An Experiment in Horror

Weird tales of a certain sort rely on subtle feelings of wrongness and such. I wasn't convinced that's actually scary, but I know better than to allow my beliefs to go untested. That's why I made sure the Flash Sunday post would be up on Sunday. It certainly was an eerie and offputting circumstance, and I felt the full impact of non-Euclidean post timing as if from some alien world known perhaps to our ancestors but distorted by myth, for no human intellect could fathom it. I suppose it's impossible for me to tell if I've gone insane, but I'm definitely not terrified. The experience has merely confirmed me in my resolve to post at a different time next week, the equivalent of nudging a picture so that it looks straight though in fact it already was.

The Internal Ocean

No one went to an Otthe Evanfor demonstration with any prediction as to the subject or results, not after one or two experiences. The gallery spectators settled themselves and waited for the latest thing.
"The latest thing! This is it! I have invented a fish." Otthe Evanfor moved among the blackboards and jars of the experiment theater, pointing, waving, and poking. "A special fish that swims in a special ocean: the ocean of memory. That's right."
The audience thought perhaps he wanted it to gasp, and it obliged him. After all the entertainment he had provided, how could it desert him then?
"Yes, it swims in human memories, and for its food? Especially tasty memories. The kind you can't stop remembering. Look!" He pointed at the only other person who had been allowed in the theater proper. "The first subject! Tell us your experiences! Are you remembering anything right now?"
"Well, matter of fact, right now what's coming to mind is a time when, you know, we were all enjoying ourselves . . ." The nervous man turned red, but he was being paid. "I enjoyed myself a lot, and when I went back to my room to, uh, well, I did feel like there was an ocean in me, but not in the memory part."
The audience laughed, but the presenter glowed. "Yes? And then?"
"And then I realized I wasn't in my room. I was in somebody else's house. What a day. They asked me to leave, but I needed to do something before I did."
More laughter. "And you still have this memory? Not for long, I think."
"Sure I do. Only now I remember a fish in the toilet, which I don't think is what happened."
So much entertainment.

The entertainment turned into something else when the dictator heard about the invention and arranged to have fish trail likenesses of himself behind them into every citizen's memory, but such is the delayed price of amusement.
Finis

The Spirit of Inquiry

Professor Weblen supervised the final fitting of his life's work, his most sophisticated and useful device. His assistants mounted the wheels on the axle and placed the rune-covered axle caps with as much caution as they would any other delicate thaumaturgical construct. The carriage received an alarmingly intricate array of instruments and etheric controls before being covered by a shield-generating parasol. As to the yoke-like section, it had nothing to do with horses but rather ended up attached to a shell of one of those great time-defying turtles said to live forever, unless someone hunted them for technological reasons. The shell hovered, unusual behavior for turtles but expected if one looked under it and saw the pan-elemental animation engine, the finest available, occupying the space.
The assistants, each of whom might have been welcomed in any number of courts or merchant houses but stayed with the professor to learn even more, backed away so the great man could inspect their work.
"Mhm. Mmmhm. Mm. Yep." Professor Welben nodded, tilted his head, nodded, and tilted it the other way. "Yes, that's it. The Time Chariot is completed. I'm going to go back and ask the legendary hero why he sealed the nightmare king instead of just killing him. So inefficient!"
The assistants gasped when they saw the professor enter the carriage, and gasped again when he started adjusting levers and turning dials. "Sir! It hasn't been tested!"
He blinked at them. "Of course it hasn't. This is the test drive. Be back immediately if not sooner!" The chariot jerked forward, reared back, and dashed straight into nowhere they could see. The Time Chariot may not have worked, but it did something.

"Here we are. Hey! Are you the legendary hero?" The professor leaned over the side and addressed an almost man-shaped endless swirl of chaotic energy. "I suppose not. You must be the lord of horror. Hello! Hero! Are you there? I want to ask you a question! Why seal this entity for a thousand years?"
"You dare predict that fate for me?" Words that chilled as they entered the ear came from the embodiment of wickedness.
"Well, sure. It happens, you know. You get sealed."
"Nooooooooo!" The thing wailed as the eldritch forces that composed it slowed, stopped, and dissipated. The darkness ended, and light flooded the world.
"You have performed a brave deed that will be remembered for a thousand thousand years," the envoy of light that descended from heaven told Professor Welben. "By reciting the sacred formula, 'You, get sealed,' you have removed this malevolent influence from the world, for a time. The victory is not final, yet it is a victory."
"Oh. That explains that." The legendary hero fiddled with the controls again. "Thanks for telling me. We have to share information if we want to get anywhere. Bye!" The Time Chariot departed on another curiosity-satisfying adventure.
Finis