These stories were written live on stream based on prompts provided by the viewers. They have been edited, with this second more in-depth edit occurring much later, but not meaningfully rewritten or expanded so as to preserve the spirit of the exercise. Sadly, the prompts themselves were not recorded until many stories in.  Sometimes the prompts were silly challenges, or quirky thoughts, or dark ideas, or utter nonsense.  I did my best each time.

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Molting Appointment

prompt provided by AnxietyBatman

Agata never thought her knowledge of candle flames would change. Even from her infancy, their behavior was constant. They were lit, they melted their base, and then they were extinguished. Every candle had done this, every one she read by at night, every one they decorated cakes with… but now, in those dark cold waters, the candles surprised her.

She recognized it as the one placed in her icy dead hands hours ago. It was certainly something to watch one’s own funeral from behind stiff eyes; her mother and father were there, as she had fallen at the early age of twenty-five. No spouse, so that spot next to her coffin was empty.

The candle pulled her toward a distant light, perhaps its great flaming parent. Wherever that light was, it couldn’t be in the waters with them, of that Agata was sure. Too cold. The light spoke of warmth, shouted it in fact, and she was happy the candle knew the way, as she never had in life.

Always she struggled to arrive on time: to dinner, to the only ball she was ever allowed to attend, to her bed at curfew. Arrival always meant stern faces and disappointment, the notion there might be a lazy slug in her soul, dragging her a few minutes behind everyone else. Too late for any of the boys. Too late for the carts spilling their goods into her poor village. Too late to see the sun set. She did love the stars though.

The candle took her into the shallows of the strange waters, where the light above revealed a sharp sandy incline. Before she knew it, before she could ponder the candle’s flame living underwater, it dropped her into the sand. Then it bounced against the surface, which was covered in a skin of ice and streaked with staccato scratches. Sand billowed about her, white and serene, so she waited for it to settle.

When it did she was greeted by a strange entity, half-buried in the incline before her. Its eyes were strange bubbled tubes like those of a crab, but there was a friendliness to them. The creature also had claws, blunt and swollen, and numerous legs tapping in contemplation. A bubble emerged from its segmented mouth and burst, sharing a message with her.

“You’re just in time,” it said, voice a sunken shipwreck echo. Its pupils darted up to the candle, but then back to her. “Are you ready to begin?”

“I-I’m sorry,” Agata said, stuttering because she expected to swallow water. Talking seemed strange, but no stranger than the flickering candle above or the polite crab creature before her. “I don’t know what I’m on time for. And… I think you’ve got the wrong girl; I’m never on time.” She chuckled. “Also… I think I may be dead.”

“You certainly are. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Is it? I’d always heard death was to be feared. I guess it wasn’t so bad though. A wagon got me,” she said. The crab thing nodded, as much as a segmented creature could. “Pa always said the wagons dropped stuff around that turn. I wanted to sell something, get a friend a present… but the whole wagon dropped this time! Crushed me flat!”

“You look perfectly plump to me,” the crab complimented. “I like your candle.”

“It brought me here. My parents put it on my body. We believe that… if I remember my scriptures… candlelight helps guide the dead in the darkness.”

“It does. So does the shine of coins, the smell of small pastries, and stones skipped across lakes exactly seventeen times.” The crab gestured upward with a blunt claw. Agata followed it and realized the ice was peppered on all sides with thousands of other objects: cakes, cards, flags, dolls…

“Oh. So they could have used anything,” she said.

“Yes. All that matters was that they cared, and all that matters now is that I care. Are you ready to begin? We’re very eager, me especially.” The crab opened its claws wide, gesturing to both sides. Agata looked left and right; suddenly there were many more half-buried things and a sitting person for each one. They all looked to her: a calm sea of smiles.

“I don’t know how to begin,” she said, shrinking away from her own blush, but there was no longer color to her cheeks. All her color was felt in her core, slowly revolving, waiting for something. “I don’t want to ruin this. Have I ruined it by being late?”

“No, no, no,” the crab assured. “As I said you are on time. We had to wait for the cold season to end. Now the ice is thin; you people can break through. With you, we have enough.”

“Break through?”

“Yes. Just touch the ice Agata. I’ve observed you much and I know you can do it. Here, take this with you.” The crab reached onto its back and broke a small knob off of its shell, handing it to her. “Bang this on the ice and it will break.”

“What happens then?”

“A new life for you and a new molt for us,” it said, gesturing to its kin. The other crabs clacked their approval and spat giddy bubbles while the other ghosts silently applauded to urge her up. “They all have pieces of us,” the crab went on, “mere thoughts in your next life, but they will help shape you as our shells shape us. Your identity will be our new shape.”

“And you’re sure I’m on time?” Agata asked again, as she swam forward and nearly touched the knob to the surface.

“Oh yes. It was your time. You couldn’t be late. Go on now.”

She rapped the knob against the ice. It cracked, letting in the incredible light from above. All the escorting objects floated off into the sky. The ghosts, led by Agata, strolled up onto the sparkling white sand. On the horizon they saw their new lives waving like banners. Agata pocketed the knob inside her death-gown, a reminder of the molting, that all living things have their time and that they will pass before it passes them by.