A whole world on a single page!
The short story morsels of One Page Worlds are flash fiction adventures of all flavors. Every Wednesday will feature a complete story in one page, or the first page of what could be a novel or novelette.
Sharing the fun and geekery is the best part of writing! Please tweet or comment with your guesses on what genre, character, and job is central to each tale. Enjoy touring new universes each week with One Page Worlds!
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“Earth needed cleansing,” I snarled from the stand. “It needed help in ways you refused to give. You weren’t improving it. You weren’t adapting. The Shift Wars are the reason you survive. You owe us thanks. Open fire on me or my pack and we will take you.”
Two hundred men and women in business dress filled rows on the left side of the Remnant Courthouse, dermiphones hidden beneath suits and blouses. They’d all be broadcasting their feelings to their contacts if they were smart. Two hundred of my fellow werewolves, freshly groomed and transformed, loomed in the right-hand rows. Human police equipped with riot gear, Kevlar vests, and rifles with silver-jacketed hollow-points stood shoulder to shoulder along every side.
Judge Ganzer lifted her sharp chin and addressed me like I was an annoying dog refusing to obey basic commands. “Life is sacred, Tremen. The first ten attacks of the Shift Wars were your choice. The most recent being two weeks ago. We have countless records of your hostility and your refusal to cooperate. This court will agree to werewolf extermination.”
One lanky werewolf near the front waved a paw like a spider crawling. She tapped on some smartphone fifty years out of date, then connected it to an ancient laptop with a cord. Appearing to take down the minutes just like I was.
“You should all accept extinction with grace,” I purred. “We are the predators that give back. Adaptation is in our blood, our magic, our tech. Consumption is in yours.”
I gritted my teeth and sucked in air thickened by wet fur and sweat. My paw slipped on the keyboard. Judge Ganzer’s straight-backed pose re-focused me. The words I typed had to match the feelings streaming through me to my dermiphone so everyone in the contacts-humans included-could get the same communication. And so there’d be a lot of records of the day we finalized our victory in the Shift Wars by trying the first war criminals.
This was history, and I was living it as I wrote it.
Police took aim at me and the theriomorphs with their rifles, silver hollow-points ready to rule us again like days of old.
The lanky wolf brandished her smartphone at me. "Tremen, Alpha's a-go."
Judge Ganzer tapped the dermiphone in her collarbone and raised her gavel to announce the judgment.
I roared, “Heel.”
The Judge froze. Police lowered their weaponry.
My hackles shot upward. “Pack-link communication was our trick first. Now heel.”