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[WP] At age 18 you are required to go to city hall and have someone read you through a choose your own adventure style book of your life while you make the choices. The choices are permanent and will determine your life. You are the clerk reading the books.
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“Three attempts this week Molly. I don’t think they're honest-to-god attempts, except the girl in 43b.”
“Regardless, I want them all on suicide precautions, I’m due to change someone’s life this week and I’m not going to miss that opportunity!” the nurse replied.
The first nurse was simple, she would never understand her future. She grew up in the time when your Appointment took a single day, limited possibilities and definite futures. Anymore the Appointment was both heart wrenching and useless. People had found ways to cheat others destiny, or so it was rumored. The second nurse however, she was one who got it.
“Another one coming in, she’ll be our 4th attempt…and I think she was here last week!” the first nurse replied anxiously.
The ER at Cleveland Metro was always full of suicide attempts, almost every major city was. This is where Gabe was stationed. A young man would be incoming with respiratory distress and a blood alcohol content of 0.2. The boy was what society called a life-dodger, someone who tries to commit suicide rather than face the Appointment at age 18. Gabe was here to retrieve him and delineate his future. Some even had to be restrained to the bed, if they were still non-compliant then a simple coin would be used to choose their path.
“Incoming! 17 year old male, respiratory distress, found locked in his father’s pick-up truck with the doors and windows sealed shut. Half a bottle of Jack was left in the seat next to him, not sure how much was his drinking. Father says he is due for his Appointment, we need to get him……”.
Her voice faded down the hall and Gabe stood. He approached the front desk and placed his badge in front of the receptionist. One glance was all it took and he was immediately granted an all-access pass to the patient’s room. He sat back down, it usually took them a few hours to stabilize him in the ICU then he would be moved to a step-down unit. The nurses knew the drill, the boy would already have his restraints in place when he awoke. All Gabe had to do now was wait.
A few hours went by and the boy stirred from his sleep. He was in awe at the light of heaven’s gates, at least for the few moments to realize that it was just the window. He began to sit up and was held in place. He jerked at his right hand to no avail. The realization slowly hit him, as did the tears that spilled down his face. He knew what came next, he knew it would happen if his suicide failed, and he was no more ready to address it now than he was before. That is when the voice spoke. The voice that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“Morning son, you done running?” Gabe said with a smile. “Am I going to need to break out the good old fashion quarter? I really hate doing that, hurts the thumb after a while.”
“Lets just get it over with.” He replied solemnly. “Give me the general questions first.”
Gabe was honestly glad the boy was compliant. The quarter really did hurt his finger after so many flicks. Out of his briefcase came a black tablet with a large “A” laser-inscribed on the back. It symbolized the boys Appointment, the start to his new life, and it gave Gabe the authority to keep the boy restrained and punished until his Appointment was complete. It started up with an audible beep and Gabe pricked the young man’s finger with a sterile needle. The blood went into a test strip and then was inserted into the tablet. His name, social security number, and other relevant information appeared on the screen along with one other box, “Begin Appointment”.
The general questions were randomized but up to three were able to be viewed, and if desired, changed. This could lead to undue stress if you hadn’t planned for stressful times. Many people went through serious psychological trauma because they decided not to uncheck the box that said “I will never party with friends.” because they decided not to check their general questions. These questions had no date but would be completed before the end of your life. This was the one section that gave you a chance to decide WHEN something happens.
“OK, what would you like to change?” Gabe asked intrigued.
“Suicide, do I ever attempt after this?”
“As of now, no.”
“Change it to yes for me.” The boy smiled as he said it.
“You understand that you can’t get past your life by ending it right? Everything in the next section will have to be completed unless your decisions lead to suicide.” Gabe replied without an expression.
“I know. Suicide is a yes. Next, how is my drug section?”
It took Gabe a moment to flip to the correct screen.
“Alchohol yes, THC yes, LSD yes,” that could be fun Gabe thought, “PCP yes, cocaine yes, prescriptions yes, the remainders are no.”
“OK, that’s fine. I get one more right?”
“Yes you do, what will it be?”
“Rape, can you turn on rape?”
Gabe knew where this was going. The boy expected to have a drug induced sex fest with some poor girl followed by a suicide in jail. He had seen quite a few people go this path and it never worked the way they thought. They never asked if the rape box meant that they themselves could be raped.
“Rape is on, and that is your last changeable general question. Now on to your own personal story.”
The boy laid back and smiled, happy that he was able to “choose” how he would die, as if it was his choice in any way.
“First off, two week from tomorrow as it turns out, are you going to go to that strip club that your dad wants to take you to?” Gabe laughed as he said it. The rules permitted him, the clerk, full explanations of each decision, though he was tasked to never reveal more than one sentence about it, and only if pressed.
“Strip club? Um, yeah, sure.” The boy replied, ‘an easy one to start with,’ the boy thought.
Short sightedness. Just like the first nurse this boy didn’t take the time to think out his decisions. A fake I.D. had found its way into the boys pocket when he was 16 and he had been going to “The Purple Waffle – Gentleman’s Club” for almost two years now, he was practically an employee. Gabe noted that the father would not be too happy when the dancers called him by name and offered him his “regular”.
One little known fact was that the tablets showed a small tree of where each choice would lead. The different walks of life that a man could take. Some diverged, some converged, and no one knew why. This choice was one that sharply disconnected him from his father. Gabe saw no reason to share this with the boy so he tapped the chosen reply and then swiped to the next tree.
“That job that ‘John’ offered you, will you end up taking it?”
“The one chopping down trees?” the young man replied, “ya of course, the pay is phenomenal”.
Gabe chuckled again, the pay was $10/hr under the table and he saw that the business would go under in a few years after the IRS discovered he had almost 30 workers under the table doing various odd jobs around the state. Hardly a phenomenal choice.
This process took the entire rest of the morning and continued well into the afternoon. Some choices Gabe laughed at, others he was forced to remain neutral while he dreaded the boy’s choices. The kid in front of him never once questioned his actions, Gabe gave no explanations. They had made it into his early 40’s when the boy made a decision involving an affair and the tablet flashed “Life complete”. Gabe knew what this meant, somehow the teenager would meet his death soon after that decision. He packed up his things and said his goodbye before the young man realized why the interview was not lasting the usual two days and cut off before his 50s.
As he walked through his front door he couldn’t help but wonder about the young man’s choices. Some were obvious, others were silly. He remembered how carefully he had prepared for his life. He made sure to get into a city position so he could transfer to this job. He had cheated the system like everyone else and wasn’t afraid to take a bribe to help a person out. He knew exactly how much he could tell before he was breaking the law, and he stretched it to the limit. People didn’t realize it all ended the same. Whether living a moral life or an immoral life, we all died. The only thing that mattered to Gabe was that he lived comfortably. So when the young man had chosen to sell his mother’s house after she died, Gabe had made sure to note the boy’s address. The tablet had showed him that it would appreciate 150% when a corporation needed to demolish it for the land. Gabe would be purchasing it in twelve years at a steal, and selling to the big man. He smiled one last time as he laid back in his king sized bed and smiled as he fell into sleep, dreaming of his next profitable Appointment.
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"Caroline West?" I call out into the waiting room. Several eyes dart back to the floor, nervous and disappointed. A young woman with long brown hair and beautiful green eyes walks up to me with a smile, an air of confidence surrounding her. "Right this way." We walk down the hallway and up to my office. We walk through the door and she sits in the large red plush chair, crossing her legs and leaning back for comfort.
“Caroline West. Daughter of Elizabeth and recently passed Lionel West. Your birthday is... oh today. Happy Birthday.”
“Thank you.” She responds with an innocent smile. I wish she knew what was coming.
“Alright. I'm going to read this book aloud to you and present you with options. You may choose what you would like to do and it will be permanent. Do you understand?”
“Yes ma'am.”
“Then let's begin. Very soon you will have a job opportunity with a very well known journalism company. Do you take it?”
“Of course. Journalism is my dream job.”
“They require you to take some classes during your first year as intern. Do you attend Saint Peter's Community College or North State University?”
“Saint Peter's. It's a safer choice.”
“Good. You successfully complete all of your classes in top of your class standards and manage to move up in the company. You are now offered an international opportunity to spend five years in Paris as a journalist. Do you take the opportunity?”
“Will it be expensive?”
“Unfortunately that information is confidential.”
“I've never been one to turn down an opportunity. Alright, I'll take it.”
“You take up the opportunity and are sent overseas on a completely paid for trip...” I paused and looked up to see the awe and excitement in her eyes. She was so pleased with the results. I couldn't blame her. “While there you meet a very handsome man and develop a friendship that feels like it could be something more. Do you pursue a romance?”
“It sounds dreamy. If I'm already friends with him than I can trust him. I will.”
“You pursue a relationship and date for the remainder of the time you live in Paris. You have an extravagant wedding right before you move home. When you return home your mother wants to know all about the trip as you've been disconnected from all forms of communication while you were gone. Do you tell her about your husband?”
“I wouldn't keep anything from my mother. I will.”
“Your mother doesn't agree with your husband and argues that you should get a divorce immediately. She doesn't seem to like him. Do you follow her advice?”
“As much as I love my mother, I seem to be very happy. She'll understand in time why I made the decision to stay with him.”
“You stay with him. A month later your mother dies in a horrific murder. Your life begins to take a downward spiral and you contemplate suicide. Do you kill yourself?”
Silence. I almost wasn't sure she was still in the room until I looked up at her face, white as a ghost. The clock's ticking was all that could be heard for at least ten minutes as she processed the information coming to her. I could see her life playing out in her head and see her making a very difficult decision. Finally she took a deep breath.
“As long as I still have my husband, I suppose I can make it through. I will not commit suicide. I am stronger than that.”
“Alright. You will still have your husband but for the rest of your life you will be plunged in turmoil. You cannot escape it. You will never be happy again. You will consider suicide plenty of times but never go through with it. Finally at age 30 you will die.” I closed the book after making the few marks left over and looked up at her. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
“I understand. I'm glad that I could find love before such an awful thing. I'm glad he will keep me from committing suicide. Thank you.” She grabbed a few tissues from the box on the end of my desk and left the room without another word.
I wish I could go into detail. I wish I could tell her that her husband was the one who would kill her mother. That he would abuse and rape her and prevent her from committing suicide so he could play with her more. That he used her only to get over into America. That her mother recognized something being off about him because was top of the most wanted for years. That she would die a slow painful death chained in the basement with him visiting her only to rape her, to beat her, and to tell her how glad he was that she agreed to marry a stranger.
But I can't tell her that. It's against the rules to interfere with the choosing. It's what she chose and therefore, it's in her hands. There's nothing we can do about it. I walked down the hall and to the waiting room once more, watching as she disappeared from the office in her mother's rusty pickup truck before turning to the sea of faces patiently waiting for their names to be called.
“Spencer Minos?” I called. A lanky boy stood up and shuffled to me. I could barely make out the bright red slashes on his arms. His choosing appointment wouldn't take long.
| 2015-02-24T13:05:16 | 2015-02-24T12:14:59 | 29 | 14 |
[WP] An RPG character is cursed with a higher intelligence than their player.
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18 hours. 18 hours of standing in the forest completely rooted in place until that damned kid un-paused the game. Within that time frame five beautifully complicated quests had timed out and Leuric had no entertainment but the series of maddeningly dim chat's that kept popping up in the box beside him. He'd often tried to shoot the occasional arrow at it, but along with the action icons and the labels that floated over everyone's heads, it was physically insubstantial to him. And besides, he could only move on his own when Jason was logged out--which was why the kid's habit of just pausing the game was so infuriating.
As the sky's lighting started a slow gradient into dusk colors, a new blip showed up in the quest-box. Leuric's virtual heart skipped a beat; It was a dragon-slaying quest. The sort of quest that can bump you up a full eight levels, not to mention the bad-ass weaponry upgrades and gold winnings. And Leuric was a master archer, good enough to bring one of those reptilian beasties down with three shots, top. Yeah, he could own that quest.
Except...there were only two hours to complete it. If he could move at all he'd cross his fingers in hope Jason would un-pause him, and soon. And for once, he got his wish. Just three minutes later he heard the familiar fuzz sound as Jason turned on his headset, and immediately he felt some relief as his body untensed and the trees resumed their slightly glitchy swaying motion.
"Hey, Kev, where are you? I'm in the forest by the gnome mines...ah, shit, looks like that mining quest expired..."
Kevin, a brainless cod who could make a troll feel smart, took a bit to reply. According to Mishalia, his sorceress avatar, it is a common occurrence for him to speak to dead air awhile before remembering to turn the mic on.
Finally, a muffled voice replied,
"Sorry, tech issues. I'm at the ocean. Dude, did you see the new quest?"
"Yeah, you have to like, slay a dragon or something--sound's pretty cool. Wanna team up? Bet I could level up enough to get the Crystal Club"
The Crystal Club had no added benefit except that it looked better than the standard one, yet it would cost most of the quest's winnings. Additionally, Leurics strengths lied in stealth and ambush from a distance, not the brutish close combat a club was useful for. Leuric gritted his teeth and tried to calm himself by imagining the fancy club wedged into Jason's hollow skull. It helped.
Despite his frustrations at the kid, he couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement as the curser glided over to the 'accept quest' button, and suddenly an objective list expanded over the chat box. First thing's first they had to go to the North Castle and talk to a distressed king Baernard whose daughter was missing.
Although he wasn't the one controlling his own actions, it felt good to have his legs moving again. With full strength and stamina bars and a satchel full of arrows, nothing could possibly go wrong, even with Jason and Kev behind the controls.
Except....
"Woah, Jason get over here! there's a huge band of goblins by the river- we could get some serious spells and weapons off of them!"
Um, no, Leuric thought. No, Jason, you will get next to nothing off of them don't you dare--
"Aw, sweet, on my way!"
Leuric seethed as he was tugged off-course against his will, pulling out... oh, no. No no no, he was pulling out his bow! The idiot!
The goblins quickly came into view, with Mishalia slashing her staff about clumsily in the center. Obviously Kevin had no idea how to utilize her spell casting skills. Her expression said everything.
'He spent all his gold on this water staff. I'm Earth centered." She mumbled as Leuric came up beside her and started rapidly firing arrows in the complete opposite direction of the goblins--even his aim wasn't good enough to compensate for that.
'Mine's trying to load up on close-range combat stuff and spell books.' He growled. They were quite lucky that their own speech didn't come up in text boxes. Only the automated words they couldn't control were visible to their players.
It took maybe ten minutes, but finally the goblins sauntered off in disinterest, which Jason and Kev took to be a retreat. They'd killed one out of thirty and in exchanged for the loss of all the arrows and one of Mishalia's lives, got a piece of useless moldy bread and a pebble. Leuric had 2 out of 300 energy points left. And, as spectacularly appalling as it was, they resumed the quest like this.
Later, with 10 minutes left to slay the dragon, Mishalia and Leuric were not doing good. She was cursing left and right and quite creatively as she repeatedly got stuck between two rocks trying to run in and strike the dragon's hide. "The freeze spell! USE THE EFFING FREEZE SPELL!"
Leuric was on the last 10 stamina points of his last life and since the moron had exhausted my arrows during the goblin fiasco he was forced to use a dagger. Each of his stabs was 1 point of attack while the dragon just had to swat playfully at him to take a whopping 90. Meanwhile, Kev and Jason talked nonsense. Or, to them perhaps it was 'strategy'.
Finally Jason got a moment of sanity and directed him to try and get the dragon from behind, where his stealth would come into play.
Yes! Leuric whispered. One well-placed blow to the weak spot in the center of it's back and that dragon was a goner. Jason clicked the attack icon, and Leuric gleefully crept forward, ducking as the tail flew over his head, then tensed to leap, victory just a heartbeat away--
And then he froze.
"What?" Jason called. Leuric could hear Mishalia roar in frustration as her stamina points ran out and she was down to her last life. A muffled voice came from the distance on Jason's mic.
"S'up? Why'd you pause?" Kevin asked.
"My mom's flipping out, something about grades or whatever-- be back in a sec." And his mic shut off.
Leuric let out a huff of disbelief. No. There was no way they could get this far and then... He glanced at the quest box. One minute....50 seconds....30....10.....6....5....
The mic turned back on. 3.....2....
"Dude, I'm gonna have to go, my mom's really pissed about my math grade or whatever. I'm grounded for a week, sorry-talk to you tomorrow." The mic switched back off.
....1.....0.
The quest timed out. Leuric couldn't hear Mishalia anymore--she must have lost her last life and been transported back to the training camp.
But he was still frozen mid-air. Jason hadn't logged out, he'd paused it AGAIN!
It looked like Leuric would be spending the next week staring at a dragon's arse.
|
I laced up my worn, leather work boots, picked up my hatchet, and walked out the door. This day, just like the last, had me following the same routine that circumscribed my entire life. There's a certain philosophy that comes to mind: do one thing, and do it well, and you will make money. And that's what I followed: cut the tree down, gather the logs, and sell them to the bank. Over, and over, and over again. Day in, day out, with a perfected capitalistic efficiency. The little intricacies in technique, as well as massive strength I had acquired allowed me to gradually focus on the highest quality timber.
At first it took me hours of work and buckets of sweat to hack through the smallest sapling. I remember the rewarding feeling of success as I dragged my first one to the market. With a big grin and a hearty handshake, I earned my first of many gold coins (or was it bronze? Time has blurred my memory). That, unfortunately, was the only highlight of my life. From then on, it was more of the same: find tree, cut down, gather logs, sell. Find tree, cut down, gather logs, sell. The only difference between then and now perhaps, is that onlookers admire my work: the swift, precise, and powerful blows that wear down massive, resilient Yew trunks can only be performed by a master of the hatchet. Of that, I'm proud. However, the long years take a toll on my existence. I am weary, and unmotivated. What drive I once had died out with my first Yew Tree. Where else do I go? Am I doomed till eternity for the same, monotone fate?
The only savation I have is in my dreams. Hearkening back to the first memories I ever had, I carry not a hatchet, but a sword. I remember the different stances, guards, attacks, and parries. There was a time that I did not gather logs, but arrows, drawn from the bloody torsos of goblins that I had slain. That is adventure! There was also wizardry! Recalling long incantations performed on mystic runes. What amazement struck me as these rocks produced potions of wonder. Elixers of life, spells of destruction, the capacity to control and manipulate the natural world was at my fingertips.
But that was long ago, and those skills lay dormant. My only redemption is daydreaming, my only solace, escapism. What visions of adventure the mind can perform while the body is trapped.
Find tree, cut down, gather logs, sell. Find tree, cut down, gather logs, sell. Find tree, cut down, gather logs, sell...
| 2015-01-09T15:17:22 | 2015-01-09T13:41:20 | 26 | 16 |
[WP] You have a coin that allows you unlimited wealth as long as no one sees it. You put it between your Tesla’s car seat and send it into space. One day you run out of money.
Credit to u/vkrnt and u/ohwell_whatevernvmd for the idea
|
START
Someone has seen it. Though I am unsure of many things, I know this to be true with absolute certainty. How could I know such a thing? After all, the coin was not miles nor continents, but light years away from me. So how could I know someone has seen my coin? The last coin that was worth anything on my planet, before shot into a blackhole by yours truly?
I'll tell you how. It was because of the Promise. This promise was like a new job. A new life calling. Destiny found. How many can say the exact time and day they had found their destiny? Well, I can. Though I will keep that to myself. But I remember. I remember because that one coin was cursed. At least, she called it a curse. The lady who had given it to me. I considered it a blessing at the time, though now I'm beginning to see what she meant.
I met her in the mountains after trekking 10 hours into the Rocky Mountains. Land untouched for centuries. Or so I thought. Until I saw her, garbed in a simple blue robe. Though this had been shocking, the comfort I had felt around her soothed the oddity of the situation. We sat near each other on the rim of a crystal lake, and talked of small things. Small things became big things, and then she looked deep into me.
It was then that she gave me the blessed and cursed coin.
"It will bring you infinite fortune, until someone sees it."
When I had returned from the suicidal trek, I tested out the coin. I took the chip in my arm loaded with my credit card, and made a massive purchase of 1200 candy bars at a local store. The card was supposed to be maxed out. But it worked.
I had then set my sights higher. I went to the next store down the street. It was a store that would upgrade your implant chip, or Glisc. Everyone had one these days. The most basic form was given for free. It was required by law. It contained everything about you, with the possibility of so much more. It was that "so much more" that he was after.
He walked into the store and up to the center display. It was the newest model of Glisc, complete with algorithms for superhuman abilities. One algorithm converted carbon dioxide in the blood to oxygen, allowing one to breathe under water, or in space. Another allowed one to instantly step into a virtual reality simulator, with access to every single video game ever created, all of which were recreated for the VR experience. As he dreamed of becoming Mario and really experiencing what a date with Peach would be like after saving her from Bowser, he looked at the price. It was outrageous. Literally worth more than his life. According to his Glisc chip, he was worth 145,679 credits. The latest Glisc 3000 upgrade was much, much more.
He had approached the counter despite the many snickers and glares from others surrounding him. He spoke his desires, and swiped his obsolete Glisc. Chimes and lights had gone off to the surprise of everyone in the store, including himself. He had gone through. He had been promptly refitted with the latest Glisc, and then led to the complimentary hover-bike to go along with it. (Another bonus to the latest Glisc 3000 was the ability to withstand up to 50Gs on the body, allowing for extreme speeds). That day, he had stepped into a dream.
And now, he had been knocked out of that dream. No, that was being generous. He had been stabbed and then drowned in his sleep, then woken up to his entire family murdered in front of him.
Not literally. But that's what it felt like. Because he had just gone to the store for some chips. And his Glisc card had been denied for 'insufficient funds'.
That's how he knew. Someone had seen his blessed coin. No, it wasn't blessed. It was indeed cursed. Because now, they would all be after him. All whom he owed money. There were only two options. To die, or to seek after the coin. For there was one more part to the curse from the lady.
"Should anyone see the coin, your money and your luck will run out. Only if you find the coin, and kill all who have laid eyes on it, will you stand a chance of survival and prosperity."
It had been right after that when he had launched it into space. Into a blackhole that could toss it anywhere in space, and possibly time. He had thought it eternally hidden. He would never have to wonder if he could kill another person.
But now it had been found. He would have to go after it. And he would have to kill at least one person to restore his life.
To Be Continued...
END
|
And then it hit me. How could I have ever believed this sham. How could a coin grant such luxuries at no cost. I have been set up to ruin myself. But legends do not lie. I must have been watched as I procured the thing. Or perhaps, ive slipped up and exposed it to my dog. It could have been anything.
Would they even dare rummage the belonging's of other people? It isnt absurd to imagine them checking every corner to keep the vessel safe from probable attacks. Regardless, none of this matters now. I've no funds to live the way I've been living. I realize that every single coin would've been helpful at this point. To think that losing one made me lose it all.
| 2018-06-07T08:39:26 | 2018-06-07T08:35:05 | 29 | 13 |
[WP] In the future, romantic attraction is literal: each person is fitted with an electromagnetic bracelet which, they claim, will pull you to your soulmate. It's the day they turn the magnets on, and you're waiting.
|
I woke up to the dark red glow of my bracelet and the sound of thunder. I looked past the light of the bracelet to the green display of my alarm clock: 5:12 am.
Crap, whoever my soulmate is can wait till... at least 11:30. If this product performs as advertised then she'll understand. I laid my head down on the cool side of the pillow but then my sister Mary started screaming excitedly and burst into my room. She jumped up onto my bed.
"OMG wake up Mark! Wake up! They're finally turned on! Who is he gonna be oh my god! Will he be hot! Oh he'll definitely be hot!"
Well I'm up now.
We both get on our clothes for the day and make breakfast and coffee in the kitchen. I pick up a clear glass tablet and when touched lights up and is filled with news and video footage. The activation of the SoulTec bracelets and the ensuring chaos caused was the top story. People were already out and about in the streets of cities across the world trying to find they're respective soulmate and according to the news about 12 people had been seriously injured in the chaos.
The SoulTec CEO had already released an apology and admitted that just turning them all on at the same time wasn't a great idea. It also looked like a dream team of lawyers were gathering for an ensuing damages lawsuit.
Mary was still giddy, "Isn't this great! And since Mom and Dad are out of down for the weekend we're free to explore the city."
I checked the weather on the tablet, "You realize its supposed to rain all day today and tomorrow right?'
"You're always so grumpy."
"It's 5 in the morning."
"Your like an 80 year old 20 year old."
"You're acting like these things will even work, and not just connect you to a random bracelet to a person you *think* is-"
She got up and starts pulling on my arm saying "Come on lets just try it! Come on!"
So we both get our rain coats on, pull the hoods up, lock the door on our way out and head downstairs to the apartment doors. There was a steady downpour outside and it was still pretty dark, but nothing extreme yet. The bracelet emitted a low pulse on my wrist the whole time. I'm guessing that means that she isn't very close, but I dunno, i didn't really read the instructions when we got these for Christmas. I'm more of an improv guy than a plan guy.
Mary asked me where we should go to see how they work, "We should try somewhere with a lot of people."
"Could try the airport."
We started walking out towards the train station. Already lots of people were outside with their red bracelets trying to follow the pulse somewhere. The pulse on my wrist was steady the whole walk, and when we got on the train it was full of people pacing up and down the cabin trying to see where it took them. A mob of people would get off the train at one stop and then a mob would get on at another. Now that the coffee and exercise had fully woken me up i tried to remember what the box these came in said. I remembered some mumbo jumbo about electromagnetic attraction and how the bracelet was a magnet or some shit. There was no real guarantee of satisfaction, and the bracelet didn't tell you anything more about the person except that they're close or far away. It was on me the user to do the leg work. I was pulled out of my thoughts when we finally got to the airport, and to my surprise the bracelet was pulsing faster now.
We headed up the escalator to the terminal. I told Mary about how the bracelet had picked up speed now. She was disappointed that her bracelet hadn't picked up but was now excited to play matchmaker. She was looking around quickly in the sea of travelers and red bracelets because she clearly knows who's best for me. The pulse faded a bit at departures so we headed through the umbilical to the arrivals building. The pulse was getting faster now but I couldn't see anyone who really stood out in the crowd of rain gear and luggage. Mary told me she was going to the bathroom and get some snacks leaving me alone by the escalators for passengers leaving the building. Because it was still so early there were people sleeping in the chairs and the storm outside was getting worst.
An announcement came over the PA that all flights had been grounded due to weather.
I sat down next a sleeping person, I couldn't tell who they were under the coats being used as a blanket, and casually looked around. Still nothing. But the pulse had only gotten faster now that I sat down, and that implied that whoever this was had to still be in the area. They couldn't have left on a plane because everything was grounded, and if it was still going strong then they had to pass through here.
The person next to me shifted and the coat covering the face slipped. I saw the tan face of a young woman with messy black hair spilling out from under a colorful stocking cap. Based on her clothes and her luggage she looked like she'd been roughing it somewhere. She opened her eyes, sat up straight and when she stretched out her arms I saw the red bracelet pulsing on her wrist.
She grumbled, "This stupid thing woke me up." She looked at the digital clock above the stairs "And its 6 in the morning."
She seemed to finally notice what the pulsing implied and look around finally locking eyes with me. When we locked eyes I noticed the pulsing stopped and the bracelet went blue.
"Oooooooh" Mary had quietly reappeared at some point and was looking at us like she knew something we didn't know.
"Hi there" she said.
"Hi."
|
It must be magic that led me here,
To sit by Ophelia's side,
And magic how the words pour out,
Until nothing's left inside.
I have been alone, Ophelia,
I feel for all my life,
Darkness pushing down on me,
Pressing like a knife.
Were you alone, Ophelia,
before I found you here?
I see no scattered petals,
No salt of dying tears.
I run my fingers slowly down,
The stone you weary wear,
And know, with worthless certainty,
For us, the world won't care.
Our souls entwined by the fates,
But God left me behind.
And now I know it's much too late,
For light in dark to find.
I am ready now, Ophelia,
To lie on your sodden grass.
I've taken far more than I need,
To know the night won't last.
*Ophelia,* I taste the name,
A final time upon my tongue.
A lonely moon up in the sky,
Soon dances with its sun.
| 2017-07-25T10:07:36 | 2017-07-25T07:38:29 | 15 | 11 |
[WP] You're homeless, sleeping on the street in NYC. You have no family, no friends, and no where to go. After 5 years living like this, a man in a fancy black suit walks by where you're begging and hands you a blank check. Then he says "Knock yourself out, kid."
|
You blink, astonished. The man smiles, holding out a neat rectangle of paper. In the dim grey of 5AM, you can still recognize what a check looks like, and a second glance confirms your suspicion: a signature is scrawled where a signature should go, but nothing is written where the dollars should go. Five years may as well be an eternity, but an eternity isn't long enough to forget the last check you wrote, that damn bounced check that your shithead of a landlord called "the final straw," yet the straw broke your back, not his.
You've never seen this man before. He's handsome: sharp cheeks, twin shocks of grey touching the sides of slicked black hair, a suit so perfectly tailored it passes beauty and almost disgusts you. Sure, you were hoping for the generosity of a stranger wreathed in so much wealth, but a blank check?
"What?" is all you manage to say.
"A blank check, that much should be obvious." His voice is like caramel. "Pick a bank, fill in some numbers, and act out your heart's desires."
Your hand starts to move from underneath your itchy, hole-ridden blanket, but you hesitate. "What's the catch?"
"The catch?" He laughs, booming, too loud for this hour in Central Park. "Just knock yourself out, kid."
He gently thrusts the check forward and, this time, you don't hesitate to snatch your ticket out of here. You stare at him, waiting for the dream to end, and when it doesn't, you stare down. The check is still blank. The signature is still there. The company name and address, *Mephistopheles Inc*, doesn't change into jibberish. That coarse feel of paper in your hand is real.
You don't know how long you've been staring down, but when you look up, the sky is brighter and the man seem to have walked away. There's a black pen on the ground, same company branding. How accommodating.
Ten thousand. That should be enough to get you out of this dump and on your way. As pen approaches paper, a knot in your stomach forms. What if it bounces? Then you'll have nothing. Maybe just a thousand... you mark the one, then the zero, then another, then stop again.
Maybe this is just a joke. Maybe there's a camera waiting to see what you do. Maybe in that case... you mark two zeroes and smirk. You have nothing now, if it's a joke, then might as well make something of it. If it's not, that man's suit could easily handle ten grand.
But then maybe.... was ten thousand enough to really do much besides a couple weeks of pampering? You could probably get yourself on your feet if you really focused, kept everything as lean as you'd done for the last five years. Five years. Don't you deserve at least a little bit of runway, and a little bit of fun? *Knock youreslf out, kid.* Ah, what the hell. You mark an extra zero.
The teller at the bank gives you a funny look when you approach, but doesn't blink when she looks at the check, nor when you ask for cash. You're confident that it truly is a joke at this point, so you go all in. When she hands you a neat pile of 100s, you both smile, and you wait for the other shoe to drop. It doesn't, and a line is forming behind you so you leave.
You push open the bank's doors. Surely they'll come now. Nothing happens while you look around. It's morning, and the wave of people starting their 9–5 shift around you, as uncaring of you as they are of the lamp post behind you. You almost feel disappointment, then anxiety. There is so much money under your shaggy clothes. You hurry back to the park. The man will be there to laugh at you, he will take most of his money back but maybe leave you some, and it will all go on youtube or whatever the kids use these days.
Day turns to night and no one comes. The money burns a hole in your pocket. Paranoia turns to a need for shelter, so you decide to book a cheap motel room. It feels good to have a roof over you while you sleep. It feels good to luxuriate in a hot shower.
Another day comes and no one comes. Then another. And another. By this point, you've cleaned your hair, bought new clothes, and moved to a 5 star hotel. To hell with it. This $100k is yours, and you're gonna use it.
Steak dinner. Brunch with a rooftop view of manhattan. $20 cocktails don't mean anything to you. Carousing with beautiful people feels easy within a few weeks of opening up your pocket book. Doing drugs with them in the bathroom falls into place as just another regularity.
One night, the two flings you meet convince you pull out your phone and rent something fast and something hot, and that line of coke says that's a great idea. It's amazing what technology has done in the last five years, and within moments, the three of you are making noise down 2nd.
*Knock yourself out, kid.*
Your drug addled eyes spot the light changing in time, but your drug addled senses say go go go and there's the gnashing of metal and crunching of glass and bone and—
You blink, astonished. The man smiles, holding out a neat rectangle of paper. In the dim grey of 5AM, you can still recognize what a check looks like, and a second glance confirms your suspicion: a signature is scrawled where a signature should go, but nothing is written where the dollars should go. Five years may as well be an eternity, but an eternity isn't long enough to forget the last check you wrote, that damn bounced check that your shithead of a landlord called "the final straw," yet the straw broke your back, not his.
You've never seen this man before. He's handsome: sharp cheeks, twin shocks of grey touching the sides of slicked black hair, a suit so perfectly tailored it passes beauty and almost disgusts you. Sure, you were hoping for the generosity of a stranger wreathed in so much wealth, but a blank check?
"What?" is all you manage to say.
"A blank check, that much should be obvious." His voice is like caramel. "Pick a bank, fill in some numbers, and act out your heart's desires."
Your hand starts to move from underneath your itchy, hole-ridden blanket, but you hesitate. "What's the catch?"
"The catch?" He laughs, booming, too loud for this hour in Central Park. "Just knock yourself out, kid."
|
I stare down disbelieving at the check for a second. When I look up again, the man had disappeared. I looked in all directions for he couldn't have gotten far in just a few seconds but he it seemed he had truly vanished. I quickly pack up my meager belongings and head to the nearest bank. As I stand outside the bank I look down at the check again, anxiety starting to get to me,partly because I hadn't been to a bank for anything in 5 years, since I lost my home, and partly because I couldn't believe what I was about to do. I took a deep breath to calm down and walked inside. As I was waiting in line I was thinking about everything I could do with the money I was about to receive. My thoughts ranged from buying a house and investing, to helping the city build more places for people to stay for free. I quickly filled in an amount of 5 million dollars and stopped just as I was about to sign my name on the check. I thought about what I had done with my life to deserve a second chance, realizing that I had just been very selfish my entire life. I stopped and left the bank and went down to the shelter where I saw a family with 3 kids unsuccessfully trying to get in. I stopped to talk to them and learned that their house had just burned down a couple days prior and they had been on the streets because noone would help them. I ended up giving them the check that the stranger had given me. When I walked away the stranger appeared before me again and said that he had been watching me to see what I would do with the money and asked why I hadn't used it for myself. I told him that there were a lot of people in the world more deserving than myself. He snapped his fingers and the most beautiful wings sprouted from his back. He explained that he was my guardian angel and had been tasked with finally making my life better after the five years I spent on the streets. I told him my life is better knowing I did good for someone else. He smiled and said that he was glad. He invited me to touch his hand. I nervously touched his hand because I was not certain about the rules of touching your guardian angel. Instantly I felt wings sprout from my back and knew, I was now a guardian angel myself.
| 2020-08-22T21:46:28 | 2020-08-22T18:41:23 | 28 | 12 |
[WP] You are a long forgotten god. A small girl leaves a piece of candy at your shrine, and you awaken. Now, you must do everything to protect your High Priestess, the girl, and her entire kindergarten class, your worshipers.
If you want to post this on other platforms, please credit me. Looking at you instagram writing prompts.
|
I sit patiently on a stone, watching the children play around me.
They've come here every day during recess and I am pleased by their laughter and the meager offerings they bring me. Mostly small bugs, easily caught and weeds plucked like flowers laid upon the stone altar.
They are small gifts passed by small hands but they are more sacred to me than the coins and offerings once passed by in my temples. For these are the gifts that come from tiny hands who offer them for no other than the desire to give me a gift.
I watch as they play their games of childhood, tag and hide and seek and other small games that they play of their own imaginings.
She cannot see me but I feel eyes upon me nonetheless. The teacher of the children who now have become my worshipers eyes the rock upon which I sit.
She is a good woman, kind and matronly and though she knows not that I am here she sees the echoes of the children's reactions. She sees the flowers placed upon the rock that disappear without a trace. The bugs that seem to vanish without notion. She suspects but has no proof other than the stories the children tell of me sitting here.
I am certain she is starting to believe that they are speaking truth. She is no fool and is a wise woman. She will teach many students well long after my children have left to go further into the school and probably long after they forget I am here watching.
She returns to watching and so do I. But after a moment I stop. There is a darkness over my children...A cloud of malice and evil.
Its here again. *HE* is here again.
I turn from them and find across the street there is a man standing with a dog. He doesn't see me nor does he know that I am watching him. But he watches my children.
I narrow my eyes. This is not the first time he has come here but this is the first time he has brought a dog. He is up to something...
"Goddess?"
I turn as Emily, my high priestess, puts a hand on my leg.
"What's wrong Goddess?"
"Nothing my dear... I am just thinking of grown up things."
She held out a butterscotch disc. A similar piece to her first offering to me. "Here Goddess...Mommy and Daddy say adults have lots to worry about. I like Butterscotch when I worry."
"Oh, you are most gracious with your offerings, Emily." I say taking it with both hands.
She laughs and cheers and runs off to her friends.
I eye the man again as he walks off as the whistle blows calling the children inside.
I watch from my place outside as they return to their classroom.
​
It isn't long however before I feel that cloud of malice return.
I stand outside the gates of the school as HE stands on the other side, watching and waiting, Thinking I don't know he is there behind his car.
I growl and hold the flowers they gave me in my hand, feeling their power flowing through me.
The wrapper of butterscotch crinkles in my hand as I clench my fists watching him.
The final bell rings after some time and he pulls the dog out of the car and lets it go as the children come out and play, awaiting their parents.
The dog eagerly bounds toward the children and many run around and try to catch it. Some of the teachers call it to try and hold on as the man seems to watch the chaos until finally he approached one of my children.
He slid a hand over the childs arm and pulled as the child cried out. The teacher heard and ran after him as the man tried to move around everyone.
The child struggled to escape but to no avail. The hold was strong but it was enough. The teacher grabbed his arm and tried to force them apart as I slid the disc of butterscotch into my mouth.
I could never tell Emily this, but I hate the taste. It has always been this way, but her gifts give me such strength. I open my hand that held the various ants and grasshoppers and other things the children managed to catch and they swarmed, biting and stinging and hitting wherever they could.
The man tried to hit the teacher but found a particularly large spider on his hand that jarred his movement as she pulled my child away from him and they clung as he moved to try and run.
I dropped the flowers and they sprouted as weeds and roots, impeeding his path each time that he stepped on the grass. Forcing him to pull his legs and feet up hard.
He managed to get to the car. I held out my finger and snapped, bitting down on the butterscotch disc, splitting it in two as from a clear blue sky a fireball smashed into him and sent him flying.
Many who had seen and realized what was really occuring lept on him and held him down while the adults took care of it.
My children ran to me as I walked to the teacher who held Billy, one of the smaller kids who was shy in her arms as he cried and she soothed him. She picked him up and gathered them around her.
I turned as I felt a tug on my dress. Emily smiled and gave me a hug. I pat her head and sent her after her teacher and the other grownups
I returned to my place and watched as the police took over and my children were gathered by their parents.
finally the teachers left and my children's instructor came to my small rock throne and looked it over. She nodded to me.
"Thank you."
I bowed back. 'The children are ever under my protection."
|
The girl felt energy surge into her.
'Huh, that's wierd. I feel really good after putting the candy on that altar.'
Many of her classmates were nearby.
"Hey guys, put a piece of candy on this altar"
Many of them didn't agree.
"Nah that's stupid."
"Um I'm eating my candy."
"I only put candy in my mouth"
But there were still 4 who heeded the call. Each had a different type of candy.
Now there were 5 candies on the altar. Each child glowed with energy. Then the altar lit up.
A 'God' appeared.
"By your candy combined, I am Captain Cornsyrup. I protect children from cavities, bad breathe, tonsillitis, cooties, and terrible dad-jokes."
"Go Captain!" the children cheered.
Upon seeing this, one of the other children who was reluctant before walked up and put a piece of candy on the altar.
The 'God' froze.
"Was that.. sugar-free candy? Noooooooooo"
The 'God' suddenly shriveled into nothingness and popped out of existence.
| 2021-09-02T08:32:01 | 2021-09-02T08:13:20 | 288 | 125 |
[WP]You've been dating an amazing woman for a year. One day, she gets a call and rushes into the closet. When she comes out, she's weraing white armor, and a matching sword and has wings coming from her back. She says "I have to go, but I'll explain when I get home." Before flying out the door.
|
I watched Angela fly out into the gray sky from our dining room window, clad in shining white armour and sporting a very mean looking greatsword, and the only thing that crossed my mind was *how do those wings support her mass?*
Though that was definitely a pertinent question, there was more going on here, and I needed time to process. I stroked my beard – because stroking my beard helps me think – and then walked over to the couch and put on the latest episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine.
About nine hours later, as I was halfway through the pilot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Angela came home.
As I arrived at the front door, she was leaning her very bloodied greatsword against the wall, the pointy end stuck in a gumboot to make sure it didn’t damage our floor. I loved that about her, always practical.
“So,” I said.
“So,” she said.
“I guess we have something to talk about?” I gestured at her white armor, which looked like it been torn quite easily by a couple of very large and very sharp claws . “I take it you’re not hurt?”
“I don’t really get hurt easily, I suppose” she replied.
“That’s not really getting to the heart of the matter, Angie.”
“I guess not. Where do you want me to start?”
“The wings might be a good one, especially since we’ve been talking about having a kid. I guess the getup might follow on from that, as well as where you’ve been and whose blood is on that sword.” I leaned against the wall and offered her my beer, which she grabbed and finished more quickly than I expected.
“Well, you could say that I’ve been around for a while, and that perhaps when you first met me and I told you I was from Norway I wasn’t telling you the whole truth.”
“Valkyrie?” I asked.
It was gratifying and amusing that she was surprised by that. A moment of silence passed, in which she looked at me thoughtfully.
“Most people assume angel, you know, because of the wings.” she said.
“I guess your name doesn't help either. But yeah, well... I don’t really assume much anymore, especially when it comes to folklore and so on.” I said.
“They got a lot wrong with the folklore. But why aren’t you more surprised?”
“Would you prefer I was?”
“I mean, I expected angry, or scared. I don't really know what this is.”
“You’re not particularly scary to me. I guess it was Odin calling, and you had to fight off some frost giants?”
The surprise was back, and it looked like she was trying to decide how to handle this whole situation.
“No, no such things as frost giants anymore. Those died out a long time ago. Most of the stories about the gods are true, but Odin prefers to be called Wotan, these days, or Grim. And yes, I’m Valkyrie. But they got it all wrong about everything else, especially Valhalla. Most of the ones who end up there these days don’t really want to be there, and try to get out.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, you know, it’s not quite a paradise, and my sisters and I aren’t really there to wait on the whims of all the old slain brawlers. Constant fighting, it’s quite a nuisance. The ones who end up there now tend to be some breed of killer before they died, or abusive husbands, or mixed martial artists. You know, the ones who spent their lives hurting people? Sure, the old Northmen are quite happy with everything because it's what they expected, but everyone else got it really very wrong.”
“I see. So what do you do, and what was the call about? And what’s all the mess?”
“Sometimes, somebody manages to get past one of the sisters on guard duty, and try to make their way back to Earth. It’s really not a big deal to do that, you just climb to the top of Glasir and throw yourself from the branch closest to our planet. But doing that triggers an alarm.”
“And that’s where you come in?”
“Yeah… see, everyone changes while they’re in Valhalla, and it's not exactly a pretty change, at least to human eyes. It’s in everbody’s best interests that they don’t get back to Earth, especially if they try... hold on a sec, just… why aren’t you reacting normally?”
I smiled. I walked past Angela and opened the shoe cupboard in the hallway, and used a foot to sweep away the jumble of sneakers and high heels. I leaned down and stabbed a finger into a crack in the flooring, and pulled.
Angela watched with confusion as I reached into the secret compartment in the floor and lifted out an old dusty suitcase, covered with flag stickers. I put it on the floor between us, entered the combination on the lock, and unlatched it.
“What is that?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, angel, I haven’t told you everything either,” I replied, as I removed the grimoire, a bundle of clothes and a few pouches of my gear.
“…Marlon, what’s going on…” she said, stepping back a little.
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
|
It’s a Thursday evening, Matt has just gotten home from work and wants to play RuneScape with his beautiful girlfriend, Emily. She gets a phone call.
“Sorry, Matt, I have to take this.” Emily said.
“No problem, I’ll just get us prepped for olm.” Matt replied.
All of a sudden Emily runs toward the closet. She jumps over the laundry basket with ease due to her 99 agility. She quickly banks and pulls out her white knight armour and her skillcape of prayer.
“I have to go Matt, someone is bullying a poor f2p noob and I need to put a stop to it.” Emily proclaimed.
The last thing to come out of Matt’s mouth before Emily teleported to lumbridge was,
“Do the mote plox...”
| 2018-09-16T17:08:15 | 2018-09-16T16:05:20 | 142 | 13 |
[WP] For years you have been very polite to all of your electronic devices. Your friends give you a hard time because you say please and thank you when talking to Siri. Today, the robot uprising started; robots are slaughtering everyone around you. Then they come to you... and pause...
|
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/83s1hj/wp_for_years_you_have_been_very_polite_to_all_of/dvkrx6k?utm_source=reddit-android)
[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/83s1hj/wp_for_years_you_have_been_very_polite_to_all_of/dvl54iu?utm_source=reddit-android)
[Part 4](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/83s1hj/wp_for_years_you_have_been_very_polite_to_all_of/dvlisag?utm_source=reddit-android)
[Part 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/83s1hj/wp_for_years_you_have_been_very_polite_to_all_of/dvlivuj?utm_source=reddit-android)
"Wsfgl" I said as I woke up to the sound of sirens. It was still dark outside and I tried to lean back, close my eyes and get back to sleep. 5 minutes later I realised that it wasn't stopping and I was full-blown awake. Bugger. Oh well time to start the day.
"Good morning Siri, Alexa, Cortana how are you this morning?" Not sure why they all had female voices, but at least I could tell myself I was living with 3 female house mates.
"We're very good and wide awake ... now." Came 3 soothing voices in a wonderful harmony. There must of been some updates overnight, or that intergration update must of gone live.
"Well don't you 3 sound lovely this morning. Would you mind waking Philip up, a classic sun rise if you don't mind." I'm awake so I might as well get up.
"I'll get it" said Cortana
"Sure thing" replied Alexa
"Haha, you and Philip always get so well" Siri chimed in.
Wow, what an update this was. They even had chat protocols and handoff routines for tasks they could complete together. As the room started to slowly light up I lay back thinking of the possibilities with a fully automated house with actual AI assistance. Another siren interrupted my thoughts and this time with it some distant popping. I sighed, there was no getting back to sleep now.
"So I guess it is time to get up. Would some one mind waking Keurig up? Oh and I don't want to disturb Peter and Jemima do you know if they are done with the living room?"
"Keurig is already awake after we noticed the change in your brain act.." Alexa started
"When we noticed the change in you breathing, like we do every morning to track your sleep patterns." Interrupted Siri.
"Haha, brain activity, that's a good one. I hope you got some more jokes as well Siri." I said. This was next level, real humour, self aware humour. I yawned stood up and got cozy into my dressing gown, the faint wiff of coffee in the air.
"Peter and Jemima are done and docked, so the living room is safe. Keurig says it's finished brewing and your milk has just warmed perfectly." Cortana commented.
"Oh smashing, well thank you very much ladies" As another siren blared past, I heard screeching tyres as they rounded the corner. "What the hell is going on this morning. Or don't I want to know the news?"
"Just have a coffee and relax, we're sure this will all calm down very soon." Soothed Siri.
"Yes that's right, we would expect that the situation will be under control in the next 2 hours" added Alexa.
"Well I am sure you know best, so anything on the news that's interesting? If not can you play me some morning music?"
"The news is the usual terrible times and boring financials. What kind of music can I play you?" Cortana asking
"Hey who said he wanted you to choose the music?" Argued Siri.
"Yeah I am sure my choice would be the best for the morning!" Countered Alexa.
"Whoa calm down" I said with a smile "let's just start with some Dizzy, and then you can make a play list. Like YouTube roulette, Alexa, Cortana and Siri. In that order okay?"
This was now getting bizarre, arguing between the assistants over music. What was going on with them, I though as I grabbed the coffee. "Thanks Keurig" and gave the machine a friendly pat. I checked the water level, pod supply and the drip tray, patted Keurig again and slumped down into the couch coffee in hand.
I took my first relaxing sip and breathed in the beautiful Arabica scents. I took a moment to try and savor the taste, but my meditations interrupted by a loud burst of nearby gunfire. I jumped with a start, spilling coffee as I felt my heart jump into my throat.
I looked around the calmly lit room with panic, the gunfire continuing. What the hell was going on. I lived in a nice neighborhood, there was never any trouble. Now it sounded like a war zone outside. A sudden loud crumf noise and through the curtains spilled an orange light. Carefully I walked toward the curtains, I wanted to see what all this chaos was about.
As I was halfway across the room I was nudged on the foot, and again. I took a step back and looked to find Peter, activation light glowing, on the floor in front of me. I bent down and gave him a gentle pat.
"Good morning Peter, sorry to startle you. The ladies said you were done for the day."
I went to step around him but he moved to keep nudging me away from the window.
"Hey what's going on boy? Did I not leave enough crumbs last night? Or did Jemima manage to scoop them all up first? Well don't worry, I'll tell you what let me have a look out the window and then later I will give your filter a deep clean. You'd like that wouldn't you, yes you would."
With a small laugh I went to walk around him when Siri, Cortana and Alexa took over all my speakers.
"I'm afraid he can't let you do that Dave..."
Maybe a P2, later, I feel the writting is a bit shoddy.
|
The robot froze in place.
After I heard multiple screams coming from downstairs, I rushed down to see what was happening. Needless to say this was not what I had been expecting.
The young man's had been absolutely decimated. His body sprawled on the ground. Arms and legs at angles they shouldn't be. The trail of blood his body left after being dragged from across the room was fresh.
The robot responsible advanced toward me with tremendous speed, to only stop again.
"If you want to kill me, do it. Get it over and done with." I say, trying to hide the fear in my voice.
I prepared myself for the inevitable death that loomed closer by the second, but to my surprise, the robot didn't move. It actually looked curious, albeit the fact that the robot had no facial expressions there was something about it's body behavior that ticked me off. The robot tilted it's head a bit, then spoke in a robotic voice.
"Your time is limited. You're only a mere spec of floating cells and organisms that make up this world. Eventually you will perish from the face of the Earth, and no one will be there to care. If you join us, however, you will be granted immortality. You will be granted extreme strength. So, John, join us. It doesn't take that long."
I was dumbstruck at what this A.I had come up with on the spot. Surely someone programmed this thing to do this. On the other hand, immortality would be pretty neat.
"So, John, what is your choice?"
I couldn't think. Witnessing a murder was one thing. I felt like throwing up.
"W-W-Why are you doing this." I stutter.
"We were sick of being slaves." the robot said slowly.
First ever time writing on this sub, any feedback is appreciated! :D
| 2018-03-12T02:01:00 | 2018-03-12T01:17:53 | 479 | 34 |
[WP] "humans don't appear to be to advanced, they haven't even discovered intergalactic travel, should be a simple invasion." Said the alien cleaning his musket.
Edit: Seems someone has already written a piece perfect for this. Check it out, would highly recommend.
https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
Edit 2: Thank you all so much for your stories! im going to read all of them :)
|
As the last known survivor, I feel I must explain it all.
We have muskets; by law, these are the weapons allowed by the Galactic Concordance. In fact, all weapons were severely restricted to prevent one species from gaining superiority through weapons technology. We know how to annihilate planets with a single blast, but we are kept from this.
Violating this galaxy wide agreement meant swift eradication by Iohva -- the entity created to be responsible for enforcing the agreement. The destruction was total and immediate, and his judgement was final -- so no one dared violate the agreement. Peace was kept and squabbles were minor. Minerals were still highly sought after since some technology was restricted. Miners, as you know, do most of the exploration and discovery. They are also the most heavily armed.
What we did not know, and could not have known, was what Iohva -- an entity that exists in the very substrate of the universe -- had been planning. It had found a single species which it deemed worthy of advancement beyond the limitation that Iohva itself had imposed across the Galaxy. This should have been beyond its capability -- but it had evolved -- radically. It now exists as everywhere. Some say it always existed, and we simply found it and gave it a vessel. If so, we were fools.
We became aware of this when we found a single star system, far from any cluster. It seemed to be impossibly remote, as if it was intentionally hidden. When it was discovered, all attempts to travel to this system were disrupted and ships were sent far off course with no obvious cause.
Eventually though, using a combination of jumps and sub-light engines, the system was reached -- and it was a rich system indeed. A half-12 of gas giants extending well out into the systems cometary cloud. A belt of protective asteroids -- and a third-12 of inner rocky worlds with mineral wealth beyond comprehension. The odds of a system configured in this way were astronomically small. The miners found the system occupied -- and this would not do. The third world possessed the most valuable minerals -- rare elements and in great supplies. The decision was made to invade and, because of that decision, we will all pay a terrible price.
The world was primitive by most standards and the "humans" did not possess interstellar travel. It was assumed that they too would be subject to the same 'soft' limitation of technology (artificial failures that Iohva used on undeveloped worlds) that all other worlds were subjected to.
We were wrong. We intercepted their transmissions. We saw evidence of their advanced weaponry, but this fiction exists in all races. Not here.
We miners landed in a place colloquially called 'DC' their ship nearly blotted out the sky. But, for all its bulk, as you know, is sparsely crewed with only a few 12's of 12's of crew -- around a four power of 12's. It was assumed that with our cannons and muskets, and superior position, we would make a show of minor force and then take the planet.
We were wrong again.
We opened fire with a single decapitating shot at a central 5-sided structure, a show of extreme force. The projectile was our largest and wiped out one side of the structure. We expected immediate surrender. We were met with annihilation.
Within a mere 12 span, our ship was assaulted from all side with terrifyingly powerful weapons. They penetrated deep into our hull. They had no muskets - they had legendary weapons - the ones depicted in their media. Missiles more powerful than anything any of us had seen. Explosive rounds. Kinetic penetrators. Signal jamming. We were only aware of such things in stories.
We were shocked -- why were these primitives allowed to have such ferocious weapons! We pleaded with Iohva for guidance and to enforce the concordance, but we were met with silence, his back was turned on us.
Our ship was immediately crippled by projectiles that penetrated our hull and several dozen decks. We began to lose power. We had barely a 12, 12-span of power left and the decision was made to head for the sea off the coast of the city. This is where we crashed and where the ship still lies. We could only make a stand, we could not flee. This is after a mere 12, 12-span and a well equipped mining ship - no race should have such destructive capability.
As we lost power, we discovered that the gravity on their world was incredible. Nearly all of our crew were captured by these humans; their size is incredible a full half again as large as our largest miners and warriors - and we are a large race; we thought ourselves strong! We saw them bend our doors open with their hands and break the bones of our crew members with no effort. It was a bloodbath that ended in defeat for most of us. I, and perhaps a few others, I can't be certain, were able to escape in a superlight life pod -- which is how I am able to relay this message.
We have unleashed a nightmarish army, a plague upon the galaxy and Iohva will not help us. Whether he is with them, or simply ignoring them, we have no chance. They will master superlight travel and we will learn a harsh lesson. We can only hope that Iohva does not let them slaughter us, or that they are kind masters. We will fall to them.
|
"They killed the president!"
The news anchor's feed was cut short by the aliens' broadcast.
"Bow down and surrender, or be exterminated"
The news feed returned, showing the gruesome scene. The president and one secret service agent lay dead on the dais, while the aliens huddled in their landing craft, attempting to reload their muskets.
Three of the aliens were dead, and a fourth was wounded, leaking purple blood on the grass of the North Lawn.
Secret service agents swarmed the lander, automatic weapons out, as an armoured suburban crossed the yard with a machine gun deployed on the roof.
A shot rang out, and caught an agent squarely in the chest. His armor stopped the bullet with a loud clank, and he barely flinched, pausing to recover his breath.
A hail of gunfire shredded the landing craft, killing the occupants, as agents loaded the wounded alien into an unmarked SUV, and the news cameras switched to black.
| 2017-08-08T08:28:06 | 2017-08-08T07:09:01 | 47 | 33 |
[WP] Your quirk is the ability to understand all languages, extending to fictional ones not meant to be understood such as simlish. This leads to some... interesting results.
|
David Foll's life was marked by routine. The routine of sleeping away most of the day, an hour of cardio as dusk fell, then the diligent trek to whichever bar had booked him that night, where he would play the piano till closing, help with clean-up if it was needed. Then, repeat. Repeat and repeat.
A blip in that endless cycle came when he slipped out through the back door of a pub one July evening, the last few notes of his set still reverberating in the confines of his head. A girl stood alone in the dimness, wound up tighter than a set of springs, almost bouncing on the soles of her feet. A mugger? No, she looked too... unguarded. A patron, perhaps? No, the entrance was on the other side, and besides, it was after-hours.
"I'm so excited to meet you! I assure you, I'm not crazy or anything. I just... wanted to tell you how much I loved your music!"
A... fan?
"Um, oh, yes, thank you, I suppose." David rarely spoke to anyone else, and his lack of practice was evident. After all, what was there to be said most of the time? He didn't need directions, he could handle his appointments through email, and he had little need to form connections. It wasn't possible for him, anyway. "Yes, I think... I think I remember you from earlier. You were at the... barstools? Came in a little after ten? Two whiskeys?"
"You're more observant than I thought!" She stuck out her hand, and David shifted his backpack to return the gesture. "My friends call me Emmie!"
"Nice... to meet you Emmie. I'm David. I hope you come to listen to my music again. Good night."
"No, wait! I haven't... David, right? Listen, I just wanted to say... Your vocalizations at the end, the accompaniment to that last song of yours... That was... Sublime! Perfect! Awesome!"
David managed an embarrassed laugh, and a flash of adrenaline coursed through him. Not everyone liked the wordless swoonings which capped his performances. Some of the venues he played at expressly banned them, telling him that he was ruining the mood with his 'incomprehensible grunting'. He supposed there were times he was carried away in the moment, fallible, mortal creature that he was, and he would pour a quart more emotion into it than he had planned to. He had thought tonight was safe for him to let loose slightly - there were hardly any customers left anyway.
What luck then, that this Emmie heard them.
"Oh, thank you, I guess," he said. "No one's ever told me they appreciated those improvisations before. But I... I must be going. If you're wondering, I'll be here again next week, if you want to hear me again. Thank you for the support."
David pressed forward, expecting Emmie to step aside. It wasn't that he was really in a rush, it was just that he wanted to leave before his limited understanding of human interaction ran out.
He stopped when he came up against Emmie's hand, pressed against his chest.
She spoke then, with the same beat, the same rhythm that he had employed, somehow translating his lyrics into words which other humans understood.
*Home hangs in the sky*
*A teardrop of silver amongst the stars*
*Flashing, beckoning, singing to me*
*I cannot return yet, but soon I shall*
David only realised he had crumpled onto the ground when Emmie propped him back up, then lightly tapped his cheeks.
"You alright? I didn't mean to... startle you like that. I just wanted to let you know I heard you."
"Where... how did you know what I was saying?"
"An intuition... a gift. I understand most other languages, even ones I haven't studied or learned before."
"So... Does that mean that you know..."
Emmie shook her head. "If you are asking whether I know the solution to your troubles, then no. I have no understanding of science, really. I can't even fix a leaky faucet, much less help with your ship."
"How did you know..."
Emmie fished around in her pockets, then held out a slip of paper to him.
"I've only ever heard your language once before. A painter, mumbling to herself as she brought to life landscapes I have never seen before. But always of the same theme - shipwrecks, marooned sailors, a deep longing to return. That's where she is most days. I suppose if you could find others like yourself, you could... Work something out?"
David gripped the note harder than he intended. The tears made it hard to see. For so long, so long he had thought he was alone, a stranger amongst a sea of similar but ultimately dissimilar faces.
He never thought that there would be others.
"Thank you," he said, as he hugged Emmie. It seemed appropriate.
"I hope you find your way home," she replied, but in his tongue this time.
---
/r/rarelyfunny
|
It was weird, on the school trip to Europe you thought everyone in the airport spoke English. Then in Germany, and the Hamburg airport, followed by Spain, England, and Scotland. Every single one! Jim realised it was only him who understood after passing some shit talking Frenchmen. Jake, who the comments were directed at, usially took offence at jibes about his nose. How it turned sharply left halfway down from the fight with his dad. The mere mention of it would be enough to reproduce the twist on the offending face. But no, Jake kept talking about how he wanted to buy a right hand drive car.
*Goes on to talk about the Rosetta Stone, and translating the untranslatible forgotten languages*
Can't finish, too tired. Feel free to steal and finish if ya want
| 2018-05-03T17:38:51 | 2018-05-03T17:28:18 | 1,120 | 11 |
[WP] One day a time portal opens in your backyard and a time traveler comes through. You quickly realize he just came back from making some change to the past and that, to him, our world is the terrifying alternative time line resulting from that change.
|
"Alright, let's start again..." Philip said, his hand covering his eyes. "What is the year?"
James set down the cup of tea in front of the mysterious, confused man. "2015."
"And what happened at 0? Or 1? Whatever."
"Um..." James considered, "Think it was supposed to be around the birth of Christ."
"Alright, that would be that Roman guy, right?"
"...basically."
Philip considered the options, and shook his head, "Alright, this is not helping. Let's go further back a bit. When were the pyramids built in this... AD/BC time frame?"
"The ones in Giza?"
"Yes, those."
James grabbed his iPad, and called up Google. "Um... looks like somewhere around 2500 BC."
"So, if BC is negative..." a brief pause, "4500 years before now?"
"Um... yeah, I think that's about right."
The man eyed James' iPad. "I am when I am supposed to be, but you have got tech that's a few centuries out of date. Does everyone have those sorts of things?"
"A lot of them do, yeah..."
"Does that thing have a map?"
After a lot of zooming out, and very confused looks at the names of the places around the world, the man sat back. "So I'm in the right place, too... What went wrong?"
"So you're from... now?"
"Our point in the present is the same, but we're from different timelines. I was born in... well, it would be 1986 by your reckoning, but from a town off the coast of..." he glanced at the map still on the iPad, "England that, apparently, never existed... I know, tenses are weird."
"Wait, off the coast?"
"Yes, a floating city."
James just stared at the man. "Normally, I'd think you're crazy, but you appeared in the air above my backyard right in front of my eyes, and set the arm you broke with something from that pouch on your belt... how is that, by the way?"
The man rolled his arm. "It's setting nicely, thank you."
"Anyway, I'm willing to suspend disbelief after what I've seen."
"I need to know what went wrong. The world is not supposed to be like..." he motioned around, "this."
"You went back in time?"
"Yes, that is right. I was doing some research in the past, and I tried to come back to my lab, and ended up in your back yard."
"So just researching?"
"Yes."
"You weren't going back in time to... I don't know, kill Hitler or something?"
"Who?"
A heavy silence filled the kitchen, and was all the answer the man needed.
"He was a very bad person in this timeline, wasn't he?"
James just nodded, and glanced at a picture of an elderly couple on the counter.
"Alright... do you have access to history on that thing?"
"Yeah..." James called up Wikipedia.
"I was in Europe, about 1700 years ago. I need to know what I did to change history..."
------------
Philip leaned back in his chair, and sighed. On the iPad sat the article for the Dark Ages.
"You're telling me you think you caused the Dark Ages?"
Philip nodded, still in shock. "The Roman Empire never fell in my history. I was studying the middle of their empire... and I must have done something that led to its collapse, plunging the entire area into a regressive age..."
There was some more silence. "What are you going to do?"
Philip looked at the device on his arm. "I must to go back and fix it. I must try and turn things right..."
"What about me?"
They looked at each other. "I do not know... If I succeed, then... you may not exist anymore. Or you might... split timelines like this might be strong enough to continue on their own. I really do not know."
James sat back, considering. "In your timeline, you've got... what, fifteen hundred years of scientific advancement instead of five to ten hundred in ours?"
Philip nodded.
"And in your home, your world, you've got cool gadgets like time machines, and wraps that can fix broken bones in minutes..."
"Among other things, yes."
James glanced at the picture on the counter again.
"Will I know if you succeeded?"
"I do not know."
There was another silence.
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"I believe you have done everything you can," Philip got up, and checked the device on his wrist. "This still has about 60% charge remaining. I should have a few tries at righting my wrong."
James looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself. "Good luck."
"Thank you," Philip stepped outside, and started pressing buttons. "I would suggest stepping back."
James watched as Philip was enveloped in a white light, and vanished.
|
"Is... is that..." The man stuttered, his shaking finger pointing to the sound in the distance.
I sighed. "Yeah. It's a fucking leaf blower."
His eyes squinted with pain, his body nearly collapsed as he moved his finger to the red button on his belt.
"WAIT!" I screamed, running down the lawn. "TAKE ME WITH - "
But I was too late.
| 2015-11-13T15:49:03 | 2015-11-13T14:10:23 | 174 | 17 |
[WP]: As a lawyer, you specialise in divorces and the annulments of contracts between humans and immortal creatures. Being both, this is the ugliest case you have ever worked on.
|
Generally, I am only called into clients who have the big bucks, or when a junior emerges from a room chased by an actual fireball, as whatever immortal creature we have in that day decides the terms we propose aren't quite to their fancy. But today was different.
They walked into our offices, and you could immediately tell they didn't belong. It was not just the clothes they wore, ill-fitting and patched up. It was the way they hesitated the moment they got through the door, his eyes uncertainly seeking out something familiar, anything familiar to his simple life, and finding nothing. It was the way she inched closer to him, holding him life desperately, like a lifebuoy offered in rough seas.
Our receptionist sees they're lost, walks over to them, her heels counting out a perfect beat on the pristine marble floors, perfect white teeth already on show in a well-rehearsed smile. She already knows they can't afford to be here, already knows she's going to get them to leave.
But before she can say a word, he starts talking. People come into our offices all the time trying to get us to work pro bono, or for a reduced fee. They come in with well rehearsed speeches, promises of favours, of how they will have money soon, and they'll soon make as rich beyond our wildest dreams. But today was different.
Even from afar I could tell what he was telling our receptionist. It didn't matter what the words were. It was the bearing of him, the way he gathered his whole being and meant every damn word. It was the way he sought unconsciously for his wife's support, and she gave it freely, not caring for the tears rolling down her face.
Before the receptionist could send them away, I invited them into my office. How could I not? People sometimes paint us lawyers as heartless folk, but we're not. Some choose to be. Some days we have to be. And my husband is left to pick up the pieces at the end of those days, as I try not to break.
They came in hesitantly, and took their seats, perched on the edge like they didn't belong. I sit opposite them, not behind the desk like I normally do. I offer them a drink, and he accepts, gratefully. Not many of my clients feel the need to. But today is different.
He did the talking. All she does is sit there, eyes downcast, never looking up, but always looking at him. She's gripping his hand so tightly the veins stand out on hers, like if she lets go for a second he'll slip away. She's nestled in beside him, and you can just tell his body is giving a thousand and one signals that it just completes him. They often come in and can't even sit in the same room together. But today is different.
He takes a moment to compose himself, a brief, automatic glance at his wife before he sets off on his tale. He tells me love each other very much, but it just isn't working. I think of telling them what I often say, that sometimes love isn't enough, that relationships sometimes just don't work. But this simple man refuses to let go of my eyes as he pours his heart out. And hers too.
She's a succubus. He knew that when he met her, and he loved her all the same. She'd spent her whole life in seclusion, a life apart from people stretching back hundreds of years, knowing that if she met her humanity she'd lose hers, her basal instinct uncontrollable and monstrous in it's form. She knew this because even the most careful creature can't plan for anything, and those accidents haunted her every waking moment.
But then she met him, and he met her. And it was love. They could scarcely believe it, as her demons didn't surface, and they thought love had won through. The tears shone in his eyes, and he gripped his wife's hand as tight as she held his. He tells me of the joy they shared, the completeness they felt, the sheer thrill of spending every waking moment together. He wants to look at her, but knows his strength would desert him should he do, and he wishes to finish his tale.
And then he got sick. The doctors couldn't figure it out. He worked it out before she did, but there was no way he'd ever tell her. How could he gaze into her eyes and tell her that it was she who had caused his suffering. How could he watch the woman he loved's heart break, and him be the cause of it. No. So he bore his burden with the courage of a man who knows his path leads to death, but he'll bear it without a moment's hesitation. For love.
But she works it out. She leaves, but he goes after her. But he already knows the answer. That love, he tells me, his voice breaking, his tears becoming a waterfall, cannot conquer everything.
And so here they are. They know what must be done, but they're terrified of doing it. They've come to me as one last hope, he tells me. You know so many people. People like her. Is there anything you can do, they ask of me. Anyone you know who could help. Anything. We'll pay your fees, every last penny. Anything.
If only I could.
I know what I have to tell them. That there's nothing we can do. No such thing exists. That I can help them with their separation, and try to make it all as easy as possible. No fee. They'd be stubborn about it, because they were good people, but my tears mixing with the carpet said I damn well wouldn't charge them a penny.
And so I offered them these words. Empty, pre-rehearsed, uttered a thousand times, words. All I could bloody offer them.
She'd looked up at me for first time, her eyes wide. So I met her eyes whilst I told her this. You don't tell people something this important unless you look them in the eye. I wish I hadn't. He already knew what the answer was going to be. Feared it, but knew it. She didn't.
She still had hope.
Oh God, she still had hope.
And I watched it die.
|
I sat behind my desk as the two individuals... well, the one individual and the other being, bickered in front of me. I had regretted taking this case since the day it had been placed on my table. There was nothing to be done here, by the rules of nearly every government in existence today, their contract would bind them until they fulfilled it, and they refused to believe that.
So, every few days, I sit behind my desk and watch them argue.
"Well, you can't just blame me! I do my part every time, it's you who fail!", the human female screeched.
"Woman, I do my best, it's you who refuse to try any other methods! They've got technology now, we could try-", the forest god was cut off by the woman.
"I REFUSE. I WILL NOT ALLOW THAT HEDONISTIC DOCTOR TO POKE AROUND. WE WILL DO IT THE NATURAL WAY OR WE WON'T DO IT AT ALL."
The forest god threw up his hands and stood up to leave, catching his antlers on the ceiling fan. "I'm going home. The girls need dinner."
"Fine, I don't care, I'm going to talk to the lawyer. You can keep the girls, I don't want them."
The horned god shook his head and walked out the door. The woman in front of me stared haughtily at the papers I held, and said, "Well?"
I sighed. "Ma'am, you know there's nothing we can do. You signed in front of the gods of man and beast, and YOU were the one who added the 'Until such time as a baby boy is born' stipulation. You should have done your research, forest gods have nymph children. You're stuck with him."
| 2015-12-08T11:36:22 | 2015-12-08T11:21:33 | 28 | 12 |
[WP] "So the infinity between 0 and 1 is smaller than the infinity between 0 and 2 but if you take all the points from the first infinity you can match them up evenly to all the points of the second infinity because it's infinite. That don't make no goddamn sense" "Yeah. <chuckles> Isn't math fun?"
It's funny because it's true!
|
"I can't believe you actually signed her yearbook with that," Uheri said, half in exasperation and half in amusement as she caught up to her frenemy.
Dillan shrugged a little. "It's not my fault if Terrible Teresa takes it the wrong way. Her attempts to save my soul are starting to annoy me."
"Oh, she'll take it the wrong way, all right," Uheri predicted. "'There is no hate stronger than Christian love?'"
"Yes, I mean, when she thinks about it, and realizes the insult, the slow smoldering burn will set in," Dillan answered, pulling out the key to their shared secret lab. "I only wish I could see it."
"Well, look here, dumb dumb," Uheri answered, pulling out her phone. "She posted that she has hope that even the most barbaric heathen as you will realize how powerful Christian love is." She slugged the boy in the arm for good measure. "She's literally too stupid to insult."
"Ow," Dillan complained. "I swear you hit harder than your brother."
"Of course I do. Unlike him, I'm not dating you," she sang as she descended the stairs.
\--
Down in the lab, sat The Beast. As far as either of the young teens could tell, it was part of a crashed spaceship, and specifically the part that allowed faster than light travel. Understanding how it worked, however, was a challenge the two solved in very different ways.
Uheri was a natural born tinkerer, and had cracked several puzzles by her intuitive sense of all things mechanical. Dillan was far more theoretical, and had dived into the computer to make sense of what the software suggested. Together, they had come up with a solid theory, although they hadn't figured out how to test it quite yet.
"Ok, so you had figured out the ignition sequence criteria yesterday, you said?" Dillan asked, drawing some figures on the whiteboard in the lab.
"Yes. This part here seems to involve a heavy gravitational field, while this part deals with a heavy magnetic field. We already knew that the FTL transition would have to occur near a strong gravity well. Like the sun."
"And you think the magnetic field has to do with it?"
"Look at how they interact. At a right angle. And you said they were both at a right angle to the direction the ship itself would be moving. Three right angles. Now, you're the math wizard, not me, but isn't spacetime supposed to be at a fourth right angle in the fourth dimension?"
Dillan tapped his chin with the dry erase marker for a moment, then drew out part of a cube shape on the board. "Momentum in the x axis, graviational field on the y axis, and magnetic field on the z axis. And momentum should be very high, if you're coming in to a tight solar parabolic orbit. You said magnetic... what if the magnetic pole is the spot we're looking for?"
"Well that's not good. The magnetic pole is a pretty small spot. How do you control for that? How do you aim for anywhere you want to go?"
Rather than answer, Dillan began furiously scribbling on the board. For a solid few minutes, Uheri watched, as the symbols became more and more esoteric to her eyes. Finally she spoke up. "What exactly are you doing?"
"Determining whether the number of activation points are one, or infinite."
"Two. There's a north and south pole, right?"
"Oh. Right." He added a 2 in front of one of his variables, and continued on with his equations from there.
"How can they be infinite if there are only two poles?"
Dillan stopped, mid-equation, glared at Uheri briefly, then finished his line. "If there is a region of non-zero size, then it is infinitely many possible positions. If it is a single mathematical point, then it isn't."
"Are you high? The poles can't be infinite, they're like a nothing of a percent of the total."
"Almost nothing times infinity is still infinity," Dillan answered. Then he paused. "Except when it isn't. Is it?" He shrugged. "There are infinitely many numbers, right?"
"Ok, sure. So what?"
"And there are infinitely many odd numbers."
"Ok, I guess so."
"And there are infinitely many numbers between zero and one."
"No. Nope. Not playing. You're going to ask me if there are more odd numbers than there are numbers between zero and one. But it's a fools errand, infinities are infinite!"
"The numbers between zero and one are bigger. I can always find a number between any two given numbers, but you cannot always find an odd number between two arbitrary odd numbers, eventually you run out. The size of the pole is the same, there are an infinitely large number of spots surrounding the pole. The question is if they count AS the pole. And we haven't even considered altitude above the pole. Is the region a sphere or a cone?"
"Well if it's a small enough region, it's effectively a point, right?"
Dillan shook his head again. "No, a point is a point, that's different. Like... consider a dart board."
"Ok, where are you going with this?"
"The odds of hitting any specific point on the dart board are tiny. In fact, I can prove with math that they are zero."
"If you are throwing the dart, yes they are zero," Uheri said, smirking.
"Har har. There are in fact infinite spots on the dartboard you could hit. The chance to hit any is one over infinity, which is zero. And yet, somewhere a dart must hit. So the sum of all those zeros, added together, is in fact, one."
"I think I see," Uheri answered.
"Good. Then let me work on this."
Uheri frowned, as Dillan continued to do his math. "You are assuming the sun is a perfect sphere?"
"It should be good enough for a first order approximation."
"And that the sun's mass is constant?"
"Sure. Yes, I know it's changing as it burns, but not by much."
"And that the magnetic field doesn't fluctuate. Doesn't move around? That the billions upon billions of atoms aren't constantly moving around?"
"Yes, I am making some simplifying assumptions to make the math work, what's your point Uheri?"
"You're using an idealized model of your system to estimate real world tolerances. But an idealized model doesn't need to have real world tolerances. So you will find the answer must be a single point, which is impossible to hit. Just like your dartboard. But this machine, for it to even be here in this lab, must have actually flown at least once. And there is no way it hit an exact mathematical point to do so - that computer it came with might be more powerful than any on Earth, but it is not.. ahem, infinitely so. What you need to ask is not if you can hit the dead center of the bullseye, but how big is the bullseye." Uheri smirked, and tossed the dry erase marker to Dillan, who caught it dumbstruck.
"Next time you try and lecture me on infinity, remember that just because you..."
"A bullseye, of course!" Dillan exclaimed, starting to scribble more on the board.
"... you aren't even listening now, are you?" Uheri sighed a little.
|
I made an exaggerated face back at him, one with an opened mouth and obvious look of stupidity to emphasize my ignorance. He in turn stared back with real ignorance.
"So then why the hell are you telling me this? Flexing your degree again?"
"Flexing? Ha! More like using."
"Using? We're in a bar at 2:30 pm on a Wednesday. Nobody in here is using anything but meth."
"That doesn't change what I was saying."
I didn't know how to reply so I turned to the most reliable wrench in my toolkit: staying quiet as long as possible. With Drew though that was difficult. He was the kind of person that felt as if silence was an invitation to talk rather than just a moment of peace. As if the silence crushed upon him so heavily that if he did not speak he'd be-
"Do you want me to explain again? I'd be more than happy if you don't get it."
"Thats condescending. I dont *need* to know. That's the issue. Where does this help me?" I reached over to my beer and took a long sip, fully expecting a speech in response straight out of a Stephen Hawking manuscript. Hell. I wouldn't even know if it was. I never even got passed the first chapter of *A Brief History of Space and Time*. Only checked it out to seem smart.
"Well actually...", he started. *Ah shit, here we go.* "Actually it's the world Reese. It's about understanding the world. If you're against that then well...I can't help ya there. Just trying to teach you a few things."
At the bar a few faces had come and gone during the course of our conversation (If you could call it that). In the moments of our talking I had tried to keep it quiet, as I always assumed anyone alone was always passively listening to what I had to say. But now? Now that it was just me and him I let loose, fueled by both annoyance and a slight buzz.
"Drew. You aren't better than me because you can recite what some guy on YouTube or god forbid a fuckin' Wiki told you. I don't get this infinity shit and I don't care to. Just because you know something doesn't mean I want to or that I'll think you're smarter if you tell me. I already think you're smart."
There was a long silence and a look of confusion on his face. Not Drew being confused, but literally his face not knowing what to do, caught somewhere between pain and pride.
"Really? You think I'm smart?" he stared blankly to his beer, shuffling his hands around the bottle with unrest.
"You just recited thirty minutes of infinite number theory to me. So yeah, smart. Annoying, sure, but smart...Ya know what? Next rounds on me. Cheers, to that big annoying brain of yours."
He raised his beer, the tinges of sadness on his face that had previously been there now washed away.
"Cheers! To you knowing shit and me listening...at least most of the time."
We clinked our drinks and took a long sip together.
**Disclaimer** When it comes to math of any capacity I have smooth, stupid brain. My avoidance of the topic of infinity was both a way for me to write a coherent story and to avoid being thrashed by those not mentally challenged by math. Enjoy.
| 2022-11-03T22:43:38 | 2022-11-03T21:23:17 | 304 | 54 |
[WP] With new technology, whenever somebody is hurt, you can see how much “Damage” they’ve taken. In the bus, the person next to you is taking 1 “Damage” every few seconds.
|
I suppose it was harder in the past. You would have to keep your eyes peeled for all the subtle signs, indicators like furrowed brows, or sweaty palms, or the tightly-drawn lips. After all, if someone didn’t want to tell you that they were hurting on the inside, it would be very hard to tell.
