Short Stories - Tumblr Posts
Whisper-Whisper-Whisper-Whisper
Flick the lights *on*.
Flick the lights *off*.
Flick the lights *on*.
Flick the lights *off*.
He stands in the doorway of the kitchen. His kitchen. Ugly, half-sterile faded white and outdated yellows that make everything seem smeared. Fuzzy. The faucet leaks. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. It’s dark out. Night. Chilly, too, with tendrils of frost on the window as eerie, clawing fingers splayed.
Flick the lights *on*.
Flick the lights *off*.
Flick the lights—
Jennifer’s voice splits the silence and shatters the faint rhythm of the drip-drip-drip. Her voice is all craggy, irritable topography marred by too many cigarettes, split between nasally whine and roughness. It sounds like a voice that cracks the words it wants to say. Makes mountains out of molehills. She’s somewhere upstairs away from this kitchen. He shrinks from it, presses to the wall. Silence returns shortly. He doesn’t even know what she said.
He waits.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
*On.*
*Off.*
*On—*
The kitchen is gone. Jennifer is gone. The drip-drip-drip-drip, all of it— gone. Just darkness. Just the Moon, slivered and thin and sharp, surveying from on high. A cool wind blows. Tussles evergreen branches in soft, whispering tones. There are voices. Words. Pure, burrowing meaning that shivers and splits, blooms, even if it’s almost entirely unheard. Soft, hissing words like an endless rain turned down to near-silence. Whisper. Whisper. Whisper. Whisper.
He looks. His heart is slowly crawling up his throat. Pounding.
There are no stars in the sky. Just pristine, primordial blackness and the sickle Moon. Trees cut by sharp moonlight into twisted leering shapes.
Buildings far away. Tall. Monolithic. They are all shadow, all depth. All alien, inhumane. The buildings look back. The whisper-whisper-whisper-whisper originates there, hissing unsettling silence-without-silence.
Watching.
*Off.*
The ugly, fading kitchen. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Back again. He closes his eyes. Feels something crawling up his neck, sliding down his ear. Back to Jennifer. Back to bed.
Come and Play
It sits there. How long has it been? No one remembers where it came from, when it arrived here in this dank little corner, silent and watchful. None of the bright multicolored lights illuminate it-- this place is cursed, *here by dragons* says the darkness. Turn back.
It's a tall unit. Taller than most others. Imposing. Geometric, sharp sides that scream *"future!",* and *"I'm not for kids!".* Exactly the right bait for those willing to try. To undertake the test at the behest of small clustered crowds staring into the corner domain with eager, youthful bravado. A looming black display crisscrossed by thin red stripes, silver hexagonal patterns. Slick. New.
The screen glows green. Stares out at the world in quiet, unsettling judgement. Black patterns unfold and unfurl in complicated miasma, an interlocking labyrinth scrolling past. The simplicity is potent. Powerful. Almost too.. *mature.* It feels mathematical. There's something more there in the flickering. Something hungry.
No joysticks. No buttons. Just the black sheen of the case, the green stare of the screen. Not even a slot for coins.
*What the hell?*
It feels the eyes on it. The watchful stares, eager and nervous voices close by. Feels their intentions.
*Come and play,* it says.
At the head of the case lies one word, emblazoned by the same esoteric hexagonal structures.
*P O L Y B I U S*
The Strange Man comes for Harvest
A strange man came to the heroes one day. Impossible to detect until politely, from under his slouching hat, he cleared his throat. Concerned, tired faces looked up from their deliberations as if an important meeting on Olympus itself had been interrupted. Energies swirled, and powers blossomed. This room had more than enough capability to atomize whole universes— let alone one strange, quiet man.
*You bear so many burdens. I offer to ease them. I will erase those who oppose you.* Simple, matter of fact. His voice echoed slightly in their roomy chamber.
The faces were all seemingly carved from granite, not in perfection (for some were most definitely.. *different*), but in emotion. Schemes, plots, contraptions; they had heard it all, seen it all. The strange man knew even that some in that very chamber had known death and returned. More than *once*.
A woman with raven black hair and shimmering golden eyes stood, spoke. She knew the Absolute Truth, be it burden or boon. With a quiet, even voice she told her comrades that their visitor was truthful. Completely. The granite faces seemed to erode and crack with quiet emotion.
*Freedom is enticing*, intoned the strange man. He smiled politely, hands still raised. The gods over mankind looked to one another. Born, manufactured, mutants, divinity. All together afraid, all together hopeful.
*I’ll be outside if you need me*, and with quiet steps, the strange man stepped out into the sunlight among so many chirping birds, crisp green grass. A gentle summer breeze whispered in his ear.
