Flash Fiction Friday - Monster Memory

"Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row."

– Ray Bradbury

"A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it."

– Edgar Allan Poe

"The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side." 

– Emma Donoghue

See more lovely quotes about short stories at Aerogramme Writers' Studio!

This week's flash fiction is a result of this song - White Doves, by Cider Sky:

and this prompt:

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Monster Memory

It takes a monster to kill a monster.

But no matter how many monsters she fought, there was one she could never slay. The one that grew stronger inside her the more kills she racked up. Monsters came in various forms, but there was none quite as scary as the one that looked back at her in the mirror.

You mustn't grow a conscience, was what they said when she decided to join the Creed. It's bad for business.

But she couldn't stop the third party – unwelcome or not – from settling in her gut. It was an occupant that would turn the house inside out and leave muddy footprints all over the floor, but even this beat the emptiness that lived there before.

As she slipped through the desolate night into the target's house, she wondered if she was right in taking on this assignment.

Stop thinking like that, she chided herself. She had been a shivering, bloody mess reaching, grasping for support when they first found her. And it was the killing – the single-minded focus of ridding the world of evil, evil that she had had to encounter – that nursed her back to health; it was the killing that made her stronger than she had ever been before.

Why then was she shuffling her feet around this mark? Was it the file of sketches she found in his study, the one that called to mind the quiet melody of a piano filling a room, the low, gentle voice next to her ear, a warm, dry hand that smoothed the hair off her face? Whatever it was that raked up these fragmented sensations, it made her inch towards the room at the end of the hallway with an uncertainty that was as bewildering – disorientating – as it was atypical.

Even monsters had memories. What did it say about her that she recalled nothing of her life before she joined the Creed?

She shook her head hard, shoving the thoughts back into the store cupboard of her mind. Memories are dangerous things, they said. They get in the way of the job.

The doorknob was loose. It jiggled in her hand. She froze, not because of her less than perfect entry, but because of the sudden draught. All the windows were closed. 

She had seen things, many things, terrible things, as a result of this job. The violence she witnessed was what conditioned her hand, froze her heart, and drew her further and further away from herself. But here in this sparsely furnished room, where moonlight collected into a concentrated pool on a mounted canvas in the corner, what greeted her wasn't a sight that made her killing a gratuitous act.

There was no mark. No ugliness, no violence, nobody. Only the barren shell of a home abandoned by its occupants, and the pure blank canvas on which the moon made its art.

She stood in the middle of the room like a soldier stranded without an order.  Memories surged in to fill the void, seizing her by waves, driving her to her knees. And there she remained, splayed out. Played out.

When she saw him, a luminous spectre in the moonlight, she got to her feet and whipped out the knife from her shoe in a practised move. But the sight of him turned her to sand. Her knees barely supported her; even her voice came out as a rasp, raw and scraped dry.

"You were dead." She couldn't remember his name. She wouldn't.

Even though everything was starting to come back to her. All the times she had spent in his room, dreaming and laughing and loving, loving, loving him. Until one day, there was no one left to love anymore. Her dreams died along with him that day, and she had never dared to say goodbye or think of him.

But here he stood now, right before her as though he had never left. As though he weren't just a faint shadow of himself.

His eyes fell on the knife in her white-knuckled hand, then rose to meet hers. "What happened to you, Aderyl?' His gaze was an unbearable thing, heavier than the ravaged world.

The Creed had warned them of a test not too long ago, a test that many before her had failed because they had let their guard down.

This is not real, she told herself over and over. She squeezed her eyes shut and told herself that over and over again. This is just a test.

She had given life to the monster in her, and this was where it meant to devour her, in a house bursting full of tears and memories, a house from another life.

"That’s not my name." Her voice cracked like a whip, renting the tight air in a brazen move. Revenge was her name now. She had liked that, how she was labelled and known by her purpose only.

"That’s who you’ll always be to me," he said. "Aderyl."

It wasn't a goodbye, this unexpected encounter, but she felt it as keenly as the cold air brushing against her skin when he reached for her hand. She gripped her knife tighter, afraid to let go of her weapon, of herself.

It was only after the night claimed him that she allowed her knife to clatter to the ground. Her mind, once wired for the kill, now tripped over itself, and her limbs were clumsy, awkward things, unsuited for wielding weaponry of any kind.

The Creed was right. Memories were dangerous; they were monsters. Memories awakened every nerve and pulse, and left her vulnerable. They became her.

They were her.

The Creed should never have set this test.

*

The 7 types of writers

1. The Planner

The Planner outlines and details every chapter, every scene, every line before getting down to writing. Flash cards and Excel sheets are usually involved. It's pretty hardcore.

