Very Short Stories: Lieben Cycle
June, 2023
06/01/2023"Studies indicate warmth aides mood and the ideal deity desires survival. Eat." Lieben lit hymnal paper and broken bits of pews, set a cup of holy water on glowing coals. Demyan shivered, #bittersweet lips curved up as the temperature of Lieben's thin broth. "Thanks love."
May, 2023
05/28/2023 #Redolent frankincense & stale air swelled in the chapel. Demyan pried wood off a window with a crowbar from his pack. Sucked thin fresh oxygen from the pinprick of light between broken glass. “No danger, tonight. Not here.” He lit an altar candle with baited breath. #vss365
05/29/2023 The wind battered Demyan's prybarred window with a #wuthering din. A whistle thin as anemic coo echoed. He curled in his mummy bag, the ember of the altar candle flickered. Low. She crouched with the soft whir of servos cloaked by silicone skin, "Sleep, you're safe."
05/30/2023 Drones #scurry through the air, unconvinced hummingbirds incapable of landfall for anything short of assurance. Mathematical certainty: Landing pad. Demyan took a metal bat to each, careful to disengage only one motor and leave three intact. Parts lists firm in his mind.
August, 2022
08/03/2022 Traffic died with engines. Demyan vaulted over the safety rail onto the highway. An orb of blue light hovered, glow stalled the machines. Faith in his *expertise, Demyan sprinted to safety. Two shadows readied guns, inhibited by the traffic’s constricted algorithm.
January, 2022
1/1/2022 Sensations flooded the ignorant machine. Aderastos gasped into soil, warm and dichotic to the chill of the Canadian Pacific, when heartbeats echoed to his escapist's resolve. He renewed the fight's echo. He ran once, every sinew cried not again. @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/2/2022 Banshee’s shriek rippled caustic as acid to his tangled mind. Aderastos dragged to downed Cillian, was his mind also a plague of discordant lives? Infinities redundant by the Android Queen's whim. No, not liminal whims. “Love, Lieben. Let go.” @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/3/2022 Lieben’s slience suggested not but Kate’s distance, the technomancer locked on their home and prison. Powered by solar paint on its’ hull. The Banshee’s sustained shriek rocked Aderastos, who grit into the sand. Clawed closer to Cillian. “Meine what did you do?” @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/4/2022 The tranquil slack to Cillian’s jaw betrayed unconsciousness in the shallows. Shrill Banshee’s shriek bowed Aderastos’ poised head to the ground. He dragged hand over hand to Cillian and with a roar of agony, yanked him out of the water. “Meine!!” @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/5/2022 A wave of the Banshee's shriek grounded Aderastos' head. The dawn blackened to a void, Cillian's bodyweight his anchor. Spectral curls, life-bursts of neon cities & amethyst eyes. Gunshots in white plastic tunnels. Air choked his bone-cage. @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/6/2022 “No!” A woman's electric scream purged the beach with a sharp pain in Aderastos’ gut. Stuck his arm to a bloodless stomach. Warm pistol in hand, purple crackles on white partook in the memories, sealed in biological abomination. Where was Sophia? @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/7/2022 Aderastos heaved, arm against a woundless stomach as if the bullet recalled struck unmarked flesh. Back to a boulder, he sucked air from grit teeth. White tunnels receded to his mind. The crumbled house he built arranged around the Banshee's cry. @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/8/2022 Sand dotted cheek, Aderastos combined this birth with Demyan's life the Banshee shook loose. Was the Banshee, inhuman and chitinous, perspicacious or a sick anomaly of gene-splicing monstrosities in lab coats? Did it see his past in white plastic? @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/9/2022 The Banshee's cry, hypnosis or inadvertent bi-product, shook Aderastos’ stolen origin. Aderastos probed his side to confirm he wasn’t shot. Muttering beside, Cillian confronted origins of his own. Gunfire cracked, soldiers roared. “Aders!” Max! @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/10/2022 Eyes connected with Max across the battlefield. “I need you buddy! AH! Sand lobster! Big fugly sand lobster!” Max dove to at Adelia, his amorous counterpart as she fired a pistol at the Banshee. The bullet pinged off the Banshee's chitinous shell. @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/11/2022 The meaning of Demyan’s memories lingered as an eventual infatuation. Aderastos heaved to his feet. Crashed to earth. “Aders? Frick. Adie?! Where’re the grenades?!” Max opened her bag. “Beside the… die you arthropodal atrocity!” “Where?!” He dug. @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/12/2022 The surf glimmered in Max’s eyes. He dug into Adelia’s bag, swore at the Banshee’s wails, the will of his crew shattered. Bodies sick from a scream Max was too innocent to feel more than a nauseated shrill in his head. “Where?!” “By the wrench!” @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/13/2022 Unwritten codes of conduct sparred with the reality Max witnessed. Flailed attempts at aiding his downed crew were as comic as Aderastos was disproportioned in a standard bunk on board. “Found it!” “Huck it before we die!” “Oh sheet!” “Sheet?!” @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/14/2022 “Bruise size of a watermelon…” “Max!” Adelia fired into the Banshee’s carapace, before its’ rise. “B-but! Screaming sand lobster!” Max chucked another grenade and dove for Aderastos, wove his arm around the giant’s bicep. “C’mon, bigly! Move!!” @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/15/2022 Max launched a grenade at the Banshee in mid-serenade. Ill buzz caught his aim in a tumble, the grenade thudded into the sand metres from its' target. “Frick!" His shriek woke the stupoured giant Aderastos, who with a roar shoved Max to the trees. @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/16/2022 Tumbling into the tree-line, Max landed against a coconut palm trunk with a loud thunk. He groped at the ground, illuminated by the midnight moon. “Aders. Damn man, be a hero, sure. Huck me when you could huck the grenade! But no! N-oh... oh god.”@vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/17/2022 Vision blurred by the Banshee’s discombobulating shriek, Aderastos leapt into the side of a boulder. The battle streamed by with the ache in his shoulder. An ache purged by Max’s scream & jerking arms, another lost in the sands. “Aderastos! Help!” @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/18/2022 What option did Max have? Adelia's body flopped under the sand, a daisy in reverse sprout. He flung himself at her hand, before it too went under. Aderastos' fingers snapped to Max’s ankle, dragged the shouting man back, he couldn't lose Max too. @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/19/2022 The siren song of the Banshee faded, as it drifted into the sands. Catching his breath, Aderastos shook. Tried to find the practiced calm others expected. He slumped as Singh held Max, nattered on while Aderastos' mind swam. Once he was Demyan. @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/20/2022 “Meine what did you do?" Did his Android love despise death with adamance? Not recognize the end? No, as Aderastos sunk his head against the rock, he envisioned the arcade of tunnels. He stared at his hands. “Meine, love, these aren't my hands.” @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/21/2022 A mind was a liar by omission, host of re-introductions. As Aderastos set unrecognized hands against temples, he knew these weren’t the hands of Demyan, who came upon a miracle machine slumped against his door. They were a love song on mute repeat. @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/22/2022 Invisible imprints of sworls and ridges mismatched, scoured by his mind’s acid rain. Why were hands the baseline? Max’s scream reverberated, odd doppler in Demyan’s dream-space. He grit hard. Why did Aderastos wake up, with another set of hands? @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
1/23/2022 He felt the tug, Max's voice slush in a city grate. Devil-vibes concussed reality out of Aderastos, a slick collaboration between truth and echoes of it. No city met him on the tropical island. “Max." “Thank the sweet baby Jesus. Your what?” @vsscollab #vss365 #liebencycle
Comments