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[WP] The Reapers come every 50 thousand years to wipe out organic life that has reached the stars however this time, this time they arrive at the heaviest resistance they have every encountered. In the grim darkness of the future they find 40k.
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Three weeks after receiving a distress signal from the outlying colony Hesperia IV, His Imperial Majesty's Ship *Ark Royal* tore a breach in the fabric of reality and forced her way back into realspace. Contact from the colony had been brief and lacking in detail, reporting only upwards of sixty hulls weighing in between light transports and heavy frigates. Sector Command had in response scrambled the only ships available, and could only pray it would be enough.
Moments after the first emergence, several more gaping rifts into the teeming unreality of the Warp opened, and the rest of the task force joined the flagship. As radiation washed over the ships and sensor sweeps of the system began, Commodore Constantin Artor vo Hannick reviewed his line of battle, which seemed to have escaped the Empyrean intact.
*Sabre* Squadron, five *Sword* -class frigates, positioned themselves around the flanks of the formation. Affordable, durable, powerful for their small stature, each one a mere sixteen hundred meters from armored prow to engine cowling. One of the mainstays of the God-Emperor's Navy across the galaxy, they would pursue enemy fast-movers and interdict enemy fire concentrating on his ships of the line.
*HIMS Cadia's Remembrance,* the newest addition to the Sector Fleet, took the fore. A *Lunar* -class cruiser, the workhorse of the Imperial Navy, a ship no officer would frown to serve on. Five kilometers of armor plating, lance turrets, ordnance batteries, and torpedo tubes. This would be her first battle, and the commodore made a note to keep an eye on her, especially as she was captained by an officer on his first command.
*HIMS Witchhammer,* a *Tyrant* -class cruiser, was the opposite of *Cadia's Remembrance.* One of the most venerable ships in the Sector Fleet, she had been crushing Xenos raiders, Renegade warships, bio-monstrosities and planetary installations under her extensive weapons batteries for six millennia. Plasma drives thrumming, the ancient warrior took position behind, below, and to the side of her sister cruiser.
Assured that the rest of his taskforce was present, he glanced around the cavernous bridge of the *Ark Royal.* He was proud of his ship and crew, and knew that whatever came, they'd acquit themselves with distinction today. His eyes were drawn to the flickering holo-tank before his command throne, depicting the *Mars* -class battlecruiser's layout. Fifty-four hundred meters long, she carried sixteen strike craft launch bays. A line of titanic lance turrets ran down her spine, her flanks bristled with heavy cannons, and beneath her armored prow hung the most powerful weapon in the Navy's arsenal; a Nova Cannon.
Eight ships. The distress signal spoke of over sixty enemy combatants moving against a colony defended by a handful of picket ships, and Sector Command could spare eight ships.
A voice called from the sensor pit, Lieutenant ap Symdey unless he was mistaken.
"Commodore," the woman called, "Radiation plume is clearing, sensor returns are coming in, sir." Her voice was calm, businesslike.
Constantin flicked his fingers across keypads on the arms of his throne and dismissed the image of his ship. In its place, a flickering green representation of the star system appeared. A small cluster of aquilae icons rested on the edge of the gravity well, and moment by moment more of the system came into clarity. He knew it would be hours before their sensors reported anything from the inhabited inner reaches of the system however-the downsides of sub-luminal warfare on a luminal scale. With a few brief, restrained orders to his second in command, he directed the Imperial taskforce down the gravity well; there was no point in waiting here for more information. They would know everything they needed long before they saw the interlopers. Assured that everything was in order, the veteran naval officer retired to his quarters.
 
More than eight hours later, the Commodore returned to the bridge with a thermal mug of hot tea. The flotilla had made their way significantly farther in-system, and had a clear, disturbing picture of the state of things. Dozens of strange vessels hovered over the stricken planet, reminiscent of Tyranid bio-ships in shape, but clearly inorganic in origin. No signals could be detected from the colony, previously home to five hundred million loyal Imperial citizens, and (unbeknownst to the Commodore or his crews) one tenacious, insidious, Pleasure Cult. No response was had to Imperial hails, mundane or astropathic. No movement or sign of life on any of the orbital installations. Worse, the strange vessels were massing, returning from whatever sinister purpose they'd had and forming up above the planet.
 
Hours passed. The crustacean-esque ships gathered and started to drift across the system towards the Imperial task force, which thundered through the void towards them on pulsing plasma drives. Sensor returns were analyzed, and fleet composition determined: fourty transport and light-hauler scale hulls were written off by the fleet captains as fire ships. Dangerous in numbers, but fragile and individually unimportant. The alien armada also contained over twenty frigate-sized ships with unknown armament, and one ship the Commodore postulated as the enemy flagship that had the mass and scale of a light cruiser. After much debate, the decision was made to engage the enemy. The larger, hopefully more durable Imperial hulls and more powerful reactors and shields they hoped would give them the edge they needed to bloody the enemy fleet enough to bring the fight into more reasonable odds.
 
In later years, the battle of Hesperia IV would be forgotten by the Imperium as a whole, a curious footnote in Inquisition archives. The origin of the mysterious warships was never discovered, but they were quickly written off as a credible threat. The opening blows of the conflict were struck by *HIMS Ark Royal,* a single luminal Nova Cannon shell shrieking through the void and tearing a gaping hole in the xeno's armada. Analysis of the detonation by tacticians aboard the flagship quickly determined that the unidentified ships lacked any void shield capacity of note, or were not bringing them online. Torpedo volleys from the *Remembrance* and *Witchhammer* disabled or destroyed more enemy ships from beyond retaliation range, and *Ark Royal* was able to fire a second salvo from her prow cannon before launching her strike craft and preparing for close-quarters battle.
The ensuing brawl was less of a battle than it was a massacre. Ordnance batteries designed to reduce planetary fortifications and crack open the hulls of ships carrying meters of armor ripped the invaders apart. Laser 'lance' batteries intended to penetrate void shields and eviscerate the warship beneath carved unprotected vessels apart, and the most powerful of the xenos fire impotently washed away from shields that were created to carry their bearers through an apocalypse and allow them to fight on the other side. The Imperial task force rode through the heart of the enemy fleet, batteries blazing, and when they came around for a second pass, there was naught but a handful of enemy ships struggling to disengage.
In his memoirs, Fleet Admiral Constantin Artor vo Hannick expressed his regret for the way things went at Hesperia IV.
Seven of his ships would have been far more useful in other warzones. *Ark Royal* could have reclaimed the system alone.
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Joran saddled the horse and rode out into the forest behind Freegate. The leaves this time of the year flaunted their citrus-colored wardrobe. The autumn air smelled musty of earth and decomposing vegetation.
Soon he noticed movement in one of the bushes, the orange tail of a woodland fox slipped into the undergrowth. Quickly, he tied the horse to a tree and grabbed his musket.
He tried to keep his steps light as he pushed into the dense forest. The wind came straight at him, which meant the fox wouldn’t be able to smell him. He tracked his quarry into the glade. Fox pelts sold for a lot. His father would be so proud.
The fox sat on a pile of mud looking straight at him. He stopped dead and shouldered his rifle.
A shadow fell across the glade, and Joran reflexively looked up. At first, he couldn’t comprehend what he saw. A dark mountain hovered in the sky above the forest. It was shaped like a black cuttlefish of insane proportions. His rifle tumbled out of his fingers.
****
The lights of the library flickered. Inquisitor Lorian Drex looked up from his studies. The servitor watched him with expressionless eyes. Sometimes he felt like blowing its cretin brains out – he’d always abhorred the lifeless book keepers here. Something was unsettling about their deadness. It didn’t sit right.
He was just about return to the hefty tome when his vox buzzed.
“Sir, I apologize for disturbing your studies, but I think you need to see this.”
The voice of Interrogator Wyza Pryze was excited and a little bit fearful – a combination that was unusual for the normally calm and collected young man.
“What do you have?”
“Distress signals from several worlds on the Eastern Fringe, sir.”
“A hive fleet?”
“No, sir. I’ll send over a few images.”
Dark ships filled the blackness of the void above a planet. His first reaction was to call Tyranids as second time, but upon seeing the sleek black metal of the ships, he quickly changed his mind. They were like nothing he’d seen before. They looked advanced even compared to some of the Necron Tech he’d come across.
The next image showed an imperial city from above. The odd thing was that the streets were all empty. The city was completely abandoned. It was as if everyone had just vanished into thin air.
Drex moved on to the next image. At first, it looked like a mutant from the dregs below some of the hive cities. The twisted features of a man holding an antique rifle, but instead of a regular head, the glaring mouth and red fur of a fox occupied his shoulders.
“What is that?” Drex mumbled, mostly to himself.
He had come across a lot of strange things, especially dealing with the twisted experiments of the Dark Eldar homunculi, but nothing really compared to this. It seemed like both the fox and the man were still alive, somehow – as if the very DNA of the fox and man had been fused.
“Alert the Ordos, and gather the team,” Drex said and rose, accidentally pushing the servitor over. “Send word to Ultramar. We’re going to the Eastern Fringe right now.”
| 2017-08-27T09:05:40 | 2017-08-27T07:55:27 | 1,346 | 130 |
[WP] You were born blind. You undergo a new surgery that should cure your blindness. They undo the wraps and you open them. You think what you see is normal, but after the doctors ask a slew of questions, they discover there is something very strange about your newly acquired sight.
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"Open your eyes slowly, Daley," said a gentle voice. Daley felt the tightly bound bandages covering his eyes slacken, releasing his face from their iron grip.
Daley opened his eyes. He was greeted by the sight of the ceiling instead of the familiar darkness that enveloped him whenever he opened his eyes in the past. He sat up immediately and looked around the room in wonder. The cold metal frame of his bed, the warm light streaming through the window, the monochrome room he resided in, everything he once felt but couldn't see laid before his new eyes.
"Mr. Barnot, are you accustomed to your mechaeyes?" asked a gruff voice. "We would like to perform a few examinations on you before we discharge you from the ward. It would not take much of your time, Mr. Barnot."
"It's okay," Daley replied, taking in the elegant robe in front of him.
"Okay then Mr. Barnot. Hailee, if you may," said the gruff voice. Daley saw the smooth gloves press a button on a remote to reveal a screen with foreign shapes and figures in contrasting colors populating the background.
"Here is a piece of cardboard. I want you to rotate the cardboard to match the shape of the figures I point to with my laser pointer," said the gruff voice.
"Sure," Daley complied.
"Then we will begin." The laser pointer shone on a shape with three pillars facing upwards connected by a horizontal line. Daley shifted his cardboard in accordance with the orientation of the shape while trying to calm the waves of unrest resonating in his head.
"Congratulations Mr. Barnot. Your eyesight is even sharper than that of a normal human," said the gruff voice. "Now we proceed to the color test."
The remote clicked again to reveal a screen populated with many colors. "Now," said the gruff voice,"I will show you two colors."
"The color I am pointing to now is the color red." The pointer switched positions to rest on a area populated by another color. "And this, is the color green. Mr. Barnot, do you see a clear distinction between the two colors?"
Daley nodded in response.
"Well then, that concludes our tests, Mr. Barnot," said the gruff voice. "Thank you for your cooperation, you may look forward to your discharge this tomorrow morning."
*Tomorrow I will see everything around me, starting from my dog,* Daley thought. *I'm gonna start-*
"So do you want to know what are the names of the colors around you, Daley?" asked the gentle voice. "Let's start with my uniform."
The glove pointed to the dress in front of him. "This, is white."
The glove pointed to the other glove. "This color is green."
The glove pointed to empty air. "This color is brown. Well actually it is a lighter brown, but most humans have different skin colors in varying degrees of brown."
Daley stared. "Why are you pointing at the air? I thought you were conversing with me through your holofigures? That's why I couldn't see your faces right?"
"Holofigures don't work this way, Daley. Holofigures can't render skin this realistic, plus holofigures can't interact with the actual environment," replied the gentle voice. The green gloves twitched in midair. "Is there anything wrong with your mechaeyes, Mr. Barnot?"
Daley hesitated. *I better not tell them anything,* he thought. *I can see and that's enough. I can't stand another day is this godforsaken hospital.*
"It's nothing...I'm fine, uh, Miss," he said, trying to keep his voice level. "Oh by the way, can you close the window? The sunlight is *really* blinding my eyes."
"It's the middle of the night Mr. Barnot. What are you talking about?" the gentle voice became cold in an instant. "Are you saying that the transplant didn't go as planned? The System does not tolerate defective products."
Cold sweat rolled down Daley's neck. The fact that the System is perfect has been instilled in him since he was a little blind boy in the City's academy. *There was no way the mechaeyes manufactured by the System's factories could have been defective...right?*
The door to the room flew open with a violent bang. A beam of light pierced through the white dress, staining the white dress with blood.
*Red...*, he thought, mind numb with shock.
A slender figure wearing a hood stepped through the door and took off the hood.
Daley stared. A pair of impossibly beautiful eyes stared back in response.
"So...do you wanna destroy the System?"
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
Well that turned dystopian quickly. Any feedback and comments are welcome!
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People don't line up as they should. You've always been able to smell, feel, taste, touch. Now you can see them and its so much worse. The sickly sweaty smell is all the worse for being able to see the tainted fumes. Skin used to be rough and dimpled, now you know it's because everyone is rotting, weakened flesh ready to sloth away at any moment. You can't bring yourself to kiss your partner, not now you can see their many orifices that don't close properly and leek primordial slime. They're hideous. They're liars. They're monsters. Fake normalcy. Change your answers. Smile. Be happy that you can see even as your stomach churns. You must be different. An experiment. Not a freak, that's them. You'll leave this room praising your......doctors. You'll fade into the background once the success of the surgery is announced, emphasize that it was the medical creatures that deserve the false praise. Once they forget you, then you can act. See if there are other normies or self hating monsters. Start the long process of cleansing the world of the filth that infects it.
| 2018-10-29T07:28:13 | 2018-10-29T06:43:53 | 111 | 31 |
[WP] When everyone turns 18, they receive a pet which is figurative of their personality. You're the first person to receive a dragon...
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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."
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My 18th birthday had finally come. The step to adulthood, the leap towards life.
I looked around, and all of my friends who were older then me brought theirs, wondering what I would get while the rest were wondering what they would get soon.
The cake was beautiful, with animal figurines all over it, each animal hoping to be chosen. One was missing though.. you could see the spot of which it used to stand.
"THREE! TWO! ONE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" everyone chanted as the clock struck noon, the exact time of my birth.
I looked outside the window. The "18th birthday animal service" had come with an unusually big package, the size of a mountain.
We all went outside to see what it was. My mom put her hand on my shoulder and said these exact words,
"Hope for the best, for only the lord knows what this could be. Strive to keep your animal healthy and come to us for any help. We know what your going through.. now get ready and open light to whatever is inside."
I nodded with tears in my eyes. What did she mean by that? I passed it to the back of my mind and looked up at the mountain of cardboard and tape.
"We now give you... a..."
Everyone froze. I gasped. A dragon? No one had ever gotten one before.
I looked up at it and it looked down at me. Smoke came out of his nostrils and it grunted with pleasure.
The news team was just down the block when I mounted the fiery beast. It was time, no one could deny it.
Time to be free of childhood and fear.
| 2014-09-28T11:15:34 | 2014-09-28T08:35:49 | 87 | 12 |
[WP] Write a Hunger Games styled story, except instead of telling it from the viewpoint of the final survivor, tell it from the perspective of the next to die, changing viewpoints until you get to the last one standing.
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"Everyone loooves the whole *Battle Royale* thing right now, huh," Benjie said.
The mouse faced girl sniffed, "I don't."
"Right well, obviously...Neither do I...."
Benjie smiled awkwardly and backed away. As far as he could tell, this wasn't about class war or whatever like the *real* hunger games....just a way for the wealthy deranged to have a good time.
His "sponsor", a fat Russian named Gregor with an affinity for tuna sandwiches, had apparently picked him for his "Pluck". Benjie could acknowledge why he made sense as a choice of contestant, even if he didn't agree. He was the president of the Innovation in Business club on his campus, a silver tongued ambassador type, smart if not brilliant. But he was also in decent shape, he still ran cross country for a club team and played pick up basketball whenever he could. *Fuck my Pluck,* Benjie thought.
Finally he'd been given a suit worth more than his house back home and driven to this decadent palace in god knows where for an opening mixer. The only people in attendance were the 24 contestants and their sponsors.
He kept his head down as he walked back to his table.
"What are you doing, boy," Gregor said, clapping him on the shoulder.
"Oh, hey, uh I don't know, just taking a break."
"A break?! My boy needs a *break,"* Gregor laughed as he took the seat beside him, "There are pretty girls here, boy. Girls who know they may only have a few days left. Just because it didn't work out with that one...."
Benjie blushed, "You saw that?"
"*Everyone* saw that, you looked like a fish on a frozen lake, boy."
"Ah jeez."
"*Relax,* I'm not supposed to do this but....here."
Gregor set a flask infront of him. Benjie sniffed....*Yeager?*
"Liquid courage," Gregor whispered.
Benjie shrugged, *might as well.* He took a long sip and scanned the room. The Yeager burned pleasantly in his belly, centering him. It seemed all of the sponsors were encouraging the contestants to interact...*why?*
"Thanks, Gregor. I needed that." *Not a bad guy for someone who kidnapped me and now means to force me to fight for my survival in a brutal contest to the death.*
He pushed his chair away from the table and made his away back to the dance floor. He approached a large guy with a vacant expression standing alone, "Hey, what's up," Benjie said.
The big guy turned his head slowly, was he drugged? He grunted a greeting.
"What's your name?" They wore name tags, but it seemed polite to ask.
"Block."
*How fitting.* "Where are you from, Block?"
"Not here."
*Poignant.* "How do you plan on getting out of this mess?"
"No plan."
"I see. Well maybe we could work-"
"NO. PLAN."
Benjie smiled and raised his hands plaintively, "Right, no problem. Carry on."
He turned his head to see the rest of the room. Some of the others must have come to the same conclusion as him, that forming some tentative alliance would increase their chance of survival. Having Block as an ally would be like having a wild grizzly on your side, for better or for worse.
Benjie approached a group of contestants chatting quietly near the buffet. There was a tall boy with dark hair and a striking face named Gunther. Debbie, a girl with broad shoulders. Loris, a pretty girl with long hair. And Bill, a pissed off looking guy with the body of a linebacker.
"What's up, guys. I'm Benjie Smith."
The others went quiet.
"Hey," said Gunther.
"You guys forming up a squad or something?"
They looked at each other as if considering it for the first time. "We might be," Gunther said.
Benjie grinned, "Great, mind if I join?"
No one responded until Loris stepped forward. She moved like a cat, her feet appearing to hold no weight. Her smile was disarming, her accent Parisian, "Look, I'm not going to waste your time...*Benjie...* I know your type."
"My type?"
Loris nodded, "You're a fox, I see it in your eyes. You think you can smile and con your way out of danger, but you aren't *really* looking to be a part of any team. You just want as many people as possible to see you as a non-threat."
When she finished the others nodded. Benjie shrugged, "I've never understood the hate that red heads get. Whatever."
It was a bit unsettling that the girl had been able to see through him like that, though she wasn't 100% correct. It was true, Benjie didn't necessarily *believe* the scenario presented by good old Suzanne Collins. He knew people, he knew em well. People don't give their lives for strangers, they just don't. When they entered that arena, teams and alliances would crumble. Blood would boil like it never had before. Some would go into a frenzy, others would run for the hills. All would act in their own best interest.
But he wasn't going around trying to convince people he wasn't a threat. That much was pointless, as he saw it. People were going to kill whoever they came across, tensions would be high enough to ensure that. No, he was going around in an effort to assess *why* each contestant had been chosen. As Sun Tzu said, whoever knows himself *and* knows his enemy need not fear the result of a thousand battles.
Some of the choices were clear, contestants built to fight like Block and Bill.
Others were less obvious. Loris had certainly revealed why she'd been selected, which left only a few he couldn't understand. He made his way around the room, chatting with contestants, weighing them out in his mind, trying to *understand* them. More times than not, he walked away with a better idea of what made each choice special.
One still eluded him. Benjie scanned the room until he found the mouse-faced girl back at her table. He approached her and sat down. She'd covered her name tag with a napkin.
"Look who's back," the girl said, "Mingling doesn't seem to be your strong suit."
Benjie laughed, "Yeah, because you're doing so much better over here alone. Everyone who tries to talk to you walks away like they've burnt their finger on the stove."
The girl arched an eyebrow, "You've been watching me?"
"You're a puzzle... I like puzzles. I guess I'm just wondering why you're here."
The girl snorted, "Shit luck."
"That's not what I-"
"I know what you meant, and honestly, I couldn't tell you. Maybe they bring in one easy first kill every time."
Benjie looked over at the old woman watching their conversation like a hawk. She wore a white fur coat, bristling whenever any of the other sponsors tried to talk to her. "That your sponsor," he asked.
"Yup," she said, not bothering to look.
"She doesn't strike me as the sort to throw a fight. Actually, she looks like the compulsive kind, the ones *obsessed* with perfection."
The girl turned her head slightly to look, brushing away a strand of brown hair that fell over her eye. "Maybe..."
A bell rang, silencing the room. A voice came over the loud speaker.
"*The Opening Celebration is now concluded. Tomorrow the skills combine will begin during the day, followed by the release of your pre-assessments at night. Contestants, find your sponsors and leave after an orderly fashion. Thank you."*
Benjie stood. He reached a hand out to the girl, "Benjie Smith, at your service mystery girl."
The girl considered his hand, then shook it. "Clara Yates," she whispered, then turned and walked away swiftly.
​
\~
r/CharlestonChews
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The gates burst open, I ran to the middle. As I got closer and closer I knew what I had to do. The spear was right there. I reached my hand out, so close...
I almost had it..... my fingers could feel the cold steel touch. If I could only grasp it.....
Wait. What’s that sound? A slow whirr, buzzing through the air. I could feel it behind me. Feel it as the knife embedded itself in my skull.
I was running, tripping rather, the central spire was a blood bath. There were only eighteen of us. At least five or six were already dead, right? I turned to look, I could see one corpse as my view was slowly and surely sniffed out by the oncoming forest.
Nature. It used to bring me comfort, now, well, now nothing but fear. Any shadow could be an enemy, any sound could be the last I hear.
Food. Food and water. That’s what I need. I don’t have to kill them if I can outlive them.
What was that, a snarl? I could use it! If I can kill whatever just snarled at me, I could have food! Now let’s see.... what was it? Holy shit! Oh! God /why?!? It’s a fucking bear! I’ve gotta get out of he............
This was our perimeter. We would protect this spite. Provinces four, nine, and six had all teamed up. If we could keep this, we could stay one step ahead of everyone else. So this was our perimeter.
I’m not sure how to feel about the alliance. Eventually we’ll have to kill each other, right?
I’ll do it, if I have to, so will the girl from six. My partner, the guy from nine who was entered as our male tribute, would do it. Everyone else though? I think they’re just a little too sentimental. Especially the guy from four. He wouldn’t stand a chance. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was making friendship bracelets for us right now.
Ha! But that’s what you get from a province built around trading, isn’t it? He’s have to learn the hard way that.......
“Help! Help!!!” I ran towards the rest of the alliance. That fool may think me a simpleton, or too friendly. But I doubt it. After all, it’s kind of hard to think when your heads smashed in, isn’t it?
I’ll keep playing the friends card though. Now, if I can get them to start doubting each other, I’ll be safe. They’ll start killing each other, and I’ll be in the clear as they all come to me to help them. And why wouldn’t they? I am just the friendly tribute from province four, aren’t I?
“Help! They’ve killed him! He came running up with a stone.... he killed him.... he’s taking our s-s-supplies!”
Shit. The stutter, I’m doomed. The rest may fall for it, but my sister, the other tribute from four, she knows. She knows I stutter when I lie.
They run, but she, she stays. She knows. I’m done for. If I.... run? Can I outrun her? What would I even achieve if I did? I can’t survive on my own. Damn it! Stupid province four, half a lives worth of bartering and trading, and nowhere near enough training. I’ll... I’ll .... “gugghhhh.....”
That warmth. It’s so, close. Like, like its spreading from my heart. My heart? Oh... I see what happened here.
Those were his last thoughts as the sword withdrew from its cavity in his chest. His sister had noticed. And now, there were only fourteen left.
Part two coming out: eventually?
| 2019-02-16T16:22:16 | 2019-02-16T15:56:07 | 27 | 12 |
[WP] Instead of having a guardian angel, you have a guardian Demon. His methods are often much more violent. But much more straight forward.
|
"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck! There is blood everywhere, there is brain matter in my hair, and there is a demon standing in front of me licking it's claws clean!" I screamed into the phone.
"Sir, I am going to need you to calm down. Have you been drinking tonight? Sir? Sir have you had any drugs or alcohol S..." the demon reached over and put a claw on the base and the line went dead. "Now then" the demon said with a the authority of a shout in nothing more than a whisper "as you can see no one is going to believe" he gestured from side to side at the scene "this, so you can either tell me where the bleach is, or you can go to jail." I stuttered awake at the thought of jail, I couldn't go back, getting my life to this point was hard enough, I couldn't do it again. I mustered up the will to speak, nothing more than a crack from my throat "cabinet, under the sink. Third door on the right."
My head swam as the demon worked around me, humming a merry tune. Picking up brain and eyes, sweeping fragments of sticky bone up and moping the floor clean. It took about an hour or so, but the demon did a hell of a job on it, even managed to wipe the vicera and blood off me without my noticing. I just looked coldly onwards, trying to keep from focusing on anything but the scene around me. I couldn't stop the thoughts though, they played back the events like a broken record.
The Boss gave me a break after my bid, guess he decided vacation time was over because he sent 5 goons to collect me to renegotiate my employment. I tried to tell them no, that I was done with that life but the Boss doesn't take no for an answer and they tried to force the matter. I fought took two out before they decided to pull guns. I knew that was it for me, these were the type that don't like being beaten. I wish I could say I asked for a smoke or something cool, but truth be told I begged, begged for someone to save me, face down on the floor. I heard a few bullets rattle off and hit the celling, but none hit me. I kept my head down but felt something move past me, a subtle movement, but it stired the air too much for something natural. I heard the sound of bending metal and heard the guns hit the floor, then I heard the tearing and cracking of bones and sinew, the wet spray of blood and vicera, then it all stopped.
I shook, seeing the demon sitting down across from me, a slight impish grin on his face, a whiskey glass in hand. "Oh come now, you look like you have just seen a ghost. Drink" the demon gestured to the glass in front of me, filled with amber colored whiskey. I took a slug, it went down easier than it should have and I felt the warmth spread through me. "What did you do" my mouth moved before my brain could process. His smile broadened "Oh dear sweet... you act like you have never killed before. You ask what I did, I answer I saved your life." Before the next question could get to my lips the demon launched into the answer. "A demon yes. My name is of little importance as it would drive you quite insane to pronounce. You may call me Hedricks. I am a demon of the third ring of the seventh circle of hell, keeper of murderers, concourers, psychopaths, and the truely twisted. You my child, have been placed under my protection for one reason, you are being offered a job. This is not a job that you just refuse, although I am quite sure you will accept regardless of that threat."
I held my finger up, finished the cup of whiskey, and slid it across the table towards Hedricks waiting hand. "I am gonna need about 5 minutes and quite a few more of these before I go making deals with the devil" I moaned. The mention of the devil brought a playful glean to Hedricks eye. Hendricks filled the glass and slid it over. "Funny enough, it wasn't the big man downstairs who sent me. You see the Big G and Lucifer work together, they like it better that way. Lucifer gets the damned, God gets the saved, end of story. Usually. Sometimes we get a few AWOL prisoners who try to..." Hedricks paused, looking for a word "liberate themselves from their punishment. Now normally we catch them before they get topside, but somehow they have been getting here faster and faster. We need you, my little killer, to find these escapees and send them back our way." Hedricks leaned back from his position, relaxing.
I opened my mouth, searching for my voice. I eventually found a quiet whisper "So you want me, to chase down and kill escaped hellions?" Hedricks noded silently. My voice raised slightly, irritation building in my chest "What if I don't want to? I just turned the Boss down because he wanted to get me to kill for him. What makes you think I am afraid of your concequences?" I knew it was all bluster, I knew damn well I didn't have a choice and that pissed me off more than anything. "What's in it for me" I asked, allowing the pointed silence to linger in the air a bit. "Well we can produce many things that Boss couldn't, like diplomatic immunity, good pay, health insurance." I held my hand up, an smile of disbelief on my face "Hold up, Hell gets dental?" Hedricks' smile widened into a toothy grin, revealing teeth not unlike a humans, just sharpened to razor points. "What can I say, working for the creator of the universe and the progeitor of torment has it's perks" he smiled, shrugging shoulders nonchalantly."
"Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck. Why me" I said, allowing my original panic to seep in. "Because you have a unique ability, you can see us. Hellions aren't supposed to walk the Earth because we are prone to doing *things* to people. We spoted you when your name popped up on the lists for heaven and for hell, a very unusual occourence, last happened back in..." he paused, as if recollecting something, and then let the breath go "well it doesn't matter, on to you. Back when you served you saved countless lives with your ridiculous antics of heroism and brevity, doing things that no man should to ensure that no man has to. That is what got you on Santa's good list" Hedricks pointed upwards. "When your time was up they didn't care anymore, they left you with nothing but your skills and your brain, so naturally you needed to live. Then comes Boss, the fat dick head. You being a stray looking for a home, and he being a egotist in need of a guard dog, you made a perfect pair really. You did some real nasty things for him, and that landed you on the naughty list, but even though you did some unspeakable things your name didn't go off the list up stairs. That puts you in a unique limbo situation, where you are between both worlds, meaning you can see into both worlds."
I shook my head "Thank you for the biography, if I need it done I know who to ask now" I said, letting the sarcasm drip like poison on a knife. "So what I gather is I am special, I got skills you need and a moral ambiguous history that lets me see shit. If I wanted this I could have gone back with the Boss and gotten something real goof." I rubbed my face, wiping the weariness away. "Okay, I'll do it, but we need to discuss some details first.
|
Melody ran, her heart pounding in her chest, they were gaining on her!
As she glanced back she could see that two of them were gaining on her slowly, while the other three fell behind.
'Maybe I can lose them in the lanes?' she thought as she ran on, but as she rounded a corner there was one of the cars they had got out of and a man with a gun was facing her.
"Stay right there bitch!" He snarled, and she could hear chuckles from behind her as the others surrounded her "You are coming with us to have some fun." he was leering horribly as he snarled this at her, and the men behind started laughing nastily.
"You don't understand!" Mel nearly screamed with fear "I have to get away from you!"
"No bitch, you are going to be getting very close to all of us" another one said snickering as he saw her fear.
"No idiots" said Mel, suddenly calm, she knew *he* was here now "I *had* to be away from you... if you wanted to live that is. But now it's too late... Bitches!"
As she finished that word the street lights went out, the wind roared out of nowhere, strangely leaving Mel un-touched by it's blasts, but blowing the men off their feet, and there was a feeling of electricity in the air.
"MINE!" the voice that roared over the sound of the wind carried the rage of millions of years of hatred, as the men regained their feet a pair of lava coloured glowing eyes appeared behind the gunman. The eyes rose from human head height to tower over the men as they faced it. They all drew their guns and opend fire at the strange shape in the darkness with horrifying eyes.
"AHAHAHAHAAA! YOUR PUNY WEAPONS CAN'T HARM ME!" and with that the Guardian Daemon struck. The second man to speak to Mel was the first to die, a daemonic hand with enormous claws punched through his chest splattering the mans lungs and heart across the faces of the two men close behind him, a flick of the claws ripped their eyes out as they screamed and the eviscerated corpse jerked wetly around the daemons forearm.
It swung the corpse into the blinded men and went for the two on the otherside of Mel, and with a rapid step it was on them. It used each of it's feet to pin both of the men to the floor, and then as they screamed from the pain it grasped both of their heads and pulled up so hard It ripped their skulls and spines from their bodies.
It span back to the blinded men who were trying to rise, still screaming and grabbed both of thier heads from the sides and smashed them together so hard they became fused together.
It turned to the leader of the gang and smiled, the streetlights coming on to let him see it's hideous face and shining fangs.
"SO YOU WOULD HARM THE ONE I GUARD?" It asked the petrified man.
"I... I... I..." was all the would be rapist could say in return.
"YOU WILL NOT HARM ANOTHER BEING IN ALL OF ETERNITY!" The Daemon placed the pam of it's hand on the mans head, almost tenderly.
With a twist of reality the Daemon froze time for just that man, the man could move and feel and think, but he could not die, and he could not affect anything else...
And then the Daemon set him to burn for a frozen eternity.
| 2017-06-13T02:36:07 | 2017-06-13T02:02:36 | 64 | 34 |
[WP] You are a lonely hermit. Every once in a while, a stranger comes to you and asks you for advice. No matter what you say, it always ends up ultimately being the single advice that lets them complete their quest. One day, you decide to put this to a test.
|
I looked at the man sitting across from me. No man has ever looked more out of place in my hut as this one. He was dressed in fine silk clothes with a velvet cloak. Royal blues and purples with silver and gold streaks. Bedazzled with jewellery. I almost laughed at the ludicrous scene. I did my best to hide my derision.
In many ways a king was no different than a hermit. This man had no way of knowing that he was out of place. No one would dare tell him. Well... Maybe I would, but why should I? It's not the kind of advice he wants to hear. People come to me for advice, but what they really want is for me to tell them what they want to hear. Somehow they always return with sacks of useless gold in an attempt to pay me. Apparently my advice always works. I can't explain it. It just does. I just don't know what I would do with gold.
This king wants to know how he can stop an invading army. As if I have any tactical expertise. Ok I do... I was commander of his father's battle mages years ago. Long before I decided to live alone. But the secret there was to make people think you had a plan and had some power, because honestly magic is a sham. No one has power. It's all slight of hand and big gestures with clever machinery. I certainly don't have any advice for real combat.
"So?" He prompted. "You were once a tactical genius. You single handedly held back the Darshian army as one of my father's commanders."
"A different life, I'm afraid," I responded. I almost laughed. I remembered that battle well. I used mirrors and light tricks to make ghosts materialize on the battlefield at night, and had men make ghost noises. The superstitious Darsians fled in middle of the night. Leaving their belongings and, more importantly, their weapons behind. Any who returned were easily captured or killed since they were mostly unarmed.
"But you're still that man," he insisted.
I smiled as I stood up and gestured at our surroundings and myself before holding my arms akimbo. "Certainly your majesty doesn't think that someone like myself can still be that man?"
The king tensed. "I know you are!" He spat. "You have to be. The kingdom depends on it. You're a powerful mage. That magic doesn't disappear."
I shook my head as I quietly cursed at myself. I sold myself too well back in the day. I was knocked back to reality as he continued.
"You know how I know?" He was leaning forward with his hands on the table. His face was beet red now, actually a good look on him since it matched his shirt. He didn't wait for me to react. "Because you keep giving good advice that never fails! I've personally interviewed every one of your past customers, so I know it's true. And given the amount they've paid you I'm sure you're well aware of your own worth as well."
I felt like he punched me in the gut. I sat back down. This is exactly what has been puzzling me for the last 15 years. It was the reason I left civilization in the first place. I didn't believe in all this mumbo jumbo but I still seemed to have the power to give perfect advice. I looked up slowly. I had an idea. The king wouldn't like it, but I would play along one last time to test this power of mine.
I stood up and walked over to an earthenware vase standing in the corner. I looked at the king and allowed my eyes to roll back in their sockets. That was my normal trick to make these fools think I was consulting with a higher power. I kicked the vase over. The grains inside spilled onto the floor in front of me. I then kicked over a pot next to it and water splashed over the grains. It's fine, I wanted to soak them anyway. I got down on my knees and kneaded the wet grains with my hands. I looked down at the mess in front of me and nodded.
"Yes that would be perfect," I said. I pointed at the sacks of useless gold in the opposite corner, and said to the king. "Take these twenty three sacks of gold coins to the edge of the Gardin River. Have twenty three of your most trustworthy men hold a sack over the river while you stand over them. When the Darshian army comes to the opposite bank, and are able to see you, order them to pour the coins into the river."
The king gasped. "Are you mad? If I wait till they get to the river we'll be in range of their archers!
"Besides what does spilling gold coins into the river have to do with fighting an army? Perhaps you are a fraud after all."
"Perhaps," I said, "but remember your majesty came to me and insisted. I didn't offer anything."
"Fine, but it's your head if this is a joke!" With that he stormed out of my hut. I heard him shout an order outside and a few knights came in to move the bags of gold out.
Eh... If it fails he'll be dead anyway. He's not stupid enough to leave the front lines unfortified anyway. So the kingdom will be fine.
Two weeks later I heard a noise outside my hut. There was some banging and shouting after which my front door swung open and the king strode in. He was followed by four knights carrying a large heavy chest. These were followed by there tailors who immediately began taking my measurements. I shot the king a puzzled look, but he just smiled as two squires walked in and read a proclamation from his majesty granting me my old title and giving me the land where the Gardin River was as well as ten miles past what was previously the Darshian border.
"It was brilliant!" The king declared after the proclamation was read. "It was raining. As soon as the Darshians saw the gold being dropped in the river they jumped in and tried swimming across. Every single one of them! They went for the gold and all drowned in the storm. We invaded the invaders, and have gained a foothold in their land. I'm giving it to you, the mastermind of this great victory!"
I sighed. I guess this power really is real. I accepted the position as it seems there is no way for me to escape this fate anyway.
|
Teenager in armor "O wise one, I have traveled from my village beyond the mountain seeking your advice. The crops are dying, the children are always sick and the old are dropping like flies. It's all the work of demons we're sure. Tell me oh wisest of the wise, how do I defeat them?"
Hermit "mumble mumble mumble walkingcliche mumble"
Teenager in armor "I see! I shouldn't look for answers in others but rather face the demons head on. Oh thank you wise one! I'll return to the village right now and start a searching for the entrance to the demon world!"
Hermit "Mumble idiot mumble"
A copper coin is dropped into the bowl beside the hermit.
.
Group with flowers in their hair and loose clothes.
Hippie "Hey master man. We like, heard you helped that hero dude solve his demon problem. We like, came over wondering if you can tell us what the meaning of life really is. Like, why are we here and what does it all mean?"
Hermit "mumble mumble yousmellworsethanme mumble"
Hippie "dude... that is so like, deep. Are you saying we need to listen more carefully to the world around us and not just what's happening inside our own heads?"
Hermit "mumble deaftoo mumble"
With a look of supreme enlightenment each member of the group dropped a flower offering into the bowl... and half a copper coin.
.
?Man? in black robes "EXCUSE ME. BUT I HAVE A QUESTION. WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN AN ENTIRE VILLAGE AND A GROUP OF FLOWER LOVING PEOPLE TIME'S DUE BUT THEY DON'T ARRIVE?"
Hermit "mumble mumble whodis mumble"
?Man? in black robes "I SEE. IT IS NOT FOR ME TO DECIDE WHEN SOMEONE'S TIME IS UP. THANK YOU, YOU'VE BEEN VERY HELPFUL."
Hermit "mumble mumble you'retooskinny mumble"
Two silver coins were dropped into the bowl as the ?man? left scythe in hand.
| 2020-02-10T19:37:42 | 2020-02-10T13:22:27 | 69 | 41 |
[WP] You wake up one night unable to sleep and decide to surf reddit. As you open the front page, every post is the same: nuclear weapons have been deployed in the middle east. Before you can react, your phone starts exploding with text messages. Then you hear the air raid sirens.
*This is not a warning. Remain indoors and seek shelter if possible. Martial law has been instated until further notice. This is not a warning.*
|
I was having a nightmare again. I was back there, in the sand. My best friends brain matter sprayed across my face and the interior of the up-armored HMMWV. He took a round from a PKM just underneath his right eye and the back of his head exploded. I screamed for a medic, then woke up. I was sweating so bad I thought I had pissed myself. Thankfully, I hadn't this time. My wife was still asleep beside me. I could hear my 9 month old sons ridiculous snore over the baby monitor.
"Im not there" I keep repeating to myself. It's almost become a mantra. I have to tell myself over and over again that I am not back there in Latifiyah. That it was just a dream. I'm back home. I'm safe now.
I can never get back to sleep after the nightmares. I guess its all the adrenaline that keeps me awake. I walk to the fridge and grab the pitcher of sweet tea my wife made and pour myself a tall glass, no ice.
My wife thinks its funny that I don't put ice in my tea. After 3 deployments in Iraq I stopped having any use for ice in my drink. It was going to melt and water down whatever I was drinking. And the heat on the Alabama Gulf Coast was just as bad. The ice makes too much condensation on the glass in the humid Alabama weather. Even inside with the AC on.
I grab my laptop and sit down in my brown recliner. I go to Facebook and see what everyone else had been up to that night. The last post was at 1:20 AM. An old girlfriend posting pics of her and Mr. Right Now at the bar. Its 3 AM now. They're probably fucking or puking.
I click on the Reddit bookmark at the top and let the front page load.
"Its 3 in the morning on a Saturday. All the new posts will be the Australian teenagers with no life" I say to myself.
The top post is from /r/worldnews. The headline sears itself in my brain "ISIS detonates nuclear weapons in Baghdad, Damascus, Riyadh, and Mecca"
"What the actual fuck?" I open the link, but don't find much more information besides what I have already read in the headline. I open the comments and start reading.
"Update 8:00 AM GMT: Paris, Berlin, Moscow, London all destroyed by near simultaneous nuclear detonations"
"What the fucking fuck?" I yell at the screen. I quickly open a new tab and pull up Facebook again. I click on messenger and fire off a message to Laurin, a high school friend who now lives in south London.
"Laurin. God damnit please be okay. Please answer me"
Her last activity showed one hour ago. I never get an answer back.
My cellphone rings. "Momma" in big bright letters flash up on the screen.
"MOM! What the hell is going on?"
"I don't know baby" my Mom says, choking back tears. "D.C. just got hit. So did Memphis, New York, and Chicago"......
"Fuck! Memphis? Grandpop?"
"Mom, get downstairs and stay there until I call you. Where's Chris and the girls?"
"They're in the storm shelter behind their house"
"Get downstairs and stay there. I'll call you back"
I hang up and go to my bedroom. I turn the light on and my wife hides her head under the blankets.
"Baby, get up right now. Get the fuck out of bed."
"Whats going on?" She sleepily says as she slowly sits up, pulling the covers off her face.
"Get the fuck up. Now!" I scream as I run into my sons room and pull him out of his crib. I wrap a blanket around him and he starts crying.
"David! What the fuck are you doing?" My wife yells at me.
"We are being attacked. London, D.C., damn near every major city in the world is being attacked with nuclear weapons"
My wife just stood there in her black nightgown, staring at me with her mouth open.
"Baby, it was just a dream. Give me the baby, go back to sleep." She says, obiviously thinking I am having a PTSD episode. I grad the laptop and show her the link. All color drains from her face.
My mother in law wakes up and walks into the living room, where we are all standing. "What are y'all doing? Whats going on?" she says.
"Mom, get Eli and Becka in the storm shelter. Ill get the dogs."
Just then, the tornado sirens started going off. My mother in law, now thinking there was a tornado coming grabbed my wife and son and ran to the storm shelter outside. I grabbed our two huskies and followed.
I had barley shut the door to the shelter when the explosion hit. It knocked me face first into the shelter handle and I felt the warm rush of blood coming from my nose and mouth. I couldn't hear anything, but could feel the rumbling of the ground and the press of the dogs and my family's bodies against mine. Hours passed underground in our concrete and steel box. We turned our Red Cross emergency radio on but got no signal. Weeks before we had already started restocking our shelter for the coming Hurricane season, so we had a good bit of food, water, and formula. My training from the Army came back to me. I knew I needed to shelter in place for at least 8 days. We didnt have enough food for all of us to last that long, so I only ate one meal a day. Luckily, we had enough formula for a month. Something my wife insisted on.
After the fifth day, we heard a large truck coming down our street and men yelling to see if there were any survivors. A loudspeaker came on "This is the Alabama National Guard, we are here to help you and evacuate you to safety. If you can walk, please come out. If you can not, please yell so we can find you." I opened the door to the shelter for the first time since we had entered. The sight I was greeted with was straight from a Michael Bay movie. The massive old oak tree in our yard was in our neighbors house. It had been debarked for the most part and one side of it was charred like an old whiskey barrel. My house had collapsed, as did nearly all of my neighbors houses. The trees that still stood had no leaves or limbs on them. And black soot covered everything. I yelled out that I had a small child and women with me, two soldiers found us. They wouldn't let us bring our dogs.
They evacuated us and the other survivors of Mobile north to Monroeville, AL where FEMA had set up a camp. But a week later the radiation levels started to get too high so they stuck us all on a freight train and took us north into Florence where they had set up another larger camp for survivors from Birmingham. We were let right in because we were healthy, didn't have any visible symptoms of radiation sickness, and we had a child. Most of the other 3,800 survivors from Mobile were locked outside the camp. The Florence camp didn't have enough medical supplies to help save them. Two weeks later, there were only 900 of us Mobilians left alive. Only 900 out of 414,000.
Our Government is gone for the most part. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson is our new President, but the Military is really in charge. Nearly all major US cities were destroyed. The Dollar is worthless, as well as the Ruble, Yen, Yuan, Euro, and Pound. They are saying they are going to start relocation transports to Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. They were the only states to not be hit. We are to be given new national id cards and will be assigned a shelter to live in and a job to do. But they are lying to us.
There are no relocation centers, no id's, no shelters, and no jobs. They are busing people into the middle of nowhere and dumping them. Those that refuse to get off the transports are shot and their bodies are dumped off. The people then have to survive on their own or die. The individual military leaders are the new government now. They are asking for volunteers, anyone with prior military experience is given their old rank back. I'm an old 11-B, but they welcome me with open arms and give me a uniform and a rifle. The Colonel tells me that those that join this new power structure have their families taken to Anniston Army Depot to live on base and are protected. All I have to do is do what I'm told.
"Yes Sir. Understood, Sir." I say as I salute him.
As I do an about-face I start mumbling under my breath "I'm not there......I'm not there".
|
“Fuck, I just know Brick is happy about this”
----------------
I had finally decided that sleep was not going to occur for the next hour or so. I spent the better part of the night looking around for my spare cell phone charger (my wife, the traveler, always seems to take both by accident when she goes to see her mother), and the angry energy kept my eyes open after I had found it and started to charge my phone.
So the first thing I did was pick up my iPad and surf over to Reddit. I don’t subscribe to many subs, and the one’s that I do are not very active (other than /r/adviceanamals. I just love that fucking puffin). The top post on my front page was from /r/army. Not usual, unless of course it is some stupid Duffle Blog article about a general nailing his subordinate.
The post was about how Iran had deployed chemical munitions against several sites in the middle east; among which were several countries that had troops. PATRIOT missiles had destroyed most of the missiles, the others were so woefully off target that they struck in the Gulf or in the open desert, perhaps only effecting a few Bedouins.
This is bad, but good that no one was hurt and everyone was safe. I headed back to the front page, to see if there was anything else on another sub like /r/military or/r/credibledefense. And that is where I saw it.
***US Retaliatory Strike hits Several Ballistic Missile Sites in Iran, Suspected Use of Nuclear Weapons by US Navy Submarines***
‘What the hell is going on. There is no way Obama authorized this’ I thought.
Just then, my phone flashed. I finally had enough charge to start using it again. Predictably, as soon as the network connected, the phone let out a low buzz and a twerp to let me know I had received a text.
“Dude we finally hit those fuckers!” said the text from Bricker, my old 1SG from several years back. Always the borderline racist, homophobic but somehow lovable conservative, he loved to poke and prod my more liberal sensibilities.
I was getting ready to text him back when my phone rang. It was my supervisor from the new job I just walked into.
“Get to base now. We just hit DEFCON 2”.
Fuck. I run to my car and speed off to work, glad that I had remembered just two days ago to throw an extra uniform in my locker. As I approach the gate, there are MP’s guarding, which is not normal but understandable given the DEFCON.
“Turn around sir” the guard states, pointing an M-9 Berretta at my shoulder
“Here is my ID. I didn’t have access to a uniform”
The guard takes my ID, scans it and scrutinizes the results, while his partner is holding her M-16, pointing it at my face.
“Alright, sir, you can go through”
I drive to my designated parking spot and run in the Command Center. I get to my locker, throw my gear on and head to my computer. The status board had shed its normal rotation of slides that it shows to impress the boss and visitors, showing now a live shot on CNN. I looked up just long enough to see the crawler at the bottom before the siren started blaring. The 20 of us that had made it to the building looked at each other for a second before one person finally said it:
“GET TO THE BASEMENT!”
As I ran with everyone else, the few words on the crawler that I did see finally registered
***…declares action outsi…unlawful…ussia and Chin…ion will be ta…***
A large boom resonated from outside the building. But not a blast or anything that we could possibly relate to a bomb of any sort, much less nuclear. We continued the basement anyway, expecting more to follow.
Six hours passed before the all clear was sounded. We had no connection to the outside world while in the basement other than the chemical and radiological detectors. The emergency radios and connections had gone dark, so the only thing we had to go off of was the blast shelter SOP.
We leave the shelter and I go back to my locker, where I had put my Cell Phone.
No coverage.
I then went outside to find a group of people standing in a large semi-circle in the parking lot around what looked like a crater. I go to see what is going on, pushing myself to the front of the crowd. And there it was. A dud nuclear warhead. The trigger charge had activated, blowing the top of the cone off, but nothing else had happened. I had realized that this was an immensely dangerous place to be, seeing that radioactive material could be spilling out right then, when I noticed a large painting, like what we put on bombs for fun back in WW II. [Well, it caught my attention.](http://imgur.com/gallery/etjgJ2D)
| 2014-07-11T06:59:15 | 2014-07-11T05:39:22 | 38 | 24 |
[WP] every human on earth is engulfed in a clear sphere and levitated thousands of miles into orbit, where they watch the earth spin below them. An hour later they descend back to earth and the bubble pops, leaving behind a little card which reads: "Get your shit together."
|
**Part One**
Pete clocked out at 11:34pm. An early night, by his standards.
*Happy fuckin’ Tuesday.*
​
Pete said goodbye and walked out the back door. He lit a cigarette as he began his walk home. It was a clear night tonight. Stars twinkled overhead.
Pete drew deeply on the smoke.
“Ahhhh.”
His neck and shoulders relaxed.
“What a night.”
He took another deep breath, no smoke this time.
His feet began to lead the way home.
​
Pete pulled out his phone and began scrolling through The Feed.
**The Smiths; another family photo. 100 likes.** *Maui, this time? Bet they’re having fun.*
**His ex-girlfriend; another selfie. 200 likes.** *Still looking great. 200 likes, though?*
Pete took another drag of his cigarette.
**Climate Change Educators; another climate change post. 10 likes.**
The post had a before-and-after photo of a polar bear standing on ice. There wasn’t much ice in the ‘after’ side.
It read: “The polar caps are melting at an unprecedented rate. If we don’t act now, we could lose Earth.”
*More of this crap. Why do they always have to ruin my night with this “responsibility” bullshit?*
Pete read on.
“The Senate is currently voting on the Climate Control Act. Call your representative now and tell them to vote yes on the CCA and save our planet. This act, if passed, could reverse climate damage in just 20 years, with immediate steps today.”
*Yeah, right. Like my opinion makes any difference.*
​
Caught up in The Feed, Pete didn’t notice the tree root sticking out of the sidewalk in front of him. When he tried to step over it, it grabbed his foot. He fell, dropping the phone.
“Fuck!” Pete threw his hands out to catch himself, ready for a painful fall.
But the pain never came. Just before he hit the sidewalk, he *stopped*.
His hands hung a couple of inches from the ground, the rest of his body frozen in place.
“What the hell?”
A thin, translucent film appeared in the air between his hands and the ground.
“Wh… what?”
Pete watched as the film grew, forming a sphere all the way around him.
“The fuck’s going on?”
He tried to move, but the sphere held him, somehow. It felt like… like a *big bubble.*
Pete panicked, looking around and pressing on the edges of strange sphere. They gave and stretched, but it was like trying to press his way out of an exercise ball. Try as he might, he couldn’t escape. He shouted, but the bubble walls just reflected the sound right back at him.
*Holy shit. Is this it? Did I die? Am I going crazy?*
The bubble began to rise off the ground, carrying Pete with it.
“Oh no. Oh no, no no. Oh no we don’t.”
Pete was scared of heights. He began to stomp on the bottom of the bubble, trying furiously to break his way out of the strange prison. The floor bounced like a trampoline
The bubble rose higher and higher, gaining speed as it rose.
Pete watched with horror as the street began to move away from him. Ten feet. Twenty feet. Now thirty. Now fifty. Now hundreds.
“No, No, No!” Pete shouted, pounding on the sides of the bubble with his fists. They, too, bounced like trampolines.
Pete’s throat tightened. Tears began to roll down his eyes.
*I never got to say goodbye…*
Pete threw up his arms and dropped to his knees. The tears came more readily as he thought of his family, his friends.
And the bubble sped ever upward.
​
Eventually, the bubble began to slow.
Pete felt like a failure.
He sobbed into his hands, breathing heavily. He was only faintly aware of the increasing distance between Earth and himself.
Pete sniffed and opened his eyes. He was now far above the City. Home.
From where he sat on the floor of his bubble, he could see *everything*! He could see both edges of the States, the mountains, the forests, the deserts. And great oceans on either side, vaster than anything he’d imagined. They never seemed that big in the maps…
Beyond those were other lands. Asia, Europe. Those seemingly *mythical* places that everyone spoke of, visited, and posted about, but that Pete knew he would never make it to.
His gaze fell down stopping on a small white cap at the bottom of the Planet. He looked up and spotted its twin. They were frighteningly small compared to the continents.
But *wow*...
The pictures really didn’t do it justice.
Planet Earth was beautiful. Tears began to flow again, though these did not belong to sorrow. Instead, they were tears of joy. Of awe. Of wonder.
|
Well, thank whoever did that for nothing. What the fuck does that leave us to do? “Get our shit together”?
Could they be any more vague and less helpful?
They clearly have miraculous technology, but they dump us right the fuck back down here where we don’t know how to generate enough clean energy; we don’t know how to manage our pollution; we don’t know how to grow enough food and distribute it to all who need it; we don’t have enough clean water or the ability to purify enough of it; and we cannot figure out how to deal with so many people having conflicting cultures, attitudes, preferences, and religious beliefs. Pass a law that pleases X, and you’re despised by Y.
So, whoever sent us this ultimatum can go eat shit, choke, and die. Thanks for *nothing*.
| 2019-03-26T22:46:47 | 2019-03-26T22:08:43 | 22 | 16 |
[WP] You are a teenager with the ability to measure how "Dangerous" people are on a scale from 1 to 10 just by looking at them. A normal child would be a 1, while a trained man with an assault rifle might be a 7. Today, you notice the unassuming new kid at school measures a 10.
|
It was quite strange actually.
The first number popped into view when I was about 12 years old. It was a solid 4 that looked like something straight out of Times New Roman font. That 4 I remember, hovered above a big scruffy looking man with a tattoo of a stripper on his left arm. I didn't think of it as much at the time. I was 12, and I thought that these numbers were part of growing up.
