Story The Wind Whispers

[SepiaInk]

Hello there :-) Just in the mood to share some short stories with you all and create an incentive for me to write more often along the way. There won’t be a focus on any specific genre, so hopefully there’ll be something for everyone. 


Constructive criticism is always appreciated, since I’m all for improving my writing.

 

[SepiaInk]

Spoiler

So, this one is science fiction, a genre I don’t usually dabble in. In fact, this is the first proper short I’ve ever written in this genre. But that doesn’t really matter, because I suck way too much at world building to even attempt a proper sci-fi setting/plot and the story itself is about something a lot more simple.

I appreciate any and every constructive critique on this short. Specially if I messed up anything concerning the more technical aspects of science fiction, which is more than probable

ON THE EDGE
As soon as his sensors became operational and his optical visors gave him a clear image, Avis wished he could shut them down again. He was hanging in the air, hundreds of kilometres above the desert. It wasn’t that he was afraid of heights, that would be silly at best and a malfunction at worst. No. He was afraid because he knew what it meant. He was afraid to look up.

“Avis!”

Voice pattern recognition kicked in immediately. It identified the owner of that voice and fed him information that not that long ago he wouldn’t have been able to grasp, much less use. But at one point of his stretched out life he was made to know. Now he could hear the relief and panic in that voice, and what he felt right then might have been the closest thing to what humans meant when they spoke of the metaphorical punch in the gut.

His head shot up, yanked by the invisible string that tied him to that human. The same human that was holding onto Avis’ hand, his face, his wide and wet eyes, peeking from the damaged and tilted hanger above.

“Avis, buddy, you’re awake.” The man laughed, teeth shining bright against the darkness of his skin, but it sounded hollow, broken. “God, I thought… for a second there, I-“

I thought you were gone, Avis finished in his head, since Atlas clearly couldn’t.

“Anyway, as you can see, we’re in a bit of a pickle.” Another laugh from the human, this one short, interrupted by the sucking up of air and a grunt as the muscles in his arm spasmed. “But we’ll get out of it. We always do. How’s your status?”

The abrupt change in subject caught Avis off guard, and it took a few seconds to realise what he’d been asked. Maybe the explosion had damaged part of his circuit after all. The scanners he needed to make a full analysis of his systems didn’t seem to be working, so he wouldn’t know even if there was something broken or charred. But everything else seemed to be working fine. He was a robot, as long as his artificial brain wasn’t damaged he’d be alright.

That’s why it was so baffling though. That Atlas was concerned for him, a machine, despite knowing fully well that he wasn’t the one most at risk. He should be the one asking the human that question.

Maybe baffling wasn’t the right word.

Infuriating. Yes, that was the one.

“I’m… alright … Atlas.”

Well, he could add voice processor damage to the growing list of repairs. It was minor, but that didn’t stop the breaks and scratching sounds messing up his speech. There was something embarrassing about hearing his normally smooth voice betray his mechanical nature, but Avis did his best to ignore the discomfort and focus instead on using the scanners that were still operational to inspect Atlas.

There wasn’t much he could do with the human’s body concealed from him by the floor of the hangar, but it was enough to confirm his suspicions and fears. Not that he needed scanners to tell him that the pilot hadn’t made it through that explosion unscratched and that, no matter how much training Atlas had gone through, he wasn’t capable of holding up a machine that was easily twice his weight for very long.

Pushing that thought aside for the moment, Avis zoomed in on the human’s face. The first thing he noticed was that gapping hole in his ear where once hanged a small loop earring. A clean shot, probably from a Toudrul laser gun. His scanners detected no one in the hangar though. They were alone, which was one less thing to worry about, at least. The other enforcers had probably left, he certainly hoped that was the case. The two of them were supposed to have left as well, and they were in the process of doing just that. What went wrong?

“Avis, I know you have a lot going on in that big noggin of yours but now’s not the time to be pensive. Okay, buddy? I’m going to try and-”

There was a flash of light and loud bang. Then all noise ceased, his sound processors shutting down to preserve the sensitive hardware.

He was jostled around in the air but he didn’t fall. Atlas’ grip on his arm was still strong, tighter even, if he could still trust his pressure sensors. All of his circuits went into overdrive and his body heated up, but for what goal, he couldn’t say. There was nothing he could do but hang limply in the air, systems failing over and over again to find Atlas’ heat signature through the plume of smoke spreading from the hangar.

