Drabble Wednesday: Time

The last Drabble Wednesday of 2022, with some stories of time…

The Longest Night

The longest night shrouded itself in inky cold and blowing snow, its tendrils stretching far into the deepest wood, along the frozen river and winding around the tiny village of sleeping people. Their dreams were troubled, full of unseen monsters as the cruel night whispered, but all stayed huddled in their beds.
Only one creature ventured into this formidable night, aged and stooped, a thick woollen cloak bundled over a withered frame to ward off the cold. The night murmured its fears, but the figure laughed, walking onward.
“You cannot frighten me. I am Time. And all bow before me.”

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The Timeless Girl

“Turn the hourglass.”
Her slender hand rotated wood and glass ad watched the sand spin and flow. Sometimes she wanted to smash the contraption against the tower’s stone wall and shatter everything.
“Go and play, dear. No need to keep me company.” The woman smiled at the girl, who scowled back.
“Play? I’m not five. Besides, there’s nothing to do in this tower.” It’s not as if I could go outside. Not unless I want to turn to dust.
“Try working on your knitting again.”
The girl sighed and picked up the abandoned knitting. Immortality was not as she imagined.

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Reset the Universe

Fractured space, cracking along the edge of time, like a web of fissures through glass. Slivers of infinite cosmos leaking beyond the sphere of reality, bleeding into the tapestry of worlds, touching conscious minds and searing them into madness or genius. One by one they reshaped the structure of existence, birthing destruction or creation, sometimes both, feeding the cracks until the universe fell into the waiting maw.
Screams heralded a new cosmos in an explosion of energy and light as time itself was reborn and life began anew. With one small fracture of space waiting on the edge of time.