Three short stories

Hello anyone reading this,

I've been building up a fictional fantasy world in my mind and I've planned to write stories based on this world - with changing characters and in different times in the world. The stories should work as standalone stories, but might share some characters and events.

Instead of writing a post only to describe the events in the world and how magic and such work in the world, I'll try to write specifics open in different stories. Some of them might be a bit pointless or boring, but hopefully not all of them.

Now I wrote three different short stories, not only for the readers today but something for people to read in the future if I'm lucky enough to continue this long enough.

All images used in the stories are from Pixabay.com!

The New World

"See, magic is easy when you do it just like this" The young girl waved her hand and the floating ball of water moved over the rocks they were sitting on.

The other children gasped.
"How do you do that?"
"Can I touch it"
"Jess look, that's water!"

Monika had a wide smile as she was only one of the children who could do magic at this point. Quite many adults in the community were magicians, but she was the youngest magician in the town.

"As we all know, magic is a power which is attached to our consciousness, or soul, which ever you prefer. When a magician dies, their consciousness is shattered and magic in it is divided. When rest of the consciousness fades quickly, the parts imbued with magic will fly out from the body.

These magical souls, as most call them, then either find another person or float around, waiting to be found by a human. The magical souls are almost invisible and some people can see them easier than others. We are unsure what is the reason behind this."

Monika had learned the speech from her father, word to word or at least very close to it. She didn't understand all of it, but it was easy to repeat the words you have been taught so many times.

"Are all in your family magicians?" The girl asking the question was older than Monika, she looks like she's maybe 9 or 10 years old already Monika thought to herself.

"Only my parents, my grandparents can't do any magic, maybe because they had lived in a bunker after the catastrophe. I can do magic though." Monika looked like a completely regular girl, brown hair and dark eyes, but as she had a talent in magic she was filled with pride.

Other children had to help more at construction sites. It had been already decades after the catastrophe destroyed the world, according to the grandparents, but children and most of the adults alive now had never seen the world before.

We have a good life, we have a home, food and magic, Monika thought to herself watching the others work. Why do we need anything else?

Some of the families had moved out, elsewhere. They had been against magic and swore they can't live with people using magic. It's their own loss for not making their life better!

If they destroyed the world in the past, we will make everything better than they did. We will build a world everybody is happy in. Monika had a wide smile.
We will just need to get rid of all the bad people who try to stop us.

Happily walking through the village, this was her plan to make the world a perfect place.

A new world but humans never change.

Grandpa and the hate

The children were outside while their parents were indoors cooking dinner. Their grandfather was watching over them, even though his legs were hurt and he couldn't walk properly.

All three of them still obeyed him every time he told them to do something. Partially due to respect and partially because of the gun he had on his lap. Not like he'd shoot the kids but.. who knows? Grandpas can be a bit special. Especially when you've seen as much as Grandpa sitting in here.

"Keep on digging, we need the ground to be perfect for potatoes this year!" Grandpa shouted, almost like thinking the kids didn't work hard enough. They all were digging the best they could, but the heavy clothes they had to wear were slowing them down.

"Damn the radiation.. I wish we had some Geiger counters to see if there are any radiation left around here, but we're not taking any risks with you kids. You need to keep your radiation suits on."
Grandpa didn't wear a radiation suit as their prices were too high and grandpa was far too old.
"I'm not that pissed about radiation though.. all kinds of hippies have been upset about radiation already hundreds of years ago. Well if radiation is fine for the colony in the moon, it'll be fine with us too" Grandpa talked to himself while staring at the sky.

Moon wasn't visible during the day, though.

"The thing I'm most pissed about are the damn mountains in there. Ten years ago I had a really nice view to the sea, but now what do I get? Stupid mountains. I hate mountains. Fucking wizards and fucking end of the world, making mountains come to me.. keep on digging kids, we need those potatoes!"

Grandpa hated the mountains. So he fired his laser rifle at the mountain.

"Grandpa stop shooting!" The oldest girl was clearly upset, as this wasn't the first time grandpa was wasting ammunition.
"Oh yes.. sorry darling. But you just keep on digging, we need those potatoes if we want to survive the next winter. They are so cold.. so cold.."

Luckily, the incident with the mountains should keep grandpa content in his hatred of the mountains for at least the next few weeks. In a world after the man made apocalypse, grandpa just missed his seaside view.
Send your greetings to grandpa in comments and I'll promise you an upvote.

Witchcraft

Klein and three other Cleansers, accompanied by a healer walked through the woods. It was a bright day and birds were singing, but none of them were delighted. They had heard a word of a sick child in the town. The desperate mother had called out for magicians and witches to cure the child.

