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    Strange Beings
    Strange Beings
    Strange Beings
    Ebook85 pages47 minutes

    Strange Beings

    By Isabel Caves

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    About this ebook

    Why do snowdrops take human form? Is there really a malicious entity watching from the ruins? And what strange beings haunt the stars? 23 flash fiction tales of mages, witches, demons, faeries, ghosts, and those beings for which we have no name.
    This collection contains stories in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Stories are divided into those under 300 words ( 7 tales), those between 300 and 600 words (9 tales), and stories of 600 words and over ( 7 tales).

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIsabel Caves
    Release dateMar 3, 2018
    ISBN9781370030293
    Strange Beings
    Author

    Isabel Caves

    Isabel Caves is a writer and poet living in Auckland, New Zealand. She has been writing fantasy fiction since she was very young, and remembers entertaining her classmates with stories about magic and adventure. When she's not writing, she's busy dreaming up a new story.To read more of Isabel's short stories and poetry, visit her writing blog.

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      Book preview

      Strange Beings - Isabel Caves

      Strange Beings

      Published by Isabel Caves at Smashwords

      Copyright 2018 Isabel Caves

      Cover design by Lindsay Tiry of LT Arts

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

      Table of Contents

      UNDER 300 WORDS

      Strange Beings

      It

      Gargoyle

      Immortal

      Don’t Go Into the Woods

      Barley Fields

      The King of Lies

      300 - 600 WORDS

      The Snake Queen

      The Other Side

      The Strange Child

      Ghost in the Wall

      The Big Bad Wolf’s Very Bad Day

      The Messenger

      The Dollhouse

      The Moon Tree

      Blue Fire

      600 + WORDS

      The Wrong Court

      The Snowdrop Queen

      The Kraken

      The Razaklaw’s Game

      Arabella’s Heart

      A Most Peculiar Haunting

      Jewel of the Nine Eyes

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      About Isabel Caves

      Connect with Isabel

      Strange Beings

      Strange beings haunt the stars.

      I’ve known it since I was a child.

      I’d look to the stars and wonder what was out there. I’d wonder about the tales I’d heard.

      I guess I never stopped wondering. When they called for volunteers for the Galactic Mission I was first in line. I spent decades zipping through the galaxy, my body frozen and refrozen along with my colleagues.

      We visited desolate planets beyond the edge of civilisation, and discovered many wondrous things.

      But it was not enough for me.

      I wanted to see the mysteries beyond this universe, and beyond even that.

      I split from my colleagues.

      I took one of the ships with me and never turned back.

      I’ve discovered so much since then, and it has changed me. I haven’t seen my home planet in centuries. I don’t know if I’d recognize it if I did.

      I have become one of those strange beings that haunt the stars.

      Back to Contents

      It

      Hiding in the dark was a set of green eyes.

      They watched passerby with a lukewarm malice, waiting for them to take the wrong step, make the wrong move.

      The eyes belonged to It. It had been there for 120 years. It did not know where it came from. One night it was just there, simmering with malevolence.

      The first time It pounced the rush was amazing. Blood pounded in its ears as bones cracked. The sound, the feel, the taste…it was electrifying.

      But as the years passed the excitement dulled. That electricity, once so all-consuming, became a colourless drizzle.

      What was it still doing here?

      Did it even want to pounce anymore?

      It yearned for something else, something it did not understand. It saw that Thing in the faces of the humans it stalked. In the way their lips curved upwards, in the crinkles that appeared around their eyes. It heard the Thing too, sometimes, in their voices when they talked.

      There was a frustrating familiarity to this Thing, as if it was something It had once had but lost. It began to remember things, vague feelings, confusing images. It remembered walking past this same cavern with that same Thing dancing in its veins. It remembered wondering what lived in the darkness beyond the entrance. Then, a sharp pain – and it remembered hands clawing at its neck, and an overwhelming fear, a hopelessness, an anger.

      It watches the humans now but it lets them be. It cannot end them for the Thing lives on in them.

      So it waits in the dark, and it watches.

      Silently, hungrily, it watches.

      Back to Contents

      Gargoyle

      The human children kept knocking on his door.

      Some knocked and ran away, others waited to ask about his horns, pull on his tail, or even invite themselves inside for a chat and some biscuits.

      None of this was acceptable.

      He

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