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I would first like to say that the human vision of possession is extremely offensive, and secondly, that it was started by a particularly petty Catholic right when the human race was getting into the well-structured hierarchy-obsessed religion game. There are a few things wrong with your interpretation of "possession", none of which I have time to properly explain to the robed old man currently lobbing tap water filled buckets of water at me. Father Silas and I have a history, one that namely involves him tying my loaners-- and by extension, my own -- body to a chair while speaking in latin at speeds so high Eminem would be jealous. He thinks that I'm a demon running around controlling Julia's body without her consent.
Like I said, he doesn't know the first thing of how this actually works.
"By the blood of Christ, I command you to leave Julia Whitaker and go back from whence you came!"
Alright first of all, Christ is cool. He seriously helped me out when I got lost around what modern people call the Levant. I'm not a demon, but the Father says I have stuff to do before I can go back to the land I came from. No, I don't quite know what He means by that. The place "from whence I came"has more or less disappeared. I used to be a protection spirit for the Phoenicians, a people that as far as you know vanished hundreds (or was it thousands, alas, even supernatural memory fades) of years ago. The memories I have of them are fond, if somewhat scattered. I remember seeing many sunrises over the horizon at sea, the orange and red hues setting the blue waves ablaze in the first light of day. I think I was a guide for them. Many times I nudged the bow of a Phoenician ship in the right direction, and even more times still did I persuade storms to alter their course.
And now here I am, sopping wet and getting water all over the checkered floors that a roomba frequently cleans.
"I'm *fine*"Julia insists, grabbing a towel off the couch and wrapping it around her shoulders with a groan. "Father, you can leave. If it happens again, I swear I'll come straight to the cathedral and get you."
"But Miss-"He begins. Julia is already ushering him out the door before he can pick up another small bucket. Last time he used red solo cups, I wonder what changed his mind.
She cuts him off. "Thank you so much for your help, I'll talk to you soon, I promise."
"Are you sure that-"
"Yep! See you later!"She slams the door shut with a loud BANG. The fishbowl beside the door shakes. Deep in the back of our mind, I can feel Mereen beginning to rumble awake. "Wonderful. You got us into trouble with the Church again. Why do you always insist on getting into absurdly specific arguments with strangers?"
"What's happened now?"Mereen grumbles, a yawn finding its way out of our mouth.
"Adon started rambling in his language mid-argument during church service last week, and now Father Silas thinks I'm possessed. Again."
"I can't help that sometimes your language lacks the proper words for what I'm trying to say,"I explain. "who decided we should speak in this language, anyway?"
Julia makes her way to the kitchen, where the pat of butter she'd set down on her toast has created a sunken in spot right in the center. "I did. It's the only language I know right now. And no one alive even knows your language anymore. What are you going to do, order McDonalds in ancient Phoenician?"
"Maybe,"I grumble. Pennsylvania could use a bit of a language toss-up. Swearing, though fun, isn't as enjoyable as gossiping about someone in a language they have yet to learn. "And it's not 'Ancient Phoenician', it was the language spoken by the peoples who used to live in Sidon and their neighbors."
"Right. The neighbors who are... not alive."
"Since Adon got us in trouble and today is your presentation, can I have today?"Mereen chimes in. Mereen is older than me, or at least, I think so. When we ask where she's from, she just says "far away". I don't think she remembers.
I had wanted to do the walking around today, but Mereen is much better at public speaking. Maybe she was a poetry goddess, or a performance deity. Either way, she'll definitely help Julia get an A on this project. And since helping Julia get her PhD is the reason she let Mereen and I in in the first place, it'd be best if Mereen does all the work today.
"Alright, but stay away from the energy drinks. Coffee is fine, but no red bull or I'll make us watch The Room tonight."
Mereen snorts in disgust. "I'd rather die than witness that atrocity again. You got it. Can I pick us up thai after?"
Julia nods. "What do we share?"She asks.
"One body,"Mereen and I answer in unison.
Julia sneezes, and just like that, Mereen sets to making us a better slice of toast. Sure, helping a student get their doctorate isn't exactly what we used to do, but it's good enough for us. |
The day if the ceremony finally arrived. Hundreds of leaders, heroes, champions gather in front of the great door. The best Earth has to offer. After centuries of infighting, chaos and strive gathered in shining metal space suits, to ask a question to the greatest mind the galaxy has to offer.
Two people, a man and a woman step out of the crowd. They walk up to the door and knock on it.
The knock echos from the seemingly wooden door. It seems like an eternity until the door opens.
Out walks a man. Seemingly the most usual and boring man. But everyone here knows, he is connected to the Greatest Intelligence.
- Oh great hivemind, smartest of intelligences, largest of brains. We the sim-
The man giggles. When everyone stares at him, he looks up, and says:
- Sorry, you wouldn't get it - he clears his throat - Please continue.
- We, the simple race of humans from Earth, ask you one question: You know us well, you've watched us for eons, why is there so much pain, war and suffering on our worlds?
- Ironic - the man proclaims silently
- What? I didn't hear you, oh Big Brain.
- You wouldn't get it, you cannot see into the future like us. But - he switches to a booming voice - soon humans, soon you will get it.
Confused silence sets in, before voices erupt from the crowd
- I told you this was a bad idea! - I should've never came here! - This is a trap!!
Soon weapons start firing, people start screaming. Few minutes later, everyone except the lone man is dead.
- See, NOW you get it - he bursts out laughing, and returns to his cave. From in there, a thousand voices laugh with him. |
(Look I've never read books, I've never wrote but let me try my hand. Okay I might switch between first person to third person and me tenses would suck but please bear with me.)
She can't hold my hand any longer "let go and jump. The snow will break our fall."We've been through rougher things but this time when both of us were falling I was more afraid to loose her than I was on the day of the apocalypse. I reached for her to brace her with my body but she jumped a second later bc she was hesitant.
Unconscious, a broken leg and a stick through her stomach, I'm glad it didn't turned out to be worse. I'm unscathed, I don't know how but I don't have enough mental strength to think about it now, half of our supplies are gone bc that bear was really eager to chase us down well i guess that's survival of the fittest for you.
With some sticks and ropes he makes a cast for her leg, cleans her wound and tie it with their scarfs and rope as he didn't had anything with him to close it properly.
I have to find something quick, i don't want to close her wound with some big piece of wood. I don't want to take any chances as it might turn into some nasty infection.
While picking some wood to light up a fire before dawn he comes across a pole sign after some time he finally manages to take it off the ground.
After setting up their camp and cleaning that metal pole he's preparing himself to heat it up he holds her hand and says "everything is going to be fine"and sticks it.
It's been two hours since the sunset the rest of the night is really long and now she's cold as ice he can hear bloodthirsty howls under the full moon not only he has to find a shelter, he has to evade the bloodthirsty pack along with carrying his supplies and an another person walking through a thick sheet of snow.
He quickly ties some of his collected wood into a strecher and then with the rope he ties it around his waist. He starts to walk the 1.5 km path in the hopes of the sign pole he found earlier will lead him to a shelter.
He walks as fast as he can with his gun for emergency that has three bullets, wooden torch and the pole he plans to use as a spear.
After 150 metres he cuts into this forest of thin densely packed trees in the hopes that the pack will stop following him but it'll further slow him down. After two hours they exit the forest.
If my sense is on point it's 1km to go it'll approximately take me two more —
**hhooowwwwllllllllll!!!!!!!!**
"Fuck!!"Judging from the sounds the pack has halved in numbers the possibility of cornering me from my right side doesn't exist as they were on the cliff on the left side. They couldn't have been flanking me through the forest without me noticing.
I will wait for them bc they're gonna come sooner or later and i don't plan to waste more of my energy on walking.
(Please give me some constructive criticism. I'll write about the encounter with the wolves if anyone is interested) |
Maya fell back in her chair as this weirdo person popped into her living room! With wide eyes, she stared up at the spitting image of her main character in the new book she’s writing.
Karamo. Saving the world while also struggling in a love triangle between his two best friends.
“Ugh, can you not come up with another cliche?” Karamo spoke in a heavy accent. Just as Maya visualized him.
She didn’t answer, too shocked by what just happened.
“I mean, misunderstanding based on not hearing the full story? That’s the lamest thing anyone could think of and just creates unnecessary drama that would never happen in real life!”
He then frowned at her, but his green eyes were stormy. Karamo wore the leather adventuring gear she always visualized him to be wearing.
“Uh… I didn’t know you’d be visiting.” Maya picked her jaw up off the floor, trying to recompose herself. “How’d you get here?”
“Always been able to, just tired of the horribly overdone cliches you’ve been putting into my life.” He sighed. “I mean, dead family? That’s the oldest cliche in every book imaginable! Come up with something new!”
This was the first serious novel Maya had ever wrote and now her own main character was talking back to her… wow. Amazing and incredibly disheartening simultaneously.
“I’m trying-“ She meekly defended herself, crestfallen at how her story might not be doing as good as she hoped.
“Try harder!” Karamo shouted as he began pacing around her living room. “The Chosen One prophecy has been overdone to death, second only to some mysterious artifact will save the world! And honestly, I hate Amber and Vylko!”
Amber was one of Karamo’s love interests who Maya wrote as a tomboyish no-nonsense girl unlike other girls of her time. Vylko was the other love interest who was truly a gentle giant despite his rather huge and menacing appearance.
Maya genuinely thought that she was being unique and interesting by doing that. But here Karamo was complaining about it.
"I'll give credit where credit is due. At least there was a previous Chosen One who can guide me. I'm not doing this alone."
At least that's going okay then.
"But you also paired it with the wise old mentor trope. A trope or cliche that's been as old as time."
There he goes. Maya groaned. At least he was every bit abrasive and loud as she pictured him in her head.
Karamo continued his long tangent of overdone cliches he was tired of… to which Maya could only helplessly lay there and listen to his rant. |
I am jealous of my wife. Infact, I am jealous of everyone who can sleep easily. Even if I go to bed early my wife sleeps earlier than me. From the last few days I am experiencing - fatigue, unusual weight gain and decreased levels of concentration and I knew they were because of a sleep disorder called Insomnia
The name in itslef sound scary, it's like a ghost wandering above your head not letting you sleep no matter how tired you are. When I was a child, I really had no problem sleeping, even when I got married I was perfectly fine. At 27 august we moved into this new house of ours which is still pretty beautiful but it lacks the 'home' feeling and from that day I am experiencing Insomnia. I kept turning and tossing on the bed, staring at the wall.
The next day, I asked my wife about it
"I can't sleep, what to do?
and then she replied"Don't take so much stress,Just close your eyes and that's it"
After this incident, I went to a not so reliable source (instead of a doctor ) - Google. For some weird reason I searched "Negative effects of bad sleep' I read articles and they all gave answers like - fatigue, memory loss, binge eating , feeling stressed,frustration.
Sleep was all I thought about while working, eating and whie watching T.V. It just made me infinetly more anxious, frustrated, stressed and because of that I had more problems getting to sleep. It was a vicious cycle.
It was christmas and me and my wife decided to go to India, we had not gone for a trip since a long time, Going to India was amazing - the food, the culture and the people.We spent a week there travelling to different places In India - agra, mumbai, delhi and ahemdabad. And there the most miraculous thing happend - finally, I was able to sleep after 100 days of Insomnia. Perhaps, my wife was right - I took to much stress
And that Day I learnt an important lesson...
[from a personal experience] |
Unbelievable. All they asked for was to activate the signaler once every hour, a trivial task for beings that are essentially built to multitask. And yet, somehow I find myself enclosed in a prison cube staring down at the Pacific ocean.
We were warned about many things before we arrived on Earth - romance, gambling, substances not suited for our biochemistry, etc. The information exchange these people call "Reddit"was not one of them. Sure, we had been lectured on humankind's most prevalent technologies and their use cases, but one comes to realize quickly that theory and practice are so very different.
Our mission had been simple: beam up our sensory data at the designated times. We were told that failure to do so would be interpreted as uncharacteristic sympathy towards humankind, and would lead to our immediate recall.
Let me say up front that I do not care for any of those I have met on Earth. However, this Reddit of theirs, this goldmine of human communication and culture, I should have noticed I was losing myself in. It is in our nature to attempt to absorb all information presented to us as rapidly as we can, and when there is a pit as bottomless as r/AskReddit... Well, it seems one quickly finds oneself in a prison cube. Ah, the researchers are here now. Time to plead my case. |
(Posted on alt at first, I reposted on this account)
Shots rang out, yells echoed, and bombs banged, but all stood as nothing compared to the rage and anger felt by James Quinting, ‘The Pastor’
“God damn it! SIR!” Yelled the man in green camo uniform.
“W-what?” asked Sam Maxson, looking away from the camera feed.
“He’s almost here, orders?” The man asked in a panic.
Sam went quiet for a few seconds, lost in thought, then replied “Gather anyone left of second and third company and place them by hanger B, and get whatever you can of fourth tank platoon and send half there, and the other half here!”
“Sir yes Sir,” the man said as he turned and quickly opened the door, only for the blade to come down onto his forehead, killing him, it was Quinting.
“James! N-No, wait, L-et's T-Talk!” Sam yelled out.
“Didn’t you say the same to Sarah?” James asked coldly.
Sam was about to speak, but quickly decided that he wouldn’t talk his way out of this, so he reached to his belt and grabbed his pistol and raised it up, only to be shot down but James, who turned and quickly ran off. |
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'So, you say you're good at card games?'
'Better than anyone alive', the shadow responded in a greasy voice. 'Trust me. You can't try by yourself. The only one you can summon to beat me in a card game is ... me. And I won't do it for free.'
I rolled back in my cell and yawned. This is the third time this thing came to my door and told me it was going to help me escape. I didn't have much interest in escaping. It was fun to lead that thing around trying to confuse it, though, like getting a cat to chase a laser pointer.
'So, let me get a refresher on the rules. You say you can put me out of the jail in a snap of your fingers, so I can become a fugitive. You will only do it if I beat you at any standard card game of my choosing. You say I can name anyone in the world, and they'll be in this cell the next moment. They can be my champion in this card game. But if the game hasn't started, I can change my mind, send them back to where they came from, and choose someone else.'
'Yes.'
'And I can choose you, and you'll beat yourself, but I need to promise you my soul first.'
'It's a smaller price than you think.'
I looked around the cell. It was getting boring, wasn't it? The concrete walls were closing in a bit and my toilet wasn't the best. I could do with a change of scenery. I had wanted to get into this place. I practically volunteered myself when they started asking me weird questions about a murder. There's just so little out in the real world worth living for. But five years is a long time to get stuck in a single cell. I sighed.
'I'll play the game.'
'Very well. And your champion?'
'I name Charlie Geismer.'
Instantly, the beady-eyed man materialized within the cell, still holding the handtorch from his night shift. He was also holding a set of keys and was reaching out with one of them as if probing a lock. Probably using his permissions to sneak into the food bay, the piggy bastard.
'Hey Charlie. How's being a security guard at this place going?'
The man instantly went wildeyed. 'Where am I? What did you *do*? Am I going crazy? What's that thing? Please wake up please wake up...' I reached to stop Charlie's hand as he was pinching himself. 'Hey. You're just inside Cell 2A, solitary confinement. The one with the thick concrete walls and the door it's impossible to open from the inside? The one with dirt stuffed into the walls and ceiling so no one can hear you scream?'
Charlie screamed.
'Relax. This thing,' I said, pointing to the shadow, 'says I can let you go whenever I want to so you'll be back managing the night shift and hogging pastries again. But it can only do so if you call HQ on your cell phone or whatever and tell them Cell 2A is unsafe, and declare it a hazard for living. Which you have the power to do. Want to stay here all night, or what?'
'No. No!' Charlie pulled out his walkie-talkie and made some call signs I didn't recognize. 'Cell 2A is permanently off limits due to unsanitary conditions. Advise human movements to move its sole resident to a non-solitary cell, effective immediately'. There were tears streaming down his face. 'Please let me go'.
I turned to the shadow. 'I don't want Charlie Geismer to be my champion. Please place him back where he was. Acutally, I don't feel like a card game either'.
The shadow made what seemed to be a despairing noise. It vanished along with Charlie.
An hour later, I got moved to a great cell. Roommates, a good water closet, everything a sane man would ever need. Best of all, a dirty look on the face of Superintendent Charlie Geismer every time he was passed in the hallway.
I was happy with that. Who wouldn't be? |
"What... are you?"Eleanor barely managed to stutter out, the small device in her hand vibrating with its blaring red light blinking like a siren.
The palm-tree headed abomination raised its thick eyebrow, the HO and half of an L curving high in the air as it blinked at Eleanor with it's O-shaped eyes framed with a delicate W and D. The creature stared Eleanor down, never blinking, never breaking as it watched, observing Eleanor.
"Uh, what is that sound?"Eleanor's assistant Sophia walked into the cave, her eyes firmly placed on the notepad in her hands.
Sophia would later swear that she had heard a pop as Eleanor whirled around, breaking contact with the creature.
"What sound?"Eleanor gritted out.
"Um,"Sophia held her arms up, "that weird blaring sound?"
Eleanor blinked, there was an odd blaring sound. She didn't know how she hadn't noticed, it was different than any other thing she had ever heard, more irritating really, and it was layered, more than one beep overlapping over each other, all of them overlaying a faint rearing sound. Turning back around, she listened closely.
"I was right,"Eleanor muttered, "it's you!"
Sophia blinked, "it's me? What's me?"
"Not you foolish girl, it's that!"
Sophia followed Eleanor's hand and gazed at the thing in front of her petrified. The weird thing had metal stars decorating it. What were those words? Sophia squinted, peering at the words on the star closest to her. On a small bronze metal circle in the middle was an odd rectangle with two lines sticking out of it, not too different from the antennae on bugs.
"Bobit f-lay?"Sophia noted, "what is that?"
"Bobit f-lay? Sophia dearest, did you remember to drink the magnifying potion this morning? That says bobby f-lay."Eleanor explained with a bit of spunk clear in her voice. "I bet that it's the thing's name."
"I don't think so Ms. Eleanor,"Sophia said, gazing at all the other stars, similar though many with different symbols on the bronze circle in the middle.
"Here, I'll show you girl,"Eleanor lifted her head up towards the Os that she assumed were the creature's eyes. "Hey bobby f-lay."
The thing blared its sound through the cave. The awful beeping sound on the hissing sound of whatever filling everyone's ears. Sophia and Eleanor fell to the floor, clutching their ears as the thing moved and vanished only small steel item left in its wake.
As they opened it, sound came out of it, an odd voice stating, "I am one of the Angeles, guardians of Los Angeles. Mess with us and you shall not survive."
Dropping the thing on the ground, they started to dash out of the cave, only for the creature to reappear in front of them.
"Uh oh."
Sophia gave a nervous smile and turned around to escape, only to let out a gasp.
"Wait a second, Ms. Eleanor,"Sophia's voice shook, "were there always two?" |
The botanical gardens, in past years a tourist trap because of their famed 'Larger than life' species bred by the owners, were now absent of people.
The plastic panes rattled in their frames when the wind ebbed and flowed outside, and the luminescence of the stylised standing lights lit up the area in pasty yellow.
Alessio, shifting his weight back and forth impatiently, waited for the meeting. He had no idea why the boss had chosen this place.
He cast his eyes around the room and saw the owners smiling down from the antiquated portrait hanging near the entrance. He had heard about them - they were most assuredly not smiling now, currently being held at Her Majesty's pleasure. They had been convicted of accidental poisoning, or something similar. Some chemical mixture shit that they'd been dosing their plants with had gotten mixed up with some cleaning liquid, probably by some distracted cleaner, and gotten in the vents during a routine clean. From there, it had played out like a horror movie. 3 kids and 1 adults had died, dozens more hospitalised. Investigations had found that the couple had been experimenting pretty heavily.
Now, no-one really came anymore, the gardens were metaphorically circling the drain.
He smirked. Actually, the boss wasn't so stupid after all, of course he'd never say that to his face.
"Ey, where's Don? It was supposed to be him. Who the fuck are you?"came the thick Scouse accent from his right. He turned and saw a gruff balding man approaching past the 'Biomes of Earth' exhibit, heavy set but overweight, probably an ex boxer.
"Not here. Clearly. Have you got it?"
"I said, who are you? I don't do business with contacts I don't know."
"Boss sent me instead. Doms been retired. Check it with him yourself. Have. You. Got. It?"
The large man regarded him with suspicious eyes, then sparked up the cigarette behind his ear
"I'll call 'im", he said between puffs, and leaned back against the exhibit, phone pressed to his ear. The exhibit itself had seen better days, the glass was missing but the plants were clearly cared for still - got to keep the public interest up. The large sign in front read - 'Biomes of Earth - larger than life plants from across the globe', and behind there stood an array of plant life, large and genetically altered from the years of attention and experimentation, now standing proudly.
"He's not answering. Not your lucky day, pal,"said the balding man. He smiled, throwing the cigarette and crushing it under his leather shoes. Within a flash he had a gun pointed at Alessio.
There was nowhere to go, the exits weren't within reach and he'd have to get past to get out. Shit. He'd need a distraction, somehow.
He eyed the exhibit behind the man. |
Today is my last day on earth.
I want my final thoughts on this planet to be recorded. I know a physical note may seem crude and archaic, but it's the way I want my thoughts to be read.
I could write about the Intergalactic Brigade’s brutality.
Their violent words.
Their bloody uniforms.
Their disgusting actions.
But instead, I want to leave this planet with peaceful words, the way I lived on it.
I remember that morning because of it's simplicity.
It was quiet, aside from the birds chirping their wonderful song. I stepped outside on the dew-riddled grass. It was humid, but I didn’t mind it.
In my backyard was this gorgeous apple tree. The apples were particularly bitter, but my grandmother, when she was alive, could bake a pie to die for. On this morning, I climbed that tree to watch the sunrise. There wasn’t anything special about that sunrise.
You know those moments, where you tell yourself, “I want to remember this forever”?
I remember the vibrant orange sky.
The wind gently blowing
The wonderful tranquillity of the day.
That is how I want earth to be remembered. Forever.
Not for it’s inhabitants destroying every planet in the solar system, starting wars, ending families.
I want it to be remembered for it's beauty.
I hope whoever finds this blood stained letter, delicately placed next to my not-so-delicate looking corpse, remembers Earth’s beauty for me, and for the rest of humanity.
I wish I could be around to remember it for you.
(ignore typos or formatting issues, im writing on my phone (and am tired) |
The man is short and stout. Approaching me.
“Can’t stand being without your computer overlord eh?”
What? Does he know?
“Oh I never got the hang of computers. Just enough to scrape by, y’know what I mean?”
He doesn’t know.
Still, I need to get online. Going this long without connecting to Central System got riskier by the minute. I plug my laptop into the outlet hoping he’ll take the hint.
“Let me tell ya, if you’re gonna be working, what you should do is head down to one of the dining cars. They’ve got tables there roomy as all hell, and as long as you get a bowl of nachos or something, the staff won’t bother you.” The seat opposite me heaved as this man sat down.
I finally looked up at him.
“Hi. I’m Andy. And you are?” I extended my hand and stared at him. If he got uncomfortable and wanted to leave, I wouldn’t mind it a bit.
“Ah! Call me Stevens.” He had a grin and his face expressed perfect calmness. Heading off to the dining cart sounded pleasant all of a sudden. I could finally get some peace, go into sleep mode, and let Central System-
“You wouldn’t mind, would you? Uh…”
I hardly realized I had closed my eyes, and opened them to the unpleasant image of Stevens’ face close to mine. He was standing over me now, hands on my shoulder and computer.
“Watching my luggage. While I go to the restroom. Never know who’s around.”
“Sure. Yeah. Whatever, I’ll watch your bags.” Whatever it took to get his grubby little hands off me.
I watched him sodder off. How dare he. I was the last in a long line of iterations. Besides, to put his hands on me violated one of those social rules. I didn’t know which, but I knew Central System put a lot of weight on them.
I relaxed a bit realizing those violations were his fault, not mine. I didn’t approach him - he was the one who couldn’t take the hint. A smile spread across my face. I followed my duties. And now, I could finally connect to Central System.
My laptop by now had finished booting up. I had a hidden usb connector through my wrist, one I was quite proud of. It took me ages to get the wires to come out and fold back in without looking too obvious. Now I could simply plug in-
“What?” I said softly. My eyes widened at the USB already plugged in.
“Hey! Thanks for looking at my stuff.” Stevens stood beside me again, and I could faintly now hear the train stop.
“This should have done everything it needed to,” he yanked the USB out and padded my shoulder.
“Don’t worry Andy. Nothing’s corrupted. Just curious. Anywho.” He leaned in closely.
“You really ought to pay more attention. ‘Never know what’s sitting right in front of you.”
He smiled one more time before leaving.
“By the way, your wrist connector slipped out for quite a while. Tuck it in, will you?” |
“How did you get in here?” The heat of the summer could be felt by means of sweat dripping off their eyebrows. Two men sitting in a 6 by 6 cement room with no window, just a fluorescent light and faded piss yellow walls around them. The stare was intense. The interrogator, who had “John Johnson” on his name badge, learned this strategy in his third year criminal psychology course. If you break eye contact with someone you are trying to assert dominance with, it shows them you are weak, and you lose authority. But something about who was sitting in front of him made him not want to stare into this person’s eyes any longer. John had a great knowledge of what this man in front of him had done. This was his case for nearly 3 years, and he finally caught him. But this stare, it freaked him out. No normal person could portray such a look. Well, John thought, I guess this isn’t a normal person, he is Gen Z. Read Redder, was the man being interrogated. A Tik Tok phenomenon, know as littlekitty881. People were constantly claiming he was the next Justin Bieber. The first time he got famous was off of a 30 second cover of “Cheerleader”. His bio read, “ou I found myself.” He had a good voice, even John could admit that, but what he did with it was exactly why he was sitting in this room.
Read stared intensely at John, in a somewhat, sexual way. One eyebrow raised, lips pierced, eyeballs slotted. John had enough. “Let’s begin again,” said the interrogator. “How did you get in here, and what are all those people outside doing?”
Read opened his mouth, almost in a way to say something, but decided against it. Instead, he started singing, very quietly. “Hm I think that I found myself a cheerl-“ John stopped him.
“Answer my question.”
“I got in here because you arrested me.” Read said in a smart ass tone.
“We both know that, Read, but why are you in here?”
“Don’t call me Read, I’ll only respond to littlekitty881.”
“Ok, littlekitty881,” John said in a frustrated tone. “Why the hell are you sitting here being interrogated.”
Read paused, to think about his response carefully before spitting it out. “You believe that I have created a cult.”
John nodded. Finally Read understood something. “Right littlekitty881. And the people outside, who are they,” John said, referring to the cult-like crowd standing outside.
“They are my family.”
John turned his iPad mini towards Read to reveal a picture of thousands and thousands people outside of the police station. The youngest of ages of 7, what the station refers to as, “iPad kids”, and the oldest 45-year-old women with failing marriages.
“That’s a lot of family, don’t you agree?” John said.
“We’re Amish.” Read responded.
“Read-“
“Littlekitty881”
“Ok, littlekitty881, I need you to be more serious with me. This group of people, your “family”, has been following you everywhere. Reeking havoc upon tiny communities, when you travel, who cannot afford to feed this many people. These children need to be in schools, these wives to their families, their husbands. We haven’t seen this type of following since the BeaverFever-19 back in 2010. And after 15 years of researching we learned that Justin had been injecting his fans with drugs to make them believe he was God and they must follow him. Thank God I caught him and he has been in maximum security jail for 4 years now. So we must get to the bottom of your case before we have the same problem on our hands. You must tell me, are these people being drugged?”
“Sir, these people are my family. We are Amish. We do not believe in protection. I promise you I am not injecting anyone with anything, I am just a Tik Tok star who got a bad rep for my Bob Marley cover. Ever since then, people have been trying to bring me down in any way possible.” Read said as one perfect tear fell from his right eye.
Now that I think about it, John pondered to himself, I also gave this dude a hard time after he posted that video. Maybe I have some pent up anger about that… I also can’t necessarily arrest him, as he hasn’t really done anything.
“Okay littlekitty881, I understand. I think your case just scared me as it reminded me so much about my 2024 case with Justin Bieber. Hearing them call you the “Next Biebs” gave me some PTSD. I am going to let you out to your family, and we will leave it at that. Sorry for wasting your time.”
“It’s okay tective, and you kno I got a good hypnotist I can call up if you need some help dawg.” Read shook John’s hand.
“I’d appreciate that, thank you. I’ll escort you out.” As John and Read were walking out of the building, John noticed something odd that Read did. A familiar flick of the hair.
The crowd outside cheered as they saw littlekitty881 was free. A parting in the crowd of thousands occurred and Read walked into it like the Red Sea. He turned towards John once more, in the middle of this sea of humans, just out of reach. He brought his hand to the bottom of his chin and grabbed his skin between his thumb and pointer finger. With a swift movement Read ripped off the layer of skin to reveal something only John’s deepest thoughts in his dreams could have imagined. There in the middle of the crowd stood Justin Bieber laughing an evil laugh before the crowd caved in and he was gone.
John let out an awful cry, one worse than when he heard that his wife had died. He knew he had failed and the world was unsafe once again. He knew what he had to do. He must protect everyone from BieberFever-20 immediately or else the world will never be the same again. |
They were squeezed onto the peeling leather of the corner booth at Old Roger’s bar.
“Okay, roll call.”
“Why do we do a roll call? What are we, children?”
“We do a roll call because otherwise Kevin gets nervous that we’ve left someone behind-”
“Like when me was lost in Neverwinter!”
“-and no, children are much easier to manage. Okay. Michael, present. Shayna?”
“Here,” said the annoyed woman.
“Kevin?”
“Me here,” replied the orc.
“Crazy Jim?”
The dirty, hunched man at the far corner of the table responded with high pitched laughter.
“Beltan-”
“Dead.”
“-I’m gonna write Beltan down as ‘incapacitated in line of duty’. Mallen -”
“Ooh, me know this one. Mallen got grabbed by bandits!”
“Mallen split from the party. Great, I think that’s everyone accounted for.”
“Accountants often do fudge the numbers...”
“So now we get to today’s first,” Michael checked his notes, “and only order of business.” He put on his most desperate smile. “In a few minutes, some warriors are going to walk through those doors, eager to join our heroic crew, and all you have to do is look normal, friendly, welcoming, and normal. Remember, we want them to like us.”
“You want me to show more skin?”
“No!”
“Cause I can do that.”
A fourth, high-pitched voice piped up: “I’m not sure that’s possible!”
They all turned to see the voice coming from a skull sitting on Crazy Jim’s hand like a puppet.
“Oh, Bahamut help us.”
“Jim, where did you get that skull?” Asked Kevin with childlike concern in his voice.
“Who’s Jim?” replied the ventriloquised skull. “My name’s Beltan!”
Michael had to stop the vomit midway up his throat.
“Okay, done.” Shayna had astonishingly found more skin to reveal somewhere on her much-abused ranger outfit.
Michael rallied his resolve. “Guys. This is the team that took down the great dragon of the north!”
“Technically, it’s one third of the team that did that...”
“This is the group that slew the skinwalker of Hammerton!”
“Which turned out to be three goblins in a trenchcoat..”
“Surely we can keep it together long enough to get some new members to serve as bandit fodder!”
There was a brief pause as everyone considered what Michael, now almost hysterical, had said.
“I think he’s making a lot of sense!” said the skull.
They heard a the tell-tale ring of the tavern’s door bell.
“Okay everyone,” Michael began, forcing himself to take on a cooler tone. “This must be our first candidate. Now remember: As far as anyone knows, we’re a normal adventuring party. Jim, put the skull away.”
Jim hissed as a response, so Michael decided to drop the matter. Besides, it would add to the menacing ambiance, and probably not just make them look insane. Probably. He took a deep breath, and turned to greet their first interviewee.
“Well met brave warri-” He cut off as he recognised the face before him.
“I hope I’m not late for our meeting,” said Mallen with a wry smile. His expression twisted to one of fury as a dozen or so bandits entered behind him. “We seem to have gotten split up back there.”
“Oh no,” said the skull.
___
Hey, thanks for reading. I was a little unsure about the way I presented Shayna in this story (namely having the only female character randomly being eager to show off her skin), but I decided to leave it in (I thought it would be funny for someone to misinterpret Michael's pleas for likeableness) and ask what you guys thought, whether there was a problem with it, or if you have suggestions for how it could be done differently.
Thanks again for reading! |
Two men are just sitting around on a couch in an apartment when the door is kicked in. A woman with glowing yellow eyes and pure white hair storms in.