This dance was always the same. The strange man remembered how it had all began. How his people had discovered where heroes and monsters truly emerged, and that they grew as fruits for a very *difficult* tree. But a tree with a harvest bountiful beyond imagining.
The wind blew quietly against his skin, his thin coat and worn hat. And it carried messages that even these wondrous people-beyond-people could not hear. And in his silence, the strange man smiled.
An overpowering night. Even with the backbone of stars above its ancient darkness sprawls, swallows up the earth beneath like an oncoming ocean from above. It is the greatest enemy of the People. The night shelters their foes and predators, cloaks the stalking tigers even as helpless familiars are dragged off into tall grass or hides marauding Others, their fierce gazes and fiercer obsidian knives unseen. The night is the first and final God, a beautiful destroyer, merciless and immutable to the fates that play out beneath. The People fear it, respect it in a matter-of-fact absolutism. It *is*.
They pay little mind to an unfamiliar star above.
They are few. Numbers and abstractions are as far away as those twinkling, cold constellations. These people have short memories, awareness like a mirage over far away sands. But they know that they are less. The People are dwindling just as cool water dwindles under scornful sun. Voices forever vanished and dexterous, shaping hands stilled. In a world so big with the People so few, each loss is a Holocaust. Soon there will be none.
Bodies huddle in the dark as attentive, fearful eyes peer out into the blackness. Waiting. Each breath is an anxious rattle bound by animal-fear heartbeats pounding, sometimes screams erupt and throw themselves echoing into the darkness. Long grass bends, under sun rustling as antagonizing shapes manifest for the briefest of seconds before vanishing. Unseen Others circle. Hooting to themselves. Preparing. Starlight glints over sharp, brutal looking stone knives like so many lifeless eyes.
A frenzy passes between the People. No prayers exist yet, no gods have been born to give name and respect and loyalty to what lives deep within mankind. Even their emotions are thin things. More instinct than empathy. A frost of humanity over primordial depth. The hoots rise, hands thump at muscular chests, teeth barred and feet kicking, stamping into dry season dust. No rallying cries. No sympathies pass between adults and their clutching, cooing infants. When the Others emerge, all that awaits them is untamed fear and territorial aggression. War is an ancient impulse.
The foreign star observes, sentinel over a dim world. Words-without-words are exchanged. Unfathomable processes respond. *Thy will be done* relayed with majestic computational composure. The prairie below experiences sudden, catastrophic daylight as golden-red illumination splashes in all directions, like a rippling sea of wildfire. Everything in a hundred miles skitters, runs, jumps, howls. Undisturbed, natural darkness has been violated, and the terror it invokes is absolute. Even the elephants, giants of memory thousands of years long and deep, scatter, turning the savanna into pandemonium as all that lives beneath their command responds. *Flee*.
The Others are there. The Others are not there. Binary thinking shatters like predawn darkness meeting glorious, gilded morning. The world is burning. The Night is banished. The grass is alive with motion and sound, People falling to their knees, hands upraised by this intrusive sunrise. Silent. No sounds to conjure in the face of this. Unanimous clatter as brandished weapons meet solid earth below.
The foreign star looms. It is the first *made* thing to ever kiss the soil of this place. It will not be the last. A passageway opens, unfurling with the same practiced and liquid ease of a blossom in springtime. And like a blossom, it bears something within. Many somethings. New, and strange to this world. They stand. Taller than the mightiest matriarch amongst those tusked behemoths. Too many feet for one individual touches down amongst the undulating grasses. The People are laid bare before their visitors. Small as children, quivering in fireball illumination.
The night has been usurped and it’s place comes new, unfamiliar daylight for unspoken centuries to come.
We step into the daylight.
Me, from the shade of a hospitable tree. All bone branches, gnarled roots. Like hands reaching. Whether in warning or blessing, it doesn’t matter.
Him, from his lair, his tavern and dominion, all shadows. All menacing tricks, all dark turns of mind to shape others. Break them. With words, or with steel.
Around us, watchful and frightful expressions. Faces drawn tight by merciless predators, and a yet still merciless sun. Receded eyes and recessed hopes looking out.
Me, set. Silent. I make my peace. With the sand and stone that may claim me as it has claimed so many others, regardless of their legend. Let it claim what it will. My victory, or my bones.
Him, smile wide as a raging wildlife, and as friendly. Chattering like a murder of ravens. Hollow words for a man filled only by darkness, by blood, and hollowed in return by it. Smirking like my blood has already hit this silent, stoic sand.
Waiting.
The heavy iron clock speaks its word, declares the contest open.
And with a single report, it is closed.
Time is the great band. Beginnings bleed into endings, bleed into beginnings. This is the nature of all things. What dies nurtures the soil, and life rises out of its black foam, and what falls upon it is consumed in turn to nurture what comes next. Out of the muck from the earliest days until the hammer blow of extinction sent it back, only to crawl once again forward— ever forward. Defiant to the cyclical ends that are so numerous. Death. Plague. Conflict.
