Flashes of Sanity #131: Red War

Welcome to Flashes of Sanity! Your daily dose of flash fiction on 500 words or less.

Today’s entry: Red War

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The two elves returned to the sleigh. Still laughing.
“Did you get him?” Sam asked.
“No, he got away.”
“So why the blood around your mouth?”
The elves giggled. ”We found another one.”
“Brilliant.” Sam turned to his human passengers in the back of the sleigh. “I will lead these haters into war. Where do you want me to drop you off?”
“Anywhere?” Mart said. He glanced at his co-passengers.
“Anywhere will be good.” Susanne said. The little girl in her arms had been drugged for her own safety. Considering that the two elves still licked blood of their teeth, for her sanity too. “Just leave a couple of elves with us to carry Dina.”
“Anyone who wants to carry a little girl?”
Every elf on the sleigh raised their hand.
“Why are they so eager to take care of a child?” Marge asked. Probably with the blood lickers on her mind.
“Children are like nicotine for them,” Sam said and pointed at two elves with no blood on their mouth. “You and you. Happiness leaks out through a child’s pores and the elves breathe it in. Christmas is built on that reward system.”
“Do you need to rehearse the plan?” He continued.
A choir of nos answered him. He raised his hand, and the sleigh slowed down. Within a minute, they were on the ground. Within another minute, they were back in the air. The little group disappeared into one of the alleys.
Sam smiled.
“It is time, boys and girls!” He raised his arms. “It is war!”
Thousands of arms joined his on the flying sleighs. They all cheered.
“Show man why you once were the most feared people on the earth!”
All the sleighs scattered. And soon screams joined the cheers.
Sam pushed his sleigh forward.
It was time for phase two.

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Flashes of Sanity #130: Doomsday Interview

Welcome to Flashes of Sanity! Your daily dose of flash fiction on 500 words or less.

Today’s entry: Doomsday Interview

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The first time was scary. The other too. Now when Bjoern actually gave it a thought, it was always scary to put yourself in the line of fire. Even though the first bullet confirmed your suspicions.
But it brought in the scoops of a lifetime. Which gave connections in governments. Just because so few wanted to risk not being a saint.
He tapped the microphone in his shirt button. The camera was the button below it.
“It is go time.”
The door complained. A fresh breeze of a city at war pushed away the stale indoor air. He kicked the corpse crawling right outside his window.
“Not today, Glenn. Today I am after the bigger fish.”
The corpse fell over and tipped over the dock and into the sea.
“You son of a” Glenn said before the water took jis last words.
The bigger fish was the mysterious Gift box. A man quickly rising in the crime world after the war began. Named after his process of picking his opponents apart and putting them in neat boxes.
Apparently, he was considered quite a nice guy in the underworld.
Shadows wandered across the horizon. Bjoern directed his camera towards them and tapped it from above.
Hope those are your ships, Mr. President, he thought.
They were supposed to meet at a supermarket a mile into the city. Sunny Mart. Or the invite had said ‘where the sun shops’. And sunny Mart was the only shop in town fitting that criterion.
“Recording, September 21. Today I will interview Gift-box. Wish me luck.” He released the microphone and whistled while he walked the road to the city.
“Hey, shit face,” a man said in the distant. “When will you interview me?”
“I already got enough of failures on my tapes, Lars.”
“Fuck you, Bjoern.”
“Is that your official statement.” Bjoern continued to whistle.
The morning sun disappeared as he walked between the buildings. The supermarket was visible now. It was as empty as it always had been.
Broken windows and broken spirits, Bjorne thought.
The sun peaked in between the buildings again. Bjoern stopped his steps.
How come Sunny Mart was in the shadows today?
He looked back at the shadow casters. His hand reached for the camera. Tap.
He tapped again. And again. As the convoy passed above him. His eyes remained wide open, his mouth too.
“What the…”
He turned his fingers around the button to zoom.
“Is that Santa?”
The man in the red cape glared down at him. The face with too many holes to be considered a face grinned. He pointed his fingers in Bjoern’s direction. Two elves peaked over the sledge. They laughed and jumped down to the street.
Bjoern’s camera caught it all. Then he ran.
He stumbled and fell down a sewer. He hit his head. And all went dark.

