Flash fiction based off an image. Simple enough? Lets see how we go.

TAP TAP TAP.

Olivia cracked open one eye against the harsh light of morning at the tapping sound against the glass. As her bleary vision slowly began to focus, she saw a small figure on the windowsill.

TAP TAP TAP.

She didn't care to guess why some fool bird had decided to wake her far too early. She pulled her pillow over her head, hoping to muffle the sound.

TAP TAP TAP.

"Go 'way," she mumbled irritably.

TAP TAP TAP. TAP TAP TAP. TAP TAP TAP.

It wasn't going away.

With a grunt of exasperation she threw off the blankets and stomped over to the window, but stopped short and gasped in shock.

---

"I don't understand! Can't I come with you, Simon?"

"No. If he takes us both the kingdom's done for. Besides, if I'm captured, there's something very important you'll have to do."

---

She unlatched the window, and it hopped onto the nightstand: an ornithimech, expertly fashioned of bronze and amber. There was no doubt at all. This was her brother's work.

---

"Once he has me, the Chancellor will send the Onyx Guard here to raid my workshop. He won't care about most of this stuff. He'll want that." He pointed at the enormous metallic box in the corner, ornately decorated like a crouched gryphon, its emerald eyes gleaming in the gas-light.

---

The clockwork creature leaned forward and deposited something on the table. She reached forward with trembling fingers and took it. It was a tiny brass key dangling from a chain. She clutched it in her palm, then cast herself on her bed and wept. The bird, its task completed, ignored the girl's misery and nimbly hopped out the window again.

---

Simon walked over to the gryphon-box and grasped its head. He pushed it upward, pivoting it on a hinge she hadn't noticed before, exposing a tiny keyhole. Reaching for the chain around his neck, he plucked a tiny brass key from inside his shirt, inserted it into the keyhole and twisted it. Olivia's eyes widened as the gryphon's claws began to pull apart, drawing open the box and letting loose a crimson light that seemed almost unbearably brilliant in the dimly-lit workshop.

---

Recovering herself, Olivia sat up on the bed, wiping her tear-streaked face with a corner of the sheet. Easing her bare feet onto the cold stone floor once more, she padded over to the door, then descended the stairs to the cellar, the key danging from the chain laced around the fingers of her right hand. She reached a door, turned the latch, and pushed it open, its aged hinges protesting as it swung aside.

---

Simon reached into the box and drew out a large, irregularly-shaped crystalline stone, which throbbed gently with a red glow. It was set inside an intricate brass framework, with carefully placed mirrors that seemed to focus the light towards them, making it all the more dazzling. "I am no genius," he murmured, staring into the gem. "I was smart, but not that smart. It was this--" he stroked its surface gently "--this stone that granted me my brilliance. With its help, I constructed the mechanical wonders you see in this workshop, and which have protected our kingdom from the Chancellor. I can't risk taking it with me, but I can't chance leaving the key here, either. For all I know, there may be someone in the Chancellor's service among the guards, and they'd easily take it from you. But if I'm captured, I will be able to send this key to you. When you get it, you are to come down here, take this stone, and smash it. It cannot be allowed to fall into the Chancellor's hands. Do you understand?"

"Simon, I--" she stammered.

"Promise me!" he urged.

"I--I promise," she said, her eyes lowered.

--

Olivia pushed the gryphon head back and inserted the key. The bright red light flooded the room once more. Drawing the stone out of the box, she set it carefully on the workbench, then reached for one of Simon's many hammers. She raised it aloft, but did not bring it down on the gem. She could not take her eyes off it as it throbbed gently, seeming almost alive. There was a buzzing, a humming in her skull--no, music. It was like music. Except this music felt different; it made her see and know and understand and it was all so simple.

Gently laying the hammer down on the workbench, she took the stone in both hands and raised it close to her face. And slowly, her lips curled into a smile.

The clockwork bird stared at her with one unblinking eye, its tiny feet clinking as it hopped toward her on the small, round, polished mahogany table. Its mechanics clicked and clacked as it moved. It jerked its head forward, the key within its beak swinging on its chain. Lilyanna lashed out with the back of her hand, slapping at the bird. It trilled and dodged her assault, its wings creaking as it fluttered away, landing on the top of the chair opposite of her. It cocked its head, never taking its dull eyes from her.

"I will not." Her voice trembled. She set her jaw and lifted her chin. The words were stronger this time, filled with a confidence she did not have. "I have said so a thousand times, and you cannot convince me otherwise - I will not."

