The nearest beach was thousands of miles away from Jake, but somehow he woke up on one with no knowledge of how he got there and a text from an unknown number that simply said, “Welcome.”
The morning sunlight brushed Jake’s face, but he refused to open his eyes. Today was his first day off from work in two weeks. He reached for his pillow, only to notice he felt something hard and slimy instead of soft and fluffy. Jake snapped his eyes open. A piece of driftwood had replaced his pillow. More seriously, a beach replaced his bedroom.
The nearest beach for Jake was over a thousand miles away. His roommates could pull from a clever prank from time to time, but getting him to a beach was not in their skillset. The texture of the sand felt too real on his bare feet for this to be a dream. He stood up, looking for anything that would tell him where he woke up.
The beach appeared to span a few miles, but he saw no people. The beach itself was unrealistically immaculate, in Jake’s opinion. There was no litter anywhere, the ocean waves were clear, and an orange glow from the sunrise blanked the sky. However, was something unnatural about this beach Jake couldn’t place.
Jake decided his first course of action was to do an inventory assessment. He wore a plain red shirt and checkered red pajama bottoms. The only item in his pockets was his cell phone fully charged. With a glance, he unlocked his phone. There was no signal, but there was one new message from an unknown number. Jake tapped the message.
“Welcome” was all the message read, dated for 6:30 am that day.
“Welcome to where?” Jake mumbled.
The icon for someone typing a message appeared. Jake waited in nervous anticipation. After all, he had no service. A few seconds later, the following text came through. “Find the door before they find you.”
“Before who finds me?” Jake said to his phone, hoping someone was listening to him on the other end.
No message came.
Jake sighed and put away his phone. As he looked around for the door, he realized what felt so off about the beach. There were no animals. Anytime he had gone to the beach, there would always be birds, crabs, or washed-up jellyfish. There was no life on the beach except him.
With no door in sight on the beach, Jake wagered his best bet would be to head into the forest. After a short hike, the scenery changed. If you were to ask Jake about his knowledge of maritime forests, he wouldn’t be able to provide much in the way of answers, but he did know trees were not purple with neon pink leaves.
Jake pulled out his phone and took a few photos of the unusual trees and flowers. He wanted to look up what they were later or proved they existed. From the camera’s screen, Jake found a freestanding pink door with white strokes that looked like waves. He put his phone away to see the door with his own eyes. There was the door.
Today was Jake’s day off, and with the door found, he was curious about what secrets the forest held. He traveled in the opposite direction, pushing past green leaves twice his size, to a clearing with a small campfire. Surrounding the campfire were a dozen purple-haired creatures half his size with wooden masks of his own face.
The furry creators stopped their dancing and faced Jake. They picked up their metal spears from the ground and charged after Jake. Jake ran for the door. The battle cries from the masked creatures pushed an out-of-shape Jake to run blindly fast. He was a long way from the door when he tripped and fell hard into the ground. Before Jake could stand, a couple of spears pierced through his body, causing him to fall back down. The island inhabitants surrounded Jake and took their prey back home.
A man and a woman side-stepped out from behind the door. The tall, slender man wore a pink and white suit matching the door frame’s color while the young woman, slightly shorter than the man, wore a red dress. The woman worked away on a transparent tablet device while the man watched Jake’s body get dragged.
“That’s the second time they got him, Loki,” the woman said. “What should we do differently?”
“Let’s send him a third text message telling him to run,” the man said. “Great job on those masks, by the way, Raven.”
“Thank you,” Raven replied as she noted the change while Loki opened the door, which revealed Jake’s bedroom with Jake sleeping in bed.
This week’s short story was inspired by the following writing prompt: “You go to sleep one night, in your bed just like you would every night. Only this time, you awake to find yourself washed ashore on what appears to be a deserted island. You check your phone, no service, but you have a text from an unknown number saying, ‘Welcome.'”
Thank you to Janine De Guzman at Design Pickle for bringing this scene to life!
Liked this story? Be sure to check out my other works featuring Loki and Raven.
Alexia should’ve been dead as one cannot survive while being chained to a sculpture of the deity the farmers wanted to please.
Alexia should have been dead. It is basic science that a seventeen-year-old girl cannot survive being tossed into the ocean while chained to a “stupid boulder.”
Okay, so it’s not a stupid boulder, Alexia reasoned as she tried to wiggle free from the marble sculpture of Poseidon’s head.
Alexia’s real anger was at the oracle, who said the sacrifice was required to please the gods if the farmers wanted a successful harvest. Alexia had insisted the framers had used too many chemicals and polluted the soil. The city depended on the farms, and she volunteered to assist in their production. She had developed a new farming method where plants could grow vertically, saving space, and did not require soil.
