Slumbering Sydney

Sidney fell asleep under an old oak tree for a thousand years.

The years passed and the world grew and changed around him; forests grew ancient and then were cleared away; cities built up and crumbled down; whole civilizations rose and fell; all the while, Sidney slumbered.

No one bothered him as he slept, as far as they knew he had always been there and always would be.

Whenever people came upon the old oak and the man sleeping beneath it, they would say that he dreamed the world up as he slept and if he ever awoke everything would wink out of existence.

So they would creep away as quietly as they could, for fear they might awaken Slumbering Sydney, and go back to their homes and tell others of him and to not wake up the old man by the oak, for they were all just his dream.

Then there came a time, when one civilization was coming to a terrible end, and a lost young child stumbled their way through the wastes that were the remnants of some long fought war, and they found Sydney, still sleeping under his old oak tree.

The child had heard the tales of how the world was only inside the snoozing old man's mind, but they had lost all of their family and would be glad to have the world, and their sadness, end.

So, they snuck quietly up to the snoring Sydney and gently shook him awake.

Sydney opened his eyes after a thousand years and he saw a scared and dirty little child crouched in front of him.

He blinked a few times as he took in the scorched landscape spread out behind the child, and then regarded the young one silently.

"What were you dreaming of, old man?" The child asked hesitantly, fearing the answer.

"You know," Sydney spoke raspy after finding his voice. "I think I did dream of the world. But not like this"

With help from the young survivor, Sydney stood up and stretched out his crackling limbs and spine then took the child's hand in his.

"It looks as though the world could do with a little rest itself." He declared as he waved his arm across the landscape. "Let's go see if you and I can't go try and tidy up a bit. I need a shave and you're a bit of a mess yourself."

He swiped his finger on the child's nose, cleaning a small smug of dirt off and gave a wink that made the child smile for the first time in a very long time.

As the two walked across the land, green life grew up wherever Sydney stepped, and by the time they had reached the rising sun on the horizon, the once burnt land was in full bloom. Just as Sydney had dreamt.

Bigfoot, P.I.

The steamy morning air hung thickly throughout the forest in the early hours just after the sun's rays had started breaking though the canopy of foliage.

Most of the woodland creatures were still nestled in their various dens, borrows, and shelters, so there was an eerie lack of the usual din of the forest.

Sach lumbered up to where Lieutenant Hopper stood beside a pile of leaves at the foot of a majestic, old oak tree, a few other officers from the Forest Police loped around collecting data.

Despite his size, Sach was able to come right up behind them unnoticed until he grunted to clear his throat, sending the younger officers skittering away to the closest log or stump to hide behind.

Lt. Hopper only gave a small start as he turned to look up at Sach.

"Ack! I don't know how you can be so quiet with those big feet of yours, Detective." The stout little police lieutenant exclaimed. "Get back out here, you scared little rabbits, you're supposed to be officers!" he shouted to the hidden others, causing them to leap out and back to their duties faster than they had hid.

Lt. Hopper craned his neck to look up at the giant Sach, then back down to the unmoving figure lying on the leafy forest ground.

"One of the boys found her on his way in this morning, though why he was taking the scenic route I'm not quite sure of." Hopper explained as he looked over to one of the young officers, who quickly made himself look busy.

"In any case," he went on, "Looks like her neck was broken quite violently." He knelt down to lift the big, leaf-filled branch that was covering most of the carcass from the sight of any passerby.

Underneath lay a young doe, her head turned almost completely around. Her dark eyes stared lifelessly up at Sach; he recognized her right away.

He knelt down beside the tiny police rabbit to get a closer look.

"She couldn't have done that by just falling on her own." Hopper stated as his nose wrinkled from some scent in the air. "Big, articulated hands would have had to have done that, don't you think?"

Sach traced his large fingers along the doe's neck where the skin was twisted, then regarded his own hand before looking over to see Hopper inspecting his big hand as well. He took his hand away to run his fingers over his furry chin as he thought.

"There doesn't seem to be any tracks save for the victims." Hopper continued after a few moments of uneasy silence. "They come in from the south there, and suggest a frantic prancing, like she was trying to get away from something."

Sach looked to were Hopper motioned and saw several broken branches on several different shrubs, some quite a few foot-spans away from each other. She had been taking wild leaps, possibly trying to lose something off her trail.

"We called you down because the only thing we've found is this." Hopper said as Sach turned back to see he was holding out one of Sach's own birch bark business cards. "She was carrying it with her. Did you know her, detective?"

