Colour had been banished and was nothing but a faded memory in surviving centenarian’s minds. Colour slowly leeched out of existence when mother earth’s calls for help were ignored.
Her final vengeance came in colour, lots of it. Royal blue burned the sky, and everyone beneath, as copper ammonium rained down from her unforgiving heavens.
(55 Words)
@LastKrystallos
A thin line runs between safety and peril, a narrow path between hitting the right or the wrong note.
Sadie’s thumb throbbed as she stubbed it whilst closing the kitchen cupboard. She took a moment and cocooned it in her hand, clasped to her heart then she continued serving up dinner.
Sadie’s thumb rubbed up and down her arm as she held her arms across her chest, and watched Alec eat. Her eyes followed every mouthful and she studied his hands as he gripped his knife and fork.
Sadie’s thumb moved lightly across her lips as he pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. He smiled, and she scooped up his plate and hurried to the kitchen.
Sadie’s thumb tapped nervously on the edge of the sink as she rested for a moment, relief flooding her tension. Today she is safe.
(144 Words)
Written for Anonymous Legacy’s Visual Dare Week 25: Precarious.
Go look at the other great stories!
I didn’t plan this story, but it fit with the song chosen for Jeff’s Blues-Buster over at The Tsuruoka Files which is: The White Stripes ‘Rag and Bone’. After listening to this the insistent beat stayed with me…and last night my husband shared something that had happened with me that made me very angry, and I recognised festering anger and welling fury, matching this beat…and saw my protagonist storming up and into a mansion, to seek vengeance for wrongs that had been wrought…and I wrote…
Splintered Heart
She didn’t care if anyone saw her – in fact she rather hoped someone would.
She walked up the drive, fingernails biting her palms and her heart pounding, right up to the front door, and pushed it wide. She stepped calmly over the threshold as the door rebounded behind her.
She scanned the vast hallway, a sneer developing in the corner of her mouth, and as she walked past the console table her fingers wandered over the telephone, tipping the receiver from its cradle. A tall vase, filled with gaudy, orange gladioli, crashed to the floor, flowers scattering amid the pool of water and broken glass.
She ran her trembling hand through her hair and swept into the lounge.
Fury moved through the room, books tumbled from the bookcase, ornaments clinked as they broke, and a pile of old vinyl records crashed into the fireplace tiles, shattering in a delicious explosion of wrath.
Destruction ran up the stairs, and pictures leaped from the walls, bouncing back down the steps, and she flexed her fingers and growled.
A clock chimed, its mournful lament echoing throughout the house, and she turned the bedroom’s brass door knob.
Bile crept up her windpipe and her stomach swirled with acid rage, and she pulled the curtains from their rings. Trinkets flew across the room, bedclothes tore and pillows burst, and feathers flew like tiny, white doves around the frenzied tempest. Her rampage continued, like a tornado caught within a storm’s wild winds, until the room was razed. She slammed the en suite door against the wall and rent the shower curtains, and a bottle of after-shave flew to the mirror, satisfying her livid heart as it disintegrated into shards in the sink.
Her breath came in shreds, razors of rasping air tearing at her throat as she leaned against the rim of the sink, staring into the last fragile piece of mirror still hanging from its frame.
Sweat bloomed across her flushed forehead, dripping down her cheeks, saturating her thin t-shirt, and leaving dark stains beneath her armpits. She wiped her head, pushing damp hair off her face and tears mingled with heavy perspiration.
She seized a mirrored fragment, ran it down her cheek and threw it to the tiled floor. A strangled cry escaped her wretched throat. Blood flowered in the basin, little crimson ink blots decorating the splintered mirror, reflecting her warped face.
Ire brewed, filling her body with hate, smouldering with fury, boiling into vehemence and burning rage.
She stalked back into the bedroom, followed by an insistent trail of scarlet beads, and grabbed a frame by the bed. His gaze stared back at her, his round face and hateful grin oozing out of the image. An unrecognisable, guttural cry invaded her ears, crammed with pain and resentment, and hornets stung her blood-shot eyes.
His cretinous image stained her soul like the stench in an abattoir, and she would never escape. His smug, lying eyes would torment forever, and his deceit would corrupt the very ground she paced.
She smiled, a raw, distorted grimace, and imagined his arrival.
The front door scratched by fingernails and the telephone on the floor, the whirlwind-attacked living room and fallen pictures across the stairs. The struggle in the bedroom, the fight in the bathroom…and she carefully tore the neck of her sweat-sodden t-shirt, revealing her heaving breast.
