If you would like to submit a drabble (a short work of game-related fiction exactly 100 words), please @mail Queens with your submission, the title, the name you would like it to appear under and which category you feel it belongs best in.
Challenge Drabble for October 2018's the topic is Books.
316 String Theory drabbles written — and counting.
Categories
Abilities (9)
Animals (15)
Challenge: Books (10)
Character Study (101)
Family (43)
Life and Death (19)
Love and Relationships (108)
Miscellaneous (4)
New York City (6)
The Resistance (14)
Authors
Abby (19)
Adel (2)
Anonymous (14)
Asi (1)
Astor (1)
Audrey (2)
Aviators (1)
Barbara (1)
Bao-Wei (3)
Bella (3)
Benji (3)
Bolivar (1)
Cardinal (2)
Calvin (3)
Cash (1)
Claire (2)
Colette (4)
Cooper (2)
Corbin (3)
Dajan (1)
Danko (2)
Daphne (4)
Deckard (6)
Delia (2)
Delilah (21)
Eileen (15)
Elisabeth (2)
Emily (1)
Evan (1)
Faye (1)
Francois (7)
Gabriel (3)
Gillian (12)
Hannah (2)
Helena (6)
Howard (2)
Huruma (9)
Ingrid (2)
Iris (1)
Jane (1)
Jenny (1)
JJ (2)
Jonathan (1)
Joseph (3)
Joshua (2)
Judah (2)
Kaitlyn (1)
Kaylee (21)
Kincaid (2)
Lancaster (1)
Lene (2)
Lexington (1)
Logan (4)
Lynette (3)
Magnes (1)
McRae (1)
Melissa (32)
Meredith (1)
Monica (1)
Murdoch (1)
Nadira (1)
Nick (1)
Nicole (1)
Nora (3)
Odessa (4)
Pandora (2)
Peyton (3)
Quinn (1)
Raith (3)
Robyn (1)
Roderick (2)
Ruiz (2)
Ryans (9)
Sable (2)
Stef (1)
Sylar (1)
Tasha (3)
Tavisha (1)
Teo (8)
Tess (1)
Veronica (2)
Walter (2)
Night
by Anonymous
Storms at night- that is what reminds me of him now. I would have agreed with that even before.
He is dark in the way that night can be; sometimes lit with reflections of his world and twinkles in his eyes and smile- sometimes pitch black when his spirit is sore and his eyes aim down to the ground, lips downturned at the corners.
The thunder that he's got inside only shows when he strikes out. Warm droplets of water that hug me close, smooth and clinging to my hair. The static in the air, buzzing impishly in my heart.
Waiting Room
by Eileen
Sophia made her stay in the waiting room alone with the woman whose husband stepped out in front of the lorry. She holds her hand because she feels as though that's what she ought to be doing but cannot bring herself to meet her eyes when she asks what happened to her brother.
A man in a white coat comes out, tells them that the woman's husband has passed and suddenly: Eileen is afraid.
The surgeon puts Nick's jaw back together with metal plates and fine screws. Much later, she'll wish he'd been hit by a lorry and died too.
Parasite
by Eileen
She knows she should feel some guilt for using threats to frighten her into compliance, but what she feels instead is a grim kind of satisfaction that leaves a taste in her mouth which, while bitter, isn't entirely unpleasant.
It's not because they're in love with the same man, and it's not because she slept with her father, draped herself in his shirt and wandered the apartment like a lost little lamb sheared for the first time.
It's because she looks at her and she sees someone who reminds her of what she remembers she once was. Desperate. Needy.
Parasitic.
This Quintessence of Dust
by Peyton
Photographs whisper a story the world already knows- a little girl lost, and lost again. Did he fail her, or was it the other way around? Would it have been better (easier?) had she not been found? She cannot know.
A picture's worth a thousand words, they say, but she will never hear that many fall from his lips. Twenty-one years' worth of words cannot be spoken in mere moments.
Dust and photographs are all that remain.
He was intangible as dust, invisible in the darkness.
In the light, dust glitters like fool's gold— illusions of what could never be.
