Harken Void

“Lunar Yeomen” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #52

  There was no second knock. The front door cracked with a strong kick and slammed open. Heavy footfalls stormed the floorboards, rushing into the house. Leo listened to the soldiers coming, hidden in the closet. “Leonid Akulov,” a voice bellowed. “You have been selected for MERCY. Come willingly or we will use force!” Mankind’s Emergency Rescue Company of Yeomen. The words came automatically to him as he clenched to his knees, trying to prevent his heart from jumping out.  Footsteps ran up the stairs. They entered the adjacent roo...

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“Till Death do us Part” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #52

Susan dropped her purse, grocery bags, dog leash, and her jaw. Earthly possessions and her orange Pomeranian were completely obliterated from her mind by the impossible scene displayed before her. A dead man walking. “Hello, Susan,” the man said and smiled. “You’re looking good. Been dieting?” Susan, a woman who had considered herself as a new person and had moved on with her life, felt the equivalent of receiving a smack to the face by life, reality, and karma at the same time. The man she thought she would never see again, the man who was ...

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“Nightborn 7” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #51

Damien stared at the face looking back from the mirror. Was that him? Or was it a shadow from the past, come back to haunt him?  He opened his mouth in a menacing grin. Two elongated fangs protruded from behind his canines and reached down almost to his chin when he closed his mouth. There was no more blood oozing from his gums, the teeth have grown to their full size. I’m Nightborn again, he thought. But not Blaze. I’m Damien. He pulled the teeth back into his upper jaw with a fleshy sound, as someone entered the bathroom. It was one o...

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“I” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #51

I can control people’s minds. Freaky, right? I can have complete and utter control over what people think, what they do, and what they say. I can make them feel what I want them to feel, make them believe what I want them to believe and I can do it all without them even noticing me. That includes you. You are under my control. Right now, I am running your life. And you have no idea I’m doing it. You are my puppet and I am your master, pulling the strings, bending you to my agenda. The thoughts that you have, I planted them there. The emotion...

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“Guardian Geologist” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #51

  Once again, the old man was there. He drove up the hill in his beaten Lada Niva - the old model - sputtering black clouds of smoke that probably killed a few trees in the rainforest, and ground the tormented gearbox in that dreadful shift from second to first gear. Miles, squatting behind a bush in ambush, winced at the metallic sound of the car suffering. Lada Niva stopped at the exact same spot it always did, driving over the established tire marks, and parked by the side of the road. Miles checked his wristwatch. 6:00 in the mornin...

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“A Day in the Life of a Lego Man” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #51

“Incoming!” Jake clashed the two lego constructions together; a spaceship and a dinosaur. “Sir, our shields can’t hold much longer! We’ll have to-” “No retreat,” Jake said with a deeper tone, though still sounding like a six-year-old. “I am captain Stargazer and I shall see this beast dead!” He imitated both a roaring sound of engines as well as a battlecry of a dinosaur and smashed the two together in a clinking explosion of legos. The spaceship fell apart as the dinosaur's more robust body construction tore through the spacecraft’s complex...

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“The Chase” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #50

A child is born.A whole new cosmos of opportunities and possibilities sparks into being, much like a big bang in itself. A blank slate, a new life.The child comes into this world innocent in the purest meaning of the word, for it has no memory of what came before and no knowledge of what is yet to come. The child knows nothing, its mind, and heart untainted by understanding, experience, or opinion. It simply is, raw and vulnerable in its infancy, unable to survive on its own without love. And yet, it has such an immense capacity to give...

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“Treehouse” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #50

Tommy wished he hadn’t woke up that morning. Spending the night in his treehouse somehow saved him from the fate that struck the rest of them, but now he was the only one left. Now he was alone. He wished he wasn’t spared. His eyes were red from crying, but the tears have dried on his cheeks, while his nose kept leaking. His stomach was growling, remembering him that he hadn’t eaten since last night’s snack. He huddled in the corner of the treehouse, knees pulled up close to his chest and tried to snuff out the hunger. He should have picked ...

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“Whatever Works” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #50

The heat escalated between them and shirts flew off. Jenny lay back on the bed while Hugo leaned over her, their lips locked and tongues intertwined. The wet smooches of their passion mixed with the sound of their delightful sighs and the soft rustling of bedsheets. Then, the sound of a zipper cut in, loud and sharp. Hugo’s pants fell. Jenny looked him in the eyes with naughty playfulness, and he stared at her with a poker face. She frowned. “What?” “What if I can’t get it up?” he whispered.  Jenny rolled her eyes. “Now’s not the time t...

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“Nightborn 6” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #49

Briggs sat on the beige plastic chair in the waiting room. His right arm was wrapped in bandages and hung in a support brace around his neck. His left leg throbbed with pain from the collision with the front seat of the car, but the paramedics said it wasn’t broken. Briggs sighed as a jackhammer worked somewhere deep inside his head, drilling. The hospital lights were far too bright, their illumination adding to the headache. He hit his head hard in the crash, might even have had a concussion, they told him. What in the bloody hell happened?...

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“A Clog in the Bowels of Hell” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #49

SPLAT! “Oh my God, ew!” The others turned around and saw Strawberry, covered in viscous brown liquid, covering her red dress and dripping down her face. It was falling from up above as all things do. “Ew, ew, ew!” Strawberry shivered in disgust and wrinkled her nose, not daring to smell the liquid. She shook her hands, sending brow droplets flying all around. “Hey, watch it!” Cheeto said as a speck of brown hit his cheek. “No need to get the rest of us filthy!” “Get it off me!” “Chill, sister,” Taco said and wiped the liquid off her face wit...

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“Nightborn 5” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #49

Three pickup trucks, two Fords and a Chevy, rolled up the mudded path. As the drivers saw the red and blue lights of the police car, they pulled their pickups to a halt, headlights falling straight on Damien’s face. Why did you come now, Mortensen? Why now, after five years of silence? He should have known his nightmare would not stay buried. It was just like his old man used to say. ‘Make sure they’re dead before you bury ‘em.’ He was referring to problems in life, but Damien thought the saying fit perfectly. “Cross,” Briggs said from the b...

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“Burning Without Fire” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #49

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”It was a rhetorical question as both men knew the answer. An undoubtful, horrifying yes.Alexei, the younger of the two, quivered, on the brink of tears. “It’s going to be short, at least,” Yuri, the older one, said. “But still painful. They say it's one of the worst agonies a man can go through. The body killing itself from the inside.”The younger man burst into tears.“Crying won’t help, son,” Yuri said and fished his pocket for a cigarette. And to think he was about to quit smoking. What a sick joke, thi...

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“Half the Truth - Part II” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #48

When the shine of the last star fades away, the universe would succumb to eternal darkness, and all of galactic civilization would be erased from history. Zeltrex, the unkillable soldier, the destroyer of galaxies, would be all that was left at the end. The fate of the universe rested in the hands of the lone time traveler, the last human alive in the future, and the great wizard of the past.   *** “Whatever you do, do not engage Zeltrex. Do what you must to stay alive. Should I die here, then you have to carry on and leave me ...

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“Paper Prison” by Harken Void

  Iron Man was chilling on the large terrace of his beach mansion, gazing at the sunset and thinking of Pepper; not the spice, though to him, she was just that. He wore his suit, with the helmet removed, so he could sip on a freshly brewed martini. It was the least he deserved, after a whole day of cleaning debris from the ocean - the remnants of his old beach house, which got destroyed, unfortunately. “Sir, if I may, prolonged sweating in the suit is not advised,” Jarvis, the suit’s inner AI said. “I suggest you take it off and go show...

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