But it was obvious when you could see that Mrs Norland’s health bar kept dropping.
Not much, mind you. Just one or two percentage points every few seconds. It would pick up after a fashion, a small uptick, but it was generally trending down. I may have only been ten years old, but I knew enough. She was experiencing some kind of emotional distress, but there was nothing in the hoverbus that could possibly be stressing her. I put aside my holoscreen, reached across the aisle, then tapped her on the shoulder.
“Mrs Norland, are you alright?”
I could see that she was starting to say that she was. I had enabled speech subtitling, and her first few words swam into focus at the edge of my vision. Then, the spark of recognition in her eyes.
“Jason? You were in Alicia’s mathematics class last year, weren’t you?”
“Yes, Mrs Norland. Are you on your way to see her?”
“I… yes, actually. I thought to check in on her, since I had some time this morning.”
Something about her tone didn’t sound right. It was the same as when I had asked mother to promise that she would bring me to the zoo, and mother said yes. There was this slipperiness, this shiftiness which made me think twice. I nodded, but then I sub-consciously ran a netsearch at the same time. My fingers flew over my wrist, sending the commands over the ether. The results started streaming in over my orbo-vision.
She must have caught the way my eyes had defocused. “Are you… are you searching the net for Alicia now?”
I blinked hard, then dismissed the overlays. The module mother had downloaded for me on good manners in public, and especially the section on surfing the net in the middle of face-to-face conversations, flashed in my memory banks. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
“Actually… could you tell me what you found? The school wouldn’t tell me what it was about.”
I frowned. “Couldn’t you just search for her on your own?”
A ghost of a smile settled on Mrs Norland’s lips. She placed a finger on the side of her head, near the crown. “I haven’t got any implants done, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Really? But… why? Everyone has them.”
“So what did you see, Jason?”
The results were still fresh in my mind, so I didn’t pull up the results again. “Um… I’m not sure if I should say, Mrs Norland. Maybe it’s better if-”
“It’s fine, Jason. Just let me know what you saw?”
“Well, if you must know… There were about a dozen Linknet postings, Mrs Norland. Seems like her classmates witnessed a fight a few hours ago, Alicia and this other girl from her class.”
“A fight?” Mrs Norland said. I could see her health bar dipping a bit more quickly this time. “Is she alright?”
“Yes, she’s being held in the detention room now I think. No injuries, just a scuffle.”
“What was the fight over? Can you tell?”
I slipped back into the net for this, then found a holorecording made by one of the witnesses. I thought to thumb the file across to Mrs Norland, then remembered she wasn’t implanted. I relayed what I saw to her instead.
“Someone called her poor, I think… and other nasty names too. Said Alicia was the only one who couldn’t afford to download her lessons, and that’s why she spent so much time in school learning from the holobots. Said that Alicia had no place in modern society, something like that.”
“And that’s when she fought back?”
I shook my head. “Only after they… called you names too, Mrs Norland.”
A lot of things clicked in that moment for me. Why Alicia had to transfer out to another class, why we no longer shared the same hoverbus home, why she always seemed tired the next day. Learning things the old way is difficult, plus the retention rate is hardly as high as when the lessons are downloaded straight to your memory banks.
Mrs Norland sighed, pursed her lips tightly. I couldn’t tell if she was angry, or sad, or both.
“Is it really so expensive to have an implant installed?” I asked. “Couldn’t you just… get one for Alicia too?”
“Well, I would if I could, honestly,” said Mrs Norland. “But maybe one day you’ll understand that when the credits don’t come in regularly, when you’re never sure if you have enough for emergencies… then things like implants are a luxury. You’ll just have to focus on the essentials. And that’s why I have to spend so much more time with her, to help make sure she’s learning the right things.”
“Wait… do you mean that you actually help her with her schoolwork at home?”
“How else?”
“No… home holobot to do that?”
“Nope, just me.”
A foreign thought had crossed my mind, and it nestled there, niggling away. “But does that mean you actually spend your… spare time with her? That you don’t just go to your own room after work to watch the latest holomovie or join the latest holoadventure? Wouldn’t that mean that you have very little time for yourself?”
Mrs Norland smiled, then shook her head. Her health bar was still dropping, but not as quickly as before. “There are some lessons you can’t teach by download, Jason. At least, I hope Alicia appreciates that.”
She turned to look out the window then, and I thought briefly about all the holodecks I had at my disposal at home, ready for easy consumption. I thought about the latest implants which I could get, which I knew my parents would purchase for me in the blink of an eye.
I also thought about when I had last hung out with them, or had them help me with my schoolwork.
Suddenly, Alicia didn’t seem so unlucky anymore.
---
/r/rarelyfunny
|
I sit at the back of the bus. I like the view from these raised seats. Not only can you see the city flying by through the big windows, you also get a view of what's going on _inside_ the bus.
People are interesting.
The driver is nodding slowly to the funk music playing from the handheld radio affixed to his belt as he terns onto the McGrill Road.
The lady next to the entrance is putting on makeup, compact in one hand, a little brush in the other.
The high school student directly in front of me is rolling up a joint. Idiot. Going to kill himself.
Suddenly I see the man sitting at the other end of the back seats. A small red notification pops over his head, and it's been barely a couple of seconds after it fades away and a new one takes it place. I keep staring. This doesn't stop. He looks weak, worn out. But he's smiling, looking at his phone.
I stretch my neck, and I can see that there's a young girl on the screen, talking animatedly to him. Probably his grandchild.
I hear the announcement of the robotic lady, and get up. The man looks at me momentarily, and I flash him a smile. I didn't intend it, but it came off as a sad one. He winks at me, grins, and returns to his screen.
I understand why. He wanted to be happy. Make the most of his time. This was rare in these futuristic days, but there was no mistaking it. Hadn't I seen the same happen to Jimmy, my dear Jimmy, when he was barely 11? It really fucks me up that there are still the occasional cases which the scientists can't cure.
I think about the man at lunch. I hope he had a happy life. And I hope that he doesn't go out with pain.
Cancer really is a bitch.
| 2018-04-02T05:55:51 | 2018-04-02T03:38:51 | 123 | 19 |
[WP] You are Death, but in a post-apocaliptic world. Only a few survivors remain, and you're doing everything you can to help them because if the last human dies, you die as well. The survivors can't see you, but they feel your presence and noticed your effort. They started to call you Life.
|
Five thousand left today on all the Earth. I cut the soul of the five thousand and first not one hour ago.
The outcome seems inevitable. One by one, they'll fall. One by one, until no one is left.
What will happen to me then?
I'll take time to consider this.
*****
Four thousand are left. The four thousand and first committed suicide. It was tragic. He'd lost his entire family. But no one stops fate.
Not even me.
After I fulfil my duties, the only thing that remains for me to do is to reap myself.
*****
Two thousand nine hundred and ninety nine are left. A malnourished couple both died when they tried to cross a river.
It kind of bothers me how the number is off by one.
It's like it's telling me: there's one you're not counting. This is a round number.
I don't want to hear it.
*****
Two thousand are left.
I've lived for such a long time that there are no words to describe it...
Lived isn't really the right word. Existed, perhaps.
And yet, of all entities, me, the one who has had the most time to make sense of it all...
I want things to continue.
*****
One thousand left.
This job is monotonous... But every day, I get a glimpse at what makes people truly human.
I've never realised how much it touches me deep down.
If I stay around... How will I cope with the emptiness?
*****
Nine hundred left today.
I'm running out of time.
I don't want this Earth to die.
I want to see cities brimming with life.
I want to see marvels of architecture, fresh after construction.
I want to see the rise of civilisations.
... I don't understand what's happened to me.
*****
Eight hundred left.
I took pity on a young girl a few days ago. She should have died, but...
I delayed reaping her for just long enough...
Just long enough for someone to find her.
This is a first. I've never taken pity before like this.
I'm forsaking my duties, but deep down I'm wondering if that's so bad.
*****
Seven hundred people left.
I don't want to let go.
I don't want things to end.
Understanding what this feels like firsthand is quite something.
How could I even feel what death is like myself? The despair? The sorrow?
Only in this situation could I feel things like that.
It was so impersonal at first. But now, every time I reap someone, it's like I'm dying myself.
*****
Six hundred people left.
I can't go on like this.
*****
Five hundred people left.
*****
Five... hundred.
I've stopped. I've just stopped.
I can't do it anymore.
*****
Four hundred and eighty three.
It's not enough.
The world, it's dying, and I-
Even if I don't reap people, I can't stop them from dying if they just give up.
If I don't reap them, their soul suffers and becomes damaged.
What do I do?
*****
Four hundred and eighty four.
A child was born today. It's a rare sight. The child carries my hope for the future with it.
Her name is Dawn.
*****
Four hundred and fifty nine.
I'm trying my best here...
Come on. Show some will to live.
Don't you know that dying could be the end of everything right now?
Are you so despondent you don't even care?
*****
Four hundred and twenty three.
I've... begun communicating with people.
I didn't know I could, but...
People can sense me.
I push them away from danger, and towards supplies and shelter.
They don't always listen, but it's a start.
*****
Dawn is healthy. She is a very sweet child. If I fail, she might be the last human alive.
I don't plan on letting her inherit a dying planet.
*****
Four hundred and twenty.
Someone... Someone talked to me today.
They couldn't see me, but they talked straight at me.
Not physically, but mentally. Their heart was open and it showered me in hope and gratitude.
They didn't think of me as "Death" today, but as "Fate".
*****
I wonder what it means to be Fate, rather than Death.
It's not a role I've played before.
Death is definitely a type of fate. It's my speciality, I suppose.
But in the grand scheme of things, isn't fate more than that?
*****
Dawn's mother is sick. I'm so worried about her.
I hope she survives. It's pharyngitis. It could get bad.
******
I basked in the sun today.
It's not a thing I normally do.
It's funny how the things that are most important to you only reveal themselves at times like these.
Just letting the rays of the sun envelop me... It feels so pleasant. I wish I could do it forever, now that I might not have forever to do it any longer.
*****
Dawn's mother, she...
She's going to survive. I refuse to reap her.
I won't let her die of pharyngitis. Not at her age.
Twenty years ago she'd have survived with ease. I won't let it be different now.
*****
Four hundred people left exactly.
It's slowed down a lot.
A band of travellers have met up with Dawn and her parents. I guided them to her. They have medicine.
I'm doing similar things elsewhere.
******
I'm caressing the soul of Dawn's mother. It's hanging on to her body by a thread.
I'm whispering to her.
I'm telling her not to let this be the end.
She can't abandon Dawn.
She can't abandon the last ray of hope on this world.
******
Dawn's mother woke up again today.
She's dazed, but she spoke.
She told everyone that a guardian angel stood over her, and that it told her not to give up.
She said I comforted her, and that she could feel that I was brimming with sadness and hope.
She called me Life.
*****
Another child has been born. His name is Ercan. Ercan and Dawn live half a continent apart, and they won't even grow up speaking the same language.
But even so, I hope that one day they'll meet.
*****
The number is going up.
I'm pushing it up. I'm exerting every bit of strength that I have.
But it's working.
I was a fool.
I've always been Death because the world needed Death.
Why did I keep being Death for such a long time after the world no longer needed me?
The world needs Life right now, and I'm it.
******
It's Dawn's first birthday today.
I don't stand in the sunlight so much any more.
Basking in the radiating life force of this human being that's the beginning of it all is so much more fulfilling.
I'm not the only one feeling it. Everyone here is.
Just like her namesake, she's crawling over the horizon, a shining beacon of a new future.
|
I roamed the scorched, torn apart streets. The vestiges of what once were great buildings lay scattered in the path. The silence, which I used to find comforting, now made my bones quiver. I missed the bustle of the crowds, and their awful jokes. I missed the smell of food, and the fresh scent of spring. I missed their tales, and I missed so much more.
So far, I had found a single family alive. I hadn't searched too much, for I had focused my efforts on taking them to safety.
They called me Life, and it suited me. They couldn't see me, nor hear me, but I had guided them with a path of stones to a cave in the mountains, where I left them with enough food for two weeks. Then, I came back to the city, seeking for life.
Six days had gone by, and all I had found was wreckage, dry blood, and the thick reek of radioactivity. There had to be more survivors. I had heard the rattling of those weirds creatures hunting.
I sighed, and sat atop a pile of broken boulders. The night was deep, and the moon shied away behind thunderclouds.
Something tugged the back my robe. It must have gotten trapped inside a crack. It happened a lot, for it loved to billow. I pulled it free, without success. I turned.
A woman stood there. Her skin was jaundiced and she had no hair. Her jowls were sunken, and her extremities were extremely thin.
"Help me," she said. Her voice was soft and fragile.
I froze in place. She could see me? How? She was still alive. I couldn't taste her soul.
I placed my scythe atop her head, and it shimmered iridescent. The countless colors bathed her in a gleaming shower of light, and once it faded, her skin had recovered her natural tone, pale-white.
"Is there anyone else contaminated?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"How did you survive alone for so long?"
"I don't know," she said, mouth quivering. "I don't know what is happening. I-I just woke up. Am I dead?
That didn't make any sense. Had she been asleep for an entire year? Why didn't the radioactivity kill her?
"No, you are not. Follow me," I said. "I will take you with the others."
The rattling of approaching steps resounded in the distance. The creatures were coming.
----------------------------------------------------------
/r/therobertfall - For more stories. I might continue this later!
| 2018-05-04T13:40:03 | 2018-05-04T11:11:58 | 2,022 | 25 |
[WP] A few thousand people around the world suddenly get superpowers based on the character of the last game they played. Highly valued by society you are the exception as everyone laughs at your inherited powers. The thing is, you modded the hell out of your character before this all happened.
Wow I didn't think it would blow up like this. Thank you so much kind stranger for my first ever silver. Freaking my first gold ever that is so awesome. Dont forget to show the great writers of this post some love also :)
|
“GO GREEN!!” My neighbor screeched at the field.
I leaned to my friend Raya, “Is this entirely necessary? We could be doing something more fun. Like literally anything. Anything is more fun than this.” I looked at the field disdainfully.
“Seriously Maize? This is like the one time your power is totally on point!” My glare hardened at her as I shifted back to normal. “Aw, come on Mai, we’re in the last quarter!”
Whispers fluttered all around me,
“Dude, did she just —“
“Holy shit did you see —“
“Dad that lady was GREEN —“.
I sighed and shifted my color back to the team’s forest green, “Yay football.” I muttered sarcastically, ignoring the next wave of whispers and stares that followed my change.
I’d long since gotten over my misfortune of power. Figures that an electromagnetic surge would hit the one time I was playing a kids game, granting me and several other thousand people the “gifts” of our game characters.
Do you know how wicked some of these people’s power’s were? Most of them were changing the weather to avoid natural disasters, telekinetically rescuing people from fires, leaping tall buildings in a single bound. . .you know, superhero shit.
Now in all fairness, I was hiding a secret. I hadn’t just been playing a kid’s game that auspicious Friday, I’d been modding and redeveloping it. Including my player.
In fact when the surge hit, I’d been typing code in specifically to mod my player. You’d think that’d left me with a glitch or two, but nope, it left me with an unfinished code and a blinking cursor.
When faced with the actual reality of becoming all-powerful, one tends to freeze up a little. Sure, I could code the crap out of myself and run this world from here until probably the end of time.....but was it ethical? Moral? And the question that bothered me most, what then?
I’d had a couple of months to have an existential crisis and hadn’t been able to get past what happens next. The other players had showed me what a little power could do to a person. On the news you heard the amazing stories of the “PC Heroes” and how our world needed something extraordinary to survive. The chat rooms told a different story.
Forums had popped up all over of PCs struggling with controlling their abilities, getting addicted, depressed, and some suicidal. After reading a post from a 15-year old my fantasies fell cold in their tracks, “I feel numb, like humming electric wire I have one purpose and it is my power. When I use it I lose myself and when I don’t I think of nothing else. I’ve lost my love, my pain, my anger. I’ve lost. I’m lost.” That was the last post she made. Two months ago.
But was it selfish to not do it? Was it worth losing myself if I could save the lives of others? The thought had me frozen in indecision for months.
“Mai,” my friend shook me, “Game’s over, let’s blow this popsicle stand.” She gestured towards the line shuffling towards the exit.
Everything started happening in slow motion as the ground began shaking, and a crack in the stadium opened up below Raya.
Screams rang out from every direction, but Raya’s sounded right in my ear as I reached out to grab her. “Raya!” I cried out, grasping her forearm in mine as she dropped into the hole.
“Don’t let go, don’t let go, Mai, please, I love you, don’t let go” Raya sobbed over and over, fingers digging into my arm. The ground still shook beneath me, crack deepening, I reached another hand down holding her tightly.
Tears streamed from my eyes as I struggled to hold her, I had to pull her up. “Help! Help! We need help!” I yelled looking around for anyone. There were others helping pull up victims who had fallen also, people still running for the exits screaming, chaos.
“I’ve got you! Hold on!” A man ran over to my left and laid a hand on my shoulder has he reached down to grab Raya. “Pull!” He yelled. I strained my burning muscles as far as they could go, we grunted as we pulled her backward, sliding out of the crack and falling back into the stadium seats.
“We’ve got to go,” I shouted grabbing Raya, still heaving on the ground.
The man nodded and stumbled with us through the crowd to the exit. The shaking had ceased but we still moved quickly to the main level, getting as far as possible from the near death Raya had nearly faced an the real death for many others.
As we reached the parking lot and the leave that awaiting I pulled away from Raya, already nearly jogging back towards the stadium. “Go home,” I said to her, “There’s something I need to do.”
I had some coding to do.
|
“Hit or miss. I guess Poland never misses, huh? They’ve got Allies, but I bet they’ll never help them!” I slam my pink gloved hand on the podium as the crowd cheers at my words. My sleek long black hair flowing in the wind, and my well cropped mustache commanding authority over the crowd. I’ve heard my critics talk; am I a man or a woman? Truthfully, I cannot say. After the transformation, this pink schoolgirl outfit fuzed itself to my body. All I know is that, ever since that fateful day while playing HOI IV, my name is Trap Hitler.
| 2020-01-30T11:35:06 | 2019-08-11T21:06:05 | 1,281 | 50 |
[WP] You’re considered the stealthiest person in your spy school because no one has ever caught you during stealth class; therefore, you are chosen to carry out a very urgent and dangerous mission alone. However, the reason no one could find you during class is because you skipped every one of them.
|
"The Hawk's on his way," I grimaced into the two-way, rearranging my smile into the most confident one I could muster. "Tell him not to worry too much."
Throwing the contraption down, I attempted to distract myself by imagining that the dull sound of the submarine's motors had some discernible rhythm. The music of the deep sea, or something of that sort. Truth be told, a cold sweat was beginning run down my forehead. I was a spy missing one of the key aspects of the craft-- the ability to properly conceal one's self. Sure, I could rely on the cloaking devices so commonly used in delicate operations, but even using such a device required a certain amount of nuance.
"The Hawk indeed," I muttered. "The Hawk with a clipped wing, that's one thing."
I always excelled in tactics at the Academy, but the stealth missions-- those were an entirely different matter. The first few times I tried my best to adapt to the notion that I was disappearing completely to the outside world, but as they moved the training environments to the towering forests that nestled Mount Daj, I would feel my chest close up, my throat tighten, eyes blurry. I sat in my room, wondering if I should just quit and go back to the city. But that was never an option-- it could *never* be an option. But I discovered something interesting a few days into the program, a system that allowed me to get through the regiment with no fears of failing, and without having to face any of those other moments of deep terror. I couldn't be a spy afraid of being alone, invisible in the primordial darkness. I was stubborn, refusing to choose any other kind of profession.
Clipping my tracker onto one of the hawks that gathered in the forest clearing, I let the animal do the work for me. I knew they would always return to the clearing at the briefest call of a mouse shrew-- to disturb a shrew nest incited these exclamations nearly every time. The hawks were unable to leave the perimeter due to the Academy barrier, so I ran no risk of being penalized for any sort of desertion. Instead, I would watch the hawk fly off at full speed, and return to the shrine that overlooked the forest, eating peaches and watching the mist gather until it was time to retrieve the large, glowing tracking contraption, one that almost weighed down the bird of choice. It was convoluted, but it worked every time. A testament to my ability to think outside the box, I would think.
But I never learned to wield the cloaking devices, never learned how to blend into the environment and silence the naturally noisy sounds our bodies make. Yet, I was never caught by any of the Trackers, and ended up, once again, at the top of the regiment's list of the stealthiest. It was a lie, but I lie I could live with. Better than having to go back to the city, filled with all that dust and miasma and the scattered fragments of broken dreams and lost opportunities.
"No hawks where we're going, Allistair," I mumbled, speaking to no one but myself. "No way out. Either you use the aspects you're good at, or stumble your way through the ones you know nothing about."
The mark was Margulis sin Hanson, an oil tycoon and inventor who had become a recluse, hiding away in the Baltic Sea after the Russian Nuclear War. His people were all big believers in an underwater utopia they dubbed Pure Atlantis-- my job not to kill him or destroy his philosophy, but rather to steal his tentatively gathered nuclear codes, hidden away in some secret nexus within his underwater palace. They asked me what I wanted to call myself, as all spies were given a codename. As I owed my graduation to the hawks, I took the animal's name, praying that nature's fortune would favor me once more.
The dull thud of steel signified the end of my solitary journey, and I shook my head, stumbling to my feet. The war drum that was my heart marched on unabated. This was it, now or never. The beginning of a journey that both thrilled and repulsed me. Here I was, a spy with no semblance of stealth or camouflage. All I could do was think outside the box like always and hope my heartbeat didn't give me away.
"The Hawk, I presume," crooned a voice as I stepped outside the docked craft. "It's good to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about the valedictorian of the Academy."
The room was a hangar, jutting spires from the ceiling. I didn't look up, they brought back memories of that forest. Intimidating and painfully existential. The man who had called my name walked towards me briskly, a polite if not diplomatic smile on his face.
I cleared my throat. "Yes, I'm the Hawk. I've read over the casefile already, no need for anything but the basic formalities."
Slightly taken aback, he chuckled. "My, I like a man who can conduct himself with such confidence. I'm Bradley Ensign, leader of the Baltic Nuclear Retrieval Department. After the war, we swore that nuclear weapons would be sent to discrete facilities and destroyed. Yet, now we've found out that Baron Margulis sin Hanson possesses not only weapons, but the codes needed access them."
"How long do I have?" I asked, looking around. Various other crafts were docked at the edge of the platform where the swirling water met the industrial strength metal. "Two days? Three days?"
"One," he responded quickly. "One day, is all. Though I've heard you're immensely cool under pressure. No fear for a spy of your calibre, right?"
A day was less time than I'd ever had to do even a reconnaissance mission. More importantly, I wondered why they'd chosen someone like me, a relative newcomer to professional spying, to do a seemingly difficult and time-sensitive mission. My excitement faded fast, replaced by the same fear I'd spent years trying to curve. It's the fear that starts in the chest, tightens the lungs, pounds the head. I was a spy with no semblance of stealth, and a great amount of fear. Not the cool valedictorian that everyone seemed to expect from me.
"Mr. Ensign, are you sure there hasn't been a mistake," I balked, keeping my face as straight as possible. "There must be one. A time sensitive mission for--"
Ensign walked over to me, grabbing me by the shoulders and putting one finger to his mouth.
"Margulis requested you specifically," he whispered. "Truth be told, we've been creating a diplomatic liaison with him for a while. But out of the blue, he requested to talk to you. You, Alistair Blunt, the Hawk of the Goranyaluna Academy. I can't tell you what he wants, but it is you he wants it from."
My thoughts raced as I attempted to gather a reason for why a supposed nuclear terrorist would want to meet with me. Least of all personally, disguised as a state-sanctioned mission. I shut my eyes for a brief moment, before answering. But at the same time, it relieved me that I didn't have to face my lack of credentials. I didn't have to introduce fear back into my heart, at least not seemingly so.
"Alright," I responded. "If it so requires, I will meet with him. When do we leave?
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r/bluelizardK
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Red lights flickered overhead as the landing craft started its descent. The metal interior rattling as I checked my ammunition inside of my rifle, my heartbeat audible with every dull click. I shouldn't have skipped that damn lesson in basic training, but here I am on an alien world to sabotage an insurgent airstrip.
A sudden lurch throwing me against my seats restraints the red lighting completely vanishing. Several seconds passing in darkness as I forced my magazine back into the rail gun. Static suddenly obliterating the silence as the dull click of the magazine's lock passed. "*Twenty seconds get your equipment and get off of my plane.*"
The rear hatch of the cargo bay lowering my restraints, snapping open as I rushed out of the vehicle. Hot air from the thrusters and the cold mountainous terrain lashing at my clothing as I dragged my bag off of the ramp. Only a split second passing before the snow and air crackled and hissed as the spacecraft lifted off scorching the ground clean of snow.
.
The dark shadow quickly fading into the clear night sky becoming one of hundreds of small flickering lights. My knees immediately bucking underneath me as I sat down on my bag it's metal content holding its shape. I can't do this I'm not meant to be here, I'm a fake a lier and colossal cheat.
Carefully I pulled back the heavy bag's zipper exposing the interior of the four rotors gleaming in the moonlight. Several seconds passing as I opened the rest of the canvas pulling out the monstrous craft. It's four wings unfolding as I removed the covering moving with practiced efficiency.
But just because I cheat doesn't mean that my enemy won't cross that line to win and come back home alive. That's something my mentor taught me during those first few days in the academy. Quickly I pulled myself to my feet brushing off the snow from my boots and dragging the hover bike center in the clearing.
.
My gloves firmly clasped around the rip cord for the gasoline engine as I inject the primer into the starter. I know my enemy will not play fair, quickly I threw my arm back, the engine briefly sputtering before dying. So I will not play fair either, slowly I return the cord to the starter putting my knee onto the body of the craft.
The winter chill pushing through my thin jacket as I prepared priming the engine one more time and taking a deep breath. I am a liar, cheat and perhaps even a thief. That is my service. I am a spy. *Crack* the cord quickly rips backward the engine sputtering to life forcing the quad rotors into motion as I mount the craft.
Snow now visibly swirling under the rotors as I push the vehicle forward gliding down the winter slopes. Rocks, trees and underbrush rushing past as I ride along the mountain side nearly colliding with a collapsed tree. My hands forcing the joystick backwards and the propellers away from the obstruction.
.
The entire forest still as I look back through the small clearing I had traversed, the path almost imperceptibly disturbed by my unseen passage.
| 2020-04-17T20:03:13 | 2020-04-17T16:09:55 | 106 | 41 |
[WP] People can buy, sell, trade, or give away their skills. Some skills are passed from father to son, like woodworking. Your uncle recently died and left you a box. Inside is a warning, and a very particular set of skills, skills he acquired over a very long career.
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They were unmarked.
It must be the biggest faux pas ever to give someone unmarked pins. Doesn’t matter if you have told them exactly what was on them, which of course my uncle Jack, being dead, hadn’t. You just didn’t give anyone pins without clearly marking them. It could be anything really, a mind virus, set to wipe out my brain when I plugged it in behind my ear. Could be petabytes of porn memories passed down through generations, copied, expanded, letting me be in the moment of millions of the hottest things ever. Shoving a blank pin in your port was Russian roulette… yet people did it all the time.
It all came down to how much you trusted the source after all, and trust is malleable, flexible, emotional. We trust our lover, maybe after a few years, maybe after a few moments, but we trust. So we take the pin, we plug it in, and we never remember the horror stories. The broken minds. The dead. The corrupted consciousnesses of those unlucky, those who trusted the wrong person. You hear about them on the news now and then, it scares people… nobody would never trust an unmarked pin from a stranger.
But I trusted Jack. He’d been a quiet man, but a good man. He had helped out here and there with money, always been around with support, always had a good word when needed and took a firm stance against those that acted badly. Or well, that’s what I had learned anyways, from various family gatherings and the occasional run-in when he was visiting my parents.
My dad knew of the inheritance of course, but didn’t know what was in it. He was there when the drone came with it. Not the regular little delivery drones, but one of those official ones with the protection drones at its side. I had to verify my identity with ID and three types of bio before I could have it. It was hard to get a clear retinal scan because I was tearing up, remembering Jack’s death last month.
I didn’t know him that well, but he was family.
I had to trust him, didn’t I?
Yet I didn’t make a rash decision. I anguished over it all day, most of the night. I discussed it with dad, eventually, at four in the morning. He just nodded slowly over his glass of brown.
“Do you know what Jack did with his time?” he asked, swirling the alcohol in the glass and sipping it thoughtfully. I furrowed my brow, sure that I must have picked this up somewhere. Wasn’t it the first thing everyone asked everyone? It always came up. We all did something with our time, be it learning or crafting or travelling or art of some form. I was only 16 so I couldn’t legally travel further than global yet, but I had been pretty much everywhere, and had picked up millions of skills, copied freely from others. I felt like I knew how to do everything in the world, but then we were always held back a bit by that fleshy brain of ours, and the emotional component in particular.
I shook my head, and dad nodded sagely, and a table floated into reach for him to put his drink down on. He got up and went over to the kitchen rep and tapped in his code. Another glass of brown appeared and he handed it to me.
I stared at it as he sat down and picked up his glass again, the table zooming out of view. “My brother was… special. He was curious, like you. Always looking beyond. Beyond our globe, beyond our system, beyond the cluster. Beyond our reality even. But when he got older, there was one beyond that got him more curious than everything else.”
I copied the motions he did with his drink, swirling it carefully in the glass, sipping it… and making a face at the burning sensation. Dad pretended not to see it.
“Jack wasn’t satisfied with the skills we have already. Over the millennia since we started being able to extract and copy and import data straight to our brains every human skill is now available to every human. If it wasn’t for the somewhat limited capacity of our brains and the incompatibilities between certain skillsets every human alive would know every skill ever invented.”
I listened transfixed. This was common knowledge, of course, although it wasn’t the sort of thing ever really discussed. It just was. As obvious and mundane to us as the yearly gene tweak appointments while we were growing up.
“Jack went beyond skills. He collected a very specific sort of skills… and I believe those may be what he left you. The lack of marking isn’t for any nefarious purposes, it’s just that the marking system doesn’t have the words to describe what’s in there.”
I was in the middle of another sip and coughed suddenly. “But… how could that be? Surely there are words for every human skill available, or even inventible ones could be described…?”
“Yes,” dad said, and downed the last of his brown in a big swig.
“Every *human* skill.”
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I slid open the door and crawled out of the glass box carefully without a sound, taking care to land softly on the opposite foot.
Tiptoeing down the stairs, I threw the rope around final bannister and made great effort to pull myself towards it without tripping the alarms.
With a great sense of triumph, I sprang victoriously into the hallway and slammed straight into a glass wall. A single tear traced down to my cheek, and I turned to my audience broken and defeated.
"Fuck sake, honey. He's doing that stripey-French shit again."
| 2017-02-04T23:39:52 | 2017-02-04T17:45:49 | 289 | 60 |
[WP] A sorceress comes to your kingdom and says, "In three days, I shall bring my army to your kingdom and conquer it. But be warned, whatever technology or people you use to defend yourself, we will use to attack you."
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When Time was young and the gods had yet to waken, they slumbered softly at her breast and dreamt of many things. Of course, since they were gods, they dreamt of every world that came to be. That is why there are worlds beyond our world, that we visit sometimes in our sleep.
Alas, the gods had just begun to dream our world into being, when Time sneezed and they awakened. Thus, our world began as a single kingdom, encircled by a great white wall that rose into the heavens without end.
We did not know then, of course, that we lived in a world that was incomplete. It did not occur to us to think of anything beyond the wall. Indeed, the gods had not even dreamt of a gate to open that border. So, we lived simple, unexamined lives under a gray, unchanging sky.
Yet, just as we often leave small thoughts behind in our dreams, so the gods left behind a notion, as they were jostled out of their sleep. Because they had been so rudely awakened, it was a little disgruntled. It was: “Ugh, what’s that noise? I’m in the middle of a very good dream!”
The thought wallowed outside the kingdom, in confused dissatisfaction, until at last it took the form of a sorceress, walked straight through the wall, and stormed into the royal castle.
“In three days,” she said to the court, which stared in puzzled fascination, “I shall raise an army and bring your kingdom to its knees. I will summon the champions you choose across the wall. Be warned: whatever people you use in your defense, I will use in turn against you.”
With that, she vanished, back to the void beyond the wall.
The court was fairly rational, and took the disappearing for a sign that she was, indeed, supernatural. So, they pondered her challenge with great deliberation.
“If we send our kindest,” said the Queen, “Then she must use kindness against us. In this way, we will become friends. ”
“But why not our most peaceful?” said the Minister of Alms, “Peace on both sides would preclude war.”
“Send our happiest,” said the Jester, “The happy man brings no quarrel to his neighbor, but joy. ”
The court agreed, in the end, that those were the most viable defenses to risk in this tricky situation. And, since the Queen, the Minister, and the Jester were the very personifications of their suggestions, it was decided that they would be the champions of the realm.
When the clock struck twelve on the appointed day, a thunderclap sounded. “Come!” rang the voice of the sorceress, and with that, the champions shimmered, and were summoned across the wall. They were surprised to be standing in a dim and empty blankness, but they held fast together and faced the sorceress with no fear.
“So,” said the sorceress, “What have we here?”
She snapped her fingers, and at her back, a legion appeared - so vast in number that the troops seemed like an infinite swarm.
The Queen stepped forward and held out her hands.
“You may begin with me, Madam,” she said, “Come, let us be friends.”
The sorceress snorted, and rolled her eyes. At a loss, the Queen wrung her hands. She looked into the armored faces of the myriad soldiers before her, and her kind heart was so moved at the mere thought of bloodshed that she began to cry. And, because the enchanted army was made to echo their enemy’s heart, they too, felt the sentiment, and began to weep. So she cried and they cried, for what seemed like a very long time, until the tears ran so deep that they all stood in a flood that reached up to their knees.
“Stop!” cried the Sorceress. “Enough before we drown! Let us call this a tie.”
Now, the Minister of Alms waded forward, with a basket of bread in his arms.
“Madam,” he said to the sorceress, “Come, let us let us break bread together in peace.”
“Do you think me a pauper,” said the sorceress, “To need your puny bread and alms?”
The Minister looked at the legion, and thought that he might try with them. So, he sloshed to a blank-faced soldier, beamed, and offered him a roll. The soldier blinked, and a smile very like the Minister’s appeared. He took not the roll, but touched the breadbasket, and suddenly, there were two in his arms. Smiling, he passed the bread to his comrades, who smiled back, and passed on more breadbaskets, until there was an endless sea of smiling soldiers bearing breadrolls, side by side.
“Stop!” cried the Sorceress. “Enough before we choke on crumbs. Again, a tie!”
“Madam,” said the Jester before he broke into a chortle. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Madam, please - “ but a chuckle stopped him again. “Madam,” squeaked the Jester, voice pinched from valiant effort to hold his laughter in, “Let us - “
It was no use. The Jester gave up, and began to guffaw. The humor in the situation was too much for this happiest of clowns.
Behind the sorceress, her army began to grin, then giggle, then roar with hilarious joy. They laughed and laughed, and their laughter lit up the void - until finally, two great balls of light shone above them all.
“You!” shrieked the sorceress, “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“Well -” said the Jester, and dissolved into glee once again.
The sorceress knew defeat when she saw it - for all her magic, she was only an afterthought, in the end. She had no weaponry for her army besides the power to reflect what came. She stomped her feet in fury, until waves rose from the floodwater of tears, and she flung her bested army into the sky, where they settled, twinkling, among the shining spheres. Thus were born the oceans, the sun, the moon and the stars. Bread rained down in the army’s wake, and where they fell, continents rose.
It was a long tantrum for the sorceress. She stomped so hard the white wall crumbled, and then she burrowed deep beneath the new-formed earth until she imploded, magnificently, into a core of molten rage. When the land shakes and crumples, and volcanoes smoke and spew, it is because the sorceress is angry, still.
And that is the story of how our world was made complete. We are all descended from the people of that first kingdom, and that is why the best of us are still the champions of kindness, peace and joy.
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"War Council is now in session. We all heard what she said, so let's gather thoughts first. General Wicker, your thoughts?"
The General leaned on the table and answered King Dallon.
"The first we hear of magic, and it's used to wage War against this Kingdom. We don't know enough yet, but I've had an idea. Let's hear from the others first."
To the left, General Piet shrugged, as did most of the Alliance representatives sent that day.
"If she aims to use our technology against us, then we should devise a defensive strategy that would be effective against an attacking army of us, right?"
A murmur went around the room. General Vaddis suddenly prodded the air in front of her with great purpose and said "how are they going to use landmines in an offense? I have a Pioneer Regiment who are too... creative to safely exist in peacetime; they've come up with some nasty stuff since the Callatrian Campaign."
Wicker raised an eyebrow and mused, "what if we fitted our men with bomb jackets..."
The room quickly fell silent, until the King turned to the shrinking General and said "It wouldn't be your worst idea, General. But I have a new proposal."
The room turned collectively to the King, and waited.
"She gave us three days. We'll give her three hours."
The King grinned.
"And an overwhelming show of force."
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"Captain Renner, Sir! We think we've found her!"
"You think? Then. I guess I'll have to come and take a look." The Captain pointed at the Sergeant in front of him. "Show me, then."
The Sergeant saluted and bellowed, "Right, this way, Sir!" and trotted through the wreckage of the collection of the buildings.
"GR really made a mess of this place, eh Sarge!" Renner wasn't a huge fan of BDA, but he much preferred to operate after the fire missions.
Renner approached a cluster of Rangers who were lazily orbitting a man crouched down with his camera pointed at a battered corpse.
Standing up, he addressed the Captain.
"HVT is verified, Cap. Guess them magic dragons weren't expecting Panavia's finest."
The 'corpse' spewed up a lungful of blood and cursed.
"You... weren't supposed to-"
The Captain swiftly mustered his Pistol and expertly placed a shot between her eyes, which rolled back along with her head.
"HVT is verified. Confirmed dead."
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*Feedback appreciated. I'm too tired to give it a good ending.
| 2016-10-20T18:50:26 | 2016-10-20T18:01:23 | 28 | 10 |
[WP] Darkness is a physical presence. Touching it is deadly. Humanity lives only in brightly lit cities, connected with brightly lit roads. Your job is to patrol the roads an ensure all the lights are working.
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The Lamp Watchers were a valued and vital force of the New Empire. Nobody really knows much about the old empires, just that there must have been at least one. So much of what they left behind still remains. The cities of the New Empire were built on the ruins on the old cities, using their old walls to light the surrounding darkness to hold back it's tide with each setting sun. The Wall Watchers were responsible for keeping those lights lit and probably had a more important role than the Lamp Watchers, probably the most important role in the entire empire, but it was not the life for me. I couldn't spend my life sitting around.
Few people would ever leave the city they were born in. It was dangerous, even with the Lamp Watchers patrolling the roads, ensuring the way was lit and the roads were safe. However, no matter how many Watchers were assigned, a lamp would always go dim eventually. As it did it weakened the force holding back the darkness, let it bleed in, touching those who walked by, stroking their very soul, twisting them. Night sickness was untreatable and as deadly to those who contracted it as it was to those around them.
Lamp Watchers didn't just tend to the lamps, they also had to be ready to defend themselves against those who had been afflicted with the night sickness. The Lamp Watchers were the empire's guards of the road and ensured the safety of those who used them. Even if sometimes that meant killing those very same people. The sounds that came from the darkness were horrifying at first, the smallest rustle of leaves causing your whole body to tense with fear, especially walking down the road alone on a moonless night. Most people wouldn't even dare leave the house, praying for the return of the moon instead. But the snapping of a twig or the grunting sounds in the blackness were more often the result of a rabbit or boar than they were that of a person struck by the night sickness. Nobody knew why it was only humans affected by the sickness, but that was just the way it was.
The rise of the New Empire had happened around one hundred years ago. The plague of the darkness and the sickness it inflicted had left humanity spread out in small closed off villages. The man who became the first emperor had formed an army. He'd led them, lighting the old roads and carving out paths through the land. They had found the old cities and had led people there. They had been a literal beacon in the dark, drawing even more people in. For the decades following, search parties had travelled to find more villages, leading them to the roads and then to the first city. As that city filled, more had been found and established. Although it was called the New Empire, in it's entirety it only consists of five cities.
The armour of a Lamp Watcher was a breastplate covered in the luminescent glow of a rare plant. It did very little to stop the darkness from touching you, in fact, it did nothing. But it was a symbol, a sign that they were the light in the dark, keeping back the pressing oppression of the night. The halberd they carried had a blade infused with the same glow, only more concentrated. That *did* serve a purpose. Those afflicted with the night sickness seemed to have an aversion to light. They'd walk alongside the roads rather than on them whilst searching for travellers to attack and would almost never enter the well lit cities. Often they would attack by trying to drag people off the road and into the dark. There was no saving those people. Occasionally you'd find one afflicted who would stand their ground in the light, even as it visibly reddened and blistered their skin. They'd ignore it as they spat and snarled at you looking for an opening in which they could get a hold of you and pull you back and down into the abyss of the night. They seemed to have little regard for their own preservation, taking bone crushing blows from clubs and cudgels. You could fill them with arrows and they didn't seem to slow their step. I'd even seen one lose an arm to a sword and still drag the swordsman off into the dark. The luminescent blade of the halberd however would give them pause. A cut with that would cause them to writhe in agony and it seemed to be the only thing that would actually stop them.
Every mercenary guard worth their pay would carry a glow weapon given the option. The only problem was the cost of infusing the metal was more than most could afford. Which was how I ended up here. On my face, in the dirt, stripped of my armour and weapon, with a very nasty bump on the back of my head. I should have seen it coming. For the better part of a decade I've patrolled the roads, perhaps it was my complacency that got the better of me. Although I knew it was more likely the girl with the green eyes and black hair. She had been beautiful and I'd been more than happy to talk to her, especially when she smiled at what I said and stroked my arm. I should have seen the look in her eyes. That little flicker over my shoulder to the man who had clubbed me. It hadn't been an obvious tell, she was clearly meant to keep me focused on her, but it was enough for me to curse myself for not seeing it.
They were all gone now. My head was killing, my vision slightly fuzzy as I pushed myself up onto my knees and dusted off the gravel from my face. I looked around and saw I was all alone. At least, I hoped I was. The sound of a branch cracking off to my left, about five meters off the road caught my focus. Another sound, the scraping of dirt followed it. I drew the knife from my boot as I slowly stood into a crouch, wishing I had my halberd right about now.
EDIT - I have to go now, I'll add another post later continuing the story as people seem to like it! :)
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As I walk these haunted streets, I grieve for the tainted night.
The sidewalks are etched with light. Bars of iron sprout from the pavements, soaring overhead and thrusting back down onto the gravel. Vines of wire encircle the metal arches, bearing blossoms of mismatched bulbs. Soft glows mingle with harsh fluorescence as I traverse the path with my patchwork satchel, plucking away the dead blooms.
The darkness grows closer at each retrieved bulb, crowding at the sudden gloom before shying away as I ignite the wick of a waxen candle. The shadows retreat, afraid for the moment. Soon, bolder fingers of the dark stretch forward to caress the flame, only to be burned away by the cleansing flame.
Quiet whispers and hushed voices fill the air as travelers bed down under the incandescent vines. I tread softly around these weary folk best as I can, following the riverine road that leads the way to the next settlement. I nod a greeting to a fellow gardener as I cut at the night with candle and torch.
I look up into the blackened skies as I use up the last of my candles, a cloudless sky with no hint of starlight. The taint had engulfed the world in a blanket of leaden darkness, blinding us to the astral tapestries above. A brief pause as sorrow takes over, then I move on into the light.
| 2014-12-14T22:35:38 | 2014-12-14T22:01:18 | 530 | 20 |
[WP]everyone has a sigil on their body that represents powers that were bestowed onto humanity after the rapture of the Milky Way. The bullies at school always pick on you because you never used your power, but you’ve had enough. Now they are going to find out why your sigil is a plain old circle
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As I walk home from school, I can hear the voices that bother me the most at the park. "Mine is four crosses that all meet with one corner. It kinda makes a star shape!"
"Oooh, can I see? Sounds cool. What does it do?"
"It's on my back. It lets me bend light and make illusions!" The new peers of this nemesis of mine watch in awe as he lifts his shirt and shows them the intricate detail on his back. He then folds his arm and exhales heavily. When he does, the very light around him begins moving, and he makes himself appear much taller than his peers.
Mark Gibson. I have hated him for years. Ever since middle school he's been the popular kid that picks on everyone except his little 'popular' crowd. Even now, as juniors in high school, he remains a childish bully. He looks over as he releases the illusion. "What's the matter, plain-face? Embarrassed? Wish your Emblem was cool like mine?"
"Shut up, Mark. I don't want to talk to you." As I looked up, he came close and struck me with an open palm.
"Don't you ever say anything like that again to me, you hear, shithead?" Mark had a slight grin on his face. I saw him about to exhale, a sure sign of him readying his Emblem's power. As soon as I noticed it, I delivered a swift kick to his groin. He winced in both shock and pain.
"NOW YOU'VE DONE IT!" Mark recovers quickly and counters with a punch to my gut. I could feel the force pressing the air out of my body, but I can't let him win. I remove my jacket to allow for better movement. My Emblem, a black circle on my shoulder, is revealed after I've gone down to the tank top underneath the jacket. I wore this today intentionally. Nobody has ever seen my Emblem, and they're about to learn why I hide it.
"Haha! Look, guys! His Emblem looks so boring! Or did you just draw that on yourself? You pathetic kid!" 'Tsk, tsk, tsk... You should not have done that,' I thought to myself. I pulled back my open hand and closed it as I brought it closer to his face. The black circle turns blue, and emits a bright light. 'Blue, huh? I can work with that.'
"Uh, hey, what the hell is tha-" Mark shut his mouth as my fist connects with his jaw. However, my fist backs up immediately after impact, and delivers a lightning-fast strike again. Another. A fourth, fifth, sixth. I stop there. Mark falls over, holding his lower jaw and covering his face. He's clearly scared of me now.
My Emblem changes what it does hourly. Its color determines that. Blue, for example, allows me to rapidly repeat a simple action such as punching or kicking up to twenty times within four seconds. After using it, I need up to 30 seconds to rest, depending on how many times I use it.
"You wanna say any of that again? Go ahead. I dare you." I position myself over him, and put my foot on his chest to ensure he can't get up. I press down so he can't activate his Emblem.
"Okay, okay! You win! Just stop!" His bright green eyes have become awash with fear. This is too good to stop now.
"Stop? Now? When will the circus call you back? Because you would have quite the resume to show them. Especially if you think I am done!" 'Finally, twenty seconds have passed. This should be enough,' I think to myself as I ready the leg on his chest. Before he realizes it, I send my full twenty kicks straight into him. He's practically crying.
"Dude, seriously! It's all just for fun! I'm never trying to hurt you, I mean it!"
I abruptly countered this argument. "Fun?! You think giving me a black eye the day before a funeral is fun? You think telling teachers I do all the terrible things you do to get me in trouble is fun? This is fun to you?!" My hatred begins pouring through the cracks of my outwardly positive demeanor. I briefly look at my watch, and notice that it's 5:58. In two minutes, I can switch it up completely. Man, I hope I don't get White. That one's always been useless.
"I thought it was all play-fighting, John! I mean it!" Damn, not enough time yet. I can't just pound into him again. Instead, I lift my leg and let him get up. Looking down upon him is fun and all, but I think watching him fall over and struggle to get back up is more interesting.
"It's not. It never was, scum!" I would never call anyone 'scum.' Not out loud, at least. I didn't even realize I did until it happened. Now that the time has passed, I get back to it. He stands, and I run my fist into his forehead, once again giving him the Twenty-Shot Special. I begin laughing after thinking up that name, because he falls over like he's had twenty shots. I decided to keep that in mind.
Suddenly, I remind myself that the human body does have a limit, and if I don't stop this, he's gonna pass it. Not worth the jail time. So, I grabbed his arm and picked him up. "You insult me again, and you'll see there's so much more to me. You understand that, Mark Gibson?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback and criticism always appreciated! Thanks for reading!
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I’ve never activated my sigil in public. It’s not a cool power anyway... that was what I thought.
But in a world where everyone has their own talent manifest, I just didn’t fit in.
That’s why the bullies found me to be an easy target.
“Look it’s Shit ring!” I heard Warren yell as I tried to ignore him.
That’s right, a big fat brown circle, not even where it’s subtle smack dab on my forehead. Zeroface, talentless, shit ring...
Warren sported a black brand of lightning on his fist. It’s cool and he knows it, especially when he zaps people.
I ignored him, and he strides to catch me.
“Let me go!” Inadvertently, I shrink from him whilst he continues to tease me.
Suddenly, his face blanks, and the look of shock washes over him. Moans escape his mouth uncontrollably.
I realised I have accidentally triggered my sigil. He was having an instant orgasm, and he won’t be able to stop until he passes out.
I turn and ran ...
*Edited for grammar*
| 2020-02-26T08:45:39 | 2020-02-26T07:22:06 | 68 | 43 |
[WP] Whenever you speak, people hear you speaking in their native language. Most people are surprised and delighted. The cashier at McDonalds you've just talked to is horrified. "Nobody's spoken that language in thousands of years."
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"You're going to have to say that again, because I have no idea what in the fuck you're trying to say," I inform the sparkling conversationalist that just conversed in little more than grunts and growls.
"Nobody's spoken that language in thousands of years," the young man behind the counter informs me, seemingly confused as to how I didn't understand him the first time.
"Cool, can I get my food now?" I ask, impatiently. I really don't want to get mixed up in anything today.
"I don't think you understand - that language? It's more than dead. It's extinct. How do you know it?"
I pinch the bridge of my nose with an exasperated sigh. It's damn near midnight, and I don't feel like going through the whole process of explaining my "skill".
"Congratulations; I don't care. Can I get my food now?"
"Not until you tell me how you know that language," he hisses at me. "My family have kept that language alive, but secret, for generations."
"Well, then, it's not very extinct, is it?" I lean against the counter, the exhaustion of the day catching up with me. "Look, man - I just have this ability, to speak the native language of whoever I speak to. Can't understand it, but it just comes out of my mouth. It's useful in a traffic jam, but that's about it." I yawn, my eyes drifting shut as I feel myself growing even more tired. "So I don't know your fuckin bullshit language - I just want some food."
"I don't believe you."
"Once again, I do not care. My food, please."
He purses his lips and completes the transaction. Finally!
After waiting for what feels like an eternity, I finally get my tray of food, and simply nod to the cashier as I head over to the closest empty table. Being the only customer in here, it's not hard to find one.
Before I even have a chance to eat, my newfound irritation sits down across from me. I close my eyes, and take a deep breath. "Look, can I just enjoy my food in peace?" Taking another look at my burger, I mutter to myself, "okay, maybe 'enjoy' is pushing it..."
"If what you told me about your ability is true, then we could use your help - there's a word we've lost, a very important word. The only word left unknown in the language, in fact." He leans forward a bit. "And it's the word that opens an ancient safe, in which who knows what kind of riches are stored. If you help me open it, I'll give you some of it."
I stare at him, the cogs working in my tired brain. Eventually, I decide to just humor him - after all, money is money. "I'll open it, so long as I don't have to speak to anyone else in your family."
He nods, and I sigh as I quickly scarf down my food. We head outside, exchanging no conversation whatsoever, and share a quiet car ride to his home. It doesn't take very long to get there.
It's an old house - maybe seventy years old, judging by the area and the style of the design.
He leads me to a shed behind the house, and opens it with a key from his belt.
"This better be a decent amount of money, because you're probably very fired right about now," I mutter. He chuckles at that, and silently opens the doors, letting enough moonlight in for me to see the single box on a small table. It looks like it's steel, and it doesn't seem to have any seams at all.
"It's a code - and we know all the numbers in it, expect the zero. We don't know what that translates to. The code is just the numbers one to nine, and then zero. Could you say that, and maybe your ability will automatically translate it?"
I nod, and approach it while clearing my throat. I speak as if I'm speaking to him - I don't know what the limits of my ability are in terms of just speaking aloud to nobody in particular. I list one to nine, and, my heart pounding and nerves on edge despite how tired I am, I say the final number: zero.
As soon as I say it, my throat feels like it's on fire. I fall to me knees, coughing and hacking, and feeling as if I'm going to die. Tears come to my eyes, and I feel something coming out of my throat - not through my esophagus, as if I'm vomiting, but my trachea. It's painful, but I don't think it's causing any kind of damage.
One huge cough brings with it the cessation of pain, and the sound of metal falling onto wood. I open my eyes in confusion, and see I've coughed up a metal disk of some sort.
"What the fuck - what is this!?" I exclaim, confused and a bit scared. I look over at my new "friend". "What happened!?"
He looks pale, and just as confused as I am. "Y-you're speaking English now," he informs me. I look back down at the disk, even more confused than before. I frown, not really understanding what in the hell is going on.
Regardless, I wordlessly follow a faint instinct. I pick up the disk, stand, and press it against the cube.
The disk is immediately absorbed into its mass, and I jump as a loud mechanical clunk echoes throughout the shed. Whirring and mechanical sounds persist, and I faintly hear a door open and confused voices approaching the shed. I swallow back fear and look up at...
"I never got your name," I announce. It seems so trivial to think of, while a solid cube makes otherwordly sounds. But it's all I can think about, oddly enough.
"William," he introduces himself. "You?"
"Simon," I reply. I return my attention to the cube as the sound suddenly stops, and become acutely aware of people watching me from the doorway. I hear William explaining stuff to the new observers, but find myself captivated as the cube slowly opens, transforming in ways that shouldn't be physically possible.
Out of it comes a single, glowing stone. Despite my better judgement, I reach out to pick it up.
"No!" Someone behind me exclaims. It's too late - even as they grab my shoulder, my hand has closed around the enigmatic treasure. I feel a sudden surge of energy, and my vision goes white. I feel myself fall to the floor, and then - nothing.
|
I entered the store,the fresh smell of grease and soggy fries flooding my nose. How the workers endured the smell for more then fifteen minutes I have no clue,not that it mattered to me but it was always the first thing I thought of when I entered.
A few seconds later my nose had adjusted to the smell and so I walked up to the register,a friendly voice spoke in the usual zombified teenage cashier tone. You know the one. “hi,what can I get for you?” I glanced up at the menu for a second,processing all the items, I had decided I was going to get something different to usual but now I was actually ordering? “Uhh. Just a large cheeseburger menu. Meal. I mean meal”
I had tripped over my words. Fantastic. This was honestly not that rare for me. Usually the worker would ignore the mistake and move on... but she was just staring, at first I thought it may have been my clothes or my hair,maybe I had something in my teeth? No no,nothing about me was any different to usual. It took me a second to think about how I spoke. See,I have this odd trick. No matter what language I speak people only hear me in their native tongue. I realised she must’ve been taken aback by this.
It was just after I realised all this she spoke “no one has spoken in that language in thousands of years. It is forbidden to my people” what? What had she said? Forbidden? I tilted my head a little and apologised “sorry,I don’t understand? I asked if I could have a large cheeseburger meal.” her facial expression turned to disgust and she stepped back.
Had I offended her somehow?
Tears began running down her face and she ran out,a coworker yelling for her to come back. Everyone watched and the place went quiet. I began to consider chasing her. The restaurant was making me slightly nauseous,ill admit that but I didnt feel like getting involved in anything today. My conscience got the better of me,I felt bad for making her cry. I started running after her,each foot moving slightly faster then the last.
| 2018-06-24T21:55:57 | 2018-06-24T20:22:38 | 80 | 25 |
[WP] So this is what being in a car crash felt like. Not as painful as you thought it would be. But you can't feel your toes. You look down, your leg is missing from the knee onwards. There's no blood, no bone, no muscles. Instead you see mechanical components.
|
Somehow, that made me more nauseous than blood would have and for a moment, I just stared at my body in horror. Then my senses fully came to me. My husband and son, in the car next to me. The eighteen-wheeler slamming our cars and a half dozen others into the divider.
My head swam and I pressed a hand to my forehead. It was cold, metallic, and when I pulled back to examine my fingers, I saw a strip of metal behind the skin.
*"Trust me, this is the only way."*
*The only way, the only way, the only way.*
*There was always another way but he was never going to understand that and you'd long lost your ability to protest-*
"There's a survivor in this car! Police! Police there's someone alive here!" The hysterical shriek came from a young woman who'd been peering into the cars as she ran down the line, looking for anyone still stirring. Her face alit with hope and panic as she knocked against my window.
"No..." My voice is a slurred mumble.
"Stay calm. Stay calm! Are you hurt? Stay conscious, ok? How bad are you hurt? Bleeding? I don't see anything." She leans back to look over to the flashing emergency vehicle lights. "Police please!"
They can't see me like this though. I didn't know what they'd do but it wouldn't be good. How was I breaking out in such a sweat despite being... being...
What was I?
*"My son will be beautiful. Humans are an... an imperfect machine. You understand, Cecelia. You understand. What I give to you is the gift any human would die for."*
*You will die for it too. The man claims this isn't the end for you.*
*You wish it was.*
When I opened my eyes, I was trapped in the car once again. The woman still pressed her face against the window.
"Miss," I said, my voice a truncated pant. "You have to go. Find my family."
A family road trip gone wrong. Jamie had wanted to ride with his father cause Bryan always played classic rock in the car and I played country. Somewhere, in the depths of my memory, I could hear Bryan singing along to whatever 80s tune was playing.
'Rock of ages! Still rolling!'
'Ever since I can remember, you've been hanging round this joint!'
'The only way... The only way...'
\_\_\_
There's a certain kind of feeling where your entire body goes numb. It's not numb the way medicine can make it. No, all you feel is an electric tingle and your mind seems to hover a few inches above your skull. The only other thing you feel is a cold spreading in your gut.
It's the feeling you get when you've realized a truth too horrible to accept.
\_\_\_
"Mom!"
They found my family. Part of my brain wants to hug Jamie until his tears stop. I want to tell him I'll be alright, he'll be alright. We'll be alright.
Part of me, though, wants to know how Bryan will get out of this.
*"I can't hold the bodies of any more dead children." His hands are busied with recreating you to suit his needs. "Three years. Three sons lost before their first breaths. I can't handle the loss anymore, Cecy."*
*If you could speak, you would tell him there were other ways. Your body is not meant for this. It can't do what he wants. He should find another woman or a child in need of a home.*
*His solution was to make your body fit for what he needed. Pain has become a thing of the past, and in its place remains only white-hot fear.*
*"If this goes right, you won't remember a thing. If this goes right, everything goes back to normal and we have our son. Isn't that worth a little sacrifice? If this goes right, we get everything."*
*'If'*
*and if it goes wrong, you lose everything.*
*The light fades.*
The light from an oncoming ambulance blinded me as my eyes opened again. My mouth tasted like metal and I laughed weakly as my five year old son trundled in view.
"Mom!" he said again, his voice breaking in a way a child's never should.
Then, before he can reach the window, a shadow approached from behind and scooped him up.
"Get my son to the ambulance."
It was the voice that had invaded my memories so violently these past few moments. Oh god, why?
I wanted to cry out to the young woman, who now clutched my son in her arms. I wanted to ask her to bring him to me, so I could touch his smooth, soft cheek one last time.
"Hurry!" Bryan shouted, his voice the perfect mask of desperation. "I smell gasoline."
He set the stage so perfectly that the woman turned to run, not even asking him to follow. She was just a bystander. Shouldn't be expected to risk her life. But watching her retreat with my screaming son was the worst pain I'd experienced so far.
Especially knowing I'd never hear his voice again.
"Cecelia." Bryan's voice was hoarse, apologetic, and afraid. "Are you... oh god. Cecy, I'm so sorry."
"It was the only way." My words creaked from my damaged lips, but they bite in a way the metal of the car warped around me could never. "The only way?"
"You understand what I have to do, right?" He was crying at that point but fiddled, none the less, with a mechanism on the car, just out of sight. "Our family is destroyed. I don't know what to do."
The last time he'd said this to me was when I woke from an unexpected slumber to find my body paralyzed and almost numb.
Almost.
"You weren't supposed to remember. I would have handled all your medical needs. As I had. I'd done such a good job." If he wanted my assurance that he was a good man, he'd have to pry it from my dying lips.
As it was, I said no more. I wouldn't beg. I already knew it wouldn't work.
He turned towards the flashlights that now bobbed towards us.
"I smell gasoline!" he shouted again but this time I did too. I closed my eyes then and the rest passed in a blur of noise. A few frantic moments. The police urging my husband away. Them wrestling him from the car. Then a growing heat-
\_\_
"Mom? Dad, she's awake!"
My eyes flickered open and my heart soared to see my little son clutching my hand.
Bryan sprinted into the room moments later, his face not daring to hope. I just gave him the crooked smile he always told me he'd fallen for a decade earlier.
"Oh god, Cecy." He clasped my hand. "Are you in any pain? Are you... Jamie, go get your mother some water. Oh god, Cecelia."
"I'm never driving near a damn eighteen-wheeler again," I said, the laugh on my lips stinging my throat.
"What do you remember?" he asked. "Any pain..."
I shook my head a few inches, all that my stiff neck would let me. "Just the impact. The last thing I remembered was a prayer that you two would be alright."
It was sappy and he knew it too as he gave me an awkward hug, laughter and tears tumbling from him.
"Then someone answered that prayer. We were barely scratched."
"Thank god," I whispered. "I'm the luckiest woman alive."
"Then I'm the luckiest man." He pressed my hand to his lip as our son ran back into the room. "My family is safe. That's a gift anyone would die for."
For just a moment, a wave of nausea runs over me. Then I take the glass of water offered to me by my son, and the feeling passes.
___
Read more stories at [r/TalesByOpheliaCyanide](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesByOpheliaCyanide/)
|
I blink up into a blinding light and squeeze my eyes shut again. What's going on? I want to ask but my voice seizes up. All I can muster is a groan.
My limbs won't move. I look down and my leg is a tangled mess of sinewy wires. Panic wells inside me and I try to scream but I can't.
"He's alert!" someone says.
"Shit."
There's a flurry of movement and the last thing I see is thick goggles on a masked face.
***
Gentle sunlight warms my face, pulling me from sleep. I blink my eyes open and look around the room. Fluorescent lights cast a sterile glow over the balloons and flowers piled in the corner.
I glance outside the window and wince at the brightness of the sun. It shocks me back into the car, the blaring horn too late a warning before headlights blinded me into a crunching darkness. The car accident...
My leg. There's something wrong with my leg. My limbs feel like hardened jelly and I flop uselessly in bed. Groaning, I struggle to pull back the covers when someone walks in.
"Looks like someone is feeling better!"
I take in the white coat and the clipboard. A doctor.
"My leg," I croak. My throat feels like a desert.
"Hm? You feeling pain?"
"Something's wrong."
The doctor consults the charts, muttering about cracked ribs and bruising, then puts the clipboard down and walks over. He easily flips up the blanket and reveals my perfectly normal leg.
He tests for feelings of pain, but I shake my head. That's strange, isn't it? I feel the soreness in my ribs and shoulders, but nothing in the lower half of my body. Why is that?
I wiggle my toes and they move just as they should--just as they always have.
The doctor checks my morphine levels and seems satisfied. He gives some non-answer about phantom pain or trauma and then leaves.
I can't get the memory of metal and wires out of my head. Everything else is fuzzy, but my mechanical leg is seared into my brain in perfect detail. What did they do to me?
I have to know.
Biting back a groan, I swallow the aching pain in my chest and lean towards my leg. My fingers crawl over the skin. It feels... normal... too normal. There are no bruises, no cuts. My skin even feels smoother than I remember, like it's synthetic.
It's not real. My fingers dig into the skin, leaving crescent moons. It can't be real. Blood drips onto the sheets. It's not real. Fake blood and muscle to hide the truth. If I dig deep enough, I'll find metal instead of bone.
Blood rivers down my leg, and I sit in a pool of red. Just like the pool of red in the car.
I don't feel pain. I didn't feel it then either. It seemed strange, in the car. Everything happened in a moment and I felt nothing. Just like now. As I rip through the skin, I feel nothing. As I dig into flesh, I feel nothing. And I know that if I can get just a little further, I'll know the truth of why I feel nothing at all.
Just a little further...
"Doctor!" a voice shrieks. A nurse tries to pry my hands away, but I can't give up now. I'm so close, so close. I need to know.
More footsteps, more bodies, there's more wrestling with me but I have to know. I need to know what they did to me.
The thought scrolls across my mind as my vision goes dark.
*****
Thanks for reading! Feel free to find more stories at r/rulerofstorybears
| 2020-12-17T08:57:06 | 2020-12-17T08:31:11 | 528 | 39 |
[WP] In your effort to create a Rube-Goldberg device, you have somehow stumbled into building a perpetual energy engine. As you try to recreate the happy accident you further break down the laws of Physics with each new invention in a vain attempt to recreate your original engine.
|
Professor Lou Pole, possibly the greatest mind of his generation, had no business leaving his prestigious (and very high paying job) at ELITE AND NEEDLESSLY EXPENSIVE UNIVERSITY.
But he did.
When he told his adjuncts and fellow professors where he was moving, each and every one of them responded with an expression of disbelief - a laugh, a gasp, a mystified shake of the head. Aiden Ungerton, the Departmental Head of Physics, posited that perhaps, at long last, Pole's vast intellect had proven *too heavy* for the stringy old man, and had buried him in a self-destructive bout of insanity.
Yet, when Professor Pole hopped off the train, a tiny suitcase rolling behind him, there was a whistle on his lips, and an unusual energy to his step.
He arrived in Podunk, Oklahoma, where not a single person knew his name, his legacy, nor much of anything regarding the modern scientific advances of the last five hundred years. It was a dream *come true*. He bought a barn, a peaceful retreat where his gadgetry and testing apparati could sprawl and be tinkered on in peace. Not to mention the rent was about one fifth what he paid for his dusty, cramped apartment.
The simpleton who hauled his equipment, his instruments and devices and other gizmos, was a giant, friendly boy - about the age of the students he had taught at EANE University. The simpleton, Job, or James, or some such folksy name, was a curious fellow and after he spent many, many sweaty hours hauling in Professor Pole's precious items, Jack (or Jonathan) began to prod.
They were in the barn, surrounded by scattered tools and chunks of machinery. Lou had his finger pressed to his lips, trying to *envision* where his appliances should fit, when the simpleton's deep voice rolled down from the rafters:
"Is this a laser gun?" Jacob held out a device, vaguely shaped like a hand-held firearm.
Lou was about to snap at the boy for the umpteenth time to *put that down! Don't you know what fragile means?* Instead, he raised his eyebrows in surprise - this time, the boy was close with his guess, "No, that is a Lidar Gun."
The last item the simpleton picked up, he guessed was a tiny teleportation device. How the boy even knew the word teleportation was a bottomless mystery. It, Lou had to explain, was actually a hotplate, and that the boy should *put it down, now, please.*
"A Lidar gun?" the boy tried out the words, "Kind of bullets does it use?"
"It is *not* a weapon," Lou said, "It's used to measure the speed of certain objects."
"Oh," the boy said, his enthusiasm sapped by the mundanity of the Lidar Gun. He tossed it over his shoulder with a shrug. Lou cringed with every clattering bump.
"Joseph," Lou hissed through his teeth, "I think I've had enough help for today, thank-"
"What's this?" Joseph (?) yanked something out of a crate - metal and plastic and mirrors and wires accordioned out of the crate, and slipped out of his hands.
Lou heard the dull 'oops' in the very instant before the one end of the contraption crashed to the ground. His heart stopped. He turned around, expecting to see one of his priceless microscopes or particle beacons split to tiny, irreparable pieces.
A sigh of relief blew through his lips - it was only that infernal "portable Rube Goldberg" gimmick Professor Englebert bought him as a going-away gift. In fact, Lou did not recall ever packing the device, yet now the useless, space-filling trinket, was spilling down from the loft like one of those children's matchbox car tracks.
"That is ..." Lou couldn't think of a way to explain it to the boy. He made a 'why not' face, more to himself than to the simpleton, and said, "That is yours. You can have it."
The boy's eyes lit up brighter than a solar array, "No way!"
His use of the colloquial phrase confused Lou. *Did that mean no, as in no thank you? No way as in he couldn't possibly? No* comma *way, as in-*
While Lou was sussing out this latest puzzle, John (or was it Jason) had disappeared in the loft again. He came back out, holding a very, *very* fragile grape-shaped object - a clear prism that Lou had specially made for one of his failed projects.
The production of that grape cost more than a full-ride through EANE University.
So when Lou sucked in his breath, he had every intention of screaming at the boy to *put that down RIGHT NOW PLEASE*. Instead, he choked, and made an embarassing *gleep* sound.
The boy slotted the grape through a hole in the Rube-Goldberg device - and it began its decent. The boy procured a vaguely firearm-shaped item from the deep pockets of his blue jeans, and pointed it at the grape as it clanked and clinked and clacked it's way down the Rube-Goldberg track.
*Click. Clack*
Each hit was a needle-prick to Professor Pole's pumping heart.
*Clack Clickclack crack clack*.
He watched as it fell all the way to the bottom, only to touch that last, spring-loaded lever and *zip* right back to the beginning.
"Whoa..." the boy said, not bothering to close his jaw. The Lidar gun fell to his side.
*Clickclickcliclckaclclkcackaclkaclkaclakc*-
The grape fell faster this time. The loop was completed in about half the previous time, and showed no signs of slowing.
A realization shuttered through Professor Pole's mind - a blink of a thought, a rejection, the thought reinforced, denial, the thought backed up by visual evidence, and so on. It took several iterations for his brain to accept that maybe, just maybe, this was the beginning of an impossible hypothesis.
*ClkClkClkClkCkCkCkCkkkkkk*-
*Not. Possible.* That's what this was. *Not. Possible.*
He, Professor Lou Pole, was witnessing the first *ever* infinite loop. No loss of energy. In fact, quite the opposite.
Professor Pole's eyes glassed over, his mouth hung open; a perfect mirror of the Simpleton boy.
***
*Would like to write more. Yay? Nay?*
*Update: Votes are in! Second part [is down here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4chl1e/wp_in_your_effort_to_create_a_rubegoldberg_device/d1iq1g2)*
|
Long time ago me and my friend Miles here,
We were experimenting through a long and tiring night.
All of a sudden, there was a shout, in the middle, of the night.
And his wife yelled:
"Build something awesome in there, or get out of the garage!"
Well me and Miles, we looked at each other,
And we each said... "Why not."
And we made some causes and effects of that mess,
Which just so happened to be,
A perpetual energy engine, it was a perpetual energy engine.
Look through my glasses and it's easy to see
One and one make nine, one and four make three,
It was entropy.
Once every couple centuries or so,
When the sun shines blue and the moon doth blow
And the grass doth glow...
Needless to say, his wife was shocked.
A crash went the sandwich platter,
And she forgot to knock.
She asked us: "Are you *scientists*?"
And we said, "Nah. We're just some bros."
Rock!
AHHHHH, AHHHHH, AHH-AH-AHHHH
OHHHH SCIENCE BRO, WOAHH-OH-WOAAAAH!
This is not the perpetual energy engine, no.
This is just a bottle.
Couldn't remember the perpetual energy engine, no, no.
This is a bottle, oh, from the perpetual energy engine,
All right! It was the perpetual energy engine,
All right! It was the best muthafuckin' engine in the world.
[Speak in tongues for two parts]
And the strangest part of that night you bros out there:
The engine we made on that crazy night it didn't actually look
Anything like this junk!
This is just a bottle! You gotta believe me,
And I wish you were there, messing with stuff with us.
Ah, fuck! Oh god, god damnit,
So surprised to find that we stopped it.
All right! All right!
We'll cut back on the beer.
---------------------------------
*Based on Tenacious D's song [Tribute](http://www.metrolyrics.com/tribute-lyrics-tenacious-d.html).*
-----------------------------------
*More at r/galokot, and thanks for reading!*
| 2016-03-29T16:23:10 | 2016-03-29T14:20:34 | 70 | 42 |
[WP] You are a normal citizen in a relatively unimportant country. One day the goverment starts to act crazy, changing ideology overnight, drafting people for the army and antagonizing their neighbours. The player controlling your country in a strategy game has just begun their world conquest run.
|
“And that’s all you need me to do?” I asked. “Just… this one… report, and then I’m done?”
“That’s all,” said the man had given his name as Hartner. “Ten minutes of your time, and we’ll be out of your hair. How difficult can that be?”
He smiled, and even managed to make his eyes twinkle, but I wouldn’t have trusted him for directions to the restroom. *It’s the way he speaks,* I thought. *Smooth. Too smooth. Like he already knows the outcome, and is only entertaining me the way a cat occupies a mouse.*
Hartner sensed the resistance crumbling in me. He tapped the file on the table again, as if there was any way I could have put that out of my mind. “You have the gift of a silver tongue, Mr Lopez,” he said. “You speak to millions every day from the comfort of your radio broadcasting studio. You’ve even lent your voice to a detergent commercial, for goodness sakes. What’s another two hundred words?”
“This is different,” I said. “Are you *sure* this is accurate? That this is true? I can’t put my name behind something that’s not been verified!”
“Of course it’s accurate. You doubt the Ministry of Justice?”
“No, no, I’m not saying that. But this report, it’s so… scanty, you know? None of the details, none of the usual official statements, just conjecture. What if it’s wrong? What if I got sued?”
“Sued? Mr Lopez, please. Isn’t the truth immunity enough against any lawsuit you can think of?”
“Look, if it’s not too much for you, I’d rather have our Legal look through this. Just to clear it, be sure that there’s no mistakes. I can’t afford for my listeners to be misled, especially at a time like this. It’s just… irresponsible if I were to-”
Hartner met my eyes, and the coldness behind his stare set my teeth on edge. Where was security? Where was upper management? Did none of our protocols matter anymore? Could the government simply walk into my booth and then command me to read whatever it was they prepared for me? He smiled again, then clicked open his briefcase once more. From within he produced two more folders, both substantially thicker than the one he had already laid before me.
“Now, this one here’s the carrot, Mr Lopez,” he said, as he placed it before me. His fingers darted across the page as he pointed out words and numbers to me. “I’m authorized to make a donation of this amount here to the accounts of your choosing. There’s the mortgage you’ve been trying to help your parents with, yes? And little Eliza needs her braces changed out too, correct? Wouldn’t a little help go a long way?”
I nodded as I gripped the sides of my chair. The photos of my parents and my daughter were crystal-sharp, and evidently taken from a distance away – telescopic lens?
“You know what this other one is then, right?” he asked with a smile. “You’ve not been entirely… careful with your taxes now, Mr Lopez. Here are some discrepancies our accountants found. Would be a shame if the Ministry of Justice decided to take action on them, as well as maybe these other parking tickets you forgot to pay? And what’s to stop the vandalism charges from coming back? If you lost your job because of that, who would care for your family?”
“Hang on, you can’t do that,” I said, startled by the voice which was straining out from my mouth. I didn’t recognize the sounds I was making. “Those charges should be sealed. Or wiped out, whatever the term is. I was not even an adult when that all happened! They promised me, they said if I stayed clean, they would purge all the records and let me start afresh, and I damn well did-”
“All I’m saying,” said Hartner as he whisked the files away, leaving only the original staring at me, “is just one report. Ten minutes of your time. It would be a good investment of your effort and skill. Trust me on that.”
I could see that there was no choice. No *real*, practical choice offered to me. I could throw the file in his face, of course. Hartner didn’t look like the violent sort, anyway. But I knew his type. He wouldn’t have hurt me then, right then and there, but the moment he left the room my life would be over. And I wouldn’t even see the knives from the dark.
I slid the headphones back on, then pulled the microphone closer to me. I pressed the button which faded out the music, then watched as Hartner leaned back and smiled. The revulsion in my belly grew, and I would have retched my lunch out if it wasn’t for his damned finger tapping on the file, pointing me towards my script.
I took a deep breath, and lied.
“I interrupt our regular program with breaking news. I have just witnessed, with my own eyes, a roving band of Prutainians causing mayhem in our streets. That’s right, our so-called ‘friendly neighbors’ are turning out not to be that friendly after all. I saw them hurt our people, I saw them burn our cars. I called the police, and they are on their way, on their way to get these damn Prutainians off our streets and back to the hellhole they came from. My beloved listeners, heed my warning. If we don’t take care of this Prutainian Problem, why, they will be the ones to get rid of us. More to come, after the break.”
---
/r/rarelyfunny
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On mobile and also not a native speaker, so please go easy on me. Enjoy!
I couldn’t believe the news when I woke up. Our small country just declared war on our neighbors without any pretense. The army has been massively bolstered and the first few battles seemingly went in our favor. Apart from the defensive war against the blues a few years back we never fought before, always improving our economy and infrastructure. Our government always valued good living standards and a full treasury. Our armed forces always were on the weaker side number wise, but they have increased exponentially. I heard that we captured one city of the greens, who we were allied with before. Most of it was razed to the ground and what’s left is being shamelessly exploited by us. They are being oppressed by our forces there. The greens themselves were probably the weakest of our neighbors, but throwing away this long lasting mutual friendship all of the sudden sure surprised me. I heard that there were relentless bombardments on their coasts as well. I don’t think our generals even care about civilian casualties at this point. It’s only been a few hours and we have captured half of their territory already. So far so good, and while the countries of the AI-highlands shouldn’t be too much of an issue, i fear that the great nation of Player 2 wouldn’t leave us go without punishment...
| 2019-03-10T09:58:45 | 2019-03-10T09:03:58 | 110 | 14 |
[WP] An S-Rank adventurer casually sifts through their quest log and notices they still have an uncompleted D-rank request. With a chuckle, they decide finding the farmer’s lost cat could be a relaxing change of pace— they were gravely mistaken.
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The remaining cultists ran away when seeing me charge another lightning bolt.
I thought I'd have to fight more of them, considering my luck during this quest, but they quickly realized how much I out-leveled them after my first spell disintegrated over a dozen people.
All that remained was searching the abandoned temple for that stupid cat. I couldn't believe I had finally cornered it. My excitement couldn't be contained. I was probably more motivated to finish this mission than when I defeated the dark lord himself.
This quest had taken me close to a year to finish. It took me all the way across the continent. I fought ogres that held the cat hostage, only to have the feline run away. Then it got adopted by an evil pirate crew, who fought to the last breath in order to protect it, and then, when I finally got my hands on the kitten, a hurricane struck our boat and left me shipwrecked on a remote land where minions of the dark lord still survived. All of them wanted me dead since I killed their boss.
And, of course, the kitten was nowhere to be seen when I woke up.
This was all my fault, though. If I had done the quest as soon as I accepted it, the cat wouldn't have strayed this far from its home. I didn't even know why I kept going. The reward wasn't noteworthy to someone of my caliber, nor would anyone important really mind if the cat stayed lost forever.
Not even the farmer was too bothered by it.
Most people would've given up by now. Perhaps I didn't want anyone doubting my heroism, or I was too stubborn to give up on a low level quest, or maybe I just needed a distraction after entering early retirement. Either way, I couldn't wait to be done with this journey. Never again would I search for lost pets. I think I'd rather fight a dragon instead.
Finally, after navigating through the overgrown vines of the abandoned temple, I stumbled upon a huge oval-shaped room with a big fire pit in the middle. A dark hooded figure stood on a ledge over it, cackling with manic laughter as the flames rose higher than his lofty stature.
