Thursday 20 September 2012

Coffin bay flash fiction

Lit reactor website did a flash fiction challenge this month and you know how much I love those! Any genre, max 250 words, plus a title. The inspiration was a photo.


Image of Cathedral Cove, NZ
Used under GNU license
Image belongs to Mike Bordignon. Original uploader was Micknz at en.wikipedia

Coffin bay
The bay was only accessible from the sea. And it was from the sea that the invaders came.

They knew the day. The wise men had warned them. ‘If they touch us, we will sicken and die.’ They believed them; they had proven themselves before.

The tall ship with the white wings approached. The canoes met it. They waved, as if at friends.

The women manned their boats. The wise men said the invaders did not value women warriors.

The invaders were pale and weak. Too long at sea. But the wise men had said they would kill them all.

The invaders did not speak the same words as they did, but they were careful to be friendly and smiling. They led it into the shallow bay. The tall ship stopped; the invaders swarmed up like ants to close the white wings. They shouted to each other.

A smaller boat was lowered and rowed to meet the women on the shore. Only one craft had landed, but they did not notice that.

Inside the cave, the creature’s eyes opened. It blinked extremely slowly. One of the women saw. She motioned to the others and they turned their boat so that it faced out into the bay.

The creature was enraged.

A rival. With white wings. Loud. Disrespectful.

It exploded from the cave in a flurry of black leathery wings and fire.

The women ran and paddled for their lives. The invaders did not recognise the creature.

Fire cleansed them all.

No comments:

Post a Comment