The demon Vanya, leaning against the ledge of the tower window, sighed in exasperation. He brushed the lapels of his slim suit jacket, picking at bits of lint with his claws, then stroked the long twisting horns that grew at the edge of his hairline. He propped his fur and silk top hat carefully on his head and pushed off the ledge, sauntering towards Lilyanna with an easy gate. As he walked, the ticking, grinding, clacking sound of clockwork intensified.

"My dear, as I have told you a thousand times, I wish you no harm." The clockwork bird flew to him, landing on his shoulder as he pulled the chair out from under the table and sat with great grace. He leaning forward, propping his head up with a curled hand. "I am simply trying to do my job."

Lilyanna slipped a finger through her black curls and tugged. "I understand that," she said coolly. "But I have no desire to add to your count of condemned souls."

Vanya blinked. A low chuckle came from deep within his chest. "Darling, do you think that's what I'm about? Is it the horns?" He touched his left horn lightly. "I do so love the horns. Would it be easier for you if I changed my appearance?"

A burst of intense light filled the small room. Lilyanna gasped and hid her eyes, peeking between her fingers to catch tiny glimpses of the dark, perfect form, as if chiseled from black marble, at the center of the burning glow.

"Please stop," she said, and edge of panic in her voice.

The light dissipated as quickly as it appeared. Vanya sat across from her, grinning as he leaned back in his seat, hands behind his head. "An oldie, but a goodie."

"Please leave," Lilyanna said, crossing her arms. "I'm tired of this argument."

"Oh, as am I!" Vanya stroked the head of his clockwork bird. It chirruped and shook its metallic feathers. "Six years of visiting in the night once a month is really becoming monotonous. But my dear, you are running up against the end of my deadline, and time is running out. I am tasked with making things happen. Making events happen. If you do not take the offer, then I'm afraid this world will go down a very different path than what was originally planned."

He pulled the key from the bird's beak and held it out to Lilyanna. "I am not one to beg, but I strongly, passionately suggest that you take the key and do with it as you are compelled to do."

She could feel the key calling to her, tugging at her heart, filling her with a desire to...to what? A desperate need to know the answer bubbled up and broke against her chest. Her body tensed. She reached out a hand, then hesitated. She caught Vanya's eyes, frowning at his grin.

"Are you doing this to me?" She drew back her hand.

The grin dropped from Vanya's face and he groaned. "For the last time, no!" he snapped. "You are only doing what you know, in every fiber of your being, you should do! Gracious, I have never known anyone so willing to defy their own fate without even knowing what that fate entails!"

"Fine, if only I can be rid of you!" Lilyanna snatched the key from his hand and brought it to her chest.

Vanya laughed and clapped his hands together. "Finally! Oh, my lovely, you have no idea how relieved everyone is."

A sense of dread washed over Lilyanna. "What happens now?"

"I'm not allowed to say," Vanya said with a grin and a shrug. "You must discover your story on your own." He stood, doffed his hat and bowed. "Until we meet again, Lilyanna."

***

She awoke with a start. She took a deep breath and rubbed a hand over her face. The sun streamed through her sheer curtains, filling her untidy room with warmth. She yawned and rolled out of bed, scrabbling her hand through her tangled curls.

What was she dreaming? Something familiar - a tower, clockwork, a man...maybe not a man? She shrugged and pulled on her bathrobe, exiting her room and clumping down the stairs. The smell of eggs, bacon and toast filled her nose as she entered the kitchen.

"Hello, Lil," Her dad said cheerily as he flipped the eggs over easy out of the skillet and onto a plate, placing them in front of Lilyanna's younger brother Chase. Chase didn't say a word as he scarfed down his eggs and toast. "Eggs?"

"Scrambled?" She opened a cabinet, pulled out a mug and filled it to the brim with coffee.

"Will do!" Her dad flipped open the egg carton and scooped up a few eggs. "Oh, hey, you got a package this morning. Weirdest thing. Went to fetch the paper, and there it was, propped up against the door. Didn't think the mail came that early."

"UPS comes that early," Chase said matter-of-factly, before stuffing more bacon in his wide maw.

"I suppose it does," her dad said diplomatically. He pointed at the table where a small box wrapped in brown paper sat. "It's all yours."