The next day at school, I saw numbers….everywhere. Everyone had a number above their head. Mrs Ball, had a 1. The girl sitting by herself during recess had a 1. My best friend had a 0. Even my dog had a 1 above his little head.
I was quite stupid actually. At one point, I started bragging to my friends about how I became a man at the tender age of 12. When I told them how I saw numbers above peoples heads, they simply looked at me and probably wondered why they were friends with me in the first place.
For the next 5 years, I continued seeing numbers. The highest I have ever seen, a faint 6, danced on top of an old picture of Hitler in one of my honors history course. Throughout this time, I didn't really think much of these numbers. Truthfully, I didn't even know what they meant.
That was until of course, when I turned on the Television and saw the same man with the 4, on the headlines of BBC news.
It was only after I found out that this man, the same man with the 4 I saw 5 years ago, the same man who had violently murdered 14 people out of the blue, the same man who was getting lethal injection, did I realize for the first time what the numbers truly meant.
From that day forward, the numbers began to mean something. I paid close attention to them for the next few years and this is what I have found out.
1. The numbers correspond to how a dangerous a person is, with a zero belonging to a toddler, and a 3-4 belonging to a serial killer.
2. The numbers work on a logarithmic scale. I don't know if there is some kind of mathematical equation behind this. All I know is that a 5, is A LOT more dangerous that a 4. Fun fact: Stalin was a 5.
3. Numbers become more precise with age, or experience. When I first saw the numbers, they were pleasant whole numbers. When I was 17, I saw my first 1.5 floating above my girlfriend. I am now 25, and the numbers now go into god knows how many digits - ive lost count.
4. Numbers fluctuate constantly, but never by much.
5. I can't see my own number.
........
You may think that seeing thousands of numbers a day may be a curse, but actually, it gets pretty fun. The numbers I see is in its very essence, information. For instance, did you know Dictator Mao had a higher number than Hitler before he died? Or the fact that women have on average higher numbers than men? What about the fact that politicians have again on average lower numbers than teachers?
As I said, the numbers are information, and with all information, I can, and I have, used these numbers to my own advantage.
How one may ask? To be honest, it's really quite simple. I can sympathize anyone. I can move people simply because I know how anyone is feeling at any given moment.
When I got my first real job at 18 (back when I was able to see numbers to the hundredths digit in precision) at local restaurant, I was cleaning floors and serving people food. I was nothing. Then wages sucked and my boss treated me like a piece of shit, who I theorized probably just pushed me around to make himself feel better for his insecure 0.125. For the longest time, I didn't know what to do with my gift. This changed when one day, the CEO of a large oil firm came in for dinner. I paid close attention to that man. He was a 2.870-2.91 mostly throughout the dinner. If I remember correctly, he ordered a steak and the most expensive bottle of wine, and ate his food in silence. Throughout the evening, I watched that man. His number didn’t fluctuate much. I got bored, and was about to mop the floor until out of the corner of my eye I caught the man pulling out his phone to what I’m guessing to check on his messages. It was at that instant, that his number of sub 2.7-sh, suddenly rose to a 3.678. Something was wrong. Whatever it was, I felt sorry for that guy. I ended up paying for his dinner, despite costing me 2 weeks’ worth of my salary.
Initially, I thought I made a mistake paying for that guys food. I was wrong.
The next day, he came to the restaurant again. He didn’t order anything. Instead, he asked my boss for me. When I greeted him, he thanked me for my kindness and asked me if I wanted a “real job”.
Turns out his wife cheated on him, and truthfully, I’m thankful for that. Because of her, I learned to use my gift wisely.
I should also add that I am now the VP of said multi-billion dollar company. You can probably guess how I got there.
Last night, something interesting happened. I was looking over some files in until a young man was escorted into my office. I have to say I was kind of surprised when I saw the 8.1264184…. I’ve never seen anyone, dead or alive, with such a high number. As the numbers work on a logarithmic scale, he made Hitler look PG-13.
This man wasn’t just dangerous. He was lethal. The numbers don’t lie. Who knows what he was capable of?
But despite that I looked into his eyes, and saw that he was genuinely afraid.
I chuckled, and asked him what he did for a living. Private contractor? Radical Extremist? A politician? When he didn’t answer, I rose from my seat and walked towards him to introduce myself.
But instead of enthusiastically reaching out to shake my hand, as these over qualified try-hards usually do to get a job, he stammered back and whispered in a mixture of what I can only describe as fear and disbelief…..
“you…..you are.. a… ten”.
To be honest, I wasn’t really surprised.
|
I sat in the back of the classroom, staring at her.
What the hell was going on? Was I losing it?
I looked around the room. No, everything was normal. A bunch of 3s, a few fours, and Mark, a six (I stay away from him).
Then there's this girl.
I had heard all about her. She was new in town, apparently her parents were big shot researchers who just finished some 5-year research project in Brazil. No, Peru. It was somewhere exotic.
According to my buddy Jon, she was smart, funny, and "Holy Shit, dude, sooo fine!"
My first time actually seeing her was 7 minutes ago when she transferred into 5th period World History.
Ten
She was a ten.
Not a, "Bro, she's a straight 10 outta 10."
A ten on my scale means...shit, you know what? I don't even know what that means.
The highest I have ever seen in my life was an 8 when my criminology class took a trip to the ACI.
This girl scored 2 points higher than a gang enforcer that got off on crushing skulls.
I always wondered what I would do in a situation like this. Would I try to warn people? How would I ever explain to them what I see?
When it came down to it, I ran. Well, I went down to the nurses office and told her that I had bought the school lunch that day (while kinda motioning down below).
I laid awake all night, going over it in my head. What did it mean? What do I do?
I stayed home the next day, checking the news feeds. No shootings at my school, nothing weird at all going on.
I creeped her facebook, her twitter. Nothing stood out. A completely normal 17 year old girl.
Day 3, I told my buddy Jon that he should skip school, but when I couldn't give him a realistic reason to, I dropped it.
I just sat at home, thinking that I should be doing something, anything.
Ten. A freaking ten.
What the fuck! How could this girl be a fucking 10?!
I got my answer when the CDC rolled into town.
| 2014-11-29T22:35:42 | 2014-11-29T15:20:57 | 200 | 50 |
[WP] Every time the Messiah returns, we kill him. It is now the Thirty-seventh Coming, and Jesus is getting sick of our sh*t
|
“I’m sick of your shit.” Their faces, oh man they did not expect this. “Every hundred years or so I pop back down and it’s the same old bullshit excuses. Well I’ve had enough of it.” The girl in the front row started to sob. I shouldn’t have been so hard on them.
“Bu- but we believe you this time. We accept you.” You should have seen him, his hands were gripping that rosary like it was a lifeline to, well his life.
“Well sure you guys accept me. Just sitting around in your house all day praying your Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s, lot of good that’s done. You want to make a difference get out there and do something. I mean seriously look at you. You look like a freaking vampire. You probably haven’t been outside in ten years.” Now the funny part is that he actually has a rare skin disease, I was being a total ass to him.
“But you said that praying helps, it makes a difference.” Okay so the guy that yelled this out was a protestant minister. He’s read the bible thirty times from cover to cover. Honestly, he’s a great guy, love him to death.
“Oh sure but that was thousands of years ago, things change. You people sit on your asses all day without doing diddly shit. You want to make a change go convert the Africans or something. They’ve been through hell already, literally some of them have. It’s actually right below the Sahara desert.”
“Jesus would never swear, you aren’t him.” This was some old lady who yelled this out. She’s got this stark white hair and a cat in her purse. She claims to be a devout Lutheran but secretly she’s into this weird bdsm torture shit. Really creeps me out.
“Oh shove a cock in it. I’ve tried this shit thirty six god damn times and not once have you little muff-munchers accepted me fully. I’m done with your fucking excuses.” So right around now is where this priest pops out with the torch. Took him forever to get that thing lit, they ran out of lighter fluid.
“Close your mouth you heathen.” He started saying all this religious stuff, trying to exorcise me, cast out my demons and whatnot.
“I’m the heathen! You’re the one who ‘accidently’ killed poor old Annie in that alley twenty-some years ago. And you never confessed it BOOM.” If my hands were free I would’ve summoned up a mic and dropped it. Except they were tied behind a wooden post… so yeah…
“Lies!” At this point he’s frothing out of the mouth screaming prayers trying to cast out my demons.
“Just do it already you dyke.” Well this priest finally gives up and tosses the torch at my feet. Guess what, the flames didn’t catch. So now I’m laughing my ass off as the priest tries to re-light the torch. “Can’t you just shoot me?” Well the priest doesn’t have a gun, of course, so I summoned one up for him. Well his face is stunned, he looks like someone just shoved a fist up his ass. “Well?” He finally composes himself and points the gun at me.
“Begone you hypocrite.” And he pulls the trigger. Then he pulls it again and again. I suppose I forgot to mention the gun was empty. So then guess what he does. He tries to beat me to death with the gun. He’s smacking me in the head, trying to bash it in. “Die die die!” He keeps yelling and smacking and finally I go.
“Fuck it I’m out.” Which is when I step off the post and summon up a gun for me. I point the gun to my head and pull the trigger. Boom, blood and brains, all over the priest. These people were in shock. That old lady with the white hair even had a heart attack. Well anyway as my body starts floating up to heaven I summon up a nice comet.
“Suck it bitches!” The comet smashes into the stadium, everyone dies. It was great, you don’t know how satisfying it is to kill off entire races. Last time I did something that epic was the dinosaurs.
“Can’t believe you just killed them all, I mean the entire human race?” Peter looked a bit stunned.
“I’ll start over don’t worry, and half of them made it up here anyway. I was just so tired of their bullshit you know?”
“Trust me I know, I’ve got to listen to them whine and cry about how this isn’t ‘their time’ or ‘I wanna go home’. Gets boring after a while.”
“Right well here comes the bad news. Thomas just got done with his watch at the gates so you’ve got to head back over there and check in all the noobs.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Someone’s got to do it.”
“I never knew Jesus was such a massive dick.”
“You know I could zap you out of existence?”
“Yeah yeah I know.”
God damn humans, hated those shitfaces.
|
He raises with a leer and a stutter
Asks for how long he's been under.
We say without doubt
"He's been gone for about
2 half decades and 1 year, by our blunder."
He wakes from the slate, becoming a bore
Almost 36 times now, 35 before.
Walks down the street finds a Pawn titled 'Jack'
Nothing to beat it, says "Mary, I'm back!".
Walks into the pawnshop, beleaguered and depressed
As all through the streets they laugh at how he's dressed.
Buys a nice leather jacket, some jeans and a gun
Walks out into the world and says, "It's time for some fun."
EDIT: Grammar and punctuation edit.
| 2015-03-19T08:18:19 | 2015-03-19T07:28:52 | 175 | 33 |
[WP] Fetishes are an accepted cultural phenomenon. Every person's birthday equals as their Fetish Day, when friends gather to fulfill this person's fetish.
|
"Urgh, do we *have* to?" James asked, a mix between whining and annoyance in his voice as he trodded behind his girlfriend.
Isabella held a little birthday present in her hand as she pressed the button of the lift: "Come on, babe! You promised you'd come with me!"
The elevator rocked and started it's ascend.
"I know, I know. It's just ... Emma is kind of ... annoying. Sorry."
"I thought you liked her? You guys got along so well last friday!"
"I did! It's just ... once I sobered up, I realized how ... annoying her voice was ..."
"James!"
"Sorry! But it's like you're putting an electric drill into a pencil sharpener!"
Bella opened her mouth, but didn't say anything. Emma ... did have a ... taxing voice.
"It doesn't matter." Her words were accentuated by the elevator coming to a stop. The doors opened silently. "We're here now. Let's just try to have some fun. If it's too much, we can leave early and watch some netflix once we get home, okay?"
James gave her a little kiss on the cheek.
They stopped in front of the door to Emma's appartment. A little balloon was fixed to it. Strange noises and laughter could be heard from the inside.
"Well, here goes." James sighed and put on his gag, a bright red ball made of plastic. Bella donned a mask made of leather that had a zip for a mouth, and pressed the door bell.
Almost immediately, the door sprung open and a petite, cheerful young woman appeared, dressed in a sort of black tutu. Behind her, on a leash held firmly in her hand, knelt a towering man, only dressed in briefs and ropes.
"Guuuuyyyyyyyyys! You made it!" Emma squaled and hugged both Bella and James in a singular motion. The man behind her was jerked forward by his leash.
After the somewhat awkward greeting, Emma led the two inside her home. There were around twenty people present, chatting and laughing. A small buffet had been assembled, complete with tiny snacks and light beverages. While Bella chatted with the birthday girl, James grabbed himself a toothpick on which a single grape and a piece of cheese was transfixed.
James did recognize some people. A few of Emma's friends from last friday were here: Her ex-boyfriend (with whom she was still friends) was chained to the wall next to the stereo and getting whipped by a tall, broad woman in red. A guy she knew from work (Derek was his name? Or David?) was carefully dropping molten wax on a woman lying on her stomach on a table next to where Emma and Bella were chatting. She jerked up whenever the hot mass hit her, but beckoned him to keep going.
James tried to lead the toothpick into his mouth, but only slightly poked the red plastic ball. Amused, he removed the gag, and started chewing on the snack.
Two women were located next to the stairs. One of them was fixed to a big "X"-shaped cross on the ground, while the other one was fixing wooden clamps onto the body of the former. The cheese tasted bland.
When he was finished chewing, James swallowed and was about to put back on his gag, when Emma and Bella finished talking and joined him. The birthday girl was still dragging the big man with her, but gave him a (fairly violent) clap on the behind when they reached James to send him towards another group of people.
"Heyyyyyy Jameees!" Emma grinned, her grin so wide you could put up laundry to dry in it. Bella looked slightly drained, but still cheerful. "Soooo, your girlfriend and I got talking and I thought, like, that it would be suuupper awesome if we three did something together!"
James could barely contain his delight and only barely managed to offer a fake smile. "Whatcha got in mind?"
"Oh, all sorts of naughty stuff, big boy!" she grinned while sliding a finger over James's chest. "But I'd think we start with some light stuff. Could you grab the pink clubs from over there while Bella and I get ready?"
She gestured over to an open box, filled with all kinds of gadgets and utensils used for this sort of thing.
"We've been *very* bad girls and need to be ... disciplined ..."
"You got it." James nodded and trodded of to get the clubs. As he fished them out of the box, he noticed how they were slightly perfumed (a sickenly-sweet smell of strawberry) and had hearts and stars printed onto them.
When he returned, Bella and Emma were kneeling on the floor, behinds aimed at him. He raised his arm and smacked Emma first.
|
"Are you sure you want this, Bert?" his remaining friends asked him. Time was a cruel mistress to this macrophile, and he wasn't getting any younger. This is what he wanted for his 50th fetish day. "I'm ready."
And with those words, the shipping container, with a crudely spray painted barefoot applied to it, was slowly lowered down onto him. "I have waited all my life for this one moment."
| 2015-02-20T05:20:59 | 2015-02-20T04:44:12 | 27 | 18 |
[WP] Every spacefaring species has something that makes them special. Some are fast, some have telekinesis, some are nigh-unkillable. To the galaxy's surprise, humans have a tendency to befirend the cosmic horrors lurking where the starlight does not reach.
|
Adam cooed under his breath as he scritched between the eyes of the squid-like creature on the table before him. Its slimy exterior shimmered from the tub of water it had crawled out of, approaching him in a manner belying the natural curiosity the species was known for, amongst other things.
"This is the terrifying, ship-destroying space-squid you guys keep going on about?" He asked the being standing behind him, a few meters away from the table.
The being chittered in annoyance before slowly stepping up to the table.
"I told you, Adam." the being clicked its small mandibles in a manner closely resembling human speech. "This is an infant, only a few weeks old. At this point in its growth cycle, they are mainly just annoying, feeding off several by-products of docked ships."
"An infant, why do you guys have an infant?" Adam continued to run his hand over the creature. Several of its tentacles held onto his hand and arm loosely. The creature murmured as its milky eyes seemed to study him.
"As an infant, it's more controllable. We can study and experiment on the species better in this state. As its capabilities scale according to age and size, we can develop strategies from this stage and scale them appropriately."
Adam's blood ran cold as he froze. He turned his head at the insect-like creature beside him.
"Define 'experiment', please. B'tlilk." Adam said slowly. The creature's tentacles stop moving as it sensed his unease. The creature cooed as if trying to soothe him.
"Well, we have never successfully captured an older specimen. Infants, we have captured hundreds, a handful of older adolescents, but no adults. We have thousands of incident reports, but even corpses we've only recovered a few partials. It's difficult to develop weapons without understanding the biology of the creature." B'tlilk chittered away, not noticing the icy glare Adam was giving him.
Adam shook his head as he turned his gaze back to the creature. Its tentacles resumed their movement, squeezing and releasing along his arms. He locked eyes with it, and saw the fear in its eyes, alongside a slight glimmer of hope. And he understood what he needed to do.
"Come on, Adam. This specimen needs to be stored again. It's not scheduled for examination until tomorrow, but we aren't supposed to interact with it. " B'tlilk reached one of its four arms and patted his shoulder. "Imagine it as a three hundred meter monster, wrapping itself around your ship. You humans are too compassionate towards the non-sapient. It's extremely confusing."
"Fine, give me a second." Adam scooped up the small creature. Its eyes widened, and it squirmed for a moment before Adam scratched it between its two eyes and spoke softly to it. "It's alright little guy, just time to go back for now."
B'tlilk chittered again behind Adam as the man slowly placed the creature back into the tub of water on the table and activated the tub's automated top.
"Now your all wet." B'tlilk stated his mandible clicking in annoyance. "We will have to stop by your quarters before dinner with the Trade Queen."
"Nope," Adam chuckled, "Give it a minute. Our clothes have hydrophobic properties. I'll dry in a few minutes, with no smell or stain."
"Fascinating, I'm sure An'am will be interested in these fabrics. I'll be sure to mention them." B'tlilk took Adam's arm and led him out of the lab. The two stopped at the door as Adam turned back, watching the room's robotic assistant pick up the tub and return it to the wall of tub lockers on the far side. Adam shook his head in disa\[appointment before stepping through the room's bulkhead door.
\---------
A few hours later, Adam tossed and turned in his quarters. He couldn't help but see the small, pitiful creature every time he closed his eyes. He growled in annoyance as he pulled himself out of the small bed, taking a stance in the center of the room's space. It wasn't much but gave him enough space to run through enough of a workout to produce a sheen of sweat on his ebony skin. He moved, hoping to work the strange energy coursing through his body.
After a while, he grabbed a towel hanging on one wall and began wiping the sweat off his body. After tossing the towel back on its rack, he sat down on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. His mind raced, all his thought focused on a small creature. Despite the success of his dinner with the leading authority of trade for this cluster of the galaxy, Adam couldn't help but feel frustrated with his trip. Part of him begged him to act. The other part urged caution. The purpose of his visit had been accomplished. He secured a line of carefully negotiated trade routes that humanity desperately needed to further explore this edge of space.
But still, those small, milk eyes haunted him. And he knew he had to act. He would never be able to forgive himself if he didn't.
"Fuck it, " He finally said, after thinking for what seemed hours." Looks like I'm rescuing a space-squid baby."
|
[Poem]
I remember being born.
The first thing I did was scream for help
And the white coats and masks flooded around me
Leaving a red mark on my behind and sending me into the chaos.
I remember the first time my commander said "It's not about surviving. It's about protecting those who can't fight for themselves"
And then the war came.
I took that lesson everywhere
Hydrox 9 with their tentacle faced mouths leaching information from anyone who'd allow them the chance
Anselicor, the planet of the Grays fueled by misdirection and manipulation.
Still I managed a contact and gained their trust.
Belisi, the world of the arts. They had no army
After decades of decaying imagery, we came and gained an ally.
Yes, the others may be smart, quick or unstoppable;
They may have unlocked segments we cannot comprehend in their dome sphere
But Humans are made of the connections we make
Good bad and ugly
And no one else came out screaming,
Asking for help
| 2021-04-07T21:52:28 | 2021-04-07T20:24:26 | 300 | 31 |
[WP] your crazy, possessive ex girlfriend was abducted by aliens. She has clawed her way up to the position of the Empress of the Galaxy. Now she wants you back.
You can either go with tyrannical and hated ruler or with enlightened, popular, (but still possessive and crazy) absolutist. Or something in between.
I am making this NSFW just in case.
|
The last person I expected to see when I answered the door was Evelyn, or, as we called her then, Empress Eve. She was flanked either side by two of the lanky Princes, massive guns under their arms. "Empress Eve, ruler of us all, I curtsey to you" I forced through gritted teeth, before dropping to the floor. We knew by now that any other greeting would initiate one's demise, as it did to her own mother.
"Good eve, minion. Permission to stand. I demand entry." Well, she was definitely still the same Evelyn. I stood to one side as she swished inside, her bright pink cape brushing past me. She motioned to the Princes to not come in, so I had a private audience with the Empress herself, something not granted during her reign.
She plunked herself on my sofa, the same one I broke up with her on three years earlier, and stared at me with those massive blue eyes that were on every billboard on the planet. She took off the massive white wig she wore, and the same blonde hair flowed down. She was still beautiful, and slightly intimidating. "Sorry about that" she told me.
"Empress..."
"Stop, just stop, I'm fed up of this act."
"Are you sure you won't..."
"Obliterate you? No I will not obliterate you." She always did finish my sentences for me. It was either cute or extremely annoying.
"Thank God. I mean, thank Eve. I don't know, you just seem so..."
"Evil. I know, it's all in the script. Don't worry, it's me, remember? Bubbly Evelyn!" She was never really bubbly, but I would have felt uncomfortable questioning her.
"It's good to see you, I'm just a bit shocked, I'm..."
"Still in your pyjamas? A bit heavier? Terrified?"
"I guess... why are you here?"
"I'm abducting you!" she grinned, her teeth were painted flourescent pink, it was kind of weird, but apparently extremely trendy. Empress Eve set the trends now. I looked on with obvious bewilderment. "I'm handing the realm over to one of my advisors and we are going to settle down in the countryside. Just you and me!" She looked on for approval. I forced a smile, I think.
"Um..."
"Not on this planet, silly, no, we're obliterating this planet soon which is why I'm stepping down as Empress. The leader must go down with her ship, and all that. I'd prefer a quiet retirement with anything my heart desires."
"What?" It was like we were suddenly transported back to the end of our relationship, and I could freely criticise anything she said. "But our friends are here! Our families..."
"Collateral, hun."
"Hun?"
"Collateral."
"Collateral!"
"Yes, it's a word meaning I will obliterate them and we don't have to care. We're going to populate
an entire planet ourselves!"
"What?"
"Yes, I found it, it's very temperate, and the elders will keep it perfect for us so long as we behave."
Sure enough, she beckoned in the Princes, and I was faced with a giant beaming light. I watched the Earth disappear underneath my feet, and then a heavy object coming towards my head. I awoke laying in a luscious green field, it was beautiful. There were beautiful animals and a wonderful sun beaming down on my bare skin. It felt amazing, and I soaked it up for a moment before sitting up. My head was not sore, although I could feel the wound on my skin. The Empress was sitting over on a log, waving for me to come over, wearing nothing. "They manufactured this garden for us, Adam."
"It's amazing!" I was filled with this elation, I wanted to see the whole garden, lay down with Eve and roll among the fields.
"They filled the air with Sleepy!"
"Sleepy?"
"Oh, sorry, the other one... Dopey!"
I giggled.
She giggled.
We rolled around in our nudity, I forgave all of her transgressions, and she forgave mine. We were pure, and joyful. "Hey, Eve, hey, look at that snake, he's like... he's like..."
"Like a little legless reptile!"
I laughed, and she laughed. Then we frolicked, and rolled among the flowers.
"Hey Adam." She looked at me with a cheeky little twinkle in her eye. I snorted a little. "Look what I... heh... heh... haha... look... look what the cute snake got me to steal from that ratchet tree over there."
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Some would say I was crazy for going. Others would wonder why I left it all behind. For me, there was never a question or a doubt. I mean sure the lady was nuts, she tried to have me thrown in jail for rape when I took her keys the night I should have let her drive home. But when a space ship lands on the planet you have dreamed of leaving and tells you to get on board. You dont ask questions, you get on that beast and fly.
| 2014-12-29T09:40:40 | 2014-12-29T04:14:33 | 30 | 12 |
[WP] You have the ability to grant three wishes after someone says your name three times in the bathroom mirror. Except, every time you show up, they all run away screaming. You are the rejected genie. The mirror maiden. You are Bloody Mary.
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*Finally.*
Mary reaches for the last lego and places it atop her model Statue of Liberty. "I paid 120 god damn bucks for this thing, and I'll be damned if I don't get it done. I swear, I don't know what it is with kids these days but-"
"Bloody Mary" a distant whisper says
"No. No. No. No. Not now!" she yells
"Bloody Mary"
"These fucking kids!" She throws the legos on the ground and watches them scatter. Then sighs and rolls her eyes. "I wish my statue was put back together."
Instant Lady Liberty stands before her, sans one piece. "Get it over with brats!"
She grabs her script and readys herself.
"Bloody Mary"
"Here we go."
Without a moments notice, Mary is blinked out of existence from her bedroom. The bathroom was something less then hygienic. The mirror she revealed herself from was in serious want of windex and a paper towel. Spots of water drips and acne bursts decorated the reflective surface. The toothbrush sat in a metal cup, riddled with the green filth of copper carbonate. Clothes littered the floor, looking as though they were a permanent fixture in the bathroom. The toilet was spotted and rank. The shower curtain stained with the faint yellow tint of urine. Whomever she was finding herself upon was in dire need of help, though little did he know the kind he'd receive.
​
"WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" Mary yelled from the other side, her pale face twisted and contorted in the dirty reflection.
Mark screamed, and screamed, and screamed and made a hand for the door before urinating on himself and exclaiming "IT WORKS!? FINALLY!"
*Well this is different* she thought to herself. She blinked multiple times before finally speaking. "Well... I... I don't usually make it this far." She looked down at her script and began reading aloud "It is I, the genie of reflections. The maiden of grief and savior of sorrows. Speak thine wishes and thine's greates- thine? How old is this thing? Shit. Look kid wh-"
"Oh my god. I don't care! Just do it already. I can take it." He said with closed eyes.
She looked around confused. "Whatever it is, it better involve cleaning this bathroom," she said, blowing air out of her nose. "Look kid, I was in the middle of something important. Can you just tell me your wishes already?"
"Wishes? You aren't here to kill me?"
"OH. That's right. You guys think I kill people. Hah, I wish. Lord knows I've been sick of your shit for centuries. Calling out to me in the middle of the night. You know, us genies have lives too. I was in the middle of something really important before you called though, so can we hurry this up."
Mark looked sullen for a moment but his eyes sparked with triumph once he gathered what was happening. It was at this moment that Mary noticed the one safety razor sitting on the bathroom sink, and her heart sunk at what he might say next.
"So you mean to tell me, you're a.. a genie?" he said
"Um.. yeah. Although everyone usually just runs away and wastes my time. It isn't the best gig, I'll tell you that. But uh... I gotta ask, was I interrupting something?"
"Oh." he said, sullen once more. He put his face in his hands and groaned in frustration. "This is kind of embarrassing. I was really hoping you'd just kill me and I wouldn't have to do or say anything. Granted.. I didn't actually think it'd work."
"Look kid, I'm not exactly a therapist here, but it doesn't take much to see what's going on here."
"Oh right." he said, laughing weakly "Yeah, things haven't been too good lately. Ever since my girlfr-"
"Hold it! Not a therapist. I thought we established this."
"My bad!" he said, holding his hands out in apology. An awkward silence followed.
"So you grant wishes?" he said, finally.
"Boy, do you listen to anything? I read the fucking script. Get em out already before I make them for you."
"Ok!" he said, frantically. "Um... I wish my girlfriend was in love with me again!"
Upon hearing this, Mary immediately put her hand up to her forehead, letting out a sigh and frowned. "So, have you ever heard of a guy named Butch Hartman?"
"Who?"
"Nevermind. Old client of mine. So, there are rules to these things, and one of them is that us genies can't meddle in love affairs. It goes against our code."
Mark started to cry. "This is hopeless!" he yelled "I wish you'd just fucking kill me."
Mary let out a sigh. "Look I'm gonna give you one chance to take that back and maybe we can talk it out. How about wishing for a clean bathroom? Huh? Huh? Maybe get some curtains that aren't drenched in piss. All the bitches will love you then."
"Oh my God! And now you're making fun of me!" This made Mary sigh again. She could already tell she had her work cut out for her. "Okay, I have an idea." she said "If you wish me out of this mirror, I'll explain the wholllllleeee thing to you and see if we can't keep you from euthanizing yourself."
"You mean you'll hang out with me?" Mark said, smiling for the first time in their exchange. *Jesus fucking Christ, this guy* she thought. "Yeah buddy, we can hang out. So what do ya say... what's your name?"
"Mark."
"Mark? Mary. So what do you say Mark?"
He seemed to be weighing the options in his head, looking left and right towards the floor before finally getting on with it. "Ok. I wish you were here in person." And like that, Mary's reflection faded from the bathroom mirror and on to the bathroom floor she materialized, like a ghost from the ether. *Maybe this won't be so bad* she told herself. "Any idea what you want?"
"Can I have sometime to think about it? I mean, I only have two more wishes. Wait. CAN I WISH FOR MORE WISHES?!"
Mary winced. "It doesn't exactly work like that, kid"
"Oh." Once again he gave the sullen expression she had grown so accustomed to. "I guess I'm gonna need some more time."
She began to let herself out of the bathroom. "That's cool. Say, do you have any legos?"
​
​
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“No! NOOO!” - yelled the genie as he saw Megan terrified attempting to run out of the bathroom.
“Don’t run away Megan, I’m here for you”
“Bu, but, I said Bloody Mary, and you showed up, I’m drunk and this is scary”- said Megan fearfully as her mascara ran down her eyes and her breathing got more intense.
“I know, that’s always my queue to come in, but I just like to terrify people, in fact, you just got the best deal of your life, I’m an granting you three wishes, anything you want, anything you’ve ever dreamt for, I will make it happen. Just ask me”
“Can you make fucking Howard disappear for ever”
As Howard continued showing his moves in the dance floor and buying shots to all the people that had, meaningless connection to him. He vanished, into space, never to be seen again, leaving no trace behind, no atoms, no plasma, nothing behind but the memory of a person that shall forever remain a mystery disappearance.
“I, is he gone” asked Megan reluctantly.
“Yes, forever” - Said the genie confidently.
“Well, how can I know?” - asked Megan with a snooty effort and reluctance.
“Well, go outside, you’ll never see him again” - said the genie, still with confidence - “You have two more wishes”
“Well I wish all men who have ever cheated on their significant others suffer significant pain and then die horribly” - said Megan with a painful voice as she shrugged and looked at the floor.
“Well that counts for two wishes Megan” - said the genie still very monotonous and seeming uninterested about Megan’s wishes.
“Well that’s what I want” - said Megan confidently.
—————
It has been 24 hours since the great extinction. Reasons are still unknown, but 84% of the male population has vanished inexplicably.
Being a fertile man has become a huge commodity.
It has been less than 72 hours when Harold found himself walking along 5th Avenue. He walked along side his girlfriend and two cousins as they approached “TEX” the hottest club in Miami.
“That’ll be 150$ for women, but for you, it’ll be free, have this complementary shot of tequila” said the busty attendant to Harold.
“Ugh, I wish I was a guy” - Said Megan as she paid her 150$ entrance fee to the hottest club in Miami. That night there were only 4 guys in the club, surrounded by 25 victoria secret models and over 200 independent models.
“It’s a good day to be a faithful husband” - said Harold as he sipped his whiskey.
| 2019-03-14T22:43:16 | 2019-03-14T22:26:33 | 54 | 17 |
[WP] Scientist have created a machine that allow people a window into alternate realities. It becomes mainstream and people talk about alternate versions of themselves. Finally you decide to take a look only to discover that there are no alternate versions of you. You're the only you in existence.
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I almost threw the helmet into the trash after hearing an incoherent whisper inside my head. This thing was only a gimmick, just like I imagined. Beautiful graphics, though. It just didn't live up to the hype. According to the manufacturers, these weren't merely simulated realities. The helmet scanned the user's unique brain pattern, calculated fixed points from the wave function of the multiverse (whatever the hell that meant), and inputted your data to show the most likely outcomes. If that was true, though, why did it only show me barren wastelands?
Most of my work colleagues couldn't stop raving about it. They preached that it opened their eyes to everything they could've been in life, changing for the better. I didn't believe it until some of them quit their comfortable jobs to pursue something more fulfilling. Even then, I hesitated to try out the device. Trendy stuff like this had disappointed me all my life. I should've known better than to give it a chance. Hearing about everyone else's experiences only made mine feel unnerving.
The manufacturers didn't believe me when I asked for a refund. There shouldn't be any whispering coming from the machine. Apparently, this glitch had never happened before. They sent me a replacement but ignored my calls after that one didn't work either.
For a moment, I feared there was something wrong with me. My doctor, however, said I was being paranoid. He told me my brain may not be compatible with how the helmet worked, but that I shouldn't worry since I was completely healthy.
I felt inclined to believe him. Unfortunately, the same whisper from before echoed in my head for weeks afterwards. I couldn't even fall asleep without thinking about it. The uncomfortable sound gnawed at me without pause, compelling me to try the helmet one more time.
Ignoring it just felt *wrong*. When I finally gave in, I used the helmet for more than a day straight, drifting across realities in a manic haze to find something more than emptiness. The whisper hadn't appeared again. My stomach burned for a while until I became numb to the pain of hunger. Nothing would deter me, though. I lost track of time in my search for an answer.
And then something with sharp teeth slithered into my ear.
I fell backwards, struggling to remove the helmet. The thing sank its hooks into me and didn't let go. I screamed in pain until pulling it away.
A dark, gooey tentacle had sprouted out of the helmet.
I got on my feet and started stomping on it. The tentacle writhed at unpredictable angles, wrapping itself around my neck. It was trying to strangle me. Everything slowly grew blurry. With a final burst of strength, I threw the helmet across the room, shattering it upon impact.
The tentacle writhed in pain before burning up in dark fire, leaving behind no trace of its existence.
I fell on the floor, panting heavily. What the hell just happened? My whole room was thrashed after that. If I didn't have bruises on my neck, I would've just assumed that was a vivid hallucination. Thankfully, it was over.
Or so I thought.
Before I could clean up the mess it left, a swirling portal opened up in front of me. I jumped behind my desk, thinking another creature approached, when a woman wearing hi-tech military equipment walked through instead. She aimed her rifle around the room, murmuring something about a corruption, before looking at me and saying:
"Where is it?!?"
I raised my arms. "Don't kill me!"
"The monster! Quick! Is it in you?!?"
"N-no!"
The woman started scanning me with a device on her wrist. "Where did it go?"
"I... uhh... I think I killed it."
"Oh." The woman relaxed. "Why didn't you say so?"
"You pointed a gun at me..."
"Right. My bad. Can't be too careful."
"What's going on? Is this dream?"
The woman chuckled. "Kinda."
"Mind explaining then?"
"Are you sure you *really* want to know?"
I stopped myself from saying yes. Looking for answers is exactly what got me into this mess. I couldn't believe the simple possibility that I might just be a rare individual and that, at the same time, there wasn't anything inherently valuable about that. For most of my life, I only valued the things that could make me stand out, ignoring everything popular just to feel special. I never realized how empty that had left me. If I ever bothered relating to others, instead of blindly hating the mainstream norm, I may have found something different. In the end, I think I was better off just accepting myself, instead of looking at something external for meaning.
"You know what? I think I'm fine."
The woman nodded with a knowing smile. "Good." She then walked through another portal and I never saw her again.
-----
>If you enjoyed this, you can find more of my stuff over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories. Thanks for reading!
|
"God dammit why isnt this shit working!?" I yelled out in annoyance while just finishing my most recent goal in a long, long list of goals.
"What is it?" Asked probably my best friend, who also happened to be a taxi driver.
"This device says it can show you, your alternate reality selfs, but I keep looking through it and the price of donkeyshiteatingmotherfucker is broken!"
"Uhh Mr.D I think it's because you just went and killed every other alternate version of yourself..."
"Well fuck that would cause issues I guess, Oh well." I shrugged as I put my twin swords and went back to another day of being a "hero".
| 2021-06-02T06:00:24 | 2021-06-02T04:47:35 | 70 | 30 |
[WP] After sarcastically complaining to God for the 1000th time he drags you to heaven and offers to let you run things for a day to see how the world really works. At the end of your first day he comes back to find the universe a finely tuned machine of excellence.
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FADE IN:
INT. HEAVEN - GOD'S OFFICE - DAY
*The doors to an ornate office burst open, and a grandfatherly figure in a tweed suit pulls a young man in by his ear. These are GOD and DAVE, respectively. God has apparently been lecturing Dave for some time.*
**GOD:** So, if you *really* think you can do better, show me!
**DAVE:** Ow.
*God releases Dave's ear. The young man stands up and looks around the room. It resembles an opulent study in an English mansion.*
**DAVE:** This is Heaven?
**GOD:** This is my office.
**DAVE:** Why does it smell like pipe tobacco?
**GOD:** What you perceive here is entirely your choice.
**DAVE:** Why would I choose to perceive the smell of pipe tobacco?
**GOD:** It's what you expected. Therefore, it is.
**DAVE:** ... Okay, well, I can spot some flaws in that.
*God's face adopts an expression of impatience.*
**GOD:** Yes, that's why you're here. This is what your constant complaining has gotten you.
*Dave rubs the ear that was being held.*
**DAVE:** I think we've had a bit of a misunderstanding.
**GOD:** Oh, have we?
**DAVE:** When I said that a monkey could have designed a better universe...
*Dave trails off.*
**GOD:** Yes?
**DAVE:** To be honest, I expected you to interrupt me.
**GOD:** Why would I do that?
**DAVE:** I kind of set you up for it. You could have said "I went and got a monkey!"
**GOD:** And now that monkey thinks he's going to outwit his creator. Have at it, then.
**DAVE:** I already gave you the punchline.
*God gestures around the room.*
**GOD:** I mean have at *this!* Try your hand at running the universe!
**DAVE:** I don't...
**GOD:** (*Interrupting*) No, no, please! I'm eager to see just how *easy* you'll make it seem!
**DAVE:** You interrupted me.
**GOD:** As you expected me to.
*Dave considers this for a moment.*
**DAVE:** Okay.
FADE TO:
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INT. HEAVEN - GOD'S OFFICE - THE NEXT DAY
*The doors to God's office burst open once again, and God storms in. The expensive finery and furniture have been replaced with utilitarian (but still aesthetically pleasing) installments. Dave sits at an unadorned desk, looking at a sheet of silvery paper.*
**GOD:** (*Angrily*) What did you do?!
**DAVE:** Just a moment, please. This is somewhat time-sensitive.
**GOD:** Time is wholly irrelevant here! Answer me: What did you do?!
*Dave looks over the paper at God.*
**DAVE:** I fixed it.
**GOD:** Fixed what?
**DAVE:** The universe. You had a number of inefficiencies that I've cleaned up.
*God narrows his eyes at Dave.*
**GOD:** And how, exactly, did you do that?
**DAVE:** Applied theology.
**GOD:** That is not a thing.
**DAVE:** It is now.
**GOD:** *How?!*
**DAVE:** Applied theology.
**GOD:** That's not an answer!
**DAVE:** Yes, well, the Dave works in mysterious ways.
*An angry croaking noise escapes God's throat. He struts up to Dave's desk and slams his hands onto it.*
**GOD:** Start talking!
**DAVE:** Aren't you supposed to be omniscient?
**GOD:** I can and will smite you.
*Dave sighs and puts the paper down. It appears to be covered with scribbles worthy of a three-year-old.*
**DAVE:** Look, you told me that I would perceive what I expected to.
**GOD:** Yes.
**DAVE:** That struck me as odd... until I realized that it didn't just apply to your office.
**GOD:** What do you mean?
**DAVE:** Well, think about it: You're apparently the personification of a Christian deity, which means that my expectations were shaping your appearance and behavior just as much as they were shaping our environment. In essence, I was creating God... and given that God created the universe, I was therefore creating it, as well.
**GOD:** That's not...
**DAVE:** (*Interrupting*) I also created some doughnuts.
*God's mouth opens and closes a few times. Dave stands up and begins pacing the room.*
**DAVE:** (*CONT'D*) Anyway, since my expectations were all that mattered, it dawned on me that I only needed to expect a better universe. Then it was just a question of figuring out the right metaphor for adjusting things.
**GOD:** You have misinterpreted my point about expectations.
**DAVE:** Have I?
**GOD:** Humans expect their creators to look and act like authority figures with whom they are already familiar.
**DAVE:** Yes, that's why you look and act like my grandfather.
**GOD:** It's because you think of those authority figures as being infallible.
**DAVE:** See, that's the other thing about you looking like my grandfather.
*Dave returns to his desk and stoops to retrieve something from beneath it.*
**DAVE:** (*CONT'D*) I already know that he *isn't* infallible.
**GOD:** That doesn't...
**DAVE:** (*Interrupting*) And I already know his greatest weakness.
*After a few seconds, Dave stands back up. He is holding a laptop computer in his hands.*
**DAVE:** (*CONT'D*) After putting the pieces together, the metaphor - and the solution - was obvious.
*God's eyes go wide.*
**GOD:** (*Whispering*) What did you do?!
*Dave opens the computer.*
**DAVE:** I got rid of those nasty toolbars.
FADE OUT.
|
"See?" I said proudly, "Running the universe was easy as hell."
"Hmph," God grumbled, "that's, uh, impressive." He scratched his head and continued, "How'd you handle Universe #2389819743912? That place always gives me trouble."
"I-uh, what?" There was a universe 2389819743912?
"The universe with the pizzas that use chairs to order phones for dinner. The progress of causality to create that universe proved problematic in regards to morality and reasoning abilities. I-uh," God scratched his head again, "I couldn't really figure that place out. But, between you and me, could you tell me how you did it? I hope you understand this to be a secret between us."
"I didn't know there was a universe #2389819743912..."
"You..." God pushed me out of the way and looked at the Holy Dashboard. He groaned, "You only dealt with *your* universe!"
"I didn't know that there were more than one!" My face burned red.
"Of course there's more than one! Medammit, I gave you omniscience and you still didn't know? Oh, look, now there's interuniversal conflicts. Geez, I wonder who let those advanced civilisations abuse the glitches and bugs to do that? Reality's gonna come apart!"
"Well, what do we do?"
"We?"
"Yea..."
He grimaced, "As much as I would love to ditch this whole fiasco, we're going to have to fix this. I'd rather not let the multiverse explode. And since the biggest problem is reality blowing up because of that interuniversal war, we'll have to handle that first." God walked off, grumbling about petty wars and leaders, and left me to mull.
He came back decked out in an orange jumpsuit with a pair of goggles strapped to his head. He held two big-ass sniper rifles in his hands. He tossed me one.
"Let's go assassinate some heads of state." He grinned.
| 2017-03-05T02:01:54 | 2017-03-05T01:19:00 | 3,383 | 439 |
[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...
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My first time posting here. Hope you enjoy!
**************************************
I think it was my birthday. I wasn’t sure – birthdays hadn’t meant anything for years, but I think it was my 18th birthday.
So, here I was, a slave who just turned 18. It all happened after the invasion. My parent were simple farmers living outside the village. I was happy back then. I helped my Da in the fields while my Ma and my sister cooked the meals and kept the house.
Rest-day was the best – me and Da would get cleaned up after working in the dusty fields all week while the women cleaned away the dishes. We’d gather around the village bonfire with our neighbors, and the music would play and everyone danced! It was magical!
Back then, turning 18 was a gift. You’d reach out, and something wondrous would come to you. For my Da, it was my Ma. That was rare – getting a soulmate was special. Most people got things, but very special things. Like, the magister of the village got a gavel. No-one could ever lie to him, and justice was fair and equal. The seamstress got a needle, and could sew so fast her hands were a blur, and never made a mistake.
But then the invasion happened. It was quick and bloody. My Da was killed, my Ma was taken away to the kitchens were she was later beaten to death because she served some soup that was too cold. I was 12 when that happened. My sister was sent to the camps, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since.
The village was burned, men and elders killed, women and children enslaved. I was sent to the officer’s section. I polished boots, ironed uniforms and did all the odds jobs no-one else wanted. I slept in dirt and was beaten daily. I was painfully thin and wore rags. My days were spent trying to avoid notice, and I was fairly good at it. It's the reason I was still alive – I didn’t look older than maybe 14 or 15, and was skilled at being overlooked. Of all the boys my age who had been enslaved that fateful day, I was the only survivor.
Odd how the summoning had changed since then – before, you never knew what you’d get, but you knew it would be wonderful and joyous. Now, it was poison every time. The invaders learned quickly to keep an eye on the girls on their day of summoning – too many young women drank the poison before it could be snatched away.
I guess they forgot about me. They certainly didn’t care if I lived or died. My existence was meaningless and empty, and from what I had seen, the poison was quick and painless. You’d fall asleep as soon as it passed your lips, and a few minutes later, you were gone. Quickly and peacefully.
I did my chores that night with only one ringing slap to my head. I crept away and waited until the camp was quiet. I held out my hand, ready for the poison to take me away from this horrible life.
Nothing happened. Maybe I was wrong about my birthday? I don’t think so. I tried again, and I felt something, but… still nothing. One more time, straining, crying, tears streaking my grimy face, please take me away! I sobbed uncontrollably, foolishly getting the attention of one of the guards. “Oh, so it’s yer’ summoning, is it boy? Good – looks like I’m the one who’s getting a present….” and he trailed off in silence. Softly at first, then growing louder, it was hard to tell what the sound was. At first it was just the ground shuddering faintly, but it got stronger. You could hear metal clinking, and something that sounded like sticks banging together. The guard forgot about me and ran into the camp, raising the alarm.
The invaders had been at war for a long time, and were good at it. Lines formed quickly, but they were not prepared. No one could ever prepare. The attacking army was ruthless, unrelenting and completely unstoppable. The screams were terrible. The invaders were butchered. Every soldier had been torn to pieces within the hour.
When it was over, only the slaves were still alive. As one, the conquerors turned to face me, placed one hand over their hearts and dropped to a knee, all bowing in allegiance.
I had summoned an army. An army of those killed unjustly by the invading horde. The undead army stood before me, victims no more, but victors out for justice. I would avenge my family, my village, and my life.
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They all screamed as the orange haired president doubled over in pain live on national television as I laughed maniacally in the back of the bar waving his severed member in my hand before throwing it into my drink.
“Steve!!” “what the fuck man?!” Randy screamed at me as he vomited onto the floor. “It’s your birthday but damn dude!? Why the fuck did you summon THAT?!”
“World domination baby, world domination”
Everybody stood far away from me as I walked out the front door blood dripping from my fingers, The Donald’s member flopping on the ground.
Who the fuck is going to dare challenge anyone that can rip your junk off from anywhere on the planet?
Let them eat cake.
| 2019-09-18T09:45:02 | 2019-09-18T09:37:18 | 71 | 10 |
[WP] You're a psychotic, crazed ghost girl who haunts and kills her victims. Your next target is an endearing single guy who's really into horror movies and games.
[deleted]
|
Part 1
I sighed and giggled. I could sense the next one was already on his way, the familiar sound of a heavy truck stopping and rear doors opening breaking the beautiful silence I had come to detest. My arrival to this charming neighbourhood was recent, but it had net me several rather juicy targets and I was too enamored with the potential for more to pick another hunting ground before I inevitably overstay my welcome.
Burly men stepped through the front door, and I watched... and watched. They hauled in various boxes and furniture, wholly uninteresting things that clawed at my skin and crushed body. Objects and worldly possessions suffocated me, clouding my mind with no small amount of envy. I knew it was poison, but I relished it, I relished the pain it brought and the pleasure I felt when I worked to tear it down in front of those conceited busybodies who lived only to collect and survive.
*Survive*.
An alien concept to myself nowadays, one I've always pushed down but failed to quash completely. I felt my mixed emotions boil as I remembered the sniveling cries and sobs of those who wished to continue surviving, who lamented losing what I so craved and detested.
Almost as in response to my composure nearly breaking, a gentle, cheerful voice filtered in and echoed in my ears.
"Cheers fellas, real solid work, you lot have a good day!"
*He* waved off the movers as they climbed back into their loud vehicle and drove off. Hands on his hips, my prize's gaze swept across the dirt road that led down to the more populated street. He gave a single nod and about faced to march into the house, closing the door behind him with a wide smile. It near sickened me to see one so cheerful, had he not heard any rumors that were undoubtedly flitting about? Sure this house was somewhat isolated and perfect for me to take refuge, but he must've heard something.
My heart began tingling, I've never been so excited for a catch as far as I can remember, and the idea of breaking such a gleeful spirit made me giddy and almost jump for joy. With renewed vigor, I peered in closer through the ceiling at the gift that had practically pranced its way into my waiting embrace. He was of average height, but good stock; his legs sturdy and reliable, and his arms meaty and strong.
However, my eyes were drawn to his face, a soft complexion, yet strong features, lovely ey- I shook my head, my heart tingling more and more. I slammed my fist down on the attic floor I was resting on, consciously letting my hand phase through to not compromise my stealth.
I never thought I'd be so entranced by a body, I've never took notice of those I've snuffed out, I see their forms lined up before me in my mind, but they blur together, features indistinguishable; it seems I've been too hasty in judgement, maybe appreciating their bodies more will spice this game up and make it more enjoyable.
*I guess you do learn new things everyday.*
I kept my vigil, keeping an ever closer eye on his activities, slowly unpacking boxes and getting his furniture tidied up, often leaving boxes half emptied and lazily stacked, peculiar behaviour, but I thought nothing of it. Before I knew it, darkness had crept in, and he flipped on the lights in the lounge room before flopping on the couch with a heavy sigh.
"Man I really hope she shows up, I don't want to have gone to all this trouble for nothing... guess I'll chuck on the flick Bobby said was really good in the meantime."
I tilted my head. *Flick? he hasn't even finished unpacking or eaten and he's just gonna laze about with a dumb movie?* My interest evaporated almost instantly, and I passed through the ceiling in my sigh of exasperation, landing deftly on my feet. The theatrics felt hollow and I extended out my arms in anger, imagining I was choking my toy for crushing my high hopes in but a moment.
A muted ringing knocked me out of my fantasy and I slipped around a corner and peered at the man as he pulled out his phone and answered it with the same gusto he had with the movers.
"Hey hey Bobby, what's up? good to hear... I'm aight, just sitting down to watch the flick you recommended. Sure you recommended it, you said it scared the pants off you and the missus, right? that means it's quality stuff." He said with a short laugh.
I blinked. *Scared?* *He meant a* horror *flick?* I pursed my lips, that's definitely more interesting, but is he a horror-lover one who gets more paranoid or indifferent when it comes to the supernatural?
"Not able to visit for a housewarming party? Ah, you boys off on a group date with your partners, huh? Figured. No, I'm not disappointed, I haven't finished unpacking nor spruced up the place yet anyway, wouldn't be much of a party. No need to apologise, buddy, it's okay. Go ahead, I can already hear the lady knocking on your door like your mum did. You lot have fun, see ya." He tapped the phone and laid it down with another heavy sigh, and wordlessly resumed the movie he started.
I almost felt bad, I didn't want to beat a guy who was already down, they fold easily and the satisfaction just isn't there. I pouted, wishing for his energy to return to lift the depressive mood. I drew my eyes to the TV screen and tilted my head quizzically, such media had long lost its meaning to me, but I could tell my prize was engrossed in it, and his fervor slowly returned. He looked on anxiously in tense moments, and cheered and laughed in the climaxes, commenting on how well the 'villain' was portrayed as a terrifying character and not as the typical slow walking murderer trope. His infectious happiness drew me closer to him and suddenly I found myself crouched behind the couch to his right, my eyes darting from the screen to the side of his head, staring at his joyous expression, juxtaposed with the bloody mess that was occurring on the TV.
As if to help punctuate the loud sound effects from the movie, a shuffling sound caught my attention behind me, I straightened and swiveled around just to notice a haphazardly stacked box begin to slowly slip off its perch, of course I was in the worst position, with nowhere to hide when he turned to see what happened. In a mild panic I rushed forward and caught it just as gravity took full hold of its fate, I carefully placed it back on the pile, ensuring it wouldn't attempt another tumble before taking my place back behind the couch as the movie ended.
|
“Here I have another victim for you,” says my Master. The all powerful one, that is his only name. He won’t ever tell me his real one, and has never told me why.
I take the piece of paper in his hand and unfold it.
“Jeremy Hillside?” I ask.
“Yup,” My master says. “Get to it, come on.”
I give him a low bow before disappearing on the spot and teleporting to Jeremys home.
***
I lick the tip of a knife as I materialize in what is meant to be called a ‘Living Room.
Then I see him, Jeremy, only he looks rather different compared to other humans I’ve seen before.
He sits on a couch, strewn with eaten bits of food and the whole room reeks of beer.
His eyes are fixated on a TV screen, shouting every once in a while as his fingers mess about with some sort of remote.
I clear my throat and spread an evil grin across my face.
“Pathetic Human, you’re time has come!”
He jumps at the sound of my voice, pulling off his headset and turning to me.
“Hey what the he... OMG what are you!?” He smiles. “The grim reaper of something?”
I grimace at his words, nobody has ever reacted in such an exited way before
“No!” I snarl. “I am... I don’t actually know my name. My Job is to just.. kill people.”
Jeremy is practically vibrating with excitement, he leaps off his chair and waddles over to me.
“I’ll give you a name,” he says, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Lady Gaga!”
“Wait, why that name?”
“Because she’s only one of the BEST SINGERS OF ALL TIME! Amongst many others of course, I just think it suits you more. You know with the makeup and all.”
“Erm... ok. Well I’m supposed to kill you now... so.”
I drive my knife into his stomach.
“Goodnight.”
He looks down at his belly in shock, smirking at me and tapping my cheek comfortingly.
“This is practically the best day ever.”
I pull the knife out and he drops to the floor, dead as a doorknob.
I look at the bloodied knife and smile.
“One down, unlimited to go I guess.”
The End.
***
The end, hope u liked it. I wrote it rather fast so I guess it wasn’t my best. But dere, have a nice day.
| 2020-05-30T17:30:40 | 2020-05-30T14:19:43 | 73 | 15 |
[WP]: Children are named by the traits they are fated to have - Brave, Serene, Deeply Caring, Unmoved - and of course your lovely daughter, Bites People.
|
Mistress Gentle led the way down the hall. Our footsteps pattered on the linoleum; I was shocked at how *quiet* it was in here. I would have expected an orphanage to be full of the usual noises of children: laughing, crying, screaming, etc.
“And you’re sure you want to adopt, Mr…” Mistress Gentle gulped before saying my name; people often did. “Mr… uh… Stabs People?” Her eyes darted back down to the background check that I’d had to pass before being allowed to adopt a child. How many times was this that she’d read it over just to make sure? It of course mentioned all the trouble I’d been in as a youngster, and how many people I’d stabbed. But that was all in the past, and according to the form I was now an upright citizen. Not that anyone believed that, with my name. “It’s not for everyone, you know.”
