{"id":65737,"date":"2024-05-11T03:38:05","date_gmt":"2024-05-11T03:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=65737"},"modified":"2024-05-11T03:38:05","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T03:38:05","slug":"trick-of-the-light-by-dan-caine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/trick-of-the-light-by-dan-caine\/","title":{"rendered":"Trick of the Light by Dan Caine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"by<\/h2>\n

Trick of the Light<\/h2>\n

by Dan Caine<\/h2>\n

He woke up in a white room. It was white for only a second before he felt something brush against his legs, blinked, and beheld the forest he now stood in. He rubbed his eyes, blinking again, almost as if to test to see if the land would change again.<\/p>\n

Nothing happened.<\/p>\n

The white must have been an optical trick of some sort.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere am I?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t know?\u201d<\/p>\n

The boy jumped, looking around for the source of the question. The trees remained empty, no birds filled the sky. He lowered his eyes to the ground, finally locating the black cat, a small creature sitting upright.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re wherever you want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaking his head, the boy ignored the cat and began to walk into the forest.<\/p>\n

The horizon was hazy and he couldn’t see what lay beyond the woods. There was a path, a curious thing as it seemed to sparkle and shimmer. The boy shrugged and began to walk it, hoping it wouldn\u2019t lead him astray.<\/p>\n

The cat followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo where are you going?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s it to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing, I\u2019m just curious. That\u2019s my job, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The boy didn\u2019t deign to respond, breaking into a run instead. The cat kept pace, its legs blurring together with a speed more akin to a cheetah or a leopard. The landscape changed, the forest now a distant memory. Replaced instead by a sprawling city, no entrance in site. The boy was simply inside.
\nIt was soulless.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is everyone?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be people here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there are.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there were.<\/p>\n

The boy smiled.<\/p>\n

The fur on the cat\u2019s neck began to rise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He woke up in a white room. It was white for only a second before he felt something brush against his legs, blinked, and beheld<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65739,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65737\/revisions\/65739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}