So, no Flash Fiction prompts this week. Well, https://rochellewisoff.com/ had one, but it just didn’t appeal to me. https://indiesunlimited.com/ isn’t posting one because they have Covid. I had Covid a couple of months ago. It didn’t really make me to sick to get online. But I’ve been thoroughly vaccinated and boosted. Maybe others aren’t so lucky or maybe “lucky” isn’t the proper term. Maybe it should be “prepared.”
So, for your “reading pleasure,” today, I’ve gone back into my school files and found the beginning of one of my works in progress. Which, incidentally, I’ve made no progress on in the past ten years. This is the opening scene of a little science fiction piece I’ve worked on occasionally:
Mariska froze in place, locking her fingers and toes around the thick vine that she had been using to climb the massive tree. Her mind reached outward, seeking the source of the yearning warble. She probed hesitantly through the evening mist. If the liowel noticed her, survival would not be an option.
She inhaled slowly, processing the scents that surrounded her. For a moment, the tangy sweetness of the fat blue globes of summer vine-fruit above her head overwhelmed everything else. Below it, she found the musty smell of the leaf-covered forest floor and the slightly astringent pheromones of a chamelemur somewhere nearby. Another careful breath brought her the bitterness of the leaves that cloaked the swaying branches. The wind shifted and, for a moment, she was bathed in the sharply acidic stench of the liowel cruising above the forest canopy.
Mariska flattened every inch of her six foot frame against the wide trunk. Hopelessly, she begged her body to blend, to hide, to be invisible. Suddenly, the vine beneath her left hand moved. Her mind slid instinctively toward it and melded with the chamelemur before she could stop herself. Within seconds the coppery silk threads of her hair became a coarse, mottled brown and turquoise that blended into the surrounding foliage. As the camouflage began to spread across her golden skin, she squeezed her eyes shut in rejection, counted ten skipping heartbeats, then looked again. For one horrible moment she couldn’t see her own arm.
The warbling call of the liowel trailed away into the distance and she dared to breathe again. Her emerald eyes locked themselves to her left arm, willing it to return to normal. She felt the chamelemur still connected to her mind and knew they were bonded for life. Her conscious mind tried uselessly to reject the idea. As an apprentice warrior she should be bonded with a fighting animal, not one that used subterfuge to survive; but denying it would not change the truth. With one careless impulse, she had altered the course of her entire life.
Hope you enjoyed this. I may work on it some more now. Not sure exactly where I intended to go at the time, but it might be interesting to find out.
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