Now Alexia was sinking to the bottom of the ocean for her blasphemy. In hindsight, she could see the signs of their superstitious nature. Alexia wished she paid better attention to her religious studies. The failure of not metaphorically building a bridge of understanding weighted her down, along with the rock. She did know the head she was attached to was the god of the seas, but the farmers worshipped him as a god of agriculture. It made no sense to her.
The only other question bigger on her mind was how she was breathing underwater. She was mesmerized at first; however, as she sank, her enthrallment was replaced by rage.
“That’s a nice sculpture there.”
Alexia turned to the voice, which put her off-balance as the sound was in her head, but she could associate a location with it. Swimming beside her was a merman twice her size with pristine muscles, almost god-like–if she had believed in the gods. His fluorescent blue tail swished back and forth to keep pace with Alexia’s descent.
“Who are you?” Alexia asked in her head.
“Can’t you tell from your sculpture? You know what, it’s not an accurate depiction of me.”
“Poseidon?”
“That’s one name for me. Yes, let’s use that name.”
“Poseidon, huh?” Alexia responded with a hint of disbelief. “Think you can free me?”
“Under one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You destroy those that did this to you.”
Alexia smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”
With a snap of his wrist, a golden trident burst to life in his hand. He slashed the chains that bound Alexia. The statue drifted downward while Alexia remained stationary.
“Take this,” Poseidon kindly offered as he handed her his weapon.
The moment Alexia took hold of the trident, its glow engulfed her body and shot her upward, into the sky. She landed back on the cliff on the flying island, where the farmers sacrificed her.
Everyone was in the middle of their celebrations when Alexia made her splashy entrance. The music stopped, and all eyes–including the oracle–where on Alexia. Alexia pointed the trident at the party, and from the ocean, a fist of waves slammed into the crowd.
Off in the distance on a hill, Poseidon stood on his legs, watching the seaweeds tangle themselves around the people and drag them to their watery grave. A man with similar stature and physique, but with an impeccable white suit, walked up beside him.
“I wouldn’t have expected such retribution from you, bother.”
“The Atlanteans’ arrogance grows. Either they are too devoted to their sciences, or they worship us incorrectly, thus causing us to change. Are you not worried, Zeus?”
“I am concerned, but I am also fascinated. The interplanetary travel they’re developing will take us to new worlds.”
“If their belief in us holds.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll remind them.”
This week’s short story was inspired by the following writing prompt: “The local humans are having trouble getting their crops to grow so they decide to sacrifice a young girl to their god, by tying her to a heavy rock and throwing it into the sea. She is found by you, a powerful ocean deity…who is displeased by their cruelty.”
Thank you to Janine De Guzman at Design Pickle for creating such beautiful cover art for the story.
A programmer’s Saturday morning ritual is interrupted by a loud knocking from a soldier in Legionnaire armor with the ancient city of Rome behind him.
Despite being “a grown-ass adult,” Lucas had a Saturday morning ritual of enjoying a bowl of sugary cereal while watching cartoons on a streaming service in his PJs. He lived alone in his one-bedroom Oklahoma City apartment, which freed him from judgmental remarks from roommates – though he was prepared to defend himself. The routine was his special way to unwind after a week of coding at Deep Fork Technology.
Lucas nearly choked on the first bite of his cereal from the sudden, thunderous knock on the front door.
He grumbled under his breath, “Who could this be?” as he paused the show on his TV to answer the call.
Upon opening the door, a man in full Legionnaire armor stood before Lucas with the ancient city of Rome behind the soldier. Lucas stuck his head out the entrance to study the scene. In his mind, this had to be an elaborate prank. Still, he could feel the sunshine and smell the summer breeze, contrasting the snowy weather he knew was happening in Oklahoma City. The outside building of his apartment matched the clay exterior of a Roman house.
“Are you Lucas?” the Legionnaire interrupted.
Lucas turned his attention to the soldier, now noticing the bloody rag around his leg. “Yes, I’m Lucas.”
The soldier let himself inside. “I was told this would be a safe place.”
Lucas closed the door. “Who are you?”
“I am Barbados. You have a strange home here.”
“How are you able to communicate with me?”
“What do you mean? We are speaking Latin.”
“No, we’re speaking English.”
“English? What’s this English?”
“Never mind. Who sent you here?”
Barbados fell into the worn-out, brown thrift-store bought couch. “This man in this strange, pinkish outfit I have never seen. New fashion, I suppose. Pointed me to your door and said you were a healer.”
“I tried to be a doctor, but I switched majors to programming,” Lucas explained.
