Hugh J. O'Donnell

With every fiber in his being, he reached towards the light. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it, the warm glow of sunlight above him.
He felt the dirt and soil that buried his feet, imprisoning him.
He remembered being a man, lost in the witch’s forest. He remembered the horrifying transformation as skin became bark and arms became branches.
He didn’t sense the witch as she walked her orchard, reinforcing the spell she’d placed on the trees. It was cruel to make them believe they’d once been human, but it shaped them better than any topiary saw.

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The screen on the wall of my cell chimed. I ran a hand through my hair and tried to make myself as presentable as possible before standing in the square painted on the floor.
A cheerful young woman, prerecorded, appeared on the screen.
“Welcome to Digital Defense. Brought to you by eJustice and the State of Wisconsin! Your testimony is about to begin. Do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth? Press ‘Yes’ to continue. Otherwise, press ‘No.’ Your Incarceration Specialist will provide further instructions.” I thumbed the green box and waited for the first question.

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That the Leviathan of the Canals existed was taken as given by the people of the city. They used the creature to explain every capsized gondola and the occasional large iridescent scale that washed up on the quayside.
They held the annual Leviathan Boat Parade and put the creature’s supposed image on anything they could sell to tourists. Never mind that almost nobody in the city had ever seen the beast.
But she had. She went to their secret gathering spot and wondered who had dropped the first one in the canal, not realizing goldfish grow to fit their containers.

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The Head Librarian conducted the tour for the new intern with perfunctory boredom. The girl was rapt. The Great Library was overwhelming, But the last room was something altogether different.
Rows of desks housed brass display terminals, each with a typewriter-like keyboard underneath. In the room’s center, a knobby iron sphere sat humming in a tangle of wires and tubes.
“What’s that?” She asked breathlessly.
“This is the Comprehensive Encyclopedic Engine. It communicates with the Central Information Hub and can answer any question. It will be your job to make sure the homeless guys aren’t looking up porn on it.”

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The junior diplomat clicked her claws in frustration as she read over her new assignment again. She had been from one end of the galaxy to the other and served the Alliance on a dozen worlds, but the Anomurians and the Cyclidae at least looked normal.
Now she was assigned to a backwater planet where the dominant lifeforms weren’t even decopoid. Instead of following its normal course, evolution on the planet had favored a species of hairy, paranoid, ape-like maniacs.
She scuttled into her supervisor’s office. She had to find a way to be assigned anywhere but the planet Earth.

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The witch took my hand and led me through her garden. She brought me through a maze of twisting, thorny hedges to a still rectangular pool.
“This is the Pool of Possibility. It can show you the person you would be today if you had chosen differently. Gaze into the water and see the person you might have been and could still be.”
I looked down at the water. “That’s just me wearing a new hat.”
“Some people possess a greater capacity for change than others,” she replied.
My reflection tipped his hat. I had to admit he looked good.

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The portal opened and he stepped out onto thin air. The early-morning streets were nearly empty, and still damp from last night’s rain. His arrival went unnoticed. This wasn’t a world where people looked up.
He had chosen his destination carefully. This version of Earth was sad and gray. It had no monsters, aliens, or demigods. There weren’t any heroes. Nobody would stand in his way.
His powers were harder to use here, and if he wasn’t careful he might lose them altogether. But the prize was worth the cost.
Better to rein in Hell, he thought and got started.

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Quincy tromped up the ramp of his uncle’s barge and stowed his duffle below decks. He was about to spend another summer working on his uncles’ boat, ferrying passengers and goods up the Dragontail River and through the Singing Plains.
They’d ply the waters of the floating canals, trading rice for salt in the Dwarven Mountains, passing through the ancient Elven Forest of Lamps. They’d stop in Piketown and Warlocksburg, and probably take a detour to Port Crystal if they made good time.
Just like last year and the year before. Quincy sighed. He was going to be so bored.

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The old baker watched his new apprentice knead dough with a guarded expression. The kid was good. He worked hard and never complained about the hours. But something bothered him. “What made you pick up the trade?” He asked.
The bell on the front door tinkled, even though it should’ve been locked. The kid grinned.
“Baking is the expression of consequence. You make something and you see how it turns out.”
The baker reached under the counter and found the hidden gun. He didn’t know how they found him after all these years, but he wouldn’t go without a fight.

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The god towered over the village, their massive frame blocking out the sun, their brilliance lighting the sky. Radiance fell from the tips of their horns. Their footsteps shook the earth. Flocks of birds sheltered beneath their wings.
The villagers watched in terror and ecstasy as their diety approached. Some of them knelt in supplication. Some sang songs of praise and thanks. Some laid a carpet of flowers for their feet. Some of them cowered, not daring to look upon them.
The god sighed. There had to be a better way to nip over to borrow a cup of sugar.

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