Monthly Archives: June 2016

Drabble: Priorities – by Jonathon Dean

by specklit

“Must we do this again, Barnhardt?” the Dark Lord said, “And in front of my daughter too? Tell me, who’s the real monster here?”

“You have taken everything from me, Parnith.” Barnhardt said. He fired spell after spell at the Dark Lord, but he deflected them with ease. “What’s it all for?”

“For?” said the Dark Lord, deflecting another spell. “Why does it have to be ‘for’ anything? It simply amuses me that you think you can hurt me.”

“Oh, I can,” whispered Barnhardt. Parnith’s eyes opened wide, as he realised he had deflected each spell toward his precious girl.

Author’s Note: For when you’re so busy thinking about yourself, you stop noticing the people around you.


Drabble: Supervillain Origin Stories: Vampyra – by JB Starre

by specklit

You begin as an empty canvas:
blank, bland, boring.
I paint in vivid colors,
the red of love,
the white of terror,
browns and yellows seeping out of you
like accents
filling up the empty spaces.
I paint in vivid sounds,
the whimper of fear,
the screams of anguish,
grunts and sighs escaping
like whispered prayers
as you succumb.
I paint in vivid touch,
the bite of passion,
the burn of necessity,
each mark a reminder
like string on a finger
of how special you are.
You have transformed into a masterpiece:
grand, glittering, grim.
Only now do I feed.

Author’s Note: She’s not a monster, just an Artist.


Drabble: Prison Light – by Devin Miller

by specklit

Locked in a dungeon, it’s easy to forget you’re a wizard.

Daryn lost track of the days until something stung his eyes: sunbeams slanting through a high window. He hadn’t seen light in so long.

The next day the rays slanted lower, then lower still. The days grew longer, warmer. Finally, Daryn thought if he stood and stretched he could touch it.

His legs shook, but the sun on his palm made his heart pound. He remembered magic. They had suppressed his gift for too long.

He gathered some sunlight into his palm and threw it at his prison door.

Author’s Note: Incarcerating a wizard can be dangerous, especially when said wizard grabs hold of some hope.


Drabble: Mermaid’s Tears – by Richard Mark Ankers

by specklit

Lost in an ocean of mermaid’s tears, I gulped my final breath. Solitude took me, and I fell through eternity.

I drifted down like a leaf in a storm never sure of when or if I’d land. I lost all definitions of up and down as obsidian stole the blue and my dreams of a life on the seas faded like a morning mist.

They came for me like a swarm of mosquitoes. It was all true. The Mer were real. Did it justify my sabotaging the ship, the death of five hundred men? Frankly, I couldn’t have cared less.

Author’s Note: Men have obsessed over Mermaids for centuries. This piece asks the question would they value an answer over the lives of their own kind.


Drabble: Strange Horizons – by Maxine Kollar

by specklit

“I’m supposed to believe that the line between the earth and sky, that line, right there, is not real.”

Yes, I tell him, it’s just an illusion. The earth is round so there is no line.

“So if we get into this boat and go out to it, there’ll be nothing.”

Right, no line. Well, just another line further away because …

“Yeah, Yeah, the curve of the earth.”

We get in the boat. The things I do for my patients.

We speed across the water… to the line.

He lifts the sky, like a shade, and climbs through.

Author’s Note: Because, what are horizons anyway.


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