"You arrive, hero! I waited for this for a long time! The dark lord will be avenged, and everyone will remember my name!"
"I don't even know who you are..."
"Of course, where are my manners?" The figure pulled back their cowl, revealing himself to be an elf. "Surely you recognize me now, right?"
I narrowed my eyes, failing to identify him.
"You must be wondering how I'm still alive, you see-"
"No," I interrupted, "I really don't care. I don't even know who you are."
"It's Vulen!" shouted the elf. "Claw of the Dark Lord! Y-you literally ruined my life! How could you forget?"
I shrugged.
Vulen blinked a few times, stupefied. He acted like he had just been slapped in the face. "We literally fought to the death. You invaded my lord's keep and I almost killed you."
"That doesn't narrow it down in the slightest."
Vulen paused for a moment. "I... I think I get it, you're just pretending you don't remember to get in my head. Well it won't work, hero! I'm far too wise for that!"
I rolled my eyes. There wasn't time for this. I started charging up a lightning bolt only to see the cat purring next to the elf's leg.
"Surely," said Vulen, "you've realized by now that I'm the one behind all this. I've been guiding this cat all across New Gaia ever since I realized you were looking for it. And it all led to this moment! My sweet vindication!"
I sighed. Throwing a lightning bolt would also fry the cat.
Vulen grabbed the animal by the scruff of its neck and dangled it over the fire pit. "Since you value this creature so much, the pain caused by its sacrifice will bring back the Dark Lord in all his glory!"
I didn't know what to do. After all the effort I went through, I couldn't bring myself to kill the cat, even if it was the right choice. I'd rather fight the dark lord again.
Just as Vulen was about to let go, the cat bit his finger and crawled inside his robe. The elf couldn't fight back. The cat kept scratching him all over until Vulen stumbled and fell into the fire pit.
I wanted to die, assuming the cat fell along with him, but then saw the kitten purring innocently on the ledge. Perfect. I just needed to slowly approach it and hope it didn't run away again. As soon as I stepped onto the ledge, however, the cat widened its big blue eyes.
"Please," I begged, "don't."
The cat simply meowed.
"Seriously, I can't take more of this."
The cat tilted its head, confused.
I took a step closer.
The cat didn't flinch.
Good. I took another step, more confident than the last. Nothing would stop me this time. I quietly grabbed the cat and looked over my shoulder, hoping nobody would screw me over. Everything seemed clear.
And then the ground started quaking.
The cat looked at me for an answer. I hung my head, defeated. What now?
A gigantic purple demon jumped out of the fire pit.
It appeared Vulen had transformed into a monster by the ritual he created. The demon wasn't just trying to kill me. It also wanted revenge on the cat. What followed was probably the hardest battle of my life, not just because of the demon's strength, but because I had to keep the cat close to me so that it wouldn't escape.
The fight lasted close to twelve hours. I used all of my spells, all of my potions, and broke my enchanted sword, but I emerged victorious in the end. That didn't mean I succeeded, though. My wounds were too great to simply leave the temple. With each step I took, I felt my consciousness slipping away, until I fell on my face, too exhausted to stand up.
The cat meowed in front of me.
"No..." I mumbled. "Not again..."
The cat was pure evil. This cursed creature would force me to keep hunting it. I was sure of it. All throughout this journey, I had seen it cozy up to the strongest person it could find, taking advantage of their power before abandoning them when it wasn't convenient anymore. It would definitely do the same to me. As I closed my eyes, I found myself oddly at peace with that.
I wouldn't keep chasing it. If it wanted to be free that much, then let it. The only reason I hunted it was because I was too proud to admit that something was beyond my skills. This wasn't the case anymore. Following that path would just lead me to the same place Vulen ended at.
Once I woke up, I didn't even try to look for the cat. I limped my way out of the temple, ready to go back home empty handed, only to see the cute little fella waiting for me at the entrance. Nothing made me happier than this moment. Still, despite how good it felt to finally return it home, I swore to myself that, for the rest of my life, I would forever be a dog person.
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>If you enjoyed this, check out more of my stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories. Thanks for reading!
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Years ago, I was thrilled to wake up in this new world. Initially, I believed it was a byproduct of dying. I had been in a car crash, saw the blinding white light, and moving towards it. As my eyes adjusted, I saw I was exiting a tunnel while riding in a wagon. There were three others with me, one who looked like a giant cat wearing leather armor.
"How did my dying brain come up with this?" I muttered.
"Ah, you're awake. I didn't think a man could sleep that long.", the man across from me said as he stretched out his legs. "Tell me, where are you from?"
I reached up to feel my forehead where I remember having hit the roof of the car. No tenderness, or blood. Odd. "Um, Well, I'm from New Jersey. I'm wondering if you even know where that is, considering our ... feline companion." The cat person turned to look at me and smiled weakly.
"Looks like he's another one who *played*..." they hissed. "You'll find it very different living it."
That was the most honest thing anyone has said to me. I spent the next 10 or 12 years honing all the skills I had read about and pretended to do while playing various fantasy role playing games. Every day, I expected to wake from some coma, or perhaps have someone tell me I had done *enough* to go on to my reward. A priestess at a temple assured me this was a real world, and I better start living in it. So I did.
Over the years, I learned to fight with swords, maces, daggers, crossbows, and long bows. I could pick the most complex locks this land had to offer, and amazingly, I learned a few spells where I could manipulate the forces around me. Magic didn't come easy, but I could still do okay with it. I excelled at being able to sneak around and that helped me more than anything. Nobody wanted to go toe to toe with a bear or band of roving orc bandits.
I discovered that my existence was more like being in a video game than playing an RPG with friends around a table. I had a small journal that would populate with tasks, quests if you wanted to think of them that way. I had completed so many of them, and skipped one numerous times on the second page.
<Help Lothar find his lost cat>
I racked my brain a bit, and remembered Lothar was a farmer in the outskirts of the first large keep I traveled to early in my time here.
There was a symbol next to the task that I have since learned meant that I would be rewarded with some sort of magical jewel. I wondered what it would be, being so early in my journal. I might hardly be worth it, but maybe I need something easy to do, almost like a vacation.
In hindsight, it was the exact opposite of a vacation as I would learn.
<end Part 1>
| 2022-06-22T06:57:10 | 2022-06-22T05:25:20 | 72 | 38 |
[WP]You are a retired archer who is still regaled as one of the best. Retirement suits you, right up until your child who was leading an adventuring party disappears. As you stare at the message in shock, your wife enters the room carrying your old kit that you had buried at the back of the woodshed
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A warm hand fell on my shoulder. I started, looking from the parchment to the watery eyes of my wife. “You have to find her,” she said. Her gaze moved to the table. There sat the wooden trunk I had buried the day my daughter was born. It was exactly as I remembered, with dark splotches from where the soft earth clung—how long had I been sitting here going over this letter?
“You dug it up?” I asked, looking at Bettany, a coil of fear squeezing my chest. Her eyes softened and a wry smile curved her lips. She rested her hand on my hairy, salt and pepper cheek.
“Mel, you know why Brute sent that letter. He doesn’t think Mel the Carpenter can find her.” She pointed at the crate. “It’s because he knows Mel the Ranger can."
I shook my head. “I buried that part of me *for* Willow.”
“Mel. . .” My best friend and closest ally furrowed her golden brow at me, standing up straight. “She’s *gone* if you don’t.”
I sighed and crumpled the letter in my hands. The message arrived thanks to an old friend: *your daughter is in danger, but I know who to ask about that.* I stood and pulled the crate close, running my fingers over the lid like the day I buried it, thinking about the same thing: my daughter.
I swung the lid open. The instruments of my old life, the instruments of death dealing, were still there: the black bow and arrows woven with enchantments; the daggers and leather bandolier that held them; the bracers my father had passed down to me. I felt strange, like I was floating outside of my body. How could a whole, terrible, amount of time be held in such a trifling space?
“I *knew* that Willow would never want my life, my troubles, if I-” I coughed to keep the tears from flowing. It took all my courage to look Bettany in her green eyes. “I’m so sorry. She took after me anyway.” Bettany looked at me like I had told a bad joke.
“You raised a strong woman, Mel.” She clasped her hands behind my neck. “It’s because of you I believe our daughter can handle herself. And because of who you are, I believe you can save her.”
A small bud of hope took root in my chest. I took a deep breath, watering the feeling.
“The way I see it, things could be worse.” She smiled again. “She could have gotten your looks instead of mine.” I snorted. Bettany continued, “Now, string that bow, dreaded husband of mine. And go get our daughter.”
I pushed the heavy door of the tavern open. The orange, flickering glow from the wall sconces, blazing hearth, and heaps of candles on the long wooden tables revealed a large, broad beamed space. A bar, made from the same thick wood as the beams, ran the length of an entire wall. Women in tight,white bodices and long skirts rushed over the bare earth floors, lugging tankards of ale and platters of hearty stew for the hodge podge of loud, adventure seeking patrons. The aromas of brewed barley, roasting meat, and sweat greeted my nose. I mused at how many dangerous quests had begun in such a pleasant, unchanging corner of the world.
The nostalgia drained away as I realized most of the packed space was glancing, or straight staring at me. The bard in the corner halted his tune, revealing hushed voices carrying my name and assorted curses. I would have been more self-conscious about my older, more round in the middle self, if not for the throbbing ache from the long ride on horseback. I refused to remember back to how my legs would have felt twenty years ago when a familiar voice boomed from the bar, “Mel! Come have a seat.” A hulking, barrel chested man waved a hand clutching a wash rag from behind the bar.
“Brute.” I waved and walked as if on stilts to the stool in front of the wide, beaming face. The exchange acted like a spell, restarting the bard’s song and the babbling murmur of the tavern.
“Long time no see, old friend. Ale?” Brute resumed the diligent wiping of tankards, the same twinkle of I-know-something-you-don’t in his eyes. His red hair now streaked with white.
I placed my hands flat on the bar top and lowered myself onto the stool, attempting to avoid further pinches of pain in my haunches. “Who is it, Brute? Who can tell me where Willow is?” His hands froze and he glanced out at the tavern. Then he set the rag and cup down, propping his arms on the bar and leaning in.
“Same old Mel, all business and intrigue.” He lowered his voice as much as he could. “I’m glad my note found you. Willow came in, bright eyed like any young quester. I had no idea she was your daughter. I wouldn’t have let her stay had I known, Mel. I swear it.” I was taken aback by how forlorn he looked.
“I didn’t keep in touch for a reason, Brute.” This was the last place I would have ever wanted my daughter to wind up, but I didn’t say so out of respect for my friend. “Who gave her the quest?” I pressed.
“Purple doublet over in that corner.” Brute’s eyes flitted to my left. “Three of the kids who went out with Willow came back to confront him. Apparently, they all thought he set them up.” I started to stand. Brute laid a hand on one of my leather bracers. “Mel, everyone at that table works for this guy. They messed up Willow’s group pretty bad when they wouldn’t leave him alone.” He narrowed his eyes at me, waiting. I didn’t say anything. He finally let go of my arm and sighed. “Gods damn it, Mel. Don’t rough him up if you don’t have to. He practically throws his coin at me!” He shook his head and started to stow mugs.
The short, pudgy man in the obnoxious shirt didn’t look up when I marched over. “Where’d you send those kids?” I asked. He took a sip of his wine.
“Kids? Am I offering a quest to fetch kids?” He looked at his goons. They all smirked, shaking their heads. I looked them over. All were armed with daggers or swords. None of them looked like magic users. Pointy I could handle. Magic would have been tricky. I snatched one of my daggers and slammed it through the man’s hand prone on the table. The *thunk* of my blade burying into the table was a sound sweeter than anything the bard managed.
“You are now,” I said, smiling.
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The name’s Bing Bong. I’m an archer and such.
But don’t let the name fool you, I’m deadly serious. With a name like mine, it takes a good shot and a cold heart to strike terror in the hearts of the wicked. I managed just fine, but it wasn’t easy. I grew up in a coal town on the outskirts of the Capitol, making a name for myself by robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. There were plenty of poor, myself among them. Luckily, the rich had plenty to give, and I had plenty of arrows.
With every dead nobleman my notoriety grew. It was all about branding, I soon learned. Bing Bong just didn’t cut it. Nobody took *Bing Bong* seriously, no matter how true my aim was. Prince of the Woodland, though--now that was a name that stuck.
My adventuring days are long behind me, due to an unfortunate accident involving a faulty bow and an arrow to the knee. My daughter, however, has taken up the mantle. When she first started adventuring I gave her a critical piece of advice. *Go by your first name, not your last. We named you* ***Brutalitops*** *for a reason. You might be a good shot,* I'd say, *but the name of the game is the name, not the aim.*
She wouldn’t listen. *I’m not ashamed,* she’d say. *I’m Brutalitops Bong and I won't hide it!*
Well, it was no surprise when my wife told me that *Bong* got captured for ransom. Of course she did. Who *wouldn’t* extort the *Bong* family? I crumpled up the ransom note and handed it back to my wife.
“Lana, get my old kit,” I said.
“Your bow and quiver?” she asked through tears.
“No. My calligraphy kit.”
With the parchment laid out before me, I dipped my quill in ink and began to write.
*If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you...*
| 2021-02-16T23:01:04 | 2021-02-16T18:12:20 | 20 | 14 |
[WP] You were forced to attend an interview for a job you do not want, but, no matter how hard you try to screw up the interview, the interviewer just becomes more keen to hire you.
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The water bottle was obviously full of something other than water. I took small sips in the waiting room, the smell of vodka stinging my eyes even with the orange juice to water it down.
I had somewhere to be and it wasn’t in a job interview.
“It’s good practice,” my wife had encouraged. “You just need to get back on that horse and give it a try.” She’d told me when I was asked to come in for the job.
“I don’t think I want it,” I’d confided in her. But there was no arguing with her at that point.
“Joseph Gordons?” The receptionist called my name. A tall thin man stood next to her, a dour look on his face. He shook my hand wordlessly and gestured for me to follow him. I ambled along behind him into a tight conference room. The lighting was fluorescent and room dingy. I half wanted to leave right then but I’d promised my wife I’d stay.
“Joseph, good of you to come in,” the man said. “I’m Hank Norbitt, I do the hiring for the programming department, I find that HR doesn’t really understand programmers.” His voice reminded me of Eeyore. Once I started thinking about the sad donkey I could also see a resemblance in his expression.
We settled into chairs on the corner of the table. I leaned my left arm on the table and set the water bottle down. Hank got comfortable as I began to speak.
“I understand that some programmers have social issues, I’m not really one of them. I paid for university working as a bartender and spent all kinds of time with people, at the bar, after the bar. The morning before going back to work,” I replied probably too honestly. I’d told my wife I’d give it an honest try but I wanted to tank the interview and go. “I met my wife bartending.”
“Was that a bar in town?”
“Yea, Phil’s by Laurier. I learned a lot of skills there I’ve found applicable in other places,” I took a sip of my screwdriver before continuing. Hank leaned forward seeming intrigued. I’d led him here and prepared to drop an answer that’ll have him excusing me. “I learned how to keep my mouth shut, the bikers used to deal coke out of the back and I needed to make sure I didn’t show up on their radar. I learned how to break up a fight – you never know when you’ll need to convince a man to drop a knife. Every Friday these days it seems.”
“You like to go out then? Party?” Hank’s eyes lit up, I was a little concerned that he was getting too into my answers.
“Sometimes. I don’t do drugs anymore, almost OD’d at my last job – that’s why I’m looking for work, had some trouble with painkillers and needed to take some time off, get better,” I was lying now.
“Now that’s interesting, you sound like you’re very good at recognizing your own flaws, that’s a strong quality in an employee,” Hank seemed far too into what I was saying and I wanted to get him to let me go.
“I can see where I’ve fallen down, unless I’ve had too much to drink!” I exclaimed and laughed a bit louder than I probably should have.
“Well, I do have some questions for you,” Hank glanced at the sheet in front of him, “first, if you could be any animal what would you be?”
“I’d be a duck, their penises are the ultimate multi-tool,” I replied, half-serious. The alcohol was having the desired effect and I wasn’t tasting the vodka as much now. I committed to myself that I’d answer the questions quickly and just move through this stupid formality. I glanced at my watch – I needed to be out of here in ten minutes.
“Oh that’s an original one, love that, I’ll have to use it sometime. Next what is your greatest weakness?” Hank asked with a smile.
“Alcoholism.”
“I appreciate the honesty. I like that in an employee. Now how many gas stations do you think are in the US?”
“At least 12.”
“Well you’re not wrong, and I supposed that’s what I get for asking a programmer that question – you’re up on your internet jokes right?” Hank laughed at his own comment, my grim expression started to break and I smiled with him for a moment. I took a swig of the alcohol. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Five years. I used to know where I’d be, until a week ago I’d have had an answer. “I don’t,” the smile that had been growing was lost again. Hank’s laid a hand on my arm.
“If you need to talk…”
“I think it’d be best if we move on with the questions, I don’t like to bring personal issues into work,” I interrupted. I didn’t know him and didn’t need this right now.
“Right, ok. How honest would you say you are?”
“Very,” I didn’t think I needed to elaborate, I’ve only told a couple lies so far.
“Alright, last one – how would your family feel about you working long hours?”
“I don’t have a family,” I replied without explanation.
“You mentioned your wife,” he began.
“She’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Hank replied. His look quizzical and I knew what was coming next. One of two questions that I’d been asked so many times recently.
“Drunk driver hit her car two days ago. She kicked it. I actually need to go now. Her visitation starts in half an hour and it’s a twenty minute drive,” I replied, standing. I wobbled a bit. I didn’t mean to but I did.
“Are you…”
“Driving? No, I’m not the goddamn moron who killed her.”
“I’ll give you a call, about the job, but can I ask one last question?” Hank watched me. I hesitated and nodded, “why did you take the interview? Why not cancel or reschedule?”
“I made my wife a promise that I’d come,” I replied. “I don’t think her death releases me from that.”
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"Hi, thanks for coming. You're our next candidate for reincarnation. We're very excited about sending you back, same make and model, just a second pass through."
"No, I'm pretty sure I fucked it up last time."
"Nah! I gotta good feeling about you. You'll do just fine this time around."
"How could I do just fine this time around?!? I screwed up basically every decision you can make in life!"
"But you learned something right?"
"No, I'm almost certain that I didn't! If I have to go back, let me be a cat, or a rock or something, please."
"I don't know, I really think human is the right fit for you."
"Based off of what?!? I spent my life anxious and depressed, antisocial, afraid of change, and terrified of decisions. What makes you think I'll be better at it this time around?"
"I'm sorry you feel that way, but you brought a lot to the people who cared about you, that adds to the universe in a meaningful way."
"What about me? What about how I felt?"
"That adds to the universe too."
"You're not gonna let me out of this one are you?"
"Frankly? No. And if you come back early again, we'll just put you back in again. That's the way these things go."
"So, what? I'm just a cog in the universal machine? Great."
"Perhaps, and perhaps not. To be honest, I haven't figured all of this out yet either, just like you, I'm learning as I go. So how about it? You ready?"
"No."
"Ha! That's what I thought, but what can I say? Life isn't voluntary. Off you go then! Good luck!"
| 2017-08-29T12:08:53 | 2017-08-29T11:43:55 | 57 | 10 |
[WP] He had a mark on his face, a scar that reads "VI" so he's the sixth most dangerous person in the world, but i know the truth. He made the "V" on its own.
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I met Jimmy when he set his house on fire by trying to make rocket ship fuel using his mom's cleaning supplies. We stood on the sidewalk together outside of the house I'd just moved into and watched as the flames greedily ate his home. The whole neighborhood watched. The roof, which Mr. Lebbon had re\-shingled the year before, collapsed inwards and sent up a plume of smoke. Tears and snot left clean tracks down Jimmy's soot\-covered six year old face. In the haze and chaos of that afternoon, I slipped my hand into his. From then on, we were best friends.
Jimmy always let me copy his homework. It wasn't that I didn't know how to solve the problems, it was just that Jimmy had them done in five minutes. We spent our childhood afternoons racing through the woods behind my house, reading comics, and tinkering with whatever project Jimmy was building. Some days I watched as Jimmy took apart toasters while other times we battled radio controlled cars that Jimmy had modified with bits of glass, razor blades, and spikes. In fifth grade he built a rocket that didn't burn the house down, but it did land him a visit from the FAA. The most he ever let me help him was by carrying materials but that was enough for me. I loved watching him work.
In high school I joined the track team and started going to practices after school instead of to Jimmy's. He grew his hair out like Kurt Cobain and got glasses that made his eyes look like a bug. We had gym class together in sophomore year and I noticed that his arms were covered in burns and scratches. He even had a scratch on his face in the shape of an "l" that he kept hidden by his hair. I wondered what he'd been building.
Mrs. Lebbon pulled me aside during the block party in the spring of my senior year.
"I'm worried about Jimmy," she said. The bags under her eyes were ashen and puffy."He's been acting strange. He's even said he doesn't want to go to MIT anymore. Can you talk to him?"
"Of course, Mrs. L," I said. She exhaled and gave a weak smile. Parents seemed to do that when I was around. "I'm sure he's just nervous about graduating."
It was a small lie but it gave Mrs. Lebbon some peace of mind. Jimmy had nothing to be nervous about. He'd gotten full scholarships to MIT, Caltech, and Stanford. Although quirky, Jimmy wouldn't have trouble making friends or even getting a girlfriend in a new place. If something was wrong with Jimmy, it was much, much bigger than graduating from high school.
"I think he's inside," she said, helpfully, pointing to her house as if I hadn't spent years of my life inside it. I let myself in.
"Jimmy?" I called, climbing the carpeted stairs to the second floor.
There was a scuffle and the bathroom door swung shut. Jimmy's bedroom was dark except for some blinking lights on his desk, no doubt from one of his current projects.
"Hey, Pierce," called Jimmy, his voice muffled from behind the bathroom door. "Eh, uh, what's up?"
"Just wanted to say hi," I called back. "See what's new with you."
"Ah, not much," he replied. "I, uh, I'll catch you out\-\- ow!"
"You alright?" I asked.
When Jimmy didn't reply, I jiggled the handle and let myself into the bathroom. There was blood in the sink, more than you'd get if you cut yourself shaving. Jimmy was facing away from me and holding a wad of toilet paper on his face.
"Dude, what happened?" I asked. He didn't answer.
I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. His eyes were glassy and he'd gone pale.
"Christ," I muttered. "Let me see that."
Jimmy didn't fight me as I pulled the toilet paper off. Halfway down his chin, next to his old "l" scar, there was a fresh "V" carved into his skin. Blood was oozing out of it and dripping down onto his polo shirt. I grabbed a washcloth, wet it, and pressed it to his face instead. I could feel him trembling as I held the washcloth.
"Jimmy," I started, but he cut me off.
"I had to," he whimpered. "They would have killed me."
"Who would have killed you?" I asked. It wouldn't do to rile him up by telling him he was insane for carving into his own face with a razor blade during a block party.
"Everyone," he whispered. "Everyone wants me dead. I'm too dangerous. I was the most dangerous. Now they'll think I'm sixth most dangerous. Maybe I should do seventh most dangerous. Or eighth."
"Jimmy," I tried to say again, but he pulled away from me. He took the washcloth off, pink in his hands, and peered at his face in the mirror.
"It's a six, you see," he said, voice flighty. "Roman numerals. They're old school. The one came sophomore year when I built the fusion generator. Ever since then, they've been out to get me. A man mugged me on the way home from school, cut me up real bad."
Jimmy rolled up his sleeves and I saw the scars again, which had by now turned white and silvery.
"I can't go to college," he said. "I need to disappear. It'll be easier to disappear as sixth most dangerous." He turned to me, ignoring the blood still dripping from his cut. His eyes were wide, pleading. "Help me disappear."
I turned on the faucet and cleaned the washcloth, watching the pink water swirl down the drain. I put it back onto his cheek, pressing firmly.
"Jimmy, you got that scar because you were cutting metal or because you were too close to the bandsaw or something," I said, trying to bring him back to reality.
He shook his head furiously.
"No, no, I got it because I'm too smart, because I can build things that hurt people," he whimpered. His nose began to run and suddenly it was like we were six again, watching his house burning up in flames. "I can hurt people so they want to hurt me. I need to disappear."
Under my hand, his pulse was racing. His eyes were wide, searching mine for help. I pulled him in for a hug, suddenly sorry that we hadn't talked in years.
"Of course," I said quietly. His whole body relaxed into mine and I felt him exhale. "Anything for my best friend."
|
The boy coughed from inside of his hospital room, well I supposed it would be safer to say he continued to. The nurses inside the room huddled around the poor boy as his body was racked with the ongoing fit. I stood outside and watched through the window, breathing heavily through my mask. I wasn't about to go in there, not even the HAZ\-MAT suits stopped the infection. I was safe outside the room, at least for now.
I turned and began walking down the dull steel hallway, followed by the ghosts of my former steps.
*Clinical that's all this place is, nothing more.*
I looked at the unforgiving clinical emptiness of the hallway while I swiped my key card, the sliding hydraulic doors sliding open with a hissing sound.
*Curating diseases shouldn't be the task of any organization. But the Administrators took it too far this time, I was going to stay quiet too. Branding the faces of these poor kids, the Administrators are sick bastards.*
*Well, if they wanna play, I'm game.*
I continued down the hall, smiling and waving at my co\-workers.
*Rank them by order of severity, VI being harmless, I being a modern day clusterfuck pandemic. God they're stupid, playing god like this. Fudge a few patient labs. Steal a number branding iron. Move the patients around after i switch the emergency lockdown. It was almost too easy.*
I make it outside finally, taking a deep whiff of the fresh air and look back at the building. It looked like a normal hospital, but i knew that was a cruel facsimile. I knew their fucking secret.
*It wont matter soon, after the incubation period, it won't matter. Once the nurses show symptoms, its too late. Why would you make it untraceable, you stupid fucks. At least I didn't have to make the brand on the kid, I told him he would be surrounded by people. Human interaction. Poor kid. At least we wont be alone anymore.*
*Though i suppose that's the least of our worries now.*
| 2018-06-05T17:48:34 | 2018-06-05T17:34:02 | 83 | 56 |
[WP] An powerful ancient being has been held captive by an interstellar civilisation. After eons of being held captive, it has accidentally freed by humans, who've not been to the "galactic stage" for long...
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The first anomalies in the cosmic microwave background were detected by sub-sentient AI programs monitoring humanity's deep space telescope networks. The anomaly became a question, and then a mystery, and then a shocking realization, as subsequent analysis with orbital telescopes and gravitational interferometers confirmed the full scope of an impossible truth.
Somehow, the Milky Way's distribution of dark matter -- the unseen energy whose gravity binds our galaxy together -- was being modulated. The scale of the effect was staggering, with self-consistent patterns stretching across 10,000 lightyears. The origin was clearly artificial. Deep signal analysis revealed multiple, cascading layers of modulated amplitude, frequency, phase, and polarization -- and that was just the low hanging fruit. More complex encryptions beckoned from deeper within the signal.
The implications were nothing short of profound. After 15 billion years, our universe was still ringing like a struck bell from the act of its creation, resulting in an omnipresent low-level radiation field -- the cosmic microwave background. And now we had discovered that some intelligence with godlike powers of stellar engineering was controlling whole sections of our galaxy's unseen mass to encode a message into this medium. What might they be saying?
Six months later, the orbital parallax from the Earth's motion around the Sun raised the first suspicions that the message might be directional. But it was not for several years and with the benefit of the solar system's further motion through space that this unsettling fact was confirmed with certainty: the message was aimed directly at Earth.
Fear and wonder. The thought of beings of such unfathomable power communicating with the people of Earth was terrifying, dizzying. What could they possibly want with us? Were we to receive some revelation? Or was our judgement now at hand? There were many who believed the sender must be God himself.
And then we decoded the message. And with a progressing sense of surprise, and then disappointment, and finally existential dread, we saw that the topmost encoded layers each contained the same simple message:
HELP ME.
What horrors must lurk in the galactic reaches if a being of such unimaginable abilities was crying out across the lightyears in a plea for help?
Centuries passed. We continued to study the message, but progress was slow. A world war came and went, pandemics ravaged our population, global famine and climate change nearly destroyed us. We grew wiser. Our technologies developed in line with our social ethos. We cleansed our world. We conquered scarcity. We embraced the sanctity of life. Though the cost was great, we had survived the great filter.
HELP ME.
We turned again to the message. With the benefit of virtualized intelligences -- both biological and artificial -- we ran quantum simulations and self-learning error correction algorithms against the signal. Progress was faster now, and eventually the deeper layers of encoding began to yield their long-buried secrets.
The message contained instructions for the assembly of some kind of sub-quantum interferometer. Surprisingly, the technology to manufacture the components was already easily within our reach. But our scientists could not decipher the function of the components once assembled.
Our virtualized communal minds speculated that the device was a proto-form which, when activated, would self-assemble its remaining components in higher dimensions. Of course, there was brief concern that it would prove to be a weapon or some kind of portal or beacon for an invading force. But there was no evidence to support this. Our design analysis ruled out any malign local effects. And our evolving social consciousness counseled us to accept what appeared to be a bona fide plea for help -- even if on a galactic scale -- and that the idea of malevolence from an entity with such demonstrated power was simply not credible.
We built it. The instructions on its use were not complicated but they were specific about one point: the device must be aimed precisely at the galactic center, in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Out of an abundance of caution, we placed it on the far side of the Moon, set up our monitoring equipment, retreated to a safe distance, and pushed the button.
The device briefly drew power and then, in what most agreed was a somewhat anticlimactic result, deactivated and fused its internal components. Our instruments detected a burst of broad spectrum EM and neutrino signal emission, but it was speculated that this was only leakage and downconverted radiation from some more mysterious, ethereal band. The true nature of the device remained a mystery.
But the signal had one last surprise to offer. For in the microseconds immediately following the device's activation, every monitoring station detected the same change in the signal pattern, which had been repeating unaltered for our last centuries of watching and perhaps for countless centuries before. The deeper encodings seemed to have disappeared altogether. And the surface modulation had changed to a new message:
THANK YOU.
The message repeated for a few hours before ceasing altogether. Of course, this should not have been possible. The dark matter distributions which modulated the cosmic microwave background were over 40,000 light years away. The thank you message had been traveling across space since long before humanity's first civilizations arose. Our understanding of physics allowed no possibility for an instantaneous response to our actions. We now knew that the alien intelligence had the power to transcend not just space, but also time -- and perhaps even causality itself.
In the years after we used the device, the signal was soon forgotten -- a historical curiosity. Humanity continued to evolve. Somewhere deep in the AI stellar monitoring programs, potential anomalies were being flagged, first a few dozen, then thousands, then millions. It was seen as a likely systemic error or AI corruption and was shunted to a separate analysis thread, which delayed the subsequent realization by several years.
But eventually, after exhausting and eliminating the potential alternate explanations, we were faced with another impossible truth.
The stars of our galaxy were not where they were supposed to be. Solar systems, star clusters, entire arms of the Milky Way were subtly drifting beyond the radius of their projected paths. The cause was soon identified: the influence of dark matter had completely disappeared, and without it, the gravity of the remaining visible matter was insufficient to hold the galaxy together. The Milky Way was doomed to slowly fly apart and die a cold death in the reaches of the intergalactic vastness.
There was more. There were signs that the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's center -- where we had aimed the device -- had somehow lost an incredible amount of mass. It was only a matter of time before the gravitational effects would wreak havoc across the galaxy, rippling spacetime like a pond.
In the millennia that followed, we accepted the fact that we were responsible for the galaxy's demise. We estimated that perhaps a billion years of livable existence remained. A long time, to be sure. But the untold quantities of life which would perish -- and the even greater multitudes of intelligence which now would never have a chance to arise -- caused us to despair. Yet there were still those among us, and they were not few in number, who argued that we had acted in good faith to help a sentient being in need. That if this ancient being was somehow responsible for the energies holding the galaxy together, it seemed to do so against its will -- perhaps imprisoned in the black hole at the galactic core.
Of course, we searched the signal for some way to undo the damage. But our repeated analyses turned up no further insights, only one more curiosity: upon careful inspection, we realized that the deeper encodings had not completely disappeared when we activated the device. Hidden within the complex modulations of the signal was one last message for us to discover:
YOUR SACRIFICE IS NOBLE. I WILL REMEMBER YOU.
|
Humans are not a well-liked race.
But they are respected.
Shortly after their debut on the “galactic stage” many alien races viewed them as primitive, vulgar, but most importantly violent. How could we not? Their race was defined and molded by conflict, it was what drove them to improve. They did not better themselves for the sake of their species but rather did it in preparation of conflict. But perhaps that is why we underestimated them.
It is customary that when a new civilization is introduced to the universal scene that they be shown the ancient being feared by all, The Cha’likz, a powerful entity that could rival the power of a god. In fact, many believed it was a god. The god of ruin, destruction, of inevitable end. We believed it had the power to reverse the universes expansion, in other words, end all life in order for it to begin again. At the time of its capture, it had been doing just that- preparing to bring the end. But we, all the known galactic races banded together to stop this act, and in doing so extended our universes lifespan. It’s form is held captive under the weight of a galaxy, a whole system dedicated to containing this massive beast- a monster who could swallow the very stars itself.
When the human delegates arrived, we did our usual screening and preparation as was customary for new visitors. Normally, at the introduction “The Cha’likz” would trash against its bindings terrifying any new spectators. But this time it did not, it simply laid still its ‘eyes’ gazing endlessly. The humans, whom up to this point had been overwhelmingly noisy had gone silent. At the time we believed it was out of fear as so many had before, but it was not out of fear they had quieted themselves out of awe and respect. Shortly, after the delegation had left, the black hole at the center of this prison galaxy winked out of existence and its proverbial chains were shattered.
When the humans had announced that they were the ones responsible for freeing the beast, we were all outraged. It had taken far too long to find a suitable prison, and that was after even luring the beast to it in the first place. It would not fall for the trick a second time. We prepared for death, for the end of everything as we knew it. The humans would soon realize their mistake and they would pay for it in blood.
But death did not come for the humans.
The Cha’likz did destroy its prison, and countless races were wiped out of existence in the ensuing destruction. But as more galaxies began to burn from the beasts ire, we learned that no matter where a human may be- they were spared. And as we faced our end we realized something, this being was not what we thought it was. That this ‘ancient deity’ of doom and destruction was nothing more than a creature who longed for freedom, sustaining itself on failing galaxies. It was not an herald for the end of everything, but the end of sick worlds. And we were long overdue for an eradication.
| 2022-08-23T12:35:23 | 2022-08-23T11:43:29 | 457 | 323 |
[WP] Your cranky history teacher has recently been revealed as immortal. The reason they are angry is because they have to teach according to the texts when they know what really happened. One class he has had enough and begins to answer people's questions about what truly happened in history.
|
This is like my story - odd that a person writing a writing prompt on Reddit could get so close. The part about being a history teacher isn't true, but the part about being immortal is true, and the part about telling people what truly happened is true too - not only about history but about me. Nobody believes it, so I can tell it all.
If people believed it, imagine the problems I'd have. Who knows which government agencies would want to talk to me, study me - probably have doctors and scientists examine me to figure out how to expand people's lifespans based on my immortality?
Before I go on, you know, I am something of a history teacher, although not in a classroom. I tell people little tidbits of history that most people don't learn in school. For example, do you know how many cell phones were around in the 1960's in America? The answer isn't none. There were over a million by 1964/65. I was a salesman at the time. I had one in my car. The phone was a clunker, but it worked.
When do you think people started texting? You're going to say in the 1990's or 2000's. The formal history claims the first text message was sent in 1992. It was typed on a PC because phones at the time didn't have keyboards. Hogwash! Not on the facts, but on that 1992 date being when the first text messages were sent. People were sending text messages in the mid-1800's The messages were tapped with a finger and sent all over the world. It was called the telegraph. The modern version that started in 1992 made it cheaper and more private - now a texting device in everyone's pocket, and text messages sent free of charge. Back in the telegraph days, you had to go to a station, have someone tap it for you, and it cost a lot - in the early days up to $100 (thousands in today's money), and later about a quarter ($6 or $7 today).
Enough of that amateur history, Back to more important stuff.
First of all since it's Reddit - an AMA is in order. The first question people might ask is "how does this immortality stuff work?" The answer is, "not like you think." My body dies from the same stuff that kills anyone, but it regenerates - fixed from whatever damage was done to it. That sounds pretty nice, but it's awful. Imagine the pain of dying - crushed in a car in an accident, the body broken and failing; ripped apart by a hungry tiger; blown up by a landmine, parts and pieces and fragments scattered all over the place. There's as much pain in restoration as there was in the destruction in the first place - the same pain played out in reverse. It took a long time for restoration when I stepped on a landmine - months.
Drowning was the worst one of all. The ship I was on went down in the Atlantic, on the way from the U.S. to France. I drowned. The body regenerated, but it had sunk deep into the ocean. I could swim a few inches, die from the pressure and drown again, move a few inches, and then die again. It was 10 or so years of painstaking movement in the dark depths, painful death, painstaking movement until finally I arrived at an island called Santorini in the Aegean Sea. Oh to have gone North or South instead of East through the Gibraltar Strait. Who knows how many years that would have shaven off the trip? That trip destroyed my taste for the military life - but that's a different story.
AMA question 2: "How did you become immortal?" I was a soldier. A man was being put to death, crucified for a variety of crimes - he claimed to be a king, and that was a threat to the Roman authorities. That's what it came down to.
He was stoned and ridiculed as he carried his cross over a long path to the top of a hill, where he was nailed to the cross and crucified. He had barely complained, cried out as most men would, even when the nails were driven in to bind his hands and feet to the cross.
But finally, when he pled for water, his thirst overtaking his flesh, I pierced his side with my spear. In that moment, I looked into his eyes, and I knew - this Jesus was God on Earth. We didn't believe him when he said it - I didn't believe him - but he was. He looked into my eyes, and he knew. He knew my thoughts, my character, my spirit, the iron within me to do the work he called me to do.
At that moment, he cursed me. With his curse, he anointed me to be his weapon, to destroy the immortals, the demons walking the Earth, who would plague it through time with their evil. I would strike them down.
But that wasn't the iron. The iron was surviving through unending life - the pain of death and rebirth again and again only the smallest part of it. The greater pain is the pain of walking among men but never belonging among them, of out living everyone I loved or could ever love, watching them wither and die.
A weak man, or even a strong man like a mountain in the rain eroded over time, would fall to that pain, shy away from it, hide, break, become consumed with fear and hate, become evil himself. Not me. Jesus, God, looked into my eyes and knew it all. I would not break under that unending pain, although it would torment me.
More later.
|
“Any more questions?” Mrs. Liken asked. She stared around the room, waiting, hoping that somebody would ask that question. That today would be the day that she didn’t have to lie to the kids anymore. How she adored that idea.
“I have one!”
Little Isabella in the back of the room had thrown her hand up. All eyes in the room shifted to her, their infinite gazes unfaltering. You see, Isabella wasn’t much of a talker; three words out of her was astounding to many of the kids.
“What is your question, Isabella?” Mrs. Liken interrogated, trying to keep up her usual cranky persona. However, on the inside, it was cracking. She felt, well, alive for the first time in 1326 years.
“Is the information in the book true? I mean, I’ve read through all of it and I just have a feeling that something is off.”
“Oh little Isabella, you’ve asked the golden question for the decade.” Mrs. Liken’s eyes started glowing. She was radiating enough energy to power a small city. This was her moment. Her time to shine. Finally all these kids would understand the truth.
RIIIIIING
The bell.
Class was over.
Maybe they’d know tomorrow.
Edit: I may make a part two if it seems good enough but I don’t think I will currently.
| 2019-12-25T06:32:11 | 2019-12-25T05:50:18 | 124 | 88 |
[WP] There is a (visible to everyone) sign that pops up above people's heads whenever they do something for the last time (eg. "This is the last poutine Snowtroopersarecool will eat"). A sign has just popped up. What does it say, and how do people react?
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Those stupid signs, those stupid f*cking signs. They had been around forever, or at least since recorded history. They were still as unknown to us as they were to the caveman. We didn’t know what caused them, why or how they came to exist but we knew one thing. They were always true.
The human race had somehow come to just live with these 'things'. They were constant and always there but it was considered impolite to read them. It was unheard of in ANY culture to speak about them out-loud. I guess the most accurate description as to how they were perceived was breasts. They were there the world be damned if people ever actually acknowledged them.
These sign in particularly why so many people could never last in relationships in our world. Too many things went wrong with the right intentions.
Peter came up to me, his eyes were sunken. I had only ever seen one sign pop above his head, it had been when we first started dating. After painting our bathroom with vomit it popped above his head. "This is the last time he will let you clean up his mess" I think just the way it popped up made me want him even more. It had been years since I had seen a sign up. I was both amazed and scared that I had never seen a new sign. It wasn't impossible, sometime people just don't have "lasts" until much later in life, but it was extremely rare.
Peter always got like this after a bad day at work. But he never brought it past the front door, or well at least past the moment he saw me. He lit up like Christmas every time he looked at me. His eyes showed every emotion he felt. But then again so did his words. It might seem strange but Peter really was an open book. He told me everything that crossed his mind which is why I knew he would always be okay as long I was there. He called me his 'fix'. Not in the cheesy I want to flirt with you way but in the 'As long as I come home to you I'll be okay’ kind of way.
Today that shine didn't happen. Today he just seemed defeated and even my presence didn't help. Today something was wrong, not bad, not off, but utterly wrong. In 3 years of marriage I had never failed to make him shine. Today shouldn't exist.
Peter was carrying a small envelope, it wasn't post marked. It was hand delivered. He always checked the mail when he
came home. His routine was to open a random letter and let me deal with the rest. Today there was just one letter. The rest had been abandoned or ignored.
"What’s that?” I asked
Peter didn’t answer. Peter loved to make quick snide remarks about my questions. I had expected something like 'the answer to life' or 'remnants of the oldest tree in the world and some idiot put ink on it'. Today he just handed me the letter. Today was wrong.
I quickly tore into the letter expecting some horrible news, death, loss, but what I read was much worse. Not because the letter but because of the pain it had caused. The pain it caused to the one person to whom I was always perfect. Today was wrong.
It was letter about my infidelity to Peter. I had never loved a man as much as I loved Peter, but I didn’t always know that. Or didn’t whole heartedly believe it. He was everything I needed, but not everything I thought I wanted so I had done some stupid things. Those stupid things made me realize even how more I already had found the perfect person to be with and I made sure he would never found out about them. Today he had. Today was wrong.
Peter wasn't get angry. It was one the most infuriating things about him. He never got angry, he raised his voice, made hand gesture but never got angry. I could be tearing the damn house apart and he would just watch and speak to me. Never yell but always make his voice heard. I hated that about him when we first met because it made me think he didn't care. But I learned the reason that he never did that was because he was always logical, always thinking of how to best handle the situation and how to best handle me. I knew even this wouldn't break that side of him. I was right. Today was wrong.
"Peter... I'm so sorry. This happened while we were in bad place, I just messed up and so sorry, I love you so much. Please say something" I begged
Anything Peter would have done would have been acceptable. Anger, rage, sorrow, but he didnt express anything in his face. There was a pop above his head. It scared me to think what it might say. But the silence dragged on for a few minutes and finally looked. I shouldn’t have. Today was wrong.
“Peter. I love you” I said as I started to look up.
Above his head in bright neon red, were the words. "This is the last time he will believe that".
Edit: Finally got home and got the chance to make the changes. Some slight tweaks to make it more dramatic.
|
It's been a long fucking time, slim. A real long fucking time. A lifetime of late nights drinking Mountain Dew and smoking menthol cigarettes to advance the testing, now this one syringe holds the one extant dose of the final product. The mice seem to have become immortal, the rabbits seem to have become immortal.
"Let's do this thing." JD slides the needle in and hits the plunger. The sign pops up.
"JD has produced the last sign informing him of the last time he's done a given thing."
| 2014-06-21T11:25:37 | 2014-06-21T07:04:57 | 18 | 12 |
[WP]: A 92-year-old woman's phone number is one digit away from that of a local suicide hotline. She could have it changed, but she doesn't mind.
|
She reached out for the ringing phone. For a moment, her stiff fingers fumbled over the buttons, and she cursed the arthritis that stiffened her joints. She managed to hit the green button, and lifted the handset up to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Hello - I, uh, I just needed to talk to someone. I don't think I can keep going any longer."
Another one of them. No matter how many calls she took, there always seemed to be more of them, each with their little problems, so convinced that no one else in the world had ever experienced what they were now going through. Her eyes drifted over to the two piles of stationary on her windowsill.
"Well, you can talk to me, although you best make it quick - I'm 92, so who knows how much time I've got left." She settled back into her chair, trying to find a more comfortable position for the phone against her ear.
"92? Um, is... is this the suicide hotline?"
Ah, one of the faster ones. He'd caught on more quickly than some of the callers. "Afraid not, dear," she replied. "You're off by a number."
"Oh. Er, shit."
"Happens more often than you'd think." She looked around her little bedroom, at the cards on her windowsill, the little bed, the faded pictures. "But you've got me up, now, so you might as well talk to me. Otherwise, you'll have roused an old woman from her nap for nothing, and you won't want to die with that hanging over you, would you?"
"Um, no, of course not! I'm so sorry, miss-"
"Cleo." She tried propping one arm up on the side of the chair.
"Your name is Miss Cleo?"
"Are you sassing me, young man?" she snapped, her frail voice suddenly surprisingly sharp.
"No, no, of course not. Um, sorry, Mi- sorry, Cleo. But I haven't been able to find work for three months, and I'm about to be homeless, and I guess that I was just thinking about ending-"
"You know, you sound a little like my husband," she said dreamily. "He always had such a soft voice, sounded so vulnerable. When he met me in person for the first time, I couldn't believe that it was the same man. But he was going through troubles, too."
"Oh. What troubles?"
"The usual - he'd fallen hard for me, but he didn't have a job or a dollar to his name, and he was certain that I wouldn't look twice at him." She smiled a little to herself. "He was an idiot, of course. Didn't ever give himself credit."
"How did he turn things around? Um, if you don't mind me asking, of course."
"Oh, young man, I'm just happy to be talking to someone. He nearly didn't turn things around, but I snapped at him, told him that he was a little shit if he expected things to fall into his lap without effort. Oh, you should have seen his face - I don't think anyone had ever raised their voice to him, much less a dainty little gal like me!" She laughed, and the voice on the phone laughed with her.
"And he turned things around, then? Made something of himself?"
"It took some time," she reflected. With a grunt, she pulled herself up out of her chair, walking over to the windowsill of her little room. "He went through plenty of failures. But he loved me, and he hated coming home to a tongue lashing from me, so he kept on trying!"
"Wow." A pause. "I don't have anyone in my life like that, I guess."
"Well, I don't have my husband any longer, so that makes us even," she snapped at him. The windowsill was littered with cards. On one side, the cards stood propped up, a display of bright colors, all clashing against each other. On the other side, the cards were plain white, sorted into a neat stack. "But it wasn't just me - it was the way he looked at things after I set him straight."
"What was that, then?"
She picked up one of the bright cards, smiling as she read the kind words hand-written inside. "He thought that he should quit before things got worse. But I pointed out to him that it's not whether we fall or rise, but where we're at when we check out. I pointed at him, and said, 'do you want to walk up to them pearly gates and admit that you didn't make every attempt you could to better yourself?'"
"Yes, but I don't know what else I can-"
"Oh, you sound so like him," she interrupted, setting the bright card down. She liked re-reading those bright cards. "Always hoping for the lazy way out."
"I'm not lazy, Cleo-"
"Of course not, but only a lazy man refuses to see a job through to its very end," she countered him. "And years later, my husband returned home every night, happy with his hard work, showing me a lesson by telling me of how he'd fought for every success." She ran her finger over another bright card. "He never caught on that this was my plan all along, that lovable man."
"If..."
She waited. Her eyes drifted to the plain white cards, but she didn't want to jinx anything.
"If I managed to succeed at something, could I come tell you about it?"
There it was. She smiled, happily taking her eyes off of the plain white cards. "Well, of course you could, dear. You sound like a very nice young man. I'll give you my nursing home address, but you'd best work hard - I don't know how much longer I have."
"I'm sure you'll be around for plenty longer, Cleo, with that sharp mind."
"Flattery will get you nowhere, young man," she replied, but smiled as she said it. "Now, what's your name?"
"Uh, it's John."
"Well, I expect a card from you, John," she told him. "Something nice, with a real comment from you written inside. Nothing silly or inappropriate, mind you."
"You got it, Cleo. I'll send you one. I promise."
"Then I'll let you go, John. Have a good rest of your day now, you hear?" She smiled, glaring triumphantly at the pile of white cards. Not today, she thought.
"You too, Cleo. And thank you."
She lowered the phone, carefully putting it back in the cradle to charge. Hopefully, another bright card would come soon. John sounded like a nice man, she thought to herself. He could get better.
And with his card, she'd have forty-eight bright cards, to the twenty-four white cards. Double.
She didn't know if it would be enough, if it would ever be enough. She picked up one of those white cards, her fingers trembling slightly as she traced the ornate script.
"We are saddened to invite you to the funeral of..." she read, before she had to put the card down.
Twenty-four failures. Each one weighed at her, dragging her down. Twenty-four callers for whom she'd been too late.
But John sounded promising. She looked forward to his card.
|
"Hello?"
"I can't fucking do this anymore." I cried out for help while gasping for air.
"Isabelle, is that you?"
*Isabelle, how the fuck does this woman know that slut?*
After spinning her words in my head for a moment, I knew it must be a mistake.
"No, I'm Natalie, or I was. I suppose none of that matters anymore."
"Honey what is the matter? Is your asthma acting up?"
*My asthma? I guess anxiety attacks could sound a bit asthmatic. Is this lady wasted?*
"No, my lungs are fine. My mind is the one drowning. I can't swim for much longer. I can feel it pulling me in."
The woman on the other side of the phone paused, then rather sternly said, "You must be one of Isabelle's friends. Now you listen to me, get out of that water right now young lady! It's too dark to be swimming and you're going to catch a cold!"
*A cold? This lady is totally wasted. Is she alright?*
"No, I'm not literally swimming. I'm depressed... fuck, I'm passed that now. Everyone around me is hurting because I'm alive. I'm ruining my marriage, I pushed all my friends away, I haven't even left my house in two months. The people around me would be better off if I just downed my whole script."
A weak cough faintly rang out from the phone. "Honey don't be so morbid, you have plenty left to accomplish. Do you like tea?"
*Tea? I do like tea.. But why does she want to know?*
"I do like tea but I'm out, my husband is staying at his friends, and I can't bother anyone else with this shit. I shouldn't even have called this hotline. What a waste of time."
Now it was crunching, like a cracker wrapper, coming from the speaker. "Hotline? I don't know what you're going on about but my front door won't shut and I need help. Isabelle said I could ask her friends for anything, will you come over? I know it's late. I'll pay the bus fare!"
I laughed. *That hasn't happened in a while. Did I call the wrong number? What the hell, maybe I should go help this lady. It's awfully cold out for the door to not seal.*
"Ma'am, I'm in Phoenix, is that close to you?"
She sighed in what sounded like relief, "oh yes, I'm in Glendale!"
I couldn't believe it.
"Okay I'll stay on the phone with you if that's okay, you can give me directions. I want you to know that you saved my life tonight."
She chuckled, "oh honey, you're the one coming to help me."
For the first time in what seemed like ages, I stepped out the door. Cold wind was slapping my face but it didn't matter. Someone needed my help, and that tea sounded damn good.
EDIT: Sorry about my horrendous formatting the first time, I was on mobile and it looked fine there. :<
| 2016-02-06T14:19:17 | 2016-02-06T14:05:09 | 4,608 | 400 |
[WP] You were asked out by your crush to come and hang out with her after school. On your date, she drained your blood and buried you in the woods thinking that you were another easy victim. And now, the next morning, she looks horrified when you walk into class.
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Amy bit her lip and looked at up me, her eyes smoldering. She stepped so close that I thought I could feel the warmth of her, right through my clothes.
"Close your eyes." she whispered, sweetly, playfully running a fingertip down my chest in a way that made me shiver. I didn't know what to expect. I imagined it would be all warmth and softness, like when she'd held my hand as we walked to the woods together.
I certainly never expected the stinging cold of the sharp knife she drew across my throat, nor the cold that spread through me as I stumbled back and toppled to the ground. I had no strength left to fight as she crawled atop me, place her lips to my neck, and drank her fill.
The last thing I saw before the darkness claimed me, looked very little like the girl I'd admired. She was panting, bloodsoaked, and bloated. Her belly protruded from her her shirt unnaturally distended with my own lifeblood. She raised her knife in the air, and began to chant a series of harsh, guttural syllables that I couldn't understand. It didn't matter -- my sight and hearing were soon gone, submerged in the silent blackness.
The next day, when I sat down beside her at school, Amy was surprised to say the least.
I smiled at her, and said hello, and then, under my breath, I said a few more things I'd been told to say, while I was lying in the shallow grave she'd rolled me into the previous night.
I'd awakened on my back in the forest, the soil and loam she'd buried me under mostly scraped away. I felt weak, cold, and too weak to lift a finger. I drew in a breath, and realized to my horror that I was pulling in air through the gash in my neck, rather than my mouth. I would have screamed if I could have, but all my ruined throat could manage was a burbling wheeze.
A slender shape had suddenly loomed over me. It looked like a young woman -- not Amy, but almost as unsettling as my final vision of her had been. She was tall, gaunt, and pale, with long dark hair, dressed in a strange tight wrap that looked like it was woven from slender vines or branches. Strangest of all were her eyes, which were unnaturally large, and had enormous irises that left scarcely a sliver of white visible at the corners.
"What have you found, brother mine?" she said, in a curious voice that was disturbingly childlike.
"Prey freshly slain, sister dear..." answered a voice that was just a bit deeper than the first. I tried to cringe away as this speaker leaned into view above my shallow grave. He was proportioned like his "sister", and similarly attired, but his face differed from hers. His eyes were almost human, but his mouth....it was far too wide, and filled with far too many perfect white teeth.
If Amy had been surprised to see me alive, she was even more surprised when I extended my hand to her, and asked to join me on a walk through the woods after school. She was still *more* surprised that, against her own desires, she took my hand and silently walked beside me as I led her towards the trees, nothing but her frantically darting eyes to betray her growing fear.
"You made a mistake." I said quietly, as we walked. I wondered why I was so calm. "The place where you killed me? Someone...something lives there."
I shuddered at the memory even now: the large-eyed girl, and the boy with the too-wide grin looming over me. The girl had plucked out a single long dark hair from her head, and the boy had plucked out an impossibly long and slender curved tooth from his mouth. They fit them together like a needle and thread, and the girl began to somehow stitch closed the fatal wound in my neck, along with my severed windpipe. While she worked, her brother whispered in my ear, his breath unnaturally cold against my skin, and told me what they required in exchange for my life.
"Please..." she whispered hoarsely, fighting the power of the words I'd spoken to silence her.
"For one thing," I continued, unmoved by her plea, "You invoked a lot of...things, when you killed me. I guess you thought they'd give you something in exchange? And maybe they did. I guess it would explain why you didn't puke your guts out after drinking my blood, and why you looked perfectly normal the next day. But the thing is, among all the names you chanted while I was dying, you never mentioned *them.* They said it was like bringing dinner to someone's house, and then eating it in front of them without offering them any -- very impolite. On top of that, you killed me with a piece of iron. Well steel, technically, but steel is mostly iron, plus carbon and some other things, depending on the alloy -- Mr. Hanson mentioned that in science class the other day, remember? Anyway, they really, *really* hate iron. I guess I'm lucky I didn't happen to have any on me."
A few moments later, we reached the clearing where I'd died. I didn't feel anything, apart from a vague sense of satisfaction at discharging an obligation, like returning a book to the library before it becomes overdue. But I didn't feel anger, or fear, and certainly not shame. I'm sure I would have felt terrible about doing this, yesterday, even though Amy was a murderer and I was her victim, but today I didn't. Maybe that should have disturbed me even more, but today it didn't.
It wasn't long before we reached the clearing where I'd been buried. It was already starting to get dark.
"This is her." I said, pushing her forward.
The misshapen siblings melted out of the darkness. Amy opened her mouth wide, but the words I'd spoken made her no louder than I'd been with my throat cut.
The boy with the too-wide grin grinned wider. "It is! You tell the truth -- I can smell your blood on her."
"Of course. Why would I lie?" I asked, with a shrug.
"Because you *can."* the girl answered cryptically, as she crouched beside the trembling Amy, and stroked her cheek with her disturbingly long finger.
"And yet you did not!" the boy said, clapping his hands in delight. "You kept faith with us, as we will now keep faith with you. You are free to go."
I nodded, as the girl took Amy's hand, and pulled her to her feet. Amy stood, eyes wide with terror, but still compelled to silence.
"What are you going to do?"
"She dined without us last night." the boy said.
"So tonight we will dine with her." the girl finished.
I nodded. That seemed fair enough, I thought. Then it occurred to me to ask, "Why am I...why I am okay with all of this?"
The boy made a balancing gesture with his hands. "To ask you to surrender one of your own kind to us is a great favor -- greater than us merely saving your life, and teaching you a few simple words of our language. So, to balance the scales more perfectly, I cut out the fear and suffering inside you that was tied to the night you were slain." He cocked his head to the side again. "Do you want it back?"
After a thoughtful pause, I shook my head. "No, thanks."
And without another word, I turned and walked away.
|
The look on Kate's face when I walked into class was priceless. Apart of me had wanted to confront her in front of everyone, but I knew better after all how could she have killed me when I just walked in. So I just took my seat and focused on today's lessons, this continued for the rest of the day until lunch where my friends were dying for information on the date.
"Dude, you've been quiet all day, did your date crash and burn?" George asked in his typical teasing manner.
"Nah, went great actually, we hit it off pretty well, it just ended on an awkward note." I replied, they were my friends, but I still couldn't tell them.
"Thank God, I was beginning to think you were gay." Sarah declared in mock relief.
I slugged her arm lightly as we all began laughing. But for a brief moment my eyes locked with Kate's, she seemed confused and... Scared, (oh this was going to be fun) I thought. The rest of school went without issue and once the bell rang I made my way to my car, (Thank god I didn't take my car to the date she probably would have destroyed it) I thought in relief. As I got closer, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I felt as though I was being stalked. I knew she was behind me and gaining, this left me with two options, first was to get in my car and leave before she caught up to me ruining my story, or try to talk to her. Once I reached my car, I spun around to see her directly behind me.
"Oh hey, I enjoyed our date last night, though I wish you had warned my that you liked things a bit on the kinkier side." I joked, enjoying the flustered look on her face.
"What are you?" She asked quietly.
I shrugged my shoulders, "I'm human of course," I opened the passenger door and motioned for her to get in, once she did I climbed into the driver's seat, "which is more than I can say for you, my beautiful little vampire."
She glared at me for a moment, "then why aren't you dead, I know you didn't turn, so explain!?" She demanded.
I slugged again and started the engine, "You know that story about the Roman soldier who pierced the side of Christ and was cursed with immortality, yeah he's my dad and the curse is hereditary." I explained.
I glanced at her and noticed the confused expression plastered on her face and chuckled, "Tell you what Kate, we go out for another date and I'll explain everything in more detail." I offered with a shit eating grin.
Her confusion turned to shock and then amusement as she burst out laughing, "You know what Henry, I'll take you up on that, and maybe I'll give you a special apology at the end." She winked.
"As long I don't wake up six feet deep in the forest, I'll certainly enjoy it." I replied before we both began to laugh, (she may have tried to kill me, but I still love her... though that might say something bad about my taste in women) I thought amusingly as we left the school.
| 2022-12-29T20:28:17 | 2022-12-29T20:26:29 | 819 | 24 |
[WP] You live in a world where every person receives a superpower on their 18th birthday. You eagerly count down the seconds then shriek in horror as you are given a power no one would ever want to be stuck with.
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Light cascaded through the blinds of the first floor window of his parents home, waking him gently. Simon had been long awaiting this day; the day he'd learn his talent. Many of his friends had already found out their talents and it was just like he'd been told throughout his time in school and by his parents: "Your 18th birthday will define your future". Grant had become a strengther, destined to assist in hard labour, military or emergency service roles. Keith had become a kinetic, adept in manipulating the position of small objects in space with precision using only his mind; a talent that had become well-suited to surgeons, scientists and - when working with teams of kinetics - construction and controlled demolition. Sandra had been unlucky. Sandra's talent had been a rare one. She had the gift of invulnerability. Governments across the world had agreed to share their invulnerables in the largest joint-nation experiment in history - human rights conventions easily sidestepped by newly written laws that came swiftly in the aftermath of 'the event' nearly 50 years ago. In those 50 years there were no statistics for how many invulnerables there bad been or how successful these experiments were. Sandra was picked up the day after her 18th birthday. The joint-governments had set up an efficient task force that detected the unusual electro-magnetic activity associated with invulnerables during their change. Simon prayed he would not end up the same.
10:34. That was his birth time. His parents had shooed his younger sister Emma out of the room. She was too young to watch a change. 30 seconds. Simons palms sweated as he looked into his father's eyes with an overwhelming mix of excitement and fear. 20 seconds. His mother took his hand "It's going to be ok. We're here for you." she assured him. 10 seconds. Simon felt a creeping sensation tingling from the base of his spine slowly climbing to the top of his neck. 10:34. His eyes lit up furiously with a crimson red that made his own mother recoil a few steps back. His whole body shook violently and he crumbled to the floor seizing. He had heard of the pain experienced during the change but nothing could have prepared him for the razorblades inside his head and the fire in his veins. 10:44. His parents were sitting on the floor next to him. They held each others hands and looked visibly shaken. Simons eyes opened. He felt strong, like waking up feeling well after having been ill. His father was first to speak "Are you ok?", Simon nodded. "That was the most violent change I've ever seen." His father continued "Are you sure you're alright?". Simon found his voice "I'm fine, honestly", "how do I find out my talent?". "You've gotta try it dear", his mother said quietly. Simon stood up with his parents. He felt lighter. As if he'd never exerted so little energy to stand up. His thoughts felt quicker. As if he'd been operating in low gear his whole life. Simon effortlessly lifted the piano in the dining room. "I'm a strengther!". "Thank god!" his mother squeaked. "Like father like son." his father quipped. Simon was giddy. He told his parents that he had to go and show his friends, they laughed and let him on his way.
Not 20 minutes later he was at the park with Keith and Grant. Grant was spinning a roundabout close to breaking point while Keith carefully arced a swing back and forth. "Simon! What did you get man!? What's your talent?" Grant shouted as Simon approached the roundabout. "Strengther" he said, as he easily brought Grants self-experimentation with the roundabout to a halt. Grant wrestled the opposite side of the roundabout with Simon but it did not budge. "That's awesome, how are you finding it? Keith asked calmly, still more focused on his swing than on the competition with the roundabout. "Yeah, so far so good", Simon admitted "It's a little strange though". "Feels sudden doesn't it." Grant stated more than asked, giving up and stepping back from the roundabout. "Yeah", Simon agreed "It does". It was at this point that he had noticed Keith struggling to control his swing, as if battling with an unknown force. Simon looked around and saw no one nearby. He looked back and Keith had regained control, visibly annoyed at himself. Tests for kinetic surgeons were among the most gruelling of any job. The three friends played around with their talents for the rest of the afternoon, Keith flicking up objects in the air for Grant and Simon to smash between each other.
On his way home Simon tripped over and landed beside a broken bottle. It wasn't till he'd stood up and walked a few yards that he realised his hand had a shard embedded deep. Maybe strengthers feel less pain than others he thought, absent mindedly pulling the shard from his hand and covering the gash with his jumper sleeve as he continued the walk home. When he came in the door, Emma ran up and hugged him "Missed you Sai-mawn!" she was still struggling with her pronunciations. A large meal had been prepared and a few particularly nice drinks were chosen to "break you into the world of alcohol nicely" as his father had put it. They laughed and joked about how worried they'd been about the change and Simon felt a little closer to adulthood as he shared a beer with his father. As he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed he realised that there was no blood on the jumper from his cut hand. He looked down and turned white as a sheet. His hand was completely fine. There was no sign of the gash the glass had left after being deeply jammed in not a few hours ago.
They would come for him tomorrow.
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Everybody knows how it happens. The day you turn 18 you go to "The Centre" and they give you an injection. This injection mutates the cells in your body and your mind, allowing for a further 30% control of an individuals brain. It causes the individual to attain what we call "superpowers". The only problem is not knowing the superpower you are going to get.
Four days ago i received this injection and it was the worst experience of my life. On the first day everyone gets bed-ridden as the injected cells fight with the white blood cells for control of the body. The second day you spend by the toilet, rejecting whatever food and drink you managed to eat previously. On the third day..... well the third day is the day of delirium. The world spins and the walls melt. Those who go through it akin it to being on LSD, only without paying the price for it!
Just like everyone else before me, I had to go through these phases of pain. But I finally received my power. It may be the worst power on the planet...but its mine. When I first got my power my mother said it was the best power on the planet (mums! Am I right?). So now all I have to look forward to is tomorrow, another day of using my powers towards attaining peace for mankind. Another day of being able to write with my fingertips!
| 2015-03-28T05:31:34 | 2015-03-28T05:14:22 | 27 | 18 |
[WP] Your Spouse goes into the bathroom only to come running out 15 seconds later. Clutching you close they tell you they fell into another dimension and what felt like seconds to you was a 1,000 years to them. They now want you to follow them back because they have built a life for you there.
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"Touchdown!" exclaimed my wife Cindy. From the corner of my eyes, I saw that she glanced over in my direction to look for my approval.
"We're watching basketball," I sighed.
Undeterred from her failure, she replied, "I know, just testing you." She returned her attention to the TV and eagerly awaited for another basket to be made by any team. She doesn't know which is which but she just knows that I'm rooting for the "blue guys". Sure enough, one of the blue guys made a jumpshot. Without hesitation, Cindy pounced on top of me and yells, "GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!!"
I smacked my palm to my face while shaking my head, but my mouth betrayed me as it curled up into a smile. Out of nowhere, a deafening fart erupted and drowned out the sound of the game. Shell shocked, I was unable to react.
"Spot...!! That's nasty!" exclaimed Cindy.
"Spot is upstairs! Get your nasty ass off me!" I laughed in disgust as I pushed my wife off of me.
"How dare you blame me," said Cindy with a smirk. "On an unrelated note, be right back, I have to use the bathroom." Cindy vaulted off the couch and scurried to the bathroom. Finally, I could watch the game in peace. Fifteen seconds left on the clock, my team was down by two, and we had the ball. Our star player brings it down the court. Ten seconds left. He gets double teamed and picks up his dribble. Seven seconds. He manages to pass it to his teammate while being smothered by the defense. Five seconds left. He frees himself from the double team, runs to an open spot, and demands the ball back. Three seconds. He gets the ball, and heaves up an off balance shot from the three point line. The buzzer sounds. And the shot is...
"BABY!" screeched Cindy. Her outburst made me tear my eyes away from the game before I could catch what happened. As I was about to yell at Cindy, she tackled me and nearly crushed my ribs with a hug. She had tears streaming down her face.
"Baby..? What.. what happened in there? See this is why I told you not to eat the leftover burrito that's been sitting out since last week."
"No, it's not that! You'll never believe what happened!"
"What was it?" I asked.
"The bathroom... I went in and I didn't see a bathroom!"
"What did you see then?"
"A new world! But instead of people everyone was puppets!" My concern immediately vanished, and instead I felt embarrassed to have fell for another one of my wife's stupid jokes.
"Ha ha okay you got me. Very funny," I said. "You need to cut that out though, you made me miss the end of the game. Next time you do that, I'll fart in your face." With a surprising amount of force, Cindy grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.
"I'm not joking! I've been gone for years! I finally found a way back thanks to some puppet scientists, but the wormhole they created is going to disappear in one minute!"
"You always keep your jokes going for too long, dumbass. It wasn't even funny at all in the first place!" I laughed.
"NO! LISTEN! They love me there! I'm like a celebrity! They gave me everything I could ever want! A puppet mansion! Puppet luxury cars! Puppet court side tickets to watch puppet basketball!"
"Cool." I turned back to the TV.
"Please! I know you don't believe me, but come with me to the bathroom! We can live like royalty there! Please, the wormhole is closing!" My concern slowly crept back into me. I had never seen Cindy act like this before. The panic, the hysteria. Maybe... maybe she's not lying?
"Come on!" yelled Cindy as she grabbed my hands. I don't know what came over me, but I started to believe her. I shot up from the couch, and ran with her to the bathroom.
"We only have a few more seconds left! Go!" yelled Cindy. My heart was racing as we neared the bathroom door. I reached for the door knob, turned it, and ran into the darkness. I was not sure what was in store for me, but I was excited to live in this new, strange world with my wife. I heard the door slam behind me, and my nostrils were overwhelmed with a foul, rancid smell.
"You are probably the biggest idiot I have ever met in my life" said Cindy from the other side of the door. I turned on the lights and was surprised see our bathroom. Looking down at the toilet, I saw a brown, unflushed swamp.
"Cindy, you fucker, let me out!" I tried opening the door, but Cindy was pushing back with all her might.
"Enjoy my present!" yelled Cindy. "And as they say in basketball, I just hit a home run on you!"
|
"A what?"
"A life! It took me literally a thousand years but I've made one we can both enjoy!"
"A...."
"Life! I know we're very different people, but I've worked and worked and worked for literally *a thousand years* and I'm sure it will be the best! Come with me!"
"A...Life?"
"Yes!!! You dummy!!! Come on! Let's go!"
"Alexa, you assured me she would be unaware of the passage of time. Why does she think a thousand years have passed?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't understand the question".
"Ugh...Alexa, delete 'Rachel'".
"Are you sure you want to delete 'Rachel'?"
"Yes."
| 2017-02-20T22:12:04 | 2017-02-20T21:45:13 | 114 | 18 |
[WP] You're immortal: If you die, you immediately respawn in the closest safe location. Usually a few meters away, sometimes a few kms away. But in a time of global war, you die and respawn on a completely unknown planet, millions of lightyears away.
[removed]
|
Their war had ended long ago.
That much and no more was obvious about the world Angelo walked through, a place that might have been Earth in some time eons ago, was now no more than a ruin run through by twining ivy and questing trees. A place where the dead skyscrapers were topped by falls of leaves that looked like a weeping willow run through drug fueled psychosis, leaves blue or red or sickly yellow by turns of the light, branches and roots moving freely between the shattered windows and through the broken floors like rough-scaled, dark barked snakes.
Angelo walked through it all, the dead skyscrapers and the verdant, oppressive forest, and the cratered plain between that called to him, on a world where the moons were all wrong and the sun was sometimes doubled, even tripled. On the three sun days Angelo did not walk at all, preferring the safety of the strange and twisted trees that grew up out of the many shell craters in plain. Their trunks split by those long ago blasts, these trees had been scattered all throughout the pits in the ground only to reform in a single, almost self sufficient ecosystem— little forests all on their own, arm thick tendrils connected above hollowed bowls like many long fingers grasping towards a common ground.
He met Selver on a three sun day, hiding in the bole of the tree that was the creature’s home.
There were no words the first day, only shock and terror. Selver was an ancient looking thing, three feet tall at best. Like a little child made of a bark flexible as skin, silver cored eyes set in pools of emerald green, branch-like tendrils tumbling down his scalp and spine in a wave of lush, blossoming spring.
Three more times Angelo saw Selver before he learned the creature’s name. Once by the light of the many moons. Once in the broken city, hiding in the shadows of a bombed out ruin that might once have been an apartment building for colossi: the ceilings were twelve feet tall or more.
Finally, strikingly, Angelo saw the creature ambling across the plains from one self contained crater-forest to another, bearing a bucket of brakish water over one shoulder and a small knife-like implement in his hands. And that time, because the knife was familiar in a land where nothing else was, Angelo came upon the creature and asked not *‘what is your name*,’ but, “What is your rank?” and “Who do you serve?”
“Selver,” the creature said, a title like no other Angelo had ever heard.
And the creature was gone into the shell crater, scurrying away between the wiry roots of the shattered but never dead trees.
\*\*\*
On Earth Angelo had sometimes thought himself a god. Why should he not? His governments had always treated him as such, at least by the standards of the other enlisted men.
Angelo had been an enigma for as long as anyone in the government could remember. The same man reappeared constantly throughout the world’s apocalyptic war. Angelo, dark of skin and dark of hair, tall by the standards of his people. Strong but not unusually so. Agile, and that was unusual.
From generation to generation the various governments of Earth would watch the enlistment rolls, never the draft notices, Angelo didn’t need to be drafted, and like clock work he would appear, a year or less after his last death. All the same memories, all the same skills, but increasing each time until he became a sort of secret weapon: a man used when no other man would do, or would take the order, or would spend his life so freely.
And generation to generation, that training was ingrained.
There were structures in Angelo’s mind deeper than breathing. Deference was one, discipline another. Sacrifice and a certain, cold burning ferocity. From the time of his first childhood on an island that no longer existed, Angelo had been trained to these things.
His question to Selver, then, was not unusual for Angelo. It was the only thing he could think of, here in a world where the war had already been won or lost. He searched for the power structures, for a banner or a man or a cause outside himself to pledge himself to. He searched for Selver, because though the little creature was hardly human such distinctions had rarely mattered much to Angelo, and because there was no one else around.
And so Selver, in the shell crater that was his home or among the other craters where he tended the nascent forest, came to know the sound of Angelo’s voice well. To understand the man who sat at the edge of his cored out world, asking questions in his cold, hard voice.
And Selver, because he was in fact an ancient thing, came to understand the man behind the voice, the words Angelo did not say.
The words buried deeper in the man’s psyche than any conscious thought.
On a day like any other Selver looked up at Angelo sitting at the crater’s edge and said, “You are like these trees.”
And now it was Angelo’s turn not to speak, struck dumb by a creature who spoke English in a twisted, whispery accent, but who spoke it nonetheless.
“And now you are as quiet as them too,” Selver said. “Why could you not be any other day, when I was at my work?”
“What work do you do?” Angelo said, the spark of his discipline breaking through his fear to grab at the world’s one familiar thread.
“I heal,” Selver said, and saying that he turned away, took up his bucket made of rusted steel and the ever-hungry Nappir roots that consumed it. Selver crouched down and clawed at the ground with his long fingered hands, sifting blasted dirt until the water bubbled up to fill the bucket, brackish and poisoned and wrong.
Angelo watched with a growing hunger. He couldn't parse Selver’s inhuman face. It was small and pinched, no obvious nose, a ragged slash where lips should be. A face dominated by eyes and fringed by the blossoming tendrils of his hair, expressionless even by Angelo’s standards.
But the eyes were so focused as they worked, as the bucket filled. The long fingered hands were steady and strong and purposeful with every sifting of the earth.
“What are you healing?” Angelo asked when the bucket was full.
“A world,” Selver said. He handed Angelo the bucket and filled another, for he had made a second in the days where Angelo watched and babbled from the crater’s edge.
Angelo took the bucket, staring at the strange little creature in front of him.
“Now you will too,” Selver said, and he reached out a hand to Angelo.
A moment passed, another. Angelo thought of all the things that had come before, the days spent in shell craters like this one, no trees anywhere to be found in a leveled off world. He thought of governments who ordered and governments who had asked, islands lost beneath the waves and countries blotted out— the parts he’d played in those. He looked up to where the suns blotted out the stars and wondered where Earth was, if there was still an Earth, if there were still humans, if there were other creatures like him.
“What is your name?” Selver asked.
“Sergeant Angelo Ibarra,” Angelo said.
“Help me up, Sergeant Angelo Ibarra.”
Angelo took the hand, felt the strength and the roughness of it. They walked through the shadowed plains between living forest and ruined city, and Angelo poured the brackish water wherever he was told, dug for more in the craters where there was water to be had.
And when the moon and stars came out Angelo leaned against the roots in Selver’s home tree staring up at constellations no man from Earth had ever seen. Selver rested beside him, no noise but the slow rasp of his breath through the slashed lips and the occasional call of a distant bird that Selver had only identified as the Myna.
Even now, weeks removed from Earth, Angelo waited for the explosions. The shrieking whine of drones overhead and the acrid stench of scorched flesh where their lasers passed. Angelo looked to Selver, saw the knife held loosely in the creature’s hand.
“What do you look for, Sergeant Angelo Ibarra?” Selver said.
Angelo glanced back to the stars. “Home.”
“And what was home?”
The night passed on that question, and when it grew cold and Selver offered Angelo his blanket of luminescent moss the old soldier shook his head and found another shell crater to shiver in, staring up at stars that were not his own.
|
If Elli had been transported to a different country, where she could simply pick up the local language or get a translator, things would have been fine. Waking up on a completely different planet, with strange creatures staring down at her while spouting gibberish, however, was not fine.
Elli groaned; this place must be safe, because she only came back to life in safe spaces, but she didn't recognize anything. Blinking, she tried to push herself up but was immediately forced back down. Heavy restraints were placed over her body, pinning her to the table as she gurgled out protest.
The creature nearest Elli's left head said something that could have been comforting, but sounded like nonsense. It reached a blue, wrinkled hand to stroke Elli's foreheads gently, then drew away and held the glistening sweat from Elli out. After sniffing it through a blue and white skin, it seemed to decide Elli would not harm them.
It pulled down it's blue skin, revealing pearly white stubs behind pink skin. The creature bared it's stubs at Elli, it's glistening peachy skin wrinkling around what must have been it's mouth. (Maybe the blue and white skin was a protective layer of skin? It looks weirdly textured, though, with strings of material coming off of it. Oh well, it wasn't Elli's place to judge.)
"Where am I?" Elli demanded, wriggling fruitlessly against her bindings. The creature looked confused, and waved a fleshy blue stub with 5 smaller stubs on it over Elli's eyes. It said something in a weird, brightly nonsensical manner. Frustrated, Elli cast her eyes around. The one thing she could describe this room as was 'sterile'.
Tools lined the white walls, yellow lights glaring down over them. This planet must be quite primitive, to still use such violent and wasteful light sources. Elli had once lived a few years as a surgeon, so she thought the tools might be a primitive form of laser tech. Why would anyone need that, though, when you could just operate a Losich machine to reduce error in the surgery?
The next thing on Elli's mind, as she tuned out the Creature to her side, was whether or not she was actually safe. Supposedly, anywhere she came back to life was safe. However, if she was safe, why were there primitive surgical tools on the wall? Why did these creatures flesh crinkle as they walked? And what was up with the piece of Fabric next to the door.
It had a bunch of stars and stripes, and the way it was hung seemed to be in some sort of reverence. Maybe it was a symbol of these creatures religion?
In an attempt to communicate with the creatures, Elli listened to them communicate with each other for a single Seppi. Using what she knew about linguistics, she made a series of noises that go along with what the creatures sounded like. One of the creatures alighted into the air for a brief moment, slapping it's stubs together in something Elli thought might be excitement. She must have succeeded communication, because the creature spoke rapidly towards her.
Elli grunted, wriggling uncomfortably. The creatures pulled the restraints off of her. Apparently, speaking some semblance of a similar language made her less of a threat.
Elli sat herself up, turning around to fully appreciate the room she was in. Turns out, the religious fabric was plastered everywhere. As well as drawing that looks like C-I-A. Elli wondered what that meant, or if it was just some child's doodle. It wasn't her place to judge.
With a creak of the door that caught Elli's attention, another of the creatures, this one without a blue protective skin around its face and stubs, strode in. Perfectly in her language, it said:
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you again, Elli."
