Tag Archives: short stories

Across the Barrier, fantasy, Short Story

Across the Barrier Chapter Six

Gods ruin everything.

They accidentally made us

Played with us only to punish us and to abandon us.

Well, that’s what Baldemar thinks.

I’ve never met a God.

It’s all he talks about. Being stuck inside this place for days has lulled me to believe I will never leave it. I’ve even accepted the goo that they call sustenance.

A prisoner in the void stuck with jail mates that are a little cuckoo.

One is an old man who has killed a God, perhaps multiple times but won’t say.

While on the other hand, I have an automaton that speaks many languages fluently, knows advanced science and math and has the strength of ten people.

Both creating a device right now, that will somehow blow open the doors of heaven, or the gateway to the realm of the Gods.

This could drive me mad and join them in their reverie of a life.

I sit cross-legged on the floor under a window far from them, watching like a bird perched on the wire.

I have tried running, but the moment I stepped out of the house, the world literally turns dark. I could not see anything but infernal darkness, it still haunts me in my sleep.

Baldemar glances at me, ‘You ok, Benny? You’ve been rather quiet these past few days. The dark hasn’t scared you into madness has it?’

Perhaps he knows by experience.

‘I would prefer to be in the world I come from, I would eat a real bittergourd than the mush we eat here.’

Baldemar puts down a laser-like pen and takes off his gloves.

‘I’ll bring you some after my trip since you asked.’

‘A coke would be better.’

‘We’ll see, Ava is putting the final touches and soon I will have a key to the Realm of the Gods, now I just need Divine blood.’ Baldemar pats Ava on the back.

‘Don’t do that!’ she growls. Ava’s gets lost and obsessed when she works. It’s quite fascinating to watch from afar. I would love to see what they are creating, but I’ve been forbidden like a child with the TV remote.

‘Sorry! I’ll go get washed up and make some lunch.’ Baldemar smiles and leaves in a really good mood.

‘He seems happy.’ I stand to move closer to Ava. My legs were aching.

She simply grunts.

I move towards her. Moving around large metal boxes slowly not to scare her.

Past glass cabinets with odd items in Petri dishes sending shivers down my spine.

Ava hunches over her project protectively.

I am a few steps behind her.

Today she looked oddly ordinary.

Dressed in a normal although worn out long sleeve shirt with black jeans and black boots.

I am inches away but just as I peek over, she pauses.

‘I know you’re behind me.’

Ava is suddenly closing a wooden box and begins to wrap it with suede cloth.

‘Glad I’m done, or else you’d be in trouble.’

‘Why can’t I see it?’ I moan. I was so close.

At least I know it’s small enough to fit in a box the size of a book but what could have taken them days to complete that was that tiny?

‘You would go blind and turn into dust!’ she embellishes.

‘Right.’ I snort.

Ava pats me on the back. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.’

What plan? For what exactly? The last time I had been left alone with her she had bullied me into answering thousands or more questions about the world I came from.

She looked hysterical, eyes glinting like a mad scientist or it could just be the glass layer over her eyeballs.

Yet, madness could run in the family. Baldemar has definitely lost his mind obsessing over the Gods.

We head down together to the kitchen just as Baldemar sets down three cups of the disgusting goo on the table.

‘Drink up boy and girl. After, I am on my way.’ Baldemar grins raises the cup to us,  a salute.

‘How are you gonna find God’s blood if they blocked us out?’ I take the cup and try not to hurl as the scent rises from the cup sending my tummy roiling like a stormy ocean.

‘A friend of yours is a God’s child. I just need their blood.’ He gulps down the content of his cup quickly like an excited child about to go outside and play.

‘Are you gonna kill them?’

Baldemar puts the cup down and stares at me lost in thought.

‘Maybe.’

My stomach turns upside down and rolls around a bit before I could muster a reply. Who was the God child? Luna is special and Metior definetly looks like a God. Lucian and Kera looked so normal it couldn’t be them.

‘Please don’t hurt her.’ I say but Baldemar simply shrugs.

‘Aren’t you playing the same role as the God that you hate so much? Doing this will take away the one I love.’ I protest further.

Before I know it Baldemar slams his fist across my face sending me backwards smashing through the table and against the wall.

I feel something besides my overwhelming emotions for the first time in a long time.

I could feel blood oozing down the side of my head.

Baldemar laughs, ‘Well, it seems your not so immune after all. I lashed out with some of my Godly essence and BAM!’

God’s are a pain.

My head hurts and the world felt like a roller coaster ride.

I feel Ava at my side.

