October 27, 2023
hughjodonnell
Everyday Drabbles, Free Fiction
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction
The Super Market has everything you could every want, if you can pay. Laser eyes, for the price of control. The power of flight at the cost of a fear of closed spaces. Lightning speed in exchange for a mother’s love. Everything must balance.
But these are all trinkets, compared to the real bargain: The power to never die and never grow old. As long as they love you, you will live forever. But this demands the highest price of all. You become a story with no end: Never changing, never growing. To stay yourself for good or ill forever.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
October 25, 2023
hughjodonnell
Everyday Drabbles, Free Fiction
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Inktober
We decided to take a shortcut home through the graveyard. We’d been warned it was dangerous, of course, but what better night than Halloween?
The path was lit by the light of the full moon through the skeletal branches, and leaves crunched under our feet as we held hands. We felt a thrill, but no fear as we passed the stone markers of our antecedents.
We didn’t even know about the escaped killer until the next day, when they found his body hidden in the bushes, trampled to death and surrounded by skeletal footprints.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
October 23, 2023
hughjodonnell
Everyday Drabbles, Free Fiction
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Inktober
They found the dagger resting in a pile of treasure, it’s ruby-studded cap glinting in the torchlight. The thief, captivated, reached out to take it but the mage stopped his hand.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit too easy?”
“Don’t be such so paranoid,” he said. “It ain’t trapped, I checked.”
After that, the thief always carried it with him, and the rest of the party noticed a dramatic shift in his personality. The cleric was certain he was cursed, but he was so deadly with the new blade that they let the matter rest.
Until it was too late.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
October 22, 2023
hughjodonnell
Everyday Drabbles, Free Fiction
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Inktober
They had worked on the original creation, and were immensely proud of it. For millions of years, the divine forces of light, heat and gravity interacted in a vast cosmic dance predictable down to the second. It was good.
Until suddenly, the universe wasn’t quite spinning properly. Something had been added.
That was how they found out about life.
The work hadn’t been enough. The Creator had to go and add to it, infesting the universe with teeming objects that behaved unpredictably and upset the clockwork perfection of their universe.
They’d expunged it from three planets before they were caught.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
October 21, 2023
hughjodonnell
Elanterra Journal, Everyday Drabbles
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Inktober
We found the chains in the back corner of the basement behind the broken tables, the crushed instruments, and the bloody mess of the body. They were two inches thick, nearly impossible to lift, and shattered in three places.
“You figure he was doing some kind of weird experiments down here?” My partner asked, gingerly avoiding the minefield of broken glass. He was staring at the victim, if the word could be applied.
“Looks that way,” I said. “But where’s whoever, or whatever he was experimenting on?”
I felt hot breath on the back of my neck. I turned around.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
October 20, 2023
hughjodonnell
Everyday Drabbles, Free Fiction
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Inktober
The castle was his life’s work. He’d been an apprentice mason when the baron had ordered it’s construction, and they began by building the keep from the existing stones of an old Roman ruin, incorporating the mound beneath into a defensive hill.The initial construction had taken ten years, through which he had risen from apprentice to master. The rest of his life had been dedicated to expanding the site, adding walls, gatehouses, moats and outbuildings.Finally, he was finished. He passed his tools down to his sons and retired.He heard the cannons attack the walls the next day.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
October 18, 2023
hughjodonnell
Everyday Drabbles, Free Fiction
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Halloween Drabbles, Inktober
“Please,” the baker said. “You have to help me. She died in the night…”
The necromancer frowned and looked down at the jar in his hands. It was an interesting case, and he had brought back smaller creatures before, but yeast?
“I will try, but necromancy isn’t a miracle. I can bring it back, but it won’t be unchanged.”
“The taste shouldn’t be effected. I just need it to last long enough to make a new sourdough starter. A few days.”
The necromancer coaxed the dead yeast into rising again, but all the baker could create with it was unbread.
October 6, 2023
hughjodonnell
Everyday Drabbles, Free Fiction
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Halloween Drabbles
He looked forward to this time of year, even though he hated it.
When the weather changed, he was always itchy and uncomfortable, and his skin no longer felt like his own. He felt trapped within it, like a sausage with too much filling.
But it was always a relief when he finally burst out and felt the cool air again. And he was always a little bit different. His limbs were longer, or bent differently, or he’d grown a new appendage. He was still a growing boy.
The other children in his school always made such a fuss, though.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
October 5, 2023
hughjodonnell
Everyday Drabbles, Free Fiction
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Halloween, Halloween Drabbles
Every night, she dreamed the same dream. But when she woke up in the morning, the memory of it vanished, leaving only a recurring sense of unease.
She tried to explain to her therapist how certain she was that every night she was experiencing the same nightmare. But she could never remember a single thing about when she woke up, coloring her days with dread and frustration.
That night, she found herself again trying to explain her dream, and realized, just like every night, that this was the nightmare.
She was unable to tell if she was asleep or awake.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
October 4, 2023
hughjodonnell
Everyday Drabbles, Free Fiction
Drabble, Everyday Drabbles, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Free Fiction, Halloween Drabbles
“I know that she’s an angel,” I whispered into the phone. “I don’t think she knows I know.”
My rabbi made a non-committal noise. “In some ways, anyone who does God’s work is an angel,” she offered.
“I just hoped you’d have some advice.”
“If you love this woman, you should tell her how you feel and trust in God.”
“Thanks,” I said, not really meaning it.
My girlfriend poked her head out of the kitchen. She was enveloped in holy radiance and ringed by burning eyes.
“I don’t feel like cooking tonight. How does pizza sound?”
“Good,” I sad.
The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!
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Hugh J. O'Donnell 