Daydream

(I wrote this short story in January 2023, but I forgot to publish it. Here it is now.)

When I have free time, I like to sneak past the fences and explore the hill behind my school. There’s a rock formation with holes in it like small caves, where I imagine small people live. I always bring a flashlight with me, to see if I see them, but I never do. Today is no exception. I climb to the top of the hill and lay down on the grass, looking up to the sky.

The tethers rise up from the skyline of Bastion, the last city on the surface, my home. Tied to the tethers are floating homes, shops, and entire neighbourhoods. Some are permanent, choosing to live above Bastion but tied to it. Others are temporary: they anchor themselves to the city while restocking or doing business, and then they let go and float away. But, by far, most are permanently floating in the sky, and most of them are a whole lot bigger.

James’ White Shirt

James walked out of the shower and immediately looked at his phone. 5:43. Only two more hours of waiting. James had been thinking of the upcoming evening all day.  The big night. The moment that would define James’ entire future. It wasn’t every day that someone got accepted into the White Shirt Club!

The Waffle

Waffles are the best invention humanity has ever made. They are food designed to hold on to the goodness that you drip on top of it, and carry it straight into your mouth, spilling its contents straight into your tongue only when it’s ready. I can only imagine the divine inspiration feeding into the mind of the inventor; what other greatness may they have witnessed and chosen to forget because they were too enthralled by the clever genius of this food’s purpose?

I think you can guess what I was having for breakfast. Freshly made, with strawberry jam and a cup of hot chocolate on the side. It did nothing good for my already high sugar levels, but I did not care. It wasn’t my problem; future me would deal with the heart issues at a later date.

I was idly reading the morning news on my smart device of choice, when I turned to cut a new piece of waffle and I noticed the contents of one of the waffle pockets disappear. It wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary if I didn’t fill them up myself with the strawberry jam and I had taken care not to fill any pockets with holes. So… where was it going? I took a closer look and saw that the bottom of the pocket was waffle no longer; something else had taken its place.

Sub-basement 23

The hallways of Sub-basement 23 were clearly not as well maintained as higher levels. The floor and walls were covered by a thick layer of dust and grime. A few cobwebs scattered around showed the futile attempt of spiders to find a home. Perhaps there had been insects making their way down the elevator shaft, or maybe they were pushed down the ventilation system by the air currents. It was, thinking about it, a surprise that the area even had basic life support at all.

The corridors were lit by very old circular fluorescent lamps embedded into the ceiling panels, some of which were just barely managing to produce the occasional flash of light before turning back off and getting whipped back into action by the tired ballasts. Their humming was drowned by the persistent whirring of old ventilation fans that raised even more the already high noise floor.

You may wonder what prompted me, a lowly research assistant, to receive a Level 3 security clearance and venture 10 floors deeper than anyone had ever visited in the past 25 years. Be assured, I was wondering the same myself. Except, I did know the answer, my brain just didn’t want to believe it was happening. Let me attempt to bring you up to speed.

Dreamer

The way to salvation was in front of them. All they needed was to open the enormous door. Magic and brains had both failed on the giant lock, which left only one way: brute force. Thea couldn’t have been any happier that night.

A Rock

There was once a man who found a rock. The rock was round and smooth, too perfect to happen by chance. It was warm to the touch, and appeared to glow when seen from the corner of the eye. The man was just a lone farmer, too poor to afford luxuries. He didn’t have a wife nor children, for he had never been fond of the touch of a woman.

He tried to sell the rock, thinking it may be valuable. But when he went to the market, and offered it on display, no one turned to look at it. No one stopped, to barter a price. He went back home that day, with the rock on his back, hanging from a rope, and no coins in his pockets.

Decay

I just had an unnecessarily vivid scene play in my head. I’m sure this must have been in some story before, but I don’t recall having seen any movie or played any game with this, so here it goes:

Imagine some kind of setting, in which you travel in a quest to save the world from something.

In this world, people would remember through legends, a time in which people would have coexisted with some kind of robots or constructs of some kind, but some cataclysm would have happened that destroyed that society and almost wiped everything.
In this setting, you’d encounter the remains of those robots/constructs, some of which would be controlled by whatever bad thing you are trying to fix. While others look broken, repeating some broken order, lashing out, or otherwise acting like a broken machine.

Defeat

The king sat on his throne one last time. He waited, defeated, wounded and exhausted, for the enemy to break down the doors and take what was left of his legacy. His guards lay sprawled at his feet, he gave them merciful deaths, unlike those the enemy would allow them.

The final battle

The protagonist storms into the main hall of the castle, leaving behind a trail of defeated enemies.

“So you made it here.” says the enemy, standing up from the table. “I was hoping to avoid this confrontation, but I guess there’s no avoiding it, now.”

“Die!” the protagonist yells, and jumps forward with his sword drawn.

Just what I needed

I had been a long time since I last used my skills. The metaphorical gears of my internal machinery creaked as they started to turn, remembering their purpose and rejoicing at their new task.