Peter
by Abigail
Normal is his battlecry. His plea with every breath. "I want for normal. For the world to stop knocking on my door and begging."
Normal, is not possible I say. "Normal is an unattainable state of being that we were not born to or born for. Bombs threaten, Viral plagues, shoulders heavy with the burdens. Cries of 'HELP' coming from all corners to be saved. That is our normal. This is our world."
We don't get normal dashing from one apocalypse to the next. You want normal? Shoulda become a mailman Peter. Not a Paramedic.
You're still saving the world.
Prologue
by Danko
He watches her through a fire that belongs to other men - darker men — eyes cut silvery, wet through the silt slashed and dried grey across his hollow face. The way she moves. The way firelight radiates fluid warmth off her skin but never catches hold in her soul the way it does in her smile.
The way she watches him, so mirthfully aware
that in a war like this one, it's the little things that matter most. Rigor mortis loosing its grip to the noonday sun. Desperation in a drowning man's face. Sticky leaves and sucking mud.
She's dangerous.
The Lies of a Father
by Ryans
I raised my girls to be honest to never lie. That lies were bad and would only bring hurt to you and those you love.
I am a hypocrite.
Do as I say, not as I do.
I have lied to them their whole life. I have lied about what I did to keep a secret.
How long before my lies hurt the ones I love?
The only lie I haven't told is how much I love them and that I will do everything that need to be done to protect them.
Even if it means I have to lie.
Regrets
by Eileen
Ask me what I regret the most.
It isn't refusing to fight him when he used his hands to cover my nose and my mouth.
It isn't breaking myself into pieces like bread, stale and unwanted, and throwing it all away to a flock of thieving birds.
It isn't signing an execution warrant with my tongue every time I whispered a name into his ear.
What I regret the most is showing strength, resolve and restraint the one time I should have succumbed to temptation and given you strychnine with your water when you were too weak not to drink.
Salvation
by Kaylee
I looked for you, I fought to find you and bring you home. I tried to give you hope, when things seemed so bleak, and to give you an shoulder to lean on.
All because you said I was a good person.
I wanted to prove you right, to be what you thought you saw in me. It forced me to look at myself and see just how truly misguided I was.
You were my salvation.
Then I told you everything about me. Spilled out all my sins.
Do you still see the good in me?
Do you see me?
Shooting Star
by Corbin
She was always bright and fast, like a shooting star. Always moving, always running, always shining. Even when she tried to hide away her light, he could still see it. Even when she tried to run away, he still found it. Even when the sickness took her, she still had it.
But now he's the one hiding. He doesn't want her to see what he's becoming; the light of the Star he once was is failing.
A star that dies collapses on itself, swallowing all nearby light. And the last thing he wants to do is steal her light away.
Parental Lies
by Kaylee
My mother lied about who he was.
How bad did he hurt you, mom, that you would let your daughter think he never cared?
I had to find out from strangers, who my father really was.
Only to find my father lied to me and let me think he was dead.
Why do they continue to lie to me, instead telling me the truth?
I want to know the truth, I want to see my father. I want them to quit lying to me, and thinking its for the best. I am not a little girl anymore to be protected.
Temptation
by Kaylee
A well placed suggestive word, a subtle use of my ability, and they would be all mine.
Mine to hold.
Mine to use.
Mine to toss away.
They would love me and never hurt me.
With each persuasive word the black coils of temptation would tighten their hold on me. Whisper to me sweetly of what I could have and make me want more.
Then I learned how truly happy I could be if I let those men stay free. Learned what love truly is.
Now the black coils of temptation holds no sway over me.
But for how long?
My Daughter
by Faye
What I remember most was his smile. It was kind, gentle, fatherly, attentive. I knew he was old enough to be my father, if not more so, but he made me feel safe. I wanted him to see me through his camera, capture me from all angles, find the beauty that I didn't see in myself. It started out innocent. Pictures and smiles. It turned intimate when I took him out on the boat for the first time, the sky and sails captured on film. I knew it couldn't last, but I never regretted it.
He gave me my daughter.
The Puppet Man and Me
by Kaylee
They tell me he is a bad and that I should stay away, but when you look inside we are not much different.
