Flash Fiction Challenge: Game of Aspects, Redux

 Challenge is as always courtesy of the awesome Chuck Wendig and can be found here.

 My randomization gave me:

Subgenre: Technotriller (I had to look up what this is. I may or may not be influenced by the John Le Carre I’m currently reading.)

Setting: In the home of the Gods (Kinda rubbed me the wrong way, since I don’t like to get magic in my technology or the other way around, but that’s why it’s called a challenge.)

Element to include: A Magical Pocketwatch (Okay, so I never actually specify how the watch works. I call upon Clarke’s Third Law here.)

Since I like to recycle, Sophie is the same character as in my previous challenge. Oliver is most likely the man she reports to.

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“That’s where we’re going in,” said the man who called himself Oliver.

“The museum?” asked Sophie. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That place has armed guards and alarms and … did I mention the guards? With arms?”

“But we have this!” With a sweeping gesture he pulled a small metal object out from his inner pocket.

Sophie raised her eyebrows. “It’s a pocket watch.”

“It’s not a pocket watch.”

“Yes, it is.” Before he could do anything, she snatched it from him. “It doesn’t even work.”

“Give that back!”

She just turned away from him. “The seconds hand is just vibrating, but it’s not really moving. It’s like it out of batteries.” Through the glass she could see a lot of gears and cog, which all seemed to be vibrating without actually moving.

He managed to grab the watch and shot her a dirty look. “Would you please take this seriously?”

“I might, if you would deign to tell me, what this actually is.”

He hesitated.

She gave an exaggerated sigh.”Or I could just leave. I’m just a lowly informer, not a field agent; I can’t really see what use I could be to you anyway.”

He grabbed her wrist and held on with surprising strength. “Don’t go. I don’t have anyone else I can trust.”

“If you trust me, then …”

“I know. But I can’t explain it. You’ll have to see for yourself. I trust you. Will you promise to do the same and no freak out?”

“Freak out about what?”

He didn’t answer, but simply pressed the button than opened the pocket watch.

Sophie felt her whole body give a jolt, like you sometimes feel when you’re halfway between awake and sleeping. She felt herself falling and as the ground came up meet her, there was a bright light.

 

The bright light confused her. She had tried fainting before and she was sure that it usually went dark.

Then she felt someone gently shake her shoulder and opened her eyes to look at Oliver.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“For what? Did you hit me on the head or something?”

“What? No! Of course not!” Despite his words, he did look a little guilty, but Sophie figured that maybe he was just the type of guy who always looks guilty when you accuse him of something. He continued: “I had just forgotten how it feels the first time you try it.”

“Try what?”

Then she saw it. She was lying in front of the museum, where she had fallen. Except that the museum was now halfway transparent and there was something else behind it or rather occupying the same space. The only thing she could really compare it to, was the effect you get when you have a glass building and another building is reflected in it.

She started scrambling to her feet and barely noticed Oliver helping her up.

“What is this?” she asked. “Where are we?”

“We’ve slipped though time,” said Oliver.

She turned to stare at him. “So this is the future? Or the past?”

“No, we are still in the present. We are just chronologically out of synch with the rest of the world. And now we can get into that building, because it’s also out of synch.”

“Stop right there! You’re talking nonsense. I mean, how is that even possible?”

“It’s the very latest in technology,” said Oliver and started walking into the building so that she was following him before she even realized it.

The new building looked very high-tech with a lot of smooth black stone and dark glass. Oliver continued talking. “We’ve split the atom, we’ve invented the computers; I suppose it’s only logical that the next step would be, that we start to master time itself.” While still walking, he turned to look at her. “It could change the world more than all other inventions put together.”

“And that’s a good thing?” asked Sophie, trying to sound bright and optimistic, while dreading the answer.

Still walking, he completed the half turn so he was now walking backwards looking at her. “No. At least … I don’t think so.”

“Oh, right,” she replied gloomily.