This was panic, he realised. That feeling that would take hold of his fellow enforcers from time to time, making them unresponsive or unproductive. This wasn’t him, this wasn’t how he dealt with situations.

It was painfully slow, but he managed to bring his core temperature down and the salvageable parts of him to function properly. With some effort, he raised the volume settings of his voice and tried calling out to the human. That took a toll on the already damaged machinery, making it harder to produce words, but he pressed on.

“A-… -tlas…”

There was silence, the kind he’d gotten used to in the void of space, not in the atmosphere of a crumbling planet.

Avis was telling himself that his hearing processors were still shut down. That surely that was the cause of the lack of response. But then he heard it, faint at first, but then louder, firmer.

“…Avis?” A coughing fit ensued and the smallest of trembles shook the hand holding him up. “You still in one piece?"

Relief came, and he laughed. It sounded nothing like laughter though. Just a bunch of broken high pitched sounds that would better fit the dying engine of a ship.

That was definitely a bomb that had gone off in the floor above the hangar. Someone wanted the tower to go down in flames and the probability of another bomb detonating inside the hangar or of the whole structure collapsing was too high, the thought of what could happen too much for his artificial brain to handle. The fear wasn’t coming from some lingering need for self-preservation though, far from it. There was a good chance his mechanical body would protect the more important parts of him if the worst should happen, that his existence would be preserved. But not Atlas. Certainly not Atlas.

And yet he couldn’t stop laughing.

“Buddy? Whatever joke you remembered right now is probably not that funny.” There was a vague attempt to sound amused, but there was no laughter in Atlas’ voice. “I need you to come up with up with one of those crazy plans of yours so we can get out of here, asap.”

“Crazy … plans … all you,” Avis responded, half of his processors musing on the human’s words and the other concentrating on shutting down all his internal alarms and allocating more power to his left arm.

Laughter, much more human and natural than he could ever hope to recreate. Hearing it was like being home, wherever that was.

“Well, yeah, okay, most of them were mine. I admit.” A grunt and a jostle. Atlas was probably trying to find a more secure footing on the hangar to pull him up. “But those were just ideas. You made them work. Turned the impossible,” another grunt and a cough, “into the possible. So you get at least half the credit.”

“Should've … said … no.”

His left arm came to life with a soft whirr, responding to the surge of power. With a few internal commands and a bit of luck, Avis was able to change his index finger into a small laser cutter. It’d been a long time since he’d used it and it was probably too weak to do the job as quickly and cleanly as he needed, but it would have to do.

“And miss all those great adventures with me? Not a-" Atlas went deathly quiet and time seemed to stretch in the space between them. The whole tower whined and some debris whizzed past them. “Avis,” the human pilot started, voice soft and careful but shaking all the same. “What are you doing?"

Avis didn’t respond. His mind was now completely focused on his task. Having raised his left hand, he positioned the tip of his finger on the crevice where the upper and lower parts of his right metallic arm connected, and began to cut.

“No! Avis, please, God, no!”

Inside his head, circuits began to heat up and hum. He was panicking again, but he couldn’t let that stop him.

“… It’s … alright …” Avis said, words he’d often heard from former enforcers holding onto their sobbing offspring as they awaited death. Maybe those same words would calm Atlas down. He couldn’t hold the human close and tight, couldn’t stop the crying any other way but through his words.

“No, it’s not alright! You listen to me, Avis. You are not going to do this to me!” he barked and it was almost more of a threat than a command, almost convincing. But Atlas was not Captain and soon wavered, all but breaking down as he pleaded, “Please, Avis, we can do this. I can do this. I can pull you up, just give me a minute. That’s all I ask. One minute, please. Please!”

No, you can’t pull me up, Atlas. But I know you’ll try, and therein lays the problem.
​

The process was slow. Too slow, but fast enough. A few minutes in and the laser had cut a third of the carbon alloy wires holding the two halves of his arm together. It was fine. After all, he didn’t really need to cut all of them.

Some of the weaker wires gave up under the strain and Atlas actually screamed when he felt the shift in weight.

He’d never heard Atlas scream before.

The young enforcer was getting desperate, gritting his teeth as he tried to pull the heavy chunk of metal up, but that only served to wear down his own human body. A drop of blood fell on Avis’ visors, halting his work for a second, but the old machine pushed on with even more determination after that.

