Improvid 1: Space-Station Dyson-Sphere Punch

The Improvid series was part of an exercise I engaged in during some days of a Covid-19 lockdown. The idea was that, on a daily basis, I would improvise a short story of less than 1000 words based on three randomly generated prompts - these were reflected in the title of each of the stories. Here's what resulted from that burst of quarantine-induced creativity:

Shanamon, the current avatar of the god of destruction, was nearing the end of his yoga session when they came for him. With a grunt of disapproval, he unfolded himself from the Padmasana pose and greeted his visitors.

“Soryasu urgently seeks our help.” Inatar, avatar of justice, valiantly tried not to be distracted by Shanamon’s glistening form.

“Is this about the Dyson Sphere?” Shanamon gestured to the living area with one hand while wiping himself with a towel with another. “They actually managed to complete the device?”

“Complete it, test it, and then satisfactorily run it.” Gunyong, avatar of knowledge, graciously accepted the glass of juice Shanamon offered him. “As you know, the function of this Dyson Sphere is to harness the entirety of the Sun’s radiant energy, and then re-purpose it to the needs of our followers. Soryasu would have attended to it herself when the construction of the thing began, but she didn’t think them capable of accomplishing their goal – until it was too late. As we speak, the Dyson Sphere is draining the vitality of Soryasu at an alarming rate, such that she cannot deal with it alone.”

Shanamon chuckled bitterly.

“You still call them followers? They stopped worshiping us millennia ago. And they stopped caring for our creations and our teachings well before that.”

“Not all of them, though.” Ora, avatar of war, gleefully munched on her piece of fruit cake. “It may be tempting to think of them as one body of beings, but they are still very divided in their opinions and attitudes. Including towards this Dyson Sphere.”

“Regardless, our plan is to bring down the device,” declared Inatar. “So as to earn their respect rather than their ire, we should do it in a single, swift strike. Gunyong has identified a space station on the device’s perimeter that is a structural weak point. If we bring this down, the Dyson Sphere will collapse into the Sun soon after.”

“The space station is heavily fortified though,” said Ora, “It will take a small group of us to break though all their automated defenses.”

“And so you came to me.” Shanamon smiled grimly. “If a fellow deity is in need, who am I to refuse their call for help? You can count me in, friends. Let’s do Gods’ work!”

*

Due to its proximity to the Sun, only robots and sufficiently augmented cyborgs were able to occupy the security posts around the Dyson Sphere. And since the terrestrials still didn’t completely trust AI to handle things on their own, a lone cyborg named Fh1L was currently stationed at the security post in sector MZ-20E, along with an AI companion who was currently reporting something odd...

“You’re sure it’s not one of the asteroids we’ve been tracking, Rozer2920?” asked Fh1L.

“Affirmative. Its velocity vector doesn’t match any known asteroids. Attempting to communicate with them now.”

If Fh1L was capable of sweating, they would have done so as Rozer2920 relayed the standard warning to intruders.

Fh1L was capable of sitting down and placing a hand on their agape jaw. They did this after hearing Inatar’s response:

“We are divine retribution. If you value whatever variant of life you have, move away from the Dyson Sphere. Now.”

*

The space station was surrounded by electromagnetic shields, laser turrets, mobile sentry-bots, and all manner of other defenses. A planet-scale army would have been decimated before they could even break through the first force field.

The four avatars embraced the challenge.

Ora swung her war-club Wahakka with no regard for safety as she whaled away at the force fields, drawing the attention of the more aggressive fortifications to her bulky form. Gunyong craftily darted around Ora, twirling his bladed staff Gundao and using the reflective sides of its blade to deflect the oncoming lasers back at their sources. Inatar stayed far from the thick of it, sniping sentry-bots with deadly accuracy from afar with her bow Maanna. And Shanamon?

He danced.

This was Shamanat, the dance of destruction. All objects that he touched with his staff Trishang were eventually destroyed. All projectiles that sought to harm him uselessly flew past as he deftly avoided them. Only a divine being could so gracefully wreak devastation as he was doing now.

“Showoff!” cackled Ora, the second force field breaking down from her assault.

“Would you like me to stop?” asked Shanamon, a mess of drones exploding behind him.

“NO!” blurted out Inatar before composing herself. “I mean, their first wave of reinforcements is almost here. We can’t stop yet.”

“The station should be exposed once we have dealt with them.” Gunyong readied Gundao for the next clash. “Would you like to do the honors, Shanamon?”

“Do you have to ask?”

*

“What the hell is going on there, Fh1L!”

“It’s... an Act of Gods,” finished Fh1L lamely.

“Bullshit! They must be aliens we should have discovered by now! Someone’s going to – wait, is that a nuke they’re firing at the station?”

“I don’t think so, HQ. Nukes don’t have that many arms.”

*

Summoning all his cosmic strength into a single glowing fist, Shanamon chanted a rumbling mantra as he streaked towards the exposed space station:

“Your fate has arrived.
As your existence ends, another shall begin.
Behold my wrath in all its divine glory:
PASHUPAT PUNCH!”

With a single blow, the space station was vaporized. Waves of unfettered destruction smashed through the vicinity in all directions. A nova of light scorched through the star system. Moments later, the fractured Dyson Sphere succumbed to the Sun’s gravity and collapsed into its fiery bowels, moaning silently in anguish.

*

“Not very subtle, are you, Shanamon?” asked Soryasu as the four checked up on her.

“Subtlety isn’t good for commanding respect,” replied Shanamon. “Will you be alright?”

“In time, yes,” Soryasu gulped down the concoction Inatar gave her. “Thank you all for your aid. Serves me right for underestimating our followers.”

“And serves them right for underestimating us.”

