Re: 100 Word Drabbles

[SeeMeInTheShadows]

Ulrich shuffled the map and flipped it over before looking at it with a careful eye. Slowly, he reached out and pointed in a direction. “This way. I’m absolutely certain we should go this way.”

Odd, who was leaning against a brick building, shook his head. “Ulrich, buddy, that’s the way we came from. Face the facts, you’re lost.”

“One: we would be lost. Two: I’m not lost!”

Odd shrugged and Ulrich tried to reconfigure the map. It started to rain on them. Odd’s hair became straight and Ulrich’s jacket was soaked as they walked over to the nearest hotel.

[cya6]

19: Lost

This wasn’t supposed to have happened.

“You sure he’s here?” Yumi asked from her Skid pod.

“P-positive.”

Jeremie had been forced to join them on Lyoko out of necessity, and X.A.N.A had seen this as the perfect opportunity to strike.

“Don’t worry princess,” Ulrich said.

“Yeah, we’ll find him,” Odd tried to reassure. It was hard. Jeremie was the only one ever to save someone from the digital sea. But that was the problem.

Below, a data figure raced through the digital sea. He knew they’d never find him. Ever.

Decades after they abandoned the search, he remained.

Forever lost.

[Soul Jelly]

#20 - Lucky Charm


“Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?”

An irritated sigh; she knocked the banana-turned-weapon from his hand.

“Get that thing out of my face, Della Robbia. Besides, I hated that movie.”

Odd gasped in outrage.

“But-!”

“It sucked.”

He pulled a face. “You have poor taste.”

Sissi smirked at him. “Considering who I watched it with...”

“Hey!”

“Aw, so sensitive. But if it makes you feel any better, to answer your question... I do.”

She blew him a kiss, a teasing promise of what was to come next movie-night, and left.

[Dr. J]

Drabble: #20

Prompt: Lucky Charm

Begin Date: April 6

End Date: April 13

Special Details: anything about luck.



“Trust me, with a little luck, this should work fine.”

Aelita looked at Jeremie apprehensively. Still separated from the boy by the insurmountable walls any chance that they might be broken down was leapt upon. However, each time before, they had been forced to abandon ideas, or use them for other reasons. This time, however, it would work, Aelita was certain.

“Well, here goes.”

With the press of a button, lights flared in the scanner room, far brighter than usual. Jeremie opened the scanner door. Aelita stood there, and she fell against him. Jeremie smiled.

“You’re lucky I caught you.”

[AeonFrodo]

Here goes nothing.

Solid Hope
Words: 100
Prompt: Lucky Charm

"Hey, what's that Ulrich?"

"It's my lucky charm."

Ulrich displayed the item, which was a piece of metal as large as the palm of his hand. The edges had been smoothed out to hold it.

"Where did you get this?"

"When you saved me from our first XANA attack against that electrical wire."

“I’m not sure how a piece of metal could bring you luck. Or why you even believe in luck.”

“It gives me hope. When I thought I would die fighting against XANA, I clutched onto this piece of metal. It reminds me that I’m still alive today.”

[SeeMeInTheShadows]

Between the two of them, they had six dollars and sixty-seven cents when Odd found the casino. Unfortunately, Odd had been in charge of holding the money at that time. A foolish choice that had been decided when Odd had grabbed the bag with the money at the airport.

Before Ulrich could bat an eye, Odd had walked in with a fake ID, sat down at a slot machine, and then inserted a coin.

Make that six dollars and fifty-seven cents.

But Ulrich was the last person to complain at the blur of winning signs that lit up their evening.

[Soul Jelly]

#21 - I'd Rather Not Talk About It
-

The Marvellous Misadventures of Jimbo; the fictional protagonist (to the uninitiated) who could do anything. Fighting fires and beavers, undercover and underwater. Trekking through blizzards. Incidents with spies and bad guys and a fair few explosions in each epic tale; that one ghost-hunting incident in Book Four. Not forgetting his stint as a disco dance sensation.

And – not mentioned – bestselling children's author.

Jim closed the book and placed it back on the shelf amongst the others. The name on the spine, “Anonymous”, silently kept his secret.

Why talk about any of it, especially when writing would do?

[Stella Luce 333]

Jim’s POV:

“Your film is really good, Jim.” Jean Pierre said. “I didn’t know you used to be an actor.”

“Oh, it was only really this one role.” I said, modestly.

“You’ve led such an interesting life!”

I glanced over at him. Would he really believe me if I told him?

That I used to travel a lot?

That there was more to the universe then just our galaxy?

That aliens really do exist?

That I said yes to a very strange Doctor when he asked me if I wanted to see the universe?

“…I’d rather not talk about it.”