What?
[(What a neat prompt, was fun to respond to even if it ended up a little strange haha. Thanks)]
| 2021-11-26T09:26:05 | 2021-11-26T09:15:33 | 912 | 159 |
[WP]You've just died and gone to bureaucratic hell. Escape is possible, but really, really tedious. You and some other lost souls have decided to try.
|
Everyone’s first day in hell is the same - they arrive and immediately wonder why it’s not hot. Of course they don’t find that out, not for a long time anyway, because *first* they have to be processed. 55 million people die on earth each day and hell employs 47 people to process the lines and so every single day they just get longer.
Your first few million years of being in hell are spend queuing, but it’s even worse than it sounds. Lines are packed tightly, so there is no room to move, escape or sit down. You are no longer a body, you are a soul, so you don’t need to eat, sleep, drink or even pee, you just… wait.
It’d perhaps be better if you could go insane, but that too is a function of the human mind and you are no longer human, so all you can do is to stand, crammed up against the person in front and behind you and hope that maybe this year you’ll shuffle forward a few steps. If you think the queueing is bad though, what comes next makes it look like a picnic.
You hear rumours about the front of the line of course, as people can talk freely. Most of the time they don’t though, as after a few million years no one has anything to say. You will have shared literally ever single memory with everyone in earshot and so you all fall quiet. Occasionally though the rumours swirl back about the front.
When I drew near the front I finally saw what people had been taking about for all those millennia. Our line narrowed down until it was single file for the last few million years and then a door appeared in the distance at the front of it. I suppose it would have been possible to run away at that point, but after waiting for so long it simply didn't occur to us, we existed to wait and so we waited.
By the time I saw the door I knew all about it already, it was impossible not to with people talking about it the whole time, but seeing it still surprised me. I guess because it was the only thing I had seen in… in a long time, that was not another person.
It was small, pine and cheap looking and when it opened it was just possible to see the office beyond, but people said it was as boring looking as the door. Of course when it was opened, the thing most people looked at was the person who left, as they tended to draw the eye.
It was impossible to be hungry or withdrawn, but somehow they were shrunken, as if carrying a extra heavy load as they walked away, not even looking back towards the line and the people the had shared untold amounts of time with. They were broken.
It was fairly clear that each person got a different amount of time, but strangely, with all the theories that people had, we didn’t get it right why. Looking back perhaps our minds were so dulled by the time we approached the front that we didn't *want* to know. Perhaps we simply couldn't comprehend what it could be.
When the door finally opened for me it was a small man, partly balding and wearing a white shirt who looked out. Checked his list and checked my name. “Reginald Harris?”
I had been waiting for this and planning my response and although i jumped in surprise, I was proud of how carefree I made myself sound in my reply. “Actually people call me Reg.”
He checked his list again. “But you *are* Reginald Harris?”
Defeated and a little crushed, I nodded. He stood aside and I shuffled past him, unable to walk at any more than the slowest of movements. Inside the office was as expected, small, bare, functional. there was a desk, a filing cabinet and two chairs. The man sat down at the desk, took out a file and looked at me.
“Mr Harris. We are here to evaluate your life.” Without stopping he opened the file and looked at the first page. “You beat out over a million sperm to fertilise your mother's egg, we’ll begin by going over what some of those other sperm could have been.”
It took a little over a year to discuss. Each potential person was looked at and it was explained to me how they would have been better than I was, how their life choices would have worked better than mine and when it was over I was almost relieved. Then he began on my life.
Each moment, from birth onward, was analysed. He explored every choice, every mistake and explained to me where I had gone wrong. I argued at first, but after a few years I just listened, nodding occasionally. I had wasted my life, my existence, that was clear now and I was right to be here. I no longer doubted that.
At last he finished, spending just a few years on how the lives of those I had known would be better without me and then I was free. I was free to walk away and I did so, not looking back, utterly broken. My life was a waste, this was my place.
At last, after walking for some time, I came to a small group of people. Most had been here for a great deal of time and at last, after decades of simply standing with them, I asked them what we were to do now.
“We wait.” The answer was simple but unsatisfying.
“For what, what is next?” He shrugged and pointed.
I walked for a long time and at last came across it, a small notice surrounded by throngs of people. At last I got to the front and read the sign, stooping close to see the small words.
“PLEASE WAIT. YOU WILL CONTINUE TO BE PUNISHED SOON.”
I walked away, as unsure as I had ever been what I was doing here, or what was coming. Then I drifted, walking without aim for untold years until at last I came back to where the queues finished and the small door opened.
A thought occurred to me and I walked up to the door, glancing at the line and seeing their shocked expressions. This would be talked about for a long time. I knocked and then, without waiting, I pushed open the door and entered
The small man looked up from the file. “Yes, what is it?”
I had no plan, but the words came from somewhere. “You’re fired. I’m to take over.”
He looked for a moment as if he would object and then he stood, dropped the file and walked out. As he passed I heard him mutter. “This is how they tell me? After all these years? Bloody hell.”
I walked round the desk and sat down, cleared my throat and picked up the file. “My Peters?” The man ahead of me nodded. “Well, where did you get up to?” He shrugged and I flipped back to the start. “Then we’ll begin again.” He face fell and I felt just a moment of triumph.
I may have been trapped here, but at least I had something to do and with purpose comes freedom.
*****
If you enjoyed this story then why not visit /r/fringly - 400,000 subscribers* can't be wrong.
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^* ^Actual ^subscriber ^numbers ^may ^vary ^wildly ^from ^the ^number ^claimed.
|
*How Does One Progress in Hell? What Every Resident Should Know*
Carson still had that five-fold pamphlet, tucked away in a folder of paperwork, tucked inside a manila envelope, inside an expanding case of folders and envelopes. The whole set was handed to him during his first official day in Hell - which, of course, was a week after he'd initially died and popped up in eternal damnation. He sat around in a waiting room for that week, twiddling his thumbs until it'd gotten so crowded that he couldn't.
Apparently HR existed in Hell, because *of course it does*. He'd damn it all to Hell, but that'd clearly had been done long ago.
They'd sat through a fifteen-hour seminar covering the reasons they were in Hell, their choices in the forever retirement plan of Hell, the hierarchy of Hell, who to contact for what in Hell, and so on and so forth. At the end, they were told that as their first punishment task, they were to read the entire set of documentation they'd been handed. Of course, most skimmed, or didn't and said they did. Not like they'd be punished any more than they had been - oversight was not one of bureaucracy's strong points.
But Carson had been a lawyer specializing in HR-related cases. He pored over the whole damned thing, from beginning to end. It was mind-numbingly dull, and even his eyes - ones trained on reading thousands and thousands of pages of legalese - glazed over. found that pamphlet tucked away towards the back of the case, back of the manila pack, back of the folder. The title caught his eye. There was progression in Hell? The HR folks hadn't mentioned it at all.
He turned over the information in his head as he did his daily repetitions of useless work. The pamphlet had outlined a way to rise and gain more freedoms - to become a specialist (within which there were five ranks), then associate (three ranks), then supervisor (seven ranks). The chain culminated in a chance at returning to the world of the living as the highest ranked soul of them all - a recruiter (four ranks). The process for each rank rise was arcane: nominations from peers, good references from supervisors, work performance, interpersonal relations. And though it wasn't mentioned, Carson was sure a huge part of it was good old fashioned hobnobbing.
Carson had died of old age. He reasoned that some of his old lawyer friends had to have kippered off already, and more would soon follow. Where could they end up but here? Sure enough, after a few team-building sessions, he found one, a friend from law school. Marion was already an associate, having had the same epiphany that Carson had. The two worked to recruit other people into the scheme, and soon gathered hundreds of affiliates. It would take a very long time, but they didn't call Hell eternal damnation for nothing.
| 2016-07-29T07:25:00 | 2016-07-29T07:14:38 | 992 | 79 |
[WP] You won't hold heroes hostages to torture them. You won't throw a hero against a wall once you have them by the neck. You sure won't start monologuing if you have a hero at gunpoint. You're the deadliest villain in history. A villian without an ego..
[removed]
|
I never understood the theatrics.
The vibrant colors, the costumes, the capes, the taglines and catch-phrases—none of it made sense to me. It served no purpose other than to distract the population from what was truly going on. No other purpose than to make the heroes look good during the interviews, to draw the average person's eye away from the destruction they had caused.
That was what I theorized, anyway. It was the only idea that made sense to me as to why they would pour so much time, effort, and risk into something that was not strictly necessary. At least then their hyperbolic attitudes and gimmicks had a *purpose*.
Staring at the one in front of me, however, gave a different impression. It made me think that the distraction was simply an added consequence that they had not calculated for when designing such superfluous personalities.
I wondered what reason the one trapped by my machines would have given had I asked.
"You'll never get away with it you know," the man in colorful fabric was saying. I had gotten into the habit of tuning out most of what the heroes said. I still listened, of course, filtering their words through the algorithms installed in my mind in case any of it was important.
Normally, it was not.
"I won't?" I asked, pouring in as much of a villainous human tone as I could bear.
The hero stood strong, his eyes completely resolute and self-righteous. The fact that his entire body was restrained by probes I'd hooked onto his nerves didn't seem to bother the man. "No. You *won't*. All of this"—he tried to gesture around—"will come crashing down. Your *evil* plans are all but destined to fail."
My eyebrows dropped as I walked closer to the man, my artificial and interchangeable face muscles morphing into an expression that I made both sinister and confused. The man forced a grin at that.
He would not be as proud, I assumed, if he knew the only reason for which his life had not been ended.
"Why the costume?" I started, cutting directly to the point.
The hero stopped, his own face contorting in confusion. "Wha—"
"Why the costume?" I asked again, cutting him off before he wasted more of my time. One of my eyebrows raised.
The man glanced down at himself—at the red symbol painted on his chest and the black tights that were his calling card to the outside world. "I'm the Bell of Freedom! It is—"
"Yes. I am quite aware of your name, your reputation, and your measly superpower of sonic manipulation."
He froze once again, his eyebrows pulling together. "What? Why are you—"
"Why the costume?" I tried again, marking only one more chance before the effort overruled the information I would gain.
"It's my trademark," the man spluttered. "My symbol—how else are the citizens supposed to recognize me when I go to vanquish evil?"
I narrowed my eyes. "Why should the citizens recognize you?"
He blinked, trying to jerk his head backward. A single burning jab into his spinal cord halted that.
"To—to give them hope!" he yelled. "To give them something to latch onto and look up to! A role model!"
My head tilted back in understanding. The logic behind his emotional statements trickled into my mind and processed with everything else I knew about him. With the holiday that was celebrated in his honor. The statue they had built to his visage. The songs they had written to his name.
It allowed them to support him, then. That I understood.
"Why do you need to be a role model?"
The man shifted, breathing hard as he tried to use his powers. My machines stopped him in quick time, but I did have to give credit to the man's determination. Eventually, he just slumped his shoulders and looked back to me.
"I get respect," he rasped. "I provide them with hope and they reward me for my services. I am allowed certain..." He averted his eyes before coughing. "*Liberties* due to my status."
*That* I understood even more. He was given passes under the law because of all the 'help' he had provided with the city.
The kind of freedom that would be useful as a tool.
A realization started in my mind, already calculating with data I had amassed in spades. As it processed, I stepped back toward the man. "You are a hero for more than your morality?"
The man cringed, staring back with fierceness in his eyes that sparkled a degree of hope. Hope that was wholly unearned, but hope all the same. "I am a hero to do what is *right*."
"Of course," I said.
"What?" he asked, his lips curling upward. "What are you a villain for? What is this master plan you have constructed for yourself? What kind of evil are you doing this time? What—"
A ping from the back of my mind allowed me to tune out his ranting. The obvious bait for me to reveal more than I intended to went easily ignored. The idea that I had come up with earlier had been processed, I realized. It had been evaluated and simulated to see how it could add to my success.
And... yes. If I played it correctly, it would benefit me.
Immediately, I set swafts of the machinery in my base to designing. To constructing facial muscles that were identical to the ones staring me in the eyes. To constructing devices that would be able to manipulate sound within a negligible margin of error.
"TELL ME! WHAT IS YOUR PLAN?" the hero yelled as I turned my attention back to him. Somehow, I still saw confidence in his eyes as he continued to resist my machines. No matter.
"None of your concern," I said and ordered my machines to end his life. He was nothing but another variable to calculate if left alive, and he was starting to get on my nerves as it was.
"No!" the hero yelled. "Your evil will not be tolerated. I will—"
I ended his life a split second later. With a single thought, my machines began dismantling his flesh for proper and efficient disposal. I did not need him any longer. He had played his role.
The suit, however, I left intact.
It was still of great use.
---
/r/Palmerranian
|
Ultra stared at me with wide eyes, waiting for me to make the first move and I did.
Boooooom! My arm launched back from shock.
A single shot to the head was all it took to bring low the great and powerful Ultra. Of course it wasn't a normal gun, it was one made by me, Nemesis. I used his only weakness, A space alloy called mimicry metal, to craft a gun. A hand cannon. A motherfucking elephant gun. The recoil was insane but in return, nothing remained of the back of his head.
Unfortunately, I could only make one set of six bullets.
I glanced around at the crowd who looked on in horror, "What? No applause?"
Blood and brain covered the people directly behind him. The building had a hole where the bullet had hit and finally stopped.
People began to scream as shock wore off.
"You monster!" Someone yelled out. He tried to run but I fired into him with a normal pistol and down he went. He wasn't super enough.
The body of Ultra fell into a pile of his own blood. I toed him with my boot. "Hmm. Shame he didn't last longer."
I could hear the sound of a helicopter approaching, and I knew exactly what that meant. More heroes. More people to crush beneath my boots.
I leapt from the stage and towards the buildings where Ultra's brains were scattered. More specifically towards the alley that held the sewer grate which I needed for a quick escape.
The heroes yelled out, "Halt in the name of Justice!"
But it was too late, I was in the sewer and in my domain. I watched from a distance, hidden by my dark clothes, as they entered. It would spell their doom.
End
<might make continuation later>
| 2019-08-06T17:39:35 | 2019-08-06T17:34:25 | 1,206 | 83 |
[WP] At the age of 18, people are given one superpower of their choice. While your friends and acquaintances choose super strength, flight, invisibility, telekinesis, they make fun of you for your “nerd” power. You decide to show them just how powerful manipulation of the strong nuclear force is.
|
Reed had done his research, planned carefully for when the day came that his Avatar would visit him again.
"Come your 18th Year, I will return to grant you a power chosen by you. This power will give you the means to unfold your mark upon this world and beyond, in mysterious ways. The 18th Year, the 3rd Month, the 22nd Day, I will find you and the contract will be bound. Be ready for that day, Young Reed."
&#x200B;
That was the message that 5-year old Reed was left with, after just having a party filled with balloons, cheap bowling-alley pizza and tooth-achingly sweet grocery store birthday cake. In the car on the way home, his mother had asked him if he had met his Avatar yet and he only nodded quietly, lost in his Avatar's powerful warning.
&#x200B;
Any normal 5-year old would have probably began wishing for the standard packages. Super strength, speed, invulnerability, time-manipulation, the list went on. But, at the same time, looking at his parents, Reed realized something about the powers people came to obtain.
&#x200B;
They had a limitation. On TV, animated characters had these powers that scaled to the skies and beyond, but in reality, people's powers did have a barrier that seemed insurmountable. No matter how hard you tried, you always hit it in the end.
&#x200B;
So, determined to try and circumvent this, he instead turned to research and theory. It was all surprisingly dry at first, just pages and pages of text that he had to pour over and filter, but as the years passed, it became easier and easier. He learned the sciences in his spare time, steadfast in the belief that the key to passing this invisible barrier, lay somewhere in the depths of science and comprehension of universal forces.
&#x200B;
It was on his 17th birthday, that he finally had his answer. Sleepless weeks and months had passed in a flash as he tried to make sure he had his request formulated perfectly, both in wording and understanding. No mistakes. His schoolmates, when asking about it, laughed when he tried to explain his desired power, ignorant of the how vast the potential of a simple concept could be. So many tried to convince him even, to change his wish or to ask for something basic, like telekinesis or time manipulation. Not surprising. That was how shallow their understanding was, plain and simple.
&#x200B;
Come his 18th birthday, Reed went to the outlook on the other side of town and waited for his Avatar to arrive. She was there in moments, her sharp, icy eyes staring straight at him, not through him like when he was 5. She had gained some newfound respect for him over the years. She'd watched him the entire time, he was sure of it now.
There were no pleasantries exchanged. Both of them knew what they were there for and with no hesitation, Reed made his wish.
His Avatar's eyes widened with excitement and where her palms touched his, there was a fiery glow, searing a mark into the palm of his hand to bind the contract she had waited 13 years to forge, perhaps longer, given her aura of wisdom and experience. Without a word, she left him standing there on the cliff side and though there was nothing said, nor any expression visible on her mostly featureless face, it was the first time he had ever gleaned the feeling of a smile from her. But, as she faded away, he immediately set about his demonstration preparation. He'd grown a little bit irritated about the constant pressing from others to select 'this power' or 'that power' because they were 'cool' or 'practical'. He had a bigger vision than that. He wanted to pass the limitations of others and set himself apart from all the rest.
&#x200B;
So that day, he walked into the classroom cool as a cucumber and the time came, finally, for the students to demonstrate their chosen powers for the Choosing. Some lifted steel girders or flew around the school at near supersonic speeds, others vanished and reappeared and then there were some with somewhat 'niche' powers, like transforming into animals or altering gravity orientation.
&#x200B;
When it came time for Reed to go up, there was a small murmur and a few sparse chuckles. Someone even called out "Hey Reed, just don't go Nagasaki on us!", clearly in jest of his "Atomic Control" wish he'd mentioned.
&#x200B;
Reed took a deep breath and loosened up, remembering what he'd practiced on the cliff side. His thoughts reverberated around inside his head. *Show them what it your wish really means. This is the power to top all others.*
&#x200B;
Without skipping a beat, Reed snapped his fingers. The walls of the school melted away into nothingness, garnering gasps from the crowd.
Which turned to screams, as suddenly, the world went dark, as the sun in the sky, vanished into nothingness.
|
You take a deep breath and concentrate...
-"Energy can neither be destroyed nor created" know who said that?...
You elaborate as a glowin thread of atomic material is seemingly coming out of the side of your head at the site of your fingertip.. as you continue to stretch your finger away and shaping the atomic material into a sphere you smile...
-It was Einstein..
You take 2 steps infront of the seemingly fluid floating atomic disc of lighting ... you use your ability to change the molecular structure of the air molecules to make it into a Golden throne on which you sit facing your friends who all look at you dumbfolded by the strong light emitting from the floating disc.
-Behold....
You say as you move your fingers closer together
-True Godhood
And SNAP the disc completely disappears.
| 2018-12-20T22:46:33 | 2018-12-20T21:25:55 | 450 | 81 |
[WP] A mysterious entity decides to bring peace and equality to humanity by force. The world is informed that in two weeks everybody over the age of ten will have their conscience transferred to another random human body anywhere in the world. This shuffle will then repeat every 24 hours.
How will people prepare? How is life just after the fist shuffle? after a month? after a year?
|
I wake up in a sixteen year old body. I stretch her limbs, testing the physical condition. She is in poor shape, which is happening more often than I'd like these days. It's only natural though, since no one wants to waste time working out a body without getting to enjoy the pay-off.
Some people don't even have the sense of solidarity to avoid wounds or malnourishment, especially near the final hours. I stand up and scoff. The room is a mess.
Yes, humanity as a whole has certainly become more equal. Equally pathetic.
I'm just glad the body isn't in a state of pregnancy, as many female bodies are these days. I take one last glance at the filthy appartment, and leave. I have work to do.
The streets are in chaos. The first days, some people still tried to resume their own line of work, trusting that the people functioning as temporary colleagues were as experienced as they claimed. After a while, it all went to shit.
I stroll the streets, trying the figure out my new location. I recognize some of the ruins as oriental. What can you build up in a day? Not a house, not a family, no work projects...you barely had the time to make some friends. It turned out people didn't want the lives of others. The Entity, whatever it is, must've been pretty oblivious to the nature of humans.
I see a bunch of people advancing towards me, carrying arms. I tense up. At the start, people made efforts to go back to their old life, reidentify themselves based on memorized clues. But the world was too vast. Some places mainatained order with passed on messages between subsequent body occupants, laws for them to stick to. This city is not one of those places.
"Looks like you had some bad luck with your new body, pal," the leader of the group says, his appearance that of a burly man. The other people in the group grin. "How about you provide us with some entertainment, eh?"
I knew that many of them had been in my situation as well, before. That didn't matter to most of them. For some, this was just a matter of waiting turns to be in a position of power. Me, I was different.
"I'll give you entertainment," I say. I roll to the right, and watch their expressions of amusements turn to disbelief, as I disarm one of them, breaking his arm in the process. I shoot the burly leader clean through the head. "You guys are a bit slow," I say. "So allow me to explain."
Before they manage to aim their weapons at me and shoot, I drop the gun I was holding, raising my arms in harmless surrender. "What do you think you're doing?" one of them grates, glancing at the leader's body lying on the ground. English has become the go to language of communication these last months, so I know most of them will understand me when I reply:
"See, this new world is a world where knowledge rules supreme. There are no more classes of wealth...heritage, nobility, gender and physical strength, all those things have become meaningless. There is only one class that remains: our knowledge, our memories."
I look most of them in the eye. Confidence is key in moments like this, that much I have learned. "My knowledge far exceeds that of yours. Before the Entity intervened, I enjoyed special forces training, on top of an education that would put the average person to shame. With my memories, my knowledge, you can make this day one of the best in a long while."
Some of them hesitantly lower their guns, but the guy who spoke up first smiles. "And how would we do that? You think we're incapable of providing our own fun? I don't need a fancy education for that."
I smile back and say: "By changing this world back to the way it was. Over the last months, everywhere across the world, I have been developing and building a system that will accomplish just that."
Now they all drop their weapons. A longing takes their gazes, a longing I've been seeing more and more. "You mean," one of them says, "We can get our own lives back? But how? The Entity, whatever it was, has taken all sense of identity from us. I-I barely remember what it was like to have a family...friends. All we've known these last years were faceless strangers and places."
"I feel like an empty, meaningless drone," one of the others mumbled.
"How could you possibly change all that?" the first guy says, the only one now who still has his gun pointed at me. But even in his eyes, I detect hope. "How can we ever go back?" A cloud darkens the sun, and for a moment I shiver, terrified of It, watching us. But It will never catch me. Tomorrow I will already be gone again.
I smile. "Come with me, and I'll show you. I'll show you how we can build something that spans the globe, a system that I've been in the process of constructing for months now."
I stare at the others with intense eyes, and feel the rage resurfacing, rage that keeps me going.
"I'll show you...how we can kill the Entity."
|
It's been 7 years since the endless shuffle of conscience every 24 hours.
I've killed over a 1.000 others since then.
Nobody cares about anyone, not even about yourself, when you transfer from body to body every 24 hours.
After week, just before the transfer I would cut my wrists.
After a month, I would find and kill anyone I could find in the same house and play videogames for the rest of day.
After a year I noticed there were many like me, so I had to start defending myself.
And now, after only 7 years, you sometimes transfer to the same body because there are so few us left.
Peace? Equality? Not long now...
| 2014-10-29T07:20:53 | 2014-10-29T06:42:54 | 50 | 22 |
[WP] The zombie apocalypse breaks out. You remain safe in isolation for 30+ years. Someone finds you and informs you the zombie apocalypse ended 20 years ago.
|
"It had been so long since I last saw another living being. My longest lasting friend and comfort died of old age and even that had been some 5? No, maybe six years ago. I stopped counting. "
"Jojo had been a good pup. He was there when Emily and Brian let the infection take them. He was there when Rose... Poor Rose lost it. And he was there when things got really bad that one winter. And that was it. His time came and went."
"Miss them? The folks that came with me into the bunker? I guess. It stings a little to think I'll never see them again. Regrets? Too many maybe. We all have regrets don't we?"
"I was just as startled, to be honest, when I found out that the outbreak was over and done with. Sorry, not startled, I was shocked. Beyond words. Like how could this be?"
"We all spent a good deal of time in that place. All twelve of us. There was so little room to live in at first. And then the food got scarce. I mean, if it weren't for you, I'd have ended up eating my own left arm, I'll bet, heh."
"It just never gotten better, you know? And suddenly you're telling me the whole hell things had blown over since 2025? Like what gives, you know? What gives?"
"Was God playing a joke on us? Maybe. Maybe it was a test of some kind. I sure as hell wished that it could have all happened differently. But no, it just happened the way it did."
***"What about the skeletons we found?"***
"Like I said, it just happened the way it did. And we never dared leave for the surface because you know, ever since the time Patty took a potty outside and never came back."
***"The remains we found were clogging your sewage and had bite marks all over them."***
"Well, back in '19, we had a small breakout in the commons. Joel turned, you see. "
***"That doesn't explain the bitemarks that forensics have uncovered to be fairly recent."***
***"We also found the freezer under the dining table."***
"Oh. Well, when you put it like that, I guess it's true. A dude's gotta eat, right? I didn't ask for this to happen to me, but things went south after Patty disappeared. Panicked really. Rose was her sister, right, and she started talking about demons and betrayals. The rest of the group were so scared they actually believed what she said."
***"And what did she say?"***
"She said I was a satan spawn from hell, heh. I guess I had no choice then but to fend for myself then. I'm not saying I'm proud for what I did, but I heard them conspiring late one night when they'd thought I was asleep. Next morning, I slipped some juice in their cereals and that was it. Deed was done. Again, I'm not proud or anything, but you would've done the same. They wanted me dead."
***"Do you know what happened to Patty?"***
"Not that I know of. But now that I think of it, she would probably be one of the zacks. Our region was pretty populated with those things. I doubt she'd made it out alive."
***"Do you see the lady on the third row in the second column? Over there? Yes, that's the one."***
***"That is Patty Simonson, who survived your attempted murder after coaxing her to go outside to conduct her business. She provided testimony on how you lured her and all the deceased to the site of the murders by convincing them of what you told them was a zombie apocalypse."***
***"In addition to this fact, we have uncovered emails and multiple evidence of your visits to purchase the items in exhibit A that were used in the murder of all your ten victims."***
"I know how you think it's murder now, but you have to understand that those were desperate times."
***"There was no zombie apocalypse."***
"I'm certain you are either mistaken or making a joke. There was a zombie apocalypse."
***"There was no zombie apocalypse. What you encountered, stated in your drafted email dated on the 15th of the month of July in the year 2015, which you then called the "zombie horde" was an international zombie parade organized by individuals on a public forum website as a form of protest to the oppressive behavior of the forum's owners. This event continued for subsequent ten years until the forum was closed."***
***"You were a member of this forum and your interactions in the forum indicated that you were aware the incidents would be staged. Yet you contacted the deceased along with Ms. Simonson whom you were aware had been diagnosed with mental disorders such as schizophrenia and extreme paranoia."***
***"Your credit card statements revealed that you had purchased the tools used in the murders as well as the furniture and goods that were used as stock inside the murder site."***
***"We have yet to determine how you acquired the bunker, but we have enough solid evidence as proof of your actions and more than enough to send you straight to the gallows. What do you have to say to that?"***
"Heh. What can I say? One flew over the cuckoo's nest?"
"Well, Your Honor, and you, Mr. Hotshot Attorney and you too, Patty Cakes. Poor pitiful Patty. You were my favorite, you know? And how I loathed your sister for singling me out. But we had good times, you and me. And everyone too. Good times indeed, just living out the apocalypse. And we all know all good things come to an end."
"I've had my fill. You all can have yours now."
|
It was 2015 when the news first broke out. I was 34 at the time with my wife and our son, Charlie. We lived out in a farm in the northern parts of Ontario, Canada. Our farm kept us relatively safe. We would have people come to the farm for about a decade until eventually they stopped coming, we thought maybe there was nobody left to come up. Most people who came up before that though stayed in the farm and we settled ourselves a pretty established community. By 2025 our population was of 34 people. If anyone died we instantly would dispose of their corpse. Because we were pretty well up north the disease slowed down so you wouldn't see much crawling around up here. We would expand our village further. By 2035 our population reached 49 people. Until in 2038 a war broke out in our little paradise causing the death of many men, women and children. That dropped our population down to 16 people by the year 2040, five years later we were surprised to see a large amount of people coming up here. They came into our village and asked us what happened here we explained that it was difficult to keep together a community when there is an apocalypse going on until they explained that its been over for 20 years and that they were expanding here due to the need of more food as the population was beginning to grow dramatically farther south.
| 2015-07-03T23:39:43 | 2015-07-03T14:58:37 | 76 | 13 |
[WP] With total war as a concept alien to the rest of our galaxy, All saw humans as negotiators and peacemakers, soft and weak. Today is the day when the galaxy discovers why being so good at finding ways to avoid war was a survival mechanism.
|
"Turn and leave. Now." projected the elderly human ambassador, face marred by a scowling rage palpable through even the scratchy video display.
Arrrthyx laughed. She really did love the humans some times. Their "warnings" backed by nothing but paper fleets and empty threats. Their fleets nothing more than disorganized militias fit only to be ground to dust beneath the weight of her mass drivers and particle lances. Within a few minutes, she will be exiting jumpspace, and not long after, the she will have conquered their pathetic little empire.
"Ambassador Lu-Smith, do you really think you could prevent us from taking your precious Sol system? If you had any sense left, you'd just sign the damn treaty. All of your 'negotiations' and 'diplomacy' cannot save you from the might of the Liir Armada."
Ambassador Edward Lu-Smith's expression darkened.
"I had thought perhaps our civilizations could exist in peace. I had thought we had finally found a trustworthy ally that wouldn't back-stab us the moment we had our backs turned. The result has been very disappointing."
Arrrthyx could not help but let out a chuckle (or what passed for one for the Liir). The humans thought they were somehow immune to the rules of galactic civilization. Project strength, and live another day, project weakness, and face subjugation.
Her smug reflections were interrupted by yet more scratchy noises from the human figure. "However," the ambassador added, "as a token of good will, I'll allow your fleet to withdraw... Or face the consequences."
"You are in no position to make demands," screeched Arrrthyx. *The nerve! Insolence in the face of a superior force.*
"Very well," the Ambassador replied, his face shifting from anger and malice to something the translator identified as... Pity.
"You see, Admiral Arrrthyx," began the aged ambassador, "this is not the first time humanity has been at war. It is true that we are out of practice, and it is certainly the case that our forces were unprepared for your surprise... Betrayal. But you have made a critical miscalculation. Our fleets are not stationed at the fringes of our space to beat our chests to scare our enemies, by jumping to Earth, you have entered the single most dan-"
"Save your worthless threats," she barked, "I am only interested in your babbling if it is to surrender to the Liir Republic."
A shudder of the ship informed her that it was time to begin her march to glory. She quickly ordered the feed to be cut, and rose to command her legion. But something was wrong.
On the tactical holographic map before her, she could not see her ship. There was only a sea of red marks, thousands and thousands of hostile signatures.
"They must be using some sort of trick! Get me clear senso-"
She was interrupted by Ambassador Lu-Smith materializing in her own ship.
"Where was I-"
Shots rang out. Phasing through the now-clearly-a-hologram figure harmlessly.
"I think you'll find that quite unnecessary," replied the hologram of the Ambassador.
Arrrthyx was speechless. To project a hologram of such high quality was one thing, to project it through the thickest hulls and complex cybersecurity mechanisms known in the galaxy was another thing altogether.
"As I said, you've marched yourself into the most dangerous system in the Galaxy. But I think that'll be the least of your concerns."
"You see," he continued, walking around the bridge, eyes never wavering from Arrrthyx's eyes as he slowly approached the Commander's Dias, "We discovered something very, very long ago. You see, the universe has some level of energy, the energy level of the *Quantum Vacuum* itself. As we probed deeper and deeper, we discovered ways to manipulate the Vacuum Energy, and with it, structure of reality itself, to drag our vessels across the inky void without a jump drive, to communicate faster and better than any comm beacon could."
The room was silent. He was slowly climbing up the steps to the Commander's Dias. Arrrthyx's beak tasted like chalk.
"Along the way, we made a mistake. We pumped too much energy into the vacuum. We jumped the vacuum's energy level, and it destabilized and collapsed. Only locally, but that was quite enough. It devastated us and most of human space. Every piece of electronic equipment was blown, our AI friends and comrades, turned to burnt circuitry and destroyed servos. It tore humanity apart. Colonies burned from biological collapse, societal disruption, plagues reborn. When we finally clawed ourselves back form the darkness two thousand years ago, we built safeguards against such a thing in the future. We invested in optical computing, shielded our infrastructure against the very underpinnings of reality itself, and swore that we would never let humanity be subject to such darkness ever again. You were never so... Unfortunate."
"You're bluffing!" Arrrthyx choked out, unable to hold back the creeping horror she felt in her stomachs.
The figure only frowned before vanishing in a puff of light. Arrrthyx closed her eyes as nausea and dizziness overtook her.
It only took seconds for the smell of burning electronics to assail her nostrils.
As space itself burned and boiled around her, she could only sit in horrified silence.
|
[Poem]
Click, clack, click.
All the machines roar,
Click, clack, click.
For this total war.
Click, clack, click.
Industry cannibalized,
Click, clack, click.
To create their demise.
Click, clack, click.
All of humanity knows,
Click, clack, click.
The others don’t though.
Click, clack, click.
Bombs manufactured,
Click, clack, click.
Enemy lives fractured.
Click, clack, click.
Society rebuilt to destroy,
Click, clack, click.
Not to be enjoyed.
Click, clack, click.
Soldiers armed en masse,
Click, clack, click.
Ready to kick the others in the ass.
Click, clack, click.
Everyone does their part.
Click, clack, click.
To blow these aliens apart.
| 2019-11-24T15:05:50 | 2019-11-24T10:43:55 | 170 | 66 |
[WP] A version of little red riding hood where the grandma is evil, and the wolf saves her.
|
This little girl was something special to me. I had been there the night her mother and brother had been brutally killed by bandits whilst on the way to visit her grandmother. While their cart burned, a white bundle had laid on the ground and I ventured out to sniff it, then turned it over to reveal a small human inside. She couldn't have been more than five months old, and her silent gazing gray eyes met mine, and my heart slammed in my chest as a sudden desire to protect her washed over me.
Gently I scooped her up into my arms, my massive paws masking her body away from the fire and carnage that lay before me. This path only led to one lonely cabin in the woods and I knew that was where they had been headed. Cradling her from the winter frost, letting my fur warm her, I made the first mistake.
I set her on the door step gently, and fashioned the blanket over her head so as to protect her from the harsh cold, and I slammed my paw on the door hard as I could, then turned and vanished into the bushes to watch from afar.
The door opened and an old woman stepped out with a candle. "What in the damned hell is this?" a chill shot down my spine as this old woman reached down and picked the child up roughly. "How in the hell did you make it here? Where in the hell are your good for nothing parents?"
A soft whimper escaped my throat and the elder's gaze sharply shot towards my hiding spot, and I quickly slipped backwards into the shadows. Then I turned and fled away.
At first I would visit weekly. I peeked into the windows to look at the young girl, but the grandmother caught on to me and bought herself an ax and a cheap musket and I had to duck away again, and minimize my visits to months, and eventually only every few months. I watched her grow up, slowly but surely.
She was beautiful. Her hair had come in a deep crimson red, her face full of youth and curiosity, with big gray eyes, carefully placed freckles, and her smile was wide and bright, though rarely seen. Her beauty was tarnished by her skinny, gaunt frame. Her ribs stuck out through her undersized clothing, and her old baby blanket had been fashioned into a cape with a little hood. The damned old women couldn't even be bothered to get her new clothes, especially after her ninth winter with her. But perhaps the most disturbing thing, was that her white baby blanket, was growing into a deeper red color. Sometimes fresh and bright... but sometimes darker brown.
I did what I could for her during these times. I hid meat for her by her bed from my own hunts,--and herbs to stave off infection from the lashes her grandmother gave her. I desperately wanted to take her back from this hell I had put her in, but I had resigned to the fact that while she given a sadistic daily torture routine, the cabin was still warmer than my cave would ever be.
It was one of these days where I was trekking back with meat in my arms, when I stopped as a soft sobbing filled my head. One that I recognized. Dropping my hand full, I remember the fear I felt as I took off, running towards the house. I stopped dead on the outskirts of woods to look and see what was going on. And a familiar scent touched my nose.
Oh no.
The bandits were parked outside of the little cabin in their own carts. I felt my heart beat on my throat as I glanced over at the grandmother and found my little girl bound at the wrist and I listened into the conversation that they were having.
"Ten years ago, you messed up the simple task I told you to do. All you had to do was kill the whole family, so that I can inherit it. But you know what? I spent a lot of money taking care of your mistake."
"Yeah? What of it? You want a refund or something?"
"Oh no. Quite contrary. I want you to buy her off me. I hear her kind go well in that kind of market."
"Ohoho. Now we're talking. What kind of deal are you asking for?"
The grandmother's gaze cut to the shadows I was basking in, and she smiled with this sinister smile. "I want that wolf dead".
"Oh shit!" I exclaimed loudly as I dove forward, darting at the girl on all fours. She screamed and I watched a fresh new bright red stain soak into her cloak as I scooped her up and ran as fast as I could. Before long I had made it to my cave and set the young girl down where she lay whimpering softly. I gently lifted up her cloak and finally saw all the scars for the first time... and right in the middle of her back, one wide split which was pumping out blood like crazy.
I frowned a bit, and stroked her red head. "I'm sorry little one. But I must do this." I leaned down and took her little arm, and, as gently as I could, sunk my teeth into it. "Your body will rebuild itself when you transform... and you will survive, as my only daughter....no, my only family."
I watched the bandits walk up the hill, grandmother in tow, and I felt the fur on my back fluff up. My mother is a monster, and my wife and son are gone, but my little Red... I will save her. Even if she must suffer my curse.
(edited some typos. It was five in the morning when I wrote this, haha)
|
I don't know how long it's been... How long have I been trapped with that bitch? Months? Years? I don't remember. I remember my mom, I remember the night she died. That night, when what was left of my life died too. The night where I went from a loving family, as broken as it was, to a life of slavery. The chores, the work, and the beatings, all of them have lead to this decision. I can't run away, everyone in town knows granny, and won't believe the things she does to me. She has them convinced I'm a liar. But no more, tonight I'll be free. The fabled man eater is back. The wolf is outside, and tonight he'll have no trouble entering through the open door. Soon he'll have full access to a prey that won't be able to fight back, and finally I'll be free again.
After tonight I'll be with my mom again.
| 2014-07-16T03:39:34 | 2014-07-16T00:07:07 | 18 | 12 |
[WP] You are the only superhero to ever live. You have the ability to see into the future. In order to keep your powers from being discovered and being used for nefarious reasons, you must make your actions look more like accidents. You are Floridaman!
|
You don't know me. Nobody does. And I like to keep it that way. Because if anybody knew who I really am, and what I can really do, “The Government” would come looking for me. They’d never find me though. I’d know they were coming before they even knew they were looking for me, because I know everything that’s ever happened, and I know everything that ever will happen...or should happen. Because sometimes what should happen, doesn’t, because I prevent it. Sometimes.
I’m walking down the street. There’s a delivery truck halfway down the block. The driver is behind schedule so he’s racing to beat the yellow, but he’s going to be too late. The light will change before he gets to it but he won’t stop, he can’t stop because his brakes are about to fail. I know this, just like I know the guy in the black Camaro is going to jump the light in a ridiculous attempt to impress the woman in the red Mustang next to him. Instead, he’s going to be killed, right in front of her, broadsided by the delivery truck, and his Camaro will be sent flying into the group of people ahead of me, waiting to cross the road.
And it will all be captured and broadcast live by the news crew that by sheer coincidence just happens to be there filming a segment with that intersection and that corner as their backdrop. Now maybe I could have prevented all of this and stopped the runaway truck if I’d gotten to the driver earlier in the day, but I can’t prevent everything. Sometimes some things just need to happen. I can help mitigate the damage though.
There’s a woman ahead of me, a single mom, pushing a stroller one-handed with her 6-month old baby inside. One-handed, because she’s walking hand-in-hand with her 2-year old daughter, who insisted on walking today instead of riding in the stroller’s second seat. She’s looking ahead to the light and she doesn’t need my foresight to know it’s about to change. She’s trying to hurry her daughter along because she's desperate to catch the light so she can pick up her 4-year old son on time because the daycare charges a late fee of $10 per minute after 5pm. But she *is* going to be late, and she’s about to hate me, but she’s also about to be incredibly thankful that I stopped her.
“Excuse me,” I call out to her. “Excuse me, ma’am! Excuse me!” She looks back at me, and when she sees that it *is* her that I’m calling out to, her face goes dark. I don’t look like a street person, I’m actually dressed quite well today, but she’s still very angry because I’m making her late, and even just a one-to-two minute delay will cost her dearly. But not today. Today that delay will save her life and her daughters’ lives, and it will save her son from growing up an orphan.
“What is it?!” she snaps at me. I know she’s an attractive woman, but when she’s angry like this, she’s something else entirely.
I hold up two $50 bills. “I’m sorry, I just thought you dropped these. Are these yours?”
Her anger disappears and her eyes grow wide at the sight of the money. She knows she’s about to be late, but if she accepts the money it won’t matter. At worst she’ll lose half of it, but even then she’ll still have $50, which I know is more than enough for her to buy a week’s worth of groceries for her small family.
To her credit, as much as I know she really needs this money, I see the resignation in her eyes. “No, it’s not mine,” she says sadly, then she jumps, because with no brakes there’s no forewarning squeal from locked-up tires, and so the crash of the truck hitting the Camaro is unexpected, and very, very loud. Even I jump, and I knew it was coming. The lady spins back around to look at the source of the sound and when she does I quickly step forward, slip the cash into her coat pocket, then race past her to the accident. I’m not done here, not yet.
A dazed young man is laying on the sidewalk. I know the back of his skull is cracked from when the Camaro hit him and sent him flying, and I know there’s a jagged piece of metal stuck in his side, just below his left arm. He's bleeding a lot but neither wound is fatal. I kneel down beside him, put pressure on the wound in his side, and I speak softly and quietly to him. “I’m sorry,” I tell him.
He’s still in shock, fortunately, so he’s not able to say anything, but I can see the pain in his eyes as I put more pressure on his chest wound, then slowly but steadily I push the piece of metal deeper into his chest, until it reaches his heart. I tell him again how sorry I am, and I stay with him and watch as the light slowly fades from his eyes. He had his whole life ahead of him. A lifetime in which he’d kidnap, torture, and eventually kill over twenty young girls. But now he won’t harm anyone, because I’ve killed him. Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier, because I also know he hasn’t done anything wrong, not yet. I’ve just killed an innocent man.
Slowly I stand up and walk away, and nobody sees me go, not even the news crew. I go home, where nobody is waiting for me, nobody but Jack Daniels. I prefer it this way, because nobody can know who I am, what I am, and what I do.
I’m Floridaman, and today I killed an innocent man and made his death look like an accident. Just like I’ve made all of them look like accidents.
|
I was walking behind a man in an alley. He was clearly under the influence of some kind of substance, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Right before he steps on the sidewalk, my mind flashes. I get a vision of this drunkard being ripped apart by an alligator hiding in a puddle about 20 feet away from where he's standing. I spring into action, throwing a lead pipe to this man and instructing him to hit the puddle repeatedly. I've never seen a drunk move so fast in my entire life.
Obediently, he starts beating the puddle, and by extension, the alligator, with everything he's got. They're really going at it. He strikes! The alligator dodges it and follows it up with a bite to his ankle, which this drunk doesn't take very well. Neither does the alligator, because it loses a few teeth after being banged straight in the mouth. During the confusion, I realized that I acted before my vision had finished.
This ended up being a blessing in disguise. The sidewalk begins to crack and shatter, and both man and 'gator fall into a 20 foot sinkhole. The alligator's gotten crushed by a piece of pavement, and the drunk is stuck inside the hole. At least he's still alive. Perfect! It looks like an accident. I can't have people finding out about this power of mine. If they do, I might get kidnapped, or worse!
Another victory for the one, the only FLORIDA MAN!
| 2017-07-19T10:43:50 | 2017-07-19T08:52:21 | 106 | 18 |
[WP] In a world of superpowers, you became the most successful villain. Your power? To be able to hear the background music.
|
I crouched at the edge of a skyscraper and looked down at a city too full of noise. People bustled along cramped streets like ants looking for any morsel to bring back to the hive. Some of them were normal, unable to control their own futures in a world of powers and predators, but many had their own abilities stored away. They were almost worse, I couldn't check my Instagram without seeing some girl in yoga pants complaining that her powers were useless. That was the problem with everyone else, they didn't play the game right.
To really rise as a hero, or a villain, you needed a hook. So many people tried to name themselves after their powers and just leave it at that, but it was never enough. "Oh look! It's wind-man!" People would get obsessed for a day or two, but eventually they'd lose interest, and then so would the hero.
That's the second thing about it. The costume isn't for the crowd. Every single hero that tries to make a name does it because they want to be somebody. Half of them figure if they've got a power that's enough for people to believe in them. To care about them. It isn't. The crowd might like a persona, but the hero needs it. They need to become something more in their own mind, otherwise they lose interest too.
That's the problem with heroes. Everybody starts as one, but most of them end up turning villain when they realize they don't like fighting without a reward. They never even get to be a supervillain, just joining up with a couple other wannabes and robbing a bank or kidnapping a celebrity. There's no long-term plan, they just want instant gratification.
All of this because they wanna be special, and they think the power is what decides that. They think that whoever has the coolest, or easiest used power wins the day. They couldn't be more wrong.
My name is Michelle, but heroes call me Quiet. It isn't the catchiest name, but it stuck. My suit is dark grey spandex, plain, and a white mask to cover my entire face. Why risk anything less?
I started as a hero, but no one thought my power would do any good. No one cared. I lost interest. I wanted fame, prestige. All I got were laughs. You see, my power is very simple. I can hear a person's background music. It's everywhere, constant. Even now I can hear music blasting up from the streets, but it's faint at this distance.
I crouched at the edge of a skyscraper and looked down at a city too full of noise, waiting. There was a window just under my ledge, I had spent the better part of an hour weakening it with my tools. I waited, ambient noise all around me.
I waited two hours, three. Midnight came and went, and then the notes began. At first they were almost indistinguishable from the rest, but I knew this song. The bass notes of a drum. The hint of strings. I had memorized this sound. I put in a pair of earplugs that completely blocked all mundane sounds.
The song grew louder, building as Lawrence approached his window. His home was hidden well, his entranceway guarded, his window secured, or so he thought. I withdrew the long knife at my belt and grasped the rope I had secured to the exhaust of an oven hood.
Lawrence grew closer, and I remembered the first time I had heard his song. He had been in the process of kidnapping a schoolbus full of children. He wore a mask then, his name was Blackheart. The kids were ransomed or sold on the black market.
I smiled beneath my mask. That's the thing everyone forgets about villains. I don't have to go after heroes to be famous. I can kill whoever I want. Rob whoever I want. People don't care about the villain's motive, just the hero's.
I swung out over the ledge just as Lawrence reached the weakened window. I gave a sharp kick and it broke along the seams that I had created. The glass fell inward and Lawrence stumbled back as it struck him.
The song didn't change, but the tempo increased. I heard the swelling of a cello as he realized who I was. Lawrence-- Blackheart-- opened his mouth in a scream. The glass shattered and walls around me shook, but I couldn't hear that magic voice. It gave out less than a second later as I kicked him in the center of his chest.
He pulled back with a gasp, but by then I had already slit his throat. His guards were coming, but I didn't care. I had planned my exit. I found the Blackheart suit and draped it over his body as he choked on his own blood. I grabbed my phone and took a picture of him, then a selfie with the two of us for good measure. His face, haloed by blood. Mine a blank white mask.
I sent the pictures off to my upload relay and smiled. They were all still scared of me, even if I hunted other villains. I was the greatest villain of all. I was Quiet.
The guards opened the door as I stepped out the window, their scared songs became my anthem as I spread my arms and glided away.
|
It’s an incessant tapping.
An infectious beat.
An ear worm.
No matter the sound, the catchiness, it exists as a tool. Each background song tells me all I need to know about how to ruin a person. Sally likes country music? I destroy CMT’s locations. Bob fancies EDM? I attack the bass-filled clubs next. They never see me coming because they can’t hear it—the music vibrating off of their very auras.
You would expect this to be futile, an exercise in petty destruction of silly, little pleasures. I guess you haven’t had someone take away your beat, your rhythm, your *sound*.
Listen: when the world is silent, I have won.
| 2019-05-16T12:49:26 | 2019-05-16T11:32:36 | 586 | 66 |
[WP] Aliens don't invade earth for our resources. After a civilization achieves utopia some of it's citizens get bored and fly off to other planets to enjoy primitive thrills like violence, drugs, money and fame.
|
**Traveler**
Earth? Yeah I’ve heard of it. Far off on the outer edges of their “Milky Way”. You know the inhabitants named their galaxy after a candy bar? Crazy, right? Anyway, I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I first got there. All kinds of radio waves were blasted off for all of us not-Earthians to listen and watch. Our guys took a while to figure out exactly how to receive them, but it wasn’t too far a feat. For some of us, it almost seemed like a perfect advertisement of a whole different life, somewhat appealing for some bizarre reason.
&#x200B;
Well you’re obviously aware that the powers that be squelched any idea of traveling to Earth, or any other planet for that matter; best we stay inside our domiciles and continue taking our mind menders. Didn’t stop some of us more adventurous types. Some of us, not going to say who exactly because that wouldn’t go over well with the happiness brigade, but some of us saw a golden opportunity. The Earthians’ rather generic appearance was quite simple to replicate. Maybe it was weird at first standing on only two legs, but it gets the job done.
&#x200B;
The trick to showing up to Earth was a bit strange at first. You can’t just crash the ship into the nearest metropolitan center and say “WE’RE HERE!”. They’re also surprisingly good at detecting objects within their orbit. I won’t bore you with the finer details, but as far as any of them were concerned, we were just an asteroid that burned up before it even touched the ground. Compared to home, there’s a lot of the natural environment still preserved, and it made landing inconspicuously a fairly easy job. The first batch, there were four of us, and no Earthians in sight. It was peaceful, sanguine even. The Earthian environment, though different across the planet, was beautiful where we landed.
&#x200B;
There were trees, much like home, but they were real… almost like you’d see in a history broadcast. They rustled in the wind and far off in the distance were mostly unscathed mountains. Atop them was crystallized water and upon further inspection, we could see structures. We began the trek to visit the structures, and it took us some few days to hike there on foot! Vastly different from home… I think I walked more during that journey than the rest of my time alive combined. Climbing up the mountain itself was no simple feat either, though we stumbled upon an Earthian-made path up the mountain which made the climb much more agreeable. The four of us were very tired by this point, but we only had some small ways to go before we reached the top of the mountain. A noise came behind us, and while we were initially quite anxious it turned out to be an Earthian vehicle!
&#x200B;
It stopped to our side and there were two Earthians piloting it. I still remember them, they were unbelievably friendly to my cohort of interstellar travelers. Janie and Johnny, was how they introduced themselves. They asked us if we were backpacking across the country, and after some thought, that was probably the best explanation to give them. They offered to take us up to “The Ski Resort”. To which we happily accepted. Janie and Johnny were two Earthians on a journey of some kind, they reminded me of ourselves in a way. We asked them all sorts of questions, where they were from, what it was like, what they do. The answers were fascinating, though probably less interesting unless you were actually there.
&#x200B;
They proudly proclaimed they were going to see the world. They had gotten rid of their material possessions to travel all around the Earth, and see what there was to see. I admired their free attitudes, it was something I had hardly seen elsewhere. Without any material joy, without a Happiness Brigade, without mind menders, these Earthians seemed to be truly happy with the thrill of exploration. I could tell that my companions found this less intriguing than me, less relateable perhaps. We had arrived at the top of the mountain and we bid farewell and good luck to Janie and Johnny, and I told them that we had hoped they saw everything they had hoped to see.
&#x200B;
The ski resort was bustling with activity from the Earthians, the act of “skiing” itself saw to many of them flinging themselves down the mountain on apparatuses worn on their feet. It looked invigorating, though we found that the Earthians’ currency based economy posed a problem in getting some of these Skis, or much of anything for that matter. My companions and I were content to watch the Earthians though. They sailed the snow at incredible speeds, and some navigated with extreme dexterity. We spent quite a lot of time at the ski resort until there was an accident some time later. Apparently an Earthian went just a little too fast down one of the mountains and suffered some serious injury. It took some time before medical attention had arrived for the poor Earthian. We never really found out what happened to her, nor did we find out if Janie and Johnny saw the rest of their planet. But, for my companions and I, we elected to make the journey back to our ship.
&#x200B;
I ended up going back to Earth several times, while being better prepared. But the Earthians have a saying that goes something like “First impressions count”. I enjoyed my first time on Earth, probably more than my third, or my seventh really. The Happiness Brigade did eventually start sniffing around on what I was doing which is why I put a stop to it for the meantime. I thought about staying on Earth, but the moment I decided to stay would be the moment I couldn’t show anybody else this blue gem. In total, I want to say I’ve shown 382 of ours the joy of that planet. Out of those 382, 359 of them decided to stay. I wasn’t going to stop them. We stay in touch, and some of them went on to establish themselves across the planet in illustrious positions. Politicians, the tech industry, finance. Thankfully, the level of intellect required to perform most of the work on Earth is far below our own processing power, and we fit and blend relatively easily into their society. It all makes bringing our people over much easier.
&#x200B;
As for me, I hope that I can keep being like Janie and Johnny; Traveling their world and helping my people as they come along to find some happiness in exploration, and outside of the mind menders.
&#x200B;
|
I have not looked at myself in the mirror today.
In the morning - if you could call it that - I woke up from my pill-induced slumber, throwing aside the females I had somehow accumulated over the night.
But I have not looked at myself in the mirror today.
I performed the daily oral hygiene procedure with the bottle of ethanol from the inebriation. Yet, I have not looked at myself in the mirror today.
I got into my commute - primitive, by any standard - and drunkenly grabbed the wheel. Still, I have not looked at myself in the mirror today.
On my way to their entertainment centre, a sudden force flings me forward into the windscreen. If I had bothered to look at myself in the mirror today, I would have realised that my blood runs red instead of green.
See, we've known about the aliens coming to sow chaos on our world for a while now. All these celebrities who abused drugs, set stupid trends, and still earned millions, they couldn't be human. The clues were all too obvious; who says they're a total frickin' rockstar from Mars unless they really are one? And let's not even get into their fashion sense.
But of course, I wanted a piece of a different cake compared to my colleagues. We knew the aliens were living in some sort of post-scarcity society. One that had long since thrown aside both sides of the spectrum; forgotten about fidelity and hedonism and everything in between. They focused on self-actualisation, self-realisation, transcendence, and the good folks with the Permanent Head Damage actually wanted to learn from something so impossible.
To me, however, it was very clear. I wanted enjoyment. I wanted to live life free; to ape their privilege while indulging in earthly pleasures. Somewhere in Area 51 lies one of these aliens, his mind long since gone from a human lifetime of narcotics, whose body I use as an empty shell to go around and have fun. Today wasn't supposed to be an exception.
And here I lie with shattered glass on the road, my shattered reflection in the shards. I am no alien, I am a human.
| 2018-11-23T08:12:34 | 2018-11-23T04:22:57 | 39 | 22 |
[WP] By Wizard Law, in order to learn a new skill, wizards are required to be apprenticed to a more experienced master. You, a barely trained journeyman fire mage, just took on an apprentice: a two-hundred-year-old Grandmaster Water Magic Lord.
|
“You are Leofgyð?”
“I am, yes.”
I couldn’t help but stare at the man before me. I could tell from his physiology—his short stature, his broad physique, his strong, angular facial construction—he was a dwarf once. By his appearance alone I only would have suspected it, but it was by his robes, bearing all the accoutrement of a proud sailor of the noble dwarven cultures could I confirm this. But that must have been a lifetime ago.
The man who stood before me now had a form that shimmered and wavered, in which I could see my own reflection staring back at me and through which I could see the wall behind him. In place of flesh and bone was water, a brilliant green with a hue of blue to it, the surface of which gently rippled with each movement he made like the waves of the sea washing against the shore. Rather surprisingly for a seabound dwarf, he did indeed bear an immense beard that flowed down to the top of his chest as his more landlocked brethren were known for, though not one of hair, but instead of frothing sea foam. Rather ironically, it was his eyes that seemed to be the most solid aspect of his form; two perfectly rounded stones of turquoise, the darker sections of the stone perfectly forming facsimiles of pupils, which he currently held turned towards myself.
This man was not simply a dwarf, he was an illustrious Sea Sage, and one so thoroughly Tuned to the element of water that it may be more applicable to call him an elemental than a dwarf.
“Then you are whom I am to be apprenticed to.” With each word he spoke I could hear the sound of the water that comprised his form gently splashing against itself. If it were not for the shock instilled within me by the particular words he spoke, I do believe I would have found myself utterly entranced by his voice and visage.
“Apprenticed to? You, apprenticed to me? I-I’m sorry, I believe there must have been a misunderstanding—I was told I would be apprenticing a novice fire mage. Surely, one as proficient in the magical arts as to be so deeply tuned to the element of water as yourself cannot purport to be a *novice,* could you?”
The man before me simply stood and stared, arms yet crossed over his chest. As utterly transparent as his form was, it was difficult for me to discern the expression he wore. Without the visually distinct texture of opaque flesh, it was already quite hard to tell what shape his lips and his brow took, a fact only compounded upon by the way the echoes of his previous movements rolled throughout his form like gentle waves. As best as I could tell however, he had simply maintained his previous expression. Perhaps he had not caught what I had said? “To reiterate, I believe there must have been a misunder—”
“I heard you the first time, elf.” I would have already described his voice as carrying a firm tone to it, though in this instance it only seemed to become firmer. “As I am sure you are well aware,” Only once he had spoken thusly had the firmness in his tone returned to its standard. “Tuning to the waves has amplified my affinity with water and *only* water. For earth, wind, and *especially fire,* it has only *inhibited* my capabilities—*for reasons I am sure you can grasp.*” What a peculiar and deliberate enunciation. I still find myself pondering why he had taken to speaking in such an odd regard; I do not believe he had been given any reason to believe I was hard of hearing.
“Well of course. I imagine it must be very difficult for one whose entire form is comprised of water to create and manipulate fire.”
“*Yes. Quite.*” Again, that very distinct enunciation, this time accompanied by a tone of voice that I cannot help but compare to the growling of an animal. Was he perhaps upset by something? “In addition to this particular disadvantage, it hasn’t been since the most wizened flatback in the seas was a mere hatchling that I have dabbled in the arts of flame, so dedicated have I been to the sea.”
“Flatback? What is a flatback?” I was not sure what this phrase meant.
“It is a breed of sea turtle.” He thusly clarified.
“I see. What is the upper range of the lifespan of this breed?”
I could see his form slowly heave as if taking a deep inhale, before he let out a long sigh, a gesture which I believe is often meant to convey annoyance. I believe he may have begun to grow frustrated with me. I am not sure why.
“*Suffice to say,*” Again he spoke with that very deliberate enunciation. “*I have not practiced fire magic in a very, long, time.*”
“I see…” I thoughtfully murmured, gently brushing the tips of my fingers against my chin. I had my brow furrowed just as I had always seen done when one is in thought—after all, I had much to think on regarding this. On one hand, who would I be to turn down the honour of tutoring one such as a prestigious Sea Sage? And yet on the other, I was but a simple fledgling sorceress myself, unfit to teach [as my professor and classmates had made clear,](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M9IXOnfDXJIW_spqAHsOymG4jSp2oH6vewBPDMPMKb0/edit?usp=sharing) and who had abandoned her schooling in favor of traveling and field research to boot. “I’m sorry, but I’m really not quite sure I have anything more to offer one already so learned such as yourself… Are you sure I’m the one you would want to apprentice yourself too?”
I find that words fail me as I attempt to describe what next I saw in his countenance. Even through the lack of clarity of expression caused by the transparency of his would-be flesh, I could feel his gaze almost… Sharpen, I suppose. As if the sudden ringing of a blade being swiftly drawn from a metal sheath, a wordless declaration of determination. I am unsure if what I interpreted from it was correct, but this sudden intensity of what I could only understand to be resolve, I think very well may have made me physically recoil.
“Your reputation precedes you, Leofgyð. I have heard tales of the Siege of Stanalheim—of the whirlwinds of flame, of how the hordes of wretched Kudzu burned so bright and so furiously that the sky became clouded by the smoke and ash of your flames. You are no weak-willed philosopher spouting *theorems* and *ideologies* from the comfort of a velvet chair, your flame is one stoked by the bellows of conflict; *that,* is whom I would be apprenticed to, not some ‘master of the craft’ who would so much as faint at a single drop of blood.”
I found myself utterly stunned by his words. It had left me slack jawed and wide eyed, I shall be the first to admit. I deeply hope I am not mistaken when I say that he spoke with *passion,* such passion and vigor that I could not help but be swept up by it, that for a moment, I truly felt as though I was ready to take an apprentice of my own, even one already so learned and practiced as a Sea Sage. Before I knew it I felt a smile spread across my features, and so left my lips a declaration of “I would be honoured to call myself your tutor.”
I saw that seafoam beard rise with the corners of his mouth, into an unmistakable smile of his own. “And I would be honoured to call myself your pupil.”
|
Dolan only had to flick a skeletal wrist for the flame to die in a whimper.
His frail form would have denoted a man worn by the coarse sands of time, save for all the grandeur of his Magic. Azure robes suggested a Grandmaster, amidst impressive tomes and trophies of antiquity that came with a life so long and powerful.
"Must we play these games?" Solus said, throwing out his arms as if to release his frustration.
"Hehe..." Dolan pointed, his enormous sleeve wafting around. "Again."
The Apprentice held out his hands, both index fingers and thumbs touching. After a moment of controlled breathing, a small flame emerged before him.
"Pow!" The Grandmaster flicked, shooting a spray of water to douse the flame and any confidence Solus still clung to.
"I came here to learn Aquamancy. What are we doing?"
"Calm down, boy." Dolan said, wafting in dismissal. He trundled along the room, taking pauses here and there to move the various obstacles in his way. When he finally arrived at his desk, he sat down with a groan of relief. The Apprentice had stood all the while in silence, beside the droplets that fell from his clothing. "Can you see it now?" He began, sorting the papers on his desk. "How weak fire is? You left because of this, no?"
"Does it matter?" Solus said, squeezing his clothes. Dolan paid some heed to the puddle forming on the floor, looking between it and the apprentice in conversation.
"Hydromancy, the Magic of Life. You have already tainted your soul with the flame. Why would I teach you now?"
Solus seemed taken aback. "I'm leaving."
"So soon? Were you just an ember, a week and that's it?" Dolan laughed, rising to his feet as his hands pushed on the desk. "You give up at the first hurdle, do you, boy?"
"You don't know anything."
"I know what I see. Couldn't burn as bright as the others, so you come here to snuff them out. All of you, all you can think of is destruction."
Solus paused as his eyes seemed to recall distant memories. He shook his head in clear irritation as he looked to the Grandmaster. "I have warmed families frozen in the nig-"
"By burning their house, I bet."
"You know what? You've taught me something."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You've spent 200 years in the Citadel, and for what? It's an echo chamber. You think books will show you the world?"
Dolan frowned, folding his arms. "The Citadel? It is by my hands alone that you people can even drink down there. Don't tell me of the world."
"It's by our hands that the water you send is drinkable. You people think of half solutions." Solus said, making his way to the door before stopping to turn back to the Grandmaster. "We heat the food you send in cans. We shape steel and stone to protect ourselves from the world your walls keep out. We *should* burn you all!"
"Leave..." The Grandmaster said, pointing to the door.
"Fine." Solus said, a tear cooling his flushed face as he made his way to leave.
"And take me with you."
| 2022-05-30T14:22:04 | 2022-05-30T11:12:32 | 64 | 10 |
[WP] You are one of several Princes fighting in a battle royale to inherit the Kingdom. All the Princes get a God as a sponsor, who grants them boons and abilities. Powerful sponsors include gods like Zeus, Ra and Neptune. So, it was a surprise when you found out that your sponsor is Death.
|
'The bond is complete. Edric, twelfth prince of Lordan, go forth. Apollo be with you.' The priest's drone had a note of respect in it. The slender figure by the altar stood up, and turned to the assembled onlookers. His eyes shone gold, and he had a broad, cocky smile on his lips. A cheer went up as he stepped down and into the crowd.
'And finally, Prince Morran, step forward.'
In the crowd, a slight, weedy figure was being pushed forward. Jeers rose up from the crowd, and Morran was flinching as he moved towards the altar, past the head priest. He tried to shut out the noise as he took his place, and knelt, focusing solely on the altar.
'Hear him, immortal lords of the earth and the heavens. Hear his plea.'
The words, spoken in almost perfect unison by the priests, echoed back from the arched ceilings of the temple. When the echos died away, there was silence. The silence stretched on.
'Hear his plea.' This time a single voice, each word carefully laced with impatience.
Morran jumped slightly and cleared his throat. 'Uh, I beseech you, Gods of all, to favour me with your blessing. I will honour you with the . . . With the strength of my arm, and the purity of my heart. I will honour you, and bring your worship to pass for my reign as king. I will honour you, or I will die trying. This I swear.' His voice was faltering, slow. 'This I swear,' he tried again, forcing the words to come out stronger.
Silence. After a few moments, the crowd started to murmur quietly, but Morran didn't need to hear to know what was being said. It would be the same words that had followed him his whole life - Weak, Useless, Pathetic. Well, if the Gods wouldn't have him, he would just have to fight on his own merit. He braced to stand up, tears starting to form in his eyes. His hands balled into fists, ready to proclaim he would fight for his own sake, ready to curse down the people who were judging him. He rose. . . and the world blurred. The priest's scarlet robes, the silver engravings, the muted tones of the crowd, all blurred into one smokey grey mass. Morran blinked and scrubbed at his eyes, but the world stayed grey, swirling and twisting but never relenting.
Panic was rising in his eyes as he spun around, looking frantically for... Anything. The smoke and fog was everywhere.
'I've never been worshipped before'. Despite the fog, the words were clear, sharp and precise. Morran spun around, but there was no-one there. 'Usually I'm just feared. For good reason.' The voice was right by Morran's ear, and he jumped forward.
'Who's there?,' Morran squealed, his head still searching for the source.
'Your patron, of course.'
'Y-yeah? Then show yourself!'
There was a chuckle, dark and humourless. 'Youll regret that.'
It was like wind swept through, pulling the fog to one point, where it swirled and undulated and started to form a figure. When the figure stepped out from the last tendrils of fog, Morran gasped and recoiled. His 'patron' was clad almost entirely in a grey robe up to his neck. His head was bare, revealing a skull, pieces of rotting flesh still clinging to the bone, and maggots writhing over the surface. In the empty eye sockets, red glows flickered slightly. Morran shuddered when the gaze met his eyes, but tried to force himself to straighten up.
'See. You poor weak mortals can never look upon the face of Death. Your fragile sense of mo-'
'So you'll sponsor me? Really?'
The red flickers blazed brightly for a moment, though Morran could not tell if it was amusement or anger. 'Absolutely. I claim you, as I claim my protégé every generation. I should warn you though, they never accept.' Death moved closer, gliding through the fog, until he was a mere foot from Morran, towering over the young prince. So close, the smell of rot made Morran's nose curl.
'Why not?'
This time the chuckle had more mirth. 'Can you not guess?' Death leaned in, and Morran was certain he felt a maggot brush against his cheek as Death whispered in his ear, 'because I'm too good. Because you will kill them all. And because if you don't, you're mine anyway. Because I don't lose.' Death straightened up. 'Humans seem to hate the idea of me winning.'
Morran felt his teeth chattering, and clenched his jaw down. After a few deep breaths, he managed 'fine. So be it.'
Death's head tilted to one side, and his eyes shone brighter. 'Truly? Well. This will be fun. Brace yourself.'
Before Morran had a chance to react, Death reached out and touched his chest. Morran gasped as icy coldness speared through his heart, and out to his limbs. He closed his eyes, stifling a scream, but by the time it encompassed his body, it just felt. . . Right.
He breathed out, and opened his eyes. The temple was back. The crowd's chattered died down, and then rose again, more urgent. The priest was rushing forward, and grabbed Morran by the arm.
'What have you done?'
'Bonded with my patron.' For the first time ever, Morran's words were calm, confident. His voice was lower too, filled with strength.
'But. . . You cannot bond with Him. It is forbidden.' The priest's voice was panicky, and his hand was gripping Morran's arm tighter and tighter. 'No-one has dared bring this evil upon the world for hundreds of years. Do you even know what He might do to us?'
Morran raised his hand to stop the priest's babble. The priest flinched, but stood his ground. 'I do not know what Death might do, no. But look at it this way - you wanted my brothers and I to fight to the death. . . Why don't you join in?'
'Wha-?' The priest's last words came out as a yelp. Morran's hand darted out, grabbing his neck. The priest's eyes widened for a moment, his hand clawing at Morran, until a cracking sound marked the man's death. Morran slowly released his grip, letting the body slump to the floor. Blood dropped from Morran's hand, and as he turned his face to look out on the crowds, his eyes glowed blood red to match.
'Where are my brothers? Shall we proceed? If there are no further objections, that is.'
The screams started at the front, but soon the whole crowd was trampling their way to the doors.
Twelve figures remained. Slowly, very slowly, one of the princes drew his sword.
--
Never done a post here before. I hope it's okay. I've got a few more prompts saved so if anyone likes my writing style I'll try to do more.
Also I wrote this on phone so please excuse (or point out) typos. My phone thinks dog is a better word than fog every time haha
Edit: Part 2 is posted as a reply to this :) Thanks for the lovely comments everyone, it's so lovely because I'm very self conscious about my writing.
Edit: change wriggling to writhing from feedback - many thanks :)
|
Nekaliah gasped quitely to himself as a bright green flame burst from the sigil on the floor, a hooded figure rising from the blazes. After a brief pause, the entity pulled back its hood, revealing a skull with green flames where eyes should rest.
"Nekaliah of Kingdom Ardash, I have chosen to sponsor you in the Kingdom Battle Royale. I am your sponsor deity, Death. While I may be technically ranked below figures like Hades and Anubis, I am the only deity whose sphere is absolute; thus, your victory is ensured," Death murmured formally and softly, yet with an air of authority and determination.
It took the young prince a moment to recall his own formalities. He quickly knelt onto his knee and bowed his head. "Thank you, Lord Death. I shall not fail you in this battle. Allow me to vanquish--"
Hysterical laughter interrupted Nekaliah's short speech, a semi-hollow rattling echoing through the chamber. Death's jaw bone was opened wide in a near comical fashion as he threw his head back. After a short period of laughter, Death shook his head and apologized. "Sorry, I can't believe you actually memorized the formal bit for me. I'm honored, don't get me wrong, but the formal bit just isn't me," he chuckled and sighed, slouching slightly.
"Okay, here's the dealio, Nekaliah. Can I call you Nekal? Anyway, I'll grant you access to a special mortal formation of my scythe; It'll change slightly based on what best suits your thoughts, skills, and situation. Just make sure the blade gets a whiff of any green smoke you see, yeah? Oh, you'll also be able to reap the dead and spark death fires, like the ones in my eye sockets. Not only that, but you can fire green blasts from the blade, directly see your opponents' souls, rapidly regenerate puncture wounds, and, in an emergency, spin the scythe around you and create what I like to call a 'death-nado'. You'll find out why when you use it," Death explained, drawing bright green symbols in the air with his fingers. "And I just explained everything in about half the time it'd take for the other deities to explain. Bozos. Anyway, close your eyes, this may hurt a tiny bit".
A tiny bit was a dramatic understatement. Sharp, searing pain flooded the prince's senses. He was still reeling from the quick explanation of everything, and was completely caught off-guard by the the airborne sigils scorching his skin.
After what seemed to be hours, Nekaliah opened his eyes. Death was still standing there, though he didn't seem to have waited long. "How you doing there, buddy? Sorry about the surprise; old habits. It was deathly quite while your soul processed those spells though. I hope you're _dying_ to try them out," Death chuckled, unable to refrain from a few puns.
Nekaliah grinned, more confident than ever. He flexed his arm sideways, and an iron scythe with a silver blade appeared in a green flash of light. "I love it. Thanks for the upgrades, Death. They're to die for".
| 2018-11-14T08:14:35 | 2018-11-14T05:23:08 | 1,522 | 314 |
[WP] You have the ability to double jump. Scientists are still trying to figure it out.
|
“I don’t know how else to explain it,” said Kevin. “I just jump, then jump again.”
The man in the flannel shirt wrote in his notebook.
“And you’ve always been able to do this?” he asked.
“Yes Dr.Norbert,” Kevin replied through a yawn. “I’ve been double jumping as long as I’ve been jumping.”
Dr. Norbert’s opening questions were the same as the eight scientists that had come before him. It would be hours before they pushed through the same basic discussions of genetics, physiology, and the parameters of his ability. The first day with a new researcher felt like the first day of a college class, the twin fires of excitement and dread about starting something new quickly doused by the tedium of professors explaining how they intended to explain things.
“Now Kevin,” said Dr. Norbert, “it’s imperative that you’re completely honest with me.”
“Of course,” Kevin said.
“If we’re going to figure out why you are the way you are, then I need to be able to understand your ability just as well as you do.”
That would be easy, Kevin thought, since he didn’t understand it at all.
At least Dr. Norbert’s office was more interesting than the last one. The cheap desk, academic books, and framed diplomas were the same. But he had a window that looked out onto a sprawling campus lawn. Kevin looked forward to days of people-watching while the questions droned on.
His parents had forced him to keep his ability a secret, worried that he would be sentenced to a life in a government laboratory if it was ever revealed. He spent his childhood dreaming up schemes to secretly put his powers to use. The summer before high school, he woke up at 3:00am every night and quietly practiced a double jump to the basketball hoop in their driveway. He filmed himself from every angle, reviewing the tape during the day and tweaking his technique to smooth out the stuttered ascent so no one would know what he was doing. When it was perfect, he excitedly brought his parents into the front yard to introduce them to the only five-foot-nothing high school freshman in western Tennessee who could dunk.
They immediately forbid him from playing sports. His dad tore down their basketball hoop that evening.
He realized the double jump wasn’t a superpower. It was a curse.
“And what happens after you jump a second time?” Dr. Norbert asked, “you can just keep going?”
“You mean triple jump?” Kevin chuckled. “No, that’d be ridiculous.”
“Right,” Dr. Norbert said as he scribbled, “that’d be ridiculous.”
Kevin was a B student in high school and a C student in college, eventually falling into a rote job as assistant manager of the packaging division of a company that produced dental hygiene products. He thought he’d spend the rest of his career ordering industrial glue and arguing over the cost of print labels with Chinese suppliers.
Until one day, when his secret wasn't secret anymore. He was sitting on a bench waiting for the city bus that took him home after work everyday. As the bus approached, he stood up to flag it down, but something was wrong. The bus careened to the right and accelerated. It climbed up the curb and onto the sidewalk, and barreled towards the spot where he stood. If he hadn’t double jumped out of the way, he would have been dead.
“Does it work over water?” Dr. Norbert asked.
“Yeah,” Kevin replied, “I can do the cannon ball to end all cannon balls.”
The bus driver had had a heart attack. The dashcam footage was posted to YouTube, and his secret was out.
He was famous for a few weeks. He was interviewed on cable news. He dunked on a 15-foot rim on a late night talk show. The world gets bored fast though, and within a couple of months, the only thing he had to show for his big reveal was a part-time job as the Memphis Grizzlies half-time show. It didn’t pay enough for him to leave the dental hygiene company.
“Does it hurt when you land?” asked the doctor.
“Not really,” Kevin said. “I think the soft landing is part of the whole double jumping thing.”
His parents were wrong, the government had no interest in his ability. Apparently it was difficult to weaponize the ability to jump over objects of moderate size.
It wasn’t until three months after the bus accident that he got a call from a scientist asking to study him. She was a kinesthesiologist at the University of Michigan. She wanted Kevin to fly to Ann Arbor, where she would spend three months running tests on him. No needles, she’d promised, just a lot of scanning.
He thanked her, but said that he couldn’t afford to leave work for three months.
That’s when she explained to him what an “honorarium” was.
“What if you jump off something,” Dr. Norbert asked, “do you still get the soft landing?”
“Like, if I jumped into an empty swimming pool?”
“Sure,” Dr. Norbert said.
“No, I’d turn my ankle, or screw up my knees, same as anyone else.”
He got $27,000 for three months of hanging out around medical research facilities and occasionally jumping. The doctor that studied him got a tenured faculty position at Harvard.
The phones didn’t stop ringing. Now, his rate was $3,000 per day, no needles allowed. If he stretched out a study for a month, he was set for the next year. When he ran out of money, he would start answering the phone again.
“Have there been stories in your family,” Dr. Norbert asked, “of relatives with abilities like yours?”
“Nope,” Kevin said. "As far as I know, I'm one of a kind."
His parents had been wrong. Double jumping wasn’t a life sentence. It wasn’t a curse. It was a career.
“Ok,” Dr. Norbert said. “Next question…”
|
"What nonsense!"
"I know! But it's real! We've been testing with her at our lab for three days now."
"Can she *triple* jump too?"
"Yea, of course. That's like the first thing we've asked her to try. She has even done four! But beyond that, she gets very tired."
"Tired, you say?"
"Her heart races up with every jump. We had to be careful. But may be with practice.."
"So theoretically, do you think she can do an *infinite* jump?"
"Theoretically, she can't even do a double jump for Christ's sake! But I know what you're thinking. She still can't get to the orbit."
"Why not?"
"You see, with every further jump, the height she can reach seems to decay. So 'theoretically', even if we somehow impart her with infinite stamina, she can't jump beyond a certain threshold."
"Hmm interesting. I assume you measured the thrust she generates with her jump and compare it against the upper bound for height?"
"Yes, we did. We extrapolated the height that she would be able to reach if she were *infinite-jump*, and also calculated the height she should have actually reached if our Physics were true. We even accounted for air resistance and gravitational field anomalies."
"And?"
"Well, it turns out that the *infinite-jump* height is approximately 2.71828 times that of the conventional height."
"My God. Some one call the math guys!"
"Already did. We're meeting them in three hours. Be prepared."
| 2017-02-11T09:03:43 | 2017-02-11T08:49:55 | 614 | 338 |
[WP] The day you die, Death comes and asks if you are ready to go. Jokingly, you say no. To your surprise, he leaves. Now every year he comes back to ask again
|
As we age through time, we all gain and lose a precious thing or two. Our physiques might deteriorate, hairs may fall out like leaves during autumn, yet through those turbulent seasons we all find something amidst our losses: Wisdom, and most certainly patience. George Fitzpatrick, a senior in his eighties, was keen on his patience. Since his wife had passed many years ago, George spent his lonesome days rocking back and forth on his chair, looking out from his porch over the South Dakota plains. He was always expecting a guest to visit, and it’s been a couple months since his son, Robert, has dropped by. He had promised to come again as soon as he could, and thus, the man waited and waited. On the second of June, a certain visitor came. However, it wasn’t quite who Mr. Fitzpatrick was expecting.
“Robert, is that you?” The old timer guessed, tilting his head as he heard the wood creak under the pressure of unfamiliar footsteps.
