Short Story 2 - In the Dark (Part 3/?)

[This is part 3. Read part 1 here and part 2 here.] 

"Of course they had to take the front seat". Franka couldn't help but getting annoyed at almost anything Halis did.

For one reason or another, she had found herself cramped in the aft-right seat of the small shuttle that barely held the three of them. Farley supplied a pre-flight list of materials, that he was now going over, loudly calling out every single item. "Can't be sure of what we'll find, so better plan for everything!" he said with a big grin. Franka thought he was being optimistic. Sure, we could see some friendly humanoids. We could also find a crazy bunch of hive-mind insectoids that would just consider us nourishment for their offspring. To Franka, Farley looked like he was going to do a university science project with some wishful thinking sprinkled on top. She on other hand, felt like she was walking into a dark underground cave that could contain beings that haven't stirred in centuries. The thought gave her a shiver. Halis made sure to bring her back to reality.

"Farley, you're just about done there?'' they said, not even turning around from their pilot's seat. 

Short Story 2 - In the Dark (Part 2/?)

[This is part 2. Read part 1 here.] 

The Captain went on for a while after that, informing the rest of the ship's Heads what he knew, but after selecting two more people, Franka was asked to join the Captain in the Ready Room. In a daze, Franka just followed. Once inside, Franka almost missed noticing how little this room was used. Its interior was spartan, to say the least, but aside a quip forming in the back of her mind about cleaning drones forgetting about this room, she just sat down.

''Thank you all for clearing your schedule. As I'm sure you know, you've all signed up for this mission. When you signed up for the job, you all noted and signed what is commonly known as the ''E.T. Clause''. And since we just found out we lost contact with the drone we sent out, that clause now enters into force, at least where it concerns you three.''

This made Franka snap back to the present moment. ''The what now?'' she thought.

Short Story 2 - In the Dark (Part 1/?)

A new short story made especially for you. This one is an exercise in freewriting and using the ''seat-of-the-pants'' style. That means I will be doing little revision and have nothing planned out further than whatever is in each part. In other words, I have no idea how long this story will be either, nor how it will end.

Enjoy! (And leave me a comment :-) ) 

It felt like only a few hours had passed since Franka had put down her head on the pillow after another bullshit-filled shift when the alarm blared. 

''Goddamn drills'' she muffled under her breath while wiping the sleep from her eyes. The Captain had been running regular security drills. ''Space is a dark place, but this sector is about as pitch-black as they come,'' he had said. What he meant to say was that this part of space was rather pirate-infested. The Garun Syndicate was not much more than a marauding group of pirates and were known for some very dirty tactics to take what they pleased. The Captain's answer to that was to plough on the drills. Franka often wondered how one can exactly prepare to defend oneself from a small armada of heavily armed boarding ships dropping in from behind a moon in this patch of space devoid of any major star. It was like trying to swat a fly in the dark, except the fly has modular plasma guns and you won't see the discharge until it hits your eyeballs. The ShipSec team usually did a pretty good job though. Not too many people died. The drills' only saving grace, however, was that they would often come on the most opportune moments, such as in the middle of Franka's shift. All she had to do was hole up in the engineer emergency chamber and let the security people handle it. 

Right now though, she wasn't too pleased.  

''Every department head is to report to the Captain's ready room on the double. Everyone else is to follow standard security protocol.''

''Well, that's unusual,'' Franka thought. 

Novel 4: Attunement (from the Lost and the Found)

 ‘’Anya, can we count on you?’’

It’s a cold night in the Moscow snow and Anya is standing in a dark corner of an abandoned train station. While the cold wind is seemingly blowing through her, it’s the eyes of the woman across from her that are piercing her. The searing cold does not seem to affect her as she’s only wearing a light jacket, as opposed to Anya’s thick faux-fur coat. ‘’Why isn’t she cold? It’s below freezing.’’ Anya couldn’t parse it.

‘’Hello? Egghead, you there?’’

Anya was just wondering why she was wearing sneakers. A fresh pack of snow had fallen last night. ‘’Sneakers? Really? Why? And what’s with all the bio-fluorescent tattoos?’’

‘’What? An egg? Where?’’ Now Anya was really confused. ‘’First, it’s winter and she’s not wearing any winter clothes. Now my head is an egg?’’

‘’I thought we were here to discuss a job?’’ Anya responded.

The woman sighed. 

‘’Yes. Yes, we were. I need access.’’

‘’Access to what?’’

The woman sighed again. 

‘’You know what? Never mind. We thought we could count on you.’’

Short story 1: Inferno (part 7)

Jake's first impression was that the midgets were asleep. Their regular-sized heads on their under-sized bodies were hanging slightly forward. Either they were looking at their bellies or they were asleep. 
'What are you doing here?!?' a voice boomed. 
Jake at first figured they were awake. He was wrong. The group was already ahead of him.
'What?! Where is it coming from?!' the group responded in different tones of surprise. The midgets remained unmoved, their eyes closed.
'WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!!?!' the boisterous voice rang out once more.
Then Jake noticed. It was the left elephant of the two that demanded an answer and he did not look happy.

