Finnaly...

What's your favorite part of the lore in your wip?

Oh, another tough one. Thanks for asking!

Not to give too much away since it's getting into a pretty important plot details. My favorite lore has to do with a chasm called the Gate of the Underworld or just the Underworld for short.

Legend says that the hand of an angry god opened the way to the underworld so as to punish humans for their hubris. Man decided to explore in their drive for advancement and, after traveling miles down, found large red crystals.

After experimenting with the strange and highly explosive substance, they found that it could be used to enhance people, and after several failed attempts, the first group of blood mages were formed.

At first, it was believed they could be controlled, but as the monsters began losing their minds, humanity began to question if the stories regarding the Underworld were really just stories after all.

(A very quick visual)

A Bit Old For This

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Where did this come from? I don't know... I woke up at 6:10 am. and saw the prompt. This story just kinda came knocking on my brain without notice.

Story Warning: breif thoughts of death, violence, abduction, mentions of unstable mental state, and isolation.

Aaron woke up scowling to the sound of his alarm. 4:30 am. flashed brightly on the small LED screen. He’d overslept again.

Not bothering to snooze, Arron slowly sat up in bed and attempted to fight his growing desire to pitch himself over the balcony of his fifth story apartment. Imagining the complications in the event of his failure he discarded the unproductive thoughts turning his attention to the bathroom instead.

Pictures and Phil and Rachel in their uniforms hung on the mirror taunting him with their smiles, a constant reminder of his failure.

Blasted psyche test. Weren't people like him the very kind that the military were looking for?

Aaron's scowl deepened as he tried to push down a rising sense of nausea, he really needed to take down those pictures before he…

A loud boom sounded from the living room and his failures were replaced by a sudden and unshakable dread.

He'd been anxious and angry in equal measure for most of his life, so Aaron was familiar with voids in his gut, but this dread seemed to be emanating from the back of his head telling him to run.

His brain didn't even process the command that had been instinctively issued before his body was moving calmly towards the bathroom window.

Unhooking the latched he ducked out to the fire escape and began to descend the stairs as quietly as possible while his heartbeat began to accelerate with each successive boom.

The wind began to pick up as he heard a low growl from above. He didn’t dare stop, didn't dare to look up and see what might have invaded his home. What would have happened had he hit snooze one more time? It was then that his anxiety caught up with the dread and a pit formed in his already weakened stomach threatening him with a putrid bile that crept into the back of his throat.

Aaron stopped just long enough to force the bile back down into his stomach. Unfortunately It was a moment too long, for even as he took several deep breaths after finally forcing the caustic mixture down his aching throat, he felt icy fingers gently wrapping around the back of his neck.

The back of his mind began to scream as his body froze in place. He wanted to move, needed to continue fleeing but it was as though his body had been frozen by those fingers which dug into the back of his neck.

"Are you sure this one will do?"

Aaron closed his eyes before he could see the person he heard them stepping closer. It was like his brain knew something worse than the eternal sleep he dreamed of would be forced on him if he made eye contact with whatever it was.

"The Professor was very clear in his description, and I can feel radiance even if it’s faint. I am a bit surprised he made it this long without being discovered."

His brow furrowed as Aaron tried to make sense of what was happening. What did they mean radiance? The feeling in the back of his head flared once more with the urgent desire to escape these things, but he was still firmly rooted in place as a bony finger pressed into the side of his face as warm blood pooled under the sharp nail.

The sting of torn skin was enough to convince the last sane shred of his mind that this wasn't another of his insane dreams, he'd always wake up when he was injured and less had drawn him from his wanderings. The icy grip around his throat tightened, and his vision blotched to blackness.

....

"Simon, wake up!"

His eyes snapped open at the unfamiliar voice. He was in a plain white room filled with sleeping figures. From a cursory glance he was probably the oldest by about fifteen years. Among them only about a fourth seemed to be awake, and half of those were staring at the walls in a daze.

He didn’t have much time to linger on his confusion as a familiar boom filled the room and his eyes were drawn to a wolf-like creature that stood towering over one child that was still sleeping. The creature's maw dripped with red as it didn't hesitate to bring its jaws down on the sleeping boy's shoulder before blinking out of existence with another boom, taking the boy with it.

Cries rang out from nearby children as they began to scramble away from any of the sleeping kids as more booms filled the room in rapid succession, always a sleeping child, and always there for less than a moment more than necessary. The teen near him continued to shake her unconscious friend while calling out his name as another boom sounded and knocked her away from the defenseless teen.

Aaron wasn't sure if it was that strange new part of his brain , or the well of frustration the had been brewing in his gut which caused him to leap at the wolf, but in the end the result was the same. Without an ounce of hesitation he pounced on the focused beast like a coiled spring which had finally been released.