“Time as a force is immensely powerful.” He turned around again, just in time to avoid walking backwards down a flight of stairs and started downwards.

Sophie hesitated for a moment, then she followed him, intrigued. “What are we doing here, then?”

He kept talking. “The man who told me about time, who gave me the time stopper, he also told me about this place.”

He didn’t mention what had happened to the man and Sophie didn’t ask.

“He said I couldn’t trust anyone in the government.”

“But you work for the government!”

A shrug. “That just made the warning easier to take seriously. Anyway, he told me to go here. That there’s someone here, outside time, who can help me.” The stair ended in a corridor, lit only by the light coming through an open door in the end. Oliver strode down it without pausing.

“Sounds like you have a plan. What do you need me for then?” Sophie had very bad night vision and walked uncertainly after him, unable to see her own feet.

He hesitated for a long time, long enough to make her very nervous. Finally he said: “If the someone we are here to meet, don’t like what I have to say, I might get killed. If that happens, I need you to take the watch, go back and continue the quest.”

“You have got to be kidding me!”

Sophie would have said a lot more, but they had reached the door in the other end of the corridor and were now standing at the edge of a great, circular room, all in white.

A woman stood in the door way. She wore a dress in Greek style and her hair was kept back with a headband decorated with an apple. Somehow Sophie didn’t think that this was a reference to the woman’s favourite brand of computers.

The woman smiled at them. It was a very pretty smile, but it wasn’t the least bit nice. “Hello,” she said. “I am Eris.”

Flash Fiction Challenge: Write What You Know

Challenge by Chuck Wendig and can be found here: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/02/15/flash-fiction-challenge-write-what-you-know/
My ‘genre’ is dystopic alternate reality.

All names, places and identifying details have of course been changed. That said, the conversation I had with the guy went down exactly like that. It’s always confused the hell out of me, that the paranoid types can’t figure out that talking about being watched and refusing to book a computer and other stunts like that, only makes them seem much more suspicious.

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”The clingy guy has a problem with the printer,” said Erin. “He says every time he tries to print, it blots out words.” She waved a piece of paper in front of Sophie, who looked at it. It was a printout of an email and the first sentence looked as if it should read ‘I have tried to’ except that there was a grey smear across the word ‘tried’. “You’re good with computers,” Erin continued, making puppy dog eyes.

Sophie sighed. “I’ll take a look.” As she walked though the library, she thought that she was sure, the guy was doing it himself, as a new way of getting attention. His last trick had been complaining that there was no sound on the computer, when he had in fact not plugged in his headphones, but they had caught on fast and stopped coming over to help him.

She found him, sitting at the computer and after a curt nod to him, she bent down – careful about not getting too close to him – to look at the email he had open. She saw nothing out of the ordinary on the screen.

“Try printing,” she said, watching him to make sure he didn’t do anything funny. When the printout came out of the computer, there was nothing. Sophie handed him the paper, suppressing her annoyance and was going to turn and leave, when the guy started talking.

He had a heavy accent and was talking fast, so she could hardly understand him, but she did catch the word ‘computer department’. She waited for him to finish, so she could explain to him, that she couldn’t report the error to the department, when she hadn’t been able to reproduce it. But then she caught some more words and it dawned on her that he was actually asking whether the computer department was censoring his email.

“Uh,” said Sophie, momentarily stunned into speechlessness.

The guy slowed down and she could understand him better. “Is your computer department reading my email?” he asked.

“Of course not,” said Sophie, who had bounced back quickly. After all, patrons with extreme paranoia were nothing new in the library. “Why would they edit out the word ‘tried’ in your mail? It makes no sense.” Of course, appealing to the common sense of someone with paranoia was a futile effort.

“They did in Boston,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her, which he may very well not have.

“Okay…” replied Sophie, and looked discreetly around for a colleague, who could come and save her, but there was no-one.

“And in Seattle. There, it was a director for the CIA. I asked him who he was and he said he was a director for the CIA.”

