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Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Responses to "Fright of a Lifetime" (2-4)

Ideas that this mash-up sparked:

1. Krumm is out lurking and finds Abner’s trough. Meets Abner, and cue unlikely friendship.

2. The monster trio meets the Sewer King. ‘Nough said.

3. The Gromble watches the results of the Halloween ‘War of the Worlds’ debacle; is grudgingly impressed.

[AN: Once again, I have to remind my readers to PLEASE SUBMIT PROMPTS ONE AT A TIME. My own absent-mindedness and technological incompetence means that I have to do multiple stories at once. On one hand, it means I get ahead on my story count, on the other hand - increased risk of extreme wrist pain. Yes, I know it’s a pain in your ass, but I’d rather have your temporary inconvenience than my actual physical injury]

(#00727 - A362 - #00730 - A365)

2. Abner meets Krumm

Something smelled delicious. He was supposed to be on reconnaissance, but Krumm was also hungry. Which was why he left his stake-out spot to investigate.

Someone had left out some premium slop in a long, shallow container. Krumm couldn’t help but help himself. Delicious.

A rhythmic grunting came from his left. A fellow connoisseur also enjoying the slop.

“They got really nice eats, here,” said Krumm. “Just like mother used to spoil.”

The pink creature looked at him, grunted again, and went back to eating.

Krumm could relate. This stuff was too good to waste with casual conversation.

It took him several months of illicit return visits to realise that his dining partner was actually a surface animal.

3. Monsters V Sewer King

They had been watching him for some time. It wasn’t often that the humans invaded the monster world, let alone stayed, so classifying this one became something of a problem.

And there was the fact that one of Dr Buzz Kutt’s previous attempts at a human suit was missing with its occupant inside.

“If he is a monster in a human suit,” speculated Oblina, “then I’m very glad you rescued me in time.”

“He smells like one of us,” said Krumm, odour expert.

“He looks and talks like a human,” whispered Ickis. “I say we avoid him just to be safe.”

Krumm had an idea. “Hey. Can you do that brain-tickling thing to find out if he is a human or not?”

“Well it would rather resolve things, since I can’t tickle the brains of fellow monsters.”

“Great,” said Ickis. “Then all we have to do is wait for him to fall asleep.”

Which was, when they got down to it, a really boring stake-out. Apparently the Sewer King had sleep disorders and relied heavily on a human beverage called Kaffi.

4. Gromble V Helga

“It is, it is,” the Gromble cooed to himself. “It is just human children in masks. And that one…” he pointed to the leader on the screen. “I know that one.”

He consulted the files. Of course it was Helga Pataki. The scariest resident of the surface world shy of Montgomery Burns. He recorded the footage she broadcast, and created a highlights and lowlights list. Not that there were very many lowlights.

And, because he was a teacher who used shame and fear to motivate his students, he used it as an example of how pathetic his student body was.

“This is the work of a human,” he informed them. “One human, with some minor conspirators, managed to terrify an entire city. Whereas most of you… CAN’T MAKE A SMALL CHILD CRY! What are you doing wrong? Well… why don’t you study this, and give me a twelve-page essay on all the details?”

All of them shrank in their places and wailed in anguish.

Oh yes. Life was good.

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Response to "The Fright of a Lifetime" (1)

Oblina tries her hand at scaring Helga, but studies her first. Recognizes her interaction with Arnold from her time in Dr. Buzzcut’s Human Suit. Take it from there!

(#00726 - A361)

The view from the gutter was not wide, but it was educational. Oblina had long since learned to recognise the human by her shoes.

She had somehow suspected that Dr Buzz Kutt’s theories had been in error, but there was living confirmation. She could see and hear Helga

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One person's trash...

Arizona pyrope garnets occur in a remote section of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. The gems have never been mined commercially because there aren’t enough of them.  The entire world supply of these gems depends on those living nearby who collect a few stones after the occasional rainstorm and trade them at local stores.

This gem is most commonly called “ant-hill garnet” because they are “mined” by ants. Ants find the garnets while digging their anthills, drag them out, and discard

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Challenge #00724 - A359: Technobabble

From a forum conversation on technobabble: “we’re running low on pixie dust and the containment breach can’t hold any more rabbits so the ship is going to explode from thermal expansion and kill us all”

Responded to with: “Pfft, everyone knows pixie dust is self-containing.”

They called it the Ark.

“So… you got all the StarMetal that was ever made, and turned it into… this?”

“There’s also magically re-enforced Dweomer Steel. It’

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Dragons need better PR agents.

“Hmrph… but that’s how it always is, isn’t it? Just because they have so many prolific bards and scholars in their employ, they think they get the rights to dictate how everyone else is seen by the future generations - they don’t even TRY to ask my opinion… I’ve got scales on my butt older than their eldest king, and they still think they know more about my kind than I do… Humans are utter idiots.”