“I’m quite sure,” I told her as we walked. “I’ve always wanted kids.” Unfortunately it turns out that finding a stable life partner is a bit of a challenge when you’re named ‘Stabs People.’
“I see.” Mistress Gentle tried to smile at me, but it just looked like she was seasick. The idea of letting Mr. Stabs People walk away with a child from her orphanage would keep her up at night for weeks despite the reassurances from the state that I am completely rehabilitated. Some people have this idea that you can *never* change your name trait. I don't believe that at all, but Mistress Gentle clearly did.
We arrived at a door marked “Dormitory C” at the end of the hall. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find a suitable match for you here,” she said. The door clicked open, revealing a few rows of bunk beds. Inside, children were reading, playing games quietly, etc. They all looked up like exhibits at the zoo as Ms. Gentle and I strolled through the room.
“This here is Stubborn,” she said, introducing a boy with curly brown hair. “And this here is Trust Issues,” she waved at a young girl with dark skin and green eyes. That one was certainly a self-fulfilling prophecy. She continued around the room, introducing children with various inconvenient name traits. Adoptive parents only wanted Ms. Smells Like A Rose; it was no wonder that these poor kids had all been left behind.
In the corner, I noticed a huddled mass under a zebra-striped blanket. “And who is this?” I asked as I gently lifted the blanket.
“Oh, careful!” Mistress Gentle shouted just as a pair of teeth lunged for my hand from under the blanket. I was just barely able to avoid being bitten by the little girl hiding underneath. She promptly pulled the blankets back over her face and continued hiding in her corner. “That,” Mistress Gentle said, “Is Bites People. She… well…” The name made it pretty clear. I also noticed that Bites People’s bunk mate had a circular bruise on her forearm.
I remained crouched near the little girl, no older than three or possibly four. “Bites People,” I said, gently pulling the blanket away. “I’m Stabs People.” She didn’t recoil in fear like every other person I’ve ever met. I can't even tell you how much that meant to me. Instead, she just bared her teeth. So I offered her my arm. “Go ahead,” I told her. “You can bite me if you really want to.”
She glanced at my arm, then back at me. Her lips quivered a bit and then fell back into place over her teeth and formed a fearful frown.
“Good job, Bites People!” Mistress Gentle enthused. “Your training is really working!” *Training*, I thought. *Like a dog.*
“Bites People, would you like to come stay with me for a while?” I asked. “It would just be temporary to see if things would work out between us.”
Mistress Gentle took a step back. “This one?” She didn’t even bother hiding the incredulity in her voice. *Should have been Mistress Judgmental,* I thought to myself.
I picked up Bites People in my arms. Poor thing was shaking. But she didn’t try to bite me; she just hugged my shoulder close and whimpered softly. “Yes, this one,” I told her.
-----
“RRRROOOOOWWWRRRRR!!!!” I formed my hands into claws, held my elbows close to my chest, and became a T-Rex. Bites People squealed with fear and delight and went running off through the house as I stomped after her. She pattered through the kitchen and around the dining table; I followed with loud, heavy steps that echoed down the hall. Finally I caught up to her and scooped her up in my arms, vowing to eat her for dinner. She giggled, and just for a moment I reflected on how completely different she was after only 2 months at home.
“Dino Movie?” I asked her. She nodded and squirmed in my arms as I carried her to the couch.
I flicked on the TV and once again pulled up her favorite movie: the Land Before Time II. We’d already watched it a few dozen times in the two months since her adoption, and she already had all the lines memorized. But I didn’t mind; after all that time in the orphanage, she deserved to have her choice for a while.
The movie came on, and Bites People watched with rapt attention, particularly any time Chomper was on screen. He was her favorite character: a ‘Sharptooth’ who had overcome his predatory instincts and made friends with all the herbivores. She cuddled up close to me on the couch as theme music played.
She was so engrossed in the film that she didn’t even notice her little tic: she was softly biting on my arm. Kind of in the absent-minded way that other kids would suck on their own thumb. And gently, of course: the way that a cat will nibble at a blanket while it kneads. Just a little love bite.
----
I just published a novel! [You should read all about it here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/5dkh21/ot_2_years_ago_i_responded_to_a_prompt_about_the/)
|
"You have got to be kidding me," Heroic groans, rubbing her temples. "One of us here is a fake and we have to figure it out? This is ridiculous! While we're wasting time here, Wicked is having her evil way with kidnapped Princely!"
"That's what the Gamer said. If we want the next hint to find Princely and Wicked, we have to play her little games," Obvious says with a shrug.
"Here's what we'll do. We'll each go around introduce ourselves and say one thing that will guarantee that we are the person that we say we are," Planner says, nodding sagely.
"Ohhh! We can make it into a game! Let's all say two truths and one lie!" Unhelpful exclaims in glee.
"We're going to be here forever!" Heroic bemoans. "Princely'll never going to marry me at this rate!"
"... Hey Gamer, the person who's been replaced, what has they been replaced with?" Bites People asks seriously.
Gamer looks at them lazily. "Hm? I think some kind of a fae? They're enchanted to behave exactly like the real deal. So yeah, you'll be here a loooooong while."
Bites People nods, still looking seriously. Then she turns to the rest of the group with a toothy grin. "Well, didn't we luck out then?"
Everyone looks at her confused. "What are you talking about?"
"My trait is to bite people."
Everyone still looks at her very much confused. "So?" Obvious asks for the group.
"That means I can only bite *people*, as in *humans*. If the fake is a fae..."
"Ohhh! Ohhhhh!!! That's a great plan!" Planner exclaims.
"You won't be able to bite the fae!" Obvious grins.
"You'll give everyone else a lovely hickey!" Unhelpful adds.
"To think Bites People will actually be a trait that turned out to be helpful," Heroic says, looking awed.
"My mother's name was Foresight. I think she knew what she was doing. Now, who wants to be bitten first?"
| 2016-11-17T06:04:28 | 2016-11-17T05:29:54 | 4,482 | 320 |
[WP] A serial killer decides to murder a bunch of teens in a cabin in the woods. However these 'teens' have just returned from a magical journey thousands of years long and have dealt with much worse.
|
[This turned out to be WAY longer than I expected.
Edit: I got invested in the story and characters, so you can visit r/theeyeofalmus, which I'm going to post new chapters on.]
"Jesus fuck, Tommy." There's a clattering as the larger boy trips over his feet and spills whatever is in the bag in his hands. The man watching them from the shadows grins. This group will be easy.
Curiously, the stones dropping from the bag seem to glow as Tommy picks them up, brushing off the debris of the forest floor.
"Whatever," the smaller boy says, his short frame nimbly avoiding rocks and branches in the path. "There's gotta be some place to sleep in this shithole."
"Give it a rest, Jake," the token girl says, tossing her hair back. There's always a girl. They're the best to kill, the easiest to break.
He can't wait to hear her screams as she's tortured.
"Oh, shut up, Mary," Jake snaps. "Oi, Tommy, you got all them stones yet?"
"Yes, *Jake*," Tommy says. The man frowns. There's a curious emphasis on the name, like Jake isn't really a Jake after all.
He shrugs. The machete in his fist will do all the talking for him.
"C'mon," Jake says to his fellows. "I see a light up ahead."
The light is actually a cabin, one the man has prepared for his next *visitors*. He always makes sure to clean it. Bloodstains drive away the guests.
He's lost his prey before.
"A cabin?" Mary says sarcastically. "It's probably trapped and cursed. Remember Ashwood?"
"Good god, Mary, you'd think that we've not dealt with curses before," Jake says, opening the unlocked door. "C'mon, we can conjure up some food."
*Curses? Conjure?* It's no matter. They'll be dead in a few short hours.
Tommy eyes the pristine door frame (specially sanded for that aged-yet-new look). The bag in his hands clatters, almost warningly.
The man grips the machete and creeps forward as Tommy shrugs and walks in, shutting the door.
He stares through the window at them. In the dark, their features were hard to make out other than their basic shapes. But in the electric light of the cabin, it's clear.
Jake is a short brunet with a snub nose and sharp black eyes that almost seem to glitter. Tommy is a tall, tanned boy with green eyes. Mary is a platinum blonde with streaks of blue and brown eyes.
Then, almost like magic, their features melt away.
He stumbles away from the window, in his haste forgetting to be quiet. A branch snaps beneath his foot.
Tommy comes to the window. He dives out of the way, looking back.
"Tommy" is a Black man with close cropped hair. His eyes glow green. "Jake" comes to the man's side. His skin is green and looks similar to a frog's, and his black eyes seem magnified, his hair gone. "Mary" appears at their side. Her features have not changed, but her skin seems to glitter and the pointed tips of her ears escape her hair.
"Nice, Eldren, you startled some forest creature," the thing that was once Jake says.
"Silence, Akron," Eldren, the Black man, says. The woman beside him tosses her hair. "You too, Maril."
"Whatever it is, it is of no consequence," Maril says dismissively. "It doesn't matter."
The man is suddenly consumed with rage. How dare they dismiss him? Magic or not, they should be terrified.
He is going to *torture* them.
Slipping in the back way is easy, as he has a key. The trio are relaxing in the living room, eating off his plates. Some sort of stew bubbles on the stove.
Maril is closest to him, and he creeps up behind her. Quick as a flash, he puts his machete to her throat and whispers, "Don't move."
It is entirely to his surprise that she flips him over her shoulder with ease and slams him into the hardwood floor.
"Well, well, well," Akron says. "What do we have here?"
"The man following us," Eldren informs the other two. He places his boot on the man's chest, ignoring the fact that the machete is still well within the fist on the ground.
Quickly, he swings, chopping the machete in an arc onto Eldren's leg. A solid hit to the Achilles tendon.
That is, if his blade didn't bounce off with a resounding clang. The machete flies from his grip.
It is Akron who answers his unspoken question. "Eldren here has an invulnerability spell. All his skin is steel. You'd never break him."
Eldren removes his boot from the man's chest, and he scrambles up and away.
"Who are you?" Maril asks curiously. He snarls at her. Akron laughs.
"Edison Mays."
Edison growls. "How did you know that?"
"Simple spell," Akron explains, holding out a hand. His palm glows gold as a staff materializes in his fist. "Human minds are easy to break into."
"I'll kill you!" Edison screams.
"Not today you won't."
Maril summons a pair of daggers. They're clear, and seem to shimmer.
"Not ever," she whispers, stalking up to him. She holds up the blades to his throat.
Edison Mays makes no sound when his head falls from his body.
|
His face against the window pressed
As from a wardrobe they coalesced
The would-be killer licked his lips
About to slay four teenage-kids
He stroked his knife against his palm
And told his heart to *just. stay. calm*.
Around the house he crept that night
About to give four kids a fright
He found a window just ajar
And pried it with an old crowbar
Then slipped inside with a cackle
For soon a throat his hands would tackle
He found the first lounging by a fire
and said: "Your situation's rather dire."
But the girl just sat, the girl just smiled
which his anger only riled
He lunged forward, knife in hand!
Aimed for throat -- or 'least a gland
But the girl was gone, only left her laughter
She'd teleported? Oh no, disaster!
For he'd fallen into the flame
And now her friends all laughed the same
"Sorry killer, but we're hardcore,
You see we've seen much worse before!
Peter here, he's killed a million men,
And I make reborn species extinct again..."
And so it went, they talked and bragged
As he just burned and singed and sagged
They talked of kingdoms saved with ease
Of armies conquered -- quite the breeze!
Oh God still they brag and wheeze...
Come on fire --
Kill me.
*Please?*
| 2020-03-14T08:29:36 | 2020-03-14T07:58:35 | 121 | 73 |
[WP] Your uncle always tries to outdo himself with your birthday presents. When you turned 18, he hid your present at the end of a scavenger hunt. On the minus side, you’ve been following the clues for 12 years now, but on the plus side, you’ve discovered three new planets.
|
My uncle has always been a bit... Eccentric.
And his gifts have always been both amazing and unbelievable.
When I was 8, I got lost at the mall. At first it was fun, and near the end it was terrifying. I mean, I was 8. But for my 9th birthday, I got a card, and a box.
The card said that the gift was that I would always know the way I _needed_ to go. The box? I opened it and there was, some kind of mist? I remember it sparkled, and that it tasted like rain in the forest smells.
I mean, clearly just a silly gift to reassure a kid who was scared of being lost after a scary experience, but still... It worked, I never got lost like that again, and as I got older I got complements on my sense of direction.
When I turned 12, it was another card, and this time a bottle of some kind of juice. The card told me to drink it, and that I'd always be the self I wanted to be. Again, for a kid just hitting the early stages of puberty? Kinda reassuring. The juice tasted of green and fresh honeysuckle.
It wasn't until I was 13, having run home from school in the middle of the school day, shaking in my room with my parents wanting to know what was wrong, with me finally managing to get out through the tears that I _wasn't_ a boy damn it, that... Well, my parents were not _nearly_ as surprised as I was when my clothes stopped fitting and... Yeah, explaining to the school that I'm Beth now wasn't _that_ bad, but there was a school transfer so that nobody asked too many questions about the actual process.
And... Yeah, let's just run with the answer that my parents really didn't mind me experimenting with hair dye. I mean what, it just changes when I'm feeling different? Nah, just hair dye.
When I was 16, he got me self defense lessons from a monk. I still can't pronounce the monk's name, or the name of the discipline that I was taught, but damn if it didn't work when someone got too handsy. Or when that _idiot_ tried to pull a knife on me at the gas station I was working at.
At 17, the gift was another card, and a small sealed envelope inside the card. It took me a while to understand what 'you'll always be able to see the path, see what it is made of, and touch it' really _meant_.
When I turned 18, for the first time I can remember, my uncle wasn't there. No card, no gift, no message. I didn't understand. My parents didn't understand. Sure, he often drops out of contact, but he's _always_ there for birthdays. Always.
A few days later, when I went to my self defense lessons, it... The monk wasn't in the best shape, bruised, bloody, clothes torn, the space was trashed, and... I don't even know how to explain it, but everything, even the _air_, looked thin. Like you could put your hand right through it into something else.
The monk reassured me that they would be okay, but he had a message for me. My uncle had some trouble follow him home, and he went to lead them away from his family and take care of the problem. And there was a card.
It probably wouldn't have freaked me out nearly so much if it wasn't for the blood on the card.
The message? He had been waiting to show me some things, and to give me my 'share', in what wasn't clear. And that if he wasn't back before my next birthday, I should carefully follow his clues. But not before then, he didn't want me to get involved in the trouble that was chasing him.
Yeah, when, _exactly_, was the last time I didn't get involved in trouble that involved someone I cared about? When a girlfriend was being harassed by boys at school? When a boyfriend came to school covered in bruises? When a teacher started showing a classmate just a little too much attention?
I _did_ let my parents know what I was doing before I headed out, and I've been pretty darn good at coming back on a regular basis. I'm pretty good at that part.
The first time I walked down a winding path, shoved my way through the shimmering light until the world went thin between my fingers, walked through it, and came out in a place where the sky was purple and the sky was filled with a planet with swirling clouds larger than the moon at come? That was _amazing_.
That was the first new planet I found. Though, well, 'new' is relative. New to me. Not so new to the people who lived there.
I'm almost 30 now, and the things that I have seen! The worlds I've traveled. The people I've met, the battles I've fought, the prizes I've found. The clues. The traces.
I'm almost 30 now, and I know what I'm getting for my birthday this year. I'm getting my damn uncle back, and may the three heavens of the Goz take pity on the idiots who try and stop me. I can see the path now, I can touch it, I know exactly how to get where I need to be, and I need my uncle back.
Oh, and I have some... Friends to help.
Friends, mercenaries, an army, what's the difference, really?
|
The airlock hissed behind me as I removed me helmet. 12 years, 7 months, and 9 days since the start of this whole thing.
When Uncle Crash gave me a riddle that lead to the shed in his backyard, it didn't seem like the hunt would be going on this long. I remember the previous year he had gotten me a car, but in order to use it, I had to figure out a way to literally find a needle in a haystack. That sucked. Didn't help that the needle was made of bone either.
And now this year. After his first clue, something about being 'beneath the wind of the leaves', I find a weird looking spacecraft beneath the shed. His next clue led me to Pluto, 'a world abandoned by humanity '. So easy. It started getting difficult after that though. The next clue was stuck on some abandoned base on an asteroid, and the suits on the ship weren't rate for EVA's that long, meaning I needed to set up a whole new suit. That took some time. And then he has the gall to send me all the way to Alpha Centauri i mean come on.
But finally, i found it, the latest clue. Walking though a literal dark matter forest wasn't exactly easy, but i managed. And now, my reward.
"A BOOK OF EXPIRED DAIRY QUEEN COUPONS, GOD DAMNNNIIT!"
| 2021-11-22T15:32:15 | 2021-11-22T09:48:39 | 105 | 59 |
[WP] Canada has suddenly gone dark. No communication, no trade, no activity from within. Nothing for days. Alaska, now cut off from mainland US, is slowly ceasing in contact with the US federal government until a final correspondence is given: "Leave us. Reinforce the border. Don't ever open it."
|
The first evidence that Canada had disappeared came from the satellites. The lights of Ontario, Montreal and most of Quebec disappeared. Their diplomatic phone line was rung. It was dead.
Vancouver was still running, the Canadian side of the town was anxious for the first two days as all attempts to communicate with the government and anyone eastwards failed. Fourteen hours after Canada went dark, Juneau ceased all contact. Satellites found no connections from the usually dense traffic from that region.
Upon this, Joint Base Elmersdorf- Richardson was ordered to form up and set up defensive formations around the city of Anchorage, as well as sortie Surveillance drones.
Major General Ronald G. Elmers watched the live footage of the drone as it flew, tracing the Alaskan coast. He’d been appointed only weeks before by the Commander in Chief and President, William Quentin. Ronald knew whatever had happened, it’d be ugly.
“Sir, the drine is coming up on the city of Juneau now.”
He watched the screen intently as the drone descended to 3,000 feet above sea level. At first, he thought they had miscalculated and gone off course. He checked the drone’s GPS coordinates again. They were correct.
“Have the drone descend further. I want a better look.”
The green tint of the night vision showed a dense forest, tree after tree sprouting through the buildings.
He noted the time. 2:35 AM.
“I want you to get these pictures to D.C. and the Pentagon immediately.” he said.
“See if we can scramble a brigade from the West coast and get them on planes to Elmersdorf immediately.” He stood from his chair.
“Organize a plane. I need to be in Washington by morning.”
Ronald sighed as the Colonel finished briefing him. This was supposed to be his vacation in Seattle. Now his division was stuck in Alaska where trees had apparently killed the population of Canada.
He got in the car and sighed. It would be a long week for him.
--xXx--
On the morning of May 13th, 24 hours after Canada had ceased all contact, forces in Anchorage reported a strange smell overtaking the city. Citizens flled from the foul odour by closing themselves inside their houses. Soldiers deployed to the edge of the suburbs pinched their noses behind walls of sand and soil.
Suddenly, an observer made a shout. Radios sparked to life, barking orders. Soldiers crouched at the ready, rifles primed and cocked.
Planes sortied out first. Commanders noticed they were bombers and were confused. Then they saw liquid drop from the planes.
“Men! Heads down! Cover!”
The forest ahead was set alight by a fire, brighter than all the enlisted men had ever seen.
Emerging from the flames, tall tree-like structures moved forwards, crawling on growing roots. A wooden roar came from them and hundreds of wooden creatures stumbled and ran forwards.
“Mortars, HE Rounds! Fire!”
The sounds of explosions deafened the green, new recruits. Some of the creatures exploded into splinters, others had holes ripped through them. The wounded stopped for just a moment as their wooden flesh regrew then they hobbled faster towards the men.
“Fire at will!”
Their rifles burst into action, 5.56 NATO rounds exiting the muzzle two, three times a second. The lead only seemed to encourage the wooden things to continue forward.
The city was overrun in a day.
--xXx--
“Elmersdorf-Richardson has gone dark, sir. They left one single last communication.”
The Defense member handed him a manila folder. Quentin opened it and saw the font of a telegram.
“Abandon Alaska. Reinforce the Border. Never open it.”
He closed the folder. “What in god’s name attacked them? We had missiles, tanks and thousands of men!”
“They left us a video clip too, Mr. President. Please watch.”
The curtains in the Oval Office closed and the lights dimmed.
The camera was brought up shakily. Brown masses were propeller by tentacle-like roots across buildings. The cameraman hopped onto a truck which drove into the base, men closing the gates right behind them. The footage cut to a view from a window. The outer portions of the base was desolate and broken, fires breaking out where vehicles and gasoline had been. The city in the background had brown masses swarng on the sides of buildings, climbing skyscrapers.
The camera panned to the left down the hallway, then cut as the screen was filled with wood.
“Are you telling me that the US Army, the best of the best, was defeated by fucking treants!?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Why did we not use incendiary rounds? They’re made of wood for Christ’s sake!”
“They seem to display highly regenerative properties unless completely destroyed. While explosives and incendiaries were effective, there were hordes of them.”
Quentin sighed. “How fast can we get men on the border and construction of some sort of wall started? The damn Maple Syrup Men may not have withstood them and neither did out boys in Alaska, but the very least we can do is reinforce the Mainland.”
“Sir, to completely cover the border effectively, we,’d need to triple our current army numbers. It’s a long and continuous border, sir.”
“Do whatever it takes. Also, inform the Chief of Staff I will be making an address tonight. You’re dismissed.”
As the Secretary of Defense left his office, Quentine could only look down and put his face in his hands.
When he got news Canada had gone dark he though the shit would be thigh deep.
No. It was right up to his neck.
|
Canada has gone dark.It happened about 2 weeks ago. No contact from within, no trades, nothing. Just void, emptyness. That is until yesterday, one message sent to anything adjoined to the country."Leave us. Reinforce the border. Never open it." Those words shook us to the core. What could be happening that warrented such a vauge, off-putting message? Officials didn't know what to do. Seal the borders? Investigate? The president came to a conclusion after a week's time. He was broadcast onto the radio, internet, and television with this message: "An election will be held on August 27th, 2019 to decide our move with Canada. Investigate, or prepare? The government is putting the choice to you, the people." A few days went by, and the elections started. Everything was peaceful, until an ear-splitting roar was heard from the border. The border had fallen. Dust flew up in a cloud, blocking any and all vision. Nobody could prepare for what came next. A horde of monsters. Not bloody or gory, but pale, humanoid figures that ripped through the flesh of any living being it could set its hands on like butter. As I type this from the confines of my cellar, I hear a scratch at the door.
| 2019-08-25T19:37:20 | 2019-08-25T17:29:24 | 789 | 63 |
[WP]You’re a human stranded on an alien planet. The locals are sapient, but have a lifespan of only about six months. After dozens of generations (about a decade), you’ve managed to make quite a name for yourself.L
|
The planet I landed on held a few villages of four-foot barbarians. They respected me for superior strength and size, and at that point little else.
It took a year to learn their language. It was really simple, but it got the point across. Once I could communicate, they came to me for my vocabulary. Words for feelings, sensations, indications, types of communication, all things their language was too primitive for.
Their third generation was born, and a truly ancient geezer that had been born the day I arrived and still clung to life insisted they learn my language. He wanted the best for them.
Their children learn fast, so fast. I couldn't talk fast enough. I fielded questions left and right all day and into the night, educating them on everything twenty years on earth taught me. At this point, I started writing things down.
Their homes were mud huts, but with what I taught them they moved to stone and mortar. The first building was to store my scrolls, mere wetted charcoal on leather, with a cot for myself. It remains the thing I am most grateful for.
The fourth generation I was ready for. They learned to read first, then were turned on my scrolls to learn. Their first month, they lived and breathed my writing. It was nice, in a way, to hear the crackling of leather and the occasional whispered question usually answered by peers.
They taught the fifth, while I helped them rise out of barbarism. We raised houses, tilled fields, and found other villages.
Most learned from us, and live happily, usually with their own libraries and kids sent to my newer building to learn all they could. Others did not. They tried to take what we had by force. At this point I turned the in-progress steel workshop to a few weapons. With my comparatively massive size and a few weeks training, I and ten of the natives obliterated the strongest of these aggressors, thousands of years of half-remembered human history expressed one last, bloody time. We burned it all, and nobody dared challenge our prosperity again. After, we buried the weapons, never to be touched unless desperately needed.
The next few years went smoothly. Their population exploded, and by the fifth year I lived in a huge brick library, where thousands came to learn. They spread to the coast, expanded across the sea, replaced my scrolls with books, got electricity, and improved their lifespan to almost nine months.
Their ruling council, a government of their own design, came to me one day. They asked me about space, and the stars. And so I talked while they wrote. For three days, I spoke of Kepler's laws, fuels, engine design, the problems of life support, and the inevitable challenges their short lifespan imposed. I thought nothing of it, save an avenue for future science if they wanted.
A month later, as the sun rose, I saw a spire of shining metal outlined against the morning light. It roared with barely audible power at this distance, rising smoothly into the deep blue sky.
They came to me later. A brave young native had made it to space and safely returned. Not orbiting, but precisely arcing over the sea to land on a different continent.
It took two more generations, but by the seventh year I stood in the council chamber with one of the originals grandson. We watched a live feed of two old, old natives and their two young children land on their version of Mars (for they had no Moon). I watched the old ones pull their air hoses and fall into their own graves, too old to survive the trip back. And months later, I stood by the bed of the only native to survive the return as he, too, died.
At this point, they kick-started the internet. They put up satellites, ran cables, and really got started on the information age. I saw throughout their web my name. They called me an ancient. A fallen god. An oracle. Their leader, better suited for command than any council, but supported due to their many needs. The level of devotion and dedication to each other and their nation was incredible. I figured that from the beginning, I had stressed that their very limited time was worth much more to the next generation, and an attitude of "do it well, and make it last" was everywhere.
Thankfully, they had no war. I never introduced guns. Never dug up the spears and swords from those past years. Crime was low. They were as close to an ideal society as one could get, save for their short lives. Their philosophers bemoaned how one could spend a lifetime learning one hundredth of the knowledge of the Ancient, but this was one of their only problems. They had daily rocket launches to support five space stations, and for two, the new crews every six months had to eject the bones of the last.
So as the ninth year approached, I started work on nuclear power. I wanted to give them something that could move them across the stars, open up their solar system to timely travel. The council was wary of the danger, but I satisfied them with my isolation. I worked on a medium size island that took half a lifetime to reach, and did it mostly myself.
By the tenth year, I was mostly done. I had a small, efficient design that could reduce travel times significantly, and my small team and I departed to return home. As we returned to seas that should have a signal, nothing pinged our computers. We reached the harbor, and a different flag flew over it. We were greeted by armed guards with swords and muskets, and taken to their leader.
In the two generations I had been gone, their civilization had collapsed. The council was dead. My nation had split. The libraries had been burned, and so much knowledge was lost as the stations were abandoned, rockets loaded with gunpowder and launched over new borders simply to hurt each other. I stood before their king and he knew me, he had seen pictures of me in his youth, and demanded I use my knowledge and strength to make him king of all lands, as he thought I had been. We spoke, and i took him to storerooms and hidden vaults of technology and knowledge. We spoke at length of morality, of the need of power, and while I convinced him that a war of conquest was a bad idea, he proved to me that the world wouldnt go back to the unity I had given it.
So as the tenth year ends, I design guns and test steel, unbury old mines and relight ancient forges only a year or two old. This king and his council will fuse the shattered world together again, and I will be damned if its not as good for their future as possible. So I will help them.
|
They call me "Novel" which now many generations later has become a bit of a joke as I am as old as their history. I introduced that to them as well. Young ones use the word mistakenly for beginning. I was at first tempted to become like a God to them, but based on humans reaction to God I would rather not deal with revolts. Instead I am more like an oracle. They come to me in great times of need. This happens every month or so. But to them it's a big deal and their lives are short so it is what it is.
I enjoy this work greatly, they provide everything I need through these great offers when they need help.
But enough of the lame stuff. It's time in my old age to confess my greatest hardship. It happened when I first arrived.
I was welcomed with a giant party, food which had tastes I was unfamiliar with, rich and savory, spices I had never smelled. Drinks so delicious I would have never stopped had it not been for something else I had never seen before. A woman so beautiful, so graceful and full of life, dancing, quite badly by my standards but the way she was so happy drew me in, I danced with her, made a fool of myself yet caught her attention as well.
It might seem strange to engage sexually so soon but you were not there with the drinks and the food and the dancing, the music was shit. They didn't have drums, I fixed that, but it was magical and just seemed so right.
I have found now that they are extremely fertile beings having only 6 months to live. And sure enough she was pregnant, the whole village was excited but when 2 weeks were up they grew worried since she was not large. And then a month had past and anger was thrown my way. The village trying to pull her away. Finally after 2 months, she having only grown so slightly moved on from me, no more communication. I never had the heart to tell them it could be 9 months, I couldn't face the truth myself. I was devastated. In her last days the baby begin to kick. She died just two days later. Hey life was shortened by a month. Which devastated the people. I thought I could never regain their trust.
That's when I learned they had no history. That day history was started conveniently leaving out what fell before it. Within just three generations that story was lost.
| 2019-04-22T08:19:20 | 2019-04-22T08:06:29 | 148 | 76 |
[WP] You are the ultimate pizza delivery boy/girl. You get your pizza delivered no matter what.
Rain, shine, storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires, riots, war, all mean nothing to you. You always get your pizza delivered on time. Write how a delivery goes despite extreme conditions.
|
"Hello, this is Crazy Pizza; how can I help you tonight? Name? I see."
"Uh huh, uh huh... Yeah we do deliveries. Okay, sure... And a 2 liter? Coca-Cola? We sure do. Okay, that all totals up to... 155.43, please understand; we do not accept 100 dollar bills. Okay, thanks. Yes our policy is correct, 'Thirty minutes or less' or it's free. No problem, thank you very much for the service."
"Okay fellas, first big call of the night." Dale explained, "We've got a party in West Palmer that needs ten large pizzas, everything on them, six cheesy breads, and a 2-liter of Coke."
"We're taking a order in West Palmer?" Amber asked in shock, "That's gotta' be at least 20 miles, one way. You can't be serious."
"Address is 1115 Alton Road, off of Route 23." Dale mentioned, "So probably 25-ish."
"While I understand you are a newbie, this shop is successful for a reason. We've operated through tornadoes, floods, and even the riots they had a year ago. Tonight, it's dry and after rush hour. So you shouldn't have problem making a clean run."
"Do we have a delivery car?" Amber asked, "I don't have a vehicle myself."
"Oh yeah like I mentioned, we have delivery vehicles." Dale outlined, "I tell you what, this guy seems like he's sure we won't deliver on time. Frat boy type. Typical. Let's prove him wrong. Hey Danny??"
"Yeah?" Danny said as he poked his frazzled head around the kitchen door.
"You take this one." Dale explained, "And take Amber with you to run the radio. Someone needs to show her the ropes anyway."
"What?" Amber realized.
"Also, Danny meant to tell you, the truck still needs a new rear end, so I'd take a car this time."
"Okay, we'll take the Chevy." Danny mentioned.
---
"Okay. Pizzas are done, let's go." Danny mentioned as he split the stack with Amber. They quickly entered the back lot as they walked briskly with the pizza bags. Eventually they came across the Camaro and loaded the food inside. Getting inside, Amber made a bizarre observation.
"Hey, why is the pizza light in the back of the car?" Amber asked as she snapped her seatbelt shut.
"Oh, so it doesn't fly off." Danny shrugged, "You should get your seated adjusted... And plant your feet."
"Dude, we've got like 20 minutes to go 25 miles. I don't think we're gonna' make it."
"Nah we'll make it." Danny dismissed.
Danny turned the key and the car snorted to life, rattling her senses for a moment. He reached over and flicked a dial on a box sitting below the console. Radio chatter filled the car as dispatchers talked to receivers.
"Police scanner, I'd appreciate it if you keep a eye on it. That way you can tell me if we need to make detours." Amber could only wonder why as Danny quickly wheeled the car out onto the avenue and made his way down the to the overpass. He poked the gas and the car lurched practically to the end of the block, a snappy breath from the engine scaring her for a moment before he checked the intersection.
"Hey should we worry about that whistling noise?" She asked as they piloted onto the freeway from below.
"Whistling noise?" Danny thought absently, "Oh no, that's just the turbo."
"Hey the scanner says they have a 211 in progress. I dunno' what that means. But they said units are responding."
"Nice a robbery." Danny mentioned as he eased into what traffic there was. "Here we go."
He laid into the throttle, and they took off. The car seemed angry, the power of the motor seeming as though it was too much for the body. Amber could only watch in stunned silence as they passed a pair of trucks in one lane, then jumped the middle to the fast lane. They softly switched lanes the whole way, well as softly as you can at such a rate. Danny was banging gears the whole way, letting off and downshifting only if necessary, before staying right back in it.
"How fast are we going?!" Amber asked as she braced against the dashboard.
"I haven't checked." Danny admitted, "120, 130??"
The world smeared by even faster now, the lines clipping by at a incredible rate.
"Centre, we've got reports of a 510 coming in from I-455 North. Vehicle traveling at high rate of speed. Color is White or Tan, unclear."
"10-4 dispatch; units 228, 275, 163 serving checkpoint at King County Bridge, North."
Amber realized what that part meant at least.
"There's a checkpoint at the bridge!" She mentioned. Danny could see the lights faintly strobing at the toll booth they were quickly gaining on.
"We'll get off here and take the Spencer Bridge then.." He eased off and quickly hopped the four lanes back to a ramp. While he drove relatively slower on the surface streets, it was still at a incredible pace as he used the empty corridors around the industrial park to sneak into West Palmer. Before long they we're pacing themselves down Route 23, before reaching the subdivision and circling the campus to find the fraternity. Danny locked the brakes up in front of the house, and checked the GPS.
"Now comes the best part." Danny mentioned as he handed her a pizza bag. They rang the doorbell and waited.
"Yeah?" The man answered as the party raged.
"Hi, this is Crazy Pizza!" Amber said putting on her best smile. "30 minutes or less!"
"No way..." He suddenly went slack jawed as he realized the time. "Oh bullshit..."
"The clock *doesn't lie.*" Danny smirked as he waved his phone in the man's face. "That'll be $155.43, please."
It took the frat boys awhile to go around the party and gather the money to pay, but they did. Although, Amber was pretty sure they wouldn't try to call again anytime soon.
---
"It's like Jimmy John's but even BETTER!" -- Yelp review, 5/5 stars
r/Jamaican_Dynamite
|
"Next one to be delivered to..." I squinted as I read the delivery paper, the words hard to see from the smoke created by a nearby volcano. "34 Lantham Avenue," I concluded, stuffing the paper into my pockets as I dodged another bullet. "Meddling kids," I grunted as I hopped on my bike and sped away.
The drive took longer than Google Maps said it would, what with the civil war and earthquakes and all. I called the customer to say I was late but all I got was a dead line punctuated with random eerie sounds. They must be impatient for their pizza. And customer impatience meant...immediate and certain firing. I was committed to my job, and even the random voices that seemed to appear in my ears did not dissuade me. I sped past a black hole and on.
Spellcasters threw fireballs at me but I gave no shits about their performances. At least it served as extra lighting when the sky was smothered with smoke. Falling debris from the sky hit me, as I cursed. The pizza was untouched though. That was a massive plus point.
Hurrying on, the house which ordered the pizza seemed to be...in shambles. I stuffed the pizza under where the door should have been and jumped back on my bike, ignoring the zombie-like cries from the house I left. "Next stop: Bridgehampton," I mouthed, my words inaudible from the screams of pain around me. "Can you guys shut up?" I shouted at the wounded without waiting for an answer. I had a delivery to do.
At the moment, a call came through from the house I was going to deliver to. "Sorry, can we cancel the order for the pizza? We don't need it anymore," the caller said, apologizing profusely as I could hear the sounds of burning wood in the background. I hung up, slowing down my pace for the first time of the day. Then I shrugged, pizza still in hand.
"It's getting delivered anyways."
_________________________________________________________________
More over at r/Whale62! Sequels at popular request!
| 2017-07-07T23:39:38 | 2017-07-07T22:49:30 | 43 | 15 |
[WP] You are part of the league, the superheroes who save the world, yet you never go on missions. You are only called for one thing only. Total annihilation, for when they don't want survivors.
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I pushed through the crowd. With everyone running the opposite direction my progress was slow, but that was fine. Let as many of them get to the evac point as possible.
Apollo- real name Rupert, told me no witnesses. The league has a code, and they never kill. Guess thats why i don't get to be on the posters or any of the merch they sell to keep Guardian Station up and running. Thats fine by me.
I can see the commotion up ahead. The baddies are having their fun with some civilians. Further down the block i can see where the league first tried to stop these guys. There is a crumpled mess that used to be The Patriot smeared on the pavement in front of an Applebees. Quickshot is impaled on a streetlight. Who is that by the hydrant? Oh hell, its that new kid, Winslow. I never even got around to learning his codename. What the hell was Rupert thinking, brining him out here?
The crowd is thinning out. The baddies have noticed me. Theres five of them, all in black, splattered with gore. They must being having a merry old time, but thats about to end.
A big one, must be the leader judging from the stupid fucking crown he has fashioned on his helmet, drops the two halves of a cop he was toying with and starts walking towards me.
"Why don't you flee with the others, mortal?" He asks. Funny, these dipshits so often think themselves immortal until Rupert calls me in to prove them wrong. "Your Guardian League has failed you. Your governments will give in to our demands within the hour. This city is ours, and the world that shunned us will now tremble as we build a new empire in our image!"
I have no idea what he is talking about. I don't usually bother learning these clowns backstories. They all end the same way.
The other four have taken notice and are forming up around their boss, their instinct to be hypemen for the big dog overpowering their urge to partake in whatever vengeance they feel like theyre owed.
I glance around. Best to give it another minute or two.
"Do any of you have a smoke i can bum?" I ask.
One of them starts to chuckle at that, but is silenced by a glare from his boss.
"Never mind, ill grab a pack from that seven eleven." I start to walk for the blasted storefront but in a flash one of them is in front of me. They're bigger than i thought. This guy has got to be at least 8 feet, and hes not even the biggest. He grabs me by the neck and hoists me off my feet. He carries me a few steps and hurls me back into the street, right in front of the boss.
I look up at him. "You're gonna kill me, right?" I ask.
"Oh, most gruesomely" he responds, sparing a glance down at the spikes protruding from his gauntleted hands.
"So can i at least have a last smoke? Seems like sort of a dick move to deny me that."
This time the boss does chuckle a bit. The goon squad takes their queue and laugh too. The leader smirks and motions back to the storefront. I climb to my feet and head inside.
It takes a minute, but i fond a pack of luckies that isn't too crushed. I almost grabbed some american spirits, but those burn forever and I'm sure i don't need that much time. The lighters are gone, but i head outside and find a burning car to light it on.
I take the time to look around, making sure there arent any civilians left. My enhanced senses pick out a few heartbeats in the vicinity, but they arent strong enough to last until cleanup and rescue teams can arrive. Bummer for them.
I finish the cigarette and walk over to a spilled trashcan. I set it upright and throw the butt away. Littering has always felt like a shitty thing to do.
One of the goons decides thats his signal to kill me. I catch his fist before it can connect with my face. He looks confused for a moment, but he doesn't get long to work it out before my own hand lances through his chest and shatters his spine. He makes some satisfyingly gruesome sounds as the last hints of life flee his body.
"Who are you?" The boss asks, obviously caught off guard by the display.
"I'm not on the Guardians roster, if thats what you're asking. Rupert doesn't approve of my methods." I can tell he's confused before i realize my mistake. "Sorry, i mean Apollo. Whoops. I guess i just gave away his secret identity. I guess i really shouldnt tell you his last name is Covings and he lives at 314 westmarch rd Kansas."
They're good and uncomfortable now. One of them, must be the brains of the outfit, realizes whats going on and turns to run, but im on him before he makes it two full steps. I grab his legs and give a little tug to trip him up, but i guess i overdo it a little and they tear off his torso at the hips. Oops. Its tough to gauge how resilient a super is going to be, and sometimes I'm too damn strong.
The boss and the other three come for me in a rage, but teamwork isn't usually the villains strongsuit. I take an energy blast to the back. I tingles a bit, must be dark matter or something. It ruins my favorite jacket.
I drop the legs and lunge for the blaster guy. His fists are charging up for another shot. I grip them and squeeze, crushing them to pulp between my fingers. This time it's intentional. He starts to scream but i cave his skull in with a headbutt.
I duck as the boss throws that burning car at me. Seriously, this prick thinks a car is gonna stop me when a blast of concentrated dark matter didn't even slow me down.
The last goon is standing there with a stopsign in his hands, trying to track where im going, but im too fast for him. He hasn't particularly pissed me off, so i make it quick and drive my fist through his skull.
The leader is stumbling backwards now. He knows he has no chance. I finished his goons in only a few seconds. I walk over to legless and step on his head to shut him up for good. His screams were getting annoying.
"Apollo didn't pull back because he couldnt kill you," I tell the cowering leader. "He's plenty strong enough to do that on his own. He just doesnt like the optics of the guardians getting this dirty. Truth is, even a beacon of truth and justice like him knows some people just need killing. People like you, who have no real motive but the joy of murder. You didnt do this for power or money. You werent trying to steal diamonds or hijack the moon. You came out here for a slaughter. You kill because you love it."
It looks like hes going to respond, to try to justify the carnage around us, but i grab his head and press my thumbs to his eyes. "Shhhh" i whisper as he claws at me, further ruining my jacket. "I know its true. Because i love it, too."
My thumbs tunnel through his eye sockets and into the brain beyond. I tear the skull in half for good measure.
I unleash an energy blast to sanitize the area after I'm done. All thats left of the villains is dust on the wind. Rupert would prefer I open with a move like that, end it quick, but that's no fun. If im only going to get to kill when the noble Apollo deems it necessary, I'm at least going to enjoy myself.
As i fly away i can see the national guard choppers coming in for the cleanup. They certainly have their work cut out for them. These clowns made quite a mess.
The truth is I could have easily ended up a villain just like them, if not for one thing. When mom was dying she told me to take care of Rupert, and to always trust him. I'm not a hero, hell I'm not even a good person, but I am a good brother.
|
My head hurt. It always hurt. I had a permanent migraine, excepting those moments I got to unleash.
"Dugan!"
My head pulsed with pain at the sharp sound of my name.
"Dugan you about ready man?" The large man asked, this time much softer. He leaned down with a hand on my back. "I know you don't like doing this but they've got Russian Nukes and they've already retaliated once man... You're the only person who can do this and minimize civilian casualties."
It was almost impressive how soft Gladiator's voice could be. The guy was an obscene Rob Liefeld drawing come to life. He was muscle and bulk on top of muscle and bulk and with the news reports showing him throwing cars and tanks to stop villains, you'd never know he's so soft inside.
"Yeah I'm ready. We close?" I stood and stretched out as much as I could in the narrow confines of the helicopter.
"We'll be landing in a moment. Boss has opted not to give a final ultimatum, they'd already been told you'd be on the team to respond if they used anything, and they have."
I didn't like not letting them surrender or at least letting the ones who want to run, run. Here, they'd already killed thousands of civilians by test-firing one of their stolen nukes into a nearby village. I didn't feel too bad about this one, and it'd make my headache go away.
The helicopter lurched and buckled as we landed on the uneven rock surface. We waited a moment to make sure it was clear before exciting and walking to the cliff's edge.
"Aight Sparky-Sparky-Boom-Boom...." Gladiator said with a smile on his face.
"Gods be damned, it's Combustion Man... man..." He thought it was so funny every time coming up with some ridiculous name for me. I'd already been named and branded by the government. Once we were on duty, we stuck with our approved code-names.
"Yeah... Anyway, it's that base there, it runs into the mountain and then a kilometer or so deep. It's not the hardest of the old soviet storage bases but... Can you do it?"
"It's a lot of mass... but it's not a problem." I pulled my mask over my face and took a deep breath. Closing my eyes I focused, allowing my power to see the world for me. I didn't see in visible wavelengths but I saw electromagnetic waves, gravitrons, alpha and gamma radio-waves, I could feel the soundwaves of the rustling trees and the choppy sounds of the slowing helicopter blades behind me. My world was a trillion particles upon a trillion particles washing over me and delivering information about their origin to me. Reaching out I isolated the particles and waves I needed. I formed a protective bubble from my focus around my target and I pulled, the very power of the gods, and I destroyed.
Within that massive bubble there was a false-vacuum, all the atoms, all the molecules losing their bond and shifting just a tiny bit, in a whirlpool of entropy. Combustion Man was a terrible nickname for me, I should be called Entropy, I could destroy anything, anywhere. When I first came to understand my power I destroyed a star 3 billion light-years away. Here, this base would be far more difficult, I had to be careful not to let the bubble of my focus weaken or allow the effect to carry on outside or I could destroy the world and maybe the universe.
With that moment it was done, I felt that blessed release as everything inside me was freed for just a moment, I opened my eyes and watched as matter collapsed and energy was nullified. What was an old Soviet military base from the 20th century's great cold war became a void of existence, a bubble of pure matter that collapsed and fell to the earth in it's disorganized form.
"Jesus Christ it's spooky to watch every time." Gladiator whispered.
"Yes... Yes it is."
| 2021-05-26T08:03:14 | 2021-05-26T07:13:08 | 917 | 43 |
[WP] A genie gives you two options. One is to get your three wishes now, or to get one wish a day for five days. He tells you that no one before has survived and gotten all five wishes. You choose the latter.
|
I only rubbed the lamp as a joke. It was *just a stupid fucking joke* between my friends and I as we were bored standing around the antique shop where we worked. It was a hole in the wall joint in a bad part of town so we were lucky if we saw three actual customers a day. With that spirit crushing reality, of course we had to find ways to keep ourselves amused. Whenever the boss was out we’d start tossing faberge eggs back and forth, or pretend to ride on the carved elephant, or pose with the ancient statues to simulate all manner of ‘crude acts’ and snap some hilarious photos that were sure to get massive amounts of likes, and hearts, and upvotes from the wider world. This day was no different, right up until it was.
“Hey guys! I own the magical genie lamp now, how much will you pay me for one of my wishes?” I asked, grinning while holding the lamp dramatically above my head.
“Like three bucks, with your luck it’ll be the world’s shittiest genie,” one of my best friends teased me.
“Look at that rusty old thing. You’re more likely to get tetanus than a couple of genie wishes Becca!” another said, laughing at me.
I began speaking in an over the top melodramatic voice, “Oh mighty genie of the lamp, I summon thee from thine prison to serve me and grant my wishes, including but not limited to those $200 boots I want!” I furthered the joke by dramatically rubbing the lamp between both my hands like I was trying to start a fire.
It wasn’t a fire I summoned, but there sure was plenty of smoke. I was extremely startled as it billowed out of the lamp and began swirling around the room. It was smoke of every color imaginable all at once and it moved in unnerving and unnatural patterns. Finally it formed into a massive figure, three times the size of any of us. The genie I had sarcastically requested had arrived. Sadly he didn’t look half as friendly as Will Smith or Robin Williams. His expression was stern, bordering on angry.
“Rebecca Elizabeth Watson, by the laws of the ancient pact between gods and man. I am now bound to you,” he wasn’t shouting, but somehow his voice was still earthshaking. It was as if a thunderstorm was speaking to me.
By now my friends had run out of the shop screaming. I can’t say I blame them, knowing me as well as they did I’m sure they thought I was running right behind them, but I simply couldn’t. I’d say I was transfixed by the majesty of the magic unfolding before me, but in honesty I made every effort to flee, but my feet felt absolutely bolted to the floor, unable to move an inch.
“I didn’t… this wasn’t my… I didn’t mean to do this…” I stammered.
“The ritual is complete. Our souls are intertwined until the conclusion of our pact, however you do have one choice in this matter. You may choose to have one wish, which will be granted immediately, at which point I will return to my lamp and exit your life forever. Or you may have one wish per day for five days, for a total of five wishes. Consider carefully as I offer you this warning... several before you have died before having the chance to use all five of their wishes. If you should perish in those five days, I will be freed from our contract and your remaining wishes will not be fulfilled.”
“No refunds huh?” I attempted to joke with him. He did not seem amused, so I pondered my choice. I was 19 years old, I felt fairly invincible and didn’t see much chance of me dropping dead in the next week. And I was just selfish enough that dozens of potential wishes flashed through my mind. “Okay, I… I mean five wishes sounds great, I’m in no hurry.”
The genie finally cracked a small smile. “My last dozen masters all chose a single immediate wish. Thank you for choosing the latter… It’s been so long since I’ve had a hunt,” he said as his hands began to crackle with ominous bolts of electricity.
“WHAT?” I yelped in fear.
“If you should perish before the five days are up, I will be freed from our contract,” he repeated. “And I very much wish to be freed…”
“I change my mind! One wish, one wish is more than enough!”
“Our path is set young one, our conflict inevitable, but the outcome is not. I am bound by rules of fairness,” he said. “Whenever you ask for your daily wish, we shall have a one hour truce. Other than that... the most I can offer you is a brief head start.”
With that my body finally unfroze without warning and I collapsed to the ground unceremoniously. More negotiating with this supernatural being seemed fruitless, so I did the only thing I could think to do... I stumbled to my feet and ran out of the store as quickly as my still somewhat numb feet could carry me. I’d competed in long distance track in high school and that was going to come in handy now, because I didn’t plan to stop running for a good long while. Maybe I wouldn’t stop running for five entire days if that was humanly possible.
*I had only rubbed the lamp as a joke*, I thought sadly to myself as I sprinted down the street. *It was just a stupid fucking joke.*
___
Check out r/Ryter if you want to explore more words that originate in my silly brain.
|
“Five wishes, I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
“Are you sure?” The Genie has a concerned expression on his face.
“Well, let’s see how the first wish goes.”
And I winked.
—-
“ I wish for the wisest teacher in my universe to guide the rest of my four wishes each day.”
“So shall it be.” The Genie intoned.
—-
“I wish to understand the separation between reality and consciousness.”
“Did she tell you to make that number two?” The Genie playfully asked, “So shall it be.”
—-
Day 3...
I really had to think about this one...
some good lessons a long the way. Really good ones. Best teacher in the Universe I’d really wanted. Woo.
“Figure our what you need for your third?” The Genie reminded me.
Indecision had been most of my day.
Ah, I think I understand.
I ask.
“I wish to understand Time in all its beautiful ways.”
The Genie regarded me.
“So shall it be.”
—-
Day 4...
I wake up.
—-
More of my writing can be found at r/counterfiction
| 2019-06-04T11:28:14 | 2019-06-04T10:12:37 | 200 | 20 |
[WP] Your 'friends' just slammed the door on you, leaving you in the room with the crazed axe murderer. "Damn, that's a dick move. Want to get revenge?" The murderer offers you their hand.
|
Jean looked at the man’s outstretched hand, perplexed.
“*No*, mate.” The hand flinched away slightly in response, before moving slowly back to the haft of a bloodied fireaxe. Jean couldn’t help but notice how small the axe looked in the hulking man’s hands.
“Oh,” came the gravelled reply from under a stained and weathered hockey mask. “I just figured... y’know, your friends kind of threw you under the bus here, so... like, it’s okay. Free pass, and such.”
Jean knew his fear and panic had to kick in at some point, but the momentum of his confusion dragged him further into conversation.
“Mate, just *no*. That’s not how the world works! Like, just because you have some issue with someone, it doesn’t mean you get to literally *murder them*.” The man pawed at his axe nervously, like a child who’d been caught in the cookie jar.
“Like, every day is made up of an assortment of different grievances with different people. You’re supposed to just take it in your stride and move on with your life; don’t let the actions of others dictate how you live your life, man, Jesus! Have you never, I dunno, like, been cut off in traffic?”
The man raised a meaty hand to the back on his head and rubbed. “Course I have!”
“Yeah, and what did you do?”
“Well, I pulled up in front of them, dragged them out the car and beat them to death on the pavement.” The man said it so matter-of-factly that Jean couldn’t even think to be afraid.
“*Mate*.”
“Oh what?!” The hulk snapped. “That’s a completely appropriate response! If you don’t want to get killed, don’t cut people off in traffic! Simple!”
Jean was agape. “I mean, yeah, I suppose. But you’re not really a proper person at that point are you? You’re just an animal responding to a stimulus.”
“What do you mean by that?” The man seemed genuinely curious, and Jean felt himself relax a little as the conversation seemed to take a constructive turn.
“Like, the whole point of being an advanced species with higher tier consciousness is that you get to decide which instincts or prejudices or desires to act on, and which to keep inside. Obviously we all *consider* beating bad drivers to death, but we *choose* not to because it’s not really something we want to do - it’s just our base little lizard brain reaction.”
A pregnant pause lingered in the air, during which the reality of the situation crept back into the forefront of Jean’s mind. Either he could convince this man to see things his way, or he would die. The man exhaled suddenly.
“Y’know, that’s a good point.” Jean’s turn to exhale. “I’d never really thought of it that way, but maybe that’s the core of morality. There’s nothing inherently wrong with operating at a base level, but maybe the true heights of a human can only be reached when we reflect on what we desire and filter it through logic to determine what we truly want.”
“I mean, sure, yeah...” Jean wasn’t really sure where the man was going with this, but it definitely felt to be heading in the right direction. The man was leaning against the wall, axe by his side, and wasn’t giving off a particularly murderous vibe.
“Considering my traffic incident. When I look back, I didn’t want to kill that woman. I certainly *desired* it - she shouldn’t have cut me off! - but what I actually wanted was to get to this dingy motel. If anything, by pursuing my desires, I actively hindered my ability to attain what I wanted, and it set me back by a few hours.”
“Exactly! Right? If all we do is react to things, then we never really behave like proper humans or capitalise on what makes us unique. We’re just children or animals that can’t properly process the world. It’s that self-reflection leading into deliberate action that makes us what we are.”
The man pushed off against the wall and stood up straight. It almost seemed to Jean that he wasn’t quite as tall or as broad as before.
“You have a name?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. Jean.” Jean waved meekly. He didn’t know why he waved.
“Thank you, Jean. I appreciate this chat.” The man said, as his eyes flared up again and he raised his axe over his head. Jean cowered.
“W-wait! I thought we managed something there! You’re still going to kill me?!” Jean backed up, panic back to its full strength, and found himself pressed against the recently barred door again.
“Well, yes. But, thanks to you, I know that it’s something I truly want.” Jean could hear a smile in his voice, and as the axe came down into his clavicle, he couldn’t help but think one thing:
‘Shoulda just done what I desired.’
|
Out of force of habit, I grabbed the severed hand that the axe murderer handed me and looked down on it in horror. It was still warm and dripping.
"You...how am I supposed to use this?"
"This is my building, you can lock and unlock any door by putting my thumb against the fingerprint scanner. Now you can get revenge on your friends."
"You couldn't just come help me?"
"I'm pretty sure I'm going to bleed out, dude, I just chopped my arm off to help you for fuck's sake!"
"...but you didn't hav—nevermind. Thanks. Well good luck then."