Nothing to do, except force an exit. “Now look. Our computer department is not reading or censoring your mail. Good day, sir.” She turned and walked away, now seriously annoyed.

She walked into the office, grabbed her phone from her bag and walked out to the bathrooms. After checking that all the stalls were empty, she went into the last one and locked the door behind her. She turned off her phone and removed the cover. Hidden underneath the battery was an extra simcard. She took out the simcard in the phone and replaced it with this one, before turning it on. Then she called the number saved on the card. The other end picked up after only one ring.

“Yes?”

“I think I have something. Some guy, wildly paranoid, convinced someone was messing with his mails.”

“Okay.” The man in the other end talked slowly as someone who was taking notes at the same time. “Do you think he could be a revolutionary?”

Sophie scoffed. “Don’t be silly. If he was, he wouldn’t be using our computers. He would most certainly not be talking openly about being under surveillance. At most he is a dissenter. But he might still have picked up something interesting. He certainly thought he knew something important.”

There was silence on the other end off the line, before the voice said. “Isn’t that a bit thin?”

“Maybe. But the last paranoid I reported panned out, didn’t he?”

Another silence. “He turned out to be a paedophile. It’s true that the police were very interested in what we dug up, but you have to admit that it was hardly in our interest.”

Now it was Sophie’s turn to be silent for a moment. When she spoke again, he voice was icy. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“All right, I’m sorry. Bad joke. Very bad joke.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. Look, give me his data and I’ll look into it. Today. I’ll look into it today.”

Sophie rattled off what she knew about the man, then ended the call. With a smile of grim satisfaction, she switched the simcards again and left the bathroom. She hoped they would find something on the man. If he disappeared completely, he would be done wasting her and her colleagues’ time.

Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Motif

Challenge is, a usual, courtesy of Chuck Wendig and can be found here. My random picks were: Blood as motif, Supernatural Romance as subgenre and A King’s Bedroom as setting. I had a lot of fun with it, even though I kinda had to cheat with the king’s bedroom thing and you’ll have to imagine that the romance hasn’t started yet.

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Flash fiction challenge – choose your motif

