Drabbles, weird short stories, and other cheap drivel

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I'm a terrible writer. You don't have to take the time to tell me. I know. Quality? I write without that! But quantity? Darlin', I’ve got that in spades.

Hmmm, so how can I write more crap in even less time to annoy everyone on Lemmy? This comm will mostly be Drabbles, which are tiny stories that are exactly 100 words. Not 99. Not 101. One hundred. Like a hitman with a word count contract. (Which I've broken in this sidebar.)

A few other flash fiction and weird-ass short short stories may be posted as well.

These are pulp shots fired straight from my brain. No filter, no brakes, no shame.

Love 'em? Hate 'em? Doesn’t matter, because I’m posting them anyway.

Read fast. They bite.

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That Good Dinner (written by Universal Monk)

“Looks weird,” the little boy said as he poked it with a fork.

His mom rubbed his shoulders. “It’s just fish. Eat it.”

He took a bite. Then another. It tasted better than anything he could remember. Going hungry can do that to a person.

“Put your plate away, it’s time for bed.”

The next morning, the boy woke up to the sound of his mother crying.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?”

“We ate blowfish,” she said as she stroked his thick black hair. “But I must have cooked it too long. The poison must have disappeared. Now we’ll be hungry again.”

END

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submitted 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by UniversalMonk to c/drabbles
 
 

Shattered Self (written by Universal Monk)

The attic smelled of mildew and decay. My flashlight caught Sarah, her face a pulpy ruin, eyes gouged, leaking viscous red.

“It’s in the mirror,” she gurgled, clawing at her shredded lips.

I turned, heart hammering. The mirror showed me, but my reflection grinned, teeth jagged, flesh peeling like wet wallpaper. “You can’t leave,” it rasped, voice mine but wrong. I smashed the glass, shards slicing my knuckles bloody.

The room darkened. My reflection stood behind me, whole, smiling. “You’re already gone,” it said.

I touched my face. It was cold, smooth glass. Sarah’s corpse laughed, her voice now mine.

END

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The Hunger Below (100-word story) (piefed-media.feddit.online)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by UniversalMonk@feddit.online to c/drabbles
 
 

The Hunger Below (written by Universal Monk)

The basement reeked of damp rot and something sharper. More vulgar. Coppery, like blood. I clutched the flashlight, its beam jittering across the concrete. “Jake, you down here?” I called out, voice shaking.

A sloppy wet gurgle answered. I swung the light toward it.

There was Jacob slumped against the wall, his chest a gaping, glistening ruin, ribs jagged like broken teeth. His eyes, wide and glassy, locked on mine. “It… it’s still here,” he rasped, blood bubbling from his lips.

Something skittered in the shadows. I froze. A low, ravenous chuckle slithered through the dark. “You’re next,” it hissed.

END

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Wood Cut (short story) (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by UniversalMonk to c/drabbles
 
 

Wood Cut (written by Universal Monk)

Mason Gregory found it at a yard sale on the edge of town, just past where the cracked pavement gave up and the weeds won. A mailbox leaned like it had given up years ago. Grasshoppers snapped through the dry yellow-brown grass as he stepped out of the car, their clicking the only sign of life.

The table was covered in chipped mugs and old dolls with missing eyes, but what caught his attention was the block of dark wood leaning against a rusted lawn chair.

It was carved deep with a figure that looked part jaguar, part soldier. The thing stood upright, claws gripping a torch in one hand, a club in the other, its mouth peeled open in a snarl. Feathers (or maybe they were spines?) fanned from its skull, and red circles danced across its armor like dried blood. The eyes, two black pits, stared like it knew him already.

“That’s old,” said the woman behind the table, her voice dry and cracked. “My husband dragged it back from South America. I always thought it was ugly as shit.”

Mason chuckled. “Hell yeah. Looks like something outta Doom.

The old woman didn’t smile. Just flicked ash off her cigarette. “What?”

“A video game,” he said, still staring at the carving. “Old-school. Demons, fireballs, that kinda thing. I started playing it again after getting sick of arguing with people on Lemmy. Figured I’d do something a little more retro.”

She squinted at him through the smoke. “Still don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Just rambling. How much for this?”

She drew on the cigarette, what teeth she had left the color of old paper. “Ten bucks. Cash.”

Mason froze for a second. He hadn’t carried real money in forever. He pulled out his wallet. A crumpled five, a few ones. Just enough. He handed it over, nodded his thanks, and walked back to his car with the woodcut tucked under his arm.

It felt heavier now.

That night, he hung it up on the wall. He meant to leave it and go to bed. But hours passed, and he kept coming back. Staring. The eyes seemed deeper now. Hungrier. The mouth wider. A ring of fresh notches lined the bottom. Like it had been counting.

By morning, he still hadn’t slept. His gums throbbed. His hands pulsed with a dull ache. And the woodcut had changed. The jaguar-thing stood straighter now. Its grin stretched wider. Scratches marked the wall behind it. Long, shallow gouges he had never noticed before. He stared at them, unsure. Had they always been there?

He told himself it was stress, maybe that damn black mold that was on the ceiling, or maybe sleep deprivation.

That night, something whispered from behind the walls. Scratching came from inside the floorboards.