Her hand lifted, slowly and certainly, the shattered bottle shard glinting in the afternoon sunlight as it poured through the half drawn, half torn down curtains. It only took a movement, one quick and resolute movement, and blood decanted from her throat like a rich, red wine…
She sank to the floor, a vengeful smile flowering on her lips…for the very last time.
(626 Words)
This is my entry into Becky Fyfe’s challenge over at Imagine! Create! Write!, to create a Female Superhero. Go take a look and enter, if there are enough stories Becky is hoping to create an anthology with the proceeds going to a girls charity. So here’s my tale…
Author: Lisa Shambrook
Wordcount: 997
Anthology: Yes
Charity: Because I Am a Girl
Name of female superhero: Snowfire
Name of human alter ego, if different: Neva Brant
Superhero Appearance (hair, eyes, body type, etc.): Hair shimmers with a coating of frost, fringe flicks back. Eyes glint ice green and her skin pales.
Human alter ego appearance (if she has an alter ego): Dark brown hair, just below shoulder length with a long fringe which often covers half her face. She has green eyes, pale skin and an average body she hides in jeans and t-shirts, beneath a worn leather jacket.
Costume: When Neva uses her ability her dark brown hair shimmers with ice, her skin pales even further and an aura glows about her person. She chooses to wear black jeans and a black leather jacket, with black leather boots.
Personality: Neva is shy, doesn’t like attention, but cannot abide cruelty or injustice. She won’t seek attention, but when opportunity arises she fights for the underdog.
Brief description of how the superheroine gets her powers (i.e. born with them, radioactive accident, mad scientist experiments on her, etc.): Neva was born with her powers, but they were latent until an incident when she was fourteen.
Powers: Neva can freeze and thaw objects on demand, but she needs to touch her target for the power to be effective.
Anything else important: A frozen ‘object’ can be shattered and destroyed, but if left alone will thaw at a normal rate. A frozen person’s heart rate will drop and hypothermia will set in, but survival is likely if medical attention is sought fast.
Neva is learning to develop her ability and her father, a doctor, discovers her freezing technique can be honed to do good in the medical world. If she concentrates deeply enough she can freeze and destroy individual cells, when this ability becomes known, Wolfe Pharmaceuticals CEO, Professor Archaleaus Wolfe, becomes obsessed with obtaining Neva, codename Snowfire.
So, I’m not a Doors fan (sorry), but this weeks Mid Week Blues-Buster over at the Tsuruoka Files is ‘Take It As It Comes’ by The Doors and the first few words caught me…’Time to live, time to lie, time to laugh, time to die’ and that’s where I took it:
I liked my Five Sentence Fiction: Goggles piece so much I thought I’d continue it for Jeff Tsuruoka’s Blues-Buster. The song prompt for this week is Kira Skov’s Riders of the Freeway.
“I’m surprised you didn’t clock him with the torque wrench!” murmured Steven, standing at a safe distance behind the bike. Thalia tried not to grin, but couldn’t stop her lip from curling into a smile. “If I were a lady, I’d have punched him a while back,” he added.
“If I were a lady, he’d still be waiting for it…thankfully, I’m not a lady!” Thalia raised a wry eyebrow. “You don’t need to wait around, I’m almost done.” She flashed him a glance and tightened up a nut.
He shrugged. “Actually that’s not true, when Danny gave you your marching orders this afternoon and you refused to go…he left it to me to see you off site.”
Thalia glowered beneath a layer of engine grease, her cheeks reddening despite the smears of oil. “I said I’d go when I was ready, he doesn’t get to order me about!”
Steven shrugged again. “He’s the boss’s son, and he did fire you…”
“Small detail,” she seethed. “Okay if you’re waiting, slide the tool box closer will you?”
The metal box grated across the concrete floor, echoing throughout the hangar as Steven pushed it with the toe of his boot. Thalia glanced up, her eyes flitting about, but he was right, everyone had gone.
Thalia stood and arched her back, stretching and working out the crick in her neck.
“I won’t offer to help,” Steven grinned remembering the crack Danny had received as he’d touched Thalia’s shoulders unbidden. She shook her arms and caught his eye, for a moment energy crackled and Thalia’s defences caved. She laughed.
Steven reached down for an oily rag and searched for a clean edge. He began to rub the motorbike’s engine, polishing it, rubbing in circles and Thalia looked on with feelings brewing inside she wasn’t entirely sure of.