The Puppet man and I have both killed with our power. Made people do what we want with a flick of our wrists, and found satisfaction in it.
Yet, we would do what we can to protect the Ferrymen kids and our friends.
That's why I consider him one of my best friends, because we are alike.
I know one day he could turn on me, but till then, he'll be my friend, someone I will trust.
The Truth
by Melissa
Is it true? What they say? I don't want to believe it, but part of me wonders. Part of me fears. If it's true, I don't know if I can stay. I don't know if I can trust you. It isn't something that I can easily forgive, and certainly not something that I can forget. It's horrible the things you may have done, the people you may have hurt. But how can I know for sure? If I ask, you may lie, and I would accept the lie, because it's what I want to be true.
Spare me the truth.
Lindelani
by Huruma
The voices of babies were never as harsh as they are now, storms rolling thunderous overhead and the smell of roses amidst Lagos garbage twinging her nostrils when she moves through the ward. She knows that she cannot keep them. Neither one of them.
They'll be better off dead.
Better off dead.
Though she returns months later to leave them behind.
Maybe she was wrong?
But she can't take it back now.
She remembers to sing the lullaby now. To sing to his baby boy, his little treasure, his lindelani. The little man in the Moon, listen to the birdsong.
Triangles
by Daphne
Alone in his apartment, she touches his possessions. Books. CDs. A watch. A pen. A framed photograph of him with another woman— one she knows, but does not know. One she's seen, but not met.
Her fingers drift over the photograph, as if she could read by Braille just what she means to him. What he means to her. Are they in love, these two? Are they fated to be? Despite all of her promises that this is not serious, is she keeping them apart?
Part of her hopes not.
Part of her that knows she loves him doesn't care.
Worthless
by Deckard
He likes her on top of him.
That way it feels like he isn't forcing her.
Afterward she molds herself gently to his side, stale with sweat and old panic stirs cold in his gut against the natural brush of her arm across his scrubby chest in the semidark. Subtle like the cool, tender tease of an anaconda's forked tongue before the rest of her affectionate coils loop in to smother and crush.
He should say something but everything is the wrong thing.
He should touch her.
He apologizes instead
muffled
never sure exactly for what,
but she's already asleep.
Faded Footsteps
by Veronica
A lab coat dwarfing her body, a stethoscope hanging down to her knees, the child holds the device to her father's chest, tilting her head to listen to the thumping in her ears.
"What will you be when you grow up?"
This, asked by a matronly relative, finding the antics charming.
Most four-year-olds' answers are outlandish dreams: cowboy, spaceman, lion tamer. Hers, precocious words spoken with a baby's lisp: "A neurosurgeon. Just like my Daddy is."
"Will you be Dr. Veronica?" the aunt asks.
"Dr. Sawyer, silly. Just like my Daddy."
Her dream? Turned out to be outlandish after all.
Would That I Could But I Can't
by Abigail
Would that I could turn back time. Not hop back and forth at whim to set right what is wrong. I would turn it back and see all that I missed with my own eyes. See the time when our hands touched and shared something divine. Rewind and watch that exact moment where the illusions broke and I saw the world without it's shine of naivete. Watch him watching me. That I could see this dead future of what could have been and a happiness that he swears we had. Where I still had it. I can wish. I dream.
Sharing
by Melissa
"We are unique, special. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
"But they told me that I was a freak! That I'm wrong somehow. That I shouldn't be. Maybe they're right."
"No, they're just jealous, or confused. We are evolution, sweetie. We are what is to come. A taste of the future. Foreshadowing, you could say. They want to be us, darlin'. That's all."
"You mean they wish they had powers like we do?"
"That's exactly what I mean. People tend to hate things that they don't understand, or hate those who have things that they want."
"I'll share with them."
Test
by Huruma
She had been feeling ill for days. The nurse said it was nothing important, that she had probably gotten food poisoning and that she would be fine on Thursday morning. Come Thursday, her head was still throbbing and her brow still beaded with unnatural sweat. They made her go to class anyway.
It was test day, after all.
It was test day, and she hadn't studied because she was sick. And still was. So she watched the girl in front of her, weary eyes on the back of her head.
