Catastrophe

She crouched underneath the dilapidated teacher’s desk, her heart thudding in her throat, listening through the silence for the inevitable sound of footsteps.  In front of her, on something that used to resemble a human wrist, a watch’s second hand ticked back and forth, time frozen at ten forty-eight precisely.  Once bright and colorful, the decorations on the walls were faded and dusty.  She wondered what living in the mundane normalcy of school would have been like.  Her parents had grown up before the end of the world, and used to tell her how much they had taken for granted.  Now, at twelve years old, she was about to kill her first zombie, to earn her place in the family clan—the people who had all had a hand in raising her—and prove that she was, indeed, an adult.
 

The second hand on the watch swung like a metronome, and she waited, knowing that it would be soon.  Uncle Jay stalked somewhere in the rundown building, luring her first kill closer.  Her clan had been protecting the town and surrounding area since she was born, and had finally rid it of zombies three years ago.  Every so often, a new one would wander in, looking for undiseased meat, and someone would have to take care of it before others followed in its bloody wake.  This one belonged to her, and she had long since proven her accuracy on moving targets.  Still, her hands trembled on her Remington and she wished that she had someone else to share the silence with.  Oh, they were probably strategically placed outside, making sure this zombie was completely alone, but right now, Allie wanted someone to talk to.  Instead, she stared at the watch, seconds crawling by, trying not to think about whom the hand had belonged to.  It was just another dead carcass, just meat, had never been a real person . . ..

Footsteps sounded by the door, and she jumped with fright, about dropped her gun.  She bent down lower, her face pressed to the cracked tile floor, and recognized Uncle Jay’s combat boots.  He paused at the doorway and sighed.

“Your back’s to the window, Allie,” he said, his boots stepping closer.  “Coulda got you from behind and you’d never known.”

“There’s someone covering my rear,” she replied.

“Won’t always be,” Uncle Jay said, leaning against the desk.  She popped her head above the desk, and looked up at his tall, lean figure.

“Where’s the zombie?” she asked, her hands tensing on the weapon again.  Uncle Jay’s shotgun was resting over one arm, relaxing with him.

“In the cafeteria, feasting on a rat the size of a terrier.”

Allie shuddered.  She’d killed plenty of those in her time—they’d been almost as bad as the zombies a few years ago—used them as target practice to hone her now deadly aim.

“Did you kill it?”

“The zombie?  Hell no, s’yours.”

“No, the rat.”

“Nope.  This’un got it by itself.  Quick bugger too—rat never had a chance.”  He paused, eyes searching the doorway.  “It’ll hear us and come soon.”

She looked away from the fallen door and looked at Uncle Jay, knew that he could go from nonchalant to badass in three point five seconds and would protect her and their clan if she hesitated.  Shifting her gun to wipe her sweaty palms on her jeans, she could not manage to make her heart calm down.

“Are you scared?” she asked, and then wondered why she’d asked it.  He looked down at her, his green eyes soft, a half-smile playing on his lips.

"Every time,” he replied, and she marveled that this man—part father, part trainer, fully indomitable—looked calm, but was shaking in his boots deep down.

Different footsteps sounded in the hall this time, a broken gait, as though this person moved, but not in the right way.  Slowly, it came closer, until Allie could hear the wheezing breath, smell the rotten stink of it.  Petrified, she raised her gun to her shoulder.  Uncle Jay stood, calm as ever, not readying his gun.  Allie’s fingers trembled, but she never lost her sights.

The zombie shambled into view, sniffing at the air like a cat waiting on tuna.  It turned its face toward them, and Allie was frozen, horrified at the red eyes and blood-spattered mouth, the gunk under the blackened nails, the twitching movements as it stopped and looked straight at them.  Allie couldn’t breathe.  HHHHHYHHer mother stared back at her; her ruddy mother, who had gone on a hunt for supplies less than two weeks ago.

“Mom?” Allie said, her voice trembling.  Bile rose in her throat at the stench of decaying gore, but she forced it down, trying to regain composure.  Never, in all her life, had she imagined that this would be her first kill.

“Not your mom anymore, kid,” Uncle Jay said, like he’d known all along.

The zombie hissed, its red mouth opening wide, and Allie choked back tears, trying with all her might to believe him.  This isn’t Mom, Mom is dead.

“If you don’t shoot, I will,” Uncle Jay said, as the zombie growled and lurched across the room toward them.