Improvid 2: Wall Rhapsody Glass

The Improvid series was part of an exercise I engaged in during some days of a Covid-19 lockdown. The idea was that, on a daily basis, I would improvise a short story of less than 1000 words based on three randomly generated prompts - these were reflected in the title of each of the stories. Here's what resulted from that burst of quarantine-induced creativity:

Timo couldn’t help but smile; his shift was nearly ending. He stretched his lean muscles in anticipation. If he was allowed to, he would have lit up a cigarette.

“Yeah yeah, rub it in, why don’t you,” grumbled the stocky figure on his right, “Didn’t anyone ever tell you, you’re supposed to be fully suited up while on duty.”

“Hey, I’ve got the important bits covered, haven’t I?” grinned Timo, tapping the Kevlar on his chest.

“More like you’ve got the important bits uncovered,” grunted his colleague. Timo chuckled.

“Since it’s you, Gogos, I’m going to allow your intense feelings of bitter jealousy to wash all over me like a nice bath.” Timo eyed the door that would announce the arrival of his shift replacement. “Now that I mention it, I could really use one after I’m out of here.”

“I’ll give the Wall one thing,” said Gogos. “It’s got enough courtesy to not show off every five minutes.”

“I get the impression that’s a good thing, yeah?” said Timo, “I mean, that’s what we’re here for in the first – ah, finally! I’m pretty sure you’re late, Chell.”

“Nope, I’m officially right on time,” said the newcomer as she smoothly readied her assault rifle, “These shifts are already messing with your temporal perception, eh?”

“That means sense of time, Timo,” added Gogos.

“Yeah, I know! Well, I’m off. Have fun, you two, and try not to break anything.”

“That’s a little rich coming from you,” said Chell with a smirk before greeting Gogos with a fist-bump.

“Forgive the lad, he only said it because it sounded ‘cool’ in his head,” said Gogos.

“Sounds about right,” chuckled Chell as Timo closed the door behind him on his way out.

*

Timo scanned the rec room until he found the particular shade of red he was looking for. After briefly checking that the muscle shirt he had on was just the right amount of tightness, he sauntered over to his target with a can of beer in each hand.

“Lager or stout?” he proclaimed. The red-headed woman looked up.

“Oh, hello, Timo. I’ll take the stout, thanks.”

“Sure thing, Val.” Timo planted himself in the seat nearest to her. “Not that it matters much. It’s all non-alcoholic anyway.”

“If I were you, I’d be thankful that they let us drink here in the first place,” remarked Val. “Besides, this stuff tastes decent for non-alcoholic beer, don’t you think?”

“Sure...” Timo took a long glance at his current companion. Val had a slender face that looked like it had glasses on even though she didn’t wear them. She was currently buried in something she was writing. Timo sighed; she didn’t even have to try hard to be his type. He wished it was the other way around as well.

“What’s that you’re writing?” he asked after drinking some lager.

“It’s a rhapsody,” said Val, not taking her eyes off the pages she was scribbling on.

“Oh, like that song? The funky one with all the choirs?”

“The funky one with – no, no, that’s the musical kind of rhapsody you’re thinking of. A rhapsody originally means an epic poem, or a portion of it, that’s designed to be recited. A bit like a saga or a ballad, if you know what those are.”

Timo didn’t want to say that more ‘80s rock music was currently playing in his head after hearing the word ‘ballad’.

“Huh, I don’t get it. Epics are usually really long, and poems are usually really short. So is an epic poem somewhere between the two?”

Val glanced up. Timo tried to look thoughtful.

“Epic poems aren’t really like typical poems though. They’re more like stories told in verses. Think of something like the Bible, but focused on a hero’s journey or something similar but on a massive scale.”

As she sipped on her stout, Timo remarked: “This all sounds like stuff you’d have to be really smart to get into.”

“You don’t have to be smart in order to read, Timo. You’ve got it the wrong way round,” said Val with a smile. “But yes, getting into this kind of writing takes some effort. And time. Luckily, we have plenty of that around here.”

“You got that right –” began Timo, but a blaring alarm cut him short.

“ALL UNITS, REPORT TO THE WALL IMMEDIATELY. WE ARE AT CODE GLASS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I REPEAT...”

Timo and Val stared blankly at each other for a few precious seconds. Then they hurried to their lockers.

“Shit, doesn’t Code Glass mean that –”

“Yes, the permeability of the Wall has reduced to a level where visible light can penetrate it in either direction.”

“Right, so we can actually see the bastards. Great.”

*

“I’m pretty sure you’re late, Timo,” said Gogos as Timo joined him on the barricade overlooking the Wall.

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in, why don’t you,” retorted Timo. “Did I miss anything?”

“You’d know if you had.”

Timo looked at the usually featureless expanse of concrete and steel that was the Wall. It currently looked like a murky window into an ethereal nightmare. Using the sights of his assault rifle as a focal point, he tried to pick out some of the oily shapes slinking around on the other ‘side’. It wasn’t easy; they slithered and flickered from shadow to shadow with unnerving speed.

“Sometimes I wonder why you spend so much time making up monsters in those stories of yours, Val,” commented Chell, “You’d think we have enough to work with already.”

“It’s not the monsters that are the fantasy, Chell, it’s the heroes,” replied Val.

“Hey, what are we, chopped liver?” asked Timo, too anxious to be hurt.

“We won’t be, so long as the Wall holds,” muttered Gogos, “You remember the last Code Glass? They got close, but so long as they can’t create a fracture point, they won’t be able to –”

CRACK.

“Oh, shit.”

Improvid 3: Bathroom Hotel Emotion

The Improvid series was part of an exercise I engaged in during some days of a Covid-19 lockdown. The idea was that, on a daily basis, I would improvise a short story of less than 1000 words based on three randomly generated prompts - these were reflected in the title of each of the stories. Here's what resulted from that burst of quarantine-induced creativity:

“Oooh, this bottle is too cute! That smell though, ugh, its like a mix of turpentine and pineapple juice. And it isn’t even supposed to be pineapple shampoo! But argh, it’s just too adorable – okay, it’s coming with me.”