How many times were our ancestors reduced, resigned back to primitive form? How many generations of potential obliterated by so many fearsome ends, each form cut away by that cold scythe that dictates what lives and what dies? Ninety-nine percent of all life forms upon the Earth have withered and died. A cathedral of the extinct is the greatest achievement of this living world, not the things it has produced that breath and fight and breed, no— it’s mightiest haul is all the bones, all the skeletal remnants tucked away in her soils. The chorus of life is but a whisper to the requiem that follows, millions upon millions of voices strong.
When my people arose it seemed that we were the inheritors of a mighty mantle. An impossible age was upon us. Immortal, invincible— the apotheosis of industries and arts that our minds had summoned from purest imagination to hardest realities. Continents became little more than gardens for us to shape, the weather and its rebellious storms tamed with simple amusement until every day was pleasant and demure to our liking. We forged metal, flesh. Even light became just another palette to the artist and the engineer in all the shapes of our divine whim. We kissed other worlds until the stars in the night sky sang with the influence we wrought. Those first travelers, machines as they may be— they were the heralds of our coming upon the Galaxy..
And then came the loss. The disease that was upon us then was slow and ancient already, a stilling sickness that did not rot flesh or weaken bone; no, no, this silent dredge did nothing more but dull our minds, weaken our wills. Immortality brought weakness, endless resources stifled creativity. Our art, majestic and vast and mighty as it was, and it was mighty!— all of it blended, meshed. We were all doing the same in our countless, same-same-same heavens.
That was not what killed us, no, but it did weaken us just enough. Cracks in the walls from tenacious vines, hungry mold. Just waiting for the right push.
The Adversary came. Our Nemesis. And it was relentless. Merciless. It was the face of annihilation. An out-of-context event that turned so much divinity and so much power into ash, into the painfully folly that was. We crashed, we burned. We broke. So many beautiful fresco shards immolated. The continents we had tended melted away into slag, the storms we had tamed became raging gales that stripped the soil and stone from so many surfaces until all that was left was obliteration. They scoured all that we had touched. Like God erasing our hubris from his creation.
We ran. What else was there to do?
We vanished into the dark. Burning and burying all that was left behind, all that might incriminate the direction of our exodus. Some fled to a distant galaxy, believing this affliction was here and here only, amongst familiar stars. Others buried themselves in obscure, esoteric ritual and mindsets, hoping to vanish into regressive pasts that might unfold. Legions of dreamers and acolytes wove wonderful delusions for themselves, for the minds that remained, bodiless and hidden in tiny alcoves scattered. Others still went out into the Maw, believing they could reason with our oncoming extinction. Their questions were all silenced. One by one.
In our flight we found the ruins. The tombs and abandoned projects, the memories; all of it came with the realization of what had come before. The endless cycles of time realized in fragments, in pieces. Life arose, mind igniting in the sludge and the cold and the harshness, the inevitable ascension. And then the hurried, black silence that was total and uncompromising. Snuffing out civilizations in a methodical diminishing. One by one. Until nothing remained but the silence. When we found the remnants of our distant, forgotten forebears, and the telltale signs of their own inescapable fates, we had no time to mourn. The Adversary was already upon us.
It still is. We are at our Cradle now, though it is unlike to be where we truly originate from. It is all that remains. Our enemy walks the surface and soon will be amongst here, down beneath. Finishing their ultimate work. We do not why. Never will we know.
In our final hour, in our last struggle, we leave this record for you. These few, precious gifts.
May the cycle end with you.
Or let your end be sudden and complete.
Added 30+ more original stories to my site! Check ‘em out! @ https://thesovereignarchive.blogspot.com/?m=1
Godforsaken Place
The Gods have not finished this place. The Gods have abandoned this place.
The Gods have forsaken this place.
When we landed on its shores, we were five hundred thousand. Five thousand remain. Shambling. Pale. Gaunt.
The land is chaos and disaster. Black rock bellows it’s rebellion against the sky and hurls upward into the night. Bone-chilling wind screams across the waste and slashes ceaseless raking claws over us, snatching away breath and tearing our fragile wills into so many ribbons. My footsteps over the ice are little more than stumbling confusion, kept only forward by the men behind me, and those behind them, on and on by discombobulated thousands. The overseers amongst us are mirages, ghosts; even their cruelty has been obliterated by this godforsaken place.
We are running from an angry, rioting Earth. Running at the pace of dead men. We surge toward a looming plateau of barren stone and clinging, hardy grasses. A place of stability. I pray Azh, and Yu-Hueq, and so many others to grant us this place to stand. My frozen toes knock against the ground, my eyes weep and flutter against agonizing cold.
