100 Words a Day 1276

Caitir struggled to catch her breath behind the water barrel. Whistles rang out in the darkness of the camp; the guards had realized something was amiss. Torches started to light up the night. Once her heartbeat had slowed, she turned her attention inwards and filled her mind with the image of a bat. She exhaled and it flowed down her spine, run along her limbs, and tingled the tips of her digits. She felt herself change. The night sounds of the camp and the surrounding forest sharpened and diversified. There was a soldier on the other side of the barrel.

100 Words a Day 1275

The few gods that were able manifested themselves for the divine council. Of those that couldn’t, some sent a servitor. Others sent nothing.

“So few,” Phoebus lamented. His power waxed with the moon, and it was only because it was bright in the sky that he had been able to appear at all.

“Were any more lost to the Unmaking?” Fire asked, blazing with power. He had been hidden within in the subterranean realm of the dvergr during the War of Making and Unmaking and had escaped largely unscathed.

They waited for news of any more of their number succumbing.

100 Words a Day 1274

The ululations of the waste dwellers pierced the morning silence with the same savagery that their crude knives pierced the villager’s chests. Thanatos was standing in his small, rented room, bleary-eyed, when one of the raiders burst through the door, covered in dirt, gore, and madness. The man lunged at him. Thanatos thrust his arms out, catching the knife. But the man was so covered with blood that his slick arm slipped free, leaving Thanatos with a long gash on his forearm. The rough man seized Thanatos and stabbed him repeatedly. He feel limply when the man finally released him.

100 Words a Day 1273

“That didn’t go as planned.”

Alfie turned his head towards Garth, leaning forward as though he was looking around a corner. “Ya think?”

He turned back towards the burning car.

“What the fuck are we going to do now?”

“Can’t we get a ride?”

The two men ducked as the fuel tank exploded, showering the area with bits of metal and plastic.

“Who are we going to call to come and get us? Do you have a phone? I don’t have a phone! Not anymore!”

Garth checked his pockets. “Damn, my phone was in the car too.”

Alfie just sighed.

100 Words a Day 1272

When Jeff came to, he was straddling an unfamiliar man. He was almost familiar though, but Jeff couldn’t place him. He felt a sliding sensation on his body somewhere, then heard a thunk. He looked towards the noise, eventually managing to focus his eyes on a bloody knife. It was lying next to the man, on the floor, just below Jeff’s own hand.

Where’d that come from?

He realized he was panting. He tried to stand, but his limbs were leaden. And he kept slipping in something. He settled for rolling off the still man and struggling to his knees.

100 Words a Day 1271

Mattock probed the stones in front of him using a long pole with a steel cap. He’d put it there after almost losing his leg to a trap triggered by the metal he was carrying. Once his examination of the floor was complete, he placed the pole on the ground behind him and adjusted his lantern. The next set of tools clinked on their ring as he removed them from his backpack. Mattock assessed each in turn before selecting one and using it to examine the tunnel wall. Once he’d finished with it, the final inspection was with his fingers.

100 Words a Day 1270

Unbeknownst to nearly the entire world, all the children of that seaside town were born on the same night. This meant, on a particular winter day, when the tides were high, all the children born ten years prior would be of an appropriate age to wade into the chill waters of the Lavalcaster Bay when the full moon lights up the water, and the waving arms of the sea people waiting to take the children to lightless depths. There they would learn the history of their people and add their voices to the chorus imploring their sleeping god to awaken.