Short story 1: Inferno (part 6)

The dream that followed was weird, to say the least. Jake was back on Earth, or at the very least not in Hell.  He woke in what seemed like a desert. He was naked. The bleating of a goat made him turn his head. Right next to him he found the creature, attempting to lick his face. Jake drew back his head in amazement. He noticed a piece of the sheep's right ear was missing. 
''Why am I naked?'' Jake asked himself. He looked down.
''Well, at least my dick intact.'' He smiled. Then frowned. Then uttered a face of shock. Before he could consider the unholy things he did to the sheep a big billow of a cloud rose up on his other and spoke to him.
''This is God'', the smoke uttered. 
''What the fuck'', Jake uttered back. 
''I have a plan for you, I need you to...''
''What the fuck am I doing here naked? And what the fuck is this sheep doing here?'' Jake interrupted god. 
In a swirling twist of suffocating mess, the smoke twisted around Jake, penetrated all his orifices, forcing him to the ground.
''YOU SHALL NOT INTERRUPT GOD!''

Prompt 5: Size Matters

Who knew that dwarfs could be such a**holes? I am totally serious, I completely expected them to be nice, judging by the first sight of them and all the fairy tales I read about them as a kid. Sure, they were often a little weird, a little reserved, a little... different. And when I first laid eyes on them, they seemed nice enough. Industrious, hard-working, honest. Giddy little eyes, about the size of beads, looking inquisitive. Judging by their clothes, they did not seem vain either. Simple garments adorned them. They were dirty, but then again, they were digging in the earth, so nobody could really see anyway. 

But boy, are these fuckers racists. I'm not kidding. Supremacists dwarfs huh, who knew? Really, the moment they spotted me, alarm bells went ringing and the little buggers were on my like a fat kid on a cupcake. Before I knew, I was tied down by rope (which looked rather thin initially,  but was stronger than expected), gagged and carried off, down the mine. Their battle-cry to capture me, the moment they saw, was cute and scary at the same time. Being rather small, their voices were of a high-pitched nature, but everyone else heard, so yeah, I was a goner. That endearing feeling of watching these little people chisel away at the walls I had did not last longer than a few minutes. 

Now back to the racist part. Sure, the accusation of racism is thrown around like a beer opener on any given Friday night, but these dwarfs are not f*cking around. Boy oh boy, did Tolkien get it wrong when he put down his idea on paper on what it means to be a ''dwarf''. No noble creatures, tending to their own business. At this point I'd believe anything, because up to about four hours ago, I would not even belief that they'd exist in the first place. I certainly got a more open mind now, something the dwarfs do not seem to possess. How they look you ask? Well, they're orange, about a 120 centimetres on average, stronger than you would give them credit for, but bluntly put, not as smart. They seem to be quite single-minded in their quest to extract all the worlds gems and resources from the ground, which in a way does not make them that dissimilar from us, I guess. And the racism. They acted like I was the first human they ever saw, but judging by their behaviour, we might as well be cousins. In any case, they did not seem to like my length. They told me as much. Yes, dwarfs speak English. Why, you ask? Well, they are magical creatures after all.

Moving on.

Life 2: Are we there yet?

Finally on the bus, people looked a bit weird at me. Perhaps it’s not every day they see an idiot transplanting their life. That, or I smelled to high heavens. Who knows. I did not know of the existence of Aarhus before I came here, maybe they assumed the same as well. In any case, being gawked at is what happened, but since that is one my favourite activities when abroad, I guessed I needed to take it all in good humour. 

Life 1: The first moments on Danish soil

It’s been over six months since I've moved to Denmark now and people have asked me how I’m doing. Arbitrary questions usually include, but are not limited to:

‘’How is Denmark different from the Netherlands?’’

‘’Is beer really 10 euro’s a glass?’’

‘’Are Danes really as cold as the weather?’’

Prompt 1: Driftwood

And so we start with the first prompt. The idea behind these short stories goes as follows: on the internet (where else?), one in need of inspiration can find a lot of so called prompts. These are tidbits and little story ideas. They can be used to start a full-fledged story with, or just for practice. I usually do it for the latter. At the end of each of these stories, you can find the original prompt. It's more fun to read the story first though.

Driftwood

The sun prickling the skin, the sand playing hide-and-seek between your toes, you know the feeling. Around you people are going about their daily activities, as far as those go on a beach. Some kids to your left are making a sandcastle, complete with a moat and walls. A couple of Germans not far off from you down the beach are digging their way to the proverbial China. Nobody knows why. Every now and then, when a stronger wind passes by, you get a waft of fish smell, to go along with the shouts of the woman trying to sell them. Besides these disturbances, you feel pleased. This being your first day off in a long time, you have been looking forward to this. Just you, the beach, the sun and a good book. With one last look on the water, where you notice a few boats, some big, some small and return to your book. While you are immersed in your book, a wondrous world full of magical things, adventure and the stuff that fills your dreams, you notice, somewhere, the volume of life on the beach is increasing. You pay it no heed, you are too busy with an immense battle between a woman riding a dragon and an army, totally futile, trying to win. They are engulfed in the flames, cooked alive in their wearable tin cans. Not much later though, you can no longer ignore the sounds around you. When you look up, you notice a huge boat is closing in on the shore, coming what looks like directly at you.