K.A. Ashcomb's Blog, page 8

Day 132 Writing Short Stories

Son

They say the crow flies to the east to carry sorrows with them. They say the birds see who will die and who will live, and if you learn to listen, they will tell their secrets. He was a crow boy, son of a crow man. He had carried his medicine with him to the lands that knew no bones of his ancestors. The crow boy felt it in his spirit, the cold land spare of gods. There was only greed and the one.

He shivered in the harsh rain, watching the manor under the oak tree. The tree spoke of i...

Day 131 Writing Short Stories

Dune

The sand waves swirled underneath his aircraft, lifting dust up in the air. The dune was bigger than he had initially thought. He was here to survey the ground and assess it for company development. The planet could be turned habitable. There were signs of rich mineral veins to justify the terraforming. Thus far, he had seen no intelligent lifeforms to make it a code violation.

He recorded a feed of the dune on his live map for the company executives. He landed his aircraft on the san...

Day 130 Writing Short Stories

Dark

The house creaked and moaned as the storm raged on outside. The hallways were painted dark, and no light seeped through the windows. She listened to the moans and creaks, unsure what was making the sounds, the storm or something alive. It had been foolish to stay here alone in the house, especially when there was no electricity, water, or heating. She should have gone to the hotel, especially with a storm warning. Now she was stuck here with her bad choices, hoping that the electric comp...

Day 129 Writing Short Stories

Danger

The toxic fumes glowed bright green on the rubbish heap. Beyond it, the once huge complex of the trash plant had fallen into ruins, as had everything else in the society. There was nothing left but a wasteland of decay and dead bodies, and odd flora and fauna here and there that had survived the bombing.

If she took her gas mask off, there was no telling what kind of danger the fumes would get her into. Her thick rubber boots creaked underneath her against the half-melted rubbish. B...

Day 128 Writing Short Stories

Heat

The scorching hot air shimmered against the backdrop of the desert city. The heat was making everyone delirious. There were barely any shadows to hide in before arriving in the city. A few cactus-like plants were scattered all over the rust-colored sand. The planet was a hell pit, and he had cursed his luck for being sent here.

He had been flying over the never-ending desert for a few days in his ship. The water was starting to taste like his own piss, and the air conditioner in the p...

Day 127 Writing Short Stories

Balloon

She tied a balloon after a balloon to her back. She was determined to escape and never be found again. They were sending her to school tomorrow, and that meant the end of her freedom and curiosity. Her parents thought it was not okay for her to spend the rest of her life in the woods at the back of their farm. She would show them. Once the balloons took off, that was where she was heading, into the woods, never to be found.

But the balloons never took off. She still remembered that...

Day 126 Writing Short Stories

Satin

The rich, petrol satin with a golden pattern was draped around the sofa. The queen’s seamstress had left it there to get accustomed to the fabric. It would be the queen’s new dress. Something the queen had picked abroad. She hated it, but she was the help, and she wasn’t going to say no. Now she just had to find the right kind of dress pattern, which could hide the monstrous fabric and its hideous golden ornaments.

She sighed.

The fabric had been there for days now, and the queen ...

Day 125 Writing Short Stories

Smile

“Girl, you have to learn to smile.” She heard someone shouting.

This was already the third time that day she heard that. She kept her mouth shut. If she wanted to smile, she would, but she was surrounded by idiots.

She gave the boy the middle finger after locating him.

“You would look pretty if you smiled,” he retorted and turned away.

This was another thing she had heard before. She didn’t want to be pretty, cheerful, beautiful, or an object for them. She had set out to dis...

Day 124 Writing Short Stories

Paints

The home-made laboratory took half of the first floor. He had been adding on to it, running tubes across the entire room. One day, it would be a glorious construction that could produce anything, but for now, he had to pay the bills, and he had been making paints for the local artists the old way. It was a tiresome task. A task that allowed him to test the setup. But his dream was and forever would be to find the elixir of youth. It was the ultimate dream of any alchemist.

A Razor-S...

Day 123 Writing Short Stories

Crumble

The crumbled old stairs were the only way out of the house. The cobwebs and the mold had taken every crook and every surface. The stale air was making it even harder to breathe. She glanced behind, hearing the floorboards creak. The hallway was empty. That meant nothing in this house. She should never have let her curiosity get the better of her. She hadn’t actually seen the thing that haunted the abandoned house, but she had felt it, and there was this sense that it was driving her d...