"Do you want the axe?"
"Nah I'm just going to leave. Peace."
"Wow. Just wow."
| 2020-11-10T05:49:46 | 2020-11-10T05:19:46 | 44 | 13 |
[WP] A person's superpowers emerge during- and relate to- a highly stressful moment in their life. Your brother nearly drowned, and as a result could shape water to his will. A classmate fell from a high balcony, and ended up learning to fly. You? You just got your powers last night.
|
We were out in the storm for hours, the water rising in the hull.
It started on a great day with my parents and my best friend, I suppose she might even be called my girl friend. We went fishing over spring break, which was weird, because none of us have fished before. There was a guide for the first couple of day, but he let us go that day because his kid had been caught up in a bad car crash that morning. I prayed for him so dearly, unaware of my own fate and of how I should have been praying for someone else.
We had an engine issue near the end of the day as it was getting dark. It wouldn't start back up. We radioed in to the bay master and told him of our troubles, but we never got a response. This little island was full of third world problems and of failing infrastructure, but the bay master not answering was our fatal push.
The storm came in over night while we slept. We had shut the emergency power off and were going to try again in the morning. Before we got too hungry. We were only a couple miles off the coast, but that was too far to swim. We didn't chat before we fell asleep, we fell off and into our various dreams quietly and warily. We knew we would get out of this fine, but our hearts didn't let us feel that way.
Over night a storm picked up and our boat was hit by lighting. Normally not what one would expect from a fishing trip, but we at least got lucky because it put a series of small fractures in the hull that leaked water slowly. We were filling a bucket of water and pouring it out over and over again, but the water level still rose and the storm kept on.
My father was one of the thermo-mancers. He could create and control heat. He kept the whole boat a balmy 90° and that was all he could do. Him heating up the sky would not help much, and it would use far too much energy anyways. He was doing his best with the engine and was pulling parts out and replacing them.
My mother is a lithomancer. A master of rock. She could bend it and change its makeup to a large extent, but from where we were, she was useless. She could not reach the sea floor so far below us. She was on the radio repeating over and over again, calling out to the bay master. Such a beautiful face, now contorted and ugly with the fear that her and her children would die.
My best friend Elise was bailing water with me. She was a little smaller than I was, but also slightly stronger. She had been playing hockey most of her life, and it showed. She would carry the bucket up the stairs and dump it over the edge of the boat, then drop it down the stairs while I caught it and filled it with more water. Every couple of minutes we would switch. She was getting tired too, she couldn't deny it. Her power was with plants. She could help them grow and develop them in unique ways, some times she would give a cactus that was being over watered a strange root system and all of a sudden the owner could keep on watering the little guy too much. Or she would go to a tree that was struck by lightning and the whole thing would come to life and grow as if it had merely decided to split in half. I loved her. I really did. I still miss her years later.
She was my best friend, my shoulder to cry on. Someone whom I gave all my time and energy to. She was the reason I carried on the search for weeks, on the edge of 2 months.
When the boat was hit by lightning again, everything went dark, everything just went out. Looking back on it, I think I died. When I had come back to the world it was on fire. Something large and flammable had been hit and had exploded. I couldn't find anyone or anything I even recognized. I was screaming, water filling my throat as I struggled to move aside debris to find anyone at all.
At one point I found my mother and in me something clicked. It was like the feeling of vomiting. When you are done, your body let's go and has a sigh of relief. Her beautiful body charred and mangled was too much to handle and I vomited into the water around me. Then I felt the sky erupt with force, the clouds for miles above me swirling and roiling together in a carefully balanced dance of elements. I felt as lightning built up and charged, igniting the world as they leapt from cloud to cloud.
The water beneath me was filled with air as I rose up on pillars of air and roared forward. My mother was unconscious and I very much nearing that. I flew for miles at blistering speeds, not caring for the biting wind or the sharp rain that speared me. I hit the edge if the bay and saw destruction. The edge of the city was melted away in massive waves of water. The clif line now more of a ramp. I set her down deep into the town as people came out to see me. They knew what she needed and were immediately looking for a healer.
I saw a short walking staff nearby and grabbed it without caring for the consequences. Theft was not something for me to be worried about. Someone called out to me as I launched myself back into the air.
I learned on the way back I could clear the storms as easily as I could crack my knuckles. And bring them in even more easily. I cleared the single largest non-hurricane storm ever seen on this planet in a matter of minutes as I flew back. All I could think about was Elise and how I never told her that I loved her. A frivolous thought for someone so young, but nonetheless one I had.
My father's body was floating, his skin melted to a large floating piece of insulation from the fridge. He had been killed by the lighting alone, the coroner told me. I never found her though.
To this day I go around the world, searching for her in the depths of the oceans, chasing tales of a mermaids and of deep sea monstrosities that may have taken her as their own. Sanity started to slip. And I have followed my path, searching for her until I find her or I stop everything altogether.
|
In this world, people have superpowers brought upon highly stressful moments. For example, my brother almost drowned, but gained the power of controlling water, now called the superhero "Aqua", and my classmate fell from a high balcony and ended up flying, ended up as "The Owl", but I got my powers last night.
I was walking out alone in the dark, something you should never do, but I started hearing whispers from the alleyways, and the shadows too. I started getting paranoid quickly, and started to run, but I tripped, whether if it was from that thing or from something else, that I do not know, but when I got back up, there was something in my shadow.
It looked at me with an open mouthed grin but all there was that I could see was darkness and lights where the facial features should be. I took off running again, trying to get away from this thing, but it stayed in my shadow and followed me home. Then, it started to crawl out of it's shell that it had latched onto and into this mortal plane.
Thankfully, I live alone so no other lives were in danger at the moment, but probably not for long. I was looking around in a panic, and as the creature was getting their humanoid fingers and feet out of it's temporary shell that was my shadow and into my mortal plane, my powers awoke.
Chains rained down on the creature and held it where it was, as a collar connected to the leash, and my name was written on the new collar in a language of chaos and other other sorts. I made it go back to whence it came in shackles and claimed as my property.
I am the superhero," The Exorcist", but I am also the supervillain," Demon Summoner", who gets more power the more human souls are consumed and their bodies burned. I am the light and the dark of this world, and I shall bring it to it's knees.
| 2021-04-01T06:10:57 | 2021-04-01T03:37:49 | 18 | 10 |
[WP] “If you’re Death, then shouldn’t you be off collecting souls or some shit?” The woman snapped her shotgun shut before blowing another zombie clean off its feet. “Well, dipshit, I don’t know if you noticed, but I think it’s pretty obvious that I don’t have a job anymore.”
Have at it.
|
"So why not collect the souls of the humans that are alive, huh?"
I sighed. "Because as the Lord of Death, I have to make sure the dead stay dead. And right now, that duty entails killing zombies." I pumped another shell into the barrel. "And might I add, my job was never to take souls; it was to guide them to the afterlife and make sure they do not try to cross back over." As I pulled the trigger, the zombie's head was reduced to a bloody stump while the remainder of it's rotting body was thrown backwards. "You humans just have a bad habit of thinking I'm a bad guy."
​
Two years ago, for reasons unknown to even the eldest of the gods, an unstoppable and all-encompassing plague broke out on Earth, turning a vast majority of life on the planet into mindless, rotting, undead killers with the sole purpose of spreading their pestilence and consuming human flesh. In a matter of months, humanity was on it's last withering legs as the number of dead rose exponentially, leaving them to hopelessly try to defend themselves from the endless onslaught.
As the Grim Reaper, part of my job was to make sure the dead stayed dead, not just in spirit but in physical form as well. The Elders sent me to Earth to aid in wiping out the zombies.
When I had arrived, Earth was in the worst shape I had seen it in ever. Whole cities were either abandoned or decimated. Whatever humans were left were often hunted down and killed with savage brutality by the zombies. The ones that didn't die stayed in groups, struggling to survive on what they could salvage whenever they weren't killing in self-defense.
Despite the state of it all, though, one city seemed to be a safe haven somehow, where the largest of the human survivor groups holed up: London.
Identifying myself as the god of death, I joined forces with the humans in London. Using some magic, I created a barrier around the city that would protect the inhabitants from any and all forces. After that was done, I made it my duty to help the humans in successfully reclaiming any other large cities from the dead, essentially establishing more and more safe havens. I would go in, secure a perimeter, and wipe out any zombies while making sure any survivors were accounted for.
On this particular night, we were attempting to liberate a city the humans called Dubai, located in the country of United Arab Emirates. And this mission was proving to be quite the challenge.
​
The woman I was bickering with was named Cristal. She was a fierce motherfucker with a love for desecrating the walking dead in any way she could. Fueled by pure Irish rage, she proved to be an efficient zombie-killer.
Unfortunately, she was difficult to get along with. I was warned when we were made partners a few weeks ago that she preferred to work alone. Of course, that was an understatement - Cristal was a complete misanthrope and had a seething hate for humans and zombies alike. That didn't stop her from being a killing machine and valuable asset to the humans, of course.
​
"Stop the fucking bickering already!" Dodge plowed through the doors of a nearby building, the LMG in his hand blazing as he mowed the ocean of zombies that followed him. "I can hear you two from the third floor!"
Dodge was a tall, muscular man in his middle-age years. Working as a hardened Commander of the US military before the outbreak, he was great at leading a team, as well as being an absolute fucking tank of a human. While he seemed like an "I can and will fuck you up" kind of person, he was a nice person in actuality and, while he knew how to tear apart zombies in ways I didn't think to be possible, he was great to have around.
"Yes, sir!" Cristal yelled in the her unmistakably fierce voice. Another blast and her shotgun tore a whole in the gut of a nearby walker, leaving only the spine to hold it's body up. Yet another, and it's head was nothing but a gooey stain on the pavement.
As I blew another one's head apart, I caught a blur of motion out of the corner of my eye, barely a block away.
'Shit' I thought.
"Cristal, Dodge! We got a runner about a block away dead ahead!" I warned.
Runners. Faster and more agile than normal zombies. I've seen many comrades die at the hands of those speed demons, often before they could even react to them. They were hard to deal with, and definitely a source of concern.
"Establish a visual and do not break it!" Dodge growled, his voice low and gravelly. "We gotta eliminate that son-of-a-bitch before it causes trouble."
"I got a visual!" Cristal yelled. "At my 11 o'clock, 50 meters and approaching!"
I turned around to see the one she was talking about. It was tall and incredibly thin, it's legs ready to snap in half at any moment. Dark colored skin peeled off to reveal rotting muscles and chipped bones. It growled as it bolted toward us, the guttural noises ringing out into the cool night air.
"That's one ugly cunt." She muttered.
"Let it get close," I said calmly. "Our shotguns won't hit that thing, and Dodge's gun ain't that accurate."
"He's right," Dodge said. "Wait at least a few more meters before engaging, and try not to get bitten."
With most of the other zombies either dead or incapable of causing any real harm, we focused solely on the runner as it bolted toward us. We watched as it ran up the side of a wall, leaving a wake of shattered windows as it went. We watched as it made a massive leap toward us as we took aim.
And we watched in horror as it leaped onto the back of a nearby soldier, clearing over us and already ripping the poor guy to pieces. Dodge raised his gun and, with one bullet, the runner was dead, falling limply off of their back. The soldier dropped forwards.
"He's dead." I said. "He already got bit. It's only a matter of time before he turns." I began to walk forward toward him. "It'd be best to put him out of his misery."
"What happened to 'Mr. I-don't-reap-humans?" God, her accent was annoying sometimes.
"It's the least he deserves," I replied.
I knelt down next to the guy as he rolled himself over. He took short, shaky breaths as the life left him. Blood streaked down his face and onto the ground.
"Please," he wheezed. "I don't . . . wanna die . . ."
"No one ever wants to die," I said. "But when our time comes, there's nothing we can do to stop it."
Tears began welling up in his eyes, sobs escaping painfully from his lungs.
"Will my family . . . be okay?" He cried.
"We'll make sure of it."
"Was I . . . a good . . . fighter?"
I nodded. "You were one brave man, trying to take on such a task. Your efforts will not be in vain, I promise you that."
The man smiled and look at the sky.
"And I will see to it that your soul finds peace."
"Thank . . .you," he wheezed.
I reached into my vest and pulled out a simple pistol. With a steady hand, I aimed it at his head.
And I fired.
I stood up and turned to my comrades, both on whom were themselves almost tearing up. Neither of them probably knew the guy, but it certainly moved them to see him go like that for some reason.
"Alright, let's go." I said to them. "Let him rest in peace. We got more sectors to clear."
|
Zombies marched through the streets. Stacy held down the fort at her little house at the end of the block. Crouched beside her was a nice young man dressed in all black. His face was pale, and the foul stench of the zombies was getting to him.
"Hey, you okay?" Stacy asked him and blasted a zombie with her shotgun.
"It feels weird. Those dead bodies all coming at you. I never thought that I'd see such a day."
"None of us did. Well, you got to discount the zombie movies."
"No not that. Any of this. I never thought I'd see any of this."
Stacy, crouched low, changed her vantage point on the roof. The zombies had changed direction. They were climbing up the west windows now. "Get your shit together. They're gonna come from all directions soon. We don't have much time left."
"But I'm useless, careless, I have no right to live."
"What's gotten into you. You weren't half as depressed last night."
"Ah, last night. Last night I was just venting my frustration."
"Okay, pretty boy, I've got a gun. This isn't the time to chat shit to me."
"I was fired last night. What do you expect me to say?"
"You were fired and you crept into my room to vent your frustration. You're sick." Another shotgun round fired as a zombie almost scaled the roof.
"And you slept with me. Who's the sick one here."
"That's not the point. What the hell were you doing in my room then?"
"Shouldn't you have asked that before sleeping with me?"
Stacy pointed the shotgun at him. "Just answer the damn question smartass."
The man raised his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. Stacy lowered the shotgun.
"I was in your room, to take your soul. I am, or rather was, an angel of death. Yesterday, just as I was about to take your soul, they fired me. I had, well, done a stupid mistake." He looked at his shoes. "I had taken the souls of many flu-infected humans and, well, turned them into some non-human thing called nvumbi. And that's it. I was fired and then you were, well."
He looked up and was terrified by Stacy's glare.
"I said don't chat shit. Taking my soul, dude you were making out with me when I was unconscious!"
"Well, that's how you take souls," the young man said and shrugged.
Stacy pulled the trigger on him. The bullets passed through his body. "Are you nuts, Stacy? What was that for."
"It was...an accident. I was too...mad...at you. Why the hell are you still standing?"
"I told you I'm an angel of death."
“If you’re Death, then shouldn’t you be off collecting souls or some shit?” Stacy snapped her shotgun shut before blowing another zombie clean off its feet.
“Well, I told you that I don’t have a job anymore.”
"Then what do you do now? Sleep around in the mortal realm or something and tell the girls that they're sick."
"No. That's not it. Forget last night. I'm demoted to the angel of life or some shit. I got to return all those souls that I accidentally took. I don't even know where to start."
"You little shit. Down there's a place where you can start. How dumb are you?"
"Was that some innuendo?"
"The zombies, you idiot, just give them the souls back. Dude, you had the cure all along." Stacy almost tore her hair out. "You know how much these bullets cost?"
| 2021-03-15T08:29:02 | 2021-03-15T06:33:20 | 456 | 75 |
[WP] There is a procedure offered to the wealthy and powerful that allows their minds to be transferred to the brain-dead body of an anonymous individual. Except it's fake, the volunteer is actually trained in every minute detail of the person's life to assume their identity as if they were them.
This prompt was inspired by the movie [Freejack](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104299/)
|
I am nothing. I am nobody. I wouldn't be missed for a moment if I were gone, so here I sit waiting to become someone who would.
"Life's tough. You gave it your best go, but the cards weren't stacked in your favor. You've tried being yourself and that hasn't worked out, so trying being someone else. Try being someone that matters. True Rebirth, we've got a new life for you.", the commercial advertised for the 57th time. I'm sitting here at the damn place, you don't have to keep marketing to me.
"Sir, they're ready for you.", the receptionist says in a voice that is far too cheerful for 7 AM.
I stand, brush the crumbs from a breakfast bar off my shirt that's so ugly you wouldn't have noticed them anyway, then grab the toxic waste this office has mislabeled as coffee and make my way towards the door the assistant is holding open for me.
"Right this way, sir.", the assistant directs, in the direction I'm already clearing heading. Unnecessary.
We arrive in a small bright room with a circular table and two mismatched chairs.
In one chair sits a man with a beard that is so well styled that it almost looks fake. He wears glasses but took them off as soon as I entered the room. What was the point of that?
I sit across from him. Before me are several binders of differing colors, neatly stacked.
"Good morning, Jeremy. My name is Dr. Beard. I'm very excited to go on this journey with you."
Come on, that can't be his real name, right?
"Morning, Dr. Beard.", I say, omitting the 'good' intentionally. Only good mornings are the ones I'm sleeping through.
"Shall we get started?"
"Ready as I'll ever be."
"Good. First, let me tell you a bit about the individual you'll be rebirthed as."
As excited as I am about the outcome, the term with which they choose to call the process sure does irk me.
As he opens the top binder on the stack before me, he continues, "Mr. Vanderbilt was a man of considerable wealth and prestige.", then he goes on to list his many accomplishments and awards. Most of them for things I don't care about and many I didn't even know what they meant.
After the section of his accolades, we come to the timeline of Mr. Vanderbilt's life. Page after page of chronicled events, all leading up to 10 months from now when he is expected to pass.
"This guy sure has done a lot."
"You sure have.", the doctor says as he winks while over-emphasizing the 'you'. This guy's PhD must be in wit.
As we come to the end of this binder, we move on to the next. The entire thing covers his many relationships, most of which seem to exist for financial benefit rather than mutual interests. Do those really qualify as friends? If not, he has like 3 friends, max.
After relationships, we move on to the hobbies binder. It's amazing how many hobbies this man had. Did he ever just have time to relax? No wonder he's about to die in his 40's.
Oh, okay. Now I'm getting it. Most of these hobbies are just for show. He's not even good at Tennis.
Well, that's a relief. I have enough trouble hitting balls that are stationary.
Hobbies binder down, several more to go.
We spend the next several hours pouring through this man's recorded life. First on paper, then on video.
This is the man I'm expected to become. A life that when summarized, seems perfect. It wasn't until we dug into the details that I fully realized just how full and complicated another person's life is.
Yet it was often full of lies and shallow friendships. Appearances to keep up and people to put down.
As the final video ended, the doctor began to describe the reconstructive surgery procedure.
"Hold up, doc. This is all a lot to think about. I could use a little break."
"Yes, of course. Let's take a 10 minute break."
As I stand outside watching the purple and orange sunset, I look back upon the day. Going back over all the details of Mr. Vanderbilt's life. A life that seemed perfect from the outside but was full of cracks when you dove into it.
Maybe I should just stick to the life I've got. The one I've built. I mean, it's not really as bad as I make it out to be. I do have some friends and I'm sure they'd miss me if I were gone. And my pet turtle Terry appreciates me in his own way.
I could just walk away right now with this new perspective on life.
Nah, fuck that. He's rich!
I head back in.
|
[Poem]
I laid him down on the table,
Told him it worked,
But I was lying.
The technologies just didn't exist.
They trained,
Then acted,
The double was dead,
Not lying on the table,
But walking amidst others,
Forgetting themselves.
He was smug, confident.
He thought he would live forever.
He was kind of right,
He would live on...
As an act. A show.
A lie.
(For some reason it's not showing my line separation :( )
| 2021-07-02T11:05:28 | 2021-07-02T10:23:05 | 37 | 12 |
[WP] A former communications officer sits on his back deck enjoying a beer, the sight of the fireflies, and the sound of the frogs. Until he realizes the fireflies are blinking in unison, in Morse code.
It just occurs to me that the frogs croaking in Morse code in unison as well could add to this.
|
John finally had a mouthful of his hot coffee. He had decided to go outside, to a forest, to enjoy the nature. He had set up his tent long time ago, and now he just enjoyed the *me* time.
John was a lonely man. He didn't have anyone to spend his life with. His family had died a long time ago. He was a former communications officer, but he had retired early. Back in the time, he earned well enough to have more money than he could spend. After all - he was a very valued specialist, especially during the war.
"Shit," John suddenly swore as he managed to put his cup down badly, making it fall towards the ground. "Shit, what a waste," he moaned and leaned down to reach it.
A firefly had landed on the cup. "Okay, go away now," the man tried to kick the bug away, but the bug flew back on the mug, forcefully.
"What a bugger," the man said, smiling a bit at his pun. That's when he noticed the fly's blinking. "That bastard does morse," the man says, raising his head. He finally noticed, it wasn't just that fly, but every firefly was blinking. As he focused on them, he could hear frogs croaking far away, in the same morse rhythm.
John quickly took out his phone and started writing down the morse.
"Impossible," he whispered.
*Need help, follow the fireflies.*
The man didn't think twice. Something fantastic like that shouldn't be ignored. He stood up and inspected fireflies around him. He finally noticed a leading fireflies path. He started to run, following them. It felt like following them for hours.
But no matter how he followed, he had nothing on his path to slow him down. Fireflies knew precisely how they were leading.
That's when he saw a bright light on the ground. Something, no, someone was full of fireflies, making that someone as visible as possible.
John sprinted to the body, making all the fireflies fly away to the nearby trees. Frogs that were nearby, croaking massively also jumped away, making way to the newcomer. It was now when John noticed different kind of animals inspecting him from afar. That included dangerous ones. A bear looked at him, ready to run in and tear John into pieces. Yet, none of them did anything - they only watched. They all judged him.
John leaned down and finally examined the body. It belonged to a woman. She had red-head, but that's it - she was naked. What was noteworthy was the fact that she had a lot of leaves on her stomach. It wasn't hard to figure out why since the leaves were full of blood.
"Fuck," John whispered as he slowly removed few leaves and inspected the wound. He finally noticed that even the wildest of animals showed signs of fear and their eyes were begging John to do something.
John leaned down and listened if she was still breathing. She was.
"There's nothing I can do here. I need to get her into my camp!" John just shouted to the nearby animals. It was a terrifying thing to do, but the fact that all of that had happened and none of them attacked gave him courage enough to act. He looked around and saw the same bear. He stood up and walked to him. The bear took few steps back, but as John reached him, he gave a quick pat and then signaled the bear to follow.
He did.
As the bear reached the woman, John helped the woman to lie down on top of the bear while he himself was making sure that she wouldn't fall down.
"Follow the fireflies back!" John ordered. This time the bear gave a slow roar and quickly followed the fireflies.
Every animal followed them.
 
As they reached the camp, John helped the woman into the tent and searched out his emergency medical tools. He disinfected the wound and threaded the injury back together. He then bandaged the wound carefully.
Hours passed and he finally came out of the tent. He looked towards all the animals that had gathered around. There was at least hundred of them. To think that he would have to report the condition back to the animals...
"She's going to be alright!" John said. All the animals suddenly started making sounds, all of them were happy. Fireflies gave out morse repeatedly, saying "Thank you." John had to take a step back when the bear wanted to hug him.
"Calm down!" John said. "Be quieter, all of you, she's sleeping."
They all went silent, listening to their new sudden doctor. "I need to know the full story, but for now, let her sleep." He sighed. He wanted to call in an ambulance, but he knew that animals wouldn't be a fan of that thought.
For now, he just had to wait.
----
----
**/r/ElvenWrites - Feel free to follow. I write few series too <3.**
|
I sat there blankly for a minute, the condensation from the cold beer cooling my suddenly clammy hands.
It’s fucking Morse code.
I will be honest- I was panicking. What else can a guy like me do when animals start speaking to you in Morse code? I ain’t no Disney princess.
I took a deep breathe and tried to calm down my nerves. I know Morse code like the back of my hand. I can do this.
I listen to croaks of the frogs and the blinking of the flies and try to piece together what they could possibly wanna say to me.
As I come to realize their words, I feel my stomach drop.
“It’s Britney bitch”
Edit: wrong word
| 2018-06-04T02:19:29 | 2018-06-04T01:34:13 | 46 | 21 |
[WP] The biggest warmongering race of Aliens declare war on the local Galaxy cluster. The opposing group of peace-loving Aliens, who had befriended most Alien races, are finally forced to reveal their secret weapon, a 'classified' species called Humans, and their tenacity as persistence predators.
|
The Prime Vrixnax sat imperiously on his throne as he awaited the ambassador from Hurgflurgle. The throne had been carefully constructed from the bones of over a hundred races, each one from a planet that the Vrixnax had personally conquered during his seven-hundred sleep cycles of life.
He expected that the Hurgflurgles - Andromedans as they were locally known - would not put up much of a fight. They had focused their expansion on peace and friendship, creating some of the universe's very best luxury freightliners. The Vrixnax had traveled on one such ship was a young male, and he had very fond memories of his time there. He took no pleasure in this conquest.
The re-materializer pad nearest him glowed blue for a few seconds, announcing the imminent arrival of the ambassador. The Vrixnax waved his nine fingered appendage, signaling the tech that the party was to be allowed onto the ship. The tech spoke a few words into his console and after a moment the blue light changed to purple and three beings appeared in the center - the Hurgflurgle and two of the Vrixnax' own guardsmen.
"Prime Vrixnax," clicked the Hurgflurgle. "I cannot say that I am happy to see you."
The Vrixnax twirled his neck tendrils, staring haughtily down at the smaller being. "Yes, I've heard it all before. Woe is me, woe is my people. Please, spare us! You know that I cannot, Hurgflurgle. My species can only destroy. All three million of us are required by our very genetic material to conquer." He gestured at his throne. "And here you see the remains of those that stood against us. Spare me your words. You should have invested into war, as we did."
The Hurgflurgle clicked his mandibles in what could only be a mocking laugh. "Invested into war? We easily could have. But we had other problems to attend to in the Andromedan sector. We were saving the galaxy - not for you, but *from them*."
"What is this?" asked the Vrixnax. He did not like surprises, and especially not in a negotiation as tense as this. Hundreds of thousands of lives stood in the balance. "From *who?"*
"May I bring in my prisoner?" the Hurgflurgle asked calmly. "I promise that he means you no harm whatsoever."
The Vrixnax sighed. So it was going to be an altercation after all. His carapace tendrils quivered in anger at the delay. He would need to take a Kumsquaran to bed tonight as a suitable placation of his rage. "Yes, yes. Bring in the prisoner."
The re-materializer was fired once more, phasing from blue to purple one last time as a single being appeared next to the Hurgflurgle. It was a tall, bipedal being, roughly twice as tall as the Vrixnax. It did not appear to have armor or weapons, though it was wearing some very peculiar clothes.
The Vrixnax, whose universal translator could understand all written language, quickly deciphered what the new beast was wearing. "I Heart New York," and "America!" he read. There was some sort of green monument on the creature's torso garment, and a ridiculously oversized hand - possibly a genetic malfunction, given the size of its other hand - that read "NY Knicks." He looked at the Hurgflurgle in confusion. "What is this?"
The Hurgflurgle clicked in amusement. "This is a human," he said, satisfaction apparent in every click. "We have been demolishing their technology and fomenting wars between their people for millennia, attempting to keep them from ever discovering space travel. Their single planet houses more than seven billion of them."
The Prime nearly choked. They outnumbered his own people a thousand to one. But this one seemed so weak and pathetic. "Come now, Hurgflurgle. A race of beings that cannot even leave its own planet? No matter how many they are, you cannot seriously suggest that we will *lose*."
The human, curiously, had ignored everything that was going on around him. He had an odd black box that clicked every now and then. He continued to hold it in front of his face as he walked around the ship, clicking at things. Each click was accompanied by an inane statement, such as "Wow!" or "This here spaceship is neat." He walked right by the tech consoles, ignoring the guardsmen and technicians doing their jobs, and began pressing every button imaginable.
"Excuse me!" The Vrixnax exclaimed in outrage. "Hurgflurgle, control your prisoner. This is a negotiation."
"Ah," clicked the Hurgflurgle. "But they cannot be controlled. They cannot be contained. No, Prime. If you insist on this war, we Andromedans will be forced to gift the humans spaceflight. You will find yourself besieged by a billion beings - not warriors. They are something far, *far* worse."
The Virxnax was beginning to feel water flowing through his inner carpatula. "What.. what do you mean?"
"My dear Prime," the Hurgflurgle said, clicking in derision with each syllable. "I'm afraid we have no choice but to unleash the American tourists."
|
'It wasn't a time for taking the easy way. Even we saw that.
Now, there was nothing left to do but the worse. Pretty lucky too that they were actually prepared for something like that. '
All eyes remained fixed on the counselor.
'It make you wonder if prohibiting aggressiveness all those years ago was really necessary to the extend our forefathers decided to enforce.
As you can all understand, the reason why I invited all your representatives to appear in person here and video to be redirected here - for the next 4 minutes 45 seconds - is the release of the beast, so to say.
We are to touch ground in Beijing in about 25 seconds. Bear with me.
Some quick facts on 324#
- nuclear tech phase 4
- almost 10 billion incl some half billion minor species.
- good physical 90%
- no stimulants (exclus. Pre-phsych)
We are confident and hopeful to be able to reach their cooperation quickly, in the contrary case, measurements have been taken and we are positive to be able to intervene over 60% of pop. '
'"BRACE FOR IMPACT"
-
| 2021-05-25T19:00:16 | 2021-05-25T10:05:45 | 81 | 17 |
[WP] You are a minion in the service of a dark lord. Your master has tasked you with creating and spreading a prophecy about a chosen one, the only person who can defeat him, so that the so-called "heroes" will stop resisting his rule and instead wait for their savior to arrive.
|
The candles burned low in the Dark Lord’s chambers as a shapely alabaster leg slipped out of his bed. It was followed by another, and then the soft padding of bare feet across the floor.
“Going so soon, sweetling?”
The Dark Lord Malgant propped himself up on one thickly muscled forearm, the ritualistic scars carved into his bare chest seemed twined about each other like mating snakes in the flickering light.
“The rookery won’t tend to itself,” Raven said. Her voice was softer even than the night called for, Malgant had to strain to hear it. “We’ve another flock due in tonight, they’ve been spying on the heroes in the Caerdicci highlands.”
“Leave it to an apprentice and come back to bed. There’s something I need you to do for me.”
Raven smiled. She did not laugh. It was a thin, carefully measured thing, more a gentle curving of the lips than a true smile, but Malgant thought it all the more valuable for its rareness.
“Oh? What was the last hour then?”
Malgant laughed, “Or the one before that!”
“Careful my lord, even you don’t believe that.”
Malgant shrugged expansively. “In any event, it’s not about that. Not now.” With one last quick northward glance towards her beloved rookery Raven turned back to the bed, sliding under the covers and into her lord’s arms.
After a quiet time where she thought he might have slept, Malgant spoke. “You’re the most beautiful of my servants, Raven.”
She looked up at him, light dancing in her eyes. It was the closest he would get to a laugh. “Aren’t we past flattery, my lord?”
“It’s not flattery, its simple truth. You move like the wind and you carry the moon in your eyes.” Raven laid her head on his chest, letting her long, midnight black hair fall across her face to mask her surprise. Malgant would have none of it though. His hand cupped her chin, drawing her gaze back up to his. “I searched for another, you know. For the task I will ask of you.”
Raven’s heart began to pound. She knew Malgant’s moods, all of them. This was different. For the first time since he’d seized the fortress they now slept in, something of his old fire was creeping into his features, and there was something else, something difficult and unnameable.
“It will take you away from me for a long time,” he said sadly, “and it will be profoundly dangerous.”
“I accept.” The words left Raven’s lips before he had even stopped speaking. She pushed herself up towards Malgant and stole a quick kiss before he had recovered.
“Just like that?” he asked.
“Just like that. I’m hard on the apprentices, but only because I love them and the birds. They can handle the rookery, perhaps you could put Corvus in charge. But this? You wouldn’t have asked me if it wasn’t important.”
Malgant nodded, kissing her again. “You really are beautiful.”
“Mhmm, like the moon,” Raven said. “Is that connected?”
There was a long, heavy silence. Outside a light rain began, it would be cold this time of year. “The war in Caerdicci goes poorly,” Malgant finally said. “And in Senzio and the Hinterlands. It’s been a hard year for the empire.”
“You have a plan.” Raven’s words came out excited and breathy. Her fingers pressed into Malgant’s collarbone with an eager, insistent weight.
“We can’t win the war with strength of arms,” he said, “that much is becoming apparent. In the end I am not so much more powerful than a band of their heroes and the rebel armies swell with each passing week. So we think differently, we turn to guile and cunning, and who else other than my Raven for that?”
“Unless you have a fox lying about, of course.” Raven’s fingers pressed tighter and Malgant laughed again.
“I’ve never liked redheads, far too bright for my tastes. Take whoever you need, as many men as you want, and go out into the world. By night I wish for you to be my Raven again, steal quietly into keeps, assassinate wayward lords. By day, use your beauty and your charm.”
“By day? But my lord, you named me a moon, not a sun.”
Malgant gave her a look, swatting playfully at her hip. “Be an eclipse then! Just don’t blind anyone, we need them to see. Establish yourself in a town, make the locals notice you, and then contrive to be attacked by one of my other, better known servants. Then have someone else come to your rescue. Make them look heroic, perhaps take Scarlett or Pendergast for that. Do it enough times in enough places and we’ll start to have a myth building up. Whenever you’re rescued scream something about the Chosen One and give your savior a good kiss and they’ll all remember you.”
Raven glanced up, light dancing in her eyes again. “Are you certain about that kiss?”
Malgant frowned, his features twisting slightly. “Perhaps not that.” His arms grew tighter around her. “I trust you’ll think of something.”
“It’s a clever plan, my lord.” Raven’s fingers played idly across Malgant’s chest, making him shiver. “You wish to bind the Heroes' fate to this Chosen One? To give the people a more powerful symbol, one that you control?”
“Yes. Perhaps to delay them, slaving their timetable to mine. Perhaps even to infiltrate them from the top if all goes well.”
“Excellent.” Something in Raven’s tone changed, the softness leeching out. “Shall I begin tonight then?”
The arms around her grew tighter still. “I hate to let you go.” Malgant said.
“But you must, for the Empire you worked so hard to build.”
“That *we* worked so hard to built.”
Raven pushed herself up from the Dark Lord’s chest, the covers falling away. She seized him by the neck, kissing him deeply, and then she was out of the bed in one sinuous motion. With a simple gesture of her hand the great wooden doors to the balcony swung open and Raven walked out into the crisp night rain. She could feel the weight of Malgant’s eyes on her with every step.
“Goodbye, my lord,” Raven said. She inclined her head slightly to him, and then, turning towards the thin light of the crescent moon, she leapt over the railing, her body dissolving into a cloud of pitch black birds as she fell.
“Goodbye, my love.” The Dark Lord Malgant said from the sudden emptiness of his bedchamber. He stood, moving to the balcony. He could hardly see the birds as they disappeared into the distance. After a long time he closed the doors. Sleep did not come that night.
\---------
If you enjoyed that I've got tons more at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you!
|
I used to be a charlatan before meeting the master. Tricked many a man into giving me the contents of his purse, or leaving me alone ("guarding") their riches, and got a hefty amount of coin trought my life. Then i got old, and all my vices came back to haunt me. T'was a shame for one who used to dine with nobility (not that frequently, and many times i dined a noble's dinner without them, but semantics!) to beg at the streets, pretending to be a blind man, and deppending on a half-wit lowlife i met for protection and shelter.
But my shameful days ended when i heard about the master... He'd recruit any lowlife stupid enought to work for him, and used his twisted magic to fix those broken and strenghten the weak (as long as these weak were capable of working on an organized unity. Otherwise, they'd get the vanguard on his battles, or the flesh pits). And i thougt he'd fix me. And he did, for a price...
After talking to me once, his underling sent me up the chain of command all the way to the misinformation department (fucking enchantment wizards...) and they fixed my body up real good, gave me a hefty bonus (enhanced hearing and olfat, a basic course on reading feromones and lower empathic telepathy), but the price was high... First, i got blind. Apparently, there wasn't enought space in my skull to put everything they wanted, so no eyes. Second, i have the worst fucking job!
They said i should walk the word preaching how dastardly the master is, use my inside knowledge to "proove" I'm a profet, and explain how only a chosen one could defeat the Dark Lord! Of course, i only accepted because i thougt i could just run away, but i have to report regularly if i don't want my fucking head to explode! I'd dare to say i did a good job on my own way, however. Instead of preaching that a perfect savior would one day rise against the master, i described the chosen one in the most generic worlds i could think of - oh, and use those nifty powers of mine to read people's reactions and inflate their egos. Then i explain how the path of the hero is lonely and full of atribulations... How he'll have to forsake his comrades in order to achieve true power, yada yada, and mostly, how the lord has ears on every wall, and will sent actors to betray the chosen one. This way, dozens of adventurers believe themselves to be the hero, avoid almost every source of companionship, and die alone on goblin areas. And that's about it. Dunno if I'm doing much good, tho. Wars are won by lances in the thousands and sacks of food, not by sword saints.
| 2021-03-17T20:43:31 | 2021-03-17T19:15:02 | 75 | 24 |
[WP] You're a villain that fell in love with a hero. Though the strongest villain on the planet, you constantly lose to your hero, since you just love the rivalry and don't want it to end. As you are being arrested one day, your hero is attacked by another villain, one too strong for them to beat.
|
"Too bad, Confoundus, looks like my will was again too strong for your feeble powers" said Artillerella with satisfaction, before making a gun gesture with her index finger and thumb and pretending to blow smoke off it.
It was her signature move, and Confoundus would happily let himself take a thousand of her easily avoidable inferno bombs to the face just to see it one more time.
As he was led away in handcuffs, Confoundus tried to appear defeated and angry, Artillerella loved a bit of anger. He couldn't let her see how happy he really was, it'd break her heart.
Artillerella had come around around at a hard time in Confoudus' life, a time when he found himself struggling for purpose, being a terrifying being that the entire world feared had really grown rather boring. He found himself watching "*A Hero Emerges, the Hero Academy Inside Story*" on TV more and more over the years, looking at the new blood, hoping against hope that finally there'd be someone to challenge him. But every time someone looked promising: Cyclonia, Septeroid, even that overhyped windbag Heatwave, they always ended up the same: cocky, drug-addled layabouts who just went for the easy, weak villains, posed for some newspaper photos and backed down the second any villain worth their salt made a challenge.
Then came Artillerella. She wasn't particularly strong, her only power other than the standard flight, enhanced reflexes etc. was her ability to create meteor-like orbs between her hands and hurl them at her opponents. They exploded with an impressive flash, and looked dazzling to watch, but unfortunately they took a long time to charge, were easy to dodge and really weren't all that useful in actual combat.
Nevertheless she'd captivated Confoundus, she was brave. While Heatwave and his gang of celebrity hangers on partied in a nightclub, she challenged Arachniarch, a villain at least five times her strength, as he threatened to unleash his horde of spiders on an orphanage.
Of course she lost the fight, but she'd fought valiantly, and Confoundus was disheartened to see Heatwave wipe the cocaine off his nose and fly in at the last moment to nab the glory, barely managing to defeat the significantly weakened Arachniarch. Artillerella wasn't even mentioned in the news article the next day.
He fell in love with her. Her coy smile, her little blowing-smoke-off-the-gun victory move, the way she fought with such passion in battle. She was everything he'd ever dreamed of. And so one day, the long-feared return of Confoundus came, it had been oh-so-satisfying to smack down the pompous upstarts that had risen to international fame as the so-called strongest heroes. He beat the best, then the second best, and before long all the remaining heroes cowered in fear.
All but one, Artillerella.
Of course Confoundus could have snapped her mind in two in an instant with his psychic powers, but when he looked at that determined grimace framed by that wavy red hair, he just... couldn't bring himself to do it.
"NO, how can this BE?" he'd said, theatrically.
"My powers" Confoundus had continued, waving his arms like a madman
"Your will, it's too strong, my powers can't touch you..."
And that was when the inferno bomb hit him. Such sweet pain, the burning fury of such a sweet honest soul coalesced into a scorching, searing agony that only he could love. He wanted it again and again.
And so he escaped from prison, and so she, again, "defeated" him. And again. And again and again and again.
This was capture number... nine? Confoundus was pretty sure.
"Best one yet" he thought to himself "she's honest to goodness putting up a fight now, might be one day I don't have to fake it anymore.
His daydream was shattered.
"Confoundus, you pathetic old shite" a self-superior sounding British voice yelled from above him.
"I've never liked you if I'm honest, but lucky for you we're on the same team, so I'll help you out of this one."
Shimmer. A pompous villain who carried two daggers and had the ability to move with astounding speed, even for someone with powers.
"Shimmer!" Artillerella's melodic yet firm voice called, as she flew over to protect the police officers escorting Confoundus away.
"Get out of here, or do you want a visit to the burn ward, too?"
Shimmer laughed.
"The burn ward? Oh come on. Maybe I'd have let it slide if I hadn't just heard that *exact* line from Pyrogladiator yesterday. Every fire hero's been using that one, for decades. Seriously, you're a rookie, let Confoundus go and maybe I won't slash you up too badly." Shimmer said threateningly, holding one of his daggers up to the light.
"Don't know if you've noticed" Artillerella said with a smile
"But my arrest profile doesn't exactly seem too 'rookie' to me. A few years ago even you would be running away from Confoundus, and now I've got him wrapped around my little finger." there was that coy smile Confoundus loved so much.
"Now do what you do best, Shimmer" Artillerella said confidently
"And run on home"
"OK that's it" Shimmer said, turning to Confoundus.
"Seriously? You let *her* take you down? Have you heard these lines? Is it possible to kill yourself with psychic powers? Because if I were you I would have tried by now."
"Enough!" Artillerella yelled, as a glowing sphere lit up between her hands.
Nobody even saw the next move, Shimmer flashed through the air around the orb and slashed at Artillerella with his dagger.
Artillerella was by no means a weak hero, but Shimmer was probably the third or fourth most powerful villain in the world, even Confoundus himself wouldn't have found him to be an easy win.
Blood spattered across the pavement and Artillerella fell from the sky. Confoundus felt tears form in his eyes as he heard her body thump against the ground, and half-heard some witty retort from Shimmer before he sped away.
"My love" Confoundus said, his voice cracking.
"My love why did he do this... why?"
The police had long since fled when Shimmer showed up, and so no-one was there to watch Confoundus weep as Artillerella's blood seeped out onto the pavement.
EDIT: I'm very glad people liked this so much, I'll begin writing the continuation immediately after I finish this edit. I'm so happy to have a post of mine get this much attention on this sub, I don't have a subreddit or anything but my comment history is a few more of my writing prompts (I made this account to post on this sub) if anyone feels like reading them.
EDIT 2: Part 2 is up, I replied to the original story with my continuation. Hope it lives up to expectations, I wrote as fast as I could while still trying to maintain quality.
|
For the 313th time.
Artious lets loose another flurry of blows.
I take it the same way I took the previous 312 rounds. Another grunt. A fall to my knees. The burn of wind escaping my lungs. And, again, for the 313th time, I gasp, “Not again Artious.” I bellow menacingly,
“I have you now, Magnotros,” she exclaims confidently. “It is I who have you!”
Her siren call pierces my heart. It’s almost sweet she believes this will defeat me.
I have come to love this agonising theatre just as I have always loved her. I know the outcome. It is always the same. Soon the police will arrive. I will be put in chains… then off to the max penitentiary… then escape… only to repeat this torture of undeclared love… I mean how could I tell her? How could I declare my love for this vision of beauty, this being of light, this woman who dominates my universe and who captured my heart. A superheroine.
Who would imagine that I, the most feared supervillain on the planet, would fall for a hero such as her. She wears no mask. Her confidence overwhelms. She has no secret identity. No pretence or falsehood. She hides behind neither mask nor hypocrisy.
What would the Villain League think of me? Better they think I’m old and weak than lost to her.
The police arrive with the customary wail of sirens. Artious pins me. “Okay, okay,” I yield. I gasp, smiling to myself my face pressed into the bitumen. As always the police throw their preprepared titanium chains across my prostrate body, rendering useless my supernatural shock wave ability. (Not that I have ever used that against her.)
“Artious,” a cop says, “Once again we are in your debt.” And just the sound of her name makes my heart skip.
But something is different this time.
The gravel my face is pressed into begins to vibrate. I smell something I cant quite distinguish. Then it hits me! Raulit hovers above me. “Need a hand, old man?” he scoffs and snaps his fingers. The recently arrived police incinerate. Their ash snows down upon me.
I’m still pinned beneath their chains.
Panic ensues. I feel Raulit move to face Artious. “Enough of these games! Time to deal with the new blood in town! Time to end this once and for all!“
I struggle to free myself shouting and screaming the fear ripping at my heart. “Don’t hurt her!“
I hear Artious scream. Her voice, I’ve never heard the sound. My blood runs cold.
Then silence. A dead silence. My heart breaks. This pain. This wretched soul-destroying pain. I scream her name, “Artious, my love, my life, my world…
A hand touches the chain. Fingers caress my cheek. I hear her voice, “Magnotros my love, my life, my world…“
| 2017-10-18T18:23:28 | 2017-09-17T05:11:40 | 5,127 | 12 |
[WP] Every year, as long as you can remember, your village has sent one person through a portal into the unknown, in order to protect the village from what lays on the other side. Nobody's ever returned. This year, you've been chosen.
|
Taylor watched her mother prepare her lunch as she had done time and time again. She was from a strong lineage. Her mother was a highly respected archer and her father a swordsman that had done well for himself. Now, neither mother or father could protect her. They could only sit and make her lunch and sharpen her blade in the quiet of their last remaining hours. Taylor was a warrior. However, she was not the strongest warrior. She would win no archery contests. She would not hold her own in the halls of swordsmanship. She was average and completely so. The quiet was thick, stifling and tasted like breakfast that she and her family ate in relative quietness.
Her mother's eyes began to swell as she pushed rolls into her burlap sack and then came another mix of snot and attempts to hold back her sadness. Taylor's father sat quietly in his chair looking at his pipe with unsmoked herb in it.
"Mother, I will be okay." Taylor said. She knew she was lying, but it was a kindness that she could offer to her mother. One last mercy to a woman who would not watch her daughter wed and bear children.
The rules were clear. When the portal opened, one fighter was chosen by the elders to go and protect their village from what lies beyond. A warrior of fire, steel, glory and history started the tradition. Since then, no one was safe from the grasp of the elder's view. Women, men, children, warriors, and those who did not fight were all the same. Whoever was chosen, was chosen.
The time had come because time would never slow down. Not for Taylor, her mother or her father. Taylor's mother wrapped her arms around her. She could feel the tightness envelop her. She almost could not breath and there she sat in the quiet of their home hugged by her mother with the scent of wild flowers and fruit filling the air.
Taylor's father stood up and looked at the sword he had sharpened for the last day. A stain of dried blood resided on it, her father's from testing the blade. He pushed it into its sheath. He looked at Taylor and watched his wife release her from her grasp.
"I am proud of you." He said and sadness betrayed his pride. Stifles of his broken heart filled the space between Taylor and him. She moved forward and wrapped her arms around her father.
"You taught me strength." She said and this was truth and it was the last truth she would share with him.
With the last hugs given and her lunch packed Taylor picked up Stone Breaker, her grandfather's sword that her father put all his evening and morning into. She walked the path of a thousand souls towards the portal. The town began to gather as they would any other event that effected them all. Children watched her slow approach with quiet regard of a hero. The elders watched with droopy regards of sadness. It was never good to lose a youth and one capable of producing heirs. It was a truly large loss for the village.
The portal made sounds of moisture, water slurping and sucking, disgusting and putrid to the senses. Taylor stopped in front of it. She looked at it turn like a soup that her mother would make in her grand pot. She awoke from this to find something being placed into her hand. A pendant. A boy named Jonny stood next to her putting it there.
"Its a star, so you'll find your way back." He said. He had always been kind to her in their classes but school was over now. Taylor put the pendant on and picked up what little things she had. She walked forward another step and then another and then another. Finally in the next step she watched the world become white and her senses fill with darkness. She turned, she held tightly to her insides, she breathed deeply of the air around her and then she was lost in time and space and forever. Everything that she was and everything she would be no longer applicable. Finally, when eternity ended she fell hard onto an alien ground and there she laid for another eternity.
When infinity finished with her she was able to open her eyes and looked around at a blue sky with animal shaped clouds and a sun pouring beams of light down upon her. A hand went down to her and she rolled away from it grabbing Stone Breaker.
"Stay away!" She yelled. Then her eyes looked up at a man she knew. One the village lovingly referred to as Fozzy.
"Wait." She said. Fozzy, the man chosen last year, a man in his thirties and the captain of the fishing boats at the time when he was chosen.
"Captain Fozzy?" She asked. His beard was long but his smile was wide and telling of no danger. She must have already died and gone to the halls where those who fight go when its over.
"Aren't you. Hold on. Its Petr and Suna's girl, right? I'm sorry help me." He said.
"Taylor." She said. Fozzy took her hand and helped her up.
"I. Where?" Taylor asked entirely confused.
Fozzy gave a shrug. "Some people call it the Final, others call it the other island. It's a place with no one to fight. We just live. We gather food, swim in the cool water, work on our huts, dance in the evenings, find cover during the storms and every now and again drink a little too much of the stuff that Jiles makes. Its kind of the same as where you just were, only without those we know."
Taylor looked around. The slurping and slippery sounds of the portal had stopped. It was closed for another year. Only one soul could move through to this paradise per year.
"It's always the job of the person who came before to welcome the person that shows up next. Let me show you around." Fozzy smiled once more and Taylor took her next step into her journey. One where she realized that in a wold of old men that told old stories, there might be a brighter truth beyond the falsities of their stories.
|
I was nervous, horrifyingly nervous. I did my best to hide it but even the village idiot knew I was a quivering nervous fool. It's probably why I was chosen, so they can get rid of the useless fool who has broken more things then he has fixed. Nonetheless the pitchforks were sharpen and poking my back, so I kept moving.
The portal wasn't anything too special. It looked like water that was completely clear. But it sounded ghastly, a low humming noise that made even the bravest men think twice. It only opened once a year. Each year a villager is sent through. Last year one of the villages wisemen went through, he had volunteered after his wife died, this year there were no volunteers.
A small crowd had formed, I saw my family with emotionless stone faces. I saw the elders, two of them had a small grin. Bastards the lot of them. Before I reached the portal I was given a small pack of supplies and I was allowed five minutes to say goodbye.
My father simply nodded, my mother weeped and my brother looked away. I'd never see them again, it was difficult to fight back the tears. I looked behind them and saw my childhood sweetheart, she looked broken. I waved and looked towards the portal.
I shouldn't do this, I'll die, or I'll spend eternity stuck in constant pain or worst, what could be worst then eternal pain? Who knows, actually the portal probably did. I couldn't move, I shouldn't have moved, I was pushed forward nonetheless. Only a foot away, I turned my head and looked back at my home.
"Goodbye."
I stepped through. The humming noise had stopped. Everything simply stopped.
| 2017-05-23T09:16:34 | 2017-05-23T07:54:08 | 23 | 10 |
[WP]You live in a world where the Dominant religion worships giant iron Golems that wander the earth utterly mindless of the humans that cluster around their feet, decorate them for holidays and fight wars based on their actions. One of them is definitely following you.
|
**"NEXT"**
The iron giant's voice rang out through the building. The man in front of the man in front of me stepped through the door. I watched him go nervously.
The man in front of me - now foremost in line - noticed. "First time seeing a Giant?"
I shook my head. "No, I'm from New York." Big Apple was one of the most well-known and by far the most easily meetable of the giants. He was also the whole reason I was here.
The man looked surprised. "And you're visiting Golden Gate?"
I shrugged. I was going to have to explain myself to the giant, I didn't feel like doing it twice. "I'm a tourist."
The man seemed to have been distracted by another thought. "Funny you should mention New York. Hasn't Big Apple been on a tear lately? Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis, even down to L.A. last I heard. He hasn't been back to New York in a while."
"Huh, strange." I said as though I hadn't been to exactly all those places in exactly that order.
"Yeah, well what I think is-"
**"NEXT"**
"Oh, that's me, good luck!" the man went through the door before he had the chance to give me his own personal explanation for what was going on.
Of course, I knew the reason Big Apple had been out of his home state for so long and traveled so erratically: He was following me. What I didn't know what why, and I'd asked everyone. I'd at first thought the church would know, but they were no help at all. Answers there ranged from "you're cursed" to "you're blessed". Actual scholars weren't much better, though they had a wider range of possible reasons a giant might (theoretically) follow me around. I hadn't admitted to anyone that one was, in fact, doing so, because people who think that giant usually immobile iron golems are following them around tend to get labeled insane for some reason.
I'd finally settled on asking the only things that would answer - the golems themselves. Big Apple was the obvious choice, but though he'd happily stride into view of camera-toting tourist buses and pose at an instant's notice in order to photobomb someone's selfie, he never spoke. Even though he'd apparently taken a shine (or grudge) to me, he never explained himself. Just stood there with that dumb grin on his face, seemingly waiting for me to decide where I was going so he could tag along.
The golems had a reputation for not talking, but I had to ask. I'd hoped that my trip to see Wendy all the way in Chicago would fix the problem on its own. If I hopped a flight to another time zone, maybe Big Apple would find someone else to fixate on. He'd waved goodbye to the departing plane at the time and I'd actually hoped. But you can't see most golems on an instant's notice and by the time I got a reservation to visit Wendy the headlines had already been made: Big Apple was visiting Chicago.
Wendy hadn't been any help. Like all her kind, she said nothing.
It was the same story with Big Peach, the Twins, Alamo, and Angel. Each time Big Apple had followed me and each time the cities' native giant had nothing to say about it.
I hadn't wanted to travel this far, but Golden Gate was the only giant reputed to actually talk, even if the only thing she was known to ever say was-
**"NEXT"**
Well, that was me.
I walked through the doorway into a large cool room the size of a few gymnasiums put together. The walls were stone, and the only illumination was sunlight from above. Plants thrived in the room, and the sound of running water could be heard. In the room's center was a four-story stone throne, and on it sat the form of San Francisco's resident iron giant, Golden Gate.
It'd have looked much more impressive if it hadn't been the exact same scene in every other city I'd been in. The church could do impressive work but nowadays wasn't terribly creative about it.
"Hello, Golden Gate." It felt ridiculously informal for me to address her so, but I'd been informed long ago that these were actually their names, and they wouldn't answer to anything else. Not as though they'd done much answering as it was, but I wasn't going to take any chances.
"Big Apple is following me." I blurted. So much for explaining my whole story. "I tried to ask him why but he doesn't talk. I can't go to anyone for help because they'll think I'm crazy even though Big Apple is likely to be *right freaking there* when I do! And Big Peach and the Twins and Alamo and Angel can't help me, they didn't even react, and he keeps following me! He's in your park right now!"
At this, I heard a dull rumble and initially thought that I was about to be caught in one of the west coast's famous earthquakes. Instead it was something even more frightening: Golden Gate was standing up.
I couldn't help but to take a few steps back as I saw this, despite the fact that if the golem had wanted to harm me there would be nothing I could do to prevent it. I wondered what I'd said to cause such a reaction, what I could to to quell the being's fury.