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Flashes of Sanity #129: Resurrected Father

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Today’s entry: Resurrected Father

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“Where is Mitch?” Little Leo locked over his shoulder as if the lost brother would miraculously appear behind him
“We don’t know Leo,” Felix said. He swallowed. With what’s showing on the news. That could only mean one thing.
The ten had become nine.
Two fists hammered against the door. Again.
“You lousy rascals, let me in!”
“Please, make him stop.” Dan said. His glasses fell of his left ear and hang across his face.
“Is this how you treat family? Lock them out? Force them to stand outside in the rain? Is that really the Sooly-way I have taught you?”
“Maybe we you should let him in?” Oliver asked.
“Are you thick?” Felix punched Oliver so hard he fell into Greg. In a reaction to the sudden hit Greg spat out all his cereal. Greg stretched for another spoon full of cereal and found comfort in the crunches between his teeth.
“He will kill us!” Felix continued. “Do you want to die?”
“At least then I will meet Mitch.”
Felix’s hand stopped mid air, hovering centimeters from Oliver’s shoulder.
“Yeah, I would like to meet him too.”
“You know what?” The father outside said. “I don’t want to play nice anymore! You will pay for not letting me in. You will pay for not visiting my grave!”
“Do you think he has been drinking?” Adam sad.
“Probably.” Felix sighed. “As immortal he probably is drinking all the time.”
A window shattered in the kitchen. A father’s laughter raged inside the house. His steps created vibrations in the wooden floor.
“Papa, is here for you now!”
“I want to hide,” Leo said. “Why don’t we hide?”
“Don’t you worry,” Felix said. He put his arm around his little brothers. He remembered how Mitch always stood between them and the punches. He swallowed. “You can hide behind me.”
Arthur Sooly stood in front of them. The red eyes popped out of the once dead body.
“You are mine.” He panted. “You are all mine.”
Felix stared straight into the fire. He prepared himself. Behind them the sobs of eight brothers strengthened him.
“Welcome home father,” he said. “I have been waiting for you.”

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Flashes of Sanity #128: Indoor Protection

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Today’s entry: Indoor Protection

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“There is dangerous world out there ma’am. For a lady like yourself our services can prove crucial.”
The three men outside her door smiled those crocked smiles she always saw on TV. It was the bad guy smile.
“And if I don’t want you protection?” She asked just as her heroes Marta McToomb would. She even got the accent right.
“We will make sure you learn how dangerous the world can be.”
With those words they pushed her away from the door and walked in.
“All we ask for is your sons and daughters for our army and our entertainment.”
“You can’t take my son!”
The men stopped her mouth by pressing a knife against her throat.
“It is our fee, okay? It is a fee you will want to pay.”
What would Marta McToomb do? She thought. How would she save the day?
She would give them what they want just to take them down with a genius plan she came up with on the way to her son.
“He is up stairs.”
“Thank you for your cooperation.” The knife disappeared from her throat. “Show us the way my lady.”
As she walked up the stairs, her brain searched every corner for an idea. She was not an idea-woman like Marta McToomb, she realized. She was a worry-herself-into-an-ulcer-woman.
They came to a bedroom door. Two voices moaned from the inside.
“Harder,” the female moans burst into explosions of ecstasy.
‘Yes,” the man panted.
“Looks like we got the jackpot, boys,” one of the men said and slammed the door open.
The smile on all the men’s faces went away. With mouths open they looked at the middle-aged man on the floor.
“Mom!” The man screamed. “I have told you to not disturb me when I am playing videogames!”
The two dolls in his hands were as naked as dolls can be. Their bodies were entangled.
“Is this a masturbation cave?” One of the three men asked.
“No! I am playing videogames.” The man on the floor looked up at his visitors and the teenage rage ran off his face.
“Really?”
”I mean.” He looked at the turned off computer and TV. Then he looked at his own bulging crotch and the two dolls in his hands. His face reddened.
“Yes,” he said. “This is a masturbation cave.”
One of the three men turned to the woman standing right behind them. Her face was red too.
“You will receive our protection,” he said. He glanced at the overgrown teen. “For free. If you need anything more, just tell us okay. Shit, this was just.”
“Sad,” his two companions filled in.
The three left the house with their mouths still open. They took the rest of the day off.

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Flashes of Sanity #127: Field Work

Welcome to Flashes of Sanity! Your daily dose of flash fiction on 500 words or less.