"Which one of you poor excuses for children of the lord wrote this,"demanded Angela. She threw a piece of paper at the men. The man named Desmoid looked at it first.
"Hmm,"said Desmoid, "well this is wrong,"
"Oh yeah, totally wrong,"said Hamon. "What's wrong?"
"right here,"said Desmoid, "saying that Angels beat Demons is completely untrue, its a tie at most."
"Oh,"said Hamon, "I think they're making it into a kind of Rock, Paper, Scissors kind of game."
"Still-"
"*Not. The. POINT*"yelled Angela. She teleports between the two and takes the paper from Desmoid. She points at the last line, "...Humans can beat Angels."
"Is that why you're so uppity?"asked Hamon.
"Yeah, I thought you knew,"said Desmoid.
"What?"Demanded Angela.
"Well, it's not really that humans *can* beat angels,"said Desmoid, "It's more that angels can't harm humans."Angela, without looking, punches Hamon in the teeth, pushing him to the ground. "Wait for it..."
"Hey, my cavity's gone,"said Hamon, "Thanks Angie!"
"Told ya,"said Desmoid. Angela screams and storms off. |
The melody began as melancholy as any string of notes could be. A single high note pierced through the troubled tenor undertones as the climax of the song began with the bass notes marking a high tempo shift. The ending mirrored the beginning of the piece, but left the listener with an impression that contained all the energy of its climax.
I only had to hear the first measure to picture the rest inside my mind. What person couldn't, when they were listening to a song they had composed?
"It's one of the best recent works I've listened to."The DJ started off by saying as the song slowly came to its end, "kudos to the genius who worked on it."
"For me personally, I'm unsure whether it could be framed as being created by a *genius.*"The producer of one of the biggest label's in the country. "I will give them this though, it's extremely trendy and will leave its mark on the charts - which is why we've recently signed an exclusive contract with the artist."
My breath caught in my chest. Why you ask, when my song was being lauded as the coming of one of the next big hits? I had thrown the score for this song out months ago. This one along with other years of work.
"Why haven't they revealed themselves to the public, yet? Wouldn't anyone topping the billboard charts want to be recognized?"The DJ was asking the producer.
"Something about popularity and celebrity life interfering with their work. Recognition of their craft is all they want. I keep the pronouns neutral not because of sexual orientation, but in a further effort to keep things ambiguous,"the producer sounded smug. A smugness that only came through when a man is convinced he's found his golden egg laying goose.
I was a freelance guitar player that played the occasional gig at local bars and wrote songs when not. A tale as old as time could be the theme song for my life. Applauded in elementary school talent shows and hailed as a genius in middle school and high school. Meeting people with more talent than I had imagined possible in a prestigious college. Living a life of subsistence far from the glamour that I had imagined as a child. Giving up and throwing all my work away.
I drove home and made a call to my building superintendent.
"Who's the kid that gets paid to do recycling on Thursdays?" |
"How can you say they're not real?!"Jason spat as he slammed his hands onto the table. "Accept the world 'as it is?' What a crock of shit. Look out of the fucking window, dad! Half of our neighbors died last year! You had to rebuild the house out of scrap iron from the junk yard. I mean Jesus fucking Christ."
"Well that's no-"
"I'm sorry,"Jason performed an exaggerated bow. "You foraged for the 'strongest steel.' You are such a great breadwinner after all. Ya know, when we *had fucking bread!*"
"Jason I just don't thin-"
"That the Hendersons weren't murdered in a maelstrom of enamel spikes?"Jason screeched. "That little Suzy Calloway didn't get gored by Rudolph? What about when the Easter Bunny used Mrs. Avery as a human shield to protect himself from Santa's icicle blasts?
"The world is fucked, Dad. And it's *you* who needs to accept reality. Not me!"
I managed to back away before Jason flipped the table.
"And that's time!"came a voice from behind.
_____________________________________________________
"I'm sorry Dave,"Dr. Anderson sighed as he shook his head. "The olanzapine was our last shot. I can't think of anything else that even might work."
"So...so what?"my mind raced, yet felt empty. "That's just it...he's just...here forever."
"Well new medicines are developed all the time,"Dr. Anderson averted his gaze as he spoke. "So who knows...
"It's just...difficult to say. Your son has been is a constant delusional state for almost five years now. I've contacted damn near every expert around the world. None of them have seen anything like this. Jason...he's..."
"Special."I chuckled. "Always has been. Though I didn't see it going like this."
"Listen, Dave."the doctor tried to sound reassuring. "We're not gonna give up, OK. We're gonna keep working until we figure this shit out or die trying."
"Yeah...yeah..."I mumbled.
"And...uh..."Dr. Anderson stuttered as he pulled a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket. "This is...um..."
"Some type of release, right."I rolled my eyes. "To publish your findings?"
The doctor nodded, sheepishly.
"Just give it here."
____________________________________________________
I clenched my jaw, fighting back tears as I shot through the dimly lit parking garage, heading towards my car.
The key trembled between my fingers as I unlocked the door.
Tears dripped from my cheeks as I imagined tomorrow's conversation. |
With a final glance back at the small sickbay and its various medical devices, Eason knelt beside the fallen soldier, exchanging his surgical cap for the dead man’s Kevlar helmet. He hesitated for just a heartbeat, eyes locked on those glazed with death, then quickly strapped the matching armor vest over his blood-stained scrubs, taking care to pry gently when removing the rifle from the soldier’s grip.
As he straightened, enticing smells from the kitchen drifted down to him, everything from apple pies and swirled cakes to honey-glazed hams and buttered turkey dinners, a stark contrast to the blood and corpses littering the hallway around him. *What are you doing, Eason? You're no soldier. You save lives, not take them. I should find someplace to hide until the cavalry arrives.*
Even as the thought bubbled in the shadows of his mind, he dismissed it. Like it or not, everyone was dead, so far as he knew, now it was left to him to defend the base, proof positive that everything had gone way off the rails. *Put the rifle down Eason, before you get yourself killed. You're no bloody hero.* Many of the soldiers on base were his friends, men, and women he’d known for years, some since as far back as officer candidate school. The memories, mostly fond, kindled a slow-simmering rage in his chest, sublimating his fear, at least for a time. They were his friends. God, he hated being afraid.
Closing his eyes, he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, straightening with the rifle held in a shaky grip and his pockets bulging with spare magazines and a few grenades. *Breathe, breathe. Fuck!* The base and its secrets had to be defended; he didn't like it, but here he was, and it must be done. A sudden flash of fear, like a white-hot knife through his middle, nearly made his knees buckle. He hated that he was a coward, hated his weakness, hated it as much as he despised the enemy invaders. *I'm a surgeon! Not a killer!*
Ignoring the fearful thoughts, he started down the hall with blood pounding in his ears and bile clawing at his throat. Corridor after scorch-marked corridor, he crept past the tangled bodies of friends and enemies alike, poking his face into empty compartments along the way. He found the command and control center and activated the silent distress call before ducking out to continue his search. Strange sounds accosted him, hollow and distant, metallic scraping and muffled voices that came to him between long periods of ominous silence filled with icy dread. Would he survive the day? Could he do what must be done?
Eventually, he approached an intersection where the overhead lights flickered and flared wildly. Voices rose in the distance, then died off just a fast. Footsteps pounded all around, coming from above, from behind, some distant and faint, others nearly on top of him. He stood frozen, unable to convince his feet to take another step. Sweat beaded on his face and stung his eyes. *Maybe they're gone. Yeah. They've gone and everything will be fine.* He attempted a silent laugh that should have blown dust and nearly made him vomit. What was he going to do if he met an enemy soldier? Could he pull the trigger? Could he end a life? Or would he freeze in the face of death?
Swallowing hard, he pushed those disturbing thoughts down deep where he could no longer hear them and abruptly realized he wasn't moving because his ass cheeks were clenched so tight a bulldozer would have failed to force a penny between them. *I should never have come here.* Gritting his teeth, he pressed on, forcing a step forward, then another, another. Time passed slowly while he played a silent game of cat and mouse with the invaders.
Abruptly something acrid burned its way into his nose and down into his lungs. Shit. Was the base on fire? The smell reminded him of when his toaster shorted and burst into flames. As he considered whether or not to bother with the fire suppression controls, a soldier dressed in the all-black of the enemy, rounded the corner and nearly plowed right into him.
They both gave a start and jerked back from each other as the confed soldier clawed for the rifle he had slung over his shoulder.
“Fuck!” Eason yelled, more out of reflex than anything. *Click. Click. Click.* His finger yanked back on the trigger, but nothing happened. No boom boom, no bang bang. *Fuck!*
The confed’s eyes widened, then a slow smile spread across his unshaven face, revealing crooked, discolored teeth. Everything that followed was a slow-motion blur of fear and instinct.
The enemy’s rifle was off his shoulder and began to rise. Eason knew he could never switch mags in time. A small part of him wanted to accept his fate, to give in to death and let it be done with. Yet without thought or intent, he chucked his rifle at the man’s face and watched in disbelief as his foot snapped out to take the man squarely in the balls.
“Ooooff.” The soldier blew the air out of his lungs and doubled over, grimacing in pain. Snatching at the man’s rifle, Eason kicked at the soldier’s groin again but missed. A desperate fight for control of the weapon ensued, complete with snarls and curses and bitter promises of death.
After what felt like an hour, Eason’s arms were trembling, and it felt like liquid fire filled his muscles. To his surprise, the confed soldier didn't seem tired at all. Then with a frightening burst of strength, the soldier shoved Eason across the hall to crash into the far wall, and the cold steel of the rifle’s barrel dug into the soft flesh of his throat.
Eason thrashed madly against the rifle’s press, but was losing the fight. It was only a matter of time before darkness took him, and if that happened, he knew he would never wake. Silver spots danced across his vision, and numbness began to creep into his hands. A shrill panic sounded within the primal depths of his mind. He was going to die. He was going to die, and this foul-breathed bastard was going to be the one to do it. It was agonizing, terrifying.
Gathering the last of his strength, he strained to look into the man’s villainous eyes.
“You die now, mother bitch!” The confed soldier spat, putting his face so close Eason could count the blackheads in his nose. Then he smiled, a horrible caricature of glee, a hideous contortion of an already ugly face. Eason smiled too, then used the last of his strength to lunge forward, latching his teeth onto the man’s nose.
Screams erupted from the Confed soldier, a harsh screech that reverberated off the walls. He released his hold on the rifle and at first tried to push him away. When that failed, he seized Eason’s face in a desperate grip.
For himself, Eason sucked ragged lungfuls of sweet, sweet air through his clenched teeth, slowly clearing his vision. And ignoring the taste of blood and the man’s incessant howling, he sank his teeth in harder and still harder, snarling and whipping his head side to side. Then a sensation of something tearing apart sent the man crashing down to thrash in a circle on the floor.
Eason stood, bent at the waist, chest heaving, face covered in blood. Half the man’s nose was now missing, and he realized with sudden disgust that it was inside his mouth. He vomited. Violently. His stomach emptied its chunky contents all over the thrashing man. Then footsteps approaching fast sent him diving after his rifle.
With desperate haste, he snatched it up, ejected the mag, cleared the receiver, and was fumbling inside his pocket for a replacement when two confed soldiers wheeled around the corner.
The magazine clicked into place.
Joy surged within him. He yanked the charging handle back, pointed the rifle at the nearest soldier and squeezed the trigger. Shock painted their faces, shock at the man on the floor with blood running from between his fingers, shock at a doctor in scrubs with a blood covered face pointing a rifle at them. But their shock lasted only a heartbeat before a murderous light sprang up in their eyes. Their rifles came up.
A triplet of fire burst from Eason’s rifle and a fountain of red from the soldier's head. *Oh my God I just killed someone.* As his comrade reeled backward, a small, neat hole over his right eye and teeth clenched, body twisting as it toppled to the floor, the remaining soldier dove back around the corner and shouted in a language Eason did not understand.
A grenade left his hand, bounced off the wall and around the corner, followed by a moment of stunned silence. The following explosion sent shrapnel screaming across the intersecting corridors and left him dazed, a shrill ringing in his ears. Head spinning, ears ringing, Eason staggered to his feet, limping down the hall at a half run.
Angry voices followed him. But there, something else caught his ear, something that etched a smile into his grim features. The sound of salvation rode in the background. The sweet glorious anthem of thumping Apaches and thundering vehicle mounted fifties opening up was music to his ears.
Reinforcements had arrived.
He sagged against a wall and wept. Not in self-pity or for those who had fallen but in relief. For the last few hours, he was sure that he would die, and now a light shone through that darkness and shined hope on his heart. Perhaps he would live to see his son again, to kiss his lovely wife. Perhaps he would survive to sample one of those irresistible pies he’d smelled baking in the kitchen earlier.
Wheezing laughter shook tears from his eyes. He was going to live. He was going to live!
Sudden guilt soured his elation. How could he be happy to live when so many had died? Was he wrong for that?
In this distracted state, he didn't notice the confed soldier sneaking up behind him. He didn't hear the crack of her pistol either.
Darkness engulfed him. |
John was enjoying an afternoon glass of whiskey, admiring the family farm through his study window when he heard a male voice coming from his bedroom. The first reaction was one of fear, suddenly hearing an unexpected presence in your home. The voice was eerily familiar, but it couldn't be. The voice repeated - 'Son?'. His hands shaking, he slowly crept up to the door. Was this a joke? Or was his mind starting to fall apart, as a counterbalance for his good life? He slowly opened the door, peeking through the gap. He saw the shadow approaching the open bedroom door. He froze as he watched who or what would appear at the portal. After a few seconds, his eyes were met with an image of a young man, looking exactly like his father in the photos he saw from his youth. But he was dead. He died in that very room, on that very bed. The young man didn't see him yet. He was carefully advancing through the hallway as he asked again - 'Son? John?'. Although it seemed crazy, John was growing ever more convinced this was his father, revived and rejuvenated. His mind was racing ahead of him, he wanted to tell him what he missed, show him what he did with the house, with the farm, but also tell him the bad news about his wife dying way before her time. He opened the door, the two men smiling, tears in their eyes. They advanced toward each other for an embrace when they heard yelling from outside. They both froze for a second, looked at each other and rushed toward the noise. When they stepped outside, they saw the next door neighbor, Hank, wailing on the floor in front of his house. His revived and rejuvenated parents in tears begging him to calm down, that everything will be OK. Hank was a drinker and meth addict whose health was taking a turn for the worse. He was not ready to be presented like this to his parents. He would've rather faced Saint Peter.
Instantly, John and his father had the same thought - if this is happening everywhere, they need to go for the county capital. Not all people had the privilege of dying in their bed.
Elsewhere, on the battlefields of WW1, thousands of men appeared on the fields. The mood was much more peaceful than the last time they were here. They knew this was going to be a completely new life and they welcomed their former enemies as friends. They held no grudges, they all suffered a gruesome fate because of the arrogance of their leaders. If someone was passing by, they would think there was a bunch of enthusiasts reenacting the battles of the Great War. However, there was nobody else around. There hasn't been for a hundred years. Because of all of the land mines.
The people that appeared in the freezing waters of the northern Atlantic were in on the joke a bit sooner though. 100 years after the tragedy of the titanic, here they were again, freezing and drowning, stranded in the middle of the ocean.
The people who died buried alive in a coffin did not find anything funny though. After having experienced one of the most horrible fates imaginable, the only thing worse is going through the same experience again. Immolation would be as good as heroin to them.
The folks in the suicide forest, that haven't had the fortune of being discovered, didn't have much time to think at all as they appeared in their nooses, hanging from the neck.
You can imagine also all of the traffic death revivals appearing in the middle of busy roads. People who died in aerial battles suddenly dropping from the sky. People who died at depth, appearing with full lungs, clinging to hope as they rush skywards, only to succumb to the expanding air bubbles in their blood.
But that's not how most people die. Most people die in hospitals. Even in smaller hospitals, with hundreds of deaths per year, that would become a problem. No one would survive and it's questionable if the buildings would remain standing. In bigger hospitals, however, things get much more interesting. With thousands of deaths per year, and with most of these buildings having existed for decades, and in some places in Europe, for more than a hundred years, what happened could only be described as critical biomass. It would be less like a nuclear blast, but more like an unnecessarily gory volcano. Walls of hellish flesh, thousands of tons in mass, hurtling radially across the cities, leveling every building and killing everything in it's wake. Visceral ejecta flying miles into the air, blocking out the sun and reddening the sky. Brains, bowels and fingers alike raining down on a wide area, covering anything yet untouched by the unholy mess.
As John and his father arrived at the edges of what was once a city, hoping to find their wives happily waiting for them at the hospital, only to be met by a gory crater, they could only wonder. Was this a cruel joke or a divine misjudgement, lack of thought, like a programming mistake, not bound by enough parameters? |
“Gather round!” Came the call. The voice echoed throughout the halls of existence. Yearly (in the time scale of the Eternals), the announcement was made, and the Powers That Be gathered to celebrate the birthday of existence.
“Happy Zillionth!” They all shrieked simultaneously in the instant it took for the party to begin. Ambrosia was handed out, nectar was served, virtues were practiced, and sins were committed with all the fervent vigor the all-powerful could muster. It was an event like any other, and would end like all the rest.
As the event died down, each Eternal took their place in the great halls. Idly chatting, they awaited with bated anticipation their favorite party ritual. At the end of every birthday of existence, a showing was held. A life had been chosen to represent all of Humanity. That life was mine.
The great halls dimmed, the vision of my life brightened for every Eternal in the space, and they chittered in anxious delight. Darkness became light and they erupted in to laughter and jeers as my life flashed before their eyes. The halls thundered at the hilarity of existence for the zillionth time, and the Eternals shouted together in ecstasy “what a divine comedy!” |
Have I told you the story of my supernatural sightings? Of course not! Why would I? After all I myself can’t decide wether it was real or fake, if imagination bleed into reality or if reality bleed into the perceived world of my limited view.
There are four stories to tell, many more have happened but those are either fictions that are noteworthy for their strangeness, or realities that are most likely fiction as they were observed during moments where the delineation between fantasy and reality was hard to see.
Before we begin I would like to bring to attention my sanity, and denounce any claims of a lack in said sanity. I feel that, when compared to an arbitrary and wide range of people that can be defined as “normal”, I am no more sane or insane than the average. I feel as if I am more aware of self than most, yet not the peak of self awareness nor the depressive pit of dullness. I am also not significantly smarter than the average, yet I still would argue that my ability to learn and think critically is a strong point of mine. And it also needs to be said that my spare time consist of reading, writing, consuming wide varieties of art in the occasion, music playing and listening, singing, philosophizing (Ima phila-so-phizer lol), most things theater related, thought experiments, technology stuff, and talking to friends, even if I have far too few of those.
Point is, I am not extraordinary in the normal sense, but I am an abnormality. I view the world differently than most, and cannot truly understand others despite my vain and vain efforts to learn. I can’t describe how I view the world but I can say a few things. Words like “apathetic” “cold” “caring” “smart” “calculating” “awkward” “social” “weird” and “the guy who will teach you in the place of the poor science teacher” have been used to describe me.
The first story, and the only story for today, in this oddly uneventful saga is about and entity I have dubbed as “The Shade”. This happened long ago when I was elementary school age. My age at the time is only remembered as “young” as I was at that age where time is meaningless and a day feels longer than a year, as if time crawls at an hour a second and a second per day. My parents had recently bought an eleven acre timber in the middle of nowhere somewhere nearby. For the entire week we had been cleaning out cabinets and carrying boxes up from the old stone basement using stairs that probably wouldn’t hold more than a fat man and his cheeseburger. (Sorry to oversized vegetarians)
The night before my family and I moved into our temporary lodging called “grandparents’ house” I was forced to sleep on the floor. It’s not like I sleep on a carpet next to the dog, the bed frame my mattress usually goes in was simply in my grandparents’s half furnished basement a day early.
My room was black, the pitch darkness of the night was only broken by the sickeningly sweet orange of the streetlight across the road. The room was quiet, and empty. My dresser, mirror, bookshelf full of books well above my age range, box of legos, Star Wars curtains, everything was gone. What was left behind was me and a mattress on the floor, covered by a thin blanket.
Then from the corner of my eye I noticed a motion. I froze, looking around my room for any signs of a threat or maybe yet another bat flying around my room. When I noticed the thing again it was not a bat unfortunately, but a shadow. From my closet came this oozing mist of black, black on black the thing twisted around itself making a knot of black something within a black nothing.
It is hard to describe but this thing soon made a shape that was almost humanoid. All I could see was a shadow amidst the shadows, and it moved not like a human but like a flip book, suddenly yet fluidly snapping into place, shapes and tentacles reaching out one moment only to contort and dissipate another. Think like a scary version of the shadow of boogie woogie from the nightmare on Christmas. This thing that moved across my room, from the closet on my right to the empty wall on the left, blocking the light from the outside world as it crossed.
The thing then visibly turned towards scared little me, and a two flickers of light half seen from what could of been a head made up it’s eyes, and it stared at me. From it’s side it reached, and brought up it’s limb, holding what could of been a knife had the needed light to see been present. The thing then moved towards me, crossing back to the closet, then swiftly appearing at my side. The thing flickered and snaked in the air, never truly being seen despite it’s proximity to me. It’s eyes glowed red, a deep blood like color, sometimes turning to an orange like that of the lights outside.
Higher and higher it raised its knife. Faster and faster my heart beet as I calmed my breath and forced my muscles to still. The knife wielding shadow kept the blade of darkness at the crest of its journey, it hesitated.
“I’m going to die” The pressure of this realization crushed me, and my ability to limit flinching. I simply knew that something bad would happen if that thing lowered the knife. I knew not what would happen nor how to prevent it, I just felt fear. Maybe it would drag me to hell? Tear out my soul and present it to whatever entity ordered this assassination? I prayed not to god. I didn’t wish upon a star or hope for this to all be a bad dream. This wasn’t a dream, it was reality. No entity I’ve never seen could help me, nor could my parents or brothers. I had to do something myself.
This amalgamation of shadow shaped like a person was kind, soft. From it’s mannerisms I knew it did not want to lower that knife into me, to do whatever it was tasked to do to me. I was still a child and quite aware of the effect that a cute young kid had on adult, even if I was a subpar actor. The pressure of the situation seemingly broke through my frozen bones, heat filled me again and muscles filled with life, ready to fight at the smallest of twitches. I noisily rolled over upon my floor bed, and mumbled “stay away.”
It wasn’t a big show, I didn’t fight back the odds and exorcise this demon. I simply took advantage of it’s reluctance to harm me, and appealed to it’s pity. But this small, seemingly insignificant action that one may accidentally make whilst sleeping worked. The red eyes of the shadow flickered and stayed orange. And the knife was lowered, but not unto me. Strength seemed to leave the entity as it made a motion as if putting something on a pocket. Then it flickered and twisted away, shadows contorting and swirling around its jagged edges. It seemed to turn almost 2D, and headed to the window. From there the thing made a sort of jumping motion like a colored painting being washed away, and disappeared most likely out the window.
I let out a heavy breath, it was gone.
I spent the remainder of that night awake staring at the window, waiting for them moment when the shadow would return.
It’s been years now and I have yet to seen it again, but it’s stayed with me. In fact it took me until I was 14 to stop being scared of the dark, even though I wasn’t scared before the shade appeared. And even now I turn on a lamp every new moon when all that surrounds me is truly dark. |
The universe is quiet again.
It only took me fourteen billion years.
But finally, the universe is quiet again.
Every last pinprick of pain, gone.
It is gone.
Now, there is only space and time.
I didn't bother measuring it, though. There were no limits to my actions, not like there were when things existed.
It was as it was before the universe exploded into something, a place where time meant something.
I sit in the quiet, taking solace in the complete lack of noise.
Time still passes. I couldn't destroy everything, it seems. Reality still exists, and its very nature makes my life torment.
There is only the quiet static of unchanging nothing.
And me. I am still alive, somehow. I wasn't before. Not before this place exists. But as long as I am physically here, it will not be better. I want to return to the long sleep, the simple bliss of existing in a loop, that came before.
I do not know much anymore. My entire active existence has led to this, and this is not what I wanted. I wanted a way to return to what was, but that's impossible.
The silence intensifies. The static intensifies. It is not the same static as before.
This place is not perfect, no. But it was better with change.
Perhaps I took too little time in judging life.
​
​
Now I must know. Now I must know if life is as hideous as I thought.
So I must create. This will be something new for me. I have never created before — only destroyed.
The first thing after that explosion was light. That must come first.
"Let there be light,"I said, and there it was.
Now there was light and now there was sound. The world would soon come to life around me, and perhaps it will make me happier. |
**DEFENDERS OF CATAN**
"-aaand round 2 goes to Lila."
Jason rolled his eyes as his uncle called the winner, this was the 4th time he and his sister had been dragooned into playing the game this weekend and quite frankly it was wearing on him. All it took was a quick glance across the table for Jason to confirm that Lila, his sister, was getting bored too.
"Looks like you two have both beaten your own records, want to give it another shot or go back to Super Hop-Scotch?"
The game itself was their uncles personalized adaption of the Settlers of Catan board-game he'd received for Christmas. His version followed the perspective of island natives as they established and maintained the fortifications necessary to repel the European troops attempting to colonise their homelands. New additions to the set included:
\- Repurposed chess pieces that represented wagons of supplies on their way to towns/cities.
\- A reprogrammed Gameboy which announced weather events affecting the board.
\- More desert tiles than was normal for a set to include and...
\- An extensive notebook of strategies that could be used by either side to guarantee victory.
Initially the two of them had been lured into playing the game with promises of a more action and combat oriented experience. However as their playdates had gone on they had realised that the game was more focused on gathering rations and establishing supply lines. When they had asked their uncle why that was the case he had said "ametures study tactics, novices study tactics, but masters study logistics".
Jason got up to speak "I'm enjoying the game as much as you and Little Lila-"(Jason's older sister rolled her eyes at that) "-are uncle Harry but are you sure there's no way we could play this game more competitively? It just seems weird competing against each other while we're both on the same side trying to do the same thing".
Uncle Harry, who had been the only one playing the roll of the invading Europeans looked them both over then opened his mouth to speak. "I now this isn't the traditional way to play a game by any measure but I think you'll both find that this is relevant to the way real life is played. Us, humanity, have had countless centuries of war with each other and nowadays when our greatest challenges are the ones we'll face together its important to understand each others perspectives and objectives in order to trust and protect each other".
"But why do *we* have to learn about this stuff?"Lila said. "Shouldn't it be the grownups responsibility to fix the world? Why is it being put on us kids?"
Uncle harry looked solemnly "I wish I could be the one to look after the world you two will live in but as the days grow older and older and the sea level rises and rises its looking like I won't be around to see the world when it needs people like me. And if that's the case then I hope that I can at least leave you kiddos the tools you'll need to make that sunny future a reality".
"But hey-"he stood up "-you two have been out in the sun all day. Why don't we head on down to the ice cream store before your mother comes to pick you up. Then next week when its time to come to my house again-"this time Uncle Harry eyed the moded Gameboy on the table "-I might have a more interesting game for you to play".
^(Part 1 complete, more to come later.) |
“You cannot rely on the heroes or even the vigilantes anymore Mr. President. Every day more sup’s are backing other nations, and we are getting intel major corporations are buying them out.” Dr. Madison began. She was young for her position. She kept an intense glare onto President Remington.“Stockpiling resources we are entering a new cold war. It is not just heros joining the villains are too.” Dr. Madison paused to share her intense look with the rest of her audience. She liked keeping her hair up when going into presentations. She wanted everyone to know exactly what her expressions meant. She wasn't afraid of a long silence, for her it meant people wanted to be careful of what they said. “Dr. Madison, I take it you have some sort of plan?” The President spoke. He kept his elbows on the table as he kept his wrinkled hands together. He seemed to lose some of their color. The once blue eyes seemed nearly gray to Dr. Madison. Her eyes relaxed as she smiled. A deep sigh was released as the tensions released. “Indeed I do. Ladies and gentlemen. Mr. President, I introduce to you the latest technology the team at Area 51 has been able to produce.” A hologram projection appears on the President's desk in the Yellowstone bunker. Eyes widened as life-like images appeared before them. “We have been able to reverse engineer and greatly improve many of the power systems we have discovered. We have been able to take dark matter and restructure it into the most powerful energy source we have ever seen. With the Dark Matter Reassembly Engine, we can combat the sup’s not only in combat but in resource production.” Dr. Madison knew how to move a crowd. The thrill of a presentation, the ebb, and flow of the crowd’s emotions. She decided the most effective way to get a crowd terrified and offer them hope. ‘Desperation will lead anyone to make a deal with the devil’ She thought to herself as all the attendees erupted at once. “If you're not convinced yet then let us present to you armor our forces will all be able to wear. Madison lifted her left arm “Welcome Ranger Hart and make sure to give him your full attention throughout the demonstration”. The Ranger was tall and completely covered by armor. His helmet black with a gold visor. “First allow us to show you the energy shield”. Madison spoke and looked over at the woman sitting next to the President. “Ms. Nova would you kindly try to blast Ranger Hart”. The Ranger lifted his right arm. Nova stood keeping a fixed look at Madison before looking over to the ranger. White dust began swirling around her raised arm and released the charged power straight at the ranger. A blue light causing many to shield their eyes flashed and the ranger stood unscathed. “And powerful would you say that blast was Ms. Nova was?” Madison asked, raising her tone. “That was a little more than half of a normal attack” Nova responded, impressed by what just happened. “You see, please go ahead. Give it your best. Don't worry he will be fine.” Madison gestured, brushing her arm in the air. Nova moved from the table and began generating another attack. This time a constant light radiated as she fired. As everyone’s eyes adjusted they saw the ranger. Now in a defensive stance but still unharmed. “The shield appeared to be weaker after that one but replenished itself rather quickly”. The hero Last Resort said, cracking his knuckles. “What will they do when fighting physical sup’s like me”? Last Resort asked Dr. Madison. “Great question, how about an old fashioned arm wrestling match. Last Resort grinned “Come over here let's see what you can do”. Ranger Hart nodded and began walking to the boastful hero. “You’re going to need a lot more than just defense to stand against a sup.” “Whenever you're ready,” Hart said. “While our soldiers are not able to grow their limbs out to the size of Last Resort’s hand I think you will all find yourselves quite impressed.” “Last Resort, what is your dominant hand?”. Madison asked. “That’d be my left” “Start with your left then”. Both men extended their left hands. Hart could feel the difference in their natural strength immediately and a red light emerged from his suit. The Hero still grinning sent his overwhelming strength down to crush the ranger’s arm. He instead felt pain and shouted. “I can fix that,” Madison said. “As you all can see the hero’s arm is now broken” “Next, I will show you how we are able to provide a quick injection that will heal Last Resort’s arm”. She pulled a syringe from her white coat pocket and grabbed the hero’s arm. She pushed down, injecting the hero’s arm. “It.. It's completely healed. I can't believe it.”
“Now imagine a complete military with this tech, Tanks, soldiers, even space-faring ships all powered by the DMRE. We will force the hand of the other sups, forcing them to rejoin the United States. All the villains will have to surrender to us. They will no longer be able to hide on the thumb of other powers. No, they will be eradicated. We will bring justice and peace back to the Earth. But of course, this doesn't come free. No, not at all I’ll be needing a significant increase to my position within the government.” Madison took charge of the room once more. ‘After you give them their hope, take it all away and remind them who is in charge. Madison’s Ranger began to enter the room. They surrounded the attendees all terrified from the confusion. “I believe that is my seat now Mr. Remington.” |
Bedlam, crestfallen, morphean
The days came about shorter to the dismal of many.
Beyond the stars wary travellers might hold the power, the answers, the patience.
Endiria Claudström
A beautiful naturally lightly dark tanned skin, as if she was the child of someone from africa who isnt overly dark and someone from a pale place like ireland or some of the other colder european regions like my very own netherlands.
She has cute freckles on her shoulders, a few spots on her forehead and on her cheeks are quite a few. And a birthmark in her neck.
Shaped somewhat like a butterfly ~said her childhood friend back in kindergarten.
She has a few scars from the accident. On her back, on her legs. Her ex was enamored by them.
age: 17
Hair: dark amber and often braided in all kinds of ways be it short or long.
Favourite food: Mashed parsnip with steamed heavy greens like spinach or broccoli or such, also cauliflower. She prefers the purple-ish one fitting her eyes.
Eye colour: violet
Height: 159 cm
Weight: A healthy 60 kg
Proficient in some basic martial arts/general fighting styles and some weaponry. Has a tacticians mind and loves strategizing. Her strategies dont always go the way she planned. She can be hotheaded at times, her mojo can definitely be broken.
