Connect

It was a long and arduous trek to the edge of the world. Jimmy had trained his whole life for this moment, and today he was going to accomplish what nobody else before him had done. He was going over the edge. To be fair, he was going to be the first because nobody else cared enough. He didn’t even know what got into him. Nobody in his village believed that there was anything beyond the horizon, and the idea to visit it never crossed their minds. He wanted to prove them wrong. Lazy fucks! After two years of getting in shape and living in the wild to train himself to the harshness of the environment, was prepared for the journey.

It had been months since he bid farewell to his village, nobody shed a tear when he did. They expected him to give up and return, and since he didn’t, they probably thought he was dead. By his calculations, he’d be reaching the edge of the world soon. He had read in books about his ancestors living on a sphered world, where it would have been impossible to reach its edge (since it didn’t have one) but there were a significant amount of people who believed otherwise. Idiots. He knew that his world was flat because he had seen pictures of it taken from the air (at a very high altitude). There was an end point – and today he was going to find it.


She was on the run. There was no turning back now. Her family massacred, lover murdered right before her eyes. It had been by chance she had managed to slip by the marauders. She took it, and never looked back. Instead of heading westward, where other villagers could have sheltered her and offered protection, she decided to head east, towards the barren wasteland of the world. She preferred to take her chances on the unknown, instead of leaving her life in the hands of strangers. How would she know that they wouldn’t sell her out to those creatures? The monsters had caught up to her village because someone spilled the beans in the first place.

One thing she knew for sure – the marauders would never follow her east. It was much too dry and barren for them to travel through. They thrived in wet and slimy places – just like her own kind. She decided that she would rather die to the hands of nature than the claws of those beasts.

As she continued her journey east, she realized that the horizon was appearing closer to her – it wasn’t some intangible line that she thought it was when she first spotted it as a child. It seemed very real – like something within reach. She set her sights on it, and made it her goal. A literal endpoint to her escape. She wondered what laid ahead.


Writing Prompt from Reddit: [WP] A shattered Dyson sphere is fragmented across a dim star. It’s creators have long ascended. New life emerges on the sphere’s inner shell, where civilizations use the fragments as islands. Fungal life grows on the outer shell, surviving in the cold dark. The two sides meet for the first time.

3478*

I punched the number into the payphone after the job was complete, just like I was instructed to. Goddamit, pick up the phone. Why isn’t she picking up?? The dial tone continued ringing. I looked around anxiously, outside it was pitch black. The only source of light for miles was from within the phone booth I was standing in. It was quite a trek, but I had selected this place for a reason. Nobody would pass by at this hour, let alone this season – it had been snowing for days.

I stayed on the phone, waiting for someone to pick up. doo doo… doo doo… still no answer. I checked the time on my watch: four a.m. What the fuck do I do now? Why didn’t we come up with a plan B? Holy fuck. Frustrated, I hung up the receiver. This was no time to panic. What was my next step?

I looked out of the phone booth again to make sure that nobody had followed me, I was alone. I stepped out into the snow, walked around to the side to shield myself from the win, and sat down, back against the wall. What did I get myself into?

The calm that I felt faded away and was now replaced by fear and anxiety of the crime I had committed half an hour ago. Well, the crime I had looked like I committed.

I was told by Miss Chicanery (a fake name, I’m sure) I’d be paid double the reward of turning her in by donning a wig and dressing up like I had just killed someone in cold blood. I only had to walk past some security cameras to lead the authorities astray, while she (who would have done the deed), exited the same building in the opposite direction.

I had to make sure that I wasn’t followed, call her up to check in, and meet her somewhere else to collect my reward. Because she wasn’t answering, and I had no idea what to do next. I pulled out a cigarette and lit it up, I needed something to calm down my racing heart.

Now’s not the time to panic.

I finished my smoke and headed back into the phone booth, I tried the number one more time.

“What took you so long?” said the voice on the other end.

“Me?? I called you about five minutes ago and nobody picked up!”

“You must have dialled the wrong number, I’ve been waiting for you to call all night and my phone didn’t even ring once!”

“Forget about it, now that we’re talking – where do we go next?”

“You sure nobody is on your tail?”

“I’m pretty-“

There was the sound of a gunshot on the other end, followed by the thud of the cellphone dropping to the ground. What the fuck just happened over there? The sound of footsteps crept towards the phone. A man cleared his throat and spoke.

“Miss Chicanery?”

I remained silent. Do they think she is me??

“I know you’re listening. Nice decoy, but you’re not going to get away this time. I’ll be seeing you soon.”

He hung up. I placed the receiver back in its place and collapsed against the wall. Holy fuck. What did I get myself into?


Image Prompt from Reddit: Phonebooth

You Used to Call Me on My Cellphone

“Wow, still getting texts from my boss even when I’m dead, can you believe it?” I said, going through the notifications on my phone. Once I was done with all the tags to tributes and photos on Facebook, there weren’t many to go through. People tend to stop reaching out when they know you’re gone.

My new friend who seemed lost in thought a moment ago noticed I had a phone with me. “What the hell – how did you get that in?? I thought they confiscated that shit at customs?”

“Beats me, they must have missed it. Besides, there’s not much charge left anyway, it’s going to die – like I did.”

“That’s very funny, can I use your phone for a bit before it dies? I haven’t been connected to the internet in ages.”

“Dude, you came in right after me!”

“I know! It’s been half-an-hour.”

“And..?”

“That’s an eternity without being online!”

I shrugged and handed him the phone, “sure. If you get caught, don’t say it was from me.”

I didn’t bother logging out of my apps or deleting my messages – it didn’t matter anyway, we were in the afterlife, what would people do with information about my past life? I continued walking down the street, leaving my friend, who found a bench to sit on, behind while I explored this new world.

The afterlife isn’t so different from life. If I took a photograph of the two worlds, you would have trouble discerning the differences. I didn’t feel like I was dead. It was just like living but in another country.


A couple of weeks had passed since the day I arrived – I had settled into a new routine in this life. I had completely forgotten about the friend I made when I saw his face on the front page of the daily paper.

Suicide Bomber Stopped From Setting Off Phone Bomb – Terrorist is now in custody, and police are currently investigating the phone used in the crime.

I spit my coffee out.


Writing Prompt from Reddit: “You die with your cell phone in your hands, and the afterlife customs agents miss it when letting you in. You find that it still works, and you can connect to the internet and contact people in the living world.”