nagischwarz
Shells rained down, shrieking like an army of banshees. Christian hunkered down in the trench, arms covering his neck, and cursed Angel for talking him into this madness. In fact, everything ever in his life was basically Angel's fault, he'd decided.
The shells hit, exploded. Dirt rained down. Men screamed.
And then the mustard gas.
Christian fumbled for his mask. He didn't really need it, would sacrifice it to a comrade if necessary, but then his secret would be out. He wasn't human.
"Shelter to the left, soup kitchen to the right, warm alley full of usable cardboard boxes straight ahead. Welcome to North O." Joey smiled and swept one hand out.
The grand tour was brief and depressing, but I had no home now, so I was going to take what I could.
"Pick a spot and fight off anyone who tries to claim it," Joey said.
"What if they got there first?"
"It's yours now."
Festival, I'd like to go to the festival, I wish I could go to the festival --
Danny threw a shoe at the television. Scarlett turned around and glared at him.
"I was watching that," she said.
He grunted and returned to his programming homework. "You're too young and stupid for Sondheim. And you're too young to be Cinderella - you should be Red Riding Hood."
Form follows function. So the professors kept saying. The thing was, a bottle had such a basic function that the form was destined to be boring. Kelis sighed and picked up the bottle on her workbench. There was no way she could sell it.
She glanced over her shoulder, checked no one was looking, and scooped up a handful of sand. Then she took a deep breath, deep past her lungs, and exhaled.
She breathed fire.
And the sand turned to glass.
She started shaping it in her hands.
"Stable!" Hannah shouted.
No one replied.
She cast a glance over her shoulder, and then the lights overhead went out. Hannah took a deep breath, waited. The hospital had backup generators. The lights would come back on.
Any moment now.
The ER was suddenly, impossibly, silent.
"Hello?" Hannah asked.
The man on the gurney sat up.
Building a Mystery. Her former roommate's favorite song to describe the relationship she'd had with their other former roommate's ex-boyfriend. But Davey's posturing about being alluring, mysterious, otherworldly, and whatever crap he tried to pull to charm the ladies was a lie.
When Valerie was lying next to Daniel in a tent at the foot of Mayan ruins, listening to him scream in his sleep, she knew she had a real mystery on her hands.
Prosperous, we are, Dad would always say around Thanksgiving. And we'd look at the one crusty, little turnip, the handful of too-small potatoes, and the half-starved turkey, and we'd nod and agree.
Because we were all together, all alive and all limbs accounted for, and we didn't weep over graves on Memorial Day.
Romantic was the wrong word for the setting. Daniel would have gone with creepy, if the way the girl was smiling and brandishing a steak knife was any clue. Admittedly, she was wearing a pretty red dress and had bright blue eyes, but the blood dripping from her hand was another bad sign.
"So, maybe I rang the wrong doorbell," he said, and he swore he'd never let T and the boys set him up on a blind date again.
Existence. Existentialism. On Prom Night. The only decent song she could play on the piano, and it always reminded her of him - his smile, his voice, the way he laughed.
The way the light in his eyes faded as the rain washed over him through the shattered windshield.
The way she didn't have enough breath in her body to whisper a goodbye.
Adam Ant. A travesty. But Jason kept sending her YouTube links to his old videos. She smiled and then cringed as soon as his back was turned. She had important things to do, life-saving things. Things she could never tell anyone about.
That was what "top secret" meant.
She only wished she could tell him the truth about Adam Ant, too, but some things were too difficult to believe. Like Adam Ant was actually an alien.
load more entries
writing since 2008 · 126 entries · 123 days shown up
each square is a day — lit means you showed up.
18longest streak
123days written
0.5entries / week
the words you reach for
eyesanotherhandnowhairhandsbettermeantheadnightdonejoeygunlaughedcornersure