Another Random Story!

Hello again lovely readers! I'm back from my hiatus! Or rather, the combination of being busy, as life tends to get, lazy, and not taking the time to write.
I will attempt to do better...

Today, I have another random story for you! As a fan of the supernatural and fantasy-inspired, I thought it might be fun to play around with it a little bit. Enjoy!

Just a little inspiration for the story overall...

It actually works out pretty well to be deaf in my line of work. The position of executive assistant to a tribe of banshees tends to have a lot of turn-over amongst the hearing. Well, that and the ensuing madness tends to keep one from being able to perform basic job functions... Luckily for me, I don’t have that problem. The hearing, that is. Well, not the madness either.
Also, the perks to handling the affairs of a supernatural business and keeping everything quiet – no pun intended – are rather luxurious. Travel expenses covered. And not cheap motels either, we’re talking The Ritz here. Rare, mystical and expensive holiday bonuses and gifts, especially on the demon holidays. Being raised Catholic doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a pagan holiday gift every now and then, does it?
Plus the banshees are almost exclusively female and more interested in luring their male victims – achem – I mean, clients. So sexual harassment is pretty much a non-issue. Not too bad for my first job out of college.

Faedra approached and signed, ‘Ready Julie?’ I nodded. Board meeting time. I grabbed my laptop and my phone. The ‘listening’ app was an invaluable technology for my line of work. While I could read lips probably better than most, I’m not exactly fluent in the seven tongues of Faerie. And Ancient Demonic was an absolute bitch to try and conjugate into English. On top of that, when you have a dozen representatives of the various supernatural clans at the monthly board meeting fighting over this client contract, that revenue chart, the other upcoming ritual sacrifice… let’s just say having a translating app that tracks the conversation is a complete life-saver for taking accurate meeting minutes.

It was halfway through the meeting that it happened. I looked up from typing to see the beings around me looking around and up at the ceiling, true terror in their eyes. And when you see a Garthurian warlord, all grizzled stony skin and razor tusks, with fear in his eyes… I’m not gonna lie. It makes you pee your pants a little. And that’s when the lights went out. The alarm I couldn’t hear had an emergency light that glowed red, creating crimson shadowy monsters of the party. Like my nightmares needed any more fuel to work with…

Everything happened at once. Most of the creatures flung themselves up from the table, preparing for battle and looking toward the door. I was in shock, sitting unmoving in my chair, hands still poised over the keyboard, pale in the blue-white glow of the screen. The fey underlings ran out through the board room doors only to be mowed down by some kind of glowing gold orbs. Their lithe muscled bodies shook with the impact as if they had grabbed hold of an industrial-grade electric fence. They fell, lifeless, to the floor, sections of their limbs crumbling to dust.

You know how they show fairies in the movies as these tiny cute little girls with pixie wings and delicate features? Well, real faeries aren’t like that at all. There’s a reason many of the supernatural creatures I’ve run up against use them as bodyguards. They’re tough. And more than a little bit scary. I tend to give any creatures that can take down a full-grown Fangor beast with their bare hands and without breaking a sweat, a large berth. But the glowy orb thingies took them out just like that!? If I couldn’t move before, I was definitely frozen now. I was finding it hard to take full breaths. I felt lightheaded. Is this what hyperventilating is?

The half dozen banshee executives around me, as one, took stance, opened their maws to inhuman proportions and the next thing I knew, the frosted glass walls of the board room were blasted outward in millions of shards of glittering projectiles. God, I was glad I couldn’t hear that.
I saw movement in the darkness of the room beyond. Dozens of them. Countless shadows moving in contorting jerks, skittering across the floor and up the walls. I saw a flash of a few figures in flowing robes in the hallways beyond.

Xandrathil turned to me. ‘Get under the table, child!’ she signed. She grabbed my arm and pulled me with her. She ripped back the carpet under the table to reveal a heavy wooden trapdoor with carved runes. I could tell they were of goblin-make but I couldn’t read them. Maybe my translator… damn it! I forgot my phone! I looked up to grab for it but it was too late. The trap door was hauled open and Xandrathil was pushing me down inside. She forced a scroll of parchment and something small, round and hard into my hand, squeezing it closed. I stared into her violet eyes, bewildered. She gave me a hard look and mouthed the word ‘Go!’ And then I felt a boom there was darkness as the door closed above my head.

I stood frozen for a moment on the stone stairs, heart pounding in my head. What the fuck!?

The adrenaline seized me and I pushed against the door. They couldn’t abandon me like this! What was I supposed to do!? The wooden door may as well have been a stone ceiling above me. Absolutely unyielding. Then I felt it. A horrible shuddering rumble above me. Then a blast knocked me sideways to the dirt floor below. My entire body hit hard, my head only slightly cushioned by shoulder as my arm contorted out. I felt a snap. Fire shot through my elbow and lanced up my arm. The pain was intense but brief as the blackness ebbed across my vision and swallowed me whole.

I’m not sure how long it was before I woke. It couldn’t have been too long, but my mouth felt dry. I sneezed out dirt and sat up, my left arm throbbing. I made to move it but the pain in my elbow made me cry out. I tenderly touched it, finding the parchment and… what was it? A stone?... still in my right hand.

It was too dark to read the inscription on the parchment. Not too dark to see it’s outline in my hand though. The stone, or whatever it was, was pitch black. Even in so little light, it shone like a glob of oil in my palm. I rubbed my thumb over its surface. It was completely smooth except for some scratch markings around the bottom edge. How strange. I stuffed it and the paper in the small front pocket of my slacks, pressed tight against my hipbone.