Allie took a deep breath, the seconds slowing, her thoughts whirling.  No, it would be right for her to do this, to be the one who killed the thing which had infected her mother.  But she knew that for years to come, her mother’s exploding head would haunt her nightmares.  Perhaps that was the price to pay for becoming an adult—but she still wished that she could be a child in her mother’s arms for just one more fleeting moment.

Uncle Jay was sighting his gun, the zombie was stretching out its arms to her, threatening disease and death.  Allie forced the tears away.  She sighted down the barrel, and, drawing in a steady breath, she fired.

994 words.  Also written for a creative writing workshop class in 2010. 

Froggy Business

The glittering fairy dust was suffocating in the cathedral.  In search of fresh air, Prince Stephan paced through the azaleas and dusk-blooming primroses of the garden.  Word would come soon that the ceremony was about to start and that his bride was awaiting his royal presence at the altar.  His bride . . . he knew that he did not want to go through with this.  It wasn’t just nerves or cold feet—he really couldn’t go through with this.  An arranged marriage wasn’t good enough for him!  Why, any of the princesses he’d rescued would have been more than happy to take his hand in marriage, but he hadn’t wanted to settle down.  Now, he was being forced to marry a simpering princess only to unite two nations and please thousands of people—commoners, whose happiness somehow counted more than his!

           

 He’d spent his life devoted to being as perfect an heir as possible; he’d gone on quests and slain dragons, rescued fair maidens in distress, and even assisted his father with planning a war!  Now, the old addled twit had decided to say hell with honor and glory on the battlefield, for who didn’t want peace?  Stephan made a noise of disgust. Certainly the princess was beautiful—he had only seen her once, but remembered lavender eyes and golden curls—but she was a princess, and a woman at that.  Her head was certainly full of vapid nonsense about embroidery and jewels.  He would be driven mad within a fortnight.

           

 The fountain bubbled and splooshed beside him as he stalked forwards and backwards, cursing his father, muttering about the princess, and decrying the ignorant masses.  Finally, he flopped down on the edge of the fountain, pouting in a way that no perfect prince ever would.  Who cared about uniting nations?  All he cared about was his own happiness.

 “You’re being silly,” said a voice by his elbow.  He nearly jumped out of his shiny boots, for he thought he’d been alone in the garden all this time.  But no one else was there except a peculiarly bright green frog sitting next to him on the fountain.

“Excuse me?” he said politely—proper etiquette had been drilled into him since birth, and that included manners for small amphibians like the one in front of him.

“You heard me, you’re being silly!” it croaked again, waving a webbed foot.  Imagine, being told off by a frog!  Stephan puffed his chest out indignantly.

 “You will not speak to me in such a manner,” he said.  The frog giggled.

 “You should be more polite to a talking frog!  I could be a fairy in disguise,” it laughed.  Stephan paused.  It had a point.  One must be careful, lest one become cursed by a fairy in a bad temper.

 “Very well, why am I being so silly?”

“Because you haven’t thought this through thoroughly,” it said, and hopped onto his knee.

“There is nothing I can do.  My father would never let me refuse now; it would be a grave insult to the princess.”

“Ah, but who says you have to refuse?” it looked up at him with glassy eyes and caught a fly with its tongue.  Stephan thought for a moment, wondering what on earth the frog meant.  Then he had a scathingly brilliant idea.  But where could he find a dragon for hire at this hour?  No, it had to be simpler than that.

“Oh my,” he said, as a diabolical grin split his face.  “That’s brilliant.  I’ll get married, like my father says, in order to attain the lands and riches of her people.”

“Good idea!” the frog croaked.

“Then, before she can drive me mad with her idle chatter, I’ll hire a dragon to carry her off!”

“And?”

“And I’ll take my jolly time rescuing her.”  Yes, what a perfect plot!  Then he could have all the women he wanted, while he “tracked the dragon down.”

The frog was silent for a moment, watching him with its large eyes, and then it leaped up and planted a slimy kiss on his lips.  Stephan recoiled and fell over into the fountain, while an explosion of glitter fell about him. When he was able to pull himself out, there stood Princess Jessabelle.

“What a fine and dandy thing to hear on my wedding day!” she said, hands on her hips.  “My Prince Charming wants nothing to do with me, and he’s going to have me carried off by dragons!”  Her shrewd violet eyes narrowed at his drenched figure, her face full of regal fury.

“I-I-I-” he stuttered.  For the first time in his life, he was dumbstruck.

“My fairy godmother turned me into a frog so that I could see your true intentions.  Imagine, wanting to use me for your own gain.  That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard.”  She swept her train into her hand.  “I hope you realize, this means war.” Her violet eyes flashed as she stalked away.

