Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #00566 - A191: Vampirism Sucks

A group of casual vampires, perhaps playing poker or lounging by the pool, with cheesy-looking coconuts with straws in, when in bursts a newbie vampire hunter who apparently got all his info from a book written before both the discovery of the coconut milk thing and safe volunteer blood donor procedures.

The sun had risen. Those in the pool had fled for the cabana at the first hint of light in the east. There, they applied zinc oxide very liberally to their pale skins or wrapped themselves in Vantablack cloaks or gowns while waiting their turn at the colour they desired most.

They sipped coconut water and gossiped amongst themselves.

At least until Kevin VanHelsing turned up.

He wore sports padding in every available location, and had added silver-looking studs to every possible surface. He was bedecked with enough religious jewellery to make him look like the love child of a rapper and a pro wrestler.

“Avaunt! Back into the nether depths from whence you came, foul creatures of the night!” He gestured menacingly with a wooden garden stake.

“Every tventy-fife years,” moaned Elvira. “Can’t your family kip notes?”

“I dunno, I think the ‘nether depths’ thing is funny,” said Vlad.

“Is gettink to be annoying,” complained Nosty as he applied colours over his base coat of white zinc cream.

“…avaunt…?” murmured Kevin. “I’ve got a wooden stake and everything…?”

Liz, who was still modest after millennia of sucking blood, emerged from her Vantablack robe in an elaborate rainbow of body paint and a very staid swimsuit. “That’s probably pine. It wouldn’t do us the least bit of trouble. You need oak.” She picked up a spare coconut and sipped idly from the bendy straw. “And as for this pile of… bling? Is that the word?”

“That’s the word, honey,” said Lilia.

“Most of this is copper. The rest of it is rusting. And if you really wanted to hurt us? You wouldn’t have painted all of these spikes with fake chrome paint.”

“It’s gold that hurts Wampires, sveetie,” said Elvira. “And ve only drink from volunteers who are not cripy.”

“Which means all volunteers,” said Lilia.

“Turns out, coconut water is just as good,” said Liz, gesturing with her beverage. “So… we’re kinda harmless?”

“You shouldn’t smile when you say that,” informed Lilia. “Turns them off.”

“But…” Kevin whimpered. “…noble heritage… vampire hunters…”

“Aaaaawww…” cooed Liz. “Poooooorr human…”

“Elizabeth Bathory, don’t you dare,” Lilia threw on the discarded robe so she could haul Liz back into the shadows. “Remember the last human you tried to adopt? You don’t know how to look after them. You think they can go without food for weeks like we can…”

“But he doesn’t have anything, Lilly…”

Sigh. “…why did i fall in love with you?” Growl. “Fine. We’ll hire him as a bodyguard and trust him to look after himself, okay?”

Liz bounced and clapped her hands. “Yaaaaayyy! Best! Girlfriend! Ever!”

[Muse food remaining: 60. Submit a promptAsk a questionBuy my stories!]

Challenge #00565 - A190: One Fine Evening in a Festival of Masques

A duet between Francouer and The Spine.

On the plus side, the makeup was working. On the minus side, everyone was giving him the stink-eye because he’d decided to test it during an extended costume party all over Paris.

The Spine considered it a point of merit that he had to buy a cheap mask on a stick just to ward off hostility.

One of the Peters would yell at him later for getting paint in his seams, but… it felt

Read more »

Challenge #00564 - A189: Perplexing

Turnabout is fair play: Something the aliens consider utterly mundane and/or harmless, that is dangerous or terrifying to humans.

It was a disaster. The freshly-introduced Ambassador Harry still hunkered in her improvised bunker of relatively solid furniture, butter knife held tight to her chest in a white-knuckled grip. The ability to speak had left her and she would slash or stab at anyone who came close.

Until Sui'dut came to sort out the mess. Sui'dut, the only alien Harry trusted on

Read more »

Challenge #00563 - A188: We Didn't Start the Flame War

You know Billy Joel’s song “We didn’t start the Fire”?

Well, there’s a really juvenile (which is admittedly appropriate for the subject, mostly) CollegeHumor take on it called “We didn’t start the Flame War”, that is surprisingly catchy. I was just wondering what a story using the title of the CollegeHumor song, but without the more egregious moments of the song, would look like.

Indulge my curiosity? — RecklessPrudence

A blur of black, white, and gold. A rushed, “Hide

Read more »

Challenge #00562 - A187: The Problem with Problems

This XKCD. – RecklessPrudence

Fifteen-year-olds can solve the world’s problems, at least on a hypothetical basis. Case in point, Trudy Mackinaw.

“You know that if they taxed money transfers at a basis of point zero one percent, they’d have enough money to destroy poverty.”

But the rest of the world in general and her parents in particular didn’t listen. Because she was a fifteen-year-old girl. They wouldn’t have listened if she was

Read more »

Challenge #00561 - A186: Unlikely Meetings

Sara and Francouer.

