قصة گاريت

قصة حقيقية حصلت لصديق أميركي الأسبوع الماضي وكتبتها بطريقة درامية وإباحية مبالغ فيها لأسباب أدبية: 

وقف گاريت أمام مرآة حمامه يفرش أسنانه عارياً كما لو قد خرج للتو من بطن أمه. كان يستعد لاحتمالية إغواء فتاة تلك الليلة، فتاة محبوبة من قبل الجميع ويريدها الجميع، لكنه يطمع فيها لنفسه منذ عدة أعوام.

رن هاتفه الخليوي ورأى أن أعز أصدقائه صموئيل يحاول الاتصال فيه. "مرحباً!" قال گاريت. "مالجديد؟" 

"سيهمك أن تعرف بأن ستيفاني أكدت حضورها لحفلتي الليلة،" رد عليه صموئيل. 

"يجدر بك أن تحضر بعضاً من الوقاية." 

"مرحى!" صرخ گاريت في الهاتف قبل الإلقاء به جانباً ومضى يتمرن لنفسه بعبارات إطراء ومديح ليدلي بها إلى الفتاة التي كان ينوي قضاء الليلة معها بعد غياب دام فترة طويلة خارج البلاد.

Gym Story

The gym was always a place of solitude for the young man who had just moved to the big city. Starting up a new job meant canvassing prospective living quarters, and it was of grave importance that he find a building that is complemented with its own fitness center. 

A few weeks after returning to his regular training regiment, he became intimate with every piece of workout gear in that room. Another perk, to some at least, is that he became accustomed to the same faces that appear there, but he dared not talk to anyone. Shyness being his nature, he kept to himself and focused on making the most out of the exercise. 

One particular regular was a voluptuous woman of no more than 25. She almost always chose the treadmill next to him whenever he was fortunate enough to be running. He made it his business to shift his gaze and sneak a look every millisecond so as not strike her as creepy. 

The lady had curly black hair and a slender, athletic frame boasting of years of exuberant fitness. 

He could only hide his hard-on so well. 

One such instance of the two being at the gym together had him lifting an ambitious load of 100 lbs. Following 11 lifts or so, he repositioned the pole, and attempted to walk to a water fountain. As he strode, he felt a darkness overcoming him, causing him to collapse.

قصة بوليسية

تأبطّ التحري (ليون) مشعله الكهربائي حالما أهمّ بفتح باب المستودع المهجور الواقع على أطراف المدينة الكبيرة. داعب مسدسه المبلل والذي كان يلمع في تلك الليلة الماطرة بأطراف أصابع يده اليمنى، وباليسرى أقدم على لف مقبض الباب الرئيسي للمبنى باحثاً عن ضالته المنشودة.

تلقى التحري مكالمة قبل تلك اللحظة بساعتين، وكانت تلك المحادثة كفيلة بإطلاق العنان لسلسلة الأحداث اللاحقة.

Dwagone Tale 2

The first part is here.

The soot-faced young woman found herself at the edge of a mountain with a gust of wind threatening to topple her over into a dark abyss. Her frail figure shook as she looked below and saw that her only path to safety was to climb down a jagged slope. She made her way with care, and every so often a small rock would break under the pressure of her feet causing her to slip somewhat, but nothing overtly hazardous or detrimental to her health.
 

Eventually, she reached the base and began to search for any clues to determine her current whereabouts. It dawned on her that she had no recollection of what had brought her to this desolate area.

Upon moving further, night turned into day and her confusion eased a bit. After walking for some time, she heard a faint bubbling sound emitting from underneath a plateau. The noise made her feel blissful and excited her to no avail. Running over to the source as quickly as she can, her breath began to fail her. A small voice in her head urged to keep going, as the pay-off would be grand.

That’s when she saw it. A forest of fruitful palm trees unlike anything she had ever laid her eyes on. A bustling oasis with clear waters emerged amidst a thought-to-be barren land, which a sight for sore eyes for a thirsty adventurer.

She kneeled by the water and drank her fill before washing the dirt off her face. The water was put ice in her veins and she felt reinvigorated and alive. The puzzling appearance of this piece of heaven boggled her mind still, and she pondered while staring at her own reflection in the reverberating water.

As she looked at herself, another figure materialized in the reflection, standing next to her.

The Great Amber Dwagone turned to face her, gazing upon her whimsically before she licked her across the cheek.

“Wake up, Ramilla! The eggs are burning!” an older man shouted as he frantically ran from the door to the kitchen.

Raman “Ramilla” ad-Dahhān XIII, Rami and Bari’s eldest child, had been dreaming of the dragon since she was 6-years-old. Not much has changed ten years later, save for the unquenchable desire to find meaning in these visions.

“I’m sorry,” she started as she groggily picked herself up from the couch that she had dozed off on. “I can really smell it, too.”

Ramilla rubbed her eyes and chose to banish any thoughts about mythical beings from her mind in order to deal with the inevitable repercussions of her nap.

She walked toward the kitchen and the smell of burning egg only further offended her senses.  

“Your father will have my head for this,” Bari said as he attempted to salvage what was left of the omelet.

