Ichabod Ebenezer's Blog, page 4

Stella and Ignatius

Image by Larisa Koshkina from PixabayOn the night Ignatius entered the Mormot’s cave, Stella descended from the heavens.

She crossed the fields outside the mountain home of the hoary beast. Its terrible cries shook the ground beneath her feet. A tear escaped her eye at the suffering Ignatius would go through.

But such was always the way with the death of heroes.

With his defeat of the Cantankerous Ballywump, his legend was born. After he’d slain the Tempestuous Garthwag, his deeds were sung throughout the land.

He was the obvious choice to face the Mormot.

Tonight, folk who claim to have met him once would raise a glass in his honor.

Stella waved an arm and the clouds evaporated. The stars pulsed brighter in anticipation. No reason they shouldn’t see this.

The walking grew tiresome, so she summoned stones and boulders, which formed a giant turtle to carry her to Ignatius.

The smell of rot billowed from the cave, but the clash of metal against chitinous armor proclaimed that the hero yet lived.

The hoary beast roared again; this time followed by the hero’s death rattle.

The Mormot came galumphing into the main cavern. It turned when it saw her, running deeper into the cave complex.

Heart’s blood still pumped from the dying hero. Stella stepped from the turtle and touched Ignatius’s forehead. His eyes opened.

“My lady. Are you here to heal me, so I may complete my work and slay the Mormot?”

“Nay, young hero. Alas, you have perished.”

“Then you are here to ferry me to Hades” He bowed his head.

“Nay again. As you said, your work is incomplete.” With that, Stella lifted Ignatius from his body and cast him into the sky. New stars blinked into existence around his edges. A new constellation to inspire the next generation of heroes.

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The Interface

Image by Meryl Katys from Pixabay“Before you go in, we should mention the interface.”

The Felori’s mouthparts couldn’t form English words, and their ears didn’t pick up human frequencies. Negotiations had to be virtual.”

“Not a pair of glasses, I take it?”

“No, filaments connect directly to your nervous system. Entirely immersive, and you can manifest objects. You get thirsty? Boom. Mountain Dew.”

“Or a pen and contract? Maybe a desk?.”

“Of course. That’s why you’re the negotiator. Now, step this way, please.”

Tracy opened up the inner door and Sarah stepped inside. The room hummed with color. The far wall was a window into the Felori leader’s chamber. They bowed to each other, then she lay down on the platform.

Immediately, colorful filaments extruded from the walls and ceiling by the thousands. The Interface. “Only a tingle,” she said nervously, and closed her eyes.

The room was gone. They were in a field of alien flowers. Sarah bowed again. “On behalf of The President of the—”

“Do you want to live?” the Felori said.

It took her a moment to recover. “The instinct for survival is only one commonality between our two peoples—”

“This is not a negotiation, it is an invasion. It took fourteen milliseconds to read your entire consciousness, and another six to replace it. In two minutes, our operative will wake up and send your president in to conclude talks. You are now superfluous. Would you like to remain in this artificial environment, or would you prefer we terminate your subroutine?”

For a moment, she considered manifesting an Abram’s Tank behind the Felori. “I want to live,” she said, and the Felori disappeared.

She looked around. Time passed faster here. How long would it take her to figure out how to use the printer connected to this simulation?

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Sanctuary

[image error]Image by Helmut H. Kroiss from Pixabay“There it is,” Andre said, pointing through a gap in the trees.

“The church? That’s got to be hundreds of years old!” Max said, retrieving a water bottle from his backpack.

“Exactly. Thick stone walls and solid oak doors. This was a sanctuary that stood up to King Otto’s rage.”

“But there’s five hundred meters of open field surrounding it!” Hildi said.

“Which only means we’ll see them coming long before they get there,” Andre said. “Let’s go.”

“What she means is they’ll see us when we run for it.” Max handed the water bottle to Hildi.

“Thanks,” she said.

“How about we at least wait until dark?” Max asked.

“Those things see just as well in the dark.”

