Warden's Fantasy Shorts

Unraveled From Fate

This is a set up for what may turn out to be a bunch of semi-related one-shots about this person, but I wouldn't want to write this intro into one of them and have to explain it again in a different one, especially if none of the plots actually continue, so I built in a mechanism to allow them to be incohesive if I want or need them to be.

However, there isn't much plot to this one.

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She woke up. Or... something like that. Flip wasn't quite sure if 'waking up' was the proper term. Either way, she came to awareness in some sort of void. Endless white space all around, nothing at all to break it up.

Flip tried to figure out how she got here, but couldn't. She remembered waking up that morning, rushing through breakfast because she was running late again, then sprinting out the door to catch the school bus. Then nothing. She checked, and still had her bookbag with her. Everything was still in it, so she pulled out her phone and tried to check the time, her messages, anything. And yet there was nothing.

Flip cursed and threw the phone back in her book bag, then pulled out her sketchbook and started to draw.

"You don't need to use the sketchbook anymore, you know," A voice said behind her. Flip jumped up, almost dropping the sketchbook, but managed to catch it at the last second.

"Who are you?"

"Lee Fletcher." The woman in front of her grinned as she said it. Nothing cruel or patronizing, just amused and somewhat knowing.

"My name's Jessica, but I go by Flip. Do you know where we are?"

The woman-- Lee-- rocked back on her heels, and then said. "You're in a void. It's essentially a blank canvas for a world to be created in. This time, you get to create the world, and if you please, you can erase it and start again. It's your sandbox."

Flip stared. "But what happened to my world?"

"It collapsed. Destroyed itself, 'cause it had reached the end of its life. That always happens eventually. This time," Lee paused. "I don't know how it happened, but your string of fate--" she held out her hand and a glowing strand appeared above it, winding and twisting through the air. "--became unraveled from the rest of those in your universe. You didn't die, so I brought you here, so you could do what you would with it." Lee gestured for flip to take the string from her hand, and Flip reached out.

As soon as she touched it, the strand wound itself around her arm and melted in, forming a line of silver around her forearm. "And how do I make the world?"

Lee smiled again and pulled a simple wooden box from somewhere. "This." She handed the box to Flip.

Flip opened the box. Inside, there was a surprising abundance of art supplies, from pencils to paints to markers, inks, charcoal, pens, everything Flip could think of.

"You draw, Flip. you can just draw in the space around you and it'll appear, and if you want, you can make it expand to a whole world, or you can build something bit by bit. It's up to you." At that, Lee vanished.

Flip looked at the box in her hands, then at the void around her. Then she pulled a pencil from the box and began to draw.