“I did not understand a word you just said.”
Lucas thought for a moment to best word the situation. “I’m not a healer.”
Barbados nodded in understanding. “I see.”
Although Lucas didn’t have much medical training, he did recognize a dying person and rushed to his side. He kneed by him, stuck in a state of what to do, as Barbados took his last breath. Lucas checked his pulse. There was none.
“Fuck.”
Before he had much time to think about what to do next, there was a knock at the door. Lucas opened the door to a tall, slender man in a pink suit with bold, black outlines and a woman in a red dress from the Roman era. Something about their appearance–perhaps their black hair–made Lucas think they were siblings. The scene behind them was of a rainy night in a futuristic neon city.
The two individuals let themselves inside and headed straight to Barbados.
“Don’t mind us,” the man in the pink suit said. “We’re here to collect Barbados.”
The woman lifted Barbados from the legs while the man grabbed him from the other end.
“Have a nice day,” the woman said as she walked back past Lucas.
The strangers closed the door behind themselves. Lucas waited a few seconds, trying to process what happened, and opened the front door. Outside was his snow-covered apartment building. The cold wind whipped his face, telling him this was real. Lucas closed the door and returned to his cereal as that’s all he could think to do.
In the raining neon city, the man and the woman dropped Barbados on the alleyway pavement. The man opened Barbados’ eyes and pulled out a contact lens. He handed the lens to the woman.
“I’ll get the footage processed right away,” the woman said. “How are you feeling about this episode so far, Loki?”
Loki pulled out a black pen from inside his suit jacket. He shook the device, and the writing utensil transformed into a staff as tall as himself. He poked at Barbados with the bottom end of the staff.
“I’m not sure yet, Raven. I think Barbados died too soon to have any comical moments with Lucas. We’ll try again, but with different people.”
This week’s prompted short story was inspired by the following idea: “You awake one Saturday morning to frantic banging on your front door. Upon opening the door you see in front of you a man in full Legionnaire armor and behind him the ancient city of Rome.”
A mysterious clock tower crashes into a sleepy town, only to become a silent sentinel. Reporter Auceon can’t shake the feeling something’s off. When the clock’s glow flickers out one day, his suspicions ignite. What secrets are hidden within the metallic giant? Will Auceon be the first to uncover the truth, or will he become another unsolved mystery?
A monstrous violet tower, shimmering with an unnatural metallic sheen, plummeted into the heart of Whiteridge. Screams echoed through the town square as people scattered, seeking cover from the falling giant. A high-pitched, metallic whine vibrated through the air upon impact. Fear was replaced by bewildered curiosity as the dust settled. There, the new clock tower stood, a silent sentinel twice the height of any building nearby, adorned with digital numbers the size of a delivery drone displaying the current time.
Auceon’s shoulders slumped in relief as he surveyed the scene. Thankfully, the chaos hadn’t resulted in any casualties. All the buildings remained undamaged except for a concrete patch that the town council grudgingly designated as a park. He and his journalistic colleagues searched for clues as to why the structure landed there, but no one found any inscriptions on the outside nor a way inside. A xhosian near the scene told reporters they felt electrical disturbances before the crash, but no one else reported anything unusual leading up to the crash. Early speculations suggested the planet’s guardian dropped the tower; however, when the press inquired, The Black Dragon denied any knowledge.
Months passed, with the clock ticking faithfully yet revealing nothing. Auceon clung to his favorite theory: a social experiment by a hidden cult. He’d once entertained the notion of a maverick artist whose grand statement involved the fleeting of time, but logic scoffed at that idea, as someone would’ve taken credit by now. One of his colleagues believed the tower was a stunt meant to scare off any shady criminal dealings. The town council was also clueless, but the lack of reason didn’t stop them from taking advantage of the landmark. With no answers forthcoming, the tower, once a beacon of the bizarre, began to blend into the monotonous humdrum of Whiteridge.
Despite the dwindling headlines, the tower remained a fixture in Auceon’s reporting duties. Every hoverboard commute included a cursory visit, a ritual that felt increasingly pointless. Over time, the usual park updates materialized: vibrantly colored flowerbeds bloomed like a scattered kaleidoscope here, a sturdier bench there, and even new playground equipment. Press releases flooded his inbox for each addition, a testament to the town’s dedication to beautification from the tourist-loving city council.
Yet, Auceon couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something like other town mysteries, such as the bright pink bubblegum stubbornly reappearing on the same corner of the mayor’s favorite bench every morning or why some residents swear they hear the faint whirring of clippers coming from the long-abandoned barbershop. The tower remained unchanged, secrets locked away inside the metallic shell.
