In reviewing Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge topics, I decided that one of the titles fit very nicely into my Witch’s Dilemma story (Lost Library #5, scheduled publication 1st quarter 2016.) So here’s a little foreshadowing of Witch’s Dilemma for Lost Library fans. Note: You might recognize the narrator of the story if you’ve read book 3, Defensive Magic =)

Randomly Generated Title: FALLEN ASHES

Little bits of him, floating on the wind. He thought. But he couldn’t be sure, because he had no eyes. With no eyes, no sight. With no body, no touch. Was he really here? He thought, therefore he existed? He’d never been one for philosophy or religion. Money, power, influence. These things had driven him throughout his life. For once, he contemplated what it meant to exist. He came to one simple conclusion: he existed.

Time passed. Flesh had turned to ash so long ago. Now the ash settled and crumbled into ever smaller pieces. Those pieces baked in the sun. But his bodiless self felt no heat, and he felt no cold when the sun set. The bits and pieces that had been his physical self, those pieces spread further apart. Ashes blended with Nevada sand. Was he sand, or ash, or nothing? As the ashes spread further apart, whatever was left of him began to thin. The further the ashes spread, the thinner he became. And one day he was so thin, he feared he simply…wasn’t.

With only the barest of threads tying his conscience to the earth, he thought: No. He would not fade away. A life of struggle, deprivation overcome, poverty conquered, it would not end now. That he could simply cease to be, that he could fade out of existence? No. He wouldn’t be weak. He would exist.

And a ghost was born.