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They were grand things, made of strange substances I’d never seen before. A small toy, stuffed with plant fibers, of an animal I’d never heard of before. A pinwheel, but made of some tough but flexible fabric we had never encountered - he called it plastic.

As the years passed, his gifts got more elaborate. A metal box with scribblings in a language we’d never heard spoken aloud, with small buttons that moved characters on the side of the box when they were pressed. A “radio” that played a most pleasing crackling sound when the lever on the side was turned.

There was a mask on the back of his head where the rest of us had hair, attached so cleverly that we could never figure out how it was secured. No matter how carefully I looked I could never see where the edge of his face ended and where the mask began. His ears were oddly shaped as well, curved both forward and back, as if they had been twinned and then joined at the center to make a cone.

I came to realize that he never stepped backwards, always stepping sideways and then turning carefully in place. It seemed an odd sort of thing to be so special about, but he was full of odd quirks like that. I would speak to my parents about it during the day when he wasn’t around, but they had no more answers about it than I did. We all loved his company and his odd gifts, but we never really understood him or them.

Untill one day, not that long ago, when he stayed longer than he ever had before. Always before he had been careful to leave well before sunrise. But this particular night he had stayed, caught up in conversation with my parents and I about the state of the world and the war that was brewing between Avalon and the Odinhall.

And so it was that we all looked up to find the sun beginning to rise over the horizon and he was still here. Our guest was shocked and horrified, gathering his things with quick, abrupt movements as he babbled apologies. He hurried out the door, bag slung over his shoulder, just as the Morning Wind rose up to begin the day.

It hit him directly in the face, as strong and purposeful as it is every morning. As it must be, to throw back the curtain of night. It hits him, and he staggers backwards. His right foot comes up, the Morning Wind pushes him, and his foot comes back down behind him.

And this is when I realized that the mask is no such thing, but rather another face. One that has never animated in our presence before. One that, rather than being full of good will and bon ami, is full of spite an malice. This second face smiles at me where I stand in the doorway to our house, and the small stuffed animal he’d given me years ago comes alive on the windowsill, a full-sized roar emitting from it’s tiny mouth. The radio sputters to life, and it speaks horrible things of blood and death in a voice of rattling bones. He smiles, and his teeth are points.

The wind blows at his back, he steps towards me, and I slam the door in his face. He knocks gently on the door. My parents and I share terrified looks.

The doorknob turns.

Text:  My parents knew a man with two faces. He visited late at night, and brought me small presents from a far away land.

Of course, the fact that it new our names wasn’t really the problem. Nor was it really an issue that this thing knew when we got out of Algebra. This was wholly because the ‘thing’ went with us wherever we went.

So, okay. Saying that it was hunting us wasn’t completely accurate. It had already caught us. But for all that it knew where we were, for all that we could not get away, it wasn’t really a problem, either.

You know what was the problem? Explaining to the teacher why there was a six-foot tall beanpole following us to and from school. We always had problems with people telling us apart because we are twins. Being red-headed in a school of blonds made us stand out all the more, even while our identical haircuts made us look all the more alike. Susan was right - I should have left my hair long when she’d cut it off.

That’s not the point. What is the point?

The green bean. We found it in the field behind our house one day when we were looking for raspberries to pick. Sarah swears that it’s just a weird plant. I think she’s crazy. What sort of plant can move from place to place like this? What sort of plant knows how to open doors and uses its sap to draw? You know what I think?

I think it’s an alien. And it’s following us around so that it can learn about us. Us as in Sarah and I, and us as in humanity. It was small when we found it, but it’s grown so quickly. How did it get here? Did it crash land somehow? Did it float along the celestial winds as space pollen?

Maybe Sarah isn’t the crazy one.

I’m not sure that it matters, though. Because Green Bean is sort of nifty to have around. It grabs things off the top shelf when we need it, it blocks the sun on a hot day. And it’s just recently started producing this awesome purple fruit.

Sarah is seriously freaked out about the idea of eating the fruit. And I guess I should be, too. But it tastes too good for me to really care.