A wail pierced the peaceful summer afternoon. Ben turned and saw that the sound came from a small child – it was impossible to tell whether it was a boy or a girl – who had tripped and fallen. The child’s mother rushed to its side and pulled it to its feet. On the left knee small pinpricks of blood were visible and quickly growing, like rosebuds preparing to bloom. Then the blood was obscured from view, as the mother dabbed at the wound with a paper napkin.
Ben turned and went inside. The air-conditioning was cranked up to max and made him shiver after the warmth outside. He found a custodian, a woman who eyed him curiously as she showed him the way to the manager, Mr. North’s, office.
The office was even cooler than the rest of the building, yet Mr. North was sweating. He was a huge man, almost as wide as he was tall. He gave a grunt as he raised to offer Ben a wet handshake and another grunt as he almost fell down back in his chair.
He asked Ben to take a seat and then he stapled fat, ringed fingers and looked shrewdly at Ben over the tips. It was an appraising look, as if he tried to reconcile how Ben looked with what he was supposed to be.
It was a look Ben was used to, but it still made him move uncomfortably in the chair. He cleared his throat to break the silence, the ventured: “You have a ghost, I understand?”
Mr. North nodded slowly, the movement adding and subtracting double chins. Still he said nothing.
“The ghost of Elvis?” asked Ben in a lame attempt at a joke. The staring was making him sweat in spite of the cold.
Mr. North gave a grunt. “Of course not! If that had been the case, we could probably have made money of it. But we have no idea who this is.” He scratched a couple of his chins thoughtfully. “Those who have been closest to it, claims that it is the ghost of a women. Can’t give adequate reason for why they think so, mind you, but there you have it.”
Ben took out a notebook and a pen. “I will need to know, when the ghost was first observed.”
“It was first reported around two months ago, but one of the custodians claims that she had felt it before that. That there had been weird cold spots.”
Ben didn’t find this hard to believe, but he doubted whether it didn’t have more to do with the air conditioning. Still, he dutifully noted this information as well..
“I should like to see the haunted room,” he ventured.
Mr. North gave him a hard look, as if to say that he had expected this, but was not happy about it. Then he got to his feet and started waddling towards the door.
Ben followed him down the corridors, since there was no way they could walk side by side.
Mr. North stopped to catch his breath, then he pointed into a room. “There,” he wheezed. “Elvis Presley’s bedroom.” He made a grand gesture with his left hand, the right was clutching the door frame.
Ben went inside with a look that he hoped was suitably impressed. He scanned the room looking for anything out of the ordinary. “Was this where he died?”
Mr. North gave a snort and Ben turned around, worried that the stroll down the corridor had been too much for him. But the manager simply looked annoyed. “Of course not. He died in the bathroom. Don’t you know your history?”
Ben muttered something about this particular detail having slipped his mind and went back to looking around. There was nothing unusual to see, but there hardly ever were. He turned back to Mr. North. “You say that the ghost shows up at all times?”
Mr. North nodded. “At all times. If there’s any pattern to it, we have yet to discover it. But it’s almost always in this room.”
“There’s two possibilities; one is that the ghost is haunting the place where it died, but I suppose you would have told me if there had been any deaths in this room?”
“Of course.”
“The other is, that the ghost is haunting this room because it meant something to it, when it was alive. It might have come here often. Does this ring a bell with you?”
Mr. North mulled this over. “Can’t say that it do. We haven’t lost any custodians recently, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Ben nodded grimly. “I suppose there’s no way around it. I’ll have to spend the night.”
“What? Sleep in Elvis’ bedroom? Unheard of!
“I don’t plan to sleep,” answered Ben. He had started pulling out drawers and looking inside. I plan to stay wide awake and hopefully I’ll make contact with the ghost.” He looked up and smiled at Mr. North. “Find out what keeps it here. If I’m really lucky, the ghost and I can be out of your hair in a couple of days.”
Mr. North grumbled something, but finally he said. “All right. What do you need?”

Flash Fiction Challenge: Photos of Impossible Places

This is just me kicking about a character and some concepts from an idea I have. The prompt for the writing challenge can be found here: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/01/18/flash-fiction-challenge-photos-of-impossible-places/
And my chosen photo of a place was Tunnel of Love, Kleven.