[Soul Jelly]

#1 – Picture

“Hello, Franz.”

He smiles back at her in sepia from behind dust-coated glass and she runs a fingertip over the bearded face, wiping away the tear that splashes onto the frame.

His smile is frozen in a happier time, years ago. A time before supercomputers, before frenzied escapes from men in black, and during a life she knew, now that she was free, she could never return to.

The photograph returns reluctantly to the box of old relics. The door is closed and Antea returns to the comforting brightness of her new life.

New name, new home, new pictures.

-


#10 Returnings

They creep me out.

When Naomi leans over, Odd's holding out a pen before she even opens her mouth to ask.

Yumi steps calmly aside as Nicholas trips on his shoelace; Michael gets a shirt covered in spaghetti instead.

Ulrich looks up expectantly in Biology; a second later he is called on and gets the answer right.

Jérémie watches an unexpected downpour with a knowing look.

Huddled together, conspiring in their circle of secrets, laughing over some stupid private joke. It's like they know everything before it happens. Which is impossible, of course.

They just creep me out, that's all.

-


#14 – Friendship and Food

“Odd, what on earth is that?”

“Can't you tell?”

“It looks kind of... abstract?”

“No!”

“Uh... a Kankrelat?”

“Come on, Einstein.”

“No seriously, I give up. What is it?”

“It's you! In pizza! See how I made the hair out of mozzarella?”

“So that's what that part is. Well, thanks, I guess.”

“Consider it a peace offering after what happened yesterday.”

“A better one would just be not to spill hot chocolate all over my homework project again.”

“Just take some pizza Einstein.”

“...It is edible right?”

[cya6]

(AN: hope I'm not too late for the make ups. This is for 'In the Blink of an Eye. BTW, the drink room is the small building where they get their drinks from that machine, and they always taste like dirty gym socks)





Sissi watched as Ulrich walked into the drink room, tailed by Della Robbia.

She couldn’t wait for the evening. She was planning to make a deal with him, to try and get along better.

A second later, the two boys quickly ran out, with Belpois and Ishyama following.

Huh, I wonder what that’s all about.

It seemed weird. Ulrich had never hung out with any of them before. He and Odd were bickering just a second before; now, they almost acted friendly.

Well, so long as it doesn’t affect me and Ulrich.



Things were never the same after that moment.

[SeeMeInTheShadows]

#13 Thirteen
“You know what they say about thirteen,” Yumi said as they waited for their ride. Odd stared until she pointed at his hand and then at hers.

There were thirteen candies cradles in his palm along with the wrapper and thirteen in hers. He shrugged and ate all of them in one gulp as she slowly picked at hers.

Later, their friends didn’t know about the candies as they waited silently at the hospital- and later in Jeremy’s dorm- for news. But when Ulrich was walking, a wrapper hit him in his face and all he could feel was fear.


#14 Friendship and Food
The first Brussels sprout sailed through the air before coming to land neatly on Aelita who could only stare forward in shock.

Jeremy wasn’t there to be in love, so Odd took over the job of protecting Aelita, or in this case getting revenge. He grabbed a chunk of his mashed potatoes and threw them in the directly the sprout had come from.

It hit William, who was having a bad day anyway. He took his anger out on a defenseless Ulrich (still in line) but hit an angry Yumi instead.

Yumi grabbed some carrots and smiled. It was on.


#15 Christmas
It was a very Nicolas and Herve filled Christmas. Of course, that being said, any time you were in a small space with Nicolas and Herve, they tended to fill it. Neither had the most attractive odor and growths spurts weren’t kind to Nicolas’ shorts.

Of course, being locked with them in the supply closet after the two had a bean eating contest wasn’t helping their cases.

Jeremy, Ulrich, and Odd had scratched at the door when they learned they were trapped. Now they had decided to accept their fate.

Herve smiled. “So what do you guys think of Sissi?”

[cya6]

Thirteen:

(AN: This is an alternate ending to Franz Hopper)



Jeremie blinked, his mind fading, remembering that morning.

They had met Franz Hopper. He was going to defeat X.A.N.A.

What went wrong?

The next minute, everyone hated him.

Why?

Cell degeneration. Yumi not having long to live.

Was that… this… morning?

Jeremie wasn’t needed. He tried to transfer.

If… only you’d… left. What… stopped you?

It had been X.A.N.A., all along.

Jeremie stayed. To save them.

But who tried to save you?

No one.

He tried, vainly, to draw breath.

Some… birthday.

Of… course… it would… have to be… your thirteenth, he thought, bitterly.

The lasts thoughts he ever had.

[cya6]

Miss Popularity:

Popular. That was the word used to describe her. It went with ditzy, mean, arrogant.