‘He has a small concussion. He’ll be immobile for a while. He needs to rest and heal.’ As unmanly as it can get, she carries me in her arms to my little cot in the corner of the living room.

‘That is good then, I won’t have to worry about him running into the void again. I don’t have time to go looking for him. Take care of him Ava, when I’m back we can go knocking on the God’s Door.’

Baldemar doesn’t bother leaving the house through the door, he simply creates a portal and without a word disappears into it.

Suddenly the world starts spinning excessively. I’m back in Ava’s arms and she’s sprinting towards the void.

In a second, a blink, I am somewhere else.

In the middle of a crowded street of a place, I’ve never been. Or I could barely recognize with all the spinning my head was doing.

‘I’m finally here.’ Ava gently drops me on a bench and begins to walk away.

That’s not good.

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Across the Barrier, fantasy, On-going Stories, Short Story

Across the Barrier Chapter Four

She didn’t want to see me.

It’s been an hour or two or maybe forever, or it felt that way.

Since she knocked on the door just as we were about to eat breakfast, it felt ages.

Why didn’t she want to see me?

Metior must be being protective.

‘Relax lover boy, everything happens for a reason.’ Kera pats me on the shoulder as she passes by, pity written all over her face. What was the pity for? Did Luna meet someone else? How long have I been dead?

I rise off my seat and head over to the patio where they were keeping her away from me. I couldn’t even see her through the curtains. What was all the secrecy about? Was it not the plan to unite us a while ago?

Kera rushes from the kitchen catching sight of me heading out.

‘It’s not a good time, be patient.’ She holds me back although I push against her. She is stronger than she looks.

‘Why?’ I begged in a whisper, feeling her palm dig deeper into my shoulder as I press forward.

‘Your death’s made it complicated is all I can say.’ She pushes me back to the dining room gently.

I deflate, unable to fight.

Yes, I had died, and now I live. How I am here has been slithering around in my mind but ignoring it was easier when all the crazy things unfolded. Now that Kera has smacked it to my face, I fall onto a seat disorientated.

‘This must be all maddening to you; I will never forget my first time. Getting dropped into the middle of a jungle, getting chased by naked people and meeting Misty for the first time as a bat or was it a monkey? He seems like a monkey.’

I try to smile, but I couldn’t bother anymore to seem stable.

Kera passes me a new cup of coffee, ‘It will be ok. Things happen to us so we can grow.’

‘Do you have a book on positive things to say memorised?’

Kera shrugs, ‘Makes me feel like I’m helping.’

I sip the coffee, burning my tongue but it hurts less than the fear gnawing in my heart. Am I a zombie? Is that why it was complicated? I couldn’t be with her because I was rotting from the inside out. I feel myself begin to panic.

‘Your mind barrier is failing, I can hear you freaking out. You are not dead. Stop thinking whatever you are thinking. I don’t need to read your mind to know you’re overthinking everything.’

‘But-‘ I begin, but she interrupts, high on coffee.

‘You have a heavy frown on your face. Lines so deep Darya could swim in it, even Kai.’

The thought of that was funny, but I couldn’t picture it in my mind without imagining my face rotting and falling apart.

Something was wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it.

I try and force a smile so Kera can leave and do whatever she needed. She was itching to go, drinking her coffee in gulps.

‘Smile is fake but I’ll take it, I need to remind the others we have an evil villain to defeat.’ Kera finishes whatever is left of her coffee and drops it by the kitchen and swiftly walks back out to the patio to the others.

There was an evil villain to defeat? I could suddenly feel weariness spread through my body like a wave. There was so much to take in.

I place my cup on the table which is still filled with the breakfast made earlier. All of it was untouched and cold by now. As I reach for a piece of sausage to eat some of my anger away, the world seems to suddenly go in slow motion.

The windows by the dining table bursts into pieces of glass. Shards heading towards me like arrows. The wall tumbles down in massive blocks. An old wrinkly man floats in surrounded with a black halo.

It was black as night, you could see nothing through it, pure darkness.

I cross my arm over my face to block the glass. I fall back on my seat onto the floor with a slam. A block of the wall knocks me hard on the head. Dust clouds the air, entering my eyes, turning everything hazy.

‘Ben!’ someone is shouting my name but I can’t see anything the world has gone dark.

The same voice screams my name, and I realise it is Luna.

‘Luna! I can’t see anything. Go, get away, save yourself! I love-’, something knocks me down hard, and I’m suddenly in the air upside down.

In between a blink and within and below a second, the world turns silent. No rumbling blocks of cement, no screaming and shouting, just silence; pure emptiness. It sucks you in. It turns you into a tiny ball of existence so minuscule an ant could feel like a mountain.