I am not ready to die.
Far away, across the ice, Hell is in revolt. Our army stands in silent awe as the elements do their battle and all the murmuring voices of ten thousand fighting men is vanished. We have become like sentinel statutes on desolate land; monolithic and wordless in the dark. Down below I can see the last vestiges of our straggling legion hurling themselves onto this island of stability and even far so from away their countless star-illuminated faces shine with fear, scrabbling and scurrying like vermin discovered by a wrathful lord. Even now the ground is splitting, swaying under their boots and I know many, too many, will not find safe ground to perch upon.
I can’t look away. Many of us collapse to the hard, unforgiving earth. Men who have fought and killed with spears, with hands and teeth; weep openly. They whisper the name of far away divinities, hands clutching in satchels and beneath frigid plate for effigies, offerings.
Mountains erect themselves in heaving juts where once there had been plains and lowlands like bones in insurrection against the flesh they inhabited. We feel it tremble. Hear the almighty groans surging in waves greater than any battle hymn we have sung. Everything shakes, everything becomes uncertain and unmoored, the foundations of all that is unshackled from order into free-falling pandemonium. We watch in frozen terror as a thousand, more, are swallowed up by darkness which was once ground. Their voices rise up like the begging chorus of the damned.
The glow of an inferno seethes down in those craters and I sway on the lip of the island, mesmerized by a terrifying sight. A glimpse into a world far beneath us. Unfit for Men. Unfit for his Gods.
The Night Church has many followers.
Beneath moist, worn floorboards and in the bellies of listing ships moored at graveyard harbor, they wait.
The Night Church has many hymns.
They rise up from cavernous mausoleum keeps and ring out in churches claimed twice; once by the fires of ruin, twice by the hunger of green roots.
The Night Church has many commandments.
Thou shalt stain the snows with hoof prints, thy shalt knock thrice at the windows of fearful parish, thou shalt not cease thy march until row upon row of abbey lies empty and lifeless..
The Night Church has many teachers.
The headless, bare-bodied feminine statue in that hidden garden, where the whispers come from more places than just breeze. The starless-night colored monolith standing sentinel on its cliff faced sanctuary, lulling sailors to dash their fates on razor rocks. The book that weeps bloody tears, tucked under a floorboard, waiting for frightful pages to be turned.
The Night Church has many paths.
Up through rotten cellars and across harvest moon skies, down bottles tainted black by feral touch and into dreams you dare not speak of.
The Night Church is boundless.
The Night Church is eternal.
The Night Church is coming.
The Great Hunt.
She runs through the snow, breathing hard. Every tree a charcoal sketch against white. Naked as every leafless, grasping branch above.
The Hunter.
Striding and perfect. Inhuman. Taller than any man, who wears the night like mortals wear their cloaks and coats. Sword whispering to him of its insatiable hunger. The pale Moon above is his God.
The Chase.
Between skeletal forest fingers and down across yawning frigid rivers, cold scouring everything in blissful numbness. The wind howling, the Hunter laughing hollow as breaking bones.
The Capture.
Ensnared. A net that brings welling redness from a thousand fine cuts across pristine skin. The bone-breaking laughter emanating from the dark. Promises of liberating pain, gifts that burn and boil and bleed.
Unfinished???????
The monster is a beautiful thing.
Cindy has been practicing the ritual for weeks, months. Murmuring each word under her breath on the brisk November walks to and from work. Laying naked on her bed, sprawled and feline, tracing every dark curving line of its shape etched into the odd book. The book was a gift, leaning on her doorstep one evening— but from whom or for what— she had no idea.
It was a perfect nightmare, a beautiful thing of corded muscle and dark chitinous armor. It’s horns tangled and bent, every bit the artistry of Hell itself. Each pristinely detailed picture had the jaws smiling a broad, wolffish smirk etched by terrible teeth and the hands spread wide were more talons than anything remotely human.
*Pleasure and pain mingle like tangled lovers*, the words said, ringed by arcane symbols. And Cindy, special girl she was— *craved* pain. Fantastical, enduring pain.
Cindy lit matches and clutched them, or doused her own cigarettes on her arms.
Cindy dribbled candle wax down her own pale, ivory skin.
Cindy found chemicals and cleaners, liquids that dangled just on the edge of poison, and doused her more sensitive regions in it, writhing at every sparking sensation.
So when she laid eyes on the monster, when she read it’s promise of liberating agony, and her eyes scoured over every thorn curve of it: how could she deny it?
It came to her, one night, when she spoke the words in the dark and everything bristled with unholy redness.
The monster had come. It loomed tall and hateful and dripping with insatiable hunger. It’s horns dragged at the ceiling like fingernails on chalkboard, it’s thorns glared like dozens of hateful eyes with their own little fervent fires. It’s maw blazed with the signature grin and Cindy could smell the inferno within, that burgeoning furnace she lusted to fill her.