She picked up her chamois, and watched him polish, his eyes intent on the metal and his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated. The setting sun threw orange blazes across the hangar and set his thick blonde hair on fire. He glanced up, and squinted, blinded by the sudden sun. She blocked the light and cast her shapely shadow across the bike.
“It’s okay, I’m not going to hit you for polishing my bike,” she spoke softly and handed him her chamois. His fingers brushed hers as he took it and she inhaled deeply, unconsciously allowing his grimy, gritty sweat to permeate her mind.
“You’ve turned this heap of junk into something quite spectacular,” he said as the soft leather stroked the customised Indian Bobber.
She watched again as the engine began to shine beneath his deft fingers.
“You know we could take it out…” she began.
“It’s not yours…” He grinned as her eyes sparkled even in the gloom of shadow.
“I know, but I’m sacked and I’m not coming back, are you coming back tomorrow?”
His heart raced. If she left, there’d be nothing left to come back for.
She grabbed her leather jacket and pulled it tight across her breast, buckling it up and watching his face as she shook out her dark hair. His Adam’s apple bobbled unconsciously in his dry throat and then he was zipping up his own jacket. She threw him a pair of goggles and slid hers over her head and over her eyes. Her boots clipped on the concrete and she swung her leg over the low-slung bike.
It came to life between her thighs and growled, its voice snarling through the empty hangar.
Thalia glanced at Steven and pulled on her soft, fitted gloves as it purred beneath her. She curled a finger at him and smiled.
Her teeth shone in the evening glare and Steven knew he’s been snared.
He climbed upon the back of the rumbling bike and closed his legs around her rear. His arms, hesitated for a moment, then stretched around her waist and she squeezed the throttle.
Moments later they were gone, headed up the vast, open freeway, with only memories left behind.
(676 Words)
Thalia’s spanner bounced and clattered across the hangar’s dirty floor as she wiped the back of her greasy hand across her brow; she emitted an exasperated growl which was immediately lost amid the hiss of steam and piston thud. She closed her eyes, leaned over the grimy engine, and rotated her shoulders trying to release the afternoon’s pent up tension.
She tensed all the more as unannounced hands rested on her stiff shoulders and began to knead, as if her back was soft, yielding dough – it was not.
She yanked off her goggles and slung them across the room, just as her oil smeared fist met with the obsequious Danny’s jaw, “Take that as a warning shot!” she cautioned still brandishing her torque wrench like a gladiator’s weapon.
Nursing his chin and wounded pride, Danny slinked away, and Steven, on the other side of the hangar, offered Thalia a grin that she couldn’t refuse to return…
This is my second entry into the Dirty Goggles Blog Hop, run by Ruth, Jen, and Steven. this time it’s an attempt at Dieselpunk.
A Blue Heart
Dieselpunk
691 Words
Lisa Shambrook
@LastKrystallos
Safe Content
This is probably the most difficult contest I’ve been part of…Steampunk and Dieselpunk…I’m a huge steampunk fan, but writing it’s another matter altogether. It has, though, been lots of fun!
This is for the Dirty Goggles Blog Hop, put together by Ruth, Jenn, and Steven.
The Apothecary’s Art
Steampunk
698 Words
Lisa Shambrook
@LastKrystallos
Safe Content
Razor-sharp claws hung just shy of his eye and a bead of sweat slipped down his cheek as his brass-topped cane clattered to the floor. The dragon hovered, its leather wings beating a rhythm of their own and armoured spines glinting down its shimmering, metal back. It clicked and whirred and glanced at the watching girl.
“Could you call it off…please?” Anxiety rippled in the stranger’s voice and Elspeth smiled.
“Why are you in my shop?” she asked.
“Looking for you…” he replied as the clockwork dragon flapped its wings and dipped closer.
“After closing?” Elspeth stared at his long, dark hair, and the top hat now lying abandoned on the dusty floor. He struggled to maintain his awkward position, pressed against the medicine cabinet, and she knew beneath his floor-length coat lurked fear. “Who are you?”
…
This is a preview to the story that can be found within A Symphony of Dragons. You can find this enchanting book of short stories in many outlets in both paperback and eBook or at my publisher BHC Press.
(This is possibly the hardest piece I’ve removed from my blog, as I love it so much, but you can now read it in my short story book: A Symphony of Dragons)
I also won First Place with this piece in the Steampunk genre of Dirty Goggles!
The Last Krystallos 