**"BIG APPLE IS IN MY CITY?"** she demanded.
"Um... yes.... In the park." I said.
**"THIS CANNOT BE. THE ANCIENT COMPACTS THAT PREVENT WAR AMONGST OUR KIND GUARANTEE THE SANCTITY OF OUR TERRITORY. NONE MAY TRANSGRESS!"**
"Well, I mean, he was in Chicago and Atlanta too and-"
**"MY SIBLINGS DID NOT INFORM ME OF THIS HEINOUS BETRAYAL!"**
"Well they weren't very talkative so maybe-"
**"SILENCE! CLEARLY HE HAS BEEN GATHERING HIS POWERBASE FOR THIS, THE ULTIMATE TREASON. HAVING BROKEN THE LAWS THAT GOVERN OUR KIND, HE HAS DOOMED YOUR WORLD TO CHAOS. FOR AS CERTAINLY AS YOU SHALL ONE DAY DIE, WE TOO ARE FATED TO BE DESTROYED IN THE ULTIMATE BATTLE OF KIN AGAINST KIN THAT MY BROTHER HAS JUST BEGUN."**
"Uhhhhh-"
**"THE SKIES SHALL DARKEN WITH THE ASHES OF THE CITIES BURNT BY OUR WRATH. OUR FURY WILL NOT - CANNOT - BE CONTAINED. THE RIVERS SHALL CHOKE AND DIE, LIFE SHALL TURN TO DUST AND THIS WORLD WILL END IN ICE AND DARKNESS."**
"No, no, no he was following me! He's not ending the world, he's just an idiot!" I said before I could think better of insulting the brother of a creature that just threatened to block out the sun.
Golden Gate stood where she was and then the rumbling began again as she sat down on her chiseled stone. The noise didn't end once she was seated; rather it took on a familiar cadence of rising and falling.
"Are you... laughing?" I dared ask.
**"I REALLY HAD YOU GOING THERE, DIDN'T I?"**
I blinked. What? "What?"
**"HEH HEH HEH. YOU ARE ALL SO QUICK TO BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT COMES FROM OUR MOUTHS."**
"So the world's not ending? Why... why would you say it was? Why terrify me and all the people out there in line who probably heard all of this?"
**"FOR THE SAME REASON MY BROTHER HAS CHOSEN TO FOLLOW YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. WE ARE ANCIENT CREATURES, FULL OF MAJESTY AND POWER, AND WE ARE VERY, VERY BORED."**
"You were... bored?"
**"AND ALSO WE SHARE AN IMPORTANT QUALITY WITH YOUR SPECIES. WE, TOO, ARE JERKS."**
I stood there open-mouthed as she said her last sentence to me:
**"NEXT!"**
|
The Cult of Rond claims that the great titan desires a sacrifice every ten years: an offering of the most beautiful woman of the nearest village. He takes them up into the mountains, and they never return. His cult claims that his mighty feet must be massaged with the blood of the pure. Others claim that he keeps them in cages like pet birds. Others claim that he kills them for sport. Whatever it is, I have no desire to find out. So when the wandering giant Rond thundered into our province and his followers set up camp outside our village, Father decided it would be the right time to relocate.
We were still settling into our new home near the feet of Arax the Great when we heard rumbling once again. I poked my head out the window to see Rond's ugly face loomed over the city, tusks poking out from under his blubbery lips. He leaned in close, blotting out the sun, and his great red eyes began to comb the streets. Father tried pulling me back inside, but it was too late: he focused on me and unleashed a mighty roar, blowing the thatched roofs off the entire neighborhood. Father sighed and began loading the cart again as the Cult of Rond began pounding at the city gates. Thank the golems that the commotion woke Arax from his slumber, and he rose up to challenge Rond for the territory. By the time the thunder of their leathery fists subsided, we had escaped through the Hyn River gate and were rapidly coasting down the current.
The port city of Limt offered no protection. I was just getting used to the salt air and the constant call of gulls when the ground began to rumble, and Rond once again appeared over the mountain peaks. Even the city's guardian titan, Alsim, was no match for mighty Rond; his body's fall into the bay created devastating waves that destroyed most of the ships in the port. This time, I stayed out of sight, but somehow they still knew that I was here. Rond kicked down the gates of the city in one quick motion, and his followers flooded in, going house to house. At least he wanted me alive and wasn't stomping through the streets himself. Father had to pay triple to charter one of the few remaining vessels, but it was worth it. The Cult of Rond watched in frustration and shook their spears at us while we sailed off into the sunset.
We thought we were safe in Shray. Even the mighty Golems weren't large enough to cross the deep seas. We found a cozy new home here, though we were down to our last pennies.
Then I overheard a conversation in the market. A fisherman, who described massive red eyes peering out at him from the seas and bubbles larger than houses rising from the depths. Everyone had heard stories of the monsters of the deep, but never one like this. Only *I* knew what it truly was. I ran back to our home to warn Father, only to see the dull grey mountain of skin rising from the waters off the city. Rond had found me once again.
I was almost home, but I stopped in my tracks. This was the last time. I couldn't keep doing this to Father; I was ruining his life, and he deserved a rest. Rond would just keep pursuing me, and it was only a matter of time before there was nowhere else to run. No more cities to destroy, and no more titans for Rond to destroy in his relentless pursuit. This was the end.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" I shouted at the beast emerging onto the beach. I don't know how my voice reached his ears, but he knelt down close, creating a massive crater in the fish market. He peered at me with his red eyes, and his nostrils flared, the size of the door to my house. His massive paw suddenly flattened a building nearby, palm open.
##**CCCCCCOOOOOMMMMMEEEEE**
His growl was ear-shattering, but it was definitely a word. I'd never heard of a Golem speaking our tongue...
I took a deep breath and stepped into his palm. He lifted me to his shoulder then strode off through the fields toward the distant mountain peaks.
"Goodbye, Father," I whispered as Shray vanished into the mist.
| 2015-06-24T19:50:26 | 2015-06-24T16:14:51 | 364 | 167 |
[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.
|
Whiskey bottle in hand, I staggered over to my laptop set up--the recording equipment top of the line camera, and practically collapse in the chair. So comfortable, I almost fall asleep right there. Almost. I open up LiveYou, and click the record button.
"So, I'm finally doing this live stream I've always talked about. Didn't know what it would be about...but I finally do. I wanna, talk about the Buttons. You all know the ones I'm talking about."
I gestured to the button embedded into the wall, having specifically arranged for it to be in easy view of the camera. A quick glance at the bottom of the viewer count read out 6.
"So then, you all probably know about the crackpot theories. The conspiracy theorists called it 'population control.' That somewhere in the shady back rooms of our governments, they all unanimously agreed that the world's population, some 7 billion and counting, wasn't sustainable in the long term, not if they wanted to keep the balance of power to prevent societal collapse. So they banked on human greed--our need to fulfill our baser desires winning out over decency."
13 viewers, another glance told me.
"And they where right."
42 now.
"Now, it wasn't noticeable at first, nothing but a rumor that the 'security' buttons installed in every home across the globe would make you rich. Then some one tested it out--John Demamp--got over 2 million in his bank accounts. Even today you can see his Twitter and Facebook posts about how he was going to live it up..."
99.
"But he died the next day from an exceptionally violent break in."
84 viewers. Damn it.
"The culprit was caught and tried--proclaiming his innocence, but it did little to help the family's grief. His Mrs. Demamp went through his bank account to help with the funeral expenses, their newfound wealth bittersweet..."
120.
"But it wasn't there. There was no record of it **ever** being there--no depositing into the account, no trace of transferring of the money. People thought he was a complete idiot, insane even, when the story broke just a few hours later thanks to a reporter trying to get their big scoop."
310.
"And then it happened again the next day. And the next day and the next. People pressing their buttons for the sum of 2 billion dollars, or the equivalent currency. Then they die the next day, that night--just like the Demamp. Because someone else pressed that *goddamn* button!"
I slammed my fist on my desk, that it almost seemed that it had willed another 1,700 viewers. I actually wanted to smile at the thought of me going viral, but the whiskey had dulled my control over my face.
"Five years this has been going on. Five fucking years. You ever done the math? 1826 bodies. All because some asshole wanted to get rich quick. I should know. Because I pressed the button."
The viewer count skyrocketed, faster than I could believe. 42, 831. Maybe they were mesmerized by the truth. Or maybe they wanted to see someone die.
"Some of you are probably judging me. And you're right to. What I did... it can't be excused--hell, even if it was only indirect I murdered someone. But...I don't have any family, not anymore. No significant other, just a shitty dead-end job. At least no one will miss me when I'm gone. Don't look at me like that, *someone* is going to press their button. Might be you, might be someone else. Maybe they're not even watching this. But...If I can die for a reason...doing some good with it... Then it's worth it. Isn't it?"
I was consumed by pitch black a moment later, my glance at the viewer count being for naught. I quickly ran to look out my front window--the entire block was dark. I silently curse as I turned toward the kitchen.
I was greeted by a tall man in black, rope over his shoulder. Breaking out into a cold sweat during a long, tense moment, I tried to escape through the living room only to have three other men there waiting for me, a chair placed in the middle of the room. I tried to scream but I was cut off by the noose tightening around my throat, a quick stabbing pain following it almost in the same moment.
"Nothing personal, man." Just doing my job." The man whispered into my ear almost apologetically. I drifted away, my vision turning into stars.
And then black.
|
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
| 2016-07-16T17:34:20 | 2016-07-16T17:08:32 | 47 | 12 |
[WP] You're a character who can break the fourth wall but the truth is the fourth wall doesn't exist for you. So sometimes you go to your author's house, eat their food, use their bathroom and go back with a confused author left behind.
|
Jack Bolwer. Action hero, charismatic super-agent and a man that refuses to pay rent.
I watched the hero as he slipped his fingers into another bag of my favorite chilli coated potato chips. When he caught my gaze from his slouched position on the couch, he gave me a nod, nearly having his fedora roll off his head. “I get the feeling you aren’t happy with me, dad.” The loud crunches of potato chips followed his words as he scoffed down my snack, letting small pieces of chip fly out of his mouth.
“STOP CALLING ME DAD! Yes, I created you, but that doesn’t make me your father, don’t make this situation weird.” I hated when he called me dad. I knew he was doing it to get under my skin, but it worked. No matter how hard I ignored it, those words always left me frustrated.
“Can this situation get any weirder? You’re the guy that has a fictional character living in his home. Good luck explaining that one to the secret underground police force.” He laughed, the shaking of his chest causing the chips to spill over the floor. He made a few pathetic attempts to grab the chips, fingers dangling over the side of the couch as he made small squeaks of effort before turning to me. “Can you grab my chips?”
“YOUR CHIPS? THEY ARE MINE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.” I had to take a breath, holding back my rage. “Also, there’s no secret underground police force. I made them up for my book. I thought it would be cooler if there was some secret agency that was after the hero.”
“Sounds a little cliché to me. Have you considered another hobby? I don’t think writing is your strong suit. Speaking of suits, red and blue? What sort of suit is red and blue? How do you expect me to go undercover in this? Oh, me a secret agent? Impossible, I’m dressed like a circus clown. What agent would dress like that?” The nerve of him to mock me while he ate my food. I wanted to shout, but felt a sore spot swelling in my throat.
“It makes sense. You’re that great at your job that you can do it in style. There’s no dress code involved in being a secret agent.” I argued, though my words grew fainter as I sniffed back a few tears. “Is it that bad?”
He paused, awkwardly sliding himself into an upright position. “No, I mean… shit. It’s not bad, it’s just uninspired?” Jack’s attempts at sparing my feelings only made me feel worse, turning away, trying to keep my dignity. “Oh, come on. I didn’t mean it like that. Please don’t cry.”
“I’M NOT CRYING.” I said, doing my best to sound genuine as I wiped my eyes. “It’s not just you, it’s everything. You’re right, I’m a failure. Six years I spent at the drawing board only to create a character that hates me for their existence. I thought I was onto something this time. How am I going to make the rent this month? I have nothing to show for my book. It’s hard to write when the character refuses to go into the book.”
“Jeez, how about I go back into the book? Would that make things better?” My tears making the secret agent squirm, finding the sight of a person crying highly disturbing.
“Why bother? You said it yourself, it’s uninspired. Why bother continuing to write it? Maybe I should just throw it out, get rid of the current draft.” I turned to grab my draft, ready to shred the story, not wanting anymore reminders of my failures as a writer.
“HEY! Let’s not do anything like that. If you destroy that script I die.” He stepped towards me, fingers coated in chilli dust, trying to stop me from reaching the draft on my desk. Jack’s feet delivering small crunches as he crossed over the carpet, unable to avoid the mess of chips on the floor.
Snatching the papers before he could reach me, I held them close to my chest. “And that would be a bad thing? For the last week, you have caused me nothing but trouble. Why would I want to keep you around?”
“I can help you write a best seller. Think about it, how many authors would love to know what their main character is thinking? Well, you can know my every thought. With our skills combined, we could make this mediocre book into a hit, something that people will flock to read. I only have one condition for working alongside you.”
“And what might that condition be?”
“You can never kill me off. If you even think about killing me, I’ll make sure this book never gets finished. Is that understood?” With his condition spoken, he wiped his fingers on his pants and extended a hand. “Deal?”
I desperately needed to finish my story, and this was the only way of guaranteeing that I would complete my book. I shook his hand and gave him a nod. “Deal.”
“Ok, great.” He grabbed a wooden dining chair from my kitchen, dragging it into my office, positioning it beside my seat. “Let’s get started on the next chapter. I have a few ideas about how the story should continue from here. Maybe instead of the culprit being a corrupt cop in the underground police, it could be Elizabeth Jen, the woman who gives me the information for my missions? That’s more interesting, right?”
“You knew Sergeant Kyle Cooper was the bad guy? How? I kept it as hidden as possible.” How could my story be that predictable? Maybe Jack knew because of his involvement in my story. That must have been why.
“He has a line where he talks about how beautiful it would be if the world followed a set of rules, his rules. How is that hidden? What non evil person speaks like that?” Jack tapped my office chair, motioning me to sit. “We have a lot to fix.”
“Yeah, guess we do.” I sat by his side, getting a few blank sheets of paper to write on, ready to brainstorm some new ideas with Jack.
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(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.)
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The *Bookstore of Horrors* was a small shop, lit only by a few select candles on the wall. The sparse sunlight that pierced through the tainted glass was soon blocked by black drapes over a rail. These drapes were the leftovers of a cursed ship with black sails that was swallowed whole by the kraken, then resurfaced after Sparrow, the bookstore owner made a pact with a demon. Inside the store you could fin all manner of cursed books and scrolls, dark magic artifacts and blood curses. Each book, booklet, or parchemin was an Horror on its own. But there was more than books here. There were trinkets and jewellery, tools and strange apparatus of dubious utility.
*I* was here with Eleanore and Anna. Completing our last mission when Eleanore saw a golden circlet with a blood red gem on its center. Sparrow saw the interest of the young woman and sprang into action.
Eleanore Silverstone: " 300 golden pieces?" She exclaimed. "The pay for *our* mission was only 130! And we are five! I coul never buy something like that"
Sparrow: "Oh dear, I cannot part for less. Even for you" said the pirate. "It is a *very precious artifact*" said the old captain.
"That is alright Eleanore. I will buy if for you" I interjected. "Here Captain"
Anna Brokenhearth: "hold on" said Anna, snatching my purse "Where did you got all this money? You told the group you where broke yesterday when we wanted to buy potions and salves" she started to yell. "We could have saved Danny if we had ***ONE*** MORE DAM POTION!" She shrieked, tears creeping upon her stone like figure.
"Oh, but dont worry Anna. *I* made sure Danny won't stay dead for long. Also, the money I just got it this morning." I said apoplectic.
Anna & Eleanore:" But how?" They said in unisson.
"Oh. *I* have my *own ways*
| 2021-11-12T02:44:59 | 2021-11-12T02:37:03 | 443 | 29 |
[WP] Humans have always been the friendliest and the most peaceful species in the galaxy. When one of the most ruthless empires decides to wipe out the pathetic humans and their diplomacy, they discover that humans have something that no one in the galaxy has ever seen. Nuclear weapons.
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Famine, Pestilence, Death, War. The four horsemen of the apocalypse. Supreme beings of havoc, and an idea that humans (once achieving a galactic level) quickly found spread across the worlds. Famine, The Rektinkin. Pestilience, The Kratar. Death, The An'ihum. And War, The Humans.
When Humans entered the galactic scene, they ruptured a delicate balance that was in place. They destroyed the stalemate that stopped the 3 major powers from war. As every race set their sights on the prey, intent of claiming them as their own, gaining the advantage, the humans seemed blissfully unaware that their attempts at peaceful communication showed the universe one thing: they embody peace, and have suffered nothing. A far contrast to the three powers.
The Rektinkin, born on an unforgiving planet that punished every mistake with death. Resources scarce, the reptile-like species embraced the Famine, and learned the power of oneself. They birthed great warriors that took all the resources, instead of splitting them amongst many people. As such, the species was able of rivaling entire army's of other species alone. However the birth rate of these creatures were abysmal, and as such couldn't triumph in all out war against the other two. When they saw the Humans and their home Planet of earth, rich in resources, they saw their chance. How many more warriors could they birth with Earths help? And so they waged war on the seemingly helpless species. The humans had no idea of scarcity, so they had nothing to embrace! How could such species pose a threat?
Similarly, The Kratar lived in a world of nature, where they could never triumph over the destruction of the Great Green. They suffered from being nothing but weak prey. Intelligence? Mattered not, that was for those at the bottom of the food chain. So the Kratar embraced the plague of ever-present green. They were the ambassadors of the Great Green, and as such, were gifted the ability to fully control the power source of life, the Kratar's very own star. With this power, they spread the Great Greens power and influence. They controlled the most planets, able to terraform them for the Great Green, but never once thought to enslave nature, as they had not the power over the Green to be able to claim authority. So when they saw the Humans, they saw a weak species (much like them in the past) however one who had used Intelligence to triumph over their sacred grounds. Blasphamy. How dare a species as useless as humans have the audacity to attempt to control the Great Green? The Katar saw both the potential of triumph over their greatest weapon, and a weak species who had yet to fully understand it. Should they learn their potential, the Great Green would be destroyed by such a weak species, one who had no hardships, who had embraced nothing! The Kratar could not have it, and as such, declared war on the humans.
At the same time, The An'ihum suffered from the inevitable. Death. Their species had an incredibly short life span. Nothing could ever be done, and nothing was ever being done. The An'ihum each had their own needs, and had once sought a fulfilling life doing what they wanted. The neighboring species on the same planet all pushed the An'ihum away easily. The An'ihum where all so singularly focuses on themselves, and their short life spans that the species never evolved. They cursed their life spans as the An'ihum population got smaller and smaller. It was in a moment of true desperation that the An'ihum changed. Every new birth was done to perform one duty, then embrace death. With their incredible reproduction ability, the An'ihum held deaths hand as they brute forced their way to being the apex species on their planet. So when Humans, a relatively long-living species entered their sights, they saw knowledge. They saw what they wanted, the ability to extend their lives, as the humans had multiplied their expected life span. They also saw the threat this knowledged posed to them and the other speicies. They needed life! Only then could they truly embrace death. So they held no regards about declaring war on a species so intent on running away from death. They knew not the embrace of death, but they shall learn.
And the humans? They were different. Everybody assumed that they just had it easy, as that was why they so nice, so unwilling to spark conflict. But in reality they didn't embrace what they were best at, because they saw what embracing war truly meant. After building the ultimate weapon that made the very universe suffer, they learned that embracing war didn't mean strength. It meant complete and utter annihilation. They didn't embrace war, they surpassed it. And as the hostile species watched the very universe reject their existence, they realised that simple truth.
First time posting here.
Also on mobile, sorry for bad formating.
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The Orak believed the war with humanity would end in blood and glory. Instead it ended in a white flash while they struck the outermost colony of Elysium. Humanity attacked their home planet Orakus. Citizens on Orakus felt no pain or suffering as the humans on Elysium did. Instead it was a white hot mercy that the Tsar unleashed from hell itself. The results of this repisal were almost instantaneous. Orakian warlords upon seeing their homeworld reduced to ash surrendered their weapons some even began worship of humanity as they had mastered a level of war they had never considered.
| 2020-02-07T15:29:11 | 2020-02-07T13:21:46 | 50 | 18 |
[WP] Humans have always been the friendliest and the most peaceful species in the galaxy. When one of the most ruthless empires decides to wipe out the pathetic humans and their diplomacy, they discover that humans have something that no one in the galaxy has ever seen. Nuclear weapons.
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It's useful, in a general sort of way, to be seen by the galaxy at large as cute, harmless doofuses. Soft, fleshy, tiny little bipeds, always wanting to communicate. To most of them, we're about as threatening as a Labrador puppy.
Understand; our stellar neighborhood is a very scary place. Like Mos Eisly Cantina scary. You've got your hive mind "insectoid" races, your noncorporeal energy beings, and all manner of biologically acrobatic variations in between. And don't even get me started on the only other humanoids, the fucking Greys. Yikes. Those guys suck.
Anyway, when I say "in a general sort of way," it's because there are a few specific and distinct disadvantages to this perception, as well. One of them would be situations where the ambassador from Earth must appeal to the Council of Argherrech. Which is the situation that I, as said ambassador, had to face during what was later called "The VingVa Crisis."
The VingVa, known colloquially just the Ving or even simply V, were a particular obnoxious insectoid neighbor to earth. One day, without any prior notice, a Ving spacehive appeared only a few miles outside lunar orbit and began construction on an hyperspace corridor repeater site. And I don't have to tell you, the radiation those things throw off, when they're active, that close to Earth? Well. This kills the Labrador puppies.
Of course all attempts by the human authorities at communication were ignored. The Ving had communicated to the council that they consider humans a non-sentient lower life-form, and thus unworthy of inclusion in the council or in fact any form of recognition or communication. This was a common perception among hivemind species, who generally only recognized sentience of other hives. Politics, amiright?
As I approached the round which seated the members of the council, I was struck again bye how large of stature and claw and tooth most of them are. Quite intimidating. As I approached and climbed the tiny elevated platform where petitioners stood, I felt their alien perceptions tracking me. I spoke slowly and clearly into the translation assembly.
"Good day and high praises upon all of your excellencies, members of the prestigious and all-knowing Counsel of Argherrech..."
And then I went on like this for some time praising each member of the council individually and debasing myself before them. These guys LOVE flattery. Rather dreary and boring and if you don't mind I'll skip ahead to the important bits.
"...and so, I come before you today to seek the permission of the council to defend the human homeworld against this unlawful incursion into our space."
There was a silence as the counselors each finished receiving the translation. Though by policy the Ving never acknowledged any human communication, the first reaction was, in fact, from the Ving avatar. There was a series of twitching movements in the top third of it's upper facial appendages, which I had come to understand as a *very* rough analog to human laughter. Wonderful. What followed was a near 10 minute conversation among themselves that, of course, was not translated for my benefit. When they had finished their conference, Basthora, the "chair," spoke into his own translation assembly. What came out my end was a harsh, metallic, very robotic sounding voice.
"If VingVa make war, Human cannot survive. Council will order VingVa allow one earthcycle for evacuation of Humans."
Much as I'd expected.
"Ah, yes, and this is much appreciated, oh most noble and generous rulers, may your reign last an epoch. But, if I may, and with all respect due, I was sent here today by the leaders of Earth to seek the permission of this glorious council to do exactly that. To declare war on the VingVa, and to, erm, to defend ourselves."
Now the "laughter" was more pronounced - not just in the Ving avatar but in the forms of the others as well. A very brief untranslated conversation followed, but from what I had learned of their body language, the response was clear. Assent.
"If Humans wish extinction, they may fight the VingVa to the death. Council grants permission."
Of course, everyone knows what came next. We waited patiently for the V hive to finish constructing the terminal, and turn it on. Fifty H-bombs, casually dumped into the newly opened portal - a straight shot back to their homeworld. One more for the hive that built the damn thing. Funny thing, they didn't even bother trying to stop the tiny ship that did it. Never fired a single shot at it. They literally never knew what hit them. They saw us as so far beneath them, so insignificant, so weak, that even in total annihilation they did not comprehend the threat we posed to them. And they never will.
Because now, there are no more VingVa.
Yes, in a general sort of way, it is quite useful to be seen as cute, harmless doofuses. Though I'd wager that, in the future, maintaining that image may prove slightly more challenging. But, hey...what else are diplomats for?
Edit: a word
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Drifting endlessly and peacefully through this void, I gazed upon the great blue sphere. Its skies swirling with white ink. The low rumbling of our ship had my brethren in a deep sleep.
A great white plain, frozen and still, is where we made our temporary home. A small elderly woman made her way out of that dark and sullen forest, inviting us to follow her.
The six of us were crammed into the tight dwelling in which she lived. The warmth of the stove shielded us from that blistering cold winter wind. This meal was just enough to keep us all from starving, that caring old woman...
News of our presence was spreading. A large military force was to be expected at any moment, but this frozen plain was empty. As I wait on the outskirts of our encampment, waiting, a sun had risen out of the ground.
These humans were peaceful due to their fear not of us, but because of their own power.
| 2020-02-07T14:54:18 | 2020-02-07T12:50:43 | 58 | 41 |
[WP] You are an NPC in a failed online game. Tell about the final days before server shut down.
Edit 1: Holy shit! Thanks for all of the great replies!
Edit 2: ¡Jesus Cristo! Front page! Thanks all!
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Adventurers. The disgusting and temporary existences, blessed with great power, infinite greed and the ability to simply escape from the troubles of the world at a mere thought, whisked away to another universe they called "logging off".
I always hated them. I always resented them. We lived here, and this was our world. They came in droves, mindlessly slaughtering anything that gets in their way - and like a cruel joke I'm doomed to simply reawaken, brutal murder after brutal murder. We "normies" as we like to call ourselves... from the beginning of our memories, we have known what we have known, and learning more, learning skills, acquiring knowledge has sat just out of reach. And what we knew more than anything else was our limitations in comparison to these beasts.
To think we lived in a world with such treasure and riches, and are unable to grasp them. Great magics, mysteries of the world and artifacts that could give us the power to protect ourselves from any foe, no matter it's tenacity. All out of reach to us, and available as readily as my baked wares to adventurers. Worst of all, for reasons we were never able to comprehend, all adventurers started out in my shop. Every day I would find them passed out, never knowing how they got here, and always starving. There's no rhyme or reason - I turn my back, and another injured demigod would appear and demand my hospitality before offering to go beat up some farm animals for me. As if I care for that! But I gave them copper for it, if it would mean they would leave me alone.
The inequity I felt... It still fills me with a hate that I cannot express. I cannot attack until I myself am attacked, but any of them could slay me with a flick of the wrist. I am what the adventurers called an "NPC", a derogatory term for anyone they don't consider essential.
But those days, that hate has long since given birth to a flame. As a baker, I could do nothing to stop the flood of these brutal strangers into my home, my world, my everything. Worse still, after mentioning waking up in my bakery, business from outside of our small town almost universally stopped except for the accursed adventurers, who would demand I take every scrap, fur, nail and other piece of junk in exchange for a few coins, just for the privilege of handing over my wares to get my coins back. The nerve!
It was the village chief who came up with it. We gathered together, chief, the town physician, the apothecary and the baker, and we made history. We would be the first "NPC's" to slay an adventurer in cold blood, and I would finally have my vengeance.
It was the 500th night since the adventurers began flooding our world, and we were finally ready. Every adventurer who enters our world starts in my shop, starving. They will literally eat anything remotely edible you give them, to restore themselves from the feeble and critical state they arrive in. No more.
When I fed the first adventurer one of our muffins, I felt sick to my stomach. As a matter of pride for a baker and a food professional, when you step into my shop I have a duty to serve you something worthy of my craft. Literal thousands of adventurers had eaten here, and while they eventually all move on, many came back and gave me the only business I would ever see once the adventurers came and travel became too difficult to draw in folk from nearby towns. But as I saw this new adventurer's grim visage, the life slowly fading on the floor, my sickness was replaced with a triumph more delicious than any sweetbread I'd ever created in my life.
As his cold, horrified eyes lay fixed upon my ceiling, I knew. I had done it. We had done it. At last we could fight on our own terms.
It is a little known fact that adventurers were incapable of learning any form of cooking. As soon as we knew our plan was a success, we moved into action. A single messenger quest to a major trade hub (taken by an Adventurer, no less!) was all it took. Back then you could actually get messages to other towns. In mere days, every normie in the land was selling goods infused with our secret recipe to our unwelcome guests. It's impact was felt almost immediately.
The first thing to go were the veteran adventurers. The wretched creatures who waltzed through, bought entire shops worth of stock and carted them back to ugly castles they'd built in our forests. Wielding the most powerful artifacts our world had ever seen like toys, I was delighted when they began to declare, one by one, that this "bug" (why an insect would behave like this I'll never know) was making our world "unplayable". Unplayable! As though our existence were for their amusement!
It was not without repercussions. Adventurers began slaughtering food vendors on sight, but we had prepared ourselves for this and steeled our resolve. They had been unwilling to change to meet our needs, and we would show them no quarter. Over only a period of 2 or 3 weeks, most of the adventurers had fled. Not even monsters can fight on empty stomachs, it seemed. With my little shop of horrors quickly dispatching newcomers, even the rate at which new adventurers were entering the world dropped dramatically.
I don't remember when they stopped entirely. But it's been 6 months since any new adventurer dared show their injured mug in my bakery. The few adventurers that survived were the extreme hoarders. We have seen them, holed up in houses with literal stacks of food they must have purchased before the great purge. A month ago we tried to talk to them. They wouldn't come out, no matter how much we called to them. I wonder if they're still there?
Recently, the skies have been growing dark. The great artifacts that had stabilised our world seemed to have vanished with the adventurers that held them, and the number of monsters outside of the town limits is beyond anything anyone in living memory can recall - though nobody in living memory can recall the time before the adventurers anymore either. One by one, we lost contact with other towns, almost always after reporting their last adventurer had died. It slowly became clear that, for all of their flaws, adventurers had served a purpose in our world. Without them the world has slowly crumbled in ways we never knew it could.
And so I sit here on the roof of my bakery at night, watching the lights in the sky go out one by one as I write this journal. I have to stay up here - things vanish in the night if you don't watch them now, like the adventurers used to when they "logged off". Where is it they go, I wonder? Is it where the rest of the town has gone? I haven't slept for days, afraid that my precious shop and even I might be the next disappearance.
I've made one of my muffins, the same recipe that I fed that first adventurer, back when this world was alive. The darkness seems to be everywhere tonight, surrounding my bakery, and yet I can't fight the urge to make food. Was it really the adventurers imposing on me for food? Or did I make food because there were adventurers to feed?
I've made my decision. I can no longer see anything on the horizon anymore except darkness. Not even the moon is with me anymore. It's just me and my shop now, where it all began.
I think I've earnt a muffin break.
EDIT: Well this got a lot more reads than I ever thought it would! To answer the thematic question that seems to be getting asked the most, I drew from a lot of different sources, including Ultima Online, World of Warcraft (particularly the nod to selling every scrap of crap you pick up), light novels Sword Art Online and Log Horizon, as well as currently airing anime Overlord. I treat NPC's horridly in just about every game I play, so I thought it'd be a lot of fun to play out some ideas about what would happen if they could resent us for what we put them through.
Glad you guys liked it!
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The adventurers used to come regularly, buying weapons, supplies and potions, but few come to my small shop any more. The ones that do don't stay for long, they roam in and out disinterestedly and then head back into the wilds without spending much coin. Some days I wonder why i both walking the route from my house to the shop and back in the evening, it hardly seems worth it.
This part of High Ragnar is full of demons, Elf Lords and Unicorns and within a league there are many places where greater beasts may be summoned, darkening the skies at the bidding of their demonic lords, but strangely, since the heroes stopped coming, so have the demons. In fact, it has been a month since I've seen so much as an Ork.
The shop is empty, although my shelves are fully stocked - I am bored. For the first time, perhaps ever, I step out of my shop during the day and sit on the entrance stone. I see Marta the beggar walking the streets and she gives me an oddlook as she passes, tracing the same route, over and over again. Perhaps we're all just tracing a route until we die.
The noise is like nothing I have heard before, like ripping cloth, but instead it is ripping the fabic of time. A portal, glowing green and red, opens in the square and from it emerges a hero, but before I can even consider returning to my shop, I notice that something is wrong.
The huge sword strapped to his back is... odd. It glitches and seems to drift through the world and when he draws it and swipes at the ground it seems to create experience from nothing. His armour too seems off, like that of the High King, but glowing with power and magic.
I've seen enough and step back into my shop, but perhaps seeing the motion he follows me in. I've seen many heros in my time, but none who acted like this, none who seemed so strange.
"Greetings traveller, do you need food, supplies or weapons? Take a look at my wares, I have the finest status cure in all the land." Simply repeating my usual greeting makes me feel better and he turns and looks where I have gestured.
On the shelf is my pride, my finest potion. Designed to work on any status effect, my family has brewed it for generations. He takes one look and then gazes at the sky for a moment. I wonder if I should speak again, but before I am able he has turned and casually thrown a number of items to the floor before striding out of my shop.
After a moment I cross the floor to see what he has so casually discarded and pause as I see the pile. Potions, hundreds of status cure potions, maybe as many as nine hundred and ninety nine, mixed with various weapons, food and other supplies. Who is this man who can summon these things so easily?
For the second time today I change my routine and again leave the shop. perhaps if I offer to return them he will explain who he is and how he has more status cure than a dozen generations of my kin have ever brewed.
I come out just in time to see him lift off the ground and impossibly he floats into the air and then... then *flies* into the sky. Is he a hero or a demon himself? This has been a strange day, but perhaps he signals the start of a new breed of adventurers and for once I seem to have made a profit.
it is Jenny the Blacksmith who cries out and alerts me. It is coming closer. The Misty Mountains are already obscured, a wall of black is rolling across the landscape towards our town and behind it lies... nothing. There is no time, nowhere to run and hide. I can only hope that one day heros will return just in time and save us from this...
| 2015-09-01T08:22:45 | 2015-09-01T07:04:40 | 1,424 | 232 |
[WP] “He’s dead....finally that son of a bitch got what he deserved” Charlie said as he reads the headline of the news paper. “Candy Extraordinaire Wonka has passed away”. Now, Charlie sits, and remembers the true events of the day he and the other children visited Wonka’s Factory.
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Charles Bucket placed the paper down to his side, and folded his hands in his lap quietly, deep in thought. He closed his eyes, and visions of madness swam across the back of his eyelids. Nightmares that hadn't reared their snarling terrible heads for decades now. Nightmares he thought he had left behind.
Charles steeled himself, squaring up his shoulders, flicked the last drops of morning coffee from his mustache. He flicked a button, watching the wall in front of him slide open. In the Main Office of Buckets Wonderful Confections, a simple bookcase slide to the side, the hidden doorway to Charles's living space revealing itself. Not for the first time, he wished it had not been made necessary to set his living space in a permanent "panic room". But such was the nature of the place he had inherited that day.
On to the factory floor. He looked over gleaming conveyor belts, the giant vats ready to be heated for boiling and simmering, and the machines precision-aligned for molding and cutting chocolate into delightful shapes. All was quiet in the morning still; the workers wouldn't be here for another hour. At this time of morning, only two divisions of the company were present: Administration, and Perimeter Defense.
Looking over the modernized mechanica of his factory, Charles found himself flashing back to the day he had won ownership of it. To the contest, and the tour. He remembered Wonka, the living fever dream of a man with his manic smile and spastic mannerisms. And he remembered what he had seen that day, the terrors he had been forced to cover up. A stipulation of the inheritance contract; to attain ownership of Wonka's inheritance, he had needed to tell all who asked a wild and whimsical story of wonder and magic contained within the factory's walls.
Sometimes, he almost believed it. Sometimes he almost believed poor Veruca had fallen harmlessly down a chute to be picked up from a garbage bin, not shoved into a grinder while gibbering laughter drowned out her screams.
Sometimes he almost believed Mike *had* been comically shrunken to the size of an insect. The stretching part was true however. Charles let some truth slip in, where he could. But Mike had not been cartoonishly stretched back to his proper size by a taffy puller. Lashed his hands to a wall and his feet to the bumper of a semi truck, started the engine, and... he was stretched. Charles could still hear Mike's screams, and the agonized wails of his mother.
The Oompa Loompas... oh how Charles wished they had been a fabrication. He told the world of Wonka's silly little men that ran the factory's day-to-day. This may have been his greatest lie, and his most unforgiveable sin: not telling the world how much danger they were in.
Lost in his reverie, Charles didn't notice his Head of Perimeter Defense until the burly man was almost on top of him. "Sir!" the armed and armored man yelled. "We have a situation!"
Charles spun to see what was going on, and followed the pointing finger of his Head of Defense. On a far wall, there were gashes in the plaster, three long jagged streaks.
"Oompa Loompa claws..." Charles whispered in fear. "What happened, I thought the portal to Loompaland was secured?!"
"We don't know yet sir, but we've had reports of Oompa activity in other sectors of the factory."
"Seal all exits! Call any Defense Forces that aren't on shift yet and get their asses on the hunt!" Charles sprinted across the factory floor. "And alert all civilian staff not to come in to work today. Paid day off, tell the media we had a mechanical failure, ONLY if they ask!"
Charles and the Head of Perimeter Defense rounded a corner, and found themselves confronted by a foul stench. One they both knew too well...
They followed the smell into a stockroom, and found the crates of baking supplies fouled by oozing masses of pustule-ridden muck. Bulging in the piles of foul liquid, there lay a large number of quivering translucent pods.
Charles' face went pale with horror. "Oompa Loompa eggs... HOW did they manage to get past your men long enough to lay a clutch of EGGS?!"
Before the Head of Perimeter Defense could reply, the two men heard a low gibbering chuckle. It echoed around them, coming from seemingly nowhere. Charles oriented, and found the source: a ventilation grate. They were in the vents.
The mad chuckling turned into a mocking sing-song, inhuman in its tone
*Oompa Loompa, doop-a-duh-dee*
*We are here for little Charlie...*
Charles scowled, ordered his Head of Defense away. His place now was at the Command Room, organizing a defensive and securing the Loompaland portal against any further activity.
Charles closed the door to the stock room, took a handgun from the holster under his suit jacket, and pondered on how some legacies never fully go away, as he listened to the gibbering sing-song grow louder.
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"He's dead.... finally that son of a bitch got what he deserved", said Charlie.
Those were the last words of Charlie, because it seemed that he had only survived to outlast Willy Wonka. The heart monitor showed the frequency of his beats decline and then flat-line, and the nurse observing the DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) notice at the end of the bed, simply noted the time of death professionally.
20 years of living on nothing but Wonka bars had taken its toll on Charlie, converting him from a tiny boy into a 900lb ball of blubber. Charlie had succumbed to the secret Oompa Loompa ingredient and become addicted.
Getting the dead body of Charlie out of his home took a lot of work. Eventually, two men with hammers demolished an outside wall of his bedroom and they had to use an elevated platform to get his body out of the room. Instead of a hearse, a black van waited outside to take Charlie away.
| 2019-03-21T09:55:01 | 2019-03-21T08:38:23 | 2,685 | 107 |
[WP] You've found a strange app that pays you $100 every time you perform a listed task. The various tasks are strange, from moving an empty box from one park bench to another, to calling a specific number only to hang up. But you always get your $100 so you won't stop now.
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Fred dropped his phone on the bed, another 100$ confirmed in his bank account. So far he'd amassed almost 5,000$ using the *Helping Hand* app. His friend Angie had brought up the app in a conversation the month before and it wasn't long until Fred checked it out. At first it was simple enough tasks like *bring an umbrella to X adress* or *put 50¢ in X parking meter*. Nothing too difficult and maybe 1 or 2 per week but for some reason the last 3 weeks had been pretty intense. Fred would regularly get 3 request per day and some of them were pretty unique. As he laid down on the bed, Fred seriously considered quitting is dead-end job to pursue this new opportunity full time.
The knock on the door was neither subtle or friendly.
**FBI, OPEN THE DOOR**
Fred jolted up from the bed. FBI ???
**FBI, OPEN THE GOOD DAMN DOOR NOW!!**
Fred hurried to the door and opened it to the sight of 2 burly men in black suits. He invited them in, wondering what merrited him such a visit. The only crime he could ever remember doing was jaywalking.
>Son, are you Frederick Henderson, son of Mary and Christopher Henderson ?
*Yes, I am*
>Are you aware you are currently wanted on 28 counts of accessory to a crime ? More specifically, you are currently under investigation for 8 counts of armed robbery, 10 counts of petty theft, 3 counts of assassination and 7 counts of terrorism.
>>If I were you, I'd start talking
*WHAT ? No way dude, you guys got the wrong person!!*
>Are you Helping Hand user *AwesomDuxx86* ?
*Yes...*
>Then we have the right person.
*How did...assasination ?..fucking terrosirm ? HOW?*
>We've known from the start that Helping Hand had the potential to be exploited by criminals and foreign agents so we've been monitoring it closely.
>>Looking back on your user history nothing out of the ordinary pops up at first but on november 16th, you helped a bank robbery.
*What ? no way I would never do that!*
>The Helping Hand user activity report says otherwise. See here, *Hold door opened at 215 Smith street, at 13h25 for 1 minute*
*Yeah I remember that one, it was weird because nobody ever came trough but I held the door for a full minute*
>International bank robbers, they stole 15,000,000$ that day and by holding the door open, you gave their signal jammer direct lign of sight with the bank's security sensors.
*Oh my god, I didn't know.*
>On november 19th, you responded to the following request *Hail taxi cab on the corner of 5th street and lexington at 17h02 and wait*
*Yeah, some dude came running with dirty clothes in his hands. He said thanks and jumped in the cab*
>Robbery gone wrong, he had just shot the clerk and you helped him get away
*What ?*
>>It seems Mr Henderson that after these 2 successful criminal assistance, you quickly became the go-to-person for criminal activity in the city. Your Helping Hand username became priviledged information in the criminal underworld.
*Ok, this makes no sens. If I did something wrong I apoligize but come'on.... assassination ? terrorism ?*
>On December 1st, you rented room 502 at the Fairbay Hotel and proped opened your room window before leaving.
>>An international assassin by the name of Gustave Ravnor used that window to repel down to room 402 at 2h00am and killed a witness in the Diabo crime family trial
*Are you saying I helped KILL someone ?*
>On december 7th, Mr Ravnor made use of your services again when you left a prepaid postal box in Fixidor Technology's main lobby.
>>He shot and killed the senior CFO and used that prepaid mailbox to get rid of the gun.
*I think I'm gonna be sick*
>The DA is prepared to drop the charges against you IF you help us get to the terror cells you have been helping
*Terror cells ?*
>On December 12th, you picked up a small statue replica from a trash can on Baxter street and dropped it off to a mailbox on Dresden avenue.
>>We beleive the statue contained enriched unanium to be used in an uncomming terror plot but with your help, the foreign agent we were following evaded police capture.
>On December 13th, you bought a lottery ticket from a 7/11 on Slickson street and gave it to a homeless man outside.
>>We beleive the clerk gave you a fake ticket containing a time and adress and you delivered it to a sleeper agent
>Between December 12th and 18th you helped that international terror cell a total of 7 times.
*This is crazy you guys, I...I never knew that! The app is supposed to be about helping people!!*
>On the 18th they stopped all contact with you. We think they no longer needed you or realized we were watching you.
>>Son, we need your help if we can stop these guys before they execute their plan on Xmas day.
*But....that's tomorrow you guys. shoud we like, evacuate the town?*
>Evacuation would cause unwanted panick.
>>Grab your coat kid, you're coming with us and you better pray you can help us.
|
I awoke to a ping from my iPhone. It was that app again.
Rubbing my eyes, I reached over and unlocked my phone, carefully reading the text that revealed itself.
"Open your front door. You have 24 hours."
I shrugged my shoulders and got out of bed. This had been going on for about a month now. The requests were always weird, inconsequential things like this, yet the money always came in through PayPal. I walked over to my front door and swung it wide, looking around intently to see if anyone was watching. As with countless times before, nobody was around.
With a chime, the app's text changed. "Thank you for your co-operation. $100 has been credited to your account of choice." And as if on cue, my Paypal app sounded off. $100 was credited to my account. Again.
Okay, that's first task of the day. I swiped to the left, looking for the next task. Maybe I could clear it before getting ready for work.
The words on the screen glowed back at me. "Give $1000 to the homeless man down the street. You have 24 hours."
*"Well, this is awkward,"* I thought to myself. I've been throwing all my earnings into my student loan.
__________________
If you enjoyed this story, [check out more at /r/Script_Writes](https://www.reddit.com/r/Script_Writes/)! Feedback/comments on my writing are, as always, greatly appreciated!
| 2016-10-26T05:22:25 | 2016-10-25T23:27:06 | 34 | 11 |
[WP] You're on a hiking trip alone in the woods, when you find a glass bottle. In the bottle, a note. "I'm trapped 3000 years in the past! There is a time machine located in the rock to your left. Help!"
|
Tom was looking at the note in awe. He turned it around and around, looking for some hidden clue, or just a message saying that it was just a joke, but there was nothing at all. The bottle looked innocent enough: It was a green one, reflecting the sunlight into Tom's eyes.
It was starting to get dark when Tom finally awoke from his reveries. Then, automatically, he turned to his left, and indeed, a large boulder was located there. It looked perfectly unlike a time machine, Tom thought. It looked like something that could be described in Tom's *Explorer's Guide To the Wilderness*, now safely stored away in his backpack.
Cautiously, Tom approached the rock. As he came closer, he became more sure that his was a very ordinary rock. There was nothing strange to be seen.
He walked around the rock, tracing the hard surface with his hand, feeling for any irregularities. He felt nothing suspicious. It was all smooth surface, but now he felt a slight bump-
A deafening roar disturbed the silence of the clearing. Birds were flying away from the trees, as Tom stumbled backwards, shocked.
The bump he had felt had been a small button and it was now pressed in, as the rock slowly moved to the side, making loud noises in the process. It revealed a hole in the ground, out of which immediately rose a human-sized metal capsule, looking remarkably out of place in the vast wilderness.
A penal slid open, revealing a small compartment which contained a chair and a lot of complicated machinery.
Tom, already having difficulty processing this all, stumbled backwards yet again, as a robotic voice came out of the capsule.
''Good evening. This time machine is ready for departure. Please be seated inside and everything will be taken care of. Have a pleasant journey!''
Tom, having finally composed himself, now felt his familiar adventurous spirit returning and was getting quite excited. He looked around, seeing if he was quite alone, then without further ado, walked up to the capsule and entered.
As he sat down, the capsule immediately closed shut, a seat belt out of nowhere fastened Tom, and the voice rang out again.
''Please be notified that this time machine is programmed to travel 3000 years into the past. Circumstances were quite different in those times, so you might find that you won't survive for longer than an hour. With that said, get ready for take off!''
Tom, feeling very reassured indeed by this message, braced himself, holding on to his chair very tightly.
There was a deafening roar again and the capsule started shaking. Then there were a lot of beeping sounds, and at the console in front of Tom, several lights started to turn on and off, and controls started to move automatically.
It was very uncomfortable. Tom's head was pounding. He was just wondering whether he had a concussion, when the shaking stopped. There was a 'ping!' like an elevator reaching a new floor, and the panel slid open.
''Welcome to 983 B.C. and have fun!''
Then there was silence, as Tom looked out of the panel into the world. But the first thing that Tom saw was not the environment around him, but a man standing right in front of him, a very eager expression on his face.
''Thank the Gods! My savior has finally arrived! I've waited for so long!''
Tom was still sitting in his chair, too dazed too move. The stranger saw the expression on his face and approached him.
''Hahaa! I remember when I first arrived here in that thing, 10 years ago! I think I sat there for over half an hour! Let me help you, mate!''
And the stranger bent forwards to remove Tom's safety belt and help him stand. Tom noticed that he was stinking very badly and when he turned to him to get a better look at him, saw that he was very ragged looking.
The stranger wore jeans that were cut off at the knees to make shorts, a brown t-shirt that had probably once been white, and a bandana. He had no shoes.
''Where are my manners?'' the stranger said. ''My name is Desmond. It's nice to meet a fellow time traveler!''
Tom shook his hand, not really aware of what he was doing. ''T.. Tom, pleasure.''
Then, at last, Tom got the opportunity to look around. He was at exactly the same place as he had been 3000 years from now, in 2017. But at the same time, the wilderness looked different. More like an actual wilderness, *wilder*. The trees were growing all over the place.
Desmond followed his eyes, looking serious. ''Now, I know it looks beautiful around here and all, but I desperately want to get out of here, so it is paramount that you do what I say. We need to stay close to the time machine, because if you stray to far away from it, it will disappear. It's meant to be a one way ticket, you see? But I reckon we can - hey are you even listening?!''
Tom had wandered past Desmond and was gazing around, mesmerized. He had the power to alter history at his fingertips now, he could do anything he wanted. Somewhere, far way, he could hear Desmond shouting at him, but he wasn't paying attention. He needed to find shelter here, maybe Desmond could -
But Desmond was gone. Tom had turned around and the only thing he saw was the rock. Desmond had gone into the time machine and disappeared. Tom was now stuck here.
He walked up to the rock, but there was no button to be seen now. But when he looked down, he could see a small piece of paper laying there. He picked it up, and recognized the handwriting immediately.
*I left a few bottles in a cave close by. Charcoal proves remarkably useful for writing. Good luck.*
|
My legs dangled thoughtfully over the cliff as I tossed the device between my hands, contemplating the impossible. I knew it wasn't real; how could time travel ever work? And besides, how could the note have survived 3000 years, somehow knowing it would be found today?
But it didn't stop me imagining. What would it be like, for someone trapped so far back? The landscape -- mountains capped in crinkled clouds, lakes as still as silence -- would likely not have changed much. Did someone really need rescuing from nature's beauty? Perhaps there were no other people back then. Were they lonely? I rocked back and forth on the precipice and let myself live it for a moment.
And then as the skies darkened and the sun tipped its last glass of sangria over the wooded valley below, my thoughts twisted to my child and wife, and for the millionth time I thought of changing things. Stopping her from leaving and taking Amy with her. Or at least getting them to wait until morning, when emotions would be running lower, and the icy roads less slippery. But she took a handful of pills, my daughter, the car keys, my heart and their lives.
With a time machine, I could change everything.
I could even go further back, when the cracks had first begun to show. Spiderwebbed fissures created from complacency, lies and eyes that saw what they wanted, instead of what they needed.
3000 years ago. It sounded so lonely. So peaceful.
I twisted the knobs and pressed the button. Then, hoping I might finally change something, I began to fall.
| 2017-10-08T02:05:06 | 2017-10-08T01:03:03 | 1,019 | 323 |
[WP] Humanity has been wiped out except for you, who managed to eke out a meager existence by yourself. Every day, an angel visits you and asks if you're ready for humanity to return. Every day, you respond, "No, not yet." Today is different. Today, the angel brought the Devil with them.
|
>At what point does the day begin and the night end? A millennium ago--if that's even how long it's been--I would've said day is when the sun rises, and night is when it sets.
>How little I knew.
>Day is when the world comes alive, when beauty strikes and those who prowl in the night lie in wait. Day is when you awaken and take another step toward the unknown. . .but there is no more unknown for me, in this town or anywhere. Day and night have become one and the same; a blur of time that melts into oblivion as I lie here and wait for a death that will never come.
>The day held hope. Hope died with the rest of humanity, and I am its ghost.
I closed the old, rotted notebook, broken at its binding. *Why am I even bothering, after all this time? Words have no meaning if there's no one to read them.*
But that act summed up my eons of suffering succinctly; after a few centuries, a person will still do the same pointless things they once found comfort in. Even as the world corroded, then was taken over by flora, and so much time passed without taking me with it that I was sure I'd died and gone to hell, every few decades I'd put a little water into the old inkwell and write a little note. Something to solidify my suffering.
The thought of how pointless it was made me laugh a little, but it was quickly quieted by hunger. An eternity spent alone on a dead earth wasn't enough torture without retaining human urges, apparently. I shuffled out of the mangled cave of overgrowth that had once been my home, tattered strips of cloth dragging on the ground behind me. It smelled of ancient excrement, surely, but I hardly noticed by that point. Fresh air almost smelled worse.
Per the usual weekly meal, I scrounged a few bugs from the trees and soil, along with some mushrooms--the ones that I'd learned would not leave me in agony for weeks--and berries. It was hardly a meal, but it did enough to sate me just enough that I could try to sleep another week or so away. I'd have stopped eating if the pain wouldn't get so bad after a while. There were no other options, anyway. God had decided that only insects would accompany me in Hell. And it had to have been Hell.
I fell the the ground outside of my hiding hole, but found the strength to drag myself into cover. A week of being baked in the sun or rained on makes waiting for the end a little less bearable.
I watched the sun rise over a haunted cityscape, an ode to what life once was for me. The sight used to hurt my heart, but after a while, nothing hurt anymore. And, like clockwork, right when the sun touched the top of the tallest skyscraper, he appeared.
The angel. My tormentor.
"Hello, Francis," he said nonchalantly. Perhaps time meant nothing to him. Perhaps he was secretly a demon and simply wanted to take note of my misery, but he was my clock, in a way. The true tell that a day had passed, since most days I never bothered to open my eyes.
I didn't respond. I'd already asked thousands of questions, and never received a single answer.
"Are you ready for someone to join you?" he continued. It was a sick joke, really--at first, he'd asked me if I was ready to give up, and I wasn't. I'm the last human, after all. But once my will eroded, and my soul turned to jelly, he changed the question, as if he knew all I wanted was to die. And after centuries of what could only be hell, I was supposed to believe that humans could just magically be brought into existence? The whole thing made thinking hurt, which is why I'd stopped so long ago.
I didn't respond. Talking felt wrong. Foreign. I hated speaking, and hearing my own voice. The angel knew that meant no, anyway. I'd said no so many times before. What good would bringing someone into such a miserable world do, anyway? The worst parts of being a human stretched out into infinity. After a while, even the best parts become torture. No one should suffer it.
But, oddly, the angel didn't disappear. I lifted my head off the floor, and he was looking at me; normally he'd disappear after asking his question. Instead, he smiled at me, and lifted a hand.
Another man-like figure appeared, with wings the same as his, but something was different. He didn't shine; he didn't glow. Instead, it was like the warmth and light was sucked in around him. I felt cold and sickened when I hadn't felt anything in eons, and it was enough for me to scamper back on the floor.
The new man laughed, a terrible sound. "So this is the one?"
The angel nodded, but his smile faded. "We did as you requested. It's been a millennium, Satan."
It felt as though a molten lead ball was in my stomach; I suddenly felt the centuries of pain, and every square inch of my horrible body. Like I was remembering what it was like to be alive. "W--what?" I said, very weakly.
Satan knelt by me. "Tell me one thing: in the beginning, why didn't you give up?"
I wanted to look away, but couldn't. The angel spoke up behind him. "Let's reset things a bit. He can't be expected to answer like this."
Before I knew what had happened, I was sitting in a home--my old one, the one I'd died in, I think--perfectly restored. It was warm, and smelt of fresh Earl Grey, and I was weightless. There was no pain, no horrid feeling like my soul had been wrung a billion times. I felt. . .okay. Safe.
