Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #02380-F190: Tasty Trade

Alien witnesses true fear in the eyes of a band of country roughneck mercs in the form of a single raised eyebrow of the group's diminutive elderly "grandmother" figure. Grown warriors, men and women, who have charged into the maw of insanity cowed by a 98lbs octogenarian.

Pretty pretty please. -- Yup

In all the known universe, there is little that is as unlikely to be terrifying as the words, "What the diddly gosh-darn heck're you kids got goin' on in here?" It was the sort of thing to come out of an extremely proper and extremely elderly mouth and, in fact, that is just where this string of words had come from.

The Sargasso Scouts, big burly Humans, all of them, parted for her like the red sea, giving Thokaz an excellent opportunity to take in the sight. She was grey-haired, and wizened with age, and walked with the assistance of a cane. Her livesuit was one of the older models and evidently patched with so many repairs that it was hard to tell what the original model was. There were stickers on there older than some of the scouts. There was a macaroni necklace she wore like an ancient and powerful totem. She walked between them like the monarch of the realm. Which she probably was.

The Scouts were instantly cowed. The biggest and roughest amongst them hung her head. "...'m sorry, Mama... He was up in our green habitat, though. We gotta defend our eats."

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Challenge #02379-F189: For a Thousand Years

"I believe there's something good in him."

"That's childish."

"So? Children can be right too." -- Anon Guest

"We're talking about a man who has rounded up millions of people, put them into life-endangering camps when he and his cohort couldn't outright kill them, denied them basic human rights, denied them humanity, cowed the populace with both his super-loyal adherents and threats of physical and legal violence, and is one hundred percent in favour of eliminating anyone who isn't a member of

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Challenge #02378-F188: Anything You Can Do...

An idea for the humans/earth is space Australia. These aliens fight with their voice. But our songs are stronger. Opera singers? They can't even fathom, they just faint. Thought you'd have fun with it! Thank you -- Anon Guest

The Karolai had thought they were masters of tactics and the ultimate weapon. None had dared oppose them for a thousand years of glory. Their empire spanned most of a galactic arm, and they kept tight control of it with sonic weaponry.

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Challenge #02377-F187: Almost a Nightmare

Imagine you meet your doppelganger of a different species. They look nothing like you, but your personalities are as close to identical as possible! -- Anon Guest

The universe is a fractal, as above, so below. Galaxies spiral into a supergalaxy. Stars spiral into galaxies, clouds of debris spiral into both stars and planets. Atmosphere spirals into weather... liquid drains into a spiral form. Around and around it goes... Is it no wonder, then, that there are patterns of personas?

They do

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Challenge #02376-F186: So Walks a Spider

Imagine if the Old Pagan gods still walked among us. But the stories from their point of view were slightly different.. and they were only made into gods because of storytellers...

I.E.

Odin: "I started my existence as an ordinary man, and lived a fairly uneventful first life. Then my wife passed and I became lonely so I started to look after all the local lost and orphaned children. The bards started to sing of my generosity far and wide until

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Challenge #02375-F185: Call it a Win

"I'm sorry HOW was this created?"

"Ok, two parts antimatter, three parts tachyon particles. Toss near the edge of the event horizon of a black hole, while slowly adding the core of a model 57 chronos warp drive engine."

"Uh-huh"

Look into the perfectly stable portal. -- Anon Guest

"Wait. No. The physics is impossible. Antimatter and tachyons react explosively when in close proximity..."

"Not if you use a sufficiently advanced magnetic bottle containment system," said the Human smugly.

"There aren't any,

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Challenge #02374-F184: Interesting Impressions

Imagine meeting a species that displayed all their emotions via dermal colour displays. And how humans would react to them -- Adam in Darwin

As first contact situations go, the meeting between Humans and Acrodontids could have plausibly gone better. When it comes to meeting Humans, it's a minor miracle that they don't shoot on sight. Those who don't shoot on sight are the ones who tend to enthusiastically pack bond. It's still a matter of debate as to which is worse.

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Challenge #02373-F183: The Human Paradox

An alien publishes his work on "The human paradox", the fact that the universe is a more safer place since the most deadliest species are everywhere. -- Hyorky

Humans are a paradox, Grax wrote in hir treatise. They are simultaneously the bravest and the most cowardly, the most generous and the most miserly, the most sensible and the most insane. As Deathworlders, they should also be the most hazardous species in the Galactic Alliance, but, as we all know, Alliance space has

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Challenge #02372-F182: The Marvellous Six

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Q3i5w6-Ug

(Also, Why isn't this a legit anime!!!!) -- Anon Guest

[AN: Well, I made it 181 days without using anyone else's IP. Can't get any money from the anthology of this year now. Sigh. Oh well. Totes worth it for this one]

Reach for the stars, Yukanna... Their power is our power. If you can feel them... you will never fail. Grandfather had said that, when he had taken Yukanna to see the ribbon lights

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Challenge #02371-F181: Colour-coded For Inconvenience

"Don't touch that, it's hot."

"It doesn't look hot."

"Hot things are red on Terra." -- Anon Guest

"Uh. Not exactly," said a nearby Human. "Not all red things are hot, and not all hot things are red. For your safety, check for radiant heat," they demonstrated, holding their hand above the surface and gradually approaching touching it until they pulled away. "This one is actually hot. See?"

The tourists huddled together a little. "That is how you test for heat on

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Challenge #02370-F180: Stone Tools and Bear Skins

An alien crew hires a discount group of human bodyguards to protect them on an expedition to a heavily forested/jungled planet to research the planet life. Murphy's law happens and the alien crew find out they hired the human group that is , as a group, a hybrid of MacGyver, John Wick, and the the A-Team. -- Anon Guest

One of the launch seats, heavily charred, fell out of the tree with a solid thud. The Human who dislodged it had got

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Challenge #02369-F179: A Big Choice

"You have a darkness in you, that’s all too clear. You can imagine yourself doing terrible things. But that's just your imagination. For all the looming intimidation factor, when you act, I can tell you still have standards... however few they may be... and there’s some lines I’m certain even you would refuse to cross."

"Hrmph... You can't know that for sure..."

"I feel it. I have faith in you. Maybe not to always do the right thing, but

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Challenge #02368-F178: Culinary Explorers

An inter-species cooking class is very interesting to observe, and better to participate in. -- Anon Guest

Some people just never learn to cook. Why would they? Obtaining foodstuffs from vendors is easy and they then have more time to spend on other enjoyable pursuits. There are those who insist that cooking is a vital survival skill, and they are repeatedly ignored by those who plan on never having to survive like that. It is far cheaper, faster, and overall safer to

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Challenge #02367-F177: Impossible Dreamers

If you think that "something" is impossible to do... Give it to humans and they will make it "possible" -- Anon Guest

Never tell a Human what's impossible. -- Galactic Alliance saying.

They had once said that travelling faster than light was impossible, just like time travel. Humans managed to find one-way wormholes, which utilised both, and then proceeded to use them to seed their colonies all over surprising corners of space. Humans, it seemed, accomplished six impossible things before teatime.

It

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Challenge #02366-F176: Fight, Flight, or...

Fight or flight, the natural reactions to fear. Though, people don't mention one, freeze. People like to ignore that possibility because it tends to put them in danger. Unfortunately for them, it is real, it is dangerous, and it is terrifying if you happen to be the one experiencing it. -- Anon Guest

Most Humans can be relied upon to act quickly in an emergency. Most of them. Their presence in any place of inherent hazard is reassuring to anyone in field

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