Short story #3

Anna emptied the bucket over the fence, without looking where the garbage was landing. The wind stirred and her unpinned hair stuck to her wet face. With a dirty hand she rubbed her forehead and went back to the house. The wind was blowing again from the wrong direction.

Life was hard enough in a medieval village, without having to struggle for fresh air. Her brothers were gone to work in another town, the house was impossible to sell and the king was ignoring the problem, waiting for it to resolve itself.

Actually, the king was trying very hard to pretend that it wasn’t his fault.

Not that too many people would dare to accuse the king. Not to his face, anyway.

Anna remembered the king as a kid. They used to play together in that same field where she was now dumping the garbage, back when that skinny kid with large ears was just Jack.

That was before he… Well, Anna wasn’t even sure about the details of the story. Or should she say stories. She heard so many versions of the events that happened only two years ago that she wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.

So, unlike most of the villagers, she tried to ignore the fact that her former childhood friend was now a king and that they all lived in a world where magic was commonplace. But what she could not ignore was the smell.

The smell was everywhere. It was horrible and it was not going away too soon. In the city, where the nobles lived, the fancy people made a mockery of it by resorting to fashionable handkerchiefs and expensive perfumes. But out here, in the village, it was unbearable.

And the fact that the king was ignoring it was the worst part. After all, wasn’t he the one who killed the giant, accident or not?

It had been Jack the one who brought magic to earth with his magic beans and it was the same Jack who now was not taking responsibility for the decomposing giant that made life impossible in the village.

Anna stopped in the doorway and took a deep breath, but started coughing immediately. The wind was blowing from the direction of the giant corpse, engulfing the only world she has ever known in that horrible smell. With a sigh she entered her modest house and slammed the wooden door shut.

Aliens, what else? – Prologue

This story starts with the moment I died.

It was in the second year of the alien invasion. Until then I had managed to survive by hiding in basements or, more often, in the woods, close to abandoned towns.

That first day, when the first ships arrived, I was on my way home from school. I had to walk – of course there were no more buses, only people running in the streets. By the time I got home that side of the city was emptied (that was what the few survivors I met in those years called what was basically the enslavement of the human race, one block at a time).

So, getting to the moment I died… Let me tell you first that it wasn’t a bad thing, before you start feeling sorry for me. Or before you close this book – I promise, it’s not sad. Actually, it was the best thing that happened in my life.

You see, when I ran into that alien patrol that night, I thought it was all over. They shot me down, ram pa pa pam, ram pa pa pam… Really, I was shot. With an alien gun-thing. It stopped me from breathing, moving – anything but drooling. It wasn’t heroic, I wasn’t shot during saving orphans or kittens. I was just careless during an alien invasion. We’ve all been there, right?
And that was the moment when the miracle happened.

I revived. Surrounded by a bright light – I was floating up, to heaven. Just as I was wondering how that could be real, my vision adjusted and I saw what was really happening: I was floating because I was under one of those mini-spaceships the aliens used for patrols.

I still don’t know what those ships use for power, but that’s when it happened: I got superpowers!

 

The short apocalypse

The wind stirred a column of dust. The city’s dirt flew above the street, above the honking of the cars, above the noise and the chaos of the terrified crowd.

Dark clouds covered the sun. The pavement began to crack and crumble, until the street turned into a gaping hole.

The girl watched in horror how a bus slid in that hole, followed close by a string of cars. The screams were downed by the sound of thunder, the lightning in the sky was mirrored by the fires that were breaking out all around.

In front of her, watching without moving, was a dark silhouette – an old woman dressed in black. Her face without expression turned towards the  girl. Her hand rose in accusation.

– It was you! You brought the end of the world upon us!

The girl watched in horror in the direction the old woman was pointing now.

And it was true – it was her fault!

She started crying silently.

It was true – she did it. She has stepped on a crack in the sidewalk!