2. The Pantser

Panster, as in write by the seat of your pants. I.e. the opposite of the Plotter. Plan? What plan? They make it up as they go along. And somehow, it works for them.

3. The After-Hours Writer

Also known as the one responsible for the feverish mutterings in the middle of the night.

4. The Researcher

You know that half of what you've researched won't go into the book, but man does it take the pressure off writing the actual thing!

Also, everything counts as research. Including watching videos like this documentary on McBusted:

5. The Uninspired

Self-explanatory.

6. The Inspired

Well. Good for you. Exit that way, please.


7. The Desperate

Desperate are those who have spent weeks and months tearing apart everything they write because nothing seems to be good enough.


8. The Emotional

They react to everything they write ... or don't write.

Guess which one I am now? 

But I found this quote on Laini Taylor's blog that is somewhat encouraging:

"One reason people have artist's block is that they do not respect the law of dormancy in nature. Trees don't produce fruit all year long constantly. They have a point when they go dormant.
And when you are in a dormant period creatively, if you can arrange your life to do the technical tasks that don't take creativity, you are essentially preparing for the spring when it will all blossom again."

~ Marshall Vandruff


Leave it to Laini to offer a dose of optimism. I swear, that woman inhales sunshine for breakfast. (Although with that fabulous pink hair, can she be anything but happy?)

Hope you're having a more creative day than me!

Fiction Friday - Repair the Dead

This week's flash fic turned out to be another character study for Indigo Tides. I sure hope I don't end up with more characters than I know what to do with them! 

I didn't have a clue what I was setting out to write at first, but as always the story took shape the more I wrote. (Love it when that happens.) Maybe, paradoxical as it might seem, this is the best cure for writer's block: to keep writing.

Also, I discovered this amazing dubstep piano piece, which fit perfectly into the mood/setting for Indigo Tides and this short story.

All that drama! All the imagery! It's impossible not to come up with a story after listening to this.

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Repair the Dead

His human hands were useless in a fight.

Tight and scarred, the knuckles red and raw with blisters, they were meant for minute, intricate things like mending and tithing. They were hands that gave and gave, hands that healed and paid the currency of magic. His hands were not meant to wield brute force the weight of a machete.

He identified with the sea children, at least where they employed their strength. Magic took a lot more out of one than a physical fight did, but they produced twice the desired results.

If only they had the sea children's knowledge. But for ages, from Halcyon to Desolation, his people had been children borne of the air. They had no advanced knowledge of the magical arts and relied on their rigorous training in the war arts instead. Simply put, his people were fighters. Soldiers. Puppets. Pawn.

Dolonit had no idea what to do with a sword when presented with it; he even dropped it when Maldar, his sparring partner in the practice courtyard, delivered a lightning strike to his arm.

The pain that magic required, on the other hand, was visceral - it carved holes in his soul, did damage that was invisible to the naked eye. The pain from an open wound, however, was different from what he was used to. It was present, wicked, and tangible in terms of the blood drawn, the length and depth of the cut, and quantifiable in the number of stitches.

Dolonit scrambled for his sword. His other hand grasped his injured arm, but he was making a mess with his blood all over the concrete stage.

Maldar stooped before him in a display of solidarity meant for their audience, among whom sat the new general, hulking and haw-eyed like a different breed of monster.

"We might have more faith in a pair of hands that can do more than stitching up the weak and repairing the dead," he said, his voice pressed low against Dolonit's ear. "Imagine what might have resulted of sending you to the killing fields."

Dolonit knew the swordsman had never quite forgiven him for being chosen as a Healer, and instead devoted himself to mastering his battle skills so that one day he might prove a more worthy apprentice.

Now's not the time for petty old vendetta or slippery fingers, Dol, he thought, tightening his grip on his sword and getting to his feet. He swung his sword the way Yuzoff taught him and went at Maldar. You have a job. Do it well. For the sake of those who have died, if not for the Empire. 

But the more he thought about those who died, the weaker his grasp became. What were they holding on to, when after all this they had lost way more than they gained? The Emperor had promised a brighter future for every citizen of the Empire, and all they needed was to acquire the sea children's magic. But all he saw was devastation at the expense of their own people. He had had to mend comrades who turned pale, sweaty and delirious with pain, patch together limbs that had been ripped apart, remove malicious skeins of magic threaded with veins so that the slightest movement agonising pain -

The shriek of steel against steel, and he snapped to attention ... only to find Maldar's sword scraping past his to find his heart. The tip drew tauntingly close - Dolonit's eyes squeezed shut - before stopping short against him. Dolonit felt the press of ice-cold metal through the fabric, the drumming of his heart, the hungry anticipation of the crowd.