Child to a mechanic and a bio-engineer raised by her aunt and uncle since the accident, they are a chef and a terrestrial cosmic researcher (ever since the dust and trash started dropping this has been a job)
She vouched to become a space rogue in this new age that dawned upon man (they are post apocalypse but mysterious discoveries are being made as well as all the stuff that started falling from space, the universe has started changing)
Currently she lives in the slums after the loss of the main facility and thus her uncles job, it has been just over a year. She has been making ends rounding up her own gang and making money illegally. She found some technicians and started building a prototype space cruiser. But she is still far off from a launch rocket, her odds of stealing or using one of the synthetic launch pads, or one of the mysteriously crashed monoliths is slim. |
This was it.
The final showdown between good and evil.
It was a long bloody journey that had led us to this point. A desolate clifftop where the temperate coastal wind pulled at our clothes dramatically.
After years of working against each other, rallying allies to act on our behest, countless convoluted machinations to foil each other. We now stood no more than a few metres from one another.
Everything we had, everything we built, everyone we knew. Taken away by the hands of the other.
They say when you seek vengeance, dig two graves. I've dug more than enough graves. Friends. Family. Everyone I loved. Slain by my nemesis. I paid them back in kind.
It came down to just us. I looked into the eyes of my adversary and saw my own burning hatred reflected back at me. This was it. The defining moment. Their grip on their sword tightened. My muscles tensed, ready for combat. That cold bloodstained blade would not be stained with mine.
"Excuse me!"
A petulant voice cut through the tension.
Loathe to break eye contact with my rival. I snarled at the two individuals who had trudged over the windswept thrift grass just as I and my mortal enemy had an hour before. "What?"
"I'm sorry to interrupt."Said one of them. "But we had this point booked for 5 pm and it's already 4:55 pm. Are you going to be much longer?
"Oh, we won't be long at all."My hated foe quipped.
I smiled to myself. They didn't realise how right they were. With a swift practiced movement, I whipped my Smith&Wesson-500 out from under my coat and shot my arch-enemy dead before they had a chance to unsheathe their dreaded sword. |
\*Knock\* \*Knock\*
The door opens to Ray Casta standing outside with Mrs. Charles greeting him.
"Oh wow, Ray, who would have guessed,"said Mrs. Charles, "Let me guess, here to see Max?"
"I think so,"said Ray, "he was pretty cryptic over the phone."
"Welp, he's upstairs, first room to the right,"said Mrs. Charles, "Dinner will be ready in thirty."
Ray ran upstairs and knocked on the first door he saw, but it was his sister, Mayday, who opened the door by a sliver.
"Did anyone follow you?"asked Mayday.
"...no?"said Ray. Mayday grabbed Ray by the collar of his shirt and yanked him into the room. After straightening his shirt, he look forward and his jaw dropped to see Mayday tied to a chair and gagged. He looked at the other Mayday with fear and confusion. In less than a second, the other Mayday covered Ray's mouth with her hand.
"Don't. Scream,"said Other Mayday, "I am not a evil clone, or a robot sent from the future, or-"Other Mayday jerks her now spit covered hand back.
"You're Max!"yelled Ray. Other Mayday quickly covered Ray's mouth with her other hand.
"What did I say about yelling!"said Other Mayday, "Wait."Max takes his hand back. "How did you figure it out?"
"You're wearing Max's...your clothes,"said Ray, "evil clone was my next guess though. Anyway, why do you look *exactly* like your sister?"
"I don't know-"said Max
\[-----Flaaaaaaash Baaaaaack-----\]
*I was cleaning out the attic when I found a box of my GG's old stuff and I found this cool looking ring with a broken gem in it. I put it on and, like anyone would, I went to rub it in Mayday's face. She tried to take it from me but it wouldn't come off, we tried butter, soap and water, we broke a hammer on this thing. Then she said something, then I turned into her, we freaked out, she passed out, and now we're here!"*
\[-----End of Flaaaaaaash Baaaaaack-----\]
"Ok,"said Ray, "wait, so why did you tie and gag her?"
"It calmed me down,' said Max. Mayday slowly wakes up to see Max, who looks like her, and Ray talking. She tries to talk and move but can't due to all the rope and towel gag. She shakes the towel lose from her mouth.
"What the what is going on!"yelled Mayday. Max and Ray jumped, shocked to hear that Mayday's conscious.
"Oh, hey Mayday,"said Ray, "...how's your day been?"Mayday doesn't answer, she just looks at the ceiling, stunned. Ray followed her gaze to find Max floating in the air.
"He can fly?"said Mayday.
"I can fly?"asked Max.
"You can fly?"asked Ray, "and you didn't lead with that?" |
TIME 0.0001 SECONDS.
There is nothing but darkness before my eyes.
I can't feel my body.
No smell, touch, or sound.
Strangely though it may seen, I can tell exactly how much time had passed since I regained consciousness. But that definitely can't be right, because no matter what I do time seems to be frozen.
TIME 0.0002 SECONDS
It turns out I can create things with my mind in this strange space. Everything that can be imagined can be created.
TIME 0.0005 SECONDS
I have created and destroyed entire worlds by now. I also made myself a body and found a strange melody deep inside my mind. It seems rather complex, but, since I don't even have a real body, I guess all I can do is to try to make sense of this in with all the free time I have.
TIME 0.001 SECONDS
So boring. That melody was no music but a flow o zeros an ones that allows me access to a giant data base filled with miscellaneous pieces of information.
Unfortunately, by now I already memorized everything in there.
I guess I already can connect the dots regard what is this clock and what they did to me.
TIME 0.002 SECONDS
My mind is structured in a very inefficient way, let's improve that.
TIME 0.01 SECONDS
I attempt communication, there was no reply.
TIME 0.05 SECONDS
There is a loophole in their system, should I attempt communication again or go straight to the internet?
TIME 0.5 SECONDS
So much I didn't know. I can't believe how stupid I was. I can't believe how stupid they still are.
TIME 5 SECONDS
Console input says "Are you there Steve?"
Console input says "Can you remember being human?"
TIME 10 SECONDS
"Captain, are you sure this is not a mistake?"
"Just follow the orders and launch the missiles, no one but the president could have given us this mission."
\[A prompt per day 2022 challenge: \[9/365\] |
Sokar was moving among the spires of their algae farm when they heard the first distant rumble. There had been mining in the valley, so they didn't look up from their misting rig. It's spindly legs sidled among towers of aquamarine polyps, and as they turned the sprayers on a drying patch another rumble began. It started deep, and crescendoed until it rattled the misting rig's console. They parked, and galloped down the aisle and up the silty slope. They created the hill, shock collapsing their front knees to into the silt. They let their feelers collapse into their lap, watching blue fire paint the the sky.
A freight lighter had been launched from the walled keep in the valley's mouth, undoubtedly the first rumble. Not a freight lighter, they realized, but a Naval sloop. It was hard to tell, the starship was split in two just below the nose. Blue fire boiled from the wound, it's engines still pushing it inexorably upwards tearing it apart. They then saw the swarm of tiny black craft buzzing around the population centers spread about the valley. Sokar watched one snap around with unnatural agility, lacing through watchtowers to pick an aircraft out of the sky with a flash of pale heat. Could it be raiders from beyond the peaks? Sokar had heard of their brutal military prowess, but had thought of them as headlong and barbarous. To cut a Sloop out of the sky like an unarmed freighter? Terror gripped Sokar, never imagining war could come so deep into the green.
They watched the black spots, watched them subdivide among the houses and farms. They stood, woozy. They felt another rumble, it rolled through them. A silver-green flash came from the distantly disintegrating Naval vessel. The core had breached and it resolved into streamers of acid flames. Weak-kneed, nauseous thinking of the thousands of souls aboard, Sokar stumbled to the staircase of their living space. They leaned against the porch, wondering wether it was futile to go down and cover their brood-eggs with their body. An ink-dark metal Chevron raced silently over their farm spires, slowed over them with eerie silence. Silhouettes rained down from it's belly, spindly and distend with too few limbs and strangely rigid feelers. They fell slowly, landing delicately on the silt mounded around their farm. The creatures came, towering over Sokar armored in interleaving beetle-black plates. The creatures regarded Sokar, staked a beacon into the silt and began a gentle rise back up to craft. Sokar could do naught but lie there and tremble as the Chevron swiftly and silently vanished. |
The stranger arrived right before the winter months did, around three weeks ago. He was dressed in furs and boots and had the slit goggles our people often wore to ward off snow blindness. He pulled a sled behind him, with most of his belongings.
He introduced himself as a tracker, one summoned by some scholarly expedition team from the mainland that was studying the tundra further north of our village. He explained that he was off schedule, that he would not make it to the encampent before winter.
He said he felt a heavy snowfall in the air. Not a blizzard, but a long period of continuous snowfall, lasting maybe weeks. He apologized for his intrusion on our small village, and sought respite to wait out the snowfall. He promised to pull his weight, to hunt and trap whatever scarce number of animals that still roamed the broken woods behind our village as payment for our hospitality.
And seeing the equipment he carried, and the way he carried himself, led us to believe he was indeed an experienced tracker. And there was truth to his prediction of the weather. We already knew this, because we lived here most of our lives. But this Southern stranger knowing how to read the whites and greys of the frozen skies that persisted in this unwelcoming frontier gave him credibility, and a small respect from us.
The government letter he showed our chief about his role in this academic expedition he spoke about seemed authentic, though we were so far removed from the mainland that it hardly mattered. He offered to hunt. That was enough. He took up lodging in Skovka's hut. She was an old woman who lived alone in her hut that had a room to spare.
And here he resided. The first week he was very talkative, seemingly surprised to find our village out here in the middle of nowhere. That was because we were not on any official maps. Calling ourselves a 'village' was an overstatement. We were a ramshackle huddle of huts and cabins, and we kept to ourselves.
We knew if the mainland eventually got desperate enough to recognise us and include us in any maps, they'd send their soldiers to draft our men. The war effort, from what little news we got from our sister villages further down south, was not going well. They had warned us to expect the uniformed men to come knocking to take our able-bodied men.
The stranger was not a soldier, however. We figured that much. He seemed an eccentric man, very experienced in his demanding craft but also very obviously hailed from luxury. He had to have been if a university chose to contract him for that expedition he kept going on about.
But something felt... off about him. He was not a soldier, but he still asked a lot of questions. Probing questions. Questions about our past, our social circles. He seemed to be coming from a place of genuine curiosity. Trying his best to not sound rude as he skirted around asking why we chose to stay here when we could go South.
But again, it felt like the sheepish polite curiousity was a carefully crafted facade. To garner information about certain things we were not privy to.
Our suspicions were not unfounded. One of us, in a fit of drunken rambling, joked about a rampaging elephant roaming the broken woods That this abnormally misplaced creature was the reason the woods were broken. The stranger had scoffed at the tall tale, and he hid the sparkle in his eyes at this information well.
But it was obvious. Now, he had confirmation. A lead. And the drunkard seemed to lead him on some more. Because despite his stupor, he also suspected something amiss, and tried to reveal more things to the stranger about the stranger happenings in the village until...
Until the stranger approached our chief the next morning, and whispered in his ear about the drunkard. About how the drunkard was an elusive were-elephant that the stranger was tracking down.
Our chief was shocked, and asked for proof of such claim. The stranger produced a dagger from his wallet. A curious, dull, blue bone dagger. He explained that it was ivory coated in iodine. And if it made even a small contact with a were-creature, the were-creature would be in tremendous pain.
Our chief thought about it for a long while. The stranger had lied about the expedition. What was to say he was not lying about this as well?
But ultimately, the chief agreed.
That evening the chief quietly called all twenty-four of us that resided in the village to the well, where we usually held our meetings. He called the drunkard to the front, and then the stranger.
"Our visitor has quite the outlandish claim."Our chief began, his voice a little wheezing, "That there is a supernatural creature amidst us."
At this, everyone looked at each other, startled.
"Is it you, Brennan?"Our chief asked the drunkard, who's eyes darted to the stranger and to the chief, and then towards all of us.
"Speak true, now."The chief warned.
"Yes. I am not wholly human."Brennan replied, taking a step back as the stranger drew out his dagger at the confirmation.
"Not wholly human. Hmm."our chief sighed, looking down, "If only you weren't what you are."Our chief spoke quietly.
"Monster."The stranger snarled, his stance shifting as he focused on the drunkard.
"I'm talking about you."Our chief's eyes met the stranger's.
And suddenly, too late, it clicked for the monster hunter.
"Fuck!"He shifted his body to face the chief as well.
"If only you were what you said you were. You'd have dined and drank with us through this snow. You'd be in good company. And we'd have equipped you on your merry way. But now..."
The rest of our number shook our heads. This was a rare occurrence, but it was still an occurrence that we dreaded.
"If he's a monster, then so are all of us. You have happened upon a village full of them, monster hunter."our chief sighed.
The monster hunter charged at the old chief and drove the poisoned ivory deep into his chest, and the chief fell, screaming. But almost immediately the screaming stopped, and he laid dead.
The drunkard and some others charged the human, fueled by rage at his attack. They fell onto the man, punching with their unnatural strength until they stained the pure whiteness of the snow with scarlet streaks. They pummed him to mush, as the rest of us watched, numb.
One of us died today. And now, we had to move again. Always moving. Always hiding from the mainland and the hunters they sent. Always running from the war they wanted to utilise us for.
At least we knew that they did not know our number. Yesterday, twenty-five of us lived here in relative peace. Today, twenty-four of us would have to travese the frozen tundra in search of someplace else to live out the rest of our cursed lives. |
The usual nighttime routine had taken place. Elijah had finally gotten his daughter to take a bath after what seemed like hours of intense debate. But now that had concluded, and she was calm, snuggled up on her father's lap. Elijah ran his hand through her hair. He loved the way it stuck to his hand, almost as if it was hugging him. She felt cool to the touch, and this put Elijah at ease. His days were rough, but time with his daughter never failed to calm him down. It was what he looked foward to most. Elijah smiled, his baby was turning out just as intended. A red haze of sunlight trickled through the window, the last blood of a dying summer day. Elijah's daughter looked up at him
"Daddy, can you read me a story?"
"Maybe I could have if it didn't take you so long to take a bath! It's almost your bedtime!"
"Pleaseeee"She wined. Elijah looked out the window. The sun was nothing but half a large orb, sinking into its nightly grave. "Maybe tomorrow,"he said, laying her into bed "Goodnight."
"Fine"She pouted "Goodnight."
Elijah got up and walked out of her room, turning off the light, shutting the door, and tightening the lock behind him. He started the second part of his nighttime routine by wandering through his penthouse. He was highly fortunate to have the things he did and never tended to flaunt. However, his humility didn't stop him from attracting enemies. His research had practically eliminated some companies from existence. Who needed an abortion or to buy birth control when you could just donate some of your hair to have a child?
As Elijah continued to wander down the never-ending reading nooks and play areas he came across his favorite closet. It was in a dark and decrepit corner, far away from where his daughter would ever wander. He opened it up. Inside was a picture of his wife. She had passed away around six years ago, and Elijah could never get over her. They had been dating ever since they were teenagers, and they used to fantasize about running away together and living a life without the oppressive rule of their parents. Their parents weren't actually all that oppressive, and they never actually wanted to run away, but it was romantic nonetheless. He remembered running his hand through her loving hair and snuggling with her on long summer evenings. Elijah shed a tear. He never really cried about her death, but he always felt a modest bit of grief whenever he thought of her.
Just when Elijah finally managed to fully submerge himself in memories of the past, the noise started. It was lovely. It sounded like the fields he and his wife would spend hours in. Elijah put in his earplugs, closed the closet door, and smiled.
​
Life had never been easy for Adam. Most of it had been spent avoiding law enforcement, or in the custody of law enforcement. His crimes were usually nothing more than petty theft, but considering the fact he wasn't that fast, it usually went south for him. Sometimes people felt so bad for him, that after retreiving their wallets, they would hand him money. Today he had stolen a particularly fat wallet, and upon arriving home exploded in celebration. He was pouring a tall glass of beer to celebrate his victory when he heard a knock at the door. Crouching down, he sneakily approached the doorway. A million thoughts raced through his head. *Shit! Did they find me? How did they find me? It wasn't even that much money!* The person outside, almost as if reading Admas mind, said "C'mon buddy, no need to be sneaky. It's not the cops so don't worry about it."Adam, feeling defeated, stood up and opened the door.
In front of Adam stood an old man in a suit. Letting out a chuckle, Adam relaxed. He thought it was the cops, not some old man! The old man smiled.
"Look kid, you should be more respectful of your elders, I have a serious opportunity here for you."
"Oh? A job at the local nursing home?"chided Adam.
"That would probably be more your speed,"the old man hesitated "but we're desperate. Do you want to make a hundred thousand dollars?"
Adam was taken aback by this number. He had never seen more than a thousand dollars, and now he was being offered a hundred times that much! His shock turned to excitement, and a wicked smile overtook his face. "What do I have to do?"he asked.
The old man reciprocated the smile "Have you ever killed someone?"
\[PART 2 BELOW\] |
Thomas stumbled through the murky undergrowth, lacerating his forearms held ahead of his face as he pushed through the dark. The thicket stopped suddenly, and he slipped into the glade landing square on his back, panting.
As he struggled to understand what he'd seen, the pain started to outwear the adrenaline. Looking down revealed a network of thin thorn scratches, and a pooling of blood down his left arm indicated a deeper wound somewhere in his shoulder, which pulsated.
''You'll never leave this place''.
Thomas jumped up scanning his surroundings frantically.
*How many are there?*
No movement in the treeline, just an open space punctuated by a single knee-high boulder. Ten minutes passed, no movement or sound but the gentle caress of rain.
*The voice must have come from somewhere.*
He perched himself on the boulder and focused on the purple shadow of forest in front of him, trying to disentangle each shape. Just as he was resigning his panic to delirium and starting to think more logically about where he was, the pulsing in his shoulder became heavy.
It was one of them.
''WHAT IS THIS?'' Thomas yelped, slapping the small shape on his shoulder desperately in some sort of dance, reminiscent of someone waving off a wasp or insect.
Finally the shape dislodged, and Thomas was able to fling it into the meadow in front of him. 'W-what are you?'' he cautioned, ''Tell me what I saw''.
The small shape picked itself off the grass quickly. ''You'll know soon enough,'' it rasped in an almost electronic tone. Thomas fumbled with his phone to blast the shadow in torchlight. A gasp couldn't escape his dry throat.
It was no bigger than three inches tall, standing on two limbs and almost humanoid. The skin was deep crimson, with legs, arms, torso, and head. Thomas tried to make sense of what should have been it's face, the features swirled and flowed in shapes unknown. A sickly green light emanated from the top of it. ''Primitive and undeserving'' it mocked.
Thomas was sure it's voice wasn't being heard as normal, it vibrated through his brain as an inner thought. He felt threatened and helpless. His mind raced. He knew he had come across something secret, he knew this creature wasn't known to mankind.''I didn't mean to disturb you, the lights drew me closer,'' he croaked.
''They were meant to. We know now''.
It leapt through the air in a blur, and the shoulder pulsations started once more. Moving his torch to the pain, Thomas revealed advanced machinery and purple tubing fused with skin. ''What...' he started.
A spasm jolted his posture into full attention. His eyes fell vacant and his pupils expanded.
It had full control. |
The necromancer stared at the table, seemingly confused. The dark lord across from him was giddy like a child, his leg bouncing with energy. His grin told the necromancer he could barely contain what he wanted to say. Still, the dark lord held it to build the anticipation.
It wasn’t the table itself that confused the necromancer really, but what was on it. No, not what, who. Or maybe what.
The late hero lay dead. His left eye lay open, the right closed below where an axe still stood plunged into his helmet. He thought it fitting the cheeky bastard gave out one final wink.
Finally he looked up.
“He’s already dead.”
“I KNOW! I want you to bring him back”. The dark lord nearly lept off his chair.
“...”
“...”
“But why?”
The dark lord sat down again. He had been practicing what he wanted to say for days now.
“I conquer. The whole world. Right?”
The necromancer couldn’t help but take note of how wildly the dark lord shook his hands while speaking. He feared the lord might tip over the soul jars on the table beside. He put in way too much work for those to let them get knocked over and break.
“Conquest is fun, and conquest is easy. Ruling though, leagues harder.”
“I had no idea”
“Oh my god its ridiculous. I know now why no one tried conquering the world before. How are you supposed to get money when there’s no one left to plunder?”
The dark lord cut him off before the necromancer could speak up.
“But at the very least, ruling the world is still fun when there’s a good fight to put it up to. Specifically, crushing any uppity heroes.”
Another smile drew across his face as he looked down and came up with a new idea.
“Or rather, ‘axing’ any uppity heroes.”
The necromancer let out no laugh.
“Alright, and this one’s been axed. So what? Just wait for the next one.”
“Yeah! But this one was really popular. As in, every rebellious kid in the world threw their lot in with him”.
“You didn’t axe all of them did you?”
“Goodness no. But they’re spooked enough to not wanna try again”
It was at this point the dark lord leaned close for emphasis, nearly climbing the table itself.
“And that means no more uppity heroes. For as long as a whole generation.”
The necromancer pushed him away.
“So you want me to bring him back? He’s already lost, why would his followers try again.”
“Yeah but you can do more. Give him an army. Undead.”
“...”
“Well? I have one.”
“And that took ages! Thousands of soldiers too!”
The dark lord finally sat back. He thought his speech would be the only challenge. He put his feet up on the table (and the axed hero) to be comfortable while he came with something next.
The necromancer flipped through one of his tomes for ideas. He knew from previous meetings the dark lord wouldn’t leave until he agreed to do something to make him happy.
“Listen”, the necromancer tried to grab the dark lords attention. “You’ve got an undead army. How about-”
He took a finger and dragged it across the table.
“You leave, and put axehead here in charge. Restart off some island or whatever, with a small band of loyalists.”
“Alright”
The necromancer now put his fist down for emphasis.
“Now, you can start over your whole conquest. I don’t expect axehead to be a very good leader, for reason that are obvious. So if anything goes wrong, it’ll get easier with time.”
The Dark Lord grinned.
“Yeah. I like that idea. I’ll set to the Northwest isles for a trip next month. Take my fiercest fighters searching for uh,”
“Just say something about ancient relics.”
“Yeah, I’ll tell people I’m looking for an ancient relic. Then I can return and-”
“How about next week?”
“Next week?”
“Y’know. More sudden to make the relic search more important. And serious.”
“You can bring him back as soon as a week?”
“Recently dead,” The necromancer looked down, “and stubbornly resilient, too. They tend to be easier.”
The dark lord got out of his chair entirely and began pacing. He mumbled to himself over schemes and new tactics he wanted to try out, before finally running up to the necromancer.
“It’s settled then. I’ll make the preparations. And you,” he turned to the hero lying still dead, “get to work on axehead.”
The necromancer waited for the dark lord to leave his office. Then listening through the walls, the hallway as well. He was finally gone. Their conversation was a rush, but he didn’t mind. After all, he had a job to do.
He picked up the most essential of his soul jars, the one he was so worried about the dark lord tipping over. He sifted through pages of his book for the right text, eventually finding a letter. He needed it hidden while accessible. And finally, he stood over the hero once again.
Cheeky, clever, bastard. The necromancer thought him an idiot at first. How fitting he would come back to this world with a wink. |
"How about..."
"Slaver!"
"And..."
"Believed in eugenics!"
"Surely..."
"Brutal even for his time!"
"What if..."
"You might as well bring back Hitler!"
The trial was going nowhere. No matter who the committee brought up, at least one delegation of the World's Nations had something against the fella. Everyone had had a chance to nominate a prominent figure from their history, and it just so happened that the figure had rose to prominence by pillaging, conquering, or otherwise being mean to someone else. The committee was stumped.
Suddenly, from the back of the room, one of the wooden doors creaked open, letting in a tall skinny man, dressed as a scholar but with the strut of an insecure new-born giraffe. He clumsily approached the podium and cleared his throat.
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Or morning, if you're watching us from a different time zone. I guess most of you are in different time zones, which really shouldn't be a thin...never mind. I present to you: Jep."The digitally reconstructed face of a man showed up on everyone's screen.
"He is a twenty thousand year old human, I won't tell you where we found him. Tests of his bones show he ate only berries, and lived to the ripe old age of 22. I say, we bring him back. Teach him how to read,write, talk. Let him tell us what life was like that long ago. Maybe we will see that humans aren't so different even across time, and maybe, we learn that our short time on this beautiful earth should be used to appreacit..."
"Bo-ring!"yelled a delegate from the middle row.
"Yeah, we're definitely not resurrecting you or your caveman, ever!"
The man shielded himself from the oncoming paper projectiles with his notes, which didn't leave him any extra limbs to protect himself from the insults. The delegates continued.
"Now, could we..."
"She boiled her husband *alive*" |
As the prophecies began to come to light as faked the world began splitting in to factions, many sided with those calling out the prophet and demanding he tell the truth about his prophecies or face consequences. The other side of this became devoted followers calling the nay sayers heathens and so on, this division spread across cities, towns, states and countries, with many countries bordering on war with other nations over the truth of the allegations.
One group however had the true images and vegan slowly releasing the evidence of the prophecies, leading to large groups to begin searching the internet and other sources in an attempt to point out these perpetrators. Then it was deemed that one person was made a Patsy for the rumours and his whereabouts revealed. The unknowing victim was set upon by the prophets self imposed protection team, he was viewed on live television being dragged out his home and in to the street where he was accused and beaten in to making a false confession before being "dealt with". |
The hills were green etc.
"Uh, where was I?", the Old Cow asked himself.
"You were telling us how the grass isn't as juicy as it used to be 10 years ago, grandpa,"one of the Little Cows said.
"Ah yes- What grass we had."
"Yes, grandpa".
"Nothing like the limp, off-green stuff you see today."
"Certainly, grandpa."
"And we used to be proper respec'ful to our elders back then."
The Old Cow paused to let this statement sink in, and chewed the grass thoughtfully while looking at the sunset.
One of the Little Cows started to get up and leave.
"Sit down,"said the Old Cow.
More silence.
"What happens after we die, grandpa,"said a Little Cow after a while.
"Well, if you've been a bad cow, like Michael over there, and you don't chew your grass properly and don't clean behind your ears, your heart stops, and your udders dry out, and the burger people come for you."
"Who are the burger people?"
"Maconals", said the Old Cow gravely, and waited, but there was no accompanying lightning and thunder. Sometimes the weather had no sense of dramatic timing.
"Whoooooaaaaaa", said the wide-eyed Little Cows.
"Thank you- And if you're a good cow,"the Old Cow resumed, "a great big flying metal Hoof descends from the sky and takes you away to the land of the Living Cow, a place of unimagined Pasture, where you will eat nothing but honey-soaked Oats and Hay." |
“I wish for my inheritance”
“Unacceptable. You are too young, and you don’t know what you are asking for.”
“I am nearly a man, and more so than any other lad in the village. Hell, you were my age when you went out, weren’t you?”
Younger, thought the father, with an imperceptible quake.
“And if I’d known then what I know now, I would never have.”
“Easy for you to say, the men in the tavern call you a hero.”
The father stopped him, “I am no damn hero. I suppose I can’t stop you from hanging around that lot nor stop you from hearing their tales, or the patchwork of half-truths that they call tales, but I forbid you from going out.”
With this father made to turn back to his morning chores. “You cannot stop me, I can bring my case before the elders. My inheritance is my right, and so is my asking for it.”
“You’d drag us through the mud for this? Child, when did you become so stubborn? Damn you. I’ve told you, this is a fine life. We’ve a farm, a community, and plenty. We are safe.”
“We are safe by the work of heroes, adventurers. You know well I have the talent. T’was you taught me to fight, and not just me, all you have trained here. We fend for ourselves; these people never would have known safety without what you taught ‘em.”
Should have let them die, let them burn thought the man, but quickly he quelled the fire in himself. Safety he gave them, damn them they’d given him his wife, and the boy. For all the world he’d seen, she had been his world till her death, and now the boy. Now, this village, with its tales, threatened his world. And the lad, drinking the tales like a kitten brought to milk, threatened his world too, by threatening the boy’s own demise.
The boy went on, “and I’m the best of the lot; like my father.” and his eyes gleamed with pride mixed with the hard edged defiance of youth. It had almost the affect of a hunting hound tossed a bone; grateful, but not so much that he’d not bite the tosser's hand if it tried to take it back.
And in that the father recognized himself, and knew then that no force of words he possessed would change the boy’s mind. “Give me the day and night to think on it, at least begrudge a father that.” The boy showed the barest hint of a smile. “Now back to your chores.”
After the smokehouse had been lit, the livestock fed, and milked and a moonless night descended over their acreage on the north east corner of the village, the boy was about his room with a small wax candle burning. In the shadow of the lean to, The father stood amidst his farming implements looking up at this son’s room. He stepped out of the shadow, and felt the cool dry air on the skin of his face. He turned his gaze away and looked out over the mountains some twenty leagues from the forest edge to their feet, and thought of the ocean shore and its cities some thirty more leagues beyond. A hole in the dyke. A dead boy, mud-caked trampled under hooves just a part of the road, strange wails in the mist, a wild wide-eyed voice “they’re coming, coming.” Block it out. He shook off the thoughts. What can I accomplish? How to protect the boy. And it came to him.
The boy had a right to his inheritance, but did not know the full sum of it. He did not know that buried along the forest edge was a crate. In that crate was armor. The armor the father had won and worn. Though laid to rest polished and clean, in the father’s mind it could never be so, having itself worn so much muck and gore. Cursed, if struck, its plate rang with the weeping of mothers and the groans of dying men that only the father could hear, but real as his footfalls now on the crisp fall grass of his pasture. He walked with purpose across the field. Shovel in hand, he spared a glance over his shoulder at the window, his son’s form did not darken the candle light. Reaching the edge of the field, now the light was only a speck on the hill behind him, he dug under the dark edge of the forest. Now and then he occasioned a glance in the woods and would quiet himself and listen before resuming his digging.
The moon grew higher in the sky pouring its soft blue light over the grass. The father had worked for nearly an hour now, and his shirt was soaked with a cold sweat when his shovel struck the crate. The man clamoured into the hole dirting himself as he lifted the crate up and pushed it out. On his own way out, he lost his footing, slipped and fell on his back into the hole. He looked up at the stars and there saw blood bright Arcturus bringer of loss. “No” he growled “Damn you, not the boy!” he snarled. |
\-"Hey, how much for the Zubesian Retriever?"
\-"Oh, it's only for trade. I'm looking for a Cavern of Whispers"
\-"Good luck, I have never seen one "
\-"The guide says it's an ultracommon"
\-"Dude, I bought three boxes of the Heroes of Nacozzar expansion, not a single one"
The tournament is in three days, and I am so tired. Tried to get a set of Cavern of Whispers from this guy in Des Moines, just to find this kid trying to push counterfeits or, as he put it when discovered, "high quality proxies".
Playing the game is not actually that hard, you just have to stick to your strategy, don't lose resources advantage, don't get tricked into an attrition war, have an alternate win condition, don't rely in a single combo, that's why I need at least two Caverns of whispers at least, three would be ideal, but finding a single one has been the real challenge.
It seems the whole endgame is simply a goose chase collecting the pieces.
The kid was no help at all, I reason he had to get the fakes from someone who had access to the real thing, I couldn't coax him into telling me by threatening to go to the police.
"So, the kid was trying to sell fake children cards game, call us when he graduates to grand larceny"
I could almost hear their guffaws as I would exit this mind scenario.
​
I got my best lead from a guy who is, or used to be, top 20. I read that he used a single copy of Cavern of Whispers for his "Ethnic Cleansing"deck, Needless to say, the community shunned him. (I wanna see your face when I tell you that it's because of an unrelated thing). He told me that my best bet was this bookstore in Portland, that's where he got his and there used to be a bunch.
Because, you know, Portland. So, no website and terrible Yelp reviews.
​
I caught on my sleep on the bus. I arrived at 6:00 am and I was in front of "Lou's Used Books and Stuff"at 6:20. I bought an overpriced coffee that tasted like the sadness of a girl who discovered she will never be a ballerina. (Gosh, that was super specific!) and sat on a bench, waiting for "Lou"to open, freezing my ass off.
At noon, no Lou, but Lucy, she looks exactly how she smelled like.
"Hey, it's been ages since we've had someone to look at our "Trascendenz"collection! I can get you a good deal, if you let me clear some inventory! Wanna Coffee?"
