Catch a Dream
by jasonlprice

Comment:
It was a testament to the human spirit, some would say. A strength of will, a desire to be normal at all costs, a heart-touching story of determination.

But for him, it was just another day. For it was what he knew, it was what he did. Like anyone else, he went to bed at night, and woke in the morning, and dressed, and ate, and played and learned and grew.

And dreamed.

For though he may have to get around a little differently than others, he was still just a boy, and he still had all the hopes and dreams and desires that anyone else had, and he did his best to accomplish them, like anyone else did.

And as darkness fell on this day, he cast his line in one final time, and dreamt of catching the big one, and looked forward to dinner that night, and thought nothing of the chair in which he sat.

And for him there was nothing special or different or heartfelt or being a part of any testament to any spirit.

For him, it was just another day.

Osprey
by subject22

Comment:
Peter had never been the brightest bulb in the lamp, and everyone had always said that he would one day suffer for his constant naive curiosity and tendency to get into mischief.

Well, came a day when those predictions came all too true, for Peter had flown down, thinking he had spotted the fattest, juiciest treat he had ever seen, just sitting there out in the open like that on that pole. His greed got the better of him, and his lack of any real intelligence or common sense laid the groundwork for that fateful moment.

He alighted on the pole, and with a gleam of hunger in his eyes, stretched out his talon, and attacked...

... and with a sharp snapping sound and buzz of sparks and light, well, no longer could they say that Peter wasn't the brightest bulb, for he lit up like a christmas tree in the square that day.

The Color of Magic
by millsa

Comment:
Everyone always got excited when they were invited to Gandalf's for a party. Not only did he have the best fireworks show in the entire of Middle Earth, but when it came to mixing drinks, there simply was no better!

So they would gather with their glasses, and with a rainbow of delicious spirits and liquers, he would weave his magic and send them spiraling in to each glass in flashes of light and color, and they would cheer.

Ah, to be invited to a party at Gandalf's! It would be the highlight of the year!

Timidity
by Simms

Comment:
It was a tale passed down from Father to fawn as a bedtime tale and fawn to fawn as a whispered spook story in the meadow under high sunlight. The tale of the dark of the woods, down past the old fir tree and at the beginning of the end of their known territory.

So it was that three friends set out one day, growing in curiosity and courage to finally confront such tales. For they did not believe all that they were told, and wanted to set the record straight. To come back and tell everyone that it was just a deeper part of the wood, and nothing to fear.

So they had set out, and had come to the beginning of the path into the gloom that was there. Laughing amongst themselves and teasing each other about being frightened, but not really feeling any fear.

Not feeling any, that is, until they came to the threshold, and suddenly it seemed as if the sunlight broke upon the path there and simply ceased to be. For it was not just gloom that shrouded that pathway, but a darkness so complete that it was almost unnatural.

They found themselves standing on the brink of that entrance, still as they could be, not daring to breathe. The laughter and teasing had stopped. They dared not make a sound. They stood rigid, their eyes opened wide in surprise and, now that they were here, a sudden fear.

Fear it was now that gripped them certainly, for at once they knew that the tales were not just mere ghost stories. Deep inside, their very instincts told them that something here was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Yet they stood, and stared into that darkness, which seemed to shrink and constrict around them, and despite all their sudden terror there was something about that dark. Something that seemed to call to them. Something that whispered in soft, calming tones and gentle musical notes. Something that beckoned, beckoned them on.

With eyes glazed over and a wobble in their step, they began to walk forward, closer now. Stepping into the emptiness before them, black as the deepest pit, there came the sound of a ragged breathing. A sound of anticipation and desire and... hunger.

They continued on, step by step, hoof over hoof, and...

... a cry came from behind them, and startled them from their reverie, and they jumped backwards for the blackness, shocked and now fully awake, and what they saw there froze their very hearts and screams broke from their throats. The spell had been broken by that shout from the light, and now they turned tail and tore back from the direction they came, terrified. They saw their parents there, and ran to them, crying and gibbering nonsense, and were taken in by them and then removed from that accursed place.

And in the darkness something cried out in anger and outrage, and its roar echoed through the woods, and for many days the three fawns could not be comforted, and their only words were about the eyes.

Those terrible, horrible eyes.

One and lonely.
by anferh

Comment:
...and it stood there, at the end of all things, and looked back on the destruction it had wrought. For it had been time, and this universe had played out its part, and it had known that a time for cleansing had finally come.

It stood there, and nodded its head as the nothing consumed the final piece of what once had been a magnificent cosmos. It lowed gently and then, in a blink of an eye, vanished completely itself and then there was truly nothing.

Somewhere, in a distant time and space, a spark began anew, and with that spark a gentle lowing of the Celestial Cow came once more, to signal the beginning of another chance.

British Museum
by Anthony_D_Archer

Comment:
Sometimes, we refuse to remember or learn from, the past. Or perhaps, sometimes we remember it, but wish to recreate it in our folly and our conceit.

So it was that they built it anew. The famed Tower of Babel, and although it was built with the consciousness of the present, they also gave it memory of the old, and it was built in testament to the power and the ability of the human spirit.

Yet that spirit could also be its downfall, and our pride and over-confidence was also our bane, and that tower that stood as a monument to excess was doomed once again, for the bigger they are, the harder they fall, and the powers of the world that strive to keep us in check will do so, and times unlooked for and unwanted, and once again, thousands of years after the first, the Tower came down once more.