Looking up, I could see a dim glow of light at the end of what seemed to be a narrow dirt tunnel I was in. I took a shuddering breath, forcing back the tears threatening to come. I swallowed hard and embraced my resolve. I can’t go back. I can only move forward. Just move forward, Julie. I braced my broken arm as best I could, stood up, though hunched in the cramped tunnel, and stalked forward. Well, I thought, I guess there was one good thing about this… at least I got my lunch break today…

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed my little story snippet! 

Feel free if you want to leave any comments below, I'd love to hear your feedback!

Random Story Time!

It's that time again! I have a new random story to share with you all. This time I was playing around with 3rd Person Limited POV (if that means anything to you, good. If not, don't worry about it) as well as some fun dialect writing.

Enjoy!

(ps - note that the pictures are more to give you a feel for the setting than anything else - they're not direct inspiration this time. Really the story stands alone but I figured pictures are pretty and stuff...)

They weren’t s’posed to be on the lake. He didn’t know about Yuri, but if Meemaw caught him out here she’d skin his hide. He could just imagine her voice, shrill with worry, “Sekai Jorgenson! How many times I gots to tell you to mind ya Elders!? You daft, bloody whelp of a boy…” Best she didn’t find out. Asides, he knew the ice-berry bushes on the far side of Deep Lake would be burstin-full and they had to get ‘em afore dark. Meemaw’d want a good batch for her feast pies. He just realized, with some chagrin, that they’d spent too much time girlie-flirting in the snowy meadow with Ghara and Pili. Now he regretted it. Well, just the loss of time. Not the flirtin’ part. Sekai rubbed his mittened hands together to make a little heat and scuffled along after Yuri, praying no one’s looking out to the lake-side today. 
         

It made sense to cut across the frozen lake, he told himself. Like Yuri’d said, what was the point of going around if they could save a couple hours skimmin’ cross the ice-top instead? With how cold this winter’d been, the ice musta been deeper than a full-growed snowbear standing on its tiptoes. Then again, each step they took Sekai could hear the ice groan and crackle deep b’neath his thick fur-wrapped boots.
          

“Yuri, ya’sure we shouldn’t just cut along the edge-like?”
                  

Yuri looked back at him with that defiant scowl, “Lawd, Kai, you in’t scared, are ya?”
                 

“A’course not!” Sekai puffed up his chest. “It’s just that I don’t care much fer a swim if ya catch my drift.” Yuri didn’t bother to respond, instead scoffing and trudging along once more.

Sekai couldn’t help but look back the way they’d come, the dim orange glow of the town-fire in the distance. Little wisps of smoke rising from the round huts. His mouth watered thinking of the juicy haunch of meat roasting over Meemaw’s cook-fire at home. It’d still be there cookin’ up when they got back. He took a deep breath, feeling the dry frigid air crackle around his nose hairs as they froze. His face-skin felt tight as tanned leather. The icy air steeled his nerves a bit and he slugged along in Yuri’s wake.
                    

“Da hell?” Yuri stopped of a sudden, craning his head to a spot over’t the middle of the lake, “Wassat?”
            

“What’chu talkin?” Sekai hurried over to his friend to get a better eyeful. Yuri pointed to the shadow just over a stone-throw away. Was it a dip in the ice? It couldn’t be a hole, could it? No one’s ever out on Deep Lake. Well, except for the two them today. But in’t no one s’posed to be on the lake. Ever. Not for fish, not for ice, not for nothin’, not so long’s the Tribe Elders preachin’ forbade ‘em all. Deep Lake’s avoided at all costs cuz the Evil Ones, erryone knows. Nobody be cuttin’ holes out in the middle the lake. It just wasn’t done. But, then again, maybe it was just a shadow and nothin’ to worry ‘bout. “I dunno Yuri. Let’s just give it a wide berth. Don’t want no thin ice under my moccasins, d’you?”
        

“May not be a hole… Let’s find out.” There was that familiar gleam in Yuri’s eye. The same gleam before the grand honey-fishin’ sceme in the big greenhouse. Before they’d ran starkers through Old Winnoa’s garden patch and out into the fresh snow fleein’ the bee swarm, hands full of drippin’ honeycombs. Before they’d got the whoopin’s on top of the mass of swelling stings. This was a bad idea. And Sekai knew it. But then again, when could he ever say no to Yuri?
           

The air all round them was still and quiet. How strange. He shivered down to his spine. But it wasn’t cuz the cold. He didn’t feel right. Maybe the Elders were right to warn them away. Sekai almost turned around right then. But something nagged at him. He felt the curiosity fightin’ with his better senses. Then it won. Slowly, cautiously, he and Yuri struck out toward the spot. The ice didn’t seem any weaker here than where they’s at before. Sekai felt a little thrill as curiosity scared away the fear.
             

As they got closer, Sekai could see it was ‘nfact a hole. A splatter of ice-rubble littered all sides of the hole’s jagged edges. Looked like the frozen lake’d finally cracked open after all these frigid years. But it wasn’t that fact that startled him and turned his blood cold as the ice they stood on. Rather, it was the single trail of footsteps that led out. 

Thanks again for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story today! Feel free to comment below any parts you especially liked (or didn't). I'd love to hear your thoughts! (Unless you didn't like it - in which case, I'll read your comment but I don't promise to love it.)