Enri the travel-blogger wouldn’t say she was obsessed with collecting travel toiletries. She wouldn’t say it was strange that an entire corner of her bedroom was dedicated to display shelves with used shampoo bottles and bars of soap, crumbling from disuse. And, well, could you blame her though? They were so creatively designed! And so portable and convenient. And cute! So cute!

When she had finished her inspection of the rest of the toiletries, Enri took a look at herself in the mirror above the sink, and decided to reflect. 

It had been a year since she finished her arts degree. It had been two years since she realized it wouldn’t come with much in the way of job prospects. It had been six months since she finally summoned the courage to quit her student job. And it had been five months since her friends convinced her to take up travel blogging. Apparently she had the personality for it. 

Maybe that was the problem. The more successful bloggers tended to have two. 

She shook her head, her frizzled brown hair idly waving about. She was doing okay for someone who had just started out, and she had refused the temptation to get a boost from peddling energy drinks too. She had standards. Besides, her brand of eclectic photography mixed with low-budget travelling couldn’t fit in corporate endorsements like that. 

Still, it would be nice to be more noticed... 

“Hmm, this spot has some good lighting. Let’s see, if I put the shampoo like this, then... ugh, I just can’t make this hand sanitizer look good, can I? But that shower gel, if I arrange it like this... there we go! Now, where’s my phone...?”

 
It was then that Enri realized that she’d left her phone charging near the bed. She had plugged it in, hmm, maybe five minutes ago? It should have regained enough charge for a couple of pictures. 

Humming a tune she’d been listening to on the way here, she reached for the bathroom’s door handle, and turned it. 

Nothing happened. 

She tried turning it a few more times. She then yanked the handle in a few directions thinking it might have been jammed. No luck. She tried banging on the door. 

It simply wouldn’t budge. 

*

“You idiot! Do the regulations mean nothing to you? You’re supposed to lock them in AFTER they start singing, not before!” 

“I’m telling you, I have a good feeling about this one! I heard her while she was unpacking in the bedroom, she’s got - ” 

“Do you have any idea what would happen to the hotel’s reputation if word got out about this? Just because YOU don’t care about your job doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t!” 

“You know, if you overreacted just a bit more, you could re-enact the Chernobyl meltdown.” 

“How DARE you - ” 

“Shhh! Listen, I think she’s going to start...” 

* 

One would think this hotel would have put emergency phones in their bathrooms. Especially with their particular breed of malfunctioning doors. Enri sighed, and then began to remove her clothes. Might as well get on with the shower she had intended to have in the first place. 

As she had hoped, her worries were rinsed off her slender shoulders by the generous torrent of hot water gushing out of the shower head. She fiddled with the knob until the temperature was just right, and then deeply sighed in relief. 

Something about the way the sound echoed off the walls gave her inner thoughts a little nudge. Acoustics in shower cubicles were generally great, but this one had a certain timbre to it... she decided to investigate further. 

The tune turned up in her head again. This time, she decided to give it a voice. 

“I want to break free...”

* 

“Queen, eh? She has good taste, I’ll give her that.” 

“Listen to that voice though. Can you feel it? She’s barely trying, and already there’s so much emotion in it!” 

“Nnnngh... look, this still doesn’t excuse you breaking protocol – ” 

“Management won’t care about that once they find out about her! Now stop fussing and start the accompaniment. We definitely have that song in the database.” 

“Fine. But you’re doing the reporting on this, because it’s your mess to clean up if they don’t like it!” 

* 

“It’s strange, but it’s true...”

She wasn’t imagining it, was she? There was definitely a backing track to her song playing somewhere inside the bathroom. 

No, maybe she was imagining it. She was just really swept up in the feels of the song, that was it, yeah. And the strangely intoxicating smell of the not-pineapple shampoo. And the wholesome gushing of the hot water. It was all elevating her to a different mental state. 

Fully into the rhythm of the music, she began to belt out the guitar solo. 

* 

“So, er, what do you think, sir?” 

“She is a suitable candidate. Well done.” 

“Ha! I knew she’ll be a good pick!” 

“Ugh, can you at least TRY to show decorum when your superiors are present!” 

“Stop this bickering at once, and begin the gassing procedure.” 

“Yes, sir!” 

* 

Like the fluffy towel she wrapped herself in, Enri was feeling warm and fuzzy. She really liked the drowsy yet tingling sensation she got after a hot water shower. Although, as she finished wrapping up her hair in another towel, she wondered if maybe she was feeling too drowsy. She got her answer when the room started to spiral into darkness before she could even touch the door handle.

She was still in a tidy heap on the floor when the door finally opened.

Improvid 4: Shopping Economics Drama

The Improvid series was part of an exercise I engaged in during some days of a Covid-19 lockdown. The idea was that, on a daily basis, I would improvise a short story of less than 1000 words based on three randomly generated prompts - these were reflected in the title of each of the stories. Here's what resulted from that burst of quarantine-induced creativity:

Josh was finally going to cave in to his desires today. He’d been saving up his allowance for months for this very moment. All the anxiety, all the longing, it would end today.

Possibly.

He collected as many lucky charms around him as he could find in his room. Then, with a trembling finger, he booted up Point Assault, and entered the in-game shop. The Platinum Crates within rotated ever so seductively.

He had done the math. The crates normally had a 1% drop chance for the featured items on them. Due to the ongoing rate-up event, this chance had been bumped up to... 3%. Yeah. Which meant that, if he bought around 40 of the crates, then he had more than a 100% chance of nabbing the Golden Kahlikat melee weapon, the rarest of this week’s featured items. The one skin he desperately needed.