I blink a few times, hoping to remove the dust out of my eyes. I could feel tears streaming down my face, washing away some dust and cleaning my eyes. Though it made no difference, if I opened or closed my eyes, I could not see. I was in darkness.

With a pop, the old man appears in front of me. In this place, he was black and grey, so was the world around us. There was no vibrant colour in sight.

‘Welcome to the in-between! This is the crack between worlds where nobody goes or wants to go. This is a place, a home, a shelter for outcasts like you and me.’

Before I could say a word, the old man moves in close, his face within and below an inch from my face.

He sneers, ‘you’re mine now little Ben. My own little Golem boy.’

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fantasy, On-going Stories, The Faceless Queen, World Weavers

The Faceless Queen VII

We reach Seers Island in a few days; It was a large island with a magnificent port which was filled with many different kinds of ships. The other dignitaries from the farther reaches of Eludemare had already arrived.

We travelled through pristine villages until we reached a forest unlike I have ever seen. The trees were not made of leaves and wood but were of glass and crystals. The leaves of every tree were different in shape and size. Some had orbs dangling from its silver branches clouded with smoke. Some were green gems shaped like leaves.

In a large clearing in the centre of the forest was a massive flat structure with only two levels made of glass. The top level was a large circular room that could fit a hundred men and the bottom level seemed to stretch across the whole of the clearing, which was likely to be the rooms. We could see figures roaming inside but were like smudged forms shifting into different shapes as a figure walked by.

The entrance had a large arch that was covered in carvings of figures in robes.

As we went down the carriages, seers dressed in silver white robes welcomed us and led us to our rooms.

I was brought to a large round room with a circular bed at the centre. Books on shelves lined the window ledge.

There were two doors to the left of the entrance of the room. One was to a passageway to a single hot spring where a ledge was littered with soaps and ointments, there was no ceiling, and it opened up to the glass treetops and the sky.

The other door was to a smaller room but similarly designed. A round bed at the centre with the walls of the room covered with shelves full of books and items. There was no window but the ceiling was a glass dome facing the crystal forest treetops.

“Wow, if I had a room like this back home I would never leave.” Kera reacts to her quarters.

“The Seers do seem to have a certain elegance. Their art is also interesting.” I say pointing to a painting hanging in my chamber.

It was a painting of an enormous white dragon, its wings stretched out wide, hovering over a village while below the village was like a mirror reflection of the white dragon except it was black.

“I have never seen this painting before, or an illustration of this in my books. There has never been a dragon sighting in decades.” I say.

Kera laughs, “So there are dragons here to huh?”

“Yes, there are stories that a kingdom long ago was ruled by a dragon who transformed itself into a man,” I say as I remove my cloak, longing for the hot spring water waiting for me in another room. It is said to have magical properties.

Before I could say another word or have a thought, a knock comes from the door. I nod to Kera to take it.

It was Matheus with a letter from Eydollon, which I ask Kera to read.

“It’s from Grand Duke Florent. He is just letting us know everything is alright and hoped that you had a safe journey.”

“Write to him, let him know we have arrived safely and thank him too. I’ll be in the hot spring; you can go after I am done. The springs here are known to have magical properties of healing.”

She nods as she unpacks our trunks to find the letter paper.

Tomorrow was the day I would face the leaders across Eludemare for the first time.

I must be ready for them and learn more about them. That would be my priority for this evening. First, the blanket of a warm healing spring to soothe my aching body. Maybe even heal my inability to keep or have a face.

I enter the hot spring slowly. It is deliciously warm and I could feel a tingling feeling spread throughout my body.

I hear a knock on the front door. I hear Kera open it and start arguing with whoever entered.

The springs own doors bursts open and at the doorway stood my step-mother.

“I see you still wear a face. ” Behind her, a man dressed elegantly in a dark ash grey suit stood his back facing towards me.

“I’m sorry to hear about your father, although he was not the kindest towards you. With that aside, I have someone you must meet.” she turns to introduce the man but he keeps his back facing towards me.

“I think it’s best we wait for the Queen to finish with her bath don’t you think?”

My stepmother laughs.

“Don’t be modest, I think you’ve seen her already in all her glory the moment she entered the Evergreen with your senses so enhanced by the crystals

The man turns around and I see he is faceless. At the edges of his face flames dance, tinged with a pinkish hue like a blush.

He’s like me. I could feel my hands clench with fear and embarrassment.

“Leave,” I command.

My stepmother hesitates but the man tugs her out as Kera apologises and closes the door.

I sink into the spring water as far down as I could go to cover my face.

There is a change in the air and I could not help feeling I am far from being in control of it.

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