"Dust" & "The Psionic Storm"

Hey Readers, here are two short stories I wrote as part of a couple of fifteen minute writing exercises.  Which one do you think is better suited to become a longer novella?  Post a comment below with your answer!

"Dust"

Sud drifted lazily through the air, content to rid the fleeting fragments of distortionary waves sent through the air by the passing behemoths that frequented the room at seemingly random patterns throughout each brightness cycle.  Unlike some of his fellow Dustmen, whom he knew to be currently embarking on a luxurious attempt to cultivate habitable and stable space on the book shelf far to the east, Sud felt no need to make his existence any more lively than it already was.  On occasion, he would get very close to the Earth and wondered if he would at last be swept up and sent into the dark oblivion of yonder garbage can.  He did not know what awaited him there, but nobody ever returned.

                And yet, this did not upset Sud, for he was not upset by many things.  Unlike his sister, Isabel, who frequently went into panic attacks at the slightest provocation.  Just the other day one of the Behemoths had adjusted the source of the brightness and she had practically turned to jelly at the fear of them being swept out into the great unknown of the Outside without first passing through, what she believed to be, the proper decontamination process which occurred inside yonder garbage can.
                Sud didn’t give it much thought though.  He rarely gave anything much thought.
                Well, except maybe for Preet.
                Preet was the hottest tuft of Dustwoman that Sud had ever laid eyes upon.  Ever since fate, and the hurried movement of one of the behemoths’ larger appendages through the air, had allowed him to drift within visual range of her he had been in love.  He prayed that one day another such occurrence would draw them together once more.  He had failed to confess his true feelings to her the first time and would not fail again, he promised himself.  When he had first met her he had been so preoccupied with the rush of movement that always accompanied a behemoth induced shift in his drift patterns that he had barely noticed she was there with him until the currents caused them to part once more.  But a brief glimpse had been all he needed.
                He knew she was out there, somewhere upon the rivers of air fluctuation.  He would find her one day, of that he was certain.
                It was on that day that he hoped he would get his chance.  He noticed the behemoth currently moving about the room alter its course, causing it to focus on a trajectory that would cause it to come near him.  He could only hope that this new disturbance would be sufficient to bring him and his beloved Preet together once again.
                “Well, so long sis,” Sud called to Isabel, a few micrometers away.  “Hope to see you again soon.”
                “No!  Sud!  Don’t you leave me!  Grab onto me!”
                “No can do sis.  Can’t bring your sister to a date.  It’s not good etiquette.”
                “Ahhhh!!!”
                To Sud’s immense pleasure, the behemoth used its audio-generation orifice to create a more direct and concentrated disturbance in the air fluctuations around him.  Sud took hold of the shift in his movement and rode it through the air, twisting and turning in a fantastical inversion and rotation of his world.  He shouted out with delight, laughing hysterically as he soared about.
                “News from the bookshelf!” a passing tuft messenger called out to him.  “The mighty behemoth has deemed our attempts to settle their unacceptable and has caused unprecedented destruction to a few micrometers there!  The Council has convened to consider an armed response against this wanton aggression!”
                “Shoulda just chilled with the rest of us tuft!  They got what was coming to them!” Sud replied, coasting past until the Dustman was out of sight.
                Finally, he could feel the reverberations of the behemoth’s influence begin to settle and he looked about him at his new Dustmen and Dustwomen companions settled into view.
                And he spotted her.  Preet.  Adrift on a light, fluffy current just a couple of micrometers above him.  Using his lazy mastery to manipulate the flowing airstreams, Sud found himself quickly drifting side by side with his beloved.
                “Well, hello again Preet.  Funny how fate has brought us together for a second time.”
                “Who are you?” Preet demanded.
                “Oh, uh, it’s me, Sud.  We met about fifteen brightnesses ago?  We passed very quickly but, um, I would have thought….sorry, I expected you to remember me.”
                “Oh, wait, yeah, sorry.  I have a faint recollection of you.  Sorry, you said your name was Sud?”
                “Yes, Sud.”
                “Cool…well…how have you been.”
                “Very good…wait, are you all right?”
                Sud had noticed a slight change in Preet’s demeanour, as if she had sunk back into a haze of emotional distress.  She drifted with something less than laziness, something more like depression moved her about.
                “What’s wrong?” Sud asked, concern matting his sooty voice.
                “It’s…it’s my husband.  He was amongst those who had gone on the journey to the bookshelf.  The place that the behemoth just recently destroyed.  I hadn’t seen him in twenty-nine brightnesses.  He had sent back word that everything was going smoothly and now…and now this.”
                Sud felt his microscopic heart beat with sympathy.  He didn’t know what to say or what to do.
                “I’m…I’m so sorry.”
                “It’s all right,” Preet whispered.  “I’d just…I’d just really like to be alone right now if you don’t mind.”
                “Oh…of course.  But…oh, but you don’t understand.  What if…”
                “What if what?”
                “What if I’m never brought back to you again?  I just feel like…”
                But Sud saw the sadness in her face and in her eyes and knew that this was not the time.  If they were truly fated to be together, as he so furiously desired, then they would see each other again.  Now was not the time.  Now was not the time.
                “I will leave you be,” Sud promised.
                He coasted into a neighbouring stream of wispiness and saw Preet further and further away until he had lost sight of her entirely.
                “We’ll see each other again, my love,” he whispered to himself.  Until then, he would ride the waves of oxygen molecules caught in the turmoil of the movement of bigger things, and wait.

"The Psionic Storm"

                The psionic storm washed through the encampment without warning.  Moth was flung from beneath her fur blanket as the first lash of energy blasted through the flap of her hut.  She was jolted awake instantly, her body in mid-air, before she hit the side of the hut, tearing the tough fabric, and dumping her into the middle of camp.

                Moth staggered to her feet, attempting to get her bearings, when the second lash of energy flung her straight upwards.  Moth’s brain was still half asleep and she couldn’t seem to focus herself.  In some distant corner of her mind she knew this was making her more vulnerable to the effects of the psionic storm.  She couldn’t throw up the barriers around her mind that she needed to protect herself.  And the unpredictable strikes of the storm would give her no mercy.
                Moth hit the sandy ground.  She did not know how high up the lash had thrown her.  However high it had been, she felt her ribs ache and coughed brittle yellow sand from beneath her tongue.  Without bothering to get up, Moth forced herself into a state of awareness and threw up her mental defenses.  She felt adrenaline surge through her system as she prepared for the third lash.
                It came from her side and flung her through the spit set up over one of the camp fires.  The closest one had been a dozen meters from her tent, but for all she knew the psionic storm had thrown her to the opposite side of her tribe’s encampment.  She was just glad she hadn’t been thrown clear out into the desert.  She’d have had a hell of a time getting back.
                Her back ached from where the metal had bit into her and she felt a momentary swelling of gratitude directed at whoever had put out the fire after the previous day’s celebrations.  She risked untangling herself from the spit before the fourth lash came.
                This one was the fiercest of all and it took all of Moth’s energy not to be sent flying.  She was lifted off the ground though, despite her efforts, and felt herself collide into something new.  But, unlike the spit or her hut, whatever she hit felt fleshy and alive.
                She hit the ground again and rolled over to find herself face to face with Kya.  The other girl grinned with a mouth full of broken teeth.
                “Enjoying the ride, Moth?”
                Kya was the only person that Moth knew who actually enjoyed the psionic storms.  All the other members of her tribe treated the storms with respect and even a touch of fear, knowing that if not properly protected against them the storms could result in serious injury or, even worse, separation from the tribe.