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Amelia heard the roar of the engine, growing steadily louder and then there was the screech of the brakes as the train slowed down to stop at the platform.
There was movement in the crowd surrounding her, as people bent down to pick up their belongings and get ready to board the train.
She felt a push at her back, hard enough to send her stumbling a step forward. She was going to turn around and tell whoever it was, to be more careful, but another push hit her and sent her forward, screaming and with flailing arms, right in front of the train. The last sound she heard was the piercing note of the horn. Her last thought was, that it had been no accident. She had been pushed on purpose.
She thought she heard the click-clack sound, as the train went by. Then she realised that it was not a train, but the beat of her own heart. She opened her eyes. There was bright green above her, green on each side of her. She blinked a couple of times and the green became leaves on trees.
She got up and looked around. Where was she? She could see train tracks; they looked odd, running through a green tunnel like this, but the platform was nowhere to be seen and she was all alone.
Perhaps she was dead. She found the chilling thought hard to dismiss. This tunnel could lead to Heaven, although that didn’t make the train tracks seem less odd. Maybe the pastor was wrong about the state of the world, if enough souls were going to Heaven, that they needed trains to carry them in. She gave a small giggle, that ended in a sob. She didn’t want to go to Heaven, she wanted to go home.
She looked down both sides of the green corridor. Maybe one direction lead to Heaven and the other lead back to the world, but they both looked the same.
She looked from side to side again and almost jumped out of her skin. A woman stood just a few meters from her. She could not have come though the tunnel, Amelia would have seen her, and the greenery on either side was too dense to move through without making noise.
The woman – actually she looked more like a girl, though she was taller than Amelia – smiled at her. She hardly looked like an angel. She was wearing trousers and a sleeveless shirt, made of a shiny white material and decorated with two black stripes. The whole thing struck Amelia as being a bit indecent. “Are you an angel?” she blurted out.
The girl seemed slightly taken aback by the question. “No.”
“Then I’m not dead?”
“No, you’re not. There’s been a sort of accident and you’ve taken a fall though time.”
“Time?”
“About 20 years or so. Oh, and about half a mile east as well.” When Amelia only stared at her, she added: “Due to the movements of the Earth, you see.”
Amelia didn’t see. Not at all. But she nodded anyway. “How does one fall though time?” she asked.
The girl stapled her fingers with a serious expression. “Imagine a vinyl record.” She broke off and looked at Amelia with a frown. “You know what that is, right?”
“Of course,” Amelia answered, a little indignantly.
“Good. That’s the easiest way to explain it, you see. So you know, when you play a song on a vinyl record and the needle moves though the groove? But sometimes it skips back or ahead. That is what has happened to you.” She beamed a smile.
Amelia felt faint. “Oh,” was all she managed to answer. She looked around. “So this is the train track in 20 years time? It’s hard to imagine. It’s so beautiful.” She felt herself blush. “I thought it was a pathway to Heaven.”
“It’s a bit overwhelming, I know. But don’t worry. I’m here to take you home.”
“Home?” said Amelia, painfully aware that repeating everything like this, made her sound stupid. Then several thoughts struck her at once. “There was a train and I fell and … I can’t go home. Will I be dead? Someone pushed me! I can’t go home just yet.” She ended on a pleading note.
The girl cocked her head to one side. The smile was gone, making her look older and – strangely enough – kinder. “You won’t be dead. The train passes over you, but doesn’t hit you.”
Amelia wrung her hands. “But someone pushed me in front of the train. I don’t know who. Or why. Can’t you tell me who would want to kill me?”
A wind had picked up, making the leaves rustle. Outside the tunnel, the sun came out and its light, filtered through the leaves of the overhead branches, made a pattern of green on the face of the girl.
“I can’t tell you,” the girl said. “And even if I could, you won’t remember anything of our conversation. You wont even remember coming here.”
“But I …”
“You will have to find the answers to your questions yourself, same as everyone else.”
Amelia looked at the pattern of light and shadow on the girls face and thought that she did actually look like an angel; a cool and distant seraph. “Will you at least tell me your name,” she asked. “Even if I won’t remember it.”
The girl told her her name.
Amelia heard the click-clack sound as the train went over her, the squeal of the brakes. She opened her eyes, but got dust in them and had to close them again. Strangely, she was not afraid. Just lie still, she told herself. The train will pass over you and you will be fine. She didn’t know how, she just knew it.

Flash Fiction Challenge: Spin the Wheel

The prompt for the challenge can be found here: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/01/04/flash-fiction-challenge-spin-the-wheel/

My specific prompts, chosen randomly, were:
Subgenre: Superhero
Setting: On the surface of a comet
Must Feature: Magical foodstuff

