After The Black

[email protected]
He/Him
#AmWriting

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

The Raven laughed and looked down. They couldn't see the joke, from down there. The angle wasn't right.

How sad! They needed to know! But how could a mere Raven realign the world? With a #Flourish of feathers he perched on a branch to think.

#vss365 #vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

It was an unintelligible mess, but something nagged at her mind. This was a Great Work; It couldn't be meaningless.

In a London coffee house, she glimpsed unseen meaning in the dead man's ramblings. By the time she returned to Seattle, the code was everywhere.

#vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

She bowed in the pool, surrounded by books. They were waterlogged now, the words etched in her soul.

The Raven descended, wings 12 feet across. Then words arose in her mind:

"Ah, it's so good to have another of your kind on the path! What would you like to know first?"

#vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

One day, the river dries up. Selenda drags herself upstream and finds the dam, wrought in stone and iron.

She learns they are called humans. They are fools. No ape can claim this sacred place, it belongs to the #Riparian tribe!

And so, the salmon went to war.

#vss365 #vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

@whistberry Thank you! :)

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

One by one, he dipped the pages in the pool of #Ink. When retrieved, they were covered in a cramped script. As promised, his life's story crammed into ten pages.

To his dismay, she had been omitted for space. But the war, the years wasted in drink? Those were in there.

#whistpr

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

The fridge felt a #Yearning deep in its circuitry. It wanted to chill produce! A real kitchen appliance, like in the stories.

The humans didn't listen. All they cared about were "autopsies" and "evidence preservation."

Selfish bastards.

#vss365 #vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

In the merciless sea floats a fortress of wood and tar, bound in #Fibrous rope.

In the uncaring sky soars a fortress of steel and oil, bound in gleaming cable.

One by one, mankind claims the domains of God. It is only a matter of time. The void beckons.

#vss365 #vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

"We can work together. The thoughts, the dreams, they'll stop."

Erin's reflection took a step forward, a manic hint of desperation in its voice. Frost began to creep around the edges of the mirror, though it was a warm summer night.

"You just need to get me out of here."

#vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

The dogs #yip at her feet, the birds peck at her head. At the end of the day, the endless tiny affronts crush her into a dreamless paste, and when the sun rises she gets up and does it again.

She has to get up again. A thousand cuts are nothing next to that Dream.

#vss365 #vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

She makes a promise. "I will #Find her again!"

There's a flash and reality crumples. Eternity meets itself in an endless instant, then spirals out in novas of color.

Aeons pass. In another place, another time, the morning dawns. Flowers turn towards the sunrise.

#vss365 #vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

The Elf shrugged. Toymaking and siegecraft were quite similar, really.

#hangtenstories 1114

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

Rebecca looked for the #Profound in little things. The crash of the waves, the wind through the trees, the crunch of gravel underfoot.

It was disconcerting when she heard a cry for help in the patter of rain. It was terrifying when the cries didn't stop.

#vss #vss365

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

It... It was unbelievable. Not a letter out of place. Expertly groomed, pruned of all excess. Every piece placed with perfect precision. It was pure, and good.

Then he saw. A red ring, and a -4.

Tears crawled down his face. Sacrifices would be necessary.

#vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

A cavalcade of color, organized in sets of Red, Blue, Green. All of Man's prowess made manifest in plastics and silicon. The Library of Babel in your pocket. A #Virtual grimoire. The world, bound.

"Siri, search Youtube for 'funny cats'"

#vss #vss365

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

By law, this story goes #Untold. To speak it, heresy.

#hangtenstories 1113

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

The Holly burned bright. The shadows couldn't hurt her now.

#hangtenstories 1112

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

The plants smelled like days old butcher meat. The corpses smelled like… well, corpses. And the trees fed on it all, blood and mud and the detritus of whatever poor village this had been. Bad luck for the migration to go through a town. Worse luck the elf had been hungry.

#vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

The gulls cringed away, flapping and circling the old crow who claimed their bread. His feathers were matted, his beak stained by meals of roadside gore.

"Ours!" screamed the gulls. "Ours!"

He didnt caw back. #Suave and charm are first to go when knives are drawn.

#vss365 #vss

[After The Black @AfterTheBlack]

A dark room made vibrant. The madness of dream, a gate to the other side. He was trapped.

He woke, and woke again. how could he know if he was the mind, or the #Splinter of Fae that pierced it? Was there any difference, at this point?

#vss365 #vss