He clicked through the various screens that popped up for a bulk purchase such as this, pausing not due to hesitation, but because he needed his heart to stop racing before he could continue. And then, he began to open them.

Each crate opened with a lavishly animated celebration. The first one was a dupe, or duplicate of a skin he already had. The second was new, but not the one he wanted. The other crates flashed by, filled with dupes or items he didn’t want. He could always sell them in the in-game market, he supposed.

The final crate burst open, his heart nearly joining it. It revealed… a Silver Kahlikat. He slumped in his chair in defeat.

He had done the math. Unfortunately, he hadn’t done all the math.

*

During visits to less reputable websites, Josh’s machine had contracted a very unique malware. Code-named “Gr33d1nat0r”, it was targeted towards games and other apps that contained purchasable items with randomized contents, or ‘loot boxes’. It hadn’t been successful at actually getting into the network of said games, because that required a kind of brute force: a large number of infected machines making in-game purchases from the same game, at the same time.

It just so happened that Josh’s buying spree, in the midst of a popular in-game event, had given Gr33d1nat0r the opening it needed. As it silently spread its digital fingers through Point Assault’s databases, two changes of note took place.

The after-effects of these two changes would destroy the core of Point Assault’s economy.

*

“Huh? Hey, Dave, the number of premium purchases is spiking right now.”

“What? That can’t be right, I’m seeing a drop in the income generated from the shop at the moment.”

“Sending you a screenshot now.”

“Strange… that just doesn’t add up! Wait, let me check something… oh. Oh no. No no no no.”

“What is it?”

“The prices on the store… Brad, everything’s been given a discount.”

“How big of a discount?”

“A 100% discount.”

“Including the Platinum Crates?”

“Including the Platinum Crates.”

“Oh. Shit. The forums must be on fire over this! What happened?”

“I don’t know! Maybe it’s a glitch, maybe some hack managed to get into our system, who knows! We need to fix this or corporate is going to axe our asses!”

“Um, Dave, about those forums… hang on, I need to check something.”

“What is it now!”

“They’re claiming that the Golden Kahlikat Platinum Crates are dropping a Golden Kahlikat nearly every time they’re opened. It’s the same with the other featured-item Platinum Crates.”

“But that can’t… are you checking the drop percentages on the crates now?”

“Almost there... yeah, it’s as I feared. The percentage chances on all Epic item drops have been bumped up. To a 100%.”

“Sigh. We should warn corporate before they find out for themselves.”

*

It was a lengthy rant, and had in no way been spell-checked or proof-read, but Josh didn’t care. He had needed to get it out of his system. And it still hadn’t fully left. Those cursed rate-up lies! And after all the time he’d spent playing the damned game!

Now that he had posted it, Josh decided to take a look at the rest of Point Assault’s main community forum. And was a little taken aback by all the new posts on it. His rant was already buried halfway in the first page!

Something major must have happened. Eager to take his mind off his current disappointment, Josh began to pour over all the latest musings.

Wait, they did what?

Josh was furious. Not only was he ripped off on those damned Platinum Crates, but then they immediately made the things free? AND turned the Epic item drops into guaranteed drops?

This was the last straw. Nearly frothing with anger, Josh immediately booted up the game, and bought himself one of the discounted crates for the Golden Kahlikat. After opening it up and adding the suddenly worthless skin to his loadout, he saved his changes, quit the game, and then uninstalled it.

*

“Stan, I have good news and bad news.”

“Fine. Give me the bad news, Carl.”

“Um, actually, it makes more sense to hear the good news first. So, they managed to completely remove the malware from the system. Which means we’re able to fix all the changes it made without it resetting our work.”

“Great, now give me the bad news already.”

“We’ll have to manually input all the correct values for all the in-game items that were affected before we can push the update. Including the ones that weren’t featured in the current event. And, well, we have a lot of items to fix.”

“Which means that the damage will be done by the time we bring the numbers back to normal. Sigh.”

“So, what now, Stan?”

“…what’s the status on Point Assault 2?”

“It’s, well, the vertical slice is almost stable…”

“Great. Let’s start production on it then.”

Improvid 5: Joy Salad Disk

The Improvid series was part of an exercise I engaged in during some days of a Covid-19 lockdown. The idea was that, on a daily basis, I would improvise a short story of less than 1000 words based on three randomly generated prompts - these were reflected in the title of each of the stories. Here's what resulted from that burst of quarantine-induced creativity:

The Wooden Disk offered the best economically feasible salad buffet in the mall. Which was probably why Kahan found himself being stubbornly dragged there by his girlfriend Nikita. And he thought the clothes-shopping spree just before this had been bad enough.

“Hey, that savory pancake place we just passed had a lot of space…” he tried valiantly.

“Kahan ‘Engine’ Ingchupathripatidiwan, you are not going to worm your way out of this – not even with pancakes!”

Kahan couldn’t help smiling just a bit. Nikita was one of the few people outside his family who could get his full name right on the first try. He resumed his earlier look of despair when the facade of The Wooden Disk came into view.

*

The events that led up to this fateful moment began yesterday, when they’d ordered pizza for a movie night. Nikita had ordered some Italian-sounding thing with bay leaves and other healthy stuff on it. Kahan had ordered a bacon and pepperoni pizza with extra bacon.

“When was the last time you ate a salad, Engine?” Nikita had asked after trying to burn a hole through his pizza with her glare.

“Why would I? That stuff is for, like, rabbits.”

Nikita had gasped.

“You did NOT just say that! I eat salads all the time!”

“And that’s why you’re such a cute little bunny, Nikki – hey! What was that for?”

“That does it! Tomorrow, I am taking you to a salad place, and you will learn to appreciate it!”

*

“You know, I didn’t expect the plates to look like Frisbees.” Kahan twirled his one lazily in his hands. “I guess it makes sense though. I mean, if they used completely flat ones, all the salad would probably fall out.”

