.

Except it wasn’t a dream. He knew it wasn’t.

Because it was the morning of his last day, and the day that followed was EXACTLY THE SAME as the day he’d dreamed of, and he KNEW it was going to be followed by the night of his death.

But he refused to die.

He had been given a second chance. And he refused to waste it.

When the call came to face the Massacrists he didn’t hesitate, but he did bring more weapons. He brought more firepower and saved his lightning for when it was really needed. And when he confronted the cultists he didn’t hesitate and he didn’t mess around. He didn’t posture and he didn’t preach and he didn’t waste his time offering mercy the way he had the first time. Because that was how he’d let himself be worn down, that was how he’d let himself be distracted, and that was how he’d died.

He could tell his teammates were surprised by his ruthlessness, but there no time to explain. He knew the Knife Man was on his way and the dying was about to begin.

The Knife Man had cut through his teammates one by one and two by two and eventually he’d faced that monster alone and been the last to fall.

Not this time.

This time he knew where the Knife Man was going to appear. And he dodged the thrown blade that had scalped him the first time, that had taken the top off his skull in a blaze of pain to leave the bone hanging from tendrils of flesh to slap against the back of his neck.

This time he stepped to the side at the last second. Felt the whoosh of the knife past him. And didn’t hesitate to strike back along its path.

The lightning BLASTED from his fingers even as his lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl. And his eyes were clear this time, no blood blocking his vision, and he saw as the lightning struck. Saw the Knife Man limned in a crackling blaze of light so bright and terrible that his SKELETON shone through his skin before it crackled and burned.

Beckett struck out and DID NOT MISS.

He was a hero. Hailed as such in print and video media. Profusely thanked by the victims his team rescued from where they’d been imprisoned in a literal metal cage to await their sacrifice on an already bloodstained altar.

He was a hero, that’s what they called him, but Beckett knew the truth.

He was a survivor that refused to die.

He was Chronic Discharge. And no matter what happened, he always came back.

=END=

definition chronic: (of a problem) long-lasting and difficult to eradicate.

An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good at Amazon

December 26, 2022 0 comments

12 Days of Xmas: Running On Empty

RUNNING ON EMPTY

Staying in the motel was becoming a real hardship. Not because the room was especially terrible in itself, but because the neighbors on either side were the sort that believed being loud was a right and not a rudeness.

The couple on one side loudly made love all night every night, while the couple on the other side screamed at each other and threatened violence at such volume their every word was clearly audible. Both pairs were risking their lives without knowing it.

She wrapped the pillow tighter around her head and clenched her jaw tightly to keep from screaming at them to "SHUT UP!"

Her body trembled with the effort of holding herself still. She could feel the madness growing inside her. The need to unleash terrible violence on the inconsiderate aholes.

She was exhausted. She hadn’t had more than a few minutes of sleep for the last two weeks. If she could have left the motel room she would have, but she had promised to stay inside and wait for him to return, so here she was. Suffering from cabin fever and maybe malnutrition from only having delivery food to eat, which in this town had meant food from the pizza place every day.

She’d promised she would stay in the room, but it was becoming harder and harder. It was only her absolute terror of Them that kept her inside.

He’d lined the motel room with paper charms and hung up carved wooden rune squares. As long as she remained inside she was invisible to the monsters chasing her. The monsters he had gone off to kill.

The moans on one side were growing louder, the fervent filth they called out growing louder and LOUDER while the couple on the other side screamed such vitriol at each other that she thought she could feel her soul curdling inside her body. Both couples were so LOUD, screaming and panting and groaning and the thump-thump-THUMP of a headboard slamming against the too-thin wall.

She pressed the pillow tighter around her head, mashing it against her ears. The pain was growing in her brain, the headache having grown so much worse over the last two hours. To the point that she’d begun to fantasize about going to the door and stepping outside.

There would be the howling screams and They would appear. She would be torn apart, she knew it, her blood and viscera splashed so far and wide and horrifying that it would be near to impossible to clean up. The motel owners would have to use bleach and paint to wipe away the mess, and even then the cement would be stained forever.

But those assholes… They would kill her, yes, but they would also kill everyone else staying in this section of the motel. They would kill her, but that would not slate their bloodlust, the need for violence and murder.

Assaulted by the loudness of her neighbors, the continuous torment of their screaming and their lust and the THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of that damned headboard… She was tempted.

All she had to do was open the door and step outside.

=END=

December 25, 2022 0 comments

12 Days of Xmas: A Once Mighty Wind

A ONCE MIGHTY WIND

He’d felt like a god once. He’d walked the earth and been able to imagine it tremble beneath his boots. His voice had shaken the air and everyone had shown him nothing but awe.

He was old now and feeling older everyday. His once mighty voice had been diminished to a whisper, easily ignored by the children that surrounded him.

Everyone seemed like a child to him now. He was older than he’d ever wanted to be. And with every passing day he only grew older, weaker and more bowed by time, his body failing him while on the inside he felt the same as he’d always been.

He’d felt like a god once, but now his health was failing him. Time was catching him up and he could no longer outrun the sunset he felt closing around him. The tiny aches and pains that had added together to become a dragging misery.

The bones he’d broken and treated carelessly as they healed were now a deep throbbing agony when the weather turned cold. The scars that had slashed his flesh now stood out against skin gone paper thin and they twisted tight and sometimes felt as though they would tear themselves open again.

He’d grown older than he’d ever wanted to be. Some part of him had somehow assumed that he’d reach a comfortable age and time would cease to bother him. Yet here he was, an old old man, long retired with no more battles to fight. Not because he’d won the war, but because the war had moved beyond him. Taken out of his hands by the young heroes that had taken his place.

He hated that he had become defunct. He’d lived the most when he’d had an enemy to fight, but now he’d lived so long that his body had failed him. Had lived so long that he’d outlived his ability to fight.

He could still feel the power within him, that well that waited to be drawn upon. But his lungs had failed him—too many cigarettes back when he had smoked—and now the doctors warned that using his metability would likely kill him. His body was too weak.

He thought about damning the consequences and the solicitous advice. Imagined sometimes opening his mouth wide, drawing in a deep breath, and BLOWING as he once had done.

That mighty wind that could topple buildings and push the weather where he willed. He could still feel it deep inside, but his body was weak and broken by time.

He imagined drawing on that power one more time. Fantasized about showing everyone that he was still here, still existing, still a god amongst men.

But time had taught him fear. Time had taught him dread of encroaching death. Time had made him greedy; miserly over the few short years of life he had left.

He wasn’t just tired of the pain he felt. He dreaded adding hurts to the accumulation he was already forced to carry.

Time had bowed him down. Time had brought him a humility he had never thought to know. Had knocked him from his pedestal and made him merely human.

He’d felt like a god once. A long time ago.

=END =