Maldar himself was a terrible picture of malevolence, a sneer of spiteful glee twisting his arrow-like face. "The enemy, my dear Dolonit, has not the same inhibitions as I do now. They will not hesitate to finish off a replacement soldier." He retracted his blade and straightened.

Getting to his feet, the Healer dropped his sword - or rather, he tossed it aside. The clank of steel against concrete rang louder than he expected it to, but rather than wince, he made sure his voice sounded just as strong.

His gaze sought the general's in the crowd. Dolonit launched his words forth like stones right into the stillness of the courtyard. "I am not a fighter. This war brings no victory to me, only death. Find better use for these hands."

At that, the courtyard erupted in sound and fury. Dolonit left it all in his trail and headed back to his chamber, where more dead and ravaged bodies awaited him.

*

Fiction Friday - The Tin Lady

Everyone thought I was still hung up over Lucas’s death. It’s the guilt, they all said. It’s making it hard for her to let go. So they let me have my ‘imaginary friend’, and I let them believe this to be the case. 

Nobody understood why I took Lucas’s portrait everywhere. People at school just thought I was morbid, or in mourning, or had one too many screws loose after the death of my best friend. Any of those reasons sounded better than the truth.

I adjusted my bag strap and held the framed portrait close to my chest, trying not to breathe too hard as I made my way up the steps to the top of the hill. It was hard enough for Lucas, being trapped in his portrait as a ghost, without having to deal with my physical discomfort.

“All right there, Luke? I could slow down, but I want to get home before it gets dark.” We were at an awfully secluded part of the hill, where I was certain I heard the hiss of snakes on more than one occasion.

“Quit talking and get moving,” was his reply. He wasn’t too thrilled about my decision to look for the Tin Lady, but the old lady who lived at the top of the hill was the only one who could free him. 

That wasn’t her name, of course. The Tin Lady was only known as that – did anyone remember her real name anymore? – because of her tin legs. People said she made a deal with a malevolent fairy who reneged on her promise to save her lover, and ended up losing both the boy and her legs. 

Now, she oiled her tin legs twice a month. This was the only time she accepted visitors. This was the only time she was willing to talk.

When I reached the top at last, Lucas piped up. “Is it raining?” 

I wiped the sweat off my brows and glared at his reflection in the photo frame, which was vague as always. “Very funny.”

“Seriously, Emeline. Just go home.” 

He did seem deadly serious, but I couldn’t leave now. Not after climbing all the way up here. 

Besides, the Tin Lady had spotted me. 

She was seated on a wooden bench just outside her house, her tin legs propped up on either side of her on the bench. Her legs, stumps that ended at the knees, were wrapped in swathes of gauze where they ended, while she was dressed in a thin, flowing one-piece the colour of the forest at night. She glanced up halfway through unbundling her legs, and found me standing in the clearing hugging a six-by-eight-inch photo frame. 

“That is no way to treat a ghost,” was the first thing she said. And I knew I had come to the right person.

*

The Tin Lady said since Lucas’s body was stolen by the fairies, we either tried to get it back from them or made another in its likeness. Neither option sounded plausible, especially after hearing how she had been robbed of her legs and the boy she loved.

“What happened exactly?”

She beat down my question with her stern, cloudy gaze, and then pulled a pocket knife out of the folds of her clothes. 

“You should at least free him,” she said, before proceeding to drag the edge of the knife down the length of Lucas’s photo. An ugly rip sat slashed his face in half. I let out a cry and reached for the photo, but Lucas was the one who stopped me.

Lucas, with his hands on my arm. 

It wasn’t warm or solid, by any means, but it offered far more comfort than the past two weeks had, ever since he went missing and I noticed his ghost in the reflection of the photo frame.

I grasped at whatever wisp of him there was. 

Lucas turned to the Tin Lady. “It had been this easy all along?”

“You’re still dead,” I pointed out.

“At least I’m not stuck inside a cramped little photo frame anymore.”

That hurt. I’d made sure to wipe the photo frame every day, at least. But this was hardly the point of contention now. “How do we get him back for good?”

The old lady searched me with a look, then pulled on the tin prosthetic legs that creaked in the stillness. The sky was slipping into a sleepy lavender shade, but here at the top of the hill the air was tight as an intake of breath. I was finding it harder to breathe – whether from anticipation or the thinner air, I wasn’t sure.

Lucas took my hand, but his grip was hardly strong enough to stay me. “I’m not sure about this,” he whispered as the tin lady pushed open the front door and left it open behind her. “We don’t know anything about her.”

“She can bring you back,” I said, by way of convincing myself too. “Don’t be such a pansy.”

