Smell My Breath
by Art Roflmao

Comment:
How it fell upon Buddy to be the official breath tester, he never knew, but fell upon him it did. For awhile, he was ok with it. He would sniff the breath of the master before every date, and would bark once if it was good, twice if it was bad. Then one day, after a night out, he had come home with a strange woman, and that woman had began to frequent the home, and soon she had come to stay. Then, he had two people to check, and the job had become sort of tedious. Still, he loved his master and had begun to love the woman as well, so he continued, despite his growing dissatisfaction.

Then, there came a day when a new entity had entered the equation. A small bundle of humanity that mostly just laid there and cried and pooped, and though he knew that his duty was to protect this tiny little thing, a part of his mind warned him that one day it would not be content to just lie there. For these things tended to grow, and when they grew, they became more like his master, and when they became more like his master, he would have another breath to test!

And so came that day, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back. So it came to be that he was called upon to do his duty, and he approached this babbling, grabbing human of diminutive stature, and put his nose up to his mouth and...

... later, after having been bathed and while sitting on his bed in the corner lamenting his lot in life, he wished that he would have been warned. Warned that these small humans had a tendency to release such foul ejections from their mouths.

He sat and stewed, and the memory of the moment made him shudder, and he was such a poor puppy, and he was too old for this kind of thing.

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.

One of those days
by truogre

Comment:
Gordon plopped down on his favorite branch and sighed. It was rough, sometimes, the daily grind. Flitting from tree to tree, gathering nuts, outrunning those filthy canine terrors of the neighborhood yards, avoiding those monstrous metal behemoths on the roads, playing up to the laughter and attention of the human children.

Yes, it was tough being a squirrel sometimes. So tough.

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.

Late Night, Great Light - No Editing
by Manikz

Comment:
He was known as The Chameleon, although most used that name in jest rather than in seriousness. For though he considered himself a hero of some fame and repute, quite the opposite was true.

For it was often that someone came walking along, and looked over to see him there, frozen against a wall, trying desperately to blend in. He thought himself quite invisible and had the ability to completely ignore the fact that everyone saw him, plain as day, or their laughter and snide remarks.

And in his mind he accomplished great deeds with his abilities, but in reality he was merely the talk of the town and a source of amusement, as a jester in the court of a King of old.

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.