Cleansers didn't accept magic in the lands they controlled. In a time long time ago, the world met a catastrophe due to magic, so Cleansers had been formed as an attempt to remove all magic from the world.

The healers Cleansers were working with didn't use magic, but all other forms of healing available. Some of the healers might have skills in magic, but they were not allowed to use magic. Even for them, penalty for magic was death.

Walking towards the cabin at the edge of the woods, they could smell a mix of smoke and something foul. Everything was very quiet and there was no light inside the cabin.

Klein knocked at the door with his armored fist and pushed the door open. When the men stepped in the room, it was empty except a woman was on her knees on the middle of the room, crying. In front of her she had a blanket.. covering the corpse of a young boy.

As the cabin was small, this was the only room so Cleansers could see no witches or magicians present. Klein and his men stepped outside and Klein waved his hand to the healer who was waiting outside.
"You can go in and do your job, Nimue, we will look the woods for anything suspicious."

The healer nodded and walked inside. There was nothing left to be done. The boy was dead and his skin was gray. Nimue couldn't comfort the mother and neither she could do anything for the boy, so she sat on the other side of the dead boy.

"I'm sorry, but the boy needs to be buried. He can't be left like this."

The mother did not react and kept on sobbing. Nimue picked up the body of the boy gently off the floor and carried it outside. The mother had no strength to do anything. Nimue dug a shallow grave and buried the boy there. Far too often this was her task, as people too often turned to seek help of witches instead of healers.

"This is nothing more than toying with peoples lives" Some tears ran down on her cheek.
"I could have done so much more..."

Klein and the Cleansers gathered in front of the cabin to wait for Nimue. They all traveled back to the town but as the sun was already set, they only traveled to the local inn to sleep for the night. Cleansers were feared and admired, so they easily got rooms and some food even though the inn was full with travelers.

"Anything on your mind, Nimue?" Cleansers were digging their teeth into meat and bread they got, but Klein had noticed something was bothering Nimue.
"You know me almost too well, friend." Nimue sighed and didn't even touch her food.
"Then let me know what's on your mind and maybe then I'll know you too well" Klein was trying to comfort her with his smile, but it didn't help.

"On the other hand, Klein, you do not know me almost at all." Nimue stood up and took wrapped her cloak aroudn her.
"I know this is sudden, but this is a goodbye. Thank you for the years, friend, but I believe I can do more without you."

It was a surprise. The Cleansers stopped eating and turned towards Nimue. Klein was fast enough to stand up with but with few quick steps Nimue walked to the door and stepped outside. She took of running towards the woods in case the others would try to follow her, but she didn't look back.

"This is the right thing to do, I know it."

"This is the right thing to do and I can do it. Now as nobody can stop me."

The Cleansers didn't even try to follow her. Klein couldn't stop his friend from stopping what she wanted, so they just let her go. They slept in the inn, even though Klein couldn't sleep properly as he was too worried what had gone wrong. He didn't understand what Nimue wanted, even though he had assumed he knew her.
"Far too often we assume to know instead of asking."

The next morning they all climbed on their horses, except Nimue's horse was left empty, as she had left her horse behind too. It wasn't her horse though, as it belonged to the Cleansers who she had served.

Slowly they started to ride back towards the Citadel. When they left the village behind them, they met a young boy standing in the middle of the road. He was extremely pale and looked sick, but still he was standing there firmly.

"Please step away, son.

The horses stopped in front of the boy, who looked up on Klein.

"Please.. please let me join you and become a Cleanser like you."
His voice was weak and he coughed, as he seemed to have an extremely dry throat. He was wearing simple, dirty clothes and he had dirt and soil even in his hair, his face and between his toes and fingers. He didn't look like he could survive a long ride.

"You seem to know we accept all volunteers to practice with us - but you seem like you would not survive the ride to Citadel neither the rough training you will need go through. Go home to your family."

"No, please let me join you. I know you have an extra horse. Nimue told me I could join you"

"Nimue told you? Have you seen her, has she talked to you or helped you?" Klein bent himself towards the boy. He stared in his eyes. They seemed almost black, as his pupils were dilated. With his gray skin, he looked like a walking corpse.

"Yes. She saved me and also told me where to find you.
Please, I want to be one of you.

"I can't say no to you. But please understand, we cannot guarantee your safety or your life. Get on the horse on the back and ride with us. Tell us if you need anything."

The boy climbed on the horse and they all started their long journey towards the Citadel.

On the edge of the woods Nimue was watching them go, still holding the shovel in her hand. I'm sorry, friends, but I can do so much more with magic. She turned around and walked away.