“What the fuck?” he hissed, standing barefoot in the dark. Sweat clung under his arms and pooled in the creases of his neck. Probably that damn black mold, he told himself. He was probably delusional.

Then came a sound. A soft shuffle. Like claws dragging across old floorboards. Near the woodcut.

He looked.

It hadn’t moved. Just sat there. Still. Watching.

Then the mirror shattered behind him.

His hands were black up to the wrists. The skin was hard, rough like bark but warm and pulsing. His teeth ached like they wanted out of his skull.

It wasn’t mold. It wasn’t madness. It was the woodcut. It had to be. He could feel it burrowed inside him, grinning without a mouth.

He turned to the mirror. His reflection stared back, but the eyes were too wide. Pupils flat like old coins. Lips pulled into a grin he didn’t recognize.

That’s when he understood.

It wasn’t a picture. It wasn’t art.

It was a doorway. A mask. A summoning.

And he had stared too long.

When the cops entered the apartment a week later, after neighbors reported screaming and a foul stench, they found no body.

Just the smell. Thick and sour, like something rotting deep in the walls. Black marks streaked across the plaster.

And blood. Too much blood for someone who had simply left.

The carving was still there. Nailed to the wall.

Still smiling.

END

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by UniversalMonk to c/drabbles
 
 

Whatever Happened to Edna? (written by Universal Monk)

The kettle screamed, but Edna hadn’t turned on the stove.

She shuffled down the narrow hallway, slippers scuffing the wood, arthritis biting every joint. The lights flickered. A door slammed upstairs. Then another.

"Quit that racket," she muttered, voice thin but stern.

A low growl rolled through the walls.

"I said stop it!" she snapped.

Silence fell. Then every cabinet in the kitchen burst open at once, plates flying out like startled birds.

“You nasty thing,” she hissed, squaring her shoulders. “I buried you in ’47!”

The hallway mirror cracked.

And from behind her, something whispered, “Now you’re joining me.”

END

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by UniversalMonk to c/drabbles
 
 

The Chicken Man (written by Universal Monk)

He tossed his marker into the trash. That final theorem still shimmered on the whiteboard, taunting him. Unproved. Unsolved. But something in his bones had changed.

He traded proofs for poultry. Journals for dirt beneath his fingernails. Now he walked barefoot through dew-wet grass, holding some grain, beard tangled like the nettles growing wild by the coop.

Sunlight broke over the ridge, catching the glint of wire fencing and chicken eyes shining like amber beads. They clucked at him like old friends. He smiled, teeth crooked, heart steady. There were no more variables. Just eggs. Straw. Sky. And finally, silence.

END

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by UniversalMonk to c/drabbles
 
 

The Lantern (Written by Universal Monk)

Fog hushed the marsh as Josiah trudged through knee-high reeds. Somewhere ahead, a bell rang slow and distant.

Then she appeared. Barefoot. Dress torn. Eyes sad.

She held up a lantern.

“You dropped this,” she called out.

He raised his own. Still in hand. Still lit.

The girl stepped closer. “You dropped it when you drowned.”

The flame inside her lantern turned red. Josiah looked down. His boots were gone. Water up to his chest. Breath shallow.

Behind the glass of her lantern, a tiny version of him pounded and screamed.

The girl smiled. “I’ll take good care of you.”

END

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by UniversalMonk@feddit.online to c/drabbles
 
 

Anabelle and the Clurichaun - written by Universal Monk.

Anabelle was walking in the park and noticed something strange. She scooped it up.

“A tiny dragon!” she said.

“Nope. I’m a clurichaun. I’ll grant a wish if ya let me go.”

She glanced at a nearby bird singing in the breeze.

“I want to fly!” she said.

Poof! She shrank. Wings fluttered.

“I’m a fairy now!” she said. “Thank you!”

“Now you have to worry about stuff that you didn’t have to think about before.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Everything. Especially birds. Birds love to eat fairies.”

Anabelle looked up. The birds were louder now.

And much, much closer.

END

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by UniversalMonk@feddit.online to c/drabbles
 
 

The Machine written by Universal Monk

I noticed Caleb Williams looked different. Skinny. Hair turned gray. Grotesque veins grouped up and bulged under his forehead.

“I’ve invented something,” he said. “It activates the primitive nerve centers of my brain. I can see other dimensions that exist and overlap our own!”

Poor Caleb could finally see the things that made dogs bark. Those strange shapes skirting the edge of night. New colors unknown to mankind.

Yeah, he looked different. That’s because he could see different. He could see everything.

He hanged himself on November 16, 1899.

I have just acquired his invention.

Now I want to see.

END

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by UniversalMonk@feddit.online to c/drabbles
 
 

The Tomorrow Thief Written by Universal Monk

“Ready?” the man asked.

Charlie Newburry closed his eyes and nodded.

“What will I see?”

“Probably nothing too exciting,” the man said. “Maybe birds. Hopefully you’re only going back in time for ninety seconds.”

Charlie felt like he was falling.

“I’m not ready!” he yelled, eyes snapping open. Swaying ferns and steaming earth.
He heard a growl and spun around just as the saber-toothed tiger jumped on him. Fangs ripped into his neck. Bones crunched. Blood sprayed warm across ancient leaves.

Just before Charlie died, he watched a flock of birds, startled by sounds of struggle, fly into the sky.

END