And they were right. That’s all she was.

“Stupid brat,” she muttered, tears forming in her eyes.

“You do anything right!” She gripped her blade, til it bit her hand.

“You don’t deserve friends. You don’t deserve Ulrich. You don’t deserve anything.”

Tears slid down her face.

Too many years had passed. They were marked by the scars on her arms. She was finished. It wasn’t worth it. Nothing ever changed…



She was Miss Popularity. And no one ever really cared until she was gone.

[Soul Jelly]

#23 - Delmas Knows

-


Jean-Pierre Delmas knows everything there is to know about running a school.

Kadic is his pride and joy. He loves to learn, himself; knows how to inspire staff, manage unruly students, mentor those who need guidance. He can draw out the best in everyone, ace inspections and make a school a second home to those who attend.

But when there comes the long wailing cry of;

“Daddyyyyyyy!”

Delmas puts his pen down, sighing, and moments later his tearful and red-faced daughter bursts into his office.

Delmas knows a lot about most things.

Except how to handle his teenage daughter.

[SeeMeInTheShadows]

#22 Hunger

Odd’s mouth watered at the sight that his eyes beheld.

Pumpkin cheesecake, lightly topped with some hot fudge, surrounded by plate filled with miniature chocolate truffles.

But he couldn’t get distracted. He had a mission to accomplish.

Of course, Mission: Spy on Ulrich and Yumi’s ‘Date’ was getting harder and harder. But Jeremy and Aelita were depending on him. He couldn’t give up.

Later that night, when Ulrich arrived, he casually asked how the date went.

“You should have seen the desert.” And if Odd had been looking, he would have seen the evil yet amused smirk on Ulrich’s face.

[cya6]

“Jean-Pierre, you promised to help if this went wrong!”

“I’m not doing this anymore, Franz!”

Franz glared at him. “So you’re giving up?”

“I have family! I had a wife! I’m not losing anymore! If I get involved again, X.A.N.A. threatened to take my Sissi. That’s NOT happening. It WON’T!”

He walked out on his friend then. He wouldn’t hear from him again…



Jean-Pierre snapped out of his memory.

He looked out at the five children, running toward their factory. Soon, another return-trip would pass.

They would think it was all erased.

But they would never realize…

The Delmas knows.

[SeeMeInTheShadows]

Delmas knows about the factory. He has a working understanding of Lyoko though. Years ago he had fancied himself an investigator and had been an acquaintance of Franz Hopper.

Nothing escapes him. He knows they put their lives on the line and that his very fate rests in their hands.

He also knows that it is their battle to fight. Not his.

So he plays with electronic penguins and subtly helps when he cans and hurts enough so it isn’t too obvious.

His only regret and biggest relief is that Sissi never managed to work her way into their group.


Blink:

William rubbed his eyes, blinked a few times, and looked again. But nothing changed and his left ankle was starting to itch (as it did whenever he noticed something that wasn’t right).

There they were.

Yumi. And Jeremy.

Walking hand in hand.

He didn’t remember crushing the soda can in his hand, but later it was crushed nonetheless. He did remember, however, starting to walk over to them before abruptly stopping. As if his body or something else had stopped with no say so from the brain. Or the heart.

He rubbed his eyes, blinked again, and then walked away.

[Soul Jelly]

#25 - Pop

-

Pop is a champagne cork flying; clink three glasses in elderly hands that make a silent toast. (To a good run.)

They savour each sip, prolonging the end. Eventually they have to go.

The staff-room is barren, the classrooms like tombs, stripped of charts and posters, and the main doors gape open, ushering them into the gathering darkness. Rearview mirrors catch lined faces and sad smiles, armfuls of chemistry sets and sweater vests.

He'll retire. She'll teach elsewhere.

And he's already filing Kadic under his list of previous jobs, the ones he'd rather not talk about.

(Talking won't do it justice.)

[SeeMeInTheShadows]

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Ulrich had started simply, first cracking the knuckles on his right hand and then the knuckles on his left had. Jeremy could handle that.

Then he twisted his ankle so it popped a bit, followed by his leg and then his back, his neck, and finally his knuckles again.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Odd was lying on the bed, absentmindedly holding some bubble wrap as one by one he snapped each of the little bubbles.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Yumi tossed her hair and continued to chew her gum as she studied frantically for her test.

POP.

Jeremy groaned.

[Adventurer411]

#26: Wrinkle

She’s so cute when she does that.

Jeremy couldn’t help staring as Aelita worked on her math test. The pencil would pause its frenzied dash for a
few moments at a particularly difficult problem, then continue across the page.
During the pause, Aelita would concentrate, wrinkling her nose in that adorable
way of hers. Jeremy loved to see it.

