Published by the New York Public Library as Runner-Up in the Frankenstein Short Story Contest
Honorary Mention in the 2023 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
A career soldier is sent on a mission by his feudal lord, only to discover that he is a pawn in an endless and futile game where commoners are forever subject to the decadent whims of those in power. This fantastical allegory weaves together a story of death and restoration, harnessing symbolism to level accusations against those in power.
Sample (Full Piece Upon Request):
A crow pecked at what remained of Ollart’s jerkin, nearly drawing blood but succeeding in awaking him from oblivion. Flailing, he sent the wretched creature flying into the new dawn which revealed a sinister forest of white trees reaching upward like skeletal fingers. Had he been out all night? There was no time to spare.
As he forced himself to stand—bones and sinew protesting bitterly—Ollart registered his tattered clothing and the ugly bruises that wound themselves up his legs and around his torso. Peering around the grove, his predicament became clear. The vicinity was littered with a smoking mass of wood and thatch, once a home of sorts. Mixed within the ruins he found the charred bodies of his fellow soldiers and he remembered the shadowed outlaws that had fallen on them as they sat by the fire—twenty at least—and the brutal encounter that had ensued. Only partway through his lord’s mission, Ollart was on his own.
Holding his training tightly as a shield against the thundering horses in his chest, eschewing thoughts of his failure and the urge to lie where his men had fallen, Ollart gathered his resolve. He passed the crofters who had hosted his men and searched his dead captain, locating the urgent missive secreted inside the chest plate; then, he grabbed a few apples, placed them in an unburnt satchel with other useful items that had escaped the carnage, sheathed a surviving dagger, and marched on with a desperate calm forged by years on the battlefield. Even alone, he would complete his mission if it were his dying act.
Crossing the stream at the forest’s edge, a blast of wind rushed down the mountains—a frigid foe that would have blown a man-without-a-mission off his feet.
(…)