Something was humming.
Humming, like a stomach full of butterflies.
Angel of Death
by Stef
Few people know when they're going to die. Few people get to choose how they go. I thought I had chosen, when I fought to lift the fallen rock as the flood waters came in. I survived, sputtering, water in my lungs, burning pain all along my body. I didn't die fighting, like I'd wanted. But I did die helping people.
And you were there to take away the pain, Gabriel. My angel of death. The last thing I saw was you. The last words I heard were yours.
And I died knowing my strength would live on in you.
Easier
by Cardinal
"You're dead tomorrow," they told me.
I knew they were right.
I'd seen the knife meant for my heart, my brother of sharpened mirror-glass. I'd seen the payment, slipped to the guards to look the other way.
I stayed up all night staring out between bars. "There's a way out," I told myself, but I couldn't see one.
It wasn't until I looked inside to the dark there that I found it.
I killed him in my sleep, before he could kill me. He was my first.
It scares me sometimes, but they were right.
It gets easier every time.
Equal Measure
by Eileen
I wish I could fill this space with a story about how I was lifted up by a halo of white light and born into the waiting arms of my ancestors, or how death is a solitary birch at the top of a snowy hill with a flock of starlings for leaves and a knot that changes shape between the faces of those I loved the most when I was still alive.
Something pretty.
The truth is that I was and then I simply wasn't.
Yours was an act of cruelty, selfishness and love. The equal measure makes it forgivable.
I Am
by Wendy
I was a bore, rude, insolent, artistic, tall, uncouth, gangly, rich and a joy. I was a woman with means and means to an end. I was an addiction, loathed, desired, wanted, kept close or pushed away. I was cherished, loved and adored.
I was a Sheryl Crow song; I was lovely and weak, I was foul when I speak. I was strange when I'm kind. I was frying my mind .
I was a finder of genetics and prophet of abilities.
I am dead in the ground. I am Wendy Olivia Hunter.
I am a ghost of what was.
Life and Death
by Anonymous
They said we were children of the Tuatha De Danann; heroes.
We did not ask to be heroes, or chosen, or gifted the way we were; lovers.
He was day and I was night, essence of life without the capacity to touch one another; cursed.
War drove us apart and fate kept us there, we longed to be reunited more than anything; eternal.
It took too many generations, too much death and too much pain; division.
Though now we're together again, where we have always longed to be; unified.
Ours was a curse that has finally been ended; thank you.
Lila
by Eileen
When children die, it's always before their time. Three is still very small; there are developmental milestones she'll never reach like catching a gently tossed ball, understanding the concepts of "same" and "different" and the realization of self as a whole person involving mind, body and soul.
And she is whole. Sickness has not taken the glass-brittle fingers from her hands, her hands from her arms or her arms from her torso, which is cold and naked as they wash it, preparing the little girl whose name began with an L for a hasty burial.
Her sister will not remember.
Ravens
by Colette
In celtic mythology, ravens carry souls of the dead to the afterlife.
I read that in a book once; a raven I saw at the Lighthouse reminded me of it.
It was funny, it had a colorful bead necklace in its beak, the strap was broken. It sat there, watched for a long time, pecking on the glass to come in; It shouldn't.
I watched him, he watched me, and after a while he left; leaving the necklace behind.
I decided to keep it. Maybe that raven was someone I loved, come back to say goodbye?
It's a sweet thought.
That Much Longer
by Ryans
The years were closing in and I would soon be held in your arms again, to hear your sweet voice in my ear, and touch those red curls. My arms were open to the idea that my life was coming to an end. I was at peace with it.
Then in only a moment of blinding emerald light, he took his own life and made me young again. He pushed me further away from you and the embrace I've longed for since the madman took you away.
Twenty more years, Sweet Mary, before I can be held by you again.
The Key
by Corbin
The necklace has been a twice-given gift. First to him, then back to her. In the beginning it was just the key to the store, a birthday present from a trickster, to let him know he was still welcome. When the key became useless, due to changed locks, he had it painted in dark blue lacquer and silver stars and returned it to her for her birthday on a chain. He'd thought it was classy, a cunning idea. Now he wears it around his neck, close to his heart, while her body is prepared to be placed in the ground.