Sach looked at the card, which simply read, 'Sasquatch: Bigfoot Private Detective Agency'. It had been only two days earlier that the pretty, young doe visited him at his tree-top office in mid-forest.

She had been scared, terrified of something that she said was after her. Sach saw in her deep brown eyes that she was indeed afraid; afraid for her life. Yet, she had no real details for him to work with; she had just kept describing a dread presence that she could not get away from.

He had told her that there was not much he could do about a foreboding feeling; he mostly dealt with missing cubs or hunter attack cases. She said she was desperate and could pay him, but all he could do was give her his card and tell her to contact him if she got anything concrete for him to work with; a tuft of hair or track for him to sniff out.

The only thought he had in the back of his mind at the time was a thought that was always there, wherever Sach went, so he had paid it little attention at the time; now it came to the forefront and weighed down heavily with guilt.

"Well, detective?" Hopper's strangely gravelly voice brought Sach back from his thoughts, "did you know the victim?"

Before he could say, one of the officers came bounding over to them excitedly, carrying something between his bucked teeth.

Skidding to a halt as Hopper stepped up to stop the eager rabbit from crashing into the dead deer, he dropped the white piece of fur from his mouth into the lieutenant's paw.

"I found this scraped up on the bark of an elm back there, sir!" he exclaimed breathlessly. "I don't think it came from the victim cause it's a different shade than hers!"

"Okay, okay, calm down, son." Hopper tried to quiet the officer down with a pad on the back. "Very good, now go see if you can find any more over there. I'll look at this. Good work."

The young officer nodded proudly and bounced away back where he had come from as Hopper turned the strands of white hair over to look at them.

Sach bent down further to take a closer look as well. They were defiantly not from the doe; hers were a soft, cream ecru, while this was an almost translucent white.

"What do you make of these, Sach?" Hopper asked as he sniffed the hairs with a sudden expression of disgust on his furry face. "Urg, smells worse than a bear in spring!"

There was no need for Sach to take a closer smell; he had caught the scent before the officer had left them. The scent, much like the thought always lurking in the back of his mind, was forever with him.

A distant howl came, like a whisper on the wind, causing Sach to stand and look northward.

"What is it, detective?" Hopper asked sincerely.

His old enemy had returned it would seem.

Staring off into the thick maze of the dark forest of the north, Sasquatch growled softly, and responded in a hushed voice, "Wendigo."

Night and Day

Gathering up the last remnants of light, Day moved down under the horizon so that Night was only able to barely catch a glimpse of the golden glow of Day's coy smile before it vanished out of sight.

Each evening, Night would rush up to once again try and meet Day's burning dusk light, and every dawn it would struggle to linger as long as it could to witness Day's glorious morning radiance.

Yet, each time, no matter how vehemently it tried, Night would narrowly miss Day as its cloak of darkness would cover the land in a shadowy chill.

During its long hours, Night would listen to poets write sonnets describing Day's unsurpassed beauty, and hear the balladeers sing songs lamenting Night's dark loneliness and solitude.

It was maddening; to be detested and shunned so, as some other wondrous event was praised; never being able to even experience that which is its antithesis.

So Night became bitter and wild with jealousy, and vowed to snuff out the light of Day; forever plunging the world into the murk.

In the cold of the winter months, when Night is at its most powerful, it blew icy winds so hard that the biting snow squalls threatened to blot out the sunlight once and for all, but still, Day would come, and bring its warm light to chase away Night's dark reign.

With each new morn, Night would be beaten back with Day's soft kiss of light, ever illuminating the shadows that crept into the hearts of all those that lived in fear of Night's furious grip.

Dejected and defeated, Night slinked back down under the horizon to fume until it was time for Day to pass once more, and while it sulked, Night took in the vastness of space. There, Night was surprised to notice what it never had before; the brightly shining light of the billions of stars that pierced the darkness with their glow.

And all around them, the black of Night cradled them in its all encompassing arms; the blanket of the universe was a multitude of Day and Night, together, making up all of infinity.

Finally, Night had witnessed the beauty of Day light and Day smiled its coy smile a billion times over, twinkling brightly in Night's loving embrace. 

Islands

The little island travelled along, rolling up and down with the motion of the waves across the vast blue waters of the ocean; the cloudless sky hanging high above with the sun shining down upon the white sands of the island's beach edging.

In the midst of the copse of palm trees that took up the grassy center of the island, Ramon sat leaning against the trunk of one of the thick palms, his straw hat pulled down to hide his eyes as he casually strummed on the little ukulele he had fashioned out of bamboo and coconut husks.