Today’s entry: Field Work

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Donny looked out from behind the wall.
“All clear.” He gestured towards Donna to come.
They entered the highway and searched every car for something and anything that could satisfy their starving group.
“Remind me again why we search abandoned cars for food, when we could go through the supermarkets.” Donna said, in her hand she held a forgotten banana peel that probably had been rotten already when the car was forced to halt.
“Because all the supermarkets already have been raided.” Donny reminded himself for the thousand time this day that she only was a teenager. Nothing more. Just a teenager capable of murder if the rumor was correct. “People raided them probably on hour one, or two if there was an electronic store on the same street.”
“So, we are hoping to survive on candy bars parents hid from their kids.”
“Pretty much.” Donny searched the glove compartment and found a bar and a soda bottle.
“That would be a lot of candy bars in that case.”
“You have no idea,” Donny said and thought of the mountains Brutal Joe and Cat-Scratch Bill usually ate. Them and Bella. The feeling stung in his chest and travelled up his throat in nauseating pulses.
She is dead…
“Wait!” Donna pulled herself out of a passenger seat. “Did you hear that?”
Donny froze and pushed away the nausea. Yes, there were people laughing. Right below them. There were also people screaming.
Donna and Donny sneaked towards the edge of the highway. They looked down at the streets below.
A man laughed again.
“Your money doesn’t matter now.”
Hanging in their feet three men and two women hang in their feet. Their clothes were torn, the women’s much more than the men’s. They were all bleeding.
In front of them a mob laughed while exchanging turns on dealing punches.
“Please,” one of the men sobbed.
“Shut it! I never asked you to speak.” A knife slashed through the man’s shirt and chest. He screamed.
“And you.” The slasher turned to one of the women. “I always wondered what the jugs of yours felt like in the night, maybe I should take one of them with me home and test it out?”
His knife slid in under what was left of her shirt. She didn’t scream, she didn’t cry. Even when the knife pierced her skin, she didn’t move a muscle.
“You should not see this.” Donny took Donna under his arm and forced her face away just as the blood trickled down the woman’s neck and her face.
Donny looked away too.
They probably did something similar to Bella, he thought.
“Should we leave?” Donna sked from his armpit.
“Yes. Yes, we really should get going before they notice us.”
The two sneaked of the high way. Another man screamed.
“Hi,” one attacker said. “Do you like nachos?”
All Donny could think about was his beautiful Bella in blood, and the knives tearing her apart.

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Flashes of Sanity #126: Church

Welcome to Flashes of Sanity! Your daily dose of flash fiction on 500 words or less.

Today’s entry: Church

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His first task was finished. Now Aaron’s mission began.
I built a church. He let the feeling sink in. This is my church. This is where I will keep my people safe.
He walked inside and took in every bench, every carving and every balk.
The angel had been right. The world would need saving. Now more than ever. It had truly turned red.
Aaron walked down the aisle.
A place for praying, he though and turned right at the altar. A place for surviving. He opened a hatch in the floor.
A place for hiding.
The bunker below would withstand countless days of constant bombs. It also had food for years.
He still wondered if it was enough. Aaron himself could survive on less then a tenth of the meals planned. But not everyone had survived imprisonment, starving and torture.
Aaron was one of the few lucky enough to have that experience. He wished no one else would need to learn the teachings he had been taught.
Behind a fake wall, he had hid weapons in all forms and sizes. He would train the men, the women, and the children. Everyone should know how to save themselves. Especially in this world.
He hit his heel against another hatch. The metal multiplied his knocks into an echo.
And as with every war, Aaron thought. Prisons are necessary. It was sound proof. For the sake of the children. They should never have to know what their priest does to those unlucky enough to end up down there.
After all, this was Aaron’s church. The innocent should feel safe here. They should stay innocent.

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Flashes of Sanity #125: Frozen Promises

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Today’s entry: Frozen Promises