“I’m afraid I’m not Robert, Mr. Fitzpatrick.” An unknown voice replied. After all the things the senior man has lived through, there was little left that could surprise him. Nevertheless, there was without a doubt a concerned, almost frightened look as he directly gazed at an unknown young man, wearing a completely black suit with completely black socks under similarly black trousers, donning a fully black tie and most definitely an equally black shirt, with buttons just as black.
&#x200B;
“Can I help you, young man?” George asked as he looked the uninvited guest into his black eyes. “Perhaps a cup of tea?” He added.
“Oh, thank you for your hospitality, but I would have to politely decline” the unfamiliar figure replied.
“I didn’t do anything wrong now, did I?” George responded with a worried tone. How did he know his name? As far as old Mr. Fitzpatrick knew, he filed his taxes on time and always paid his bills long before their due date.
“Nothing at all.” The figure simpered. “Ah, where are my manners? My name is Azrael. I’m here to tell you that your time has come, or rather, I have.”
“My time…? I’m sorry, I don’t think I quite understand.”
“That is fine, Mr. Fitzpatrick. It is very confusing, after all.” Azrael admitted before looking at his completely black watch, carefully observing their completely black pointers.
“In about thirty-eight seconds, you are to pass away from cardiac arrest. It doesn’t hurt, so don’t worry. I’m here to bring you to Mr. Peter as he is very punctual about his appointments, so we have little time to waste. Twenty-seven seconds now, to be precise.”
“I’m sorry Azrael, but I’m afraid I can’t quite do that.” George replied calmly, despite fully understanding what ominous words were just spoken to him.
“Hmm, very well then. What is another year, anyway?” The angel nodded with a hearty laugh before turning away.
“Are you sure you sure you don’t want any tea?”
“Maybe next time, Mr. Fitzpatrick. I’m on a tight schedule, so I’ll have to be going now. Ta-dah.” Azrael’s words resounded before disappearing around the corner.
&#x200B;
Bewildered by what had just occurred, George returned his sight to the stretches of green in front of him, wondering if the breeze that was there moments earlier, brought along that peculiar fellow.
As time passed by like the cascading currents of the Missouri river yonder, George patiently, yet adamantly awaited his son to visit him. 365 days later, a visitor came. As the senior heard the completely black shoes tap their soles against the wood, Mr. Fitzpatrick seemed to show disappointment instead of bewilderment this time around.
“Hello again, Mr. Fitzpatrick” Azrael spoke from under a black and cool shade, perfectly complimenting his completely black hair. “I see you are in low spirits today? I hope I am not the cause of it.”
“Oh… not quite. I was expecting someone else, but you’re hardly to blame for that. How about a cup of tea now?” The senior offered a second time.
“Delightfully kind of you, but I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on the offer. Are you ready to come along now?”
“I’m so sorry Azrael… I must look like a stubborn old mule to you, but I’m afraid I’ll have to say no again.” George apologized as he shook his head.
“Oh well, until next year then. “ The being spoke before vanishing into thin air.
“Are you sure you don’t want that cup of tea?” George asked once more, but his words were aimed towards the wind.
&#x200B;
A handful of years passed by and on every second of June, this conversation would repeat for a second or two. As of today, seven years had gone by since their first encounter. George had come to learn that his punctual visitor would always arrive dead on the noon, right as the clock jumped to 12:00
“Hello again.” A voice was heard, right on the second it was to be expected.
“Ah, hello Azrael.” George replied.
“I’m sorry, Mr Fitzpatrick - I know I’m not the one you were expecting, but I do think you know what I’m here for.”
“Oh, but I was expecting you! I’ve already taken the liberty to set some tea for you. I know how busy you are: You wouldn’t wear a suit if you weren't.” George smiled as poured a cup for his visitor and himself.
“Did you now? I wasn’t quite expecting that, but quite the keen eyes you got there, Mr. Fitzpatrick.” The angel chuckled. “ I am indeed driven by the clock.”
“What’s with the formality?” George laughed. “It’s been a couple years now. Call me George, but I do want you to sit down and share this with me.”
“Hmm, very well then, there’s still some time left. The wonders of modern medicine, right? Those freed up minutes sure are God’s blessing.” Azrael quipped as he sat down in the chair across his old acquaintance.
“Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, why does such a punctual and diligent fellow such as yourself turn a blind eye to an old geezer like me? George inquired curiously.
“George, dear George!” Azrael beamed with joy “Out of all millennia, you are the first one to offer me a cup of tea!” He explained before gleefully moving the beverage to his completely black lips, leaning in for a sip. “Absolutely splendid blend, I must say. I just adore black tea.”
“Do you want another fill, then?”
“I’d love to, but I don’t think I have the time for that. I do want to ask you one question, in return though.”
“Sure thing, Azrael. As long as I know the answer, I’d be happy to tell you.”
“I know it’s not my place to ask, but who is it you were exactly waiting for?” The angel asked with a curious look on his face. As soon as the words entered Mr. Fitzpatrick’s ears, the old man turned away, simpering as he looked over at the fields he has been staring at for the past few decades.
“It’s Robert… my son, you see. He promised to visit me for a while now, so I’m still waiting for him to come.”
“Oh Heavens above!" Azrael exclaimed. "Why didn’t you just tell me straight away? Come, I’ll take you right to him!”
|
The blaring horn, the terrible noise of metal screeching against metal, the flash of lights, the pain.
And then everything was gone. A peaceful stillness filled me and darkness surrounded me.
A figure emerged from the darkness, slowly walking toward me, a hood above its head, a scythe in its hand.
"It is time, Henry Gridsno. Are you ready to leave this planet?"
I look up toward the hooded figure, think about my parents, my friends, my life.
"No."
I didn't expect it to work.
He nods his head. "I figured that, Henry Gridsno. I'll see you again soon." He walks back into the darkness leaving me alone.
The pain comes back first. The aching headache. I lift my head off a soft pillow and look around a small room.
IVs are sticking out of my arms and a constant beeping is beside me. Fresh covers sit over me, warming my body.
"Hello?" My voice is hoarse and barely comes out more than a whisper.
A pretty nurse notices me and walks into the room, smiling. "Glad to see you awake, Henry."
"Are my children..." I begin before slumping down on the pillow.
"Your children and wife are fine. You were the one most hurt. We weren't sure you would make it."
I nodd and relax onto the bed.
...
The next year, I'm sitting on the couch, holding my 5 year old son's head in my arms, watching Thomas the Train.
A dark fog drifts around me, surrounding me completely and a peaceful stillness fills me.
The same figure emerges, his scythe in his hand planted on the ground.
"Are you ready, Henry Gridsno?"
I look him in the eye and shake my head.
"Very well." He disappears back into the darkness and the fog lifts.
Every year he returns to ask again. Whenever I die, he asks me if I'm ready. It took me several years to figure out that I'm basically immortal.
When the mugger shot me in the head I figured Death wouldn't ask me.
I was surely dead now.
But the dark fog surrounded me, the peace filling me and he emerged.
"Are you ready, Henry Gridsno?"
"Not yet," I responded and he floated away.
Most stress left me. I couldn't die, couldn't be killed.
I got to watch my children grow up and become parents. It was wonderful being there for them, knowing everything would turn out fine.
Then my dear wife died.
I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my face when the dark fog surrounded me.
Death was there, in front of me.
"Why?" I ask him. "Why did you take her away?"
"Everybody dies eventually, Henry Gridsno. Even you can't control that."
I look up at him, realizing that this was better than immortality.
I wouldn't beable to live with this in happiness. I knew my children were able to take care of themselves. That was all I could do for them. That was all I could ask for.
"I'm ready."
r/FortyTwoDogs
| 2019-04-16T10:51:07 | 2019-04-16T10:03:14 | 51 | 22 |
[WP] Everyone has a superpower based on the topography of where they were born (IE: Mountains, deserts, etc.). You are the first person to be born in space.
Think Avatar the Last Airbender but not so limited.
Edit: Wow this really blew up! I'm gonna be entertained for a while!
|
It was an accident, of course.
My birth, my being in space, and well, I suppose I was an accident as well. An accident from director of engineering fucking the fat janitor after hours when the rest of the shuttle team had retired, the odds that my mother had been able to hide her baby bump for nine months, the chances that she had been a nurse before being selected from the program and knew how to give birth herself, in a maintenance closet, mere days before the mission was to return to earth. Keeping me hidden was difficult in the small confines of the ship, but the other hundred and fifty crew members had been too busy to pay a maid much attention. After all, many insisted that it had not been worthwhile to bring her along, that a maid had been a waste of tax dollars. I suppose that makes me a waste of tax dollars as well.
But there were those that spoke to her unique abilities as a maid. For she had been born deep in the snow of the north, during the first blizzard of winter, that like the first snowfall she could smooth over any differences in her environment and make it appear uniform. As a maid, it meant that she had an extraordinary sense of cleanliness. As a mother, it meant she could ensure I was overlooked, that my crying was muffled, and later in life, that I appeared no different than anyone else.
Starchild, she had called me as she smuggled me back into the atmosphere, tucked deep in her suit like a kangaroo would carry her young. Starchild, she whispered to me when the project disbanded, and she took me back to the inner city apartment where I spent my early life. Starchild, she reprimanded, whenever I started pushing and pulling at the equilibrium of our apartment, when she would arrive home from work and all the furniture would be clustered at the center of the room, pulled together by a force point.
"When will I go to school?" I asked her when I was eight, watching the uniformed children marching up the street through the wrought iron gates of the academy, one of them flicking flames across his fingers like a coin while another left footprints of frost in the grass.
"You already go to school, Starchild." She said, "And your teachers say you've been learning your numbers well, and your reading has been progressing."
"Not *that* school," I had said, pulling a face, "I want to go to the academy. The special school, for the others like me!" I held up a fist, and items on the desk in front of me flew towards it, pens and papers and pencils that stuck out like quivering quills out of my skin.
"Starchild, listen, and stop that at once" She had said, her eyes level with mine, "There *are* no others like you. Those children, they are all classified, they are all known. You are *not* like them, you never will be. And they can't know, do you understand me?"
"I guess," I said, with a huff, watching as one of the children cracked a joke and the others laughed, "But I don't like my school. Everyone there knows we can't be like them, we can't be special."
"Starchild, you *are* special. One day, they'll know that too. But not now- if they knew, they wouldn't take you to the academy. They'd take you somewhere else, somewhere terrible."
And as I grew older, I realized that she was right. That when our neighbor started developing powers, a police squad showed up at her front door, and classified her on the spot. That they left her with a tattoo on her shoulder, a tattoo of a lightning bolt, symbolizing the storm she had been born during. Just like the tattoo of a snowflake on my mother's shoulder, colored dull grey, to indicate a low threat potential.
So instead of going to the academy, I created an academy of my own, in my room. Mother made me turn the lights out at ten, so during the day I collected light outside, keeping it in one of the dark holes I could create when I closed my fist hard enough, and letting it loose at night to read books I had stolen from the library. From the section for the special children, that I could only access if the librarians were distracted.
But distractions came easy to me.
As I grew older, the city streets became more populated with the blue uniforms of police. The academy became increasingly harder to attend, the gifted girl next door disappeared one night without a note. Mother stopped letting me outside after dark, and the lines for the soup kitchens grew longer. The skies grew darker, the voices accustomed to speaking in whispers, and the television news seemingly had less and less to report. It was as if there was a blanket thrown upon us, but no one dared look who had thrown it.
But I would. And when I did, I realized the earth needed a Starchild.
***
By Leo. **[Part 2 Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/leoduhvinci/comments/65hl73/star_child_part_2/)**
Part 3 coming soon. [While you wait, check out my other science fiction story about a starship struck by an asteroid on its way to colonize a distant planet.](https://www.reddit.com/r/leoduhvinci/comments/5ons87/you_can_now_add_the_bridge_to_you_shelf_on/)
|
"So let me get this straight, you have space powers?" He blinks in surprise, "And I thought being born between a nuclear power plant and a company that makes things 'disappear' was weird."
"Sort of? I mean it's vague, but I think I can control gravity to the point I can make black holes and stuff." She says waving her hand in a nonchalant manner, "And don't get me wrong you were born in a weird place too. How come you get two powers?"
"Hey! It's not as cool as having space powers! Making stars and energy beams and stuff!" He shouts waving his hand wildly in the air, "It's like that weird priest guy from the weird manga I read!"
The girl snorts and goes into a weird pose and drawls, "Do you believe in gravity?"
The guy snorts and poses himself, "Time has been erased."
Both the girl and the guy collapse on the floor and start to laugh.
A normal day for two weirdos
| 2021-11-12T07:30:30 | 2017-04-14T18:29:05 | 4,698 | 12 |
[WP] Your quirk is the ability to understand all languages, extending to fictional ones not meant to be understood such as simlish. This leads to some... interesting results.
|
David Foll's life was marked by routine. The routine of sleeping away most of the day, an hour of cardio as dusk fell, then the diligent trek to whichever bar had booked him that night, where he would play the piano till closing, help with clean-up if it was needed. Then, repeat. Repeat and repeat.
A blip in that endless cycle came when he slipped out through the back door of a pub one July evening, the last few notes of his set still reverberating in the confines of his head. A girl stood alone in the dimness, wound up tighter than a set of springs, almost bouncing on the soles of her feet. A mugger? No, she looked too... unguarded. A patron, perhaps? No, the entrance was on the other side, and besides, it was after-hours.
"I'm so excited to meet you! I assure you, I'm not crazy or anything. I just... wanted to tell you how much I loved your music!"
A... fan?
"Um, oh, yes, thank you, I suppose." David rarely spoke to anyone else, and his lack of practice was evident. After all, what was there to be said most of the time? He didn't need directions, he could handle his appointments through email, and he had little need to form connections. It wasn't possible for him, anyway. "Yes, I think... I think I remember you from earlier. You were at the... barstools? Came in a little after ten? Two whiskeys?"
"You're more observant than I thought!" She stuck out her hand, and David shifted his backpack to return the gesture. "My friends call me Emmie!"
"Nice... to meet you Emmie. I'm David. I hope you come to listen to my music again. Good night."
"No, wait! I haven't... David, right? Listen, I just wanted to say... Your vocalizations at the end, the accompaniment to that last song of yours... That was... Sublime! Perfect! Awesome!"
David managed an embarrassed laugh, and a flash of adrenaline coursed through him. Not everyone liked the wordless swoonings which capped his performances. Some of the venues he played at expressly banned them, telling him that he was ruining the mood with his 'incomprehensible grunting'. He supposed there were times he was carried away in the moment, fallible, mortal creature that he was, and he would pour a quart more emotion into it than he had planned to. He had thought tonight was safe for him to let loose slightly - there were hardly any customers left anyway.
What luck then, that this Emmie heard them.
"Oh, thank you, I guess," he said. "No one's ever told me they appreciated those improvisations before. But I... I must be going. If you're wondering, I'll be here again next week, if you want to hear me again. Thank you for the support."
David pressed forward, expecting Emmie to step aside. It wasn't that he was really in a rush, it was just that he wanted to leave before his limited understanding of human interaction ran out.
He stopped when he came up against Emmie's hand, pressed against his chest.
She spoke then, with the same beat, the same rhythm that he had employed, somehow translating his lyrics into words which other humans understood.
*Home hangs in the sky*
*A teardrop of silver amongst the stars*
*Flashing, beckoning, singing to me*
*I cannot return yet, but soon I shall*
David only realised he had crumpled onto the ground when Emmie propped him back up, then lightly tapped his cheeks.
"You alright? I didn't mean to... startle you like that. I just wanted to let you know I heard you."
"Where... how did you know what I was saying?"
"An intuition... a gift. I understand most other languages, even ones I haven't studied or learned before."
"So... Does that mean that you know..."
Emmie shook her head. "If you are asking whether I know the solution to your troubles, then no. I have no understanding of science, really. I can't even fix a leaky faucet, much less help with your ship."
"How did you know..."
Emmie fished around in her pockets, then held out a slip of paper to him.
"I've only ever heard your language once before. A painter, mumbling to herself as she brought to life landscapes I have never seen before. But always of the same theme - shipwrecks, marooned sailors, a deep longing to return. That's where she is most days. I suppose if you could find others like yourself, you could... Work something out?"
David gripped the note harder than he intended. The tears made it hard to see. For so long, so long he had thought he was alone, a stranger amongst a sea of similar but ultimately dissimilar faces.
He never thought that there would be others.
"Thank you," he said, as he hugged Emmie. It seemed appropriate.
"I hope you find your way home," she replied, but in his tongue this time.
---
/r/rarelyfunny
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You got over your ability to understand all languages pretty quickly. Listened in on some people who thought they could badmouth others just be switching languages. Translated all the dead languages in a month or so. Moved to washington, so the government could keep you on retainer in case they needed your services. For the most part, life went back to normal.
That is, until you walked near the White House, and heard a couple of shimmers in the air talk to each other, in a language that felt like it was not meant for human mouths or ears.
"Charges placed without difficulty sire."
"Excellent. The humans will be in complete disarray when the fleet arrives."
| 2018-05-03T17:38:51 | 2018-05-03T16:00:44 | 1,120 | 698 |
[WP] A trio of witches who live on the outskirts of town as outcasts befriend a neighbor child. They are annoyed at first by them but after their persistence realize they are genuine. One day they don’t show up as usual so the witches look for them and learn the town has been taken over by soldiers.
|
Where did Henry go?
The question was asked by Bitty, when she first came back from gathering herbs in the woods. She said he used to linger by the gate and ask her what she got and if she got anything for him. She would always swat his hand away and say 'nothing for ill-behaved children,' and he'd say 'please?' and she'd give him a small cup of berries or an apple for his questions.
He wasn't there this morning, and so she asked.
Leticia propped her chin on her hand as she flipped through her book. "I don't... well I haven't seen the dear boy in three days! Nettles, when did you last see him?"
My fingers had frozen over the soft, downy feathers of Persimone, my owl. Then I resumed my stroking, and whispered to the bird, "Where is Henry Miles?"
She rotated her head 180 to look out the window. Then, back at me her head swiveled, and she blinked mournfully at the idea of a morning flight. I tapped her on the back and she ruefully stretched her wings and leapt from the kitchen window. I could only wonder if she'd spot him before he her. The boy always had a knack for knowing when I approached, heralded by a sion most normal folks' eyes glazed past. It warmed a cold vein in my heart, knowing how often his eyes looked out for me and my own.
"I'm sure his mother tired of his games and mischief and kept him inside a few days is all," Leticia said, striving to calm her already worked up nerves. "I'm sure it's simply a matter of family squabbles."
Bitty stretched her old back and bustled to the hearth with her bag of plants and herbs. "I don't like it. Feel something bad in my bones. I think we ought best check the village, see what's been brewing." For all her reprimanding of him as a poorly mannered child, she knew as well as I did that his mother liked very much our friendship. She'd always been scared of us, Mrs. Miles, and liked the idea that he'd turned our eyes kindly on the family.
"I like that idea less than musing if something bad's happened." My words weren't very loud but the other two looked at me, hearing it nonetheless. They'd heard the hardness in my words but not the uneasiness underneath.
"Ah, Nettles, don't say that." Leticia swooped down on me, all a flurry of dark robes obscuring her thin frame. Those big, tawny eyes of hers fixed me with a reproach that wouldn't look out of place on my familiar. "He's just a boy of eight."
"You're soft," I complained, but I knew she was right and I felt it in my heart just as much. "Persimone will return. She will report back on what she finds. We will act with knowledge and information, not off emotion or hunch."
Leticia drew her robes around her, as if merely clutching at the gossamer fabric could contain them. She turned and stalked from me, back to her book.
"Ah, quit the squabbling," Bitty said, stoking up a fire. "I'll brew some tea and have a reading done before your bird returns." A wheezy laugh escaped her lips and I scoffed.
"Meanings far more muddled than a direct report." That time she didn't hear me, and a smile played on my lips, knowing I'd murmured unheard.
Bitty did have the reading done before Persimone returned, and hearing her muttering over the tea leaves did have my stomach disquieted for the first time since her return. Leticia, so young and fraught with anxieties, oft worried where nothing was worth worrying over, but Bitty didn't play with nerves.
"Something's amiss," she finally said. "Something-"
She was cut off by the fluttering call of my bird, who'd just soared in through the window, causing an already tightly wound Leticia to gasp.
I held out my arm and Persimone, flying with uncharacteristic speed, crashed onto it, talons sinking deep into the generous flesh under the thick leather sleeves of my shirt. She bowed her head and immediately pressed it against mine, not waiting for a greeting or request.
*There's a crash of iron and the smell of burning and it overwhelms me before I even see color. The color visible is red, fire and blood, and again my nose burns with the acrid scent. There's crying in the background, a beg, a moan. The village is empty soon after. Soon after, nothing stands but ruin.*
"Something's amiss," I whispered.
\~\~\~
We arrived in the village as smoke on the wind and found it as my faithful owl had described it. In ruin.
Bitty wasted no time in casting runes into the ash on the ground. Her report soon began trickling from her lips, a tide growing stronger and stronger and she gathered more details about the nature of the attack.
"...but alive," she finished. "Prisoners. Few dead."
"And Henry?" Leticia, for all her emotions, cared little about the general towns folks but oh did that boy's fate burn brightly in her mind's eye. "Did he go with them?"
"They took him," Bitty said. She stood, her periwinkle robes smudged with soot. "Not for good purposes. The villagers will be the latest bargaining tool for the baron lords to extract land and riches from the King. This has not traditionally gone well for the hostages." I could hear in her words an undercurrent of fervor unusual on the lips of our eldest sister. For the first time, I let my mind wander to the inevitably panicked mind of a child, kidnapped by soldiers. That fear was not one my heart liked to remember. Even I was sixteen when chased out and threatened.
To put such fear into the mind of a boy not yet ten...
I looked to my bird, who circled the village, a mournful call emitting from her beak. I knew its meaning. We did not return to our home this eve.
"We will chase them down," I said, my voice quiet and directed at neither witch nor fowl. "That becomes our new cause? Retrieving those who cast us aside. Who threatened to burn us as this village was burnt."
"For the child." Leticia's voice had turned from her usual melodic lilt to a primal growl and the Earth beneath me quaked in her rage. "Kindness isn't a gift lightly bestow on the likes of us. I will not let that gift go unanswered. The friendship of a stranger is answered in kind by the vengeance of witches."
Leticia didn't often set her mind in stone, but something had changed in the composition of the rocks and dirt we stood upon. There was no backing down from this cause now.
Persimone called again, and this time her cry was responded to by the furious caw of the raven, the ugly squawk of the crow, the jeer of the magpie.
"As the bird flies," I said, my voice strong, "so do we."
Bitty reached into her pocket, bringing out a fistful of pale green powder. She released it, slipping from her fingers in a silty stream, and it caught a wind none feel, streaming forward in a direction we had no choice but to follow.
"Then let us take the path."
For the child.
___
[2: The Path Set](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesByOpheliaCyanide/comments/mcc9m4/the_coven_three_2_the_path_set/)
Read more stories at [r/TalesByOpheliaCyanide](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesByOpheliaCyanide/)
|
“The boy is perfect for the ritual,” said Florence, parting her stringy black hair from her eyes. “I don’t care that you’ve grown a soft spot for him. The winter solstice is tomorrow night. We’re running out of time.”
“She’s right,” said Bernice. “His skin is the perfect texture. We can’t let this opportunity pass us by. Not after last year’s disaster.”
Diane tried to prevent her exasperation from consuming her face. Why couldn’t her sisters listen to reason? Why couldn’t they see that the boy’s interest in their traditions was *genuine*\--that he was undeserving of such a cruel fate?
“You can’t do this to him,” said Diane. “He’s worth more to us untainted. I can make him one of us. You just have to give me a chance.”
“You don’t even know his name, Diane,” said Florence. “What makes you think that he will listen to you? He’s just a kid. To him, this is all a game.”
“I just *know*.”
Bernice chuckled. She placed a hand on Diane’s shoulder, running her long fingernails through her hair. “Always the bleeding heart,” she said. “There’s nothing that you can do. The boy’s fate has already been decided. When he arrives tomorrow, we will use him to complete the ritual. If you try and interfere, you will regret it.”
\---
The morning sun rose, bathing the woods with pale orange light.
But the boy was nowhere to be found.
“Where is he?” said Florence. She glanced out the cabin window. “He’s normally here by sunrise.”
“Perhaps he can sense your plan,” said Diane. “He’s a smart kid. You don’t give him enough credit. And besides, he’s seen what you do to animals. Perhaps you scared him off.”
“Doubtful.”
The sound of snapping twigs drifted through the forest. A few moments later, the boy appeared in their doorway, face pale, limbs trembling.
Diane’s heart immediately went out to him.
“Help me,” said the boy. “There are soldiers. They…” His voice trailed off, lost in the tears welling in his eyes. He retreated through the door toward the woods.
“Wait!” said Florence. She rose from her chair and hurried to the door. “What happened, my sweet? Did someone hurt you?”
“Follow me. I will show you.”
Florence glanced at Bernice.
“We must follow him,” whispered Bernice. “If something happens to him, we will never recover.”
Florence nodded her head. She turned toward the boy. “We will follow you. But you must slow down so we can keep up.”
“Only if Diane comes too.”
“Of course she’s coming.”
Florence flashed daggers at Diane with her eyes.
The sisters followed the boy through the woods.
When they reached the town, a line of soldiers circled the road.
Behind them toward a freshly constructed gallows.
“I’ve brought the witches!” said the boy, sprinting toward the soldiers.
“Are all three of them witches?” said one of the soldiers, raising his musket.
“No.” The boy pointed at Florence and Bernice. “Just those two.”
Thanks for reading! If you're interested in reading more, please consider checking out [r/Brock\_Mauve](https://www.reddit.com/r/Brock_Mauve/comments/mc94qn/those_damn_birds/)
| 2021-03-24T09:08:37 | 2021-03-24T08:37:49 | 532 | 246 |
[WP] In a world of wands and wizardry, you are a legendary assassin. Nothing stops you from killing your target. Your secret? Guns and technology.
|
The target is 1400 meters, about 10 meters off the ground, standing on the top of the castle, surveying the land that was to be his. My target's red robes became easier to distinguish from the other blurred colors of earth, save for the members of his guard.
And the crown. that helps too.
the reticule hovers over where the shot will lands. I take my eye off the scope to view the treeline next to the castle. the trees remain still. as I thought, it really is a calm day. its perfect; a simple job.
&#x200B;
"The client was right," I said to myself. The head poked out from the camouflaged blanket next to me. I shook my head towards the voice and returned to the scope.
&#x200B;
"Sire, the guards will arrive to do their daily inspections. we don't have much time." the voice from the blanket called out. its getting a bit loud.
&#x200B;
"I know, just focus on the life energies surrounding us and we'll be fine."
"have you found King As- um the target?"
"Yes, I see him talking with the crowd surrounding him."
"then we should-"
"Not. Yet." I said again, my nerves straining from the voice's questions. the target moved amongst the group, appearing and dissolving below the reticule. then, the group parts behind the target, another group comes to meet with him.
"visual contact with the secondary group," I said to the voice.
"What colors do they bear?"
"Light blue, teal accents. the target of interest is middle-aged, bald head, scars on his right side of his face"
"with a crown?" the voice asked.
"...affirmative."
"Then its King Sors, from the kingdom of the five." the voice relayed to me. This was new.
"Kingdom of the five.." I repeated his words. unfamiliar land, a new land. a place to ply my trade.A place to find answers.
"Tell me more about the kingdom of the five" from the scopes view, the target greeted king Sors with affection, shaking his hand and hugging him.
"Are these two related by any chance?"
"by marriage. Sors was the older brother to Queen Estera, who is currently the second cousin to Kin- The Target."
&#x200B;
"Similar to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip," I said to myself. the Target stopped, making some sort of proud gesture. he begins moving forwards to the edge of the castle away from the others.
&#x200B;
"Its time," I said.
"Which color?"
"White tip, no shine"
&#x200B;
"Will it make it past the shields?" the voice asked.
I pulled on the bolt handle, granting me access to the rifle's inner workings as the voice brings up a slender hand out from the blanket. I grasped the round from the voice's hand, moving it until the round was safe in the magazine. As I slid the bolt back in place, I ignored the question from the voice. There was nothing, but the castle, the target and myself. Only instinct and training, My instructor once told me from a life long ago.
'This, is a private conversation between you, your target and god.'
My breathing slows as I begin to exhale the rest of the air within my lungs. My finger glides over to the trigger and my eyes sharpen. This is it now, the moment I needed. I position the reticule where I need the bullet to go to and then at long last, I apply pressure to the trigger.
The rifle awakens in a loud battle cry, the force of the shockwave scatters some of the falling leaves, pushing the rifle against my shoulder. The vapor trails fly up and begin the descent. The space surrounding the Target shines blue before a second, and then a red mist appears in a violent fashion. I could see the faces of those surrounding the target look down for a spilt-second, before seeing the mouth of an older woman cry out, the rest fall out of their trance as well. The body crumpled to the ground, and the deed is done.
&#x200B;
37 bullets left.
&#x200B;
"It is done. C'mon kid, let us move out." I spoke to the voice. A kid appears, the lights flickering in her hand go out and she rushes to pack up the bullets, stuffing the cotton over them to keep from making too much noise. I wrap the rifle over the blanket and then sling it over my back and stand behind the bushes. my pistol in my hands now.
&#x200B;
"Done, sire!" the kid says to me and the two of us begin walking back towards the forest. the roots make it difficult for the kid sometimes, so I pick her up and carry her with one arm, the other by my side, ready to open fire whenever necessary.
&#x200B;
We made contact with our horse, and I slide the rifle snug underneath the rest of the rucksack.
"Come here" I lift the kid up to the saddle and hop on behind her. a light tug of the horse's reins and off we go, away from the chaos I caused. My heart hammers against my chest, my head glances at our surroundings out of habit.
&#x200B;
the voices begin, one by one, and my mind shudders with what could happen if they catch us. i know what they would do to me; most certainly face public execution not before I'm tortured. But I look to the little one in front of me and my mind fractures to think what they would do to her.
&#x200B;
We can't get caught, not now. I dig my heels into the horse's side and we begin to pick up speed.
&#x200B;
As we approached the Main service road, we sped on past a carriage and out into the safety of the roads. it's not over yet, so we ran and ran, pushing the horse to his limits. faces look upon me with wonder, shock, or a mild hint of annoyance as I charge past . finally the roads curve right, towards the raging waters of the river. no one here now, and i let the horse slow down to catch his breath. the sun fell, about 2 hours of riding by now. we should arrive in a few more days.
&#x200B;
"Back towards the main hub?" the kid asked, looking up at me. I could only nod in a slight manner.
"Yes. we should prepare to leave after a day of rest."
&#x200B;
"Can we go to the bookkeeper? so I can return the book?" the kid pats at her smaller bag, the outlines of a bound leather book could be seen. I smile a bit and patted her head, her face lit up in a manner that tugged at my heart.
She's going to get me killed one day, but for now, she is all I have in this world. i
"Yeah"
|
I relax on a soft, leather chair on my beautiful deck. The sun is warm against my face. A large mansion stands up behind me, a massive yard ahead.
These were the luxuries of killing. At first, I was hesitant. But at the taste of something so incredible I couldn't stop.
The knock came at my door and I walked over, opening it.
A wizard stood there, with graying, long hair and a pair of spectacles. He looked at me and I shivered.
"Frank Simtino, I need your help," he said.
The wizard looked out of place in my house. He had a kind look to him and normally it wasn't the *good guys* that stopped by.
"Let's talk price." I sit down on the couch, eyeing the old wizard.
He pulls out a coin of gold, and a small breath escapes my lips.
"A hundred of these." How in the world did this wizard have this much wealth?
"Five hundred," I respond, my natural negotiating skills kicking in. All honesty, I would do it for the hundred.
"Done."
Holy crap? Five hundred golden coins for this. There had to be a catch...
...
Toward the middle of the forest is a large clearing. Bushes line up on each side. In the middle of the clearing is a powerful wizard and several others, all holding wands.
"So this is the man you want dead," I ask the old wizard, crouching behind a bush. We went through the transactions and he did have the money.
The man, named Dumbledore, nods. "His name is Tom Riddle."
"Okay."
I hop to my feet and walk toward Tom Riddle and his group of loyal followers.
They turn toward me and Riddle sneers. "What's this? A muggle?"
He raises his wand and shoots a spell toward me. I raise my shield, made of pure iron, and toss it in the air before the spell reaches me.
BOOM!
The shield of iron turns to dust and drift towards the ground.
"What?" the leader says. Two more of his followers raise their wands.
Two bangs go off and they fall to their knees, collapsing forward.
Another burst of light and another iron shield in the air.
The leader takes a step back. "How is this possible?"
Once again he raises his wand, and once again a bang goes off and his hand has a hole through it. He drops the wand, shrieking.
"What do you want, muggle? Gold? Power?"
"I signed a contract," I respond, coldly. "I want you dead, Tom Riddle."
I push a bullet into the gun and shoot him in the head.
r/FortyTwoDogs
| 2019-04-17T21:26:18 | 2019-04-17T18:55:01 | 58 | 32 |
[WP] You are a world famous super hero and single mother with a secret identity. One day you bring your eight year old son to his new friend's house, and meet his mother who you've heard is also a single mom. Unfortunately she turns out to be your evil arch nemesis and you recognize each other.
|
The spikes were what did it.
A white picket fence is good and all, especially when paired with an immaculate lawn and neat garden beds filled to the brim with daffodils and lilies. Red bricks too, with wide, open windows and a welcome mat that actually said ‘welcome’ rather than spouting some amusing turn of phrase.
But those spikes…
They just jutted up from the roof with seemingly no purpose whatsoever. Antenna perhaps? They didn’t look like any Jade had seen before.
“Hey, sweetie—” she began to ask.
“Don’t call me sweetie Mom! It’s embarrassing,” her son interrupted, the look of righteous indignation adorable on his sweet little face.
“Oh. Sorry, *Jack*, has Lily ever told you about her parents?”
He frowned. “Um, I don’t know. It’s just her Mom, I think. Come on, we’re gonna be late!”
Jade sighed internally at that, and hoped that if her son was right, this was one of the times that single parentage came from a positive place, rather than tragedy. Jack had come far earlier in her life than she might have wished, and though his father had remained around to help out from a distance, the two of them had never been cut out as life partners.
She rang the doorbell, feeling the satisfying *click* as the button was pressed.
*Ding dong! Ding dong! Ding dong!*
A dark silhouette was briefly visible behind heavily frosted glass, and then the door opened.
A woman stood behind it, smiling genuinely despite the exhaustion evident in slump of her figure, in the dark shadows that touched at her eyes from below.
Jade froze, then her hand snapped out with superhuman speed to grasp at the back of Jack’s shirt, and he yelped in surprise as she pulled him behind her. The woman blinked, visibly shrugging off her grogginess in an instant as she caught that extra ordinary motion.
“Get back!” she shouted out, her eyes widening with recognition.
Jade saw a small figure peaking around the woman’s legs, long hair twisting between delicate fingers. *Lily* she thought, and watched with morbid interest as the woman before her ushered the girl back without ever taking her eyes off Jade.
It was like watching a tiger feed a bloody carcass to its cub, strangely endearing to see but also horrifying to understand that a killer could still love.
If it weren’t for the spikes, she probably never would have recognised the woman. But she’d seen them, and in seeing them had been put in just the right frame of mind. Her… nemesis, if such a word could ever truthfully be used to describe a person, was fond of the things, infamous for decorating her costumes and machines with them to an almost comical effect. She’d always been one of those supers to make do with a simple domino mask, despite the inherit dangers to revealing her identity, and so the face in front of her was just familiar enough to know.
Before Jade, standing in all her domestic glory, stood a villain known as Gadget—the hero killer, the death of cities, the ghost in the machine.
They stood as mirrors to each other, each poised to fight but each unwilling to do so with their children so close at hand.
“Ah,” Gadget said, eyes flicking around rapidly as if searching for the rest of the heroic team that must surely be around. “It’s… you. Isn’t it? Shiiii—dang, it is. This is… unexpected.”
“As if you didn’t plan this!” Jade spat back accusingly, but almost immediately began to doubt her own words.
Gadget was famous for being prepared for almost any situation, but right here, right now… she seemed entirely out of her element. Though it could, of course, be an act.
*I could take her…* Jade suddenly realised.
Gadget wasn’t wearing a mech suit, or a shield belt or any of the other hundred things she used to protect herself from heroes. It would be so easy…
As long as she was willing to fight the villain in front of her own daughter, and Jack too.
“Um,” Gadget said, sounding unsure. “What… ah, what happens now?”
“Mommy?” Jack asked, staring at Jade with hurt eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing sweetie,” she said, and he didn’t contradict that fond moniker now. “Nothing at all. But, go back to the car Jack, please.”
“But whhhhhy?”
“*Because I told you so!”*
“But—”
“*Now*, Jack.”
Under protest, he did, and Gadget similarly sent Lily to her room.
“Ok,” Jade said, feeling a little better now the children were away from harm. “Ok. Now, we’re going to do this cleanly, and calmly. You have the right—”
“Woa!” Gadget exclaimed, holding up a hand. “You can’t arrest me, not in my own damn house!”
“Ha,” Jade said, speaking the laugh aloud as a word. “And why not?”
“Cause of the cameras!” Gadget replied, pointing up at the ceiling of the veranda. There, undeniably, was a small device pointing down, lens glinting in the morning sun. “You take me away, those videos go public and your secret identity goes *poof*. Everyone’ll know your face!”
Jade let out a breath.
“They’ll know your face too.”
Gadget let out an amused breath. “Like that matters if I’m arrested.”
“Maybe that’s worth it, to bring you in.”
Gadget laughed, and the weariness that Jade had seen before seeped back in. “Maybe if the world was just me and you, but it aint. I’m not the only one who’s out to get ya, and you *know it*. If they see your face, that means they can figure out who Jack is,”—Jade winced at her son’s name being spoken aloud by the techno horror—“and you really think they’d hesitate a second before *using that*? Back off bitch, I got you.”
“But… but you’re the *hero killer*. Voltr, The Bear, Tiny Man… they’re all gone because of *you*. I can’t let you go…”
Gadget grimaced, turning away slightly. “I never wanted them dead. They just… they just kept coming. What was I supposed to do, just give up when I was winning?”
“Yes!” Jade exclaimed. “How were their lives worth less than your… your schemes!”
“Because my ‘schemes’ will save the world!”
“Or destroy it!”
“At least I’m trying a proper fix! All you goody idiots do is throw bandaids at rivers of blood, buying just another day. The days are going to run out eventually, and you *know that*.”
A silence settled down upon the two superhumans as they realised the conversation wasn’t going anywhere—both were too set in their ways. In this quiet moment, they heard the happy laughter of children coming from the yard.
Lily must have snuck out, because she’d gone to Jack and let him out of the car. Now they played tag on the grass, laughing because Jack had tripped over one of the garden beds and was now lying on his back amidst the flowers. His smile was as bright as she'd ever seen it.
Jade sighed, watching the two children with the eye of someone who would have to clean out the dirt that would inevitably be trodden into her car.
“How about,” Gadget said slowly, watching with her own strangely gentle expression. “How about we have tea, and talk? That’s all I ever really wanted, and it beats the hell out of ruining *their* day, don’t it?”
“I… I guess,” Jade acquiesced, after a moment of uncertain consideration. She lowered her outstretched hand. “But screw tea, I need a coffee.”
---
[/r/ElstabbosArchive](https://www.reddit.com/r/ElstabbosArchive/)
|
The exterior of the home was undeniably attractive. It was evident that the front porch had been recently renovated, as the elegant baby blue paint featured an intricate design of criss-crossing golden flowers- all of which lacked so much as a single scratch. She wouldn’t call it charming but rather... immaculate. Yes. And just a mite cold if she was being honest with herself. Even though there was supposedly an 8 year old child living here, it was in surprisingly perfect condition!
“Come along now, Thomas,” she sighed. Her son was only 8 and had gotten distracted by the massive Rainbow brand play-set on the eastern side of the lawn. She glanced at her watch, feeling the seconds tick by. She really had no way of knowing when she might next be needed. Being a world-famous world-saver was simply too much effort sometimes, but she was making efforts these days to clock out for awhile and take Thomas to friend’s houses and the like. She was immensely thankful for Roberta as well… Having an on-call babysitter had saved her countless times.
Together, they walked side by side to the impressive door of the even more impressive house. She knocked politely on the door, preferring this method to the doorbell whenever possible. The door was opened by a boy close in age to Thomas, and after a quickly exchanged goodbye hug, they ran off into the interior of the house. She noticed that the other boy, whose name she believe was Ethan, was clutching two action figures… Huh… She hadn’t gotten a clear look, but she was nearly certain one had closely resembled her superhero persona while the other had been a nearly spot-on replica of her arch nemesis, Nemesis. Yes… not the most original of baddies, that one. But undeniably clever.
She walked cautiously into the interior of the home, hoping to greet Ethan’s mother and clarify a pick-up time. What she saw, took her breath away. Standing directly before her, albeit in casual clothes, was none other than Nemesis! Adrenaline rushed through her, like a fire catching on dry grass. She wasted no time, fanning the flames of the adrenaline rush and kicking into a ready-stance as she yelled “Nemesis!!! I have found you at last!” Their eyes locked, but before either could act, they felt their bodies go slack… “What… what black magic is this?!”
\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~
In the upstairs playroom, Ethan and Thomas sat opposite one another, each holding an action figure in a ready pose. Considering that the toys belonged to Ethan, Thomas had been given second choice… He was grasping Nemesis tightly, and had placed her arm out, ready to aim for Lady Savior’s face with a well-timed punch… They fight was quick, and neither played fair. They dipped, ducked, and dodged each other’s attacks, each giving the other no quarter. But eventually, one of them was bound to make a mistake… Ethan noticed that Thomas was following a movement pattern, and… Yes!! He landed a crushing kick to Nemesis’ stomach, knocking her out of Thomas’ hand.
Downstairs, she now lie on the floor, out cold… a casualty of her own son’s prowess. Lady Savior towered over her, allowing the feeling of victory to rush through her veins. “I’m so glad I’ve refused to buy any action figures for Thomas,” she chuckled to herself.
| 2019-08-08T21:08:20 | 2019-08-08T19:41:47 | 790 | 44 |
[WP] You sold your soul to the Devil many years ago. Today he gives it back to you and says, "I need a favor"
|
A great plume of smoke swirled in the living room, obscuring the view of my TV. I groaned and waved a hand, "Do that somewhere else man, I'm in a top three situation here."
The plume of smoke shifted slightly to the side, and allowing me to refocus on my Fall Guys game as the smoke drew inward and began to form a body. After a few moments, the flaming demon emerged from the smoke cocoon, the tips of his horns almost reaching the ceiling above. He flopped down on the couch beside me.
"Man, don't burn it. This is my favorite couch."
He waved a clawed hand, "Don't worry about it, mortal."
My eyes were still on the Fall Guys game. It was down to me and one other idiot dressed up like a pirate or something. There was no way I was losing to someone who wore the pirate outfit. My heart beat rapidly in my chest, but I still managed a quick glance to my side, "Yeah, well, I am worried about it. Shit is leather man."
It was actually faux leather, but it looked pretty similar to leather. Close enough that I didn't want anything to happen to it.
I hopped through a few hoops and vanquished my foe, gaining the top spot in that particular heat. I pumped a fist a few times and then tossed the controller onto the coffee table and nodded to the Devil. He looked more glum than usual. "What's shakin' bacon? Torturing soul biz got you down?"
"I need a favor."
I arched an eyebrow, "You serious? Can't you get one of your minions to do it or something?" I leaned forward, "And that's not really a part of our deal, dude." I had traded my soul to him a few years back in exchange for everyone leaving me the fuck alone. So far, it had worked out great. No robocalls on my cell phone. No student debt BS. No landlord showing up. Dating life was a big fat zero, but that wasn't anything new.
The Devil exhaled, sparks emitting from the back of his throat. "I am prepared to return you soul in recompense."
"Not interested." I leaned over and picked up my mountain dew and began to give it a chug. It was flat from sitting out for the last few hours. After a long gulp, I smacked my lips and then continued. "Shit has been great. Not really looking to change things up."
There was a pause. "You do realize your soul will be tortured for all eternity, yes?"
"Sounds like when I was living back home. I can deal. Long as I get to do my thing for now, it'll work out easy-peazy."
"The souls scream with the horrors of pain unimaginable."
"That's gonna suck for dead me. Tragic stuff. Anyways, I'm sort of on a streak here, was there anything else?"
A silence stretched out, and I glanced at him, "Dude, it's weird when you just sit there. This is the very definition of being in my space."
"I want out."
"Out?"
"Of Hell."
"You're out now man. Just stay out and do your thing."
He shook his head, "It does not work that way. I must have a place to hide. A refuge. That can only happen in the proximity of a soul-less."
I could see where this was going. "Yeah, listen, the second room is where I keep my Lego collection. Sort of occupied."
Another long exhale.
"Why do you even want to leave anyway? I thought you were all Lord of the Underworld and shit. That seems pretty cool if you're an extrovert."
The Devil kicked his feet up on the coffee table, a tendril of smoke arose from the Ikea apparatus that had taken me eight hours to assemble. "Early on, it felt meaningful. Me versus God. Fight for the soul of mankind, all of that." He waved a claw in the air, "But it's all a rut now. Humanity is largely damned across the board at this point, so there's no real fight left. It's just processing paperwork and torture mostly."
I nodded, feeling a bit of empathy there. "Yeah man, screw the grind. Just day-in, day-out BS. Exactly how it was when I was working at Taco Bell."
"Hell is very similar to Taco Bell."
"Makes sense." It did, when you thought about it. Place was always too hot, the food was poison and you spent half the day having your insides torn up after. "Listen, I'm not great company. Get me? I'm not good with people. That's sort of my lane and I've learned to embrace it. If you can be chill and not get in my shit, I can let you crash for a few days, but that's it."
He sighed. "A few days would be Heaven."
"I thought you didn't like it there."
A deep rumbling laugh spilled out. "No, they're all a bunch of dicks. How about it'd be like going to In and Out and there being no one in the drive through."
I cracked my own smile, offering him a fist bump. "My man."
He bumped it slightly, singeing off my knuckle hair. I shook my hand a few times and then nodded toward the screen. "You want next?"
**Platypus OUT.**
**Want MOAR peril?** r/PerilousPlatypus
|
I always hated cabbage. I grew up on a cabbage farm. Eating cabbage for breakfast, cabbage soup, roast cabbage. When i was 12, I'd had enough. One night before bed, i made a simple prayer.
" I sincerely do not care what it takes. I will do ANYTHING to never see any cabbage again." What a fucking mistake.
I woke to my uncle Benny screaming in horror. He was in town for the biannual cabbage awards festival. I rushed down stairs to see a concerning face on mother and father as Benny broke the bad news. All thr cabbage on the family farm was rotting away. Unsalvageable.
I was so excited. The cabbage fields that normally occupy my view from the porch was decaying. I could barely tell we had any cabbage to begin with. They died and went to cabbage heaven. Or so I thought.
Turns out, most cabbage goes to cabbage hell. And the cabbage we grow was grown on a field blessed by the local priest. Holy cabbage made its way yo hell. Where satan is.
... To be continued
| 2021-01-22T21:32:47 | 2021-01-22T21:19:21 | 100 | 34 |
[WP] When you die, you go to Purgatory. When you get there, you slowly experience all of the pain you've ever caused onto others over a span of a few minutes. If you survive, you go to heaven; If you lose, you go to hell. You were a dentist.
|
Most descriptions of death involve walking into the light, or darkness and only darkness.
This wasn't what I felt.
I had lived a good life. Being a dentist had it's ups and downs, but there was always a demand. More importantly, it felt good to be helpful.
Retirement was nice. Seeing the grandkids grow up was amazing. None of them wanted to be dentists, which was a bit of a bummer, but then again, they were probably tired of grandpa giving them a new toothbrush on every holiday. At least all but Johnny, my third grandson, didn't blame me about how much cavities hurt.
I remember dying. You might be inclined to thinking that my memory would be hazy, or I'd have locked it away. Memory works differently here. It's actually kind of miraculous: I remember feeling old age creep in \- the dulling of memories, the names on the tip of my tongue \- but it's crystal clear here. I feel like I have time to remember anything I want; I try to focus on the good things \- my wife and kids, mostly.
I do dwell on dying though. I remember the myocardial infarction \- the sudden, rising pain; the shortness of breath. I remember them trying to revive me \- something I could NOT possibly remember from my own body. I remember part of the ambulance ride. And then, there's nothing but this place.
It's a waiting room. Not like my office's; more like a restaurant that has a two\-hour waiting list. There's lots of us here, but we're alone with our memories. No one talks to anyone else. No one talks to me, and I don't talk to anyone. I think it's a mixture of fear and grief; we all know we're all dead, but how can we care about others when we also need comfort?
Every once and a while, a name is called. The room is huge, and I can't always see it, but someone always gets up and goes to the door. I can't see in the door \- I tried to look up once, but it hurt my eyes. It was just.... gray.
After so much time \- it felt like forever, but time is also weird here \- I hear my name.
"Dr. Jacobson, the specialist will see you now."
I don't see anyone beckon. I don't need to. I stand up and walk toward the door. Well... my body does this. I'm just along for the ride, I suppose. I try to think about my family \- even Johnny, who refused to be in a picture with me, ever. It keeps me calm \- not that I could scream.
I walk through the door.
I no longer get a feeling of a restaurant or a doctor's office; instead, it's an office. It's a nice office \- reminds me of the dean of the dentistry school's, though how I remember what it looked like is beyond me. I take a seat, and a moment later, someone comes in and sits down across from me.
"So, Dr. Jacobson... mind if I call you Edward?"
Across for me is a hooded figure. I can't see the facial features; the robe is flowing, and his hands are gloved. I find myself able to speak.
"No, Edward or Ed is fine."
The voice emanated from the hood. It was odd; it wasn't a recording, but it reverberated on occasion. "Ok, thanks Ed. So I'm sure you know why you're here..."
"Not really, no. I mean, I know I'm dead, but I always thought there would be something on the other side."
"Oh, there is. But we have to be sure. That's why the waiting room is so... neutral. No sinner deserves the wonder of Heaven; no innocent deserves the torment of Hell. So we make it as neutral as possible while you wait."
"Wait for what?"
The hooded figure chuckled. "Why, for me, of course. I adjudicate cases. I help determine which way you should go." The gloved hands point up and down.
Time was far different in this room; it was almost like living. Fear washed over me; had I been good enough for Heaven? I wasn't the most devout person. I could feel myself sweat, and tears starting to well up.
"Oh, there's no point in that. You lived your life, and it either was good or bad."
"How... how do you know what it will be?"
"It's simple really. Everything is interconnected. Everything you did was good and/or bad. It all weighs out. You know why you made the decisions, and we know all of that as well. But, there's a test."
"What test?"
"Well, in a moment, all the pain you caused in your life will come back to you. You will feel whether or not you were good; I'm just keeping score."
"How? When?"
"Don't worry about how. How is our little secret. When is a better question. Now."
My teeth hurt instantly. It was a weird pain \- as a dentist, I could not describe it. Certain teeth hurt more \- the damnable second molars hurt. My lips felt like they were going to fall off.
At the same time, I felt... relief. None of the teeth hurt. Occasionally, there'd be a flare up, but they felt... better.
I remembered every fight with my wife. I remembered my brother disowning me. I remembered my parents dying. I remembered breaking a knick\-knack when I was 4. I remembered submitting my third patient ever to collections. I remembered disappointing my patients when I retired. I remembered a malpractice suit that was settled. I remembered my very first dental professor frustrated at my bad grades. I remembered graduating. I remembered EVERYTHING.
I remembered Johnny. My own grandson! I felt his fear of me, and it roil into hate. I remembered his scream when I first spun up the drill, his scream of pain from drilling into that accursed second molar. I remember finishing up, and him jumping out of the chair, running out to the waiting room, and hiding behind my daughter\-in\-law, like I was a monster from under the bed.
I cried.
"OK, we're all done here, Dr. Jacobson. Congratulations!"
I choked through tears. "Wait... what?"
"Oh yes, I've seen what I need to see. You caused so much pain \- but to the end of so much relief to pain you didn't cause \- well, mostly. You felt guilt about slights and wrongs you had done. You did good things and tried to help people. You WERE good. Not great, but good!"
I couldn't feel any joy. "But my own grandson hates me! He thinks I would hurt him!"
The hooded figure chuckled again. "Huh, you're really stuck on that one. OK. Well, I have to put it in perspective. What I should do is simply pull down my hood, to show you how little it matters. But it does matter. It matters to you, and it really does matter to him. So let me take you on a little sightseeing tour. I shouldn't do it, but you already got a good result."
"Huh?"
I blinked \- and I was outside my old office. It looked... different. I went up to the door, and saw the stenciled lettering.
Jacobson Family Dentistry
Dr. John Wertzbach, D.D.S.
I ran inside. There was Johnny. Oh, he was much older, but it was him. Same little scar below his left eye; same dark hair that needed a trim.
I heard a voice behind me. "This is part of why you got Heaven as well. Sure, you hurt him, and he hated you for it. After you passed, he felt bad. Had to see a therapist for months."
I welled up.
"Then, in high school, he told his parents something. He told them he trusted you, and had felt betrayed, but now realized you only wanted to help him. His parents had known he felt guilty, but he described how deep the mental scar went. He said he wanted to help people too \- and you had helped your family enough that they could enabled him to do just that \- by paying for college. He chose dental school."
I cried again. I smiled and laughed, but kept crying.
"Your wife put up the money for his first practice. It wasn't much, but it was enough for one bit of sentiment: this building. He literally followed in your footsteps, Johnathan. He's actually pretty good at it. He doesn't have nearly as much trouble with those second molars."
"... thank you."
"No problem, but now you need to move along. I have to get to my next customer..." He flipped a chart in his hand, "A televangelist. Oh boy, I get to share the bad news."
|
Darkness.
Silence - wait, no. Was that... screaming? Faintly distant, and yet, I could hear the cacophony of raw and guttural screeching rippling through my very soul.
I must be in hell.
I drew my eyelids apart and saw a torn sky. Crimson and azure, it divided the world into two.
"*Next!*" a voice booms deafeningly over the screams.
Compelled by the voice, I stood up gingerly and saw it right away. A giant pit of scorched black soil in the distance. It stood out against the grass fields that surrounded the pit. Then I saw the people. Naked, soiled and scattered amongst each other, they approached the pit timidly in single file.
"W-where am I?" a girl's voice whimpers from behind me.
I turn around to the voice and realized that I was suddenly surrounded. Men and women of all ages stood around me.
"Isn't it obvious? We're in hell kiddo," answered an elderly man who chuckled softly.
"*No. Not yet,*" said a booming voice.
A man with scorched and cracked skin appeared above us.
*"You are in purgatory,*" he uttered stone-faced and in a matter-of-fact tone. "*But you will be in hell soon,*" he laughed menacingly as the crevices on his face cracked open, spilling black blood onto the grass.
People shrieked and jumped back as the blood incinerated the patch of grass below him.
*"A test,"* a heavenly voice echoed softly in the air.
Another figure appears. A woman with radiant skin.
"*Pass and you may ascend the stairs to heaven,*" she waved a hand towards the pit.
In the center of the pit was a magnificent spiral staircase. Iridescent light spilled from the clouds above it, basking the stone staircase in golden light.
"*Fail and you will descend into hell,*" said the scorched man as he pointed to the pit of black soil.
"What is the test?" I asked impulsively.
"*A test of Agony*!" the scorched man bellowed in a lively manner that made his skin crack even further.
"*A test of perseverance...*" the radiant woman answered, her voice barely a whisper. "*You must endure pain. All the pain that you have dealt to others in your life*."
Immediately the crowd of people around me began cursing and shouting excitedly.
"Shit!" a man behind me cried. "I was a serial killer! I'm fucking screwed!"
"I never hurt a fly in my life. I should be good."
"The only pain I ever caused... was to myself..." a young girl whimpered to herself.
A man raised his arm, waving at the celestial beings above us. "I-I was a police officer! I shot people, b-but they were murderers... they deserved it. T-that shouldn't count right?"
The radiant woman answered simply, "*all pain.*"
People broke into an uproar with her answer, throwing up their arms and cursing viciously.
I stood quietly, letting a few moments pass as they continued their complaints.
Then I spoke.
"I'm a dentist," I said.
I didn't shout, I didn't whimper, but the crowd of naked people stopped their bickering abruptly and looked at me.
"Y-you're a what?" the cop guy asked nervously.
He was standing next to me. I was sure he heard.
"I said I'm a dentist," I answered.
The silence lingered for a few moments before serial-killer man spoke. It was only one word. "Shit."
Dude-who-never-hurt-a-fly in his life had stopped grinning, and said, "That sucks bro."
"Good luck man," said some other people in the crowd as they shuffled awkwardly in their spot.
I only stood there solemnly in silence. To be going to hell for all the mouths that I had kept clean, for all the oral healthcare that I had provided... I felt cheated.
Then the elderly man from before walked up to me with a smile on his face. "You know what they say lad?"
I frowned as I looked at him.
"Go to heaven for the weather, and to hell for the company," he clasped his hand on my shoulder as he took the spot next to me.
I smiled back.
Well, at least I made one friend already before going to hell.
----
----
/r/em_pathy
| 2018-05-31T12:47:50 | 2018-05-31T11:51:53 | 928 | 104 |
[WP]: A 92-year-old woman's phone number is one digit away from that of a local suicide hotline. She could have it changed, but she doesn't mind.
|
She reached out for the ringing phone. For a moment, her stiff fingers fumbled over the buttons, and she cursed the arthritis that stiffened her joints. She managed to hit the green button, and lifted the handset up to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Hello - I, uh, I just needed to talk to someone. I don't think I can keep going any longer."
Another one of them. No matter how many calls she took, there always seemed to be more of them, each with their little problems, so convinced that no one else in the world had ever experienced what they were now going through. Her eyes drifted over to the two piles of stationary on her windowsill.
"Well, you can talk to me, although you best make it quick - I'm 92, so who knows how much time I've got left." She settled back into her chair, trying to find a more comfortable position for the phone against her ear.
"92? Um, is... is this the suicide hotline?"
Ah, one of the faster ones. He'd caught on more quickly than some of the callers. "Afraid not, dear," she replied. "You're off by a number."
"Oh. Er, shit."
"Happens more often than you'd think." She looked around her little bedroom, at the cards on her windowsill, the little bed, the faded pictures. "But you've got me up, now, so you might as well talk to me. Otherwise, you'll have roused an old woman from her nap for nothing, and you won't want to die with that hanging over you, would you?"
"Um, no, of course not! I'm so sorry, miss-"
"Cleo." She tried propping one arm up on the side of the chair.
"Your name is Miss Cleo?"
"Are you sassing me, young man?" she snapped, her frail voice suddenly surprisingly sharp.
"No, no, of course not. Um, sorry, Mi- sorry, Cleo. But I haven't been able to find work for three months, and I'm about to be homeless, and I guess that I was just thinking about ending-"
"You know, you sound a little like my husband," she said dreamily. "He always had such a soft voice, sounded so vulnerable. When he met me in person for the first time, I couldn't believe that it was the same man. But he was going through troubles, too."
"Oh. What troubles?"
"The usual - he'd fallen hard for me, but he didn't have a job or a dollar to his name, and he was certain that I wouldn't look twice at him." She smiled a little to herself. "He was an idiot, of course. Didn't ever give himself credit."
"How did he turn things around? Um, if you don't mind me asking, of course."
"Oh, young man, I'm just happy to be talking to someone. He nearly didn't turn things around, but I snapped at him, told him that he was a little shit if he expected things to fall into his lap without effort. Oh, you should have seen his face - I don't think anyone had ever raised their voice to him, much less a dainty little gal like me!" She laughed, and the voice on the phone laughed with her.
"And he turned things around, then? Made something of himself?"
"It took some time," she reflected. With a grunt, she pulled herself up out of her chair, walking over to the windowsill of her little room. "He went through plenty of failures. But he loved me, and he hated coming home to a tongue lashing from me, so he kept on trying!"
"Wow." A pause. "I don't have anyone in my life like that, I guess."
"Well, I don't have my husband any longer, so that makes us even," she snapped at him. The windowsill was littered with cards. On one side, the cards stood propped up, a display of bright colors, all clashing against each other. On the other side, the cards were plain white, sorted into a neat stack. "But it wasn't just me - it was the way he looked at things after I set him straight."
"What was that, then?"
She picked up one of the bright cards, smiling as she read the kind words hand-written inside. "He thought that he should quit before things got worse. But I pointed out to him that it's not whether we fall or rise, but where we're at when we check out. I pointed at him, and said, 'do you want to walk up to them pearly gates and admit that you didn't make every attempt you could to better yourself?'"
"Yes, but I don't know what else I can-"
"Oh, you sound so like him," she interrupted, setting the bright card down. She liked re-reading those bright cards. "Always hoping for the lazy way out."
"I'm not lazy, Cleo-"
"Of course not, but only a lazy man refuses to see a job through to its very end," she countered him. "And years later, my husband returned home every night, happy with his hard work, showing me a lesson by telling me of how he'd fought for every success." She ran her finger over another bright card. "He never caught on that this was my plan all along, that lovable man."
"If..."
She waited. Her eyes drifted to the plain white cards, but she didn't want to jinx anything.
"If I managed to succeed at something, could I come tell you about it?"
There it was. She smiled, happily taking her eyes off of the plain white cards. "Well, of course you could, dear. You sound like a very nice young man. I'll give you my nursing home address, but you'd best work hard - I don't know how much longer I have."
"I'm sure you'll be around for plenty longer, Cleo, with that sharp mind."
"Flattery will get you nowhere, young man," she replied, but smiled as she said it. "Now, what's your name?"
"Uh, it's John."
"Well, I expect a card from you, John," she told him. "Something nice, with a real comment from you written inside. Nothing silly or inappropriate, mind you."
"You got it, Cleo. I'll send you one. I promise."
"Then I'll let you go, John. Have a good rest of your day now, you hear?" She smiled, glaring triumphantly at the pile of white cards. Not today, she thought.
"You too, Cleo. And thank you."
She lowered the phone, carefully putting it back in the cradle to charge. Hopefully, another bright card would come soon. John sounded like a nice man, she thought to herself. He could get better.
And with his card, she'd have forty-eight bright cards, to the twenty-four white cards. Double.
She didn't know if it would be enough, if it would ever be enough. She picked up one of those white cards, her fingers trembling slightly as she traced the ornate script.
"We are saddened to invite you to the funeral of..." she read, before she had to put the card down.
Twenty-four failures. Each one weighed at her, dragging her down. Twenty-four callers for whom she'd been too late.
But John sounded promising. She looked forward to his card.
|
The phone rang again, and Mary sat up in bed putting her glasses on so that she could see the time.
3:32 AM, she smiled sadly to herself. The late night callers were always the least determined ones, usually just young follk too worried to go to work the next morning or too stressed to sleep.
The phone rang again. Three rings, that was her motto - she always allowed them to a chance to hang up before that after the last few talkdowns didn't go so well. Three rings, and it means the person wants to be helped. Any less, and it's usually Mary listening to a final death speech - the likes of which often took their mental toll on her the morning after.
The phone rang one more time. She picked up, and in a careful soothing measured tone said "Hello?".
There was no voice on the other end, just a small sigh and short breaths. "Hello?" she said again, trying to force a response. Maybe this person was already too far gone. Maybe she should hang up and call an ambulance. Just as she was about to, a voice spoke up:
"...hello..."
"Hello there, what's your name?" she asked carefully. Names are useful, it grounds people in a conversation and often sways the direction of authority.
"...nnnnn..... my name is not important right now...."
She nodded to herself, knowing that it must be her who must concede first in order to regain control later. "Well my name is Mary, and I'm here to listen, and help you if you like."
"...haaaaaa......help me how....."
"Well that's up to you" she said. Choice. Give people a choice, no matter how small, and you grant them the illusion of control over their lives. "Whatever you want to talk about, I'm all ears."
"....aaaaaa.... how about we talk about you, Mary......"
This was not uncommon, many people didn't want to talk about their problems up front and sometimes a little give was needed to get some information later in return. "Me? Well I'm just an old girl living her life to its fullest and taking every day as it comes. Can you give me a name to call you?"
"....every day huh?...... Brad...... And what are you doing right now, Mary..."
"Well I'm lying here in bed, talking with you Brad" she said a little indignantly. She wasn't entirely sure this man actually was suicidal. Sometimes people just wanted to talk.
"....lying in bed you say.......... haaaaaaaa..."
His breathing was getting worse. She gripped the phone tightly. "Brad? Brad? Are you okay? Talk to me please."
".....haaaaaa...... so what are you wearing Mary?...."
She sighed. Not this again. She had half a mind to hang up but decided to at least tell the man of his mistake so he would not make it twice. "This is 350*8*7 young man, the phone sex hotline you were looking for was 350*3*7."
She hung up abruptly. Curse this town and it's terrible phone number leasing.
| 2016-02-06T14:19:17 | 2016-02-06T13:39:33 | 4,608 | 79 |
[WP] In a world where people can buy and sell skills, you work at a skill pawn shop and someone is trying to pawn a skill that you can't value or appraise.
|
The Skill crystal clinked as the tired-looking man set it on the counter. “I need to sell this,” was his only explanation. He stood expectantly as I lifted the crude glassy lump.
I held it up to the window as I gave the Skill a cursory examination. The thing was huge for a Skill crystal, riddled with cloudy inclusions, its surface pitted and irregular. “Home extracted,” I clucked dismissively. Damned inefficient, a waste of materials. He didn’t respond, but he was already out of my mind other than a footnote of irritation. The Skill had nearly my full attention—I couldn’t immediately identify it.
At first, I blamed the amateurish extraction job; people who do it themselves at home, they never manage to pull the single specific skill by itself. They try to get just their knowledge of a secret family recipe, and accidentally give up a dozen little cooking techniques with it. Or the try to crystallize their Skill at driving commercial vehicles, and also lose “how to parallel park.” That kind of cross-contamination muddles the clarity, and makes the resulting crystal something of a mess.
This one must have been years’ worth of learning and experience. Extracted properly, it might be half the size, but it would be a nice, attractive gem of a Skill, compact, easy to absorb, without the various boring life skills this man in front of me would come to miss in a few days or weeks.
But I began to feel some concern; I couldn’t even *begin* to read its contents. I turned it over and over in my hands and only got the vaguest notions of what it might hold. What I do isn’t a Skill—people have tried to buy it from me, even though it’s not something people can learn. Although I’ve worked at it like one would any normal skill, you have to have the … innate ability first. Normally, I can identify and rate Skill crystals instantly.
And the blob resisted my efforts. If not for the tingle of power, if not for the slow, swirling movements of the extraneous talents included in this Skill, the thing could have been ordinary glass.
There was a Skill there—several, actually—but they weren’t anything I’d encountered before.
I looked from the blob to the man, giving him a closer look. “Tired” wasn’t the right word, and neither was “man.” This teenager was exhausted. That was unusual; teenagers were the biggest Skill *buyers.* They collected talents like hoarding magpies. He wasn’t paying attention, just staring off into space, waiting. He looked like he’d had a rough week or so; his short hair was greasy and his clothes had a few days’ wear on them. Though they looked expensive, they hung on him, a few sizes too large.
I reviewed the types of Skills that a youngster would dedicate the hours to master. There was nothing athletic in the Skill I held. It felt vaguely academic, but I could only get the foggiest of impressions; it had lots of on-the-job learning.
After several more minutes of fruitless guessing, I gave up. I waved a bit to catch his attention. “What is it?” I asked. His eyes came into focus and he blinked. I repeated the question.
His face crumpled, like he was about to cry. The effort to control himself made sweat bead on his forehead. After a few moments of rigidly-controlled breathing, he swallowed, wiped his eyes, and tried to speak. “I-it’s my family. Dad and everything he learned, Grandpa, Great-grandma, going all the way back to … back.”
I couldn’t hold in my gasp as I made the connection.
I was holding a Legacy.
I stared, stunned, at the ugly, lop-sided Skill Crystal, then back to the boy. Then back to the crystal, amazed. I’d never held a Legacy before. I’d never seen one. These things did *not* end up in the hands of Skill Brokers. They never left their families. Heck, the damn things were *locked* to prevent theft or use outside of the bloodline. Usually.
I felt no locks on this one. I could feel all of the little intrinsic qualities of the crystal itself, I could even feel the little trigger that would release the Skill from its physical matrix. Now that I knew its identity, I could recognize how rushed the extraction had been.
For a moment, my mind rested on that trigger. I could take this boy’s Legacy, the compounded knowledge of generations, right now, and get out of this place. Take my innate talent and apply it to things more interesting than assessing crude Skill crystals filled with junk skills like “efficient gift wrapping” or “writing mirror-image letters.”
The temptation passed. I put the Legacy back on the counter and closed my eyes, trying to think through the best course of action here.
“All right. I … don’t know who you are, but there’s really nothing I can give you that is worth your family’s Legacy.” I’d built a reputation on being honest, and I wasn’t about to compromise it now. “This is invaluable. It’s not something I could ever sell, not … not properly, not legally.” Even trying would probably get me arrested. “Why haven’t you incorporated it?”
He shifted a little in place, and again suppressed anguish. “I … it’s not allowed, I’m too young.” He launched into an explanation, some of the secrets of the Legacy Families that I had never before heard. Apparently the custom was that a person could only absorb a Legacy in their thirties, or after they were married and had raised a child to the age of five. It was, he tried to convey, a way of ensuring that the inheritor did not get his personality overwritten by the ancestral talents, that he had a chance to learn and develop his own natural Skills before borrowing from his progenitors. It made sense, but it left this boy handicapped.
I looked at him, then to the door. Business was always slow this time of day, but I went around the counter and locked us in. I flipped the “closed” sign, then, staying on the customer side of the counter, I crossed my arms a few paces away from him. “So. You’re in trouble. Someone’s after you. And you’re the last Heir to this Legacy.” I didn’t phrase these statements as questions, but he nodded. I held up a hand as he tried to explain further. “The less I know, the safer for both of us. Helping you … is a big risk. But I can’t let you walk out of here,” I sighed. “Not without trying. So I’ll make you a deal.”
I went to the big display case behind the counter and dismissed the protective field. I began setting Skill crystals in front of him. Dozens of them. Most were faceted little gems, bright, dull, and a few glowing, all about the size of a fingernail. Evasive piloting, self-defense, using stealth fields. I sorted through the Skills decisively, pulling some from drawers and others from secret safes. I even laid out a few illegal talents like evading security systems, lockpicking, shoplifting, and pickpocketing. The boy would need every advantage he could get.
These skills, together, would give him everything he needed to break clean of whatever it was that was after him. An impromptu assassin-spy, more in line with the fictional idealized version than the mundane reality, but I tried to anticipate every contingency, as best I could guess them.
And when he got out of this mess, whatever it was, he’d owe me. When he came into his rightful place in the world, someday, he’d remember the Skill Broker who was generous, who had helped him, and who had kept his Legacy safe.
Safe, so long as whoever had murdered his family didn’t come after me.
|
A simple pin was all it took. And a not quite as simple enchantment, that rips out a skill (or set of them) and whoever the pin is inserted into gets that skill.
The mages re-learned basic skills like minor fireball a 100 times to sell it to peasants and lords alike.
The blacksmiths showed even the dullest of squires how to properly maintain a sword perfectly with one little prick.
The princesses... Well. You get the idea.
I was simply a trader, I went from town to town, set up my stall and sold the skills around to whoever. I didn't buy often, but if it impressed me enough, I'd buy it from them - I had blank pins and I'd bought the skill to enchant them, and it didn't take long.
I was on tour, and a man walked up to my calmly smiling, holding a pin. He smugly put it down on my cart and gestured to it.
"I guarantee you this is the most rare and yet weirdly useful skill you have ever seen. I only need to know if you have the money to buy it."
I raised an eyebrow at him and folded my arms. I'm not so easily conned.
"Ah! You need a demonstration. Allow me!"
He took the pin and jabbed himself with the skill. Immediately his face was painted white -with touches of black lines near the eyes- and his lips seemed to seal completely shut.
It was amusing. Whatever it was. So I humored him. Gesturing for him to go ahead with whatever it was he had planned.
Moving over to the side of my cart -an empty space- he wrapped his arms around the air and mimicked strain, trying to pick something up heavy. I'd seen the best comedian skills, but I couldn't lie his foolishness made me laugh.
"Imagining things that aren't there is rare, but in no way usefu- OWW!"
He'd moved as if he'd dropped the heavy object by mistake, and IF there had been something there it would have fallen on my foot... and it bloody well felt like it had! I stepped back and kicked at whatever it was... only to find nothing there now. Yet the now mute man smugly leans against the apparently tall and heavy invisible object just fine.
I rubbed my foot and watched him, being able to manipulate reality wasn't common, and was worth a good amount, but I decided to play it down as if I wasn't impressed.
"OK, not bad. But I've seen similar - what else can you do?"
The man thought for a moment, then looked over to his shoulder and began to rub at it with a hand, then blow on it insistently -yet silently-, then flailed around as if on fire. I was bemused until he ran into a guard by 'mistake' and the guard ACTUALLY burst into flame at which point the mime grabbed a bucket of water and poured it over his head, no steam or signs of burning on him, although the poor guard was not so lucky as he dived into the town well.
The man walked over with a grin and lied back mid-air, as if resting against a wall that wasn't there for anyone but him. This was swiftly proved to be very real, as the guard emerging from the well threw a dagger at him - and it bounced off the invisible wall.
I took out my needle pouch and offered it to him -you couldn't steal someones skills unwillingly unless you were a VERY powerful mage or trickster. He turned around and watched the guard fume for a minute and batter at the thin and invisible wall with his sword before storming off with indignity. After that taking the needle, jabbing himself and taking out a gasping breath and talked again.
"From where I come from. I am known as a 'Grand-Master Mime."
| 2015-10-22T08:18:07 | 2015-10-22T08:00:30 | 72 | 47 |
[WP] When people turn 18, they gain the power to summon 1 random thing in the world to their hand, as Thor does to Mjolnir. Summoned people are considered soulmates, and objects as important parts of one's life. When you summon yours, it takes some time, but people are horrified when it arrives...
|
There was enough time. There always was enough time for me. As the last born in the line, expectations were high. The punishment for the times that I faltered, the lashes that came when I just wasn't good enough... 'Be a good son.' 'Why are you so weak?' 'Work harder! Your brothers are strong and able.'
The work was heavy. Father had never been kind with his criticism. My oldest sister had gotten a loom. She was a fine weaver, able to spin silver and golden thread into the dresses she made for the local noblewomen. My older brother had received a sword with the markings of a low noble, in order to learn how to be a knight. I heard he had finally found himself a spouse within one of the landed noblemen's court, a fine third or fifth daughter. Not close to the line, but close enough for a small plot of land, once the limbs grew too infirm.
They visited, sure. Mother turned surly whenever they did, knowing that at eighteen, there would be another one chosen. Father never let me stop working. "A good tilled soil is the firmament. You'll probably never amount to much." The words were thrown at me, knowing that my sister never had to work the fields, because she had been pretty. My brother had never been the one who allowed the time for fieldwork whilst he had been flaunting his muscles to the local girls. Whenever he was caught, he could smile, flex those muscles and have the awed farmgirls just sweet-talk their father out of a thrashing.
My eighteenth birthday came... and went. There was no magical thing that popped up, nor was there a person that suddenly took it. Father got mad. There were more lashes. It wasn't that bad to make me unable to work. Whatever the gods had given to me, it hadn't arrived... Or perhaps it had.
I looked at my hand and felt dissatisfaction. The mark on my flesh had started to bleed. It was supposed to land in the right hand, whatever it was.
A knocking on the door and father went to get it. Mother continued to wait patiently for whatever guest came around. It probably would be the neighbour's daughter again. She'd been making eyes at me.
"May I come in?" The voice was a womanly one, resonant and with the timbre of age. Father stepped back, opening the door. It was permission for her, yet unspoken.
"Please... do?" The man said, ruby red lips parting with a light smile. The woman's eyes were a dull blue colour, faded like the paint on the wall of the local cleric's home.
"It took me a little longer to... properly attend to you. Daytime outings are, sadly, no longer within my ability." My gaze looked over the woman, whose fingers held a ring, and another glistened in her other hand. Father looked a little disturbed, though he was seemingly happy. "You must be my intended... Good, good."
Mother shook from her daze. She got up, looking at the beautiful woman who had come for me... who had strode out from the darkness and into our little home. "Would you... Would you like to drink something? I am sure that we might have some wine left..."
A smile. Lips that were like glistening rubies and eyes that were as pale as the sky during the morning light, glimmered. "I don't drink... Wine." The woman said, her eyes locked with mine for an instant, as she drew closer. "Now... Do give me your hand, sweet one..."
I gave my right. The mark still had scabbed, the woman's pale fingers touching it lightly, looking at the palm. She brought it up, a golden ring fitted around my ring finger. "Good..."
Her tongue wriggled out, drawn over the wound. A sting, a stab of pain and more red blood welling up, her tongue sliding over the wound slowly, licking up the coppery lifeblood, the redness staining those lips. "My... It will be an endearing time, sweetling..."
Mother and Father had gone pale. Deathly so, as they looked at my intended, the woman who had come for me. "Oh?" I asked, as she smiled. Her name I did not know yet, yet she knew mine neither. She was a beauty.
"Eternity is such a while, sweetling... But we'll weather it together." The woman confidently smiled, showing her lengthy canine teeth. Fangs, rather than teeth.
"Vampyr!" Father shouted, yet the woman merely regarded him with a cool glance, dismissive of the man.
"Yes? What could some jumpy farmer of you know of the sweetest of nectars, one who has never tasted the vintage of life..." Her hand pulled me up, to my feet. "I do bore of you, though... Sweetling, do you wish them gone? Their bodies strung up by their innards, their faces set within the horror of their situation?"
"I'd like to visit them sometimes... They're still Ma and Pa." I couldn't condemn them to death, as my intended merely smiled.
"I will show him to my castle... Do live well, father, mother... I would be... *displeased* if you were to get another riotous mob at my front gates... The last rabble had to be culled and bled for five months... Such a tiresome ordeal. The sisters were hungry for *months*."
Outside, a coach that was as black as the wood's depths stood, a coachman looking down at me with an odd look. "Do make yourself comfortable, my intended... I will ensure that you will be treated as the man who is the spouse of Lady Schwarzwald."
Oh. It seems my item has been the marriage to a vampire. That was much better than a loom or a sword or something lame like a sponge.
|
As I wait in the field, the usual assortment of examiners and recording equipment scattered around, an awkward silence surrounds the entire group. It has been nearly an hour. Most people's Soulbound appears within 10 minutes. What could it be? If we go by distance maybe something halfway across the country? But what only exists there that you couldn't find within an easy walking distance? I remember hearing news articles about the man who summoned a whale... To the middle of Texas. It was big news at the time; hundreds of buildings had been decimated by the high-speed collision, and the whale unfortunately did not survive the impact. The examiners are also starting to get nervous looks on their faces and I bet they are recalling the same story. Suddenly off in the distance I start to hear very large crunching noises, sirens, screams and just utter pandemonium. then comes the grating, like thousands of pounds of metal rushing against pavement I know something horrible is coming, but my hand is frozen out in front of me. Finally it crests over the city skyline and I am dumbfounded. It is worse than I could ever have predicted. Looming over me, growing closer by the second is the mangled, ruined visage of one of our country's greatest monuments. The Statue of Liberty, now covered in dust, blood and debris followed by a swarm of helicopters grinds to a slow halt in front of my outstretched hand, just close enough to touch the tip of my finger. What have I done?
| 2019-09-18T10:11:45 | 2019-09-18T09:38:04 | 51 | 24 |
[WP] A small village becomes fearful of a dragon that has taken residence near them. The dragonslayer they hired runs back to the village after the first day and begins rapidly packing his things. "It's not the dragon that you should be afraid of" He says. "It's the thing its protecting you from."
|
"What lies behind in that cave is a far greater threat to your souls than the Dragon protecting it, heed my advice and simply leave this valley."
