Creative Corner

She kicked her legs in the ocean, and from where her feet touched the water, steam billowed into the air. It was creation, they said, of the most primal type. She called it free real estate.

All the things she made started out hot and untouchable, but they soon cooled and green things grew on them. Sometimes, she got bored and destroyed them in a wave of burning rock! Sometimes, she let them grow.

Don't get her started on the flies, though. Scientists talked about rapid evolution and speciation, she wondered if it was worth wiping the slates clean to get rid of the buzzing little things. What were flies even for?

She knew what she was for. In the old days, she'd been everything, everywhere, turning the world inside out. Some of her had become the rock in the sky everyone seemed to like so much. But those were the days when she was young, before she settled down and made some proper mountain ranges, plateaus, valleys. Now she was slow and she carried everything on her back.

Worst of all, most of her was hidden underneath... it. Slimy and full of wriggling things and so very, very cold, always splashing and sloshing around. It was easy to hate, her polar opposite. And most of the time, they did not mix, because it did not like her either. It stayed in the oceanic basins, she pushed the Himalayas as tall as they could go. It washed in and out of the shores uneasily, she was sculpted by the wind into fantastic shapes.

But that couldn't happen here, where she fought her way from underneath it back into the sun. Creating new land for new things to grow on. Everywhere else they could ignore each other, river canyons in a land of dust, but not here.

Here, she turned water to steam.

//

@Avanari

@Avanari Deadline has passed, boop! :3

Can you please ping me for prompts?

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@TwoSwordsClash

@lessthan3

The small town of Riverton sat nestled between two towering peaks in the Rocky Mountains. Made up of two roads that fed directly to the interstate, the town was mainly inhabited by those who were born there. With only a couple hundred citizens and a dense wood surrounding it, Riverton was the definition of a small town.

The Pollux family had lived there since the town had been established, arriving with the other two families who had trekked west to the idyllic crevasse. Down through the decades, the three families continued to grow and build, attracting the loners and naturists. The gold rush brought in much needed growth, but then left Riverton as barren as the rest of the boom towns.

Jaecen Pollux was one of the last of the Pollux line to live in Riverton. The rest were long gone, and the town was nearing its end. His bags were packed and sitting in the living room, as he sat in bed pondering the upcoming move. He lay on a sleeping bag on the floor of his master bedroom while the light of the moon shone throughout.

The light seemed so precious and pure, Jaecen thought it might do him some good to clear his mind, breathe in the fresh night air. He wanted more than anything to see the moon shining down through the trees onto the abandoned streets of the town. He stood up and walked around the room, throwing on a jacket and pulling on his shoes. Just as he went to push open the door, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

Jaecen ignored it, but it kept vibrating, much longer than it should. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he flicked it on. The screen illuminated as notifications scrolled down the screen. One after the other, they kept coming, each one displaying the same cryptic message:

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL NIGHT TONIGHT. LOOK OUTSIDE.

The messages kept coming in, pausing only intermittently. Jaecen opened his phone and checked the numbers to find that everyone he knew in Riverton had sent the message. The texts stopped coming as the last person he knew rang in, and he stood, staring at his phone in confusion mingled with terror. Something was definitely wrong.

As he stood there, his screen turned black, and his phone blared a siren as a new message flashed:

DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON.

Almost immediately afterwards, Jaecen heard another siren coming from outside his door, then another, and another, until it seemed that the earth itself was screaming out in pain. In a panic, he threw open the door.

The moon sat on the horizon directly down the street that stretched away from Jaecen's door. It was massive as it tucked itself between the two peaks. Its light shone down on the entire town, silhouetting every building, street sign, and car, as well as a couple hundred people standing in front of Jaecen's house, staring at him.

Their eyes were flushed white, shining with the same light as the moon as they all pulled their mouths into painfully wide smiles and spoke with one voice:

It's a beautiful night tonight.

Jaecen responded:

It is.

@lessthan3



It was just my bad luck to have an eye surgery on the eve of the only blue moon that would occur in my lifetime. The whole world, it seemed, knew about it. It was even mentioned in the news, which I could hear, but not see, from my hospital bed. The bandages, covering my eyes so they could heal, were not to be removed until tomorrow. I sighed. By then, the blue moon would be long since gone.
As nightfall drew near, I (somewhat sulkily) listened to an audio book. It wasn’t very good, though, so I paused it and reclined listlessly while everyone else went outside to await the moon’s arrival. I could hear their excited chatter through a window.
The blue Moon rose slowly, and with it the cries of amazement shivering through the entranced audience. A little boy in the room across from mine, who was in the same plight as myself, demanded of his mother, “Why can’t I see it too?” His mother shushed him and then along with the rest, became quiet, staring fixedly at the moon. Suddenly, everyone watching exclaimed as one, “It’s such a beautiful night tonight!” Maybe, but I couldn’t see it. Abruptly, the television blared, “Do Not Look at the Moon,” (Why? I wondered) “- Under Any Circumstances! Stay inside at All Costs!” The warning sounded over and over again until I unplugged the TV wearily. Then there was absolute silence. No one moved or spoke. All of a sudden, I heard the shuffling of feet I assumed were returning to their tasks. But I was so horribly mistaken. Their footsteps grew fainter and fainter, until I could hear them no more. The marcher’s murmurs about the great beauty of the moon remained for a while longer. Then they too were gone, and all I could hear was the little boy, wailing for his mother...
Next morning, I tore off my bandages and went outside to see what had happened. I found nearly everyone dead. Those who had looked at the moon were no more; they had all climbed to the top of the highest building they could find and jumped off. Why did they jump? Were they so entranced by the moon that they wanted to touch it, forgetting that humans cannot fly?
Whatever the reason, about half of the people on Earth were wiped out. All who were on the dark side of the planet perished, except for the few like me who did not see the moon’s deadly light.