Here are some short stories I wrote a few years back for various college-level English competitions. Most of them are set within the “United Terra” setting but each can be read on its own.
An Old Promise (2020)
Captain on Deck
My hands at the helm
Set sail for the long journey
To the waking sea
Talent Show
The dreaded day has come
Judgment will soon begin
Iced has my body become
Struck has the blizzard within
The lights are blooming
The stage is set
The crowds are looming
The gaze is met
Hark! A rhythm most bizarre
Like an out-of-tune guitar
But the act must endure
Else shame will linger for sure
A Question of Faith
Riza bolted from the bed, gasping, breathing heavily. Sweat dripped from her brow, running along her cheeks. There was something on her wrist, a small hose ran from the base of the wristband toward an IV drip to the left of the bunk.
The walls around her were white, there was an end table to the right of her bed, a window at the end just paces from it. A coffee table with two chairs situated a few steps from her bunk, above it, a wall-mounted entertainment panel. The welcoming undertone of the room along with its mood lighting eased her thoughts a bit.
She got out of her bed and walked over to the window, dragging her IV drip with. Outside, there was a park with a fountain at its center. The people there were wearing the same hospital gown as hers, a couple of orderlies were accompanying them. Across, the exterior of a hospital ward broke up the horizon. The sky was a picturesque combination of dark blue and orange with the sun almost setting. Twin moons were barely soaring in the soon-to-be night sky. Stars were starting to glimmer.
The door to her room opened, entered a man carrying flowers and a fruit basket. He was around her age, perhaps older by a year, with similar facial structures, fair skin, blue eyes, and black hair. He was wearing a brown leather jacket over a collared blue shirt, gray slacks and black slip-on shoes.
“Whoa, Riza,” the man said in a worrying tone. “What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be out of your bed just yet.”
“Hayden?” Riza said in confusion. “What . . . what’s going on, why am I in a hospital? Are we on Nanavuk?”
“Yes, in the capital to be precise. You’re in Gale Memorial Hospital, best care in the colony. I believe this is your first time here, it can be confusing I know.”
Riza felt her head splitting apart, Hayden was right, she should’ve stayed in bed. Hayden hung his jacket, put the flowers and fruit basket on the end table. He then wrapped his right arm over her shoulders, grabbing the IV drip with his left. He helped her return to the bunk and wiped the sweat off her face. Soon after, he pulled up a chair and sat beside her. Riza was trying to get her bearings, she felt a manageable but swelling pain on her back and thighs. She had just felt the stitches.
“What happened to me?” asked Riza.
“Well sis you uh . . . were involved in an accident. Your transport shuttle was entering orbit when its shields failed, it almost burned in the atmosphere, good thing the plating held. But then the thrusters couldn’t take the heat, ironically. It plummeted down and crashed in the outskirts of the city. Thank the gods first responders arrived in time.”
It took a while for her to process those words, but then it all came back to her. The dread she experienced as the shuttle fell, the heat, as if she was being cooked alive in a giant microwave. The wall panels and seats of the shuttle came down hard on her. People around her were screaming.
“I remember,” said Riza. The expression on her face was clear enough, she didn’t want to. Hayden reassured her that she wasn’t in the shuttle anymore, that it was a thing of the past. In that moment, she snapped back to reality.
She then asked if the other passengers survived. Much to her relief, they did. It seemed she got the best of it. The shuttle pilot’s arms had to be amputated, it could take some time getting used to prosthetics. The elven dock worker who had sat next to her on the transport was paralyzed from the waist down. Nothing modern medicine couldn’t fix, but being bound to a wheelchair for six months waiting for the therapy to kick in wasn’t a position Riza would want to be in. The Roxon merchant who had sat across had to be sent off-world on a medical frigate. Even Nanavuk’s best hospital was ill-equipped to handle the non-Terran with such a distinct physiology. An orc businessman who wore a suit had sat beside the Roxon, a rare sight indeed. He chipped his tusks on the floor grating and had to remove them. Losing one’s tusks is considered to be humiliating in orcish culture.