The human pilot had now broken down into a sobbing mess, crying out the same words over and over again, “Please, Avis, please. Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me. I lo-"

Avis manually and permanently shut down his hearing processor and the world went silent. The quiet nothingness was almost comforting as he focused every bolt and nut in his body on this one final task. As he prepared to cut one of the few remaining wires, he looked up into the dark blurry eyes of his human, thinking of what to say.

He was a coward, always had been. So he told Atlas to go back to their ship, leave this retched desert planet and join up with the other enforcers. Of course, he couldn’t hear his own voice, so he wasn’t a hundred percent sure the message had come across the way he had intended, but it was something.

He trusted Atlas to make it back safe, to keep the others safe.

There weren’t a lot of beings in this never-ending life of his that he trusted like that.

Snap. One more wire. He couldn’t even feel the human’s warm grip anymore.

If only he could smile at Atlas, if he had lips and a mouth that could do that, he would. But that was not the case, so instead he decided to quote one of those ancient movies the pilot would never shut up about. Maybe get his favourite pilot to smile once more, just in case this was the last time he’d see it.

“I’ll … be … back."

And snap. Gravity took hold.

The descent was faster than he anticipated. A second flashed by and he couldn’t see his human anymore. Atlas was gone, just like that, and the weight of that reality was greater than the force pulling him down. The solitude terrified him just as much as the nothingness he knew was coming. Blind and lost, he held onto millions of memories, but they were pale comparisons, ghosts of a time well gone. So he let them all go and sent out one last signal, knowing fully well that only a machine like him could ever hope to read it, because even at a time like this he was still a coward.

Please, Atlas.

Please, find me.
​

At five hundred meters from the ground, the last hum of circuits faded into nothing and everything shut down.

 

[Bone2pick]

It looks like you have all the skills in place to write interesting material.  Your descriptions were nice, your dialogue had a realistic rhythm, your scifi jargon was passable (I struggle with that area as well), ect.


If I may though, the story took a bad turn for me; it read tonally confused.  The first half of it was a light hearted adventure romp—possibly even cartoony, but in a good way—and then the second half flipped the tone dial over to "noble sacrifice" / full tragedy.  And while such a transition can be executed successfully, it's a really tough feat.  And I don't think you pulled it off here.  I was left unsatisfied: the tragedy felt forced (needless?), and I was disappointed the characters were denied the opportunity to overcome their "pickle"—which would have felt like the natural progression of the story as well as maintain it's spirit.


Do take the above as a minor criticism, I'd like to read more from you.

 

[SepiaInk]

Yeah, it’s not the first time I’ve heard that critique to be honest, I definitely struggle with tone in my stories. I’ll be sure to look out for that next time though. Maybe have someone reading my story as I write it to keep that in check? I don’t know, it’s not something you can easily fix after the fact. I’ll just learn to identify the problem earlier on, I guess. 


Thank you, @Bone2pick, I really appreciate your criticism and hope to improve from it. 

 

[Dusky]

I have nothing to add that Bone2pick didn't. Keep writing! I'll be following~.

 

[SepiaInk]

Fisheye​

​

“No,” Daniel chocked out the word, hugging himself tighter.

As if saying it wasn’t enough, he shook his head and took a step back, heels sinking into the wet sand. Joana’s feet followed his in what had become a practiced dance, keeping the distance between them short.

“Dani, come on, we’re so close,” her voice tugged at him. Daniel flinched when fingers crept up his elbow, a wet hand closing around his forearm in a gentle grip.

“Dani, look at me, please.”

Maybe it was Joana’s tone, feather light and warm, or maybe it was the fact that his friend rarely ever pleaded like that, but Daniel felt compelled to look up from their feet and meet her gaze. The sight of those sun-kissed locks against the blue sky stole his breath for a moment and he could feel his heartbeat slow down to a crawl.

“It’ll be fine. You trust me, right?”

That question wasn’t fair. And neither was that smile. How else was he supposed to answer? She didn’t understand. This was never about trust. If only it were about trust alone…

He sighed and that single exhale of air seemed to take with it all of the anxious thoughts, leaving his head empty and a thousand times lighter. As his muscles relaxed, so did the hold on himself. Taking that as her cue, Joana’s smile grew brighter and she began to inch backwards, pulling him with her.

The anxiousness returned with a vengeance when his gaze fell on the vast expanse of water above her shoulder. As a wave crashed down on the sand and raced towards their feet, Daniel halted and gritted his teeth at the feeling of cold water lapping at his ankles. Joana’s laughter flooded his head, even as the hairs on both their arms bristled.