Hildi shivered at the memory of all those glowing eyes running through the ruins of Frankfurt. “And you think this church will hold against them?”

Andre sighed. “It’s our best chance. Honestly, it’s our only chance.”

“If it’s so defensible, what hasn’t someone already taken it?” Max asked, struggling into the heavy backpack.

“I don’t know. They may have. Look, we either go now, or we may as well give up.”

Andre’s two companions nodded their readiness. Andre took one last look around and sprinted past the tree line.

As they ran, Hildi constantly felt she heard the growl of those creatures behind her, but once they vaulted the low wall of the churchyard, she chanced a look back. The field was empty and silent.

Andre tried the door, but it was locked, perhaps barricaded.

Max joined him. “Please, let us in. We’re willing to work for sanctuary.”

There was no response from inside.

Hildi added her voice. “Max is a nurse.”

The lock clicked and the doors swung inward.

Max grabbed Hildi’s arm. “I’m not a nurse,” he whispered.

She smiled. “Oops. Got us in though.”

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The Garnet Heart

Image by Caralyn Young“It’s too dark, little one.

We are close, and time is short. Perhaps, you could burn a little brighter?”

Sakura held the floating figure at arm’s length. The flames that danced around his body only illuminated a small area of the cavern.

“Time is shorter than you think,” the ifrit said. His voice had lost its strength, sounding distant and hollow. “I haven’t the energy left to burn brighter. You will have to bring me closer.”

“But the curse!” Sakura said.

“I know. At least I won’t be around to see what becomes of you.”

“No. We can still make it. The Garnet Heart is close.”

“It calls to me. But where?”

The ifrit faded moment by moment. Sakura’s breathing grew ragged as she searched for signs of the gem that would save the ifrit and break her curse. A sound broke through between breaths, faint, but nearby. She held her breath and listened.

A heartbeat.

“It calls…”

Not many beats left now. “There!” Sakura said, dashing down one of the branching tunnels. They came to another chamber where the gem lay in a shaft of light. Sakura ran toward it. “Just one more—”

“Too late. I die…” the ifrit said, his aura of flames fading entirely.

“No!” Sakura cried. She grasped the Garnet Heart and placed it against the ifrit’s tiny chest.

The cavern blurred, sunlight blinded her, and she smelled cherry blossoms. “No!” she said, tears streaming down her face as she shoved the gem against her dead friend’s chest.

Sakura fell to her knees in her orchard home, determined to stay with her friend until the end.

Wings sprouted from her back, then her nose elongated into a beak and her neck stretched forward. A moment later, and forever more, a swan stood where the girl had been.

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The Apparition

Image by Caralyn YoungThe Apparition

Sylvia searched for a dry spot on her handkerchief before dabbing at her eyes.

“Are you Sylvia?” a man asked, startling her. He was rough-shaven and wore a wool beanie and a navy peacoat.

She looked around the crowded bar, but no one else was paying attention. “Are you The Apparition?”

“Do you have the money?” he asked.

She slid the envelope across the table. He slipped it into an inner pocket and said, “The Apparition will contact you,” turning to leave.

“Wait, how do I—”

“He’ll contact you.”

Sylvia nursed Cosmo after Cosmo until closing, but he never showed. Now she felt stupid on top of heartbroken and guilty.

She took an Uber home and prepared the couch for sleep. Sylvia still couldn’t bear to lie in their bed alone.

An hour later, she woke, hearing her name. Instantly alert, she scanned the dark room, gasping when she saw a figure standing in front of the window.

“Do not be alarmed,” the man said.

But she was alarmed. She could see the trees of her side yard through the man, and he was wearing clothing a hundred years out of fashion. “Who do you want killed?” he asked.

It was the Apparition! Sylvia sat up. “My husband. George Aikman. I have his address here.” She reached for the Post-it on the end table.

“Tell me. I cannot touch it, but I’ll remember.”

Realization dawned, and Sylvia picked up her keys instead, tossing them toward the man. They passed right through him. “How can you kill him if you can’t touch him?”

“Like this,” he said. In an instant he stood in front of her. He plunged his fist into her chest.

