No maps lead to this trackless place. A white landscape, a white sky, and a desolate biting wind. Yet here, half glimpsed in the ice, a dark and massive shape.
Snow rimes my eyelashes. This land is so terribly silent. Once though it was lush and tropical, and this beast undulated in the warm Tethys Sea.
That sea has long vanished. Once there were maps, but they led to a different place.
Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
Neil MacDonald Author 
A glimpse of the future. Chilling.
This is the sign of things to come thanks to human activities and climate change.
Totally believable.
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And a glimpse of times past. Thanks, Anita
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Since we haven’t yet quite arrived in your dystopian future, the pace of some negative can be at least slowed. Plenty more to be told in your story.
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I didn’t at all imagine a dystopian future. Merely an Antarctic scientific expedition to find dinosaur bones. But I’m tickled that people have read another story, as readers do
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That should say negative change.
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I want to know more!!! 😀
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They may not survive the blizzard
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Dear Neil,
This leaves me feeling desolate and chilled to the bone. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thanks so much, Rochelle. I’ll try for something warmer next week,
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I like this.
I love the last six words.
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Thanks so much. I was pleased with those last six
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Excellent. Snow rimes my eyelashes is a killer line.
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Thanks so much, Joshua. Strictly speaking, of course, the rime is ice not snow, but I liked snow better.
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I could feel the freezing chill Neil. Great descriptive writing.
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Thanks so much, Iain
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I was just reading an article the other day about creatures that can survive at the deepest levels of the ocean, where the cold is absolute and the light is unknown. They’re all tiny, though,—maybe with just this one exception you’ve created 🙂
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The Tupilakosaurus existed. But the Antarctic then was in an equatorial location
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Well, add that to a long list of things I didn’t know 🙂
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A chilling tale in more ways than one. Great take Neil.
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Thanks so much, Keith
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Poignant and chilling. Pun and all.
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Thanks so much
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Nicely done, I imagined an ice age sometime in the future, arctic places are super breeding grounds for awfulness.
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An interesting imagining
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Masterful feeling of cold desolation especially against the lushness that once existed. The last phrase is excellent.
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Thanks so much, Sascha.
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It’s fascinating how land can change. You painted the story well.
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Thanks so much, Tannille
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You’ve painted a great image of a chilling (in both senses of the word) future.
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Thanks so much
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Yes climate change is cyclic, it is just the scale is beyond many generations. The beast frozen in the ice may recover in a thousand years.
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The beast above the ice may not, of course
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Very effective descriptive writing, Neil. I like the reference to maps in the first and last sentences, as well as rimed eyelashes and the weight of the last clause.
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Thanks so much, Penny
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I was thinking of exploration to a far-off land (the comments have opened up the possibilities, haven’t they?)
Loved the writing…
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Your interpretation was mine. But a story takes on a life of its own once it’s released
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And that’s is such a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
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I love a good mystery, and you set the scene so well. Wish there were more.
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Thanks so much, Susan
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I really could hear that terrible silence. Great short piece, Neil
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Thanks so much, Laurie
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it looks he was lost. one thing about being lost – it allow him discover the unexpected.
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They do say that chance favours the prepared mind
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This gives an imaginative picture of a coming ice-age. I felt like I was there.
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Thanks so much Fatima
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Reminded me of trips to our local museum, the skeletons of ichthyosaurs and pleisiosaurs I used to gaze at with my son. All those lost sea monsters. Great piece of writing, Neil
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Thanks so much, Lynn
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My pleasure 🙂
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I’d hate to be the one chipping the ice away from the bones, trying to excavate in that landscape!
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It’s okay. The ice is melting. All he has to do is wait long enough
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A very compelling story Neil, like the way you build up the scene.
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Thanks so much
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You made the cold so real, and then threw an icy curve — “but they led to a different place”. Indeed.
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Thanks so much
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Wonderfully described!
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Thanks so much, Dawn
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A fine story with a cracker of a last line
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Thanks so much, Michael
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Your story has much in common with many ancient myths and legends
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Thanks for noticing that, Larry
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