Weighing of the Heart
by Eileen
The ancient Egyptians called it the Ib, seat of emotion and thought, dropped from the heart of a mother into her child at conception. At death, it testifies before the gods against its possessor and if the weight it carries is heavier than a feather, the soul is consumed by the monster Ammit: Devourer of the Dead.
The Norse had Niflhel. The Greek, Tartarus. No one mourns lost civilizations or dead religions, only people.
Last night I lay awake wondering if that isn't the greatest sin of them all. Then, for the fist of lead in my chest, I wept.
All Around Me
by Magnes
I'm afraid my friends may be falling to pragmatism. The world's getting worse outside, and it's not just the snow. The Rebels are exposing the Empire, but who's really evil? Are there really heroes among us, or are they just red shirts waiting for someone to stand up?
They say I don't understand the world, but I understand a lot. They say masks are for comics and fantasy, I say masks are a symbol of hope and fear. My most recent observation about the world, other than pragmatism; not enough hope in victims, not enough fear in villains. No symbols.
A Promise
by Melissa
The world is a dangerous place, my sweets. Full of pitfalls and bad guys and accidents just waiting to happen. But I'll protect you. You may not realize that you have a safety net beneath you. You may not want a safety net. But you have one.
I cannot let you go through life suffering as I have suffered. I cannot bear to see you cry over a loss or a wound that will only heal on the surface.
So I will stand in front of you as a shield. I will take the loss, and the pain.
I promise.
Change
by Melissa
We're trying to change the world, one person at a time. One opinion, one life. Every time we convince one person we're not the monsters they believe us to be, we win a victory. Every time we rescue one person, save one life, we win a victory.
These victories, however small, add up, like drops of water into an empty lakebed. One by one we will fill the world with the truth. And on that day, we'll have won not just a battle, but the war. We will no longer be forced to hide in the shadows, whispering our propaganda.
Normal Life
by Melissa
Who wants a normal life? Normal is boring and repetitive. Just work and dinner and sleep. Maybe something fun on the weekends.
My life is exciting! It has action and excitement. Danger and thrills. No two days are ever the same. But no two days are ever the same. There is pain and loss. There is horror and tragedy. So many things witnessed that cannot be unseen.
The choice is between being normal and being an unsung hero. No recognition. No parades, no parties. Just the knowledge that you helped.
So who really wants a normal life?
Not me? Right??
The Ferrymen
by Melissa
It's a thankless job. No one can see what you do. How much you help. No one even knows you exist.
But that's the way you want it, right? That's the way it has to be. You couldn't help if everyone knew. If everyone could find you and recognize your face on the street.
So there won't be any autograph signing for you. No "I want to be you when I grow up" from little kids. Just the suffering and horrors that you try to avert every day.
How can you be a hero if no one knows your name?
Their Future
by Kaylee
I want normal and a family. To have my own child.
You want me to stay out of the conflict, to leave it to others.
How can I face my future children if I act like a coward?
I watch the children of today struggle, hiding cause of what they are. Hated and shunned. Taken away from their parents for having abilities.
How can I bring a child into that?
That's why I can't have normal just yet, I need to fight for a better future.
Then I can hold my head up high, knowing I did it for them.
Untitled
by Anonymous
We are the evolved underground railroad, silent freedom fighters and cattle rustlers. We are the people who quietly defy the laws that publicly deny your freedom to be. To be who we are, who we were born, who we have been chemically changed to be. We are in front of you, behind you, just to the side, below or above. I am, you are, she is, he was. We are fiction and fact, a proffered hand outstretched to give you aid and shelter you and start a new life. No obolus needs cross our palms to pay for your passage.
When We're Done
by Cardinal
She wants to get away, I know. Escape, leave this behind, go to a tropical island, watch our kids splash in the surf, happy. Sometimes I think we should.
Then I remember the thirty-six. I remember my conscience with her tongue cut out. I remember what Pinehearst kept in their labs, and what they did to Red in Madagascar. I remember the seer's paintings, the singer's songs. I know what'd happen to my kids if I ran away, if I didn't stop this.
