Sometimes, when you’re writing the same story for a long time, you like to take a break and play with a short, meaningless story. While at lunch today, I wrote an extremely short story. Hope you like it.
Dana stretched her arms out as far as she could, cupping the air in her hands like sails. Her wrists turned ever so slightly, making her whole body spin as the air pushed against her.
Flight was like a thick, woolen coat. It stifled her, compressing all around her, buffetting and pulling at the same time. When she was a child, she would sometimes curl up in bed, pulling the blankets over her head and under her to make herself an egg. She would lie in the warm darkness until the air got thick and tasted wrong. The heavy blankets pushed down on her whole body, making her feel her chest expand with every breath.
She would never feel the safety of that warmth again, but the buffeting winds provided some of that solace. The sound of rushing wind could be ignored, while still pushing out all other sounds. It was quiet, lonely, peaceful, and safe in the air. Clouds covered the Earth below, and blanketed the night sky above. Even the cold sting of the wind on her face couldn’t touch that peace.
But something felt wrong behind her. She couldn’t feel it the way she felt the air, and certainly couldn’t hear anything past the blasting, screaching wind. All the same, she felt something from below, the way you feel someone walk up behind you silently. A change in the wind, perhaps.
She looked back, down toward the Earth, and let her hands fall to her sides. A small black dot poked through the cloud cover, cutting a white trail of condensation as it headed for her. As it grew closer, she saw the mottled covering of the missile, saw it’s clothes billowing and rippling as it closed on her. Almost too late, she saw it’s outstretched arms and expressionless face as it came for her.
Dana dodged the missile, dropping lower, then corkscrewing off to the right. The monstrosity opened it’s arms wide, letting the parachute sewn into it’s fatigues catch the wind and carry him closer to her. The dead eyes of the trooper homed in on her, and even through the rushing air, she could hear his moaning.
“So father is desperate now,” she thought as she continued her evasion. He had run out of munitions, and had started reviving his soldiers, just so that he could throw something else at her. It glided past her, swiping it’s arms in the empty air as she dropped again.
So many years she had fought, just to get free. Father had burned up everything he had, all the money, all the land, all of their people, in a desperate attempt to destroy his own creation. From deep down inside her, she could feel the rushing torrent of emotion boiling over, held back only by her desperate need to remain whole.
The creature passed again, and dropped it’s arms to dive faster, catching her off-guard. They rolled in the air, falling instead of flying. The undead soldier held one forearm around her throat, and pulled his mouth closer to her shoulder as it rode her back. The fear consumed her and broke through her resistance. Her body shuddered as the power ran through her, tearing through her body as it released in a blinding flash around her.
The creature screamed and flailed, burned and dropped away. Dana could feel the pain of her self being eaten away, even as she felt the power flood through her and scorch the air around her. She stopped in the air, looking back toward the ground.
Ten more dots appeared through the cloud cover, closing on her position. Tears boiled off her cheeks as she scowled down at them, “I’m sorry, Mother. I tried.”
Dana put both hands in front of her, joining the power flowing through each fist into a bright light of searing energy, as she flew down to meet the attackers. This would be the last time. No more battles. Live or die, she would end this war.
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