Hugh J. O'Donnell

Every year on his birthday, he would buy himself a mirror. He took each one home and spent an hour staring into his reflection. First, he’d memorize the person he was at that moment. Then he’d meditate on where he’d been and was going in life.
Then he would carefully wrap the mirror, label it precisely, and store it in his attic.
His friends believed it to be an affectation. But whenever he felt lost and directionless, he’d climb to the attic and unwrap a mirror. He would ask the ghost of his former self that lived inside for advice.

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“Are you sure you’re alright?” The sorceress asked from atop his back. The demon gritted his fangs. It was the fifth time that morning.
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Because we could take a break if you’re tired.”
“Does my mistress require rest?”
“No.”
“Then we continue,” he declared. He beat his wings a little faster.
“If you’re sure.”
“You summoned me, Mistress.” He had been serving mortals for hundreds of years, corrupting their ambitions for his evil ends. His scheme was still millennia from completion.
But summoners today were so irritatingly polite he was tempted to destroy this planet and start again.

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When it all became overwhelming, the young witch rode her broom out of the smog and landed on the breakers. From the barrier islands, she could see the whole waterfront and the towers rising behind them, glowing like some enormous pile of sparkling treasure.
She could’ve had her pick of apprenticeships back in the villages, but she’d chosen to study in the city instead. City magic felt so different. It was all lightning and metal, bustling and unrelenting. The pace was overwhelming at times.
But she came out here to regain perspective. Someday, she would make it to the top.

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The young hero knelt before the goddess and received a boon.
“From this day forth, you may fashion any object you require from the living trees around you. Use this ability to build bridges, make tools, or construct defenses. Go and save the world from the Great Evil.”
The goddess sent the hero on his way, and soon he defeated the rampaging army of monsters. But even as peace spread across the land, she began to hear desperate prayers from her worshipers again.
The world had somehow become overrun with giant wooden phalluses. The goddess sighed and recalled her boon.

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As the ship descended, she looked down at the famous The Sky City of Venus. It sparkled in the Sun like the top of a wedding cake.It was a playground of the rich and powerful, and also housed life support for the millions who lived in the shelters beneath them and toiled endlessly for their amusement.The city was a crystal palace floating on a bank of clouds so hot and dense that they may as well have been lava. Without it, humanity couldn’t live here.As the ship began docking, she considered how she would destroy it.

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The ambassador surveyed the ballroom. She had to admit that Humans knew how to throw a party, but their obsession with history baffled her.
In the Hive, cultural standards were dictated by the current Queen, and she didn’t build statues to her ancestors. There was little room for living in the past, only the drumming wingbeat of the present.
But humans were always trying to recreate historical fashion, foods, and even entertainment. They were nostalgic for eras in which they hadn’t even lived.
Still, she was having a good time. And this corset was doing amazing things for her thorax.

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The night after the dust storm, I walk out into the desert. I spot the light on the horizon, a distant red dot like a fading star.
After a night and day of walking, I reach the source: a gigantic face nearly buried in the sand, fallen with only a single glowing eye visible. The last god-kings made it from metal they pulled from the stars to be an oracle that remembered them forever.
I bow before the half-sunken face and beg it to teach me of the old world. It replies in a language that no living person understands.

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