But...now that I really pay attention...does my skin look a little green to you? Is my hair looking just the tiniest like...vines?

I look over the grass of the field behind our house and I see Sarah, human-skinned, normal-haired Sarah. I look down at myself. And I realized that I am turning green. And my hair is starting to move on its own - like Green Bean’s vines.

And I realize that it’s been stalking us all along. Slowly, and with a patience I could never have imagined. It may never catch Sarah, but for me, it’s already too late. I’ve already been snared.

Text:  It was not an animal. The thing hunting us knew our names, what cars we drove, and exactly when we got out of seventh period Algebra.

Deep in the woods, not far from a babbling brook, in a small clearing filled with wildflowers, stood a witch’s cabin. The walls were made of bright red brick, green ivy grew up the sides, laden with flowers that threw off a wonderful scent, and there was an honest-to-goodness picket fence surrounding a small patch of cleared ground in which a few vegetables grew. 

Walter Wilis, supernatural journalist extraordinaire pulled his pants up a bit and tightened his belt a notch. He’d interviewed hundreds - thousands - of witches and warlocks in his time. Some nice, some mean. Some beautiful, some ugly. Most were disturbingly normal. 

As one nice old witch had told him once, “we’re people, too, Walter. Magic is just another way of looking at the world. Think of us as just eccentrics.”

And eccentric was most definitely a good way of describing people that had the ability to manipulate this mysterious force called magic. It had been part of human society since the dawn of time, and it still persisted in being unquantifiable to any other than those who could sense it. Walter was not one of the lucky ones, but he’d been fascinated by it anyway, and so had spent his life investigating, searching, interviewing any and all practitioners who would speak to him. Made quite a name for himself doing it, too. The normals read his articles with hungry awe, and the magicians liked that he made no attempt to demonize them.

Which all went to explain how he ended up here, in the middle of a very pretty nowhere minutes away from interviewing the most powerful witch on the planet. Quite possibly to have ever existed. She could alter the weather, make flowers bloom out of season, start fires with a flick of her eyelashes, and steal the hearts of men with her smile. Or so the stories went. 

Walter took in a deep breath, let it out, and nodded his head. He was here to find the truth, and he wouldn’t be able to do that out here. He nodded again, and began to walk. Out of his pocket, Walter pulled a hand-sized recording device and began to record his impressions. 

“Beyond the boundaries of this witch’s garden, it is the dead of winter. Inside, the flowers bloom, the breeze is gentle, and I can hear bees somewhere close by.” Walter knocks on the door, striving for a confident rap. “Miss Crystal?” he calls out into the silence of the house. “My name is Walter Willis. I’m here to interview you. We spoke over the phone?”

There was a pause, then the sound of hurried footsteps that came close, but not close enough to open the door. “Y-yes? Just…give me a moment, Mr. Willis.”

“All right, Miss Crystal.” Walter looked around the garden while he waited, speaking once more into his microphone. “There is an herb and vegetable garden to the side, surrounded by a white picket fence. I can see thyme, mint, and basil growing next to pumpkins, squash and what looks like strawberries. This should not be possible, of course, as some flower in spring, others in fall. But Miss Crystal is powerful enough that it doesn’t seem to matter.”

The door is flung open with a snap, and Walter instantly drops his hand, plastering a smile on his face while he takes his first look at the infamous witch.

She is young. Maybe not even eighteen yet, with bright red hair and a harried expression on her face.Her purple smock is covered in brightly colored threads.  She smiles distractedly at him and gestures for him to come in. Walter does so cautiously. Most witches have wards and barriers set up around their lands, and more powerful ones concentrated at the entry points to their houses. Miss Crystal has evidenced no sign of any such defenses.

There is a small explosion from the back of the house, and the witches eyes go wide. She turns and runs, leaving Walter standing just inside the threshold by himself. He wanders through the front rooms while she handles whatever minor catastrophe is going on in the back. 

