Hayden J Beardall
Bio
Fantasy, Sci-fi, speculative/weird fiction and anything else I can manage to type when my hands aren't tied keeping my cats out of trouble.
Stories (9)
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The Witness
“If walls could talk,” they say. Well, we can but you’re simply not listening. Well, perhaps not listening is not quite accurate. It's more that you can’t understand us. This is different to someone from one country speaking to another and despite a language barrier, you can get the gist of what they’re saying and communicate in other, simpler ways, gesticulating hands, written words etc. I, as a wall, can’t do that.
By Hayden J Beardall3 years ago in Fiction
The Guardian of the Forest
The pearlescent fog thickened on the forest floor, smothering the delicate tapestry of moss, roots, and leaves. The pines reached into the sky, spearing the stars, and blanketing the night with their jagged branches and needles. Every creature in the forest was wreathed in fog and haloed in the moonlight as owls, deer, and hedgehogs went along their way hooting, galloping, and snuffling.
By Hayden J Beardall3 years ago in Fiction
Late
I check my watch; I am running late but I can’t remember what time I was meant to have been where I was going. There is water dripping from the ceiling, rain running off the back of the city above. I catch my reflection in a puddle, a formless grey thing and late, always, always so very very late. There are others around me carrying the items of their jobs, briefcases, backpacks, and folding bicycles. The trappings of trapped people in a tiled cage. The escalator moves us further down and deeper into the off-white tiles of the underground. Black mould forms in the cracks and crevices alongside brightly coloured square posters displaying nothing I have the time to read. It becomes a blur of colour and noise, coalescing into a single object that is a spectrum in a single wall of sensory input.
By Hayden J Beardall3 years ago in Fiction
The Walk
There was blood on the floorboards. Quite a lot of it, actually. Nerissa had found it very difficult to take a life without a lot of blood spilling everywhere. It had a habit of just getting out. She took her knife with the carved bone handle and wiped it on her tunic which was now coated in a spreading dark red stain. She could pass it off as wine stains to the crowd in the tavern downstairs. Yes, that would be easy enough. Besides, they were making such a racket down there it would be easy for her to just slip out without anyone even noticing. Where was the fun in that though? If she just wanted to escape unseen she could cause a distraction, wear a disguise or climb out the open window, scurry down the vines that covered the walls like a rat and slip into the night like a… well, a rat. She could cast a spell. But there were rules for this sort of thing, paperwork and pages of legislation to stop her doing exactly that. The Mutual Concordat alone was enough to give her pause when considering to tap into her magic potential and the less said about the Treaty of Ambrose the better. So, she would have to settle for the usual route, the one that made the most sense and the one she had planned for. Wrap up the body, push it out of the window and into the sea and walk out the front door. Follow the street up to your room at the Cattery and be done with it, wash your hands, a cup of tea.
By Hayden J Beardall4 years ago in Fiction
The Ships Cat
Jyra woke up the same as any other day, slowly then suddenly then reverting to slowly for the actual act of moving out of bed. A flashing clock on the wall signaled in red block numbers that it was six in the morning and domed lights began to illuminate in a soft faux dayglow to signal the start of the day. The small speakers dotted at carefully set points begin to play recordings of bird song, the sound gently fills the small room and drowns out the constant hum of the engines and air filters.
By Hayden J Beardall4 years ago in Fiction
Followed
A shadow stalked the edges of the campfire. It skulked beneath the twisted low hanging boughs, sharp, narrow eyes glinting in the reflected firelight. Branches snapped like sharp intakes of breath and the leaves rustled like chattering laughter. Ralph tightened his grip on his weapon, a long rod of iron, scratched and blackened from the fire of a forge but not shaped into anything resembling a sword just yet. He scuffled, left to right and back again, his heart in his mouth as his eyes darted around his skull searching the darkness for his predator. A log collapsed in the fire and Ralph span, weapon raised and screaming but was met with only sparks and a waft of hot charcoal smelling air. He took a shuddering breath, sweat stung his eyes and he wiped his face with a shaking hand. The steps of the shadow encircled him now.
By Hayden J Beardall4 years ago in Fiction
Afterword
I noticed the colour on the inside of my jacket. I remembered when I stood in front of a blue screen, It made it appear like the clouds over some distant holiday resort in some space in time. We laughed about it then, we laugh about it now. Since then I have kept it closed, folding my arms or buttoning it up when I know I’m about to be in front of a screen. I still think about how it looked with the clouds drifting around me like I was akin to them.
By Hayden J Beardall4 years ago in Fiction