The comet roared towards Earth. In about five minutes it would enter the plants atmosphere and begin to burn, but for now, it was still relatively safe to stand on and she enjoyed the ride. Sanjay smiled in anticipation of the death toll and the chaos that would follow. It would be …
“Stop this dastardly deed, you villain!” boomed a voice behind her.
Sanjay turned.
Behind her stood a masked man. He was dressed in a green and silver costume with the underpants on the outside, the mark of superheroes everywhere. He wasn’t wearing any kind of spacesuit so she guessed that he was protected by a forcefield and that he had some kind of magnetic shoes, that allowed him to stand on the comet. Pretty standard equipment really.
She lifted an eyebrow, almost always the gesture of a supervillian and said: “And who might you be?”
The masked man straightened a bit. “I … am Noodle Man.”
She frowned. “I can’t say I ever heard … Wait, it does ring a bell. You got your powers from eating a bowl of noodles.”
“Yeah. Are you gonna make something of it?”
“Why would I? I’ve heard of worse ways to get your powers, than from radioactive foodstuff.”
The air seemed to go out of him. He rubbed the back of his neck. “They were magical noodles. But, yeah, I suppose so. I just get a lot of …But this isn’t about me.” He cleared his throat and spoke again in the booming voice. “You will no succeed with your evil plan, for I, Noodle Man, am here to stop you!”
“Oh, yeah? What are you going to do?”
“I am going to stop you, of course.”
“Yes, but how? Just announcing that you plan to do so, isn’t going to get the job done, you know?”
He didn’t answer. His hand started moving towards the back of his neck again, but he caught himself and jerked it back down.
She sighed impatiently. “You’re really not very good at this, are you?”
“Well, it’s my first real …”
“Just barging in like this, without having any idea what you’re going to do, is going to get you laughed at, more than having a stupid origin story ever could. Honestly! At least you could have sneaked up on me, rather than yelling about your intent.”
Noodle Man had red spots on his cheeks under the mask, from anger or embarrassment; she guessed a combination of both.
“There’s no reason to be rude, you know! I’m doing my best!”
“Well, your best isn’t good enough!”
“Oh and I suppose you got everything right the first time, when you decided to become a supervillain, little Miss Perfect!”
“I didn’t have to. It was enough, that I could make all the heroes do even worse than me.”
“And another thing … Wait, what do you mean by that?”
She stared at him incredulously. “Don’t tell me that you decided to go after a supervillain without even researching what her powers are?”
“Well, I …”
“That’s not just stupid, that’s pants-on-backwards-stupid!”
“There wasn’t exactly time, you know! I was told that a giant comet was hurtling towards Earth and that I was the only one free to stop it. I didn’t pause to check wikipedia. But what are your powers then?”
She smirked. “Self-doubt. As in, the ability to inflict it on others.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Oh,” she replied. She looked over her shoulder at the controls. Still about a minute until the comet entered Earth’s atmosphere. Then, out of idle curiosity, she asked: “What are your powers?”
“Distraction.”
Her eyebrows went up in actual surprise. “Distraction?”
“Yes, distraction. As in, I come barging in shouting and waving my arms and then people feel compelled to look at me and talk to me, while my partner gets into position and take them out with a ranged weapon, from a safe distance. She doesn’t have any super powers by the way, she’s just a really good shot.”
Sanjay’s throat had suddenly gone dry. “Oh,” she managed to croak.
Noodle Man nodded. “Oh,” he agreed.
Then the shot hit her in the back and everything went black.

Flash Fiction Challenge: The War on Christmas

Link to Flash Fiction Challenge.

Marcus looked over his shoulder one last time, to check that he hadn’t been followed, before knocking on the battered door.
Almost immediately, he heard a voice ask: “What’s the password?”
“Down with the Red Menace,” said Marcus.
He heard clangs of bolts being shot back, then the door opened just a crack. The light coming from inside meant that the person peering out could see Marcus, while he couldn’t make out anything except an outline and a pair of eyes reflecting the dim red and green searchlights from the blimps high above them.
The outline reached out a hand, grabbed Marcus’ arm and yanked him inside. Probably not a moment too soon. Before the door slammed shut behind him, he thought he heard the sound of sleigh bells.

