Prompt: What do Atlanteans think our world is like?
Miles below the Pacific ocean, on part of the ninety percent or so of the seabed that had never been sea with human or camera eyes, there stood a city of spires that spewed billowing clouds of boiling black chemicals. Life at the tips of these vents was nearly impossible, but polychaete worms and ghostly crabs and bacterial mats managed. Continue reading
Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story. Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.
starring
Secksigeeki
He leaned over the edge of the boat, letting a rope of orange-stained drool drop into the sea and drift away. His name was Bob Badcork, and this was, if his stomach was telling the truth, the sixth time he was going to vomit that day. Continue reading
Prompt: A woman with thalassophobia is trapped in the ocean with a large aquatic animal.
The exact shape of the vehicle, or the specific nature of their foe, she never saw. All Veronica knew was that she’d been captured, along with hundreds if not thousands of other people, by strange machines, and forced into a small box. At the moment her box was suspended upside down in a row of others, hanging out of the open bay of some flying vehicle. Continue reading
Author’s Note: This story was written live on stream with the audience bidding tokens (earned while watching) to determine the path of the story. The underlined phrases in the choice of three were the winning pathways. Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d ever like to participate in our interactive fiction.
Caverns and Pets Canyon and Child Support Diving and Visits
The cloud bank passed overhead just as a flock of small skates flapped by beneath their boat. Their movement was perfectly matched, as if the fish used the clouds as roaming shade. Lucas and Beryl sat on opposite sides of the boat, preparing their equipment for the dive ahead. They were already clad in skintight neoprene suits with a colorful stripe down the side. Lucas was Green. Beryl was purple. Continue reading
Author’s Note: this story is one of my earliest, and is currently in need of alterations and structural editing.
Two brothers adjust to their daily life as grunts in a future conflict, marching across the waves of the sea in special boots…
(reading time: 57 minutes)
Perfect Stride
“No! It took me ages to find that Dino!” The purple cowry shell broke the water’s surface and quickly sank, belching up two small bubbles from its interior. A blue gloved hand tried to follow it but couldn’t catch the shell in time. It was soon out of sight in the depths. They were almost four miles offshore now, so there was little chance a sandbar had cushioned it in a shallow spot. Gemini would have gladly dived in after it, even if the water was boiling, but if he broke stride he would surely perish. Continue reading
Blaine Arcade 