Other stories for this prompt

"Dammit it's cold today." Bard pulled his hat further down over his forehead and huddled into his fur. "This shit just ain't worth it, Jake." The mule nudged his shoulder and tugged on the lead. He knew where warmth was, as well as his grain.

Man and beast drudged along the logging trail beneath the cold, thin light of the winter sun. Behind them clouds piled up over the horizon, snow dark and ominous. Bard could hear the wind starting, a distant rush of sound bending tree branches and pushing the storm closer.

"Two more miles and we're home," he...

The blue sun gave off a cold light. The snow seemed to boil under its glare while the trees darkened at their core and whitened at their tips. In the distance I saw a small stall and it gave me pause. I looked over to my partner and he looked back at me, mirroring my confusion. As we drew closer I was convinced that hunger hallucinations had taken complete control. Nothing made sense but this stall made the least sense of all.

But at the first taste of that sweet aching cold I knew that this was real. Out in...

Photoshoot for bikinis in the middle of winter in a snow covered backdrop was usually my worst dread. Today, however, I was glad because word reached us that our studio blew up after a group of teenage boys decided to experiment with chemicals using a translated foreign magazine. Disaster!

That night huddled in the nearby bar, drinking mulled cider we all said thankful prayers for our good fortune. Jessica, normally the drama queen, shivered and hugged Milly the girl she most hated in the world, or so she had always thought. Today we all grew up.

Starving to be slim...

When I took the photo it was still light. Tom threw his arms around me and twirled us both around, our shrieks and laughter echoed on the mountain. Ten minutes later he was dead. Torn to pieces by an unexpected pack of hungry wolves. None of them touched me. They circled, growling but left me alone. Even when I ran to the trees and attempted to climb, slipping back down the icy bark. Ignoring screams, snowballs I managed to throw. Dragging Tom's body away they left me alone to my grief, shock, sorrow, disbelief and paralysing fear.

No shoes or socks in the snow, JaKK was only focused on finding the settlement. Escaping was the easy part, finding his family might be hard. Physical discomfort was not part of his programming, his body able to withstand any extremes of temperature.

The scientists had made them. Fed them. Studied them. Experimented on them. Killed them. Few were left.

After two days he was still beside the forest, the neverending trees.

He might be alone. Lost.

But for the first time in his existence.

He was free.

"Everyone is a sun," he insisted, but no one was arguing.

"Every dog has his drug," he affirmed, and they all agreed.

"He's an unusual kid," I decided, and they all agreed.

"Everyone is a sun," he repeated, adding, "but not you," and he pointed his peanut butter fist at me.

The sky was hazy and blue, like the sun in a balloon, and the road was cold and icy.

I uncoiled my hand-knit scarf and decided to wait for the moon.

The wind hit my face just right. My cheeks instantly turned red and i put my head down into my mitten-covered hands to sheild the cold.

We stood in the driveway as the snow swirled around the neighborhood, you placed your hand on my shoulder and led me to your warm car.

The heat was steaming the windows; we removed our gloves and hats. Dashboard Confessional was playing on the college radio station, and I sang along in my head.

We talked for atleast and hour, in between what we knew were goodbye kisses, but not saying goodbye at all...

The ice road stretched in an endless arc ahead of them, spiralling and curving amongst the tall pine trees like a child's marble run which had been exquisitely crafted out of snow. The sun was barely able to climb higher than the trees at this time of day, and she felt a shiver as the heater in the old car battled the sub-zero temperatures in mid-January here in the North. Her hands gripped the steering wheel more tightly as she concentrated on getting to the hospital safely, hoping against hope that she would be in time to bid her old...

It is beautiful. The trail was never going to end. Or at least I wasn't going to make it to the end. I won't live forever. I will die before we reach the end of the trail. We'd been traveling for three years. By all calculations it will take another four to five years. I realized that as I was digging through the journals from the explorers before us. I realized that the rest all knew that, they just didn't want to tell me. To tell me that what I had fought for wasn't ever going to be mine.
But...