Bee-Box

Webfic Challenge: Write something off the cuff for 15 minutes. 

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The bee buzzed through the field, scanning for anything particularly interesting to inspect. Among the purple flowers, it saw the usual sources of pollen and nectar, but in the distance, beyond where its sight could usually stretch, it saw a deep red pulsing.

Ancient instincts stirred in its primitive nervous system. The pulse of light drew it in, a shade of crimson unlike any it had encountered before, were it able to remember. It alighted on the source of the glow, a plastic box that felt strange to its simple senses.

The box buzzed beneath it, a deep hum more felt than heard. In its mind, the bee felt a stirring. Something was forming, a notion, a thought, an idea beyond its simple desire for food and resources. Visions swam before its simple eyes, more complex than anything it had seen before. It had not the capacity to realize that what it saw was not truly there, but uncanny impulses in its mind.

It saw a distance it could not grasp. A field of endless darkness, broken by points of light, some clustered in strange spirals. It saw the growing illumination of one such source of light. As it neared, huge round shapes appeared from the darkness, streaked with all manner of colors, reflecting the shine of the ever growing light. And then, one such shape, blue and green and brown, streaked with white, loomed before it.

The vision continued forward, the new colorful sphere growing and growing as it came ever closer. Soon, it was so large that it engulfed the entire field of view. And as it neared, the darkness broken with specks of light faded away into a deep, glowing blue. Down and down the vision went, towards a patch of green. The color was solid at first, but become more complex as it neared, revealing specks of other colors. The vision flew fast, and the field overcame the vision entirely. The bee, in its limited awareness, understood that the vision had struck the ground.

For the briefest of moments, it was aware. It was aware of the box beyond being just a thing stuck to the ground. It was aware that the ground stretched far longer than it could have ever conceived, if it had even once thought about it. It was aware, suddenly, of what it was, and of the scale of its existence. Beneath it, the box hummed and glowed, and the bee felt itself begin to do something it had never done before. It began to remember…

And then, something cold and wet smacked into its back. Around it, small pattering sounds could be heard. Water. Falling. Rain. The bee flapped its wings in a panic and zipped into the air, knowing it had to find shelter. It would have to return to the… the what? Return? To the hive? No, not the hive, to something… red? Red… flower? Flower. Pollen. Food. No! Wet! Rain! Shelter! Then pollen, then… then it’s train of thought dissolved into the primitive instincts that had guided it and it’s hive all this time.

Behind it, the box’s hum faded to silence. Its glow died to nothing. All was still, save for the rain.

Elemental Keys Redux #01

Episode One: “Earth Blues”

1.

Spring was a time of summer bloom and the start of romance.  New sports seasons, outdoors activities, the shedding of coats and the melting of snow.  It was a rejuvinating season for many, especially if one was young.  Mandi wasn’t much in the mood for excitement these days, though.

As the tall, fair skinned woman walked home, her long blond hair waving in the breeze, she sighed wistfully.  Time was, not even five years ago, she’d be like those kids in the park she was passing; hanging out with friends, throwing frisbees, waklign a dog, doing something to enjoy the weather.  It didn’t matter these days, though.  She was a working girl now, having graduated last Spring with an Geology major.  What did she have to show for it?  She was a librarian.  Whoopity-hoo.  Despite applying for multiple lab assistant positions and even some museum posts, she had nothing.  There just weren’t enough jobs that had anything to do with her field, and the positions that had been open had been filled up by more qualified people.  Or at least people that seemed more qaulified.

Mandi shook her head, dispensing any negative thoughts.  She was sure the people who got the jobs deserved it.  It was just aggrivating that she had gotten beat out so quickly.  At that point, the only options in her area of specialty were to move out of town and try and get into a university, or become a teacher at the local college.  She didn’t particularly relish either idea.  Still, the librarian gig wasn’t doing anything to fullfill her either.  She’d probably end up being a teacher soon anyway.  Its not that the idea seemed all that bad, its just that she had already been through five years of college to get her degree.  She wasn’t eager to return to the school life.

She stopped her walk to watch some children playing catch with a few of their dogs.  She envied their carefree nature a bit.  She was glad she was an adult; unlike most of her friends in college, she made the transition from childhood angst to adult responsibilty pretty quickly; she had hated being a kid, with all its restrictions.  She had been very eager to grow up, and to that end, had matured quickly, taking on responsibility with astonishing success, and being determined to be an independant woman by the time she was out of college.

Looking back on it now though… she sometimes wondered how much of her youth she might have wasted being a little too uptight.  Now, she was out of college, she had a job that paid well enough, and living on her own.  But now that she had achieved that, there wasn’t much else in her life now.  All her friends had jobs of their own; several already had families.  No one seemed to have time to go out and have fun.  Half of them had to work overtime just to provide for their new families, or were too caught up in the promise of quick promotion and threw themselves into their work.

Dream Wars #01

Just don’t look in its eyes.  You’ll go mad if you look into its eyes.

Jason swallowed hard as he looked upon the shadowy figure below.  It was hard to make out, actually, despite the fact that it’s shadowy form contrasted sharply with the pale concrete below.  Its edges were blurry and the whole thing seemed to ripple as it moved, making it hard to look at.  It had limbs, that much he could see.  But whether it was bipedal or walked on all… however many legs it had, he couldn’t really tell.  From the darkness, two pale yellow dots glowed in a bulge he presumed to be its head.  These orbs whipped to and fro, quickly searching for something.  Jason knew that looking into its eyes wouldn’t actually cause him to go insane… but to lock eyes with a creature like this gave him a sense of horror, a feeling that made his gut drop through the ground and his skin break out in sweat.  He tried not focus on its eyes.  This, of course, was nearly impossible, as its eyes were the only distinct feature on its body; when you looked at it, you couldn’t help but focus on its eyes.

So, rather than look at the creature, Jason took a quick look at his surroundings.  A moment ago, he had been looking over the edge of a rocky cliff, watching the creature wade through a sea of tall green prairie grass.  But the scenery had shifted suddenly.  The drastic, but always spotaneous change of setting was still a bit unsettling to Jason, now that he was aware of it.  It was true, what his new teammates said.  Being an Enlightened Dreamer didn’t make dreams easier to understand; it only mde you more aware of how surreal they were.

Now the area looked like an old rural town, with houses covered in wooden shingles, and roofs made of thatched straw.  The streets were a smooth, pale concrete, though.   The sky was a pale blue; there was no sun, and yet the area was lit up like day.  The alleys were still shaded, but this was mainly indicated by the fact that everything in an alley seemed to be colored darker than everything that was in the open.  It gave the illusion of shading, despite the fact that the light shown equally on everything.

In the streets, in an open area that looked like the town square, people flitted to and fro.  Many were fuzzy and indistinct.  Many hardly had any features at all, but, unlike the creature he was pursuing, Jason could tell they were supposed to be human.  In some cases, the people had distinct faces or clothing if nothing else.  Jason didn’t recognize anyone, but that hardly surprised him.  This wasn’t his dream after all.