“My one has a cool design on the edge too,” chirped Nikita, who was clearly enjoying this a little too much. “Okay, let’s go serve ourselves. Come on, Engine!”

“Do we have to? I don’t mind sitting down for a bit longer…” said Kahan, now stirring his drink with his straw.

“Aren’t you hungry though? I figured you would be after all the walking we just did.”

“No, I’m fine.”

His stomach grumbled so loudly that the people at the nearest table were jolted out of their conversation.

“Er. That wasn’t me…”

“Kahan, don’t be such a baby about this. Look, I’m not going to oversee you like a nanny, alright? Just go serve yourself with whatever looks good at the buffet. The choice is amazing, seriously!”

“Do they have bacon at least?”

Nikita rolled her eyes.

“They probably have bacon bits, yeah.”

“Fine, let’s get this over with.”

*

A little while later…

“What is that!”

“You said serve myself with whatever looked good, so I did.”

“You don’t have a single fruit or vegetable on your disk!”

“Hey, I resent that! I have rice, don’t I?”

“Rice is not a vegetable!”

“It comes from a plant, it should be!”

“Also, that’s not rice.”

“What!”

“It’s bulgur, I think. It’s actually pretty healthy, so good choice there! Still not a vegetable though.”

Kahan groaned. Nikita sighed.

“I had a feeling this might happen, so I took the liberty of putting together something for you instead,” she said, while swapping their plates on the table. Kahan would have protested, but he also felt a little bad that she was going through this much trouble for him.

“You know, you didn’t have to – whoa, what is all that goo on the salad? It smells familiar…”

“It’s red curry dressing! I know you like the taste of red curry, so I went all out with it.”

“They had dressing? I didn’t even notice.”

“It’s right next to all the greens, dummy! Then again, you probably avoided that section like the plague… look, just take one bite, and if you don’t like it, I promise I’ll give you back your… ugh, I can’t even call this a salad with a straight face.”

Kahan decided to comply. Nikita was pretty familiar with his taste buds after all. Plus, the salad he was about to dig into was surprisingly not all that green.

He took a bite. It had mushrooms, baby corn, spinach, some greenish-yellow thing he didn’t recognize that was surprisingly starchy, and of course the red curry dressing… huh. It was… tasty. And Nikita hadn’t even put bacon bits in it! The insides of his mouth were properly tingling with joy. Was that really spinach he had just eaten?

“Soooo, what do you think?” asked Nikita, although something in her voice hinted that she already knew the answer.

“It’s… not bad.” Kahan didn’t want to admit defeat so easily.

“Engine, dear, I can see your eyes sparkling, you know,” chuckled Nikita. “Do you want the rest of it too?”

It may have been the hunger, and it may have been how thoughtfully put together the salad in front of him was. Either way, he dug in without hesitation. With a warm smile on her face, Nikita tucked in to the bulgur and bacon monstrosity that Kahan had put together. Which, to his credit, also tasted really good, though in a far meatier and guiltier manner.

Kahan had always been one to say things like “Engines run on oil, not leaves!” But now, as he polished off the remaining bits of salad on his disk, he was beginning to think that an alternative source of fuel might not be so bad every now and then.

Improvid 6: Covers Chemistry Growth

The Improvid series was part of an exercise I engaged in during some days of a Covid-19 lockdown. The idea was that, on a daily basis, I would improvise a short story of less than 1000 words based on three randomly generated prompts - these were reflected in the title of each of the stories. Here's what resulted from that burst of quarantine-induced creativity:

The chemistry lab probably should have been neater. But as long as Miranda was in charge of it, certain corners of the place would never see the light of day.

His fingertips danced merrily as he played the last few energetic notes on his saxophone. The instrument had once been a dull bronze color back in its youth, but several years in the vicinity of some eccentric chemicals from time to time had played havoc with its skin tone. It now had a motley of blue and green shades that matched the colorful and uncoordinated personality of its owner.

With a final burst, he blew out the last note in the cover he was playing, and let it ring out as the melody came to an end. Then, still a little breathless from the take, he gently set the sax aside and started to review the recording on his cassette deck.

A bald-headed colleague popped his head in.

“That one sounded familiar, Miranda! Isn’t it that famous Guns N’ Roses number?”

“They have a bunch of those, you know,” said Miranda with a wink, his headphones askance so that one ear was still listening to the recording. “But yeah, you got the band right, Solomon.”

“I wasn’t sure at first, since you have to twist everything into a jazz number when you play it.” Solomon walked in like he’d definitely been there several times before. “Don’t get me wrong, that takes talent though, re-imagining a song like that.”

“Plus, everything sounds better when it’s jazz,” agreed Miranda. “Don’t you play an instrument too, though? I remember you bringing it up a couple of times.”

“Ha! I ‘play’ water glasses, Miranda.” Solomon chuckled. “Can’t do rock song covers with those, I’m afraid. Or any kind of jazz, as far as I know. Hmm, what’s that smell?”

Miranda’s heart jumped in panic.

“Shit, the Theta molecule!”

He rummaged around on his desk for what turned out to be a digital timer. He then sat back in his chair with some relief.

“There’s plenty of time left, whew!”

He started again when he saw Solomon’s questioning glance.

“Ah, right, it’s the research I’m currently running. You see that container on the shelf there?”

Solomon followed his finger to find a transparent cylindrical container, almost like a beaker, with a slowly crystallizing bluish structure immersed in an acidic green solution.

“Is that Fowler’s reagent? Well, that would explain the smell! So I take it the growth inside the container is…”

“…the Theta molecule, yeah.” Miranda continued as he walked over to check up on the container. “The idea is that once it has undergone a sufficient level of nucleation through a reaction with Fowler’s reagent in the presence of air, we should be able to see some very interesting polymorphic substructures formed inside it. I have to be careful though, if I leave the container open for too long, then the molecule might undergo an entirely different reaction and turn into something else. And Dr. Herrenschmidt wouldn’t be happy about that!”