Catlike,

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Challenge #00722 - A357: Food That Sings

http://callmegallifreya.tumblr.com/post/104613467865/the-magical-crawdad-mmolio-funkocide

“asexual sirens getting real fuckin pissed about all these sailors interrupting choir rehearsal”

“sirens are already asexual they dont have sex with the men they kill them”

“well no wonder they kill them they keep interrupting choir rehearsal”

“Asexual mermaids being really pleased when an asexual sailor begins singing baritone counterpoint.”

They usually didn’t pay attention to the wooden things that floated on top of their

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"Did you hear the one about the two humans?"

What if the majority (or at least a statistically-notable percentage) of the Galactic Community had mating seasons, like most animals do, so that as a result, with humanity’s decidedly non-seasonal “anytime and anywhere” sexual biology, we’re the butt of a million planets’ cheezy and/or stereotype-based dirty jokes…

[AN: Trigger warning: rape mention]

(#00721 - A356)

Of course, humans supplied some of them. Nothing cycles around quicker than a recycled joke.

“How many humans does it take to screw

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Challenge #00720 - A355: The Abomination

“SPACE IT!” “BURN IT!” “We’ll compromise. LAUNCH IT INTO THE SUN!”

“What is it?” asked M'ri.

“I think it’s a human artefact,” Chobb turned the object over in her hands. It was roughly spherical, and featured false fur in lurid colours. There were comical parodies of eyes above a birdlike pointed beak. Yet it had mammalian ears and ducklike feet. “I think it might be a platypus

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Challenge #00719 - A354: Divinity Proclivity

I am not the god of reason and understanding, I am the GOD OF THUNDER AND LIGHTNING -Thor

The halo was a dead give-away, really. Something about a God in mortal form made a visible aura of light a definite thing.

May ran through ever possible conversation gambit in her head and finished up with, “So you’re a God, then.”

“Not a capital-G god,” said the divinity. “Not any more. Not enough followers, you see.

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Challenge #00718 - A353: One Afternoon in a High School Classroom

“The Mongols sent diplomatic caravans to establish an alliance with them, and they responded by massacring them. Twice. Subsequently the region’s population dropped by 90% or so for some reason.”

[AN: My internet is a sack of suck at the moment, so I’m doing the most recent prompt. My apologies to those who were waiting for their prompt to turn up. I will find a way to get to your prompt]

“Whoah, whoah, whoah…”

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Challenge #00717 - A352: Pre-Luddite

The first cyborg hate crime probably happened around the time the first peg leg was ripped off with malice aforethought.

“Ereb… ka… heb…” Lynn dutifully wrote down the hieroglyphs and checked the translations. Her quest for extra credit had her translating old manuscripts that had been collected from, apparently, the dawn of time.

This was an ancient form of writing, from the super-early period of Egyptian civilisation, so translation was especially tricky.

She stretched the kinks out

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Challenge #00716 - A351: As the Station Turns

Aliens of all kind discover Soap Operas, have fun with the adaptations and scripts and of course the fans. — knitnan

Serialised drama is nothing new. The fact that it invaded the known universe before the humans made themselves known is the only thing from stopping the accusing finger pointing at those dangerous primates. And there is a legend that some baffling ancient alien went around the universe and introduced infant species to the concept. But some people will say anything…

Even the

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Challenge #00715 - A350: The Truth is Out There

Assume the plane in prompt 00691 - A326 is the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, or another mysteriously vanishing flight. It finally lands on the planet and the pilots try to flag down a passerby to ask for directions home.

25th of May, 2003.

As soon as they were out of range, a party broke out on board.

“We did it!”

“WOO!”

“We got our own goddamn JET!”

Shrieks and whoops and general celebration lasted all of

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Challenge #00714 - A349: One Thing in Common

Video Prompt!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4dT8FJ2GE0

6 people singing an Icelandic hymn in a German train station with excellent acoustics.

If there was one phrase Rael learned to dread, it was any variation on, “Let me get my axe,” from Ambassador Shayde. On one hand, it meant something historical was going to happen. On the other hand, it meant that she would gather crowds.

And there was always at least one who thought he was part of

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Sonic Rainbows

Neil Harbisson’s TED Talk “I Listen to Colors” (I recommend checking it out first) is what inspired this submission idea, as did the phenomenon of synaesthesia.  What if, somewhere in your Amalgam Universe, there was an alien race out there for whom normal perceptions of color and sound were not like humans, but color and sound were interrelated - fashion was chosen for how it sounded rather than how it looked, portraits were heard symphonies, and music and speeches could be

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