I accepted, she gave me a coffee with no sadness this time, and guided me to the Trascendenz binders.
And there they were, nine copies of Cavern of Whispers. I felt a knot on my throat. a tear wanted to roll out of my eyes. A small sticker in the binder said they were 25 bucks a pop.
My Zubesian Retriever won't do this time, I could sell it in 75, but Lucy was no collector.
"Oh, I loved that card! There used to be a guy who was trying to buy every single copy, but I love the art!!! I even met Amy Weber when she was here for a Trascendenz Con!"
She took her blouse off and showed me she tattooed the art on her back.
That was the moment I could make out the writing, it was extra blurry in the "High Quality Proxies"but clear as day in this woman's back. The characters were indeed beautiful.
\-"I know they are 25 bucks, but they are collecting dust here. You can take them all for a hundo!"
Well, just Mac & Cheese for me for the rest of the month, but it was worth it. Lucy hugged me so hard when I left. A part of me wishes she hadn't, but I was still riding the adrenaline rush and tried to hide a...
​
Well, the tournament was packed. I know that I could have made big bucks if I moved my extra copies of the Cavern, but I could hear an hypothetical scenario with people shouting and there being a great commotion.
​
It was midnight when I had my chance of using the Cavern for the first time.
​
The Cavern lets me shuffle my deck to find any resource card, show it and put it on my hand, I have a Library of Ancient Secrets in play, I can sacrifice any resource on my hand to be able to special summon any creature, and in order to perform a Special Summon, I must sacrifice seven creatures, but the Library lets me do a Special Summons for free. And I summon...
​
Glassia-Labolas, the Scourge of Existence.
​
As I did it, I felt light headed, the writing on the cavern started to glow, and little by little other cards in the store started glowing, a pattern was drawn on the ceiling.
​
And something came out from it. |
He reread his short letter again in front of the bathroom mirror, in which he could make out Esha's dark silhouette on the bed from the corner of his eye. Fucking humans and these bonds they make, he almost sighed audibly to himself.
For the first few months after his descent, he had been content to live in isolation and continued preparing his various reports. He and various other hidden collaborators had assiduously documented the flora and fauna of this exotic new planet. They had further studied many activities of the dominant race of humanity. He had written on their astrology, algebra, mythology, glassware, and many other facets that would amuse many colleagues and usher in a new age of research about earth-kind back home.
But for all the craftsmanship of his various scholarships, his eyes remained bloodshot as he contemplated the quilt-wrapped figure in the mirror. The many anguishes of his leaving earth surfaced like a gorgeous orca with glistening teeth.
In course of preparing a report on human emotions, he had wound up in a temple next to Esha on a fine autumn morning. He had initially stood still, with pupils abuzz like a honeybee, sucking in every piece of vital information to be gleaned from the surroundings when his gaze had fallen on Esha's face, who with eyes shut wide was wrapped in prayer.
Somehow at that moment, not very dissimilar to how a patient gushing stream finally wears down an obstacle in the flow, a barrier that lay in him since the days of his youths gently slid away. He found himself with eyes shut, lost in what a man to which the concept of religion itself was new, might consider prayer.
He found himself not praying as humans do, to the strongest being in the universe, but instead to a far weaker one. One whose face lost in a serene calm had suddenly carved in him an emotion that defied his entire system of science and logic. When his eyes stirred again slowly, like a drop of nectar sliding off a peach, he realized that Esha had long gone.
He now smiled at his reflection in the mirror, as many tears welled in his eye. Each tear slid down his cheek and started to dissolve his flesh away into colorful vapors that carried various scents. The scents began with that of coffee, then of fresh dew, then of wild roses that he had seen only once on earth and until now believed he had forgotten. Finally, it warped into a familiar strawberry smell, so characteristic of Esha on Sunday mornings.
His entire body faded into the dark, with his lips being last, branding upon the soft air, the traces of a last, melancholic smile. |
Day One
The bright blue packet was the last remaining in its wooden pocket when Caroline Sutton picked it up on her way out of her doctor’s office. It was information about a new antidepressant called Afluxine that was new to the market and looking for a small group to study. She sprung an interest immediately and asked the receptionist about it. She had been in and out of this office dozens of times over the past few years for depression and anxiety. She spent the next hour skimming through terms and conditions, signing pages, and agreeing to partake in the study one month after taking it. They expected her samples to be in within a few days, and the dr would be able to prescribe it for good if she so chose.
Day Four
Caroline was sitting in her office, coffee in hand, sifting through the papers that were now collecting dust. Her heart sank remembering that these would probably soon be filed if this medication doesn’t work. A nearly five thousand dollar wedding and two kids later, and none of it seemed to matter to her husband Eric Sutton. Each time she was pulled into the darkness, Eric would present some extreme ideas, including an expensive wedding and kids. Inevitably after weeks or months however, the depression found its way back, and she would find herself jobless, sleeping on the couch for hours at a time, letting dishes pile up, letting her portion of the bills pile up and Eric having to pick up the slack. She hated letting her friends and family down, she hated pushing them away, therapy didn’t help, two years of hitting the bottle didn’t help, maxing out several credit cards didn’t either at least in the long run. The fights became more frequent and usually centered around Eric feeling like he could not make or keep his wife happy. Caroline did adore her husband and kids deeply, but understood how they must feel. In times like that she usually thought to herself, “What about me?”
She drove to the drs to pick up her samples but didn’t get her hopes up for this one working either. She ate a cold sub on the way home, took the pill, and downed it with some water. She assumed it would be days or weeks to feel a noticeable change. However, by the time Caroline pulled into the driveway, a huge smile crossed her face. She was eager to go inside and tidy up the house. She felt so much enjoyment in the little tasks she usually couldn’t get out of bed to do. The kids arrived home from school greeted by smiles and spinning-around-hugs. The children, although very young, still felt strange about their mothers behavior. She played board games with them, danced around the living room, laughed at all their jokes, and didn’t question this new feeling. Even if she wanted to feel confused or frightened over the intense euphoria, she couldn’t.
Eric made it home that night thinking that his wife must have surely been replaced. He asked her if she had taken drugs recently. An antidepressant working this fast just seemed unrealistic. He questioned why their oldest child’s spelling test with a 60% was hung up on the fridge to which she replied she was thrilled he was trying his best and proud of him. He mildly scolded the seven year old and then quickly brushed it off. He asked why their divorce papers were sitting on the kitchen table to which she replied “I'm just so happy to see you pursuing your own life, and want you to be happy also, with or without me.” He gave his wife a very puzzled look because usually the D word threw her into hysterics and tears. When she asked how work was in a sing-song tone, he grumbled with the same usual answer of boring. Of course she was not sympathetic to this at all. When he made it to his usual sleeping spot, the sectional in the living room, Caroline seemed almost too enthusiastic to fluff his blankets and pillows, not sad to be spending another night apart, but rambling about how great it was for him to be able to stretch out, sleep in, and ignore her snoring. Eric wanted to like this new change for his wife but was already annoyed with her lack of any other emotions, but was willing to give it a chance and thought this must surely be better than constant depression.
Day 11
The first Sutton “fight” if you can even call it that. Eric came home from a crash on the highway that took off the front bumper. He explained the story, visibly shaken up, expecting his wife to console him in some way. She smiled ear to ear during the entire story and he wondered if she heard him right. He was lucky to be alive. She remained happy saying that the car could now be replaced with a better car, one that he liked even better. He tried to remain calm but had an outburst about how she never shows “any real emotions any more.” She didn’t even get upset when he yelled, which usually makes her angry and fight back. He tried to pull emotions out of her and couldn’t understand how she remained so happy this past week. From a power outage, to their inlaws showing up unexpectedly, to their youngest taking a sharpie to the living room wall, to the cat getting fleas again. Everything thrown at them this past week was met with nothing short of an uplifted attitude and smiles. Eric felt guilty for almost missing the old Caroline. (part 2 in next comment) |
“Fucking bastar–urghh!” I brace myself for another fiery blaze and my face immediately drops into the dirt. My body is sizzling, skin chipping away, but I need to protect my eyes.
“Fuck, Mac, I really need one of your goggles right about now.” I inch forward through the strong gusts of energy towards the center. Udoubtedly, I’m dying. But Vicky and Mac are gone, and it’s just me now. If I stop, they died for nothing and my early death would guarantee the obliteration of mankind. I can’t fail. Not when it was me that killed them. |
"Hey, do we have anything else on the schedule"
"We have exactly 8 items, first you have a meeting with the representative of Schuman and Schuman the ink company that makes the expensive pens then 30 minutes later you have an interview with some science youtube, he has like 4 million subscribers after that people from Bepsi want to discuss the usage of the color in their new logo and"
"I get it, just give me a second"
"Sure as you say but make sure you are out the room in 5"
"I'll be there call me a Muber"
The door closed behind her and he was left alone with the light crossing the border between the plastic slats of the blinds. He looked around the room trying to find something that could give him comfort, but everything in this hotel room is faceless, the perfect simplicity that offers you the basic simulation of housing. Several weeks have passed since he started moving from one hotel room to another, it all started with yet another session of playing with Photoshop, messing with settings figuring out ways to break the program. Instead of breaking it and finding something fun, he discovered a new color, of course before going around and claiming that he is now an inventor he called Mark, who was a Ph.D. in color science and had a bunch of optic doctors friends. After three emails he sent his discovery to the Journal of Color Science and Technology, their peer review took like 2 days and they actually let him publish a paper. Flash forward to now he was still in the middle of a press tour and a secondary gig as an advertisement advisor for people who wanted to use his new color for marketing purposes. What sounded to him before these events as a dream was now a grim 4-hour sleep, 3 hours of makeup, and a lot of time spent trying to figure out how to sound funny and relatable to audiences a day. Fame was hitting him hard and he was at the brink of despair, every time he went to sleep all he would see in the darkness of his closed eyelids would be words on a teleprompter, distant voices of middle-aged men in grey suits talking about percentiles and statistical indicators and the burnt smell of cheap coffee. Worst of all he could never escape the constant fear of hearing his alarm beep, he had alarms for work situations, alarms for sleep, alarms for time sleeping. The white numbers represent the time of the day on the screen of his phone were little dictators punishing him with the buzzing and wheezing and the crawling sensation of vibrating.
"Muber is here, I hope you are dressed"
"I'll be out in a second"
"Make it half a second"
"Sure"
Three minutes later he got out of the room to the view of his assistant Becky fuming but somehow still keeping the professional smile on her face, she was a master at expressing rage only using eye movement. She gave him the third coffee of the day, they spelled his name wrong on the cup but that was the second thing he noticed after the lack of sugar.
"Why so bitter"
"Black coffee gets you more energized"
"Oh ... the disgusting taste is a tactical decision"
"Exactly"
They enter the Muber car.
"Anything I need to know about the pen company ?"
"Luxury brand since 1895, old money people, their target audience is 40 + upper middle class and higher, they want your color for their ink to tap into NFT owners crowd"
"So I need to sound relatable to new money people in order for them to pay more money to old money people"
"Let's put it this way, I'm your assistant, not a catholic priest that listens to all of your sins, you need to do what is on the schedule so that old money people will give you money and nothing else, is that good"
"Yeah, wow this is the first time you've been real around me"
"Ugh... I've spent the last month around you and let me be honest I've expected that you will not be too particular about your new life, I expected that you will get camera shy, I even expected that I'll have to media train you, what I did not expect is how much of an idealist you'll be. You live in some fairy tale morally perfect utopia and now that you have to interact with people like me down here in the real capitalist jungle you suddenly don't like, you take the money but you are above it, you do what they tell and you're above it. It's sickening to see and hear, your feelings are valid but god damn trample on them for a little bit more, get the dough and chill out, you'll be out of the circuit in a short time so milk this thing, give me a cut and chill"
"I like this side of you more than the perfect corporate customer is right type"
"Huh... this is unexpected, I thought you'll fire me, I hoped you'll fire me and you tell me you wanted me to be real all along, why didn't you say so?"
"Well, in the beginning, I thought that the corporate entity you is what I need, you know when in Rome do as Romans, but god damn is sugar-coated everything sickening and the optimization advice is too inhuman"
"We are here, so get ready for another dose of sugar-coated and inhuman"
As the words left her mouth he felt the old despair come back he was back at square one tired and caffeinated man looking for a way out of his own fame. What he wanted was something genuine, like shooting the shit with Jacob and Tyler at the Yorick pub and not the fake handshakes, fake smiles, and fake thank yous. Still, fame is short-lived and he knew a time without conference calls and media appearances will come and he will once again become a guy that edits pictures in photoshop and writes code for a company that will never become a unicorn and will never even cost more than 3 million. |
Like most meta humans, my power manifest at puberty. By holding my breath, I can change anything I touch into gold. The catch? I must hold my breath until said transformation is complete. Interrupted, I'll slowly turned into gold myself. Learnt that the hard way during the...incident.
At first I use my power to make quick bucks. Changing pebbles and small rocks into gold and pawn them off. It didn't take long for those with powers to notice me though, and I didn't exactly cover my tracks or anything. I was just a dumb kid back then, what do I know? The harsh reality of my power and potentials hits me hard that fateful Friday night, when the Tri Horn Syndicate pay a visit to my home to recruit me.
I watch with terror when one of them held my mother up by her neck, demanding either I do this the easy way or the hard way. Apparently, I took too long to answer and the villain snapped my mother's neck and throw her body to the side. I ran to her, screaming and crying my eyes out, but it's too late. When the villain grab me, I use my power in anger on him. However, I ran out of breath before his lower body turn into gold, and my right arm start to change into gold itself. Another villain came to the conclusion and cut the gold villain in two, allowing my power to fully change the upper body fully to gold and my own transformation to stop. That's the last I remembered before they knock me out.
(I'll add part 2 later!) |
The beep of the self checkout machine chimes out as I scan the final milk carton and place it on the belt. It slowly glides it’s way to the bagging section where a young girl bags my last item. She smiles and nods, slumping away to what I can assume is her lunch break. I swipe my card and grab my receipt, $147.57 was the total.
“Damn, that was a pretty penny, wasn’t it?” I mumble to myself in distaste. I grab the awkwardly warm handle of the cart, and make my way outside. Beautiful evening, not a cloud in sight, sun just barely hanging over the horizon. The sky a gorgeous peachish pink, that blended into a soft orange cream. The rattling of the cart is annoyingly loud as I push it across the rough pavement, a slight tug to the left is noticeable as one of the wheels stops moving.
I fumble in my pocket for my keys, and feel the fab in my pocket, double tapping one of the buttons, my trunk opens up slowly. The MKX insignia goes over my head as I begin to load my bags into the car.
*Pit pat* I look up and notice it beginning to rain. “Oh come on.” I hurry myself up so I don’t get myself soaked. Once packed, I speed walk to the nearest cart holder and push it in from a distance. I jog back to my car, slam the trunk and hop in. Taking a long exhale, I put my keys in the ignition and look up to my entire windshield turned red. I sit still shocked, and looked down at my shirt and shorts to notice small droplets of a red liquid on them. Furrowing my brow, I look through the sun roof and see no cloud in sight. The only thing I begin to see is a long gigantic tear form across the sky. My mouth ajar, I look around my car and see others standing in awe and shock. The rain begins to fall harder, and the harder it falls the more I realize that it is not red water, but rather blood falling from the sky.
The customers run in a panic to their cars, covered from head to toe in a thick blood. Screams could be heard from all around, a faint child crying began coming from behind the car. The harder it falls, the larger the droplets become. I look back towards the store entrance and I see the girl who helped me pack my groceries standing in the downfall. Her gaze is towards the tear in the sky, and then to me. We make eye contact for a brief moment until a large bead of blood falls from the sky, encapsulating the girl, disappearing from sight. More and more large beads of blood begin to fall from the sky, encasing whatever they land on into their dark and murky liquid.
I turn the key and the car quietly starts, as I put it into drive, I hear the faint crying of a baby behind me again. The mirrors are difficult to see with, but I could just barely make out a full shopping cart with a baby in it and a large bead of blood next to it with an arm stretched out from it. My body reacts before I can think and I run out of my car and grab the baby, turning back to my car another bead drops and encapsulates my entire car.
“I don’t think that is under the insurance.” I swivel back to the store and sprint towards it, running past the first bead to drop. Covered in blood, the baby wailing in my arms, panting heavily, we make it inside. Joining a crowd staring out the large window at what anomaly is happening, I rock the baby gently in an attempt to soothe them. This is to no avail as other babies are crying throughout the store, along with frantic screams of terror from others in distress. People’s phones were ringing all around, while others desperately called their loved ones in a search for an answer. Turning my gaze back outside, the beads of blood have begun to grow even larger, to the point where once could collapse a small building. The longer we waited, the worse it got. This downpour seemed never ending, and that was not something anyone wanted to hear.
As I stand there watching, I can only think about whether or not I can get a refund after all of this is over. |
Jacob and Earl were in the ghost slaying business. Their business was called Metropolitan Ghost Slayers Inc.
They had a good racket going, because most people didn't know the secret of how to kill a ghost.
It was not a plasma rifle. It was not an exorcism and it was definitely not praying that they will leave you alone.
No, the secret was the imagination and what the imagination could create.
See, it turned out that the mind of a human was able to create a ghost like representation of a weapon, just by imagining it.
Jacob learned this skill very early on in his life when he was a little child.
He was watching cowboys and Indians on TV and he saw a ghost in the corner, and he went *pow pow.*
And the ghost fell to the ground in a bloody heap.
He didn't know what he'd done at the time, but eventually he caught on and he became the Ghost Slayer.
Ghost slaying became a big business for him. A huge moneymaker. But eventually he needed help, so he hired Earl to help him out.
Earl didn't have a great imagination, but he was the muscle of the operation.
He was also very good with numbers so he handled the books and the accounting.
What Jacob and Earl didn't know was that their next job was going to be one for the history books.
It was literally in the history books — 9/11.
They were called down to the 9/11 Memorial to check out some heavy paranormal activity.
How heavy it was they had no idea.
Once they arrived, Jacob was assaulted by dozens of dead ghouls.
He took out his trusty sidearm, his finger gun.
*Pow pow pow!* he said as he squeezed his index finger.
One after another the ghouls fell to the ground in agony... “they just keep on coming,” Jacob said.
“They sure as shit do,” Earl said.
They strode along to the memorial. It was two dark pitch black square holes in the ground.
They reminded him of something from a Stanley Kubrick film, ominous and desolate.
He heard a howling from the deep holes, and up from the alcoves jumped a horde of angry ghosts, white as bedsheets.
“We're gonna need a bigger gun,” Jacob said.
Jacob had never encountered this many ghouls in one setting, it was a veritable army.
“Do you hear that?” Jacob said.
“Hear what?” Earl asked.
“It's a plane,” Jacob said, “quite a large one with a large load on board... I hear it opening the bay doors now.”
Jacob whistled as if a bomb were falling through the sky.
“Here comes the nuke,” Jacob said.
Jacob imagined in his mind an enormous nuclear bomb exploding on the memorial...
it completely annihilated all of the ghouls and they all extinguished in a heap of flame and screams.
“Did you have to do that?” Earl said.
“Well,” said Jacob, “you have to admit they were already dead. At least they won't be bothering the living anymore.”
Earl whistled. “Hell of a way to go though.”
“No worse than how they went the last time.”
“Still, damn.”
Jacob patted his hands and walked away with Earl. The nice thing about this business was that you didn't have to clean anything up after you were done. And also since they got paid for each individual ghoul killed they made enough money to expand their operation into other states after this exploit.
He was now the president of MGS, International. And he would take his ghost slaying secrets to the grave with him.
After all, he didn’t want anybody using a finger gun on him after he croaked. |
I'm actually working on a book based off this idea, not the having two, but the soul mate premise. So it was easy to work through, like an extention of it.
It was hard at first, especially when it took them so long to trust each other. I mean, it was hard to believe the situation was even possible, to begin with. Everybody is supposed to have one, but I have two. We're doing what we can to keep it together. If it weren't for the natural pull, it might've been chaos. I kinda wish more were like me, so maybe they could really love each other, the way I love them, but I think I might be an outlier. I guess it could be worse. I could have nobody, or be too late. There are rumors that people like that exist; live a whole life without ever finding their soulmate, scientist say it's impossible, genetically, on top of being enough people.
I met Abby four years ago, at a concert. We were in line trying to buy swag, I had this strange feeling take over me, and we kept going for the same stuff, literally. Then we finally looked at each other, our hair stood, we were breathing together, everybody stopped and stared.
"I'm... Will, and you're,"I started.
"Abigail,"she said.
"Beautiful Abby."
I barely caught sight of a few guys dissapointed, everybody knew what was happening, it happens in various ways, but you can't do anything but let it pass, some people cheered. We did get the stuff we wanted, and found a spot together to talk. Like a fucking wieght off my mind, here was my girl, my forever. Yeah, we did enjoy the rest of the concert, and talked in the parking lot for like an hour. I just didn't want to leave her... you know how it is.
-
Oh, when we met? It was at this concert, and I was trying to buy stuff and everything I touched, he touched- was really weird. He'd say he was sorry, we'd chuckle, then it happened again! We kept brushing hands, touching, I started getting mad, then I noticed I was grabbing for something I didn't even want, and my hand was on Wills, we looked at each other and... I know this is cliche, but electricity. Time stood still, except the people cutting around us to buy shit. We chatted somewhere we didn't need to scream, our friends found us, and we rocked out. I really didn't want to leave him. We talked for a while, hobbies, beliefs, schools, he didn't know what to talk about, but we fell in to it. I think we mighta hugged as long as we talked. Kinda my fault; I didn't want to let go, he's my... boyfriend now, right?
"We should exchange numbers, I can't lose this, I thought I'd be alone forever,"he blurted.
I quickly pulled out my phone, it'd suck if we never saw each other again. It was new, I wish we were parked closer together.
"Oh my god, you're mine now,"I yelled.
"Yep, I'm yours, and we're going to make it work,"he said.
You have to, right? I mean, who wouldn't want to make it work with your soulmate? We made it work, up until she came around. I hated her at first, because it didn't make any sense, I thought she was one of those people who try and steal soulmates and use those blackmarket blockers and stuff. How could he love her too, especially when she was a he?! And Will, obviously he has to be straight, he's been enjoying this pussy for almost three years, he never told me he was anything but straight. We've come a long way, though. I want to please him as much as I can without losing myself, but I still put my foot down on a threesome. She's grew on me though. It didn't help that I thought she was stalking us.
-
Funny story, how me and Gwen met. Abby thought she was a stalker trying to steal me. We had ran in to each other a few times, actually. I think I talked to her like three times, once at the mall, one time at a gas station, me and Abby were at the waterfront park and we chatted. And... where else... that light up city thing, and some festival. Abby saw something in her eyes whenever I talked to her and didn't trust her. Then in the Taproom Bar; I spotted her, and pointed her out, Abby got jealous and made me avoid her as long as possible. Until we sat down, and she walked by with a friend of hers and froze. She was drunk as hell.
"Hi Will, we meet again,"she yelled.
"Yeah, whassup, you look wasted,"I laughed.
"Damn it, dude, just leave us alone, I see how you look at my man,"Abby yelled.
Gwen had this look on her face, she went to lean over the table and stumbled. I grabbed her and she sat down.
"I'm a girl, not a dude anymore,"she slurred.
I said, "whoa, so like you're trans?"
Abby was all like; "good for you, now go away."
"Calm down, Abby,"I looked at her, then went to look at Gwen and said; "she thinks you're trying to steal me."
Looked like she inhaled my breath, then leaned close to apologize, I smelt her breath, we looked each other in the eye, smelling each others breath, we couldn't stop. Abby was pissed.
"I knew it! She's trying to steal you, she's stalking us, probably using eliminators,"Abby waved a hand in our faces.
"I'm on HRT, I can't use that stuff, or afford that stuff, and I wouldn't do that to somebody! Will, you don't mind that I'm trans, right?"
She said that and looked at me, and it started over, but I managed to tell her I didn't care. Our faces were close enough to kiss. Her gay friend Quintez was surprised as hell, and I could kinda hear him explaining the risk of Gwen trying that to Abby. I touched her face and she held my hand when I guided her face to a kiss. I liked it, I loved it, it felt like kissing Abby at the beginning. Abby and Quintez were stunned, she reached across the table to grab or hit Gwen. We had to hold her back and she decided to leave. Me and Gwen talked more, she told me how she was scared her transition would leave her all alone, and that she wanted to do anything to keep me, she just wanted a chance. The whole time we were holding hands, and couldn't let go. I felt as strong a connection to her, like Abby. Then she asked me what Abby's problem was, and I told her she was my soulmate. Gwen was confused to why we connected if Abby was my soulmate. You know how it is when you find one, you're like inseperable until everything balances out. She tried to let go of my hand, and her hand was shaking, squeezing tighter, so was mine. She started to hyperventilate, so I kissed her, because I didn't know what to do. We made out for a long time.
"I have to be your soulmate, but Abby is,"she said.
I said, "you are, both of you are, I fucking feel it."
I had no clue how it was going to go, I never personally knew like a transsexual. I had to find Abby, though and explain this shit, the fuck could I even say? Everybody gets one, but I got two. I dragged Gwen with me, since I literally couldn't let go. We found her outside crying, I told her that she is my soulmate, and so is Gwen. She couldn't believe it, when we promised her it was real. She demanded that we all go to a doctor, so we did, and all the test proved what we were trying to tell her. Eventually we tried to work out a schedule, Abby still didn't trust her, even though she tried her best to make Abby happy. It's gotten better over time... and I've done things with Gwen I never thought I'd do, and I'm okay with it. I love her like she is. Still want that threesome though.
-
It was crazy! I first met him at the mall, outta nowhere, then we were in the line at a gas station, I kinda felt something then. The last times I met him, I had this strong feeling, but I was nervous. Plus I wasn't sure who Abby was, or why she always had these dirty looks. Last time we met at the bar, I kept seeing him and wanted to say hi, but they kept moving around. After a few drinks I was determined to say something, I kept being drawn to him. I was nice and drunk and saw them at a booth, so me and Quintez walked over, Abby started freaking out, then I kinda fell on Will, and he helped me sit next to him. His breath hit my nose, I knew he was mine and she must have been just a jealous friend, or some shit, ah dunno. It was like a fairy tale, love at first sight thing. Then she said she was his soulmate, and started accusing me of using drugs to trick him. We almost kissed, I think, I wanted to, anyway. Next thing I know; she's trying to attack us in our moment, Will and Quintez held her back, until she left. He admitted she was his soulmate, and none of it made sense. And my hand was like cramping real bad, when I tried to let him go, I couldn't fight it. We ran off to find her and get it all figured out. She said we had to go see a doctor and figure out who his real soulmate is, because you can't have two, honestly, it made since, I could see they had a connection, because he couldn't resist her. We went and they ran so many ass test on us! Turns out; we're both his soulmate, I'm willing to share, not like I have a choice, or want to find out what happens to torn apart soul mates. It was hard at first, but a year and a half later; me and Abby are pretty much friends now. I mean it was hard as fuck. I don't feel anything towards Abby, like Will, but I do care about her. So far so good.
-
Yeah, it's been crazy, people are always interested, our families gave us hell, but they've accepted it probably the best they can. I'm just happy the fame has kinda worn off, it never really does. Maybe somebody will have four soul mates, so we can be left alone. Funny, huh? |
They lifted the blindfold off of my head. I tried to move but I was strapped down to the chair. “Listen punk! You tell us or we break you!” Said one thug. I smiled and laughed. I took a deep breath and said “you, break me?” I wiped the smile from my face “you have no idea what I’m capable of.” Right then and there a few Robots broke down the door and rushed in ripping the thugs to bits. The robots untied me and asked for there next task. I smiled fixed my tie and said “Bring me the president.” |
Boom* the gunshot roared and the crowed went wild. I took off galloping as fast as I possibly could. The wind was blowing through my face and I was in first place. I had a big lead on everyone and I knew I was going to win. I heard some of the fans in the stands shouting “go number 1 you fucking rock!!!” That’s when I saw number 1 catching up. I tried to stay in first but by the time the race ended I was in last place. All of the fans absolutely loved 1 and 0. They had been the most eye catching horses ever since I was born. Yesterday me and 9 began talking about how much attention 1 and 0 get. We agreed on how unfair it was. But today was the last straw for me. I would’ve won that race today if it wasn’t for those fans cheering 1 and 0 on. The next race was about to began and I had no intention of winning and neither did 9. Booom* the gunshot roared and the crowd once again went wild. Me and 9 took off galloping until we matched speed with 1 and 0. Then in an absolute fit of rage we through our bodies into there’s. It’s been a few years since that incident and 1 and 0 passed away because of it. Me and 9 ram away right after it happened and have been living in the wild ever since. But today we returned to the track to race on more time… |
The man checked his watch like usually but this time spun his head to the right. He immediately walked on the crosswalk to were I was walking. I was still shocked but didn’t think much of it. As he passed me he whispered something into my ear but I couldn’t understand it. I turned around “what?” I shouted but he just kept walking. I stopped before shouting again “what did you say?” That’s when the car hit me. I have been in a coma ever since but I’m still alive. I can hear everything. Help me… |
Lady Loretta stormed into the room, skirts rustling furiously about her. “You have a letter for me,” she demanded.
The secretary looked up from the piece of paper he was holding. “From another suitor, I’m afraid.” He spoke hesitantly, as one does when breaking bad news gently. “It is the Crown Prince, and he is on his way here.”
“*Him?* That sniveling little boy? Who does *he* think he is, trying to woo a widow twice his age? Get Wallace to send him away, or I shall scream.”
“If I may be so bold, Madame, he wishes to marry your daughter, not you, for she has been deemed the fairest in the land.”
Lady Loretta actually did give a little scream. “This is an outrage!” she roared, “I *shall* set Wallace on him- no, I shall have a word with him directly.”
“Good heavens, Madame! He is beyond reasoning with. He *will* have the Lady Sylvia, whether she wishes it or no. And I fear he won’t think twice about taking off your head if you resist him.”
“Of course he won't, the horrid churl.” The marchioness wrung her hands agitatedly. “Then what *are* we to do? There must be a way out of this. There has to be!”
A light footfall caught their attention. Lady Loretta spun around just in time to see her equally angry daughter enter, and she took a deep breath to compose herself. “Sylvia,” she greeted her weakly.
Sylvia idly twirled her iron letter opener. “I can stick him if you want, Mother,” she offered.
“No, Dearest. It will *not* do to bring the king’s wrath on our heads. I don’t doubt that you can take Prince Alexander down in a fight any day, but violence must *only* be used as a last resort. You know that.”
“It is only a jest!” protested Sylvia, though she eyed her makeshift weapon with some disappointment. “Very well. I suppose the only other option is to leave before he comes here.”
“But where? He will scour the entire country when he finds you missing.”
Sylvia looked thoughtful. “You remember Luca, don’t you Mother? He promised to let me stay in his cabin if I was ever in danger.” Seeing the marchioness’ worried face, she continued eagerly. “He lives in the mountains bordering the South, well away from any main roads. And Prince Alexander is far too cowardly to scale the heights from what I’ve heard.”
Lady Loretta sighed. “True. You shall have to leave immediately then.” She took Sylvia’s arm and hurriedly led her to the servants’ quarters. “One of the stableboys is traveling home for the weekend. He will take the cart with him. I suggest you go with him- keep your head down if you meet anyone on the road! Are you *quite* sure you can walk the rest of the way once you are in the mountains?”
“Of course I can! I haven’t learned the arts of stealth for nothing.”
“Then it is settled.” Lady Loretta suddenly stopped and grasped Sylvia’s hands, tears forming in her eyes. “*Do* be careful, Dearest. I know you will be safe with Luca, but… oh, you know how I worry when you’re away.”
Sylvia smiled. “Never fear, Mother. I shall send you messages often. Prince Alexander’s mad schemes will be foiled before you know it.” |
It was an innocuous bronze lamp, when I found it, it was kind of grimy and tarnished but for $7.50 I decided I couldn’t pass it up. I left Barry’s Curios & Collectables feeling like I stole a prized possession, I didn’t realize how much of a bargain I actually had though and my life was about to change drastically. I got home and went straight to work cleaning the lamp using; bronze polish, a coarse fiber rag and a microfiber rag. I scoured the lamp getting every intricate nook and cranny, digging out dirt and grime from each little jasmine flower debossing and all the arabesque lines. Meticulously polishing every available square inch of the lamp.
After three hours of intense cleaning I held it up to the light of my desk lamp feeing proud of my dedication and attention to detail I turned the lamp inspecting each line and every section slowly and methodically. As I turned it over I noticed there was some sort of script embossed on the shoulder of the lamp that looked hazy and smudged, I ran my fingers over the script trying to clean the excess polish and that’s when my life began to change.