We could disappear, but someone has to stop the future.
So we can rest when we're done.
Pila
by Abigail
Up goes the cloth and is it him? No. Not all the time. It's her, or the other him. But when it's him, my Sicilian, I give him my fury! Where have you been?! You've been with another! I am your queen! I am your world and I am the one who's newspaper you should be changing! You can leave when I tell you to. Freshen my seed and water boy! But when he stays and his finger is where I am perched. Ahh but my world is complete and I nibble his ear. He is mine and no others.
Samson One: Hope
by Delilah
The Man was very sick- The Man needed me to watch him. then it was the Box. i was there for many days.
many days, many days, i smelt death even though they were very young and very strong and very loyal and there were many. the little ones see me through the wire always cold on my nose when i greet them- i smelled cold but it was hot and dry and summer.
the cold was there when Dahlailah came and took me home. my name is Samsuhn here too and she needs me too. i can do it.
Samson Two: Mascot
by Delilah
i dunno why Dahlailah does this to me. i dont mind but the wool is itchy and it makes me hot when we are inside. she smiles when i dont take it off and we can go out to visit everyone now. Teeoh has tennis balls Ahbee has bones Jessie sits with me and watches but sometimes we run.
i like to see Jhairee and Ahleeceiah and Mugguls and Jupitur and we play but Sandrah does not like it when Mugguls fights.
the people in houses like to pet me i do make them feel better! I DO I DO!
Samson Three: Crisis
by Delilah
nobody came for me after she left, so i was afraid Dahlailah was like The Man. Jessie Leeoh Jessie? came for me and hugged me and took me with him. i stay in here with her and the others who are sick and i will sit with them and kiss it away.
i dont think they know what to do. there are some babies. it makes me sad.
Jessie takes me to walk outside a lot. Jessie forgets my coat sometimes, i have to remind him. i tell the good dogs about terrible things, terrible things.
Samson Four: Eyes
by Delilah
when we go to places to visit everyone has animals too. there are dogs and cats and birds and fish but i cant talk to the fish i don't breathe underwater.
Ahbee has Skarrlutt and Peelah at her house. Peelah is Teeoh bird! she tells him lots of things but he doesnt hear them. i watch her when we go because she listens to everything and tells me first so i know.
she has very tiny eyes and mine are very big. Peelah is very tiny. im not supposed to kiss her but i do. tiny kisses for tiny Peelah.
His Shoes
by Eileen
At four, she pulls on her ballet slippers sewn from pink satin and stands behind the door, listening to Mummy speak in terse hisses with a shadow whose face she can no longer remember even though he roughly wrenched her away when she tried to hold it in her hands. Instead, his shoes: black and polished with hard soles that sound like an open palm on a blushing cheek.
At six, when her father leaves them, she asks Mummy if the man with the fancy shoes will come and be her new daddy. "Leenie," Sophia breathes, "you should hope not."
Daughters
by Judah
To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter.
Judah Demsky has two. As for the saying, he first it on a card at the Hallmark while looking for something suitable for his cousin in Newark. Joanna, pregnant again; if the first three are any indication it's with another bouncing baby boy, rendering all frilliness and pink unnecessary.
He'll deny he's vindictive but he sent the rosiest, laciest pair of doll-sized pajamas he could find when Nina asked him to contribute to the shower. It's what Joanna gets for asking when he'll marry and have a real one.
Samson Five: Annoyance
by Delilah
Mugguls likes to bother me all the time. i dont like it much. i put up with him because he is my friend. Dahlailah does that too with her people sometimes i think. i know these things when she wrinkles her nose or licks her teeth on the inside. she is too kind to her people to say when she is really feeling not good or scared or overwhelmed.
i always know though, she will hug me hard and i will sit up for her to put her head on me. i kiss her, she smiles and talks about patience.
A Beacon
by Gillian
I never wanted a family. I rebelled and acted out. I tried to be the daughter that they'd roll their eyes at and wish would disappear. I treated my brother and sister poorly. I was terrible big sister.
Family was never something I wanted, until I lost it.
And fought to get it back.