“I guess our annual family reunion will have to wait,” Riza said, disappointed. Riza and Hayden always had a monthly reunion. It helped her through all those year-long expeditions charting the frontier as a United Terran Star Fleet officer.
“Nonsense,” said Hayden in a dismissing yet playful tone, “I can have them here by noon tomorrow, my husband has been avoiding his routine check-up anyway, at least he’ll delighted to see you. And don’t get me started on Sophie.”
“Oh I can’t let little Sophie see me like this, it’ll ruin her.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Sophie’s strong just like her aunt.”
“Ugh, stop calling me that, you make me feel so old, I’m only twenty-seven.” A smile came to her aching face, Hayden smiled back. Riza looked up at the ceiling, contemplating, and then sighed. “I guess I was lucky. We all were.”
Hayden’s smile turned into an equally contemplative look, his eyes were gazing at the squeaky clean floor, he bit his lip, his mouth arched up. Riza recognized that look immediately, he had something to say at the tip of his tongue.
Faith had always been decisive in their family, father was a strong believer, he believed in the gods of mankind, on how the threads of the universe were predetermined. How they granted Terrans the ability to cast spells, conjure familiars, summon spirits. Mother, not so much. She accepted her husband’s view and bore no ill-will towards the religion of the Ancients—at least, their modern interpretation. When Terra was divided, religion and magic were the lay of the land. Humans had their gods, elves their Goddess. Both the dwarves and orcs worship their ancestors, dwarves in memory, and orcs in spirit. She was critical of this discordant nature and its grip on society that left it stagnant. It did—after all—plunge Terra into a hundred year war, ending in the outright ban of magic usage not for the advancement of Terrans as a united people. After the war, many Terrans abandoned their faith. This was two millennia ago.
Mother and Father would have these long discussions any day of the week. It wasn’t hostile, not at all. It was rather informative, sometimes philosophical. Not to mention, the sheer amount of subjects to be discussed whenever the deities of other Terran races were brought up. The siblings watched by the sidelines, and eventually formed their own views on the subject.
“Riza . . .” Hayden finally said something after a long pause, “What if it’s more than that? You and all of the people in the shuttle survived. Don’t laugh, but I believe the gods have looked over you, they have shielded you. The other Terrans, their gods were with them as well. Unlike Father, I don’t think the coexistence of many such deities go against the realm of possibility. Even the merchant was protected as well, Roxon theology is rather fascinating from what I gather. I’m sure you’ve interacted with them quite frequently, but they never seem eager to share their beliefs with members of other species. Wait, are you laughing?”
Riza’s smile was that of an attentive observer, not a mocking heckler.
“No Hayden, I wasn’t laughing. You are so relentless.”
“Relentless? I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It’s so nice seeing you like this. But please . . . not now. I need to rest.”
She knew where this conversation was going, but she wasn’t interested at the state she was in. Hayden kept persuading his sister, he thought she needed someone to talk with, to keep her company. He promised not to get all philosophical this time. Just this once. Riza gave in, the pain on her back and thighs subsided, bed rest has done her favorably.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m ecstatic that you are here. But, I’m also grateful the gods have given us another chance to meet. I’ve always prayed for you, you know. Every time you ventured out to the stars, I shudder to think the amount of ways I could lose you. You and your Star Fleet are the vanguard of our United Terra, we still haven’t explored one eighth of the galaxy. Who knows what dangers lie await in the depths of uncharted space? So I kept to my faith, and here you are. I still have a loving sister.”
“Part of the job, Hayden. I knew the risks when I signed on. I appreciate the thought, but my faith . . . or lack thereof, has nothing to do with it. Things just happen, it’s my simple way of living. This accident? It happened. I survived, that’s good. No outside force is influencing my decisions, or the things that befell me.”
“What about magic, how do you explain that? The Ancients were crazed with its power, after the war began a new age, the union of magic and technology. But I digress, they both materialize from the same source. So what do you think?”