“See? This isn’t so bad.”

“I hate you so much right now,” Daniel pushed out through shattering teeth.

The laughter only rose higher at his words.

“Aw, cut it,” she sang out, tilting her head to bat short eyelashes at him.

But then the smile was gone and her face drew nearer, voice dropping to a husky whisper that slid into his ear.

“I know you mean love.” The tip of her nose pressed into his skin, drawing a damp line down his cheek. Like a tear.

A different sort of shiver ran down his spine, all thoughts but one melting away in the heat of the sun. Before he’d realised it, the water had reached past his waist, waves tickling his sides, wet fabric threatening to squeeze the breath out of him.

“Joana!” he stammered out, hands shooting out to grasp at the white shirt clinging to her body. “Stop, what are you doing? We’re still clothed!”

“I know. It’s not like you were going to take them off if I asked nicely anyway.” She stopped here to jump, keeping her shoulders above the water as a bigger wave rushed past them.

Panic slowed down his reaction, but Daniel managed to keep his head dry by following the blonde’s lead, clinging to her clothes that much tighter afterwards.

“Plus, it’s a lot more fun this way,” Joana added over his gasps and shattering teeth, chuckling under her breath.

He wanted to retort, protest, scream, anything, but the shivers wouldn’t stop, there was a lump in his throat and his tongue was a swollen sponge. Going back wasn’t even an option at that point. To do that he’d have to let go of Joana and the thought of being swallowed by a big wave the moment he loosened his grip and turned around was enough to shut down his brain.

Every muscle in his body tensed up when her arms circled around him and pulled him tight against her cold body.

“We did it,” Joana proclaimed with as much glee as she could cram into those words, wet lips pushed against his ear. Tightening her hold, she lifted his waist above the water for just a heartbeat.

“I’m so proud of you. You’re here. In the water. With me!”

The blonde began to hum and sway, pulling him one way or another. It felt like a dance. Maybe that’s why he began to relax. Maybe that’s why, without even thinking about it, his hand found its way to hers and his body soon fell into the easy rhythm.

Chuckles and grins were shared as their movements grew more and more exaggerated, water no longer freezing as it splashed about. Joana’s face was all smile, a horribly, delightfully contagious disease that spread over to him, filling his head to the brim with a giddiness that left him breathless and floating.

They pulled apart, though his friend kept her grip on him.

“Now, ladies and gentleman,” she had to stop there, as another giggle burst out between them. God, they both sounded drunk.

She continued, raising her voice, “For our final trick, we shall take a dive.”

“Wait,” the word tumbled out of Daniel’s lips, eyes growing wide as realisation hit him. “What? Joana, no! I-”

It was too little too late. The grip Joana had on him was too tight. As a wave rolled over them, she feel back into the water and pulled him along with her. His head was the first to come under. The water was so cold it felt like hitting concrete. Everything in him seemed to freeze and convulse at the same time, body numb yet screaming, head empty yet burning.

Only when panic returned did he open his eyes. Through the blurry blues and greens, he saw the red fabric of Joana’s shorts.

The red shifted. It turned into the tattered pieces of a dress, barely hanging onto his body. There was that unrelenting grip on the hairs at the back of his head, yanking him back to keep his face under a torrent of scalding water. He tried to grab the shower head above him and push it away but they gripped his wrists and twisted them behind his back. He wanted to scream but if he did that then he’d only be swallowing more water. The only thing he could move freely were his legs, but no matter how much he wriggled his body to get some sort of footing, his bare feet would only slip on the shower room’s titles and bang uselessly against the walls of the stall.

It felt like chocking. He was going to die there admits the laughter of people he didn’t even know but hated him all the same.

He was going to die because of a stupid piece of clothing.

He was going to drown!

One kick and he was out of the water, swaying on the unstable seabed and almost falling under yet again but managing to keep himself upright. Coughing and wheezing he spun around and began pushing through the waves, blurry eyes set on the shore.

“Daniel, wait!”

Her cry was wood on the fire, speeding up his pace. A sting on the heel of his foot told him he’d cut himself on something, but his cold skin was numb to the pain so he kept on going. His whole body protested, but as soon as he touched dry hot sand he forced himself into a run. Joana was right behind him, he could feel it, he could hear her gasping and yelling, voice trying to rope him in, pull him back to her.

“Daniel, stop! I was just trying to help.”