“Miss Crystal’s house is remarkably normal. Aside from a few esoteric items - the glowing green vase stands out - it could be the house of any normal. There are couches and rugs and lacy white curtains on the windows. There is no television, but the phone set up in the halls looks like it gets regular use. There are no power lines, but that doesn’t seem to stop Miss Crystal,” he narrates into his recorder. “The living room is just off the foyer to the right, the kitchen off…to…the…” Walter trails off, his eyes fixed upon what he sees as he peers through the doorway. 

In the center of the kitchen, three brightly colored aprons hover in mid-air, folded gently at the sides as if wrapped around a body. The first, a bright aquamarine with orange piping, waves its ties gently in the air, one holding a rolling pin aloft, the other a feather duster. It twirls them around in a complicated dance, the neck loop bending and twisting as if the invisible person was bowing and arching their back as they danced. Next to it, the second apron, this one yellow with pink piping, dances what looks to be an attempt at the robot with a bowling pin and a lamp. The third apron almost fell away into the background, until Walter took a closer look. In its left hand (hand?) it held a set of scales. In its right, a conductor baton. The fabric of the apron was a dull grey, its stitching a slightly lighter grey. But where the other two had simple piping, this one has designs stitched throughout. Storms shimmered in and out of existence inside the neck loop. Waves crashed upon rocky shores, lightening crackled upon the ends of the ties. And it directed the movements of the other two with every flick of its baton.

A judge, maybe? Walter wondered. 

Sounds behind him, and Walter scoots over a little, making space for Miss Crystal to come stand next to him in the doorway.

“Oh!” she cries when she sees what he is looking at. “Aren’t they lovely? I made four this morning, but the last one kept trying to kill me.”

Slowly, Walter turns his head to look at her in horrified fascination.

She catches him staring out of the corner of her eye and smiles at him. “It’s fine,” she assures him. “I threw it out.”

Odd Prompts for Odd Stories

It was an unremarkable bit of rock. 

Oh, the light shone down the steep step-like structure in charming beams, the moss grew fetchingly at the sides. The whole thing felt a bit like it had come out of a fairy tale as some final, end-of-the-path obstacle to overcome before the prize was found at the top. But for all that, this one particular section of Earth was no mare charming, or important or magical than any other slightly-more-scenic section. 

Until one looked closer. 

The rock was still just slate, the moss was still just moss. But the ferns on the side...those were interesting. They were an almost-extinct version of fern found only on this particular stretch of rock, and though it was a several-mile long stretch of rock, that still left the plant a relatively tiny ecosystem to inhabit. 

Every year, a carefully selected group of no more than one hundred individuals would climb the slate steps to come into contact with this strange fern and its marvelous gift: grapes. 

Not true grapes, of course. Those only grew on vines and certainly never on so inelegant a plant as a fern. And yet, here they were. Clinging to the tiny shadows of the step, their tiny red fruit bursting with sweetness and flavor, perfect for the small-batch wine that was the treasure of the local town. 

The rock was unremarkable. As was the moss. But the ferns were a tiny bit of magic lingering in a world of metal. 

It was an odd thing, Willow thought, her head tilted almost sideways as she studied the scene before her. Most people used beds for sleeping. This was something else. To be fair, she wasn’t sure exactly what was going on here. Some sort of art form, perhaps? 

Willow straightened her head and tilted it the other way. It didn’t help. 

“Darius?” she asked, giving up on her silent pondering. Perhaps a direct question would help.

Darius only grunted.

To be fair, it looked like it required a lot of concentration. 

“Is that a casserole dish?” When Darius didn’t respond, Willow continued, “and a pizza box?” A glint of light caught her eye, and Willow looked up. “Is that?” she blinked. Yes. Yes, it was. “A cat in a bedazzled cardboard box suspended from the ceiling by fishing wire.”

“Hssssttt!” Darius turned just far enough to throw her a dirty look over his shoulder. “It took me forty minutes to get him to stay up there!”

Willow stared at him. Darius turned away with a silent huff. Willow nodded once in confusion, turned, and left the dorm room. She stopped in the hallway and looked up and down it. At least it still looked the same. Willow turned and looked at the closed door beyond which her downstairs neighbor was creating some sort artistic nightmare. 