Not everyday was so relaxed and carefree as he travelled the open waters on his tropical island, but when the opportunity to take a break came along, Ramon would take full advantage and just plunk out cherry tune in between long naps in the shade.

He had been adrift on his mysterious little travelling island for so long he often thought of himself as the only person in the world; it was only ever him, his little island, and the never ending ocean stretching out into the infinite.

So it was a shock when he was jolted out of his dozing by the impact of the island bumping into something.

Pushing back the wide brim of his hat, Ramon looked up to see that his little piece of land had hit into another island heading the opposite way.

Leaning his uke against the tree he got up and cautiously moved to the side of the island that was not abutting the other. Trying to peer through the trees to see if there any inhabitants.

In a dry, cracked voice he called hello to whoever was over on the other island, but received no reply. So, moving through the trees, he made his way to the narrow strip of sand that was the bench and stood in his cut-off cargo shorts and tattered white polo, staring apprehensively.

He called out again and was about to step over onto the new island when he heard a woman say hello back as she came through the thicket of leafy bushes and out onto the sand.

They stood in silent shock for a few moments until Roman found his voice again and introduced himself. The curly-haired brunette woman stammered her reply and introduced herself as Brooke.

After a few moments of awkwardness, the two travellers started to tell each other their stories of how they came to be on their islands and the many adventures they had had, laughing at the similar things that had happened to each other.

Each gave the other a tour of one another's island, proudly showing off this or that feature they had come up with to make it their own special place. And as the days went by, they grew quite fond of each other and soon the seeds of romance began to blossom.

Then it was just the two of them in the world, their islands moving along in unison across the waters, until one day, as they were napping in their custom built coconut husk hammock for two, there came the bump of another island colliding with theirs.

They hurried down to the beaches to meet another young couple, their conjoined islands now amalgamating with Roman and Brooke's. All four of the little islands moved in unison until again, they bumped into another a few days later, then another, and another a few days after that.

Every new island bringing with it new people to meet; sometimes couples, sometimes only a single traveller, and sometimes even whole families, but always everyone was welcome and happy to join up with the now expanding continent in the middle of the ocean.

And no matter however many new people came along, everyone got along harmoniously; for at night, everyone would simply go back to their own private little island they called home.

The Zone

Charles had adjusted to the fact that all the usual multitude of colours had vanished from the spectrum of his vision and had left only black, white, and shades of grey in the world around him.

When he had woken up that morning it had been quite alarming, having thought something terrible had happened to his eye sight, but soon he had realized that it wasn't just his vision; he had awoken inside an old Twilight Zone episode.

He had been watching a marathon of them on television before falling asleep on the couch the night before, and now Charles Houghton was living one; all of them in fact.

And he was having a really good time.

Going about his day, he had encountered very familiar characters, places, and situations; a man who only wanted to go home again on the train into work, an out of place slot machine in the lobby of his office building that always came up a winner, and even a stopwatch he had found on the washroom floor that indeed froze time around him.

It was great.

Anytime a new twist was about to play out in front of him, Charles would excitedly shout out what was going to happen, and then, dejectedly, the strange characters would go through the motions of their now ruined surprise.

Sadly, the players in each situation would then move along, grumbling to themselves that Charles was ruining it for everyone.

Yet, he was thoroughly enjoying being in all of his favourite moments from the classic show.

Each day would bring a few different scenarios and he would laugh and clap with delight when he remembered which one it was.

Often he remarked to the victims of each of the plot twists that he would have seen them coming a ways off and how could they not have.

This only caused more grumbling and glowering looks from them but Charles would laugh gleefully and go about his day until the next event occurred.

Until the day came when he had awoken once again in the black and white world and nothing new happened. He had exhausted all the storylines.

No more tiny alien invaders, no more living mannequins, not even any robot doppelgangers.

People on the street started to stare him as he yelled at some unseen entity to come out now, that it had been a good gag, that he wouldn't make fun anymore, he was sorry, and would just enjoy the experiences without comment.

He pleaded for them to just continue, even with newer, not as good ones; it was fine, just as long as something happened. Anything.

Charles then realized what was happening; he would have to go through his days just as he always had, normal, boring, without twists; a regular, uninteresting life.

And he began to scream.

Hunter

The muted lights pulsed through the narrow windows as the elevator sped on its ascension. The strobing light lit half her face with distorted shadows as the other half remained in the dark of the otherwise empty lift.

A focused scowl that darkened her face further matched her mood; had there not been a patch over her right eye, its fiery glare would have burnt a hole in the elevator's door.

Leather creaked as she squeezed her gloved fist at her hip, anger building up inside so that her entire body was flexing as the elevator neared its apex.