Lilyanna padded over to the table, examining the box. A winding script listed her name and address. There was no return address. She set down her coffee and tore into the paper, freeing a small wooden box from the wrapping. The box was rectangular, and polished to a high gloss. Intricate carvings filled every square of the box - scenes of dragons and animals and people on the hunt, women bathing and weaving and chatting in gardens, close-combat cavalry battles, fairies whisking away children, large cathedrals with rounded towers, flying machines like great, ballooned ships. The images twisted and weaved around each other, telling a pictorial story with no beginning or end.

"Weird," she muttered. She opened the box. A plush, red velvet lined the interior. A large bronze key lay diagonally at the bottom of the box, just small enough to fit without scraping at the velvet. She stared at it, images flickering at the edge of her memory.

"Eggs!" Her dad dropped the plate next to her coffee, startling her. She ignored the food and pulled the key free of the box, twisting the heavy metal in her hand. A bit of writing on the shaft caught her eye, and chilled her:

COME HOME

For centuries, it had stood perched on the roof of the old town hall. One of hundreds scattered through the town and along its grim iron walls. No one quite knew why. Perhaps they were some folly of a long forgotten metalsmith. A bit of whimsy, perhaps, in an otherwise bleak landscape. Mechanical pigeons, frozen forever around and above the iron city, a reminder of a time long ago in a more hospitable land.

The one above the old town hall was the only one with a key. Trying to wrest the key from the bird's grasp, high above the burnt out ruin, had been a rite of passage for all the town's boys. And more than one man bore a limb twisted or shattered from a long ago failed attempt. Tonight was Timor's turn. Above him, a silvery full moon was tossed among the clouds of a chill October sky. Below him were a half dozen of the other boys, come to witness his passage, urging him on with tense, quiet voices.

Timor paused, his legs wrapped tightly around the charred oak timbers, not more than a cloth yard from the pigeon. Something was wrong. A tremor, magnified by the old wood frame. And another. Another. The wooden frame was rocking now. Below him, the other boys were looking around nervously. Now he could hear it. Not tremors, footsteps, enormous footsteps. With a shiver, Timor looked out over the iron wall and the nightmare approaching.

It was nearly at the iron walls now. A giant. A stone giant, come down from the mountains. It was enormous, larger that anything he'd ever seen before. And murder was in its eyes. Timor opened his mouth to scream.

There was a thin, metallic scraping sound. Timor tore his wide eyes from the stone monster. The pigeon! It's mouth was opening. Compelled by he knew not what, Timor lunged forward and caught the key. The metallic bird lifted a wing to expose a keyhole. Timor jammed the key into the lock, twisting this way and that. There was a snick of oiled metal and the bird shook itself, its movements suddenly fluid and graceful. It gave a metallic coo and was answered by dozens of other voices.
Timor looked around. Every bird in town was waking. Each shook out its steel feathers, stretched its neck and oriented on the monstrosity approaching the iron town. As one, they lept into the air.

This is what they had been made for. They had waited centuries for their adversary to appear. Tonight, the ancient war would again be waged. Aloft, the pigeons circled their ancient foe. Forming up in rank upon rank, mechanical bowels already whirring to life. There'd be no escape for the stone statue this time.

A mechanical bird with a key hanging from its mouth, on a plain table in the same room as a locked door. It was a puzzle, obviously. Garth hated puzzles. He seized the bird by the legs. To his surprise, the bird came freely. It did not suddenly animate and attack. It did not even ask a cryptic question.

He hesitated in front of the door, wondering if this was the first thing you were supposed to do in the puzzle.

He hated puzzles.

But he disliked getting shot in the back even more. But if it were a trap like that, why the bird? Just as a distraction? Or did this key work at all? Was this a symbol for some other key that he'd have to hunt down a bird to get?

Garth put down the bird and walked away. The alternative was to smash the door in an attempt to bypass the puzzle, but that was just asking for trouble. Someone else could solo this dungeon, and he'd already done pretty well - enough to cover rent and beer for a month.

Carlyn almost missed the antique store. She'd about given up and was searching for a spot to turn around when a deer suddenly darted in front of her car. As she swerved to miss it in the twilight, her headlights illuminated a weathered sign reading Bettie's Antiquities and an arrow pointing down a dark dirt driveway. She slowed, reversed, and turned down the dusty trail. When the old barn appeared in front of her she was skeptical. THIS was the store she'd heard so much about? It looked like it hadn't seen a patron in years. In fact, the only sign that it was even operational was the glow of light coming through the leaded glass windows and a torn and tattered open sign tacked up by the front door.