Today, the white glow that usually emanated from the numbers was absent, a gaping hole in the morning light. Excitement jolted Auceon. The numbers were always on display. With a snarl of the hoverboard’s engine, he rocketed toward the tower, his brown sasquatch fur whipping in the wind.
Another curiosity appeared. Three figures, burdened with boxes, spilled out of a previously hidden door at the base. A desperate scramble, a flash of movement as they vanished around the corner. Follow them? Or delve into the silent, now clockless tower? His curiosity warred with his sense of self-preservation. Following the figures could lead to answers, but entering the silent tower felt equally risky. The choice hammered against his instincts, but he wanted to see for himself what was in the tower.
Auceon stepped through the previously hidden door, anticipation twisting his gut. Inside, the answer to the tower’s mystery wasn’t a single device or inscription but a revelation that defied his wildest imaginings. Walls, ceiling – every surface thrummed with the soft glow of thousands of screens. An unsettling quiet pressed against Auceon’s ears. His gaze darted across the endless screens, each a window into a life unwittingly displayed. A baby dragon playing in a sandbox, an elder sasquatch watering her roses, a gorgon styling the snakes in her hair – the normalcy of the illegal surveillance chilled him more than any monstrous revelation could. Two monitors showed a human girl with rainbow hair holding hands with a ghaukvoi, a biped blue-skinned being with shades of blue hair, as they romantically strolled through the downtown district. Auceon concluded each screen was tracking an individual and not a location. The reporter felt sick, like a tiny insect caught in the sticky threads, and the thought a monitor was scrutinizing and evaluating his every action caused his gut to tighten.
“Hello,” Auceon called out. “Anyone here?”
Silence swallowed Auceon’s calls whole. As he walked up the glass stairs, the echos of his steps reverberated through the metal walls like a tuning fork. The next floor was the complete opposite of what the reporter expected to find. Gone were the sterile surfaces and watchful screens, and instead, a wave of humid warmth washed over him, thick with the loamy scent of damp soil and the sweet, cloying perfume of exotic blooms. Lush greenery, a riot of ferns, and hanging vines filled the space beneath a hidden dome that diffused sunlight into a dappled green glow. The air buzzed with life – the rustle of unseen insects, water trickling across rocks, and a hidden bird’s soft chirp. Soft leaves brushed against his fur as he made his way deeper inside. The unease that once prickled Auceon’s fur like a thousand tiny needles began to soften while in the calming space. What purpose did a greenhouse serve in a surveillance tower? Were people locked in here like a science experiment? Did this keep them sane?
At the end of the greenhouse, two unremarkable doors offered no clues about their purpose. One led to a sterile bathroom, the chrome fixtures gleaming coldly in the dim light. The other opened into a cramped bedroom with bunk beds stripped bare. No clothes, no clutter, nothing to hint at who might have occupied this spartan space.
Just another layer in this unsettling enigma, he thought. This story is going to be hard to write without answers.
Auceon trekked back downstairs to study the screens again. Each screen flickered with a live feed, a mosaic of Whiteridge laid bare before him. A cold sweat prickled his fur, which he attributed to the change of climate between the levels, but a part of him knew his anxiety was responsible.
“What have I stumbled into?” he whispered, his voice swallowed by the oppressive silence.
Waves of static on a single screen snagged Auceon’s attention, sparking his reporter’s instinct like a jolt to the nerves. Why are you not working? He leaned closer, the silence in the room pressing down on him like a physical weight. As he moved in, a single name scrawled on masking tape beneath the display sent a fresh wave of dread crashing through him: Bravak.
The name was a legend whispered in hushed tones across the dimly lit corners of Whiteridge’s taverns. Bravak, they murmured, wasn’t one person but a title passed down through generations, each inheriting a piece of the town’s underbelly. Some claimed Bravak controlled the flow of illegal goods, and their network was a spiderweb reaching every corner of the market. Others whispered of darker things, of bargains struck with beings from beyond the veil, of whispers that Bravak could grant dark desires and wishes. Whatever the truth, Bravak was a name that inspired a cold sweat and a quickened heartbeat, a phantom that lurked just beyond the reach of the law. Some of his fellow reporters thought Bravak was a copout for lazy investigations, but he felt there was some truth to the legends. Whispers of silenced reporters and unsolved disappearances always lingered around the name Bravak.
Faced with an offline monitor of a notorious figure, the dread coiled in Auceon’s gut solidified into a leaden weight, threatening to paralyze him. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to run, to get as far away from this place and this name as possible. The story wasn’t worth death.
Before the reporter could react, the room exploded with sound. The door buckled inward, ripping off the hinges, and a cacophony of grunts and footsteps filled the room, echoing off the metal walls and shattering the oppressive silence.
