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Sjan Evardsson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2019

Stories (266)

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301 Followers

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266 Stories

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You've Been Served

Taylor wanted to sprint. Every fiber of her being urged her to pump her legs and run full speed, but the half gravity of the small moon made that impossible. Instead, she fought against instinct to maintain a loping stride that covered ground faster than her pursuers could hope to keep up for any length of time … as long as she stayed under the canopy of the thin, alien trees.The slow descent on each stride gave her time to react to any irregularities in the ground. She wondered if it was how the world felt to cats. The thought of her cat ba...

2 likes

Anemoia

What defines a person as human? Perhaps better, what defines a human as a person? How are human persons different from those around her? Grag thought about those questions often, and when she did, she felt a longing for a life she never had.By DNA, she was human through and through. By culture, upbringing, and language, though, she was an ortian. By family, she had none, really. No blood relatives, and even the “adoptive” family in which she was raised treated her more as an experiment than a family member. Except for the youngest.“What are ...

4 likes

A Day at the Zoo

Jade wanted to sleep in, but the twin toddlers jumping on her bed, and sometimes her, made it impossible. “You two are up awful early,” she said.“Aunt Jade! Zoo! Zoo!” the little boy in lion pajamas called.“You promised,” the little girl in penguin pajamas said, the pleading clear in her voice.“Yes, I promised, Tracey. And we are going to the zoo today, Kasey, but you need to eat breakfast and get dressed first.” Jade sat up and spread her arms. “Come here, you little monkeys.”After cuddles, tickles, and giggles, Jade got up and began the da...

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Publicly Secret

They were always there, watching, waiting for the moment they needed to step in and fulfill their vow to keep The Secret. Alec hadn’t expected it to come so soon, though.He’d been introduced to them a year prior, after what he’d learned was three years of research and vetting of him as a candidate. Professor Miriam Dragostine had made the invite. After three years of an increasingly weird university experience, he was ready to peek behind the curtain.Less than a month after induction, Alec was called to an emergency meeting, not by the profe...

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A Problem for Later Me

7/4/4 KC (21st Day, 4th Moon, 4th Year of King Creshal)It’s still weird to write the date as KC. I keep wanting to write 1094 QE. Queen Elspeth ruled 1090 years; longer than anyone before. Old as she was, and stuck in her fashion sense, we still loved her.HRH Creshal is her opposite in a lot of ways. He dresses in current fashion, but he’s just a sort of stick-in-the-mud personality-wise. That’s enough of bashing the royals for this entry. On to the good stuff.I finally got my approval to visit Aramantia. Well, approval from here in Gell, bu...

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Prototype

I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life. It was what I was expected to say after all, and I’ve never handled that kind of pressure well.“This is an immense honor, and I’m grateful that the selection committee chose me for this mission. I’m ready to go.” My voice cracked a little, which the news reporters wrote off as emotion. My friends, though, know my tells.While I sat in my prep room in the pre-launch lounge, a conference vidcall to me flashed on the screen. I answered to see my closest friends from all over the world on...

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Patience

Patience. That’s one thing I’ve never been accused of possessing in any quantity. Makes my choice of career a little odd, but helping people solve their problems makes me feel better. Maybe it’s just a way to ignore my own.After starting from the bottom as a junior assistant in the Ambassador’s office, I’d made it all the way to the Ambassador’s right hand woman, Senior Chief Aide. From there, it was a small step to go to work for myself.These days, I’m known as a troubleshooter, broker, agent or, if they’re being blunt, a fixer. The name fi...

3 likes

No Middle

People like Yulia and me, we’re below justice; people like Mercy Botha, they’re above it. There is no middle, there is no justice.When Yulia was arrested, it was “mistaken identity.” Before anyone else was even aware she’d been arrested, she was transferred to the prison factory due to a “paperwork error.” An “industrial accident” left her dead on the second day.I found her body in the morgue at the Special Work Prison, six-hundred kilometers away from the prison factory where they said she’d died. The SWP was, in all but name, a brothel for...

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Found in Translation

“Greg, come up right away. Oh, and tell the analysts to drop anything they’re working on right now, this takes priority.” She returned the handset to the cradle. The hard-line communication system was older than anything else in the building. In fact, it was older than anything on the moon that wasn’t in a museum or itself a tourist attraction. It was secure, though, and that mattered most.The swarthy, mustachioed man burst into her office with a harried air and unkempt hair. “What is it, Grace? Did the signal office pick something up?”Grace...

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Harvest of The Royal Fleet

A gash appeared in space, disgorging hundreds of ships of the Royal Fleet along the edge of an asteroid field. As soon as the last ship had emerged from L-space into real space, the gash faded from local timespace.“Attention all ships of the Queen’s Expedition: We claim another system in the name of Queen and Empire this day. Let the Empire rejoice, and all others weep, for the presence of the Royal Fleet.” The communication device clicked off. “Scans, full fleet, full sweep. Route concerns to weapons and security, and all planetary and stel...

3 likes

Bucket List

Submitted to Contest #299

CW: Mature themes“I haven’t, but it’s on my bucket list.”- “Wot’s a bucket list?”“You ogres have no culture at all, do you?”- “You wot? We gots a lots of culture.”“Like what?”- “Like da Log Drum Festival.”“What’s that?”- “You don’t know wot a log drum is?”“Of course, I know what a log drum is. A hollow log you beat with a stick.”- “Right. Dat.”“The festival, what is it?”- “Oh. We builds a bonfire, beat on da log drums, dance around, and den go kill somefing to frow in the fire for eats.”“One festival hardly makes a culture.”- “Dere’s also da...

9 likes

Anomaly

Kaidra pulled on the new over-tunic he’d grown from the soft, strong fibers of civilian-grade cloth bacterium. Growing clothes was one of the skills every man picked up during military service, along with cooking, housekeeping, gardening, and killing.The deep blue stripes on the sleeves and around the neckline accented his pale skin, making the blue undertones more pronounced. It reflected in his eyes, making the light grey appear blue. His tar-black hair was tied back in a professional bun exposing his tall ear points. He’d cut it all off o...

3 likes

IX Incarcera

Nonum Incarcera — Ninth Prison — also known as Nonum Infernum, Ninth Hell, The Pit, The Devil’s Asshole, and more frightening names, kept its secrets and prisoners bound up tight. The only sentence served at the Ninth was life. The prison sat in a volcanic valley, sealed by magic, auto-blasters, and the heavily guarded borders of the no-man’s-land where it was located between Dwarven, Elven, and Orcish nations.Its founding during the Neoclassical boom of the early 18th century was evident from its architecture, its Latin name, and the Latin ...

2 likes

Gap Year

The haze blocking out the morning sky was the color of infectious decay. The weak sun, faint behind the fetid smog was an omen — of what, Zeke couldn’t tell.Mask secure and seals checked, Ezekiel “Zeke” Rankin, self-appointed scout, let himself out through the airlock to the cool, damp morning air. The silent alien city extended endlessly. What used to be a thriving ecumenopolis had been turned into a graveyard. Continent sized chunks of the city had been flattened, while others stood with no visible damage beyond the poisoned sky.The missio...

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Portal From the Underworld

Angel watched the restroom door. A small, stout woman, barely taller than the doorknob’s height, with lime-green hair and a bright, reflective safety vest had gone in several minutes earlier and still hadn’t come out. She hadn’t locked the door, so the green “Vacant” still showed. Angel was so busy watching the door that she didn’t see the woman with the squirming baby until she was already at the door. Angel opened her mouth to warn her that the room was occupied, but before she could say anything the young woman had gone in and locked the ...

3 likes