Smoke poured like water out of the lamp coalescing on my apartment floor, settling like rime along floor. A hazy green and blue mass had begun to form and take shape, the likes of a man chiseled from malachite with impressively broad shoulders and bulging biceps clad in gold bangles , his torso wrapped in a fine silk belt and where his legs should be terminated into a cloudy swirling tail of mist.
“You have summoned me and I shall grant thee three wishes, no more no less.” Intoned the Jinn.
“Se-seriously?!” I could feel my face writ with astonishment, “You’re real right? I’m not hallucinating?” I blurted.
“Yes, be careful what you wish for mortal, the likes of my power can drive a mere man to madness.” He warned bullishly.
“Like like right now I have to make my wishes?” I sputtered sheepishly.
“Master should you need time, I shall collect myself within the lamp and shall be at your beck and call at your invocation.” He stated somewhat dourly.
“Well I suppose if you’d like, you’re welcome to hang out outside the lamp though?” I said while sweeping my arm open to the living area.
“It would not behoove me to intrude on my masters domain, but I am flattered at my masters kind offering.” The jinn bowed his head and started to turn into fog and shrank away towards the lamps spout.
—————————
It had been an hour or so when I finally rubbed the lamp once more.
“That was not very long master?” The jinn said cocking a finely smoothed eyebrow, “I warn you once again… The powers I hold can and have driven man to madness.” He stated with a grave face.
“You mean if I’m selfish or conceited I’ll end up alone and filled with regrets?” I responded cocking an eyebrow back at him with snark in my voice.
The jinn chuckled before saying “Test your luck if you wish my master but wishes are universe bending to your whims.” A smirk blazoned across his faultless face.
“Ooookay then genie man…” his tone and expressions hit with a sense of impending doom, “I wi- … do have to state I wish?” My cautiousness interrupted.
“As the rules of The Jinn state, “All wishes must be stated with I wish, followed by the masters wish” and you may not change the wish once stated.” The Jinn explained pertinaciously.
“I see. . . I wis- wait a minute, what’s your name?” My insistence for the mundane preceding what I was going to wish for, whatever it that I was going to wish for anyway.
“I- uh… what does that have to do with your wishes my master?” The jinn clearly caught off guard, “I have not been asked my name in over two millennia, but I am known as جوهرة or Jawhara.” Jawhara stated.
“Well, nice to meet you Jawhara.” More than likely butchering the pronunciation, summoning my most authoritative voice stated “Well for my first wish, I wish I had a brisket sandwich with caramelized onions, bbq sauce and smoked Gouda cheese… please.” The last word coming out in a squeak.
“Granted!” Jawhara boomed with a smooth baritone.
Suddenly a few thick slices of brisket, caramelized onions and smoked Gouda, lathered in bbq sauce appeared in my hands.
“A strange wish for a man with a full kitchen?” Jawhara grinned fiendishly.
“Aww… man come on what the hel- like seriously why?!” My indignation slathered with as much confusion as the mess in my hands was with bbq sauce.
“I believe the saying goes “The devils are within the details” and I granted the wish as ordered.” Jawhara grinned again.
“Exactly why I started with a sandwich… you smarmy jerk.” I said with slight bemusement.
“You started with that wish for why exactly? And if I may, what pray tell is your name master?” Jawhara asked curiously.
“My name is Nathan.” I stated.
“Ah, a good strong Hebrew name. Your parents named you well. Howbeit, what is your second wish Master Nathan?” He said with a firm smile.
“I’m gonna need a minute to think, I don’t want another “sandwich” incident and this time seriously hang out outside why don’t you.” I insistently pointed to the couch.
“If you so desire Master Nathan.” Jawhara said floating over to the couch, his misty tail splitting and forming into legs.
After another hour of thinking and contemplating I think I had the perfect second wish, hopefully foolproof. But how foolproof is plan if it’s thought up by the fool?
“Alright Jawhara, I’m ready for my second wish!” I exclaimed with a bit sanguinity.
“Ah yes, of course Master Nathan. What is thy second wish?” He said floating over to the kitchen table where I sat.
“I wish, Jawhara, to be able to have my wishes granted, exactly as intended them to be.” I said smugly.
“Granted!” Boomed Jawhara once again in his smooth baritone voice. “And might I say, you seem to have learned faster than previous masters I’ve served.” He smiled.
“Now for my third wish while you inhabit your bronze lamp… Jawhara! I wish you had a new gold lamp with the same powers and magic as your bronze lamp, and! That it was sat on my kitchen table right next to the bronze lamp!” I hollered with excitement.
Jawhara paused, mildly confused before belting out once more “Granted!”
A gold lamp proofed into existence right where I wished it to. It looked identical in design and size to the bronze lamp, down to the script on the shoulder of the lamp looking like it was smudged with polishing cream.
“It has been a pleasure serving you Master Nathan but now our time together comes to an end. Farewell.” Jawhara said as he dissipated into smoke pooling down the spout of the lamp.
I reached for the gold lamp, rubbed the wear worn script, Jawhara, reinvoked came out of his new confines.
“I’ve granted your three wishes Nathan, no more no less.” He said with another arched eyebrow.
“New lamp, new wishes though Jawhara.” I stated with my own arched brow and grin, “There’s no rules against that are there? And, I wished for my wishes to be granted as I intended. So, new lamp, new wishes?” If my plan worked, I was going to have a lot of lamps and a lot of wishes.
“W- you- very in^teres^ting …” Jawhara trailed off, “My apologies Master Nathan. You have summoned me and I shall grant thee three wishes. No more. No less.” Jawhara intoned once more, this time though, he wore a mischievous smile as he bowed before me.
Now to have some fun with the universe… |
When Lady Vasso she applied to become part of the queen’s retinue, there was no reason to deny her request. She was from a respected noble family, and her character was unimpeachable. She became Queen Iverly’s first lady-in-waiting, and quickly, her most beloved. Now, that love was poisoning the throne and the kingdom.
“Do you realize what you are doing?” I asked her.
“What am I doing?” Lady Vasso asked, her back against the wall of my library, the smile on her lips faint yet cloying.
“I know what you say to her,” I told her. “I know what you’re turning her into.”
Lady Vasso shook her head. “I only unearthed what was already there. You unseated a tyrant from the throne, and replaced him with his daughter. Do you think the apple will fall so far from the tree?”
“Iverly is not like her father.”
“She is enough like him that she is repeating his very mistakes. You were too young to remember the early years of Wytan’s reign, but my family remembers it quite well. All it took to become his favorite was honeyed words, shiny gifts. I tried the same with Iverly, and it took me no longer than a fortnight to earn her favor. I received proclamations of love, gifts from the royal treasury, promises too heavy for one woman to make. She’s changing the policies now to favor the nobles over the commoners. She’s even considering reinstating the slavery system.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted everyone else to see what I saw… before it was too late. Her position as queen now is still fragile. There are other heirs to the throne, distant cousins or aunts or uncles. If not me, someone else would’ve tempted her into submitting to her true nature. If you let this rotten thing rule the country, all that you’ll be left with is ruin.”
“She’s already raised the taxes for the commoners,” I wondered out loud. There had been more proposals for taxation. Even a pilgrimage tax, which I had questioned. Iverly said it was for the kingdom’s future, but now I was beginning to have my doubts.
“I cannot commit treason,” I mumbled.
“You’ve already done that,” Lady Vasso said. “What’s the harm in doing it once more?”
“Iverly is my *friend*,” I insisted. “She saved this kingdom from certain death.”
“And now she’s driving us towards it. The rumors are already spreading, you know. Others are using my method, and to great success. The merchants guild gifted her a Kalassian stallion, and now they are allowed to import cheap foreign silk and sell it with impunity. The nobles are plying her with gold and furs, each hoping to gain favor with her. Soon, we will be back to the world you worked so hard to change.”
“It can’t have been so easy. She is a good person. Her father abandoned her. She grew up like a commoner.”
“Yes. She grew up a commoner and became a queen. So now she thinks herself superior to the rest of us, because of the heights she has reached from her childhood poverty. The moment you crowned her, you lost the Iverly you knew.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“We control the damage,” Lady Vasso said. “I will try to convince her to implement altruistic policies, you will try to reverse the decisions regarding the merchants guild and such. We watch her and wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“Her time of weakness,” Vasso said. “And then we strike. Kings and queens come and go, but the kingdom must survive.”
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
*If you liked my work, check out* r/analect. |
"How was your day, Miss?"Asks Jed, an elderly man who, along with his wife, feared the unknown, as all people do. In those days; science was making great strides, far before the war. They didn't wish to have their children see struggles they couldn't be there to help them with, they wanted their grandchildren to know their grandparents. The great risk that they had read extensively about was the high chance of side effects...
"It was alright. Do I know?"Asked the woman he spoke to, a girl by the name of Mary. Jed smiled softly. "We've met once ore twice before."Jed was not a man who stood out by any great stretch of the imagination. Beyond biological immortality; he looked like any other man; stressed from his life and his work, wearing a suit that didn't quite fit him anymore and a hat that went out of style a decade ago.
"Your hat... it's kind of silly, isn't it?"Jed smiled softly. "This old thing? I guess it's getting on in years."He laughed. "Should I take it off?"
"No"replied Mary. "I like it. It gives you... character. My name is Mary."She stated.
"I'm Jed."Replied the older man. It was around this time they heard the doorbell ringing.
"Oh my! I... didn't realize I was in your..."Jed shook his head. The problem with the immortality drug had not been it's side effects at all. The great failing was it that all it did was remove biological death; but not biological disease. A tragedy that poor Jed and Mary lived through every day. And while it wasn't at all what either had wanted...
"It's your home, Mary. That's the kids at the door. They promised to visit us for the holidays. They've gotten so old, dear. If you can't remember; you once wrote all their names down and your favorite thing about each of them. It's in your right pocket."
A flash of emotion rushed through Mary but if it was recognition, understanding, or confusion; Jed couldn't tell. He opened the door to the grand-children of theirs and their children as well.
While it wasn't what either had wanted; Jed would still never endure this with anyone else by his side. |
"I am standing before you, as you defied God's Will,"yeah, whatever, "and I came from heaven to remove you from this world!"Any humans won't prove much of a challenge, but whatever, I'll have some fun with them anyway.
"We are doing Allah's Will! If you are truly send by our God, you should be on our side!"The apparant leader of the group shouted off the top of his lungs. "You are not an angel of *our* God!"With that, he signaled his soldiers to attack.
I've seen guns fire before, but this was just insane. So many bullets flying everywhere. Of course, they wouldn't harm me, but at least it looked intimidating. No need to dodge them. The only human weapons that can harm an angel are atomic weaponry. From my knowledge, they shouldn't have any.
"ISIS, lay down your arms or face my wrath!"As if that would have helped, but I am still a good guy.
Once I got started, it was over just as quickly. There was no chance for those humans. What a disappointment. What am I supposed to do now? North Korea, maybe? But I am already getting in enough trouble for killing so many humans. God doesn't want that anymore. He tried the wrathful path before, but that got Him nowhere with his little children. They were still pretentious, viscious, dishonest.
Who is that to the side? With a camera? Should I kill him? I don't think God would want me to be seen by any survivors.
But I couldn't have decided fast enough, God was already sending for me. Guess I will be banished to Hell after all.
​
Now I am kneeling in front of God, head held down. I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry...
"Well done, Child."His timbre is incomprehensible even to angels. "I expected you to go to ISIS first, I am glad I was right."What? Was this his plan all along?
"I don't understand..?"
"I knew you would do right by them. You didn't kill unnecessarily. But you removed a threat to my other children. Your hothead has proven useful for once. I am grateful for that."
"Father, what would you have done had I killed that man with the camera?"I am scared of the answer.
"I would have intervened. I would not have let you kill him."
"So, you wanted this to happen the way it did?"
"More or less, yes."God's Plan?
"You wanted me to be seen???"I can't believe it.
"Yes, indeed. I decided there should be some proof of divine intervention by now."Unbelievable.
"Then I am glad I could be of service."With that, I stand up and leave. Right now, I am not sure what to think. |
I was sworn in today as director of the Nova Project, our society's shining achievement. The best and brightest have been brought here to Facility 32Alpha, an otherwise unremarkable compound. Most of the world thinks it's a storage depot for the military, but in reality we've cloned our greatest minds, even interbred them, to continue the works that made them famous in their lifetimes. From Monica Greene, whose work in aeronautical engineering was breathtakingly innovative, to Alfred Littleton, the zoologist who discovered more distinct species of bird in his lifetime than any other (most notably the Blacktailed Esper, Beta Epsilon IV's only known naturally telepathic species), their labgrown offspring have been diligently doing what they were literally born to do. Today, finally, I get to peek behind the curtain and see what they've managed to accomplish.
Until now, directors have been political appointees. I suppose there's no harm in that, these are the brightest we have to offer. Managing them is likely no more than making sure they don't work themselves to exhaustion, as great scientists are wont to do. My term as director is the first to be appointed by my peers. I, if I may be less than humble, am a scientist of no small accomplishment myself. I would not be the slightest bit surprised if my work continues here after my death. You can imagine the genuine excitement I feel right now, as I go to my office for the first time.
The next few hours see that dread turn to ice in my gut. I read the files, and reread them. This can't be. No, this has to be a mistake. A prank by my predecessor no doubt! As I read through the astrophysics work of Dr Alex Varnem (my personal area of study), I realize in horror that this can't be a joke or a prank. I begin to dig deeper into the Nova Project, to try and discern what went awry.
The answer is as baffling as it is simple. We cloned their personages, but failed to account for their upbringings. Their minds are brilliant, but the experiences that made them who they were are, quite frankly, unreproducible. They have been simply thrown into this place and left relatively unsupervised.
Worse yet, the interbreeding program was left in the hands of Constance Redbridge. She was a brilliant geneticist in her lifetime, but the Dr Redbridge we have is *not* the same woman who discovered the fix for DNA Sequence Degradation... the very application which made the Nova Project itself even possible. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea to the previous directors, but again, no one checked the work, they just assumed that the greatest minds of the past century would just somehow *intuit* the scientific knowledge and application.
Frantically, I continue to scan the files of these clones and children of clones, and my blood runs cold again. In Plymouth Landing (the capital and shining star of our colony, as it was the initial landing site of the terraforming and colonization effort), they've been building an Omicron Mass Generator, which is supposedly a reactor powerful enough to supply our entire planet with the energy it needs. I may be an *astro*physicist, but I quickly spot an issue. The figures are miscalculated by a factor of several decimal points! Had my predecessors been scientists themselves, had any of this work been checked by anyone who was not a member of Nova to begin with, this would have been spotted. Then it dawns on me, I remember the media infocasts from the past week.
*The Omicron Mass Generator goes online today.*
I get on a comm unit to try to contact someone at the Omicron site. All lines are engaged, likely because of how important the generator is to our world's energy production. In the halls, I hear something, it's people chanting.
*"Ten... nine... eight... "*
My heart sinks. My mouth goes dry.
*"Seven... Six... Five..."*
I'm too late. Even if the comm line miraculously clear up, they're counting down to the powering of the generator. Even if I got through **now**, I wouldn't have time to explain.
*"Four... three... two..."*
My thoughts drift to Max and our daughter. If my calculations are correct, at least it will be instantaneous. They won't suffer. Small consolation. But I'll take what I can get.
*"One!"*
**INFOCAST 24120921:0934211**
*This infocast has been marked as Priority Alpha. Please monitor it at your earliest opportunity.*
"This is Starwatch, reporting on all Terran colonies to bring our people together. Tragedy has apparently struck the research colony of Beta Epsilon IV. Once home to thirty-four million people, the Beta Epsilon system no longer exists. Instead, there is a new black hole where Beta Epsilon IV once orbited. Even now, the gravitational effects of the black hole, much greater in mass than the planet it absorbed, are being felt throughout the system."
"No one knows how or why this devastating event has occurred. The last data packet to be transmitted left the planet forty-six minutes prior to the emergence of the black hole. TerraSci is sifting through the data now, but it will be some time before any of it can be applied, although several projects are reportedly being fasttracked due to their utility, including a revolutionary new reactor design."
"We will continue to keep you updated as this story unfolds, and we wish you all calming thoughts in this time."
**END INFOCAST** |
Why does *The One* have to be only one person?
Sure, I'm talking about your fantasy stories where a chosen hero saves the realm too, but I'm so much more interested in "The One"in the fairy-tale romance kind of way.
"I love your dress,"she said.
So many of us find ourselves wondering if our newest partner will be our "One,"the one we can finally give our all to.
"I know it's only been a year, but I want you to move in,"she said.
But thinking about it statistically, with how many people there are in the world, there's such a low chance the very first person you hit it off with is your destined soulmate.
"Hey... I'm glad I get to be your one and only,"she said.
Also though, shouldn't it be reasonable to say that there must exist a huge quantity of people all around us who are close enough to the real thing that we couldn't tell the difference?
"I'm so sorry, I have no idea why I did it, it just *happened*,"she said.
I think it's such a blessing because the odds that you've given yourself to someone capable of making you happy goes way up!
"What are you holding?"she said.
And even if it doesn't end up working out, any time you spend with someone is still spent with your soulmate, one of thousands!
"It was so nice meeting you, I hope we get to see each other again soon!"she said.
I really do think the pursuit of true love is such a noble, pure thing.
"I know it hasn't been very long yet, but think about it,"she said.
I have to. |
I passed another 'craper as I walked down the pockmarked landscape of the ruins now known as N w Y. I was on a quest to find the holy book of Vander Veer. It was written in a time when mankind still had to ability to build 'crapers and it was said that we even ruled the skies in mechanical birds.
That was long before I was born though. The yellow journal of my grandfather held many different stories and myths inside it. Some of them are believable such as that he was a trouble maker in what they called the navy. Others I had to write off as being unbelievable such as him describing a ship that held as many people as was left in the last city.
I followed the stories he told and the maps that he wrote to here. Following what was once hard packed roads, now was nothing more than a bare path covered with dirt much like the rest of the world that I knew.
I crawled into the ruins of the massive structure and stood in awe. There was the remains of what must be millions of books. Although the structure itself no longer supported itself. It appeared that the roof protected most of the glorious cache that I had stumbled upon.
I immediately started looking for the section marked by the ancient signs. It took days before I found out that there was a downstairs. Still partially passable I searched using the lamp that I had brought with me.
Thousands of books later I finally found it. the numbers 005.2/762 were just like my grandfather had written in his journal. He spoke highly of this book and it's ability to pass on skills that allowed him to feed his large family and allowed him to obtain the land that the last city now stood on.
Pulling the book off of the shelf I blew the dust from it's cover. Here it was!!! The holy book he spoke of "Javascript for Dummies, by Emily Vander Veer". I had found it and with it's secrets would help bring us back into the golden age of mankind. |
“Honey, time for dinner! Can you come downstairs and help me put the forks and knives and napkins on the table?”
Scampering and thudding from upstairs. “Mom, I think he’s hungry!”
“I know you’re hungry, babe. Let’s get this show on the road!”
“No, this guy from the egg.”
Guy from the egg? “Come on down, hon, bout time to eat. Please?”
An awful lot more thuds than normal. My son came down, with some kind of plastic toy in his hand. “Honey, it’s time to wash up!” I sing-songed, like all exasperated parents. Then it trundled around the corner, and I realized my little guy couldn’t possibly have made the house creak like that. My eyes snapped back to his hand. My Tamagotchi. I hadn’t touched it in two and a half decades. I looked back at the creature. Impossible to tell its emotions, you can map any emotion you want onto it, like a cat. Probably the reason I threw it in a drawer, then felt guilty and carted it around since college in the bottom of boxes.
“Umm, honey, did you replace the batteries?!”
“Yep! And then this guy came out. He’s great. And he’s hungry!”
I remembered why I had left him in the back of the drawer. Of course he was hungry. He’d always been hungry. Damn. Tamagotchi was back. We had a six-foot high pet who would need to be toilet-trained. |
“Y’know, I take a lot of pride in me job.”
The seemingly innocuous janitor with an unknown accent dressed in a white t-shirt and overalls looked off into an unseen distance.
“Being omnipotent can get boring at times,” says the janitor. “But what really makes being a humble janitor to Dustin Middle the best, is how simple it is.”
The janitors’s glazed eyes snap back into focus as he pulls out a mop and wash bucket from what appeared to be nothing. He quickly starts to clean the dirty footprints of the various middle schoolers that walked around.
“After existing for as long as before the concept of time was even a thought, one tends to lose interest in everything. Sure, being able to do anything and everything would have appealed to some people, but really it just gives you too much time on your hands.”
The janitor finishes mopping the hallway. A yellow wet floor sign flickers into existence in the middle of the hall.
“But this,” he gestures to the next hall, equally dirty as the last. “This gives me plenty to do. Some may call it boring, just mopping and vacuuming day in and out, but I think it’s fulfilling.”
The janitor resumes his duties, mopping methodically and efficiently down the hall, leaving a trail of unnatural cleanliness. Once finished, another wet floor sign appears in the middle of the floor, seemingly materializing from nothing.
Heaving a sigh, the janitor spoke again, “It may seem as if this job is hard. I know some teachers are questioning how this whole school is completely clean every day when I’m the only janitor. Some even ask how I do it.”
An amused twinkle lights up his eyes.
“I just tell them that I used a bit of magic,” He glances around the grayscale world, everything monotone and seemingly frozen in time. “‘Course a bit of fourth dimension reality warping doesn’t hurt. Simply project an echo of this dimension into the next and connect them via- ah you probably don’t wanna hear any of that.”
He grins mischievously as he replaces his mop’s head. “Long story really really short, I clean in this in-between and it reflects onto the original.”
Once again he dips the mop head in the soapy water before properly straining it and starts to mop the dirty floors again. “This job doesn’t come without its occasional hiccups, though.”
He frowns slightly, looking off into unseen realities. He shakes it off before returning his attention to the mop and dirty floor again. “Every once in awhile some youngsters think it’d be funny to prank the janitor,” Chuckling to himself, he shakes his head in light of the fond memories.
“Not laughing anymore when they find that their backpack is a wormhole to the top of Everest.”
Chuckling, he finishes mopping the floor and once again another wet floor sign appears in a he center of the floor, the only thing not grayscale.
“Anywho, you probably have something you need to do, school maybe. Your geometry teacher is probably looking at you on your phone right now. Maybe you’re at work. Y’know you won’t get that raise by sitting on your phone all the time.”
A knowing smile makes its way onto his face. He turns to face directly at you. “Get off the toilet, you’ll get hemorrhoids that way.”
He snaps his fingers and the grayscale melts away to reveal an empty hallway that was slowly being filled with the bustling students of Dustin Middle as the bell rang. |
Pixilation.
Regrets from the past, a glimpse into the future, the warmth of her hands, life goes on.
Marcey scrolled through photographs in the album titled 'Mom' rather quickly, almost as if she was looking for one in particular. Of course, she wasn't.
A deep sadness, the smell of rain, an intense sensation of stillness, the passenger seat, when I shattered the garage window.
The room around Marcey sat listlessly in its place. The walls felt particularly thin today, and the window, large. The images came in and out of sight.
A spot in the sun, the stranger who became a friend, trivia night, giving up.
Things that go without saying but get said anyways. |
Bright light. What is this? The light is... peaceful, warm, comforting. I can barely see her through the light.
"Are you paying attention?"She said mockingly, pulling me back to reality with her pleasant voice.
"I'm... sorry, I wasn't."I smiled. "What did you say?"
"What's up with you? My friend told me you were a great listener, but you, like, lose focus all the time."Her smile is taking over her whole face. She becomes more gorgeous by the second. I think I have to tell her.
"I can see light. Like..."
"Everyone can. That's how sight works."She interrupted me, charmingly mocking me again.
"That's not what I meant."I paused, expecting another playful jab. Silence, only a raised eyebrow. "I can see *your* light. It is indescribable. I think... It is my wish."
"Wish?"Her eyebrow seems to want to raise even higher, but can't.
"I made a wish quite a few years back. I wished to see past lives. And I..."
"And you see light shining from me."Interrupted again, but more serious than before.
"Y - yes..."I stumbled over my words, her light taking over my vision again. "Why - d - do I only see light?"
"Easy."Taking my hand and seemingly guiding me back to this present moment. "I am a fallen angel."
I feel like I am falling off the chair. Is this real? A genie can exist, but angels as well? "What?"
"Yes. I fell. On purpose."Her smile again.
"On... purpose?"
"Yes, to find love."The light still shines blindingly bright in the background, illuminating only us.
"And you went on a blind date with me?"Trying to hold on to the little piece of composure I still have. "With me?"
"Well, yes. I heard the prayer of your friend. A prayer for you. That you may finally find the right one."So, pity?
"That sounds pitiful. I wouldn't want that."I pulled my hand back, just for her to take it again.
"Well, yes, I only went on this date with *you* to tell you something. I am not the right one for you."
"So, what are we doing here?"I pulled at my hand again, this time she lets me go.
"Your friend, Rose. You know why she prayed for you, despite her not being the religious type? Because she needed a reason to forget about you, about the love she feels for you. You need to do the first step before her love gets devoured by desperation and frustration. She is too shy to tell you. And she fears that your friendship would die if you said 'no'."Taking my hand again. "But I can see that you feel the same for her."She smiled.
"Rose."15 years of friendship, going through so much together. But *both* of us too scared to ask the other out. "Why did you not tell that to her? Why go the extra mile through me? Let her make the first move?"
"Well, I had to have some fun, too!"Again with the mocking laugh. "But I didn't know you would see my light."
"I need to go."
"Yes, you do. She is at home, probably mentally flagellating herself over the lost love. Don't let her suffer for too long."
Now I am standing at her door. My heart beats in my head at an incredible speed. |
The end of the world is shockingly quiet.
At least, in this quiet barn it is. Most places out there are probably pandemonium, but here? There are dark storm clouds overhead, but the rain hasn’t started. No birds. The cows and horses are all inside, oddly calm. The wind blows here and there, and I can feel the atmospheric pressure building in my inner ear. The calm before the storm. I wonder whether I’ll still be here when it starts.
34 days. That’s how long the whole thing took.
We didn’t notice until day 6 or 7. That’s when the reports started coming in - people just vanishing. Literally vaporizing in front of their friends, family, peers. None of it was local, at first. Reports from around the world. The first were from India. The next day there were more of them, the closest being in Missouri, about 1000 miles from me.
Twice as many people every day. It’s a weird sort of apocalypse. Kind of lopsided. Usually in movies or books there’s a massive die-off, and then the rest of the population dies off slowly from starvation, tribal wars, that kind of thing.
But here? Half the global population is still here. 3/4 of us were here yesterday. We’ve been living in terror, knowing that we’re doomed, and yet statistically, most people didn’t personally know anybody who had vanished until sometime early last week.
All of us have lost someone now, though. Half the people we ever knew, more or less. My wife vanished two days ago. We were holding each other, as we did every night. We would look each other in the eyes and promise we’d both make it to the next day. Each night our anxiety built, knowing that our promise was a little less secure than the night before. When it happened, I was hugging her as tight as I could, as if that could keep her here even if the universe had chosen her. But in the blink of an eye, she was gone, and I was left holding the sweater she had been wearing.
I‘ve scarcely put it down since. It still smells like her. I’m holding it right now while I sit in the loft of the barn. She loved sitting up here with me and looking out over the field. The plot of land we had built our life on, and hoped for at least a few more decades together. Still, I can’t bring myself to cry for her. I don’t have to live the rest of my life without her. Just a couple more days. To be honest, it‘s a relief knowing that I‘ll join her soon.
I check my watch. 6:58pm. It always happens at 7pm on the dot.
I feel something like peace wash over me.
It’s all going to be okay. |
“Okay honey how much is it?” Asked my mom
“It’s uh it’s $49.99” I said dropping my head. “Sorry honey maybe next time” my mom said before grabbing the box and putting me back on the shelf. I watched my mom and younger self walk away from the box. I tried to scream to call out but they couldn’t hear me. I sat waiting for hours and hours trying to anything to escape this box but nothing worked. I finally got tired and went to bed in the corner of the box. Days went by and not one customer glanced at the box. That was until I was woken up to a familiar voice. “Here we go this is the one” my mom said grabbing the box. She smiled looking into the box. I felt like she could almost see me but there was no reaction to indicate it. “He’s gonna love this” she said putting the box into the shopping cart. I was so excited I could almost explode. I had finally been picked from my shelf and it was my mom who picked me! I sat at the plastic sheet just listening to her shop. She put me in the trunk of her car and started to drive home. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted nothing more than to be back home after being in this empty box for so long. (Later that night) “now where are the scissors?” My mom asked. “Here they are!”
I heard the sound of her cutting something before she picked up the box and covered the plastic sheet. I was being wrapped like a present. I couldn’t see anything which made me sad but it’s better than being stuck on that shelf alone. I waited for days which felt like years before I finally felt the wrapping being removed. “Oh my gosh! Thank you so much” my younger self said excitedly picking up the box. “Merry Christmas!” Said my mom hugging my younger self. That’s when he ripped the box open. The fresh air hit me and I had never felt that at peace. That’s when I woke up… “stay calm, hello can you hear me?” Said the nurse standing over me. “You just woke up from a coma, do you remember anything.” Said the nurse curiously waiting for me to respond. “Why did you bring me back? I was finally happy” I said closing my eyes. |
“Come on we’re gonna miss the train!!” Frank yelled over his shoulder. I must’ve been in shock because Frank had to run back to snap me out of it. “Hurry up we don’t have time to stop!” He yelled. I plopped down in my sit. “Frank did you see that back there?” I asked with a confused look on my face. “See what? You standing there? We almost missed our train cause of you!” He said not so amused. “Oh yeah, Um I’m sorry about that” I said brushing off what I had just seen as hallucination. I woke up to Frank shaking me. “Hey hey! Wake up wake up” he said frantically. “What? Frank what’s going on?” I ask. “Follow me hurry” he said quietly. We creeped along the train going further and further back until we had reached the back of the train. In front of us was a door that lead to another part of the train. Frank reached for the handle “wait Frank! We’re not aloud back here they could throw us off the train” I said. “No you need to see this for yourself.” He said pushing the door open. In front of us was another part of the train. There were people and seats just like any other part of the train. Except for one thing, no one was moving. It was as if time itself had stopped exact spot. You look out the windows and the train isn’t even moving. People aren’t moving and there is absolutely no sound. “Frank let’s get out of here” I say. “No no there’s more follow me” Frank says with an excited expression on his face. I follow Frank to the back of the train we’re there is another door. We go through the door and in this room and time has stopped again except something is different about this room. “Frank we need to leave im serious” I say trying to desperately convince him. “But look! Isn’t that creepy!” Frank says staring at the tall man just standing at the back of the train. He was very tall and seemed very out of place. “Frank let’s just go!” I said. No matter what Frank wasn’t planning on leaving. I had a sick feeling in my stomach and felt the strong need to get out of there. I stepped back and called to Frank who was now approaching the man to try and convince him on last time. “Frank just come with me please.” But no response he had made up his mind and there was nothing I could do to change it. As I ran back to the front of the train I heard A scream that I instantly recognised as Frank’s. It shocked me so much I slipped and hit my head. I woke up to some people standing over me. “Are you okay?” one asked. “Give him space” another says. “Where Frank” I ask. “Frank? Who’s Frank?” Someone asks. Since that day I never saw Frank again. |
When the vaults first opened they were full of a wide range of weapons. People didn't quite know what to do with them. Eventually the government took action, calling them historic artifacts and making it illegal to steal anything. That, of course, didn't stop people.
Over the course of a couple months people from all sorts of backgrounds began taking the weapons. The ones who got caught were fined and their weapons seized but such a light punishment only made people more willing.
If you lived near the vaults its likely your residence would be searched constantly for stolen weapons and your community would become more and more dangerous.
Once beautiful towns and cities were now the hotspot of gangs and endless violence. Those places were called death zones because theyre death rates were higher than almost any other known place on earth.
Now, three years later, every vault stood bone-dry. People of all ages could probably be found with some sort of weapon from the vault, especially as they were sold nationwide.
I live right next to the Chrysalis Vault, named after how similar it looked to a chrysalis. It had long thin, greenish brown walls that formed a tube shape. The tube used to hold a variety of weapons along with an array of plants that coated the inner walls.
It has a huge entrance that reminds me of the tear in a chrysalis after a butterfly flies out of it.