It crushed her beneath a sprawling claw and it’s skin bristled with heat, stealing the voice and the words from her throat. It’s wordless, inhuman desires override her brain and turn Cindy into something pathetic, and tiny. A toy that bent to a greater will. The claws mark skin, sign gouging crimson marks into flesh. The monster presses her to the floor beneath its grip,
Road Trip
This town is dust. Wooden buildings turned to half sand-submerged memories. Rusting train tracks to nowhere, empty, their iron horses like so many beached metal bones. Wind whistles between gaping doors, across barren frames.
___________________________________
Lights blaze up and down the Highway, islands of illumination standing proud against so much desert emptiness. We pass them one night, surprised how crowded the emptiness has suddenly become, but we’re too keen to stop and press on. Maybe later, we say, laughing.
We pass them again the next four nights, the exact same buildings.
Their lights are harshly bright, glaring.
On the fifth night, shadows of backlit forms stare out from their windows. The radio hisses with hostile static and the sun refuses to rise. We can’t see any stars. There are no stars. Just the lights, the shadows.
——————————————————————
*”Any volunteers?”*, implores the Man on Stage. His grin is big and white, almost leering.
Hot, dry wind blows. There are words there, like someone pressing a secret into your soul but they’re snatched into silence as quick as they came.
*”Any volunteers?”*, says the Man on the Stage again, but now is looking down into an unfamiliar face, his grin like a crescent moon, an omen. Hands sloughed by merciless winds and scorching sun reach out, fleshless, tender.
The crowd is all looking. Watching. Bottomless sockets so empty, and so hungry.
The noose sways, inviting and open as the blue sky looming. It fits around your neck like it was all meant to be.
______________________________________
There are smiles on all the billboards.
The teeth are fangs, caked and smeared with redness.
There are smiles on all the billboards.
The mouths are opened to black gullets.
There are smiles on all the billboards.
______________________________________
EON, USA
This place feels old. Older than it has any right to be.
Hidden between cliffs and the plains, under an untamed sky. Civilization feels like a footnote, a temporary blip in pages eons deep. Even with roads and the first tentative electric lights to challenge the stars, even with the iron horses thumping this way and that across so much empty— the town *feels* old. Maybe it’s the land. Maybe it’s the bones of the earth that it lies upon.
Everyone can feel it, the strangeness. It lingers at the edge of their words and in the fringes of their long, quiet looks beyond the boundaries like an omen.
When the wagon trains first came in their droves, there were stories of eerie stalking shapes across distant hills, and scouts puzzled over three-toed tracks big as a man. In the night there were no howls from wolves, just the sound and scent of an ocean long vanished into time; just the feeling of mighty shapes weightlessly swimming overhead.
The farmers have long since turned a blind eye to their mutilated cattle, butchered and battered into scant piles. Whatever it is that eats them can crack iron like frail bones, and eat a longhorn whole. Braggadocious hunters from both coasts have all retreated into quiet extinction, their eager crusades left with no legacy but disquieting nothingness. The cattle continue to disappear down unseen gullets.
The town is old. Weary, creaking. Even in the age of satellites and highways, it remains. Hidden between cliffs and plains, under an untamed sky, smelling of an ocean vanished to time.
this place is old wreckage, old memories. iron bones listing in dark sand as the foam and the sea turns it to rust, one cold sweep at a time.
You pad up to them quietly, in a reverence without source or reason.
the iron ruins list, more stuck between earth and sky than proudly defiant of either. like punishment for their arrogance.
You think they are more beautiful now than whatever shape they wore in the past— rendered into something that fits the mold, something that will wash away and contribute.
the sea groans, assuring the pillars of their place beneath the waves. huge, black shapes cruise with an assurance fit only for leviathans, exuding ancient patience.
You sit among the dunes, listening to the wind pass between iron pillars. Watching. Waiting.
Old Friends in WV
Accusations make the coffee bitter. The stranger doesn’t like his coffee bitter, if you can call his creamy slurry *coffee* at all. It’s the only thing the waitress has brought him since he arrived. Steady rain knocks at the window like it’s curious how he managed to pass through it without getting wet.
He’s pouring another dose of cream, unperturbed, while the diner stares at him. Twenty minutes ago it had been a vibrant place; workers between shifts meeting for their coffee and rumors, long distance haulers catching their moments relaxation. It had all slowly peeled away into silence. The stranger did not belong, tall and thin except for wide, heavy shoulders that hung like wings behind his coat a season too heavy. His shadow does not belong. He knows them all.
