This is a flash fiction piece which I had written for my friend's online publication

Nimue's Grotto

If you love flash fiction horror, fantasy, and science fiction, please check out her website and consider submitting a short story. Here's a link to the submissions guidelines.

Before we get to the story...

I've known @irenepsmith for the better part of ten years now and she is a member of Steemit but she's been inactive and I'm trying to convince her to come back. If anything, she could post the submissions to her site to offset costs of maintaining the website so hopefully this will encourage her to come back. I hope so!

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The Dying

^{Originally published on Nimue's Grotto and republished with edits on Steemit}

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I am the beginning and the end. No, I'm not talking about anything biblical but I suppose the catastrophic event of my birth is nothing short of all the bad parts in the Bible.

By all accounts, I was born a normal child. My parents were as dysfunctional as the next. I had good friends. Then I hit puberty and everything changed; not just the regular hormonal bullshit and angst. I started having terrible nightmares and suddenly people around me were getting sick. Cancer. Pneumonia. Complications from... whatever.

The pandemic started off slowly at first so there was no real cause for alarm when the dying began. It wasn't just the elderly, sickly, or terribly young. Weakened immune systems had nothing to do with it. Like watching dominoes fall at terminal velocity, people were dropping at a faster rate than the local funeral homes could handle. And when the funeral directors and all the doctors were gone, there wasn't anyone left to pick up the dead. Everybody was dying. That is -- everyone but me.

Maybe it could have been contained to my one little town but state agencies came to investigate and inadvertently took The Dying home which then perpetuated the demise of the human race. The last-standing scientist to recognize the point of origin. You guessed it. Little ol' me.

In this moment of clarity I swear I am not the cause but I've come to believe that I am the portal. What ails the world manifested itself through me and I see The Dying through my nightmares. I feel my strength grow as The Dying feasts upon every village, town, and city; and my energy wanes as it waits for the unwitting soul to carry it elsewhere.

This thing feeds me for reasons I cannot fathom. I've tried to take my own life, in fact, throwing myself off the steepest cliff to no avail for I can still hear the waves lapping at the rocky shore as my bones lie broken among the boulders. I still feel the warmth of the sun's rays upon my face. I see beautiful blue skies and witness evening stars twinkling merrily without the ambient light pollution from millions of homes. My skin has been pecked clean leaving my entrails open to the elements - but I am not dead. The Dying wills me to be its living ledger.

The birds are circling again and I briefly wonder if the world is beautiful from that high above. Closing my eyes to dream I see there are no more people now. This time the birds are falling from the sky.

The End

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The genesis of the story

So, I was lying in bed one night wondering what I would write for Irene's publication. Lights were turned off. I tried to sleep. But the muse kept whispering, "I am the beginning and the end."

I tried to ignore the voice and sleep but she kept repeating it. And then behind my eyelids, visions of laying helpless on the beach looking up at a beautiful sky as birds plucked at my still live body kind of got me excited. Sick, I know! I gave in to the voice and the vision. Switching the light back on, I grabbed my laptop and began to piece this together. I hope you've enjoyed this little story as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

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Links to some of my other flash fiction

• The Roommate - romance
• The Dream - crime
• Come Out and Play with Me - crime/horror
• Belisama, The Lady of the Inlet - A Brother's Grimm style tale
• Shortest Horror Story 1
• Shortest Horror Story 2
• Shortest Horror Story 3
• Shortest Horror Story 4
• Shortest Horror Story 5
• Misty Morning - healing/death/inspirational
• The Good Samaritan - suspense. written and narrated by me

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