Coming to a full stop, he whipped his head around, shooting her a glare overflowing with angry tears.

“Leave me alone, I’m fucking tired, Joana. Can’t you see that? When are you going to realise that you can’t fix everything!”

Every word out of his mouth felt like a stab to his heart. He knew they would hurt her more, but didn’t stick around to see the blood. With one swift movement, he turned around and stormed off.

He didn’t look back once.

***​

A full hour passed before Joana came to find him.

He felt like the worst piece of trash for still wishing that she would. But even then, as her feet stepped into his line of sight, he didn’t look up, didn’t lift up his head from where it rested on his arm or made any move to acknowledge her presence.

She sat beside him. He could feel the warmth of her body close to his, and for a moment he thought she’d sling an arm around him and joke about something or another. But she didn’t. The silence stretched out till it became more suffocating than the heat. He lifted his chin up and pressed it against his sweat coated arms but the anxiousness gripping his heart kept him from even glancing sideways at her. Instead, his eyes latched onto the first thing that grabbed his attention. A red beach towel was draped over the broken part of a wooden fence that ran through a sand dune, waving like a flag in the salty wind.

Frowning, Daniel averted his gaze and let it drop to the white fabric he’d wrapped around his heel. The cut still stung, but at least sand wouldn’t get in, right?

“Hey, Dani, I-”

“I should be the one doing this,” he interrupted her, head falling back with a light thud as it came to rest against the wooden boards behind them.

A slight pause. Seagulls cried above them. “Doing what?”

“Comforting you. Giving you a shoulder to lean on. Coming to your rescue or whatever.”

“But then I’d be out of a job.”

A joke. That was expected. More than that, it was needed. But the tone was off, it didn’t feel right. It was a hollow performance, and Joana was not the kind of actress that would just give up and phone it in like that.

“You’d find a better one.”

“…”

That was the last drop. This silence was all wrong. This wasn’t Joana.

Dropping his arms, Daniel turned his head to face his friend.

If the sun hadn’t dried up all his tears, he would’ve broken down right then and there.

Joana was crying. She didn’t look like she was, eyes vacant as she stared in silence at the towel fluttering in the wind, but there was a wet trail down her cheeks and drops resting on her lips.

“Fuck.” The curse left his mouth before it could even register. It startled the blonde, who turned to meet his gaze, but by then he’d already sprung up and lunged at her, arms circling around her shoulders to pull her close, nose buried in her hair.

It smelled like summer.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“I don’t know how to do this, Dani.” A hand snuck up to rest on the back of his neck. “I don’t know how to help you. I could beat the crap out of the people who hurt you, but that wouldn’t really help, would it?”

“… No. No, it wouldn’t.”

A sigh. Could’ve been hers or his, he couldn’t tell anymore.

“I’m working on it, I just … I just need more time, that’s all,” he said as he leaned back, looking away so his friend could wipe her tears in peace. “In the mean time, just forget it, okay? You shouldn’t have to worry about it. It’s my problem, I’ll fix it.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

A frown settled over Daniel’s brow, a silent demand for an explanation. He flinched when her hands came up to cup his face, pleasant surprise filling him a second later when the blonde’s face opened up into a smile.

“You’re not doing anything alone.” Her words felt better than the sweetest of sea breezes, blowing softly into his face. "Not on my watch. Got it?”

No, the shadows argued, it wasn’t enough. This didn’t solve anything.

The waters were still murky between them, and a monster still lurked in those depths. He knew that, and yet… It was that smile again. What power did that smile hold, that could fill him with hope even when every fibre in his body told him it was foolish to do so? When that inner voice told him he had to face reality. That they had to actually talk about things instead of just stuffing anything unpleasant and difficult inside the closet, over and over again. Someday, it was going to burst open. What then?

Later. They’d deal with it when the time was right. But not right now. This wasn’t the moment. Right now, the sun was shining.

A soft smile tugged at Daniel’s lips, his hand closing around Joana’s. “Got it.”

She was going to say something back when he chose that exact moment to give out a loud sneeze. Whatever words would’ve been shared turned into a snort and a long chuckle. Embarrassed, he rubbed his nose and shot a halfhearted glare at his friend when she kept giggling.

Eventually she did calm down enough to ask him, “Wanna change clothes and head home?”

The wink was all the warning he got before she jumped to her feet, pulling him up with her.

“If I say no-”

“There is only yes!”

“Thought so.”