The stranger doesn’t need to lift his eyes, methodically stirring the concoction in his mug, to feel it. The spoon orbits the curve of the mug once, twice, nine times without scarcely a ripple. When he lifts the mug to his thin lips there is a man opposite him, broad and heavyset.
“Where you from?” It’s a blunt object as much as a question, and a nations worth of paranoia hangs behind the words. This man believes he should be afraid of foreign men in suits, invaders and nuclear bombs tucked into tidy suitcases. But the stranger can sense the deeper fear hiding behind his anger.
“The hell you smiling for?”
The stranger leans back, relaxed. Somewhere in the diner, a phone rings. No one moves to reach it, but every soul in the room feels its tug. Tommy Nichols most of all.
*Because, Tommy, we’re old friends. Don’t you remember?*
Tommy Nichols without warning, becomes a statue carved from terror. The anger that bubbled up out of him, like an animal trapped and caged striking at capturing hands, it vanishes into the cold in his stomach. Tommy Nichols remembers the phone calls. The nightly, incessant phone calls, rising out of bed in the dark, fumbling for a phone that rooted in place seems to run away from him. Listening to the clicking, hissing nothing from the receiver. Waiting. Every night, waiting for something, standing alone in the living room until the silence blended into sounds, and the sounds into words.
Words that he could not bear to remember. Words that come now like black wings across fifty nights.
The stranger turns his gaze to the others, stands. Moments ago they felt emboldened, maybe even ready to strike him. But now they look, all of them, exactly the same as they did in the dark, listening to the phone whisper its designs into their ears. Afraid, deliciously afraid.
*We are all friends*, the stranger says, smiling, *but I don’t believe you know my name*.
The strangers voice is a whisper, the itching familiarity that has lingered with every nightmare and half-remembered waking. It has tiptoed across every mind behind a booth or on a stool in the place, fingers brushing their every waking moment like a rising chill.
*Cold. My name is Cold*.
Introduce
Hi guys my name is danielle and i really dont know how to use tumblr and i also dont know why i download this app when i dont know what to do with it. I can just delete this but i came up with the idea that i'll make random stories. I really really love reading i love books i love writing stories. So im just going to write random stories here like romance? Comedy? Horror etc. Whatever. And i hope you like my stories if i made one.
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
Hey!!!
Heya so havent been as active as I would've liked to be lately but just wanted to let you guys know I have uploaded a story on wattpad and if you guys get a chane to read it I would really appreciate it every read counts!! Its only one chapter so ar and only about 500 words but its a start :)
Anyway y'all thanks for 19 followers litterally the most followers ive ever got on tumblr lol and hope y'all have a good day/night xox
Shadow Sojourn
They say that when in the Shadows, the white arrows point the way. Not the blue ones; those lead back to the start of the journey. Not the red ones; those lead to bad things. And not the green ones; those lead to shortcuts, missing the whole point of the journey. But the white arrows show the path that is wanted, that is needed. The white ones guide gently and leave room for dreams.
They also say that the Guide—a cat, python, or raven—determines the path to be taken. It is the Guide, not the traveler, who decides whether to travel alone or with others, and when the journey starts.
Are you ready to begin your Shadow Sojourn?
You lounge on the bench, bored while your friend shops. You aren't really into their hobby, so you wait outside, but you're bored. You fidget. You get up and pace. You check the time. Your friend still isn't done. Sitting down again, you begin to daydream.
Abruptly, and a bit rudely you might add, a beautiful black raven lands on the armrest of the bench, pulling you out of your fantasies. "What?" you ask. "I don't have any food."
It stares at you, seemingly with impatience. You notice a scrap of paper tied to its leg. Carefully and deliberately, you gently untie the string and unfold the paper. It reads, "Adventure Awaits," in elegant cursive. The raven lightly pokes your arm with its beak, and then it swoops up to land on your shoulder. Expecting sharp claws to dig into your skin, you flinch, but you feel no pain. The raven perches comfortably.
"You know, I kind of feel bad calling you 'it.' How about she?" you query. Head tilting, the raven nods. "Cool!" you exclaim. "You can understand me! And how about a name?" Not really expecting a response, you're surprised when she actually replies.
"Muninn," she rasps. You grin. A talking raven!
"Well then, Muninn, where does this adventure start?" you ask. She peers forward, at a door underneath a blue and purple triangle patterned awning. A white arrow gleams from the shadows, embedded deep in the door and pointing straight ahead. "That way?" you say, already moving.
You stop. "Oh, wait, before we go." On the opposite side of the scrap of paper, you write, "Gone on an adventure. Don't worry." You leave the paper underneath a rock on the bench so your friend doesn't worry if they find you gone.
Opening the door with the glowing arrow, you smell fried dough and butter from the other side. With the door out of the way, the night sky stars shine through, which shouldn't be possible considering this doorway is attached to the side of a building. Whatever. You already have a magic raven on your shoulder. What's a little more peculiarity?