Searing cold spread through her, stilling her breath until he removed his hand.

Sylvia smiled and read off George’s address.

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The Emperor of Mog

Image by Caralyn YoungMarshall’s journey of scientific discovery was not going well.

Sure, his theories on alternate concurrent dimensions were confirmed, and his portal mechanism was self-sustaining, but as he was being dragged in chains before the emperor, he had time to reconsider his testing methodology.

He’d first tossed a crumpled piece of paper through the opaque portal. Next, he slung his yo-yo through, returning with no apparent damage. But even after he threw his dog Freckles through the portal and she returned when he called, Marshall was worried that this could have been some other effect and his biases made it seem like confirmation.

So, he stepped through.

And he was immediately wrestled to the ground and arrested for trespassing in the emperor’s harem.

Marshall already felt sunburned under the odd orange sun, which was probably why the population ranged from a metallic green to deep purple. Overseers barked at serfs from the backs of six-legged reptiles and yanked at Marshall’s chains.

The slave caravan entered the walled city, and Marshall was led to the place of judgement. His captors removed his chains, leaving only his wrists shackled.

Braziers burst into torrents of flames, and a massive red-eyed visage appeared over the throne. “Kneel before the throne. Or else…” boomed and echoed through the hall.

Marshall trembled. Finding it hard to get enough air, he was rooted to the spot. He screamed at himself to bow, wanting to look anywhere than at the horrid face.

That’s when he saw a tapestry along one wall moving as if in a breeze. Having seen Wizard of Oz, he suddenly realized what was going on.

Marshall bolted from his place, chased by guards. He threw aside the curtain.

Cooks looked up from their work of preparing the last prisoner who refused to kneel before the throne.

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Dreams

Image Credit: Caralyn YoungI was dreaming again.

But was this my dream… or hers?

“Hello?” I called. She was here somewhere, though it was possible she wasn’t lucid yet.

My voice echoed back to me from the seemingly infinite horizon. There was a light in the distance, so I walked toward it across the checkerboard floor.

A meteor shot past overhead, sounding like a cow. Once the mooing faded, I called out for Melody again. “Hello?”

My own footsteps distracted me. Not the sharp dry staccato of linoleum that I expected—they were the deep sucking sounds of swampy mud. But then, all the sounds of this world were incongruous.

The light wasn’t growing any closer, but somehow, I knew I would find her there. “Screw it,” I said. I closed my eyes, picturing myself in that distant beam of light, then spun around. The wind howled around me, sounding like rough sandpaper on stone. When the sound died down, I opened my eyes.

A spotlight shone down from the starscape above me, and in its center stood a mannequin. “Melody,” I said, smiling. So, it must be her dream—or perhaps, nightmare.

I stood in front of her, but her plastic eyes did not move to meet mine.

I clapped, hard, in front of her. It sounded like an obnoxious fart, but it did the trick, startling her into moving. She saw me, recognized me, hugged me.

The spotlight above shut off, and another one came on about fifty meters away, highlighting a door suspended above the endless dancefloor. A voice came from the door. “You unlock this door with the key of imagination,” it repeated endlessly.

I immediately recognized the voice of Rod Serling.

“Shall we?” I asked, smiling. Melody took my hand and we flew up to reach the door.

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The Island

(I don’t have a photo for this prompt due to potential copyright issues. Apologies.)

“Hey, I thought you said that island is uninhabited,”

Shelly said, clutching her tea against the cold morning air.

“It is,” Jason said, closing the sliding door and joining her on the deck of his family’s vacation cabin. “Why do you ask?”

“There’s a rowboat over there. See? Under that tree? It was there when we drove up yesterday, but in the evening, it was gone.”

“Huh. well, I’ve been coming here since I was a kid, and I was always told no one is allowed there. The Island’s a nature preserve or something.”

Jason sat in one of the cushioned Adirondacks and fiddled with the knob on the patio heater until the grate glowed a pleasant orange. Shelly continued to stare across the lake as the sun crested the distant trees.