She parked the car and entered the store apprehensively. She'd been travelling the country collecting treasures for the shop she hoped to open with her inheritance from her mother, and everywhere she'd gone, someone had recommended this dingy backwoods stop as a must-see. From her first impressions, she couldn't understand why. And then she walked inside. A wizened old woman sat behind the counter, reading a Time magazine from 1929.

"Well, hello there, Carlyn. You just about took your darn time getting here now, didn't you"

"Excuse me?"

"I've been calling to you for weeks now. This is where you're supposed to be. Now, come in, come in, we've got so much to do. Our first order of business is to get this place straightened up. You take that back corner over there. And don't touch the crow."

"Ma'am, I don't know who you are, or how you know my name, but I'm just here to shop."

"I'm Bettie, that much should be obvious. The rest will be made clear in time. And you're not here to shop. You're here to help. I need your help, one elderly woman can't run this place alone. Now, get to dusting that corner."

Carlyn opened her mouth to protest, but much to her surprise found herself going towards the indicated corner. She started dusting and placing objects on shelves. An ornate trunk sat under a pile of forgotten newspapers announcing the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She attempted to open the lid, but it was locked tight. And then she saw the crow. It was a hideous objet d'art, all bolts and gilded metal. In its mouth hung a key that looked to be the exact fit to the lock on the trunk. Curiosity overtook her, and she eased the key out of the bird's mouth. As she turned the key in the lock, an odd sensation came over her, and when she lifted the lid to the trunk she was shocked to feel invisible hands tugging her inside. The lid slammed closed behind her, and Bettie shuffled around the corner.

"They never listen to me, do they old friend?" The crow cocked his head and cawed once in assent. "Of course, that's a good thing for me and you, eh?" Bettie turned the key, locking the lid of the trunk in place. As she removed the key from the lock, the years seemed to melt away, leaving her young and beautiful once again. "Yes, my friend, I think we'll get many years of enjoyment from Miss Carlyn."

The pride of genius drove her to craft her escape with artistic care. By the time her bird could fly, the lock on her cell had rusted shut.

It was the world's most useless keyholder. It didn't really have any good place to hold your keys. In fact, he was pretty well convinced it had never been actually meant to hold keys. It was just another one of her ridiculous purchases, overpriced and awkward, another tchotchke to toss in the pile. How he had berated her for bringing it home.

So why did he still have it, ten years after she finally left?

OOG: awwwww, Kitoba!

You guys never make this easy to judge do you? We started off with some truly epic tales and end with a couple of tiny sorties full of emotion.

I only have two comments:

Drachefly: The character was able to escape the situation so easily that it left me hoping that the descision would prove to be a terrible one in the future.

Waffle: While the payoff was kind of childish and base, the set up and twists were so well crafted that it was worthwhile nonetheless.

Thus Waffle wins this round.

Garth passed up on a major reward... Still, I get where you're coming from.

(incidentally, he was correct to pass it up: he was never going to figure that puzzle out, and could have wasted a lot of time trying)

Oh I got that. It may just be because I'm a bit of a bastard but I hope for dire consequences.

That is still my favorite opening by far.

___________________________________

"10 grams of meth will get me high for a weekend," Rob explained, twitching, "but 1 gram and a SuperShrinkRayGun® will get me high FOREVER."

"A little further now. I just remembered the week before." The voice echoed in his tiny cramped headset only due to the translation's style choices.

John picked his way, trying not to kick up old memories any harder than necessary.

Drip. The voice again interrupted his progress: "Hmm. I just remembered... multiplication. I think you're off-track."

"Just a drip of water. I had nothing to do with that."

"Mmkay."

John took a tentative step, slipped, grabbed the nearest crystal to steady himself.

The radio complained, "Ow! Don't tell me that wasn't you!"

"Yeah, that was me. What did I hit?"

"The day of the arrest. A joke by one of the cops, that wasn't all that funny. If you ran into that, you're just a little past. I think you can do the test."

John pulled out the resonator. A slight hum and he found the crystal-surface, as promised. Attaching a few leads to it and... what do you know, he was taking a walk out on the plateau after all. Just a quick check to see that this crystal was integrally attached... yes. The roots went deep. This was no recent graft.

"It appears your alibi checks out, Mr. Kzzrzaz. Thank you for your cooperation."


(edited for improved clarity. I was a bit too opaque, I think)