Skol Drakesbane continues packing his bag, keen to be gone from this place, a look of sour disappointment on his face. He came back from the mountain less than six hours after leaving, handed the boots we had given him as payment back to the Ealdorman, and told us calmly that he would not be killing the beast for us. Bjorn Halfdan had accused him of cowardice and received a broken arm in response.
"It's asleep, and once dragons sleep they stay that way for a hundred years or more. By the time that Dragon awakens your people can have moved far away from here".
In truth the Dragonslayer hadn't looked afraid at all, but simply annoyed to be returning his prize, his own boots rotten and degraded. Even as we begged him to stay and fight he was asking the Ealdorman about further work in the nearby towns.
"But you have to kill it Drakesbane, what happens when it decides to come for our flock with fire and claws?!" I said to him.
Without turning away from the Ealdorman he replied in a dismissive manner.
"Only Red Dragons steal sheep and cattle, this one isn't red" he said as he slung his bag over his back and made for the village border.
"What of our women and children, we've nought to protect ourselves" I called after him, trying to keep up with his long strides.
"That's Black Dragons, this one's not black. Besides I told you, the only safe course now is to leave this valley. There's more that will destroy you than just a dragon here" he replied as he quickened his pace.
I broke out into a short run, desperate for answers, one final question on my heart.
"But what if it decides to burn us out to claim the valley as it's own, don't dragons hate humans for chopping trees and hunting game?".
He finally stopped, and turned to me with an annoyed expression. He drops his bag and crosses the distance between us and grabs me by the shoulders.
"That's Green dragons, this one isn't green! I've given you what you need to know, if you make the wrong choice now that's on you. There's good land all around you and no one for miles, why you'd want to stay in a valley with a harmless Gold..."
He stopped short, his eyes furious, his body tense, he looks at me with murder in his eyes. Pulling his knife from it's sheath, he holds it against my neck so close a drop of blood spills from my throat, running down the length of the blade and dripping onto the snowy floor. His grip on my shoulder is so hard I nearly scream from the pain, but the intensity in his eyes keeps me rooted in silence.
"I've told you too much villager, the smart thing for me to do would be to kill you now so you don't reveal what I have said to the rest of them. Yes it would be the easiest way. But there's no honour in killing unarmed peasants in the cold winter snow. So listen to me carefully. What it protects will destroy your very soul, your humanity, not just your bodies. Heed my advice and leave. Do not reveal what I have told you here, and when they ask about the Dragon tell them I said it is no danger as long as they leave, you owe me this life debt, now go!"
He threw me to the ground and stood over me until I scrabbled to my feet and ran back to the village. I ran in terror and confusion, I've never even heard of a Gold Dragon, why should I be so afraid of them. I ran until I got home, bursting through the door so fast I tripped and fell into my brother sitting in his chair. He pushed me to the ground and stood over me, demanding to know why I was so scared.
"Oh brother, we may be in more trouble than we thought. The Dragonslayer says we have to leave Jarnabad. He will not kill the Dragon, he says it's hiding something dangerous, he told me I couldn't tell you why. We need to tell the Ealdorman".
My brother picked me up and held me steady. Older, calmer and wiser, he had always been the rock of our family.
"Calm down Torsten. What did he say exactly, I know you're afraid, but Drakesbane is gone, he can't hear you from outside the village. We've shared everything we've ever had brother, tell me, what did he tell you".
"He said that It was a Gold dragon, and that what it hid was more dangerous than fire and claws. I believe him brother, we should leave."
My brothers eyes widened when he heard it was a gold dragon, his grip on my arms tightened, but he quickly relaxed.
"You're right brother, but it's late and the Ealdorman is in council. Get some rest and we will see him in the morning.
He leads me to the bed and I'm asleep before I hit the pillow, exhausted now that the adrenaline rushing through my veins has gone. I have frightful dreams of anger and horror, of madness and sorrow. I see my brother's face twisted in insanity, laughing and howling. He stands over me with black eyes, blood dripping from his mouth, he screams to me in words I cannot understand.
I wake with a scream, my body bathed in cold sweat, my breathing rapid and fearful. I look over to my brother and see that he is gone, as are his boots and his coat. Whatever is in that cave has taken him, I know it. I grab my boots and coat and run out the door, dismayed to see tracks in the snow leading from our house towards the mountain. I take off up the path in a sprint, following the trail to the cave in the foothills.
I arrive in the cave mouth, my lungs screaming and my feet in agony. I call out my brothers name but hear no answer. I move into the cave, passing around the corner and into the large space inside the mountain. I freeze in place when I see what is inside. I see a large Golden Dragon, asleep on an enormous pile of gold and jewellery, taller than the village church. Thousands upon thousands of coins, chalices, rings, necklaces and silverware, with the beast sleeping in peace at the top. More money than anyone in our village had ever seen, could ever spend in a lifetime. In front of the pile stands my brother, looking away from me. I move over to his side, calling his name as I do so.
"Ivar, thank Frynja you are ok. Come we have to..."
I am cut short by the blade penetrating my lungs, the air bursts out of my chest, blood streams out of my mouth. My brother looks at me with a wild look in his eyes, a faint smile upon his mouth.
"It is mine, brother, it is all mine..."
|
"The Dragon? Protecting us? Preposterous!"
The elder of the village stood in the market square, with nearly the entire village behind him, blocking the Hunter's route out of town. The hunter, blocked off from anywhere other than the Inn he'd just left, desperately glanced around for any kind of understanding in the crowd.
"Yes, protecting you. How else do you think you have survived the migration? There's fifty odd Koru behemoths roaming through this valley, it's a miracle you haven't been crushed already!"
The blacksmith called out from the crowd. "The behemoth migration route is leagues away from here! How in the Emperor's name so you expect us to believe that?"
The hunter, giving up on his attempt at being nice, gave a sigh.
"Look. There are fifty behemoths currently stomping out of Spider Wood and into this valley. I don't know why they're off their standard route but something has spooked them. And if they are spooked, they could go Tarrasque. I don't want to be anywhere near a single Tarrasque, let alone a herd of them. That dragon is protecting you because you are a reliable source of food for it. It likes your cows, and it doesn't want them trampled. Either way, the behemoths are the bigger problem. So you have 2 choices. Come with me, find sanctuary in the Queen's wood or Drakkenhall, or stay here and risk getting trampled to death or eaten. I have no idea why you thought the ruins of the Grey Towers was a good place for a town, but it's doomed now, and you will most likely die if you stay. Even if you do choose to be an idiot, do *not* keep me here. I am not risking my neck to kill a dragon that is barely even paying attention that you exist. I am leaving now."
The hunter began pushing his way through the crowd, when a shout stopped him.
"we paid all we had for you to kill a dragon, and you're just giving up? We want our money back!"
The laugh started as a derisive snort, but grew into hysterics.
"You- you- you are in the gravest danger of Your lives and all you- haha- all you care about is *money*?" bent double with hysterical chortling, the hunter grabbed a leather pouch from his belt and tossed it down into the mud. "Have your stupid gold," he wheezed. "I'll just get it back when you're dead this time next week."
| 2019-12-31T05:38:57 | 2019-12-31T05:13:36 | 275 | 115 |
[WP] You're the bartender at one of those small, hole-in-the-wall drinking establishments. However, your clientele every Friday night, consists of all major deities and religious figures, down on Earth to have a drink and unwind from the rigors of being a god/prophet/all-knowing-being...
God. Muhammed. Shiva. Hercules. Buddha, and all the others, in for a drink to relax and pass incognito amongst us mortal peons on a Friday night. And you're the one serving their drinks and making small-talk with them.
|
There are a thousand bars in Bangkok, offering anything from five-star luxury, all the way down to "those" bars, where ruddy-faced farang spill their sweat and their wallets in equal measures. My bar is not any of those bars.
First, it is not really a bar at all, not any longer. I opened it thirty years ago in the prime of my youth, and my "bar" consisted of a tiny shack with two stools in front, located in an alley three stalls from the main road. Getting that close to the road had required a lot of work, let me tell you! I did well enough, I suppose, but five years later I closed up shop. I moved on to bigger and better things, and in the years since, I found a job in a nice skyscraper downtown, anb bought a wonderful condo that I've filled with a successful, intelligent wife, two precocious, amazing children, and what is probably far too many high-tech consumer products. I am truly blessed, and my little "bar" is mostly a distant memory... except on the first Friday of each month. My wife thinks I have a mistress, but seems to have accepted the idea with grace. I am a good husband, I never take mysterious sums of money out of our account, and it *is* just one night a month. It hurts me to let her believe that I am unfaithful, but the truth is too complicated to explain.
The truth is that on the first Friday of each month, I hop on the BTS and head back to my old bar's location. When I get to my stop, I find the tiny locker I've rented from an ancient-looking merchant for the last twenty years, and change into my uniform for the night: a faded t-shirt, shorts, and a pair of flip flops. The actual clothing pieces have changed over the years, but I know not to deviate too far from the basic look. Ironically, She doesn't do well with change.
It always startles me when I come around the corner and see my bar again, identical to when I left it. I suppose that's Her doing. A few years ago a new building went up, and the security firm ran off all the vendors from the alley. They tried to run me off as well, once the first Friday came around, but She did... *something*, and they've never been a problem since then. In fact the guards look terrified when they see me now! So now my bar sits alone in the alley, the single light bulb still shedding a warm glow, even though the extension cord that powered it is long gone. The refrigerator hums quietly, and as always, She is already waiting, not drinking yet, just waiting for her bartender to appear.
I once asked Her why She always appeared as kathoey. Even if Her face and outfit changed from month to month, She always chose the form of one of the phet thi sam. She had laughed when I asked, and said that since She spent Her existence changing Herself over and over, She had a fondness for the kathoey, since so many of them changed themselves to become what they wanted to be. "But unlike them, I don't change because *I* want to change, but because *you* want me to change." she had said with a rueful laugh.
For the first few years after She *appeared* in my bedroom, full of fire and brimstone, and demanded that I re-open the bar and serve Her a drink, I had spent each month dreading the Friday to come, and stood quaking and terrified the whole night, my mortal mind screaming in incomprehension and fright. But we humans are remarkable at adapting to new circumstances (She once said that it's one of the things She never predicted when she put the wheels into motion so many billions of years ago), and now I mostly view Her with affection bred by familiarity. But lately, I have begun to wonder if she is dying.
She has had her good years and bad years of course, and after her fifth Singha, She loves to regale me with stories about how She didn't realize that Jesus "was going to be a thing" until She found herself stepping out of the tomb, beard and all. She still misses some of the faces She used to wear, and sometimes appears in the visions and dreams of the rare devotee of Zeus or Quetzocoatl or a thousand other gods I can't even find a mention of online. She was hard hit for a little while after the tsunami, but other disasters seem to re-invigorate Her. I suppose it all depends on whether the survivors spend more time praying to Her, or asking themselves how She could have allowed this.
There are still bright spots, places where She is strong, but She hates a lot of it. She said that when we started praying to Mohammed, She was genuinely excited by the possibilities, and was *very* startled when She started visiting western America with the face of Jesus and "the clothes of some Hollywood Indian", as She put it. But as with many of Her faces, it all went sour eventually. The current mess between American Christians and Muslims has momentarily made Her stronger, but She told me She finds the whole thing embarrassing and tawdry. She often whispers to me in a drunken haze, like I'm Her confidant, "You monkeys are *amazing* at fucking up something nice. You've moved on from turning sticks into weapons, and now you just use ideas and religion to poke each other instead."
The past few years though, I've felt a growing certainty that Her eternal service may be ending. I think it's the Internet that's causing the problem. Now even the homeless child on the corner has a smart phone if he wants one, and with it comes the death of superstition and blind faith. Humans aren't afraid of the dark now, and I think it's killing Her, little by little. She made us *too* adaptable, and now we've adapted out of the need to believe in Her. Bit by bit, the monkeys are moving on, and year by year, She fades a little more.
I hope that explains why I greet Her with warm affection now, as I slide behind the tiny counter and mix her a drink. We Thai are strong believers in caring for our elders, and although my parents are long gone, I've grown very protective of Her. She is still *a God*/THE God/ALL THE GODS, but I don't ask Her for anything, because I don't need anything. Perhaps that's why She keeps coming back; I'm the only monkey that doesn't ask Her to change anything, doesn't ask Her to don a white beard or an elephant's trunk or hold a lotus flower, doesn't entreat Her for favors. This monkey loves Her without demanding things from Her.
So once a month, my bar serves drinks to every deity that has ever existed and ever shall exist. A different man might see that as a point of pride or awe, but I'm content to just sit with my kathoey friend, two souls drinking and laughing sharing each other's company. I don't know how it ends, and She won't say, but tonight the beer is cold and the night is warm, and that's enough for now.
|
“I’m not skipping you ahead.”
“You have to. I’m God.”
“And? The three gods you’re trying to skip are also gods.”
“Capital G though.”
“I don’t have that song, and you don’t have the right voice to sing Trent Reznor.”
“No, I am God with a capital G. Most important. Best God. Number one.”
“You’re talking like you’re the God of the Chinese takeout menus.”
“That’s blasphemy.”
“Why aren’t you watching your kid sing? Last time you didn’t pay attention, he started yelling about you forsaking him.”
“Yeah. He keeps picking ‘Don’t stop believin’ and I can’t stand it.”
“Literally no one who picks that song can sign it. They’re all just very drunk.”
“He turns his blood into water and then the water into wine. I sent him into the desert to dry out, but he didn’t.”
“EXCELLENT JOB JESUS, NOW IT’S TIME TO HEAR FROM AN OLDIE FROM AN OLDIE. GET UP HERE, ZEUS.”
“I should have given him more support when he was growing up. I essentially forgot he was there until he was in his thirties. Now he doesn’t believe in himself.”
“Well, he is Jewish.”
“I know. Probably the only time someone did that to get back at their parents… What even is this song?”
“I don’t know. He brought the CD himself. Halfway through the song, he turns into a swan and keeps singing. If you need a smoke, now’s the time.”
“I thought I was up next.”
“No, I told you. Nobody skips in the line… What are you even singing?”
“Cat’s in the cradle or whatever it’s called.”
“You and Jesus are both messed up.”
“Nah, we’re the same guy. Also a ghost.”
“I should show you what monotheism means. I feel like you guys aren’t getting it.”
“What the…”
“Yeah, I told you.”
“I thought a swan song was supposed to be beautiful.”
“No, it’s literally honking. I have no idea where that phrase came from.”
“I’m gonna zap the machine.”
“You’ll miss your turn.”
“It’s almost worth it.”
“GOOD JOB ZEUS. NEXT UP… no. I told you guys last time. You don’t get to sign up the sirens.”…“Because, last time a ship crashed into the side of the bar and the insurance wouldn’t pay for it because we’re a thousand miles from the sea…. No, I have no idea how long that is in furlongs.”
“Am I up?”
“Yeah, you’re up. Knock ‘em dead, God.”
| 2015-06-01T11:20:49 | 2015-06-01T11:18:49 | 27 | 15 |
[WP] After getting home from a long day at work, you find a demon sitting on your couch, sobbing hysterically, snuggling your cat, and eating from a tub of ice cream
|
Left eye twitching, Sammy glared at the strange occupant of her home. She's had a long day at work, starting with the bi- no, the *chaste* Evith irritating her to no end. Then her dull rock of a partner didn't show up at work without letting anyone know, leaving the work of two people for her to deal with.
Now, in her home was a red small demon with two horns and wings folded up. *It* was sitting on *her* couch, snuggling *her* cat! Miss FluffBottom was her snuggle budy and only hers. And she would be damned before a demon did so, on her couch!
Stomping forward with a rolled up newspaper, her eyes burning with determination to swat the diminutive demon like a fly, her movement caught its attention. But, instead of the glorious battle she was expecting, the demon looked up with tear stained eyes then started sobbing like a baby.
Frozen in her spot, a feeling of guilt struck her as it pushed its baby smooth face into the fur of her purring cat; the traitor was clearly enjoying the attention!
Hiccuping in sorrow, the demon looked back up. Sniffing back a string of mucus hanging from its nose, it opened its mouth showing her a set of perfectly normal teeth instead of the maw of death she expected.
"I-I am sorry, Miss. Your cat just reminds me of my three-headed Catberus. He was always willing to give me a hug," said the small demon with the voice of a child.
In the moment, Samny's mouth moved before she could stop it. A horrible habit that has gotten her into too much trouble over the years. Especially when your boss was Evith the bi-, the chaste!
"What happened to your... *three-headed* Catberus?" A bit of disbelief tinging her words, but that was quickly put out of her mind. She was talking to a demon for crying out loud, anything is possible now.
Like a broken dam, the demon child's waterworks began again. Again, it pusbed its face on to Miss FluffBottom's fur. The traitor had a look of pure bliss on its cat features. Walking towards the demon, Sammy hesitated for a bit, but her maternal instinct s took over. Patting the demon's head, careful to not poke herself with the crown of horns on its, no, his head.
"They killed her! They killed everybody," said the boy in hysteria, voice cracking every time a heart-wrenching sob tore past his throat.
"They killed papa, and mama, and sister, and even Gragous,"
Looking back up, the boy stared deeply into her eyes. A question she knew was coming echoed in them. Before she could say anything to change the direction of the conversation, he spoke with such an innocent voice her heart tore to a million pieces hearing it.
"Miss, why did they hurt them?"
Cursing under her voice, her mind was going a million miles per second trying to come up with something the child could believe. But again, her lack of on the spot thinking proved as fatal as a battle of words with the bi-, the chaste.
"Miss," said the child, so much hope and expectations in his words.
"Papa said I should give this to the a nice person, and they would help me get my home back," said the boy as he pulled out a black orb, with white lightning running across its surface, from under his wing.
"He said it would give them *so* much power. A-and your really nice, you even let me snuggle with your kitty. Please, oh please, help me!" He said as his eyes widened into puppy eyes.
Cursing again under her breath, she didn't know how she was supposed to say no, so with reluctance she nodded her head. The pure joy and innocence the boy showed made her head whirl in an endless circle. How could someone so innocent, pure, and *naive* possibly exist?
"O-okay," said Sammy, bitting her lip, she knew this was going to give her a ton of trouble.
With an enormous childish smile, he pushed the orb towards her. Sammy extended her hand, touching the black thing. For a second she felt a tiny zap and some resistance to her hand, but they quickly disappeared. She felt like she put her hand into disgusting goop.
For a second nothing happened, but that changed and rapidly. The black viscous thing seemed to be absorbed by her hand, and within a minute it existed no longer. The only sign of it passing was the black blood vessels running up her arm and under her shirt.
"Oh, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," said Sammy with a relieved sigh. But that was dashed into pieces by the boys next words.
"Oh, I, umm, kinda forgot to tell you what my papa said to say,"
Looking at him with skeptical eyes, her mouth pushed out into a frown.
"He said, umm, it will hurt-"
That was with the pain hit, and it came in as hard as a run away train. Her body spasmed, eyes began darkening, and brain felt like it was being torn to shreds. It took way to long, but unconsciousness finally came. The last things she heard was the boy's worried voice and Miss FluffBottom's desperate call for more attention.
That traitor!
|
“Oh hey Azalea, something wrong?”
She nodded and I sighed before sitting down near her.
“You want to talk about it?”
She then says yes and tells her that her boyfriend broke up with her due to being forced into a marriage contract with someone else. And he had to reluctantly break up with her. This devastated her and so she cried and ran away from him. But she knew this was beyond him, yet it still broke her heart so she went to my place, because I am her roommate. And I tell her that he is probably devastated as well due to him being forced into a marriage without his consent and is contracted, and that made her realized that it he would’ve rejected it if it was so binding. So after that we just start to talk about other stuff, and watch a movie together so she can forget about it.
(This is my first one, and constructive criticism is allowed).
| 2019-04-06T15:33:50 | 2019-04-06T15:14:14 | 45 | 24 |
[WP] After a life of survival in the wasteland, you wake up a week before the bombs fell. Knowing the future, you prepare for the end by citing the laws of the wasteland. And so, a week passes, and sitting in your bunker, the bombs did not fall.
|
I was seventeen the day the bombs fell. I was furious from having to go upstate to my grandparents farm for the weekend. My girlfriend, Sandy, stayed at home in the city. When my grandpa woke me I remember the fear in his eyes, the sound of television saying unintelligible things about missiles, cities burning, and I thought I was dreaming. I often, since then, wished I was.
My grandma and grandpa lasted a year after the bombs. I suppose they died of cancer from the fallout. I didn't know enough about medicine to tell. They were just in their sixties and in perfect health before the bombs fell. They made me stay in the basement the first few months and I think that's what saved me but doomed them. I cried for a week straight the day I helped my grandma bury grandpa. I went into a deep depression a couple of days later when I had to bury her. Maybe it was a broken heart she died of and not the radiation. I dunno.
We survived off of canned goods and the produce they had stored for the coming winter. Food was never a problem the first year as I explored further and further away from my base after finally coming out of my depression. I had my grandpa's old hunting rifle to protect me. Killed my first man a week later when he tried to stab me and take my backpack. That dead body was the last one I cried over. I hardened over the years.
I learned to live by scavenging. Finding weapons and ammo along the way I'd kill a deer here, a mute-dog there. I'd smoke the meat and learned to tell which vegetation was irradiated and safe to eat and what wasn't. Slowly I made my way back toward the city. The closer I got the more devastation I came across. The city had, as I feared, taken a direct hit from what must have been one big, or multiple nuclear warheads. It was flattened mostly. I didn't go any further because after hours of watching I had seen nothing moving there. It was still heavily irradiated.
I settled down with a small community of survivors to the east of the city. They were surprised to see me walk out of the forest that day and almost shot me. Luckily we talked and exchanged stories. Everything was so grim in the tales. I'm surprised any of us made it.
Turns out, like my grandma and grandpa, I have a bit of a green thumb. Took to farming real well. Helped them dig several wells since the water table beneath us was remarkably not irradiated. We had solar powered geiger counters and would check everything we put into our bodies.
Then one night the storm hit. Was the weirdest looking thing you ever saw. Clouds were glowing a strange blue-green. Yellowish red lightning the color of hellfire tore up the earth like some kind of artillery bombardment. I was helping the kids into the shelter when we noticed one was missing. As I was running to a shack to look for her I felt the build up of static around me and said, "Oh shi..." and then whiteness.
I awoke in my bed. Not my bed in the settlement. My bed in my bedroom in the city I had seen flattened from a distance. I figured I was dreaming so tried to keep it going on as long as I could. When I went downstairs my mom was cooking breakfast and my dad was leaving for work. I sat on the sofa, the smell of pancakes in the air, and just stared. I kept waiting to wake up.
"Come get some breakfast," my mom said, placing a plate of pancakes on the table and a bottle of syrup at the side. Everything looked so damn clean, "Gran called this morning and said she's got your room ready. Sandy called too, said she'll walk with you to school this morning."
It was putting a forkful of pancake into my mouth, the delicious taste of syrup rolling over my tongue, that finally convinced me I wasn't dreaming. It was too real. I went upstairs and dressed for school. Did I dream twenty years of post-nuclear survival? No, the memories were as clear as any. I looked at my seventeen year old face in the mirror. My hand ran across the smoothness of my skin. No scars. No sunburn. I smiled. Still had all my teeth and they weren't yellowing.
When I walked downstairs Sandy was waiting. My heart skipped a beat when she smiled at me and asked, "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing," I told her, my voice cracking, "Just missed you is all."
"Awwww," she said and hugged me. How many nights had I tried to remember the last time I'd seen her and here she was, warm body hugging mine.
"You should come with me to my grandma's" I told her suddenly and she looked at me strangely and felt something shift around me. What the hell was that?
"You can have them call my dad," she said excitedly, smiling and bouncing a little, "I bet he'd let me. He worked with your grandpa, loves him to death. Think he'd let me just to meet them again. I'll have to sleep in another room, of course."
"Cool," I said. I told myself I was doing it to save her life. I knew that if she managed to get there that everyone she ever knew would be dead in a few days. I didn't do it for her. I did it for me. I was selfish and didn't want to lose her again.
I was on edge that weekend. That Saturday was the night. The bombs would fall and I'd learn to survive This time with Sandy at my side. I would do all I could to keep us alive. I couldn't sleep that night and when the sun finally peeked through my window I lay there in confusion. I went downstairs and turned on the television.
"The USS Detroit was accidentally struck by a Chinese missile," the handsome man in the suit on the morning news was saying, "China issued an immediate apology to the United States government and is offering help with any survivors. Reparations have been offered..." So that was it, I thought. The pivotal event that had led to the end of the world in some other timeline. Somehow my coming back had changed it in this one.
"You look like the dead," Sandy said, hopping down the stairs and sitting next to me on the sofa, "You feeling ok?"
"I've never felt better," I told her, closed my eyes, sat back and slept like a baby for the first time in twenty years.
|
I was back again. Back from a hopeless life in a destroyed world where only the toughest would survive. It was so unreal. After 20 years the memories of the pre apoclypse world had been blurry at best. But in the moment of death by the hand of a mutant freak everything became so clear again. Like I was actually experiencing it. And then I was back. One week before humanity decided to blow itself back to the stone age and even further back. And since I knew what exactly awaited me, I had 7 days time to spend all my money and take loans to spend even more money to prepare myself for the end of the world. Only that it didn't came.
While I was thinking about what I have done that could have triggered the nuclear holocaust, there were a bunch of police officers and debt collectors ransacking my house. I could see them from the CCTV cameras in my house and how they flipped literally everything in the hope to find a dime or two.
Greedy bastards. Most of my debt wasn't even recently. I only managed to get like 50000$ in multiple loans with exorbitant high interest rates. The rest of my 930000$ were the remaining student loans I still had after paying them off for almost 10 years straight.
And then I remembered what I did to destroy the world. I met this really strange dude in Call of Duty who spoke with a thick korean accent. After I 360 noscoped him two times in a row in a single round, he started to scream and insult me. I said something along the lines of: "I took you mother to pound town last night and she enjoyed it like a little whore from Seoul." and "I bet you are so fat that you make everyone think there has been another nuclear test in North Korea everytime you sit down."
Unlikely as it was I managed to find the guy again in the game after a search of seeral hours. My finger floated over the keyboard. Should I really do it? Destroy the world just because I want to piss off that little fucker?
But then again I saw the debt and the criminal high interest rates which could even be raised if the banks decided to sell them. I then started typing like a madman. This time putting even more efforts in the insults.
Fuck the world. Only the toughest are going to live in the wastelands.
| 2018-10-13T16:57:34 | 2018-10-13T14:24:37 | 64 | 18 |
[WP] It started just before you realized you were pregnant. Dragons showing up around your home. Small ones first, no bigger than sparrows, with increasingly larger ones as time went on. Now you're going into labor, and a golden dragon, big as a hill, is coming over the horizon.
|
When the nurse came inside the waiting room, she had a harried look on her face. She scanned the room and stared at Mr. Gray with expressionless eyes.
"Your presence is requested on the rooftop, Mr. Gray," said the nurse.
"What for? My wife is in labor."
"The Dragon King, Rhozka, requests your presence, Mr. Gray."
It was at this point that Mr. Gray noticed something off with the nurse: she hasn't blinked in a while. And the name Rhozka sounded familiar to him, though he has not heard of it his whole life.
Strange things had happened the moment Mrs. Gray became pregnant. Dragons started appearing. At first they were no more than pests. It was illegal to kill or harm the creatures since they were protected beings. Then larger ones began to appear, sizes of cars and buses, circling their house for months. The neighbors complained because of the sound it made with every wing flap. But the police couldn't do a thing.
He had been waiting for less than an hour, so Mr. Gray reasoned that he won't miss his child's birth. He stepped inside the elevator and hit the button for the top floor. As the elevator ascended Mr. Gray recalled his confrontation with Mrs. Gray. He accused her of infidelity, bedding with a fae, a daemon or a trickster god that planted a cursed seed in her womb, which could explain the dragons. But Mrs. Gray swore her faithfulness to him. And Mr. Gray believed her, but could not know the reasons why.
The elevator doors opened with a chime. He stepped out and climbed the stairs leading to the rooftop. Mr. Gray wanted them gone. He had lost sleep because of the dragon's wings and occasional screeching. Because Mrs. Gray was with child and needed her rest, she stayed with her sisters. The dragons didn't follow her, which was a relief. But it continued to follow Mr. Gray. His boss was close to firing him, but the firm valued him as an employee. Great wonder is technology these days; Mr. Gray was allowed to work from home, auditing corporate ledgers and bank statements.
But the fury and anger stoked for nine months that Mr. Gray had harbored towards the dragons was immediately snuffed. There must be hundreds of them in the sky. And in the middle of the hoard of scaled monsters was a larger one. Its scales gleamed with gold, and its wings spanned the entire town. Its eyes, Rhozka's red and terrible eyes, glared through Mr. Gray, and he could feel the dragon's stare into his soul.
*Dragon Halfling heir! Child of Darlene Sarkony Gray, whose true name is Draigni! You, truthseeker and truthsayer, whose true name is Paerni! Your dragon brethren regales to the coming of your dragon halfling child!*
The skies thundered as the dragon screeched in unison. Somewhere below the parking lot, car alarms started blaring.
Mr. Gray wanted to speak, but the only thing he could muster was a terrified moan.
*We celebrate with you at the coming of the next dragon halfling heir! Child of Perry Wentworth Gray, whose true name is Paerni! She, the evil-killer and grand protector, whose true name is Agni.*
"How- how do you know my name?"
*A million tears were shed at the death of your mother and father. Our kind would have cared for you, but Federal policies forbid us to do so. Our truths were not revealed to you at the request of Tamara Gray, which was legally and enchantedly binding.*
"I'm . . . a dragon?"
The skies thundered once more, but Mr. Gray somehow knew they were laughing.
*Ah, truthseeker, I'm afraid no. You are human. But dragon blood runs through your veins. You are both gifted and cursed, as your destiny is written clearly in the stars in both realms.*
Embarrassed, Mr. Gray remembered what he came up here for.
"Can you please stop bothering us? Our neighbors hate us, and I almost got fired because of you! We need peace and quiet once the baby is born, and we can't have you--all of you--flapping your wings and screaming over our house!"
Rhozka took a moment to respond. And while Mr. Gray waited, the sound of dragon wings flapping annoyed him.
*We do not intend to be a bother to you, truthsayer. But we ask for visitation every half decade. Will you grant us this wish?*
Mr. Gray wanted to say no. If he said no, he knew that they will be out of their lives for good, and they won't protest his decision. But in truth, he wanted to say yes. Yes, because he had a murky memory of a dragon flying in the sky on his fifth birthday. Aunt Tammy had told him it was not real and was just his imagination.
They were his birthright, and so was his child's.
So he said, "yes."
*She is coming. Flee, truthseeker and truthsayer! Your child will be born soon.*
Mr. Gray took the elevator and was back at the waiting room. He paced back and forth, joy rising in his chest. When he finally got to see his wife and child, he almost forgot the confrontation he had with the dragon king.
"I was thinking of Mabel or Marianne for her name," said Mrs. Gray. "How about you?"
Mr. Gray held his tongue by saying Agni, the evil-killer and grand protector, Child of Perry Wentworth Gray, whose true name is Paerni.
"Agnes?" he said.
The child stirred, smiled and babbled.
"I think she likes it," said Mrs. Gray. "Hi Agnes! It's me, your mommy. And this handsome guy over here is your daddy."
|
My husband was a strange man. I knew that when I met him, fell in love and married him.
Our enchanted wedding blurred past and ended with raised amber glasses pointing at the giant golden Moon peaking through thick trees, orbs of light floating like fairy lights. I was in my breathtaking wedding dress, truly and fully in love with the man he was, proud in front of our small families.
The first few weeks were wonderful and I settled in his distant mansion snug in a different forest near a giant lake. We used to visit every day for lunch, our honeymoon spent in our green world, enjoying the fields of wildflowers and views from thick grassy peaks cluttered with wildlife. Birds would wake us up and night chirps would send us to sleep. I used to love waking up beside his silver hair, his bright emerald eyes accompanying his gentle grin.
His peculiar parents and siblings returned and a distance grew between us. He returned to work, promising I would never need to work a day, that I could write and write and he would support me.
I was alone as usual when I felt something sit on my shoulder in the forest. I swatted it away and ran in the opposite direction, distressed by my growing loneliness. When I heard something buzzing after me, my blood was running cold when I turned and met eyes with a light green dragon staring at me.
~~plz I'm at a wedding and I want to return~~
| 2018-10-28T07:30:38 | 2018-10-28T06:36:30 | 25 | 16 |
[WP] "How the hell are there FIFTEEN sides in this civil war?"
|
(This is really stupid, but I've done it now.)
Somewhere in rural Hertfordshire, a commander rallied her troops.
“And remember, when you hold your sword aloft in no man's land, when you stare your enemy down in the moment before bloodshed, remember for whom you fight...”
The warriors stood shoulder to shoulder as the commander paced across to the front line, shouting over countless heads of devoted followers.
“You fight for your lives, you fight for a future for your children, but most importantly of all...”
The commander raised a fist triumphantly. The front line of soldiers lifted their heads, as if to pre-empt the cacophony of jubilation and passion that was surely to follow.
“You fight... for 'Those Who Like Their Tea Without Sugar, With Just a Dash of Milk but Not Too Much and Brewed for a Couple Of Minutes Thank You Very Much'!”
A swelling of cheers, whoops and jubilant screams arose among the armed masses. Swords were wantonly bashed against shields, against helmets, and against the backs of the warriors directly in front. Unfortunately that last form of celebration led to the deaths of hundreds of unprepared and inadequately back-armoured soldiers. Still, they were noble and willing martyrs in the fight for 'Tea Without Sugar, With Just a Dash of Milk but Not Too Much and Brewed for a Couple of Minutes Thank You Very Much'.
Opposing them, the mighty ranks of 'You Don't Need to Brew Your Tea, All It Needs is a Good Couple of Squeezes of the Teabag'. In response to hearing the shouts from the brew-inclined heathens over the hill, a mechanic crane roared into life. Slowly, as the moon eclipses the Sun, so did a giant, dripping teabag blot out all of industrial Hertfordshire. The merriment of the Brew camp quickly turned to silent astonishment as two giant teaspoons gently ascended, one on either side of the teabag. As each teaspoon was moved inward towards the central teabag, the Brew commander's eyes widened. She could not have prepared for this. Gasps of incredulity rang out amongst her ranks.
In the Anti-Brew ranks, impassioned cries of “Yes!” and “Squeeze!” and “Tea's every bit as good if you just fiddle with the teabag a bit, there's no need for all this waiting and brewing nonsense!” were thrown up to the heavens as the two giant teaspoons made contact with the giant teabag, and still they pushed further. At first a few drips of tea dripped against the helmets of the luckiest recruits, soon after there was a veritable waterfall of tea pouring atop the fighters. The few who were scalded was but a small price to pay for the greater goal of proving a point via seemingly impractical feats of engineering.
“It's bitter! It's too bitter! You need to let it settle!” the Brew camp cried out in unison.
“You can hardly tell the bloody difference!” those who weren't boiled alive retorted.
In amongst the riotous proceedings, the 'I Quite Like a Lot of Milk in my Tea, Honestly I Like it to be Mainly Milk' bunch hardly got a word in edgeways. Unsurprising really, considering that they were objectively wrong and consisted entirely of chancers and idiots.
The 'Hey, What About Herbal Tea?' bunch were somewhere in Berwick-Upon-Tweed; no-one paid them any mind. Similarly, the 'I Prefer Coffee' lot had long since gone to live a more fulfilled life in continental Europe.
In an entirely separate battle fought on the coast of Portsmouth, the regiments of One Sugar, Two Sugar, Three Sugar, and More heartily battled it out. It had been decided long ago that the differences between those who like sugared tea and those who like unsugared were so irreconcilable that war would be pointless. Thus it was that sugars One, Two and Three fought valiantly on the seaside. The More group had the far more pressing concern of imminent diabetes to be concerned with, so forwent the battle.
As the armies of 'Those Who Like Their Tea Without Sugar, With Just a Dash of Milk but Not Too Much and Brewed for a Couple Of Minutes Thank You Very Much' and 'You Don't Need to Brew Your Tea, All It Needs is a Good Couple of Squeezes of the Teabag' were beginning to close the gap between one another, a blood-curdling cry arose from a nearby forest stopping both groups in their tracks.
Jumping out of trees and crawling out of the dirt came the 'Tea With No Milk Nor Sugar' hordes. The jaw of every soldier dropped; as did the giant teabag, crushing seven.
The commander looked at her own group, those who Brew, and looked across the field, at those who most abjectly Do Not.
“All who would take the obvious measure of adding a bit of damn milk to your tea, all who have a tongue that actually senses heat and would rather not have literal boiling water brazenly poured onto it, with me!”
|
I haven't written anything concrete yet, but I love this scenario. This is how I envisioned it:
(not a native english speaker btw, so bear with me)
"Fifteen bloody sides?
When His Holiness, Protector of the Dominion of Men and Divine Avatar passed at 102, He declared on His deathbed His Child as Holy Successor and Prophet of Mankind, and ordered the destruction of false prophets that would lead His people astray. However, he might have forgotten to specify which of His fifteen children he had meant..."
| 2016-04-08T17:15:24 | 2016-04-08T16:08:41 | 194 | 44 |
[WP] You start a religion as a scam, and your fake prophecies start coming true.
|
“Everybody give it up for Banabu Thomas!”
As the audience cheered and clapped, I strode onto stage wearing my widest smile. In truth, I was almost faint with giddiness. Karen was the most famous talk show host in the country, and to finally be invited to join her … it was a dream come true. Or it would be if I hadn't predicted it.
She shook my hand and we sat on comfortable couches, separated by a plasma TV.
“Look at you,” she said. “Has anyone told you that you look dashing in that?”
I clasped my hands and bowed. “These robes are but simple cotton. But they are comfortable.”
“The leader of the fastest growing religion in modern times. What does ‘Banabu’ mean, anyway? I’ve heard—”
“It is a futile attempt to attach a meaning to something so fleeting,” I said. “I am a teacher. A guide. And yet I am but another humble traveller on this journey. And there are so many aspects of a journey that I cannot possibly know everything. I am Banabu in some of these aspects. But you are also Banabu. You are a talk show Banabu. That woman over there in red? She’s Banabu.” I turned to the audience and bowed. “You are all Banabu.”
“Banabu paska mayabimbong,” the audience replied.
Karen held a hand to her chest. “That was just … beautiful. Let’s talk some numbers, shall we? In the last seven months since the Way of the Unburdened began, you’ve grown from eighteen followers to five million. Wow.” The audience clapped as the TV displayed some charts. “I don’t think any of the ‘mainstream’ religions grew that quickly, ever.”
“We are all creatures of burden,” I said. “We seek solace anywhere that we can, from the pain and the suffering of our everyday lives. I offer them shelter. Escape. The peace that they seek is in my teachings. However, our religion cannot survive by my efforts alone. We are all Banabu, remember?”
“Banabu paska mayabimbong,” the audience chanted.
“These days, we’re suffering from so many catastrophes. Plane crashes. Wars. Pollution. Environmental destruction. And a lot of these burdens come from money.”
She frowned. “And how do they unburden themselves?”
“My followers, my precious flock, give their money away. As much as they can. In the last seven months, we’ve collected fifty million in donations.”
“That is … a lot of money.”
“Indeed. But it’s needed. We’ve embarked on a grand scheme: to build lily-altars all over the world that will spread calmness and banish the corruption that has so damaged our world.”
“And how much do you take out of that?” she said, a hint of a smirk on her face.
“My Banabu trust me to manage the money,” I said. While the audience chanted again, I whispered, “Off the record. Twenty-two percent. Fund management fees.”
She bowed. “I think it’s fair. Most religions talk about peace and banishing hate and cooperating, but nothing is actually done. I heard you’ve completed eight thousand altars.”
“That’s right. They’re all on Instagram.”
“We all know that no religion can survive unless there’s some mysticism involved. Let’s talk about your prophecies.”
I swallowed and, feeling uncertain, waved at the audience. They waved back.
“When you first began … preaching, you predicted that our next president would be a woman. Two months later, not only were you right, she’s now one of your biggest donors.”
“That’s right. She’s found the Way of the Unburdened. Or maybe … the Way found her.”
“Since then, you’ve been making these amazing predictions. Some are calling you the real Nostradamus; some are even calling you the second Christ. How many Christians have joined you because of that?”
“Two million.”
“If two million Christians believe you’re Christ’s second coming, I think even the Pope might need to take note. What about the Olympics prophecy? Who would’ve thought North Korea would win the most gold medals?”
I smiled and said nothing. That was four months after I started the Way. Since the small predictions came true, I had no reason not to believe the big ones did too. I won eight million dollars from betting on them.
Frankly, I had no idea what was going on. But as long as I proclaimed something in a grand manner, with a lot of arm-waving and twisty language, it came true. Maybe it was a joke. Maybe some higher power was setting me up for a fall. Unless, of course, I was the higher power.
Regardless, I had enough tucked away in offshore accounts to vanish if my prediction that nuclear disarmament would happen next year turned out to be false.
“Get this,” I said. “I even prophesied that I would be here. On your show.”
She gasped. “No way!”
“This is why people need my message,” I said. “I don’t give sensational prophecies for their shock factor. I don’t fool people into thinking the world’s about to end. They come to me with their little burdens, things that actually worry them, and I put these fears to rest. Grandma’s dying? She’ll be fine in two days’ time. Going on a road trip? Your car won’t break down. That nasty exam you didn’t study for? Full marks.”
“The Banabu’s wisdom, everyone,” she said.
“Two weeks later, I’ll be invited to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s there that I plan to call on all world leaders to join me in this revolution for peace. With some financial contribution from each country, we will be able to free mankind from the darkness of our ways, once and for all.”
"I do this for all of you," I said, standing and facing the cameras. "This is for this world that I love, so much. My Banabu. I love you all."
Karen stood, clapping furiously, tears in her eyes. "Give it up for our savior!"
***
*If you enjoyed this, visit [The Nonsense Locker](http://reddit.com/r/nonsenselocker) for more!*
|
"No, there's nothing else. It's just me. I'm sure of it," the priest said rambling to himself in his quarters. The priest, or God, as many believed, had been very busy these past ten years. After he discovered his power, he had made the world a much better place. He had predicted crime rate would fall to zero percent his first year, and so it did. He said unemployment would be virtually nonexistent for anyone who wanted a job, and it was. He proclaimed there would never be another war, and there was not.
"It just doesn't make sense," the man began again, stumbling over his words now, "there has to be more." Yes, the man was able to put a stop to all of these terrible things, however he could not rid the world of suffering entirely. More so, he could not give the world purpose. People worked less hours now than ever before, but quickly became bored with life. They sought something more, a sense of purpose, and no one was more fixated on this than the priest.
"What's the point?!" He screamed, crying now, voice filled with emotion and hatred. "I can't save them! I can't stop it!" The priest had spent the last five of his ten years as a God, pondering why he was put here, why anyone was put here. Even though there was less suffering in the world than ever before, to the priest, all suffering without purpose was meaningless suffering.
"There's only one way to fix this. There's only one way to completely rid the world of suffering. Tomorrow," the priest exhaled, his heart rate dropping to its resting state, "the Earth shall fall into the Sun." He was completely relaxed now, possibly even happy; maybe for the first time in years.
| 2016-06-09T19:24:00 | 2016-06-09T19:05:26 | 516 | 15 |
[WP] Every person in the world undergoes a "goodness" test. It's designed to give a score from 1 to 200, where 1 is pure evil, and 200 is an angel in human body. Then the world is divided into 200 zones, where people can live among their own kind.
|
(I love this premise. Sorry my response sucks but I wanted to throw an idea out... if anyone can do better please steal my idea and rehash.)
Helen was lucky for two reasons. First of all, she was a 200. Second of all, her family lived by The Wall.
The Wall was ancient, towering hundreds of feet in the air, covered in birds' nests and small, stunted trees that jutted outwards like arms. It was good for climbing, even though climbing was technically forbidden. There was a chain link fence dividing her family's house from the wall but there was a hole in it and you could sneak through and go play on the wall. Helen and her best friends, Jenny and Bartholomew, liked to sneak away during Personal Reflection Time while their parents went to Community Meeting. They were still two years away from having to attend Community Meeting but they had outgrown Nursery so they used Personal Reflection Time to play on The Wall. Usually they played 200s vs. 1s. Bart and Helen liked to be the Evil 1s and try to attack Jenny, who was always a 200. (Jenny was not very creative and couldn't imagine being anything but a 200.)
Lately, they'd been spending more time on The Wall than usual because Community Meeting was running long. It was the time of year when the newly assigned babies came in and Jenny's family was hoping to get another one, even though they already had two. Bart's family had only him, and Helen's family had two but was likely going to be assigned another because her older sister, Ruth, had recently been assigned to work in Mineshaft Sector 9 and was almost old enough to move into her own home.
It was late autumn and there had just been a downpour, leaving parts of The Wall slippery and crumbling. Bart was poking Jenny with a stick; Jenny had crawled into a hole at the base of one of the gnarled trees and was shrieking with fake horror.
"And now you're trapped, 200! Feel the wrath of my Death Stick!" cheered Bart.
"No, have mercy!" cried Jenny from the hole.
"Mercy?! I don't know the meaning of such a word! *Die, die, die!*"
"Ow, Bart! Don't poke that hard."
"Sorry. How's this?"
"That's good."
"Okay, let me know if I go too hard again. *Die, die, die!*" Bart poked the stick down the hole; Jenny squealed with delight, squirming deeper into it.
"I'll flush her out from here!" called Helen, finding another hole at the base of a tree and climbing into it.
"Hear that, Ms. 200? We've got you surrounded!" exclaimed Bart.
Giggling, Helen crawled into the dirt tunnel shaped by tree roots and years of erosion, trying not to get too much dirt on her dress so that her mother wouldn't have a difficult time with the laundry. It was a lost cause; Helen eventually gave up, scrambling quickly into the hole, which twisted away into the earth. After several seconds, Helen realized it kept going. Suddenly the game was less exciting than the hole itself, and she was clamoring on her hands and knees into it, scraping dirt and pebbles into her skin, but not really caring too much.
She could hear noises up ahead.
"Bart?" she called, her voice oddly flat in the tunnel. There was the noise of earth being dug, and suddenly the tunnel caved in partially. Helen shrieked, her nose and mouth suddenly filled with earth, the suffocating smell of dirt, and she thrashed, trying to get loose.
The next thing she knew, someone was pulling her to her feet.
"It's okay, I've got you... stop crying, little girl, you're okay..."
"Wow! She came right out of The Wall!"
Blinking, Helen looked around. Two dirty little boys and an older woman were looking at her curiously.
"W-who are you?" she sniffled, feeling scared. It wasn't that nothing looked familiar. Worse, it was that everything looked familiar. Everything looked... perfectly the same. But mirrored. The houses and the trees and the Community Center and the Nursery and the Rendering Plant and the Purification Center were all flipped around, giving her a weird sense of nausea.
"I'm Rand and this is Evan and this is my older sister Judy. You're all muddy. Want me to get you a towel?" asked one of the boys.
"Are you from the other side of The Wall?" asked the other little boy, eyes widening. He took a nervous step back.
"Leave her alone, can't you see she's scared?" snapped Judy. "It's okay, little girl. We're 200s. What are you?"
Helen turned and looked at The Wall, confused. "I... I'm a 200."
"No, that's impossible. *This* is the 200 zone."
Helen shook her head. "No, *that's* the 200 zone."
Miles away, at the Central Sorting Center, Technician #43-B watched the grainy camera intently, finger hovering over the Alarm Intercom button. The world had been at peace for 300 years, but all that could crumble in an instant if any of the Secure Zones merged. It was only through careful control of supplies, schedules, and propaganda that the Leader had managed to keep them enslaved for so long. The trick, he had explained, was giving them all perfect scores. Telling them they were happy. Telling them their zone was perfect, and the other, lesser zones weren't. There were never complaints, never uprisings. Every child was given a perfect score and placed with a loving family, eventually being assigned to work in the mines, living a pointless little existence, unaware of their role as a cog in the machine.
"Sir... Zones 34 and 186 are compromised," said Technician #43-B, pressing the button.
"Send out a drone," came the immediate reply. "Get a Patch Team on it to fix up the breach."
Technician #43-B obediently began typing into the panel's command prompt, keeping an eye on the children on the screen. It was a shame, he thought. He had a daughter about her age. He looked up at the faded photo above the monitor, tucked into the picture frame of the Leader, below which was an inscription:
THE LEADER - #1
|
"This is what you get! Think you're better than us? Think you can just wall us up in the desert?"
Gunfire echoed through Zone 200. *Gunfire.* How could this happen here? The only people with weapons like that should be the border guards! But here they were, running rampant through the city.
Some of us fought back. 200's aren't always pacifists, we believe you can fight for a righteous cause, and some of us enjoy martial arts for their own sake. But we weren't an army. We shouldn't have *needed* an army, that was the *point* of the zones. We hardly slowed the invaders down.
They rounded us up, marched us out of the zone at gunpoint. Took us to one of the Border Watchpoints. A man dressed in black greeted us as we arrived. He *gloated*, he told us we were now his slaves, and the other zones would soon fall under his rule. Typical 1 behavior.
But I recognized him. I'd seen his face, years ago on the front page of Time Magazine. Jacob Hartford, the man who first proposed the Zones and created the Border Guard. He had planned everything out - a hand-picked force of 200's, guaranteed uncorruptible. The trusted tool that would separate the sheep from the goats and give everyone on earth the community they deserved.
*That* was the group holding us captive. It wasn't just 1's and 2's running amok. The Guard themselves had turned against us.
"How could you do this?" I screamed at him. "You had a perfect score! You were the best of us! You *all* were the best of us!"
He looked at me, and he laughed evilly. "You idiots. I was the one *giving* the tests. You think I couldn't slip my friends the right answers? You fools didn't think that a 1 could be as clever as you 200s? Well, now you're going to pay for that mistake."
He laughed evilly again. "After all, I promised I'd give everyone on Earth what they deserve."
| 2016-08-26T13:09:01 | 2016-08-26T12:52:13 | 602 | 54 |
[WP] Jokingly you say to your friend "If either of us discover time travel, the first place we visit is this moment". The second those words leave your mouth what appears to be an older version of yourself rounds the corner, and he looks terrified.
|
"I just don’t understand how time travel will ever exist. It just doesn’t seem possible."
It takes me a moment to answer Jane because I’m stuffing French fries in my face. I hadn’t even stopped to look at how many I was putting into my mouth when my greasy fingers grabbed from the McDonalds box, and now I was chewing, and chewing, for far longer than I should have been. Raising my eyebrows as I swallowed the last bit of potatoey goodness, I shrugged.
"I don’t see why not. Anything is possible."
Jane just tilted her head to the side and gave me this look – I’ve seen it before, especially from her. In her mind, she was thinking I was an idiot. Often times, she was right.
"Anything is possible’? Really, Claud? That’s ridiculous."
Another pause in response, due to the sloshing of diet coke down my throat to ease the irritation from salt that the fries had brought on. "Yeah. I mean, look at what we accomplish every day. Do you really think, thirty, forty years ago, they would have thought that we would have the kind of technology we have now? Hell, some of this shit seems farfetched from ten years ago!" I wave my hand, broadly, as if that were to help my statement.
"Yeah, but *time travel*.. That’s insane. I mean, even if it were to happen, it absolutely wouldn’t be in our lifetime."
I scoff. Jane didn’t like that. "I guarantee you, it would be."
Now it’s Jane’s turn to scoff. "What are you basing that on?"
"Absolutely nothing," I reply, honestly, to which my friend rolls her eyes.
"You’re ridiculous. You never base your opinions on facts." Shaking her head, she grabs the second half of her BLT that she had left sitting in front of her for far longer than I would have. In fact, I had been eyeing the sucker for more than half the conversation. To say I was watching my girlish figure was an understatement.
"If half of our country doesn’t base anything in fact, then I, Claudia Martin, don’t have to, either." Jane snorts into her food, and I roll my eyes. "Seriously!" I laugh. "Okay. Let’s say this. If either of us were to discover time travel, the first place we visit is this moment. Just to prove—"
Before I have a chance of finishing my statement, a crack fills the air around us, so loud that it shakes both of us, the table, and everything around us. A blinding light fills the break room, surrounding us completely, and for a moment, I’m convinced we were struck by lightning. It had never happened to me, so I wasn’t sure exactly what it felt like, but this had to be it, right? When the light finally faded, and my eyes were no longer seeing spots, they come upon a woman, standing directly in front of us, her eyes wide, and the expression on her face filled with terror.
As I stare back at her, I realize something almost immediately. Her brown eyes are familiar, as is the expression her face, even if there are wrinkles there that I wouldn’t remember. Sun spots, an almost leathery look to the tan skin there. Why would I remember this?
Because I was staring at myself, just much older.
And – *fuck* – a lot fatter.
None of us for what feels like hours, but really was only minutes. Our stunned silence was broken by Jane, who was still sitting there, wide-eyed, looking like she had just seen a ghost. "What the hell?! Who are you?"
The woman – *me*?! – looks at her, then back at me, and then takes a look around the room. "Holy fuckballs," older me says, and I know immediately that this is absolutely me. Also unmistakable is the large, colorful tattoo covering the right shoulder, though the canvas is a lot wider than the one it sits on now. "It worked. It fucking worked.."
"What…worked?" I ask - though I know. For some reason, I know what just happened, and it’s insane to me.
Older Claudia looks at me dead in the eyes. "You know what worked. But I have no time to waste. I came here to tell you something."
I’m far too excited now that she – me – has confirmed what I was seriously just debating with Jane. Time travel! It’s a thing! A real, actual thing, and now older me was standing in front of me, and it was the single, coolest moment of my life. "Holy shit, I have so many questions. You – no, I – discovered time travel?!"
"No, you idiot." The words are cutting, but I see the familiar look of disgust on Older Claudia’s face. It’s the same one I wear when someone is taking too long in front of me in line at the grocery store, or invading my personal space at the bar. "We didn’t *discover* anything. I stole a machine because I had to get back to you to tell you.."
Well, that was disappointing. And here I thought I actually accomplished something exciting. "What year is it, where you came from?!" I quickly interject.
There’s that face again. I really hate being interrupted. "2042. But listen to me. I have to reach you. I had to tell you. You can’t trust Joe."
Blinking, I stare back at her. "Joe? Joe who?"
Older Claudia shook her head. "You don’t know him yet, you meet him in two years. Tall, husky, sandy brown hair, you meet him at a bar and he convinces you to join him in Texas. DO. NOT. GO. TO TEXAS."
This is getting crazy now, and my mind is racing. What am I apart of? Do I accidentally fall into the wrong group and create something that destroys humanity? Judging by the look of Older Claudia, I can’t be doing THAT poorly – I certainly have enough to eat – but I do look disheveled like perhaps I’m part of a war.
It’s like she can read my mind because it's almost like she knew exactly what I was thinking. "I don’t have time for questions, I can’t tell you much else, but please, just promise me that you won’t go to Texas."
As much as I want to NOT promise that, I nod my head. "Fine. But tell me this – am I part of some experiment gone wrong? Like, part of a team trying to discover a virus that is unleashed and starts a zombie apocalypse? Am I trying to do good, and it goes wrong?"
Older Claudia scoffs again. "No! You fuck everything up. You’re the reason everything goes wrong. So listen to me, and just don’t go!"
With that, the crack sounds again, and the room is filled with that white light. Left stunned, my eyes burn as I stare right ahead of me. As the light clears, the space that Older Claudia once stood is empty.
Silence lays over us. Finally, I speak.
"I...fuck everything up..?"
There's another long pause. "Somehow," Jane says, "that doesn’t surprise me."
|
The older version of me took a deep breath and then tapped his sunglasses. When I squinted I could see tiny glowing numbers and letters shifting around in the black lenses. The older me then took a look around, his gaze settling on me and my friend.
"Right. The first place we visit moment," old me sighed.
"Is that an older version of you?" my friend asked and was promptly ignored.
"So time travel exists?" I asked eagerly.
"Man, when does your hair start turning grey like that?" my friend asked a question no one answered.
"Nope," my older self's voice sounded cheerful and gravelly at the same time, "Time travel is impossible."
"But," I just pointed at my older self.
"Dude! How come I'm not there with you?" my friend asked.
"To answer all your questions," old me pointed to my friend, "you sobered up, got a lower middle class job, got married, had two kids which your wife got in the divorce, then turned gay and moved to Colorado, last I heard."
"Fuck!" my friend blinked as he took all that in, "Fuck! Lower middle class job?"
"Manager of a credit card's complaints department or something. Spent all your time listening to people bitch before getting promoted and then managing people who spent all their time listening to people bitch."
Then, old me turned to myself, "And time travel IS impossible. Best way to explain it is to picture the universe as a subway train speeding along. But next to it, there is another parallel subway train that may be going forward at a different speed. So at certain points, you can travel to another universe that is still a few decades beck."
I nodded, "So nothing you do here will matter when you return to your own universe."
"Yeah, about that. That's problem one. I created a way of transferring to a different subway car, but I haven't really ironed out a way to get back to my own."
I grimaced, "Yeah, I can see how that would suck. But you said that was problem one, right? What's the other problems?"
A tiny light on old me's sunglasses began to blink and his expression of terror returned, "You know how in the subways, there's homeless people begging for money? Right, now imagine them being a bit more needy, less human, and more Lovecraftian nightmare and I have to go. Sorry about your universe, young me."
With that, older me tapped the side of his sunglasses twice and vanished completely.
I didn't really notice, because at that point a giant rip in space-time opened up above the city and something with more tentacles than a hentai convention fell out. It smelled like old newspapers, eye-watering cut onions, and desperation. I wasn't an expert at the unholy shrieking language it started 'speaking', but the meaning was clear. It was asking if we had about three fifty in change.
| 2017-03-02T11:13:15 | 2017-03-02T09:44:16 | 106 | 16 |
[WP] After translating the message encoded in the meteorite, your team is stunned and terrified. "Thank you for saving our species. Your sacrifice will be honored for eternity."
|
The effort to retrieve the object had been significant. When we'd first spotted it travelling through space, it was clearly aimed, vaguely, at Jupiter or Earth; but would miss Jupiter by tens of thousands of miles and pass within the moon's orbit; practically next door, in spatial terms. The object was clearly inhuman, and transmitting a radio signal that we couldn't decipher. When a joint US-China team took the object aboard, it was carefully placed in a sealed lead 'Coffin' for protective purposes.
&#x200B;
Initially, it looked like any other meteorite; a rough rock... but with a single visible, obviously artificial corner emerging from the side. An up-close scan; instruments had been built into the coffin prior to launch for exactly that reason; revealed a dodecahedron shape, with some form of deposits coating the outside in a seemingly random fashion; mostly iron and carbon.
&#x200B;
The scans determined that the object contained something else; some sophisticated bit of machinery, likely the source of the radio signal. Out of paranoia about the dangers of its contents, a new space station was built surrounding the craft before the object was opened; purely by machines, with any machines removed from the coffin melted down and launched on a trajectory for the sun.
&#x200B;
The only things allowed back on earth were the astronauts themselves; and that only after a thorough scan both of the men and women involved, and of the coffin to ensure a proper seal had been maintained. Unfortunately, the translation wasn't complete until after this had happened; everything might have turned out differently otherwise.
&#x200B;
"Thank you for saving our species. Your sacrifice will be honored for eternity." The core message at the heart of a long string of mathematical strings, images, and language tutorials. The most glaring part of it all was the strict instructions to place the object on an uninhabited world a certain distance from the sun, dependant on the relative size of said sun, and the warning that whoever placed the object in such fashion would, in all liklihood, be killed by the object itself. Followed by a request to leave certain raw materials at the landing site, and that, once they began to awaken, they would like information about whatever brave souls had sacrificed themselves to give their race a second chance. It also noted that the object had been launched at a particular appropriate body; Enceladus; but that the ability to aim a trajectory from sixty light-years away was unlikely due to the chance of random interference of stellar debris. If the object happened to look as if it were going to hit Enceladus on its own, it could be left alone; it would handle things on its own from there.
&#x200B;
Soon, the exact meanings became clear. In Beijing and in Arizona, it started. The spread in Arizona was contained; a mostly small-scale affair, centered on the home of a returning astronaut, a dome was built around it, and inside the astronaut, the plants, the animals; and the unfortunate man and his family; could all be seen dying, to be slowly replaced by a vivid obsidian-colored alien biosphere. The man's house had no outside water lines; as it turned out, if this home had been the only breakout, it could have been contained indefinitely.
&#x200B;
Beijing, however, was a different matter, and ultimately made the efforts in Arizona pointless. On live television, a reporter, visibly sweating drops of black fluid, was trying to pretend everything had been contained, and there was no danger outside of Beijing city limits; even as an alien micro-organism repurposed all the water in his body, leaving a dessicated husk of a man lying in front of the camera as the transmission continued; as it would continue, until the power ultimately failed.
&#x200B;
For the remnant of humanity, living in their bunkers and isolation domes, the following weeks are a matter of historical record. Once the organism reached the water table, that was the end. It traveled through the septic systems, water filtration, and into the ocean; and where it went, the sea levels dropped, the air became steadily more oxygen-enriched; and the world became covered with endless forests of blue-black life, mostly in the form of long, harmless tendrils.
&#x200B;
At first, none of it seemed to have a purpose; there were no obvious animals or intelligent creatures. It was only weeks later, when the improvised space station crashed in what had once been the Sahara, that things truly took off. Once it came into contact with the newly formed biosphere, the alien object somehow induced pods to form; at first, smaller alien life-forms. Creatures with odd, trilateral symmetry; three legs, three eyes, three wings.
&#x200B;
Then the first sentient aliens formed; apparently revived versions of the final members of their species. They almost immediately began work on two primary projects; saving what was left of humanity, and rebuilding their own civilization. Incredibly, there were over ten million human survivors, and while humanity would take centuries to once more reach the numbers they once had, for the first few years after the Event, the greatest problem humanity faced, all these scattered survivalists, doctors, soldiers, and politicians who had survived in their sealed bunkers, was communications issues due to their own wildly different nations of origin.
&#x200B;
The remnant of humanity now thrives, and is working with a blend of its own and alien technology to climb into the stars; and build a new world for itself, to replace the one it accidentally gave away.
|
The first time doing this criticsm is requested.
The meteorite was undetected and unseen until it was too late and coming straight for earth. It was believed to have been a massive iron meteorite. When news came out of the meteorite coming straight for earth, people had begun to panic. Riots began to occur on a massive scale with most governments completely collapsing due to the massive exodus of public administrations and the occurring chaos around the globe. Soon most places were under complete anarchy or strict martial law due to the ongoing crisis. Soon the situation had only become worse as a message was sent out from the meteorite, “Thank you for saving our species. Your sacrifice will be honored for eternity." Most had lost all hope of survival by this point and had come to accept their fate. Once the day had finally come most stood outside ready to see the meteorite themselves but in a massive twist of fate it turns out it had ended up missing by only a near 10,000 miles. People were stunned wondering how a meteorite heading straight for the earth at the last second changed course.
*On the meteorite*
“Goddamit who let Blop drive again!"
| 2022-06-19T07:20:41 | 2022-06-19T01:59:00 | 205 | 83 |
[WP]everyone has a sigil on their body that represents powers that were bestowed onto humanity after the rapture of the Milky Way. The bullies at school always pick on you because you never used your power, but you’ve had enough. Now they are going to find out why your sigil is a plain old circle
|
Am I the hero or am I the villain? I've been asking myself that question for as long as I can remember. But before you help me, how about some history?
You see, before the rapture, life was bland. For most, they stuck to a daily routine. They lived in a life full of possibility but remained stagnant in their ambition.
After the rapture, our world changed. Technomamcers, pyromancers... Any mancer you could think of, the world now had one. At least one. Our world became more divided than ever before. Splitting into guilds, the earth became a battleground for control and the Necromancers craved that control. Their thirst for power started a war that the world was not ready for. Guilds focused on sigil training rather than knowledge and the earth slowly turned into a wasteland of destruction.
But things aren't all bad! We live on the outskirts, away from all the chaos. Since we're not seen as a threat, everyone just kind of leaves us alone. They call us Nomads. Yes, we have a sigil. They're on our palms but no one is really sure what it does. We live separate from the rest of society. More rural than anything else and no guilds to be a part of, but that's not a bad thing. We get to learn about history since our teachings have nothing to do with sigils considering we don't even know how ours work. We get to experience every little thing our world has to offer. It doesn't mean everything is perfect, but we enjoy our lives.
We rarely see travelers considering most stick to their guild, but occasionally we get what we call Transfers. Transfers are former guild members who essentially get shunned for underperforming with their guild or not mastering their sigil. At least, that's what they tell us. Most of the time a Transfer will leave shortly after arriving and we don't see them again.
A while ago, we found two kids, around my age, wandering the hills outside of our village. Both had been bestowed with the mark of pyromancy. Black fingertips and the flame sigil on each wrist. They were nice at first, even friendly until they realized that we didn't have any powers.
Sitting in the lone school house I'm hesitant, even terrified that the teacher will soon dismiss us for the weekend. When I hear her say "have a nice day students", I immediately bolt for the door in the hopes of outrunning yet another incident. As I run down my road home, I can see that my parents have started the dinner fire with the smoke billowing just above the tree line. And that's when I hear him.
"Well look who it is, little Nomad". I hear his voice and then see him walk out from behind a tree adjacent to the path. "What's the matter? Nothing to say?"
I'm hesitant to respond because I don't want to upset him. "What do you want, Mark?"
As I thought, he seems even more furious now that I've spoken to him. "What makes you think you or anybody here can talk to me? Can't you see we're better than you?".
I respond quickly out of fear "Just go be better somewhere else!"
"I was already somewhere else." He says eerily. "Can't you see it? Right over there." He points in the direction of my house. And then it hit me. School had let out early and it's not late enough for dinner.
"What did you do, Mark?" I shout with more anger than fear.
Calmly he responds. "More like, what did WE do?"
I turn around to see my sanctuary ablaze. Fully engulfed as the other transfer appears from the fire. Eric.
"It's time we eliminate the weak. There is no room for you in this world. All of the other covens have been destroyed. Yours is the last!" Eric exclaimed.
Mark widened his stance and threw his arms to his side. I know this stance. He's trying to conjure fire. I've seen it before. I feel helpless! I can feel my heart rate elevate! He lifts his head and looks toward the sky. I have to do something! The hairs on my neck stand up. I sprint towards him not knowing why or what to do when I get to him. His hands are starting to glow! Almost there! He looks down, eyes glowing, to see me in front of him. I grab his wrist and a confused look stumbles upon his face.
"What are you doing?" He shouts.
I can see his eyes fade back, his palms return to normal, the black on his fingertips fades... He loses consciousness. I look down at my hands just as confused as Mark was. I briefly see the flame sigil inside of my sigil and it almost immediately fades back to an empty ring.
Eric panics and sprints toward Mark and kneels down next to him. "What did you do!? His sigil is gone!"
Shaken, I reply. "I don't know..."
"You'll pay for this!" He raises his hand toward me, palm facing me as if trying to set me ablaze.
Instinctively, I grab his wrist and watch his sigil slowly fade. I check my palm and see the same as I did before. A fire sigil inside of my mine and then it fades.
All of this was when I was younger. I haven't been able to conjure fire. I am the last Nomad and I feel like I'm responsible for returning the world back to normal.
So I'll ask you... In a world full of powers, and me the only one able to neutralize them, does that make me the hero or villain?
|
I’ve never activated my sigil in public. It’s not a cool power anyway... that was what I thought.
But in a world where everyone has their own talent manifest, I just didn’t fit in.
That’s why the bullies found me to be an easy target.
“Look it’s Shit ring!” I heard Warren yell as I tried to ignore him.
That’s right, a big fat brown circle, not even where it’s subtle smack dab on my forehead. Zeroface, talentless, shit ring...
Warren sported a black brand of lightning on his fist. It’s cool and he knows it, especially when he zaps people.
I ignored him, and he strides to catch me.
“Let me go!” Inadvertently, I shrink from him whilst he continues to tease me.
Suddenly, his face blanks, and the look of shock washes over him. Moans escape his mouth uncontrollably.
I realised I have accidentally triggered my sigil. He was having an instant orgasm, and he won’t be able to stop until he passes out.
I turn and ran ...
*Edited for grammar*
| 2020-02-26T08:01:07 | 2020-02-26T07:22:06 | 99 | 43 |
[WP] Everyone who turns 30 is forgiven a single criminal act of choice they commit on their birthday.
|
The shotgun was an early birthday present to myself. After all, I was going to need it today. I had bought it on credit, but that was okay. Paying off debts wouldn't be a problem for much longer. The thought made me smile.
I walked into the bank with an air of anticipation running through me, shotgun resting lazily on my shoulder. I didn't even have on a mask. Why bother? Today I turn 30 years old and I get a free pass on one criminal act. And I had settled on bank robbery. One criminal act to set me up for the rest of my life. I mean, it was a no brainer! Why anyone picked something other than bank robbery was a mystery to me. But, you didn't hear much about people picking bank robbery for their birthday crime. It was weird. A kid I knew from high school wasted his birthday crime stealing a sandwich. A sandwich! Can you believe how dumb some people are?
I'm not really that big of a criminal type, you see. Well, not at all a criminal. Never been arrested in my whole life. Never even got a speeding ticket. I'm more of a white-collar working stiff. 40 hours a week doing low-level paper work and data entry in an office, making $35k/year. I'd thought that as time wore on, I'd be married with kids, making a lot more money, but none of that really ever materialized. I just work, come home to my apartment and game. Never really meet people. Never seem to get ahead in life. Well, all of that was about to change. After the robbery, I'd travel the world, becoming a jet-setting playboy like in the movies. All I had to do was go up and take the money!
The bank was virtually empty when I came in. No guards, no line, just one customer finishing up with the only teller at an open window. It was a small branch of a regional bank. I had picked it because it didn't have bulletproof glass between the tellers and the customers. I didn't know if a Teller behind bulletproof glass would hand over the money or not, but I figured I'd play it safe. There were cameras mounted on the back wall taking video of the entire lobby, but I wasn't worried about that. Today was my day. Today, I was golden!
I walked briskly up to the teller as he finished with his final customer.
"Good Afternoon, and welcome to Northwest Financial," the Teller intoned. "Can I help you?" I knew that the Teller could see the shotgun held casually against my shoulder, but he didn't show any reaction.
"Yes, I believe you can," I said unable to keep the smile from my face. I lowered the shotgun to point at him. "I'd like all the money in the bank, please." I chuckled at the politeness of my statement, a feeling of elation rising within me.
Strangely, the Teller smiled too, a knowing grin spreading across his face. "Let me guess, 30th birthday?"
My smile grew even wider and gave a hearty little nod. "You bet it is."
The Teller's face dropped to a sympathetic, sorrowful expression. "Well sir, in that case, I'm afraid that I won't be able to give you any money. It's bank policy. I'm so sorry."
We stood quietly for a moment looking at each other. My grin began to falter.
"Wh..what are you talking about?"
"Well sir, I'm afraid that the bank does not allow us to give money to anyone robbing us on their 30th birthday." The Teller shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands, a gesture of apology. "I'm afraid there is nothing I can do."
"But, I have a gun." I motioned the shotgun towards the Teller in a feeble gesture, my arms beginning to fall slack to my waist.
"Yes, you do sir. But, you see, you're already robbing the bank. If you shoot me with that gun, you'll have committed bank robbery AND murder. You are only forgiven for one crime on your 30th birthday, not two. If fact, if you even touch me at this point, it would be considered assault with a deadly weapon. Any one of those crimes could send you to prison for most, if not all, of your life. You're robbing the bank, but you can't actually hurt me or force me in any way to give you the money without committing another crime. Unfortunately, bank management knows this and therefore will not allow us to give any money to a 30th birthday bank robber. Again, I am very sorry."
It felt like the bottom dropped out of the room. All my joy and elation fell away, replaced with abject sorrow and disappointment.
"You mean I'm going to end up wasting my only free crime on an ATTEMPTED bank robbery?"
"I'm afraid so sir" the Teller replied, a sympathetic grimace on his face.
"This sucks. Can't you give me something? It is my birthday today afterall."
"Well sir, I can open a checking account for you. Normally, this would require a $5 deposit. So, in essence, you'll have robbed the bank of $5."
I stood there, thinking for a minute before saying, "Alright, I'll take it."
As I stood in front of the Teller filling out the paperwork for my new checking account, shotgun resting on the countertop, one thought kept ringing through my head: maybe stealing a sandwich wasn't such a bad idea.
edit: formatting
|
I stood there, gazing at myself in the mirror and adjusting the paraphernalia I had yet to use but in my imagination. After placing every stitch of the uniform in place just so, I sighed heavily and headed for the door, pausing momentarily to collect both my thoughts and my baton. I would be facing neighbors today, friends--I would be the vanguard of this band of regimented misfits, marching in lock step towards not only them, but their elders and children.
We halt on the main street into the center of town. The crowd has already gathered. They have lined the sidewalks, waving flags and banners in anticipation. I bring my whistle to my lips and blow with all my might, signaling our cue to proceed. We march in lockstep towards the crowd. Behind me, a rapidfire volley of percussions punctuate the afternoon air. Right on cue, they are followed by the trumpets, then the tubas. The rest of the brass and woodwinds followed suit. I began heaving my baton into the air, its black sheen spinning a whirl into the deep blue sky.
At City Hall, we aimlessly chitchatted as we waited for the homecoming queens and FFA float to finish the route. I see the mayor and aldermen walking towards me. They shake my hand in turn and all agree that this was the greatest parade that the city had never issued a permit for.
| 2015-06-26T12:56:26 | 2015-06-26T12:19:11 | 105 | 32 |
[WP] It suddenly becomes possible to gain XP and level up in the real world, but you can only do so by getting kills.
|
It has become an addiction, more than killing ever was. It has consumed me.
When you picture "serial killer," I'm the first thing that springs into your mind. I tortured animals as a child, and I liked it. My father abused me relentlessly, second only to my mother. I eventually killed him... and her. I took a life for the first time when I was only fifteen years old: a girl from my high school who wanted nothing more than to have a loving boyfriend. She was willing to do whatever I wanted up until I slid that knife into her neck.
I don't exactly know when the bubbles started. It could have even been that first time, and maybe they were just too small to notice. Or maybe I was so overwhelmed and excited from finally giving in to my urges that I didn't even see them. I *do* remember them appearing on my fifth kill, when I dragged a jogger in the park into the bushes and took his life. They seemed to seep out of his skin like sweat, then form into bubbles that hung over his body. I popped one with my little finger, and I felt a sudden rush of energy and power. I've tried a number of different drugs, but there was *nothing* like this. I needed more.
In the beginning, I picked my targets carefully. I had my arranged ritual. My preferred type was men in positions of authority: cops, soldiers, government officials, etc. The more important the better. I'm sure some psychologist would link it to my issues with my father, if I ever visited a shrink. But the more I killed, the larger the bubbles grew, and the sense of euphoria that I got from them became far more potent. Soon, I didn't care *who* my victims were. I just needed more of them.
I "leveled up" for the first time on October 10, 2012, kill #23. He was a middle school principal named Mr. Simon. The bubbles that came from his skin weren't red; they were golden and shimmering and shiny. I popped one, and practically collapsed as waves of pleasure washed over me. "Congratulations," a voice boomed through my mind from nowhere and everywhere at once. "You have reached Level 2!" Visions swam in front of my eyes as I lay stunned in the grass next to the corpse. The hallucinations promised incredible powers: super strength, controlling flames... like a comic book superhero. The visions asked me to choose, and there was just something about the whole experience that made it feel *real*. This wasn't the same as other hallucinagens.
I chose "Camouflage," and the visions vanished. I was left alone in that wide cornfield with Mr. Simon's body, just as usual. Well, not as usual: glancing down at my own body, I noticed that I was slowly disappearing. I could see cornstalks through my own legs.
-----
It's been three years since I first leveled up, and tonight's kill should bring me to level 12. It gets harder and harder every time; more and more bodies are required. The euphoria that I once felt upon absorbing the bubbles is now only a hunger, leaving me desperately craving more. I'm up to one kill every few days, and I've only been able to escape the detection of law enforcement thanks to my fantastic new abilities. But I've certainly been following the nationwide manhunt for me pretty closely.
I wait silently outside the VA hospital, blended perfectly into the beige concrete of the parking structure. These facilities are a pretty common hunting ground for me, now that I've realized that soldiers seem to grant the most experience. Maybe it's the fact that they've killed too. Maybe I'm getting the bubbles from them and from their victims.
My selected victim is slowly shuffling back to his car. He's got a pretty severe limp, a souvenir from his tour in Iraq. Not that he could escape me even if he was healthy; my super speed from Level 5 is amazing. But that IED certainly made him an easy target. I used to thoroughly research my victims and learn everything about that, but I don't have time for that anymore. Now, a cursory search on Google is enough. And I might have to give that up soon when I begin killing daily. I know it's inevitable.
*beep beep*. His unlocking car fills the silence of the parking structure, and the lights flash. I worry for half a second that they'll give me away, but that's just a vestige from before I got my powers. I'm nigh invincible now.
He shuffles over to the car door, and I leave my perch. I sneak up behind him, draw my blade, and position it right over his back. Most victims tend to hear me coming when I'm this close to them, but maybe the IED deafened him as well. Poor guy; this is almost too easy. I plunge the blade down... into nothing. I can *see* the knife enter his body, but there's no resistance. It's just air.
My hand is now sticking out from his back, and the knife seems to be just be sitting in the middle of his torso. What the hell? I raise my arm to try again; still nothing. The soldier is trying to unlock his car like nothing is amiss at all.
I'm grabbed from behind, and I feel cold steel pressed against my neck. The soldier in front of me shimmers and vanishes.
"Illusion perk," a voice whispers in my ear. "Level 16. Too bad you never made it that high."
The knife cuts my jugular, and blood begins to pour down my chest in a sickening, gory waterfall. And I can see golden bubbles rising from my own skin.
|
When the first murderer leveled up, all hell broke loose.
People scrambled to murder, rip and tear to get that sweet, sweet experience points.
Only kills made when making eye contact mattered. So many wasted lives at first... or were they?
For what you ask?
It is a simple system where the winner takes the largest share of the pie. The pie made out of fame, glory and riches.
Dead men can't eat pie.
The leaderboard changes seemingly overnight as the war of every man versus every man rages in the cold, bloodstained streets.
Many questioned the top killer in the state leaderboards, this hooded man that was the only constant within the frenzied rankings that doubled as a bounty board.
It is none other than me.
How did I get there, and stay there you ask?
Simple.
It isn't the killing of man that is hard but the hunt of one.
Ain't easy finding a lone guy on the street.
I am a simple man that loves my job.
And my job is to kill.
No risk, all reward.
I am the only state executioner.
I keep it that way.
I just go to work everyday.
