hiccoughing

Rose is sitting on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest. It's cold. The power has gone out again. (At least that thrice-damned vacuum cleaner has stopped.) She blames Mother, of course. Everything's Mother's fault. Snow is falling softly on the windowsill outside. It's dark, but the clouds obscure the stars. There's a candle burning on her desk; for atmosphere, she'd explained when she asked for the candles. You understand, Mother. I'm a writer. I take such things seriously. An overdramatic sigh. Of course, my dearest heart. Whatever you wish. Do take care not to set anything aflame. Said sarcastically, distanced, aloof. Far, far away

It was an unseasonably cold January morning, and my watch had stopped about ten minutes ago. Florida has always been one of the places I hate the most. The year was 1986, or to be a little more specific, 01986. In actuality there are any number of leading zeros, but usually we try to be as concise as possible. But I digress. It was unseasonably cold for a  January, and that should have been my first clue that something was up. To folks of my kind, weather extremes spell disaster with a capital D.  That or promotion, with a minuscule p. We take what we can get. Allow me to take a moment to explain to you what I mean by "folks of my kind".

He gasps. Looks around. Red everywhere. His blood everywhere. The sword. The sword! It's gone. There are fireflies. There are fireflies like stars and stars like fireflies, and one thing or another is coming down and nearly drowning in the red. Taking it away. They're going back into the sky where they belong. The name Serenity comes to his cloudy mind for some reason. He's dressed in gold and he's in a field of white and black. A giant chessboard. Clouds. Lots of clouds. He's glowing. They can see him. He doesn't know this, but they're looking up at Skaia and it's glowing with the radiance an Heir deserves. Bewildered. They all are.

The snow fell heavy, like eggs dropped from the top of a high-rise building, and John was dying. Dave'd known that this one was a doomed timeline, of course; he'd been aware of that from the beginning, or near enough to the beginning, anyway, but it still stung a little to see the kid lying there staining the snow bright fuckin' red. He glanced over at John for the millionth time. The tall, bare trees of the Land of Frost and Frogs pointed down at him with judgmental fingers. Fuck you, they said. You're going to let him die again, you insufferable prick. Although he'd never understood why it had to be his sword that the Chump of Shoosh got

I deserve this I deserve this. It's all Sollux can think as the immense thing slides its oilslick-black tentacles up the back of his shirt. It's cold. Everything feels cold. He can't feel anything but cold, cold. No I don't I don't. I don't want to die I don't want to die. "Let go of me." It's not letting go of him. If anything the tentacles grip him tighter, squeezing the air out of his lungs. Trying to crush him. Almost succeeding. Very, very nearly succeeding. "Fine, don't let go. See if I care. Maybe I've had it with your stupid Tangle Buddies bullshit anyway," he coughs. His blue-and-red vision is going fuzzy around the edges. There

My dearest █████, What's he building in there? What the hell is he building in there? I've heard the question asked many, many times, but never before now have I had the motivation to answer it. Even you, my darling, have asked it, but that was before I knew what I was building. I don't intend to be terse about it, but I regret all those times when we saw each other on the street and I never waved to you. I was being cautious. One can never know who is watching, watching with keen eyes. I will apologise for the hurried manner in which this epistle has been written; I'm in rather a rush, you see. I shall attemp

 For a very short time the numbers and I had a truce.   They sat across the room from me, glaring as coldly as the icicles that stabbed into the freezing air outside. They were drinking hot-bitter tea and blinking their beetle-black eyes.   Emotionless.   My calculator was swinging its legs over the edge of the cherrywood coffee table, singing softly to itself. It had gone slightly mad when Calculus had turned up unannounced the other day.   The walls were stained black with Calculus' ilk; with pi and e, with triangular numbers, with a thousand years of theorems and postulates.   "Geometry," the numbers said curtly, perfectly synchr

   It was the first time he'd killed anything bigger than his hand.   The coyote lay at his feet. He'd dropped the .410 and ran to the thing when he'd heard its dying yip sail out over the field.   He'd shot it through the eye. Ma'd probably cook it if it took it home fast enough.   It was bleeding all over the place, though. Bleeding on the snow, melting it red; and on his boots; and all over the ground. If those boots were any thinner there would be blood on his socks.   He'd be twelve next week, and Ma'd said it was high time a young boy like him learned the value of a life. So she sent him into the back field with lunch and the .4