A brother in blood. A fragment of a sister living on in the man who killed her. Children that aren't mine.
A lighthouse is a beacon in stormy weather. Now it's my family and my home.
And I don't want to let it down. Not again.
Samson Six: Mirror
by Delilah
the smell of her perfume stings my nose when she sprays it, and it makes me sneeze when i see her grooming her reflection! i don't like it, i like her smell when she smells like My Person!
Dee will sit and fidget and look there for a long time- then she goes without me and i wait and wait and wait and waaait for so long! i hate it when she does this! i worry, yes!
when she comes home i am happy but sometimes she shuts me behind a door. i will be a good dog and wait.
Abandoned
by Huruma
When they are old enough to fend for themselves, leopards will leave their cubs behind and move on. Humans do this in the same kind of capacity, much of the time. Sometimes reason makes it stall, or reason makes it premature. He had a reason- he had to protect his family from someone inside of it. Two whole children are better than one of three, forever fractured.
His mother didn't like it. She left soon after, to find her.
Huruma never came back.
He never expects that she will, if she's alive.
No regrets on either side. None at all.
Wisdom
by Eileen
The girl needs him more than he needs the girl. He knows this because wisdom comes with age, and nineteen is very old for a raven — especially a wild one. It wasn't always this way; there used to be a Yeoman Warder who kept his belly full, clipped his wing and ensured the metal band around his leg was never too tight.
He loves the girl more than the girl loves him. He knows this because the extra time they used to spend together is time spent with the big man.
Wise as he is, he does not understand.
Unborn Hope
by Pandora
Blue eyes stare at me as if questioning my desires. Inside me there's a flutter that has nothing to do with my own emotions. It's like the child knows. I'm not like that, am I? I would never hate you. But I would be afraid for you. Every single day of my life. Without your father to protect us.
And he couldn't protect himself.
If he sacrificed himself just so you could be persecuted, I don't know what I'll do. I will love you and protect you all the days of my life, but please don't be one of them.
Self
by Anonymous
It's a forbidden pleasure. An exotic thrill. It feels so good, so right. It feels like I'm truly being myself. Like I've unlocked that part that I keep hidden away from the world, for fear that they won't understand.
That's the primal part of me though. The rational part. It know that it's wrong. It knows that it's bad. Some things are supposed to remain locked away, never to see the light of day except in the most dire of circumstances.
So I war with myself. I can't be myself without becoming something I'll despise.
Which hell do I choose?
Red Card
by Logan
Worth it. Worth getting up that fucking early, worth her mood at having to get ready at dawn, worth it when it's cold and the strain in muscles when you do laps around the field. Worth it for the scent of wet grass, dirt beneath your fingernails, competitive fire and being a hero.
Worth it too when some other kid gets the way of winning.
Worth letting your temper get away from you, knuckles popping dislocated— worth it— when it cuts against the kid's teeth and the ref blows the whistle. Kid grimaces with pinked teeth. Red card.
Worth it.
Monster
by Anonymous
He's been called a monster enough times that it's ceased to have any meaning beyond the subtler connotations of the sounds that accompany such accusations. Hitching breaths, shuddering moans, that noise a throat makes when it closes up around a scream — whether or not he's the cause or a transient remedy, he's heard them all.
They're right, of course. The only time he denies his true nature is in letters written to a girl by her absent brother because their mother works, their father is dead and she has only a cat named Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna for company.
Happiness: The Ferrymen
by Kaylee
Happiness is the look on peoples faces when you hand them a warm meal and a change of clothing, something they may have not seen for a time.
It's the look of awe on little faces as puppets dance on strings bringing to life stories told by a portly man, when the world around them is so dangerous and scary.
It is knowing the ones you care for and love are safe and sound, because you fought so hard and sacrificed so much to get them there.
Happiness is for me the satisfaction I get from working within the Ferrymen.
Happiness: My Daughters
by Ryans
Happiness is my daughters.
Memories of my girls when they were first born, tiny fists curling around my finger, even as I found myself wrapped around their own. So tiny and helpless.
To watch them take those first steps. Arm raised and faces so full of happiness, as they stumble into my waiting arms.