“Right, so that explains the - ”

Solomon was cut off by a loud announcement that reverberated through the rooms.

“WARNING. SECTOR W IS EXPERIENCING A CODE GLASS EVENT. FOR YOUR SAFETY, RETURN TO YOUR WORKSTATIONS AND CLOSE ALL ACCESS POINTS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

“Great, the Wall must be acting up again.” Solomon rolled his eyes. “I should get going. See you around, Miranda!”

Miranda waved him goodbye before locking down his workstation as instructed, the warning still ringing in his ears.

*

His fingertips were trembling as he packed up his saxophone, the red lights flashing ominously in the corridor outside his lab. That was the last of his belongings. Now he just had to wait for the go-ahead, in the shifting shadows of the lab.

Some of the creatures from the other side of the Wall had broken into their sector. The blaring warning had told all staff to prepare for evacuation once the immediate threat had been dealt with. Miranda wasn’t sure if the anxious waiting would kill him before the creatures did.

It didn’t help that his usual stress relief method, playing the sax, would probably make things worse right now –

CRASH!

The room was suddenly filled with a flickering torchlight as a woman in combat gear came to a rolling stop on the ground. Miranda yelped in alarm, drawing the soldier’s attention.

“Get behind cover! One of the bastards was just behind me! And don’t make a sound!”

Miranda nodded shakily as he scurried behind his desk.

He jammed his hands into his ears and slammed his eyes closed when he heard the unearthly screeching of the creature. It was quickly drowned out by a torrent of bombastic gunfire, with some backup ambiance provided by the screaming soldier. More glass shattered.

A too-brief silence, then another screech that made his hairs stand on end. More gunfire. More yelling. Miranda didn’t dare look.

Then –

“You can come out now. Do you know the way to exit C?”

Miranda managed to convince his legs to let him stand. He nodded.

“That path should be clear of hostiles. Go!”

He didn’t need to be told twice. But as he scrambled his way out in the unhelpful red light of the corridors, he couldn’t help thinking that he’d forgotten something…

*

Several hours later, in the stillness of the deserted lab, something crawled out of an uncovered container. No, not crawled. It didn’t have the limbs for it. Or did it?

It fell to the floor with a squelch. It wobbled, as though trying to sense where it was. Then it shuffled through the bullet casings and shards of glass that littered the ground towards the gaping opening in one of the room’s windows. It left a trail that was strangely clear of debris. It squelched even louder as it climbed up the side of the wall.

And then it was gone.

Improvid 7: Echoes Brick Money

The Improvid series was part of an exercise I engaged in during some days of a Covid-19 lockdown. The idea was that, on a daily basis, I would improvise a short story of less than 1000 words based on three randomly generated prompts - these were reflected in the title of each of the stories. Here's what resulted from that burst of quarantine-induced creativity:

“Okay, let’s take it from the top of the second verse. Remember, we need more oomph on the lines where you sing together, alright?”

Redd nodded gruffly. To his right, the new girl glanced at him nervously. This didn’t improve his withdrawn mood one bit: what did she have to be so nervous about anyway? She wasn’t the one screwing up the recording.

Through his headphones, the backing track kicked in. Dreamy keys plinked in time to the nearly absent tapping of the hi-hat. A mournful guitar riff drifted past his eardrums. The soothing wail of an electric organ added a rich depth to it all.

The music should have been lulling him into a zone of wallowing bliss. Why wasn’t it? The count for him to start singing kicked in.

Strangers passing in the street...

The new girl, what was her name? Emma? No, it was something fancier. Ennui. Something like that. He’d sung with her plenty of times, but she still felt like a stranger. A stranger who passed him in the corridor every day.

Help me understand the best I can...

He tried to put more heft into his words. But something was just out of reach. Why did he keep asking himself what it was, when he knew perfectly well where the problem really lay?

No one speaks, and no one tries tries tries...

It was happening again. He signaled for a stop, and tried to ignore the look of irritation on the sound guy’s face. But he couldn’t sing in time, no, scratch that, he couldn’t sing at all when the echoes began to bounce around in his head. He tried clutching his head in his spindly hands as the flashbacks started. It didn’t stop them.

“Redd, are you alright?” asked the girl worriedly. Was her name Etta? Elli? Vera? Why couldn’t he remember?

“I’ll be fine, just leave me alone,” he managed to say while fumbling with the door knob to the recording booth.

*

Days later, Enri found herself striding down a new corridor on the way back to her room. That was just one of the many weird features of this apartment: nearly every path eventually took her to her room. And she had the feeling that the same was true for all the other artists in here too. It should have violated some rule of sacred geometry, shouldn’t it?

She absently took a sip from her juice carton. It tasted more fermented than it should have been. She was alarmed at the dizzy feeling it gave her at first, but after a few seconds, she found it strangely... relieving. Hmm. She took another sip.

The carton was hissing with emptiness when she realized that she was outside Redd’s room. His door still had the nondescript brick pattern on it, with one of the faded grey bricks housing the name-plate “Mr. White” on it.

She hesitated for a bit, and then summoned the spirit to knock on the door. No response.

Enri bit her lip. She wished she knew what was going on with Redd; a small part of her was worried that the same thing might happen to her too.

She tried the door again. “Redd? It’s me, Enri.” Still nothing.

Then again, he had always been a brooding, introverted type. But the Redd she had met back when she was just starting out had shown her some of the ropes, and given her a space to be more herself in. That Redd had been more supportive of her progress, especially once they found out how well their voices went together. She wished he was here.