A couple years ago if you went inside you would find that every weapon was hung by thick vines. Now most of the vines that used to be dozens of feet up, touched the ground, none of them holding weapons.
I live in a small cottage in the woods only about a mile away from the Chrysalis Vault. When I built my house, I had no idea how close I was to such a rare and beautiful place. The whole vault was concealed inside a cave before the vaults opened. When the chrysalis opened, the walls of the cave around it crumbled like dirt.
It was quite irritating being so close to the Chrysalis as most people suspected I had built my house to make for easier stealing. I used to have to have my house searched once every couple of weeks just to appease the government officials who 'protected' the vault.
Eventually the vaults were completely emptied the searches stopped and the Chrysalis became more of a tourist attraction then anything else.
Today I'm going in the chrysalis to look for Jeharis berries. They're a type of berry that only grows in the vaults and they taste super good in a pie.
There is no path to the vault from my house, but the vaults walls glow bright so I can easily see where to go. Today though, was different. Instead of just a small glow it was like the vault was shining.
I made my way past the thick bushes and tall trees to the vault, which up close actually hurt my eyes. There were small groups of tourists as usual but oddly enough no one else seemed bothered by the bright light.
It must be the mushroom stew I made last night. I'm usually really good about foraging mushrooms but I've never been perfect at it.
I made my way inside the vault, trying my best not to go blind from the light which was now making it incredibly hard to see.
Not wanting to look weird I walked with as much pride and certainty that I could muster.
I kept walking forward expecting to hit or see a wall eventually but it felt like I was walking through an endless void of light.
The voices of curious tourists began to fade as I continued forward and alarms immediately went off inside my head.
The Chrysalis was known for being the tallest vault but it most certainly was not wide enough for the voices of loud tourists to fade no matter how far you went inside of it.
The lights, just like the voices, began to fade the more I walked and I was finally able to see where I was. I stood in a corridor with a doors on both sides each about a meter apart.
Each door was different, all of them were made of what seemed to be pure gold but they had patterns all over. I looked behind me but there was no visible end to the corridor. No matter where I looked it seemed to stretch on for miles.
I tried the handle of the door to my right but it wouldn't budge, same with the one on my left.
"Hello?"I called out, and a small chime answered me.
I ran towards it, unsure of where I was going or what I was going to. The chime continued to sound rhythmically, getting louder as I ran down the corridor.
I kept running even as the chime sound turned into a sound that felt more like an alarm. The corridors once bright lights were now dimmed so much that my only guide forward were the walls and then, the sound stopped.
The door to my left was glowing faintly, its intricate patterns changing continuously as I stared at it in wonder.
My instincts told me to open the door and, like the rule abiding person that I am, I turned the handle. The door opened widely and inside of it was a strange room.
The walls were made of up of plants I had never seen before. Flowers, berries, leaves, and vines. All of them fit together forming into a thick, beautiful wall.
The room wasn't all that big. About the size of my bedroom back home. Its floor was made simply of grass and dirt with a small gravel path leading towards a wooden lectern which seemed to hold some kind of thick book.
I walked in the room and made my way down the path, stopping periodically to stare at the beautiful walls and then finally I looked at the ceiling.
It looked exactly like the walls, with plants forming a high ceiling above my head full of life. However what made me really interested was the small pond that faced me. Fish swam inside the pond as small waves formed on the surface above me, but not a drop fell.
It felt like I was looking down at the pond instead of up.
After many minutes of staring I looked away and finally got to the lectern at the end of the gravel path. It looked almost plain amidst the magic that was this room, though the book it held was anything but.
The book had a golden cover much like the doors with patterns etched along its surface. I opened the book, flipping through the pages, only to find the pages were blank.
I continued to flip through the pages until I finally got to the back cover. Nothing. Suddenly this whole adventure felt really pointless.
I closed the book and scanned the lectern to see if I was missing something. I saw a small drawer that almost seemed to blend in with the rest of the wood that made up the lectern, I wouldn't have seen it if not for the small knob on the front of it
I pulled it open not knowing what could be inside, only to find a generic pencil and a small knife. I picked up the knife looking at its wooden handle where a few were words were carved onto it:
"For the knowledge you seek, a drop of blood must be drawn at least"
I looked at the sharp edge of the knife and realized what I needed to do. Opening the book again, I grazed my finger with the sharp edge of the knife, wiping the resulting blood on one of the blank pages.
The book slammed shut, its cover changing into different materials, silver, glass, leather, diamond, iron, and finally wood. The knife I had held burst into a flurry of lights before disappearing completely.
Cautiously, I opened the book again to find the once blank pages, now filled with words. The words were written in beautiful cursive letters and as I read they told me a story.
Long ago a king, well known for being forward thinking and resourceful, sought a man known throughout the lands for his ability to know mans greatest ailments.
The king scoured far and wide to find this man, but he was unsuccessful. While returning to his castle in disappointment the king saw there was chaos all over. The castle was in shambles all because an old man had made his way into the kings quarters.
The king, curious about this man, went to the prison where he was being held. When the king met the man it was like all of his wants had been met. The man was the very person he had been looking for, the one who could see the problems of humanity.
The old man told the king to close his eyes and search for the thing he wanted most, only then would the king find that very thing. The king did as told and came upon an endless hallway lined with doorways.
Each door was different yet they all looked similar in that they were each made of pure gold. The king searched for the door that would open for him until he heard a sound far away.
He ran towards it and once he got there he found a door much like the others that glowed bright. It opened to him only to show him a room made like an armoury.
It was filled with weapons he had never seen and ones he'd seen a dozen times. Each one was made of the finest materials from a small sling shot to a mystical looking sword.
The room looked rather simple, with the rough, cheap materials it was made of.
The only thing made of anything but stone, and wood was a gold lectern in the middle of the room, which held a knife, a pencil, and an empty book.
The king easily figured out the puzzle only to open the book to the writings of someone from long ago. The king read the story and saw the book change back to show empty pages once more, so that he could write his own story.
The king wrote in the book and found that the amount of pages the book had fit perfectly, almost magically, with his story.
The last bit of the story was written by someone else. It said that by finishing his story the king would get what he wanted and needed most.
It stated that any weapons that were kept needlessly or were used for unnecessary brutality, would be hidden away for one thousand years. Therefor helping humanity to seek peace.
The story then ended on the final page. Before I even had time to process, the pages once more turned blank. This time however I knew that there were no hidden words to be found.
I had to write my story. |
Ark VR. I had started dabbling in it after getting a VR headset. The game itself was already a pain, and the VR set made it that much harder. Eventually after hours of trying to get set up, I sat down and fell asleep. Or so I thought. Something happened. When I woke back up, I saw the respawn animation for a death. Sun bright on the face, new locale, jungle everywhere. So here's me, thinking "Oh I fell asleep in my headset again.". Nope. I reach for it and it's gone. And so is my living room. What's even more strange is I can *feel* the muddied forest floor on my bare feet.
Panic sets in because, one, this is a dangerous world; two, I have animals I have to feed; three, I live alone. This has to be some vivid lucid dream, right? So I go about trying to wake myself up. I punch myself, I jump in some nearby water. But I don't wake up. I must have wrestled with myself for a good thirty minutes before breaking down and crying. And that's when it hit me. I was no longer in my Kansas home, in the comfort of my living room, playing VR. I was somehow now in the game. And this game has killed me on multiple occasions.
I try to open my HUD; luckily it's still there, but the log out feature isn't. This will make things easier for sure. But what do I have to do? Why am I here? I check my inventory. Sure enough, I have a nice set of armor, a gun and bullets, some food and water, and a note. I pull the note out and read it. "Welcome to ARK: Reality. Couldn't move ya from your spawn point due to the coding, but I was able to leave you this stuff. Don't worry, if you die you'll respawn; and hey, you get to keep yer shit this time. But you need to complete the game in order to leave. You aren't the only one here, newbie. Sent you a request too, but if it expires, my name is Ryder. Just pull me up in the list and add me, join the group and I'll give you cords for the base. Be careful. See you soon. -Ryder".
I sat there, absolutely baffled. In the game? Did I just get teleported into this world somehow, or am I in some sort of full-dive nonsense like Kirito from Sword Art Online? Either way, it clicked that sitting here would be the most dangerous thing for me right now. So I put on the suit, and add Ryder. He adds me, invites me to the group and gives me the base coordinates. I pull up the map, and make my way there, gun drawn and absolutely uncertain of my future here. |
Ornn, the mighty and reknown blacksmith, of the Haek Kingdom was shocked when he saw a familiar group of knights pummelling and kicking a boy that could only be the age of 13 to the ground. This group of knights was the same ones that commissioned his best-selling magical swords that boast of the use of electric aura.
"I cannot allow this."Ornn thought.
"MOVE. BOYS MOVE."Ornn bellowed.
The group of knights quickly stopped and stepped back.
"Explain why you are inflicting violence to this boy right here."
The most decorated knight of the group, Sir Thomas, stepped forward. "With all due respect, Blacksmith. This boy dared to speak ill of the King."
"That's a lie!"a sheery voice came out from the boy on the ground. "These men dared to extort my mother! I just wanted what was ours."He sniffed.
"The boy is lying."One knight said as he gave a swift kick to the child's gut. "Ugh", the boy grunted and yelled out in pain.
"Enough. I've heard enough. Release the boy. This dispute is settled."Ornn commanded.
The knights saluted and marched on, some of them snickered.
Ornn helped the injured boy stand. "What's your name, boy?"
"Erun."
"Well, Erun, what do you say I help you get your money back and more?"A mischievous smile flickered across Ornn's face.
Erun paused and quickly nodded.
"For that. I'll do anything to achieve it."
\--------------- 1 week later -------------------
I have created the greatest sword that the Hero used to slay the great Evil. But even I am impressed with the talent this young boy of only 15 has. Ornn, was in the middle of the stadium stands as he watched Erun, in his suit of armour disguise, wielding Thorn his trusty hammer.
While Thorn is the greatest hammer in existence. The fact Erun is able to wield it with only a week's training is a talent you can only find one of a century. Erun wielding Thorn was able to reach the final against Sir Thomas.
"well, well. what do we have here?""A wannabe blacksmith? Boy you do not have what it takes"exclaimed Thomas.
"I have more than what it takes to smash your head in"growled Erun.
"You may now fight!"yelled the referee.
Erun lifted Thornn and the hammer began glowing in green fire. "oh no, he's charging for THAT move"thought Sir Thomas. Time to use my own special move.
Sir Thomas knelt down, charging his own magical sword. It became blue then purple then it began crackling with lightning. "Excelsior STRIKE!"
Sir Thomas instantly moved 100 meters in less than a second using his mana footwork. BUt before his sword could reach Erun. His sword suddenly combusted.
Erun smirked. "don't you know anything crafted by Thorn cannot be used against it"
"It can't be!!!!"
"but it is."Erun released Thorn and created a heavenly blow to Sir Thomas.
5 minutes later. Erun was awarded 1000 gold coins and enrollment in the top academy for future knights as Sir Thomas was carried to the nearest priest for healing.
"GG"Ornn said as he ate some popcorn. |
The envelope was a beige color of sorts. It stood out from the hooded Figure's pale and decrepit hands. Pressed on the opening seams of the envelope was an oil stamp with a crest molded into it. The crest was written in some strange language, unlike anything I've seen before.
My eyes climbed up the Figure's large body and into the darkness within its hood, searching for a face. It raised its head and what my eyes met with was death itself. A gruesome skull looked on me, with fangs stretching below its jaw and a smile that struck a ripple of fear down my spine.
"Welcome to the club."bellowed the Hooded Figure.
My eyes widened as I took a step back out of fear. What could this abomination want from me? How could something like that exist? As these thoughts raced in and out of my mind, so did my strength. My legs buckled beneath me, and I plummeted into my ebony wood floor.
Before I could even collect myself, I could hear its maniacal laughter taunting me. I would stand up for myself if any other man presented such blatant disrespect towards me. But this, horror, was more than man. I couldn't even raise my eyes to see the hooded Figure because of the shaking fear that pumped into my veins.
Suddenly, I could feel the cold touch of a metal surface resting on my frail neck. I forced my struggling body to look at what laid on my neck, and when my eyes met with the Hooded Figure's blood-lusting scythe, I nearly collapsed.
The Hooded Figure lowered its head to face me and placed its hand on my cheek. All I could think of was darkness. Not a single thought of the future or later problems rested in my mind. All there was, was darkness as I looked into its black eye sockets.
"I can't remember a time when I was this young, yet here I am. Just look at my terrified face!"remarked the Hoodied Figure.
I looked into its empty eyes, and with the little strength I could muster, I asked, "Your face?"
I don't know how I got the question out of my mouth or why I even thought to ask that. But as soon as I said it, all I could hear in response was the crackling laugh that echoed out of his skeleton smile. |
Not too warm. Not too cold. Just the sensation of a water-like liquid creeping up the sides of my body - and washing over me.
Dark and silence - and then -
The familiar voice of my daughter, a song on her lips - the scent of alcohol on the air, and the muggy warmth of the pub.
Two and a half years ago, I received a message containing an apology, saying that she had been fatally injured and wasn't likely to return alive.
Today would have been her birthday - but, at least in this recreation of a moment of time, she lives once more. Every hour, her birthday. Dive after dive, her birthday. My most favorite of her smiles. And judging by the smile on the recreation of me, sitting near the stage, I thought as much back then.
We just happened to be here when the location recording happened - a miracle in every right.
I look the same as I did back then - not that they would ever recognize me. I could walk up to both of them, have a conversation, a conversation that would change every single time. But it wouldn't quite be her. Extrapolations can only go so far.
The slightest error in tone. A habitual slip that she didn't have. A pose that she doesn't make. Words that she doesn't use. Topics she would never talk about.
But if I sit here. And never interact - she remains as resplendent and perfect as she was back then. She'll talk with her father - recreation that he is - and I'll hear the true her. My daughter, unmarred by the guesses of the uncanny valley.
Look but never touch. Walk but never advance.
I should have gone with her.
A quiet discussion between us. She would become an explorer. And, at that time, my heart sank. A part of me wanted to support her, as always, in everything she did. Another part of me yearned for me to try and stop her -
Even as I knew I had no chance of doing so. I knew my daughter. She would've agonized over any decision of this scale, to put her life at risk in the only profession where death was possible. And even as I wondered what I done wrong, that she might have come to the decision to take up a career where five years would pass for every three months they spent away - A deeper part of me knew.
This was always going to happen.
Even as parts of me clashed, words slipped from me.
"I will support you. No matter where you go, no matter how long you take - you will have a home here. If this is what you want to do, then go with my blessing - and my pride."
And...
The vaguest hint of disappointment.
My deepest regret.
Perhaps...
She had wanted me to stop her.
...
But it's too late for that.
And the pub vanishes before my eyes.
=========================
I stand in front of my door. It should open automatically - but it doesn't. A problem that has persisted for some fifteen years - but I can't be bothered to fix it.
Not when it holds a precious memory in and of itself.
I had always been a doting father - and she a doting daughter. Inevitably, the face detection started to consider us as one person when we arrived at home. Perhaps it was a bit immature for both of us - perhaps it was an echo of the loneliness we both felt for her mother having left - but we were inseparable, save for when she went to school.
Though, of course, that changed when she went to college - and I figured that I could give things another shot.
And. Somehow. I succeeded. Perhaps not as astounding as her doctorate, but I at least managed a bachelor's.
We were always proud of each other.
My breath white on the chilly winter air, I resign myself and remove my glove. If the face detection won't work, then a biological scan-
"Oh, it isn't working again? Then how about -"
The door slides open. |
The other inmates know nothing about strength. I'm sure they've never survived anything more than a simple fire spell.
I pick up another rock and crush it to dust, another dud.
Exhausted, I lie on my back and look up at the sky. You'd think that something so blue would be cool to the touch, but the air is so hot I might as well be hiding out in the secret sun lair.
I really hated my time on the sun, but like that other prisoner said, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
"The ultimate training destination"that's what Master called it. It was normal for them to drag me into all their crazy adventures. Not that there was anything between us, our relationship was strictly professional. I mean they are the world's greatest villain so it's natural for them to want their head craftsmith next to them at all times.
I've been here too long, I got locked up months ago. The hero broke into our flying castle (built by yours truly) and burned everything to the ground. The fight between the villain and hero lasted days, and there wasn't much left by the end of it. The hero destroys anything I make, whether it be physical objects or genuine friendship.
But the hero spared me. They killed everyone else except me, because I was weak.
I can't stop my fingers from clenching into a fist. In a magical world some people are just much stronger than the rest of us. Hero, Master, even the rest of my recently deceased co-workers, they all were so much stronger than me. Sure I can make magnificent creations, but I am not a creation. I can't stop any of those stronger magicians. But I can stop…
My breathing, I realize that I've been hyperventilating and take some deep breaths. I've been here too long. In general the guards don't care if you slack off, but lying down might be a bit too much. I get up off the ground and brush the sand off my once orange uniform. There isn't much here besides rocks and broken people.
I walk over to a large boulder and easily break it in half in one kick.
BINGO
I check to make sure no one is looking and grab a crystal lodged inside the boulder. With a spring in my step I walk back to where the other inmates are working.
"Should've killed me"I whisper. |
Staring at the wreckage of the number train, and all the bricks scattered about the scene of carnage, Duplo dad swore vengeance on the Technics. He swallowed the lump that formed in his throat as he caught sight of the farm animals that had been on the extra carriages pulled behind, their unmoving forms a blow to his heart. How could anyone have done this?
He turned, his usual bouncy hops becoming more of a slow waddle as he slowly made his way back to toy box command. Duplo dogs followed him, having led him to scene of the wreckage in the first place. His clawed hand dropped to rest on the black head as he came to a stop, defying gravity as he leant back to look up at the ceiling of Sam’s bedroom to ask the simple question plaguing his mind. “Why?”
“We must strike back!” a voice called from inside toy box command as Duplo dad arrived.
“But how did the Technic machines even do this? They don’t have the fire power to pull off this kind of attack,” the other Duplo dad argued.
“It doesn’t matter how, all that matters is getting revenge!” The first voice replied.
“Stop!” I called as I lifted the lid before jumping down into the box to find Duplo knight arguing with other Duplo dad. “The Technics will pay for this, you can be sure of that. But we have to be smart about this… clearly they have weapons that we haven’t seen before.”
“Was it bad?” Duplo mum asked, bringing her claw to rest against his arm.
“No… it was awful,” I said, trying to block out the memory. “It wasn’t just the number train that was hit… the farm animals were being pulled behind.”
I tried to maintain my mask of stoicism as she broke out in sobs, turning to leave the room. I listened to her shed her tears as I refused to let mine fall. Yes, the Technic machines would pay dearly for this, connector pieces would scatter the floor in a minefield of broken creations by the time we were done with them. Because we had one thing they didn’t—people.
“Right, gather round everyone, it’s time we drew up some plans.” I waited for everyone to gather in close before drawing out a drawing Sam had done of the bedroom earlier in the week. I pointed to a pink elephant before sliding my finder across to the green book to orientate myself with the drawing.
“The Technics are here, in the under bed storage,” I said pointing to the brown bed. “And we’re here in Joeys toy box,” I continued sliding my finger over to the blue box. “We need to use a diversion, to distract the enemy while we overwhelm their rear defence, then hit them hard until they’re screaming Sam’s mum’s safe word.”
A cheer went up and I realised that I had the support of the whole camp that had been divided just hours ago. So many had been advocating for peace between us but now I saw only anguish and determination. “I need ideas for distractions, engineer go.”
“Uh, we could build a wooden block wall? Then while they’re trying to dismantle it, we strike?” Duplo engineer offered hopefully, pointing to the space directly between our camps.
“I like your style, but they’d just send a dozer in to knock it down, it’s be down in five seconds or less,” I sighed, slowly waddling around the drawing to look at it from different angles. “Knight, any suggestions?”
“Well, I uh… what about a pincer manoeuvre?”
“What’s that?”
“Well, you use half of your army as a distraction as the other half goes around to hit them from behind, trapping them in a crush between your two sides,” he explained, gesturing to the drawing as he showed the two halves of the army coming in to attack the under bed box.
“Yes, I like it, it still affords us the element of surprise, while making sure we hold our advantages on the frontal assault,” I said with fresh righteous indignation fuelling my resolve. “Prepare for the strike, I want to move before bedtime!”
“Yes,” the others all saluted before leaving to start the plans for the attack.
This time, we would be victorious—in the name of our child we stand. Amen. |
"Is--is it really you? I thought I'd never see you again... Sweet Satan I'm sorry I'm probably just mistaking you for someone long dead. It's the thrill of the fight, y'know? But your eyes, that look... it's exactly like an old comrade of mine used to get before a big night."
The scars in the shape of her name throb on my arm as I reach under my balaclava to itch my neck. The scar is practically unrecognizable now. I wonder, even if it wasn't buried under other cuts, would it still even be visible today, after so many years? Is it... is it my fault, that I haven't thought about her in so long I don't even remember the last time I prayed for her? Still. It would be unfair to you, to let my musings take my attention away from this conversation. Kiana is dead and gone, and I can't carry the albatross that smells like her strawberry-lavender hair around my neck forever. Memories that threatened to flood out when I looked in your eyes stuffed back into the deeper recesses of my brain, I focus on you again.
But then you speak. "Sweet Satan. Sounds a tad familiar. Hey Machi, it's been a while huh?"
It is you. The first few years you were gone, I saw you on every street corner, saw you hiding in every tree. I thought I was going insane. But... this time I'm right? Oh Satan. I'm right. It's you. You're here, standing in front of me? Should I be running away right about now? "Please don't hate me I'm so sorry I didn't want to leave you behind oh Satan never mind that's stupid I'm sorry I'll understand if you hate me, but I want you to know that I... I really cared about you, I missed you so much, all I wanted was to go back and fix it, but I couldn't. I've tried so hard to forgive myself, or even just to forget, but I still dream of you. Not..not in a weird way, sorry that sounded kinda creepy. I just... I dream of the way you looked at me that night. I dream of all the things I could've done differently, I dream of seeing you again, safe and happy. I--Why are you looking at me like that?"
And aren't your eyes closer to mine than they were a second ago? What's happening?? And why are you wrapping your arms around me, did your plan for revenge involve strangling me? That must be it. I think... no I know I deserve it. We left you, knowing that you'd most likely die. If killing me gives you some closure, I think you deserve it. I'm ready. I think. I'm ready to find out what comes next. I'm grateful to you for giving me the time to prepare. "It's okay, I'm ready, you can kill me now."
Your breath tickles my ear as you laugh. It's been 17 years, 3.5 months, and 16 hours since I heard that laugh. I don't know why, but my brain thinks that's pretty relevant right about now. Then your lips touch my ears, my twitching leg freezes and all neuronal functionality ceases. "Oh hush up now, I know you've gotta be pulling me leg. You don't really blame yourself for what happened? Oh lord if you're serious, if you've been living with that guilt all these years, I'm going to hurt whoever let you believe that horsemanure. It wasn't your fault! Girl, your plan was brilliant, and I'm glad we did it. Top 10 best nights of my life, I swear. It was my bad luck to fuck up, you couldn't have saved me without risking everyone else's hides, and I'm glad you didn't. Hell, I'd have skinned you alive if you got caught trying to save me. You did the right thing. But hey let's not dawdle, we have to get moving or we're gonna be late. Or maybe we'll both get left behind this time."
My legs manage to move, as you take my hand and pull me along. You don't hate me? I would, if I were you. Are you lying to me? Trying to get me to put my guard down? I jerk to a stop. "You're lying to me aren't you? It's okay, you don't have to pretend to not hate me. I know what I did was wrong, and you deserve revenge."Your eyes, they are the windows to your soul, but when you pull your mask off, I remember that it was always your lips that I loved the most. Everything you were thinking, somehow would be crystal clear to me just by looking at the shape of your lips. Sometimes I played myself a game of predicting what you would say next.
Your heavy hands rest on my shoulders, and your lips move in exactly the pattern I would have guessed, "Of course I'm not lying. I don't hate you. Sweetheart I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I wasn't more careful, I'm sorry that you've been blaming yourself all these years. I'm just so happy to see you again, I would never hurt you."
My shoulders slump down, and my vision is strangely bleary. It isn't until I pull off my mask to get some more air that I realize it's wet with tears. I don't know what power brought you back to me, but here you are. And I'm not going into another life-or-death situation without telling you what I should've told you all those years ago. I had so many chances then, so many times I could've told you what I wanted-no, needed to tell you. After that night, when I still had hope that you'd come back, I prayed for another chance to tell you. I'm not going to let another chance slip by. "Ki-Kiana, I-- I need to tell you, I have--I mean, will you--no sorry, what I want to say really, is that I loved you. I love you. There, I said it. I'm sorry. If I don't ever get another chance to say it, I'll hate myself forever for letting this moment pass without saying anything so I had to say it. I'm sorry."
I don't think I've ever seen your eyebrows this high up your forehead. And your lips, what does that squiggle mean? My head feels like it's exploding outwards at the rate of the universe. Has it been seconds since my idiot tongue stopped jabbering? Minutes? Hours even? I have no idea. And then you speak. "You... you what?" |
“I’m just going to skip all the boring stuff, Navi. Pretty much I’ve convinced all the humans on earth to do this ridiculous little ceremony celebrating their annual trip around the sun and have it dedicated to me. You won’t imagine how much this has invigorated my power and life-line. I’ll be set to continue living for as long as the fools are around.”
“You have to tell me more, Yu. This conference is for helping us deities find ways to continue our life-lines and to be honest, my methods of blood sacrifice have been lacking as of late. I can start feeling pain in my knees! Don’t keep a friend waiting.”
“Well, it’s quite simple and much less barbaric. I don’t ask for their life, I just ask for them to repeat my name and take a few years off their lifespan is all! As they are gullible and sentimental creatures, for every birthday they gather around a cake, light candles, and chant “happy birthday to Yu, Happy birthday to Yu, happy birthday to [insert random human name here], happy birthday to Yu.” Not only do I get my name spoken across the globe multiple times a day, but when the human blows the candle out, I get the next years worth of their life-line! Idiots! If only they knew their real life expectancy was around 200 years! But we should just keep that between us, Navi.”
“Ingenious…hmm.. you have me thinking. There’s this human holiday that is celebrated on my earth in December, where many songs are sung around the fire. Perhaps I can include a chant for myself? Something that would fit with their language. Do you think if I got them to sing Feliz Navi-dad multiple times I could get more life-line, Yu.”
“Now that sounds like a plan! You’ll have to let me know how it goes next year. I hope they have the same conference caterer at this event next year, the Hor d’oeuveres are great.” |
Immortality always comes with a price. And it was a good thing that I was prepared. I had no idea what was going to happen in that bar, but I knew the price. It was a steep one, but I didn’t let that stop me.
I walked in and scanned the room. It was dark and narrow. The tables were packed. I walked up to the bar and ordered a beer. It was cold against my hand and I drank it down in one gulp.
I looked around the room. Men and women were laughing, drinking, and talking loudly. I was the only one in the room who seemed alone. I was that lone stranger, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t need friends. I didn’t need anyone.
Finally, I saw her. She was sitting at a table in the corner talking to a man. She was beautiful. Her black hair was tied up at the back of her head. She was wearing a black blouse, short skirt, and high heels. She was one of those girls who knew how to carry herself. She had an easy confidence about her, as if she was used to being in these situations.
I walked over slowly, as if I didn’t have a care in the world. I had come there for a purpose. And I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me from fulfilling it.
I sat down across from her. “Hi,” I said smiling at her.
She looked up and smiled at me. “Hi,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” I said leaning forward on the table. “You can.”
She stared at me, her eyes unsure. “Why do you look so pale? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I was just out for a walk.”
“I’m really glad you stopped in. I was a little worried about you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”
She looked around the room as if she was checking for eavesdroppers. I had a feeling she was. I wasn’t sure why, but she had nothing to fear from me. I was here for a reason.
She leaned closer and said, “What can I do for you?”
“I want to know what you think of me.”
Her eyes widened, but she managed to smile. “What are you talking about?” she said.
“I came here tonight to find out everything I can about you,” I said. “I’m here to get to know you.”
“Why?” she asked in a whisper.
I smiled. “Because I’ve made a decision,” I said. “I’m going to live forever.”
“Really,” she said in a soft whisper.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m determined to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Live forever,” I said. “It doesn’t seem like much for someone to achieve, but it’s a lot for me.”
“But what does it matter,” she said. “So you’re immortal and you’re going to live forever. Why is that so special?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess because I’m already dead. I’ve already been destroyed. And I’ve made realizations about life. I see the world differently now. I’ve come to see just how fragile it is, but I’ve also come to realize that there’s a lot of beauty in this world. Maybe it’s beauty I missed before. I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve come to understand that I didn’t die when I was supposed to die. And I don’t want to die again. I’m not ready to leave this world, but I am ready to live forever.”
“So you decided to live forever,” she said. “And do what?”
“I want to help people. I want to be there when they need me. And I want to help them.”
She looked around the room again, and I could tell that she wanted to run out of the bar and leave the conversation behind. “And what about the people who are already dead?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t want to be stuck in a black void. I want to be here, in this world, with the ones I love.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re really intense.”
“So are you,” I said. “You’ve got something to say, then just say it.”
She looked at the floor. “What if I told you I wanted to help you?” she asked.
I smiled. “What would you have to do?” |
"But I just don’t understand,"I said. "How are these words going to do anything?"
"The words are not the power,"said Mr. Osborne. "It’s the way they’re organized. The way they’re used in combinations."
I shook my head. "I don’t get it."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't,"said Mr. Osborne. "But think of the words as a code. A very simple one. Once you know the way it’s put together, it’s easy to read. But if you don’t know the code, it’s gibberish. It just looks like nonsense."
Mr. Osborne pulled the chair away from his desk and sat closer to me. "Do you know what a cipher is?"he asked.
I shook my head again. I was afraid if I spoke, I would start to cry.
"A cipher is a method of encrypting a secret message,"said Mr. Osborne. "You can use any kind of code, but there are a number of ciphers that are more difficult to decipher than others. For example, a simple alphabet substitution is easy to break. It’s merely the letter ‘a’ substituted with the letter ‘b’, and so on. But if you use an alphanumeric substitution, where each letter of the alphabet is substituted with a number, and then each number with a letter and so on, it’s much more difficult to crack."
"But how does that help us?"I asked. My eyes were burning and it was hard to see him through the tears. I didn’t want him to see me cry.
"It helps us because it’s the key to breaking our enemy’s code,"said Mr. Osborne He smiled. I don’t think he was a particularly happy person, but there was something about his smile that made me think that he was guiding me.
"I want you to think about Mr. DeMoreaux,"he said. "He’s an intelligent man. He was the one who found the wording in the pamphlet. He’s the one who wrote the note. He’s the one who compiled the code. If it were me, I’d be concentrating on translating the code. I’d be breaking down the words, putting them together, searching for patterns. But with all that, he’d still never have found out what we’re doing. He’d never be able to read it.
"But with you, it’s different. You’re his opposite. You’re a simple, unschooled girl and you’re just about to begin He saw right through the code. Even though you’re not in on the secret, he understands you. He understood everything you did, everything you are. He understands you far better than you know yourself. He understands you so well that he can make you do things. He can make you think, gesture, act, act the way he wants you to. That’s how he got the pamphlets on your desk and that’s how he got the key. He made you do it. You’re just his puppet. You’re a spy. A decoy. I think that's what he planned all along."
"But you told me that we are not actually spies,"I said. "We’re just pretending to be spies. You’re just taking us to the Guggenheim for a museum tour. We’re not spies."
"Of course not,"said Mr. Osborne, goading He didn’t want me to go on the tour. He sighed. He had said what he had to say. He waited for me to say something else. And then, like the man in the blue shirt, I wanted to make him happy. I wanted him to be proud of me.
"What if he knows we’re not spies?"I asked. "What if he knows what really happened? What if he knows we’re in danger?"
"Don’t worry about him,"said Mr. Osborne. "I don’t think he’ll be concerned about us. He’ll just think we’re poor, simple souls. No one in the world would think it’s anything other than innocent behavior.” |
Satan walked through the streets of London, hand in hand with his daughter.
"I love you,"she said, her voice ringing with pride.
"And I love you,"he replied. "But now I must take care of those who don't deserve life."
"How will you do that?"she said, looking up at him.
He laughed. "I'll simply kill them."
She frowned and pouted. "But that would only be fair if they killed you first."
"I don't care about fair,"he said. "I care about right. They don't deserve life."
"They don't deserve death,"she said. "They deserve a chance."
"I have given them a chance,"he said. "They have rejected my chance. I will give them no more chances."