But then the teacher would glare daggers into him, and Jeremy would return to his test, wrinkling his own nose
as he did so. And he wouldn’t notice Aelita smiling as she watched him.

He’s so cute when he does that.

[SeeMeInTheShadows]

The evil queen (or really princess, as she was the daughter of the king) stared at her reflection. Her face was wrinkled and shriveled. Exactly how she wanted it for this moment in time.

She took her basket of apples and went looking for her only competition. It wasn’t long until she found her goal. Impossibly green eyes and unnaturally pink hair.

So she smiled sweetly and sauntered up to her enemy and gave out the apple (incurable- kisses had no effect), smiling to herself as those green eyes shut.

Sissi woke up with a start. She didn’t want that.

[Stella Luce 333]

Alita’s POV:

There was no way somebody was knocking at the door.

I must have fallen asleep on the sofa while taking a break from cleaning the living room. There was a big storm outside. Nobody would be out in the woods right now…I went & opened the door any way.

There was a woman standing on the front porch.

“It’s lovely weather tonight, isn’t it?” she said, stepping past me even though I didn’t invite her in. “A nice night for tea.” I started for the kitchen.

“By the way, my dear…there is such a thing as a tesseract.”

[Soul Jelly]

#26 - Wrinkle

-

Maybe it was the summer sun filling her with a playful kind of warmth, or the contentment that freedom and friends offered. More likely, the boy sprawled out beside her had rubbed off on Sissi more than expected.

Whatever it was, she found herself eyeing tanned skin exposed by a ridden-up purple shirt. She reached out, poked him just under the ribs; he flailed, screaming surprised indignation. She didn't relent, and they grappled in the grass, Odd's begs for mercy dissolving into breathless laughter.

And they were both vain, but right then neither cared about the wrinkles in their clothes.

-

[Catching up]
#3 - A Different Meeting

-

Mr Ishiyama sprained his ankle on the same day Mrs Stern went into labour.

Takeo grumbled about hospital waiting rooms and ruined house-hunting ventures; Akiko consoled herself with vending-machine coffee. Yumi toddled away unnoticed, drawn to a quiet room, pastel-coloured, filled with cots.

Tiptoeing, she peered into the closest one. A tiny baby with merely a tuft of light brown hair reached up and instinctively clutched her finger. Yumi smiled, the baby gurgled, but then Akiko appeared, frantic. When the door closed behind them Ulrich began to cry.

They were too young to remember the first time they really met.

[cya6]

27: Your Story

Sissi paced outside the hospital room. Hours had passed since she’d found the five, unconscious, in the forest.

She continued to wait. Doctors ran in and out, asking her questions to which she had no answers. She didn’t know anything about them.

They said there was hope… but she knew, she’d been too late.

Finally she was allowed to enter the room, which only confirmed her fears.

She looked at the five of them, eyes open, staring into nothing.

Slowly she closed each of their eyes, blinking back tears.

“I guess I’ll never know your story,” she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

[Soul Jelly]

[Catch-up]

#5 - Monster
They say he who fights monsters should take care that he does not himself become one.

The darkened room is his lair, revenge his sustenance. Each keystroke punctuates another facet of his rage; he will not be bested, nor defeated. Grades mean nothing now. Friendship wastes precious time. His former reason for fighting stands forlornly outside his door but he won't speak to her. He snaps at them all; skeletal, withdrawn, obsessed.

A hollow shell may be stitched together with good intentions but eventually they, too, crumble.

When XANA is slain, all he needs do is look in the mirror.

-

#2 - Dark Instinct
This dark instinct brings him alive.

He is guided always by the omnipotent orb as it waxes and wanes, coaxing him at its fullest into the chill night. Kiwi, ever loyal, accompanies him; together they toss back their heads with bared, inhuman teeth and howl to the moon.

Fights on Lyoko sing to the creature within (lupine and feline, magnificent and terrifying) at once sating the need for bloodshed and allowing the darkness to thrive.

And yet Lyoko almost gave him away, but it wasn't too hard to convince the others that the wolf was just a fuzzy purple cat.

-

#8 - Future Jérémie
For all his logic, he fears death.

It sneaks upon him with the passing of years, claiming all his old friends. It chips away at him, scoring new lines in his face, evident in every thinning white hair. He is afraid. Of nothingness, of life's work incomplete, of his name fading on another's breath for the last time, rendering him a forgotten memory.

The factory welcomes him back, watchful and silent. He steps into the scanner, eyes closed, heart drumming up a rapid rhythm against his ribcage.

Lyoko is empty, ghostly.

And safe.

Virtual existence is something, if only non-existence.

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