“Wait!” he called, sloshing out of the fountain and squishing across the grass to her.  She turned to him, her lips pressed together, the perfect picture of rage—but too perfect.  He took her hand, his heart thudding in his ears, and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he would see this marriage through—she was an amazing asset that he couldn’t lose.  “I’m sorry,” he said, spitting out a word he’d never said.  “Perhaps I was a bit too hasty.”

She looked up at him through her long eyelashes, and smiled coyly.  “Touch me again,” she said sweetly, pulling her hand away, “and it will be the last thing that you’ll ever do.”

Stephan pulled her to him and kissed her, hard, and was surprised that she returned it.  They had more in common than he realized; both were selfish, spoiled, and very eager for war.  Perhaps they’d make a powerful duo after all.

998 words.  Written for a class back in 2010.

Okay, so this is pretty terrible....

Ocean of Rina

Rina wears shirts that come up to her neck now. As she walks across the room, the blousey silk flows against her body like water, clinging gently to her curves, though not the curves I want to see. My hands tremble against my teacup as she walks right up to the table, flops gracefully into the chair across from mine, and opens her perfect cupids bow mouth.

“I’m moving out,” she says, and all I can do is stare. “Did you hear me, Gretchen?” she asks after only a few heartbeats of silence. I nod slowly, never taking my eyes off her perfectly made-up face. She adjusts the gold bangles on her wrists, uncrosses her gray stockinged legs and stands. I watch her intently, and she turns her hazel eyes back to me, puts her hands on her skirted hips.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says. “It’s creepy.”

“What about the other night?” I ask. Her face melts into a fire of fury. I finally look away, out the window, at the cheery morning sunlight.

“You swore you’d never say anything,” she hisses and storms off.

I sink back into my chair, defeat crushing me like a big, salty ocean wave. I never meant to have feelings for her. I stand and walk across the apartment to her room, where the door is ajar. She’s tossing her clothes into a few boxes. Not like she has much more than clothes, so packing won’t take her long. I sink down the wall beside her door and curl into a ball, like I’d done the many times she’d had a boyfriend over, when my heart would ache at each sound she made, and it throbbed now, desperately, as though it were drowning in the ocean of Rina.

Although we’d first met in college, we were barely more than acquaintances. She’d Facebooked me because she was looking for a job in the area and needed a place to crash until she found a job and/or an apartment. That was one year ago.

“I can hear you out there, creep,” she calls to me, but I don’t move. How can I move when she’s just ripped my life apart?

Sure, she was drunk that night. Sure, she’d said a lot of things she probably didn’t mean. But I can’t help wondering if she meant even just one sentiment she offered.

“Why did you say it?” I mumble. She flings open the door, and I stare up at her, trying my damndest to keep the ocean of Rina from welling up into my eyes.

“Say what?” she demands, looking down at me. I’m sure I must look pathetic.

“That I was amazing and beautiful and perfect and you’d never been happier than when you were with me.”

 Her eyes soften and she bends down. My heart thuds in my chest as she lifts her hand to my face. I’m sure she’s going to tell me she’s changed her mind, that she’s just forgotten what happened. She cups my face and gives a sympathetic smile.

“I said those things,” she says softly, “because—” her face inches closer to me, I can feel her breath ticking across my cheek— “I’m a liar.”

“Wh-what?” I say, as she slaps her hand firmly across my cheek. She laughs and stands up, towering perfection above me.

“I’ve been using you, Wretchen” she says, using her cruel nickname for me. “You think you’re the first one I’ve done this to?” She eyes me, then shakes her head. A tendril of golden hair spills out of her perfect twist and brushes the side of her neck.

I can barely breathe. A part of me knew this was coming. I know that she’s too good for me, that she’s better than me at everything; getting boyfriends, doing makeup, dressing alluringly. I’ve never been so attracted to any other female in my life—not till Rina showed up at my house, wearing a low-cut top, baring her glorious collarbones for the world to see. I see her, standing in my doorway, sheepish smile sprawled across her face, an army of gorgeous men carrying in fifteen huge boxes of clothes, shoes, accessories … and nothing else.

But I didn’t care about those men, though had she been any other female in the world, I would have been drooling over them and making a nuisance of myself. I only had eyes for Rina, perfect Rina and her gorgeous, delicate collarbones.

