DEV>The Dragon and the Dying Stars

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Flash Fiction Month 2017, Day 31, Challenge #14: Write a story in the style of a fairy tale, including phrase repetition and involving stars as physical objects. It must be serious in tone but also include a Phillips screwdriver.

This challenge was set by GDeyke and I picked it largely for the star thing. I accidentally set the final element of the challenge myself by chiming in with it during the Flash Fiction Month Discord chat, but if anything that was sort of a bonus: I suggested it primarily because Phillips screwdrivers are my favourite murder weapon (in fiction). Honestly, if you want to see what I do with these things in a non-fantastical setting, put in a pledge for Ten Little Astronauts.

Though it was a big part of what appealed to me, I'm not 100% sure this was the intention for the whole "stars as physical objects" thing. I sort of got the impression that the idea might have been a universe in which stars are inherently pick-uppable and occasionally drop within reach, but since the letter of the rules only specified "involving" I figured I could tick that box by having huge, hot, far-away stars that merely turned into practical items. I'd be curious to know if that's in keeping with the original idea or if I've somehow sidestepped a challenge without ever really being aware of it. But I didn't want to find out until the thing was written which is why I didn't yelp that out in the Discord chat.

All in all, I think this was a good note to end on for my sixth Flash Fiction Month. If nothing else, a mechanical dragon bigger than two galaxies and older than the universe itself is probably the least plausible bad guy I've ever written into anything (though for the purposes of the challenge I hope it comes across as forebodingly epic rather than comically impractical).

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If you've enjoyed this story, you can find the rest of today's submissions here, and all my previous Flash Fiction Month stories collected as OCR is Not the Only Font, Red Herring, Bionic Punchline, Osiris Likes This and Robocopout.

If you've really enjoyed this story, please consider supporting my sci-fi murder mystery novella, Ten Little Astronauts. Essentially, it's Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None if the whole story took place on board an interstellar spacecraft. The book has been accepted for publication by Unbound, who have launched a crowdfunding campaign complete with a video filmed on board a submarine. Most pledge levels include every book I've ever written, plus a bunch of other rewards, plus you'll be helping to launch my career as an author. Take a look!

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