Later on, it's watching those strong young women walk across the stage getting their diplomas and knowing they are not so little anymore.
One day, they too will know my happiness as the tiny fist of their own child curls around a finger, changing their world.
Happiness: Gains
by Delilah
Happiness is everywhere. There is a lot of sadness these days, but it's the little things that matter most that also bring tiny bits of happiness. Tragedy happens, but one always has friends to turn to, or some creature to embrace. People that think they don't are fools, really, because there is always someone. Always.
I am fortunate to have a great deal of happiness, despite my hardships. I lost my family, but gained one. Lost my home, gained another. Lost my status as a human- gained a status as an evolved.
In that I gained a whole new world.
Fear the Princess
by Melissa
I don't need no stinkin' white knight. No hero to come rescue me from the dragons. I'm no damsel in distress, sitting up in a tower waiting around to be rescued. No Daphne to always get captured.
Princesses can be just as fierce as the knights who want to protect them. We can be just as deadly to anger, and just as hard to kill. So why are we considered weak? No one wants to mess with a mama bear, and lionesses are the ones who hunt while the lions stay at home babysitting.
Fear the princesses, my white knights.
Clones: Perfection
by Sylar
It's 6: 34 AM. His watch is off by two minutes and seven seconds. Sylar does not have the will to care — he feels like he's dying. Wounds have gone red and bloated at the edges, there's probably poison in his blood.
It's time to transcend flesh. It's time to finish what he started before he got weak. No longer weak. He knows he's just a broken off piece, maybe the worst part, but there's something to be said about a lack of excess baggage.
Grigori was fucking lying, when he said 'you don't deserve— '
(Because there is nothing he doesn't.)
Clones: Freedom
by Tavisha
Once upon a time, there'd been a man named Tavisha who died from internal bleeding after being heroic and later asked to be buried.
Since then, he's considered: broken necks in glass panes, monstrous blurry cars, getting stupid enough to tangle wings among the bird spikes that line the nicer buildings in a flurry of spitting feathers and flying flecks of blood. But most of the time, he flies, on the wings of soaring hawks or silent owls or fluttery sparrows.
Diets of insects, seeds, scattered berries.
(There is a greater freedom than even the sky. Tavisha will find it.)
Clones: Actress
by Jenny
She wears her red hair up today, and she turns once in the mirror. What she sees is a girl who's had it rough but maybe could still be a model one day. Maybe an actress.
Jenny is pretty sure she'd be a great actress.
And then if the dogs come back, she'll be there this time. The world will turn into black ink, white teeth, sharp knives, and she will string them up as an example to others and then help Gillian with the dishes later.
(When she shuts her eyes, she still sees the man in the door.)
Winter
by Melissa
The weather outside is frightful.
Plows try to clear the streets and businesses shut down. It's too much trouble to get to work today!
Yes, it's fun for kids. Snow day! Time to go have snowball fights and make snowmen and snow angels! Time for hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows, and sitting in front of a raging fire.
But on the other side of the city, people suffer. They huddle under threadbare blankets, and gather around burning cans of trash. They shiver and wonder if they will survive until tomorrow.
Will tonight be the last night of winter for them?
The Meat Man
by Raith
How many times has he said it? One hundred? One thousand? It doesn't matter anymore. He told them, he kept telling them. They stopped listening, so he stopped telling them. They'd rather worry about the snow than about me. And because of that, I'm free.
He's been wrong, whenever he told them. She is not his city. She is my city. I know her alleys, her gutters, her towers, her most intimate secrets. And now, I'm free to prowl in her deep shadows and stalk her icy night. You should have listened. Too late now.
Watch out for me, darling.
cacophony
by Anonymous
Each day we wake, welcomed by the sounds of our New York. The ambulance sirens pass at the speed of life. A protester spews forth his genetic hate and demands of purity over a megaphone. Brakes squeal as the taxi stomps his brakes and screams at pedestrians. Music vibrates through the air when club doors open to disgorge it's patrons. The skeletons of what was - is - midtown groan and creak with their rusting complaints. Gus bellows his displeasure from his fake iceberg in the zoo.
This is my New York.
There is no quiet in our New York.