“Well, someone didn’t get the memo.”

“The lake has lots of rental properties. Probably some kids who didn’t know better. Finish your tea and we’ll take the boat over and tell them.”

That was enough to take her mind off it for the moment, but once they finished their tea, she reminded Jason of his promise. Five minutes later, they were easing up next to the rowboat.

“There’s a little path.” Shelly pointed.

They got off the boat and followed the trail a short way. “For a nature preserve, it sure is quiet,” Shelly said.

Cresting a hill, they saw a small valley before them. Six-foot-high stakes were evenly spaced across the whole valley, decorated with animal skulls and splashes of blood.

“Not a nature preserve,” Shelly whispered.

“We should go,” Jason said.

They turned to find an old man in sleeveless flannel and straw hat just behind them. “Where you goin’?” he asked with a toothless grin. Two dogs stepped out from behind him, reeking of the grave.

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The Clockwork Tower

Image by awsloley from PixabayThe ominous ticking stopped and the floor beneath us jolted into place.

“Quickly, let’s figure out this level,” Blaise said.

“I can’t keep going,” Martin said, collapsing to the ground.

“You have to,” Gina said, lifting him by the arm.

He shook her off as the clockwork of the building started clicking again, signaling the inevitable collapse of another level. “Just leave me. Death is better than this.”

“Marty,” Blaise started, but Gina took the direct approach, slapping Martin across the face.

“You don’t get it!” she said. “Floor twelve took four of us to work that puzzle and open the exit. Four of us. And now we’re down to five survivors. If we leave you and hit a puzzle that takes five people, you’ll have killed us all!”

Marty stared resentment into her, rubbing his raw face, but he stood.

Gina turned to me. “Now, what do you have?”

I jumped. “Sorry. I was watching Marty,” I said.

“Am I the only one who doesn’t want to get squashed? Find us a way up to the next level!”

We scattered, examining every ratchet, lever, pinwheel, and cam. Selma approached me while I was watching a thick spring tighten around the central post.

“Do you believe there really is a top level?”

Selma asked. “If we make it out, we’ll be free?”

Gina called from across the circular room. “There’s a long opening in the ceiling, too high to reach!”

Suddenly the meaning of the tightening spring clicked for me. “We’ve got a spinner! Blaise, do the math!”

From the angle of the coil, the height of the ceiling and the radius of the room, Blaise picked a spot and had us lay down just as the spring released and the ceiling spun down toward us.

God, I hope Blaise’s math is right.

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Storm Chasers

Image by Elias Sch. from PixabayChandler, Alex, and Ben were not your average storm chasers.

Sure, they got as close as possible to tornados and collected every form of data available, but they had a purpose beyond predicting the next storm.

They saw tornados as sources of immeasurable energy.

Now, while standing in a field of clover a safe distance from the EF4 storm, they each held a Pabst Blue Ribbon at arm’s distance, ready to pull the tab. The prototype they’d been working on for seven years was directly in the path of the storm.

“Gentlemen,” Ben said, and cracked open his can, wincing when his nose was sprayed with foam. “Today is the day—”

“You jinxed it!” Alex said. “You weren’t supposed to open it until we see power levels over five percent!”

“It’s going to work,” Ben said.

“But you jinxed it!”

“It’ll work. The centering A.I. worked like a charm in an EF2. Our generator has gone in the wind tunnel at speeds double that of this monster for hours at a time. The only thing we’re really testing is the stabilizing effect of Chandler’s new gear differential.

Chandler popped his can.

Alex put out his hands to stop the two from drinking. “Guys! There’s a lot we still don’t know. Like, what kind of a beating will it get from debris? And we know the counter-rotation will slow the storm, but by how much?”

The storm hit, and their phones buzzed. Nobody checked their messages though, because the bright lights in the distance proved their design.

“The spotlights are on,” Ben said.

“The device remains stationary,” Chandler said, his voice an octave higher than normal.

The buzzing of their phones continued. Alex checked his, and cracked open his beer.

Ben raised his beer. “Gentlemen, today is the day…”

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