Gallade's Story Archive

       It was the most elegant dress he’d ever seen. As the cardboard which had been covering it fell away, the late-evening sunlight beamed through the stuffy attic and made the dress shine.           It was gorgeous, a brilliant emerald-green with black lace matching the frills down the front, and that which came from the wrist, hem, and collar. This enchanting dress also came with an eye-catching masquerade mask, and a pair of stunning emerald-green slippers with beautiful faux rubies forming red snowflakes on the toe-end of each shoe. His step-mother, who had come up to check on his progress, made a noise between a huff and a grunt when she saw what had Luke’s attention.           “Huh, I’d forgotten she owned that dress,” she said, “one of Mary’s favorites, if I remember right.”           “I didn’t know Mom liked parties,” ...

             “You don’t have to be so afraid, you know.”         My hands froze on the keyboard as a deep and surrounding voice filled the room.         “It’s hard not to. I don’t know what it would mean, or what would happen.”         The one I call Death pulled a smokey piano bench out of thin air and sat down next to me. To my surprise, he was wearing a pink Hawaiian button-up shirt with embroidered yellow flowers on it, and a cute little straw hat with a blue bow on it.         “Why don’t you choose to believe in one of those new-fangled afterlives then? Or in reincarnation?”         I shook my head, but did not answer the question. Instead, I said, “Don’t you have souls to attend to? Others to do your work upon?”         He had n...

        It had been years. When he first became obsessed with the idea in college, he was heralded as a genius of his generation. Capable of making the next incredible breakthrough. But now? After so much time had passed? He stayed in a dark, dim room, leaned against a desk covered in papers on a floor flooded with more papers, with only the faint desk-lamp to provide him light in the darkness. He had to be on to something. He must be! After all this time, with all this equipment and all the money he’d spent, there had to be something to this madness. His eyes scrolled the pages of research and notes, at least the relevant ones on his desk, and he made further notations about this latest experiment. He stood, the motion causing many papers to billow away from him, and he marched towards his machine. His grand invention. The great signal flare with which he will usher in a new era of humanity. He adjusted the amperage, re-arranged the antennas on the second pod, ...

The most eventful season was the Winter. When the water turned to cold, soul-less glass, and made staring to the depths of the lake just that much harder. It sings, you know. The Depths. I’m not sure what keeps me here, between the mountains. I’m much farther north than I’d like, as my family took a home in Denmark to get out of the States. It wasn’t long after that I decided to strike out on my own. Find my own home, you know? Settle down, maybe. But at that time, that drive had been to maybe find a husband or wife. Maybe a home. Not this. Not this cursed lake. Every morning it is the same. I wake up, my mind foggy with the peculiar dreams that held my attention in some span of the night. I used to keep a journal, but it became too cursed and wretched that I had to throw it into the lake. I go to the mirror and shave. Sometimes there’s a little, sometimes there’s a lot, but it always makes me think of awful gripping legs, like those of a terrible spider. So I stay clean-shaven. Us...

 The clock ticks quietly overhead as my blankets unfurl at the behest of my feet kicking them away. The early morning smell of stuffy sheets replaced with the unusual airiness that is a still room. Rolling over, I note the hour. 10:40 AM. Bleh. I dismiss the frabjous feelings of calling out or just not appearing, but I am duty-bound to approach. Looking out the window, I see the planet. The trees torn by the wind, the watery slosh of the ocean against the shore in more and more violent tsunamis. I was late once, and it took out my apartment, so in the interest of not house-hunting again, I get out of bed. I suppose it's necessary. I've considered not going several times. Like, the people of this world used to simply deal with the clock-work-like destruction, why not let them deal with it again? It's not my fault they got used to me saving them. But then I remember the things I sacrifice. The chance to get a coffee at my favorite shop. The chance to play games with functioni...

 I walked the quiet pristine halls with mild joy and vigor. Today, I may find something new. I passed quarters. I passed volumes. No new story am I sure. I walked the quiet pristine halls with curiosity and wonder. Here, there is something strange. Among the many books, one says my name. I walked the many pristine halls for ages now, and here this book, it says something new. The first line is curious, and familiar too: "I walked the quiet pristine halls with mild joy and vigor. Today I may find something new." Words of course which make me shiver. I walked the quiet pristine halls with mild joy and vigor. And now, I think, I walk no more.

Creatus took a pool of heated copper and tin, and hammered it into a sphere. Over and over, for thousands of years, Creatus hammered away, trying to perfect the sphere, getting closer and closer. But, there was just a handful too much copper. The sphere was never perfect. Eventually, in his frustration, Creatus forced all the imperfections onto one conjoined part of the sphere. This was acceptable, for a while. Soon, however, Creatus’ patience again thinned. Rather than spend another thousand years trying to fix it, he covered the sphere in immense quantities of water. The incredible mass of metal held the water to its surface, and the dark depths hid the flaws for a while.     However, in his perfectionism, he sought to know if his solution worked. He borrowed a light from a nearby project and hung it, bright as it was, eight minutes away from his project. At first, the project looked lovely. A bright blue transluscent sphere, with a hidden, hinted copper core. But as th...