She’d come down with every intention of raising a fuss about the noise he was making on the first school night. Instead, she found herself breaking into giggles. She’d heard that college would be full of new experiences. But she was pretty sure that this isn’t what her teachers were talking about. 

College was going to be awesome. 

Odd Prompts for Odd Stories

Submitted by @afolse

Dreams are real.

They exist in our minds, of course, but where do they go when we wake? The fantastical will tell you that we are a dream within a dream, that all of existence is layered inside each other like concentric circles. The scientific will tell you that dreams are nothing more than random firings of neurons. But I am a realist. And so I will tell you the truth.

They are the image that flashes by when the train hurtles through the tunnel. They are the shapes seen in the fog at night. They are the mirage in the desert. They are places and people and lands long forgotten, layered with ours, just beyond our senses. 

They bleed through to the waking world, sometimes.  You can see it sometimes in the subway, when you stare unseeing at the ad posters, your mind empty of thought. A picture where there had been a poster; a glimpse of something unseen. A flash and then -gone. 

There are places where you can hear it. Tunnels of rock carved by the wind where you can hear voices in the air. Or when you wake alone at night sure that you’d just heard something - if only you could remember. 

Prickles on your skin when the wind slips past. Images in the glare of the sun, the sound of children’s laughter in an empty park. These are all examples of the dreaming world sliding into our own. 

I have dedicated my life to the pursuit of dreams, to the capture of these fleeting images and sensations left by this other world. It has taken me thirty years to create this small collection. But you see here proof of its existence, taken by a camera I spent more than a decade designing. 

I have no explanation for them, my research is still ongoing. But you can see a castle, a bridge, a migration. All fantastical, all magical.

All real. 

SnowSkadi

1)

Journal entry - August 15

Everyone always said that I was too mature for my age. I always kinda took that as a compliment, ya know? “Oh, look at Mark, he’s so mature. Got a good head on his shoulders.” I thought that meant I was adult. Adult-ish. I guess with that sort of head-space it’s no doubt that I started forming friendships with people who were older than I was. A lot older. Like, wow, I didn’t realize you were so much older than me - 20 years! - or that you had three kids. Funny, that. You never talked about them. Why is that, exactly? I’ve never met a parent who wouldn’t gush about their kids. And you never made so much as a peep. 

Okay, to be fair, pubs aren’t exactly the best place for that sort of conversation. Or any conversation with real meaning, actually. But still! Not once? Damn, Phil, that’s harsh. But beyond not talking about your kids (which is really kinda brutal, man), you went one step farther. You died. You died and named me their legal guardian. You died and left me with three kids not much younger than myself. You do realize that I’m only just legal to drink, right? Sandra is eighteen. Eighteen, Phil! How the hell am I supposed to put her through college? Or the twins after her? What am I going to do? 

Billy set me up on a blind date tonight. Some young hot thing with blond hair and a pert ass. Promised me that she was smart, too. Which, you know Phil, I actually like. Problem is - the problem is - the young hot blond is meeting me down at the local Italian restaurant with the blue eaves. The one with the great sangria? And she’s going to wear a black skirt with blue flowers on it. She’ll be wearing a blue-jean jacket with zebra lining. And she’ll be smoking hot. I know, cuz she just walked out the door with a wave and a smile, telling me not to wait up because her friend Billy set her up on a date. 

Billy is so dead. 

So yeah! You died, named me the legal guardian of your three kids less than five years younger than I am, and Billy set me up on a date with your daughter. This has been a killer six months. I know what I’m not going to do.

I’m not eating Itailan tonight. 

unusual inheritance fic prompts:

1.  “you died and left me your children, even though they’re only a few years younger then me”

2.  “you died and left me a haunted house”

3.  “you died and left me an obscure magical object, I’m not sure what it does, and your instruction sheet just says ‘have fun storming the castle!’”