She looked at the brick pattern on his door. She wondered if it even was a door anymore at this point. She rubbed a finger along its textured surface. When had the bricks started piling up? Or had they always been there, and she’d only been just in time to see through the last few holes in the wall before they were closed up?

She tried the door one last time, tossed the juice carton into a nearby bin in frustration, and then walked away.

*

“Mr. White, you’re scheduled to have a rehearsal now. Remember that your performance at The Dark Side is this Monday! Mr. White?”

The secretary gave a worried glance to the two suits flanking her. She tried banging on the door a few more times.

“Mr. White, if you do not answer the door, then we will have to force it open! Mr. White!”

Distracted by the commotion, Enri took a detour from her trip to the studio. She arrived at Redd’s door just in time to see the two suits bash it open in a cloud of splinters and annoyance.

“Mrs. Diamond!” Enri gasped. “What’s going on?”

The secretary gave Enri a look as though she was rapidly judging how much the girl really needed to know. Then: “We’re about to find out.”

Enri gasped again when they all found Redd. He was passed out on the floor, his head at an odd angle, drool slowly crystallizing on his dry lips.

“Wha... how did he do this to himself?” she asked in shock.

One of the suits produced what looked like a child’s chemistry set.

“So, he found out about the juice. Or someone must have told him how...” muttered Mrs. Diamond to herself, before turning towards Enri. “Miss Callahan, please go to the studio and inform the others about this. Quickly now! We will attend to Mr. White.”

She waited until the girl had left the room before rummaging in her suitcase.

“I should have a talk with Dr. Floyd about this at some point, these incidences shouldn’t be allowed to occur so frequently. Not with all the money riding on the performances... ah, here we are!”

She turned towards the two suits.

“Prepare Mr. White for his... revitalizing, would you? His show must go on, after all.”

Improvid 8: Party Verve Melancholy

The Improvid series was part of an exercise I engaged in during some days of a Covid-19 lockdown. The idea was that, on a daily basis, I would improvise a short story of less than 1000 words based on three randomly generated prompts - these were reflected in the title of each of the stories. Here's what resulted from that burst of quarantine-induced creativity:

The tavern was dimly lit, and crowded but not bursting. A light whiff of stew and beer soaked the place in a homely atmosphere. It was perfect for Bevere.

He sat at a table further away from the little wooden stage, nursing his tankard of ale. It was a Grendwick Pale Ale; nowhere near the best, but well worth the cheap price. The candle at his table had been snuffed out, and he wanted it that way. It matched the darkness of his mood.

Out on the stage, the golden-haired bard was drawing a fair share of attention, and for a multitude of reasons. She was easy on the eyes, and easier on the ears: her shimmering laughter could make a man forget his worries far better than any pint of liquor could. And her soothing voice was a perfect complement to the cheery strumming of her lute.

With a generous amount of verve, she launched into her next song, and the patrons nearest to her clapped along:

I am struck down, but I arise,
If you think you can fell me,
You are sorely mistaken…

Bevere drank deeply from his ale. The melody was cheerful, dancing in the brisk evening air. And yet, the words sounded serious, like a challenge from a vengeful knight. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the mismatch as he leaned back in his chair.

And then it struck him – of course! Today was the Day of Rebirth. Had the bard chosen that song with this in mind, he wondered? It was an odd pairing, for the song had no relation whatsoever to the holiday. And yet, the themes of revival, of arising from a tragic situation… perhaps her head was not as far up in the clouds as he had been led to believe.

The bard finished her set, and Bevere took the opportunity to signal for another pint of ale. As he began to drink from it, he noticed that the candle on his table had been lit again. Had the server who brought his drink lit it up out of habit?

He licked his thumb, and was about to put out the flame again when he noticed that he had a visitor, of sorts. A golden-haired one.

“I hope you don’t mind, I wanted to get a look at the face of my most… melancholy patron tonight.” The bard’s voice was just as smooth when she spoke as when she sang.

“And have you gotten your look? Because I do mind,” said Bevere with some irritation. She glanced at him for a bit longer before nodding, and he snuffed out the flame.

“Your performance was enjoyable,” he added; Bevere did not want his desire for solitude to be mistaken for rudeness. “This tavern is fortunate to have you grace them with your performances.”

“Thank you, lone stranger,” replied the bard with a chuckle. “You may call me Gwenneth.”

“I am Bevere.”

“Most people celebrate the Day of Rebirth in these parts, Bevere.” Gwenneth’s features were radiant even in the darkness. “And I always seek to put smiles on the faces of my listeners. Your aura of sadness… my apologies, but it intrigues me. Is there a story behind it that you would share with me?”

Bevere stared at his drink for a bit. And then asked Gwenneth: “I hail from Taroban. Do you know of it?”

“Taroban? The island to the south? I have, yes. You have journeyed far – oh!”

Bevere would have smiled at Gwenneth’s gasp of recognition if he had been in better spirits.

“The Taroban Massacre! It happened on the Day of Rebirth, did it not?”

“It did,” replied Bevere sadly, “and to answer your next question, I am one of the survivors.”

For once, the chirpy bard looked a little downtrodden. After a brief silence of acknowledgement, she got up again.

“My next set begins soon. I shall dedicate the first ballad to Taroban.”

“Please, do not,” said Bevere a little too abruptly. He then recovered: “I truly appreciate the gesture, but I do not wish to draw attention to myself tonight.”

“I still intend to give voice to the horrors that befell your people. But, for your sake, I shall leave out the dedication itself,” suggested Gwenneth. But Bevere’s eyes were elsewhere. She followed their gaze.

A group of heavy-set men in robes were making their way roughly towards the front door. Gwenneth recognised the robes; the men were members of the Islorian Hunting Party, an off-shoot of the kingdom’s military forces who had a reputation for engaging in… violent activities. The kind that the kingdom worked very hard to hide from the public eye.