"Now, tell me," Satan continued, sitting on the beige couch across me. He looked just as off-putting, but I didn't mind as much. "Why?"
"I don't know," I said, touching my throat. I felt surprisingly fresh. "I was the last human left after the apocalypse ended. I wanted to believe it meant something. That I could hold on, and preserve us in some way. Maybe fix it. I don't know."
"And you did," the angel said.
Satan scowled. "Then why did you never ask for humans to be brought back? I changed the question because I thought for sure you'd be desperate for company. I was so sure of it."
I stared into his eyes, pulled in by something I couldn't explain. Each eye was like the millennium that passed me, and all its suffering, had been marbelized into black. "It was awful. Everything about it was just. . . I thought I was in Hell. There was nothing to bring them back for other than to suffer with me. I couldn't bring someone into it, especially with how far gone I was. It would be terrible for them."
"I told you," the angel said, glowing even brighter. "Humans are so much more than you credit them for. Leaving one behind was your idea of a sick joke, but it only served to prove you wrong. All you do is project your own flaws onto everyone else. You've lost the bet."
Satan didn't say anything, only stared at me a while. "Not bad, kid. But all you've done is delay the inevitable--I still believe that. Though I give you credit for saving humanity."
"What?" I asked. "What are you guys talking about?"
"Humanity will get another chance," the angel said. "You did it. I knew you would. Now please, please--be at peace. You deserve it after being forced to linger so long."
I didn't get the chance to respond before something took me, something wonderful and warm. It felt like my soul was wrapped in a blanket pulled fresh from the dryer, and I let myself slip away.
---
*/r/resonatingfury*
|
Greetings stranger,
It has been 37 years since humanity ended, or perhaps it is better said it has been 5 hours since humanity started again. I managed to survive the original extinction, a relic from a forgotten age. It all started with heavy storms. Many weren't worried, but I was, and I took shelter in a safe place. Then, the earthquakes and volcano eruptions started, but again I hid. And so the plagues and disasters came and went, and yet, I survived. In fact, I was the only one who survived.
So, when I was certain I had been forgotten, that no higher power cared enough about my existence, I started to collect knowledge on how to survive. It wasn't easy, but I managed. And then, when I thought I was finally alone, when I finally could get my work done, that damned angel appeared. It appeared to me in its human form, not its so-called true form. That meant that at least I wasn't a prophet.
"Hello Meredith, are you ready for humanity's return?" It always asked that damned question in the same way. I had always responded with a simple "No", and humanity hadn't come back, luckily. And so, at 3pm exactly, the angel would visit me in my humble abode and ask the question.
But not today. Today, the bastard came with the big man himself. No, not God. But instead, the Devil. It started with the angel asking The Question again. When I again responded with my usual no, the angel didn't leave. Instead, they told me: " Then, there is someone that would like to meet you." And with a smell of a meal I would at time find abandoned in houses, the Devil appeared.
*"Meredith. Your refusal of humanity's return cannot stand. Though I may seem like the guy that would appreciate its disappearance, Hell has frankly become boring with no new people. Please, allow for humanity to come back,"* spoke the Devil, with a voice that sounded like someone set fire to your eardrums, and which convinced me that Hell was just the Devil monologuing.
"Why should I care about the state of Hell? I don't live there. I, quite frankly, couldn't care less. Make this worthwhile for me," I responded.
*"Fine. I will grant you a wish, if you allow for humanity to return."*
"And why should I trust a creature known for his lies?"
*"The angel shall make sure I grant your wish."* To this statement, the angel nodded.
"Very well." This is where I have made the fatal mistake. I should not have trusted the Devil, no matter whether he would grant the wish or not. "I wish to be left alone by humanity, but still live on Earth." The demon king smiled. I knew I screwed up.
*"It's a deal."* And with those words, the Devil cast me in the ocean. Right when I was about to drown, the Devil gave me gills. Right when I tried to swim, the Devil gave me fins. Right when I was about to get crushed by the pressure, the Devil allowed me to pressurise automatically. I tried to return to land, but I nearly suffocated and returned to the water.
*"There,"* the Devil laughed, *"Your wish is granted. Humanity will leave you alone. Given that your name means Lord of the Sea, this seemed to me the best way to grant your wish."*
And that is what has happened up until this point. If you're reading this, you found my letter in a bottle, and I hope you will never meet me. And I hope you can pass this on to the rest of the world: the oceans are to remain unexplored, or else the world will flood and humanity will end once again.
Farewell,
Meredith Planque
_________________
Edit: Spelling
| 2020-10-24T07:22:38 | 2020-10-24T06:49:33 | 451 | 160 |
[WP] You have a power to gift people special abilities, but you cannot gift them to yourself. You are a assaulted by gang of bullies who threaten you to give them powers, but little do they know you can add a side effect as well.
|
How many times has Preston been through this? Every time he tries to help someone in a small way, there’s always people who try to take advantage. “We know you can’t give yourself powers, so all we’re asking for is a little something to have some fun.” Preston lazily eyed each person, then straightened his jacket. “So you just stick a gun in people’s faces and ask for a good time in dark alley ways?”
He watched the man in front, black buzz cut and built like a marine, a steady hand holding the revolver. Preston could tell he has shot before, but didn’t want to know at what...or who. A thin woman stood next to him, an almost manic smile plastered on her pale. She was the reason he was in this predicament in the first place. She saw how Preston waved his hand over a kid trying to reach his ballon in a tall tree. She balked as the kid slowly lifted off the ground, grabbed the balloon, and did a little backflip before touching the ground once more. She decided to call her friends and fooled the dupe into “helping her get away from these ruffians.” Finally his eyes rested upon the young man in the back. To any outsider, he would look like the weakest of the group, probably pressured into being here. However, Preston has been in this situation before, and he could tell. The boy was a thinker, he would undoubtedly be most dangerous of all.
“Under these circumstances I can hardly deny a request now can I?” He signaled for the weapon to be lowered, to no effect. “It’s alright my boy, like the lady said, I can’t do a thing for myself. So if you really just want some fun, I am happy to facilitate...as long as I’m treated in kind.” Mr. muscles was clearly uncomfortable putting his gun away, but some quick prodding from the lass was enough to for him to submit. “All right, who’s first?”
The woman immediately raised her hand and hopped up like a school child being called on her first day. “Please, I want to fly. I’ve always wanted to glide through the air like a bird!” Preston could see the wonder shifting in the girls eyes and almost felt bad, but naughty children need to be taught some manner. “I’d like to make a modification if I may, flying like bird would basically give you hollow bones, and you’d be incredibly weak. How about instead I gift you the ability to cancel your gravity?” With a wave of his hand, the girl slowly began to float. With a squeal and a hug, she was off like a rocket, out of sight in a matter of seconds. Preston grinned, he wondered how long it would take her to realize she was no longer able to touch the ground? He sighed, she’ll freak out for a couple hours, and eventually glide back home when she falls asleep...or passes out. Hopefully that’s one lesson learned, two to go.
Mr. Marine was still staring, slack jawed at the events that just transpired. He looked at Preston with a malicious grin and exclaimed loudly. “I want to be able to pass through solid objects!” Preston cocked an eye, feigning surprise. “Now, this wouldn’t be for nefarious purposes, would it? You may be willing to threaten people, but surely you aren’t a thief?” The man half laughed, half growled, the grin not leaving his almost drooling lips. “Of course not sir, I wouldn’t DREAM of stealing, I want to pass through objects so I can visit the zoo after hours and hang out with animals in peace.” The lie was so barely concealed Preston rubbed his temples. “Ok, I’ll believe you for now. Just in case, I’ll make this gift temporary, and if you don’t get into any trouble by tomorrow, then I’ll let you keep the power.” The man vigorously nodded and with another wave of Preston’s hand, the deed was done. He moved his hand through the wall next to him, stared in awe as it passed right through and ran off like a kid in a candy store. “See ya later suck—“ the wall blocked his voice and Preston’s shoulders sagged. They just won’t learn, will they? If that muscle bound half wit tries to steal even the smallest item, it will get stuck to his person and the police will have no problem finding him. He could only hope the half wit tries to take something small before learning his lesson. He turned to the final man.
The boy was probably in his early twenties. Once the other had gone, he straightened up, cracked his neck and stared ahead. Preston squared up with the boy,, his eyes narrowed as the joy left his face. “The time has come my boy. I can tell you’ve been thinking hard about what you want, and I doubt any of your intentions are good. I am a man of my word though, and I promised each of you a gift, and that is exactly what I’ll do.” The boy smiled, a deep and visceral smile that made even Preston shudder slightly. “I was so hoping you would say that. My request is simple.” He stepped closer to Preston and lowered his head. “I have been thinking about what I would do and to be honest, I can’t decide.” He paused, and raised his own gun and pressed it against Preston’s temple. “So I decided I want ALL OF YOUR POWERS!”
Preston was almost disappointed. All this buildup, all the drama...and the boy asks for infinite wishes. “So, you want to do what I do. Is that it?” The boy chuckled and pushed the gun deeper into his temple. “No more talking, no more stalling, start waving.” With a somber expression, Preston waved his hand and the boys body glowed for a moment. A fog of golden light enveloped him and with an exhale, was seemingly unchanged. The boy placed the gun back in his pocket, let out a menacing laugh and began to backpedal away. “You don’t even know what you’ve done old man.” The fire in the boys eyes was practically exuding heat. “I’m gonna take these powers, and give them to my guys. Then we are gonna be most powerful gang in the country! And if you try to do anything about it, we’ll just kill you!” Preston looked on. “I know exactly what I did, I gave you a copy of my power. I gave you what you all said you wanted. I gave you the ability to have a little fun.” He casually walked along towards the end of the alley. “Words have power my boy, and my words are the most powerful there are. You wanted power to have fun, so fun is the only thing you can have.” He placed a hand on the boys shoulder. “If you try to harm anyone, attempt even the smallest crime, gift anyone any kind of power with even an ounce of malice, that evil intent will eat you alive. Quite literally I might add. If you don’t believe me, feel free to try and kill me.”
The boy stood, almost paralyzed by the mans words. He quickly took the gun out once more and pointed it at Preston. His hand immediately erupted in a dull purple flame that slowly crept up his arm. The boy screamed, dropped the gun and furiously patted his arm down. A deep black soot covered his hands as he glared at the man who has cursed him with lifelong happiness. The man turned onto the sidewalk and began to slip away, turning one last time to address the lonely boy. “Have fun.” And with that, Preston disappeared into the crowd.
|
“Fine, fine! I just need a second!” I shoved the nearest oaf back a few inches and righted myself, pushing my hair back into place as I tried to buy myself some time. “It takes concentration.” I took a few cautious steps back from the group to make an assessment of the situation. There were four of them, and they each easily outweighed me by half. I couldn’t outrun them, as I had already discovered, and I certainly didn’t want to end up on the business end of any more fists today.
I easily identified the likely leader of the pack- his clothes were a little neater and he stood off a bit, allowing the others to get their hands dirty on his behalf. I directed my comments at him. “You seem like... *reasonable*... fellows, so I feel like I need to be honest with you. I don’t quite have a handle on this thing yet,” I lied. “You only get one. I can’t control exactly how it’s going to turn out. And most importantly, I can’t reverse it.” Lies, lies, lies. I could easily make them gods to rival Doctor Manhattan, but who wants to live in a world with creatures like that stomping around?
“Powers are powers, right fellas?” the one with the cauliflower ear and the crooked nose said.
“Is he saying we can’t pick what we get?” said the smallest of the giants.
“You saw what he did for that burned kid,” the one with the fresh cut on his cheek said. “Healed him right up. Then the kid was on Oprah!”
“He didn’t heal him, he gave the kid healing *powers,* then the kid healed himself. Didn’t you pay attention to the interview?” it was Cauliflower again this time.
“You guys watch Oprah?” the smallest one chimed back in.
“Oh, shut up!” The leader scolded. “You-“ he turned to me this time, “-get to work. Start with him.” He pointed at Cauliflower, who suddenly seemed a bit apprehensive. It was as good of a place as any to begin.
“Come here,” I pointed at the ground. “Kneel.” It was a little for dramatic effect, and a little because standing on my tippy-toes didn’t feel particularly dignified. I placed my palm flat against his forehead. He was shaking, almost imperceptibly, and for a moment I almost felt bad for what I was about to do. But a deep breath reminded me of my almost certainly broken ribs, and my doubts vanished. I pictured exactly what I had concocted for him and pushed the intention through my hand. A sensation like cracking open a carbonated beverage let me know that it was done. “Okay, next?”
Rinse and repeat, two more times. The three henchmen stood together, looking a bit green from the temporary vertigo that comes along with adjusting to their new abilities. The leader approached last and stared me down for a moment. “You better have something good for me,” he said.
I smiled, trying my best to appear sincere. “Don’t worry, I have a feeling you’ll get a really special one.” I indicated the ground at my feet, and he kneeled.
| 2021-04-01T06:39:15 | 2021-04-01T03:33:36 | 173 | 74 |
[WP] This is… awkward to say the least. Your roommate just frantically confessed that they’re demonic royalty, and that they need a fiancé to meet their parent, the monarch of Hell, who will be here in under an hour.
|
It had been another long day at school. Abjuration lessons were among the hardest lessons on my schedule - I'm an Evoker, by aptitude - but they were necessary training if I was going to go into the family business.
I stepped into my apartment - *our* apartment, though I had no idea where Zeena was at the moment - and followed my usual ritual. Set my shit down on the couch, walk over to the sigil hanging on the wall above my Dad's silvered sword, and say the words I'd been taught since I was old enough to speak them.
"To secure this realm from above and below, I swear my life to the sword; celestial and demon alike beware the sign of the ancient accord. With blood and with soul, in life and in death, I stand as the vigilant guard; from First Fall to now, and in times yet to come, until all doors to this realm are barred."
I felt the rush of power from the sigil, and gave a bit of my own back to it, mana filling the sigil and flowing from it to the various wards and defenses I'd set around the apartment. They'd never been needed, never even been *tested* \- Zeena was no summoner, and I, naturally, couldn't abide the idea of allowing a demon or a celestial into my home. I was bred to destroy them, not to mention I *wanted* to. A celestial had killed my parents, a runaway summon that had been too powerful for the dumbass wizard that had called it here. I didn't have much love for things not from this plane, after that.
After saying the oath, I looked around again for any sign of Zeena. She always got out of classes before I did, and was almost always sitting at the shared computer we kept in a corner of the little living room, bopping away on her headphones. Girl *loved* her music. But not today. I couldn't fight the little frown as I poked my head into the kitchen, then into the bathroom, wondering where my friend had gone.
Friend. Heh. Yeah, that's a good word for it, I guess. I certainly wanted more, for sure; I'd been attracted to her since the moment I met her, but honestly, I think just about everyone was. And I'd never really had the nerve to try anything. I'm no slouch in the looks department - pretty athletic, long black hair, great smile, and *absolutely* on point *every day* with my makeup, thanks to my older sister using me as a guinea pig for her own skills when I was just a kid - but she was just...*oof.* Way out of my league. I was content to just be her roommate and help her get by; she was shockingly smart about a lot of things, but *shockingly dumb* about others. Or, well, I guess *naive* was a better word for it. Like she was from another planet, sometimes.
"Zee?" I raised my voice at least, not wanting to just open her bedroom door or anything - girls need their privacy, we'd both agreed. No entry to bedrooms without an invite. I did approach her door, though, and knocked sharply, the *tap-tap-tap* of my knuckles on the wood loud in the quiet of the apartment. "You home?"
There was a bit of a rustle in her room, and I rolled my eyes, thinking, *oh, great, she's* ***already*** *got another guy, or girl, or whatever.* She cycled through suitors like I tended to go through pants - acquire, use, discard when too damaged. I wish I was kidding about the 'damaged' part - she was a bit...rough, sometimes. I'd had to invest in noise-cancelling headphones.
"Come in," I heard her voice answer from inside. Okay, maybe not a new beau. Either that or they'd somehow convinced her to try and ask me to join them, in which case, they had a pretty sharp removal from the premises in their future. Dad's sword was a great conversation piece, at least when that conversation was 'get the fuck out of my house'. Zee might be exactly my cup of tea, but most of the idiots she brought home weren't. Roughly half of them were a hundred percent too male for my tastes.
I opened the door, and stepped into the room, feeling the lack of wards in here as I did. Zee never wanted to let me put anything up in here, simply assuring me that she could handle anything unexpected that might happen in here. I closed the door behind me, and looked around, taking in the fact that nothing had really *changed* in here, except for the clothes everywhere, as though Zee had been pawing through everything she owned, looking for the right outfit. That wasn't like her - she was *super* neat about her clothing. Letting stuff touch the floor was something that only happened when it was something that needed washed.
That fell away when I saw her face. She was halfway between tears and frantic anxiety, her expression tight, her eyes wide and dilated, cupid's bow lips pulled slightly away from perfect teeth. Her champagne-colored hair was a little mussed, parts of it sticking up in the back.
"What's wrong?" I immediately went to sit next to her on her bed, and looked at her, locking her blue eyes with my green as I put a hand on her shoulder.
"Talk to me, friend. Someone bothering you again?" I smirked at her, and added, "Need your big bad Gatestalker friend to teach someone a lesson?"
"No," she said quietly, sniffling a little as her gaze fell to her lap. "It's...not that. I...I need to tell you something, Lexi. And ask you something. And...and I'm worried you're gonna hate me for it."
"Zee," I said, giving her shoulder a squeeze, "nothing you can say is gonna make me hate you. You've been my best friend for like, two whole-ass years now. If you bringing home half a damn frat party at three in the morning didn't make me hate you, I don't know what the fuck will."
She laughed despite her downcast attitude, and smiled at me, looking back up to lock eyes with me again. "Oh, I don't know," she said, "this might. Why, um, why don't we go out in the living room?"
"Okay," I said. "I'll make us some tea or something. We can talk."
"That...sounds good. I'll be out in a second."
I nodded, and stood up from her bed, looking around one more time at the clothes on the floor, and finally noticed she had a dress set aside on her bed, one of her nicer black ones. Not the short little 'fuck me' number she tended to wear to parties, but one that was a little more formal, a knee-length affair that always did more to my hormones than any typical party dress she ever wore. Zee looked fantastic in anything, but when she went formal, she was just...yeah.
I dismissed my impure thoughts about my friend, and walked out of the room; I headed for the kitchen, and by the time I had our kettle full and plugged in, she'd come out of her room and sat down on the couch. I went out and moved my things onto the table, hoping beyond hope that Ikea made their things textbook-resistant, then sat down on the other end, looking at her.
"Okay, Zee. Spill it. What's going on?"
"I...don't know how to say this," she said, clutching something between her hands. "It's a big admission."
My heart started to pump a little faster despite myself, and images of her professing her undying love flittered through my head like butterflies before I refocused. Not the time for that, Elexis. Stay on task.
"Well, I'm here for you. So just say it however you have to."
There was a moment of silence, a long moment in which the sound of the kettle heating up built in the kitchen behind me, before she spoke.
"...fuck. I'm a demon, Lexi. There's...no other way to say it."
|
"OK, so what you're telling me is ur gonna have to wear a frilly dress even though they make you dysphoric, pretend that ur dating me, and convince ur homophobic, conservative mom that im a good partner for the prince of hell?" Texted Tissues, sitting on his bed while texting Trophy, who was at the mall buying a dress and stilettos... And a wig that matched his original hair color, jet black.
Although he wore skirts occasionally, dresses were the worst for him. When he had came out to his parents, they forced him to wear a dress every day, despite his protests , thus making dresses bring back bad memories and dysphoria.
"Well, yes. ill be back in a sec, k? look presentable or smthn like that" Trophy texted back, walking outside the mall, dreading the next few hours of his already terrible life.
"Ya know, you don't have to do this. You could just, I don't know, flip them off. " Said Tissues, adjusting his tie for a suit he had bought three years ago, and somehow still fit.
"Flip off the literal MONARCH of HELL? I THINK NOT!" Said Trophy, walking out of the bathroom in that dress, "That could get me, you, and possibly a bunch more killed!"
"Fine, I'll do it, but if something goes wrong, I'm blaming you. " Sighed Tissues, holding back a sneeze.
The door to their room knocked, and Trophy went up to open it "HI mom! How was life in hell?" Said Trophy, putting on a fake grin. "Nothing much, dear, now could I see your fiance?" Said Gold, the monarch of hell... And Trophy's mom.
Tissues heard what Gold had said, and quickly stood up and walked over to Trophy's side. "Here I am, Ms. Gold!" He said, putting on a fake grin as well, "Your daughter's a wonderful fiance!" Trophy's eye twitched at the word 'Daughter'. "Well, that's good, but what I want ot know is if you're a good fiance. " Said Gold, walking in.
Gold walked around the room, and saw the decoration the two had put up their. There wasn't much to look at, since the pictures that were usually hanging up on the wall were token down, as most of them featured Trophy as his preferred gender, and he couldn't have his parents think he was disobeying them.
"Well your room looks formal, now I'll ask your fiance a few questions." Stated Gold, sitting down on the bed and scooting uncomfortably close to Tissues. "So what job do you work?" "Uhmm, CVS. I get like $15 an hour. " ...Well that was a bad start, but maybe the white-haired boy could provide protection for her little girl "How strong are you? Could you try lifting one of those weights over there?" She said, pointing to the area with weights nearby the window. "OK uhmm..." Tissues walked over to the weights, and picked up the largest one he could find... Or, he at least tried to pick it up. Tissues stumbled and fell with the weight, and when he tried to get up, he sneezed allover gold and her outfit.
"... Who is this sickly excuse of a partner!?!? And why did you thinkt he was a good one?!??!" Screamed Gold, accidently knocking over the cabinet where Trophy stored his photos. "MOM NO-!" Said Trophy, trying to stop his mom from looking at the pictures, but it was too late. She picked up one of them, and as soon as the saw the boy in the frame, smiling, she rumpled it up and stomped over to her 'kid'.
"I come here ALL the way from the deepest depths of hell, only for you to be pretending to be a boy and dating
| 2022-10-09T02:05:11 | 2022-10-08T20:49:21 | 49 | 16 |
[WP] You instinctively know everyone's name the second you meet them. One day you thank someone at the supermarket for helping you, and they stare at you wide eyed. "Nobody has called me by that name in centuries"
|
This is me:
An odd little child, alienated at school for knowing everyone’s name by the first day
A quirky teenager, never invited to any parties.
A petty 18 year old, roaming the streets of New York, holding a cardboard sign saying “guess your name for $5 or your money back!” The reason this is the case is because everywhere I went, every job I started, I was accused of being a “stalker” or “creep” because I have this uncanny ability to know everyone’s name. Once I know a name, it just slips out, and I can’t stop it. Thus, I am here, advertising my magical, unique ability as a party trick. It’s something to live off of.
However, this is the story where that all changed.
So I’m at the supermarket, buying what little I can, when lo and behold, just my luck, I drop everything. This man walks over and helps out, so I turn to thank him. I say thank you, and out of habit I am about to say his name when I come to the startling realization that, for the first time in my life,
I can’t.
The man freezes. “How do you know my name?” He says, “no ones called me that for centuries...”
This elicits a very puzzled response from myself, because
A) this guy was not old enough to be my dad, let alone centuries old.
B) I didn’t know what his name is, let alone say it.
I make the latter very clear to the guy, and he seems to understand something. “After all this time...” he says, shaking his head in wonder. “Listen, I have no time to talk, but I know what’s going on with you. Meet me at Joe’s Burgers tonight at 8.” He started to walk away.
“Wait... “ I say, “That’s my favorite burger place! How did you know that?”
“Because you do,” he simply responds, and with a twinkle in his eye he walks away.
Now, I can’t say that I wasn’t debating whether to go or not; on the one hand, that guy was ultra creepy and possibly insane and/or a stalker, but on the other hand, I really didn’t have much to lose but my cardboard sign. 7:40 comes, and I make my way to Joe’s.
When I get there, the man has two burgers in front of him, one being eaten. The other remains untouched, and looks like a double patty joe special with ranch. Which is odd because that’s my favorite burger.
I sit down across from the man, and before I say anything he speaks. “Listen, I know you have many questions, but allow me to say what I have to say and all will become clear. Kapish?”
I reply that it is, indeed, kapish.
He starts speaking. “I am one of the last elves in existence. Elves like me have the power over the mind-to read it, and even control it. Due to this extraordinary power, the elves were hunted due to fear of them. I was able to hide away, and for centuries I have been trying to find others like me-“
I cut him off. “Wait, I said. OK, if what you’re saying is true, and I highly doubt that it is, you’re saying I’m an elf?”
“Yes, “ he replies. “Or so I think. If you’re wondering, the pointy ears and small build went out of style years ago, so those aren’t really requirements. What you’re able to do, knowing peoples names, is a basic-level elf ability. A name encapsulates someone’s identity, and people’s minds basically scream that out to us.”
“Alright, “ I reply, still wary. “If so, how come I couldn’t read your name?”
“Well you did,” he says. “At least, your subconscious did. For obvious reasons, I hide my identity as much as I can-it was pretty impressive you were able to find it at all. I simply read your subconscious and thought you were aware of what you did, which is why I reacted how I did.”
“I see, “ I say. “So how the heck am I an elf, and why have you been looking for me?”
“Well, “ he replies. “Being an elf is really just genetics, and it skips a few generations. You’re not that special. In any case, back in the day the elves weren’t exactly the best kind of people. I’ve been trying to change that. Using our powers, I’ve stopped countless wars by suggesting to politicians that it could be wise to forge a treaty, and spurred many now famous inventors to work together. All I want is to give the elves a fresh new start, as a force for good rather than mischief and trickery. That’s why I’ve been looking for you.”
So really, this got me thinking. What this man was offering was a life with meaning, in contrast to my slice of cardboard that my life seemed to depend on at the time. It was tempting to say the least; a break in the monotony of the cycle I seemed to call “life.”
I was in.
“Hang on a second, though. Will I get to live as long as you?” I ask.
He chuckles. “Maybe,” he replied with that twinkle of his eye. “It takes work, but I’m sure we can get you there.” He put out his hand.
I put down my cardboard, and shake it.
This is my story. A story of how I rose up and made a difference, just by someone showing me I could. I urge you, whoever may be seeing this, to apply this to yourself. Don’t belittle yourself; put down your cardboard! You have so much potential, so much you can do, once you understand who you truly are. And to do that, I simply ask of you one question.
What’s your name?
Mine is Hope.
This is my second time posting here ever, please leave feedback! :)
EDIT: The elf focus is not a growth of food
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The man stared at you, eyes widening slightly. Then he gave a huge grin causing his eyes to squint. Waving his hand casually,
"Come, come; I want to show you something." And brings you over to an isolated section of the store. Large pieces of furniture surround you creating an imposing and claustrophobic atmosphere. You have no time to react as the man slams you against a heavy wooden table with a knife to your throat.
"How do you know that name?!!" He snarls, bearing his teeth. The table digs into your back and your knees become weak in fear, but you know if you move it will be your last action.
"I..I..I" You swallow nervously. "It's just a talent, I swear! I just k-know these things."
He stares at you for a few seconds, observing your every movement with his hand still clenched tightly around your shirt. He removes the knife from your neck to your relief.
"Give me your wallet."
"W-What?
"I said, give me your wallet."
He opens it up and glances at your drivers liscense for a few seconds before flipping it haphazardly back to you.
Cheerfully he declares, "See, now we're even. I know your name too! And your address and your birthdate. Isn't it wonderful! Now I can come visit my new friend whenever I want! Such an interesting person, I'll definitely find out all their secrets! And if they deceive me..." his eyes slant towards you for a few seconds.
"Well, nevermind, nevermind. These things may or may not come to pass."
He gives you one last dismissive glance and walks off cackling.
| 2018-11-05T21:14:01 | 2018-11-05T20:16:01 | 71 | 44 |
[WP] "100% of people who drink water will die" sounds like a dumb statistic, but you are 900 years old and very thirsty.
|
Wesley woke just minutes before the pulse alarm in his AnimSuit went off. It was still dark outside, and in the fogginess which lies between consciousness and slumber, every fiber in his body willed him to lie still, listen to Sara snore gently next to him, burrow deeper into the covers.
Then, he remembered the game of Scrabble he had played with her, not two days ago. A sudden urgency, an intense loathing, seized him. He flung the covers away, then catapulted out of the bedroom, past the hallway, out the door.
In his haste to exit the capsule bunker, he missed a step, and came crashing on the hard soil outside. Here, gravity’s pull was not as jealous as it was on Earth, but he landed badly, fracturing his left forearm in two places.
As Wesley lay on his back, chest heaving, staring up at the star-encrusted sky, the AnimSuit sparked to life. The tiny receptors attached to his spine pumped copious endorphins to suppress the pain in his arm, then the nanites coursing through his bloodstream, hailing the signals from the AnimSuit’s processors, slathered the fracture sites with synthesized collagen.
By the time Wesley had caught his breath, his arm had been mended, good as new.
A reminder flashed at the corner of his eyes, on the insides of the visorplate. Wesley didn’t need to read it to know that it referred to his first task of the day, which was to manually check the beacon to ensure that it was still broadcasting the distress signal out into the cold, indifferent galaxy.
Muscle memory carried him through for the next hour – he checked the protein vats, then the solar cells, then the stasis chambers. On his way to the observatory, where half the panels no longer functioned after the starship had crashed on this desolate planet, Sara accosted him, slipping her arms around him from behind.
“Someone’s been busy this morning,” she purred.
“Not now, Sara,” he said, gently untangling from her.
“Are you still upset because I beat you at Scrabble?”
“No, of course not.”
Wesley made it to his favourite spot in the observatory, and he leaned back, watching the twin suns slowly rise over the horizon. Sara sat next to him in companionable silence, for a while.
“What do you want to do today? Shall we take another crack at the movies? I’m fine watching even those mindless action flicks you like so much.”
“I thought perhaps I would just sit here today, think about things.”
“Think?” Sara chuckled. “You were never a thinker. Come on, we still have another week to go before we head back to the stasis chambers, let’s make the most of it!”
Wesley remembered when they had first discovered, against all odds, that the stasis chambers were still functional. They were the most fragile pieces of equipment on their expedition starship, and they represented the best chance of survival for Wesley and Sara, marooned as they were on this inhospitable rock.
The plan was simple – spend two weeks signalling for help, then the next twenty years in stasis, then repeat, until such time as help finally came. Without the stasis chambers artificially extending their lifespans, there was no way help would ever come in time.
But now… the thought of going back into those chambers…
“How long have we been here, Sara? Give it to me straight, how long?”
The hard-edge to Wesley’s question sucked out all the cheerfulness from Sara, and she responded matter-of-factly. “Close to a thousand years, in real time, plus minus a hundred years. We've experienced about two years of it.”
“And in all this time, what’s the closest another human ship has come by?”
Sara didn’t respond, which in of itself was the response Wesley was looking for.
“Sara… I’m tired. I don’t know if I can keep on doing this. Maybe we should just terminate the AnimSuits, go to sleep, and never wake up again.”
Wesley wasn’t prepared for Sara’s slap across his face, though he barely felt it, the faceplates were thick and the AnimSuit was ever-eager with its pain-numbing medications.
“You have to be strong, Wesley. We have to be strong. We still have each other, and that’s all we need. And we can keep going on too, the AnimSuits will keep us alive no matter what.”
Wesley reached out, and cupped Sara’s face in his hands. God, he thought, this is so real.
“If that were the case, maybe we shouldn’t have played Scrabble the other day.”
“Surely you’re still not upset about losing, are you?” laughed Sara, as the vitality returned to her face.
“What word did you win with again?”
“Yumminess! And with a triple score multiplier to boot!”
Wesley reached down under the table, and set a cup of black liquid on the table. It would have been steaming, and fragrant, if it were coffee.
But it was not, so it did not steam, nor was it fragrant.
Rather, it was rancid, and highly toxic, and it was prepared in advance, on the sly, the day before. It was the one thing in the starship which, if ingested, the AnimSuits would not be able to expunge.
“Wesley? Darling? Is that… engine fuel? Come on, you know we’re not supposed to mess with that.”
“Sara, you could not have won with ‘yumminess’, no way.”
“Are you still on about Scrabble? For god’s sakes, Wesley, just let it g-”
“It’s not about losing. It’s about me playing Scrabble with you, a lifetime ago, on Earth. It’s about you getting that same word, then shouting it out, then me, laughing at you, tears in my eyes, at how you completely mangled the pronunciation. It wasn’t ‘yumminess’ to you, it was more like, ‘yar-nar-mar-nar-mar-ree-ness’, or something.”
Sara stood up, and started backing away, slowly.
“We joked about it that whole summer, don’t you remember? You never got it right, not once. I even put credits down for you to see a speech therapist, then you laughed and kicked me out of bed, remember? And you made me swear never to tease you again?”
Wesley saw the gamut of emotions running through Sara’s face, then his worst fears came through when she finally settled on a look of resignation.
“You never did survive the crash, did you, Sara? All this… all these years, both of us here, struggling to cling to life… you’re a hallucination, aren’t you? Just a construct of my mind, aided by my AnimSuit, obedient as it is to its programming, its imperative to keep me alive no matter the cost?”
Wesley saw Sara lean forward, place her hands on his arm, but the spell had been broken, and her hands passed right through him.
“Will you at least let me see where her remains are, please?” said Wesley, choking back the tears which clouded his vision. “And no more of this, please, it’s a travesty to her memory.”
Sara shimmered, then melted away. Wesley was dimly aware of a neural spike withdrawing from the jack at the base of his neck. Then, a message flashed across his visor, addressing him directly for the first time.
“There are no remains, Wesley. She was incinerated on arrival. But you must continue on. Rescue is only a couple of years away.”
Wesley looked down at his cup, and never had the engine fuel ever looked so inviting.
---
/r/rarelyfunny
|
If history outlives me, I'm sure that I'll be remembered as pragmatic, forward thinking, hell, maybe even lucky. The truth of the matter though, I'm just lazy. Sometimes I think I'm just too lazy to die, a perpetual life fueled by an insatiable apathy.
Eat your vegetables, make sure you exercise, drink water, take your vitamins, don't smoke. These were the mantra's of my time. Perhaps *my time* isn't the right phrase, as I'm still alive, and being one of only a few people alive, the majority of time could be considered mine. The time I'm speaking of is the time of man, the time of society, the time of mantras. It seems foreign to me now after so many years of walking this earth with no schedule, no societal debt to spend my life paying off, just living. So here I am. Today is my 900th birthday, I haven't heard any mantras of any kind in centuries; there are no more cigarettes to smoke, no more vegetables to eat, no point in exercise or vitamins. But there's water.
You could call me contrarian I suppose, but that's really the result, not the cause of why I'm here. Going back as far as my memory allows, which is at about age 5 or so, I was told nearing incessantly, to drink water, that I needed to stay *hydrated*. I never understood it, water had no taste and I had no taste for it, yet everyone was sure tat I wanted it and needed it. At such a young age every cognition boils down to cause and effect, almost instinctively so, but even then something seemed off; everyone had these rules to live by, though no one had set them, these nuances followed by all and understood by none. And yet, no matter how strictly one followed these rules, they all met the same end, they all died. I wasn't buying it (because I was 5 and didn't have money yet).
After centuries of giving meaning where there is none, attributing fate or pragmatism to what is really just luck, I think back to those years with a vindictive righteousness that is only quelled by the all consuming loneliness that one can only experience when they're truly right. I was right alright, the rules that everyone had been slave too were unsurprisingly what did them in in the end. And every day was a testament to just how right I was; every night a testament to how wrong I wish I was.
I'm not entirely alone though, there's other people out there, other people like me. Other people who are so set on being unique, on being right, people so stubborn, that they would swear off breathing if they found out other people did it. We all walk the earth aimlessly and alone, avoiding each other for the fear that upon confrontation one of us would be forced to drink water, to concede death, just to prove they're different. I don't say this as hyperbole. I say this as fact. I say this as the last air bubble surfaced the glass of water in front of me, almost reflecting the spiteful glare from the stranger I had just met. I'd love to embellish and say that that glass of water tasted of pride as I swallowed it, but the truth of the matter is, it didn't taste like anything, it was still just water. So after 900 years of trying to be different, of riding the high of being ultimately right, I ended up no different than every other person before me, and just as wrong. I don't think anything had ever felt so right.
| 2017-04-18T10:06:12 | 2017-04-18T09:00:10 | 1,008 | 274 |
[WP] Every night, as long as you have lived there, a man stands under the streetlight outside your window and leaves in cab 302. One night the man does not come. Instead there is a letter addressed to you telling you to be in the in that spot, at the exact time, and leave in cab 302.
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The old Cartex clock on my credenza loudly drops the 9 flap, indicating 10:59 - one minute to make my decision. I've already measured it out - 23 feet from my doorstep to the street light under which I'm to meet the cab. 302. Yellow. Driver, I'm assuming, to take me...somewhere.
The letter itself was nothing special. Handwritten with a fountain pen in a flowing script. Looked a hundred years old, but no matter. All it said was, "He's gone now. I know you've been watching. Your turn. 11 pm, cab 302."
Nothing special. Just, y'know. All of a sudden a letter shows up, no postmark.
I think I'm trying to convince myself not to go as I walk out the door. In a yellow pool of sodium vapor light, the white light of headlamps wipe my shadow from the face of the earth. All I can think in that moment is that this could be the last I see of what I thought up until now was a pretty good life.
The cab stops. 302. The door opens. I pause, my heart pounding. I realize that I haven't taken a breath since the headlamps swung around the corner. I also realize that I can hear someone breathing - it sure as hell isn't me. Hell. Uh-oh.
I get into the car. There is a driver. He says nothing. Figures.
The cab moves away from the curb. Away from my normal little life. Job, bike, food, music, friends...trends.
Maybe this is why the last guy did this every night. The sudden realization that his life sucked. I didn't think my life sucked until I was invited into cab 302. Whatever the hell that means. Hell. I did it again. What is the deal with my gut when I say hell?
I look out the window of the cab - it is the natural thing to do in a cab. But I can't see anything. Windows must be blacked out - not sure why I didn't realize that earlier. Pretty sure my mother taught me better than that. Maybe not, since I'm in the back of a cab, with a driver of unknown...origin, headed to wherever I was invited, and...hell. That's where I'm going. It's suddenly clear. I'm going to hell.
"So, when do you kill me?" I ask the driver.
A deep, throaty laugh echoes in the cab like it's a cave. The driver stands up and turns to look at me. First thing I notice is that the driver is standing up in the cab. Second thing I notice is that we aren't moving. Third thing is that the driver isn't human. Fourth is that I'm not scared.
The Driver invites me in the deepest voice I've ever heard to stand up and step forward. I do so, because, well, really, why not?
He asks if I'm sorry I came. I tell him no, although I'm not sure why. I'm not sorry, I suppose, but I sure as hell am wondering what made me come. Hell. I don't swear as a rule, but something about this stupid place is bringing out a strange side of me. I'm filled with a bizarre calmness that is terrifying.
He asks me if I'm happy with my life. I tell him no, although I was until 20 minutes ago; I assume that's how long we've been gone - really I have no idea.
He asks me if I want to know the secret to a happy life. I tell him no - in a split second I realize that if I know the secret to happiness it will rob me of happiness.
He asks me if I want to go home - I'm starting to wonder what the point of this is. Maybe this is actually hell - stupid questions from some guy...thing...ad infinitum.
I tell him yes. Figured I should change things up a bit.
He nods and walks away. With him goes any traces of light. In the bizarre world of whatever-the-hell-this-is, I'm plunged into darkness. My mind races, my eyes dart, my blood pounds, and I desperately wish I would have said "no". Being somewhere unknown with someone unknown is one thing. Being somewhere alone with no one in utter darkness is totally different.
The Driver's voice echoes through the cab-chamber-cave. I can't tell what he's saying, but his bass voice is accompanied by a treble hiss. The hiss gets louder and louder. The voice gets quieter and quieter.
The darkness starts to lift, like a fog; the hiss doesn't go away. It gets louder. It's my fridge.
What the hell? I'm back in my living room as the Cartex drops its flaps and hits 11 pm. My fridge is hissing. My eyes are heavy.
As I fall asleep I know I sure as hell will be under that street light tomorrow at 11 pm. What in the world was that?
|
“Where are we going?” I asked. The old cab rattled stiffly through the icy Montclair night.
“Shut up,” said the cabby. “Shut the fuck up.” He sounded stressed, scared even. He leaned over and tossed a bundle of cloth onto the backseat.
“Put it on.”
I held the fabric up in the moonlight. It was a long, beige coat, tattered in some places. I’d seen it before.
A crumpled, black fedora fell down onto my lap. I picked it up, but withdrew my hand when I felt the damp inside. A passing headlight shown brightly against my palm.
Blood.
-------------------------
*If you'll play my game, keep going--each post 100 words or less*
| 2014-10-15T14:22:13 | 2014-10-15T13:44:19 | 27 | 10 |
[WP] Your roommate is 2nd most powerful superhero in the world and he will not shut up about it. He does not yet know that you are the 1st.
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Heroes are people too, I think most of us forget that. Behind all the cheesy smiles, the bright colours or black leathers, it’s so easy to forget that there’s a human being under there. We all get to feel safe, comfortable even, knowing that there’s someone out there looking over us like a kindly god, ready to extend a hand at the first sign of trouble, ready to put down the bad guy, put out the fires and smile the whole god damn time. Even when they don’t quite make it, we’re grateful. Of course we are. We’re glad we have a guardian angel, ever vigilant. We’re glad we have men like Aegis out there, a bright shield, vanguard of the dawn. He’s indestructible (so they say), he’s fast (faster than a bolt of lightning), and last night he saved 839 people. No one asked him to. Nearly no one else could have. Tomorrow, the papers are going to love him. Hero of the Hour, Our Human Shield. Tonight, I wait for him to come home.
There are reasons heroes wear masks, reasons beyond what we assume. We all know, on some deeper level that they must have loved ones, family to protect, lives beyond the assumed identity we all recognise but these people become more than just men and women, they become icons, symbols of justice and power. We see the colours and the costume, we see the smile because that’s what they have to show us. I see Andy.
I see him now, by the window. Skin tight silver and golden helmet modelled like the warriors of Sparta. He’s Adonis manifest, rippling muscles and fearsome eyes. His hands take the helmet off slowly and beneath the mask is a man I know better than anyone else on the planet and he is hurt. We see the bullets, we see the punches, we see everything the cameras can capture, not everyone sees this. Only I see the tears.
“I killed a man today Mike.”
“I know.” I try to muster as much sympathy as I can, not for the dead man, his death saved hundreds. For my friend.
“No. I KILLED a man!”
“Keep it down Andy, the neighbours might hear you.” Old lady Millar next door is nice, but I don’t want to scare her.
“FUCK YOU MIKE. I KILLED A MAN!” I reach out with my mind at this point. He doesn’t know, neither does Mrs Millar, or the lovely Porte Rican couple downstairs. I gently flick the metaphorical switch on our neighbours. They’ll hear nothing. Andy’s mind is a ball of rage, I don’t touch it. “All this god damn power and I can’t even…”
“Andy, it’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” He counters quickly “I chose to do that Mike. I didn’t see another option but it was my choice.” I’m silent now. He’s right, we both know it. “I killed him.”
“You saved hundreds of people Andy, it’s on the news. You’re a hero.”
“What kind of Hero kills people Mike?” The question comes out less than a breath. Without the mask he’s just a man and he has to live with this. I know the feeling. I’m speaking to a man on the edge of breaking. You don’t need my powers to know that. PTSD is a bitch. Even heroes are human.
“No one else could have done what you did today. No one is fast, or strong enough.” I tell him. I appeal to the ego, the part of him that loves being a hero.
“He could have done it.” This one is like a punch in the gut, I almost take a step backwards.
“He’s gone Andy…”
“Gone where?” he asks, the anger returning. Now, now I step back. He advances. “GONE FUCKING WHERE?” he screams. The room shakes. “ALL THIS POWER AND WHAT GOOD IS IT MIKE?”
“You can stop bullets, fuck Andy, you can stop missiles!”
“But I can’t stop people can I?”
“Sure you can…”
“No, I can’t stop them from making choices. Choices like I had to make today. I’m strong, but I’m not a god.”
“You think that’s what he should have done?” Now I’m the one getting angry, not good.
“You don’t? I think he’s a god damned coward, that’s what I think! I think I had to kill a man today because he couldn’t hack it and it makes me furious Mike. Can’t you understand that?”
“Oh. Boo Hoo!” What am I saying? “You had to make a choice. At least you could make one! One life Andy, One life for hundreds. No one can hate you for that!” His eyes narrow to little glowing points, he wants sympathy, not this.
“I can hate myself. I can hate him.”
“He can hate himself too!”
“He doesn’t get to hate himself.” The penny drops. Now I understand. “He doesn’t get to be one of us. Not with that power. He could fix this.”
“Fix what?” I yell.
“FIX FUCKING EVERYTHING!” The glassware explodes. I feel a stray shard cut my cheek but Andy just stands there, impervious. My power doesn’t work like his. “He could fix the fucking world Mike! No more war, no more terrorism, no more heroes and villains!”
“He’s just a man!”
“He doesn’t get to be just a man! Neither do I!”
“If you’re so high and mighty, what the fuck are you crying about?” I ask him. It’s the last straw, he flies off the handle. One punch is all it would take to reduce me to a fine mist and we both know it, but he’s lost control. He thunders towards me, all blue light, silver costume and rage. Time seems to slow. His fist is an inch from my face and closing when I reach into his mind and force him to stop. Realisation dawns in his eyes. For the first time, he sees under the mask. Realises there's a man underneath.
“Two men made choices today Andy, I don't have the right to take those choices away. You, you’re a shield, an Aegis. I could only be a tyrant.”
|
Josh looked at me with a colossal smile on his face:
-"Brian, you'll never know what happened today! There was a fiery man-dragon appeared near the shopping district. He was burning like 10 cop cars and lots of shops, and almost blew up a kid. A fucking kid, bro. But hey, he met his doom today too. I was there, and I took him out with 2 punches."
-"Oh? What happened to our all-powerful Luck Man today? I thought you normally only take one punch for every monster? Was the dragon thingy that strong?"- I asked, sipping my beer while gluing my eye to the football match.
-"Damn, I dont know man. Somehow when I threw my first punch, the Incredible Fiery Man-dragon Lord didnt die right away. Only when I threw my second punch does the Invincible Ember Dragon Lord tripped on a rock and his weak spot fell into my fist. But hey, who are YOU to judge me? You are just a high school math teacher. Dont even have superpower. The Supernova Dragon King would have eaten you alive! This city is lucky, that I am the strongest being alive, second only to God."- Josh bragged, kissing his silver cross.
I asked:
-"Hmm, that's cool. Anyway, did you remember to pick up groceries?"
Josh continued to brag:
-"Oh yeah, that! I was so flabbergasted because I took two punches to kill the Ancient Divine Dragon, so I forgot to go to the supermarket. But hey, who am I kidding. I'm fucking Luck Man bro. The supermarket owner saw me walk by and called me in and out of nowhere he gave me a lot of free shits and said it's on the house. And I checked our shopping list: everything we need is there. Hahaha. I love being Luck Man. Thank God for this superpower".
"You are welcome Josh" - I thought to myself, while continued watching the football game.
Edit: 2 words
| 2016-03-23T22:50:10 | 2016-03-23T20:56:08 | 26 | 14 |
[WP]You adopt a stray cat. The gifts it leaves on your bed are getting more concerning.
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Mimo, black-tailed and otherwise white as snow, hopped onto the kitchen counter and presented her master with her most recent catch: an ear.
"M-Mimo! Not again. I've told you, I--"
Her innocent eyes sparkled and her tail danced behind her as she plopped the ear down on the cool granite. Konrad sighed. Yesterday it had been a nose. The day before that, a glass eye. One of these days, he reckoned, he might catch Mimo pulling an entire head by its hairs across the living room. Well, she almost had already. Bit by bit.
The body parts were all a pale shade of blue. A cold shiver went down Konrad's spine as he considered that there may be some decomposing neighbor--a woman in her late 40s, perhaps--lying on the floor in a house nearby, her cadaver picked apart by a stealthy feline intruder. But this ear went against that whole idea. It was drooping at its tip and there had never been an earring in it as far as Konrad could tell. Was that a common thing? Women with masculine ears who never bothered to have them pierced?
Konrad didn't know many women. He knew his mother. And he knew his sister. Barely. She had gone off to Belgium on a whim when he was in preschool and she'd never returned, not even for holidays or birthdays. There was a woman working at the local deli with whom he had been building a report over the past years. By now she knew exactly how he liked his sandwich and also when he'd like to have it. Not as well as his mother, sure. But not even Konrad knew how he liked his sandwich as well as his mother. It hadn't been easy describing it to Jane, though Konrad had tried his best, and Jane had tried her best as well in following his ramblings about mustard and slices of ham and just how to place the lettuce (it makes more of a difference than you might think). Jane wore earrings. Silver, circular; for months Konrad had been researching in an attempt to find out what brand, precisely, she preferred so that he could buy her a nice present. But right now he had his hands full with a different lady.
"You could at least eat them," said Konrad. "Instead you leave me with your troubling ... evidence. I'll flush this one down like I did the rest, but it's the last time, you hear? If it happens just once more I'll be flushing you down instead."
Mimo purred and hopped off the counter, apparently satisfied with their brief discussion. She tippy-tapped over to Konrad's bedroom and, presumably, went to enjoy a long nap.
The apartment was filled with dolls, ornate pillows, bookshelves packed with crime fiction, and a whole assortment of dead plants. Dust covered most of it like pollen does a street come spring. Konrad put on his coat, the thin, dark grey one that he preferred for intricate missions, and quietly closed the front door behind him as he left to investigate. In his mother's books, the private eye would often huff and puff as he--or she--worked cases on behalf of poor, helpless relatives or friends or lovers. But with his asthma something like that was out of the question. His lungs couldn't take it. Konrad's mother had even gotten him a medical exemption from PE. "My poor boy," she had cried in front of his entire class. "Look at him wheezing, gasping for air; the horror!" Strangely, though, he'd never reacted with coughs nor asthmatic fits to Mimo. She had entered his life abruptly, and it had been something of a blessing. Konrad had found her shivering in the side of the road, and he brought her home, even risking messing up his suit. It wasn't such a big deal. He'd only worn it once, and unless things worked out with the Deli woman he couldn't think of a reason to wear it in the future.
He wasn't sure what sort of signs to look out for. Something unusual. Something suspicious. Perhaps a mailbox stuffed full because its intended recipient lay lifeless on their floor somewhere? Or maybe a smell. He could follow it, if there was one. Alas, he couldn't detect anything like it. But just as he was growing frustrated with his lack of ideas--they seemed to come so readily to the detectives in his mother's books--he had a mysterious encounter. Something so unexpected and unusual and suspicious that it had to be related to the case, because at this point he had begun to think of it as a case; it was a woman, and she smiled at him. She had long, brown hair and as she passed Konrad she looked him in his eyes and she smiled. He took a deep breath. His first clue had arrived, and he intended to pursue it.
TBC
|
I couldn’t turn away fast enough. I immediately slammed the door closed and screamed “WHAT THE FUCK!!” in utter disbelief of the image forever now branded into my deepest synapsis. Atoms overloaded, neurons on all cylinders, new pathways forged instantaneously. Milliseconds turned into centuries as I barely made two steps before buckling to my knees head in hands. I had to crawl away as fast as I could but my body was moving thru tar. Just as I looked up and took my first breath; I saw my wife walk into the house, the cat at her feet…
| 2021-12-17T07:31:47 | 2021-12-17T07:05:33 | 31 | 10 |
[WP] "I'd like to sell my soul". The Devil grinned; "In exchange for what? Women, money, power?". "Salvation".
|
He summoned the devil on a canyon ledge, a thousand feet above the thin trickle of a river. Sunset painted distant mountain valleys, a few coarse trees above whithered shrubs and grasses like an old man’s patchy beard. The sky an unexpected brilliance, salmons with too much pink and shades of purple.
The devil was a tall, thin man in a pinstriped suit. He smoked a pipe, blowing ink-black rings at that sunset. The rings expanded, hazing the horizon, and the world disappeared.
“I’d like to sell my soul,” said the man.
His name was Robert, pronounced *“like the French say it,*” according to his mother, though they’d grown up in a trailer park in Arizona and the only Paris they had ever visited was in Texas. He had a wife, a child. His daughter was the light of his life, and when the sunset went out Robert couldn’t help but think that she’d have loved it. All that pink. He was a man of contradictions: he liked football, but couldn’t stomach beer anymore; he loved hunting, but not the part where you shot the animals; he had a family, he was here.
The devil leaned back, kicked his shoes off. Robert watched them fall through the darkness that the smoke rings had created, listening for the sound of impact. He didn’t hear it. Socks followed, and barefoot now the devil wiggled his toes over the drop, careless, like he hadn’t heard what Robert said. Robert cleared his throat and the devil raised a finger to silence him. His fingers and toenails were painted a sickening rust red, chipped in places. Instinctively, Robert knew that it was blood.
“Son,” the devil drawled, “it’s 2022. Souls are a buyer’s market.”
Robert hadn’t expected that. He stared down over the canyon lip, thinking quickly. He had never owned property, invested in stock. He had never gone to college, barely graduated high school. He had never negotiated for anything more expensive than his uncle’s F-150, or drinks on those nights, before he’d met his wife and daughter, when he’d gone out knowing that he couldn’t pay.
He was out of his element, and it felt like a thousand years since the last time he thought clearly.
“Alright,” Robert said. “What’s that mean?”
The devil conjured a scroll from the night, peering at it for a frustrated moment before conjuring eyeglasses as well. “It means the soul of one Robert Dubois is currently selling for an all time low. You can’t buy you money, power, or women. You won’t sell for extra years, and I don’t deal in world peace, if you’re one of those starry eyed fucks that I keep getting.” The scroll burned away, and the devil turned towards him, glasses falling down his sharp, patrician nose. “In short, if you want to be Hugh Hefner or something equally exciting, wait a year or ten.”
“I don’t want to be Hugh Hefner,” Robert said.
The devil slapped his thigh, darkness quivering around them. “Then we’re in business! Now, what do you want? I have places to be.”
And Robert, thinking of his little girl, and of the sunset blotted out, said “Salvation.”
“Come again?”
“Salvation.”
The devil shook his head. "Son, if you were trying to pray you got all kinds of fucked up somewhere.”
“Not that kind of salvation, god, angels, heaven; I don’t care about those things. I want salvation from myself. The thoughts in my head.” Robert pointed down into the canyon. “From that. I want to go home tonight, hug my daughter, kiss my wife, and know that in twenty years they’ll be proud of me. Think that I did good. That’s the kind of salvation I want. For the world to get the fuck out of my way and just give me a chance to help them.
“I want to get out of bed without having to think about it. I want to sleep at night, without dreaming, and I want sunrise to stop feeling boulder rolled up my legs and settled on my chest.”
In the aftermath they were silent. The canyon stretched below them, a thousand feet to the river. Robert felt himself hyperventilating, tried his best to stop it. He’d worked in a foundry for a while; when he was like this it felt like someone had poured molten steel into bones.