“Some Terrans and non-Terrans have rare mutations that allow them to tap into and manipulate certain energy sources, the building blocks of the universe. That is why magic from one planet to the other isn’t that different. These days, magic has been so carefully controlled and tested it might as well be a part of science. FTL travel, teleportation, you name it.”
These discussions happened from time to time, mirroring their parents. Though it had been increasing in frequency ever since their parents’ untimely death. They never relent, they knew these debates would last long and, at the end, one would never change the other’s mind. But there was solace, a sense of familiarity. As ridiculous this charade is to the outside observer, these debates were their way of remembering their parents, what they stood for, what they were like. They kept going on and on, until the two moons of Nanavuk glistened at the foreground of the starry night sky.
Visiting hours were over.
“My gods, look at the time,” said Riza, bewildered. “How long have we been talking?”
“Did I just hear that right? ‘My gods’ huh?” teased Hayden.
“Oh come off it, it’s just an expression.”
Hayden had to go, he stood from the chair and placed it back to where it was originally, next to the coffee table. He put on his leather jacket, leaned over to the bed and hugged his sister, carefully as not to injure her still recovering back. He did not succeed, she let out a small “ow” and Hayden quickly apologized. Riza didn’t mind, it was worth it.
They said their goodbyes, Riza told Hayden to send her regards to his husband and daughter. As he approached the door, Riza interrupted his exit with a question that had been sitting on the precipice of her thoughts.
“Hayden, in all these years you never had any doubts about your faith? Not even when . . .”
“I wish they were still here, the threads of fate can be cruel sometimes. They were taken away from us too early. I would give anything to see them again.”
“You’ll hear no objections from me, brother. And I’m sorry we didn’t see each other a lot during those times.”
His face turned into a frown, a frown of remembrance, of foregone memories, of guidance full of wisdom. He found comfort in believing that they’re now in a better place. From knowing that they’re in a better place, somewhere, still watching the siblings keep their memories from sinking deep into the sea of oblivion. His face suddenly lit up, and turned to Riza’s gaze.
“Now it’s my turn, still the faithless realist I’ve come to know?”
“Actually, I think I do have faith in something now.”
“Really? And what might that be?”
“I have faith in you.”
The Man with the Top Hat
At noon, the streets of the bustling metropolis were packed with traffic. The horns of its denizen’s automobiles blended with each other, performing a chaotic chorus of urban life. Exhaust fuming with carbon, the heat combined with humid environs formed water-like ripples on the horizon, if you can make it out.
On a busy intersection, something out of the ordinary has occurred. It’s more jam packed than usual. A black Prius with its hood opened, was being hauled toward the sidewalk by a couple of pedestrians. Puffs of smoke emanating from the Prius’ engine obscured parts of the road.
‘My car… no! My car!’ said the man wearing a top hat and a monocle. He dressed anachronistically, his custom-tailored suit with family emblems in the cufflinks, his spotless black slippers made a distinct leather-y sound every step he took. Everything about the man seemed out of place, or rather, out of time. It’s as if he was ripped straight from that photo your grandmother store in her lockbox. Only this one has a Prius.
‘What have you done you brigands? Step away from my vehicle!’ commanded Top Hat, brushing sweat from his brow, the movement of his mustache echoed his lip. Most everyone found him amusing enough to look at, but the pedestrians quickly rushed off. Top Hat was quite recognizable, denizens of the neighboring block knew what kind of a man he was. Better to stay out of his way they thought.
Top Hat was furious, he just had his car serviced two days ago. ‘Why those incompetent buffoons,’ he muttered, ‘I’m never going back to their wretched garage, if I ever see them again I’ll… I-ll-‘.
“What’s the matter, you having a wee bit of trouble?” interrupted a short stocky Scotsman who was walking by. To Top Hat, what the Scotsman just said was some incomprehensible gibberish resembling the English language. Of course, Top Hat’s over-inflated ego might’ve had something to do with his lack of ability to comprehend.
‘What?’ Top Hat said in genuine confusion. ‘Never mind, can you help a gentleman out? As you can see my car is having a bit of a problem.’
It was more than just a bit.
