Makoto’s slender fingers brushed his palm. Outwardly, Ichirou remained calm, gaze still fixed on the white and orange coy fish drifting in the shallow pond below. But Ichirou’s breath caught in his throat. Electricity built on the flesh of his excited heart. This energy could’ve cast a dangerous spell in battle.
Ichirou turned to face her while his free hand fell in his pocket. His fingers grasped the cold ring hidden inside. “I call it a scar, but it’s a bit more than that.” Continue reading “Servant of the Tiger”
The vending machine whined. Dr. Jordynn Chambers snatched the deposited vial from the rusting slot and held it up to eye level. Silky white strands floated in the ethanol. DNA.
Stickers had once labeled the machine, but they faded away long ago. The genetic code could be from any plant. Or animal or bacterium for that matter. Honestly, Jordynn was shocked that the machine even ran. It was old enough to take physical quarters, and Jordynn was old enough to still carry them. She wondered if any of the other professors knew this rusted hunk still existed. Doubtful. The storage room held centuries of discarded—excuse her, archived—student projects. They’d probably hidden her thesis design down here too, where gathered dust for the past sixty-three years… Continue reading “B-4”
It must be another sign, just as Nana said. First the stars died, blackened and unseen. Then the birds died, their corpses filling the sea shores. The nations died too, somewhere in the mess. Great continents of empty homes covered the world, the elders said. If others besides our fellow islanders survived, we would never know.
Kira huffed and let her pink arms dangle over the iron railing like cooked noodles. “When can I have a turn?”
I pressed the binoculars closer, letting them dig into my eyebrows. Rubber bumps rolled along my finger as a twisted the knob between the two scopes. The purple and white fuzz sharpened. A platinum cyborg horse trotting across the Data Ice.
Dr. Whitmore pitched another fork of hay over Chicago’s iron fence. The elephant pinched the yellowed straw with his trunk and shoved it into his disproportionately tiny mouth. On paper, Chicago counted as another of Dr. Whitmore’s experimental specimen. The only real experiment was seeing how long he could get away with keeping a pet elephant.
“Could you feed them, Honey?” Dr. Whitmore asked. “I’ve got to finish another research proposal. Funding doesn’t grow on trees.”
5 Paragraph Essay: Technological First Aid 2 (First Draft)
Bright screens, blaring music, the aroma of chocolate cake drifting from the i-Sens Box’s ad… welcome to the ideal American home. Our #technology keeps us alive, feeding us the constant simulation the human brain craves for survival. But what if an EMP exploded above Washington? 3 :O Goodbye to electronics, permanently.
Don’t worry, the human brain can survive a full 26 hours 4 without constant stimuli. 🙂 5 But only 26. In an #emergency, your first priority is finding new stimuli. Water, food, shelter—that can wait. Continue reading “Tech #Disaster 101”
Dark webbing still marks my shoulder from the day that bullets separated my squad from our company. The bleeding would’ve killed me if my comrades hadn’t bandaged it. But isolated from medical equipment, we couldn’t stop the scarring.
After days of wandering the Amazon I tripped, leaving a white slice across my stomach. A dumb wound. Not from a heroic battle with enemy soldiers or fleeing some hungry beast. I just got tired, so I fell.
Then came the jagged blossom encasing my thigh. Forever an vengeful red, as if still burning after all these years.
First, a big thank you to Mohammad Attaran for another fantastic piece of artwork! Make sure to check out his website.
This month’s sketch turn into a full-blown story, as you can see. I originally meant it to be only 300 words. But sometimes stories have a mind of their own.
It’s official: I’ll be posting monthly stories! If you want an email reminder whenever I post a new story, subscribe in the upper right-hand corner (or bottom of the page for you mobile readers). Or you can follow me on Twitter @EstherDDavis.
“I don’t think it’s a frog egg.” Dain raised the glass to eye level and turned it slowly. “You could’ve at least given him a bigger container.”
“The egg was smaller, I swear! By, like, a lot.” I didn’t like how Dain only clamped the glass’s rim from above. After three nights in the cupboard, the growing egg had pushed nearly all the water out. Some of the moisture still lingered on the side. What if the glass was too slick and my not-really-a-tadpole slipped from Dain’s fingertips? I resisted the urge to snatch the glass and cradle it against my chest.
The once penny-sized bubble now pressed against the glass walls. The confinement had warped the egg sac, making it more cylindrical than spherical. In the orange liquid floated not the pet tadpole I’d expected, but a dragon fetus. Continue reading “Not a Frog”
Joshr perched on the boulder, waves crashing against the rocky shore at his back. The Obelisk rose from the volcanic rock like a charred tree from ash. Its protective enchantments still held. The runes running up its hundred-foot spine still glowed blue. Far to the west and east, other Obelisks shone, each holding their ancient vigil.
No enemy could breach the unseen wall spanning between the Obelisks. But the Builders never knew enemies could come from above… Continue reading “Men of Blades”
