Tag: alien

Not Cause for Celebration

A metal ship crossed the perfect sector.

Great Mind opened a path beside the ship as a youngling’s human host floated out.

Great Mind pulled the host through and sealed the path. The ship drifted onward, oblivious.

“Ugh-” the host, a human female, stumbled beneath unexpected gravity.

“We’re saved!” came a voice in her head.

She stared at the alien structures, the creatures beyond.

“You are home,” began Great Mind, “we aren’t yet part of your second world. It’s not safe.”

“No-“

“When we supplant an Elder, you’ll be returned. For now, you are home.”

“This is not home.”

© 2021 Rebecca Glaessner

February 18, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story where a character is in the right place at the right time. It may be cause for celebration! Go where the prompt leads!

View the full compilation here.

Adrift

A youngling cast eyes skyward upon birth. Energies entered its being, strengthened its mind, its heart.

That youngling grew, phased, loved, laughed. Built together a house-family, welcomed partners and friends, life happy and full.

Years on, now-grown, they lay ready. Every village eagerly awaiting the next youngling’s birth on the morrow.

Eyes closed now, their mind drifted.

No longer amongst their house-family’s hearts, but rather above, looking down upon sprawling villages-turned-cities.

How they’d all grown.

Life flowed onward.

A new youngling cast eyes skyward upon birth, its mind and heart strengthened by an ancient energy.

Unseen, yet deeply felt.

© 2021 Rebecca Glaessner

This challenge is for a Special Collection over at the Ranch, to honor fellow Rough Writer Sue Vincent.

January 28, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about life as a river of consciousness. Think about the possibilities of the prompt. Go where the prompt leads!

Find the full special collection here.

Lost

The man took his eyes off his son for a moment, vision filled with the semi-transparent, augmented display of his son’s latest medical assessment.

They still didn’t know what was in his son’s head. What had changed him.

Then his son was taken.

The man looked away for only one, single moment.

Years passed. Labelled as grief-stricken, helpless, the man never stopped searching.

Not for one day. Not ever.

Then a woman came to see him, with her own daughter, and an air of hope surrounded them.

“My daughter’s been changed too,” the woman said, “she’s heard your son.”

© 2021 Rebecca Glaessner

January 21, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that rephrases “light at the end of the tunnel.” Think of how the cliche replacement communicates a hopeful ending and aligns with your character or story. Go where the prompt leads!

Find the full compilation here.

Phasing

Phasing began.

Tahvket donned the cloth to be worn to Center. House-family fitting it while praying for energies to take and seeds yet unformed.

Elders braided Tahv’s endless white hair.

Hair to be shaved if one’s seed fails. If one doesn’t phase at all.

Shaved to free the energies within.

As few seeds take form and even fewer are granted life. Energies are never spared.

Would Tahv’s fail? At nearly twenty-two cycles, hope of phasing had waned.

Yet here Tahv stood, before Center, heart pounding, hands rippling over smooth, now-fitted cloth, the outfit offered all the strength Tahv needed.

© 2021 Rebecca Glaessner

January 14, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about dressing up. It can be a child or another character. Be playful or go where the prompt leads!

Find the full compilation here.

Beyond

The stones of worship returned, settling into position around the throng of hopeful.

Would they feel the great Beyond this day?

Their paths carried scholars and explorers between countless neighbouring worlds, but never Beyond.

The crowd buzzed with nervous energy beneath the spread of stars, wrapping themselves up in each-other as one.

One being. One mind.

Their minds opened, connected, energy growing, reaching out and up, past clouds, skies, satellites, their sun. Other suns. Stars. Felt the warmth. Pushed further.

It came as if a whisper of an Earthen butterfly’s wings.

As one, they felt the Beyond reach back.

© 2021 Rebecca Glaessner

This piece is in response to the Carrot Ranch’s weekly challenge. The first of 2021!

I hope this year, everyone experiences what it’s like to reach beyond, and to achieve it.

However great or small.

January 7, 2021 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story using the contrasting prompts butterfly and stone. Go where the prompt leads!

Find the full compilation here.

December 2020

Current Project Update

Finished the 1st alien Culture, got the foundations down, enough to write their part of the novel, and flesh out the finer details as I write.

They’re an advanced race, valuing knowledge. Collecting and consolidating genetic and intellectual data from planets with life via inter-dimensional rift pathways.

But they’re not all virtuous.

