Drabble Wednesday: Tales of Horror

Three more stories this week, but this will wrap up Drabble Wednesday until May. In April, I’ll be posting a poem a day here on the blog, so no drabbles next month. Enjoy these tales and see you for the poems.

Smiles

Blank faces and stares waiting to be entertained. Drab little lives craving distraction, amusement, noise to fill the hollow void. Something to make them smile, paste a fleeing grin on their face as they stuff their private lies down deep, melding into the communal seduction.
Anticipation and applause rise with the curtain, as the players begin their roles. With eager eyes, everyone watches the stage, the clowns prancing, dancing, giving the crowd their drug of choice. Now a happy throng, never suspecting the price they will pay for their smiles. For our clowns are hungry and our knives are sharp.

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Desolation

The city is empty, abandoned by the living, full of scorched buildings and smouldering fires; only scattered bits of its civilization remain. I watch a scrap of paper flutter in the wind, mixing with the falling soot, as black smudges mar its white surface. It lands in a puddle, slowly dissolving into the brackish water.
A few feet away, a charred skeleton lays curled in the fetal position. Its bony hand reaches out, as if asking for futile salvation.
I shake my head. Another city of the dead. Worth looting maybe, but I won’t find who I’m looking for here…

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Games

When you can’t hide anymore, what do you do?
I don’t want to play his games. I don’t want to run and be chased. Yet, I don’t want him to find me. It’s not fair. He promised I would be safe.
I should have known he was lying.
He didn’t want to help. He wanted what they all want. Me. Stupid humans are all the same. Violent and ugly in their nature.
Well, let him come. I never wanted to hurt anyone, never wanted to be a monster, but now… Now I’ll show him what a dragon can truly do.