The Tin Lady’s house was a squat little thing that offered little room for movement and thought – the former because of the gleaming iron cages hanging from hooks everywhere, the latter because of the wild, heady musk of some exotic flower I couldn’t pinpoint. 

“Do you make these?” I reached for an intricately carved cage the size of Lucas’s photo frame swinging from a squeaking hook. The carvings on the cage bars and base made no sense: they were words from another language laced into thorny vines, nothing legible or discernible.

The Tin Lady nodded once. “This way,” she said, heading for a cupboard in the corner of the room. Lucas and I navigated our way through with the dying light of dusk; he tried to catch my eye, but I kept my dogged gaze fixed on the old lady, who had pulled open the cupboard and stooped to take something out.

It was a wrought iron cage, pretty nondescript in plain dull-grey. She rapped it twice on the crown, letting off a strange mellifluous ring. A beat later, the cage emanated a multi-coloured glow that painted the dirty walls of the house. But the light was frail, a whisper for help in an inked night.

“Emmy,” Lucas whispered, pointing at what’s inside the cage.

A tiny … being lay sprawl at the foot of the cage. At the sight of us, she flung herself against the bars, a snarl distorting her lovely face. But iron was cruel to her, poisoning her skin, her body, and, slowly, her mind. She curled up into a tight ball and glowered up at us – but mostly at the Tin Lady.

My breaths came out in a loud staccato. I scrambled for Lucas’s hand. “Is that a –?” 

The old lady turned around, a smile curved like a hook on her face. And it was only then, under the dying light of the sick, captured fairy, that I noticed the wicked iron-grey spark in her cataract-clouded eyes.

“This is how we’ll get your lover back.” Her voice was a rusty blade.

June Read-List and Watch-List

Read-list: 


1. Midnight Thief, by Livia Blackburne

O.M.G. How awesome does the plot sound. Gotta love characters with conflicting agenda, when the love interest is also the antagonist. Can't wait to read this!


2. The Girl from the Well, by Rin Chupeco

Yay for horror that doesn't involve monsters and gore! A girl who hunts murderers meets a strange tattooed boy with a dark secret. Plus, creepy doll rituals and Japanese exorcisms. YUM.


3. Forget Me, by K.A. Harrington

"Psychological thriller with a romantic twist" is what it says on the Goodreads page. Reason enough to read it.


4. Of Metal and Wishes, by Sarah Fine

More horror. A unique setting. A girl who is drawn to the Ghost in a slaughterhouse where she assists her father in the medical clinic. The whole thing sounds very Phantom of the Opera-ish. And The Phantom of the Opera is one of the most haunting, beautiful books I've ever read.


5. We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart

This one has a very deliciously twisty plot.

And bonus reason to read the book: Maggie Stiefvater loves it.


6. Deep Blue, by Jennifer Donelly

I will never get tired of mermaid stories. This one's about mermaid heroines who gather their forces across the 6 seas to prevent a war between the Mer nations. Sign me on.


7. Trust Me, I'm Lying, by Mary Elizabeth Summer

Grifters, con artists, swanky high school and its dirty politics, missing fathers. What's not to love?


8. Inland, by Kat Rosenfield

This seems to contain elements of magical realism, and goodness knows I've been searching high and low for magical realism books. We need more of those, especially in YA! And you know what Toni Morrison said:

9. The Museum of Extraordinary Things, by Alice Hoffman

Speaking of magical realism, here's one of the masters of that genre. I'm still in love with the last Alice Hoffman book I read, The Story Sisters. This one, though, is set in a freak circus. You can't really go wrong with a setting like that. Remember Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby? So yes, I have high hopes for this one.

10. The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare, by M.G. Buehrlen

A 17-year-old who has visions of the past is actually a Descender, someone who can travel back in time by accessing Limbo, the space between Life and Afterlife. Alex is in fact one soul with fifty-six past lives. And each of them features this mysterious boy with "soulful blue eyes". SO reading this.


What's on your read-list? Any other recommendations?

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Watch-list: 


1. Dream High 2

Dream High was a pretty entertaining and compelling drama series, so hopefully the sequel won't disappoint!


2. Pretty Little Liars

Yes, I'm late to the game. But I've heard it's got a great twisty plot like Vampire Diaries, so I'm sold. There's the stigma attached to PLL - a lot of people probably dismiss it as some high school drama series - but I'm hoping it will, like TVD, change my mind and wow me right from the first episode.


3. God's Quiz 4 

One word: Donghae.

Also, this is the cutest thing you'll see today:

(The boy, I mean. Not the fangirls.)

Okay, okay. Something cute that's not for the fangirls:

I don't know, bananana sounds catchier to me.


Happy mid-week! :0)