Ramilla sifted through every item in the pantry, looking for possible alternatives.

“We’re out of eggs,” she proclaimed as she continued her desperate search. “If we’re lucky enough, they should be back with some more.”

“Not in the midst of Dragonfest they won’t,” Bari responded while opening up a window to allow the house some ventilation. “I suppose we can make due with some more meat.”

“I’m sorry,” Ramilla apologized once more with a look of sorrow starting to take over her face.

“It’s only a bit of food, my child,” Bari said as he embraced Ramilla, covering her with his hulking exterior. “This wasn’t the first time that you had fallen asleep in such manner, either.”

For as long as she has had these dreams, Ramilla only became more reluctant to discuss them with anyone before she clarified things for herself first.

“I’m well, Father, worry not about me,” she smiled, nuzzling her face on his blond beard.

“Good,” he said before kissing her forehead. “I’m always here for you, should you want to talk to me.”

“Thank you,” she replied before going back to chopping more wood for the fire.

*****

No child dared to speak her name, fearing a brutal reprisal from the Regal Beast. She would swallow them whole as their parents often threatened if they ever referred to her taboo title.

However, this gave the Great Amber Dwagone very little solace. She still demanded vengeance, and she had been pacing in her Lair for the past 300 years, musing and plotting.

“Those damned Dahhāns shall burn!” was the most recurring thought she had had through this time.

She had waited so long for her plans to succeed. Alas, a prophecy must be fulfilled before can begin to execute her plot.

“A slayer shall appear from least likely of places. The slayer’s defeat will reignite the new Dawn of the Dragons, and the Great Resurrection will take place,” the fifth article of the ancient Dragon Lore proclaimed. The Dwagone believed in this wholeheartedly.

“Why else would I still be alive, but for the purpose of this grand achievement?” 

This thought kept her going, but time seemed to stand still. Yet there’s an odd change in the air; something that she hadn’t felt in centuries, fueling and exciting her instincts. 

The prophecy is coming to fruition, and she could sense it in her fire-ridden cavities.

She took flight toward the city, hoping that she isn't disappointed.

Dwagone Tale

The evening was festive and fruitful as the townesfolke trekked from one shop to the other in the village of Dragonscourge. During a warm September evening, the masses scrambled about, fearing that the local merchants would run out of their desired prospective purchases. It was a time of year in which business owners thrived, and customers struggled, traipsing through the streets and alleyways under lustrous lights hung in a phantasmagoric display all over Towne in celebration of the annual Dragon Sacrifice.

Many young ones grew up with fictional tales of olden times concerning the mythical beings that have prospered centuries ago and numbered by the thousands, but have since gone extinct. The legends have been foretold from parent to child and from generation to generation. As with any story spread through word of mouth, embellishment had tainted large swathes of the lore. Eventually, the adulteration begot the most fabled of all the Dragon Narratives: the downing of the Regal Beast herself by accidental hero Raman ad-Dahhān. 

After the story became sufficiently embedded into the fabric of the Country, given a hundred or so years of its supposed occurrence, its Elders decided to commemorate the epic slaying that put an end to an entire ancient species in the form of a great party with tantalizing music, colored lights and a plethora of goods to sell.

The Dahhān Clan, however, knew fully well that their ancestor committed no such act of bravery, as there was no written record nor any material proof confirming the heroic act. Yet its members were quick to embrace the legend with fervor, hoping to gain countless riches and other perquisites. Thus, they kept the secret among themselves and vowed to designate a single Keeper in each generation to entrust him or her with it, and to hide it from the rest of the Clan.

One young Dahhān happened to traverse the town square with her father in a hurry; many sellers were retiring for the evening and they were still one item short.

“Your father will have my head surely if we’re not back with a malignant squirrel stomach,” said Raman “Rami” al-Dahhān XII in an attempt to push his daughter to make haste, as he did not like to keep his spouse waiting for long.

“That’s what you say every year in which you venture out for a last-minute addition to our pantry,” replied 11-year-old Ferian with bitter nonchalance. She was arbitrarily recruited for this mission all the while her older sibling had the good fortune of staying behind to help their father concoct the glorious feast-to-be.

“If only those dimwitted dragons were still here, we wouldn’t be blinded by lights and made to sweat like a common pig,” she continued with a sigh.

“Now, child,” Rami raised his voice with restrained objection, “if we weren’t in such dire need to wisely dispense our scarce time, I’d tell you to mind your foolish words, as you must maintain and be proud of our familial legacy.”

The two carried on in silence entering the last shop to remain open. Unbeknownst to them, a large lurking figure monitored their every move from the top of a dark table mountain. It had been a mere hour since she began to trail them, yet her tortured soul felt as if several eternities had passed by. She gazed at them with sheer contempt, plotting and perusing her mind for sadistic methods of murder, resisting the urge to torch the entire village of vermin.

The Regal Beast had her fill of watching and readied her mighty, pointed wings for flight. She took one last glance before the Dahhāns disappeared into a small shop, inhaling and exhaling an air of pure vengeance. As she hovered away back to the hole whence she came, the Great Amber Dwagone resolved to make her existence known to the world once more sooner than later.