I stand up, my hands shaking. So it was all a lie, huh? I think, emotions whirling through like a tropical storm in the Ocean of Rina. I don’t care so much about that, but how can I live on once she’s gone, having known the pleasure of her body—and her collarbones—for one glorious, drunken night? My hand shakes as I reach out to grab her shirt, to tear the silk like flesh from her body, just so I can see those porcelain protrusions just once more.

My hand sinks into her chest instead. We both give a yell of surprise, and I am pulled in farther, up to my shoulder this time. I look up at her with fear, but she just looks angry.

“What are you doing?” she demands, but I close my eyes and let go, and then I am inside of her, swimming around in my own Ocean of Rina. She sinks to the floor, legs trembling, hands clutching her breast as though I’d shot her with a poisoned arrow. I find the empty chambers of her heart and fill them, find my new place on the inside.

Her collarbones look just as lovely from here.

Based on this and this.
950 words.

Wild Sirens

The sun shone red over the marsh that evening, the evening that she first saw his face. She never thought of it as a warning; it was merely just another pretty sunset. Nothing like the sunsets she’d seen back when she was living by the ocean, but pretty and pastoral enough by mainland standards. Trucks rumbled past in the distance, along the hard county freeway. She floated in the water, rocking gently against the reeds, and stared up at the sky.

Suddenly a splash overhead and she leaped in fright, dove down into the opaque waters just as a confused man—hardly more than a boy—splooshed to where she had just been floating. She stared up through the water, watched his chest heave, his green eyes dart around.

“Hello?” he called, and she watched his face change from confusion to fear. She knew he was not from around here by his lack of accent. Hadn’t the locals warned him about the haunted marsh? About her?

Another splash, but this time it was a dog, some kind of collie mix, paddling about in the reeds, annoying the red-winged blackbirds. The young man smiled at his dog and shook his head in the fading light. Together they half-swam, half-waded through the water to the shore.

She slowly rose from her spot, barely a ripple stirring the water, only her silvery eyes watching after him. He did not turn back, but tossed his blonde hair out of his eyes and ruffled his dog’s wet fur.
All she had to do to call him back was open her mouth and speak. Any noise from her lips would be the sweetest sound that he’d ever heard, and he’d come back to her. She used to lure men to their deaths just for fun, eons ago, when magic was still fresh in the world. But now, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. He would surely drown, smitten by her voice as all the others had.

She followed him anyway. It was easy in the light of dusk to pull the glamour around herself, to clothe her naked body in dew and twilight. She followed him back to his house on the edge of the marsh, and watch him shower off the muck, set flame to the leeches. He didn’t bother to close his curtains.

The dog gravitated toward her, whimpered and whined till she pet him, scruffled his matted fur.
A second car pulled into the driveway and she fled the house for the huge oak that guarded the edge of the territory. Leaves hung from broken branches in brown clumps, and she pressed herself against the rough oak, as though she were no more than moss or lichen.

A woman walked confidently to the house, from the large truck, and knocked on the door. The naiad’s heart pounded in her chest when the front light blazed, but she was just outside of the light’s periphery. The man opened the door and smiled. He and the woman greeted each other with a pleasant hug, and the naiad watched him linger, his face buried in her dark hair. She pulled away laughing, and went inside.

Oh, how Naiad’s heart ached. She wished she was the one inside, riding on that man. But what could she do? No words from her mouth would have any meaning to his ears. It would be nothing but enchantment, and he would be doomed to a watery death, for she could not survive long outside of the water. She leaned her head back against the mighty oak and heaved a sigh. The dog flopped down beside her. A hand found its way to his comforting warm fur, and she knew that she could sit here forever; dry out for another glimpse of that perfect face.

The silver moon hung low over the golden-smeared horizon when she heard the sound. At first, she wasn’t sure what it was, but the dog whined and slunk away, its tail between its legs. Naiad stood slowly, maintaining her lichen mirage, still swathed in sparkling twilight. There it was again, that high-pitched keening. What was that sound?

The girl stumbled around the corner of the house, her long black hair tangled with sex and pheromones. She let out another shriek. One arm cradled the other, and Naiad saw it, dripping down her front, running between her legs as though her menses had come.

Blood.

The beautiful man stalked around the back of the house, a huge dripping knife clenched in his muscular hand. He clenched it so hard his veins stood out. The girl let out a soft sob and struggled to her feet. She yelled words at him, kicked and hit. His face was contorted with rage, but it was the most beautiful rage that Naiad had ever seen. He lifted the knife, and the woman fell to her knees.