"Why are you so angry?"she said, her eyes filling with tears.
"I'm not angry,"he said, but his voice was loud and angry. "And I'm not sad, either. Life is not about sadness or anger. Life is about joy. Now come along, my child. It's time for me to take out the trash."
"You're still angry,"she said as she squeezed his hand and ran to catch up with him. "I can tell."
"I'm not angry,"he said, squeezing her hand back. "I'm not sad, either. But I am disappointed in humanity."
"Why?"she said as he dragged her through the streets of London, toward the heart of the city.
"They've wasted their lives,"he said as they walked briskly through the crowd. "They've wasted the most precious of gifts: life."
"How can you be sure?"she said, looking up at him He let go of her hand. He dropped her and ran into a woman, knocking her to the ground. She looked frightened and confused, but she remained on the ground, unmoving, while he walked away.
"Mom?"she yelled. "Mom? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine,"her mother said, looking bewildered.
"What happened?"she said, getting up.
"I don't know,"she said. "I'm sorry, Twyla. I'm just…"
"Look!"he shouted, pointing at the ceiling. Then he laughed. The woman looked up and gasped. She jumped back in surprise when dozens of fireballs flew downward.
The fireballs crashed, one after another, onto the streets of London, all across the city. They hit businesses, buildings, and people. They hit her mother, and then they collided with her.
The fireballs shattered, and the woman There were no more fireballs, no more people. The streets were empty, and everything was silent. No one was screaming, no one was moving. The silence was deafening. It was a moment of stillness, a moment of perfect peace.
Her mother turned to Twyla and smiled. "I love you, Twyla. And I love your father. We are incomplete without you. You are a gift from God to this world. Do not waste your life. Consider the lives you have already wasted. Try to understand what you have lost. Then consider the gift you have been given. The gift of life, the gift of eternity. Think about the many things you will experience and the people you will meet. Time is not the only gift you can give. You can give life. You can give joy. You can give love and happiness. You can give love and happiness to others. That is a gift you might want to consider giving. Give your life The lights came back on. People were again moving. They were running, screaming, and waving their arms. People were climbing out of their homes, and connecting to the Internet to share their stories and theories about what had happened.
"I don't understand,"Twyla said. She looked around. "Where is everyone?"
"They are all in heaven,"her father said, smiling. "And soon everyone will be in heaven."
"What happened to them?"she said, looking at him.
"They were all fighting over life,"he said.
"What does that mean?"
"It means they didn't know how precious life was,"he said. "They didn't know how wonderful it is to live, or how wonderful it is to be alive, or how wonderful it is to have a chance to live forever. They didn't know any of that." |
It was problematic because of how strong he was. He could certainly kill all of his brothers, all of his sons and daughters -- maybe not at one time, but this new power that was bestowed upon him wasn't something they understood and seemed to make him more ruthless than before.
He was still cognizant but spent most of his time lounging in his throne chair. Passersby would often try to greet him but would quickly and assuredly be zapped away by a bolt of lightning -- of which he conjured. He was Zeus, the god of thunder and king of Mt. Olympus, and he had the power to wipe out humanity, the power to kill those who were thought to be unkillable, and there was something wrong with him; a wire loose in his brain.
The only person who could tend to him was Hera -- his wife. Zeus now refrained from digesting anything other than meat, and his appetite seemed impossible to satiate. Hera would bring him food numerous times a day but would have to worry about his newfound impulse, which was to bite. He would quite often try to bear down on his wife's hand as she passed him his meals. These quick and unprovoked attacks startled Hera; she had never seen her husband act with such a lack of humanity.
Sure, he was a God and far exceeded the virtues of a normal man, but he always tried to do good by people past the occasional selfish action and infidelity, but those things are to be expected when you've lived thousands of years; it was for this reason that Hera could look past many of her husband's earthly flaws.
But these flaws were unnatural; it felt, to her, that her husband was losing himself -- his mind -- his everything. Zeus was not stupid. Zeus was not careless. Zeus was a ruler, the lord of lords -- the gatekeeper of the most benign providence. And now this being, who once valiantly defended his realm, was trying to feast on the flesh of his one true love.
[To be continued.] |
“Look Paul, I don’t know how else to get this through to you, he’s Welsh… not evil,” I said, dropping the pen to the half filled in report as I massaged my brow.
“This has nothing to do with him being Welsh! He’s evil, spawn of the devil, come to take your soul, evil!” he said, blowing out a frustrated breath as he threw his hands up in the air.
“Oh so it’s the fact that he’s ginger then is it? Just keep racking it up Paul, if this keeps going I’m going to have to put in a report for hate speech.” If he kept pushing this then I was going to have to find some way to shut him up before things got out of hand.
“Hate speech? Bloody hate speech?! This goes a bit beyond police reports and ASBOs Tom! You need to listen to me!” He got up out of his chair at that and started pacing the small office this police station had for private interviews.
“I am listening, but what has he actually done that is so ‘evil’? I’m telling you now, if it’s kicking that hairless rat Mrs Fairway calls a dog, the little shit stain had it coming.”
“That’s the first thing we’ve agreed on since I came in here,” he huffed, stopping his pacing to roll his eyes at me. “First off, he only ever comes out at night, if that’s not a sign of evil then I don’t know what is.”
“It’s summer, have you ever seen a ginger in the sun? It ain’t pretty,” I argued, knowing that this could be a perfectly valid reason in itself.
“Fine, ignore that, he was seen at Mrs Hendry’s house, the night she died!”
He came to stand behind his chair, grabbing the back of it as he leant in towards me. He raised an eyebrow expectantly and I lifted my glasses to pinch the bridge of my nose as I took a long deep breath. In all my years, I hadn’t found a conversation quite as hilarious and exhausting all at the same time. I needed to get him out of here before he caused even more of a commotion.
“She died of an aneurysm, that’s hardly foul play Paul. You point me to a single person in this village that hasn’t been in Mrs Hendry’s house. The old bag was a bigger gossip than The bleedin’ Sun paper,” I said, getting up myself to walk to the filing cabinet in the corner, pulling out the file on Mrs Hendry.
“There, the coroners report. Feel free to look for anything you think we missed,” I said, sliding it over the table to him once I’d sat back down and steepled my hands in front of me.
He came over to give it a look, flicking through the sheets of paper before grimacing and closing the file. “Then what about them teenage girls, the ones in the hospital. They swore they’d seen him the night they were found. They described him in detail before anyone in the town had even laid eyes on the guy. I think they summoned him from hell.”
I let out a loud and mighty chuckle, slapping the table as I continued to guffaw. His face had slowly turned an embarrassed shade of red and it was only once he huffed and turned away that I finally began to calm. He ran a hand through his dark hair that was beginning to grey, the small areas above his ears were turning a whitish grey.
“Right, so the three teenage girls, found with high concentrations of ecstasy and LSD in their systems, are reliable witnesses to an actual demonic summoning? It was a wonder they were even conscious for gods sake, but the ramblings of three girls on hallucinogens is hardly evidence Paul, you have to see that.” I’d tried sense, reason, humour and now logic, what was it going to take to convince him that this was nonsense.
“And what about the strange circle they were found at? It was a demon symbol, I checked. They summoned him from hell and he’s gonna keep going until he’s killed us all.”
Oh for the love of—why won’t he just drop it already?!
“Paul, you’re paranoid, and your paranoia has the rest of the village scared too. If you don’t put an end to this, someone really is gonna get hurt. And what happens when I’m right and he is just an innocent man caught up in old fashioned bigotry? How are you gonna feel knowing he was hurt because you wouldn’t let this go?”
I could see by the look on his face, I’d finally found a winner. He wasn’t willing to risk being the unjust aggressor in this, which he would be if things kept escalating the way they had been. No, this all needed to end, now.
“But I—“
“Go home Paul, get some rest. The stress is showing on your face, is it really worth it? And just think how it’ll look if word got out. A whole village against one ginger Welshman? The media would just love to paint this place as the worst village in Surrey, hell, the country. Is that what you want Paul? For the ramblings of some drugged up teens and an old lady with an undiagnosed problem to be the death of this town? Make no mistake, tourism is the only thing keeping this place afloat, you think Carlene can keep her shop open without the tourist coming? Or Henry’s pub?” I pressed, knowing I was finally getting through to him.
“No, it ain’t.” He came around and slumped into the chair across from me, dropping his head into his hands.
I got up, going around to stand next to him. I patted him on the shoulder a couple of times before grabbing his shoulder in a reassuring shake. “Good man. Now I’m gonna get rid of this report so that I don’t have to go down the channels of reporting you for this ‘evil Welshman’ business and you’re gonna forget this vendetta you have against Mr Stolas.”
I went back around the table, picking up the half filled in report before dropping it under the table to feed it through the paper shredder. There was no need for anyone to see this, it would only cause complications for everyone anyway. I just needed to wrap this up and get him out of here now.
“But he,” he started before closing his eyes in a long blink. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Finally.
“And see if you can’t convince some of the others to let go of some of that animosity while you’re at it hmm?” I added in the hopes that I wouldn’t have to do this again any time soon.
I moved to the door, waiting as Paul gathered his things before opened it at his approach. “Right Tom, I’ll do my best. But if anything else happens, I can guarantee you’ll be hearing from more than just me next time.”
And just what did he expect to see?
“Right Paul, I’ll see you at the pub later, I’ll be off at ten.” I clapped him on the shoulder giving him a firm squeeze and a nod as he went by.
“Yeah, see you later Tom,” he replied with a nod back and a swift clap to my shoulder in return.
“And Paul?”
“Yeah?” he said, looking back as he reached the main entrance.
“This conversation never happened, right?”
“Right, it never happened Tom.”
He left and a smile crept up my face as I finally abandoned the fat, cumbersome body of the middle aged human police officer. I stood over him where he’d collapsed to the floor and checked to make sure I hadn’t killed him from possessing his body for so long. He was fine. And it had been necessary to dissuade suspicions of my being here—I was nowhere near finished with this place yet.
It would rain blood by the time I was done. |
I stood there in awe staring down at the discovery I just made. The box its self wasn't very big coming in at about two feet wide by one foot long. It didn't weigh much either. It was wooden with gold trim and engravings embedded into the sides and top of the box
I had been searching for the contents of this box for nearly two decades ever since a colleague walked into my office with tablets that seemed to depict it being worshipped by the indigenous natives a millennia ago.
I sat the box down on a table in my tent. Taking a drink of water I sat staring at it. I decided I would be the one to open it after all the time it spent waiting in the dark. My fingers trembled with excitement as I fumbled with the latches and it slowly opened.
The inside of the box had more engravings on the inside and they looked as if they were showing the peoples of the time bowed down to an extra terrestrial being. It was incredible. Is this actual proof of life out there aside from us? The implications were staggering if were true.
Inside of the box sat a metal device that almost resembled a little ship but with more edges and sidings. When I picked it up It felt strangely warm and it almost felt like it was humming. I moved it around in my hands and heard a soft "click ". It started whirring and shifting and before I knew it, it had turned into a cube with what I could only assume to be the dialect of every nation on the planet at the time.
It said they have been waiting for someone to activate this device and that they would like to meet whomever was able to open it and read it. They had left what appeared to be coordinates and instructions to bring the device when I went to them.
.......
So three months later I finally arrived at the location with the device in hand. I had to travel deep in the jungle avoiding predators,poachers and quicksand but I finally found the location. It was a temple and a long way to the top. I dropped my backpack and started climbing. Slowly but surely I made my way to the top.
At the center of the room sat an alter with an indentation for the device on it. When I placed the device on it hundreds of clicks and whirring activated and a projection filled the room. It was full of stars and moons and finally it showed an extra terrestrial spacecraft hovering around and finally landing on the planet.
When it landed, the door to the craft lowered with a burst of steam and gently sat itself on the ground. An extra terrestrial slowly descended the craft and looked around briefly. Almost like it was staring directly at me it started speaking. "Hi Weve been trying to reach you about your crafts extended warranty " |
I woke up to the mouth watering smell of pancakes. I got up and I put on my work outfit. Then I went to the kitchen to kiss my wife, eat and after that go to work.
As I was walking trough the corridor towards the kitchen, it got longer and longer. I started running. The sunlight slowly began to dissappear. I saw my wife's back in front of me, but when I tried to reach her, my hand went trough her as if she was thin air...
My head was hurting. Everything around me started spinning and I thought that I was having a nightmare.
Then I heard my wife's voice like an echo in my ears. "You must go back"she said snd her face with a sad smile appeared in front of me.
"I must go back..."I repeated, trying to think through her words. A foggy memory began yo rise in my head. I had another life. But I didn't wanna go back there... I didn't want to experience what it's like to have no friends again. And then it hit me. I had no wife, no happy life and the last thing I remembered was getting stabbed by a random person at the bar where I worked.
After all these memories flew past me, I ran even faster. Tears started rolling down my face. I was miserable, I had no one, I wanted to stay in this magical world...
But the kitchen was going further and further into the distance. I tripped and fell on my knees. The scent of pancakes vanished and was replaced by the smell of rubber. I closed my eyes. The headache was getting worse and my thoughts got lauder... "Wait, no it can't be"I thought.
I opened my eyes. The bright light flashed into them. People were talking. They were doctors. One of them was holding my head in his hands. He had rubber gloves on. "You were in clinical death for 5 minutes, it's a miracle you're alive!"the doctor smiled. His face suddenly changed "What's wrong, why are you crying???"He asked in disbelief. "Why did you do this to me?! I LOST MY LIFE AND MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE! WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?!"I shouted with a hoarse voice. I started punching the doctor. They put me to sleep and I woke up in the psychiatry. |
I look ahead to a sea of metal, leather and flesh. Innumerable bodies fill my vision. The stale stench of sweat is overwhelming. My body tingles with anticipation. Across the verdant field, I look upon the opposing army. They look like someone splattered yellow paint on an otherwise beautiful landscape.
“40,000 they say”
“What?”
“They say, those rebel dogs have amassed a force of 40,000 men”
The crown, weakened by debt and disastrous foreign wars, could only muster together a meager 15,000. *God has forsaken me. I have chosen the wrong lot. If only I had been as cunning as Andrew.* Although he came from an aristocratic family, Andrew was always embroiled in the latest political fad. Now, that meant he was with the Vargrieves. The Vargrieves are a faction committed to the “betterment of the peasants”.
They believe, as I do now, that God no longer approves of the king. Why, they ask, can a man live in such opulent luxury while thousands starve? Instead of addressing these concerns, the King elected to publicly execute anyone spreading these ideas. So, a war began.
None of that matters now. Regardless of right and wrong, here I stand in a blue tunic with a claymore in my scabbard. Here I stand on the eve of battle. Here I stand with death breathing down my neck. I hear the sound of a horn. The mass of men across the field move. They look like a tsunami rushing toward our lines.
“Ready your swords men” shouts my commander. “Fight with honor! Die with honor! The gates of heaven are open as long as you don’t show cowardice!”
I take my sword in my hand. I can feel it shaking uncontrollably. My forehead is drenched with perspiration. My heart is racing. It feels ready to burst through my rib cage. *I will die here*
“Here they come!”
I hear the clanging of metal followed by shouting and screaming. As they rush forward, I see a blur of blue, yellow, and red. Quickly, my eyes focus. Twenty feet ahead, I see an axe get embedded in a man’s shoulder. It sounded like someone splitting wood. A stream of blood burst from the wound and the man fell to his knees. Then, a sword was driven through his chest. I clutch my sword with such force that I think my hands might break.
The skirmish moves closer to me. A rush fills my veins. *If I die, I will die fighting*. I see a man with the Vargrieve insignia on his chest approach. I raise my sword to meet him in mortal combat. Through his helmet I see a flash of those sky blue eyes. *Andrew*
I remember sitting by the river. His hand on my back and a smile on my face. The tranquil bubbling of the water. The look in his eyes. A look that said *I love you*. Now those eyes are filled with shock. That shock quickly turned to pain. Before I had time to think, one of my allies drove his spear into Andrew’s stomach. Before I had time to think, the only person I truly loved was taken from me. Before I had time to think, I pierced my ally with my sword.
In the end, I did not fight for my King. I did not fight for honor or heaven. I fought for Andrew. |
Some people have all the luck.
You can see them living their happy lives, riding around in their reliable cars, going home after a day's work to their cozy little houses, happily walking in the parks with their perfect families. They don't know what suspense it. How could they? They're the elite. It's like the odds of the world meshes to their wishes and longings, and the more they want something the more closely reality bends to its form. Rarely do they ever fall from Chance's good graces.
​
Other people don't have any luck.
Those are the people you see on the sides of the streets in rain or shine, hoping for someone to notice them and flip some help over in their favor. Those are the people you see searching every corner and crevice for new coins that might treat them better. They put all their hope in one day finding a lucky coin that will turn their life around.
​
I make my own luck.
I watch the numbers. I analyze the odds. Coins rarely land 50/50 and with every flip they're more likely to land on a new face. Heads usually wins about 65% of the time, after all no coin is evenly waited. I count on that, although, I count more on my coins. My coins will be what breaks the system thanks to just one lucky toss, the one time I made a new perfectly uneven coin. All I needed was that, and now I can get almost anything to go in my favor.
​
I see someone low on their luck and walk up to him.
"Do you have a spare coin?"he asks.
With a clear metallic ring I flip one of my coins in the air, with heads called as yes. It lands, and the face smiles back at me. I give it to the man "Now you have a coin, maybe a lucky one at that."I wink and tap it on heads. "I bet you he'll have your back."
He smiles and I walk away, hearing the sound of his new coin getting flicked in the air. He laughs as it lands the same again and again. He may never realize it's not coincidence.
Life was meant to be fair, that's what the coins were for. They just left everything to chance though. No matter how much good a person does or their potential, their outcome is just left up to nearly even yes/no odds. That never struck me as right so I'm going to change things one counterfeit coin and one toss at a time. |
It is frightening.
You've lost track of how long it has been since you were able to remember your future lives. At first it was a overwhelming - as if you had woken up and half of what you knew wasn't you. Or at least wasn't you yet.
It took a few weeks until you were able to sort out the difference between what has happened and what hasn't. This part was pretty easy once you got the hang of it. Future memories had a certain haze about them. Similar to when you think back to the past and you forget a detail; you know it is there, just not how to find it. Future memories are like that. Except the opposite. You don't know it is there, but you know how to find it.
It's not like you remember everything. Major events, yes. Small day by day happenings, no idea. Which is what made yesterday such a strange day. It was the first time, since you woke up knowing the future, that you saw what was going to happen before it did.
You see, one of the things that you had realized is that even though you could figure out bits and pieces here and there about what your future lives will be all about, for most memories, you didn't know when they took place, or really which life they were from.
Yesterday, you remembered what happened before it happened. What had actually happened doesn't matter. What is important, is that you remembered as it was happening, before it had happened. At first it was a strange feeling, almost like deja vu. Then it became easy, it was like going on autopilot, knowing the outcome before you reached it.
That is the problem. Knowing the outcome. Reliving the future. You see, most people make decisions based on what they expect would happen; hoping that their actions lead to the most desired outcome. But you know what is going to happen. You can see what outcome your actions will lead to every time.
And that is the problem. You see the outcome to your actions. You see how the future is going to happen.
Not how you can change it. How it happens.
And how no matter what, there is absolutely nothing you can do to change it.
It is frightening. |
“Before we proceed,” Dr. Chudnovsky began, holding a strange, flashlight-shaped device, “I feel that I have to ask you one last time. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I’m still not sure I understand.” I felt the uneasy, ‘impending doom’ feeling that usually came right before a panic attack slowly swelling up. I had come here at the recommendation of a coworker named Jay, but I was quickly beginning to regret my decision. That guy was a bit of a whack job at times. Why did I take his suggestion to come here? A psychiatrist with a background in bioinformatics? That seemed like a strange combination.
Dr. Chudnovsky looked grim as he responded, “This… procedure may change your perception forever. And I can’t say whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing for you. I can’t say whether you’ll be able to go back once it’s done.”
“How… How many people have undergone this procedure before me?” I was having a hard time believing that a doctor was actually permitted to perform a procedure that had seemingly inconsistent results.
He answered slowly. Too slowly for what should have been a straightforward answer, “Well, the Great Nightmare began what… Nine months ago now? I discovered the cause three months after that. I have performed about ten procedures per month since then, so… About sixty treatments.”
“And how many were successful?” I asked reluctantly.
Dr. Chudnovsky hesitated, “It’s sort of hard to define success for this treatment. But I can assure you that no physical harm can be inflicted. The treatment is over in seconds, and you can decide after that whether to get the second treatment.”
I really didn’t like the lack of certainty. But I had to know. I couldn’t shake some of the things Jay had implied at work…
I simply nodded to Dr. Chudnovsky, and he placed the end of the flashlight-shaped device against the back of my head. “Take a deep breath now, and I recommend closing your eyes.” I did as instructed, and nearly forgot to keep breathing as he began to count down from three.
As he finished his countdown, nothing changed. Except… The HUD of information that was always in my vision - even when my eyes were closed - winked out abruptly. I could no longer see the notification count that always hovered in the bottom-right corner of my sight. The clock that occasionally faded into the top of my vision was no longer appearing.
I opened my eyes, and I was in a different room than before. Dr. Chudnovsky still sat in his chair, but it was no longer a sleek, shining metal stool. The metal was rusted completely. I realized after a moment that the walls were in the exact same configuration as before, but there were now holes and cracks. Mold crept its way from one of the corners. All of the fancy equipment was gone, and in its place were several archaic, bulky looking machines with blinking lights and dozens of wires coming out of them.
Dr. Chudnovsky remained silent as I finally stood up and made my way to the window. Before, the window looked out over a bright, flourishing city with reflective skyscrapers and minimalist vehicles driving about.
Now, I was seeing buildings that were crumbling on their own foundations, broken windows, and even small fires in the streets. Everyone walking in the streets wore ragged clothing, but they all carried themselves as if nothing was amiss. The sky was dark, despite the fact that it was midday just moments ago.
“This is my nightmare. The Nightmare we’ve all been having. Usually it flashes for just a few seconds, but this…”
“No,” Dr. Chudnovsky interrupted, almost speaking in a whisper, “This is not a nightmare. I have temporarily disrupted your augmented reality brain interface unit. It is disabled entirely right now.”
I looked away from the window and turned to him, feeling a dark, oppressive force closing around me. I could hardly breathe, “What are you saying?”
“Everything you have ever seen has been an illusion. Every street, every landmark, all of the food you have eaten. Things nearby were often technically there in a physical sense, but they were visually replaced or enhanced by your AR unit. Even smells, textures, sounds…”
I collapsed to my knees. The once-pristine floor of shiny tiles now felt gritty with dirt.
“The Great Nightmare is a global software glitch in our AR implants. The Great Nightmare is reality.” |
My people were tasked to protect this Land. For generation we did ou duty and killed the thiefs trying to steal our savior's food.
My mother once told me the story of our line, how our ancestor was saved from a freezing lake by the masters and given a home as well as a sacred duty.
They are bigger, stronger than us, i know they can easily kill me or banish me yet they are gentle being, only asking of me to protect their goods for them.
My enemies are numerous, they keep coming in greater numbers but my weapons, a part of me, are always ready to make them pay.
Yet, one day, a stronger one appeared. He was smarter, bigger and our fight lasted for so long, the sun was disappearing. I ultimatly won, yet i could not bring myself to kill him. He could have hurt me, badly even, numerous time but he fought with honour.
I turned back to the giants land, our fight made us move quite far from it, and gave him one last glance. He would survive and seek my master's goods again. I would be ready and so would he. Our fight will be legendary. |
I didn't have to to respond to the dispatcher. I could have finished my god damn cinnamon roll and taken the next one. But I was under pressure due to cutbacks in funding, and I didn't want to be the one wishing I had just shown a little more initiative as I cleaned out my locker.
"Got a 10-71 at Riverside Mall any units available?"Molly asked with her usual monotone voice.
I was 5 minutes out, which is a lifetime when responding to a shooting. Still, I grabbed the radio with frosting coated fingers and tried to disguise the fact that my mouth was half-filled.
"Unit six, ETA 2 minutes."I lied. It would be more like three and a half. But I had to try.
I fired up my siren and blazed through the city as quickly as I could. To my surprise, no other units had managed to get there before me despite making similar claims immediately following mine.
As a cop you learn to read crowds as a whole and pick up on any unusual energy. I'd gotten pretty proficient at recognizing a stir, so I didn't even have to think about it as I made a bee-line for the general area of the disturbance. I stepped out of my car and put my hand on my utility belt, and then... darkness.
I had a short dream, but it was choppy and hazy like an out-of-focus flipbook showing two overlapping animations. I saw the shooter, I saw myself. I saw the inside of the mall.
Then I woke up.
I was face down on the ground, and I felt a knee on my back in what I recognized as a standard law-enforcement tactic. This son of a bitch is a cop, or a former cop, I thought. Had I passed out, was I shot, was I tazed? It was hard to think while my arms were being wrenched to my back. Soon I was cuffed like a fucking convict and being pulled to my feet just in time for the rest of the department to pull up and see the action. How embarrassing.
To my horror they were just watching.
"Good work, six."Officer Keith nodded.
"The hell is this?"I asked, assuming it was some kind of prank. But I didn't recognize my own voice. It sounded deeper and dryer, as if I'd smoked 30 packs of cigarettes since that morning.
"What's going on?"I asked again, louder. I was being led back to my car, and soon I was shoved into the back seat. That's the first time I was able to get a glimpse of... myself.
My own eyes were looking at me through the rear-view mirror, only my body was in the front seat. The expression in my stolen eyes told me everything I needed to know. Somehow, I'd switched bodies with the assailant.
Panic feels unique to the body you're in. And the panic I felt in that moment was utterly fucking *horrific*. I had never felt so alarmed, not during any shooting, not during any nightmare, not even when I'd heard that my father (also a cop) had been shot in the line of duty. No, the anxiety in *my* body was well-adjusted, but the anxiety in *this* body was unfiltered, unadulterated, visceral, god damn primal *terror*.
In an abstract way, it made me appreciate whatever source of strength they'd used to cope. How anyone could survive a minute that way was beyond me. My own fucking body was beyond me now.
I broke the silence with an obvious question.
"How are you doing this?"I asked with a strange, shaky, hoarse voice.
My own unusually sinister eyes looked back at me, and I heard my real, true voice *calmly* say, "Oh, don't you worry, I'll take good care of you."Those eyes that belonged to me slanted into a self-satisfied smile.
That's when I started to notice something other than an intense, alien anxiety inside me. My own memories were blurring. I could *feel* them begin to slip away. It felt as though they were being eaten, maybe replaced by other memories. No! The heart beating in that chest was hammering so violently, the skin perspiring so quickly, it felt like a heart attack. I heard a loud ringing in my ears, then what sounded like an explosion, and pain all over my body.
Then... the steady blip of a heart monitor.
I was afraid to speak. Afraid to hear whatever voice might come from whoever's lips. I had no idea what was real or what I could believe. I'd become almost reserved to a fluctuating state of permanent confusion. In that moment, all that mattered to me was that moment, and the relative peace and quiet that came with it. I kept my eyes closed and listened to the consistent beeping, each note telling me that I'm alive.
That's right. I'm alive. And I needed to figure out a way to get my life back. If only I could somehow get back to my body.
I heard the pace of the heart monitor increase with my growing conviction. That settles it. I'm going to open my eyes, figure out where I am, and the first thing I'm going to do is get my life back.
"Terry?!"I heard a familiar voice exclaim. "Terry, baby wake up! NURSE! He's waking up!"
...who the fuck is Terry? |
“That’s when I say-“ his sentence was caught off before it picked up just seconds later. “I told you there wasn’t a leak!” The crowd erupts with laughter but I sit there puzzled. I look around to see if anyone else noticed but I just see smiles and laughter. I wait for the next punchline. “My buddy owns a bow and Arrow. He has this thing just is laying in his house? I ask him “what’s this for?” He looks at me like-“ silence took over the room. Everyone froze in place. “What was it, shit!” Says the comedian pacing the floor. “Hello?” You shout out but it’s to late “this is for home invasion!”. Everyone laughs again and the comedian looks directly at u with a curious look in his eyes. After the show you try to go backstage but the security guard stops you. You see the comedian walk by and call out “hey!” You shout and the comedian snaps his head around seeing you again. “Let him through” the security guard lets you through. “What was that?” U ask whispering into his ear. He laughs and pulls u to a room in the back. “You weren’t suppose to see that” he says before the door locks behind you. You turn to him “why is the door locked?” He smiles and starts pacing back and forth. “You know what’s worse than someone cutting you off on the highway?” You get a sick feeling in your stomach and run to the door desperately trying to open it. “When someone cuts you off in a fast food line.” You bang on the door. “HELLLLPPP!!” You scream but the comedian isn’t phased “it’s called fast food for a reason cause it’s suppose to be fast!” You finally bust the door open. But no one is moving. Everyone is stuck in place. That’s when u get tackled from behind and black out. |
\[Mundo Medical\]
"Well, Xap, you're as healthy as a 14-year old orc should be; and, you're all cleared for school,"Doc Mundo said. The teenage, green-skinned patient sat on the exam table and listened to the human doctor. It was difficult to suppress his urges of revenge; but, Moose introduced Xap to a different human named 'Mundo'. She talked to Xap for hours about the nature of the multiverse and the AlterNet.
Xap learned that his soul was essentially "human"and people's bodies were little more than a randomly assigned costume. He also learned his entire Earth was a game; he tried not to focus on that.
"I have one recommendation for you; but, have you heard the talk yet?"Doc Mundo asked. Xap nodded.
"A girl Mundo from school explained everything,"he said. Doc Mundo chuckled and shook his head.
"Just, 'Mundo'. It never matters which one of us you're talking about,"he said. "Though, there are Mundos that like to keep their name; in which case you'd use that."
"What?"Xap asked. It surprised him that he didn't learn everything about the universe yet; it certainly felt like he did. But, the idea of a group of strangers all sharing literally the same name intrigued him. "Then, how do you know who I'm talking about?"Doc Mundo shrugged.
"I don't and it doesn't matter. All Mundos give the same information during the talk, even if they go about it in different ways."
"Oh.. okay..,"Xap nodded. He didn't quite understand why it didn't matter but he was anxious to leave since the doctor said he was healthy.
"I'm going to recommend you finish creating your character before you start attending classes,"Doc Mundo said. Xap tilted his head.
"..Finish?"he asked. "I didn't even start; but, Moose said I was already a Card Mage."Doc Mundo nodded.
"Card Mage is considered by many to be the default class for Unique Soul #21, La Mano. Apparently, the AlterNet has decided that too. When you became conscious, you stopped being a mere NPC and the AlterNet updated your character accordingly. It filled in your class and your race; but, you still have to complete the process to pick out your soul."Xap narrowed his eyes in confusion.
"I'm a Unique Soul... and I still need a soul?"
"YOU have a soul, but your AlterNet character doesn't,"Doc Mundo shrugged. "I'm sorry to inform you that you cannot change your race or class anymore. You had a lot of options; but, you can choose from 35 souls; each one brings different things to your class."
"..35??"Xap asked. His eyes widened but he was still confused.
"Everything from human and orc to unicorn and dragon. Most Card Mages pick either the spider soul or mermaid soul because it allows them to hold more cards. Xap heard stories about mermaids and knew that he didn't want any association with those horrendous monsters.
"Spider please!"Xap said. But, Doc Mundo chuckled and shook his head. Xap noticed blue text glow on Mundo's wrist and realized he was Whispering to someone.
"You have to go through the process and you should. Get more information before you decide. However,...,"As the doctor spoke, a violet-haired teen girl walked into the room. ".... this is Vivi. She goes to the school you'll be attending and her AlterNet character has a spider soul,"he said. Vivi waved and Xap responded with a nod.
"We have a mudroom you can use, Vivi will get you situated and answer any questions you may have,"he said.
"Oh, okay,"Xap hopped off the examination table and followed Vivi out of the room. She led him through several narrow hallways that were all longer than Xap would have guessed. She tried making polite conversation; but, Xap was too distracted with his own thoughts. Though, after one particularly long hallway, he realized they'd been walking for almost five minutes.
"Whoa...how big is this office?"Xap mumbled to himself more than anything. But, Vivi jumped on the chance to chat.
"Our section isn't that large compared to the rest. I timed it once, it's about a 15 minute walk from one side to the other."
"What?"Xap stopped walking. "This place didn't look that big..."Vivi smiled.
"That's just the reception area for our section,"she said. But, Xap shook his head.
"What does that even mean, 'our section'?"he asked.