Its body was lighter than the wolves he'd dealt with in the past, and as he pinned its throat to the ground with his knee, he reached to his belt finding his knife had been left unchecked.

His fingers gingerly gripped around the handle pulling it free as the creature seemed to catch up with its current situation and attempted to claw at him while snarling.

He was struck by the pathetically weak nature of this thing as his blade was buried in the creature's throat, tearing it cleanly with more ease than should have been possible. As the blade broke free of the creature it burst into a cloud of thick purple smoke and rapidly funneled into his mouth and nose suffocating him for a brief moment.

When the swirl was gone he looked down at his hands with patchy vision and tried to focus on the strange fog that he could now feel slowly making its way through his lungs.

"Congratulations!"

A little old man appeared not far away smiling from ear to ear.

"The first dream wolf has been absorbed so all survivors are now eligible dream Arbiter candidates!"

Little bursts of confetti sprayed over the room as the children and Aaron looked at the man in confusion.

It was at this point that the sleeping victims all started to wake up and look around them in confusion before happily reuniting with their peers and crying tears of what he assumed were relief.

For his part, all Aaron could manage to do was put away his suddenly clean knife, hoping the old man would suddenly decide it wasn't something that an abducted adult should be allowed to have.

Beautiful Things

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt

Summary: A snippet of lore for the story I have been attempting to write. Pulling back from a crazy world, is it any suprise that the universe could be just as odd?

He’d watched over the small egg for millennia, protecting it from harm. It hadn’t been the only one. It was just the one that had yet to hatch. As the centuries passed and the number of guardians slowly dwindled, *** had chosen to stay. They had warned him that if the little one could not break its shell, then it could not last in the expanse, that its light was not worth protecting. *** had stayed silent and watched the other newborns hatch one by one, following the guardians into the expanse of space to learn of the universe and their place in it.

Guardians labeled him foolish while retreating, but *** waited for the child to form. He could hear the growing heartbeat through the shell getting slightly louder with every passing century until it was just as strong as the others who had hatched before it. Then he could feel its will and knew the child should have been strong enough to break its prison, but still, it did not act. After waiting for a century more, *** pressed his conscious forward to question the child. He asked if it required help breaking the shell.

While guardians were forbidden to interfere with the hatching, *** had been helped as a newborn, and he would not let this newborn rot because of tradition. Even through the shell *** could feel that despite what the others had said, this little one’s light would be something truly beautiful.

{I don’t want to go… I love these creatures too much to destroy them.}

Its voice was stronger than he had expected, but *** understood the newborn’s conviction. The creatures that lived on the surface of its egg were fragile beings that would not survive the hatching process. He’d watched countless species destroyed that way as he sat among the dying husks of empires.

Reaching out again, *** warned the newborn that if it did not hatch after developing, then it would surely parish. Then, after rotting, it would lead to the death of the creatures that it cared so deeply for. They had good lives, and they had been given millennia to grow and experience so much. *** explained that this was simply the conclusion of their natural existence, but he could feel that the newborn’s conviction did not waver.

{No… I have heard their song and it is too beautiful to be lost, so I will give them what time I can until my end comes.}

*** frowned and reached out a finger boring deep into the surface of the egg. If the newborn felt so strongly, then there was another way, but it would have to commit to a lesser form until it had seen the terrifying nature of the song that it longed to protect.

Pulling back, *** caught a glimpse of the newborn’s light through the opening he had formed and knew he could no longer watch the child if he wanted to respect its wishes. Without him, the newborn would be alone for the first time in its existence, and *** shed tears, which fell like stars smoldering in their dissent. *** knew its light would have been the most precious to behold, but its memory would have to be his alone.

{Thank you}

Wolf Hunting?

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Exerpt from Tori's story and part of my Bloodmage WIP. Fair warning, I was very tired when editing, so just know things might be a bit messy.

Warnings: Mentions of torture, violence, mutilation, and a monster drawing at the end of the story.

“Tori, I have something to tell you…”

Then the room lit up with red light, and Ma was ripped away from him just as the words were being spoken. 

Checking his gun again, Tori stepped deeper into the moonlit forest grumbling. He needed to get this blasted favor over with and find where Ma had been taken to. The old man in the village seemed to know something of what was happening, but he was too frail to force information with Tori’s preferred methods, so he’d decided to play nice for now. Just deal with a blasted wolf in the woods, and he would get what he needed, simple enough.

In the short time he'd spent listening to their excuse for not dealing with the creature, Tori had noticed at least three capable people in the town and doubted that this was going to be something simple. Much to his irritation, though, he didn’t have time to employ his usual caution, or maybe the idiots had just started wearing off on him more than he’d like to admit. The thought of Owen and Embers' satisfaction of their influence left a bitter taste in his mouth. They wouldn’t need to know. 