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The snow was everywhere. On the ground, in her shoes, in her eye, and under Dina’s coat. Susanne made another attempt at getting the white away from Dina’s neck.
“Mart, how much longer do we have to go?”
“Just a little longer!” The snow storm muffled Mart’s voice. “We will see a door anytime now.”
A door in the middle of nowhere, that’s about he most stupid thing Susanne ever heard. She believed it anyway. At this time, she had no choice.
“Mom, I don’t think I want to meet Santa anymore.”
“Just hang on, honey. Just a little more.”
Dina closed her eyes and hugged herself. Susanne leaned in and hugged her daughter.
“That was just perfect…” Marge said beside them.
“What?”
“Charles Gool just declared himself president.”
“Gool? Didn’t he resign? Wait how did you know that?”
“He resigned, yes. Maybe not voluntarily.” Marge turned to Susanne. “And I was working with the presidents for decades. I got ways to get information anywhere. Even the North pole.”
“Here!” The shout came from what was Mart’s shadow that should only be 50 meters ahead, but looked like a distance too far away to walk.
Susanne picked up Dina. “I will carry you the last part,” she whispered. “I promise, I will carry you all the way.”
The door was big. Way too big to be missed. Susanne still didn’t see it until she crashed into its wooden frame. She looked at the massive open door planted in the middle of a snowy desert. Warmth radiated from the room on the other side. She resisted the wind and forced herself in. The storm subsided immediately. Her frozen spine could finally move again. And Dina opened her beautiful eyes.
“We made it,” Susanne whispered. “We are at Santa’s home.”
“We are?”
“Yes, you are!” A steady voice grumbled from some stairs. “Welcome to my sweet home.”
Susanne glanced at up the stairs and the man with the red hat. The skinny man with more holes than skin.
“Don’t look at him, Dina!”
Dina struggled in Susanne’s arms. “But I want to meet Santa.”
“Do you know what happens when a child sees Santa before Christmas?” The child stopped and looked at Susanne with big eyes.
“He disappears. Just like that. We don’t want that, right?”
Dina shook her head. “Can I look at the elves instead?”
In Susanne’s periphery, the corpse shrugged his shoulders and opened a door full of machines. An elf stood on the other side. His crocked back, long fingers and sly smile would break Dina’s heart.
The corpse whispered something in the elf’s ear. The back instantly straightened. The smile got kind.
“Is it right? Why don’t you show me to her right away!”
Dina turned towards the friendly voice, and the sparkle in her eyes would melt any heart. The corpse was gone, for now.
“Mom, it is an elf!”
“Yes, hon’,” Susanne said. “Let’s see if he can show us the toy factory.”

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Flashes of Sanity #124: Presinct of Sinners

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Today’s entry: Presinct of Sinners

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Cassandra counted them again. Just to be sure. She got stuck on Kara. Like last time. That flappy skin. The mouth hanging weirdly over her teeth. Somehow that was worse than the brain showing on Brynk’s skull.
They were all here, Cassandra concluded. They were all alive. With the word on the street, she felt quite divided from that fact.
They were all sinners.
Not a single saint on her troop. Not a single killing wound.
“What do we do now?” Aresh asked. “We can’t hide forever.”
“I don’t know.” Cassandra sighed. She looked up at the curved roof. The roof reminded her that they had taken to the sewer to find somewhere safe. It was also a reminder of all the feet stomping over their heads. “I just don’t know.”
“Has anyone seen Isa?” Kara’s mouth was still but her teeth moved behind the lips.
The troop looked at her, then they all looked away. Cassandra forced herself to keep eye contact just a little longer than the rest.
“No, we have no news about Isa.”
“Well, I am damned sure he wasn’t a saint.” Kara continued. “He has to be somewhere.”
“As soon as this all has calmed down, we will search for him.”
Kara seemed to accept Cassandra’s reason. But then again, how could Cassandra be really sure? The skin mask hid all her expressions.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened to your face?” Sandell muttered.
Kara’s face quickly turned to wards him and Sandell threw himself back at the sight.
“Why don’t you tell me what you did while I was gone?” Kara spat back. “Did you have fun while my killer walked in my skin. Did you notice that he wasn’t me?”
Cassandra froze. She was dead? She thought. She saw her own question reflect on the other’s faces.
“I was captured, skinned and killed just so some maniac could get a fix for his perverted desire of dressing like others.” Inside Kara’s mouth tears ran down her mouth. “And you never noticed. No one noticed that he wasn’t me. I thought you knew me.”
Kara hid her sloppy face behind her wrinkled hands. “I was so wrong.”
The air disappeared as the realization sank in.
“I am sorry.” Sandell was the first to break out of the trauma. “That sounds horrible.”
He put his hand on Kara’s shoulder. Cassandra regained control of her own thoughts.
“When did he kill you?”
“When I went to check out the abandoned storage building back in March. The one we got noise complaints from. It was him who put in the complaint. He waited for me.”
“That was…” Cassandra met Sandell’s hollow gaze.
“I am sorry,” Sandell said again. “Sh*t. This is awful.”
Inside Cassandra’s thoughts one voice surfaced. He probably planned to kill us all. He probably had been close so many times.