But the sight underneath the sky is what really takes your fancy. A proper carnival, bustling and noisy, waits in front of you and your companion. The only significant difference between this fair and the ones you've been to in the past is that all the lights illuminate the night instead of catching your attention in daylight.
Scampering up to the entrance, you ask how much money for a ticket. The man in charge of the ticket window smiles and says, "Free, if you have a proper companion."
You point to the raven. "See, this is Muninn." She caws obligingly.
"Here you are, two silver-rank tickets! These give you unlimited access to all rides and concession stands until you leave. No reentry. Have fun!" he tells you. You thank him and dash off, Muninn lifting off your shoulder to flap above you.
Taking in everything, you consider the best place to start. Everyone around you has either a cat, python, or raven with them. They wear a variety of clothes from all over the world. You hear a multitude of languages and accents.
The rides, on the other hand, are mostly classic ones. Vibrantly colorful lights flash from all directions, signs advertise the most extreme thrills, and dirt pathways lead visitors along twisty paths.
A shimmering white arrow catches your attention. It sits on the ground, pointing to a ride. "Muninn! Ferris wheel!" you shout, looking up. She lands on your outstretched arm. You walk up to the back of the line.
Anticipation builds as you sit down in one of the compartments. You aren't super fond of heights, but the Ferris wheel feels secure and pretty mild. Plus, it's a classic carnival ride, so you're basically obligated to ride it at least once.
Once all the other riders are securely in the other compartments, the wheel starts moving. From this high up, the people and even the concession stands look tiny.
And then, as your booth begins going down, you get the weird sensation of falling. Though you know you're safe, it unsettles you slightly. A couple more times around, and then it's time to get off.
On one fork of the path, there's a red arrow. You go to follow it, but Muninn warns, "Not the red ones! Only the white ones!" You're confused, but you agree to only follow the white arrows.
You don't spot any other glowing arrows, so you just wander a bit. Starting to become hungry, you look around for a food stand.
A blue and white striped booth, surprisingly, sells exactly your favorite food! You walk up to the counter and say to the person, "One please?"
"Ticket?" They ask. You obligingly show them your silvery ticket. "Here you go then!" they smile and hand you the food.
You smile back. "Thanks!" You cast around for a place to eat. At a nearby picnic table, you munch on your snack. "Time to leave soon," Muninn rasps.
"Awww, already? We just got here!" you complain.
The raven tilts her head. "Yes, but nonetheless, it is time to leave."
You sigh, but quickly finish eating. "Okay, let's go."
"The arrow is there." She pointed to a dirt path with one of the white arrows embedded in it. You stand up, discard your napkin, and set off for more adventures.
The path leads out of the fairgrounds and into a tiny grove of spruce trees. Leaving behind the sounds and smells of the carnival, you and your companion wind your way along an impossibly long path, one far too long to fit in the tiny patch of forest. The dark undergrowth presses in around you, but it feels comforting, almost like a familiar blanket, rather than sinister.
A breeze rustles the leaves, and owls call across the woods. You perceive the scent of freshly rained-on earth. Murky and blurry, darkness obscures the delicate twigs and rough bark of the trees. White arrows lead the way at every fork in the path.
Between two trees and ahead of you, lights pierce the blackness. Once you move out of the forest, an antique inn-slash-tavern blocks your view of the horizon. Wooden beams support a covered porch, real thatching covers the roof, and frosted glass makes up the well-lit windows.
You feel relieved at the thought of a warm bed and a hot meal. The forest wasn't scary, but it was a lot of walking and the weather was a little chilly. Muninn flies beside you, seemingly just as tired as you.
Pushing open the door, you greet the other travelers who are already sitting at various circular wooden tables. A woman with a python draped over her head like a hat gestures you over. Why not? With Muninn following, you sit down at her table.
You soon learn that she doesn't speak English, and you don't speak her language, but you both manage rudimentary communication with gestures. She shows you a silver library card. You suppose this means that she's been to a library instead of a carnival. In return, you show your silver ticket.
Her python fluidly moves down her arm onto the table. You are a bit wary of snakes, but this one is a Guide, so you don't worry much. The woman points to the snake and says, "Daisy," and then points to herself and says "Basira."
Your raven says "Muninn."
You say your own name. A waiter comes over, interrupting your sort of conversation. You order your favorite hot beverage, comfort food, and a hard-boiled egg for Muninn.
Relaxing into your chair, you realize how hungry you really are. Your food comes surprisingly quickly. Basira has ordered some pasta dish; you aren't sure exactly what it is though.
Hurriedly, you dig in. The food is delicious. Once you finish eating, the waiter comes back and asks if you'd like to stay the night. Muninn decides for you. "Yes," she says. You bid farewell to Basira and Daisy and then go off to book a room for tonight.
