Nightmares of a clone

Dio ran through the dark hallway, only one thought ringing in his mind: Where’s Luna?

All of the doors were open, a safety precaution of the Rhizomes so that people wouldn’t be trapped or suffocate in case of a prolonged power outage.

But Dio didn’t care about the doors. A small part of his mind was aware of it and silently glad, but his main focus was finding Luna.

Why?

Why?

That was the big question.

Why was all of this happening to him?

Top Of The World

Gripping the metal bars, shivering in your uncomfortably skimpy clothing during the chilly autumn night, looking out over the bay from the bridge.

The city at night is beautiful, but it means nothing to you. There’s no one who can help you, nowhere to go, and only one way out of this life that was never supposed to happen.

The only thing keeping you from falling into the waters below is your grip on the safety bars as you stand on the other side.

Acceptance

Razputin gulped uneasily, staring at the anxious 7-year-old sitting in front of him. Her name was Sarah Owen…at least, that’s what she said it was when he first met her.

“So the man who cursed my family to die in water was…”

“My papa,” she said. “I…was there when it happened.”

Raz’s eyes went wide. “But…that was 28 years ago…”

Alone

Clay sighed. He was lying in one of the upper branches of The Great Tree, staring at the stars through a gap in the leaves. The sounds of the others celebrating their new chance at life drifted up from below. The weekly celebrations were fun (especially the energetic dancing) but there was nobody else here that had personally known him before he had come to The Lost Forest. And for that, he was always lonely.

Clay missed his dad, his coworkers, his mentor…but above all, he missed his best friend, whom he had known since middle school. They used to talk for hours, about school, constellations, law, whatever they could think of. Clay was usually the one talking, but neither of them minded. But now he had nobody to talk to. Sure, he had Karleena…but it just wasn’t the same.

Clay had heard that one of the first thing the newly-ressurected would do was seek out comfort from people they were familiar with. Clay had done so when he was revived, but he couldn’t find anybody he had known before he died before a large elk-like creature found him wandering through the streets and took him to The Lost Forest (which, in hindsight, was probably for the best), so he had settled for getting a hug from a photographer he had heard of (with her permission, of course) that he had happened to encounter. She apparently hadn’t heard about his death.

He still hadn’t received much comfort from anybody living in The Great Tree, which probably exacerbated his loneliness. Clay sighed again, closing his eyes and wondering how his childhood friend was doing without him. “I miss you…” he whispered.

Healer

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

The sleeping Karleena bolted to her feet, startled awake by the loud scream. Several other members of her pack had also been awakened by the scream, but they went back to sleep almost immediately. Karleena would’ve gone back to sleep too if her sensitive ears hadn’t picked up on another sound coming from the same direction as the scream. She was too far away to make out what it was, so she sprinted in the direction of the sound.

It wasn’t long before she came across, to her surprise, a man. A man lying on the ground under a tree, clutching his leg. He was making a strange sound and his face was contorted, but the wolf-like Karleena couldn’t tell why.

As she got closer, however, she began to get an unpleasant sensation in her hind leg that gradually got stronger. Words flashed through her mind. Pain. Agony. Hurt. Broken.

Why does my leg have pain in it?, she thought. There’s nothing wrong with it. Unless…I’m feeling the man’s pain…

Karleena sprinted to the man’s side. His left leg, the leg he was clutching, was twisted at the mid-thigh. His breathing was strained and labored. His face was red and water was streaming from his eyes.

Karleena gently pressed her forehead against his cheek, wanting to let him know that he wasn’t alone. The man sharply inhaled and winced in pain.

Karleena took a few steps back. What…? Did I…did I make the pain worse!? But then she noticed that his leg wasn’t twisted anymore.

The man stopped making the strange sounds and his breathing seemed to become normal. He opened his eyes, sat upright, and ran his hands along where the twist in his leg had been. Then he looked up at Karleena and smiled. He wrapped his arms around her neck and she rested her head on his shoulder, wagging her tail.

“Thank you,” the man said.

Karleena made a pleasant purring sound with the spines on her back. I’m glad you’re not in pain anymore, she thought.

A room in a tree

Living in a tree. Whenever Selma heard those words, she would always think of monkeys and birds. But people living in carved-out sections of a tree was absurd. Yet that was what the man in front of her was telling her she would be doing. She had woken up in a forest and had wandered around until she encountered a man gathering herbs.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but people living inside a tree… That’s just ridiculous!”

“I can see why you would think that,” the man said in a gruff voice, “and I’d be the first to agree. But it works. And it’s comfortable. The tree is huge, so we can have pretty large rooms.”

“How large?”

“About the size of a bedroom in a suburban house. And that’s for one person. Rooms for four people can be twice as wide.”

Selma stared at him in disbelief. “And these rooms are IN the tree?”

“In its trunk, yes.”

Selma threw up her arms. “I can’t believe it. Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me that there’s a party in the treetop every night!”

“…Well, more like every week, and it’s more like a celebration than a party. Though I guess it would depend on your definition…”

Selma just stared at him.

The man said, “Look, you’ll understand when you see the tree.”

Karleena

The first thing she felt was something gently rubbing her face. Her eyes slowly opened and saw a figure kneeling in front of her. A wave of words filled her mind. Skin. Brown. Face. Eyes. Mouth. Smile. Arm. Hand. Fingers. Five. Human. Male. Man. Creator.

“Hello darling,” the man said.

She pushed herself up onto her four paws and jumped onto the man, resting her head on his shoulder. The man gently stroked her furry back. “There’s a good girl…” he murmured.

The man tried to hoist her off of him but she jumped back onto him, licking his chin.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! I must say, you’re the friendliest of all my creations so far!”

She stopped licking him and began rubbing her head against his chest.

“Now, what shall we name you…” the man said. “How does Karleena sound?”

Karleena… My name. A strange but pleasant rattling sound came from behind her. She jumped out of her creator’s lap, looking for the source of the sound.

A strange, white creature suddenly appeared in front of her. She bowed, waiting to see what it would do. The creature bowed too. Its tail slowly moved back and forth, just like her tail was. Wolf. Dog. Canine. But not actually a canine. Just resembles one.

Karleena’s creator laughed. “It’s okay, Karleena. It’s just your reflection on a mirror.”

Reflection…?

“It’s you, Karleena. That’s what you look like.”

It’s me…?

Karleena slowly approached the mirror, carefully observing her reflection. She had three completely green eyes and pure white fur. Some of the fur on her back was raised and shaped like spikes. She tensed her back and the spikes vibrated, creating a loud rattling sound. Karleena jumped, startled by what she had done. She turned to look at her sides and saw three green dots on each side.

Her creator said, “I put those dots there as a way of telling you from the others. Each one of you has a different mark. Those dots on your sides are yours.”

Others?

“They’re outside. I’ll introduce you. I’m sure they’ll be glad to have you as part of the pack.”

Writing

I want to be able to write without fearing that I won’t finish. I want to write fan fiction (for now). I want to work on fantasy and science fiction. I want to explore crime mysteries. I want the world to read my writing. I want to write and publish novels and become a famous writer.