He found himself in a small room, at least as battered at the door had been. He noticed that there were no windows and as far as he could see, only one door. The room was lit by multiple oil lamps made of clay, which gave off a lot of smoke. Silent figures, sitting or leaning against a wall, looked at him darkly. No one said anything.
The doorkeeper was a blond woman with a fierce look, at least a foot lower than him, but if her grip on his arm had been anything to go by, he shouldn’t underestimate her strength.
She looked him up and down, then walked once around him. Finally she beckoned for him to bend forward. When he did, she grabbed his ears and ran her fingers all over them, checking for surgical scars.
“His ears are ok,” she said, letting go of him. Her voice, when not heard through a door, was soft.
“Don’t you think I’m a bit too tall to be an elf, anyway,” he asked in a joking voice.
From the scalding look the small woman sent him, he knew at once that it had been the wrong joke to make.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
One of the persons along the wall, an elderly man, got up slowly. “Don’t look at him like that, Sara,” he said. “You’ll scare the young man right out of here and it’s not safe right now.”
He looked at Marcus, a twinkle in his eyes, and extended his hand. “I’m Jeremy,” he said.
“Marcus,” said Marcus, feeling relieved. “I heard about you … I mean, I want to join. The war. I want to join the war against Christmas.”
Jeremy nodded. “Good lad. But one thing at a time. Come meet the others.” He gestured towards the small, blond door keeper. “This is my granddaughter Sara.”
Sara reached out a hand and he shook it. He tried to impress her with firm grip, but he doubted if he succeeded.
One by one, the rest of the people at the wall came forward to shake his hand and mutter their names. A few were too weak to stand and he went round and greeted them lastly.

“Now,” said Jeremy, rubbing his hands together with a satisfied look, “let me tell you about our plan for tonight. Perhaps you would care to join.”
“No,” Sara broke in. “You can’t just let people walk in through the door and then start to tell them all about what we do. It’s bad enough that he knows where we hide. Even if he’s not an elf, he could be a spy.”
Jeremy gave her a serious look. “Sara, I’ve told you time and again, when I’m gone and you’re the leader, you get to make the calls. But right now, I’m in charge and I trust this young man.”
Sara didn’t answer, but her lips tightened.
Her grandfather continued: “You have your ways of checking people and I have mine.” He turned back to Marcus. “I am sorry about this. Sara just wants to keep us all safe. It has nothing to do with you personally.”
Marcus ventured a glance at Sara’s disapproving look and wondered if the old man was right about the last part.

A table was placed in the middle of the room and a map of the city laid out on it. It was an old map, edited by hand to show how the city had changed.
A woman, Marcus thought she had introduced herself as Lily, started placing pins in map to show what areas were taken over by the Reds and Marcus followed this with interest. About two thirds of the city was taken over by the enemy. The third that was left consisted mostly of empty buildings and bomb craters. Their hideout was right on the border of the enemy territory.
Jeremy pointed. “We strike tonight and we strike here,” he said and pointed.
Marcus looked at the place he marked and gasped.
Jeremy nodded. “We strike at the very heart of them. I won’t lie to you or anyone else. It is a very risky operation, with a slim chance of success.” He sighed and suddenly seemed weighed down with worries. “But for the last years, we have barely been more than an annoyance to them. Killing an elf here, blowing up a toy making factory there. And far too many of us have become zombies and now roam the streets, moaning and jingling.”
There was a sad mutter of agreement from the rest of the group.
“The price has been too high and the result has been almost invisible,” continued Jeremy. “But maybe we are lucky and our feeble resistance has convinced the Reds that we are no threat. If that is the case, we have a real chance of taking them by surprise. And out target will not be the hordes of zombies or lowly elves.” He stood up straight, seeming younger and stronger than before. “We will take out Santa himself and put an end to Christmas, once and for all.”

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Last 1000 Words Of An Non-Existent Novel

[Author's notes: Challenge courtesy of the always wonderful Chuck Wendig and can be found here. This is last chapter of a story, I am currently doing some brainstorming and outlining on. Basically it's about the world and the people behind mirrors and how they attack the real world. This is how I think it's going to end for two of my main characters (both real people], although I’ll try to make it more dramatic when the time comes. And, yeah, they don’t have names yet; I’m really bad at coming up with names.]