A mountain of a figure filled the doorway, casting the room into a sudden, oppressive gloom. Auceon craned his neck back, a whimper trapped in his throat. A face, vaguely bull-like in structure, loomed over the relatively tall reporter. His skin, a deep, matte aubergine, reflected the harsh light from the screens in a way that cast shifting shadows across his face. The large, luminous eyes were an electric blue so intense they felt like a physical shock when they came into contact with Auceon. This was Bravak-he had no doubt.
Bravak scanned the room, studying the screens before settling back on Auceon. A feral grin, wide enough to showcase a disturbing array of needle-sharp teeth, split Bravak’s scarred snout.
“You,” his voice boomed, a deep tremor that shook the walls. “So much for discretion. I should’ve known a nosy reporter would sniff me out.”
As Bravak marched forward, the reporter’s heart hammered. Bravak’s monstrous hand, impossibly large, slammed around Auceon’s face, cutting off his air and vision. The stench of brimstone flooded his nostrils. The following deafening roar seemed distant, as if coming from underwater and distorted. Auceon knew this was the end of his journalism career, except for as a person in another journalist’s story. Then, blessed darkness enveloped him.
Thank you to Henry Yusman at Design Pickle for bringing this scene to life. For this artwork, the scene depicted takes place before the events of the story, back to when the clock tower first fell.
This story has been updated from my original version, adding more details, more world-building, and triple the length. Hope you enjoyed!
A jogger is out on a run, paranoid someone is following, only to discover her stalker is herself.
A jog in a forest was what the doctor would’ve ordered. Gia needed this escape after the audience from her last production tried to kill her for ridiculing their corrupt ruler. She paused for a moment to soak in the partly cloudy skies, a comforting summer breeze, and the fact that there was no around for miles. The latter was vital because her black leggings and sports bar were not appropriate for the 514 C.E. time.
Not far, there was a loud crack of a broken branch. Gia studied a large, fallen redwood tree for any possible dangerous animals. She thought she heard a voice too, but when nothing emerged, she shrugged it off and continued her jog.
“I’m getting paranoid,” Gia said to reassure herself.
Humans weren’t supposed to discover this portion of land for at least a few hundred years. No one could be there. It was only her. Still, she couldn’t shake off the feeling someone was following her. The trail was thick with twists and turns, adding to her paranoia.
Gia made a sharp turn off the trail and doubled back, keeping an eye on the route she had taken in case someone was following her. The seconds in the four minutes of intense investigation felt like pine needles always poking her. In her journey back, she came across the fallen tree, where she first thought someone was watching her.
As she positioned herself behind the tree, she lost her footing and broke a thick branch in half. She cursed under her breath, but caught herself and shifted her persona to a spy character hiding from enemy forces.
A moment later, she heard a voice, “I’m getting paranoid.”
Gia crept her head over the redwood.
Jogging along the trail was herself from five minutes ago.
Gia stood up. “This isn’t good. I must be caught in a localized loop, but what’s causing the contamination? It has to be close.”
Gia leaped over the tree and followed her past self down the trail. When she came to the spot where she made the detour to go back, she discovered a set of paw prints. She kneed down to study them.
“These look like lion prints, but they’re not native to these parts.”
As Gia reached for her back pocket, a sneaker hit her on the head. With one hand, she rubbed her head and inspected the show with the other. When she recognized it, she looked up in the sky to herself held by sphinx flying below the treetops.
“I guess I found the contamination,” the Gia on the ground said.
“You found it?” the Gia in the sky snapped. “I found it first.”
“What is going on here?” the sphinx demanded.
The version of Gia in its grasp answered, “We’re trapped in a micro temporal loop because you don’t belong here.”
“I’ve been here for years!”
“Have you noticed the changing of the seasons?”
The sphinx landed on the ground and released its Gia. The two Gia’s hugged, causing a radiant yellow light that caused the sphinx to cover her eyes with her paw temporarily. When the light subdued, only one Gia stood.
“I hate the headache that brings,” Gia mumbled to herself.
“What just happened?” the sphinx asked.
“My people can merge themselves whenever there’s been a loop,” Gia explained. “It causes an annoying headache as the duplicate memories sort themselves out. But enough about me. Let’s get you home, friend.”
This short story was inspired by the following writing prompt: “You’re out for a jog and you can’t shake the feeling that someone is following you. It started off as an inkling, but now the idea has consumed your thoughts. As you reach the crosswalk, you wheel around and confront your stalker. It’s you, from five minutes ago.”
Thank you to Janine De Guzman at Design Pickle for bringing this scene to life!