Mort à la mode.
by zarniwoop

Comment:
It was a new world, and time had moved on from the days of the past, where people lived, and people died.

Oh, people still lived, certainly, and people still died. Yet there was a new way. For the dead? They didn't always stay that way.

In the past, when one died, they were buried or burned, and honored and grieved, and that way they remained forever. It was considered a decent system, a good system, but always humanity strove to discover the secret to immortality. For a way to cheat death.

Then, one day, it was found. A way to renew a life that had passed on. A way to recover that which was lost. It was a new technology that would change the world (and not for the better, some would say).

And in the way of our species, this new technology was named in honor of the old ways, and they called it Crypt, and humanity would never be the same again.

Which way to go?
by hajeka

Comment:
How many times had he parked his car in this garage? How many countless days and months and years since he had bought a small apartment in this building? It was many, he knew, and he'd never felt like this before.

He tried to laugh it off, and took another step towards the staircase that he had traversed so many times before, but he found that he simply couldn't do it. Couldn't take that step, because he was suddenly terrified.

He couldn't explain why, and he slapped himself and pinched himself and told himself that it was stupid and silly and moronic. Just get up the stairs and go home and grab a finger of brandy, and forget this already. Stop being a little girl!

Yet nothing he could say to himself, either out loud, or in his head, helped in the slightest. He was rooted to that spot, staring at the stairs and at that space underneath. A space he knew was empty because he had just approached from the other direction not a moment before.

But he knew that for some reason, it was different now. For some reason, as he had passed some kind of silent threshold, some kind of hidden barrier, that something had changed. That space wasn't empty now. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew.

Just then, a small whisper came from that place that he stared so intently at, his eyes now hurting from the strain, and that whisper caused his body to shiver violently, and his bladder released, and a tortured moan came from deep within his chest, yet still he stood there. He was beyond panic and flight. Beyond even attempting to tell himself that it was all just his mind, all just a silly anxiety attack.

As he moaned, a shadow fell, and it fell against the light (that isn't possible! a small, but dying, part of his brain shouted) and it began to advance, and the whisper grew louder and more intense, though it said nothing that he could understand. He began to cry now, and his legs threatened to give out from under him, yet still he stood.

The whisper then turned to a piercing shriek, and the shadow grew until it masked all the light around him and it came from under the stairs, and it was cold, and it was darker than the blackest night, and as it engulfed him entire, the last thing he saw, floating in the blackness, were two piercing points of sickly green light that wavered and dripped and were utterly evil.

Then, he knew no more.

And it fed.

abandoned bus
by GinaRothfels

Comment:
It didn't know how long it had sat there, gathering dust in that empty, abandoned, and dusty old garage. For years, perhaps, or decades. All it knew that at one time it had been loved and tended like no other. Used to ferry children to and from their schools, or to bring people to long imagined and much needed vacations across the state. It knew that once, it had been happy.

Now, after all these years, sitting here in this dark and dankness, for time uncounted, it had seethed in bitterness and despair. It had fed on its own anger and helplessness until its very heart had grown black.

So it was when one day, the dark and haunted gloom of the garage in which it rested was broken by a shaft of light. A door had been thrown open, and silhouetted against the painful glare of the forgotten sunlight was the figure of a man. From the darkest recesses of its memory, came a vision of the people of before. The people that had loved it, and then abandoned it here to an evil and lonely fate. The people that so resembled what stood in this doorway, which it knew now as a path to its renewal and revenge.

As the man in the door began to enter the garage, a red and angry light flashed to life on the fender of the seething evil that rested there, and an engine long forgotten flared in outrage and vengeance.

Building Blocks
by PennyStreet

Comment:
He had a headache when he awoke that morning, and tried to tip himself out of bed to go to the medicine cabinet for some aspirin, but as he tried to move his legs out from under the covers, he found that the muscles that he had grown so used to using, simply weren't there anymore.

Instead, an alien feeling rushed through his brain, and spoke to him of many limbs that he hadn't had before. It was then that he began to panic, and by some instinct or sheer force of will and luck, did then manage to fling himself from the sheets, and he fell flat on the floor.

He struggled there for a time, those alien impulse and feelings fighting with his desire to work only two sets of arms and legs, the idea of his humanity that had been with him for 30 some years fighting with this sudden and growing realization that something was very, very wrong with that idea.

Again, through some instinct, he managed to stumble upright, and opened his eyes. What he saw choked a strangled gargle from his throat. He would have screamed, but it seemed he no longer had the mechanics for such a thing anymore. In place of his mouth, were a pair of giant pincers, and what his eyes showed him, was a view of outside, from his window, but it was scattered and shattered into a grid of images that overwhelmed him completely. His first thought was that he had gone insane, or this was some kind of hallucination, perhaps brought on by aneurism or some other brain malfunction, but no. As he stood there unblinkingly (he had tried to do that as well, but there was physical ability to do so), it suddenly dawned on him in a final and horrific realization.

He wasn't human anymore.

And as his pincers clenched and his multiple legs began to twitch as the muscles within finally bridged the gap between his old memories, and his new sense of being, and his eyes saw only a multitude of broken images, his human mind finally snapped completely and was lost.

Some time later, in the streets below, came the screams as the giant beetle emerged from the apartment block in search of food, and loosed upon the world a vision of a Kafka Nightmare.