An alarm sounded as the roof of the lift irised open and the floor lifted her up the final few meters to come out standing level with the building's rooftop. With no pause, she strode across the roof toward the black metal vehicle that sat waiting amongst the flashing red lights that lined the building's edge.

Wind whipped her auburn hair in the night air as she walked unfazed to mount the hover craft and don her sleek helmet that matched the inky black of her jumpsuit perfectly, so that she blended into darkness like a shadow.

Instinctively, she reached to feel for the rings she had worn around her neck for so long she could not remember a time they hadn't been there. A quick stab of panic gave way to rage once more as she remembered that they were there no longer; stolen in the night.

Her five rings of power were taken from her by that devious little thief.

And now, she thought as she jerked her hand away from her neck to grip the handle of the hover cycle and thumbed the ignition angrily, a heavy, thudding hum was all there was to indicate the machine reacted; now she was going to do what she did best.

A blue glow grew under the cycle's hover pads and the shadowy machine floated up a meter or so off the rooftop.

The display of her helmet visor blinked on and the dull amber lights began to track all the unseen movement of the traffic in the skies above the vast cityscape. A red indicator dot appeared to the west, serpentining across the horizon, growing further away as she watched with malice at the indignant usurper the red dot represented.

Time for her to hunting.

With a movement of her wrist, the hover cycle jumped up into the air and dove down over the roof's edge, disappearing for a moment only to zoom back up into view again and tear off into the night sky; an almost invisible hunter pursuing her prey.

Scroll Search

Rummaging through the piles of scrolls that littered the high-reaching room, he frantically searched the one he knew he had seen only a few months earlier.

Chiding himself for not having a more organized sorting system, he threw the unwanted parchments with the multitude of others on the ground.

After a while he sighed heavily and looked up to survey the shelves that lined the rounded walls that reached up into the vast space of the library that was housed within the old oak tree.

It was one of the many the wizard had hidden throughout the forest, and the last one he had been to over the last few days in search of the missing spell.

As far as spells go, it was a very minor one of very little power, yet his whole world depended on finding it.

A novice wizard fresh out of apprenticeship could cast it, nothing a Grand Sorcerer of the Nth Order as himself could not conjure in his sleep. Yet, he had somehow forgotten the exact wording and was now filled with frustration and desperation to find the blasted spell scroll.

With a harrumph, the cranky wizard levitated himself up to scan the scroll-filled shelves in the loftier levels of the oak tree library.

Each one he thought might be the one he sought built his aggravation as they turned out not to be as he flung them angrily down, fluttering to the ground below.

Soon the whole archive was filled with floating papers of magic that sparked and crackled with energy as they bumped into each other on their journey to the floor.

The wizard's vexing search continued until the shelves were bare and the piles of parchment on the ground had reached the third level of the spiralling tree tower, blocking the lower windows and doorway completely.

Finally there were only two dusty scrolls sitting on the highest of shelves near the intricately carved ceiling which depicted ancient symbols and icons that wove wards of protection over the entire library as well as added to the mysterious beauty of the spire.

Despondently, he floated up to the scrolls, convinced neither were the one he remembered seeing a few months back while he had been working on much grander schemes. They seemed untouched for many centuries, like so many of the spells had been, but he had checked all the rest unfruitful, he might as well be totally disappointed he thought as he reached for the first.

Just before his fingers touched the yellowed and dry roll of paper, the wizard was hit with a thought that caused him to groin loudly. He HAD thought of a filing system some time ago, he had just forgotten about it until now.

He then bypassed the first scroll and snatched up the last.

Unfurling the roll, he snorted at himself with distain. Of course; he had filed each scroll he would need in the last place he would look, thus theoretically, avoiding the entire search for what was needed by simply looking for it there first.

A theory only proven if one remembered to prove it.

A quick scan of the spell jogged the wizard's memory and with a booming, unearthly voice he uttered the mystical enchantment with a flourish of his long, boney hand.

With a flash and a pop the red and irritated blemish that had taken root in the middle of his forehead vanished and his unkempt beard and hair quaffed themselves into perfection.

Creating a reflective surface out of thin air, the now dapper looking wizard regarded himself with smug admiration.

Now, he was ready for his date with mountain sorceress he had been trying court for decades.

Satisfied with his handiwork, he snapped his fingers, causing the piles of papers that polluted the tree to start to reroll themselves up and zip through the air back to their places upon the stacks of shelves while he descended gracefully through the din, whistling a happy tune as he floated right out the door into the forest green to meet his enchantress fair.