Jonah

    The breastplate clattered onto the table, scattering parchment and writing implements. High Lord General Redwind stared at it, uncomprehending. A hand-shaped indentation in the armor stared back at him.
    'What's this?' he demanded, carefully putting aside his gold-filigreed quill.
    'That,' Jonah said, 'Belonged to a member of the Guard. He was killed this morning.'
    Redwind looked annoyed. 'I've told you to stop bothering me whenever a soldier dies!' he said. 'That's what they're-'
    'By that.' Jonah interrupted, indicating the breastplate. 'Witnesses saw a powerfully built bald man in white clothes deliver a single, openhanded blow to the guardsman's chest that. It killed him instantly.'
    'Now now, since when did you start believing in the rumors and hearsay of the common rabble, captain?' Redwind tutted.
    'Since that,' he said, pointing at the breastplate again.

Salazar's Men

    Rook blocked the wild sword swing with his bare forearm and slapped the man in the chest, crushing his ribcage and sending him flying through the air. The sword had been sharpened to a razor's edge, but there was no sign of the blow on Rook's arm.
    Rook picked up the unconscious Lume with a grunt and started pushing his way through the crowd. This was the third time in as many weeks that they'd been recognized by Salazar's men, and he was tired of running.
    It was only a matter of time before the man himself caught up with them.

Writing Exercise #3: Shut Up

You meet a man in a bar in a strange town. He has a cat on his lap, and he orders a cup of coffee, slowly spoons sugar into it. He strokes the cat's black fur and says, "This contact is illusory. The cat and I are separated as though by a pane of glass, because man lives in time, in successiveness, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant." What do you say back to him? And he to you? What does the cat do? What happened to this man before he came into the bar?

Shut Up

'What are you, leftovers from The Twilight Zone? It's way too early in the morning for talk like that, man.'

    The man's eyes gleam behind his horn-rimmed glasses. 'Ah, but is morning not just a frame of mind? Is it not always morning, always day and always night?'

    'Just... shut up. Drink your fucking coffee.'

    'But-'

    'No.'

    The man sips his coffee and puts it down with an unhappy expression. 'Too sweet,' he says.

Writing Exercise #2: Sidewalks Can Suck it

The first writing exercises reappeared! Truly we live in a blessed world.

Write a reflection or short, fictional piece about this woman. Where is she? What year is it? What is she thinking? Try this in the form of an interior monologue.

Sidewalks Can Suck It

It's 5:30 in the morning, and the city is waking up from its drunken stupor, not quite ready to face another day. The sky is a nauseating shade of too-early-in-the-morning purple, the smog barely managing to shield unwary eyes from the dreadful thing. Agatha Lieberwitz (formerly Mrs Lieberwitz) is standing in her doorway, as she does every morning, contemplating the nature of sidewalks. Sidewalks! She scoffs in her head. Sidewalks indeed.
    A peppy-looking mailman approaches her with a handful of letters. She sends him a scowl with the consistency and stopping power of a mid-sized sedan, but he delivers the letters anyway. Mailmen are like that, the bitches.
    They're not as bad as sidewalks, but nothing really is. What kind of fascist psychopath invention is a sidewalk anyway? A designated place to walk. On the side. The cyborgs don't have to use a sidewalk. They get to walk wherever they damn well please. Especially true ever since they got their Pleasure Enhancement Chips (PECS) installed.
    An young Indian man approaches Agatha with the slow, shuffling steps of someone who hasn't slept for a while.
    Side. Walks.
    He pulls a bundle of keys from his jacket pocket and reaches through Agatha to unlock the door. He walks right through her, and Agatha's ghost dissipates. And with her, the strange feeling that sidewalks are somehow to blame for cellphones.
    Mr Shyamalan closes the door behind him and heads to bed, a crazy plot twist fermenting in his brain.