kwatz
Joined May 2009 and calls Great story. Could have used a vampire home.
24 stories, 83 challenges, 39 comments, and 23 friends
I’m a thirty-something year-old scientist, husband, and father of two who likes to write fiction in his spare time – usually something in the science fiction or fantasy genres.
Stories
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Pilgrim and I
The hand of a god reached out and grasped the ship in his fist. I heard the hull crumpling, titanium core reinforced struts bending and snapping. Cracks appeared in the quintuple paned view ports of the bridge. Ozone-tinged smoke . I felt the squeeze o...
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A Moment Between Dreams
Martin awoke from his latest 50-year nap feeling especially refreshed. He pulled a robe around his body and pattered across the chilled floor to the other creches. Wiping moisture from the crystal, he smiled into the hibernating faces of his wife and c...
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Dragonflies (Purple Prose Challenge)
Prismatic winged dragonflies alit on the sun-dappled and azure mirror-like surface of the lake, leaving behind barely perceptible ripples expanding in increasingly diminutive, by height if not diameter, concentric circles – pinpoint pricks of int...
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Showdown
Naught but dust moved as the two stared at one another, their hands held rigidly by their sides. Curious eyes peered out of windows and doorways. Two children stared in rapt attention from behind a wooden, half-filled trough. A raspy, earthen call echo...
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A Conversation
Seriously? This is your excuse? Yeah. Why didn’t you tell anyone? I mean, this changes everything! Why didn’t I tell anyone? Let’s play a game. Pretend that one day you stumble upon a particularly intelligent ant colony. They can talk...
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I'm Not Afraid of Swords
I’m not afraid of swords. A guy walks up to you and draws a sword, you can pretty much tell what’s on his mind. He wants to hit you with it. Run you through. Chop off your head. There aren’t too many other options. And you can see jus...
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Battle Immortal
Fiery feathers, wings torn asunder Rent to pieces by frigid, blackened claws. Epic encounter, lightning and thunder, High above surface the victor withdraws. Scaly and dark, its cries carry the day While far below bright plumage lies burning. Noble cre...
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A Minor Nuisance
In curiosity, Hyde peered into the scrying pool in his chambers at the city’s center. Already the men encamped outside his walls, men who thought to challenge his power and bring him low, were beginning to feel the Tower stir. Many were coughing ...
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No Place for Vampyr
There was a time when people feared the things that hunted at night. Tremored at the moving shadow. Long ago the merest whisper of vampyr would send mothers home to clutch children to their breast in terror. I should know. I remember those times. Peopl...
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This Time Trip Can't End Soon Enough
It really doesn’t help that the time trips are short and that I return quickly to the present. The whole thing is disconcerting as all hell. And the falling helplessly to the floor? That really sucks. Explaining the bruises at work isn’t fu...
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Fate a Fate
Three decrepit sisters shuffled silently through a dead world. Around fallen and crumbling pillars of stone, through overgrown cities they trod. The ashes and dust of humanity fallen long ago thrown into the air at their passing of their skirts. They m...
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Pandemic
Blame the Sony XN-2100 Digitizers, commonly called Replicators. Some say they were like something out of Star Trek. I don’t know. I was never one for the so-called “classics.” Besides, who can watch any of the old two-dees? They give ...
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The Last Explorer
He waited until all of the students had left the classroom, most of them still laughing. All but one. Darius still sat at his desk, head slumped. His scrawled report was clenched in a small fist. After closing the door, he moved to sit on a desk beside...
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Softening
The skies rained fiery rocks for days as the orbital defenses and manned cruisers battled to reduce the unexpected meteor storm to manageable rubble before it met with the planet’s atmosphere. Already, nearly a third of the valiant fleet had been...
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An Alien Point of View
“I can’t believe you call yourself a doctor!” I yelled across the room, not caring who I offended in the process. She looked up from her plate of cold yek, recently dredged from the planet’s saline lakebeds. Of course I was talk...
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NONE OF YOUR BIZNESS
“Hello, My Name Is NONE OF YOUR BIZNESS” was what was scrawled on the tag somewhat clumsily applied to his ragged and unwashed flannel shirt. His hair was unkempt and greasy and stood upright on one side, as if he had just awoken from an af...
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Son of Bonaccio
“…” “Aldo!” “What?” “Come here!” “Right now? Why?” “You need to meet someone.” “I am rather busy right now. Maybe later.” “I really think you should make th...
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Memory is the first thing...
Have you ever been in a store where the cashier asks you for your zip code? Have you ever forgotten your zip code? I have. I do. All of the time. I steadied myself against the lamp post. Once when I was filling out a form at the doctor’s office, ...
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Eternity Services
“What was that guy’s name again?” Edward asked, hastily jotting down every detail of the encounter that he could remember. “Robert, I think,” said Pauline, glancing back over her shoulder as if she could see where the tech...
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The Queue Line
When I first started working here I thought that I had landed a dream job. Every night the park got touchups of paint and fresh flowers were planted to replace the dying ones. Sure the weather was hot in the summer, but it was beautiful in spring and f...
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Roller Coaster Memories
I looked up at the cheery sign adorned with anthropomorphic animals. The paint was more faded than I remembered, but the background music, clinking chain, and screams of the riders down the first hill were just as I remembered. Some things never change...
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So This Is How It Ends [CBSC]
Henry leaned against the rough wall, grimacing. The wound in his leg was still painful and the bandage was soaked with blood. Still he couldn’t resist a rakish smile at the woman across from him. Marion frowned at him as she threw her weapon away as ...
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The Sorting Line (A Touch of Madness Challenge)
The overseer double-checked identification numbers against the list on his electronic pad as the excited throngs of people slowly pushed forward through the queue lines. Most of them pressed masks against their mouths, all the better to filter out the ...
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Planetary Tryst
They slid silently through space together, accumulating decades of time-debt while they slumbered dreamlessly in each others’ arms. Awakened at arrival, they shuttled to the surface and found a flowery meadow aside an isolated mountain lake to sp...
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