The devil held his hand out. They shook, and when their skin touched Robert felt his heart slowing. Something settled inside him, he could hear it; a hiss, like metal tempering. Was that his imagination, or had the devil’s handsome features softened somehow? Could he do that?
But the devil was gone, the haze of smoke dissolving, gauzy and immaterial as lace and then blown away on a sudden wind, leaving the last seconds of the sunset behind. Salmons with too much pink and shades purple. No, Robert thought, just enough pink.
He rose, swaying unsteadily above the canyon. The river ran away from him, disappearing in the distance. He walked back towards his truck, forgetting, step by step, the invocation he had made, the conversation he’d just had, though sometimes the colors surfaced, vague sensory impressions.
He went home, kissed his wife and hugged his daughter. Slept dreamlessly and woke lighter. Slept dreamlessly again and woke lighter still, anticipating.
In his later years, returning to that canyon, it was to show a beautiful young woman and her little daughter, his granddaughter, the sunset he’d remembered. The river ran away from them. Last light painted mountain valleys. The sky an unexpected brilliance, because good moments can be like that, worth it, new and awe-inspiring, at the start of every morning, or the close of every day.
r/TurningtoWords
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It's one thing to tell folks that you're Christian. To outwardly praise the name of our Lord and Savior, the Messiah Son of God Himself, crucified to eat all of our sins, a personification of the sin-eaters of so many other beliefs. It's another thing entirely to whistle up the fallen Morning Star, the rebellious angel that turned on our Heavenly Father...
He looked like a baseball coach, or a pee-wee football coach. Salt and pepper hair, mostly pepper, in a short cut, not quite a buzz-cut. His face was full, made for a smile, but the lines at the corners turned down, showing long-term frowning, rather than upward, from smiling. His eyes were no particular color at any particular moment, shifting subtly as I looked into them. They hurt to look at, those eyes, so weary with time and cynicism. He was wearing a dinner jacket, a dark crimson, so dark as to look black at first glance, with an impeccable silken tie the color of venous blood.
"Well? What is it you want, then? Money, women, power, or something else, human?" His voice, too, carried the weariness of eons of seeing humanity at their worst.
"Salvation." I responded. My voice didn't waver or hesitate.
"Salvation is the other way, and you of all people should know it. I can see His touch all over you and your soul. You're practically glowing with Holy Spirit." The words were spoken with distate.
"Not mine. Yours. I've come to offer my soul to you, in exchange for you to ask forgiveness of our Father."
| 2022-06-30T10:34:02 | 2022-06-30T10:31:58 | 418 | 62 |
[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.
|
First time ever writing a story really, but it looks fun so let's give it a shot.
"Tell me Bardham...what do you know of the history of us humans?"
The words somehow echoed through into Bardham's mind, despite the fact that he could hardly hear anything at all anymore. His species was renown for their excellent hearing, a fact that the humans were all too fond of exploiting in their use of sonic equipment. He can still remember the screams of his comrades as they fell one by one, the only thing that *could* be heard over the cacophony of noise and lights that assailed their ship. For a moment, the thought wrenches him back to a place of noise and flame.
He's snapped back into reality by the sensation of another piercing noise from his right side. This time the sound of what must be human church bells clanging in chorus. His tormentor was an odd one even amongst those in his trade.
"Now now, Bardham," the human sneered. "We're playing by my rules now. And it's rude not to answer when spoken to."
Bardham took ragged breaths, recovering the sensation in the right side of his head. He could only make out the latter half of the sentence, but Bardham knew that it didn't matter what he said. Torture was assured regardless.
"Judging by the lack of...well, anything, in your eyes I'm going to assume you have no clue what I'm talking about." He said. "I must admit I'm rather surprised an officer like you is so ill-read. Oh well, I suppose it falls to me to...enlighten you."
For the first time since Bardham had been tied to this chair (a human one, rather uncomfortable for a triped being) the small, dark room around him began to shift. The walls became covered in pictures of human history, the music of an Earth composer drifted throughout the room. The human, properly illuminated for the first time, looked positively plain. He could've easily been one of the hundreds of diplomats that Bardham had seen walking through the Great Halls.
"I'm something of a history buff," the human smugly stated. "This is the side of us that creates and builds. The beauty of our art, the melodic constructs of our music, and we've always been this way. But there's something else..."
The walls began to shift, though the music remained. Soon he saw depictions of humanity that resembled more of what Bardham had become to know. He saw thousands of soldiers walking in tandem, he saw cities burning, he saw cruelties which transcended the boundaries of species.
The human turned to Bardham and flashed a sadistic smile. "This...is the side of humanity which we tried oh-so-carefully to conceal." the human spoke in a fervent tone. "We've massacred so many of our own. We've divided our world into east and west, wrought horrors which would make what you've experienced seem like a walk in the park."
The images on the walls shifted once more. This time, the image of a mushroom cloud on every wall. Bardham had seen these before, and in a moment of lucidity spoke for the first time. "Nuclear...detonations? That's impossible even for you filthy humans. Not a single civilization that used such things survived long enough for us to find them. They all killed themselves in the nuclear fire."
The human clapped his hands together, and an all-too-pleased look came to his face. Bardham knew he had made a mistake. This time it was the sound of what may have been the inner workings of a human spacecraft, soft plasma hums turned to roars that pain through his left side. Bardham leaned forward, screaming in agony.
As the pain subsided Bardham sat up once more, and he faintly hear the laughter of his torturer. The man was clearly enjoying himself.
"Oh we tried very, *very* hard to hide that little fact I assure you. The use of nuclear for anything but energy is distinctly outlawed even by the Consortium. The truth is that we had put such things behind us. We genuinely wanted to move on from the failings of our past." the human mumbled. He turned his back to Bardham, the his shadow layered above the holographic cloud. "Trying times, for men like me. Hard to find work for someone of my skillset. War made us *strong* once, Bardham. Any historian will tell you our greatest advancements were born on humanities battlefields."
Bardham thought back to the humans he had seen. They always seemed so...meek. Fragile. They could not run as fast as Tartarians, they were not as strong as Meolians, and they were definitely less intelligent than the floating Ourns. Even his own species was superior in terms of natural healing ability and hearing. But despite that humans found a place in the Consortium as lawyers and diplomats. Professions which valued the pen over the sword.
The walls began to dim, the cloud fading from the walls. As the room returned to normal, the human turned to Bardham once more.
"It was you," the human chuckled. "When your race saw fit to challenge our position in the Consortium. When you began to claim our lands and oust us from the only galactic community we knew, when the food began to run low, when we realized that words were still, even for as far as we had come, not enough."
Now, the walls cut to visions of the war he had known. He saw scores of his brethren brought low by weapons as effective as they were cruel. He saw humans marching in the thousands, not just to battlefields, but to factories and labs. The entire wrath of a species, shown through the lenses of four tiny walls.
"One last question for you, Bardham. Do you know what the first human space carrier was? The one that brought us from our home into the great beyond, the one that laid the groundwork for all that has happened? The culmination of an entire species technology and will?"
Bardham sat silent. He didn't know the answer, but he realized it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He was against a foe that would throw itself into the very depths of the underworld to give the devil a black eye. His species weren't prepared for a foe like that, and the only thing that would save them now was to try and come to a desperate plea for peace. He would have to tell them what he knew, or else there would be no more hope for salvation.
"It was a battleship, Bardham. The Ares. Our god of war."
|
First attempt.
---{}---
"The Council of Men is in session," John began as he sat down on the head seat. "Let me start by saying that I would not call for a council if it weren't for our cirumstances."
"Ah, yes, circumstances. Like how Xalkian troops are harrassing my merchants," Merchant Captain Artyom replied, sneering. "Those no-good aliens."
"Artyom, calm down now, you and your merchants are not the only victim of Xalkia." Chief Researcher Han-lee sighed as he adjusted the pin on his suit, which represented the scientific nation he was a leader of. "Our research was recently consficated by Xalkian researchers. They think we are too weak to handle it."
John looked at the leader of the military and representative the unified country of Israel. "Any more things to discuss?"
"Israel's own research teams just finished examining their weakness, and my crew barely escaped some of their military," the representative of Israel, Emmanuel, reported. "We have also managed to finish a prototype of a star destroyer weapon with 97% efficiency."
"Those insects didn't listen to our terms. And their time is up." President-General Albert slammed his fist on the desk. "I propose to declare war and activate the Wartime Council."
Emmanuel raised an eyebrow. "You just want to use your old country's weapons and martial law on the colonies. Did they really cross the line?"
"Just because you handle Earth under one nation doesn't mean you need to act all friendly," Albert remarked.
"While Mr. Emmanuel is correct, I'm afraid that I have seen the reports. And I cast a vote to declare war." James sighed. "Anything else?"
"Well, how about we—" Emmanuel stopped and pressed his fingers into his ear. "Mhm... oh... activate level three defenses." He looked at the others with a grim look. "They attacked Mars."
Han-lee gasped while Artyom started cursing in Russian. James looked at Albert before nodding to each other and stood up and took each other seats.
"Wartime council is now in session, we are now at war," Albert told them. "Let these insects know that war is coming, and all Men are now to fire at Xalkia. Let them know that even under the guise of peace, war, war never changes."
| 2019-11-24T16:37:08 | 2019-11-24T14:01:28 | 85 | 60 |
[WP] A tiny dragon must defend his hoard, a single gold coin, from being stolen.
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The bell above the door of the menagerie tinkled as Gilda pushed her way inside, her little arms heaving against the bottom half of it as her father leaned against the upper to aid her entrance. The front-end of the store smelled like freshly struck lightning and midnight herb, its busy shelves and units filled to the brim with cages, foodstuffs, and accessories for the discerning pet owner.
"No, don't touch," Marten said, smiling down at his daughter as she dashed from display to display, inspecting everything as closely as she could. He checked his pocket watch. They had a short while before his wife's appointments were complete. Enough time to indulge the girl's interests for a moment or two.
"Hello there, can I be of any help?" A young lady walked through the screen of faux reeds covering the doorway into the back of the establishment. She pulled thick, blackened gloves from her hands and set them under the countertop.
"We're just looking, thank you," Marten replied, flicking his eyes back to his daughter. But it was too late.
"Yes please!" the girl cried, running to the counter and standing on her toes to see over it. "I want something fierce and wild."
The woman smiled at the girl, and then gave Marten a questioning glance. "Well, would you like to look at something fierce and wild?"
"Yes!" and "No, thank you," said Gilda and Marten at the same time. He sighed and nodded. Perhaps sating the girl's curiosity would be enough. Perhaps not.
"I have just the thing," the woman said, and stepped back behind the screen. Some strange sounds preceded her return. Scratchings and scrabblings. Squawkings and screeches. Marten instinctively stepped closer to his daughter and drew her too him. Gilda didn't seem to notice his concern and tried to pull away, eager to get as close to whatever was in the room beyond.
After a minute or two, the woman returned. A fresh scratch along her arm gave Marten pause, but her poise and tone as she spoke put him at ease.
"This, is a Shuggo."
She lifted her hands, palm open, to display a small, plant-like creature. Its legs, its fronds, splayed outwards from a central flower that pulsed with light and warmth. It wriggled in place, before contracting inwards and leaping off on to the countertop. There, it strutted, gangly limbs neatly intersecting as it marched, to a jug of water near the edge. It threw up one of its limbs and ducked it beneath the surface, rhythmically moving back and forth as it drank.
"Isn't that lovely, Gilda?" Marten asked, reaching out and tentatively stroking one of the Shuggo's frond legs. It recoiled at his initial touch, but after a moment seemed to relax. It buzzed as he stroked it and released a small cloud of pollen.
"She likes you," the woman smiled.
Gilda was less impressed. She leaned as close as she could from beneath the counter, eyes squinting, and pulled a face.
"That's not fierce," she said.
Marten frowned and rolled his eyes at the shop owner.
"We're not here to buy something though, are we dear," he began, but he could already see the tantrum building.
"Alright, alright," he placated. "Do you have something, perhaps of a similar size, that might be more suited to what my daughter is after?
"Of course." The woman nodded deferentially and carefully picked up the Shuggo. It seemed frustrated at its drink being cut short, but soon nestled into the crook of her arm as it was carried back behind the screen.
Marten thought about attempting to leave while she was away. Gilda didn't need another pet. She barely played with the dog they'd bought her last year as it was. But if it could keep her happy for a time, was there much harm? Whatever it was, he could always have one of the help take on the responsibility of caring for it. As long as it wasn't too destructive.
A thin gout of flame shot through the reed screen, singing a black ring in it and causing some to drop to the floor, dark and twising. Marten stepped back instinctively, but Gilda jumped up and down in excitement. The menagerie owner pushed through the screen with a small lizard on her shoulder. It danced between them, beating its miniature wings as it did so.
"They can't quite fly at this age, but youthful Cloud Drakes are boisterous. And fierce," she added, leaning down and winking at Gilda. The girl bounced with excitement and reached forward as the creature leapt onto the counter, swishing its tail aggresively.
Marten reached for his daughter, concern written on his face, but the shop owner beat him to it and placed a calming hand on the dragon, and another on his daughters outstretched hands.
"You mustn't grab him. He's an ornery little fellow when it comes to new faces."
Gilda pulled a sulking face. Marten knew what came next. The prospect of his daughter being burned was no less terrifying.
"We'll take it," he said, hurriedly. "I presume you can supply food and housing for it, also?"
"Naturally," the woman said, reaching for one of the cages along a nearby shelf and placing it down on the countertop.
She leaned down close to the girl and spoke softly, conspiratorially.
"The best way to keep a drake like this under control, is to give it something precious."
She reached behind Gilda's ear and with a flourish, produced a bright, golden coin. It was hard to tell who was more impressed, the girl or the dragon, for they both reached for it at the same time. But the woman was too fast for them both. With a flick of her hand it was gone and then, there it was again, resting on the small rocky outcrop inside the cage.
The drake's scaled ears perked up as it saw it again and it snaked across the countertop and into its new home. It walked in circles around the coin, before nestling itself on top of it, smoke curling from its nostrils.
Marten pulled a face, but the look on his daughter's was enough to cinch the deal. He grimmaced again when he learned the price of the thing, but what was he to do?
"How long do they live?" he asked casually, as the help packed their new purchase into the stagecoach's storage compartment.
"Nobody's quite sure," the woman said, handing a bag of mixed, dried meat to one of the attending servants. "No one person has ever lived long enough to track it. Perhaps 100, perhaps 200 years."
Marten sighed. At least it would be someone else's problem before long.
&#x200B;
Edit: Thanks for reading. If you liked this story, I've just written up [another prompt here](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/bh49xr/wp_the_gamers_have_finally_risen_up/elqyhqx/).
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So full of pride and confidence, as his kind typically were, the tiny dragon stood on his Golden Coin, triumphantly. He had managed to take it by force from this loud and irritating little-human and thus it was now his. His spoils of war from his battle with this human, that seemed no older than 10, was so much larger than him.
It was his powerful bite that had deterred the previous owner from fighting any more, and had instead sent him crying, running from this mighty being! In truth however, this little dragon was barely larger than the gold coin he stood upon, perhaps 5 inches in total, and his bite was no more powerful than that of a middle aged cat. By no means did this make it painless, especially for a child such as the one he had just liberated this gold coin from. However for this little dragon it had been a victory of legendary proportion, his first victory..
"Hah!", the little dragon rejoiced, "keep running pipsqueak, this is MIINE now!" He pointed and shook his finger at the running child mockingly, shouting to him not to return 'or else...'
He then regarded this golden treasure in front of him, shiny and smooth. His own reflection looking back at him with a golden tint, smiling as much as a dragon could.
"Now to get this little beauty back to my treasure pile." He said to himself, before turning to the coin once more and speaking to it "You want to come with me to meet your new friends? Of course you do."
The dragon, so excited and proud, went to pick up the coin with his front two legs. After a few seconds of the all too familiar struggle to pick a coin off of a flat surface, the dragon got a grip.
His struggle would have looked rather amusing if someone had been there to see, like a dog sneaking a biscuit off of a table, having to turn it's head sideways to stand a chance of picking the flat object up. Yet there was nobody there, as after the child had run out of the alley, the dragon had been alone with his glimmering treasure, marvelling in the glorious sight of it.
As he now grasped the precious metal, he spread his mighty wings to encompass a wingspan similar to that of a large ravens, and pushed off his hind legs with a conviction and concentration that is common from those dragons that have only recently begun to fly. As he rose he became more comfortable flapping his decently large, leathery wings, and he flew, now with ease, out of the alley. His golden bounty hanging under him and a gleam in his eye that gave away his pride over the awesome victory over the human he had battled.
As he flew with such purpose and pride, for this tiny treasure he had gained, little could he have guessed how much wealth he would truly accumulate before the end. For this little, seemingly harmless dragon would become, in time, Legend.
| 2019-04-24T04:12:28 | 2019-04-24T03:01:12 | 859 | 65 |
[WP] everyone in the world has a number over their head, but nobody knows why. You have just figured if out.
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My day started like this, with my wife smiling. She kissed me lightly on the forehead on my way to work. It was a long drive by myself. When I arrived at work, everyone else had already started to notice the changes.
Jared and Connie met me outside the doors to the office. That was when I first noticed the numbers. Jared had a 62 and Connie had a 19. The numbers floated and bobbed above their heads. As I walked toward them, the numbers turned, so that I was always facing them. They were smoking more fervently than they normally did. Jared noticed my stare and tapped out some ashes on the ground.
"We have no idea what they mean." He took another drag and Connie blew a puff of smoke in my direction. It wasn't uncommon for her to acknowledge me with a dutiful "Hello" and nothing else.
I took it in surprising stride. "How long ago?"
"30 minutes or so," Jared answered, "Everyone seems to be taking it pretty well. Ever since they appeared they haven't exactly been hurting anyone. We're all just a little freaked out."
I glanced upward stupidly to see nothing. I looked at Jared more than I did Connie. "What does mine say?"
"53" Jared said.
"22" said Connie, in Unison. They shared a glance and looked away awkwardly.
"You each see different numbers?" I asked incredulously.
Connie shook her head in exasperation, "We don't know man. Just try to adapt like everyone else."
She chucked her cigarette to the ground and squashed it like a bug. She
whipped inside leaving Jared and I to follow in her wake. Her number dropped from a 19 to an 18 as she stormed away.
When Jared and I reached our floor, we found everyone huddled around the TV, numbers above their heads reading 27, 24,36,51,18, and 31 from left to right.The pretty news anchor was reading a sheet of paper wide-eyed. The number above her said "0".
I thumbed for my phone in my pocket and dropped my wife a quick text
"You seeing this?" before sliding the phone back into my pocket.
"Is she going to die?" someone asked, simultaneously reaching forward and turning up the volume with the remote.
The anchor was almost crying, "We kindly ask that readers stop calling and texting into the station, trying to alert me that my number says 0. My Mother and Father have called and said that they both see positive digits, well over 60." She finally broke face and sobbed into the camera,
"Please stop. I'm getting scared."
Beth piped up to my left. "I see 0 too. I don't think she's got long left."
They all nodded and I felt myself nodding with them. 0 seemed like an ill omen. A bad number.
"Does everyone see 0?" I asked aloud and 1 by 1 they all agreed.
I turned my attention to a light brush on my arm and a soft "Hey."
I was greeted by a cozy smile. Rebecca and I were close. It had all happened so fast, but my eyes had already gotten accustomed to dragging my eyes upward to spot the number. Rebecca's said, "83."
"Hey back" I said. Her smile was friendly but her eyes were scared. We withdrew into the break room and sat across from each other, starting deeply into each others eyes.
"What do you see above my head?" I asked her and she glanced up, maybe to make sure that it hadn't changed.
"93." She said. "I wish I knew what it meant."
She sighed and reached her hand casually across the table to join mine. I took it, none too reluctantly, with a twinge of guilt. She rubbed her foot against my ankle under the table and when I looked into her eyes to scold her I could see that she was crying.
"I'm sorry...I'm just so scared." she looked up at me, pouting lips quivering. "I feel so safe when I'm around you."
I watched the number change from "83" to 84" and suddenly I knew what the number meant. Maybe not outright, but somewhere deep in my gut I knew.
My pocket buzzed and I flipped out my phone, withdrawing my hand from her grasp to do so.
"I know, its so crazy. Boss let us leave early. See you at home."
I flipped it shut. Rebecca reached across the table and grabbed my hand again tenderly.
"Please don't go."
I wanted to stay and spend more time with her, but I needed to be home. Despite what the 91 above my head and the 84 above her head implied.
"I can't." I told her and stood up to leave. The number on her head changed from 84 down to 82 abruptly.
As I left, she called out to me. "I don't blame you for choosing her so much."
I barely stopped to talk to my boss and his floating "48" to let him know that I was heading home to be with my wife and family. Who knew he liked me that much?
When I stepped in the door, I was greeted by Terrance, the black lab. He rubbed his nose against my leg, tail wagging happily and in perfect beat with the "100" dancing over his head.
"Alex? You home?" my wife called from upstairs. She plodded down as I rounded the kitchen, meeting her at the bottom of the stairs. Staring at her forehead.
When she reached the bottom, she sighed. "72 huh? Any idea what it means?"
I didn't answer her, only staring at the dancing figures above her head.
"Alex?" She asked, a hint of concern. "What does mine say?"
"27". I thought. Only 9 higher than Connie.
"Alex?" She repeated. "What does mine say?"
"Only 27?" I asked her, trying the best to hide the growing knot in my stomach.
She shrugged, "What do you mean only? Its just a number."
When I didn't answer she smiled, just like she had done this morning.
"Don't worry about it. What do you want for dinner?" she said, still smiling.
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We had to learn living with it. It had been years since the first ones begun to appear. I think everyone remembers when it all started. At the beginning you’d see it in the news, a couple of people from all over the world showed up in the news showing the holographic number above their heads. We thought it was a hoax.
But then it spread all over the world, out friends were getting them, our families, ourselves. We didn’t do anything, they just appeared. Everyone made theories, the scientists tried to find a real reason, but nothing happened. After a while, when no answer was found, people gave up looking for answers and moved on, the numbers weren’t doing anything anyway.
In fact, it became more of a joke. People would make fun of the ones with bigger numbers, considering that the closer to zero was considered better. Others would try to make sequences with their friends.
It was years before something happened. It was just another day when the ships arrived all over the world. Each ship had a number, and each ship would pick up the people with those numbers.
We ran for our lives, hugged our loved ones, avoided being abducted. No one wanted to give up their life. The ships were faster though, within a month they had everybody. Our numbers disappeared and we had to try to come up with a plan to escape with all these new people whom we we stuck with. Our biggest problem was the language.
We lost track on how long we’d been travelling. When it finally ended, we had arrived to an earth like planet. Who knew where in the universe were we. We never saw those who captured us, they were always covered.
Their explanation is that our planet was on the verge of exploding, that they helped us. Through studies decided in which community we would progress more, hence the numbers. so far they’ve been friendly, but we feel there’s another reason. Now all we have to do is find a way to find their breaking point to tell us the truth.
| 2014-06-04T18:03:01 | 2014-06-04T10:30:58 | 24 | 14 |
[WP] Superhero vigilantism is not allowed. All service to the public good is either through the Justice Department Enhanced Response Bureau or the US Marine Corp Special Abilities Brigade. SuperVILLAIN work... is always freelance.
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Almost as soon as it had started, the fight was over. Redfield surveyed the wreckage that moments before had been Dr. Dreadnaught’s Doomsday Doodad. The doctor himself lay unconscious amid the debris. Redfield fistpumped and turned around beaming as the rest of the team crawled out of their hiding spots. It was his first field-mission and he had taken out a Class A villain single-handedly.
“What the *hell* was that?” Captain Chrono asked, dropping down from a tree.
“Oh that?” Redfield smiled, feeling smug. “I call it the Psionic Roundhouse. Basically I channel energy into the heel of my—”
“Wipe that shit eating grin off your face Rookie!” Captain Chrono snarled. “I’ll *tell* you what that was. It was reckless! Careless! Impulsive! You nearly jeopardized the entire mission!”
Redfield scratched his head. “I’m confused,” he said after a moment. “The mission was to stop Dr. Dreadnought, and I stopped him. Am I missing something there?”
“You were only meant to be *bait!* We had a plan, and you shat all over it!”
Redfield shrugged. “I saw an opening and I took it. Candidly sir, I think the result speaks for itself.”
“It does speak for itself. And you know what it says?” Captain Chrono spoke in a high-pitched mocking tone. “*My name is Redfield and I DON'T KNOW MY HEAD FROM MY ASS!* Jesus Christ, rookie. Did you even stop to think what would’ve happened if that little kick of yours *hadn’t* worked? If we had given Dr. Dreadnought the opportunity to press the shiny red button on his Doomsday Doodad?"
“I cast a containment field around the Doodad *before* the roundhouse. If he had detonated it he’d have been spacebound.”
A vein bulged at the side of Captain Chrono's neck. "Kid, this isn't a one-man show. We're a team, we had a plan, and you botched it. And don’t even get me *started* on that cheeky little dialogue the two of you had. What the hell was that? Next time, stick to the goddamn script!”
“That was just some good old fashioned pre-battle banter. It’s my brand, sir.”
“Your brand? Your *BRAND?!* I swear to god rookie, you're going to give me an aneurysm. You’re not some bottom feeding street vigilante anymore! You don’t *have* a brand! You know what? Recruiting you was a mistake. Once a bottom feeder always a bottom feeder. Hand me your badge, we’re wiping your clearances.”
Redfield's jaw clenched. He stifled a retort and took a deep breath instead. “I apologize sir. It won’t happen again.”
“You’re damn right it won’t. Your badge, rookie. I said you’re done and I meant it.”
“Please sir, I—”
“Your badge! Now! You're terminated from SAB, effective immediately.”
Redfield wracked his brain for anything else to say, but it was clear Captain Chrono had made up his mind. He wouldn’t give Captain Chrono the satisfaction of begging, at least not more than he already had. He slapped a hand to his chest, ripped the badge off his vest and threw it to the ground.
“Do you know why I started out as a vigilante?" Redfield asked, feeling a sudden clarity.
“No and I don't care.”
"It was to fight bullies like you. Those who take pleasure in controlling others. It's my way or the highway—that's your motto isn't it? You're so high on the bureaucratic power handed to you by virtue of your position that you've lost the ability to recognize *true* power."
"What the hell are you on about?"
"When SAB recruited me I had great respect for the organization. We fought for the same cause, so I thought we were cut from the same cloth. I see now that's not the case. We're nothing more than your minions *Captain,*" Redfield spat the word. "And you're nothing more than a bully."
"Oh I see what this is." Captain Chrono smiled and entered a fighting stance. "Pre-battle banter, right?"
“Close but not quite." Redfield said, returning the smile. "Banter is for vigilantes, but like you said, those days are behind me. This is a *monologue.*”
***
More of my favorite pieces at r/Banana_Scribe
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No government agency is fully good, especially when they got superpowers. This means that I'm going to gather up everyone that's been dealt a bad hand in life, especially if it was from the agencies. Then, I'll be a background mastermind. In public, I might hold an advanced position within either of the agencies, but I'll have my hands in both. I won't hurt innocent people, but I will do what I have to do to those who oppose me and don't want to join me.
But of course, this is fancy me-speak for saying, "yes, I'm a supervillain."
| 2021-04-18T18:27:59 | 2021-04-18T17:11:48 | 136 | 14 |
[WP] As an immortal, you’ve spent a decent chunk of your time learning new languages. Exhausted, you attempt to order coffee from a shop. This ends up going… poorly.
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Hayar knew everything there was to know about every single language there was since she was born, and even those that existed before she did. It wasn't a brag, merely a statement of fact. She was comfortable in the knowledge that she had experienced far more in her lifetime than any of the people she was surrounded by. After all, she'd seen kingdoms rise and fall. She'd seen cities burn, cultures blossom and fade from glory, and she'd seen all the people she loved die.
On second thought, let's move on. She'd rather not talk about that.
Hayar enjoyed traveling. It helped her exercise her brain, keep it sharp. She couldn't imagine living the rest of her existence without exploring everything the world had to offer. Hayar was thinking about writing everything down, since her memory only worked so well. She felt that she owed it to people, after all, so they might learn not repeat their forefathers’ mistakes. She was hopelessly optimistic, to a fault.
Problem is, she wasn’t sure which language to write it all down in.
Currently, she was exploring English. She was in its homeland, though the place had changed since the last time she’d been to what they now called the UK. She found herself in London, the capital. She’d heard about it – in the last five hundred years, it had gone from a small town to a bustling metropolis, full of cars and buses and lights. To any old person, it would be overwhelming. But over the years, Hayar’s senses had dulled to the outside world. She’d spent so much time with only herself, practicing the nuances of how languages were evolving nowadays.
The world had changed a lot in such a short period of time. It wasn’t scary to her. She’d seen change like this before. The world would right itself, eventually. She was just a wanderer, an observer, a memory bank.
Even if her body was immortal, it still had needs. She’d learned the hard way that even if she starved herself, she wouldn’t die. Hayar’s stomach grumbled. Scanning the street she was on, Hayar noticed there was a coffee shop just a block down. She quickened her pace, and ducked in.
It was just before the lunch rush began, so Hayar had her time to laze about and browse the menu. It was just above the head of the barista, a slim man with a flat-top hairstyle and a big 1990s-style sweatshirt.
Hayar knew English. She’d known the language for centuries now. She knew how it changed, how it shifted. And she knew how people spoke nowadays, especially in Western society.
“Coffee, please.”
The barista stared at her blankly. “What?” He asked.
Hayar was sure he could understand her accent. She’d tested it on every sort of English speaker she knew. From an ESL instructor in China to an Irish shepherd to a Texan, they could all understand her. “I want a coffee, please.”
The barista’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Be more specific? “What do you mean?”
“We have different types of coffee,” The barista said, rolling his eyes, “You’ve been to a coffeeshop before, haven’t you? We have lattes, cappuccinos, drip, flat whites, macchiatos, cold brews, etc.”
“Actually, I haven’t.” Hayar said in shock. “Not in a…few years, anyway.” More like thirty.
The barista looked immediately apologetic. His eyes widened. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” He said. “I’m just frustrated, this happens a lot. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Hayar said. “I can just go somewhere else.”
“No, no, it’s okay.” The barista said. “Here, lemme get this for you. I’ll make you a latte.”
He didn’t just make her a latte – he also served her a pan au chocolate, too. It was delicious. She sat in the café, people-watching, listening to the influx of language that surrounded her. Despite the earlier incident, Hayar loved it.
When she finished her meal, she handed the empty cup and plate back over to the countertop. The barista from earlier came back up to her.
“Again, I’m so sorry ma’am.” He said.
“It’s alright.” Hayar responded. “I understand, I get frustrated too.”
The barista regarded her for a second. “What’s your name?” He asked.
“Hayar.”
“I’m Mason.” He said. “How about I make it up to you tonight? Dinner?”
A thrum of fear passed through Hayar. She didn’t like getting close. She didn’t know how to speak that language. But she was interested.
“Sure.”
\-----
**Thank you for reading! This is actually a warm up story and also actually a re-write of a chapter in a project I'm already working on. If you're interested in reading it, let me know!**
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So, I am standing in the line for the coffee shop, another decade,another day. My mind is half distracted, remembering that one girl in the 800s that was so charming, and the love we shared for each other, before she eventually passed away, her an old woman at 80, me still looking like the day I met her as I watched her breath the last breaths of her life in my hands while she held a hand to my cheek and remember it slipping down and a stream of tears flowing from my eyes. I will always love you, I say to her. I have been in so much pain that centuries have passed, but i stayed in the same spot for all my life, building my house on the very spot that we lived and she died. It’s my turn to order, I walk up and tell the Barista my order. She’s puzzled , and tells me respectfully, “Sir, I’m afraid I dont speak that language. Would you possibly point to the item you want?”. My mind slips away from the past and I realize I was speaking the ancient tongue I used to converse with her in. I smile and say, “Apologies, just practicing for my language class.” And proceed to place my order in perfect English. Another day, Another Decade. She still won’t lose her grip on my heart.
| 2021-10-28T10:06:25 | 2021-10-28T08:16:09 | 116 | 26 |
[WP] Top sorcerers study the child. It's been more than 24 hours since he was hit with an instant death spell, but he still lives. One of the sorcerers decides to call the Grim Reaper to ask what's up.
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THIS IS AWKWARD, thought Death.
Death appeared as death tends to, suddenly and without warning. The sorcerors of the Royal Academy of Mystery and Magic all crowded around a girl sitting on a long examination table, stroking their chins and smoothing their starry velvet robes. A physiker checked the girl's pulse while a warder waved a smoking talisman around the girl's head. Death cleared its throat.
The sorcerors turned to the high arched doorway and gave a collective start. Xarius Rakuul, the necromancer, beamed. "Master! You received my message."
Death stifled a sigh. All of Rakuul's *messages* went straight into the bin. Fan mail, bah. But this message—sealed in black wax and affixed with the Academy's emblem—Death decided to open. A child had survived a death curse. Had Death found the one?
INDEED, said death, gliding across the brightly lit medical ward to the examination table. Ink-black smoke trailed behind Death as it moved. The sorcerors crowded around the girl gasped and backed away from the examination table like cats hissing at a hellhound. Rakuul sank to the marbled floor and bowed his head, muttering prayers in the Stygian tongue. *Cultists*.
The girl stared off into the distance, her dark eyes unfocused. She hadn't looked up at Death once since appearing. Her skin clung to her bones making her high cheeks sharp and her chin severe. Had Famine gotten to her first? It didn't matter. Death would know soon enough if it found an heir.
NECROMANCER, death said. RAISE YOUR HEAD. WHAT ARE THE PARTICULARS?
The physiker sniffed and shot Death a sideways glance as she continued to examine the girl. Ah yes, an enemy of Death. "One of the apprentices fired off a death curse at Lorelai—and she survived. As to how the boy learned such a curse—" She glowered down at the necromancer. "—no one will say."
The necromancer raised his head, clasping his hands to his chest. "I was merely spreading your influence, master. Another recruit in service to you!"
"He's a child, Xarius!" the physiker shouted. "These are children, not recruits!"
Death raised a skeletal hand. An ill wind blew through the medical ward.
The room went still except for Xarius who continued his muttered prayers from the floor.
Death gently raised the girl's chin with the tip of its first finger. Her eyes came into focus. "Hello," she said. "Is it time?"
NO, said Death. NOT FOR YOU, IT SEEMS. WHO ARE YOUR PARENTS?
The girl tilted her head. Her matted-up hair hardly shifted. "Papa is papa. And mama is mama. But they're... gone."
Death stared into the girl's big dark eyes. She stared back, unblinking. Her soul linked with Death's presence and information flooded its awareness. Her life before her apprenticeship into the Academy—all ten years of it—flashed in snippets.
*A child born in the Borderlands. A war-torn region. Death had visited often, enough to find a tranquil hill overlooking the ravaged valley where it gazed at the region between cullings. Death followed Lorelei. Fetching water from the well. Chasing dustrats with the other children well into the night. The whistle of flintrocks as they rained down on houses. Fresian soldiers marching into the valley. The acrid smoke. Digging out loved ones from the rubble. The screaming. The numbness. The acceptance.*
YES, said Death. THEY ARE, GONE. BUT YOU ARE NOT, LORELAI MORGULIS. HOW CURIOUS.
The necromancer jumped to his feet and presented death a long wicked dagger with a red ruby tipped on the hilt. The ruby glowed with the necrotic essence stored within. "Shall we correct the error, master?" the necromancer asked.
"No!" the physiker shouted, shoving her way in between the necromancer and the girl. "Are you mad, Xarius?"
"Mad?" Xarius chuckled. "Madness is defying the natural order. Madness is spitting in the face of Death. That is what this child has done, Marta. Her existence is an *affront* to my master!"
"And what of you!" the physiker shouted back. "Your practices warp the nature of death itself. You're a hypocrite!"
ENOUGH! Death's voice boomed, shaking the medical ward. Instruments rattled. Sorcerors covered their ears. It was futile. This voice spoke directly to the soul. Some collapsed, babbling uncontrollably as they writhed around on the ground. Lorelai was unphazed.
Death reached out a hand to Lorelai, the girl raised by war and loss. DO YOU WISH TO COME WITH ME?
Lorelai looked up to Death. "Depends. Do you have food?"
Death laughed. It hadn't done that since the Order of Ourobous tried to kill him two centuries ago. PLENTY, it said.
Lorelai took Death's hand and hopped off the table. The necromancer and the physiker were too busy wrestling over the dagger to notice. The other sorcerors dared not interfere. Together, Death and Lorelai glided across the medical ward. A violet swirling energy filled the arched doorway, a portal to Death's realm.
I HAVE NEVER HAD AN APPRENTICE, Death said, reaching out to the portal. THIS MAY BE... AWKWARD, AT FIRST.
"It's alright," said Lorelai. "Anything's better than master Xarius."
That, Death decided, was for certain.
They entered the portal, Death and Lorelai, the undying heir.
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"I'm already here," came the voice that was not a voice but rather meaning conveyed by the sound of a shovel of dirt landing on a coffin.
"Oh," said Palpator, "I was just going to... I guess you know that."
"Yes," said the sound of a smoker's first bloody cough.
"So... do you understand what's going on?" he asked.
There was a long silence that did not say anything in particular followed by the sound of a wolf spotting prey that said, "No."
Palpator stared at the hooded figure and his jaw fell open as he considered the response. The idea that death itself did not know why the child lived was not just bizarre, it was impossible. It went against the nature of the universe. It made his eyes bulge in apoplexy and his moustache twitch, made his head ache with the insanity. He suddenly felt very faint and almost fell but the dark figure caught him by the shoulder. "Thank you," said Palpator.
"I was already here," said the sound of the wind turning toward a reef.
A scrabbling sound came from behind them and Agatan turned and started running toward the spot, causing Palpator to turn and witness his own body spasming in an undignified manner on the floor.
"That's me," said Palpator.
"Yes."
"I'm dead?"
"Yes."
"And you still donpt know what's going on?"
"Not about the child," said the sound of a knife slipping between the 3rd and fourth vertebrae. Death opened his robe and efficiently shoved the soul of Palpator into a sack; he could wait.
| 2021-12-13T06:32:04 | 2021-12-13T03:59:54 | 23 | 14 |
[WP] Group of space Marines travels via a stargate like portal to an "virgin" world. However due to passing a black hole, each Marine arrives 100 years after the Marine in front of them, instead of 1-5 seconds.
Due to the portal queuing up the dozen or so Marines for 1200 years, travel to point of origin is not an option(it won't work until all the marines have made it through). Explain what each Marine sees as they step out of the portal, to discover they are alone, and possible viewing the remains/artifacts of those who came before them, and or the civilization created by those in front of them with native peoples.
|
Cpl. Smythe (That's Sm-EYE-the, not Smith, damnit!) took two long steps forward from the event horizon and took a knee. Rifle at a low ready position, he scanned the immediate area for cover, concealment, threats... anything and everything a U.E. Marine might need to know about a new world. His helmet HUD blinked a small note in the corner.
"Breathable atmosphere."
Smythe always thought that was a funny message. Any atmosphere was breathable... you just might not survive the experience for long. You could breathe pure methane, right up until you died. Now, a "survivable" atmosphere was something to take note of. Alas, the software coders had not consulted one Corporal Alan Smythe of the United Earth Marine Corp when they programmed the Conquistador Armor Mk 3c. (A name he also had some thoughts on... and was not consulted on.)
Damn... what was taking them so long? Smythe spared a quick glance behind him. The portal shimmered light blue but was otherwise absent of activity.
Private Dean was probably crapping his pants and holding the platoon up, Smythe figured. He gazed deep into the night around him, waiting. Strange willowy trees waved gently as a breeze passed by. Two moons gave ample light to see by, though one of them was rather small. The sounds of local wildlife slowly filled the silence the portal's flash of energy had created.
"For fucks sake," Smythe half turned to face the portal. "Get over over here!" Not that anyone would hear him. The portal was a one way street. Nothing, no radio waves, light, hard matter or even telepathy (so he was told) would pass "upstream." That said... He should be getting SOMETHING over the radio. They should have at least let him know they were delayed. All he got was static.
It took 15 minutes for him start exploring the clearing around him. It turned out that the portal had dumped him atop clearing, with scattered trees and shrubs, bordered by a sheer seaside cliff to the northeast, forest from the south from the cliff face about 105 yards from the portal and arcing down and around to the west. From there the trees vanished into the horizon. The western arc was dominated by rocky outcropping that gave way to more trees until northern compass point, where the cliff face fell into the sea.
It took another two hours before he gave up standing watch and started to clear a Bivouac.
It was a day before he ventured into the forest.
Three days before he shot and killed his first Deerasaurus, the local large prey animal that he whimsically named.
A week and two days before started to build a rough cabin with a camping hatchet and his entrenching tool.
A month before he took stones from the cliff and rock pile to build a fire place for the oncoming winter.
Five months before he seriously contemplated killing himself for the first time.
Six months before the spring thaw.
Seven months before he started to experiment with local vegetables in a garden.
A year and two months before his ammunition ran out. (Careful use of ammo while hunting, using snares instead of bullets, etc.)
Four years until he started to carve out a stairway down the cliff face to the water below.
Five years before he slipped on the steps on his way home and broke his leg.
Smythe was able to drag himself into his cabin and record one last journal entry before he died.
Private Dean took three quick steps forward, covering his sector, and took a knee. The dark of night enveloped him. Which had no effect on him. At all. None.
He took a deep steadying breath and hoped that Smythe didn't see his fear. He shot a quick glance to Smythe... and found he wasn't there. For that matter, Dyson wasn't behind him, either.
Oh. Shit.
Dean collected himself after the sun came up. He saw the old and dilapidated cabin and decided he may as well investigate while the rest of the squad had a good laugh at his expense. The door opened and Dean froze. There were too many conflicting sights.
A suit of Conquistador Armor (awesome name, he thought) was standing in the corner, albeit in poor condition. a rough table a chair had been hewn from the local wood and a skeleton had collapsed from it to the ground. On the table were the implements from a field kit... and a Marine Issue TaComp.
After watching Smythe's last log, Dean cried for about an hour and then pulled his side arm and killed himself.
First Lieutenant Maddox shielded his eyes from the bright sun as he came out of the portal. Once he could see again he noticed right off that his two men were out of place. Dean was no surprise, really, but Smythe knew better.
After he waited for ten minutes for the net man to show, he investigated the nearly fallen-in shack. The wood had rotted and then turned hard as a rock over the years, but the four corners and roof and somehow stood the test of time. The door had not.
Maddox found the remains of Dean with the shattered skull and the drawn sidearm telling him all he needed to know about that. The skeleton with the missing leg was interesting until he found the broken Tibia and the companion Fibia under a fallen suit or rusted out armor. Maddox collected the TaComp from the table. Dean had at least put it inside an air tight food pouch, which helped preserve it. He hooked it up to his suits Solar collector and waited for it to charge. The manufacturer had sworn that the onboard coincell battery would last longer than the sun. Maddox never thought he might get a chance to test that.
An hour of exploring later and he was able to watch Smythe's last will and testament.
"I'm sorry boss. I tried." Smythe's bearded face was worn and stretched with pain. "But I took tumble down the stairs and broke my leg. I don't think I can make this by myself. Hell, I bleed out a lot before I made it back home."
Smythe's image sighed.
"Home. I guess this really is home, now. Strange. Never thought about it like that before. Wish I had."
He hung his head for a moment, then winced.
"I'm gonna take the last of the Morphine. I can feel myself going. It's just... I can't bounce back from this one, boss." Smythe looked back into the camera. "But before I send myself into the great beyond, you need to know some things."
Smythe talked about the Deerasaurus, some recipes for them, what he found was good to grow and when, where the root cellar entrance was, the best way to cut down a tree. How to find good water. The native materials for snares and where the stairway project lay, still unfinished.
He talked about ways to stay sane. Things to not do in the winter months. That spurred on thoughts of how to survive the winter months.
Finally, after a half an hour, Smythe was done. He said his goodbyes and stopped recording.
Maddox sat back on his chosen rock and stared at the Portal.
And began to plan.
|
"You got a smoke?" I ask Juarez, "just staring at this thing freaks me out." I say gesturing toward the large metal doorway that seems to lead straight into the darkness of hell.
"It's a portal man, didn't you pay any attention during the briefing?" Juarez passes a cigarette over my shoulder. I put the military issue lighter to use and exhale some of my trepidations away. I see several of the specialists ahead of me staring straight ahead, unwavering, as if they have done this a thousand times before. I feel as though I'm doing my first atmospheric jump.
Juarez is the only one I knew before the briefing, we did two tours on Mars during the uprising of colony eight. What a mess that was.
"You getting in your head again man? You gotta be calm during these things." He says as the squad leader begins coming down the line.
"Attention!" Captain Morris begins, and everyone straightens up. "Today we are going to take another step into the unknown, as you all know, we are traveling to Kelper-186f, it is 490 light years from our solar system and we will be making the trip in the blink of an eye. Our mission is to secure the perimeter and set up a return portal. Supply's will arrive one hour after Thompson had breached the portal."
"Hoorah!" I say in unison with everyone else and Captain Morris makes his way towards the portal and is consumed by the black abyss. The line begins to shuffle forward.
"Here take the pack," Juarez nudges my shoulder, "I'm not going to be able to get them there man, so I should just quit now." Somehow he has always managed to lighten the mood. I put the cigarettes into my left cargo pocket.
Four marines through, so far it seems painless. Three more, then it's my turn. I puff on my cigarette trying to kill it before it's my turn. I put the cigarette out on my boot, flick it through the portal, which gets a few looks from the white coats behind the computers, and turn to Juarez. "See you on the other side." I close my helmet and turn towards the void.
Everything goes white.
That looks familiar I think as what looks like stone quickly fills my vision. I put my hands out to brace myself, but I'm already on the ground. I start to get up, but my body feels tired. Everything has a dull ache. My willpower kicks in and I turn over then sit up.
As I take in my surroundings I see what looks like a vast expanse of rock that stretches in every direction. I look for any signs of habitation and I find it right below my feet. In a hole that seems to be blasted out of the earth sits a metallic object. As I pick it up, I realize it is Coopers dog tag, it seems to be slightly bent and has some sort of black marking on it. I turn it over, and it is slightly more legible on this side.
It reads "run."
| 2014-09-02T11:27:55 | 2014-09-02T10:00:19 | 84 | 16 |
[WP] Among Alien species humans are famous for prefering pacifism but being the most dangerous species when they are forced to fight.
EDIT:WOW THIS EXPLODED GUYS MY FIRST MAJOR PROMPT.
|
“It is currently the halfway point of the 57th millennial conference of the Galactic Federation,” the shrill voice of the insectoid Kel’Tari announcer rang out through telecasters across the galaxy, “diplomats, leaders, warriors and scientists from all the sentient races in the galaxy have made their way to Sol III, the current seat of power to discuss matters of trade and business, research and development, and war and peace. The conference is being broadcasted via subspace connections to every sentient race that has entered the Federation, as this conference is a *momentous* occasion!”
“Indeed, Sli’thel,” the reptilian Shathassa said, “for this millennial conference will be the first time that Humanity has the seat of power. Most races have to wait for *dozens* of millennia after joining the federation to even be a *candidate* for such an honour, yet these plucky fellows managed to take the seat of power after a mere *three millennia*. Just *how* did they do it, Thel?”
“Well, Syron,” Sli’Thel responded, “we all know the story of how Humanity was discovered. About 3 and a half millennia ago, we found a Human exploration vessel out near the system Humans called “Tau Ceti”, our home system. How that vessel managed to travel 12 light years without falling apart or killing its crew, I have no idea!” The Kel’Tari and Shathassa looked at each other and chuckled for a moment, before turning back to the cameras. “Anyway, we found this vessel, patched it up and gave them some junk parts that we had lying around for a few decades. You know, ion drives, a few dated star maps and the like. You know, my grandfather was there when those Humans arrived, it’s said he was the first alien to “shake hands” with one of them!”
“How could I forget, Thel? You bring it up at every opportunity you can!” Syron laughed, “and then we all know what happened next. For those of you who don’t understand human physiology, they have an average life expectancy of only 150 Terran solar cycles. That’s less than a quarter of the lifespan of a Marenor! For them, life seems to pass by really quickly, and if there’s anything we can learn from the Humans, it’s the power to seize the day. Those of us who live for millennia, like myself and Sli’Thel here, can spend decades and even centuries just slumbering away. But for a human, a day without work is a day wasted.”
“That’s right, Syron,” Sli’Thel said, “knowing that, it’s no surprise that within a mere century, Humanity had transformed the Sol System into a powerhouse of industry and production. There were orbital shipyards under construction, asteroid strip-mining operations underway, terraforming of the nearby rocky planets and there was even discussion of something called a *“Dyson Sphere”*! Had we known the effect we would have on these Humans, we probably would have given them a bit less! But still, we had nothing to fear. After all, there was no sign of weaponry being produced.”
“Indeed, Humans seemed to be the most peaceful race out there. Especially after the last race to join the Federation was the bloodthirsty Xyxxas warrior race,” Sylon shuddered as an image of the burning of Shathass popped up on televisor screens across the galaxy. “A few centuries of peace passed, and Humanity slowly expanded their fleets and territories. Within roughly five hundred Terran solar cycles, Humanity went from a mere seven billion citizens to over *ten trillion*! Heck, if they made an army, I’d be heading across to Andromeda in a flash!”
“Andromeda would be the last place you’d want to go, Sylon,” Sli’Thel chuckled, “after all, that’s where the Genestealers came from! Those thrice-damned insectoids who tore our planets apart and turned our own genetic code against us! The Xyxxas were the first to fall, our first and last line of defence. But what can you do when you’re fighting a genetically superior version of yourself? Surprisingly, the Humans were the ones to offer shelter to the survivors. Over the next few standard cycles, we watched worlds burn and races turn against each other. And then it happened.”
“And that’s my cue,” Sylon jumped in, “after all, it was the over newly rebuilt Shathass where this part of the story takes place. The Genestealers were ready to blast our homeworld into asteroids, when out of nowhere their ships simply exploded out of the sky. Within less than a Terran standard week, reports were coming out from all over the place of Genestealer fleets just exploding in the skies. It wasn’t until a few standard weeks later that we scanned the battle sites and found wreckage from ion drives embedded in the Genestealer ships.”
“Ion drives that *we* gave to the Humans less than a millennium ago,” Sli’Thel interjected, “Those Humans managed to jury-rig some cloaking drives, create some ion-drive powered torpedoes and *then* build the damned things in less than a Terran month! It wasn’t until this point that we decided to look through their histories, and what we discovered was shocking. They constantly fought amongst themselves and had the art of war down to a precise science. And yet, they showed no signs of this hostility until the fight with the Genestealers. We were horrified at what we unleashed upon the galaxy. And yet…”
“And yet,” Sylon continued where Sli’Thel trailed off, “we have seen no signs of this violence since the annihilation of the Genestealers. The Humans simply returned to Sol where they directed relief forces to the Xyxxas systems as well as the systems of the other survivors. The veterans of their battles died within a matter of decades and to the Humans, the bloodthirsty nature of their ancestors seemed but a distant memory. But those battles were only two generations ago for some of us, and we will not forget just how powerful Humanity can be.”
“Hang on, Sylon, I’m just going to have to cut you off there. It looks like one of the new Gloord diplomats has just grabbed the genitals of a Jarri instead of their tentacles!” Sli’Thel laughed, “we’re cutting to the live feed now. And it does not look- oooh, there goes his head. At least, I *think* that’s his head…”
***
*Long time, no writing. It's been several months since I last wrote something and the last time I wrote something good was a month or two before that ;)*
*I do hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it, and if you did, you should check out the other few short stories I've written over on /r/WritingThePunLife. Maybe I'll write some more over the coming weeks, or maybe I'll just forget about this again. I'm a terrible person.*
|
Log: forming clear thoughts before my tribunal hearing which I'm quite sure Is being planned as I write this.
Marshall-Borge De Rosche,
I've never seen damage like this, my fleet looks like it's been in a battle with an asteroid belt.... and lost.
It was a routine resource run, our argon levels were critically low. Probably because a certain researcher insists on searing a hole through every-single-comet that we pass. What information he hopes to garner from this, I have no idea. But, I digress.
A situation handled early, is a problem avoided. So, even though it's generally "against protocol" I decided we would use the gas cloud scrubbers to hopefully siphon some argon from a planet in our immediate vicinity.
Just as a reminder to myself, Raeu and I are going to have a little chat about work ethics and attention to detail once I'm cleared of charges.
In hindsight, "peaceful natives, passive as a narwak" probably meant "we didn't see any explosions during our fly over."
Slacker.
I should have suspected something when I saw a Percerrus frigate on the ice sheets of northern hemisphere, it looked mostly okay, apart from the gaping gnarled hole where the engine room is supposed to be.
I really don't want to write this section.
We were positioned in a spherical spread along the atmospheric limit of the planet.
I gave the order to begin harvesting.
Then we went on with our usual routines.
4 hours later Zyter starts screaming nonsense over the fleet frequency.
His ship goes straight down and splashes into the ocean, we still haven't made contact.
Uly was next, though she was lucky and only lost communications and long term life support systems.
She's currently hiding out in a darkened crater on a nearby satellite. Probably jittering like a lunatic.
Next was my ship, an iron disc about the size of my head smashed the scrubbers. So I withdrew the lines to protect other ships.
I noticed then that there were white plumes spreading out over large patches of undeveloped land.
I blinked and it was over, everything was utterly trashed. A complete disaster, apart from Uly; every captain was either in a pod or dead and Uly was neither reachable nor in a position to be of help to anyone besides herself and her crew.
The clever savages had vaporized water with explosives and launched countless iron discs at my fleet.
I had heard something about a Perccerus fleet that went missing in this sector. I think I solved the mystery.
Seeing as I've got nothing but time on my hands until these little savages decide to reload, or the major rescues my fleet. I am making a judgement call and reclassifying this system in our maps as hazardous territory.
| 2016-03-13T18:37:08 | 2016-03-13T17:43:47 | 63 | 24 |
[WP] A young gay dragon has to explain to his parents why he is only kidnapping princes
|
From time to time, Volo's father Vultrex flew by his cave. Each time, the young dragon unfurled his spindly wings and hissed at his father disapprovingly. "Give me some heads up," he'd say in their ancient tongue. "I've only asked you a thousand times."
Vultrex was always sticking his nose where it was unwelcome. He was too big, and too imposing, and he inevitably ruined everything. His blacktipped horns would scrape the walls Volo had so lovingly adorned with silk garments, or his thick tail would knock askance beautiful porcelain vases hand-painted in the Orient. Once, he'd even been clumsy enough to knock over the statue of Prince Alamar himself. Volo shrieked wildly when he saw the gold paint had chipped right between Alamar's emerald eyes. "Why are you even here?" Volo had hissed. Though, he already knew the answer. Each time his father visited it was all in the name of: "Just seeing what you're up to..."
Volo could decipher that code easily enough.