“Stop,” Naiad said, stepped out of her shadow of twilight and lichen, and toward the two humans. The woman turned to look at her, wild-eyed, fear smeared across her face like the blood across her legs. The man stopped where he stood, knife poised, but his gaze peeled away from the girl to Naiad. His hand quivered, as though an invisible hand were holding it. She sighed, the barest audible sigh, and his eyes glazed over.

“Go,” she said to the girl, who didn’t need to be told twice; she was up and running, screaming profanities at them both as she slammed the door to her car and revved it into high gear.

Naiad turned to him, whose face could make a goddess envious, and gently took the knife from his fist. He stared at her, mesmerized, and bent down to kiss her. She moved away, finger to his soft lips. No, it wasn’t right. But she couldn’t undo it now. And soon she would feel so dry that she would have to return to the water. He would drown like all the others; because dying was better than having your will stripped away.

They sat out on the porch in the watery sunlight for a long time, and he watched the dogs chase the water birds out of the reeds, and she wondered if she’d made the right choice after all.


based on this.
1048 words.

Wanting

I’d know her face anywhere; it’s graced tabloids, fashion magazines, movie posters. I have all of them in my room, but they feel impersonal compared to the candid shot that I have framed. It sits above my bed and has watched me sleep ever since I was a young child. She looks exactly the same as she did in that picture, taken almost twenty years ago, and I can only hope to achieve her eternal beauty. I don’t have the curling chestnut hair or the deep green eyes, or even her button nose. She doesn’t see me as I walk closer, and bile panic rises in my throat that she won’t recognize me, that she’ll think I’m just fucking with her.

She hasn’t seen me in sixteen years, and I want to know why.

I swallow the stinging bile down and wave meekly toward her. She smiles as she sees me. My heart leaps with unexpected joy; she knows me, she recognizes me! and the warmth spilling out from her weakens my joints.

“Hullo,” I mumble, as she sweeps me into a grand hug. Honey and oranges fill my nose, a delightful sweet scent that slaps me in the face like an old memory come to life. A thousand images crowd my mind as we make our way to our table, and I have to shrug them off, tuck them away down deep. How am I going to get through this? Perhaps Gran should have come with me, like she wanted to.

“I can’t believe how much you’ve grown,” the woman says, shaking out her napkin and placing it delicately on her lap. I nod; at just over six feet tall, I’m much bigger now than I was at a year and a half. But I can’t say that to her; she’s American. She wouldn’t put up with that kind of snarky nonsense.

“It’s been a while,” I say instead. I don’t touch the menu in front of me. The woman quirks a perfectly manicured eyebrow at me. I look down at my folded hands. Perhaps I should have put on some makeup or gotten more dressed up. She’s sitting across from me, a perfectly fashionable queen, and I opted for a jumper and jeans.

“It has,” she says. An awkward silence commences. I can’t look at her, but can feel her eyes boring into my skull, into my mousy brown hair. Maybe she’s taking stock of everything that’s wrong with me, from my dull hair to spotted skin to crooked teeth. Hers are perfect and straight. I wonder if she had braces, but immediately dismiss that thought. No, of course not; no one that perfect has ever had braces. I open my mouth, but only a hoarse squeak comes out. I have to clear my throat three times and drink half my water before I can choke the words out.

“Why did you come?” I ask. She sets her menu down and meets my eyes with her deep green ones.
“I wanted to see you,” she says. “I trust your father has taken care of you?”

“Yes,” I say. Three more squeaks and throat-clearings but I can’t get the words to come out. She’s taking obvious pleasure in my awkwardness. That makes it harder.

“Why aren’t you happy?” she asks, as though she didn’t abandon her eighteen-month-old daughter to a foreign country. As though it’s not completely obvious. I press my lips together. No, I will not make a scene. It’s not the British thing to do.

“You abandoned me,” I say, choking on bile and tears. Her face hardens.

“No,” she says. “No, I gave you to someone better.”

“Who better than my own mum?” I ask on the brink of tears. The waitress comes to take our order and I have to choke down my feelings to tell her I want a hamburger please. The woman across from me orders a rum and coke and that’s all.

“Didn’t he raise you?” she asks as the waitress scurries off. Her words are hard and cold. I shrug.

“Sort of.”

“I gave him the legal paperwork. I surrendered you to his custody.” She says it like it’s so black-and-white, so matter-of-fact. Like my father wasn’t a codependent, spineless man with an affinity for women who would destroy his life.

“What does that even mean?” I say. “I would have been better with you.”

Her earrings tinkle as she shakes her head. “No,” she says. “You were better here.”

“How could you know?” I whisper. She closes her eyes.

