The Inkwell presents: Up in Smoke

By The Inkwell

Each month, the community chooses a prompt, and those interested are tasked to write a tale of no more than 2,500 words. This month, we chose to tell our stories around a central event, a singular moment upon which everything hinges. In particular, the moment when a candle burns out, taking with it its light and plunging us all into darkness.

How often do we forget the importance of that illumination where none other reaches? Whether the literal light paving our way past monsters and onwards to hard-sought safety, or the figurative flame burning bright in our chests, a source of hope for something better, we reach for it hungrily, willing it to never die. So, when it does, the consequences feel so much worse, and our reactions take on an import we never expect.

And so, we come to the real question of the matter—what will you do when the light goes out?

Dreamer's Gambit - Dreams bring answers reality cannot
When the Clock Breaks at Midnight - A final, desperate gambit is all that's left for a dying village
The Threads of Light - A mysterious castle in the woods holds the key to the future.
Longclaw, Short Candle - With each kill, the wick burns lower.
Tail's End - Sometimes the only form of comfort is a voice in the darkness

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Inkwell
• Release date: Dec 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215419793

The Inkwell

We are a writing collective founded on Discord that currently includes 20+ writers all helping each other on the climb to completed works.

Book preview

Dreamer’s Gambit

Written by Jesse Pollard

I touch the match to the wick of the Dreamer’s Candle and watch the silhouettes of my room be painted in yolken yellow contours. My next breath is heavy in the now waxen atmosphere, mixing with the rising smoke. As I replace the glass tube around the candle, skepticism creeps softly to the forefront of my thoughts, and I start wondering whether my next dream will come with the answers I crave.

Logic dictates it’s just another candle. A promise suggests it has the power to answer any question I have. But promises can also be built upon lies, crumbling slowly, and unseen until it is too late.

I remind myself that at worst, I won’t sleep, and I add it to my ever-growing tally of sleepless nights. At best, though, it works. Yet, there’s an obnoxiously middling theory that nothing will happen, which is maybe worse. I’ve run out of justifications as to why I need this, out of rational explanations and patience. I can no longer tell myself I don’t need an answer to be happy. This question is something more now, a dilemma of the heart, and it won’t take silence for an answer.

That is the question keeping me bound to the waking world—especially tonight, as the hours pass in unsleeping stillness and I open my eyes to more of the candle puddled around the base of its holder. Still, I persevere, forcing myself to dream, to machinate a mosaic of what I remember about Her.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I grow restless, leaving me at odds with myself. What if this too is a lie? What if I’d so desperately wanted something to happen that I’d blinded myself to simpler possibilities?

But then.

Finally.

I fall into a dream.

❖❖❖

I’m standing on a road beneath a dark sapphire sky. It’s the only path in a neighbourhood of wide, brick-and-mortar houses, surrounded by vibrant gardens and lush trees swaying drowsily under an ethereal wind. As I take it all in, a greater picture forms in my mind. Familiarity. In a sense, I’m back in time, because I realise this is Her old neighbourhood.

I start walking, but it’s like drifting through clouds. With each footfall, I expect to sink into the smooth road, feeling nothing beneath my heel. I’m displaced, inconsequential in a world cobbled together from my own eclipsed memories.

—a cool breeze and tepid sunlight, tall gum trees line a still creek on one side, gardens on the other. I wonder when the walk will end, but little do I realise that, in those very moments when I catch her wandering gaze and warm smile, I’ll learn how profoundly magical beauty can be—

I come to a split in the road following a creek that writhes like crooked twine beneath tall gum trees. I already know which direction to take.

Fragments of a past life play in my head. Unexpected titters of stupid jokes we told each other. Furious rants about the unfairness of life and all the uncertainties they brought. The tears and the silence. Fruitless though we thought they were in the moment, Her voice lingered for years, becoming the anchor to weigh the memories deep in my mind.

Through the white trunks of the trees, the only building I truly recognise in the neighbourhood appears. Her’s. A red brick house built