‘Right,’ the Scotsman said while looking over the Prius’ engine. ‘Ah, you’ve got a broken radiator there laddie, must’ve been the heat.’
‘Eh?’ Top Hat said looking even more confused, he wasn’t sure if the Scotsman uttered something about the radiator, or summoning his dead ancestors.
‘Overheated radiator,’ the Scotsman reiterated. ‘Come now, I own a place where you can get your car fixed in a hurry, it’s just a couple of blocks away. I can help you push.’
Top Hat can only recognize the word “push”. He nodded hesitantly, agreeing with the Scotsman. Though he didn’t expect what would happen next.
The two men began pushing the Prius, one of them having more difficulty than the other. Top Hat with his bulbous figure couldn’t stand to apply pressure to his precious Prius’ rear for more than five seconds.
‘Hang in there lad, the repair shop is just around the corner’ assured the Scotsman.
‘Yes… the… repair… shop…’ said Top Hat, the words sounded like the last words of someone on a deathbed. But t’was not in vain. At least it helped Top Hat thin out some of his more… undesirable features. The car too, of course.
The sun has begun to set, shadows of skyscrapers started engulfing the city streets. The street lamps brightened, drivers turned on their headlights. In the automobile repair shop, the ruckus has died down. Peace and quiet for Top Hat who has been dozing off since afternoon.
‘My lads never disappoint,’ said the Scotsman with pride. ‘There, good as new. Now about payment-‘
‘Just charge it to my credit card’ said Top Hat. He still couldn’t understand much of what the Scotsman was saying, but at the mere mention of “payment” he answered with the aforementioned words, as if by reflex. One wonders how much cash he has stored on his account. But still, a Prius?
‘Aye that’ll do, say you wouldn’t mind grabbing a pint with me?’
‘Umm…’
‘C’mon now, hard work me and the boys just did, let’s go unwind ourselves.’
‘Yes, yes sure… whatever, charge that too.’
‘Well aren’t you generous good sir.’
The Scotsman walked with Top Hat to the nearest pub, the boys had to stay at the repair shop, they’re not old enough to drink. Top Hat usually don’t participate in such revelries, sleepy-head here thought they were throwing a party for him. Knowing he’s got a blank check, the Scotsman ordered a round for everyone in the pub, and then some. Unsurprisingly Top Hat couldn’t hold his belly, it wasn’t a pleasant sight, but at least he got to the privy in a hurry.
After about an hour, they finally returned to the shop. The Scotsman bid farewell, with words resembling that of a Gregorian Chant from Top Hat’s perspective. There was no sugar-coating it he was drunk as hell. Surprisingly, the Scotsman let Top Hat drove the Prius in that state of stupor. Of course, the Scotsman had a much higher tolerance of alcohol than the smarmy relic. Indeed, there was no reason not to let Top Hat drive, from the point of view of the Scotsman with a steel belly.
Enter the intersection. ‘Hello,’ said Top Hat with breath smelling like the unwashed 2 week old laundry that he left lying about because the housemaid was on vacation. ‘Let’s go fooorrr… *hiccup* round twoooo.’
Top Hat stepped on the pedal, gripping the steering wheel tightly, letting go of the clutch, shifting gears, oh the adrenaline. Lights from outside the cockpit glistened, reflected off the dashboard. Vehicle horns echoed.
Thump.
Airbags blew open from the steering wheel, the front window shattered, momentum has thrown Top Hat forward, yet the seatbelt tightly gripping the man’s torso, saved him from being flung outside.
No, it was not a vehicle that Top Hat hit, it was a perfectly stationary tree.
‘Nooo… *hiccup* I’ll get youuuu next time, road, Scottish personnn *hiccup*’
Top Hat fainted. No, not because he was injured, there’s not even a bruise or a cut on his person. The drinks have finally conquered the man’s body. Good thing there were still people around to help this poor soul. Ambulance were called. Other than that poor tree, nothing else was damaged. No one else was harmed.
‘Ugh, costume parties.’ said a pedestrian in disgust.
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