# Reality

Author: Faora
Tags: No-Yiff, Otter, Psychological, Short

#7 of Fae's Flash Fiction

So, a piece of Flash-Fiction here.&nbsp; "But Fae!" some watchers might cry (cause really, who's gonna notice a clean upload but them?&nbsp; Heh heh), "What about Fae's Christmas Music-Themed Special 2011?&nbsp; You promised five, and delivered _four_!"

Firstly, I can count!&nbsp; Really high, too!&nbsp; Like... up to ten!&nbsp; B... uh, _secondly_, I was making an editing pass of The Special Two (the missing 2011 Christmas story) just prior to upload when I suffered a power surge.&nbsp; It shut my computer down, but I was saving at the time, and the file was completely corrupted.&nbsp; Don't scream at me about backups; I don't backup my furry pr0n until I've uploaded it.&nbsp; This is a system I will be changing.

So I lost the last story, and I have to rewrite it.&nbsp; I've been taking a break (busy dragon has been way too busy!) and frustration feeds procrastination.&nbsp; So instead, here!&nbsp; Have yourselves some flash fiction goodness!&nbsp; The Special Two will come in time, I promise!

&nbsp;

&nbsp;- Fae

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

**Reality**

&nbsp;

&nbsp;Rain pounded against the window.&nbsp; Thunder rolled through the hills.&nbsp; Lightning split the blackened sky.&nbsp; Wind howled.&nbsp; Trees groaned.&nbsp; Beneath the forces of nature, small figures scurried for cover, for safety, for security.

Except they didn't.&nbsp; But they _did_.

A lone otter sat at his desk.&nbsp; He stared at the page before him.&nbsp; There was no state to his dress; sun shone over every inch of him through the window at his side.&nbsp; Artifical, computer-generated light lit his tired face as he stared at the open document before him.&nbsp; Storm scene.&nbsp; Nature's wrath.&nbsp; Pitiful little creatures as they fought to protect themselves.&nbsp; They weren't real.&nbsp; They were just figments of a writer's mind.&nbsp; They didn't scurry anywhere, because they didn't truly exist.

Not until they did.

The otter's paws shifted over the keyboard.&nbsp; Letters arrayed themselves in pleasing patterns, born in flickers of digital luminescence.&nbsp; They created.&nbsp; They shaped.&nbsp; They were magic and science and the divine.&nbsp; The otter was God of his own little world.&nbsp; Everything came into being in his own image.&nbsp;

Except it didn't.

A million voices screamed in his head.&nbsp; Millions of stories to be told.&nbsp; Millions of contradictions twisted his image of the world this way and that as the sun drew long across the real sky.&nbsp; Was it the real sky?&nbsp; What was real?&nbsp; To the otter, time itself became as an abstraction. &nbsp;His fingers danced and the digital lights before him wove creation before his eyes.&nbsp; Blue skies grew brighter.&nbsp; Then darker.&nbsp; Violet.&nbsp; Pinkish.&nbsp; Navy blue.&nbsp; Black.&nbsp; Stars.&nbsp; Still, he wrote.

Except he didn't.

Writing was a tangible thing.&nbsp; It was a physical thing.&nbsp; What played out for the otter was neither tangible nor physical.&nbsp; It was compulsive and emotional, indescribable and impossible.&nbsp; Some people wrote.&nbsp; He simply spilled his mind completely across the page.&nbsp; He opened himself through his fingertips, and the innermost depths of his mental self took control of the keyboard.&nbsp; All the infinite majesty and all the deepest terror spread before his eyes in perfectly ordered chaos.

Until it stopped.

Reality failed him.&nbsp; Growling stomach.&nbsp; Dry tongue.&nbsp; Drooping eyelids.&nbsp; Lack of caffeine.&nbsp; Lack of alcohol.&nbsp; Probable absence of personal hygiene.&nbsp; How long had he been at that desk?&nbsp; Was it the whole day, as his eyes saw?&nbsp; Or was it the years that played out in his mind, alongside the little figures whose lives were tugged this way and that by his whims?&nbsp; Was it a period of a dozen hours or so?&nbsp; Or was it an era of turmoil that threatened to ruin civilization as he knew it?

Coffee.&nbsp; Clarity.&nbsp; Focus.

The otter returned to the desk and frowned at his words.&nbsp; He folded his arms as he studied them closely.&nbsp; Each character was scrutinized by the harshest glare.&nbsp; Each sentence was mercilessly scanned.&nbsp; Declarations of insufficiency and inadequacy flitted through the otter's mind.&nbsp; Tracts of land vanished.&nbsp; Lives ended.&nbsp; Reality bent and broke.

Ctrl-A.&nbsp; Del.&nbsp; Sigh.

Source: https://sofurry.com/s/J1O5zkgm
Part of the series Fae\'s Flash Fiction
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