odds are

The gods lit the heavens ablaze and dragged their bloody fallen across the sky in retreat.  They had fought.  They had tried.  They had hoped to make a difference, but in the end they had to admit defeat and relinquish the world to the mortals.

They would hide away, mostly forgotten, until the fools who rose to power below ended up sacrificing all of humanity in their pursuits of greed and cowardice.  The gods, those who had survived, had only to wait and eventually the earth would be theirs to shape again.  They would regret those of their own they had sacrificed and those of the mortals who they had tried to save.

Fueled by anger and grief they would forge a better world.  It wasn’t the first time they’d had to start over, and it likely wouldn’t be the last.  Each time the new was better than the old had been, so there was hope one time they would get it right.  They had as much time as they needed, so the odds were in their favor.

………………..

Anyone up for a flash fiction challenge?  Steal this picture and write something of your own to go with it.  No word limits.  No genre demands.  Go where the inspiration takes you.

help me write this story…

I don’t remember the story behind this photograph but it is better that way.  My words would likely just muddy up the story that first came to your mind when you saw it.  Was it the clouds you saw first?  The Water?  The land across the sea?  The people in the foreground?  What called out to you?

I propose a game…  I’ll set the scene with the picture above, and the paragraph below this one.  Then, you all, my faithful kindgomites, shall come up with the story.  Look at the picture, then read my setting introduction and read what others’ have left in the comments to expand on the story already, and then leave your own part of it as well, and together we shall tell our own tale.  I start.  First commentor goes next.  Second commentor adds to that.  And so on…  What do you say to that?  You’ll join in the fun?  I knew you would!

…..

The canvas drank in the colors of the sunset battle.  The sea stilled to watch.  The air calmed as a collective held breath, awaiting the outcome.  Underneath it all, though, heartbeats quickened with excitement and nerves.  Soon the battle would be over and darkness would swallow the canvas, wiping it clean.  Then the sea would be whipped to a frenzy again as wind ripped across its surface.

glory

Yellow was ruthless with its appetite and continued to devour the sky.  The other colors realized their danger and fled for safety, streaking away from the horizon, but they would find no sanctuary.  Yellow would eat them all before night came to wipe the sky clean so the colors could play again the following day.  Perhaps orange would win then.  Or maybe purple.  Tucked away in the warm comfort of darkness, the colors slumbered and dreamed vibrantly of the waiting adventures and glory.