Just one drop
Arms, legs, the usual.
I also seem to be running the site.
I may get around to writing some actual stories at some point.
"So this is it?" she asked, "one drop in here and it's all over?"
A short pipe stood up from the floor of the dark warehouse, twisted metal piled haphazardly around like so many broken bones. She peered through it into an incomprehensibly large tank. The liquid within glowed minutely, almost white, slightly blue.
He nodded. "You've seen detergent on water? It's like that. It won't be over right away, but it will end."
She shifted her weight back and forth, from her leg to the prosthetic and back. It had been a long and terrible journey. Her companion had told her over and again, tears staining his face, that no thirteen year old should be given a burden such as hers. She had cried too, although she didn't let him see: she needed him to believe she was strong enough.
No movement. The vial remained in her pack. "This is genocide," she said quietly.
"That's genocide," he replied, the tilt of his head indicating the war that was slowly turning their species into memory.
"Yes. But maybe we deserved it."
Prequels
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Comments (4 so far!)
Average reader rating 4.00/5
ElshaHawk LoA
One drop of what? It's a little blurry after this. You mention a vial, but do not say it is empty. Does it contain something or does she take from the tank and fill the vial? What's genocide - is it what's in the tank or what's in the vial? Part of me wondered at first if she was jumping in.
- #3190 Posted 7 years ago
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ethelthefrog
She has a little vial of some kind of formula in her pack that will cause a devastating, terminal, blow to the species that is currently wiping out humanity. All she has to do is put a drop of it down that pipe.
Whether or not she is there in time to prevent humankind being wiped out is left open; if she does it, she commits genocide. That race is currently committing genocide against her race. The real question, in her mind, is do humans deserve to become extinct?
- #3193 Posted 7 years ago
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dkscully
Nice!
You do a great job of hinting at the wider background of the tale and the characters while also focusing on the specifics of the moment in question.
- #3194 Posted 7 years ago
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0
- 4 out of 5
- Published 7 years ago and featured 7 years ago.
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Robert Quick
Nice. I like the darkness, the grim finality of it all. Everything flows nicely and a greater world is hinted at. A picture perfect Ficlatte.