He looked at her wearily. He had aged in the last days – oh god, had it really only been days? “I have done everything you asked me,” he said. “I’ve fought for you, risked my life for you. Now we’ve won. There’s nothing more for you to ask of me. So tell me, have I earned your forgiveness or not? Because if not, then I don’t see how I ever could.”

Her blue eyes were as piercing as ever and he felt it as if she saw straight through him. “You’re wrong,” she said. “There’s one more thing you can do and that you’ll have to do, if you me to forgive you.”

He was confused. “Anything,” he muttered.

She turned and pointed at the mirror. “Go back in. Stay there when I close the gate.”

“You can’t ask me to … You’ve seen what the other side is like!”

“I can ask you to do anything I damn well please!” she yelled back.

“You’re not thinking clearly. You don’t mean it.”

“I’ve never meant anything more. The second worst day of my life was when you re-entered it. I don’t have to remind you which day was the worst, do I?”

He looked down, unable to meet her gaze. “Of course not.”

“I want to make sure that I will never meet you again. That no matter where I go, I never have to fear that I will look up and you’ll be there. I want you out of my life, forever. You should be happy I didn’t ask you to kill yourself.”

“It might have been kinder if you had,” he replied.

“Will you do it?” She tried to sound haughty, but there was a pleading note in her voice.

“I said I’d do anything, didn’t I? If this really is, what you want me to do, I’ll do it. I’m just worried that you might regret it later.”

“I won’t.” The anger seemed to have left her. Now she sounded as weary as he felt.

He stepped towards the mirror. Any hesitation might end with him loosing courage. “You just keep your end of the bargain and forgive me.”

“I will.” She made no move, but just watched him as he stepped up to the mirror. He looked out the window to get a last look at the stars. They were cold, distant and they seemed the only thing that hadn’t changed in the last few days.

He turned away from the window and towards the mirror. One more step and he would be through it.

He head a sound from behind, something like a scream that was muffled almost instantly. He spun around and saw her looking at him, She had a hand over her mouth and her eyes over it were big and frightened.

“I saw her,” she whispered.

He noticed that in her other hand she was clutching the small mirror.

“Of course,” he said slowly. “She died on the other side. Of course she would come back as soon as you looked into a mirror.” He smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. She can’t get out.”

“You don’t know that.” Both her hands dropped to hang limply at her side.

“You’re going to smash the mirror, the only gateway there is. Of course she won’t be able to get out.”

“But she’s so clever. She knows how the first mirror was build, she’ll make another or she’ll tell someone else and they’ll make it.”

“I’ll kill her before she gets the chance.”

“And the next time I pass a mirror, what then? Do you intend to kill her over and over and over again?”

“If I must.”

“It won’t work and you know it. I can’t always avoid mirrors and you can’t guard her at all times.”

“Then don’t stay away from mirrors. Always carry one with you, that way she’ll always be trapped.”

She smiled. A sad little smile. “No, I would be trapped. One night of darkness and she would be freed.”

“Then what is it you want me to do? Say it and I’ll do it, you know it.”

She stepped towards him. “Not you.” Another step. “Me.” Good god, she wasn’t walking towards him, she was walking towards the mirror.

He grabbed her hand. “Don’t. Don’t do it. We’ll find another way.”

“It has to be like this and you know it. It’s the only way to be sure.” She shook off his hand, not unkindly and smiled at him. “And this way, I still get what I want. A world without you in it.”

“I’m begging you …”

“Smash the mirror as soon as I’m through, and do it properly. Get rid of the pieces also, somewhere dark.” She took one careful step into the mirror, then another and its surface shimmered and closed behind her, like water closing over a diver.

Behind the mirror she turned to look at him and for a moment it seemed like his reflection was that of a young woman. She raised her hand, really in greeting this time and waved once. He waved back. Then she turned around and strode away from the mirror, towards the door in the end of the mirror room. He saw her open it and automatically turned to look at the door behind him, but that was still closed. When he turned back again, she was gone and the door in the mirror was closed as well. It could have been a completely ordinary reflection, of not for the fact that he was missing in it.