“Because I didn’t want you.” The bomb drops. My world shatters.

“Then why did you have me?” I whisper, shaking with anger and self-loathing. Nobody wanted me. Not my real mum, not any of Dad’s wives, not even Gran though she was better at hiding it than everyone else.

The woman in front of me shrugs. “I was young and in love. I thought I wanted a baby. And then I left him. I thought I could raise you myself, but it was so, so hard.”

“Were you addicted to drugs?” I ask. She shakes her head. “Were you in debt?” Again. “Were we poor?” Again. I lean forward on the table, put my head in my hands and stare at the white cloth beneath me, try to slow my pounding heart.

“You have to understand; I thought having a child would be fun. But sitters are expensive, and the house was always a mess.” She doesn’t reach out to me, doesn’t try to comfort me as everything inside spins out of control. “And I am selfish. I wasn’t willing to give my life up just to raise you.”
I throw myself backward in my chair and upset the waitress walking by. The tray falls with a clatter to the floor, our dinner ruined on the fancy carpet. Both women look at me as I rise.

“Fuck. You.” I say to her. The restaurant is dead silent. I storm out as the paparazzi move in.

Based on this.
1005 words

The Fall of Troy

She carried a burning secret within her, just as Troy burned around her. Ash and smoke blew into her eyes, and she moved her veil to block the wind. In the chaos of night, she’d managed to hide herself better among the crush of frightened people than the sackable buildings. She’d turned away when they threw her nephew from the high walls, shut her ears and fled from the keening of her people. Through the crowds and fighting she’d dodged, to the Temple of Athena, sure she’d be safe at such a holy spot. The warriors were already there, doing horrible things to her half-sister. Dancing shadows clung to their nude forms, and Hypatia bolted down the lane, her small form mercifully invisible to passing soldiers. She hid behind a pillar at another Temple and watched as her father was killed as he clung to the statue of a god who made no move to save him. Was nowhere sacred to these monsters?
But she didn’t want to think about that now. Through the ruin of her beloved city, she stepped carefully, watched for any movement as the dawn gleamed rosy on the high stone walls. The second sun since the sack had begun. They’d come at night, like cowards, and slaughtered without mercy. Thankfully her mother had died of sickbed a few years ago; but now Hypatia had nowhere else to turn. The whole of the royal family was sure to have been either killed or taken as slaves. She didn’t think they’d have much to spare anyway, not for an illegitimate child of Priam, and a girl for that matter. And she certainly didn’t want to stay here, not while the gulls still flocked and picked at parts of people she’d known. Not a living sound echoed in the city, just the snap and pop of the burning houses.

But there! There was her sister Creusa, looking beautiful and pale in the weak dawn. Hypatia struggled toward her, maneuvering carefully around all the burning rubble. She had to stop once, to put out the hem of her dress. By the time she looked up, her sister’s figure had vanished, and Hypatia froze in the smoke, wondering if she were hallucinating. Tears from the thick smoke stung her eyes, and she would have sunk to the ground if most of it hadn’t been littered with broken bits of pottery, smashed furniture and corpses.

Another figure cut through the smoke, and she jumped, scrambled backward at the sight of his armor and weapons. He called to her, though, and she turned at the sound of his voice. That was no Achaean accent!

“Hypatia!” he called, waving his spear at her. Tentatively, she inched through the smoke toward him, lest it be some treachery. He pulled his helmet off and she recognized the golden curls of her cousin, Aneas. Her chin trembled, and she thought she might burst into tears. She let him wrap his arms around her, but she stood straight, unwilling to believe that the gods had sent him back.

“How are you still alive?” she asked, as he released her and lifted his shield. He gave her that cocky smile that she knew so well, and held up his spear.

“I fought them all off,” he said. She quirked an eyebrow at him, and he laughed. How could he be so flippant? Did he not see the wreckage that lay around them? “The Achaean army has left with its spoils,” he said after a moment, and turned toward the broken gates.

“We thought so not two days ago,” she said, and wondered if the lie was obvious in her voice. He did not notice, at any rate, and they picked their way across the city to the huge walls that had protected them well throughout the past ten years.

“Now they have left for good,” he said as they walked. “They won their war and destroyed our lives, but we will rebuild.”

“You cannot.” She rushed forward and put a hand on his spear arm. He turned to her and his green eyes were dark inside the helmet.

“I am the sole heir of this nation, cousin.” His words trembled out of his mouth, hope and fear mixing with anguish. “You dare tell me what I can and cannot do?”

