The heroes were at their wits end. The dwarf was kneeling on his left knee. The last hit to his side was painful. He was breathing heavily. A few feet further the elf was gripping the last arrow from his quiver. Slowly despair was showing on his usually optimistic face. The warrior and the orc continued swinging their swords at the gigantic spider before them. Their movements have slowed down. Suddenly they heard a gruesome howl behind them. The dwarf took the time to look back to the dead woodland and saw the enormous white wolf breaking through the branches. With its teeth bared and a dangerous glare in its dark eyes it stormed right at the spider. The massives paws thundering on the earthy ground. And with one gigantic leap it crashed into the spider and snapped through her head. After some awful screeching it stopped moving between the wolfs canines and silence returned to the forest.
Your earthy ground is soft under my feet. The brown fallen needles tingle gently. The smell of recently cut pine trees hugs me and the fresh, citrusy and green scent is thrilling. I follow your tiny trails, strolling through pine trees of different sizes with tall grasses tingling on my calves. The faint sound of twittering birds and the wind rustling the leafs. I embrace you and you embrace me. If that isn’t love I don’t know what is.
She brings her flowers. He listens attentively. They hug her tightly. She sends them funny videos. He lets her rest. She always brings home his favorite croissant. Her breakfast is served with a flower. He brushes her hair. She holds his hand. He never leaves without giving a tender kiss. They say I love you every night. She picks the phone up on the first ring. He always has seven minutes. They invite their friends over for dinner. She likes to give small, random gifts. He brings over homemade cookies. She always listens to your sorrows. She takes care of her cat. He always brings her home.
He screams loudly, but the air rushing into his lungs immediately cuts off that scream. He tries to focus on what he sees but is still waking up. His hands automatically to grasp something to hold onto, to stop the acceleration. When his palm slide over the glass panels on the sides he flinches back, as the friction causes to much heat. His eye finally focus on front of him. The slide ends in a small opening that closes in far to quick. He sees a skyscraper passing - or rather he passes the skyscraper. And suddenly gets spat out onto large mats and his fall is finally over. But not without his friends laughing at him. For them it was the best prank ever to put him onto the slide sleeping.
She was sneaking up on her target. Crouched down into the long grass she was barely visible. She moved a few inches closer. Then stopped. Sharpening her ears to hear any movement ahead. Through the leaves of the grass she couldn‘t really see anything. When she was sure that she wasn‘t made she moved even closer. Then she jumped. Mid-air she saw the movement in the corner of her eyes and when she landed, she immediately turned to follow her prey. The grass was rustling under their feet. Then she heard the panicked squeaking. And knew she would have the mouse in her claws in a second. With a finally precise jump the cat caught the mouse. Digging her sharp teeth into it, she found herself a nice spot to devour her well earned snack.
It is a late August night, when I am cycling through the ripe fields of wheat. The sweet, fruity scent lingers on the cycling path and I sit up and let go of the handle bar. I balance the bike while I keep on pushing and hold my arms sideways into the warm air. It feels like flying. I can hear the crickets chirping and when I get closer falling silent. I can see the stars glittering above me and the moon behind me shining just enough to light the path ahead of me. These are the nights I will dream of when I am old and gray.
„That is none of your concern“, you say calmly but firm. „What should be your concern, is what you are willing to pay for it.“ You lean forward, take the bag from his hands and close it before anyone else in the packed bar can grasp the valuable contents. You let it vanish under your dark coat again and lean back in your chair. You remain silent while you take a few sips of your beer. You behave unbothered, yet keep your eyes on every movement and facial expression of him. They range from surprise and tactical calculations to a final assessment of yourself. You are used to people trying to evaluate your motives, trustworthiness, threat and more. What they don‘t know is how you are almost daily underestimated. And while you keep your stoic poker face. You‘ll try to read his in return. Mostly people try to screw you over. But something is off with him. Almost like looking into a mirror you just can‘t seem to grasp his own essence. You keep staring at a white wall. Or rather dark, as you can still barely see his features under his hood. He must feel the same. And since I was feeling suspicious, I could almost see the suspiscion slowly crawling into his eyes. And with that we simultaneously reached for our pistols.
„I just wanted the best for you.“
„By telling I am getting fat every day for years? Why didn‘t you tell that my brothers?“
„The moment women turn 25 they start gaining weight. I just wanted to warn you! Men don‘t have that problem,“
„And? You are still calling me fat, even though I am not. I am doing so much sport and I have a healthy bodyweight.“
„Ah, now you are exaggerating. Don‘t take everything so serious. It was meant like that.“
„Then how was it meant? It is not funny or helpful. It is just mean. Because of you I feel bad about myself. Stop projecting your unhappiness about your own weight onto me!“
‚Not again!‘, I thought annoyed. I was just at the brink of cheering with Angela and Mike, when time stopped again. My glass loudly clinked with theirs, but while I moved my hand with the champagne flute back to myself, they just stopped moving. Their arms stretched out. Their eyes looking straight at each other. The creepiest thing was their open eyes. Not blinking. It still freaked me out every time. I sighed deeply and emptied my glass in one go. This could take a while. I still didn‘t understand how I did it and what made it stop again. But I was used to track time now, even though after the time-stop-thingy was done again, my watch mysteriously jumped back to the normal time - as I called it by now. For now it took between one and four hours and as for the frequency of occurences, I was completely clueless. Last week it happened four times!! This was only the second time this week and it was already Saturday. I keep testing on what the others experience. My plan for this time was to make sure that I won‘t be with Angela and Mike. Most probably they will not miss me, once time starts again. At least that was has happened on my last test. I put the empty glass down and made my way over to the snack bar. I tried not to push anyone. My test would include me moving someone though. I was curious about that one. I took a few nuts from one of the bowls and let my gaze wonder over the party guests. And when I saw his eyes focussed on me, blinking, his mouth open in surprise and him clearly breathing and moving, all I could do is drop the nuts in my hands.
It started with small things they took away. And nobody realised what it would lead to. They talked it down. Provided ‚good reasons‘. Deflected any criticism. When we protested, we were to blame because we did care about those little things instead of urgent topics. And they got more gutsy every day and soon nothing was like before. When we used to dance on the fields late summer - we now no more. When we used to leave our homes to visit our friends - we now no more. And summer turned to autumn and autumn to winter, they took it all. They took our freedom.