He wasn't a skilled or seasoned trackef but paying close attention to the paths that he’d been instructed to look out for. There were definitely tracks of something big, and in addition to paw marking, there were signs of something big being dragged through the area. Any wolf that could make tracks of that size wasn’t something he wanted to be close to, even with his gun. Frowning at the size, he contemplated turning back to try torture after all, but a growl froze him in his tracks. 

It shouldn’t have been able to get so close to him. Turning slowly, Tori scowled at the creature looming several feet away from him. Its matted fur was covered in bits of half chewed flesh and fur that dangled from the unkempt locks of blood-stained gray-brown hair. Tori didn't fail to notice that where hind legs should have been, there was a large snake tail that flicked back and forth in irritation as it held a small squirming bug in one clawed hand. 

Tori’s breath caught in his throat as he began cursing internally, how was that a blasted wolf? A vein in his forehead throbbed as the creature swallowed the bug and turned its attention towards him. By its smug expression, Tori was sure it felt that he would be a quick meal, but it was in for a rude awakening if it thought that He’d go down without a fight. 

Raising his gun level with the thing’s head, tori fired off 2 rounds in quick succession altering his fire for the second shot towards the direction that the beast seemed more likely to move. The first round grazed its ear, but as planned the second landed squarely in the things right eye as it lunged towards him. 

Jumping to the side, Tori fired off another set of rounds hitting the creature in the side, but still it didn’t even flinch, turning its trajectory to grab onto Tori’s shoulder digging its teeth through the layers of protective clothing like they were nothing. Letting out a grunt of pain, Tori quickly reached to his belt and pulled a knife free stabbing it into the creature’s throat over and over as it sank its teeth deeper, snapping his collar bone like a rotten twig. Letting out a scream of pain he felt his mind flash with white for a minute before pulling his knife free and driving it into the creature’s left eye. After a scream of confusion, the creature pulled back with a roar of pain and quickly retreated several feet, slower than the last time. 

“Do you think I’m going to let you get away with ruining the coat she gave me?”

The hatred in his voice might have surprised him if the situation didn’t tick him off beyond reason. Tori’s blood began to pump more rapidly than before as he let the gun fall from his right hand. This creature didn’t seem very affected by bullets but his knife did the trick. His right arm was useless right now, but the creature was partially blind. 

Without giving it time to recover further, Tori rushed the creature driving his blade into its throat as he let a claw graze the side of his head. That was okay, he could work with a bit more head trauma. His blade struck true, severing the creature's artery. This time as he pulled away the creature tried to bolt away from him, but the frustrated man jumped onto its back and quickly stabbed his knife into the creature’s throat again and again. 

The motion continued until the creature’s cries of pain were drowned out by his own frustrated screams. What the hells had she wanted to say to him blast it? Tori let his arms go limp as he looked down at the bloodied creature below him. With the excitement of the battle dying down he felt his stomach beginning to twist in pain as a sudden hunger overtook him. The disgusting creature, mutilated beyond recognition looked almost as appetizing as Ma’s cooking, and like a man possessed Tori leaned down devouring its corpse as the full moon shown above him, bathing the forest in red light. 

I was playing around with ink today, and other than some frustrations involving uncooperative ink, it was pretty fun.

✨ Can you hear the clock ticking? Time is running down! You've got 24 hours to write something down!

Get our pens, open your laptops, FFF is here to inspire you!

✨ New to FFF? Let us fill you in!

Flash Fiction Friday is a fun writer event that’s meant to inspire, share and connect writings of all genres and writers of all ages. It’s designed to make people want to write, especially if they’re feeling blocked. Everyone and everything is welcome!

We always do our very best to keep the prompt’s genre open, entertaining, positive and encouraging.

Write between 100-1000 words. It can be any genre, in any text format and 18+ is fine by us, just please tag accordingly.

Use this Friday’s theme in your text. Any way you see fit.

Post on your tumblr blog and remember to tag us at @flashfictionfridayofficial​!! So we’ll see it, read it and reblog it!!

Deadline is 24 hours after the prompt has been issued (12 pm CET).

And then, next Friday, we’ll mention your work in a showcase post on our main blog before our next prompt drops.

Please post your entries as regular posts, not screenshots — or provide the text as a regular post as well. Let’s keep everything as accessible as possible!

We ask you to tag your works with any appropriate content warnings and let the reader know what they’ll find before they get the chance to read your work!

If you have a question, check out our FAQ page! If your question isn’t on there, don’t hesitate to ask!

You don’t need to ask for permission or need to get added to a list to join in. Just write, have fun and don’t forget to tag us!

We do not condone fiction, asks or comments that contain: direct hostility, unconstructive critique, LGBTQIA+ hate, slurs, racism and/or general no-no behaviors.