Their God(s) seem to be a race of other aliens, in the distant universe with a strength of mind that reaches across dimensions but with no desire to interfere.

Yet.

Starting on a 3rd alien Culture, a race who finds the 1st aliens abhorrent in their genetic manipulation, a race who is struggling to survive, a race who want the 1st’s perfect world.

Yet this race too houses individuals at odds with their values.

Both these races have individuals on Earth, amongst humans, in the near future. Our planet a mid-point between their home planets.

Starting to flesh out the 3rd alien culture as soon as I pick me up some more stationery.

Lovely, lovely stationery.

[As per Holly’s writing courses, I use paper and pen. Binders with lined paper, plastic pockets, dividers and printed worksheets. And an awesome pen. Or five. I’m partial to the Bic 4-colour pen. Super tactile and durable, and great to fiddle with between thoughts.]

Appreciation

Using Holly Lisle’s Create a Language and Create a Culture Clinics in sequence for both cultures.

Learning how to control the muse has been miraculous.

Right side of the brain, come at me.

Thanks for the ingenuity Holly! She’s been writing for 30 years and is sharing all, over at Holly’s Writing Classes.

Looking forward to connecting with everyone in the new year, in the meantime, I’ll be exploring my alien worlds some more.

Remember:

Explore, create, repeat, then thrive.

Affiliate links offered here come highly recommended from my own personal experiences, any links on my website will only ever be personally endorsed.

I love Holly’s teaching style and resources, and recommend her work for every writer, no matter what stage of the journey you’re on.

If you do not wish to use an affiliate link, visit www.HollysWritingClasses.com for her full store.

© 2020-2021 Rebecca Glaessner

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New Age

Several eons passed since they last visited Earth, they discovered humans viewed other-world strangers warily now, without the awe of old.

Their job – gathering insights into human minds – meant molding their DNA to conform while on-planet. They looked human, though in this new age, reed undergarments, intricate piercings and feathered crowns weren’t widely desired.

Human views on appearances had changed.

The aliens adapted, yet one didn’t account for their stilettos’ height.

Travelling the city, the aliens-as-humans towered over passers-by, attracting attention.

Glorious feathered crowns were no longer worshiped, but height had them feeling once more like gods amongst men.

© 2020-2021 Rebecca Glaessner

December 17, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that features stilettos. Who will wear them and why? Go where the prompt leads!

Find the full compilation here.

Twenty-Fifth

Routine suit-up. Routine airlock cycle. Routine tether anchorage.

Her crew-mate let her step out first. The field of stars took her breath away, as always, even on her twenty-fifth spacewalk.

Everyone left her in silence, letting her enjoy it as they said she should. Someday, it will be her last.

Then she spotted her tether, drifting ahead of her, loose. She turned, quick as the propulsion bursts let her.

No warnings. No comms.

No ship.

Alone in that field of stars, heart pounding, mind racing, she was lost.

Lost.

Then they arrived.

She never dreamed she’d visit another world.

© 2020-2021 Rebecca Glaessner

December 10 2020: Flash Fiction Challenge: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about something a character never dreamed would happen. The situation can be fortuitous, funny, or disappointing.

Find the full compilation here.

Strength in Peace

Leaves swayed at the ship’s landing. Its team stepped out onto the alien world, fully suited, protected from its thick atmosphere.

Deep violet vegetation sprawled toward the horizons ahead. Behind, an ocean of scarlet brine swelled and oozed.

“Mission here is to survey, we need to claim this world before the enemy,” the commander said.

Rustling leaves distracted the Earth-born galactic soldiers.

A creature approached.

“That’s a-”

“It has a horn.”

“Should we apprehend it?”

“Commander?”

“It’s-” said the commander, transfixed, “a unicorn.”

It eyed them, silently inspiring them to kneel in surrender.

“Stand down,” the commander said.

© 2020-2021 Rebecca Glaessner

I tapped run and the robotic creature shifted smoothly through the commands I’d coded. Satisfied, I packed it up for the presentation.

“Gonna tell me?” someone said, “somethin’ fierce, I bet.”

“A dragon, ya think?” another said.

Head held proud, I made my way to the platform.

“I chose to create something of legends,” I said, “something of the first world, something that inspired billions.”

Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

I revealed the creature.

Several scoffed, others laughed, “ridiculous.”

I tapped run and the crowd hushed, transfixed. The life-sized unicorn awoke.

“Something that’ll inspire peace through these wars.”

© 2020-2021 Rebecca Glaessner

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