Skip to main content
  1. Dispatches/

New Fiction: Memories of Stars

·259 words·2 mins
Articles Fiction Meta Writing Featured
Daniel Andrlik
Author
Daniel Andrlik lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia. By day he manages product teams. The rest of the time he is a podcast host and producer, writer of speculative fiction, a rabid reader, and a programmer.

There’s a new short story in ye olde fiction section. Well, I say, “new”. This is actually a couple years old, but it felt like a good time to share it.

It’s a story about creatures that came to destroy our world only to find that we’d already left, but mostly it’s about finding your way in an uncertain future. And perhaps most importantly, it’s also a love letter.

I am collecting rocks at the edge of the wilderness when Talik finds me. I hear him before I see him, wings flapping as he flies between crumbling towers towards the open expanse of my improvised quarry. I pause in my work, gripping a sharp stone tight in my hand.

The Gaunt perches himself upon an outcropping, easily three leaps away from me, keeping his back to the morning sun. His leathery wings twitch in time with the tapping of his claws upon the rock. Sensing the proximity of flesh and a sentient mind, the tentacles protruding from his belly sway gently in a searching pattern. It is typical of his kind that he does not apologize for this rude hunger display.

“You have been gone a long time, huntress” he says, voice rasping. He blinks his four black eyes in quick succession.

“I have been busy, Talik.”

You can read “Memories of Stars” here.

UPDATE: “Memories of Stars” is now available on both the Amazon Kindle and the Apple Books stores. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review on either service, or even purchasing a digital copy.

Related

New Fiction: “What His Sister Told Him”
·717 words·4 mins
Articles Fiction Meta Writing Featured
I’ve added the short story that I wrote for the Kopoint Halloween Spooktacular to the fiction section of this site. I’ll continue to add stories and fiction projects that I release online to that area as the days go forward.
New Fiction: A Heart Has Roots of Flame and Blood
·114 words·1 min
Articles Fiction Writing
I’ve posted a new short story in Ye Olde Fiction section. This one’s for anyone who’s felt alien, and trapped by the weight of their own feelings. It’s also a reminder that those feelings can have power, even if it manifests in unexpected ways.
Crawling Out Of A Pidgeonhole
·676 words·4 mins
Articles Announcements Meta Personal Video Writing
It appears that I have written myself into a corner here. When I first started this site back in 2004, I intended it just as a writing exercise. It was supposed to be a place where I would publish daily in order to build discipline as a writer.