{Pop!}

“Aaaaaah!”

Francoeur caught the falling form with two of his arms and a startled chitter.

In show business, there were many opportunities to see unclothed humans, but this was the most unclothed he’d seen any human. And she was green. Sort of. Somewhere between green and blue. And the top of her… garment… had no visible means of support.

“Ow,” she complained. “Sorry about that. Did I hurt anything?

Read more »

Challenge #00560 - A185: Surprises

From that original post that started the whole Amity thing: “What if every alien race has nothing but docile, harmless animals on their planets and they look at us with our sharks and bears and wolves and wasps and venomous snakes and just think “Holy shit! How do you guys survive?!””

T’reka’s people found and seeded the planet with their own wildlife and plants, presumably all fairly docile and harmless. What was the reaction on first discovering, not the humans

Read more »

Challenge #00559 - A184: Proclivities

Dragons and princes! http://scienceisadesiretoknow.tumblr.com/post/86360033211/rosengeist-faerill-a-young-gay-dragon-being

Prince Derek had fallen in love the instant he’d seen those bronze-coloured wings coming towards him. He had even let go of the reins and removed his feet from the stirrups.

Allethar didn’t fall in love until until Prince Derek began raining down praises with a tongue that was only metaphorically silver. There was something about *this* human that made him more than an exercise in extracting ransom and then

Read more »

Challenge #00558 - A183: Strange Passtimes

The next intergalactic olympic sport: Human/Numidid Assisted-Launch Longflight

(aka throwing the numidids and seeing who can flap furthest)

Amity narrowly missed being the first civilisation to adopt human co-operation by a margin of two Standard Weeks. The Britanians became the first humans known as ‘mostly harmless’ to the Galactic Alliance, thanks to Ambassador Harry.

But that didn’t stop the Galactic Alliance from coming to have a good boggle.

“You’re in luck,” said the human. “There’s

Read more »

Challenge #00557 - A182: Comfort Conniption

inspired by http://internutter.tumblr.com/post/77932780162/challenge-00429-a054-urgent-call-home

T’reka might not be as tactile as humans a lot of the time, but repeated exposure would presumably get her mostly used to them and the amount of touching, hugging etc. that tends to happen around humans, even when trying to be careful.

Extrapolating further: A scene with T’reka, a human and a new numidid having a minor conniption fit over perceived threats.

It had taken some significant time for both

Read more »

Challenge #00556 - A181: Mwa-hahahahaha

Mad scientists are real, lurking in academia.  Sure, they may not wield death rays and threaten the populace, but when a presentation ending in “Today, Australia! Tomorrow, THE WORLD!” receives thunderous applause, and your adviser’s name is literally Dr. Fatal, you begin to realize that your childhood dream of showing them, SHOWING THEM ALL is more realizable than you thought…..

Doctor Fatal was still giggling as she stepped away from the podium. That was a good sign.

“I’m

Read more »

Challenge #00555 - A180: Essential Developments

Ridiculous fact of the day: We went to the moon before we thought to put wheels on suitcases.

Some things are essential for cogniscent development. The ability to control heat is one. Civilisation in any form is another.

It is impossible to have a planet where the entire population are dancers. People must eat. People must learn. People must make insipid sitcoms and nobody knows why.

But some things… don’t always happen in the correct order.

“Wait,”

Read more »

Challenge #00554 - A179: The Second-Unkindest Cut

“Aliens do not understand papercuts.”

The death world menace flinched, howling in agony. “Idonotfirkinbelievethis!” It dropped the weapon it was holding. “Agodsdamnedpapercut. Afterallthis, agodsdamnedpapercut…”

The huddling assembly of survivors blinked in confusion. This creature had survived toxic gas, lacerations, contusions, concussion, shock, awe, and extremes of temperatures… and now it was halted by a relatively minor injury to its apparently thick hide.

It wasn’t even bleeding, there.

Yet the creature stopped. Retreated,

Read more »

Challenge #00553 - A178: Monstrous, Not a Monster

(based on your SPG/MiP crossover)

Francoeur’s initial efforts to help with the wounded, being generally scared of the soldiers, figuring out he can carry tons of resources and singing to everyone.

They still ran the cabaret, though it was starting to be more of a hospice and partially a hotel. More and more soldiers came in, and more and more saw him in all his monstrous glory.

Nothing gets a soldier reaching for their weapons faster than a seven-foot-tall flea.

Read more »

Challenge #00552 - A177: Mischief at Work

Pretending to be an exhibit at the waxworks museum.

The real trick, of course, is to blink or change poses when no-one is watching. Or, in the case of this waxwork exhibit, adopt a pose when someone approached.

She had hers already. Propped up at the writing desk and staring at the blinking cursor. In some, she actually dropped off to sleep like that, and nobody noticed the difference.

At least she didn’t snore sitting up.

But this time, she

Read more »