@Angela_Goff has posted a special Visual Dare challenge, asking for stories based on any of the past 27 prompts. I had written stories on prompts 6-27, so here I respond to the first five. Presented as a story in five parts.
http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com/2012/10/visual-dare-with-twist.html?m=1
Maurice sighed as he pulled the hydrator off his mouth. The growing sun hung low in the eastern sky. It was going to be another hot one, and that would make the too-dry air even more dangerous to breathe. He’d never gotten used to wearing a mask every time he was out of the house.
If today’s experiment went as expected, he’d never have to worry about that again. The breakthrough was less than a year old, but it was time. He turned the knob, and watched as the atmosphere began to ripple.
First the water. Then he’d find her.
————–
The flooding had gotten dangerous. After the ice caps began to melt, the old city was too close to the waterline to escape damage. The cobblestones, once an instrument for horses’ hooves to play their songs of commerce and civilization upon, were under three feet of water, the level still going up.
The old woman was one of the few who’d stayed behind. She’d lost her Maurice here, and so she had to stay, awaiting his return.
She closed her eyes, listening as the seabirds began their daily hunt.
In the street, the water began to spin.
—————
No one could resist her for long. For some, it was her beauty, for some her voice of command, but for him, it was always her eyes. She’d stare at him, and his will became hers.
There had been many before Maurice, but none drew her in the same way. The more she looked at him, the more of herself she lost.
He was lost in the desert of her eyes, knowing he’d do anything she asked.
She was caught in the whirlpool of his soul, unable to speak.
Neither noticed the rippling of the moon, full and heavy.
—————
“I will not die, do you hear me! I have not come this far, traveled across myriad worlds, and endured grief which would have broken a lesser woman to die, not now!
“Not like this.”
She howled into the night. She’d lost him when they’d changed, but no power could keep her from finding him again. The grass of this world was strangely grey and lifeless, and did not nourish her.
Calling up one last bit of strength, she rose and began loping across the grasslands. There had to be more than one sky ripple in the world.
————
The fog hung low over the lake as he began his walk. A wolves’ night, she would have called it, with a hungry smile. They’d both had some of the wolf in them, and the parched world had nearly killed him.
It was ready. He’d remade the world, changing the climate and the fate of seven billion people, all to call to her. If she didn’t come now, then she truly was gone.
His footfalls were dull on the pier, the damp air hiding their usual echo. Breathing deep, he looked out over the water, calling to her.
Behind him. “Maurice.”
Project Gemini 