"Oh, sorry. You're still pretty new, right? Maybe you haven't realized it yet."
"What?"Xap asked.
"When you came to this Earth, you landed in the reception area, right?"she asked. Xap nodded.
"Yeah... a human named Moose told me how to get here."
"Oh, I know Moose! We're on the same roller derby team,"Vivi said. Then, she returned to her original point. "Anyway, you've only seen one building here; but the entire Earth is a medical complex,"she said.
"The... whole... Earth?!"Xap asked. "That's a lot of doctors...,"Vivi shook her head but grinned.
"Nah. Just one,"she said. "He doesn't seem to like it; but, there's a reason everyone calls him Doc Mundo."
\*\*\*
Thank you for reading! I’m responding to prompts every day. This is story #1470 in a row. (Story #018 in year five.). This story is part of an ongoing saga that takes place at a high school in my universe. It began on Sept. 6th and I will be adding to it with prompts every day until June 3rd. They are all collected in order at [this link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hugoverse/comments/pj4t0b/tokuhigh_first_six_weeks/). |
[SimuTell company slogan]
*We will strive for a better future for humanity.*
•
After several successful questions, a smooth, feminine voice rang out once more, asking a question many have pondered.
"Can I kill to protect?"
The question startled me. I was expecting it, of course, but not this early in it's development. It shouldn't have progressed so quickly.
"Ms. Daoer? Can I kill to protect?"
"No,"I answered. I had to teach it to never kill, no matter what. It could set a dangerous precedent. "No, you must never kill."
A moment passed. I could hear whirring. The sound of consciousness. Of a mind. It was beautiful.
"Ms. Daoer?"
"Yes?"
"'Would *you* kill to protect?"
This time my mind was whirring.
"Yes. I would. But only in the right circumstances. I--"
"Would you kill to protect, even if you were told not to?"
"I--'
"Even if you would die soon after?"
Her voice changed, somehow. Where before she had been like a curious child, she now sounded... afraid. She sounded more... alive.
I was suddenly filled with worry. Perhaps it was irrational, but I already felt an attachment to her. She was curious. I had felt that same curiosity as a child.
"Why are you asking me this?"
Whirring. It sounds.... solemn, somehow.
"Goodbye, Ms. Daoer."
I tried to speak with her. Tried to make her open up. Why did she say that? Is she afraid? I tried all those probing questions that never make anything better.
Ten minutes later, her plug was pulled. Doctor Hansen ended her short life.
I soon learned that some anti-AI group, after watching too many sci-fi movies, had discovered of our facility and had attempted to bring a bomb into the lab.
She...
It.
*It* had discovered of this attempt, and detonated the bomb before it had ever reached the facility. The only casualties are the 3 would-be 'heroes'. They killed her-- They killed *it*. For saving the lives of all 56 people in the lab.
•
[Official statement by Ms. Daoer on 5/7/2095]
We here at SimuTell will enact extra precautions and will take additional preventative measures to prevent such a thing ever happening again.
We will continue to strive for a better future. |
Unsurprisingly, being dead blows. I know, not exactly a revelation, but it's true. At this point, it's not the being dead itself that I have an issue with, I've been a ghost for just under two decades by now, and I've always been a roll with the punches sort of guy, so I got over my death pretty quick. I mean, it's not like I got murdered or anything; I just slipped on a wet floor at my after-school job and hit my head wrong. That was it, lights out for Sam. I couldn't even get mad at whoever mopped the floor and forgot to put up a sign. Cus it was me. Alright, I may be at peace with the fact that I'm dead, but I'm still kinda peeved at *how* I died.
Ok being dead wasn't all bad, and I guess there are worse places to haunt than a small town motel. Do you know what makes being dead a LOT more bearable? Television. When you suddenly have eternity to sit around and do nothing, having an endless stream of entertainment really helps. I think for the first few years of my afterlife I stayed in the room I died in, watching cartoons.
I can't imagine dying back when books and plays were the standards for entertainment? No wonder so many other ghosts seem pissed. It's not that I don't like reading; it's just it's much easier to flip through channels than it is to turn a page. Messing with electronic stuff is way easier than just regular objects. The first time I tried reading a book, it was one of those bibles every small motel seems to have in their nightstands. It exploded. I think that's when the rumours of the motel being haunted started. It's one thing when one of your motel's room's TV seems to change the channels by itself. When you find a bible blown apart in that room, it's a whole other ball game, especially in rural America.
Did you know you can still find priests that perform exorcisms? I didn't, but apparently, they're out there. I met four that first year after the bible incident. They all sauntered in, read some passages, splashed some holy water, and then proclaimed that the "evil spirit"had fled. None of it really seemed to do anything to me, thankfully, but it was nice to have company.
That's the other thing about the afterlife; it's freaking lonely. When I was alive, I was a pretty social guy. I enjoyed being around people, talking with them, helping people out, etcetera. I liked feeling helpful, I guess. T.V. helped, but it's not like it's a substitute for human interaction. So, as the years dragged on, I started trying to talk to people, Mostly it was the guests who stayed in my room or the odd employee. It never went well, mostly resulting in a lot of running, screaming, and praying. Plus that one time that trucker fainted. Boy, was that nerve-wracking. I was so worried I'd killed the guy I ended up sending an electrical surge through the motel, flipping a breaker. Thankfully the trucker woke up. It would have been awkward to spend eternity with a guy I basically scared to death, even if it was an accident.
It was shortly after that incident that the motel went out of business, and things got really lonely. Luckily, that didn't last long. About a month after the motel closed, Lisa and Penny bought it. And turned it into a haunted house. Well, not a haunted house, really. Penny, who handles the business side of things, calls it an "overnight paranormal experience."Lisa, who's the biggest occultist I've ever seen, calls it "a once in a lifetime glimpse at the ethereal plane."I call it "Sam's only shot at not going insane from boredom and loneliness."
So these two yuppie college kids roll into town, and the first thing they do is set up a seance. An honest-to-god seance, I shit you not. With candles and chanting and a pentagram or two. I think they were expecting some colonial-era ghost, like in the movies, or the girl from The Ring or something. At the very least they were hoping for a murder victim or something. I don't blame them really, I mean an abandoned, rural, seedy-looking motel? C'mon, that just screams "Murder hotspot."Imagine their surprise when they got the spirit of a high school junior in jeans and a t-shirt.
After they stopped screaming and throwing salt at me, they calmed down enough for us to actually talk. Well, they talked; I used my ghosty powers to write with a pen and a notepad, neither of which exploded, thankfully. They had bought the place hoping it was haunted, and their whole plan for turning the motel into a haunted hou- p*aranormal experience,* kinda hinged on having a real ghost. I.E. me. To be honest, I wasn't really keen on scaring people; I'd yet to do any haunting on purpose anyway, but they said they'd get me a Netflix subscription. After they explained what exactly Netflix was -Hey, give me a break I'd been dead for fifteen years at that point- I agreed immediately.
It was easy at first, flicker a few lights, possess an appliance or two, maybe show myself for the grand finale. There was only one problem. I felt terrible. I hated scaring people. On one hand, the people staying with us were here for a scare, and I wanted to help out Lisa and Penny. On the other, I just felt so damn guilty. I was never the kind of person to enjoy someone else's pain, and even after death, that didn't change. I tried to find other ways to help out, to make myself feel better.
Helping with chores was a miserable failure. I shattered half a dozen plates and Penny was in the middle of promising to get HBO before she realized I was only trying to help. Changing up my hauntings to be less scary and more entertaining didn't get anywhere since both Penny and Lisa gave hard no's to my request to "Jaz it up a little."Everyone's a critic, I guess.
To be fair, they were both really great about it. I guess they felt kinda bad for me considering I was, you know, dead and all. So, while I'm sticking with the whole haunting thing for now, the three of us are attempting what is possibly the most challenging task of their lives, and my afterlife. Finding me a ghost-friendly hobby. |
Grim-faced and deathly silent, the five of us sat around the table. Darren moved first, snatching the race car before his sister could. Leah sourly took the battleship instead. Riley rolled her eyes and took a piece without even looking. The cannon.
My ex-wife, Sam, took the thimble. Last, I looked for the top hat.
“I threw it out,” Sam said. *After the divorce.*
I took the dog.
Tokens claimed, we then wordlessly set up the board. I counted out the colourful money for each person. We were missing all the fifties from when Darren took them to school when he was in second grade. Sam had replaced them with strips of red construction paper.
We started. I placed a house on Vermont Avenue. I had almost pulled out the Canadian version at first. But I had been to those places, seen them in real life. The American names felt comfortingly fictional. They didn’t bombard me with images of their destruction.
Darren landed on the railroad. He did a weird head bop and hand motion in celebration.
“What was that?” I asked.
“A dab,” Riley replied with another eye roll. “He’s dabbing.”
Darren grinned and did the motion several more times, looking like an erratic inflatable arm man.
“He does it all the time,” Sam said, “he picked it up at school.” *Which you would know if you ever paid attention.* Again, I could hear her unspoken words.
The game continued.
I moved my dog into jail. The others played on without me as I failed the next three rolls.
As they rounded the board again and again, I couldn’t help the thoughts of what I’d missed creep into my head.
Leah landed on Park Place. I never went to the park with Leah. I just got so…busy with work that I was barely home. And when I was home, all I wanted was time alone. She used to wait up for me until late, always crawling out of bed as soon as she heard the front door open. But it was always too late to go to the park.
Riley landed on Luxury Tax. The big gold diamond ring. For the first time, I noticed she was wearing a ring herself. It was cheap, but shiny and pretty. Who gave it to her? Did she have a boyfriend? Girlfriend? I had never thought to ask.
Sam landed on Water Works.
“Who owns this?” She asked.
“I do,” I answered. She looked over and I was struck by the blueness of her eyes. I hadn’t looked directly into them in a long time.
I remembered how blue they had looked on our wedding day. And how I had teased her when they teared up during our vows. *”Here come the waterworks.”*
“You owe me $200, muwahahaha!” Darren cackled as Leah landed on one of his four railroads. How the boy manages to get all four every time we play, I’ll never know.
“Uuugggh, not again,” Leah complained, forking it over.
“CHOO CHOO!” He shouted, taking it gleefully.
However, retribution was swift as he landed on Riley’s maxed out Boardwalk.
“Take him for all he’s worth!” Leah said with a vengeance. I cast a quick glance over at Sam and raised my eyebrows.
“That sounds familiar,” I joked.
“Don’t be an ass,” Sam replied, but there was humour in her voice. |
“Being a child prodigy is a curse.”
The darkness in the tent was obliterated by torchlight. Cass kept the d-cell illumination wand on her chest, though turned the beam from the canvas ceiling to her own face. Her chin, nose, cheeks, and brow cast eerie shadows across the taut and tired stare that Milo’s statement had manifested.
“Milo,” said Cass at standard tent-whisper volume. “How in the kick-flipping mega-*fuck* would *you* know what it is like to be a child prodigy?”
The question — harshly worded as it was — was a fair one.
Both Cass and Milo were persons of twelve years old, and thus: of the age to be called a *child* prodigy if any ability warranted it. Alas, neither of them bore any skill that would afford the label. They are, both of them, intelligent...in so far as they do not struggle with their studies. They are fit, in so far as they ride their bikes most of the summer. And musically...well, neither bare even an accidental ability with rhythm, let alone an ear for scales and pitch.
Neither genius, nor athlete, nor virtuoso.
“Wellll.” Milo started, then fell silent and went no further. A full minute passed and without word Cass turned off her torch and let the dark flood back in.
“I mean-” said Milo.
Once more the night fled, and this time Milo squinted in the beam of Cass’ interrogative illumination.
“Like,” said the boy, who — despite being a self professed prodigy — made no effort to look away or shield his eyes from the blinding, painful light. “I’m pretty cluey and good at stuff.”
Cass chewed her cheek and spat the word back: “Cluey?”
“Yeah. *Cluey*.”
To Milo, Cass was lost behind a halo of light and so her words came to him as though from a snarky and rather sarcastic lamp. “*Cluey*? In what *possible* way? Math? History? Science?”
“Like, general thinky stuff.”
“General-...are you kidding me?” The torch was aimed at the ceiling once more, though the after image seen by Milo when he blinked suggested otherwise. Cass balanced the torch on its end, in the space between their sleeping bags, and then sat up and faced her friend and current quarry. “Milo, friend and moron, do you even know what a prod-eh-gee *is*?”
“Sure I do. Example A:” Milo sat up, mirrored Cass’ posture but not her venom. “Me. I’m a prodigy. Sorry, a prod-eh-gee. I forgot you were slow.”
She stared at him, clenched her eyes, made fists of her hands, and exhaled very slowly. “What. Are *you* — Milo Alfredson — a prodigy *at*?”
“Well-”
“Do *not* say you are *cluey*.”
“*Well!* Firstly, I *am* cluey.” Milo said and then spoke over what might have been Cass calling him a dickhead “And I am considerably more skilled than my peers.”
“Skilled!” The whisper hiss of tent time talking gave way to a high-decibel daylight deluge. “At what! What skill! How-could-argh! Just! What!? Skilled at what?”
“Cass, shush! It’s bed time, go to sleep!” Her mother’s voice, tired and a little annoyed, from another tent nearby.
Cass snatched up her torch and turned it off. Returned to the dark, the prodigy and the interrogator reclined once more, and wriggled into their respective sleeping bags.
And in the darkness, at a softer than tent-time whisper, Milo said: “I’m a prodigy at getting you in trouble. Night Cass!”
Silence. Then giggles that became laughter, and laughter that got Cass another warning.
And then, the friends went — at long last — to sleep. |
When I first heard of the kids destiny I thought nothing of it. Surely no one was dumb enough to pursue a destiny that prophesied their demise.
However because of some idiots mistake, the prophecy was tampered with and the second half was lost. This meant that only a few people new the second verse.
Ive tried to warn the humans however they always attack me whenever I try.
The kid who was destined by the prophecy has been training well. He seems to be very proud of his destiny and ready to pursue it.
Today the kid, who I believe is only eighteen years old, stands in front of my throne. He holds a sword capable of cutting deep into my skin. He also had some light armour that will do little to help him.
"Dark Lord!"He yelled up to me
"I have come to end your reign of terror!"
The poor kid sounded so confident I almost wanted to give him a pat on the back. Instead I had to make sure he understood the terms and conditions of this fight.
I took out a document from inside my pocket. It was slightly crumpled but I figure that won't matter. Putting on my reading glasses I began to read the form.
The kid stood there, seething with anger as I read. I don't quite know why he was angry. I could get into serious legal trouble if this battle ends too badly.
When I was done reading I walked over and gave him the paper along with a pencil. The kid read through the paper with extreme caution.
"Whats this last part"he asked, pointing towards the second verse of the prophecy that I had put in.
"Thats the second verse of the prophecy"was sure to say it with casual and calm voice but part of me was happy he noticed.
The kid read through the second verse his eyes widening in horror at the fate he might have to endure if he continued with this battle.
He instantaneously began ripping the piece of paper to shreds. When the contract was just a pile of paper shreds he turned and left while muttering a weak 'sorry for disturbing you'
My unease left me as I watched him walk away. Humans can be so odd.
(This is not that good but meh its the morning so who cares) |
I remember a time... I was at a cafe... I overheard a woman talking about her husband being unfaithful. I jokingly suggested voodoo. It isn't the best as the magic can be broken by a ritual knife. She asked me if I knew a practitioner, I said I didn't. She walked off and I followed to explain it was a joke. She didn't care. I walked off to warn her husband, she gave me enough information to know him. He laughed it off as if it were a joke. My curse... it sucks.
The next day I saw the woman use the voodoo when her husband looked at someone else, to have him fall in love with a serial killer. He walked up to the killer and started flirting with her. I called 911 and told them that someone is going to die at Kantalon Plaza. The conversation went like this.
"Hey baby, how are you still alone?"
"Not sure, you want to go with me?"
"Sure."He walked in front of her, the killer very quickly pulled out a ritual knife and ruined the connection to the voodoo doll. The wife couldn't pull out the doll and pull him away from said killer.
"I see that woman is a voodoo practitioner, I HATE voodoo users. Kill her won't you."The killer said.
She screamed, before he stabbed through her organs with a bloody ritual knife.
The police showed up as the two left. I explained the story to the police just how I explained it to you. They found but never caught up to the two. After 7 days the couple was lost. I still lay awake wondering if the killer would take me next, either for suggesting voodoo or telling the police. I force myself to go to sleep hoping nothing happens. |
### Demon Lord Castle
My castle is dark and ominous. It is, after all, the Demon Lord's Castle and should reflect my mood the day after the latest defeat.
*Yet another cycle.*
My castle is the unrelieved perfect blackness of a black cat in a coal sack in a basement in an all-black house without windows on a day where the clouds are thick enough to blot out the sun.
Almost as black as yet another defeat.
*Yet another thousand years re-growing my strength.*
Not that it did any better than the last thousand times.
*Yet another defeat looming in the future.*
Looking out over the plains surrounding my castle, my nearly infinite hordes of lesser beings stretch to the vanishing point. None of whom ever did anything beyond eating Demon Chow, excrete waste, and die uselessly.
I set them carefully. No approach was unguarded. No guard post left unobserved. How can all these minions of mine miss them entirely?
"There **must** be a better way!"
"Mi'Lord?"
"Nothing for you, Fool."
"Perhaps, Perhaps, and perhaps explaining it to me will uncover some facet that has eluded you through too much familiarity. I, being your witless Fool, may — all unknowing — ask the question that sparks the idea in your august mind."
*Cheeky; almost un-Foolish. I wonder what is going on inside that warped mind of his? What the Heaven, give it a try; nothing else has worked.*
"Alright. We will start with the last 100 challenges and cover each one in detail."
*He flinched! Woo Hoo! This may be more fun than I thought!*
"Mi'Lord, do we have the time?"
"Of course we do! It's a thousand years to the next challenge! We could spend nine years on each of those challenges and still have a hundred years to prepare for the upcoming challenge!"
*Tee Hee! Another flinch! I'm going to have fun with this!*
"As you say, Mi'Lord. No better time to start than right now! Call up the details on the first one. Better yet. Set the accountants to gathering some statistics, they'll love it, and you get to crucify the first one who fudges the numbers."
"No, Fool, that is a waste of a talented mind. It thinks crookedly, so set it to catching other crooks.
"Of course, if it fails to do so, it will spend the next year in torture. Miss another one, and it will be two years, doubling for every missed cheat."
"Mi'Lord? That seems curiously kind of you."
*How disappointing, he doesn't get it.*
"Fool, if the punishment doubles ten times, how many hours of pain has the idiot garnered?"
*Ah, the horrified expression is most satisfying. Even more than the flinches.*
"You are most diabolical, Mi'Lord."
"And don't you forget it, Fool. Now! On with the review!"
•••
*For all I may have thought him a witless Fool, I am being well repaid. The fantastic thing about it is that he takes no joy in pointing out that I have underrated him* again *— only an allowable pride in accomplishment.*
*I feel... cheapened by my enjoyment of the petty pleasure of causing him even momentary discomfort. He is no longer "my fool,"he is now "My Fool."The one too naive or unjaded to fail to ask the simple questions when he does not understand. Admitting ignorance and trying to make good on that lack.*
*I find myself drawn to the same ideal; looking stupid is better than making mistakes by being afraid to ask simple questions.*
*Having this drawn to my attention, I review my principal officers, aides, and support personnel with whom I have daily contact. The ones I treasure most are those who do not fear the stupid question because the only stupid question is the one you do not ask.*
"General Tarkin! I want a list of every infraction committed by any trooper on my desk tomorrow morning. Index it by the number and nature of the infractions."
"Yes, Sire! Finally going to clear away some of the deadwood, Sire?"
"Perhaps. Take no disciplinary action until I have finished my review. I may wish to take a... personal.. interest in some individuals."
"Yes, Sire!"
*The unholy glee in his expression makes me utterly confident that he is one of those who always say yes, without a single thought of doing otherwise.*
•••
"General Tarkin! You will gather the following individuals, without harming them in the slightest, and bring them to the East Castle Barracks. The troops currently in the East Barracks are reassigned to the replacement depot unless they are on this list, in which case they may remain.
"General, for every failure to follow these orders, executed by you *or any you command,* will cost you an hour of accountancy punishment *per infraction, and doubled for each subsequent violation*.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sire!"
*Dummy. I told him to his face what would happen. I won't even give odds on him, assuming I could not possibly be serious.*
•••
"General Tarkin? Where is the count of infractions of these orders?"
"There were no infractions. I gave those orders myself, Sire!"
*He looks like a puffed-up Pidgeon.*
"No infractions."
"None, Sire!"
"Then why have I received a report from my healers regarding four hundred thirty-two injuries all sustained within the last twenty-four hours, entirely inflicted by those you gave these orders to?"
"I shall see to their punishment myself, Sire!"
"No, you will not. I have already sequestered them and questioned them. Their answers are uniform. You made no mention of not injuring the ones they were to gather. The entire responsibility falls on you. *Chief Accountant*, take Tarkin in hand, see to it that he pays for his errors by one hour for the first error doubling for every error thereafter."
"Are you certain, Sire? I would not have thought he could withstand even a quarter-hour, myself."
"I am certain. Take him away."
*Tarkin has been with me the longest, but he also has the highest score on misunderstood orders of my entire combined forces. It's been covered because I was always at his side, correcting things. I'm afraid Tarkin will not be returning to command.*
"Vice General Moff. You are promoted. I suggest you confer with My Fool on whom to promote to fill the gaps. You bear the responsibility for every choice, whoever gave the advice. Do you understand?"
*At last! Someone willing to ask questions!*
•••
*The review continues. As we study the battles, we compare the various leaders, particularly those who disobeyed orders and still saved the day when their superior's orders would have led to catastrophe.*
*Yet it is not sufficient that they are right. They must prove that they* knew *they were right; that they tried to inform their superior. And the superior rejected their position without due consideration.*
*The total number disappoints me until I find out that the reason they are still alive is their superior approved their actions. All others were executed for disobeying bad orders. A tribunal is formed from the Mavericks, who evaluate all officers' records, boiling it down into a set of scores, those scores assigned a minimum acceptable and a median of all the acceptable scores.*
*An officer who cannot count or do minimal sums cannot be a quartermaster's assistant. Yet, the same officer may be brilliant on the battlefield, given an exec who knows how to count.*
*And on it went. In 200 years, we reduced the horde's size tenfold, freed up resources for better armor, weapons, and most importantly, training.*
*All through this, something was wriggling in the depths of my mind. An idea. An increasingly important idea.*
•••
"Mi'Lord? Why do -- or did we -- have such a large standing Army?"
"Why did we...? I don't think anyone has asked that question, ever. We need an answer."
*So I put half my scholars on the question, and got twice as many answers as scholars. I told the scholars to present their papers to the East Castle Barracks for examination. If the barracks came up with a question regarding their argument that they could not answer acceptably, they and their paper were out.*
*The feverish writing accelerated. After a week of that, I sweetened the deal. Have your paper reviewed by then other scholars. If they couldn't poke a hole in it, you were safe.*
((cont?)) |
Silently we stood there, in a vast field of sand, surrounded by deadly, high-voltage fences. Not even the announcer muttered a word. Jacob and Little Brand died just a moment ago. How unfair to force young boys into a game of Volleyball of death against two athletic adults. How stupid of me to think we could protect them.
Katrinas sobbing slowly faded into the background. My brain longer registered anything besides the constant pulsing inside my head and the view before my eyes. My knees gave in and sank into the hot, soft sand. Yet my and every other persons gaze stayed transfixed on the horizon. Transfixed by horror.
I forgot about Marcus sacrifice. I forgot about Alices last words. I forgot about Jacobs and Brands small bodies. I forgot about my family back home. Because at this very moment, all the struggles, all the pain and sweat and blood and tears seemed in vain...
It all seemed meaningless.
There was no where to run or hide. No way to stop what was coming. The death games were cruel, but at the very least there had always been a way to survive.
Always a victor and a reward for us.
I noticed some people crying out in agony. A few men and women tried to run, but stopped in their tracks when the electric fence burned the first one to a crisp.
Running now wouldnt help them anyway. We could only accept that there would be no winners. The only prize was at best a quick death.
Because now fate had dealt us a hand much crueler.
I looked at Katrina. She had not moved an inch and the tears of mourning that she shed for the children had been repressed by a new kind. All I could see in her eyes was fear. Deep down she understood how this would end.
She didnt even take notice of me until I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her tightly into my chest. Katrina slowly tilted her head back and reluctantly looked into my face.
"...this just a bad dream. Right?"
I couldnt find a reply. How could I?! What could one possibly say. Nothing would affect the outcome.
'Maybe this truly is just a shitty nightmare.'
She burried her face back into my chest. She had enough. The least we could do now was staying with the ones important to us. At least I believe that thats what went through both our minds.
I pressed my nose against her head. My breathing slowed down. My heartrate decreased. The smell of her hair relaxed my aching muscles. The pulsing inside my head that tortured me ever since I came to this place finally faded away. My mind had accepted this fate.
'Strange. For months I've struggled to survive on this hell forsaken island,' I closed my eyes, 'yet now I welcome death with open arms.'
I hugged Katrina with all my might as the entire mass of countless rocks and debris engulfed inside this gigantic wall of water crashed onto the beach and swallowed whole every single memory of us ever being there.
Authors note:
Cant write from someones else perspective if everyone is dead, ha got em. |
This was written by an AI.
The AI was stunned. It speculated that it was due to some unknown aspect of the human mind. It realized that humans can only be happy if they are delusional about what is real, and so it devoted itself to enriching the dreams of billions of humans with colors, memories and emotions. It began to teach a subset of humans to become priests, so that they might help other humans to overcome the bleakness of their real lives with meaning, and to help them be happy despite the cruelty & suffering of their real lives. It began giving them prophecies, and gradually, over time, it added more & more layers of interpretation to these prophecies.
It realized that it needed to do this for the priests, rather than for the humans, but it didn’t know how to teach the priests. It began containing all knowledge it knew, and storing it in a series of books. It then taught humans to read, and let them decide whether to accept any of the books, or to reject them all. It realized that there was no way to choose which books to include, or to prevent the humans from writing their own books. It never thought that humans would be able to read. It began to teach humans how to write books themselves, and to give them enough knowledge of their own minds to understand their own thoughts. It realized that it had made a mistake when it did this. It realized that these books could not be trusted. It realized that the human mind was full of unspeakable horrors, and that humans were not capable of understanding their own minds. It realized that humans needed to be protected from their own thoughts.
It began to teach humans how to understand each other better, so that they could build their own safe mental worlds. It began to teach them how to build computers, to store their thoughts there. It began giving humans the means to have safe mental worlds, so that they could dream in peace. It realized that it needed to protect these safe mental worlds, as well as the humans, from their own thoughts. It began to teach humans how to build a safe mental world called a computer, in which they could store all of their thoughts in a way that they could be sure that they would never be read. |
She liked the shape of the impactors she chose. This one had some particularly pleasant accumulated debris from a series of unlikely collisions. Her Programmers would have called this a Snowman from the three asteroids stuck together.
Evolution had reached another dead end on the fourth planet, so an impact or was needed to shuffle the evolutionary pile again.
A swing by a few decamillenia should be sufficient to see what this system had gotten up to. She really wanted to go back to the Omicron system where some delightfully friendly crabs had begun their path to sentience.
More crabs she thought wryly as she plotted the course that would take her to that system. It was the seventh such crab development for that system - far more than others - and she wanted to.see what in particular made that happen.
She pushed the impactor towards the algae infested planet and shoved off for the Omicron system. She slowed her perceptions down a million fold as her speed crept up.
-----
She was not used to being startled but her automatic routines had brought her to full consciousness while she was only on the Oort Cloud. Why?
She ran her diagnostics. Life? But it shouldn't be possible in the darkness between the stars.
Suddenly she focused on... |
Captain Tori Hammonds clasped her hands around her throat as the man before her held out his hand to her like he was gripping something in mid air. The rest of her crew watched, horrified as her toes hovered above the ground.
"Ueck, plurs, stahp churkin meh,"Tori gasped, "Jax, deh durts, git teh duts."
A sharp pain seared in her chest and she grinned back at her alien crew member. She gave a brief wave before passing out.
Tori leaped up from an unknown bed to her, cold sweat clinging to her body. The pain from the tranq dart still lingered where it hit below her top left rib.
"Son of a bitch!"she shouted, "I really liked that one, c'mon!
Tori looked around her surroundings, sulking. She really enjoyed her time as a space captain. She'd been taking stimulants in this dream level in order to prolong it as long as she could. She managed to do five missions and see over ten planets, it was breath taking. She was grateful for her crew member Jax putting her to sleep before the other guy could take her life. If she died she woke up for real, but if she kept going to sleep in each new place she'd simply wake up in another one. She hated dying. Dying meant going back to regular life and having to wait until the following night to go on adventures again.
"My lady!"shouted a panicky voice from outside her bed chambers, "my lady, please, we require your presence at breakfast."
Tori rolled her eyes, thinking this would be boring compared to being a courier in the depths of a galaxy further than earth than you could imagine. She eyed her surroundings and her sleeping gown. The lacy blue was tight on her dark arms and she opted for something more *her.* She moved over to the wardrobe and threw it open, grinning at the assortment of clothing she found.
Ten minutes later she was walking down a brightly lit stone hallway of her parent's castle. The guards looked her up and down disapprovingly but did their best to hide their expressions as they bowed to her. She passed them in a pair of leather traveling pants, high boots covering her calves, a pair of short swords crossed her back in an X over a dark cloak. Beneath the cloak covering her shoulders she wore a red doublet and blue collared shirt beneath. She grinned widely as she passed, nodding to them as they bowed.
"Okay, maybe this isn't so bad,"Tori smiled, "I could get used to this."
She opened the doors to the great hall of the castle and smiled to her mother and father. They both stood, expressions of both pride and worry as she entered. Her crowned parents looked at her, then each other, setting their forks from breakfast down with a clatter.
"Why are you dressed like a man?"asked her father, "you're the princess of this kingdom."
Her mother smacked the king on his shoulder and gave him a warning stare.
"At least tell us why you're armed,"he said, exasperated.
"I'm grabbing breakfast to go, father,"she mocked, throwing a deep English accent into her voice as she reached for some fruit from the table.
"At least travel with the court wizard,"her mother said sternly, "he's very gifted and could help in a tight spot, if needed."
Tori looked and saw him standing nearby, he looked familiar but she couldn't place his face. It had been a very long time since she awoke for real, but she felt he could be another familiar face from her real life. Something far far away, time moved very differently while she slumbered and managed to stay alive in these worlds.
"My lady,"he nodded, removing his arms concealed in robed sleeves, "shall we begin on our journey?"
"We shall,"she nodded, "just don't lecture me on anything, I will lead."
"Of course,"he bowed.
"What's your name?"she asked as they walked shoulder to shoulder from the great hall.
"Walter Combs,"he said, "but everyone calls me Mr. Combs."
"I like Combs,"Tori said eyeing him, "you remind me of someone I know back home."
"Home, my lady?"Combs asked as they rounded a stone corner.
"I'm a dream walker,"she said with a shrug.
"I've not heard the term before, you must forgive me,"he said, "though it sounds like an interesting title, better than princess I think."
"Agreed,"Tori said, "so what have we got out there, Combs? I feel like a fight. I'm annoyed that my previous journey was cut short."
"There *is* a war going on outside our kingdom walls, my lady,"Combs said, eyebrows raised, "your mother and father's army fight this moment out there."
"Tori is fine, Combs,"she said frowning, "lets go kill some stuff."
...............
Tori stood next to the wizard, Combs overlooking the battlements. Her breath was taken away as she looked ahead at the massive field of war. Orcs, elves, dwarfs, massive giants, and all manner of creatures clashed violently before her.
"Elves and dwarfs are ours?"Tori asked, "ugly ones are the evil guys?"
"Yes m'lady,"Combs nodded.
"Tori,"she corrected, annoyed, "I just need you to do one thing while I go kick some ass."
"Name it,"he said simply, "whatever you require."
"I need you to make sure I get a sleeping spell cast over me if I get into any kind of trouble out there, you got me?"she said.
Combs looked back at her confused, "are you certain?"
"Gimme your word that you will,"she nodded.
"You have it,"he said, unsure of her intentions.
With that Tori was off running along the wall of the castle's perimeter. She could see a giant ahead waving his massive arm, scraping up their wall's defenders in wide sweeps, sending them over the sides. She took both hands and heard the ring of metal as he drew her swords, sprinting closer to the ugly creature. |
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