humanity – Aspiring

This is the 54th a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing. You can find out more about the challenge here.

The Killing Ghosts, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 24th January 2012

Word count: 697

Theme: alien invasion, resistance, war, survival, humanity, myth, legend

The story:

I got so scared, I felt I was alone facing things that shouldn’t even exist, never mind being in a relatively unimportant city in England. Whether they should be there or not, it was irrelevant.

The day had been going so well, I had a date that night, my job was going well, everything in life was grand. A few months earlier I’d Peru much had nothing to lose, but the day they came, I lost everything important, except my life.

It was mid-September when astronomers first saw the objects in the night sky, they were a wonder, unexplainable, mysterious globes of compressed liquid. Of course we didn’t just assume they were peaceful – though we didn’t even know about brains then. When it was obvious that they were on a collision course with the Blue Planet the US military took control of all efforts in regard. to the strange phenomena. They’re best efforts didn’t even cause the globes of liquid to waver, they kept coming.

Still life went on, the world split into three types of people. First off the were your traditional end of world types, (most figured them for loons, including me at first), then there were eager and excitable scientist types, lastly there was everyone else who couldn’t conceptualise what was happening, it was just this thing in the news. Sure it was the topic of many conversations but we didn’t understand, and it was years away.

So it was quite a shock when the center of Leeds was rocked by an immense exclusion as a globe crashed right into it. I’m told this was only a small one, but I was within five miles of impact it never felt small. It was the advanced unit, there to probe and test how we’d react, the rest of their armada arrived a month later, with sporadic advanced drops in medium cities around the world in between.

Continue reading “Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 54: The Killing Ghosts”

This is the eighth in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing from 2nd December 2012 until the 1st December 2013. It’s intent is to keep me writing throughout the year, and not just in November. you can find out more about the challenge here.

For Her, Anything, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 14th December 2012

Word count: 991

Theme: end of the work. unknown apocalypse, apocalypse, love, survival, violence, humanity

The story:

Dear Sarah,

Are you out there? Are you well? I worry about you and miss you. I was in London when it happened, I was going to bring you something nice. It’s five months later, five months moving from one wretched town to another, always making my way back home.

When the attack happened it hit central London first. I managed to evacuate. The following day, I broke away from the thousand of refugees, I don’t know why I went a different route, I just did. As did several others, dozens of us, guess it just seemed easier than being shepherded by the army to no one knows where.

Whimsy saved my life, you always said by random decision making would be the death of me, it nearly has three times since then, but that time, it saved me. The attack happened at mid-afternoon, we saw it on the horizon. All those refugees.

Continue reading “Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 13: For Her, Anything”