If you want to be closer to the epicenter, you can come chat on our open discord: https://discord.gg/rUWCE8a

✨ We also introduced our very own Wishing Well, a place for you to whisper your prompt suggestions into. And we’ll listen! Check everything about it out HERE.

✨All your amazing works from last week can be found HERE.

Go check them out and consider supporting your fellow FFF writers with some likes and reblogs!

✨ And now, the new prompt!

[#FFF264 Counting Clocks ]

Why are there multiple clocks? Why are they being counted? Is time running out? Is it just a simple clock maker's daily task? Do the clocks bring distress or relief or something else? Get writing and let us know! Go, go, go!!!

.

.

.

The Collective <3

Tell yourself the story

Don’t worry too much about over-describing in your first draft. Your first draft is all about the discovery, and you never know what elements will be relevant later.

Tell yourself the story, and worry about trimming the fat later, when you start your first edit.

Termination

Thanks for the prompt @flashfictionfridayofficial

Lan decides to make a move after learning that his deal with the council has been voided.

Warnings: Violence and death

“I heard an interesting rumor.”

Ripples cascaded across the wine soaked floor as council members looked up from their drunken revilry.

“It was such a silly little thing, but I knew that it was the perfect tale to end things on.” Water droplets danced around Lan as he took another step forward, once more disrupting the wine underfoot. “Besides, I just know you’d be interested to hear it.”

Several of the more grounded members began to stir, reaching for their stupid little bells with shouts of panic that only grew more desperate as the metal melted into puddles of burning liquid.

“Oh… Not interested then?” Streams of water began running from the ceiling, twisting together to form thin serpentine constructs.  “I guess there really isn’t a need to go over things.”

The serpents began to slither down the large pillars of the hall, quickly gliding towards their prey. Lan continued to advance, walking just slowly enough for his constructs to begin feasting. The council desperately struggled, arms harmlessly passing through the serpents' bodies, only serving to further entangle them. It was a wasted effort. Their fates had already been set in stone the moment they broke their word.

“Such a pity, Rue would have enjoyed this.” But the love birds would be busy, wouldn’t they? 

Half smiling, Lan stepped onto the platform, reaching out to one of the feasting serpents. It raised it’s head and quickly abandoned the others to gently offer up a gilded skulls it had collected. Blinking in surprise at the already smooth surface, Lan couldn’t hold back a chuckled. Even for pigs, their hides had been softer than he expected. 

Catching up Tag

Thanks for the tag @renasdoodles

Favorite Color- Blue, especially deep blue or sea blue.

Last Fun Activity- Brainstorming about the main original story I have been working on.

Song(s) Stuck in My Head- Happy Days (Turtles). I only knew one line from it and then stumbled on the full song by chance. It has been playing in my head almost nonstop since then.

Current Obsession - Attempting to write. (My success has been limited, but I'm at least getting something done.

Spicy/Sweet/Savory- Savory or spicy, depends on my mood at the time.

Last thing I Googled- What is a Rakshasa.

Something you are looking forward to- my six day break starting tomorrow. It will be nice to get some worry free writing done (but I know deep down most of that time will be me procrastinating).

Tagging: @kuebiko-writing @davycoquette +open tag

What inspired the spirits in your wip?

Thank you for the ask! Sorry I'm a bit late responding. It's been a crazy week.

I had a mythology book when I was young, and it had stories from various cultures. Several stories discussed the veil between the spirit world and reality and how it would become thin during all hallows eve. Additionally, there was always the potential for things to slip through cracks in the veil if they weren't too powerful.

The idea in mythologies that natural phenomena and fluctuating conditions were due to invisible interference from higher powers gave me the idea to have them fight every 500 or so years to explain seasons of prosperity and destruction in the world.

With all of that in mind, I divided the spirit's into 8 great spirits representing earth, wind,fire, and water for both chaotic and good. Under them are other spirits who are either weaker or overall uninterested in the conflict.

I originally had designed one creature known as Null to be the only supernatural being that I focused on, but once the others came into play I knew that he needed to be incorporated in an off the wall manner to fit his character. So I them made it that if a spirit of similar element was killed before the 500 years, then the one who killed them had to take their place. With that in motion, it was only a matter of making Null a glutton who had no interest in spirit politics, then I had him "accidentally" eat the light water spirit right before the 500 years were up again.

Null was the original base of the entire story, so in everything, I needed him to be preserved. As for where he came from... I used to play a mobile game called The Battle Cats and he was inspired by a combination of different creatures in that. (They have something pretty fun character designs in it) Another point in the early draft if the story was that he would pop up I random places appearing as an inosenct animal at first before distorting his features and revealing his pseudo humanoid form playing into his chaotic side.

Thanks again for the ask!

Two of the inspirations for his main design.