Pull of the River

One story, one sitting. I'd consider it an accomplishment.


Jeffrey usually predicted storms correctly. If he didn’t it would mean a bad catch and a hungry family. This is why he rightly panicked upon seeing one pop up from a western sky in a matter of minutes. He was easily an hour and a half from shore, two with the kind of waves kicked up by a storm this large. His boat, which was hardly more than a large canoe, was not well-equipped to deal with weather and massive swells.
Instead of resigning to his fate, Jeffrey began rowing himself as fast as he could to the faraway shore. Seeing lightning in the distance and steadily advancing, his resolve strengthened. He had to get this fish, meager a catch as it was, to shore or risk going without supper for a night or two. His arms grew tired and heavy and the shore remained far away. Then the storm hit him.
Bolts of lightning struck the ten-foot crests, everywhere else on the ocean, and then on the boat. A particularly massive wave carried Jeffrey up, only to capsize the boat and pull him under with it. Everything went dark. He tried to breathe but took in only water. Everything was water. Where was up? Light, flashing somewhere, showed the surface. The boat seemed to be on fire. Out of air…everything faded.
Jeffrey came to floating on his back in much calmer waters. A light rested on the horizon, a massive globe of a sun. He didn’t know whether it was peeking above the water, or hesitantly sinking into it. Why did it matter? He was without a boat, without fish, and without any real way of getting to shore. As he was about to give up, Jeffrey saw a man in a rowboat advancing towards him.
“Help! Help!” he shouted at the rowboat.
“I see you!” said the man on the boat, quickly rowing over and helping Jeffrey in. “Some storm you caught yourself in,” he said.
“Yes,” said Jeffrey. “I still have no idea where it came from. Right now I’m just so glad you saved me. Where are you headed?”
“There’s a coast not far from here, which I think is also your destination.”
“So you’re taking me home?” Jeffrey asked.
“Yes,” he said. “So, tell me about yourself. What’s your name? How old are you? What’s your life been like? After all, we’ve got plenty of time to spend.”
“Well,” Jeffrey began, “My name is Jeffrey Carver. I’ve lived by the sea my entire life, forty years. I’ve never known the feeling of money overflowing my pockets, but I’m fine with what I have: a family, a boat which I apparently just lost, and a life mostly over open waters. What about you? What’s your—” He cut off as a sharp movement from the strong-looking man told him inquiring the latter’s name was the wrong question to ask. Just looking at the man, Jeffrey saw something almost familiar about him.
He was certainly oddly dressed, wearing a black robe and brown loafers. Continuing suddenly, Jeffrey said, “What’s your profession? You look sort of like a monk.”
“I’m not a monk. I am more of a spiritual guide. I help people solve their problems, usually by having them look inside themselves,” the man said.
“What do you think about me?” Jeffrey asked.
“I think you have regrets,” he said.
“Well, I regret never buying a bigger boat, or trying to hire out more people. I would’ve liked a little more money for a better home or for better food for my wife and children. I wish I could’ve sent my son to school, or even my daughter. I regret not being able to give them more opportunities.”
“I see,” the man said. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” Jeffrey said after a pause. “I wish I had given some more thought to faith, but I said I never had time. I could always have left and tried to find out the answers to the hard questions I didn’t ask myself often enough, but I stayed for my family, for their sakes. I don’t know how my life would be different right now.”
“I’m not sure if I can answer the question you hid in that,” the man said. As they had been drifting along, the man’s robes faded, beginning to turn gray. The sun was, in fact, setting, as wispy clouds gathered around it and caught color, showing off oranges and pinks in the sky. In contrast, the man seemed to grow weaker and frailer, his robe tattering and becoming one with the shadows at the sleeves.
“I know I’ll never get an answer from you unless I ask you now. Who are you, how is it you came at just the right time, and where is it we’re headed? I don’t know this place. These mountains around us…what are they?”
“Very well,” the man said. “I’ve known you for your entire life, from the day you were conceived to this day—the day you died. You are right now crossing the border, to a land beyond. For you, there may be nothing, for the dead cannot find faith like the living can.”
“Does this mean you are…?” Jeffrey asked.
The man nodded. He pulled his hood off his head, exposing a sickly, rotting face, covered in brown spots and small patches of thin hair. His eyes, glowing light green, were engulfed in flame. He lacked a nose; he smiled and his lips peeled back, exposing a few yellow teeth. Death, now fully exposed, pulled his oar from the water and placed it on the deck. It shifted into a scythe: beautiful, gleaming, malevolent silver and steel, curved just so.
Bowing his head, Jeffrey’s eyes brimmed over. Tears began spilling down his face. “What about my family? Will they have to suffer the same fate?”
“You don’t even know your fate,” said Death.
“Of course I do. Nothingness, a pure lack while others get everything. I never got what I really wanted. I always did things for the sake of others, and it lands me here. Why didn’t I win?”
“None can fight the pull of the river. None can withstand the sweetness of my call. Your time came, and if you did not use it correctly, then there can be nothing but regrets for you. Faithless, you found yourself as lost as you are right now, a compass without magnetism, and no way to tell others your story. This is your end, Jeffrey.”
“What kind of monster are you?”
“I’m only the guide. You’ve now seen what’s inside yourself. Are you content with your fate and ready to resign to it?”
Standing up, Jeffrey got off the rowboat, thanked Death for the ride, and walked up the beach, path obvious to him. “None can fight the pull of the river,” he whispered.

