I Still Need To Write A Full Version Of This 13 Sentinels Fic.
rthstewart is currently hosting a three-sentence ficathon, if you'd like to poke through the current prompts or post some of your own! (Exceeding three sentences is absolutely allowed.)
This seems like an appropriate time to do a commentfic round-up, so here are some scraps of fanfiction I've posted here and there.
Zanki Zero, 150 words, prompt: character/everyone. First posted here.
“I’ve never really... known anyone this intimately,” Haruto admits. “I spent so much of my time working. I didn’t really have friends. And then I met you guys, and... well, you all learnt my worst secret pretty much straight away, and you didn’t judge me for it. I guess it’d be hard not to feel close to you.”
“Tried my best to make it easier,” Zen says. “But somehow all you assholes managed to get close to me anyway.”
“Yeah, but there’s a line, right?” Minamo asks. She has to get up and pull on her jacket; somehow, now that things are cooling down, she’s starting to get selfconscious, even though it’s not like she’s any more nude than anyone else. “There’s different... categories.”
“Categories of what?” Haruto asks.
“Look, what I’m sayin’ is most people don’t end up in bed with all their adult friends.”
“Considering the current global population,” Yuma says, “I think the overwhelming evidence is that most people do.”
Silent Hill 2, 100 words, prompt: mistaken identity. First posted here.
“You called me Mary again,” Maria says.
He’d been hoping she wouldn’t mention it. “Did I?”
“I’d appreciate it,” Maria says, buttoning up her blouse, “if we could make it through sex without her name coming up.” She looks him straight in the eye. “Just once.”
It’s the eyes that make it hardest. Exactly the same shape, exactly the same colour. He tries to avoid looking at them. Every time, for a moment, it’s like none of it ever happened.
And then he’s slammed into the present again, and Mary is still dead.
“It’s not like I do it on purpose,” he says.
It’s a lie, of course, but lying is the least of his sins.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, 200 words, prompt: Pyrrhic victory. First posted here.
The kaiju are gone. The people are gone. The air is thick with smoke.
Operation Aegis worked, and now it’s just them. Thirteen kids in a ruined city.
-
“What are we supposed to do?” Ogata asks. “Do we repopulate the Earth?”
Kisaragi folds her arms. “You’re such a perv.”
“Hey, that’s not what I’m thinking about! It’s just - that’s what you do, right? When you’re the only ones left?”
“Yeah, easy to say when you’re not the one getting knocked up,” Takamiya says. She cups her hands around her mouth. “Hey, anyone here a doctor?”
No answer.
“Wow,” Takamiya says. “None of the sixteen-year-olds know how to deliver a kid. Imagine that.”
“I’m just trying to figure out what happens!” Ogata snaps. “It’s not like I’ve had a chance to think about this! We’re fucking mid-battle and suddenly everyone’s telling me, oh, hey, we’re not saving the world, this isn’t the fucking world, this is seven hundred goddamn kilometres and if we win we’re the only people in it, forever-”
He cuts himself off.
There’s nothing but the sound of the fires. They’ve got some distance from the worst of it, but it’s still easy to see the burning high-rises from here. Miura’s staring at them, fixed and silent.
Maybe they don’t have to worry about repopulation. If the fires don’t put themselves out soon, there might not be anywhere left.
Night in the Woods, 150 words, prompt: while the town sleeps. First posted here.
There's something unreal about Possum Springs at night. Dark windows, empty streets. It feels like Mae's been given a glimpse of the future, a time when this town is dead instead of just dying, her safety net gone from under her.
She stands in the road, very still, listening for any sign that she's not the only one left alive.
"Mae?"
She turns around.
"Can't sleep either?" Bea asks.
"Are you real?" Mae asks.
Bea frowns, looks for a moment like she's going to ask a question about that. At last, she just shrugs. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm real."
'Pretty sure' is enough for now. It feels like anything more confident would be harder to believe.
"I was going for a walk," Bea says. "You want to come with me? It kind of seems better than just... standing in the road."
Oh. Right. Cars drive here. Not many, but enough for this to be a bad idea.
"Yeah, okay," Mae says. And, after a moment, probably too quietly for Bea to hear it, "Thanks."
'Riona, did you give yourself that anonymous character/everyone prompt?' you may very well ask, to which my response is 'shhhh'.