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Flashes of Sanity #123: Shaded Warrior

Welcome to Flashes of Sanity! Your daily dose of flash fiction on 500 words or less.

Today’s entry: Shaded Warriot

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Gray put the glass to his mouth. The brown went down with a burn through his throat. He forced down another chug.
Who cared anyway? It was not like he could die.
The news showed the dragon falling, just like it had the last few hours. It was all the news was nowadays. Murder, monsters and chaos.
Still, his home pulled at his heart.
“You can get brain damage from watching too much TV.” The brunette saving him from the water leaned her pretty head in between him and the screen. “I think brain damage still is a problem even if you are immortal.”
“If you ask the people shooting each other, they would probably not agree.”
She turned her head just to see two gangs shooting at each other. “You are probably right about that.” She stretched to the aged TV and turned it off.
“I still believe it is bad for you. You can thank me later.”
Gray groaned. “How come the world is in chaos but this island is not?”
“The same way the rest of the world has people going Christmas crazy once every year and we don’t. Tourists and seasonal workers. During down time neither want to be here, and we are kind of left alone.”
“You are probably right about that.” Gray turned the glass upside down and felt another fire travel down his throat.
“I know I am, and now when the world is on fire all flights are cancelled too.” The girl handed Gray a glass of water. “So, you better start making the best of your trip, honey.”
“I am drinking ain’t I?”
The frown on the girl’s face made her face into a tanned raisin. “That sounds like a splendid idea.”
“Any other ideas?”
“No, this is all up to you. But you are safe here, that is something that most other can’t say.”
Gray looked over his shoulder to the empty bar.
Yes, he thought. Safe and cut off from everyone else.
His thoughts wandered to the people not dying on the streets and the dragon. How long would this chaos be? What could end it? Why is there chaos?
He arose from his chair so fast the girl dropped the glass she was cleaning.
“Where are you going?” She asked.
“To the library and read about dragons.” Gray threw the door open. “If the world is upside-down, then maybe the dragon will be the solution. Or some other mystical creature.”
The girl giggled. “That’s more like it.”

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Flashes of Sanity #122: Announcement

Welcome to Flashes of Sanity! Your daily dose of flash fiction on 500 words or less.

Today’s entry: Announcement

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Shoulders rubbed against each other in the break room. Somehow, Mort felt four on each shoulder and two on his back. Such was the way in the corporate world.
The bench had been way better.
“Announcement to all employees at earth’s afterlife foundation, hell 32B has declared independence from heaven and all things once living. 31A, 49C, 10C and 89B are expected to be next in line. Within a week all of hell is expected to have declared itself independent.”
This is Tarrynk all over again, Mort thought. Voices in the masses whispered it too. Every one had seen it coming in the increased grumbles down below. Most choose to ignore it. Some precautions had been taken, but the priests would probably prove pointless.
“In the ecosystem of souls,” the speaker continued, “well functioning hells are necessary. The board has decided to take action and new initiatives will be rolling out immediately.”
The speaker went silent and only the masses breathing filled the vacuum. A man climbed a table. Nyah, Mort recalled. Head of Communications.
“Hi all.” Nyah had that ability to make his smile natural in all circumstances. Today was no exception. “I have been asked to continue from here.”
That meant ordered.
“To avoid the Tarrynk circumstances, we will refocus our branches towards returning the independent hells to our balanced ecosystem.”
Nyah read a long list of sections now ‘refocusing’. In the middle, Mort heard his own section. Automation, Sales. Basically, every section except the ones necessary to maintain the saints had been refocused.
“What are we refocused to?”
Nyah turned towards the one asking. “Your managers will tell you more.”
“What happens if we don’t want to refocus?”
“If you choose that refocusing is not for you,” Nyah hesitated, Mort wondered how many others who caught it before his smile returned. “It is decided that we use the same protocol as during the previous restructuring.”
The few annoyed groans suddenly turned silent.
Everyone knew someone who disappeared that day. No one wanted to disappear.
“Any more questions? Great! Your managers will take it from here.”
Mort followed the steady flow out of the break room. Just as the downfall of Tarrynk was well known, the measures necessary to bring Tarrynk back were a common subject.
It had not been pretty.

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