Fantasy story part 2

I'm loving this.


As soon as they were a good half-mile away, horns sounded. “Get out of your houses!” people were yelling. “Take everything you value and can carry with you!”
“I see you’ve gotten your first taste of the world,” said a grizzled voice from behind the boy. A man had appeared from their hut, one who was far younger than the scars he bore made him appear. In the seven years of the war he had endured, his face had aged maybe twenty.
“Yes, father,” he said.
“Robert, it’s about time you learned that those stories I told you—“
“All true,” Robert whispered. He turned to look at his father. “Is there going to be a call to arms like there was when you were young?”
“It has already happened. While you and half the village were staring at the beasts, the Council had a meeting. Their hut was the first to catch.”
“Who’s fighting this time?”
“Every single person who is able. Men, women, even the children strong enough to lift weapons and do any good with them.”
“Me?”
“I think you’re ready.” Turning his gaze from Robert to the distant sunset, he continued. “I fought in the first war and barely escaped with my life. This time…I don’t expect to return.”
“Father, your scars!” Robert exclaimed.
“I can feel them opening. Those who put them there have returned, seemingly from the dead. It appears my second chance for glory has come.” His eyes widened and his face twisted in anger, which made the scars split even faster. Green blood started to drip out. “I won’t let them take our land like they did last time! They destroyed our houses, our hopes! Now look at us, ruined and broken as a byproduct of their constant thirst for more!”
“Who, Father? Who?”
“They call themselves the Ascended, for they were once human, too. That’s all I know for sure of them, except that their blood…is…”
“Green. It’s running down your face!”
“Yes. These scars are gone, the Ascended have been rewritten by history. It’s their curse, yet, for it means there will be ten times the number of soldiers on the battlefields against them.” In his eyes the firelight shone, turning them from their normal blue to a deep purple. The blood from the scars had reached his lips, so he licked some, tasted, and swallowed with a grin. “I remember feeling this way five years before you were born. I believe most people call it ‘bloodlust’. It’s in our bloodline, and you will be unstoppable in battle. Which weapon do you like the most?”
“Uhh…”
“I remember now. Your mother knew you had the flicker when she was pregnant with you. I remember it well enough, now that I’m thinking about it. The blood runs stronger in your mother’s side. Ask her, for it appears I’ll be training your sister in the Way of the Tiger.”
“What’s a tiger?”
“Imagine a cat. Now imagine it about fifty times bigger and that many times more ferocious and graceful. Orange, striped, and unstoppable on the battlefield. That is a tiger.”
“And what will Mother be teaching me?”
“Ask her. I don’t rightly understand it myself. You’ll catch on quickly, and then everything in your path will meet an explosive end. Let’s get out of here. Take some swords, though I know you won’t use them. Your mother will have all the things you need.”
Stepping quickly into the hut, they collected all they needed: the family weapons, and some supplies. All four left as one unit. Robert, carrying two swords, looked tranquil and resolute. His sister, three swords on her back, and an axe in each hand, looked eager and had the same shine in her now-purple eyes as their father. Their mother, wearing a robe she hadn’t touched in almost twenty years, had a half-insane smile on her face.

Beginning of a fantasy story!

This one's got potential. Serious potential. This is only about a third of what I've actually written thus far, no less.


Standing outside his family’s hut, a small, brown-haired boy of fourteen stared at the sky. Silhouetted by the blood-red sunset were two massive shapes, creatures with giant, slowly beating wings. They were approaching at an angle, as though planning on reaching the edge of the village and continuing on. The boy watched as they neared, utterly transfixed.
One of the things opened its large maw, allowing for a burst of noise to erupt. The boy fell to his knees, covering his ears and slamming his eyes shut. The sound just continued. How much breath did these things have? Then it stopped. The boy opened his eyes, looked around, and collapsed again as the other one started with the roar. The things were circling the village, only high above. From below, the boy could hear the massive wingbeats, air rushing at him steadily. He stared upward at them.
One look was all he needed to be terrified for a lifetime. These monstrous things were beautiful, yet made him believe he was not going to survive the day. Easily thirty feet long, and the tail another fifteen, one’s scales were a black that did not reflect the sunlight, while the other had a shining red hue. Suddenly, the boy remembered some of his father’s war stories. These were dragons.
Each had four powerfully built legs, which they held slack underneath them. These legs all ended in sets of claws, four sharp-looking and then the particularly vicious thumbs. The black dragon’s small eyes glittered gold, while the red’s significantly larger ones also happened to be red. Presumably steering them, balancing them, and also used as weapons were their tails, giant in their own right. On the ends were spikes, effectively making clubs.
Again one, this time the red, opened its mouth. The boy slammed his hands onto his ears, but the dragon didn’t release noise. It released fire. The moist dirt paths dried and blackened from the sheer heat of the blast. The huts on the north side of the village were shrouded in flame, already shriveling like leaves caught on fire. The grass on one side charred, while the trees on the other withered and also caught. The black dragon roared again and together, the two continued on, exactly on the path they had been traveling before.