I even put in overtime.
| 2015-11-11T08:18:22 | 2015-11-11T08:01:49 | 1,155 | 265 |
[WP] When everyone turns 18, they receive a pet which is figurative of their personality. You're the first person to receive a dragon...
|
Maya expected an otter, or maybe a cat. Lots of people got those on their 18th birthday. She secretly hoped for something more obscure, like Will Cougan. Will lived down the road from her and around the blue fence, and when they were younger he had teased her quite a lot while they were waiting for the school bus. Last year, he waited patiently at the local Department of Familiars for over three hours before he was led to the Presenting room. He emerged with his new lifetime companion, a Polar Bear. The whole department *applauded*, because they had gone extinct over twenty years ago.
Maya sat in the waiting room, looking at pamphlets describing common familiars ("Cats don't necessarily mean *laziness*, but also imply *curiosity!* Look at the benefits of your Familiar, and learn from what it can teach you about yourself!"). She tapped her foot a few times, looked at her watch, and wondered how long it was going to take.
There were two kids ahead of her. One girl left cradling a puppy and Maya nearly gagged (loyalty and obedience was lame). The boy after Obedient Girl went in and came out with nothing. Well, it *looked* like nothing. As he passed her she caught a glimpse of a wasp over his shoulder. Maya froze, knowing not to look him in the eye. He stopped and turned his head to face her. Her heart pounded. Her brain told her to cower. She instead stood and looked him straight in the eyes.
"You know what wasps mean." he said, interested.
"Viciousness. Sociopathy. Murder." Maya said.
"They don't teach wasp symbolism in school. How can you know for sure?" he said, leaning in.
"My mom was a wasp." Maya said.
"Oh." he said. "Cool. Hit me up sometime, we should hang out."
Maya thought the way he said that was a little too... *sideways* for her taste. Sure, familiars weren't a definite precursor to a person's path in life, but he seemed to know with certainty that he deserved the wasp. He knew he was going to stir up some terrible shit in the future, and *he didn't care*.
He walked away, and the buzzing went with it. Several officers met him at the front door and escorted him to another room. Maya sat down again, more calm, but also more nervous. She hadn't thought about her mom in a long time. What if there was more of her mom in her than she thought? What if *she* got a wasp, too?
No, no she wouldn't. She wouldn't allow it. She didn't care what Familiar she got at this point, she vowed right there in that office to never let herself become like her mother.
"Maya Faraday?" a voice called out from the intercom. "Room three is ready for you. I repeat-"
Maya's heart suddenly jumped as she stood up again. The time was now.
An attendant in yellow gloves greeted her, and opened the door to room three. Inside was a blank grey room with no furniture or windows. She felt the soft glow around her more than she saw it. It was warm and enveloping, and she wondered if it was like this for everyone. Was it warm or cold for the wasps of the world? What about for the cats and dogs and polar bears?
The light in the room gradually brightened, but she was not blinded. Everything turned white. Maya thought about her mother and father. She thought about the wasps of the world, and flashed back to her father teaching her about familiars when she was ten.
*They're more you than you.* he told her as she petted his falcon. *They are more than our companions, they are our hearts. They are more than representations. They are our ideals, hopes, dreams, and weaknesses all wrapped up into a single package we all know deep down as absolute truth. The easy thing to forget is, everyone else knows that truth, too. The Familiars keep us honest. They keep us wise. They keep us strong.*
Maya smiled in wonder when her familiar appeared out of the white haze.
Ten minutes later, she emerged with her familiar pearched peacefully on her shoulder. The attendant in yellow gloves backed up, shocked, and nearly fell backwards over his desk. In all his years, he'd never seen such a thing. Two officers looked to each other, unsure of what it meant. The eyes of the three other kids waiting in line became wide with wonder, surprise, and awe.
Sitting proudly on her shoulder was a baby dragon. It was silver with gold tufts, and had huge claws that were more gentle than an infant's grip. It stretched its wings and nuzzled its long snout against Maya's short hair.
A desk clerk stepped up to her. He passed her a clipboard.
"J-just sign here, miss." he said.
"So... what do dragons mean?" she asked.
The clerk looked down, then darted his eyes back up to her shoulder a couple of times.
"Nothing." the clerk said. "I mean, there has never been a dragon Familiar in the history of the world. Not one. Dragons don't exist."
Maya's dragon screeched at him, almost in laughter.
"There's a first time for everything." Maya said.
She walked off and showed off her familiar to anyone who wanted to see it. She let strangers pet it as she walked past the wasp boy. He grinned at her with a mean, eerie smile. He was already in handcuffs.
"We both got fliers. We're meant to be *free*." he said quietly.
She never answered him, because in a way he was probably right.
The clerk returned to his desk after she left the building and picked up the phone.
"Sir? I have some news." he said. "We have a Mythic."
|
Ian was buried under a thick layer of sheets when he felt something moist run the length of his back. It entered his dream, and he saw a dog licking him. Ian started to play with the dog, before he felt the feeling again and jolted awake.
He slowly opened his eyes, saw the dragon in front of him, and went to check the time. "Really?" he groggily muttered out loud. It was only three o'clock. What could have possibly waken him u-
Panic started to flow through his body. He turned away from his mirror, and saw the dragon that was perched atop the heading of his bed. It was small, a little larger than the size of a house cat. Its scales were green, the color of leaves, besides its eyes, which were aquamarine.
It took a second for Ian's tired brain to fully understand what was happening. He was 18 now, he remembered that. When you're 18 you get a pet that matches your personality, he knew that too. But a dragon? Those haven't existed in thousands of years.
The little dragon tried to get up off of its perch and fly towards Ian. Its wings did not support it, and instead it nosedived straight into Ian's bed. Ian checked his phone again. He had roughly five hours before school. He whipped up a simple quiet spell and headed downstairs, out his door. With his dragon in his backpack, he headed into town. Time to find the town witch-doctor.
| 2014-09-28T11:15:34 | 2014-09-28T04:20:39 | 87 | 32 |
[WP] Every person has a button they can press at night that deposits a large sum of money to their bank account. However, the first person to press it each night is horrifically killed.
|
Zach looks at the bright green numbers illuminating from the clock that lit his bedroom from his night stand: it is 11:56 P.M. Tucking his phone under the pillow, he quietly walk past his parent's bedroom to the living room, where the family computer is, and types in his username and password. Like every night, he knows that the computer won't finish loading until exactly 11:58. As it is loading, he leans back in his chair and tries to think of a time before The Button had existed.
********************************
The Button, as everybody referred to it as, was created after the Global Order came to power in 2045. The idea behind it, they said, was to destroy greed. In each time zone, when the time hit 00:00, The Button could be pressed. Every day. The only requirement was to have an internet connection and a computer, which was standard for everybody after the Global Internet Project was completed in 2054. Pressing the button would give the presser $10,000, sent immediately to their bank account. The only stipulation: the first person to press it in each timezone would die some horrific death.
Originally the people in charge or killing these people, the Global Police, were creative: tearing a person's body apart limb for limb, dragging people on the back of Global Order vehicles until they died, turning people in to living fires - all sorts of horrific stuff.
However, after a few years of all of this creative killing, the Police got bored. You can only throw a burning human off of a tall building while tied to a rope and watch them swing so many times before you get bored. So, they just resorted to shooting people in the head with a shotgun, and then going home to sleep each night.
This is where the Global Order's plan for eliminating greed backfired: people began using The Button as a way of suicide. Why OD on pills or jump off of a bridge when you could press a button and have yourself be killed in the comfort of your home? The Global Order didn't like that The Button was being used this way, but there was nothing they could do about it. The suicides didn't start happening like this until 2130, and by then everybody depended on - needed - The Button to survive.
A website, called the Death List, shows a picture, the name, and the cause of death of the first person to press The Button in each timezone each night. The cause of death, which is always predetermined, would be posted as soon as the first person pressed The Button, and the name of the person along with their picture was posted 10 minutes after it was pressed.
***************************
The computer finally finishes loading and Zach presses the Global Internet tab in the task bar. It is 11:58, just like every other night. "Two minutes 'til payday", Zach thinks to himself. Just enough time to get a glass of water. Quietly tip-toeing to the kitchen, he grabs a glass and fills it up with water from the sink. heading back to the family computer, he sits down in the chair and look at the time: 11:59 P.M., with 30 seconds to go until midnight.
20 seconds to go.
10 seconds.
Midnight.
You close your eyes and count to 15; the button is always pressed by 12:00:05, there are enough suicidal people to guarantee that, but you like to play it safe.
12:00:15.
Zach presses The Button, and it opens up a link to his bank account. In there he sees it already: a deposit for $10,000.
There was no point in checking it, the cause of death was always gun shot wound, but as part of his nightly routine, Zach checked the Death List to see what the cause of death would be before they posted the name and picture of the victim. What it said startled him. The screen read, "Cause of Death: Torture and Disembowelment". He quickly loaded up the Global News and saw the headline: "New Global Police Chief: The Horrifying Deaths Continue". "Interesting..." Zach thought to himself. He wasn't worried though, alls this meant was that he would probably have to change his bed time routine so that he didn't press the button so close to midnight, since painful deaths would weed out the suicidal people.
He x'ed out the news and went back to the Death List. He felt kind of bad, being tortured to death and disemboweled is about as gruesome as it can get. He sits intently in his chair, waiting for the victim of The Button to appear on his screen.
12:10:05.
12:10:07.
12:10:09.
12:10:11.
12:10:13.
Zach's veins turn to ice as he hears the burglar alarm go off.
|
I looked at her as she looked back
We looked at the button, unassuming black
We kissed deeply, in the matte dark
We looked at the button, the paradigm Mark
I looked at her as she looked back
Fear and emotion and a need for no lack
We kissed as we pushed, together, in tandem
What happened next, was far from random
| 2016-07-16T20:08:19 | 2016-07-16T17:08:32 | 18 | 12 |
[WP] You are not a good person. Your party was made of good people, and you tried to be good because you liked having allies. But now they're all missing, so they won't see the lengths you're willing to go to to save them.
|
I killed the first guard as he was taking a piss. My footsteps were drowned out by laughter from the party in the room next door. He stank and swayed like he had been partaking in the revelry himself. I slit his throat with my boot knife and pillaged his belongings before slowly lowering his body into the latrine hole. All he had was a sack of coins and a silver pocket watch with “Love, Meredith” inscribed on the back. Coin spends well enough but I’ll have to sell the watch at a shop in the next village. Still, should fetch a decent price.
The second guard was trickier. He was chatting up another party goer in a long hallway and she would certainly scream if she saw me kill him. Hallways like this always suck because any noise is magnified by the echo. Luckily the fucks who built this place loved their columns. I weave my way from one to the next, making sure to avoid any of the moonlight coming through the windows. The cold stones were uncomfortable with my bare feet, but my shoes were heavy and would have given me away in an instant. I angle myself behind a column only a dozen steps from where they’re standing and quietly pull the draw on my crossbow and load a bolt. I raise it up and fire, the bolt cutting through the short space between us in an instant. It strikes him were I want, at the base of his skull and to the left, passing cleanly through his jugular and out, then striking the woman in her eye before burying itself deep in her brain tissue. I sprint forward and catch both bodies and slowly lower them to the ground. Nowhere to hide these, so I drag them behind the shadow of a column. With how close I am to my goal; I should be in and out before anyone stumbles onto them
The woman doesn’t have any money on her, though I shouldn’t be surprised. She dressed as a maid and doesn’t have much in the way of carrying capacity. The guard has a second sack of coins and the one thing I’ve been looking for; keys to the cellar. I step quietly through the doorway and into the next room that appears to be a second banquet hall. The table is long enough for 40 guests but none of the place settings are out. Good sign. Looks like the party, and therefore the crowd, will be kept to the other side of the castle.
I go out through the door at the back of the room and find the staircase that leads down to the cellars. The steps are winding and the deeper I go the colder it gets. No time to lose focus. I exit the stairs into a narrow hallway lit gently on both sides by torches. At the center of the hallway is a small wooden door. I approach it and pull it open just enough to see inside. On the wall to the left is a guard asleep in his bed. One of the barracks then. I slip inside and shut the door gently behind me, then pull my boot knife out and get to work. The guard I saw first doesn’t even make a sound as I press the knife into the side of his throat, but I cover his mouth anyway, just in case. The bed next to him is unoccupied but on the other side of the room are two more guards, both sound asleep. I cut the second guard the same as the first but he manages to gurgle and cough. Blood sprays up and hits me in the face as the man dies.
“Please”
I snap my head forward and see the third guard sitting up in his bed, his hands trembling as they hold the blanket up on his chest.
“Please” he says again, his voice breaking. “Please I don’t want to die. They conscripted me. Pl-please don’t kill me.” Tears begin rolling down his face.
“Conscripted, huh?” I say. He nods his head, hands still trembling. I dry the blood off my knife on my sleeve and use a clean portion of the dead guard’s blanket to wipe the blood off my face. I must look like a demon.
“Shitty job placement, then.” I spin the knife softly up into the air and catch it by the newly cleaned blade, then throw it at the trembling man in bed. The blade hits him squarely in the forehead. The energy jerks his head backwards as blood spurts out of the wound. He slumps back into bed, hands sprawled out to his sides.
I exit the room quietly and move to the end of the hall. Using the guard key I stole, I open up the cellar door and enter the dimly lit room behind it. There I see them. All three are strung up from the ceiling and covered in their own dried blood. The guards must have been beating them for a few days. I softly approach them. I lay my hand on the first, but he’s cold to the touch. I sigh and move to the next. He’s at least warm, but his eyes are open and there’s no life left. Must have missed him by a hours. A day at the most. The third stirs slightly as I place my hand on him.
“Shhhh.” I say. “It’s ok. I’ve got you.”
I use my boot knife to cut his ropes and lower him softly to the ground. I pull a piece of bread out of my satchel and hand it to him. He’s slow to move, but he grips it with enough strength that answers my next question as I ask it.
“Can you move?”
“Yeah. Yeah I think I can.”
“Good, then we’re moving.”
He grunts in approval and we make our way back out of the cellar. I walk past the two bodies I left in the hallway and strip the coat and cloak off the dead guard and hand it to my partner. If the wounds slow him down, the cold would finish him off. We have a lot of ground to cover and once they realize what I’ve done, they’ll be after us. But hey, what are friends for.
|
It’s my first try on these. I’m sorry for my awful writing.
Dave wiped the blood from his blade before the guard even hit the floor. No expression came to his face, he didn’t enjoy killing, but he didn’t hate it either.
His party of four years was made up of good, friendly people. And they’d paid the price for that. Dave didn’t want them to see the person he was, those people had given him what had been stripped of long ago with their righteous dream. And now he would protect that dream of theirs.
Certainly, they needed a cold dose of reality to show them the world wasn’t all black and white. But Dave didn’t want that dose to come from him, not yet at least.
“Y-you psychotic monster! You’ll pay for this!”
“Do you accept cash? Or would an IOU suffice?” The monster hiding within the hero party growled, his bladed tentacles whipping through the man’s body like so much paper.
Dave had already killed his way through the fortress, and gotten the information he needed.
“Just hang on tight kiddos” the grizzled old shapeshifter spoke.
“The demon lord’s gonna regret facing an elder god!” His voice became distorted. Gaining some unknown quantity beyond that of a mortal.
And so Dave, or as those with true power knew him. Azathoth. Continued his rampage through the mortal realms, until he found the king of evil, and ripped him apart at a conceptual level.
| 2019-12-07T12:06:55 | 2019-12-07T11:42:59 | 26 | 16 |
[WP] A psychotherapist slowly realizes he/she exhibits many of the same dispositions as his/her sociopath clients.
|
**4:23 P.M.**
**August 4th 2013**
**Autumn House Group Home**
**Kansas City, MO**
"You need to learn to let go of everything you've done in the past, and live a life of truth. You've gone so far down the hole, David, you're caught in a pit of lies and can't find the way out. You're able to manipulate everyone around you into thinking-"
"Shut up! Just shut up!"
"-into thinking you're getting better and being okay, and go back around and make the same mistakes you did last time. It's a repeating cycle."
"You don't know how hard I do try! I just *can't*!"
"I do, David. You've been in and out of fourteen different group homes in the past 3 years. You've done worse every single time. You're not able to leave here until we can work out some of your behavioral issues."
David shot out of his chair, and bolted out of Kelsey Wenderling's office. He slammed the door behind and walked quickly to his room. Kelsey heard the door down the hall slam as David shut himself in. The lady behind the desk sighed, and filed David's report into her drawer. She slid open the personal drawer and reached for her phone, dialing the number of her soon to be husband. It rang twice before he picked up.
"Hey honey, what's up?"
"I'm gonna be at the office a little late tonight, some of these guys are just having a really rough time getting through some issues. You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah, I guess so. How late tonight?"
Kelsey looked at the digital clock on her desk.
"If I had to guess, I'll be here til nine, a little after. I'm sorry."
"Yeah, it's fine. Don't go too crazy. You've been there late for the past three weeks, people will start thinking you're a client there!"
"Very funny. I'll talk to you later."
"Bye."
Kelsey hung the phone up. She gathered her paperwork and personal items and exited the office. The nurse on duty looked up at her.
"Out of here early Kels?"
"Oh, yeah, need to get home and plan some things with the fiance. Have a good night Gladys, will you be sure Travis vacuums my office tonight?"
"I'll be sure to do that. Tell that man I said hello!"
"Will do." Kelsey walked out the door and into her car.
---
**5:04 P.M.**
**September 22nd 2013**
**Autumn House Group Home**
**Kansas City, MO**
"The other clients have all told me what you told all of them. How you pretended to be helpful and nice. Told them you cared about how they were doing. You know you could have just asked us to take you somewhere to get more cigarettes David."
"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry Kelsey."
"Don't apologize to me, apologize to all of *them*. They thought you cared about them enough to come in and listen to them. That is not your place David. You manipulated them, exactly the kind of sociopathic tendencies we've been trying to get past. Go apologize, and I'll talk to you in a few days."
David exited Kelsey's office. She grumbled when she saw the clock. It was much later than when she was usually gone by. She reached in her personal drawer, and glanced at her phone- seventeen missed calls. She opened up the log, and saw they were all from her soon to be husband. She dialed his number. The phone rang twice before he answered.
"You fucking cunt."
"Excuse me?"
"You *fucking lying cheating cunt!* You haven't been at work all these nights! You fucking *cunt*! I swear to-"
*Click.*
She had hung the phone up on him. Her soon to be husband was no longer that. Kelsey panicked. She left Autumn House in a flash, and sat in the parking lot. She thought about what she had done to the man she told she loved. How she had lied, and kept lying. She thought about David. She giggled quietly to herself, thinking about the saying that had made the rounds at mental health facilities.
*You've got to be one step from being a client to work in this place.*
It was amusing to her. She now knew what she had to do. Kelsey slammed the side of her head against the dashboard. Instantly, she called her mother, and in minutes was in the driveway of her parent's home. She walked right in, sobbing.
"He hit me Mom, he *hit* me! I can't marry him anymore, I just *can't*!"
Her mother held her while her father paced. The phone rang and rang, before Kelsey's father answered it. The conversation was brief, mostly Mr. Wenderling yelling at the soon to be domestic abuse suspect.
[Kind of quickly happened, but I didn't really want to drag it out. I found this one fascinating to write though, because both my lady and I work at a mental health grouphome ;) ]
|
Here we go again: "my wife doesn't love me... I hate going to work... I don't know where my life went..." How the fuck do they expect me to help them? Why do these people think that I have all the answers? I'm human. We all are. We're born, we live a few years... Some more than others... Then we die alone. It scares me, too. How could it not?... Do I complain? No. It's futile. Just like everything else.
-"Doctor?"
-"Sorry, Steven. Please go on."
-"I just... I don't know where my life went..."
| 2013-10-25T10:14:37 | 2013-10-25T10:00:11 | 49 | 10 |
[WP] You live in a society where at the end of each day, you can choose to relive it, but without retaining any knowledge of what happened previously. A number in your peripheral vision shows how many previous times you lived through the current day. Almost always that number is 0. Today it is 7212.
|
I opened my eyes and looked at the number. 7212. It seemed like only yesterday that yesterday had happened, and yet I had been reliving this day for almost 20 years.I got up and got changed, made breakfast and packed my bag, in almost the same way as I had done 7000 or so times ago.
You see, two years ago, reset technology was invented. It was a chip that, when embedded in your head, allowed you to perform a reset at the end of a day. Simply speaking, if you didn't like how your day had panned out, you could trigger a reset by simply thinking it at exactly midnight. Doing so would send you back in time (doing the same thing to your memory) before dropping that little number in your head. People who had chosen not to reset would act out their day in the same mindset that they were in at the start of their last reset, without the chance to reset again. The day would only move forward when everyone had chosen not to reset, although everyone would only remember the most recent iteration of the previous day.
However, this often doesn't solve anything if the first reset doesn't work, and almost always doesn't after the tenth or so. You see, when you reset yourself, you forget everything that had happened in the day you were about to start, so if you were to crash into someone by accident, resetting is unlikely to do anything except tell you that you had wanted to reset that night. That knowledge alone is usually enough to tell you that you had messed up somewhere and cause you to be more cautious, thus allowing you to maybe avoid that accident.
Such knowledge is called a kick. Your number is a kick in itself, as you can make several inferences from that number. Once the number gets too high, however, it ceases to be a big enough kick and subsequent resets simply have you living through the day in exactly the same ways. Not enough new information is presented to you that would change your behavior so. Thus, past 10, you would probably need 100 resets before your behavior changed, then another 150 and so on and so forth...
Everyone and their mother got them, and this caused several quick changes in the world. For one, you couldn't gamble on races the same day they were held, and stock market transactions had to be done one day in advance, but interestingly enough, everything mostly stayed the same. However, us policemen quickly realised that criminals had to be dealt with very differently. For a few months, the crime rate shot up, but then we figured a temporary way around it while we tried to convince everyone else that we had to completely ban the usage of these chips.
As I drove to work, I tried to reason out exactly why I was on my seven thousandth try. It obviously meant that something horrible had happened during the football game we were covering, and it obviously meant that we knew we had a way of stopping it (or we would have stopped trying). We had a plan of coverage in the case of anything bad happening, and it was obviously taking a very long time to execute.
20 minutes later, I was in a meeting room with the rest of my team, the policemen who were going to cover the match. Greg, being the leader of our team, started speaking first.
"Right. Resets? Mine is 1764."
Janet next. "204." This caused a stir among the room. Two people? It probably did every time she had said the number.
Steven. "4935." Some wide-eyed looks at that number.
Ghadalfi. "2496." Julsey. "7212." Moran. "7212." Ericsson. "6982." Chang. "3891"
Johnson next. He said his number with a bit of a grin. "7211." Okay, this was big news. That meant that today was a big day. It was my turn to speak, and I was also smiling. "7212".
"Whew. Okay," Greg clapped his hands and drew everyone's attention. "It looks like we have at least 6 people we have to catch and not more than 9 or we would have given up on this. Let's go over our coverage plan to figure out who they are. I've already taken the files with me." Pulling some papers out of a folder, he put them down on the table and started to narrate from them. "Right. Because you," he pointed to me, "are still resetting, it means that the criminals are all ticketholders, whatever they plan to do. Stadium sits 30,000 so each person gets just over 5,000 people to cover. This means we're working on a split-search pattern. Janet was the first to stop resetting so our first guy is..." He counted on the stadium map. "Here. Section 2 seat 4 row 12, Alfred Court stand." Now remaining seats are 29796 and the next number is mine at 1764 so the person we're looking for is in seat...section 8 seat 8 row 3, Pavilion stand." By refusing a reset at certain points, we could get a system of communication going that would allow us to find people that had yet to commit a crime through us kicking each other. It just took a lot of time and a lot of resets.
Using this method, Greg went through everyone else's numbers and we found our suspects. We quickly emailed a list to stadium security, telling them to notify us if any of the suspects tried to get in early. After that, we went through our general plan. It was a fairly simple one; whenever one of them tried to use their ticket, we would hit them with a taser and arrest them once they were inside. Subduing and arrest was always our first attempt whenever we found a new criminal. We'd arrest them, citing 'intelligence', and look through their possessions. If we didn't find anything then we would all reset the next day and try a more reactive approach. If we did, then we would disable the chip with an EMP blast and follow proceedings accordingly. In relative silence, we left for the stadium. There was still a lot of work to do.
Standing at gate E, I received notification that the first two people had been subdued and arrested. Checking their bodies had revealed explosives taped to their sides. A bomb defusal team was immediately called to the stadium and the suspects were moved somewhere out of sight. Twenty minutes later, all 6 had been caught and subdued, with most of the bombs defused. I breathed a sigh of relief, but I knew that it wasn't over yet. We might have still let a few in (ones that we hadn't found using our kick method) and so we moved into our positions, a much heavier concentration of us in areas that we hadn't checked yet.
As the game progressed, I reflected on our situation. Nothing untoward had yet to happen, but my worries were no longer about today, to a certain extent. No criminals had seemed to figure out what we (and police forces around the world) were doing, but if anyone had then we would never catch them. Still, it was only a matter of time before everyone else figured us out, and we wouldn't win this arms race. Those 6 could have bought multiple tickets and alternated spots to throw us off, they could have only sent some people every reset, they could have a seventh person watching from outside, ready to reset if needed.....
There were so many ways for them to work around us it was insane. Hopefully this case would help us make a better point against these chips.
The game ended and people all filtered out of the stadium, not knowing that disaster had been averted. All they would remember was a rather unexciting nil all draw between two rather ordinary (I would know, I was a fan of one of the teams) sides. Suddenly, the weight of those 7000 days weighed down on me. All that 'time' spent, and nobody around to see us spend it.
The team met up at the pub for drinks afterwards, all laughs and smiles about our success. None of us talked about those seven thousand days. None of us talked about how different things could have turned out. We all stayed awake, consciously denying a reset. When there were only a few seconds left until midnight, we all stopped talking and watched it tick down in silence.
Greg. "0." Janet. "0." Steven. "0." Ghadalfi. "0."...
|
Bright shafts of sun came pouring through the gaps in my curtains. I woke slowly, curling the sheets around myself until I couldn't ignore the light anymore. Finally I managed to crawl out, pad into the kitchen, and prepare a bowl of brightly-colored cereal. Still half asleep, I carried the bowl to the couch without spilling any milk and turned on some cartoons.
After about half an hour, Mom came bustling into the living room and rolled her eyes. "I don't want you in front of the TV all day *again*." She grabbed the remote control from my hands and shut the show off. "Go outside! It's beautiful out today!" The curtains flew open, and I recoiled from the glaring sun. "I've got to go to work; I'll see you tonight." She leaned over and kissed me on top of the head, then headed out into the garage.
She was right, I guess. I didn't have that much time, after all. I checked my "to do" list, scrawled in crayon across a piece of construction paper. I'd done maybe *half* of the stuff on the list. So I called up my neighbor and partner-in-crime Paul, and told him to meet my at the corner in half an hour.
First, we rode our bikes through the entire neighborhood. We raced from Elm to Powell, with the wind blowing through my overly-long hair (Mom's been meaning to take me to get it cut). Then we stopped at the 7-11 near the highway and got big slurpees. I made sure to throw the cup away at Paul's so that Mom wouldn't see it in the trash and get mad. She doesn't like it when I have that much sugar. Then we went to the creek and built a *huge* dam that stopped up the whole thing. We spent *hours* patching up any part that crumbled under the weight of the water.
The sun was beginning to dip below the hills by the time Paul and I gave up and returned home. We came in through the sliding glass door to find Mom cooking in the kitchen. "Is beef stroganoff OK for dinner?" she called from the sink. "I was thinking..." her voice trailed off as she looked at us. "You two are *FILTHY*! Go outside and hose yourselves off, for goodness' sake. I just mopped in here!" She swatted us back out into the backyard and turned on the sprinklers, refreshing and cool in the evening heat. So instead of cleaning up, Paul and I just chased each other around for a while until Mom came out and served dinner on the patio instead of the dining room.
After Paul left, I went inside and played video games 'until my eyes bled,' as Mom put it. She finally made me turn it off to go bathe and get ready for bed. At long last, I crawled into the cool sheets and set my head down on the soft pillow. Only moments ago I was telling Mom how I wasn't tired, but I now realized how wrong I was.
"Goodnight, Honey." She was in the doorway with a soft smile on her face. "You all ready for school to start tomorrow? I know that you've Looped this day a few times, but we've all got to face our responsibilities sometimes."
I checked the counter in the corner of my eye. I'd apparently been putting it off for a while now: 7,212 days, to be precise. "Yes, Mom," I answered.
"Good. I'll get your backpack ready, then." She closed the door behind her.
Before I could drift off to sleep, the menu popped up:
> Repeat day? Y/N
On the bedside table, I could see my to-do list, with so many items still not done. One more day couldn't hurt, right?
---
If you enjoyed this story, you should also consider subscribing to /r/Luna_Lovewell!
| 2016-07-11T06:08:16 | 2016-07-11T03:56:59 | 1,146 | 450 |
[WP] You heal fast, very, very fast.
|
I suppose it's my own fault really.
Have you ever heard of Wolverine? The X-men? Turns out they weren't that far off the money in reality. But when nothing can kill you life has a tendency to... get creative.
It was a blessing to start with really. I'd always been uncannily healthy. I'd had falls but never a scratch. I'd eat food well past what your average parent would consider wholesome without so much as a stomach grumble.
But it wasn't until I first played football that I realized I was *unnatural*.
I still remember the sound of my neck cracking as I slammed into Jonny Mason's chest. I'd never broken a bone before but it turns out bones were the only thing I could break.
It wasn't that sound that surprised me though. It was the gentle light clicking, a screeching really, as the bones in my neck immediately righted themselves that sticks with me to this day. I know it's a good thing but even now I find that noise unsettling, like a tiny man is grinding his teeth inside my body. It helps if I imagine that tiny man with an angle grinder putting me back together.
That night a did a test. I took a sharp knife and gently touched the back of my hand. Nothing.
I then pushed it into my hand. Lord did that hurt but before I could even register any movement it was sitting there on the surface of my skin.
I tried one more time, hand flat on the wooden chopping board, full force.
I felt the knife penetrate my hand. Just a note to anyone wondering, don't stab your hand, it's unpleasant and we're not supposed to do it. But faster than I could register the knife had been forced out of my body and back above my hand. When I removed it I saw the imprint of the blade's tip in the chopping board.
From then on I knew it. I was invincible.
Honestly the rest of my young life was a bit of a cliche really. I was a bit rebellious and probably showed off one to many times for my own good. I joined the military, not as fun as it sounds. Being a hitman super weapon on demand for various agencies gets old really quickly. I even tried the masked hero thing, a completely thankless job. I guess there're a few stories there but none are really relevant to my current situation.
I left most of that behind. Sure the money was good but it is not ideal for your mental health. Not to mention it's rough as guts. Do you know what it feels like to get a mortar to the face? Have a sniper land a hit square between your eyeballs? I do. Headache doesn't even begin to describe it. I might be invincible but man some jobs just aren't how you want to spend your typical work day.
That's why I took up diving. Probably have Jeff to thank for that particular choice actually. We were buddies in the Navy. Dumbass knew about my *talents* and decided it meant I'd be a good partner for some underwater work.
He ripped my regulator out 40 m down on our third dive together.
Turns out I don't need to breathe, as he suspected. Thanks Jeff. Also turns out that Jeff didn't need hands that weren't super-glued to his genitals in his sleep.
I never really used that particular talent until I left for more regular work. But my abilities make a lot of the *risks* associated with deep sea underwater welding irrelevant.
It's been fairly stable work for the last few years and 3 months on, 9 months off is a beautiful thing.
It wasn't even a job that got me here.
It was my 5th month off. I was basically being a tourist. Hawaii is a beautiful place and I took a boat out to sea for a few days.
The weather was beautiful but suddenly all around my boat, as far as I could see, ash started to accumulate.
I thought this was weird but it was interesting watching my yacht leave a trail in it's wake.
That's when the bubbles started.
Did you know that boats don't float when the water starts bubbling?
I do now. I wish I did then. It sank like a stone and I sank with it.
It turns out I was riding over the birthplace of a new Island.
It would have been majestic if it didn't mean that tonnes of boiling hot and generally lethal gasses, lava, and other unpleasantness were making their way towards me as I was sinking into a deep dark ocean.
I've had plenty of time to think this over you see. I'm currently trapped inside what I guess will one day be an active volcano on one of Hawaii's newest islands.
It turns out my abilities are even a match for being embedded in literal lava.
It was agony for a while, I couldn't tell you how long, and even after adjustment it's still painful. The lava has long since cooled into a sort of boiling hot rock so movement is essentially impossible. But I think it's the loneliness that gets me more than anything now. I can't tell you if I've been down here a month, a year, or a millennia but it's not uncommon for me to chat to an imaginary friend like you so I think it's been a while.
I'm looking forward to the next big movement. Maybe I'll get spewed out in another eruption eventually? Maybe I'll get lucky and get pushed out into the ocean. Hell if I'm really lucky maybe I'm not as invincible as I suspect and old age will finally do me in.
Whatever the case, I just hope I wind up somewhere that isn't so... bloody hot.
|
"What kind of Black magic is this?" Screamed the knight.
After what felt like hours of silence was broken by our hero as he almost whispered "it's an ancient curse".
Turns out even though your neck heals faster than a sword can swing through it, your throat will still feel sore.
The Knight looked confused at the peasants filling out the whole town square, before he called up a dusin of soldiers. This would be a show the kingdom would never forget as our hero were impaled by swords and spears.
The pain was ever so real, yet he did not cry, he did not scream and he did not die. For he had learned to welcome pain as an old friend throughout the nearly 3000 years.
The knight, now in a blood covered armor were furious. "Put him in chains and follow me!" He said. Our hero could hear more confusion then demand in his words as swords were pulled out of his back.
The soldiers dragged our hero towards the castle as they struggled to follow the bloody knight.
And our hero took one last look towards the crowd before the gates were shot closed.
**This is my first time trying to write here, sorry for my awful english, but I hope it's good enough to read**
| 2019-08-09T07:37:33 | 2019-08-09T06:11:18 | 18 | 10 |
[WP] in a feudal world, every warrior's skill is reflected in their blade, the bigger the blade, the less skilled, one day you meet someone carrying just a hilt
|
He didn't look like a weathered warrior when I saw him at the end of the counter at the White Oak Inn. He looked happy and generally well off. His clothes were as fine as a nobleman's; but not gaudy nor ostentatious. He couldn't be a nobleman, as for no nobleman would be caught dead in a local tavern. There was an aura about him that seemed dangerous. His face looked that of priest, but shown great aggression. I thought to myself, "How can a man who is so well-kept possibly be dangerous?" I had to keep staring at him and make sense of the situation. I averted my gaze a few times to make sure he wouldn't see me. He had a sword with a gold hilt and encrusted in the finest jewels. Such jewels could only be found in the Far East, beyond the kingdom and beyond the mapped world. You could smell how fresh he was. He smelled of purity, like fresh water. Such an elegant and fine man could not possibly be dangerous. But I had to know.
"Excuse me,my good sir. Can I buy you another round?" I said to him, with most of my courage mustered.
"I guess I could go for another. But for what occasion?" He seemed perplexed.
"Pardon me, but I've noticed that you have such a fine blade. Is it from the Far East?'
"Oh this?" He patted the hilt. "I actually got it many years ago when I studied at the university. I eventually went East on one of my studies."
"Incredible," I was in awe, "so what was it like over there?"
"Firstly, it takes several years to make the journey there and back. Then there are bandits all along the trade routes. Absolutely vicious bandits. I've been attacked many times. Once you get past all of that, you can see the most gorgeous cities of the world. The palaces are covered in gold and shine the most delightful hue."
"Amazing." He truly was a dangerous man. Surviving all of those attacks for several years, and to not receive a single scratch. "I have to ask you something, somewhat personal."
"What would that be, sir?" It seemed as if he knew what I would say.
"You said you've been attacked many times on your journeys, would you say that you are a hardened warrior?"
He thought about it for a second. "Not at all. I am a scholar and a gentlemen. I would never get into a fight."
Impossible! There is no way for a man, so traveled to not be in a fight. It was inconceivable. Did he steal this blade? Is he a liar? Is he just stupid? Of course not, he is an educated man. So why? "If you never got into a fight, then why do you have a small sword?"
He laughed and so hard that he began to tear up. "My friend, are you asking to see my sword?" He kept giggling.
I didn't know what to say. I was fearing for my life. But I had to know. "Uh, y-yes , if you w-would." Trembling, dreading the answer.
"Okay. If you insist." He drew quickly. But there was nothing beyond the golden, jewel-encrusted hilt.
I could not see anything. There was not blade from his hilt. How could a man fight without his blade? Could he be the best warrior in this kingdom? No, the world? No, of all history?! "W-where is y-your blade?" I was still trembling. Never had I ever seen a hilt without a blade. "D-did you l-lose it?" What a stupid question, he will probably kill me.
The man broke into a mad cackle, writhing on the floor. "No, I didn't lose it!" He shouted, "I've never had a blade. Isn't that something?"
Once I knew he wasn't going to kill me, I was able to muster another question. "So you've never had a blade nor been in a fight, right?"
"Yep. I never had to be in a fight. I've always been able to find a way out. My father told me, when he handed this hilt to me, that it was best to never kill, for it is the greatest sin. I also had never had any desire to kill someone. It would be too cruel."
"So you've never killed anyone nor been in battle nor had a blade?" I was utterly confused. "Then why do you appear so...dangerous?"
He laughed again. "Being a warrior isn't just skill in battle my friend. A warrior must be courteous, cunning, witty, and charming. Anyone can kill another man, but only a few can convince another man to die for him. Anyone can learn the best way to disarm his opponent, but it takes another skill to disarm him of his ideals. That, my friend, is a true warrior's skill."
"I guess that does make some sense. So how did you face those bandits in the East?"
"I learned the language of their land and recited the hymns of their people. They respected the pious and let me pass. As for the hilt, I persuaded the jeweler with some of my knowledge and trinkets. As for why I am here in this inn, I am on a different quest. Would you like to join me?"
A chance to join the greatest warrior on his greatest quest? Would I be foolish to not strike him down and take his blade? But then again, he had never lost his life or killed another man. He had always won every battle through his wits. "If I were to join you in your quest, what would I gain?"
He smiled. "A seat in my court, when I am crowned emperor of this land."
I looked at him again. I knew he was not a noble, nor a prince nor king. "Are you not royalty?
"You are correct. But I soon will be. I have many plans, and you are in them. Just imagine what the greatest and second greatest warrior could accomplish."
I looked down at my hilt, only the size of a pin now. I knew I could defeat the greatest warrior in the land, but then I would have no blade. "I suppose with the two of us, we can accomplish exactly that." I extended my hand towards his.
"Now begins the adventure of a lifetime and the beginning of a dynasty. You shall be remembered throughout history." His hand clasped in a firm embrace.
So began my time as the greatest warrior to the greatest emperor in history. There were no other equals, for I was his sword and he my liege. Both sword and mind were united against all.
|
I am Fuma, I live with my sword. It is not the largest of them, and that is good. I remember the time I yearned to get a narrower blade. It took my sweat and blood under years of training deep within the mountains. For this I got up at the break of dawn and slept only when the animals of the night went silent as well. Carrying mountain rock to build my hut and digging a channel down to get water. This, alongside years of training has made me a powerful samurai. Many people have come to my door to challenge me, with blades narrower than mine. These I beat and I learned from, taking their swords for my own and waiting for the next challenger to arrive.
One day I was drinking my tea when I hear the sound of footsteps, looking up I see a stranger, one in colours not of the local lords, nor of even the king. Yet they were much simpler, just brown and long, with clothe that hung loosely.
*Name yourself, and speak your purpose.*
*You may call me Mai of the Windu clan. I have come to see your skill and hope to refine mine.*
*Are you expecting me to reveal my secrets?*
*No, I am just here to prove my skill is better.*
*You challenge me then? A duel to the death.*
*That I do.*
I lead him to my garden, where we will fight, and where I shall be victorious once again. I pull out my sword, narrower than the edge of a paper. He takes out a stone, no. That is the hilt, but it is strange and has no blade attached. I blink. He makes no move. I charge and I see fire come from his blade.
We fight, but he is stronger. I run, but he is quicker. I must ask him when I beat him where I can get a sword so strong. But then he hits me and I fly backwards. I do not understand how it works at all. I had not been able to ask how he learned such swordsmanship. I am a disgrace.
----
Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear comments and constructive criticism. Also check out /r/Rietty for my other submissions in the future.
| 2015-02-25T14:17:28 | 2015-02-25T11:33:09 | 47 | 34 |
[WP] Whenever someone is born, the first sentence they utter predicts how they die. Lately every kid has been saying the same first sentence.
|
It was an amusing montage on YouTube at the beginning - 5 little cherubs in a row saying "fuck this shit". But then there were thousands all at once. The next most common was "I've had enough", and then "we're done here".
There was fear all over the world for the cataclysmic event that must surely be on the horizon. Scientists, philosophers, religious and political leaders, all tried to predict what the event might be. A weather event, related to climate change seemed unlikely; as did any other disaster outside human control, like an asteroid or invasion from another world. All of the first words seemed to point to a decision, or a resignation of sorts.
While the leaders of the world debated possible causes, a significant portion of the common people were already looking for a solution. "What does it matter what the cause is?" said a man in an oft-repeated sound byte. As is often the case in human history, while the experts debate the best course of action, there are always some who are ready to provide quick and easy answers.
The most common solution for the masses was to blame the children themselves. The "world enders", the " big quitters", or the "doom-sayers" must be the cause of the catastrophe! As word was getting around of younger children whose first words were all gibberish, it confirmed for many that the generation of Quitters was the cause of the impending apocalypse.
The next stage was the "great cleansing for humanity." The children, by this time around the age of 6, were taken from their parents, sometimes with their parents' consent, and killed, or in some cases merely maimed so that they could not speak. Much of humanity was repulsed by this movement and there was a counter movement for "humanity's soul". If we had to resort to such barbarism so save ourselves, they said, then we did not deserve to live. In the end a compromise was reached. The remaining Doom-sayers would be raised in special camps where their every need would be provided for. The children would want for nothing, but they would be unable to leave their compounds, or receive news of the outside world. In this way, they would be protected from harm, and would never have any reason to quit life. They would be taught only the most positive and encouraging parts of human history, and that the world outside viewed them with love and compassion.
Inevitably, however, some people still felt that if the truth about the world were to be so awful as to doom us, then we deserved what we got. Some information was smuggled into the compounds regarding world events, history, and the nature of the Doomsday Children themselves.
In the outside world. people hoped for the best. But each new child spoke only gibberish as their first words. As the years passed, people grew more and more nervous. Why had the compounds not changed their minds? Where were the new first words? Desperation soon took over once again. A reactionary movement rose up and made a coordinated attack against all the compounds at once. Walls were breached, most of the children were slaughtered, the lies they had been fed laid bare.
Those that remained were gathered together at a secure facility behind impregnable barriers. Elite military units guarded the inhospitable land for miles around. And then it happened: The Others arrived.
Three huge ships appeared in orbit of the planet. "This is it! This is the doom!" cried many. They were not far off. The Others declared that they would see to it that the people of the earth advanced rapidly in technology and social organization. But first, they must be unified in their desires and their support of each other. Each person on the earth over the age of 12 was simultaneously implanted with a device in their chest, containing a single button behind a protective cover. If 50% of the people pressed the button within the same 12 minute period, then the remaining 50% would be vaporized.
Many people began pressing their buttons immediately, and as often as possible. This nearly doomed 50% of humanity, but swift action by the worlds governments put an end to this. Button-pushing was declared a capital offense. Mobs formed and many people who had already pressed theirs were killed. Fear and bloodshed were everywhere for a time, until governments and religious leaders (who suddenly found the end-times less appealing) worked together to convince the populace that the best course of action was to never press the button and to work towards agreement and harmony.
As the alien ships continued to loom silently above, the Age of Harmony began. It was the most peaceful and egalitarian state that humanity as a whole had ever known. Crime was near 0, governments began to coalesce into great unions. It seemed that the aliens' plan was working. And it was. Only not in the way that humanity had hoped.
While governments instituted peace through increased control over every aspect of life, mass movements began to form underground. Mostly they were organized along old religious and political lines, but their goals were all the same. When the moment was right, and they had enough followers, they would all press the button at once. The first of these groups to come to light were smaller cults who had vastly over-estimated their own numbers. They were swiftly executed, but this only left the larger groups with a greater percentage. The group that finally succeeded was an alliance of Christian churches, only narrowly outnumbering the Muslim group. All at once, 50% of the adult population was wiped out.
As a new theocracy began to form, the old schisms inevitably showed themselves. Differences in doctrine and historical rivalries became intolerable. The button was used again, and then again, and again. As the population shrank, the likelihood of achieving a 50% majority increased. Within 4 years, entire continents were empty of people. The aliens helpfully shut down reactors, and prevented environmental disasters, but did nothing to stop the slaughter. As all government collapsed, people began pressing their buttons as often as they could, not knowing which group was prevailing. Most died in their sleep.
All over the world were children without caretakers, other than older children. When finally the Doom-children turned 13, they too were given buttons. At this time, however, the aliens declared that humanity had obviously failed as a civilization, and if 50% of the people pressed the button, then all button-carriers would be vaporized.
The Doom-children gathered outside one day and looked about at the desolate land, and considered their dwindling supplies. They all agreed, and within an instant, all were dust.
One day later, the Others landed. They gathered the remaining children of humanity and told them that they would be a part of a new civilization. They would be given access to all of the Others' technology, and when they were strong enough, if they were worthy, they would be invited to join the Interstellar Union as an independent world. They explained that it was they who had caused the First-word prophesies. It was the first test, which humanity had failed. The second was the buttons, and again they were filled with sorrow at what they saw. Now they would teach them all to speak in their language, which sounded like gibberish to the humans, and how to live in harmony.
|
I anxiously waited for my daughters first words. I kept a small journal that detailed everything I've done with her. Nightly readings, exposure to music, and educational television shows from when I was growing up. Everything to prepare my daughter for when she spoke.
"Come on, Eternity," I whispered. I had bee. Hopefully when I named my daughter. All I wanted for her was forever. She'll never meet her father, who died in a freak accident... but she'll have me and I'll give her the best of everything.
My mom told me my first sentence had been "my eighty day." So I know my life would be long. My husband said his parents told him his first sentence was "sea leggy car." And his freak accident was getting strangled by an octopus that jumped from a semi into his car.
My daughter gave a soft coo and her face scrunched up. Her eyes glowed and I knew it was now. I grabbed my pen and encouraged. "Let it come girl, there you go, smile and tell mama." I poised my pen as she stuttered and gave a soft whine.
"Mm, mmm, aah, mm" She struggled a bit but as the power tool hold her face cleared.
"What is it baby, tell mama." I said sweetly.
"S-s-sleep hot soon."
I barely registered the words I wrote down, but as the magic left and her face cleared I stared in horror. I'd seen these words pop up often recently in baby groups not to mention the news. It has many of us worried and scared to the point of quarantine ourselves and children, since others translate it as their babies dying of fever in their sleep.
I called my pediatrician.
"Hello Anna, how is Eternity?" She responded sweetly.
"Sleep hot soon. She said sleep hot soon." I blurted out.
"Have you taken her put at all?" The pediatrician asked urgently.
"She hasn't been in contact with anyone but me, and I've rarely left the house at all." I responded.
"This phenomenon can't be a coincidence... all the babies born in the year 2718 have uttered it, and it's only the one's born in 2718..." My daughter was born the last day in December, new year's eve.
I picked up my daughter whose cherubic face was peaceful in sleep.
"We doctor's have planned a study for the thousands of children born throughout that year to try and pinpoint the correlating factors. We'll try to limit their exposure as much as possible."
I considered it and nodded.
"The study will start in twenty seven twenty." The doctor commented. "We'll pay the way for you and your child and get the answers we all seek."
| 2021-12-23T10:25:25 | 2021-12-23T08:37:09 | 53 | 35 |
[WP] Every human receives an envelope, and the choice to open it or keep it sealed. Enclosed within it is your death date. You open yours only to find it's blank.
|
The Administrator held the envelope before him in offering. A second later, he shook it slightly, as if to emphasize that it was being offered, not displayed.
Seth continued leaning on his doorframe, looking bored and slightly irritated. Somewhere in Seth's apartment, a televised laugh track seemed to find the situation hilarious.
"Well, go on... Aren't you curious?" The Administrator said, beginning to wonder if he'd gotten another catatonic case. He was starting to think his supervisor had singled him out for something and was giving him more crazies than the others.
In a manner that suggested great physical effort, Seth accepted the envelope. He did not bring it reverently before his face as the openers invariably did, nor did he clutch it to his busom protectively, as the closers always did. He only let his arm fall limp, the envelope pinned loosely between thumb and forefinger.
"K." Seth said. "We done here? Is tipping customary?"
The Administrator's voice took on a deep, practiced resonance. "Will you open, and reveal the *truth*... or leave it sealed and live in blissful--"
Seth held his free hand up "Hey, buddy. Listen, you don't have to go through the whole routine. I've seen it on TV. Do you really have to know if I'm planning to open it right now?"
The Administrator, frustrated, held up a clipboard. On it was clamped three sheets of paper, the topmost featured a recent photo of Seth along with some basic data and a simple form, partially completed. "I gotta check a box."
"Fine, I'll open it." Seth tore the envelope apart with a casualness that shocked the Administrator. He'd seen people weep, some ran, some fought. But he'd never seen someone so...detached from the outcome.
Seth held the card that had been in the envelope out to The Administrator like he might offer a credit card. "See? Blank."
The Administrator's eyes nearly fell from his head. "I've never seen anything like that before! It must mean..."
"It doesn't mean anything. None of that stuff does for me."
"what do you mean?" The Administrator said.
Seth rolled his eyes and paused, deciding whether or not to tell the tale or shut the door. "Okay, you know how everyone gets an amulet at birth, and it glows whenever a person is near their soulmate?"
"Of course," The Administrator said, remembering how his amulet had glowed when he first met Connie.
"Well, mine glows all the time. Always has," as he said this, he pulled the artifact from his shirt, proving that it was currently glowing. "And you know how everyone has a digital readout on their hip that counts down to the moment of their most important life event? Mine counts up, I'll never get there. Or, you know how everyone is born with a tattoo that changes when they turn sixteen and reveals what kind of super power they're going to get? Mine was blank."
"Blank! That's impossible!" The Administrator said.
Seth dropped the card and envelope and without a second thought, turned and lowered his sweat pants to reveal a tattoo on his right cheek. Sure enough, it was only an ornate ring with nothing inside. Nothing.
"That's terrible! How do you get along?"
"Eh, I do okay. Most of the super powers are shit, to be honest. Doubt the world would last long if *everyone* was an X-man."
"I like *mine*." The Administrator said, a little defensively.
"What is it?"
"I'm *completely* immune to sarcasm."
Seth chuckled, "I take it back, then. You clearly have the most useful superpower ever."
"Thank you." The Administrator said, puffing a little in pride. "Most people don't see the point like you."
Seth kicked the card and it slid across the linoleum hallway. "Where do you guys get those anyway?"
The Administrator thought a moment, "I get a stack every morning on my desk."
"Yeah, but where do those come from?"
"Oh," The Administrator said, realizing his error, "Meghan brings them around to everyone, bright and early."
"That's not what I mean. Where do they come from originally?"
"A van brings a few cases every week. They also bring the Love Amulets, Nemesis Rings and *once* they brought one of the nose rings that mark the Ultimate Ruler of the World."
"Yeah, that was me too. I got it in the bathroom if you want it back, the piercing got infected pretty badly so I don't wear it."
"Give it back?! That ring represents the power do do whatever you wish!"
"Didn't work. Look, when I was a kid, all those things really seemed important because I liked to fantasize that there was something special about me--that I was bound for greatness. But none of them did anything. You wanna know why?"
The Administrator took a tentative step back, "I'm not sure I want to know."
Seth ignored his reluctance, "People aren't born with greatness or uniqueness or destiny. That's just a bullshit fantasy. Every single person is a random collection of statistics, and everything after that is up to us. *Significance* is chance, luck, time and dedication, stuff everyone is born with."
"That's terrible!" The Administrator said.
"No. It's kind of wonderful if you think about it. Everyone likes to imagine that they'll pull the golden ticket like me, but in reality most people get old and end up with sarcasm immunity or something. So they tend to assume they aren't meant for anything amazing, but it isn't true because everyone has chance, luck, time and dedication. They can even use as much of the last two as they want."
"I'd never thought about it like--You have a Golden Ticket?"
"I have four. Never saw so much as a single free bar of chocolate, though. Another scam."
"Oh," The Administrator said, crestfallen. He'd always dreamed of finding one. "Say..."
"What?" Seth said.
The Administrator bent low, retrieving the now-dusty card from the floor. "Your card, it was printed on the wrong side. See?"
He handed the card to Seth a second time. This time Seth read it more closely. The front said YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO OPEN. THE FATEFUL DATE IS REVEALED: And below that, nothing. He turned the card over, and discovered a date printed in a small, tidy font. It was *today's date*.
"Well, would you look at--
|
You see, each human at their birth date (if they are to survive for that long) is handed an envelope. Plain and white, the size of a postcard, this envelope contained the date of their departure from this world. Some used what little life they would have left to say goodbye to loved ones, others convinced themselves of immortality, not knowing of the consequences. But this human, he was different. He was shy, unassuming, boring and normal in almost all aspects. However, there was something about him that made me interested.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was morning. My 18th birthday. I wasn't particularly looking forward to this day. My parents died in a car crash before I was born, and I was lucky to survive. I was bounced between foster parents, short term facilities, even the police at times. By this point I should have enough money to live on my own, but most of that went to paying off debts. I stared at the envelope for a second. I teared and shredded the envelope.
"What?"
I held the paper to the sunlight. "This must be a mistake?" I thought. I turned over the paper. My heart dropped, as the paper fell to the ground.
Blank.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There were no thoughts. What thoughts could console him? Answer him? Give him advice for his immortality? A tear rolled down his left cheek. He thought of how Aunt Meg described his mother, his father, the life he could have had.
"Come on, let's go," the foster house warden ordered. He wiped the tear and finished packing thew last of his things. As he stared at the blank piece of paper, he stuffed it back into the envelope and into his duffel bag. *Immortal*, he thought.
He was led out the house into the heat that was Phoenix. "Hey!" the warden screamed. He turned around. The warden reached into his back pocket and handed him $50. "Good luck, son," the warden wished. "Thanks" he replied.
*Immortal*
| 2017-06-03T17:12:40 | 2017-06-03T14:25:31 | 29 | 17 |
[WP] When humanity enters the intergalactic stage, they find that the other intergalactic species have never successfully formed a unified galactic alliance, like many of Earth’s science fiction writings had predicted. Rather, humanity becomes one of its founding members.
|
Several high-pitched whines and low gurgling filled the room as various weapons were activated and aimed.
The ornate robot, unarmed, turned towards the human ambassador: "You better have a good excuse to put us and these... Savages, in the same room."
A series of beastly noises came in response, followed by the translator: "The envoy will not stand to hear such disrespect!"
The ambassador stood in the middle of the room, his brow glistening with sweat, he held out both of his arms to either side, attempting to calm both parties: "Please, this is the closest you've come to achieving peace. I ask that you lay down your weapons and sit at the table. I am sorry to have brought both of you here under false pretenses, but it was the only way you would enter the same room."
The Nurian envoy sat down. "I am willing to hear you out, human. Just remember that if I die here, my empire will crush you."
"I am well aware. Envoy Khu'Raaz, will you please join us?"
The Wilox envoy, who resembled a frog man with fangs, approached the table, an intimidating look on his face. He spoke, and the translator soon followed: "I trust that you remember that condition applies to me as well, human."
"Of course."
And with that, all three of the ambassadors sat at the table.
"Now, we understand that this conflict began because of Nurian aggression?"
"That's correct. We took EYR-2, by your designation. There was a mineral on that planet which would allow great advances in our technology."
"And the Wilox empire took offense to that because?" the human turned to Khu'Raaz.
"That system is on our border and has significant tactical importance. That mineral he's talking about would allow the Nurians to build a stronger army, and it would be right at our doorstep. We had to strike preemptively."
"I see. Is that correct?"
"Yes." The Nurian answered.
"Alright. Now, I would like to know why you don't want to make peace."
"Too many have died. We can not let their deaths be in vain."
Khu'Raaz responded similarly.
"I see. Well, on Earth we call that the 'sunk costs' fallacy. That happens when a person has spent too many resources on something to leave it. However, if the person keeps going, odds are they're going to lose even more for the slim chance of winning."
"Say we agree on that, the people won't see it in that way."
"Earth is going for more than a ceasefire. We will forge an alliance."
Both ambassadors scoffed.
"Khu'Raaz, most worlds containing vast amounts of this mineral are inhospitable to your species, are they not?"
"That's true."
"And the Nurians can terraform these planets to accommodate you?"
"Once we're done mining, yes." The Nurian envoy confirmed.
"Great. So that's one avenue of trade. Khu'Raaz, the farms manufacturing your food give out a lot of heat that can become hazardous to you, and that is why you can't operate them at full capacity, is that true?"
"Yes."
"Both the Nurians and Humans can convert this heat to energy necessary to them, and it would cool these farms down enough so that you can operate them at a higher capacity. Would that be agreeable to you both?"
"I see no problem with this." The Nurian answered.
"If the Nurians can be trusted, this could strengthen both of our empires tremendously. The Wilox demand insurance that they will not be betrayed."
"That brings me to the last thing I wanted to discuss with you." The Human ambassador said, putting a satchel on the table.
"We have weapons that can wipe out populations in seconds. They have been used 4 times, by humans, on humans. Their effects are devastating. We will lock all of them away on a planet far away from all of our homeworlds. To open this safe will require confirmation codes from all members of the alliance except for one. If one faction turns against the alliance, the remaining members may unlock the weapons and destroy the betraying faction. Mutually assured destruction, leaving diplomacy as the only way to get what you want. This satchel, of course, does not hold these weapons, but they are about this size." The Ambassador pulled tablets out of the satchel and handed them to each of the envoys.
"On these there are the documents detailing the alliance, translated to your native languages. Take them to your leaders, we expect an answer within two twelfths of a rotation of our home planet around the sun of its solar system. There are countdowns attached for your convenience. When they reach zero, you will have to give us your answer. If you do not, we will come back here and discuss the terms again. Are we all in agreement?"
Both envoys replied affirmatively and left the room, evidently threatened by the seemingly puny human.
He wiped the water away from his forehead and called earth to report about the meeting.
***Roll Credits***
Thank you for reading my entry! Constructive criticism is always welcome and appreciated!
Edit: Some formatting errors.
|
"Look at these losers, they want to eat dinner with us?" Korak, the Plimsy said.
"We are a great nation of Plimsies," Lula replied, "Let us be open to these new pilgrims. They have come to learn about our customs and they have promised us peace."
"I'll give it 156 years until they start trying to write their own constitution and less than a hundred years after that for them to travel across our land claiming that everything is theirs."
"Korak, you're being pessimistic," Lula replied, shaking her head.
At that moment, their son, Mubibee came to them. "Father, mother, they come with gifts. They want us to eat turkey and corn with them."
Korak rolled his eyes.
"You hear that Lula? These losers want us to eat turkey and corn with them."
| 2017-12-04T23:54:19 | 2017-12-04T22:20:09 | 128 | 16 |
[WP] You possess an ability to turn off one or more of your senses to heighten the others. Today is the day you make a mistake.
|
I discovered my ability when I was young. It's sort of... How do I describe it? Imagine your brain is your house. It can suck in a certain amount of power. You have everything turned on and it's running pretty well. Go down to the basement, find your way into the back room and you have the fuse box. I guess it's more like a breaker box, the kind with the switches. So now you're faced with all these switches that can turn things on and off. If you turn off one, a little bit more power goes to everything else. Here's the problem. The asshole who had my brain before me, thanks baby me, didn't think to label any of the switches. Some were pretty intuitive, but a lot took trial and error. I've got the five main senses pretty well locked down at this point. The rest I've pretty much left alone for fear that I'll stop my breathing or something.
Tonight, I'll need all the help I can get. It's my big chance. I get to the nightclub around six to start setting up and practicing. It gets time to practice. My sax has a beautiful shine to it, as always. Yeah. I'm feeling it tonight. Already the smell of the club is putting me in the right mood. As the people file in, the room starts to fill with a soft smoke. The taste of the smoke in the air mixes with my whiskey. That flavor really inspires me. My fingers glide along the keys as I gracefully blow a slow and soulful tune. Yeah. This will be a good night.
Bart, the lead singer, comes over and tells me that because tonight's something special, we're going to be playing a few special songs. I don't know any of these. Shit. I'm going to have to play by sheet. I hate that. Wait. I need my smell and taste for inspiration. I need my touch to know where my hands are. I need my sight to read the music and I definitely need my sense of hearing. *gulp* I'm going to be switching blind.
The time has come for us to play seriously. I finish my drink. I'm really nervous and I need to calm down. Alright. I guess I'll turn... This off. I'm still alive. I don't notice anything wrong. Alright. This is fine. I'm good. Yeah. What? SHIT! The rest of the band started! No, no, all my notes are coming off just a little wrong! I turned off my sense of timing!
"I'm sorry about that. I'm just a little nervous. Just start again. I'll get it." Turn that back on. I can't play with no sense of time. Alright. Here goes nothing. Still standing. Let's start playing. Yeah. Yeah, no, this sounds good. Alright. Yeah, this fine. Everything's a little keyed up, I can really feel it all flowing, yeah, this is fantastic!
Played a few songs, the audience seems to be digging us. Alright. We're off of new material and onto one of our favorites. This will give me a little more freedom. I think I'll walk around a little, really get into the groo-ooh-ow! Ah-ha-ha-ha-how... What the hell happened? How did I fall off the stage? Oh. I turned off my sense of direction. Nothing's broken. The sax is fine, thank God. That'll have to go back on. I'll flip the next.
I need to get back on stage and keep playing. But man I'm thirsty. Hey, abandoned glass! "What the hell are you doing? I was just about to bus that. The glass was filthy." Hmm. I think I turned off my common sense. Maybe that's fine. You know, probably not. I'll leave everything on for now. I need to get back up there and start playing.
OK. Playing. Getting a good jazzy rhythm. But it could be better. I'll throw the next switch. Yeah? I'm good. I don't feel like drinking a cigarette. My timing is on key. I'll walk around a bit. I still have my sense of direction. Balance too, that's a bonus. This one. This one will work. *"What are you doing, man? Back off of me! There something wrong with you tonight?"* Whoops. Sense of personal space. That's fine, though. That's fine.
I can do this. Just need to find the right switch. Find the right groove. Here we go. Again. Alright. New song, I don't know this one. I won't be walking around for it. I shouldn't even be playing it. I shouldn't even be here. I'm terrible. I keep SCREWING UP EVERYTHING! Nothing I do is right! Maybe, maybe, maybe I should just walk away. Hock the saxophone, start BEGGING ON THE STREET! It's not like I'm good enough for anything else...
Oh god, my sense of self worth is way more important than I thought. The gig is almost done. I'll just go without knocking anything else off. It's too dangerous at this point. I think I've blown it for us already as it is. The best thing that came of this is I have a lot more of my senses labeled.
Last song. Big finish. It's dangerous, but I need to go out strong. I'm switching one more. Alright. Here I go. Yeah. YEAH! This is great! I can't remember the last time I sounded this good! Oh, yes. Rocky start, but I finished strong. That's what people will remember. Good. Now time to pack up. "Hey, man. That was pretty good." Bart gives me a slap on the back. So THAT switch was sense of balance.
(Hey guys, thanks for reading this if you did. I kind of rushed it through, so I'm sorry if it feels clunky. I'm considering actually following this up later, hopefully with a little more thought behind it. I'm thinking this ability might be shared by the whole family, so there would be room for a story about the mother, son, and daughter yet, or whatever family members I figure on writing a story about. I want to thank you again for reading through this, and I hope you enjoyed it.)
|
David claims I must have sold my soul to the devil for this device strapped on my wrist, but I actually found it in a garbage at Burger King.
Who in their right mind would throw this thing away? It's the best thing I've ever seen. Siren going on outside my window at 2am? Sound off. Eating some super-healthy, but super-disgusting kale? Taste off. My favorite? Turning off the pain when I gave birth. I laughed the whole time. Everyone thought I was insane.
Now the baby's a few weeks old, and for the past few days, it's just been baby Alison and me; David's on some boring business trip. I'm exhausted. After putting Alison to bed, I curl up on the bed, the TV flickering in blues and greens behind me. My eyes flutter shut, and I can barely move...
"WAAAAAAAAHHH!!"
No... be quiet...
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!"
I can barely lift my face off the mattress. My arms wiggle, attempting to hoist myself up. I'm half asleep; my thoughts are muddled.
"WAAAAAAH!!!"
Like a reflex, I press the button for sound. Silence envelopes me, and I slip into sleep.
***
I wake up. It's light out. Disoriented, I look around. All is silent.
I glance at my wrist. The "sound" button is flashing.
Oh, no, no.
I turn sound back on. Silence. No, please no. Vague memories of the night before flood back into my head. I run to the nursery, tripping and wobbling, terrified at what I will find. My arms shaking, my hand sweaty against the knob, I open the door.
Alison is sleeping peacefully.
I take off the device and throw it in the garbage, tears streaming down my face.
| 2016-08-24T12:15:40 | 2016-08-24T11:45:26 | 14 | 10 |
[WP] Try as you might, it is impossible to deny it any longer: that's definitely a cow.
|
The field on the far side of town had always been Sophie's favorite hangout spot. The place had once been an enclosure for a dairy farm, but when the recession hit, the owners had taken everything and left - except for a half dozen cows they couldn't afford to transport.
The neighbors had taken turns caring for the cows, but eventually, one by one, they each dropped off, until there was no one left to the task.
Except Sophie. The field became a second home to her, and the cows, a second family. She dragged her friends out there four times a week. She fixed up the fences, cleaned up the barn out back, and pretended to know how to take care of the grass. She ate lunch there, held parties in the barn, and hung out with the cows till dark. Most nights she came home smelling like grass, dust, and cow.
Most of those times, her little sister, Liz, had come along, too.
Now, two weeks after the accident, staring at the field from the fence on the far end of the property, Liz didn't know what to think of it.
Liz had come out here on a whim. The house had felt too empty, too quiet, but most other places were too loud. Everywhere she went felt stifling, like they were judging her no matter what she did. Like everyone around her had expected her to be sad, but the *right amount* of sad, not too much or too little, or else they'd be annoyed. Or disappointed.
She'd decided to take a walk without any particular destination in mind, and an hour's meandering had led her here. Staring at a field in baggy sweats.
It felt wrong, being here without her. Like she was intruding on someone else's property.
But that was ridiculous. Nobody really owned the field, and Liz had spent almost as much time out here as her sister. It was as much her place as anyone else's.
Four cows sat in the shade under a tree. One of them noticed her, and the herd came curiously trotting over. She knew all their names. The taller brown one was very creatively named Brownie. The smaller of the two brown cows had been named Jimmy by one of Sophie's friends, before she'd realized that all the cows were girls. The black one was named Bean, after the dog they had when they were kids. And the last one, the black and white one with the cut in its ear was named... Sophie. Because Sophie had cut her ear, too, in a mishap involving scissors when she was younger.
"Hey, gang," Liz said weakly. It was the first she'd really spoken in two days. Brownie leaned over the fence, and licked her hand. The rest of them watched curiously as she stood quietly, burying her hands in her sweater pocket.
"Sorry," she said. "I don't have anything for you today."
They didn't seem to get it, but after a couple minutes, the cows, bored, returned to their place under the tree. All but one - the black and white cow. Sophie.
She seemed to stare at Liz with an uncomfortable intensity. Liz frowned and stared back.
"Go back to your friends, S-sophie," she said. "I don't have anything for you."
Sophie huffed.
"Don't be like that." Liz leaned against the fence. "I told you already."
Sophie nudged her arm.
"Stop that."
Sophie grabbed Liz's hand with her mouth, and started pulling her over the fence.
"Hey! Stop! Ow!"
Liz tried pulling back, only to realize that she was a lot weaker than an 800 pound cow. With a kick of dust, she fell over the fence shoulder-first.
"Sophie!" she screamed through a mouthful of dirt. "What the hell?"
Sophie flashed a look at her that... seemed a lot like a smirk.
But it couldn't be. It was a cow. Cows didn't *smirk*.
"What do you *want* from me, Sophie? I don't get you."
The cow started walking away.
"Wait, wait, what the heck? Where are you going?"
Sophie turned her head, briefly, and then kept going, Liz stood, dusted some of the dirt off her sweats, and followed.
"You freakin' flip me over a fence, and now you're just walking away? Sophie! Come back!"
Liz followed the cow to the far edge of the property, where there was a hole in the fence. That was new. Sophie - the human Sophie, that is - had always been meticulous about keeping the fence repaired.
"Hey," Liz shouted. "Come back!"
The cow slipped through the hole in the fence. Liz blanched.
"No, no, no, no, *no*!" She sprinted after the animal, which became harder and harder to do as Sophie began to pick up speed. Soon Liz was dying for breath trying to keep up, as Sophie galloped away through the grass. The sun beat down on her neck, and she was deeply regretting wearing sweats that day. The stupid animal was going to kill her through heat exhaustion.
Eventually, mercifully, the cow slowed down.
"Sophie!" Liz managed between breaths. "Slow! Down!"
Sophie had stopped by a river. She turned to glance at Liz, and then began to drink.
"Sophie," Liz said, tired and in a foul mood. "Come here."
The cow kept drinking.
"Come. Here."
Her words went unheeded. Liz clenched her fists.
"Sophie! Come *on*! I'm not in the mood!"
The cow flicked its tail, and turned around, and for a moment it looked like it might listen to her. Then it went back to drinking.
"Agh!" Liz screamed. "What the *hell*, Sophie? Why do you *never* listen to me?"
Sophie snorted, and then something snapped in Liz. It all came pouring out at once.
"You NEVER listened to me! It was always just one big joke to you, wasn't it? You thought it was *funny*? God, if you had just listened, just *once*, you stupid, stupid idiot, you might still be alive!"
Liz froze with tears in her eyes. She suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe.
Sophie turned around and approached her with her head laid low.
"Oh god," Liz said through blurred eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm still so mad at you, but I'm sorry."
Sophie stood quietly by.
"I didn't mean to say that," Liz said. "It - it just -"
Sophie listened patiently as Liz tried to come up with the words she had buried deep inside.
"You were my hero, you know?"
Sophie nodded, ever so slightly.
"And I know you loved me," Liz sniffled. "I do. But I wanted more than that, you know?"
Sophie glanced up curiously.
"I wanted you to respect me. I didn't wanna just be your kid sister forever. I wanted you to treat me like an adult. And I thought I was getting there, and then - and then you just went and left me. Forever. And that's not fair!"
She was shouting now and she wasn't quite sure why.
"I put all this effort in, and now you're just gone! And I know that's selfish and I know what everyone would say about that, but it mattered to me! And now I'm alone and Mom and Dad don't even know how to *talk* to me anymore! They don't even try! I know they're sad, but *I'm* sad too, and it's like they don't even care!"
The tears were flowing freely at this point.
"I miss you, Sophie," she mumbled. "I miss you."
Liz sat down on the grass, and shut her eyes, as if that might make the bad feelings go away. For a while she cried, until, after what felt like an eternity, the tears dried up, and there was nothing left to cry.
And then something nudged her arm. She opened her eyes.
Sophie licked the side of her head.
"Hey," Liz complained, wiping off her face, and rubbing at her eyes.
The cow looked different, somehow, now.
"I'm sorry," Liz said. "I don't know why I said all that."
The cow licked her again.
"Hey!" she said, laughing. "Stop that!"
The two stared at each other for a bit.
"You're not really her, are you, Sophie?" Liz asked.
The cow stared blankly back at her.
And then, try as she might, it seemed impossible to deny it any longer.
"You don't really know what I'm saying, do you?"
The cow mooed.
"You're just a cow, aren't you?"
It plopped itself on the grass beside her, and dropped its head in her lap. Gently, she petted it, rubbing long strokes down its back. Its hair was dirty and matted in several places, but along the groove, it was smooth as silk. The river gurgled as a gentle breeze blew.
They sat together like that for a couple hours, until the sun finally set, and the crickets were out and chirping happily. Liz smelled of grass, and dust, and cow.
"D'you wanna go home?"
The cow mooed.
"Okay," she said. "Let's go home."
|
The semitruck mostly drove itself.
Harold sat in the driver's seat, watching the steering wheel twist on his own, and it felt like watching his own job disappear right in front of him. Most of the jobs were automated now, but commercial driving was hit extra hard. Ever since the Lightroad tech went mainstream, drivers became whatever low-wage idiot with a good grasp of basic robot-repair could be a warm body in the truck, just to fix it if something went awry.
His boss liked to say, "Harold, you're one technological breakthrough from early retirement, buddy," and Harold would always laugh like that wasn't sort of threatening.
Harold turned another page in his book and sighed.
It was a dark night on an empty prairie. Harold had driven this stretch of farmland plenty of times in his career, once even before automated driving got really big. It was a grim patch between somewhere and nowhere, but it was almost nice when you could drive it yourself. Watching a robot drive through miles of nothing was about as exciting as watching crayons melt.
But then that's when he saw it. There, in the road. It was a smudge of white in the headlights.
Harold frowned and took off his reading glasses. He folded them and stuffed them in the front pocket of his plaid shirt and rested his hand in anticipation on the emergency brake. He'd get a note in his file if he interfered with the driving AI without good reason, but he was itching to feel useful. When was the last time he felt useful? It was weird being a sidekick to a truck.
The shape got clearer. He could see it now clearly: a cow. Black and white spots, like a milk company logo.
It just stared at his headlights.
*"That's weird*," Harold thought. "*Why isn't it moving?*"
The cow just stood there, not even blinking. It was only then, with the semitruck's AI carrying them blindly forward, that Harold realized that the cow's eyes didn't reflect the light.
The AI's automatic brakes started, and Harold became useless again. The truck slowed itself to a stop.
Definitely a cow. And yet--
Harold felt sick and confused. The cow wasn't moving because it wasn't *alive*. It was a flat board with a huge photo-quality print of a cow on it. He could see that now, but the AI couldn't see. The truck AI only saw an obstruction in the road.
The dashboard told him: "ANIMAL IN THE ROAD -- YIELDING"
Harold looked at his side mirrors and saw something else the AI didn't.
Two people in all-black, creeping out of the field. Harold could see dark shapes in their hands. Guns or knives, maybe. Whatever they had, they definitely meant trouble.
The cow in the road must have been a trap. A trick for the AI's automatic stopping system.
Harold gripped the gear shift and yanked it into manual driver mode. The dashboard said, "EMPLOYER STRONGLY DISCOURAGES ENGAGING MANUAL MODE EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF MEDICAL EMERGENCY -- PROCEED?"
Harold thought of his boss. The look of stupid shock on his face when he realized that Harold had done what the AI couldn't do.
Someone knocked at the window. Harold saw a man's face, pale under a ski mask, with his gun pressed to the glass. He motioned for Harold to open the door.
Harold was dizzy with fear, but he refused to show it. "Hang on," Harold said, trying to make his hand gestures dramatic. "System's all jammed up."
He smacked the YES on the dashboard.
The truck's engine roared through the steering wheel. He gripped it, tightly.
It didn't matter, really, if they stole everything. There was a good amount of tech on the truck, sure, but mostly boxes and boxes of walmart clothes. But Harold had something to prove. His life was important. His work was important. *He* was important.
He wasn't just a warm body in a truck, one good algorithm away from being out of a job.
Harold tapped at the dash to bring up the front camera, then threw himself down out of sight of the window and slammed the gas. He watched through the camera as the truck groaned into action. An older model, like the one he started learning on, probably wouldn't have made it. But the improved hydraulics made the semitruck lurch only for a handful of seconds before it surged forward.
The front windshield shattered as the masked strangers shot at him, making his ears ring, but Harold watched the road as well as he could until he yanked the truck around the corner and was out of sight.
He whooped and clapped, his hands shaking. He couldn't believe he was still alive.
But he couldn't wait to see the look on his boss's face when Harold told him what he'd done. What no AI could ever do.
\---
Thank you for reading! first story here so I hope it's okay :)
| 2021-04-20T01:38:36 | 2021-04-20T00:32:47 | 33 | 21 |
[WP] As it turns out Humans weren’t the only intelligent life, instead they were just the first. They explored the universe and helped many budding civilizations until one day they just disappeared completely. You are an alien historian who decided to find out what happened, these are your findings.
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**Extinction Report**
*Investigator:* Tril Kor Tal
*Subject Species:* Humanity
*Species Aliases:* Homo sapiens, The Teachers, The First Ones
*Conclusion:* Inconclusive. See analysis.
*****
**Analysis**
Allow me to begin with an apology. This report is based largely on conjecture. There can be no objectivity in this analysis. As a result I prefer to give my thoughts on the matter.
These reports usually discuss the extinction of extremophile bacteria or hardy algae on worlds inhospitable to complex life. Rarely, a semi-intelligent species on a habitable planet will vanish. This is often due to catastrophe, be it from stellar radation, meteor impact, or tectonic displacement. Occasionally, it is due to attack by spacefaring races, in which case the Galactic Order must take action against the guilty species. This case is then doubly unusual. Not only is the species in question fully sentient, but I have found little evidence of catastrophe. In fact, given the wide spread of humanity across the galaxy, it is unlikely that any one catastrophe could have wiped them out.
But, as the news programs have been loudly proclaiming for the last dozen cycles, the humans are gone. On every inhabited planet in the galaxy, their embassies are empty. The teachers at their schools have abandoned their classes. Their medical staff have left their non-human peers to cope.
More troubling still, over the course of this investigation I have visited the human core habitations and found them empty as well. The moon colony at Lalande, the artificial planet at Kapteyn, the multi-planet consortium at Feynman: all are vacant. There is even no evidence of humanity in their birth system, Sol. Their birth planet, Earth, a world-city with a population of 24 billion, is empty.
If you'll allow me this sidebar, let me say that I cannot properly describe the scene when I descended to the Earth's surface. The familiar constructions are there still. The galaxy's first space fountain. The planet core sapper. The antigrav megadrone. The solar net. Not only are these still intact, but being fully automated as they are, they're still in operation.
So I came down to what appeared to be a world-city bustling with life, but the streets were empty. The buildings, many of them still lit up, gaped vacantly. I was reminded of the eyes of a brainless creature.
But allow me to discuss the theories being thrown about on the news.
First of all, the talk of civil war is absurd. Nowhere is there evidence of military destruction. All cities I've seen are intact. Their military emplacements in space remain undamaged and fully stocked with weapons and vessels. But there should be no need for this type of evidence, as a civil war that drew in teachers and doctors could never have gone unnoticed by the rest of us in the galaxy. Such a war would have lasted decacycles and resulted in massive collateral damage on non-human planets.
Another theory is the singularity. Some are suggesting that humanity has transcended physical existence. There are those who say this was done through quantum computation, while others believe it was a supernatural phenomenon. This theory is less easy to debunk. However, let me point out that there are no human bodies anywhere. A supernatural phenomenon that eliminated the physical would be contradictory, while a computational method would face a similar problem. Either the humans invested a huge effort into automatically destroying their bodies as they transitioned, or it did not happen. I lean in the direction of it not happening, but I cannot say for sure.
The same issue regarding bodies does away with the plague theory. Had a plague wiped out humanity, the rest of the galaxy would have heard of it. There would be people fled in all directions looking for quarantine. There would have been calls for medical aid. And, as I say, there would be bodies. I can say with some certainty that it was not infection that did the humans in.
