bigcloset

Dawning: A BCTS Story Challenge

Added 2025-02-03 23:01:47 +0000 UTC

The darkness never changes, but sometimes it smells different. After 400 years, whether my eyes are open or closed matters because it’s how I communicate. One if by land, two if I see….

I can’t really smell anything anymore; all I have is memories. The scent of early morning rain on the cool desert sand, the odor of sweat on the back of a long-time lover’s hand, the reek of aviation fuel on the ground below the flight path of an airplane bigger than the sky.

Do they still have airplanes? Maybe I’m an airplane. How would I know?

When I was a kid, I had all sorts of ambitions for what I wanted to be when I grew up. I don’t think any of them were root vegetables, but I yam what I yam. Someone blow a whistle…

I asked my robot caretakers if I could be allowed to die. They said, of course, any time you like, as often as you want, a thousand times at least.

They don’t like being called robots, but who gives a damn what they like as long as they let me die….

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Here's the challenge: Post your version of the continuation from this beginning on BCTS during Short Story Month - February 2025.

What happens to the main character when and where do they wake up, if they do? A science fiction world? A magical one? A mundane slice of life?

I'll do my own continuation here on Patreon, but yours needn't relate to what I intend to do at all.

Good luck and keep writing. :)