Monthly flash fiction challenge, built from crowdsourced and voted prompts. Released on the second Sunday of every month.
The wanderer plants his staff on the stone that marks the edge of his village, fields of barley behind and open grasslands ahead. He glances back, but none have come to see him off. Just Aimar, Erramun and their spears, following behind at a safe distance. They are only there to make sure he leaves.
Flames gutter amongst the broken hulks, the bones of once-great warships groaning as they sink beneath the rolling swell. It’s early morning, Helios’s rays have yet to burn away the fog, and already the fury of battle seems distant, like a dream. Gulls caw and swoop overhead, picking at the bloody remains of friend and foe alike while I clutch at my shattered oar, teeth chattering and await Poseidon’s vengeance in the eerie silence.
Dizzy’s clients are gathered in her private dining room and they’re getting rowdy: slamming back shots of single malt like its water, snorting the latest in bio-engineered psychotropics, cracking jokes and laughing too loud, their voices carrying the hysterical edge particular to men who secretly hate their colleagues, while coveting their jobs, their wives and their mistresses.