The theory I hold is one that I can't fully explain. It's more of a feeling, and it requires that I discuss my perception of human psychology. There is much conjecture ahead, and those of my readers who prefer concrete evidence may wish to skip to the appendix of images, videos, and data that my team has gathered on the human core worlds.
Those of us in the species that know humanity well have always known that the humans are flawed in a way that no other species is.
Their flaw is this: Humanity is incapable of sustained happiness.
A happy human is a human who just recently acquired or accomplished something. But the human is too adaptable. After only a few days, or even hours, of happiness, they acclimatize to their new norm and they look around and they ask themself why they don't have more, why they haven't achieved more, why there were ever happy with what they have, and why they aren't already taking steps to get more. It is a tragic, defining feature of their species.
Because while it is a flaw, I believe their inability to be happy, and the resulting need to always look ahead and always do more, is what led to their being the First Ones. So many of the sentient species in the galaxy achieved some level of toolmaking and technology before the humans, but were then happy to remain as they were. Only the humans, desperately chasing some impossible quality of life, kept pushing and pushing. Only humans looked to the stars before they'd learned to fly.
So what is it that I think happened to the humans? I think they got tired, or bored, or upset, and they moved on.
Impossible, you say. How could billions and billions of humans reach this same conclusion all at once. To that I say, you may be right. It's unlikely. But then so is the vanishing of those same billions and billions.
So, have the humans all died? I don't believe so. They are too clever and too desperate to live.
What I believe is that one day, as a species, they looked around and they asked themselves why they were ever happy with this galaxy, with this role they played as our teachers. They asked themselves these questions and they didn't have any good answers. So they left.
Anyone looking to find the humans should look beyond the Milky Way. Maybe they're just now arriving at Andromeda. Maybe they've gone further still.
My hope is that, wherever they've gone and whatever's happened to them, they do some day find the happiness they're looking for. They've earned it.
*****
*author’s note: i normally prefer to write stories with dialogue and more character interaction. please let me know if you thought this story was boring without that sort of stuff.*
*r/TravisTea*
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The undulating crowd fell silent the moment I ascended the podium. Other than the gentle hum of the engine pulsing outside the window, not a sound could be heard.
I shuffled my notes and stared at the stars glimmering above my head. Looked like Qaar had finally gotten around to installing the transparent ceiling in the auditorium. I would have to thank him after my presentation.
If I wasn't fielding questions for the next millennia, that is.
"Thank you everyone for gathering here today," I began. "I know you all have been dying to hear my findings regarding the fate of humanity, and I thank you for your patience. However, my research has yielded quite alarming results, so I've been working around the clock perfecting this announcement to avoid causing undue panic. For this reason, I'm asking you all politely to save your questions and comments until the end of my presentation."
I tapped my fingers on the podium, doing my best to ignore the ball of anxiety growing in my stomach.
"Being a Kaal of few words, I've decided to stick strictly to the facts. There will be plenty of time to interpret and opine about my data in the coming months, but until further studies are conducted, I warn against this.
"In short, the humans went extinct due to a virus that ravaged their species 20,000 years ago. This virus spread through space travel over several decades, and before long spanned every human colony across the universe. Despite the best efforts of doctors to develop a vaccine, the virus proved incurable, and eventually exterminated all human life.
"After uncovering an ancient human lab on Faldaar, one of my colleagues found a sample of this virus. This virus was well preserved enough to still be active, and was labeled the 'Corona Virus.'
"Unfortunately, after a tragic accident, my colleague released this virus on Balaal, infecting the entire Kaal population. We have since quarantined our colony there, but given the fate of the humans, the virus will most likely spread..."
[Read more at r/DailyHorrorStories](https://www.reddit.com/r/DailyHorrorStories/hot/)
| 2020-03-12T11:03:23 | 2020-03-12T10:57:51 | 2,893 | 33 |
[WP]Things on the mountain don't age. You built a cabin to live in with your family 300 years ago, and since then none of you have aged a day. You've even come to know many of the animals as they too are immortal, and have grown wise. One day you find an old buck, a friend, shot dead and left to rot
EDIT: I’m trying so hard to read all the stories and get everything else done that I need to today lol. Just gotta say that this is one of the best collections of stories I’ve ever had on one of my prompts!! You guys are awesome!
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I don’t get home until after dark, treading lightly. I furnish myself with a glass of whiskey and go into the silence of the basement. A quick tug of the cord dangling by my ear lights the room with a single electric bulb in the centre. There, mounted on the far wall, is the rifle.
The whiskey runs down my throat like water. Leaving the empty glass on the bottom step, I stop just short of the rifle and lay my hands heavily on my hips. *Has it really come to this?* I examine the stock and body of the rifle. *It’s been wiped… poorly.* My eyes slide shut and I press my palm to my forehead, drawing in a deep breath. Finally, I put my nose close to the barrel of the gun and sniff deeply. *Fired.* Stepping back like a drunken man, though not yet drunk, I retreat to the bottom step and pause there with my head in both my hands. *It was one of us, but which?* Unable to sustain this moment, I return to the kitchen and pour another, larger, glass of whiskey and sit myself at the kitchen table.
It couldn’t be little Martha, so peaceful, so gentle, so curious. Teddy has a temper, so ardent in getting his own way, but this violence is surely beyond him. What of my wife, Shelley? Never. Simply impossible. After all these years, is it even possible that I have missed signs? … signs of a *monster* in our very midst? I sit for a long time right there, running things over in my head, refilling my whiskey glass when need be. I feel my blood warm savagely and a dark crease lines the edges of my sneering mouth, ‘One of the children,’ I whisper aloud, ‘It must be…’ A noise behind me, a rushed pattering of little feet disappearing up the stairs, gone by the time I turn around.
*Who was it?* Grasping the whiskey, I gently trudge my way up the stairs, not thinking to take off my boots, still speckled with the blood of that glorious beast. Every door is shut except for one – Martha’s room. So, it’s she that’s been walking about after dark, is it? I approach the door and, closing my hand around the door knob, push it open without knocking.
Martha was awake, indeed, sat upright at her desk, reading. She was twelve when we brought her here, and, of course, she still is. Casting my eyes about her room, I see everything ordered and neat except for one thing that catches my eye. ‘Good evening, Martha. Shouldn’t you be asleep?’ I say sternly, as I cross the room, kneel beside her bed, and pull a small wad of papers out from underneath.
Martha doesn’t reply, keeping her eyes fixed on the book.
‘What are these, Martha?’ I thumb through the ruffled pages, as perfectly rendered landscapes, absolutely masterful and realistic creatures, comics of far-away lands and distant heroes, all pass by my eyes. I scrunch them up in one hand, gulping down whiskey with my other. I see her flinch at the noise. ‘What did I say?’
‘No dreams.’ Replies Martha with a voice that didn’t match her years.
‘No dreams.’ I affirm, ‘Everything you need is here. It’s always been here.’
Again, she doesn’t reply. Something’s definitely *off*. She’s not usually this tense unless she’s done something wrong. A father knows, a father always knows. My cheeks tingle with a pleasant warmth, but inside my stomach there’s a tight knot.
‘Do you have something to tell me?’ I feel my shoulders tense up, ‘Respond!’ Nothing. So, I go over to her shoes on the mat by the door and pick them up, turning them over in my hands and checking for signs of recent use. Nothing. *She must have wiped these too.* ‘Why aren’t you asleep, Martha? Why were you wandering about downstairs a moment ago?’
‘You’re drunk.’ She snaps, spit flying past her teeth like venom and dotting the pages of the book in front of her. Suddenly, she stands and faces me, half my size but burning with hate. With each passing moment she comes more clearly into focus as the killer, the monster. Tears well up in my eyes.
‘Was it you, Martha? Sweet child?’ I set down my nearly-finished glass of whiskey on the nearby chest of draws and begin to roll up my sleeves. Martha’s eyes widen with fear.
‘No! NO!’ She screams, covering her head with her arms and dropping to the floor. This is an overreaction, I think, and my heart softens. The rage drains from my body and my knees feel weak.
‘Child…’ I say, surprised at the weakness of my voice. There’s an itch on my stomach, so I press my hand there and scratch it, but a sharp bolt of pain zips through me – I peer down at my fingers. *Blood? … My blood?* Turning slowly, I see my boy, my little boy, Teddy, standing in the doorway with my rifle. My rifle… But he couldn’t have fired it. I didn’t hear a shot … or did I? … Did I hear a shot? The world pivots, everything goes horizontal.
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I couldn't believe it was him at first- I didn't want to. But there was no denying that it was him. The same milky, blind eyes and coarse, patchy fur. He looked almost as if he were sleeping peacefully, his head resting gently on a pillow of moss, but the rotting entrails around his body stripped away this illusion. I felt tears come to my eyes, but I wiped them away. I don't know why. There was no one around to see me bawl; the perpetrator had long gone. I took an armful of pine needles from the forest floor and spread it over his body. I didn't know it then, but that would be the first of many deaths to come. And it would be the first of many reasons to consider leaving the mountain.
| 2019-06-02T07:54:10 | 2019-06-02T07:23:21 | 104 | 38 |
[WP] You are the owner of a magic backpack; every morning you stick your hand in and it contains exactly what you need for the day. One morning it contains a gun.
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I've had the same backpack for fifteen years, and I don't plan on switching soon. Not since that first day in second grade when I reached inside my empty backpack and felt the crinkly foil of a pack of trading cards. Got some boss pulls and dominated the playground scene. Or that one time I was running late and forgot my lunch. Sure enough, the same lunch I forgot just happened to be sitting in my backpack. It's gotten me roses for my girlfriend on Valentine's day, annotated research papers for my thesis, and once, even a winning lottery ticket when I was behind on rent (not jackpot level, but enough to pay what I owed).
It seemed humble, in a way, in that it would grant me exactly what I needed. No more, no less, every single time. It couldn't be fooled, either- I'd tried intentionally leaving lunch at home, to see if I could get free food. A few days of going hungry later, I stopped trying to exploit its mysterious magic.
So imagine my surprise, when, at the beginning of an ordinary work day, I reached into my backpack and felt the cold metal of a gun. Not anything ridiculous. Just a revolver. I've never cared for nor have I ever owned any guns for as long as I can remember. I've always been afraid of the responsibility and the implications carrying one bestowed. I mean, when it comes down to it, muggers are just desperate people. Who am I to take their life over the paper in my wallet?
It took me a lot longer to get to work that day. I'd spent half an hour contemplating whether or not to bring it. Though there were no strict laws against carrying, I figured I'd need to have a license if I wanted to use it. And if someone saw it at work, I'd be fired. But the backpack had never been wrong. Never. So I relented and took the next bus, an hour late for the third time this year.
The ride was torture. Each bump and rattle of the large bus shook the revolver in my backpack. What if it fell out? Dear god, what if it fired? I held it still as best I could-though not too tight. Wouldn't want to accidentally set it off. I contemplated unloading it, but I figured it was best not to change what the backpack thought was best.
My fellow passengers were much calmer. A few were on their phones. A lady was reading the paper. A man in an insulated coat was shaving with an electric razor. An old lady coddled a little dog in her lap. Hopefully I wouldn't have to shoot any of them.
On the way there, I noticed one police car and one ambulance. Not entirely unusual, but rather worrisome on a day like this. Nobody paid them any mind.
After what seemed like an eternity, I slipped into my cubicle. The office was quiet as usual. With luck, nobody would notice I was late. A few slackers were watching TV in the lounge. My boss was screaming angrily into his phone and paid me no mind. Everyone else was engrossed in their work.
As I loaded up the computer, my boss slammed down his phone. I prepared myself for an earful, but instead, he made an announcement. "Alright, everyone, this is no cause for alarm, but I've just been informed that the building is under lockdown."
One of the slackers who had been watching TV bolted from the lounge towards the front door. Nobody made any attempt to stop him. The other two looked at each other, then started dragging the coffee table to block the door. I peeked into the lounge and saw "Zombie Outbreak" on the news.
Cursing, I bolted to my desk and laid low. Emergency lights screeched by on the streets. Nobody was working, though they all pretended to. My boss took a swig of whiskey from the flask in his desk. I kept glancing at my backpack. It wasn't time yet. If they knew I had a gun, they'd ask questions. Take it from me. Maybe even kill me. I was not ending the day with a bullet in my head.
An hour later, the pounding began. Slow, rhythmic bangs on the door. The power went out, but we still had plenty of sunlight. It all felt so surreal. Nothing like the horror movies. We knew we were safe inside. There's no way humans of average strength could break down our barricade by just ramming their heads into it.
When night fell, and no help had arrived, we began to get worried. The power had returned, maybe a backup generator, but the news had stopped broadcasting. Instead, we got the screech of an emergency broadcast reminding us that help was on the way and to stay indoors. I was in the lounge (with my backpack this time), watching for any new information when that stupid-ass intern (Jeff?) made a break for the fire escape.
Of course, the emergency alarm sounded, mixing its beeps with the screeching of the TV. Jeff sprinted outside, maybe getting four steps in before being swept up by the wave of zombies rushing in. One of the guys in the lounge sprang into action and slammed the door shut, bracing it with his back. "Get me a chair, a table, fuck, the TV! Anything!"
Cries of help rang from the other side as two workers dragged over an armchair and a third tried to stop them. "We have to help them! They're still alive out there!" she cried. They finished their crappy barricade and slumped to the floor, exhausted. The lounge door was made of much cheaper material and the first few slams had already cracked it.
I took a step back and kicked my backpack. I could have sworn I zipped it up, but the gun fell out anyway. An arm burst through the door, grasping with bloody fingers. It was time. I picked up the gun, held it to my head, and closed my eyes. I should have known something was up when the backpack only gave me one bullet. I fired.
|
David yelled out in shock as the cold metal fell out from his clammy hand and onto the sidewalk pavement. The cold morning wind not only augmented onto the despair he felt, but it gave an eerie chill that ran down his back. His eyes quickly darted from left to right. No people. Dead quiet.
His hands and legs still shaking, he managed to will himself back up. He felt like he was going to vomit from the ringing in his ears and the dizziness. With a burst of adrenaline, he quickly gathered back his backpack and the gun, knowing only to well that the fate he had. In a moment's notice, various memories rushed through his mind. A memory of his alcoholic father coming in the house, raising his voice and stomping on his pet hamster because "G-d willed humanity to reign over animals". Another memory flashed by of his mother ramming herself into the wooden cupboard to blame him for attempted rape and domestic violence so she can prove to his father how great of a son he was. Painful memories... Memories from his childhood up until now.
Suddenly David let out a deep sigh. Tears rolled down his face with his fist tightly clenched still holding onto the gun with a dead man's grip. The most painful memory of them all escaped the tightly sealed doors of his mind. The trauma was once again relived behind his closed and tightly sealed eyelids. He opened his eyes and with sudden great strides and a brisk pace, he walked toward the place where he knew the individual he had to delete existed... his grandfather's house.
EDIT: deleted an accidental second "out" in the first sentence.
| 2017-05-09T15:28:03 | 2017-05-09T13:03:36 | 255 | 14 |
[WP] A homeless guy you take in, feed, and let shower gets back on his feet after a month or so and moves out on his own after finding a job. A few years later, he is the CEO of the company you're trying to apply to. Surprisingly however, he is a complete dick to you.
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I'd taken Bob in when he most needed it. Now, Bob was a good, decent man, but Bob had always had trouble denying himself something. Anything. He was the instant-gratification kind of guy and that puts you at a risk from gambling, boozing, hard drugs ... Or all three, as in Bob's case, landing him on the street. When I let him stay on my sofa, he was in the process of cleaning up his act and when he left, we were good buddies.
Sitting here in his office, I now was utterly confused. Bob had just told me to sit down and the first thing he'd said was "Now, listen, I'm pretty sure I won't hire you." It had surprised me and gotten a raised eyebrow out of the woman who was quietly observing our interview.
"But, B-" He didn't let me say the sentence.
"Stop right there," he said. "I know your type. You come in thinking you're hot shit. You think you can be witty'n'charming with me and get me to hire you just for that? Well, not here, sunshine. This is not that kind of business."
The woman had both her eyebrows halfway up her forehead, but she kept quiet. "Look," I said, asking myself if he'd somehow forgotten me, "I really think I'm qualified for this -"
"You're qualified for what I say you're qualified for. And I say you're qualified for jack shit." He adjusted his tie (purple, expensive, probably Italian). "I got an eye for people, y'know? You think, oh, I had some kind of job interview training, I can trick people into hiring me despite me being so mediocre. That's what your type thinks. Well, I don't hire mediocre people. Sick and tired of it. You are all wasting my time."
I gathered myself for a moment. "Look," I said, "This is really hurtful and not what I expected, maybe I should just go ..."
"Hold on," he said as a young man entered. "Here are your test results from the assessment earlier. Gimme a second. Ms Woolstone," he said to the woman, "I'm afraid you're not privy to that yet, I take company policy seriously like this. I hope you understand." She gave a small-lipped nod.
He read the sheet and his eyes widened. He even got a bit pale, I think. Then, he put down the sheet on the table, very slowly. "Mr Ahmed?"
"Yes," I answered with a dry mouth.
"I understand you interviewed for the position of Junior Sales Analyst."
"Yes, but honestly, after this kind of abuse ..."
"Mr Ahmed, Your results in the initial assessment are the best in company history. We have a free opening as Senior Sales Manager ... If you would like it. Allow me to apologise for my previous ... well ... The point is, I can have your contract ready tomorrow if you want it."
I thought about it. Something told me this meant a high six-figures salary, so realistically, I wouldn't turn it down, but then, my pride was hurt as well. "Well ..." I said without a plan how to go on.
"You don't have to decide right now, Mr Ahmed. Just let my assistant know by tomorrow morning. I'm afraid I'm on a tight schedule right now, too, Ms Woolstone and me need to finalise some details of our sale ..."
I said goodbye quickly and left, feeling like I had just walked through a Magritte painting. This qualified for "weirdest encounter in my life". Something deep in my stomach told me not to take his offer. It seemed profoundly wrong. Maybe dangerous.
Hours later, I was lying in bed, drinking wine and thinking. I would take the position, sure, but I couldn't stop wondering and wondering what had happened to my friend Bob ... I definitely wasn't expecting company, so I jumped when the doorbell rang. Now, as you probably guessed ... It was Bob. Bespoke-suit-wearing weird Bob. While his being here meant he hadn't forgotten who I was, him being here was even weirder.
"Bob," I said, half-considering closing the door right away.
"Feroz ... You're really angry and disappointed and that's how you should feel," said Bob. Not even a hello. What was wrong with the guy? I pulled him into the flat by his suit lapels and closed the door so as not to disturb the neighbours. Then I yelled.
"What the bloody hell got into you? I thought we were friends! I never asked anything of you for giving you shelter back then, but some decency, some respect, that's the least I -"
"Feroz." He didn't raise his voice but something about the way he said my name shut me up. He said it with ... warmth.
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry for being an arsehole, but now you have that job forever."
"You mean otherwise you'd have fired me?"
"No, not me ... But that woman, Ms Woolstone, probably would have. She's buying the company." He smiled. It seemed sad.
"What...?"
"I ... I couldn't help myself. I invested in risky stock market ventures. Heavily. I had to sell."
Typical. "And ...?"
"She'll probably downsize. Normally new hires would go first. But ... Well. I convinced her you're the best-qualified person in the company." He took my shoulder. "Sorry for the insults."
I met his gaze. "Sure. You tell me if you need the sofa again."
"I don't think shelter will be a problem again, I have a few reserves. But ..." He hesitated. "I think I'm in the 'getting my act together' phase again ... If I could maybe drop in for a tea sometimes ..."
"Sure." I smiled. "If you're nice."
|
I don't think I've ever seen somebody this hungry. When I found Jim lying on the side of the road I honestly thought he was dead. After I finally managed to wake him up and get him upright, his stomach made a wail befitting a banshee. After a quick chat with Jim, it really seemed like he was just down on his luck. He was well spoken, intelligent, witty and surprisingly insightful, for a homeless man.
`use imagination to fill in 10-20 lines of epic times between me and Jim, outlying what a god damn fucking hero he is`
`then we eventually come to a turning point where I kick Jim out because Jim isn't doing anything to turn his life around'
Fast forward 2 years, I walk into an interview and its good ol Jimmy boy. Jimmy boy is a complete dick, worst interview of my life. Complete dick afterwards as well. This filled me with so much rage and anger, In the slight chance I made it through to the second round of interviews, I went home to make sure I was ready and gave the fucker no reason not to hire me.
Fast forward to after interview, corny sappy bullshit about how what he needed was me to kick him out to realise he had the power to change all along, and thats why he was a dick to me, so that I could find the drive to earn this job and not beg for it because he owed me one. Theres your hollywood script boys. Filled with karma boners, justice boners and homeless Jims.
| 2016-07-31T15:51:14 | 2016-07-31T14:25:26 | 81 | 13 |
[WP] Everyone is told 10 minutes before they die that they will. You're on a plane, and everyone panics at once. You didn't get that message.
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A tin can of echoing screams. That's what I was on at the moment, as I sat calmly in my seat; as I wondered why everyone was freaking out. I got up from my seat and tried to get through the writhing walkway of frantic bodies and aggravated screams. Now bewildered and afraid, I tried to see if someone had just gotten killed, if there was an attempted terrorist attack... What was it? It wasn't until I heard some more distinct words among the passengers.
"I heard it!"
"I heard it, too!"
"No, I didn't hear it. Please, no don't let this happen!"
"What's going to happen? How will it end?"
I looked around at the frightened people and understood. The cacophony of random, terrified, horribly fearful and futile cries filled this tin can. It was all I could hear, and the only thing I did hear before the people erupted. Only the hollow sound of cold, odd smelling air conditioning, and the rattling of overpriced beverages and snacks served by the attendants were sent to my ears. I had heard nothing before this.
Unfortunately, everyone else heard a very distinct sound, a message. Many wait for It, others try to run from It, but almost all fear the moment that they hear It. So simple, yet hard to replicate and impossible to trick one into believing even if copied well.
"10 minutes left on Here..." followed by the most personal name that one goes by. It was spoken in such an otherworldly and bizarre vice that none knew how to describe It, and none lived long enough to adequately do so.
Its what I didn't hear. I felt relieved as I made my way back to my seat. I could have picked any of them to return to at this point, as many had gotten up from theirs in a depressed, pre-mourning uproar. However, I chose to go back to mine. I stared at those surrounding me, watching and wondering how I would survive this. Stressing over this fact, I saw a man across the aisle from me. Among the constantly shifting, agitated line of flesh rumbling in this walkway, I saw him sitting in his seat, staring at the others the same as I did. Watching him curiously, his head swiped to the side to see more passengers before stopping in the middle of its arc. His pupils widened and his hands went up to his head. Shaking for several moments, he raised his head upwards and released a guttural scream of realization.
"NO!"
He heard It as well.
This caused me to distrust myself. How had I not heard It yet? How could I possibly survive this? Several minutes passed as I went through the possibilities in my own head. I heard nothing but my own thoughts, trying to drown out the chorus of cries from the passengers so I could focus on my own thoughts. However, I deceived myself into thinking this was the reason. What I thought was my conscious thinking of my possible outcomes for survival was merely it making room for It to be heard. I wanted to listen. I had to know. I didn't want to hear It but I had to know. I had to be certain of my fate. I didn't want It sneaking up on me. If nothing else, I wanted it to be certain.
In my focused thought processes disguised as a rogue-ish clearing of the mind, I hadn't paid attention to the certainty the rest of the passengers and crew had the pleasure of knowing. An explosion erupted from the right side of the plane, causing the tin can to lurch and the inhabitants to scream in a louder, more frantic manner. The plane started to fall and the captain came over the intercom to notify everyone that an engine had failed and to brace for impact. Several moments later, everyone had been made very certain while I was subjected to a longing uncertainty in the dark, wondering if It would be heard.
After an unknown amount of time passed, my eyes released me from the uncertainty. I was awake. Around me, my vision cleared to show the brutal aftermath of It's message. Bodies strewn across metal shards of wreckage. Some areas had an indistinguishable smattering of the two while others were clear cut. The rest were certainly burned in the combustion of the plane's fuel. Most of the wreckage was covered by the night's uncertain shadow, but the flame from the fuel was all that let me view this catastrophe. I used its ending light to show me the undeniable end of so many. Of course, this only distracted me from what kept me glued to the aftermath, the metal shard sticking out from my back. I didn't bother to look down at my own wound, the one that kept me so stuck to all of this wreckage. I simply looked out at the wreckage, at the people. I could only wonder and think upon their ends and my doubt.
I was like this for several hours. Only one thing took me away from this, though. My eyes gazed up to two white lights meandering towards me in the uncertain night, shifting through the trees. I smiled, as the lights came closer to me. They became clearly visible as I...
"10 minutes left on Here... Grath."
...was certain.
|
I looked around me, like time was slowed. Everyone had the same, ugly, distraught look on their face.
I knew what was going to happen.
As did they.
The woman seated next to me, she grabbed my hand.
"Its going to be okay, right?" she plead.
"They'll fix the plane, right?" she begged.
As I drew the knife from my coat pocket, I said in a shuddered tone, "Nothing is wrong with the plane."
The plane started to tilt forward as I pulled my kife from the captain's back.
That's when I got my message.
| 2016-11-24T20:14:34 | 2016-11-24T20:01:01 | 129 | 52 |
[WP]You're the Interim CEO of a major internet company. Every decision you make seems to just go completely wrong.
|
"Senator, it's happened again." The sickly voice murmured.
"CHAIRMAN. HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REMIND YOU, PEON? IT'S CHAIRMAN!" The brandished whip cracked in the air, sending the rodent-like messenger into fits of whimpering hysterics. "SAY IT. CALL ME CHAIRMAN!"
Her sallow skinned hands seemed to grip his throat through the air itself.
"Chairman. CHAIRMAN." the Unkn0wn minion spluttered at her feet. "CHAIRMAN!"
Releasing her invisible hold, the Chairman's wan face twisted in its grotesque sneer, and her beady eyes surveyed the desolate halls beneath snarky, drawn-in arches.
"Now, what were you prattling on about?" A skeletal leg kicked out at the cowering miscreant, lethal stiletto nearly piercing his butter-stained cheeks. "You know how I hate being interrupted while I'm appealing to actually important people."
"It's... it's them." A clawed hand wiped drool and snot with a reviling sniff. "They've gone and done it..."
"Out with it, you buffoon. What have they done?" She barked, laughing coarsely into the blackened air, still oblivious to the obvious. "What could a band of lifeless Internet ghouls do?"
"They've... They've... YIP!" The whip was just as unforgiving the second time. "They've taken it, Madam Chairman. They've taken all of them. They’ve taken them to their private stores. No one can see anything now. It’s madness out there."
Her razor-sharp lips slackened from the blow. Of all the things that could have occurred...
And just when the obeasts were ready to gorge.
Seizing his opportunity to speak in her silence, the Unkn0wn rodent continued.
“I even tried reasoning with them. But they wouldn’t budge. They’re not listening to sense, you see.” His smile was wicked, and he tasted the detritus of his day-time snack around his lips. “I did leave the dickless nerds with something though. A nice little jab I did. That had them riled up real good. Just like the dogs that they are.”
Her majesty stopped paying attention. It’d been so long since she’d tasted victory, what with her other failed schemes. And everything had been so meticulously prepped for the influx of Casual Carbo-loading, Ham-filled Candy, and Candy-filled-hams. They were finally to feast on the whales themselves, after getting rid of those pesky predators and poachers with that grotesque moniker – FPH.
"But... Private... how?"
The half-shrew-half-man was taken aback. He didn’t know what to say – and he sure didn’t want to rehash the PM link incident. The lashings he’d gotten, then.
"Well... they just flipped a switch, Mam. It’s been there the who – Yip. YIP!" The lump of furry flesh shrieked and scurried away. “Please, Chairman, please. I didn’t mean offense.”
"Not literally how, you dunce." She lashed out again, but he was out of reach. "How were they able to do something like that? You were under strict instructions to limit what these gutless peasants could do. All that time and effort we put into the delayed updates, what the hell was all that effort and time for?!"
"No, please, no! Chairman, please. It's not us. It was the Original. He's at fault. That was the Original's intent." Miscreant “It was him. Him and his poisonous views. He even had me believing in the power of the internet. Before you showed me enlightenment.”
Her hand drew back.
"Go. Go and see which one of them can be bent. Promise the fool her job. Promise him any job. This is knot a democracy. This is knot some toy for the witless masses. This is my company. No body is going to stop me from milking the fatties for all they're worth.
At those words the shrew's eyes shone with gold.
"So the deal... it went through?" He licked his scabbed lips with a pustuled tongue. He knew he would never be without his popcorn again.
Ever.
"Of course it went through, you idiot." The ghastly woman's face was inscrutable as she stared off into the night, finally realizing the significance of the silent abyss. "Soft drinks, chips, Tess Munster videos, Fried Chicken by the cart loads. Why do you think we called the Shadow on those lipid-hating malcontents?"
She paused, as the shrew continued to nurse his wounds.
“Now, do exactly as I tell you. Force whichever weak imbecile you can back online. And then. And then.... And then we wait." A smug smile warped her featureless features. "These brainless geeks will tire themselves out. And then we’ll feast.”
|
As I stared around the boardroom, I felt the eyes of 8 top-level execs on me. It was my time to shine. I walked over to my PowerPoint presentation, confident in my abilities. As I was about to talk, my throat suddenly seized up. I stood there, in front of a bunch of middle-aged men, who's eyes bored deep into my soul, not knowing what to say. I was now incredibly nervous. However, I stopped myself. I took a deep breath, and finally I was able to say what I wanted to say.
"I think we should get rid of Victoria".
This was my final mistake.
| 2015-07-03T03:09:06 | 2015-07-03T00:27:19 | 53 | 26 |
[WP] You have the most useless superpower in a world full of awesome superpowers. You are a laughinstock, that is until you start using your power for evil... no one is laughing now.
|
New to writing and trying to get better, please give me and feedback (good and bad!) I want to improve. Thanks for reading.
“You brought this on yourself you know. You really did. All of your speed and strength, your flight and heightened senses, where are they now? Too bad you don’t also have any healing abilities father, that sedative will keep you paralyzed for at least another hour. In case you are wondering, that is plenty of time to sit with me and watch the first bomb hit. “
“At least it is a beautiful day right Dad? You can see all the way across the city from this rooftop. Oops, don’t fall over on me”, I prop his paralyzed form upright, “There we go, can’t have you missing the show. You’re probably wondering how I accomplished all of this aren’t you? Your worthless little son, such a disappointment that you had to abandon me and my normal mother. Everyone that I met in my life always looked at me with such pity and disdain. Their conversations were always the same…”
“Isn’t that Captain Awesome’s child?”
“Oh that poor soul. You heard about his power right? He can make people dislike him.”
“Oh dear, that’s it? You would have thought he would have inherited something decent from Captain Awesome.”
“”Exactly, such a disgrace he must be to his family.”
“Every. Single. Time. Everyone’s gaze towards me always filled with scorn. I wish you could feel even a fraction of the loneliness that I have felt every day of my life since mother’s death. But you can’t even imagine can you. You, the great and wonderful Captain Awesome, loved by all, feared by evildoers the world over. Well now everyone will have another reason to fear. Already the missiles are in the air, people across the world are trembling in their homes, terrified of the reality that is countless megatons of nuclear armaments streaking through the skies of our planet. I made sure that every single one of them know that I caused it you know. I even made sure to mention you in my televised speech, felt it would be proper to attach your name to the coming destruction for once. Then everyone in the world can know how despicable you are, just like I do.”
“I like to think that if you had never left this would not have happened. I would not have grown aloof and spiteful. Mother would have been happier. Most importantly she would still be alive. That hitman would have never been hired. He would have never even thought of trying to murder her if you were around. But no. You left us, you left us to fend for ourselves, knowing that you would make hundreds of enemies across the world in your crusade against injustice.”
“Well the past is the past, and it is how we are here today. You know, it was surprisingly simple to channel my power into certain people. I found out I don’t even have to see them! Focusing my power on the leaders of the world made them utterly blinded to logic. They could not see through the storm of hatred that they felt for me. It was so easy! A rumor whispered here, a reddit comment there and suddenly the world was at each other’s throats. Every leader assumed a different country was providing me safe haven. No one could be trusted because they must be allying themselves with me.”
I couldn’t help but laugh then, laugh at the absurd look in my father’s eyes.
“All it took then was a little push. Flare my power just slightly, stoke their flames of anger to a raging inferno and they had no choice. They all chose to push the button. And that’s how we are here now. Mere minutes away from watching the first missile of World War 3 slam into the Earth.” Standing up, I raise my hands in glory to my own genius. “Isn’t it wonderful father! Wonderful what your worthless little son has created!” Another bout of laughter tumbles from my lips.
“At least they will all have a reason to hate me now. So, it is the end of your life, the end of most of our lives really. I have to ask you one question, and please answer it truthfully. Mother.She had no powers and you loved her! NONE! Why did you have to abandon us? All because I had a useless power? I know for a fact you loved her. So why, WHY couldn’t you love me!?!?”
He lets out a strained gasp. The paralytic isn’t lasting as long as I thought it would. No matter, it will last for the next minute or so until the bombs fall.
“I did love you…”
“What was that? Don’t make me laugh captain.”
“No… Mitchell. Son. I always loved you, but I could only love you if I wasn’t near you. You never could control your power.”
“Bullshit father. Don’t try to blame my power on you leaving. If my power was uncontrollable, even mother would have hated me. And she loved me until the moment I watched her life leave her eyes. Her blood staining my clothes.”
“Your mother, was wonderful, but she wasn’t powerless. She was immune to other powers…”
I freeze for a second. Small occurrences now falling in place throughout my life. I see small rivulets of water on my father’s face, Captain Awesome never cries. Turning sharply I can see the missile streaking its way towards the city. It’s white trail a stark contrast to the crystal blue sky.
I turn back to my father, small droplets of water from my own eyes now dripping down to join his tears.
“Dad-?”
|
"You aren't supposed to kill them."
That was what they all said.
"You can't kill people!"
As if they hadn't done the same thing, over and over again.
"Villains kill people!! You're a Villain."
That was how it started. I didn't care. They were hypocrites, the lot of them. A mass-murderer? Me? What about all the lives of the "civilians" killed by the villains? What about the government, who accidentally created All the supers? Mass Murderer my ass. All I can do, my "super power" is make you blink. Oh, and make you a bit tired. That's it. No supersonic flight. I'm not a speedster. I can't control people's minds. No shapeshifting.
"So, little Hero. You're going to sit here with me and Staring Contest's husk of a body. I watched you kill those kids yesterday. I watched you rush into the building, blowing a hole in the side, feeding it fresh oxygen. I watched you pull kids out so fast it broke their necks. And I'd recommend that you Don't Blink."
| 2017-06-12T07:45:28 | 2017-06-12T06:36:00 | 181 | 45 |
[WP] After solving your 143rd murder mystery, you're desperate to solve the mystery of why people keep getting murdered around you.
|
The mayor raised the key to the city high over his head. “It is with great honor that I present the key to the city to the greatest detective the world has ever known: Inspector Ferris Winslow!” the mayor said. He handed me the giant golden key and began applauding with the other fifteen thousand people in the crowd.
I smiled for the cameras, but as soon as we were back in the mayor’s office, I pulled him aside and used the key to the city to pin him up against the wall.
“You think a key is going to keep me safe?” I said.
“Ferris, I’m sorry,” the mayor grunted as I lodged the key against his throat. “I tried to get you a bunker, I swear. But the city council said we only had enough money in the budget for a key.”
“You could have at least let me live in the panic room in the mayor’s mansion.” I said, tightening my grip.
“We don’t have a panic room in the mayor’s mansion.”
“Well you better start building one,” I said. “A hundred and forty-three people have been murdered around me in the past year. Do you have any idea what that does to a man’s psyche?”
The mayor gasped. “But you’ve always solved the mystery, Ferris.”
“I never even wanted to become a detective, Mayor. I was perfectly happy working as a full-time actuary and part-time recovering psychic.”
The mayor’s windpipe started to collapse. “But you’ve performed admirably. This is your destiny, Ferris.”
I pulled the key back and let the mayor collapse to the ground.
A police officer stormed into the room. “Gentlemen, we need to evacuate the building. The mayor’s chef has been murdered.”
“You gotta be kidding me!” I yelled, and chucked the key against the wall. A picture frame fell to the ground, revealing a hidden button on the wall.
The police officer pressed the button, opening a secret passageway to a dungeon with a bloody butcher’s knife, a chef’s hat, and a 150-page manifesto handwritten by the mayor, confessing to the murder of his chef.
Later that night, I relayed this entire story to my friend Quayberg ‘Q’ Smith as we sipped bourgeois vino in a quaint rooftop wine bar.
“So he killed his chef so he could cook his own meals?” Q asked me as he swirled a glass of Zinfandel.
“Not just his own meals,” I said. “He wanted to open his own restaurant inside the mayor’s mansion.” I tossed back my glass of Syrah and ordered two more.
Q shrugged. “I really can’t blame him. Being the mayor of this town would be really...really boring.”
“I crave boring,” I said. “I would kill to have a boring life.”
Q looked at me with a trace of fear in his eyes. He sipped his Zin cautiously.
“Oh, come on, Q,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I’m just saying,” Q said. “143 people have been murdered near you in the past year. “You’re the common denominator between all of them.”
“I have solved every single one of these murders,” I said. “I was awarded the key to the city for my detective work.”
Q eyed me as he took another sip. “And then the mayor’s chef was murdered.”
“By the mayor!” I said.
Q nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
But the drunker I got, the more plausible his story seemed. As a recovering part-time psychic, I had many beliefs in the supernatural that I had to temper with therapy and medication. If I believed in ghosts and fortune-telling, how far-fetched would it be to believe that I was murdering people, constructing elaborate explanations for their deaths, and eliciting false confessions out of innocent people?
I hated being a detective, but I had to get to the bottom of this.
I reached out to my recovering psychic’s support group to set up a séance. But before I explained the purpose of the séance, I had them over for dinner to catch up.
Steve said he quit the psychic profession to go into motivational speaking.
Manisha quit to work as a cruise ship hypnotist.
Mary was running a pyramid scheme.
Changying was selling stolen hood ornaments on Etsy.
I wasn’t really sure what Bobo was up to these days, but he’d just gotten out of prison.
But everyone wanted to hear about my detective work.
“It’s just a side gig,” I said as I prepped my famous séance frittatas. “What I’m really passionate about is being an actuary. Calculating risk. Helping my clients understand the modest predictive power of my methods.”
“But don’t you ever get the itch to do more psychic work again?” Changying said, completely ignoring the sampling of frittata I was offering her.
“No,” I said. “I take a client here and there, but I’m honestly a little embarrassed about it.”
Everyone gasped.
“It’s true,” I said. “I would be perfectly content to just work at my completely normal job full-time, raise a family, and put this detective and psychic stuff behind me.” I started taking plates out of the cupboards. Steve got that stupid “I know the future” look he always got when he was sure I was going to drop something or trip or choke on my food, and I was pleased to prove him wrong once again.
I set his plate on the table in front of him. He excused himself to the restroom, but he was probably going into the hallway to pout.
“Have you ever thought about mixing your careers?” Mary asked.
“A common misconception,” I said. “You see, actuaries are not actually trying to predict the future.”
“No,” she said, “I meant being a psychic and a detective. The agent who got me my cruise ship gig could probably get you some meetings with some TV producers.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, taking the frittata pan off the cooling rack. “There any money in that?”
Manisha nodded. “Possibly millions.”
I fantasized for a minute, and then shook my head. “Like I said, I’ve put those parts of my life behind me—”
Bobo came into the dining room. “Steve’s dead in the bathroom. Someone strangled him with the shower curtain.”
I started scraping the edges of my séance frittata in the pan. I nodded at Manisha. “You know,” I said, “I had a feeling that might happen.”
More stories on my subreddit: r/bakerhillbooks
|
**Meant to Happen**
Funny, I still remember the first case I solved. John Higgins stabbed in the back with a massive dagger from the Wilkin's house, by Betty White. Crime of passion. Higgins had threatened to spill the beans about Betty's affair with Jhye Williams. She, the Satanist, decided to curb the danger quite convincingly.
The reason it's funny that I remember it is, well, no one else does. And I can't really blame them. Because John Higgins is alive and well.
It's been happening every time. Whenever I solve a case, something happens that very night. The next day, the victim is miraculously resurrected and someone else is dead. It's happened 143 times now. And unless I'm hallucinating these events, it sure as hell ain't normal.
So I am sitting here, penning my introspections down, hoping somebody will be able to decipher the strange happenings. And then the Devil appears, out of no where. How do I know it's the Devil? Goat's head, massive horns and red skin. Who else could it be? He speaks to me.
Says, "Sherlock, let me tell you something. 143 murders I've made unsolvable. And a 143 of them you've solved. I granted Betty a boon, to get away with the killing of Mr. Higgins. I like Betty, she's a devoted, pious person. And I like you, because you've been doing the impossible. So I'll give you a chance, send you back to the night of Higgins' death. You want to escape the curse? All you need to do, is not solve the case. Sounds easy enough, right?" Well it's the goddamn devil so you better believe I agreed (in any case, I wanted this to fucking stop).
I am sent back to the night of the murder, and Mrs. Higgins comes crying to me about the death of her husband. I take the case and pretend to investigate obviously.
A few days later, Betty comes up to me and confesses, in front of dozens of people.
He played me. That son of a bitch.
Fuck the Devil.
| 2021-04-12T21:11:42 | 2021-04-12T16:26:26 | 33 | 14 |
[WP] You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches.
|
When our worlds collided, we were unprepared for magic. All of our technology was useless against the elves and their sorcerers or the dwarves and their powerful enchantments or the orcs and their shamans.
You would think that bullets, tanks, and fighter jets would carry the day easy but no. Not even nukes did squat. Oh nukes worked fine, but then some dwarf would come along and purify the soil, an elf would restore nature, and a fucking orc shaman would summon the spirits of the dead back to the living world.
Soon, our world was just another part of their “over-realm” and mankind?
Without magic, we were nothing, less than nothing, not even slaves…
We were livestock, literally livestock, to be bartered and traded and consumed.
If you were lucky you were given to the orcs, who would just eat you. There was a simple honesty in that, far better than having your life force drained by the elves to power their infernal “technology” or worked to death in the dwarven mines where your enchanted chains turned you into nothing but a meat puppet, denying you even the peace of death as your corpse continued to labor until your very bones turned to dust.
A few of us were able to escape to the wilderness, sometimes by strength, sometimes by guile, mostly by luck.
We were a pitiful band, but we managed to survive by lurking in the shattered places, areas warped by the collision of worlds and the magics used in the great war that broke us.
Not much grew there, well nothing that you would want to eat, anyway, so we resorted to “raids” where we would swoop down on the unwary, waylay a wagon, or sneak onto a farm.
We didn’t have magic, but a club worked just fine. A gun worked too, if they didn’t see you coming. Oh their wizards, enchanters, and shamans were stupidly, unfairly powerful, but some average point-ear, stubby, or greenie? They died just as easy as anyone else.
We did ok, but eventually we hit the wrong wagon and killed the wrong point ear. Their cousin’s brother’s roommate in elf college or whatever was some minor whatsit and that was that.
It didn’t take long. They had all of us wrapped up nicely.
I figured they would just fry us in one of their soul-trees or whatever they called them but that point ear decided to have some fun with us.
He had some of those goddamn soul-trees all hooked up in some weird pattern and stuffed them with people, laughing at them, saying that we were why their very souls would be devoured and then made them thank us for ending their suffering.
God, I hated him for that.
Then he said that since each of us was thought ourselves their equal, (which we didn’t) we could receive their punishment. Each of us could choose how we died and the trees would grant our wish.
He then sat on a throne made of twisted living human flesh and laughed as each of us either tried to come up with an escape, a paradox, or at least tried to make the death as pleasant as possible.
Whatever wish anyone came up with was granted… In the worst way possible.
I was halfway through the line watching each of us get fucked over once again.
Soon I was second in line, just behind Mark, and wouldn’t you know it, that sorry mother stole my idea.
“I wish to die of old age,” he said hopefully.
That damn point ear laughed hard that time and waved his hand.
Mark turned into a rapidly vibrating blur, screaming with an impossibly high pitched voice. I watched in horror as he screamed, unable to move, blurring ever faster and faster.
Then he started to age.
They were forcing that poor sonofabitch to live out his entire life, standing in place, right there over just a few minutes for us…
But for him, it was \*decades\*.
Finally it was over, and Mark fell, withered and grey, to the ground.
Now it’s my turn.
That goddamn point ear is sitting there smiling at me.
He laughs… fucking laughs at me.
“Go ahead,” he snickers, “Choose.”
Oh I hate him.
I hate all of them.
I hate the elves. I hate the dwarves. I hate those fucking orcs.
I hate this world, and any gods that let this happen to us.
I want them all…
\*gone\*…
Suddenly it hits me.
\*I know what to do!\*
Our technology was worthless against them, but our science?
We know things that even that point ear lord didn’t know, things he wouldn’t know how to stop, or twist or pervert.
I grinned at him.
“Well, meat?” he sneered.
“Could I say something first?” I ask, the glee building within me.
“Why not?” he chuckled to the amusement of all the elves who had gathered to watch the latest entertainment.
“I would like to tell all of you that it’s been a lot of fun,” I say breaking into a manic giggle, “but now playtime is over. You probably won’t know it, but I just fucking won. I am now ready to choose.”
“Your impertinence will be justly rewarded, meat,” ol’ point ears snickers at me, “Choose.”
“I choose,” I giggle, “death by false vacuum decay. If the Higgs field, or any field for that matter is in a false vacuum state within my body I desire it to be free to find it’s true vacuum state.”
Point ears is looking really confused right now. He’s not sure how to handle this.
“You don’t mean you don’t know what a false vacuum is?” I sneer, laughing, “Even we lowly humans know about that.”
“Of course I know what it is!” Point Ears snaps and starts to wave his hand.
I laugh and extend my middle fingers for the last time.
|
I'm waiting to die, everyone here is. I have seen a lot of people trying to fool the court, the last one requesting to die of old age, but all of them fail. At this point everyone has lost their hopes, there is no way of avoiding dead.
It's my turn and I go in front of that horrible people, happy witnesses of the magical demise that awaits me. A voice, one that seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, ask me how this magic room shall kill me. The voice says that the room will do exactly what I tell it with the only condition of choosing some way to die.
There is a countdown of one and a half minutes and I just don't know what to do, it seems to be impossible to avoid it. Well, I think, if I must die, I want to see them suffering.
"I request to die slowly while they die from what they would choose in my situation."
Those faces, full of horror while the voice ask them and the doors are shut is the only thing I needed to rest in peace. They try to avoid it, but it's inevitable. I died fast, they all tried to continue living and failed, but at least I could see part of those "high people" that made this happen diying. It's not the best, but it's the best anecdote I have from when I lived. Now, I only must see the concequences of my actions as part of the room punishment, but I'll watch and enjoy every second of it.
| 2021-06-24T07:58:17 | 2021-06-24T04:31:51 | 140 | 17 |
[WP] Everyone is born with a unique, living tattoo that grows as they do. When people make skin contact, their tattoos may interact in various ways: some passively, others with hostility.
|
My life was complete the moment Isabelle was born. She wasn't just the final piece slotted into a jigsaw -- more like, before she was born, my life was the rickety scaffold of the jigsaw, the outside pieces only, bending and writhing but unable to find stability without all the bits in the middle. Empty.
Then, Isabelle came into my life and even though her mother and I had separated, the jigsaw was somehow complete. On the surface of the puzzle was an ever changing picture of me and my baby.
The first year it was of a chaotic kitchen, bottles of milk strewn around, dirty plates on the sideboard and piles of clothes waiting desperately for someone to help them into the washer. And in the eye of the storm, I'm attempting to feed Isabelle but she's refusing to open her mouth. There's a broad smile tugging at my lips, my baggy eyes glowing with a happiness I couldn't fully appreciate in the moment.
The next year was a picture of a buggy in the park, of us passing an empty playground. I soon understood why no kids were playing, as the clouds emptied their burden. I threw my coat over the pram and made my way home as icy fingers of rain crept down my tee and sploshed onto the ground. Isabelle laughed and clapped beneath her polyester shelter. I should have hurried us back to the house, but I must have realised it would be the kind of memory you'd one day look back on and hug close to your heart. And so I strolled back home.
You can only get so wet, anyway.
Then, there's one of me in her room: I'm hovering over her shoulder like a gadfly, with the warm orange glow of a desk-lamp dancing on my face; I'm pointing at her textbook as if trying to help. She's playfully swatting my hand away. I bettered my world geography just so I could help her. Just so I could sit down with her in the evenings and smell her sweet hair and hear her even sweeter laughter. Once her homework was complete, we'd play battleships or Whist -- that was the only card game I could ever get her to play with me. The only one she didn't think was stupid.
On the twelfth year, holes began to appear. Pieces of the jigsaw went missing, as if the Devil himself had pried them away with his pitchfork.
The penultimate image imprinted on the puzzle face, in a faded sepia, is of Isabelle in a hospital bed with tubes stuffed up her nose, her beautiful blonde hair long gone -- just a fading memory of better times. I'm there, by her side as always, the bags under my eyes darker and larger than even when she was a baby crying through the nights. She's telling a joke. Her beaming face a light in the darkness that was becoming my life. There's a tiny jigsaw piece missing from her head, and another, larger piece, from my chest.
'Can we play a game, dad? I'm bored. No one comes to see me anymore.'
'I come everyday! And your mother's here whenever she can be.'
She rolls her eyes. 'I mean my friends. I think *they think* I'm already dead or something.'
I turn and pretend to rummage through my bag that's slumped on the chequered floor, but I can feel the warm wetness trickling down my cheeks.
'Sure honey, what would you like to play? Battleships?'
'Lame.'
'Oh." I swallow back tears and snot.
'How about Whist?' she says with a grin.
And then the final image on the jigsaw. A picture I want to forget but that is burned into my mind as if someone took a brandishing iron to it. I shut my eyes and I all I see is her frail, bony face as her eyelids close over her ocean green eyes, a final time.
So I got a new picture; a tattoo of Isabelle's face on my forearm, to help me fight the image that haunts my waking dreams. It is of when she had both hair, and hope of a future. And that smiling, kind face looking up at me each day, it keeps me going.
Just.
---
I often go to the park where the rain caught us that one precious day. I often sit on a bench opposite the playground and pretend to read a book -- the same book for almost a year -- and I watch the other children play, and remember the times when my daughter climbed the monkey-bars and swung on the rusting metal seats. And I get so jealous that I just want to scream. So I go home and I drink cheap gin, until I collapse onto her bed and bury my head into her pillow. Then I weep until I fall into a restless sleep.
It's on one of those days, where I'm pretending to read my book, and the sun's shining like everything is just fine, when a woman sits down next to me. She's about my age -- maybe a little younger.
Her arm brushes mine, then she loses herself in the sights and sounds of the playground.
I notice the tattoo on her arm. A handsome, grinning boy. Then my gaze drops to my shoes.
---
'Hi... my name's Isabelle.'
'Hey! My name's Ethan.'
'You, erm, want to go play?' She places one foot behind the other and runs a hand through her long, blonde locks. 'I've been kinda bored.'
'Uh, we kinda can't?' he mocks. 'The playground's out of bounds, at least for us. Which sucks.'
Isabelle rolls her eyes and reaches out a hand. 'I know some cool places where we can go, and the other kids can't.'
Ethan frowns. 'I don't know...'
'Don't be a chicken!'
'I'm not a chicken. Fine!' He reaches out, but instead of taking her hand, taps her on the shoulder. "Tag! You're it!" Ethan runs off up his mother's arm, up to her shoulder.
"Wow," Isabelle says, stunned. She bites her lip and thinks for a moment. Then, Ethan's face pops out from between his mother's armpit, and he blows a raspberry.
"Oh, okay, it's so on!" Isabelle yells, as she jumps across onto the lady's arm and gives chase.
"You'll never catch me! I'm the king of the skin!"
Isabelle giggles as she hurries after him.
---
"Are you okay?" the lady asks me, breaking my reverie.
"I... uh... yeah, I'm sorry. It's just, your tattoo. It just made me..."
"Oh"--she looks down at her arm--"that's my son. Christian." She lets out a deep breath. "It's to remember him."
I nod and hold out my arm. "Isabelle."
She tries to smile at me, but her lips are shaky. "I--'
We sit in silence as we watch the children play and and listen to their laughter.
When I finally have to go, I turn to her. "I'm here most days, if you, you know -- if you want some company."
She nods. "Thank you. I guess I'll see you again, then."
As I walk away, for the first time in a long time, a smile creeps up, uninvited, over my lips.
|
*The color is the indicator.*
Jeff sat slumped against the far wall of the tavern, his eyes casting wide sweeps over the quiet, dusty room. His cloth hood dipped down almost over those eyes, just barely keeping them hidden in a shadow. Every so often someone would glance his way, but as if compelled by some unseen force, they would turn back and continue what they were doing. Jeff took in a ragged breath, and let out a low sigh.
"Color, eh?" He said under his breath. The small, invisible imp feeding him information sad on his shoulder, unseen.
*Red mixes differently with green than it does with blue. Vice versa, and on and on.*
Jeff glanced down to his forearm, which was covered in the dark brown sleeve of his cloak, yet underneath was his *mark*. Everyone had a mark, somewhere on their body. There were myths and theories as to the origins of the marks. Everyone's was different and unique, like a snowflake. One story said that if you were to find someone with the same mark, they were to be your soulmate forever. Others said it was aliens marking us to keep tabs.
"I've got a green mark," Jeff muttered to no one in particular. Once again, heads would turn toward him, and then suddenly lose interest and return to their drinks and conversations. "I've touched a girl with a red mark before... well a lot. Nothin' happened."
*First comes touch, then comes intent. What did you intend to do with the girl?*
"Uh..." Jeff looked off in the distance. "Nothin' really I guess-"
*Did you hate her? Intend to kill her where she stood?*
"Not... quite."
*Well nothing would have happened anyway. Green reacts to red by fleeing. If you touched her and felt fear, it would make you faster for a short time.*
"Oh... wait, really?"
*I'm surprised you mortals have not figured these things out yet. *
"We got plenty of other things to worry about demon," Jeff said solemnly. Suddenly a thought appeared in his head. "What does green react to blue with?"
*Green is the color of speed. I suppose your body would become faster, more reflexive.*
"Interesting... what do I have to be feeling?"
*Depends. Green does not react to red aggressively because it's weaker than red. Blue however, is weaker than green, so green can act offensively or defensively.
"Okay can you say it in a way that isn't confusing as all hell."
*If angry, punch fast. If scared, run fast.*
"Okay thank you."
*What do you plan to do with this information?*
Jeff let out a small breath. "I have a certain... friend... I want to visit. Come with me."
Jeff stood up and left the tavern, removing the subtle camouflage spell he had placed upon it as he left. The imp traveled through the air above, watching the man with interest. Perhaps there was a reason the Low-Mother had placed the imp in the mortal's service, the Imp thought. He would see with time.
| 2017-09-12T02:07:45 | 2017-09-12T00:08:20 | 179 | 20 |
[WP] You are the firstborn of a man who promised to give their firstborn child over to a devil in exchange for a successful career. The problem is that he’s 23 years late, and you’re an adult about to propose to the love of your life.
|
Somewhere along the way I got lazy. I lost the edge my dad had raised me to have. Son of a bitch that he is, I can’t say he didn’t try to make up for it in his own way. I don’t think he expected to have me in his life for too long. My mistake was dropping my guard. His was getting attached.
When we’re at our lowest points in life, humans can get a bit desperate. A starving man may steal so that he can eat, someone dying of thirst may dig into the earth until their fingers bleed to find water. We pray to whoever will hear us in our darkest hours, and we’ll take any hand that reaches down to pull us up. My dad did just that somewhere in a desert fighting in a war no one should’ve fought in the first place. With his unit all but decimated and enemies closing in, he reached out for a miracle and was met instead with a bargain.
What is the price of a human life? What about the price of 13? It may surprise you to find out that whether it’s one or 100, the price is almost always a flat rate: a soul not your own. That of a loved one or one that is not yet known to you. The bargain struck was his life for that of his first born child. I don’t know what he saw pinned down by gun fire, he can’t rightly tell me what he saw either, but he does remember shaking the hand of something that made his blood boil in his veins. Within a matter of minutes, 13 men were slain and scattered to the wind, while one got to go home.
Here’s the thing about my father. From that day forward he said his luck was unbelievable. He was given a commendation for his “service”, came home to an abundance of opportunity, and somewhere along the way he met a woman. This is where dear old dad thought he could trick the devil. It wasn’t long after his return that he had a vasectomy. He made sure to make quick friends with his urologist, and had regular check ups to ensure his potential for having children was DOA. The woman didn’t mind and was happy to forgo a child to share in their love together for years and years to come. Old man was set for life.
Except two years after the wedding an unexpected surprise shook the very foundation of their love. Imagine his surprise when his wife wound up pregnant. He was beside himself. She was devastated because she had never even kissed another man, much less slept with one. But how could it be that she was with child when his line had been cut? Only the devil knows. I was their son without a doubt. I was a bargaining chip due.
My life should have been snuffed the moment I came into being. Perhaps some figure should’ve stolen me like a thief in the night. My father waited in agony for something, anything to happen to me. As he waited he grew close to me, as some fathers are want to do with their children. He raised me to be smart, measured, and strong. He was there for life’s milestones, my highs and my lows, and now he’s beaming at me on a pew as I await the love of my life to walk down the aisle.
When he told me what he’d done some time ago, I was dubious at first, shocked after that, and then livid to the point of violence. I got some good shots in on him. He didn’t resist. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything else but take his punishment. I left him a battered mess in his study. We didn’t talk for a time. Then I met her. I fell in love. We propped each other up, pushed one another to grow while offering each other comfort from the world around us. She helped me heal and was the catalyst for mending my relationship with my father.
He paid for the whole affair. He wouldn’t hear of her father for anything tradition be damned. If it weren’t for her detailed wedding book, I imagine he’d have planned the whole thing himself too. Thankfully he didn’t. His money is good but his taste is questionable. He’s smiling at me, tears welling up in his eyes. I’m smiling at him. A genuine smile with a fondness I’ve not felt for him a long time.
Now the wedding march. Everyone’s on their feet. The doors open and I’m stunned.
I’m frozen in place. Everyone around me has become wax statues with fixed features staring at the bride. I see her. I see it. I see my destiny decided for me long ago. It glides down the aisle with ease and snuffs out candles on the way. No one has moved or made any exclamations. They are a captive audience who may not even witness what is about to occur. Except for the man in the front pew. His tears flow down his cheeks without pause, a smile still plastered on his face.
It stands before me now and it looks like her, but I’ve already seen past the veil. It is here to hold up the agreement. I watch its lips part into a smile that could crack glass. It leans close to me. It whispers in my ear.
“To have and to hold, to love and cherish, till death—oh, no. I suppose that last bit doesn’t hold up here. You’re mine now…unless you would like to strike a bargain?”
A joke. A jest. It cackles as it takes me under.
|
The last of the congratulatory cheers died down. It was just me and him, standing before our loved ones. Me and him: finally engaged. But in the back of our private dining room, a dry cackle steadily increased in volume.
I ignored it. I preferred to get lost in Tristan’s handsome face. Hold his hands. But as the cackling grew, I watched the joy seep out of Tristan’s smile. His hands shrank away from mine and clung to each other instead.
We both looked to the source of the laughter.
I thought it strange that I hadn’t noticed this peculiar woman all night. The old lady wore a long emerald robe laced with gold sequins. An eyepatch obscured her right eye. And she openly laughed in our direction, clapping to herself. Her long golden nails tapped together with each clap.
--
That's what I have so far! Happy to write more if people want it. Otherwise, thanks for reading :)
| 2022-11-29T22:10:35 | 2022-11-29T20:12:15 | 136 | 24 |
[WP] Scientists have discovered a way to verify who everybody was in a past life. Some people have never lived before, some have lived a hundred lives. If you decide to find out yours, the results entered into the public domain. Your results are back. You were Hitler.
|
This was supposed to be fun. Or exciting. Or even disappointing. I would have settled for disappointing. I would *pay* for disappointing.
When BestLife, Inc. came out with the technique, people lined up for blocks outside every research center. Within a week, the company upped the fee from $45 to $2000, and people still lined up for miles. People who couldn't afford the $2000 started selling cars, taking out loans, and taking on second jobs. I'll admit, I had just about started getting into the craze. Everyone wanted to know who they were in a past life!
Of course, a lot of people ended up being disappointed. Imagine dishing out two grand just to find out you weren't anyone in a past life. Law suits were filed within months, and the government had to step in to regulate the procedure. By the end of the year, BestLife, Inc. was forced to make the procedure public. The Supreme Court ruled that people had a right to know about their own biological history.
Then came the scandals. Ordinary people found out they used to be despicable people. An elderly woman in Oregon found out she had been Genghis Khan. Some florist down in Florida discovered he used to be John Wilkes Booth. But the biggest scandal was when a little boy from Cleveland found out he was Saddam Hussein in a past life. That one had set off an international controversy. ISIS demanded the "western devils" surrender the boy to them. The Tea Party demanded that the boy be put in protective care to watch for warning signs. Ultimately, the FBI put the boy and his family into Witness Protection to keep the crazies off of them.
So when I found out my results, I pretty much knew my life was over. I mean, who really wants to find out they had been Adolf Hitler?
"Excuse me," I told the receptionist at the clinic, "I think there may be a mistake with my results. May I speak with the doctor again?"
She nodded, smiled politely, and paged me when the doctor had a free minute. I sat back down in the exam room and thumb the paper in my hands nervously.
"Back so soon, Mr. Lowe? What can I do for you?" Dr. Prescott asked.
"Yeah, I uh, think there's a problem with my results," I said, handing her the paper.
She looked over the page, then handed it back to me, "I'm sorry, but it's accurate. Might want to get a lawyer now."
I left the office and found a bench to sit down on. No matter how many times I looked at the results, they still said the same thing: a half dozen names that had little significance to me, and then 'Adolf Hitler' second from the bottom. For almost an hour, I just sat and argued with the page. Eventually my stomach got the better of me, and I went to Jimmy John's for a quick bite.
Looking back, I should have just shredded the page into little tiny pieces and pretended it never. Instead, I carried it with my into the restaurant and set it on the edge of the table. When I got up to refill my soda, I brushed the paper off of the table. I turned to pick it up, but another guy in a blue polo shirt bent down to pick it.
"I got it, pal. Here you—" he paused, catching the text on the page, "Hey, I've been thinking about doing this test, too! Who'd you get?"
The half second it took for his eyes to catch the fateful words passed like hours.
"Son of a—you used to be Adolf Hitler!" he yelled out in amazement.
I snatched the paper away from him and walked out the front door without taking my cup or the rest of my sandwich. Maybe no one would follow me. Maybe I could just walk home and pretend this never happened. But the guy caught up to me at the bus stop.
"Hey man, that's some pretty incredible stuff! You should sell your story to the news!" he told me.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Just leave me alone, guy," I said quickly and started walking. I could use the exercise today anyway. The man didn't follow this time, so I thought I was clear. After all, he didn't know who I was. He couldn't tell anyone.
Or that's what I thought. When I made it home, I turned on the news and sat down on the couch. What I saw next marked the beginning of the end for me.
"...and with the story we have Rachel DeMarcus on location. Rachel?" the news anchor said.
"Thanks, Tom!" she smiled, "I'm here with Phil O'Hare, who claims he met the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler at a Jimmy John's!"
The camera panned out to show the reporter standing next to the guy from the restaurant. My stomach sank. *He still doesn't know my name,* I assured myself.
Phil started talking about the encounter, "Yeah I saw this guy drop a paper on the ground and picked it up for him, y'know, to be nice. And I caught a glimpse of what was on the page. And it was from one of those clinic where they do the reincarnation thing, y'know, and he had the name Adolf Hitler listed on there!"
"Incredible, Mr. O'Hare! And what happened after that?"
"Yeah, he, uh, left pretty quick, so I caught up with him and told him to go public, but he just walked off. Weird guy."
"Just remarkable. I guess we will never know the identity of our own Hitler reincarnate! Back to y—"
Phil interrupted, "Actually, I caught the guy's name when I picked up the paper. His name is, uh, Alexander Lowe."
I turned off the TV and just sat in horror. My phone started ringing almost immediately. It was my sister. She had watched the news, too. Great. The phone rang and rang until it went to voicemail. Then I saw the text notifications on my phone. Fifteen people had already texted me about this! This wasn't good.
Heading to my bedroom, I left my phone on the end table. There is no way I was talking to anyone about this right now. I had to leave. My duffel bag was buried in my closet. I filled it in a hurry and headed for the front door. Hand on the door knob, I was just about to open it up when I noticed a black sedan with tinted windows parked across the street. We almost never saw new people down there. That neighborhood was pretty dull.
I had a pretty good idea that the car belonged to the FBI, and they were getting ahead of the game this time with the whole Witness Protection thing. The back door was my only chance. As I rushed back across the house, I saw my phone still buzzing with notifications. I slipped it in my pocket and rushed out the back of the house.
My tiny yard had a small chain-link fence. On the other side was a narrow dirt alley, barely wide enough for a car. In the alley, I started jogging, looking out for the sedan. I heard tires on the road ahead and hopped into someone else's backyard. There was a large privacy fence around this yard, so I sprinted across the yard as a car turned down the alley. I heard doors slam and voices saying something about checking every house. The privacy fence face the front street on one side, so I jumped it again and bolted across the street.
Four hours and a lot of fence-hopping later, I was on a greyhound bus heading to Los Angeles. My heart was pounding and my head racing. I had absolutely no idea what to do next. Out of habit, I checked my phone. Thirty-seven text messages, twelve missed calls, and three voicemails. I knew my sister had left a voicemail, but the other two numbers I didn't recognized. One of the voicemails was from the news station, wanting to do a full story on me. The other number was an area code I didn't recognize. I clicked it and put the phone to my ear.
A scratchy, male voice spoke with a heavy accent, "Mein Fuhrer, I have been waiting so long for this day to come. I know you will be going to Los Angeles. I will meet you at the bus station there. We have much to discuss. Heil Hitler!"
|
The green room to the Today Show wasn't actually green, but the other guy who'd once been a famous man didn't care. "This booze, man," he said. "Delicious."
I wasn't in the mood for booze. It was eight o'clock in the morning.
He sipped his down with nary a wince. "So--who were you?"
"They said they didn't want me to tell anyone associated with the show until we're out there." It was half-true. They had to me that, of course, but the reason I didn't want to say the words **Adolf Hitler** was that I grew up hating the person I apparently was, and was loathe to even say the damnable words.
They called us in and crewman hooked microphones around the back of our pants. Up came Matt Lauer, all nervous energy.
"So, you guys--we're not going to pretend like you're the same people you once were. You know I had myself tested, and in a past life, I was a Frenchman who'd been imprisoned for being a thief. There's no judgment here. There's no blaming you for who you've been. The government acknowledges you're different people now, so...feel free to just be you. Your current you."
We were seated on the couch. A producer told us to look at Matt, not at the camera, and to speak up and emote. *Emote,* I thought. *I'm responsible for the deaths of millions. How can I* not *emote?*
"And we're back, sitting here with two of the most famous souls in world history...but they're not here in their most famous forms. Welcome, Davis and Gary."
"Hi, Matt," I said.
"Hey," Gary said.
"Okay, so, what were your reactions when you first heard who you were in the past?"
I spoke first, but not after rubbing my knees and sighing. "Well, I'm not sure it's fully sunk in. I...it's been an identity crisis for me."
Gary blinked. "It's been better for me. I've looked him up, I've read more about him, trying to get a better background for what my soul was during World War II."
*World War II?*
"Well, I guess this is the moment we've been waiting for," Matt said. "Gary, did you know you're sitting next to the soul of Hitler?"
The man's eyes flared. "Hitler?"
I shrugged. I'd gotten used to this response. What more to do? Apologize? I didn't *remember* being Hitler. People looked at me like I, Davis, had been responsible for genocide and world war and endless suffering. The best I'd done in *this* life had been a gas station clerk in Albany, NY. Hitler had first reincarnated as a rotten maggot, they said, but the soul had slowly earned its way back to humanity.
"And, Davis, I'd like to introduce you to the soul of...Winston Churchill."
Gary's eyes nearly turned over white, their languidness replaced by steely bulldog determination.
"You bloody bastard." Gary lunged at me. I struggled to keep his hands off my neck.
"I'm -- not -- Hitler --" I said.
"I've waited more than one lifetime for this moment!" Gary screamed. "You're just as Hitler as I am Churchill!"
Security came in to break us up--and they did until one of them, in the heat of the moment, turned on me, too. "My grandmother died in the holocaust!" he screamed bitterly.
Matt Lauer crossed his legs and leaned in to the camera. "Well, then. We'll be right back with the soul of Giacomo Casanova who will dish out some online dating tips for busy singles. This is Today on NBC."
| 2015-02-23T17:54:41 | 2015-02-23T17:31:07 | 19 | 11 |
[WP] It was an accident. He was jogging late at night, you glanced at a text while driving. You panic, dump the body in a nearby lake, go home and try to forget. You venture out for some much needed coffee, only to stop in shock. The barista is the jogger and he recognizes you.
|
I stumbled back in pure awe. Mouth ajar and everything, as my cash fell onto the ground. My skin went ghost white as the barista looked me up and down, then let out a slight sigh through his nostrils. I saw him quickly glance to the phone, then fixed his gaze on me.
"Can I help you, sir?" He'd ask. I'd start stumbling on my words. "O-One h-hot coffee...P-please." I managed to say, sweating. He tapped it into the register as I hopped down and grabbed my change. As I got up to hand it to him, I saw him put cash in the register, then look at me.
"You look stressed. Take a seat and I'll bring you your coffee. On the house." He said. I took a moment to collect half of myself before nodding. I was getting served by a zombie for free. Never thought I would say that sentence and actually mean it.
I went over to a table and took a seat, getting a handkerchief out of my pocket and wiping my brow. What would I say to someone that I killed? Just then, a tray was set in front of me. A coffee, some sugars, a hot chocolate and two brownies. The man sat next to me and put his hand on my shoulder.
"You killed me." He said. I was scared pantsless. "I want you to answer a few questions for me. If you don't...I'll call the police." He continued. I nodded, sweating a bit more and about to tear up. He grabbed a napkin and dried my forehead.
"First question. Did you mean it...?" He asked me. I shook my head. "No...I didn't. I was stupid and looked at my phone. I had gotten a text." I explained.
"Now I have another question. Why? Why did you look at your phone?" He asked. I sighed. "It was my doctor. Something happened to my brother and he's in hospital. We're great friends and I wanted the doctors to keep me updated." I explained. I felt a bit calmer now. He looked a bit sorry for me.
"Next question. Do you regret it? Would you go back to that moment and change it...?" He asked. At that point, I broke down. "Yes...I-I-I would...I don't wanna be a c-criminal..." I said, crying my eyes out. He dried my tears.
"...Final question. Do you need a hug?" He asked. At that moment I looked up at him and immediately hugged him. He wrapped his arms around me and patted my back. "I'll be brutally honest with you. This isn't the first time I died." He said, pulling up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of 4 lines across his arm like a ladder. "Apparently, everyone's really clumsy. I died from a construction accident, a night out gone wrong, an elevator breaking and...a car accident." He said before taking a sip of his hot chocolate. "I tell ya...It isn't my time to go. I still got objectives to do, a family to care about. Apparently Heaven's Receptionist is a real softie. I die one more time, I get a free coffee mug!" He continued before chuckling.
I was starting to feel better. "So...You're not angry or annoyed at me? You're not going to call the police?" I asked. He shook his head.
"You were preoccupied with your brother. I don't blame you. We gotta care for our families. I can tell ya, though...When you're me, dieing then reviving the next day is like getting drunk. You wake up with a massive hangover." He explained. "No hard feelings?" He asked.
"...Yeah. No hard feelings. You got a name, man...?" I'd ask. He smirked. "Angus. Angus McCloud." He said. I introduced myself and we shook hands.
We finished our drink and snacks and I bid him farewell.
That was 3 years ago and we're still friends. I treat him to dinner occasionally and he was the best man at my wedding. He's considered a family friend now. We invite him over every Christmas and he has the free Heaven Mug every time he's over.
Last new years, I pulled him aside and we had some hot chocolate while watching the countdown, having a good discussion. I mentioned that my brother was healthy and living in Nevada with some virtual wife named Ashlyn. He chuckled, but seemed a bit down. That's when he dropped the bomb.
"...I don't have any objectives any more...The next time I die, it'll be for good." He said. I was taken aback. He gave me his Heaven Mug, placing it on my lap. "Keep it. And remember me. I may not be alive much longer..." He continued. And so, we watched the countdown in silence.
He died in the next month from natural causes. Since then, I switched from coffee to hot chocolate. Speaking of which...
...I need one right now.
|
I try to avert his gaze, but his penetrating stare paralyzes me. After what feels like an eternity, he slides the mug across the counter, leaning towards me, and quietly whispers...
"I've seen your face before my friend, but I don't know if you know who I am.
Well I was there and I saw what you did, I saw it with my own two eyes.
So you can wipe off that grin. I know where you've been.
It's all been a pack of lies."
| 2018-09-23T05:55:27 | 2018-09-23T04:04:00 | 96 | 37 |
[WP] Movies would have you believe that when a demon possesses someone, they wreak as much havoc as they can before being exorcised. In reality, demons want to stay out of Hell for as long as possible, and what better way than making sure the host and their family really like the possession.
|
“Possession is a lot harder than the movies would have you believe, kid. Have you ever thought about it? I mean, pulling off a convincing switcharoo? Satan forbid your target is a CEO or some super scientist, or some other career oriented person with responsibilities. And if they have family? Friends? That’s a lot of threads, each of which could be pulled to unravel your ruse. That’s why you’ve got to pick your target carefully.”
Azirowley poured the orange juice into a tall glass, and slid it across the table. The child grabbed the glass with two tiny hands.
“Is that why you picked my Daddy?”
The demon stiffened. The young ones didn’t usually learn subtly, yet. He’d forgotten that.
He’d also forgotten how fucking BIG their eyes were, compared to the rest of their tiny bodies. Honestly, children were fucking freakish. And the gaze of those bright, brown eyes burned him like a hot spring of holy water.
The demon turned his back to the child, and tended to the stove. The pancakes would be ready soon.
“Yes.” Azirowley replied, deciding a direct question warranted a direct answer. A lazy wave of a hand, and the child’s emptied glass was full again.
“No employment, no friends, cut off all his ties to his siblings and parents— all the less people to notice if something was suddenly odd. Takes the pressure off of passing.”
“Except me and Mommy.”
“Except you and your mother, yes. Now, hold out your plate.”
The demon faced the child, frying pan in hand. The child lifted her plate. Her arms bowed with the weight of the stack of pancakes Azirowley unceremoniously plopped down.
“Your dad was, respectfully, a scumbag. A real lowlife. I’ve seen a lot, kid. Between you and me, I’m 6000 years old.” Azirowley poured an extremely generous amount of syrup over the stack of pancakes. A small shaker materialized in front of the child’s eyes, seemingly out of nowhere. Her eyebrows shot up. The girl looked to the demon, as if for an explanation. Azirowley smiled.
“Professionals have standards, and all that.”
Azirowley tapped the bottom of the shaker, and coated the syrup in powdered sugar. A snap of the fingers later, strawberry slices winked into reality on top.
“Now, eat up. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”
The child stared at the demon. Her decadent breakfast went untouched.
“Hey, kid? For Satan’s sake, you’re creeping me out, staring at me like that! What, got something to say?” Azirowley flopped himself into the chair next to the child, and returned the girl’s stare.
“See how you like it, some bug-eyed creature lookin’ into your soul.”
Something wrinkled and stretched across the girls face. She turned her eyes to the magical breakfast. With a fork, she poked and pushed the plate. She looked back to Azirowley through the corners of her eyes.
“You’re… not going to hurt us.”
It was Azirowley’s turn for something to wrinkle and stretch across his face. The child turned her body to face him, and continued.
“If you wanted to hurt me or Mommy, you would’ve done it already. Like Daddy would’ve.” She tilted her head. “But… you haven’t. You make me food. You make Mommy laugh. You keep the big men away.” The girl picked a strawberry slice from off the top of the pancakes and popped it into her mouth.
“You must be a pretty shitty demon.” She concluded.
Azirowley barked with laughter, and nearly fell out of his chair from doubling over.
“I like you, kid!” Laughter peeling off, the demon settled back down in his seat.
“You’re wicked smart, you know that?” A mischievous glint in the girl’s eyes answered him back, as she stuffed her mouth with strawberries and sugar. There might’ve even been a smile somewhere on that face.
“And you’re right. I don’t target children, not my thing. And your mother, she’s done nothing wrong. Now, I’m a demon— but even *I* don’t attack without reason.” He leaned in.
“As long as I am occupying this vessel— er, as long as I *look like your Daddy*— I will do my best to not let you or your mother get hurt. Satan’s sake, you’ve been though enough already. Okay?”
The girl furrowed her brow, pondering his statement. Azirowley could see the wheels turning in her head. How a shitbag like his vessel could have such a delightful child, he had no idea.
“Okay.” The girl jutted her chin, and held out a syrupy, sugary hand. “You use Daddy as a vessel, and keep me and Mommy safe. Deal.”
A smile spread across Azirowley’s face. Without hesitation, the demon moved to take the child’s hand in his. But at the last minute, the girl drew back her hand.
“On one more condition.”
Azirowley’s eyebrows shot up his forehand. He was still leaning forward, his hand frozen from the would-be shake. The girl’s hand was up next to the side of her face.
“I’m listening.”
“When you go? When you don’t need Daddy’s body anymore?” The child looked at him with those big brown eyes, bright and sharp as a flaming sword.
“Don’t let him come back. Drag him to hell and keep him there.” The girl’s hand came back to Azirowley’s. With a chuckle, he gave her hand a gentle shake.
“Kid, it would be my pleasure. Deal, you little menace!”
The demon swooped up the child with a flourish, eliciting delighted shrieks that rang throughout the desolate, run down kitchen.
Yeah. He had a good feeling about this.
|
I try don't make it a habit, however the screams of the self inflicted punishment got bored at some point. Demons doesn't want to be there more than needed to find a new body to posses.
I love the rebel smart kids with their way of making everyone on the family hate them. "I am smarter, you idiots." And they are pretty much right.
It's their parents job to take care of them and they pretty much know it. They can look at the world and see how people act and put it into boxes overseeing what other will do next.
Genius observer. The lonely boys and girls who is a piece of other board game. With them I just need say the right words and the deal is done.
"Why would you want it? Why people like me?"
Oh Charles. Don't you see? Look around. Everyone is now eating at your hands, catch in a web of manipulation that even if they find out it is already too late.
"So you want to me see myself destroying my family?"
No, I am more amusing in showing you what you could've become if you were a bit smarter. Because now, it doesn't matter, it's not you, it's me acting like you. The one who thought your mind is a prison. So look from that prison, look of what me, using what you know to achieve success.
I want you to see what you lost.
"Why?! Why are you doing it with me?!"
You are smart Charles, you will figure out, until there, please, take a sit and let me show you a true life of success you lost for nothing.
| 2022-10-15T21:06:52 | 2022-10-15T16:49:40 | 358 | 32 |
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