Turns out all you had to do was present your silver ticket to get a room. Your room is at the top of a single flight of stairs. The bed is welcome after your long day (night?) of exploring. After you brush your teeth, you crawl under the quilts and fall asleep on the soft pillow, with Muninn perching on the arm of the rocking chair.
When you awaken, you yawn and sit up. The bed is really comfy and cozy; you don't want to get up, but you have more adventures ahead of you.
Apparently, you're taking too long, so Muninn pokes you with her beak. "Yeah, yeah," you say, waving a hand. Yawning again, you notice a set of clothes on the bedside table in your size. You put them on and then follow the white arrow pointing out the window. Even though you've slept for hours, the sky is still dark and starry.
You're nervous, but outside the glass is an asphalt road. Climbing out, you turn back around. The window is now a perfectly normal door attached to the side of a brick building. The suburban city around you is just the right amount of crowded. Not lonely and abandoned, but not too many people either. Everything is gloomy, but the streetlights illuminate just enough to see comfortably.
You follow the glowing arrows along the road until they lead to the front door of a dilapidated antique bookstore. To your right, shelves and shelves extend far into the shop, farther than you can see. Books of every shape, color, material, and size line the shelves, enticing you with all their yet unknown stories. To your left, a woman stands behind a counter, and behind her, a menu sits on the wall, offering coffee, hot chocolate, muffins, and scones.
The owner looks up as the bell dings above you. "Hello? Can I help you?" she says. You ask if she has the book you've been wanting for a while, but never seem to have the time or money to actually buy yourself.
She smiles. "Oh, of course! Right this way." You follow her through the dusty mahogany bookshelves. A metallic, gold-covered tome catches your eye. You stop, despite the owner still walking. You call to her, "Wait! What's this one?"
She turns to follow your gaze. "Oh, no, don't touch that one. It's not meant for travelers."
"Huh?"
"I mean, it wouldn't hurt you or anything, but . . . knowing everything about the Shadow paths and the Guides and the arrows, well, it just isn't meant for visitors," she tries to explain. Like multiple other instances of confusing warnings, you simply accept it. If there's good magic, why not bad magic?
You shrug. "Okay. Lead on!"
The owner of the shop relaxes. You didn’t even notice she was worried. Muninn decides to land on your shoulder again.
You pay for the book by showing your silver ticket. Purchase safely in hand, you leave the nostalgic bookstore. Muninn mournfully says, "You must leave soon. It is almost over."
You frown because you don't want to go back to the normal, boring life. You don't want to leave this strange place full of adventures and whimsy. "Do I have to?"
"All journeys come to an end." Muninn points to a white arrow pointing to a ladder disappearing into a pitch-black hole in the grassy ground by the side of the road. "Back home," the raven explains.
You glance from the pit to Muninn. "Goodbye. I hope to see you again?"
"Farewell," she caws, voice melancholy. You bid one last farewell to your raven, and then you climb carefully down the ladder out of the night into the even deeper darkness.
Back on the bench, you watch your friend finish their shopping and come out of the store. "Sorry! I hope you weren't too bored," they say. You smile.
"You don't have to worry on that count." You hold up the book. "I definitely wasn't bored."
Maybe someday you'll get to go back and find out the secrets of the shadowy path: the golden book, the red arrows, and the always-dark sky. After all, someone has to supervise the ticket windows and wait on the tables and manage the bookstores. Maybe someday, you'll be one of the ones who show travelers the way.
You repeat, "I definitely wasn't bored." And you smile, remembering your Shadow Sojourn.
I don't know if you ever truly loved me.
I think you wanted to love me.
before I actually got attached.
after I did you realized a relationship was something you actually had to work at.
you love bombed me.and you can't take it back.
even if it wasn't intentional I believe that's what happened.
I don't want to paint myself out as a victim.
I know I wasn't the best either.
but give me a little credit.
I was the one who still started a conversation.
even though I'd be left on delivered for hours or opened for days.
I guess you were always too busy to make that time for me.
Which is fine.
live your life how you want to.
do as many things as you want to.
You deserve to focus on things that matter.
but you couldn't just expect me to wait around for you.
Especially when you couldn't even express anything towards me.
Other than your annoyance to my nagging or anger to my need.
That's not how a relationship works.
But I really wanted us to work.
You were my best friend.
My person. I
know you already know this but I still think about you.
I really know I shouldn't but I do.
I cant help it.
The heartache is still there.
but it doesn't hurt the same anymore.
My world doesn't revolve around.
I don't think about it as often.
But it's still there.
Maybe it always will be.
I really really really really wanted it to be you.
I guess I just wasn't good enough.
Was I?