Flash Fiction (6)

Jackie, Blodeuedd, and I are back to working up some Flash Fiction fun. We will do flash fiction posts every two weeks, give or take due to holiday's and such. I will post my complete story here. Jackie will add the beginning and a link to her flash fiction on her Live Journal and Blodeuedd will be posting on her blog.

Enjoy our quick glimpses into worlds of the unknown.

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(Untitled)
By:  Melissa Hayden

Miamee picked up her pace. The frantic fast walk grew into a jog as she rushed through the shadows of the streets. They were following her. Always following her. The people here thought her crazy, but it wasn't possible for her to be crazy.

She slipped her hand over her short wet hair. The moisture in the air was heavy, leaving an oily condensation on her. Her breath heaved and the puffs of moisture escaped around her as she ran through the alley.

The world quickly shifted around her as she left the city behind and entered the graveyard of her kind. The kind no one knew she was. She had to face the nightmares and visions she had or be driven to this scrap yard like others before her. There was something there in those memories, she knew it. Her creator needed her or someone needed her. And she needed to find out who and why.

The air felt thinner on her sensor enhanced skin outside the city walls. Out here it was harder for her to breathe . She reached down, flipping a compartment open at her waist, and turned the knob. The air breathers would adjust to take what they needed. Miamee found on her first visit outside the city that the air was not lacking in oxygen as the city was. The city has conditioners on street corners where people huddle to inhale pure air. Miamee didn't need oxygen as people did. She still needed it, but she needed it for the steam powered heart - using less of it than the living did. She was created for that purpose and to run the errands through town that her own could not.

Miamee stepped over the wreckage of wires and metal parts. It took Miamee time to figure it out, but there is a path to follow. The analytical mind saw the path, foot step holes in the scrap that appeared to be tossed away. There were even wires outlining a direction, if you looked close enough in the design of the scattered mass of wires. Miamee smiled, knowing there was something here. She simply had to find it.

Looking down at the path Miamee didn't see it. She raised her eyes and jumped back a step, slipping on the muddy metal falling to the ground with a clatter of metal pieces around her. A head blocked her path. Miamee paused. The world grew quiet again as the scraps fell to rest once again. The head hung in the night before her it's eyes glowed red, which was new. Miamee tilted her head left then right. Kali. Miamee crept to her knees, eyes on Kali. She stood, watching Kali. Kali never moved or spoke. His head hung in the air with the night as a canvas.

Miamee's hand was before her, inches from the mask of a face that could easily bite through her treasured skin. But she reached anyway. Her fingers slipped over the smooth metal of his forehead. Down the bridge of his nose to his cheek. His cheek was cracked. Had someone hit him with something harder than his metal frame? Miamee felt the moisture escape her eyes, something her creator saw fit to allow her body to do to fit in with the humans she would be around.

Miamee's other hand came up, seeing he was harmless, to his jaw. With a click under the jaw his mouth swung open with a scream of metal on metal, causing Miamee to flinch. Her hand slipped to the jaw joint on the other side and a click of a button, hidden from view, was pressed.

Miamee didn't know how she knew what to do, but she did. Her body moved without her command. With a click from Kali's head, the tongue popped open on the tip and a note slid out. What did Kali have to share with her?

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Preview of (untitled), an original short by Jackie:

Maire walked through the woods, careful where she stepped in case anything was tucked under the loose leaves that covered the ground. The patrols had been through here earlier and had given her crew the all clear but there was just so much crap all over the place. This would be slow going.

She pulled the rolling cart along behind her, the wood creaking as it bounced over unseen roots. Her scanner detected nothing in the vicinity and she grumbled in frustration, wishing she could go faster but tied down by the bulky equipment she needed for the clean up

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