She stood there for a moment, mulling it over in her mind, heart pounding in her throat. How could he understand? She’d escorted Polyxenia when Priam made the exchange for Hektor’s body. She knew what the price had been.

“The city is cursed,” she said, finally. Aneas shook his head. Her hair swirled around her like a black veil in the wind that screamed down on them, as though she would release the monster by giving name to it.

“No, you’re being over dramatic,” he said, tugging on her hand. She stayed where she was, and knew that the secret ember in her belly was going to advance to an open flame. How she wished she could stay silent!

“Unfortunately, dear cousin, I know exactly what I am speaking of,” she replied. The flame was only being fanned now, and she felt as though she were going to peel apart from the inside. She felt afraid, but she supposed she had felt afraid many times.

“Are the gods speaking through you?” he asked. She could have laughed.

“We are from a far away land,” she said. “These gods mean nothing. They did not bother to protect us because they could not.”

“What do you mean?” he said, as the wind howled around them. She took his hand and fed him a bit of the power that reverberated through her. He gasped as the feeling seized at his heart, tried to trap his lungs closed. She dragged him into a house near the walls, hoping that might protect them from the wind.

“Our great city is not the first city to have fallen. Babel was first. Then Atlantis. Then Akrotiri.”

“You’re talking nonsense,” he said. “I saw Creusa’s shade, she spoke to me, and told me that I am destined to voyage to find a new spot to rebuild Troy.”

“It wasn’t her shade,” Hypatia said, but that was all the girl could get out before her power took over. “This has all happened before.”

She could feel the wind vibrating to the core of her being, feel the sparks of electricity course through her. Aneas watched, horrified, as she spread her palms wide and the wind pulled her off the floor. She spoke with a voice of prophecy. “And all this will happen again.”

With creaking timbers and showers of plaster, the roof began to collapse. Whether it was from the fire or the power that filled the room, Aneas could never say. But he reached out to his cousin to try to save her, to try to pull her back to safety. She looked at him, her deep brown eyes black to the whites, and with all the strength she could muster, shoved him out the door before the burning building collapsed on top of her body.

1189 words.  Based on this.

Untitled (for now)

Butterflies were always attracted to Hana. Her father told her it was because of her sweetness, and he teased that she was born from a flower. Nevertheless, she had to be careful on school field trips to arboretums and gardens, lest half the populace flock to her in a flurry of jewel tones and whisper-kiss her with their tickly feet. Other insects never bothered her; not one mosquito bite ever marred her olive complexion, nor had she ever captured a jar of lightning bugs and watched them in their frantic escape dance, but luna moths clustered around her house at night like leaves caught in a twister and would ricochet off her window screen, dash their bodies against the house with every effort to get close to her. For a while when she was ten years old she was terrified that they were going to sink their feet into her flesh and twist up in her hair, and then she would be gone, floating away with the clouds and her father would wonder where she’d disappeared.

Sometimes it hurt when they landed on her, though she never found any bite marks or red hives speckling her skin afterwards, but she could still feel the dull ache deep inside her gut days later. Then she noticed that her deep brown eyes—more black than the chocolate her father claimed them to be—were slowly turning blue. Oh, it was hard to see at first, and she wouldn’t have noticed the pinpricks of color if she hadn’t become obsessed with eye makeup the summer she turned fourteen—she was obsessed with the wide, round eyes that the blonde girls in her softball league had and thought that maybe if she had those eyes too, she could fit in better. It was only during her third botched attempt at dragging the goopy black liner across her eyelid that she noticed her eyes were freckled with blue.

She ran to her father, crying that she was going slowly blind, the liner dripping down her cheeks like a pathetic mime’s makeup. He took her to the optometrist, who tested her vision, gave her drops, and checked her for glaucoma. Hana was fine, the doctor merely shrugged and suggested that puberty was bringing about changes. Her father forced a laugh that nobody believed and hurried her out of the office. A tiger swallowtail hovering nearby flitted over and landed on her cheek, its long straw proboscis prodding at her flesh. Her father watched for a moment, its black and yellow wings unable to conceal the misery in his daughter’s face.

When they got into the car, he finally told her the truth. Her mother wasn’t off in Reno with a new husband. She’d been a wild woman that he had met in the woods, ivy tangled in her black hair, her small eyes half black, half blue, and butterflies had swirled around them as they consummated their lust in that clearing; a clearing he’d never found again, save for when he’d received Hana as a baby. A monarch butterfly landed on the window nearest to Hana, waggled its orange wings as she considered the story that he told to her.