4.  “you died and left me a fanatically loyal warrior order”

5.  “you died and left me a bunch of money and a pile of really weird IOUs?!  why did someone owe you a free body disposal.  why did someone owe you two brides and a goat.  why did someone owe you an island.  WHY”

6.  “you died and left me to repay a bunch of really weird IOUs”

7.  “you died and left me a small country”

8.  “you died and left me six research labs that operate in international waters and I’m kind of scared to find out why keeping them out there was a stipulation of the will”

9.  “you died and left me a menagerie of animals that are supposed to be extinct?  and some that aren’t supposed to be real???  where did you get unicorns.  where did you get gryphons.  where did you get pegasi???”

10.  “you died and left me on the hook for a hereditary marriage contract”

Bjorn was not a pet. Alloise was not a cold-hearted killer. Shanra had not sold her soul for her magic. Thorn did not have an impoverished childhood. They had not banded together because of some great, shared tradgedy. They were not as three sisters with a beloved companion. They did not posess a great destiny. Many of the tales that would be told of these four in the years to come would get many of their details wrong. But a few of them would remain true.

Alloise was their leader, but only because when bad things happened, she was the first to react, the first with a plan. Often, once the initial panic had abated, it was Shanra who would come up with a more detailed plot.

Bjorn was one of them for his own reasons, reasons he never shared with the rest of them. His species was naturally reticent, vocalizations used almost completely for aggressive challenges. But his grasp of the common tongue was fluent, and while his words were thick and difficult to understand when he did voice them, if one listened carefully, they would find a devastatingly sharp strategic mind under them.

Shanra was indeed tender-hearted towards all things fluffy and cuddly (of which she considered Bjorn a member), but she was also the most skilled hunter - even better than the bear - and was single-handedly responsible for keeping them from starving. The most impressive thing? She never used magic to hunt. Claimed it caused the meat to spoil.

And Thorn? Stories would lay upon her the title of “Betrayer”. They spoke of a love for Alloise souring to hate. They spoke of a lust for power that darkened her heart. They warned of snakes in the grass and a lover turned enemy. All the songs of Thorn lay sour upon the tongue.

And all of them were true.

Sean sat against the wall, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Zombie’s were everywhere, and he’d spent his whole day running around town on foot, trying to keep ahead of the horde. He hadn’t been much of a runner before the world had ended though, so he hadn’t done a particularly good job of it. Which went to explain why he was now propped against the wall, sans his right arm and leg. Lacking a pulse of any kind, it didn’t hurt, exactly. But it was a major annoyance to not be able to chase the survivors anymore.

Who decided to call them survivors, anyway? Sean had survived - mostly. It just was that his need for sleep had gone out the window, along with his revulsion for cannibalism.

Sean growled in frustration as the humans crept out of the building he was sitting against. They looked his way, but left him alone. How scary was a one-legged zombie, really? He watched them disappear down the street and sighed.

Sean dropped his head back on the brick wall behind him and stared up at the overcast sky. He remembered a sermon he’d heard a lifetime ago, and addressed his greviance to the being beyond the clouds.

“God, ‘dying is easy’ was the biggest lie ever. I’m exhausted.”

Odd Prompts for Odd Stories

It was a small stage. Set up on the bank of the river with a few strategically placed cinder blocks and some press board, there was nothing fancy or professional about it. The band was equally questionable, with unfashionably ragged jeans, shirts with dates from ten years ago, and miss-matched shoes. There wasn’t a single keyboard or amp to be seen. In fact, it was as absolutely low-tech as possible. The only attempt at levity was the string of Christmas lights hung across the bracing beam that ran above the stage. A car battery had been jury-rigged to supply silent power, and while the safety of the maneuver was questionable at best, no one cared.

The grass was still soaked, the ground beneath so saturated with water that each step upon the Earth caused liquid to well. Fog crept in as the band was still walking on stage with their guitars and fiddles and horns still in their cases. The people gathered on the sodden ground did not care. Candles flickered intermittently amongst the group’s of twos and threes, the loudest conversations were murmers, and few people walked around. This was not a concert. This was not a party. This was grief. And joy.

The waters of the river had only just receeded back behind their banks two days previous. The houses just behind the listeners were lost, down to the tiniest wood shed. Pets had been lost; so had treasured heirlooms. But the people themselves were still alive, still here.

The fog rolled in, the candles flickered, the band opened their cases.

And there was music.