Gwenneth faintly recalled rumors that members of the Islorian Hunting Party were behind the Taroban Massacre. When she saw the flames burning in Bevere’s eyes though, she knew that the rumors were true.

As he stood up, she saw a familiar glint emerging from near his belt, before he drew his cloak in. And then she knew the reason that Bevere had come to this tavern in the first place.

She gently placed a hand on his arm as he made his way out.

“I know where you’re going now,” she said quickly, seeing that he was in a hurry, “and I understand why. I have just one request to ask of you.”

“For a bard, you have an odd notion of the direction of requests,” commented Bevere.

“Once you have found what you seek from your… quarry,” continued Gwenneth, “I would like you to return here, and tell me if it eased the pain.”

Bevere found a surprising amount of depth in the look she was giving him. Her smile was too faint to be genuine, and her eyes too swirling to be simply showing concern. He gently moved his arm away from her.

“If I am able to, I will,” he said, before making his way out into the shadows of the night.

Improvid 9: Sprain Movie Atmosphere

The Improvid series was part of an exercise I engaged in during some days of a Covid-19 lockdown. The idea was that, on a daily basis, I would improvise a short story of less than 1000 words based on three randomly generated prompts - these were reflected in the title of each of the stories. Here's what resulted from that burst of quarantine-induced creativity:

The darkness set in quickly. And with it came the fog.

Elena could see her panicky breaths frosting in front of her eyes, like little clouds of despair. She drew back the long hair around her right ear; it was a nervous tick of hers. Her normally pale face was exploring uncharted avenues of sheer whiteness. Her blue eyes darted erratically.

The house creaked. And given the atmosphere, it just had to creak ominously. She would have liked to see shadows; shadows meant that there was enough light somewhere for them to be cast. And if they moved too quickly, she would know where it was…

Another sound. Not quite footsteps, but something was approaching. Elena crouched inside the empty pantry cupboard, hoping that an opening would present itself. If she ran out of the house, she just might have a chance.

She left the cupboard door slightly open, hoping that even in the murky darkness, she might be able to see something. Anything.

Maybe her eyes were finally adjusting, but the darkness was starting to assume several slightly different shades of black. One of which eerily groaned as it shuffled through the kitchen.

Muffling a whimper that nearly escaped her lips, Elena retreated further into the already cramped cupboard. The shuffling outside continued for an agonizingly long time. When it finally faded away, she risked another look outside.

It looked like it was gone. Deciding it was worth the risk, Elena gently opened the door, and crawled towards the back door of the kitchen. The door knob had a bad habit of jamming though, and usually at the worst of moments. And this moment right now was certainly down there.

She tried it with a trembling hand. And, somehow, it opened without even a rattle.

She thought she heard something shift behind her, but the thought flew away into the foggy air as she herself sprinted out of the house. The woods were alive in a very wrong way, but she didn’t care for now. Nothing out there could be as terrible as the… thing inside the house.

Her heart was pounding a drumbeat on her ribs, her arms swung frantically by her side, and – her ankle chose a terrible time to entangle itself with a stray root.

“Arrrgh!”

Elena collapsed to the ground in a clumsy heap, cursing all the way down. And then…

“CUT!”

*

“How bad is it?” asked Robbie with some concern. Elena wasn’t entirely sure if the concern was for her well-being or for the film he was directing.

“It’s a bad sprain. Might be several hours before she can put weight on it again,” said Donovan the medic, who was spending an uncomfortably long time feeling around Elena’s leg.

“Aw, nuts. I was looking forward to filming the confrontation scene,” said Monty with a frown. Elena frowned with him; he was one of the few genuine people involved in the production, and she too had been looking forward to that scene.

“At least we got some good footage from the kitchen scene. That was some grade-A heavy breathing there, Elena. We won’t have to retake that scene again, I think,” said Robbie, who was apparently trying to raise the spirits of the little group huddled around Elena. She didn’t feel like telling him that it wasn’t working.

“Well, since I’m apparently done for tonight, can I head back to my trailer?” asked Elena politely, “I could really use a bath after hiding inside that stinky cupboard for so long.”

“It was only fifteen minutes at most, Elena,” said Monty with a smirk, “Here, let me help you get to the trailer.”

Elena nodded with a smile.

“I’ll go look at the footage with Mick, he’d better not have screwed up that take!” said Robbie, more to himself than to anyone in particular.

*

When she was finally alone again inside the trailer, Elena breathed a sigh of relief. And then immediately winced as a tinge of pain surged through her ankle. She sighed again; she hadn’t even been putting weight on it just then.


She carefully made her way to the trailer’s excuse for a bathroom. But, she thought to herself, at least it had one. She flashed back to the times when she was still an up-and-coming actress and had to share the trailers with others back then. And not always with only women either.

She passed by a window, and paused briefly to take a look outside. Filming on location was nice, but not when it was the norm, she thought. And a large part of this production had been filmed in and around the quaint little house in the woods they had found abandoned here. The woods themselves were a pleasant backdrop, although she currently couldn’t see too much of them in the night.

She wondered whether to bother fiddling with the hot water knob, then decided against it. She wanted that bath fast.

“Ah!”

The cold water stung for a moment. But then she let it run on her skin for a little longer, and the goose-bumps stopped prickling.

If it had been her bathroom back home, she would have put on some music. She tried humming to herself, but it didn’t quite have the same effect.

It was around this time that the lights in the trailer started flickering. Elena rolled her eyes; she was used to unreliable power supplies out in the wilderness, but did it have to happen while she was having a bath?

As though in response, the lights went out completely.

When she stopped humming, Elena was made painfully aware of how quiet everything suddenly was. She was nearly too afraid to call out. And when she finally did, nobody responded. The goosebumps returned, and she shivered.

The darkness set in quickly. And with it came the fog.