She dismissed it, though she desperately wanted to believe in the mystical powers of the woods. But the rational blue already had a foothold, and as the months and years went on, the speckles slowly spread across her iris as though they were measles. Nobody else seemed to notice; not her classmates or teachers, or even the few friends she’d managed to scrape together. It wasn’t until late in college that someone finally commented how unique her eyes were. By this time they were almost completely as blue as the sky at its apex, but a small ring of brown still surrounded her pupil like lightning. He said how much he liked her eyes one day when they were sharing a microscope. He had a kind smile, a peaky nose and an unfortunate smatter of freckles across his face. They went out for coffee, and she fell hopelessly in love with him after their fifth date. She took him home to meet her father the spring before they graduated.

Hana’s father greeted them warmly and insisted in a fatherly way that they sleep in separate beds. Rory flashed his charming smile and informed Hana’s father that he—much to Hana’s disgruntlement, but she hadn’t voiced her opinion on this yet—was determined to wait for marriage. Hana’s father of course approved, and after a rather rambunctious game of Balderdash, everyone headed to bed.

Hana couldn’t sleep. She was used to air conditioning in her dorm, and she’d forgotten that her father didn’t use it. The night was humid and sticky, and she kept going to the window to look out in the woods, the call of the forest singing through her marrow. Finally, she could stand it no more and snuck out through the trees.

Most moths hadn’t had a chance to pupate yet, but several caterpillars nodded silently in her direction as she slipped between the trees, barely more than a shadow herself. She didn’t quite know what she expected to find, but the blindingly sunlit clearing with its jade-green moss and emerald green grass made her jaw drop. Everything, from the fallen log at the center to the climbing ivy that draped overhead was in technicolor, or maybe that was just what it was like to step from mindnight into noon.

The woman who sat on the log was no different, her prominent cheekbones the same shape and height as Hana’s. Her eye color divided diagonally across the iris, though Hana didn’t actually notice till she stepped closer. The woman smiled and stretched a hand out to Hana. Butterflies hovered nearby, but they didn’t land, and Hana found herself not wondering why they stayed away, but why so many different species weren’t still in caterpillar phase this early in the year as she cautiously approached her mother.

“Mama,” Hana said, and the woman nodded, raised a concerned hand to touch Hana’s cheek. The young woman knelt in front of her mother, who did not look much older than Hana herself. Mama asked Hana why her eyes were so blue, and Hana didn’t know what to say. Suddenly Mama was angry.

Father should have told you, Mama said, but Hana could only shake her head. Mama cupped Hana’s face in hers. You are going to lose your immortality if you let the butterflies take any more of you away, and then you will be rotten, corrupt just like all those Humans.

But there is a way out. You must seduce the one made for you, because in the intimate joining all the loose threads will be finally healed together. And then you can come here and live with me, forever in this world of magic.

Hana wasn’t sure what she should say. Her mother kissed her between her eyebrows, turned her back around and gave her a shove. Darkness enveloped her and she stood in the woods, every muscle trembling. Despite the rational blue of her eyes, the brown lightning in them flashed, and she knew that if she were to go to Rory tonight, he would never be able to resist her. She fought with herself for a moment, trying to rationally overcome the rising desire, but all the loose threads inside her screamed their raw edges against her flesh, and she managed to sneak upstairs to Rory’s room where he was awake and waiting for her.

She stripped off her clothes and lowered her smooth skin down onto his, felt every wave of ecstasy rising inside of her body, sealing in her immortality. All she thought about was the place she could finally belong, with its bright jewel tones and permeating magic. With every kiss, every touch, every clench of her fists, it came closer and closer. When the final wave hit, he sagged against her breast and she held him for a long time, till the pale gold dawn light began to creep in the window.

Into the misty green morning she walked, barefoot and naked, not a care in the world. No one could see her now. She was officially a creature of the fey, belonged to the natural world for all of eternity. No more butterflies could harm her. The caterpillars from the night before watched mournfully after her with their huge black eyes. She entered the clearing, but the jewel tones were gone, left with deep shadowy greens and grays in the mist. Hana walked over and looked at her reflection in the still pond, her mother’s face stared back, teeth sharp and eyes wicked. Flocks of butterflies floated down around her, but they ignored her. Instead they landed on the carcass of a dead and rotten fish that lay on the pebbles, its eyes and mouth wide in terror, and they began to feed.

1498 words. This story went way off on its own, down a path I wasn’t expecting it to, and then fell into a frigging canyon.  Gotta love the creative process!

Based on this.