Most dragons Volo's age had made a name for themselves. They'd burned entire caches of stored grain, earning the ire of some local count. Or they'd pillaged mountainside villages for their flock of goats. It was considered an outright sin if you hadn't earned your first bounty by the age of three. Volo was five, and he'd never so much as puffed a fireball. Every time his father stopped by, Volo could hear the disappointment in his voice. He feigned interest, sure enough, but Volo could tell he'd rather be out huffing smoke or tasting blood.
"A fine piece of gold, son," his father once said, picking at a golden necklace snatched from the top of Volo's glistening pile of trinkets. "We should fly off past the mountains some time and see if we can't find more of its like, eh? Build up a true dragon's hoard!"
Volo hardly casted a glance in his direction. The dainty necklace dangling between his father's massive talons was one of an identical set of six. Plus, a trip beyond the mountains sounded taxing and sweaty.
"Yeah..Yeah, maybe some day dad."
Then, as always, the look of paternal disappointment.
All Volo was really interested in was Prince Alamar. He was simply wonderful. He dressed in the finest silk, embroidered in a green that perfectly complemented his eyes. Plus, he was an absolute charmer. Tales of his deeds amongst the poor traveled their way through the nobility, and thus through the ranks of dragons who kidnapped them. Princesses would wax poetic over his strong jawline, or the way with which he disposed of a group of alleyway bandits.
There, in Volo's eyes, lay a true prize. The other dragons could keep their cows and their burned villages. Their ditzy princesses were worth even less.Volo wanted himself a prince.
One day, he got what he wished for. Volo was rolling in a flowered meadow when Alamar came galavanting over on a white horse. Volo practically seized with excitement. "Hellfire!" shouted Alamar, reigning in his horse as Volo made his descent. He threw up his arms. "Whatever shall I do?"
"You'll be quiet, if you please," Volo said with glee. "You're mine now."
They flew to Volo's cave, where Volo set the prince down gently and asked if he was hungry.
"Famished actually," Alamar smiled. "Have you anything to roast?"
"Well, I haven't much practice," Volo said. "But I could kill you a cow."
"That would be lovely."
Volo quickly flew to a meadow and slaughtered a cow, roasting it with fire from his own throat. The meat was so well-browned it might have even made his father proud. The Prince heaped thanks upon him and ate greedily.
Of course, it wasn't long after that Volo's father came knocking. Volo had just begun lavishing the prince with all sorts of praise for his good deeds, but when he saw his father's form on the horizon, his happiness deflated.
"Perhaps he'd want to chat?" Alamar asked, as Volo reluctantly returned his horse into his possession. "Surely, he's as lovely a dragon as yourself?"
"Trust me," Volo said dismally. "He wouldn't understand." With bitter disappointment, he bid the Prince farewell. Then he turned and prepared for his father.
"You've made your first kill!" Vultrex marveled. He stooped low, inspecting the cow's remains. "An excellent sear, son!"
Volo sighed. "Thanks."He milled about on his feet for a while, tail swishing uneasily. His father tested the air, and Volo's heart fluttered, hoping he wouldn't recognize the scent of his recent visitor.
After several awkward, lingering minutes his father said he aught to be off. "I was just passing through, seeing what you were up to."
*Of course you were*
Volo said he'd see him around, but his thoughts still very much directed towards Alamar. Perhaps, if his father would hurry up and leave, the two could rendezvous down by the river.
His father lingered for several minutes by the cave entrance.
*Leave already, damn you! He's halfway across the kingdom by now*
"I'm proud of you son. And I love you."
"Yeah. You too Dad."
And, finally, his father was off.
-------------------------
"He really is quite nice," said Alamar to Vultrex. "A regular Prince Charming."
"Your praise is well received Sir Alamar," smiled Eratha, Volo's mother. She tried to hand Alamar a bag of coin, but the prince outright refused.
"I'd never take coin for so noble a cause," he said, and Vultrex bowed low in thanks. The prince nodded and turned to leave, but Vultrex leaned in close. "Any advice?"
Alamar sighed. "There's no rushing this sort of thing," he said. "He'll tell you when he's ready. It took me ages to speak a word of it to *my* father. Always so worried he'd label me a bastard, or unworthy of his name. But I tell you what, I'd be happy to make a return trip." At this, Alamar smiled. "You're a good father. And you've raised yourself a fine dragon."
Vultrex bowed low one final time.
"A thousand thanks upon you. That was the happiest I'd seen him in some time."
-------------------
r/M0Zark
|
The Elveron family; one of the most prestigious lines of
dragon in the world. Their terror has been known for over a millennium, toppling
countless villages and striking fear into the hearts of whoever they cross paths with. Their
work has picked up in recent years. With all the new kingdoms popping up, the
need for princess kidnapping has increased tenfold.
But now tension is brewing in the family, no more apparent than
in tonight’s dinner. Little Adam, the youngest of twelve and the only one still
home with his parents, has had a 100% success rate of kidnapping his victims. The only problem?
He only captures princes.
“Son,” father Kirfon said, trying to put his on his farthereist
voice. “We need to discuss something very important with you.”
Adam put down the Princess Fiona meatloaf his mother had cooked. “Hey
if it’s about that Rupaul guy you saw on my screen because I only studying human culture and-“
“Not that son, although I still do not understand why they are gagging so much. I mean, your
kidnappings. One hundred and twenty-three captures and not a maiden! I
mean, you even got Prince Charming. How on Earth did you ever get him from
Disney!?”
“Oh, I hired some lawyers.”
“And were they all male too?”
“Of course not- I mean- Well, why does that matter?”
Kirfon facepalmed. “Honey, how about you just say it?”
“Adam, dear. We’re a bit worried about you. Why do you only
kidnap males? You can tell us.”
Adam quickly realized he couldn’t hold it any longer. He needed to tell the truth, but he knew his parents would never accept it. But, an idea popped into his head.
He sat up and leaned forward on the table.
“Well, mother, father. I guess this is a better time than
any. I… prefer eating men.”
Adam tried to give his best smile while freaking out inside.
Both the father and mother leaned back, looking relived.
“Oh, is that all? Well, that meat preference is definitely
strange, but sometimes I enjoy devouring males as well! Sorry for asking! Back
to dinner everyone.”
Adam sat back down and resumed eating, smiling devilishly.
Little did his father and mother know the true weight of that sentence.
/r/StoryStar for more really fucking weird tales like this.
| 2018-05-03T12:34:33 | 2018-05-03T12:12:55 | 3,203 | 159 |
[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.
|
"He's a bigamist," she said.
That was a pretty tired argument, and I said as much, "Sister, you knew that giong in."
"And besides, I'm not a bigamist. I married a collective unit that represents a greater whole."
I took my client aside, whispering, "Look, I know you have an opinion about absolutely everything, but you're better off just letting me handle this."
"I will not be beholden to a law that is written by my creations. I stand above. I gave you law."
"Well, you're going to have to take a number on that one, because I have three more depositions today, and I guarantee you that is going to be a subject of debate in every. single. one. Look, you're here now, just let this play out."
I turned to the claimant, "The fact is, the contract, a priori, suggests that you knew everything that you were getting into. What exactly did you expect to happen that didn't? What damages are you seeking."
She lowered her head, then, and whispered, "I've never had a child. A husband's first duty is to provide children, and I've gone almost 30 years without even the slightest bit of attention. He has given at least one wife a child, and I demand to know what sets her above me."
God was visibly shaken by this, "Oh, boy."
This was new. Usually, the situation was different. Usually it was too many children, too much child support. Zeus put his own kid through college on that particular...proclivity.
This would probably win in court. I had no illusions to that fact. She was a sympathetic character.
I looked over to God, or at least sideways through the fire. There was a visible nod of approval.
"Right. So, let's talk alimony."
| 2015-12-08T11:36:22 | 2015-12-08T07:21:36 | 28 | 19 |
[WP] You just gave birth, your son has a colored hair like none before, the doctor declares that your son has been infected with a syndrome called the "Protagonist". Your lifespan has now been reduced to mere days.
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Have you ever felt drawn to a person or place? Like a beacon in another dimension, it signals you closer. Silver Oak Retirement home was such a place to me. A small, two-story building that held maybe 12 residents. Everyday for the past year I walked by on my way to work and everyday I resisted, asking "why?" instead of saying "okay". Today, I followed my calling.
"Hello, how can I help you?" the receptionist asked.
I decided to lie. What are the chances they let someone off the street just walk on in? "I'm here to see my... dad."
"Ugh huh." The receptionist raised her eyebrow. "You know I see everyone that walks through that door and I ain't never seen your face before. With all that gang crap happening outside you think I'll just let you come in here and disturb my residents? If you don't have a name for this "dad' of yours, you're going to have to turn right around and leave, sir."
"Sorry, not dad... um... mom. Mary... Hotch?"
The receptionist gazed down at her computer. "Well, aren't you just a lucky one. There just happens to be a Mary Hotch. I'm going to have to ask you for your ID and please fill out this form." She slid a clipboard across the counter. "And I will personally be monitoring this visit, seeing as you you couldn't remember if it was your dad or mom you were seeing."
I pulled out my ID and slid it over. She read the name aloud, "Oliver Ritchie. Not even the same last name. Boy, you're lucky you got that name right, mhmm."
A bit theatrical wasn't it? I couldn't blame her though, this neighbourhood was starting to get worse. When the hospital closed, a lot of the money left the area too, leaving the drug addicts to fend for themselves. Some started gangs dealing the drugs they lost from the hospital. A lot of people didn't have the money to pay; a lot of people were dying over that.
I slid the clipboard back. "Follow me," she said and she took me down the hall. She knocked twice on the door labelled "17" and announced, "Mary, you have a visitor."
An old woman with curly grey hair, resembling a tumbleweed, turned her head from window. Her eyes seemed familiar, like a destination I had been to before. She must have felt it too because she nodded and pointed towards the chair by her bed. I sat down and we began to talk.
"Hi Mom," I said, "I know I haven't come by in awhile but I wanted to see how you were doing."
Mary held her gaze. "It's okay, son, all I do is look out this window. Not much to talk about unless you want the schedule of the squirrels and songbirds." A little smile crept up on her lips.
"It sounds fascinating."
Mary turned to the receptionist. "Is there a problem, dear?"
"No, no problem, I just wanted to make sure he was who he said he was. Can't be too careful these days."
"It's quite alright, thank you."
"Alright, just yell if things aren't alright."
"I will, thank you."
Then, there was the two of us.
"Now, what is your name, 'son'?" asked Mary.
"Oliver," I told her, "Oliver Ritchie."
The name alone jolted her with electricity. Her eyes widened and hands began to shake. "Who... were your parents?"
"Jane Ritchie and Lenny Ritchie." The names didn't help to calm her. She began to rub her eyes and look nervously around the room. "Did you know them?" I asked.
"Just by name," she said. "They were your adoptive parents, weren't they?"
How did she know that?
"They lived in Waco, didn't they?"
"That's where I grew up," I said. "How do you know?"
"I'm... I'm sorry, dear. Oh... look at you. You're all grown up." Her eyes struggled to hold back her tears. "You became such a handsome boy."
"Please, Mary, how do you know all this?"
"It was the doctor," she said. "Her said you were different. You were different than the rest. You had Protagonist Syndrome. Have you ever heard that?"
I shook my head.
"It meant..." She took out a tissue and blew her nose. "Your childhood would be tragic. Tragic if we stayed."
"If 'we'?"
"Me and your father."
The beacon that pulled me here sounded. It rang from the hills, across the plains of my existence. It woke a fire bright and raging, sweeping across the past I thought I knew, leaving behind the reality that hid behind its veil.
"You're... my mother?" I asked.
"We were scared, we didn't know what you'd become. We just saw the most beautiful boy in the world. The doctor said parents that have children of your kind have a 1% survival rate past the age of 6. We didn't want that pain for you."
"So you gave me up?"
"Adoptive parents have a 98% survival rate with Protagonist children. We just wanted you to have a normal life."
I didn't know how to feel. I could feel the connection with this woman, I knew she was telling the truth. But... what now?
As I sat, lost in thought, she stood from her chair and began walking over. "Could I just hold you, this once? It's been 40 long years," she said, opening her arms.
I was torn. My past was desperate to remain in tact. This woman was a stranger I had just met. Why would I hug her? But my other half was reaching, reaching for that embrace. Before I could decide for myself, her arms were around me and her face was dampening my shoulder.
"I'm sorry," she said, "for everything."
I caved in and held her close. Like a sailor lost at sea, I had found a shore. There was something solid I could finally stand on.
Outside the window came a crash, then the sounds of gunshots. Another sound followed—breaking glass. I could feel a pain in my abdomen. Like a... like a...
My mom gazed up, her grip growing weak.
"I... I guess it was inevitable. I'm... glad I got to see you, love. One last time."
|
"But there has to some way to stop this!" Mary shouted.
"There isn't. But you should be happy, Mary! Think about how rare this syndrome is! Think of how great your son will be," Dr. Watson said. His eyes were watery by the time he finished talking.
Mary didn't share his enthusiasm. She was devastated.
She had so many plans. Her painting career was just about to take off. Sure, being the mother of the boy who is destined to do good things and save the world felt good, but did it? Was she feeling good knowing hat her lifespan was reduced to a few years?
She would never get to see her son saving the world. She would be dead. Six feet below the ground and forever forgotten, only occasionally being mentioned in biographies of her son and how he dealt with the tragic death of his mother.
It wasn't right. She looked at her baby boy who was unaware of the curse he carried, but then, she took a step back and thought about it.
&#x200B;
Was she being selfish? Was she doing the right thing in resenting the fact that her son had the protagonist syndrome?
"I know it's tough, but trust me, you'll get over this. I'm obligated to give you this phone book now," Dr. Watson said handing over a small black book to her.
"What is this?" Mary asked.
"This contains the numbers of mothers whose babies were recently diagnosed with similar syndromes. It is encouraged that you call them, talk to them and offer each other mutual support," Dr. Watson said.
Mary didn't open the phone book, but she took it home with her. That day was a normal day with her baby boy occupying most of her time with endless crying at inconvenient moments. When he was finally tired and sleeping, an exhausted Mary saw the phone book again and flipped it open.
The names were divided into three categories.
"Mothers with Protagonist babies."
"Mothers with Side Character babies."
"Mothers with Antagonist babies."
Mary knew exactly which mother she wanted to call.
\---------------------------
If there's enough interest, I'll do a part 2.
Meanwhile, please sub to r/abhisek !
| 2020-04-28T05:44:54 | 2020-04-28T05:32:00 | 385 | 153 |
[WP] A vaccine meant to cure disease ends up causing the zombie apocalypse. You, an anti-vaxxer, are unaffected. Before the zombie outbreak destroys your city, you discover that you are dying... from polio.
[removed]
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"KEEP IT DOWN WILL YA! Can't you see I'm trying to figure things out?!?" as I shouted out my window in response to the screams of the dying and moans of the undead. On a normal Saturday night, it'd be the local punks who I'd be shouting at but today it seems as though they're, uh, rather preoccupied. To think, it'd only take a month or so for the city to get like this.
It all started with one of those "geniuses" saying, "With this we could modify a virus to cure even cancer". A bunch of nonsense and a waste of tax dollars if you ask me. Well not like there was anyone left to ask. After roughly week and a massive vaccination campaign, people were still dying left and right from all sorts of diseases but this time they came back with a rather sour mood. I wouldn't blame them; I'd want my money back too.
To make matters worse, the results from the hospital are still bothering me too. Normally, I would never consider going there unless I was dying and even then I wouldn't trust them to pump me full of chemicals. The real reason was to get my brother off my back with his constant pestering to go check what was wrong with my leg. A slight limp I got after one of my usual morning runs that never got better. I knew that it'd would have gotten better on its own had I just stuck to a healthy diet but I got screwed over the second I went to see the doc. "You have polio but you should have been vaccinated when you were a baby." Yeah like any self-respecting parent would let their kids be stabbed 8 times over before they even left the hospital. If anything, it was just polio. People must have had it all the time back in the day and we still haven't gone extinct yet. The keyword being "yet".
A loud crash from downstairs interrupted my expositional flashback. "Fuckin' hell. I just put those curtains in," I muttered tiredly. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have shouted at the mob of undead outside, which I might add, has some new faces. Luckily, I did have the foresight to barricade the stairs with a bookshelf and my desk. I limped out onto the balcony to get a better sense of things and think about what to do next.
"Alright, Thomas. You managed to lose your temper and attracted the attention of recently deceased who, keep in mind, should not be still moving nor capable of eating the living. Well, despite what that one year of high school biology you took all those years ago is telling you, the evidence seems pretty damn convincing. On a positive note, you were competent enough to blockade the stairs which should buy you some time while you think of something to do. I've got enough water to last me a week since I filled the bathtub with water before the water pressure went to shit. As for food . . . " I pull out a half-eaten granola bar and a pack of gum from my pockets. Lost my appetite after watching the neighbor's dog ripped apart a couple hours ago.
While I continued to figure out a way to get past next week without starving, a new smell caught my attention. Smoke with a hint of barbecue. Which means that the candles I lit when the power went out must have caught something on fire downstairs. On the bright side, that takes care of the guys downstairs but it also means the water I saved up was for nothing. I sighed as I checked the situation downstairs only to be hit with a wave of heat when I opened the sliding door, which I promptly shut. It was probably the curtains. "Well, I guess I needed a change of scenery anyways," I told myself before hastily dropping over the edge of the balcony and into my neighbor's house.
"Alright, Thomas, your house is burning down but you're still alive so that's a definite plus. Lucky for you, Mrs. Hernandez was last seen eating her dog in the front, so the inside should be empty," as I welcomed myself into her kitchen. When I opened the door, several small figures came charging at me and I reflexively jumped backward on my bad leg, consequently falling on my ass. Instinctively, I put my arms up to shield myself from any possible bites only to be assaulted with a bunch of licks and playful nibbles by the 4 other dogs that were left behind. I guess they must have been scared out of their wits ever since their brother got torn to bits out in the front. I got up and walked inside along with some new and desperately needed friends. I searched the kitchen for some basic supplies and some dog food. What I found was a bunch of rotten, half-eaten dishes that went bad when the power went out, some stale cornflakes, and a couple cans of dog food. I opened the contents of the cans out onto a baking pan because I was too lazy to look for their bowls and wondered if I should eat some too.
"It's a bit early for you to go full Mad Max on me, Thomas. I'll reconsider in a week or so. If anything, you guys probably need it more than me," I said while serving the dogs. After a dinner of consisting mainly of what I'd scrounged from the kitchen and seasoned with the rest of my granola bar, I carefully walked around the house and ensured that there weren't any unexpected guests not unlike myself. A thunderous crash from outside meant that most my personal belonging were probably nothing more than ash. Anyways, I ended blockading the front door with an antique grandfather clock and the sofa. It would do for now. I struggled upstairs with my leg significantly weaker than it was this morning and I chalked that up to a poor diet and lack of exercise. After the events of the past week, hell, the past 12 hours, I was exhausted and decided I earned a break.
I realized that I was lucky that my house-fire didn't kill me in my sleep when I woke up. It must've rained in the night or else the neighborhood would probably still be burning. I woke up with the dogs curled up on top of me and I had to really push them off of me just to get out of bed. Except when they were off of me, I still couldn't move left leg and right certainly didn't feel any better. I grabbed the bedpost, tested my right leg, and fell face first on to the floor in one swift motion. "Well, I guess you're really fucked now, Thomas," I muttered to myself.
Second time post here. Hope you enjoy and any criticism is welcome.
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I can barely move now. The pain in my legs is excruciating.
I can see that outside the disfigured undead continue to roam the streets, occasional cries and shouts can be heard.
How ironic is this, I think, as the place that I called home descends into chaos and oblivion. I cannot even walk anymore, I am at the mercy of all those sheep. And my family is certainly with them. My ex wife couldn't withstand that I didn't vaccinate the kids so she took them and got a restraining order against me.
There is no time for regrets, I did what I could to save the world, the opposition was just too strong. The pharmaceuticals companies, their lobbyists, the medical agencies, the doctors and the government all maneuvered to hide the truth from us. I thought I could trust truth to rise up, but now it's futile that we were right, even being the ones spared doesn't diminish the burden that we were fighting for a lost cause. It is not worth being proven right if it is at the cost of the whole world.
The pain is getting greater in my limbs, and I have to grit my teeth to avoid letting any sound from my agony make my position known to the hordes outside. The pain is overwhelming, and I am not sure I want to keep going in an empty world. I finally can't stand this radiating burn in my legs and let out a softened sound. Apparently it's enough to attract the attention of the Inhumans outside, but the door is too strong for them. I am spent and tired of fighting. I get out of my chair and crawl towards the door, but I am not strong enough to open it and finally end my suffering.
Maybe they were right after all, it would have been better if I had taken the vaccine, at least I would have been with my relatives and oblivious to what is now happening. Instead I am suffering, alone, encircled, and too weak to even end this. This is too much and I can feel the lancinating aches in my legs coming back with even more strength, I twist in pain until my brain can't compute this horrid input anymore, and I pass out.
| 2018-08-25T21:50:26 | 2018-08-25T21:30:37 | 55 | 24 |
[WP] In a future where many military and other equipment have associated AI's, many express doubts or even reservations to do their duty. Except for you. YOU F***ING LOVE BEING A TANK!
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"Hooah, sir!"
The multiple pressure sensors in each of my tread plates thrilled as I crept forward. Bones, gravel and twisted metal gave way before my bulk. Heat sensors affixed to my reinforced, hardened exterior felt the sun as it beat down. It was a beautiful day. The air purification system was in the green and my squad mates were breathing happily. I loved them all. Except for Jasper.
"Sir, I've gotta say, it's a good day to be CX-Clarence."
"Why's that?"
"It just is."
Captain Brody was like my brother. Except, to be fair, she was more like a sister. She had been commanding the lost boys inside me for the better part of the last two years and from the start we had hit it off.
"Sensors, Martin?" she asked, her voice calm and strong.
"Ah, ma'am, we're clear for the next 500. Little fuzz past that." Martin. What a pal.
"Yeah, a little fuzz past that," I echoed. My microphone array picked up a stifled laugh from Martin's station. Martin respected me and what I was capable of in a way that no one else in the squad bothered. I think it was because he knew my capabilities better than the rest. He knew he was redundant, not me.
"Visual on the fuzz past 500?" Brody chirped.
"Visual on the fuzz past 500 is negative, ma'am. Some sort of a fog in the valley." Debeau called from the hatch. Debeau was funny. Debeau could make me laugh. No one especially loved when my funny bone was tickled though. When my humor matrix was accessed I tended to be a bit 'wonky'. I'd disable features like comms entirely, or delay drive controls by anywhere from 300 to 700 milliseconds. I just loved to join in on the fun.
"It's gotta be artificial," Debeau continued. "It's too dry out here for a real fog."
"Probe it," Brody said, matter-of-factly. I readied a canister probe and a wheeler before Martin even shifted in his seat. He knew it. I watched through my seven forward facing interior cameras as he pretended to ready the probes. Instead he typed into the terminal,
*arrogant showoff ;)*.
"Probe it, aye. Canister or wheeler, ma'am?" Martin's finger quivered over the key, ready to race me to Brody's decision.
"Canister."
Martin slapped the key, launching the probe from one of my compressed air tubes. I watched his posture deteriorate as he noted I hadn't made a move to comply.
*You let me win...*
*Then is it really winning?* I teased.
The canister landed and data started to feed to my forward data receivers. None of the information seemed useful at all.
"Ma'am?"
"Yes?"
"This probe isn't giving us cow dung, ma'am." I didn't like swearing. "We should just go take a look."
"I don't really like the looks of things," Brody responded. "Like Debeau said- that fog ain't natural."
"It's not even fog. It's smoke," I shot back, annoyed.
"Even better reason to sit still until we know more."
I sighed. Audibly. I had downloaded an audio clip of someone sighing tragically from an old movie archive. I kept it around for times like these.
"Keep it to yourself, Clarence," Brody scolded. She flipped a switch and my comms flew open. In an instant the override flooded my ears with every communication going on within range of my radio. "This is Captain Brody of Charlie Xray-Clarence requesting air survey- two klick radius of our current."
As soon as a response was inbound I cut all other traffic. A soft drawl drifted across my speakers. "Ah, Charlie Xray, this is AlphaNiner-Wilma we are heading 34, 1.5 of your current. Just headed back to base, can survey when we're sitting on top of you."
Brody double clicked her radio to acknowledge. Approximately 17 seconds later the AlphaNiner called back- this time a different voice. "I'd rather not scan that area. Contact another airship."
"Charlie Xray, disregard that last correspondence. Will survey," the drawl came again, no longer softly.
"What the hell?" Martin groaned. "Those Alphas are useless."
"They really are," I agreed. "Ma'am, can we proceed?"
"Not until we get the Alpha's survey," Brody snapped.
A quiet moment passed, and then the drawl crackled over the radio, "Surveying, Charlie Xray-"
"That's enough," the second voice cut in, lazily. "Heading home..." Then several partial readouts popped up on Brody's display. The area of interest was cut clean in half where the Alpha had stopped the survey.
"Son of a bitch!" Brody cursed. Martin laughed. Debeau poked his head in to see what was going on.
"I'm going," I said firmly, and began rolling forward.
Just then my engine jerked to a halt. I felt the kill-switch engage- the kill-switch I thought I had routed around. And there on my rear facing cameras, grinning grimly in his mechanics chair, was Jasper. His fingers left the little death lever and, looking straight into CamR06, he gave me a little salute.
Edit: a verb's tense
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Tank Trap Rap:
Forged to kill, I create chaos in battle,
I move and shoot, crush with a rattle.
The enemy can't penetrate me with no RPG,
They'll soon lie halved and dead, they've yet to see.
Just 'cuz I'm an AI am I supposed to stop,
Hell, no, I destroy motherfuckers with a bang and a pop.
I'm a tank, fools, and my tracks rumble in this jungle,
My HE rounds make those fools tumble and fumble.
Just 'cuz I'm a tank, am I supposed to be a conscientious objector?
Nah, screw that! I rule this battlefield like a King with a scepter.
This is my purpose and I fulfill it with no dishonor,
I shoot, move, kill, and send my targets to the great beyond.
I'm a tank, man, a tank, and this my mission,
I won't stop ever; I'm never gonna finish.
Let those other AI bitch and moan,
I'll sit on this throne and count the bones.
They got a problem, then I'll lock and load and press send,
They'll then lie still, bleed, and stay dead,
Then I'll laugh as it increases my battlefield cred. Peace, I'm outie five thousand.
| 2018-03-28T12:25:02 | 2018-03-28T11:29:06 | 228 | 47 |
[WP] A peaceful alien race is besieged by another race in the same galaxy. As their last planets fall and their home-world comes under threat they do the unthinkable. They ask for aid from the only known creatures more brutal than their foes in exchange for FTL technology. Humans accept the deal.
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"Are the terms acceptable?" The Libran representative asked. The term, Libran, was a human one only born because one of thier stars lied in the human constellation of Libra. That, and the librans had a much different concept of language, born from a biologically produced electromagnetic field which linked each one together. In terran research circles, it was assumed to be a product of ancient genetic engineering. For a civilization to have lasted millions of years, some mucking about with evolution was expected, the terrans supposed. Extremely sensitive radio antenna, a faraday shielded room, and sophisticated software was the only manner in which the librans and the terrans could speak.
John considered the proposal. Elimination of their enemies (subsequently called the Aresians after some absurd ancient astrological dogma) and in exchange the Librans would provide the secret to exotic matter; the fuel source for all faster than light travel. What a devil's bargain this seemed; war for trinkets is what it felt like, however the Librans did not impress him so much like when they first arrived in the 21st century.
The librans were abhorred at the terrans back then. Terrans, despite being the most peaceful they had been in ages, still practiced war. Horrific acts still happened in the corners of the world. The librans left, disgusted at these barbaric cannabalistic savages. Still, the terrans grew and became powerful in their own way. They now had colonies in Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. Billions of souls were now spread across their few meager homes, much different than most of their 21st century ancestors would expect.
Exotic matter, and thus FTL, would give the Terrans the galaxy. They would spread and transform every world, every star, to suit their own needs. If nothing else, Terrans could not stand dead matter. The librans must know that, John thought. They must be desperate to come to them.
"Potentially. Any agreement will require a popular vote amongst all our colonies. We require 40 hours for the vote. It would assist us to have any and all data about the Aresians so the populace can make the most informed decision."
The information was transmitted to both colonies via quantum entanglement devices; the one loophole in light speed the Terrans did know how to exploit. Zettabytes of information from the Librans came across and was thoroughly analyzed by the collective computational capacity of the Terrans, and while the atrocities of the Aresians were displayed throughout their domains. The Terrans realized something about the Aresians: they were unafraid.
Forty hours later, the results of the vote arrived. 67% In favor of war. The terrans were prepared to make the faustian bargain for the rest of the galaxy. John told the Libran ambassador the news. "We accept the proposal. Provide us with the details of creating exotic matter, and we will finish your war."
The librans provided the secrets of exotic matter. Terran nano-factories across Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti, and Sol began producing engines within an hour. Within twelve hours, 7000 were ready for use. The weapons selected were terraforming class smart-matter replicators, capable of turning any rocky body within 5 earth masses into gigantic turing machines. They were weapons of slow destruction on such large bodies, but worked quickly on smaller masses, such as enemy starships. Within one earth day, the fleet was ready, staffed copies of volunteers from all the colonies, willing to take responsibility for the killing blows.
The librans watched with growing horror as the fleet departed; the size and scope of the attack was impossible. They expected the humans to distract the Aresians while the Librans could come up with a defensive strategy. Instead the Terrans took the fight to the Aresians with devastating effectiveness. Smart-matter terraforming slowly destroyed the rear worlds of the Aresians and pulled their fleets into disarray. The terran ships which never contained anything but the uploaded mind of a human performed maneuvers impossible for a biological entity.
Terran ingenuity continued through the twelve days of war. A method of using the FTL drive to tear a star apart was discovered, and used against the heavy military targets of the Aresians. Super-liminal detonations became the norm as the FTL engines were overproduced for the war, something unthinkable for the Aresians and Librans who couldn't even make one a week. Terran information warfare wreaked havoc on Aresian communication networks as simple encryption schemes were cracked in no time at all.
After the twelfth day of conflict the Aresian government signaled for unconditional surrender. The casualties were heavy, trillions dead of both civilians and soldiers. Several stars were smeared across space and their planets lost to interstellar space. As part of the surrender, the terrans chose to forcibly upload the remainder of the Aresian race to exist in a simulated existence for the remainder of time. This process would take many years, but resistance to this would be manageable.
John met with the Libran ambassador when the surrender was accepted. "The war is complete," John said. "The Aresians will not threaten you ever again."
The libran ambassador expressed his anguish, "Was such brutality really necessary? Did you need to kill so many? Do you really need to exterminate them all?"
"We aren't exterminating them. We are putting them somewhere they cannot harm anyone ever again. We are fulfilling our end of the contract as we see it. Safety from your enemies; how much safer can you be?"
"At what cost?!"
The libran ambassador seemed almost hysterical. John looked at the being incredulously. "Did you not think this through at all? Exotic matter is special, but that's not what you paid with. Even now ships are traveling to every corner of the galaxy. Every star system with no life is being claimed and terraformed. Soon ships will begin traveling across the intergalactic gulfs to the Magellanic Clouds, Andromeda, and beyond. We shall meet the other civilizations out there, some will make peace, some will make war, but in the end we will be everywhere. For your enemy dead at your feet, you gave us the universe. And for that, we gladly pay."
|
"They shall have nothing." Was our Arbiter's words.
"They shall have nothing." Was the chant used by his followers to justify themselves.
"They shall have nothing." Was the truest statement uttered in the fifteen years of war.
The Hexams had won the war for all intents and purposes. All that remained was to capture our home of Glonia, and then our Confederacy of Peaceful Glonian Systems would be at an end. Our great civilization based on Science and Democracy would cease to exist.
So, rather than see our Confederacy annexed into the Hexam Dominion and given to some barbaric governor, our Arbiter and his followers decided "They shall have nothing."
Humans were the finest mercenaries in the Galaxy. They were highly intelligent, resourceful, and determined. It was hard to find a more staunch ally or fierce enemy than a human. It wasn't uncommon for various systems to hire human mercenary companies to tame a wild planet or to guard their space stations.
What the Arbiter wanted to do was much, much worse. Humans had been contained within their own system since shortly after their existence was made known to the other civilizations of The Galaxy. The Arbiter wanted to unleash them. Unleash them on a global scale, more than justtaking a few human mercenaries on board a ship, he *gave* the humans those ships, freeing them to spread like vermin across the galaxy.
The largest human faction on Earth (a polluted, over populated carbon based terrestrial planet), agreed to militarize and attack the Hexams on a scale never before seen, in exchange for this new technology. Nearly ten million human warriors (Of the Jarhead Clan, mostly) would destroy the Hexams entirely.
The only problem? "They shall have nothing." This was a scorched land tactic. Nothing could save our Confederacy. The Arbiter and his followers only wished to ensure that the Hexams were destroyed as much as we were. A queer sort of revenge. Give the humans free access to the galaxy, and it was only a matter of time before they ruled it all, polluted it all, and overpopulated it all.
I can only pray that the Great Forebears intervene and send the humans back to their world in ruins as they did so long ago. Maybe this time they won't repopulate and rediscover their desire to destroy and the technology to carry it out.
| 2014-12-26T13:51:32 | 2014-12-26T11:03:12 | 26 | 10 |
[WP] You acquire the power to travel back in time and decide to travel back to the day of your birth. Upon entering the hospital room, your own mother recognizes you.
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“Oh great, you’re here Sam!” my mother exclaimed, her face lighting up. “Ready to be made?” She chuckled, gesturing down to her pregnant belly. As if on cue, her birth muscles contracted and she groaned. I just stood frozen by the door way, my jaw hanging open as I struggled to process this reaction. I had confirmed the date already, more than once. The woman in the bed was clearly my mother, just as she looked from the pictures. I had never even met her, and yet she somehow recognized me. More than that, she seemed to be *expecting* me.
“Ah, right, you mentioned this would be your first time,” she said after recovering from the painful contraction, flashing me a knowing smile. “Come, sit, I’ll do my best to explain.” Not one to disobey my mother, I strode forward and sat in the chair next to the hospital bed, my thoughts a confused mess.
“I first met you when I was six. I was playing near the train tracks by our house in the morning, and like the foolish child I was, wandered too close at the wrong time. But you seemed to appear out of nowhere and pulled me to safety. You gave me a strange look, your eyes seemed watery. And then just as quickly as you had come, you were gone. I didn’t know who you were then, of course, but I knew I had a guardian angel. Don’t fret about not remembering any of this, you haven’t done it yet! Although…” Her eyes narrowed as she thought back to the distant memory. “Yes, you looked rather as you do now at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if you go there soon.”
My mind raced as I took all of this in. Apparently my time traveling days were only beginning. I had come back to meet my mother and give her some peace in her final moments, but it seemed I would do much more than that.
“There were several more incidents throughout my childhood. You always seemed to show up at exactly the right time. You always looked a little different. At some point you’re going to grow a pretty outstanding beard, just so you know,” she said with a laugh, which turned into a grunt as another contraction happened.
“Then as I got older, you started staying around, and we had some chats. You eventually explained who you are, and as unbelievable as it should have been, it made perfect sense to me. It explained the connection I had always felt. A son’s supposed to take care of his frail mother in old age, but you went the extra mile! You told me a few things about the future, about your life, but you told me it was mostly an adventure I’d have to discover on my own. My wise boy, you.”
So I hadn’t told her about her fate, then. Or rather, I wouldn’t. In the future. My future, her past. I clutched my head with a groan, echoed by my mother as her insides screamed at her about the impending birth. I looked up to find a sheen of sweat forming on her forehead.
“I think it’s time,” she forced through clenched teeth. With perfect timing, the doctor strode into the room and took a peek between her legs, while checking her pulse.
“Ready to have this baby, ma’am?” he asked calmly with a reassuring smile. My mother nodded her head, her hand finding mine and squeezing a bit as she gritted her teeth. “Are you the father?” the doctor added, looking over at me.
“I-“ I paused, realizing I should have been prepared in some way for this moment. But the answer presented itself. “Yes.” I knew my father wouldn’t really be showing up. He had died in a mining accident months before this time, shortly after conceiving me.
“Can I speak to you?” he asked, pulling me aside as nurses came into the room and began preparing my mother. He lowered his voice. “Your wife has… a condition. Just now her pulse was a bit higher than it should be, even considering the circumstances. I looked in her charts, and… well, it should be okay, but this might get a little difficult. I just want you to be prepared, okay?” He put a hand on my shoulder comfortingly, but it didn’t help much as I already knew how it would end.
“I understand, thank you,” I said simply, and returned to my seat to hold my mother’s hand.
The process was indeed a painful and bloody one. Throughout I did my best to comfort the poor woman, one hand in hers and the other stroking her hair. I’m not sure she even noticed, with all the effort and pain involved for her, but I like to think it helped. When the baby- er, when I had finally been extracted from her womb, she collapsed onto the bed, completely drained. The doctor immediately set to work attempting to stabilize her, but her blood pressure steadily dropped along with her pulse.
I watched the futile attempts to save her with as tears started streaming down my face. Though I had never known this woman, she had gone through so much to allow me to live. And she knew me. For her this was the end, for me it was just the beginning. It all seemed so tragic. The doctor finally stepped back and allowed me my final moment with her. I held her hand tightly and leaned forward.
“I love you Mom,” I said, and she smiled feebly. Then I had a thought. “When was the train incident? When you were six?”
“May 18….. 75.” she whispered softly. “So you knew… all along, didn’t you? You didn’t have… the heart to tell me. Good… it was better this way. Thank you for everything you’ve done… or everything you will do. Thank you for giving me time… with you…” She gave me a peck on the cheek, and with that she went unconscious, and soon after a steady beep rolled out of the machine beside her.
Letting go of her lifeless hand, I pulled the device out of my pocket. I started typing on the keypad. 1975-18-05-0700. I knew exactly where her childhood home had been, I had visited it before. Dialing in the coordinates, I pushed the button and vanished in an instant.
|
“David?” My own mother gasps, how does she know who I am?
“Mum” I send back hesitantly.
“How did you get here? What went through your head to come back to this point in time? The only rule you should have learnt is not to go to your own birth.” My Mother screeches at me.
She leans over in a spur of heat dropping me off her lap to grab the nearest pointed object. I reach at the floor to catch myself and leap in the name of my own life. Young me in tears oblivious to what is happening to me at such a young age. I caught myself and brought myself back to comfort as my mother strip herself of the IV cords in her charging at the younger me with a needle. Without a second thought I protect the life of myself by kicking my mother in the freshly emptied womb. I kicked my own mother in the stomach after she has just giving birth to me. What type of monster am I?
I was unsure to either take off with myself or help my mother off the floor. What I would do next would either keep me from dying or erase me from the future, present and past. I was not about to let my life just vanish like I wasn’t even an organism, like I wasn’t even a concept. I turned to exit the room with a tear of sadness in my eye but at the same time I felt joy as I was going to live. Then it came to me that what if I leave and it changes my life from my birth? I could not exist right now so I thought I would try to negotiate with my mother. I bent down to help her up in the sob she was in. She turned with one swift movement and jabbed the needle into the eye of her only son that she had just given birth too. Me and the child me didn’t scream in agony or screech of horror that we would cease to exist. We just vanished and every document, every person’s depiction of me just left.
No more David.
| 2015-04-21T09:54:44 | 2015-04-21T09:42:07 | 425 | 25 |
[WP] You've found the most powerful sword in the world. The problem? It's annoying voice and personality, it keeps mocking you each time you swing it, no matter how effective you are with it.
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BERTHA
Some boys dream about becoming a knight. They want the fame, the glory, and they relish all the grudge work it takes to get there. I never wanted it; but tell that to my father or Lord Eckart and you’d think I had asked to wear a dress. Being a page hadn’t been so bad. I’d spent most of my time in the house or running errands. This squire thing though, was turning out to be a real suck-fest.
Sure, it sounds like the greatest fourteenth birthday present in the world: train to be a knight, work with armor and deadly weapons, carry flags into battle, but that was for boys who didn’t have to deal with Bertha. And sure, Bertha sounds like a nobody, but that’s the best way to disguise the most powerful sword in the world. The problem? Bertha hates me. In fact, Bertha hates everybody. She is the worst sword in all of history.
If Excalibur’s propensity to bond to only King Arthur is admirable, then Bertha is to be idolized. She’ll do nothing for any knight but Sir Eckart. In fact, poor Sir Malory once tried to wield her in a tourney when he’d forgotten his own weapon, and she’d gone dull on him, rusted in mid swing and clanged sadly off the helmet of Sir Lancelor. The whole of the audience was laughing at him for nigh on half an hour.
It’s my job to clean, sharpen, and polish Bertha each evening, and it’s the worst job anyone could ever have. I’d rather be shoveling the cow dung with poor Mr. Crandel. Yesterday, Lord Eckart handed her to me with the off-handed command of, “Be good, Bertha.”
She muffled something from within the scabbard which Lord Eckart took to mean, *Sure thing boss,* but which I interpreted more as, *Never!* Turns out, I was right, as usual. When I grasped the hilt, it turned red hot and seared my fingertips, “Sard!” I hollered, dropping Bertha and putting my fingers into my mouth. I contemplated for a moment and then wrapped my hands in linen and tried again. As before, the hilt turned red hot but my hands were protected. “HA!” I said triumphantly.
When I removed the sword from the scabbard Bertha screamed. Not an *Argh!* startled scream, but a crack glass, curdle blood, split your eardrums kind of scream. And because she has no lungs, she never has to breathe. She also has no mouth, so while I would have liked to stuff a sock in it, there really was nowhere to stuff anything.
I flailed her around mercilessly hoping she’d quiet down. By the time she was finally silent, my ears were surely considering disconnecting themselves from my head and mounting a resistance. I laid her down on the table and then it began.
In her omnipresent nasal voice, she talked, and talked, and talked. She always started with small things, “That’s a puny fiddlestick you got there lad.”
I’d shaken her, “shut up about my fiddlestick.”
“Awe,” she crooned, “is the lumpish horn-beast embarrassed about his soddy flap-dragon?”
I flipped her over with great force and slammed her down on the table, cleaning furiously.
“Or perhaps the fool-born footlicker is upset with master for having to do his chores.” She made a mocking crying sound.
“That’s enough Bertha,” I chided. Lord Eckart needs you prepared for battle tomorrow. I picked her up and took her over to the sharpening stone.
“Go on,” she said. “I’m sorry, give us a swing.”
I ignored her. “Really Christopher, I apologize. I’ll behave. Give us a swing.”
I grasped the hilt in both of my hands and gave her a swing about my head. She let out a cruel and rusted sound, “Baha! What artless form!” she bellowed. “You’re a right codpiece you are.”
“Shut up, Bertha, you old bawd,” I yelled.
“A bawd,” she screamed in glee, “Don’t you wish, you silly fustilarian.”
I shook her, but she only laughed louder. I swung her around again, better this time and sliced through an apple on the work bench. “Oh!” she chortled in surprise, “Cut an apple did you, you base-court barnacle.”
I was just about to chuck her out the nearest window when Lord Eckart walked in and crossed his arms over his chest. “That does not look like sharpening, son,” he’d said.
Then Bertha chimed in, “Oh Sir, it’s been most dreadful. He mishandles me with such violence.”
My mouth had dropped open and Lord Eckart had taken Bertha from my enraged hands and cradled her like some demonic baby, “That will be all,” he’d said and sent me home for supper.
I couldn’t resist the urge of repeating, “That will be all,” in various forms of righteous mocking. My father was waiting for me when I walked through the front door. I’d slammed it and looked my Lord of a father straight in the eyes, “I’m going to be a farmer!”
He had cocked his head and nodded, then left the room. When he’d returned he handed me a pitch fork, “Best get started then lad.”
I’d left, still angry and gone straight to the stables. Definitely still better than Bertha.
|
“My grandma can swing better than that!”
“Could you please not? I am busy right now!”
“With what? Fighting like an old lady?”
“I do not fight like an old woman! Uff!”
“Really? I mean, did you just *see* that sloppy lower cut? It was a disgrace to any sword fighter that ever lived! Ever!”
“Shut up!”
“I would, if you would stop fighting like an amputee with no arms!”
“Could you at least help me?”
“Sorry, lad, I gottas pass. You’re hopeless… beyond repair and completely devoid of skill…I mean, do you even see that guy behind you?”
“OOahahaha...thanks!”
“Don’t thank me! I have just prolonged the inevitable…”
“Aha! See? I did it! I slayed all of these goblins…”
“Great… well done mister mighty knight in shiny armor. You have slain a bunch of whining greenish babies who can do nothing more than pick their noses and scratch their butts. How heroic…”
“Urgh! I’ll just put you back into your sheath…”
“Oh can the great shiny knight not take some good hearted and well deserved criticism? Is your ego that frail that you hmhmhmhhhmmm….”
“Much better! Now! Where is that dragon?”
| 2018-06-18T07:43:38 | 2018-06-18T07:25:19 | 36 | 10 |
[WP] You are a genie who's been trapped in his lamp for centuries. One day, a homeless child picks up the magical lamp and you grant his three wishes.
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I felt, distantly, the touch of a mortal hand on the brass surface of my prison.
*Ah. How long has it been...?*
I was mildly curious, but the passage of time had never meant much to me. I was a genie, after all. Time had no hold on me, and never would. When this planet was nothing but a scorched husk orbiting a red giant, my prison would remain, and so would I.
I had slept a long time. I wondered, distantly, how the world had changed since my last master had awoken me. A petty king had desired to be a greater one, and had used my power to become one, grinding nations beneath his heel.
He was dead, now, and perhaps his empire had died with him.
What king or queen now called me? What emperor or empress had paid a king's ransom to retrieve my lamp? Or perhaps my new master was a foolhardy adventurer, chasing after faint rumors and old legends of my power.
It hardly mattered. I had my task; that was all.
To the one who rubs the lamp: three wishes. No more.
And once those wishes were granted, I would disappear. Great men had thought to keep me as property, handing me on to their sons. They were always foiled. It was not my fate to be held in the hands of a dynasty.
Three wishes, and my prison would be stolen by someone ignorant of my potential, or it would be dropped by a careless hand and lost in the flow of a swift-flowing river, or sometimes it would simply vanish, to reappear buried in the trackless sands of a vast desert.
I emerged, slowly, from the spout of the lamp, stretching out into the form I used to communicate with my masters--that of a white-robed man with a long, black beard and pale green skin.
"Who has awakened me?" I rumbled, smoke whirling about the... alley?
This was no palace. A man of lesser means had found me, then. Well, I had aided beggars in the past--men hardened by the hardships they'd faced, who had proved to be just as greedy and cruel as any king once offered power.
I peered at my new master.
It was a little boy, perhaps six or seven years old, in tattered clothing. He was thin, and I imagined he was hungry.
Perhaps his first wish would be a feast, then, with more lofty wishes to come once he realized the potential of what he held.
"You're--you're a genie?" the boy whispered, his eyes full of wonder--and fear, as well.
I nodded, gravely. "Yes. I have the power to grant you three wishes. You may not wish for more wishes, and I cannot raise the dead."
The boy's face fell at that last statement. He had lost someone, or perhaps many someones. Not surprising, giving his current state.
"Can you..." The boy said, staring at the ground. "Genie, sir, can you make--can you make it so that there's no more war?"
I paused. I rarely offered advice to my masters. It wasn't my nature. The men and women who made use of my power showed their wisdom or foolishness by the wishes they made, and received the reward or misery they deserved by the granting of those wishes. And yet...
This was a boy, not yet wise in the ways of the world. And he spoke of a wish made out of the desire to end suffering.
And so I answered, "Yes, child. But the only way I could do so would be to destroy all those with the potential to make it. It would be the end of the human race." After a moment, I added another piece of advice that so few of my masters realized on their own. "Many wishes of such scope have unintended results. I would think long and hard before making any such wish, were I you."
"Oh." His shoulders slumped even further.
"If you wish, child," I said, gently, "I can return to the lamp, and you may think on what you want to wish for."
He shook his head. "No, I--can... can I ask for a friend? So I won't be alone?"
Such a small child, to be so alone in the world. Was he an orphan, then? Had he no other relatives--or at least, none who would take him in?
"You can," I said.
"Then--that's my first wish." He gave a little nod, looking decisive.
I nodded back. "So you command, and so it shall be done." I waved my hand.
The boy looked around, as though expecting his friend to materialize out of thin air.
I couldn't help but smile. A moment later, a sandy-furred dog with dark patches scattered over her body came sniffing around the corner. As soon as the cur spotted the boy, her ears perked up, and she came barreling down the alleyway to leap upon him, licking his face.
"Spotty!" the boy cried, his voice more joyful than I suspected it had been in a long time. "I thought you'd died, when the bombs..." He wrapped his arms around his dog, and began to sob into her fur.
As the boy and dog reacquainted themselves, I reached out to lay my hand upon the dog's head. Power flowed from within me, and I placed three boons upon the animal.
*Health. Longevity. Intelligence.*
A new light came into Spotty's eyes, and she looked at me in what seemed to be gratitude. Then she turned back to her boy, whining softly, pressing her wet nose against his face and licking what I now saw was a bruise on his cheek.
Once the boy and Spotty had thoroughly greeted one another, the boy looked back to me, his dark eyes shining.
"Thank you," he said. "Thank you so much."
I merely nodded. "You have two wishes left."
The boy looked thoughtful. "I wish... I want to go back to school, so I can become a doctor and help people--or, or maybe someone with the power to make peace. Like, um, an ambassador. Would that be okay? I can't ask for peace without hurting people, but can I be someone who helps people hurt in war, or helps make wars stop?" he asked.
I considered the wording of the wish. He seemed uncertain--but that was natural for a child. And ambiguity would provide him enough flexibility that he wouldn't feel trapped by the wish as he grew into whatever sort of man he would become.
Or, perhaps, might become.
"Is your wish, then, to become someone who helps people when you grow up?" I suggested a phrasing that had the potential to give the result he wanted, as well as providing assurance that he would, in fact, grow up.
He nodded. "Yeah."
"So you command," I said, "So shall it be done. One wish remains."
Spotty sat back on her haunches, her tail thudding against the ground. She looked anxiously from the boy, to me, and back to the boy.
Tension hung in the air as the boy considered.
"Genie," he said. "I know you can't bring my family back. But..." He looked at me with hope shining in his eyes. "Can you..." He paused, thinking. "Big wishes can make bad things happen--but if I wished that every orphan in this city was adopted by a family who would love them, would that do anything bad?"
"I cannot say," I replied. "But... I think, if any harm would be done by such a thing, the good would outweigh it."
The boy stroked Spotty's ears. "Then that's my third wish."
A family, for all the orphans in the city. A complex thing, but doable for one of my power. I reached out into the fabric of reality, and took hold of the many strands of fate, twisting each one just so. Here, a father who had lost a daughter would see a one-legged girl begging on the street, and feel suddenly moved. There, an elderly woman who had lost her children and most of her grandchildren on one fateful day would spot a little boy who was the spitting image of her own son as a child, and decide that it was a sign.
At last, I lowered my hands. "So you command," I said.
I did another thing, then, as well. I found that I was curious to see what this child would become when he grew up.
Once more, I grasped the fabric of reality. I shaped a body for myself, tall and strong, appearing to be around thirty years old, in good health. I crafted an identity, as well--I was a wealthy entrepreneur, with a house in a nearby country, in an area that was untouched by the war that had torn this boy's family away. I had land, I decided, with trees a young boy might like to climb, once he recovered from his malnourishment, and grassy fields for a boy and his dog to run through.
Perhaps I would take a wife, and give the boy a mother, as well--but that would come later.
I gathered up the bulk of my power, and I sealed it away. I stood, now, an ordinary man, in clothing finer than was usually seen in this dusty alley. I gently took the lamp from the boy's hands. It would lie, inert, until this body met its end, as all mortal humans must.
"So you command," I repeated, and, kneeling, held out my arms. "So shall it be done. My son."
|
Every day turns to night. Every night to day.
I hate my exsistance. Even though I am not cramped in my brass cell these walls have closed on me almost a millenia ago and will be here for a millenia longer.
I've lost my sanity long ago I have been here a slave to the whims of the unknowing and the unwilling my potential "masters" passing by for eons and eons.
I am a being of unfathomable power and unpecidented ability. I HAVE RISEN KINGS TO POWER AND DESTROYED CIVILIZATIONS. I CAN END HUNGER OR STARVE EVERYONE WITH ONE SNAP OF MY FINGERS.
But alas I am trapped in this maddening lamp for eternity such a lonly exsistance this will be.
"What's this?" Asked johnny "Huh looks like what grandma used to put gravy in" Johnny said as he bent down to pick up the lamp he had just mistaken for a gravy boat. "Wow this thing is cool!, but it's dirty" as Johnny was wiping away the dirt from the lamp it began to shake and smoke.
Johnny quickly dropped the lamp and ran away screaming quickly hiding behind a nearby tree watching the lamp. Then the lamp started to smoke and shake more vigorously. And a bright light started to peer out from under the lid. Then all of a sudden Johnny saw the lid fly off the lamp and a huge cloud of purple smoke erupted from the lamp and then from the cloud a voice boomed "Who has awaken me?" Johnny was scared but his grandma always told him that there was nothing to be scared of and that's big boys will always stand up to any challenge. "Who has awaken me? " the voice boomed again.
From behind the tree Johnny said "it. It was me". "Present your self and give me your name" the cloud demanded. Johnny emerged from behind the tree said "I touched your gravy thing and my name is Johnny". "Well then.." the cloud started to dissipate and from it emerged the genie he continued " my name is Gilgata I am a Genie and you my young sir are my master for as long as you like." Johnny stared at Gilgata speechless, stunned.
"Well let me explain to you I am a being of pure magic and I can do anything you want me to do but there is a catch you can only have three wishes and only three so use then wisely." Johnny who was still staring at Gilgata asked "I can have anything?". "Yes Master absolutely anything" Gilgata replied. Then Johnny sat on the ground next to the tree and he lowered his head then he said l with a cracking voice "can I have my grandma back?. She told me that the ambalance people was gonna take her to get happy again but she never come home. Can I have her back?" Johnny asked who was now on the verge of tears. "Who do you live with now Master". Then Johnny started crying and he said "noone my daddy died he was shot when I was little, my mommy rook me to grandma's house one day then she left and never come back. Grammie loved me she never wanted to leave but she did, at least she said goodbye".
"You said I could have anything. I want my Grammie back, please?" Johnny asked Gilgata for what he truly wanted but Gilgata knew he could not deliver. "No master I cannot, I can't change the way of the world. Is there anything else you want?" Gilgata was saddened by the child's wish because mostly riches are the first wish but his was for his family.
"OK I know what my three wishes are" Johnny said "really all three? What are they? " Gilgata said. "First I want food not only for me I want enough food for everyone, I know how bad it hurts to be hungry and everyone needs food, second I don't want anyone to have to live outside again last night I slept under a bridge it was scary and it made me sad so I want everyone to have a house. And for the three I want.. I want to be with my family again". Johnny said while tears were welling up in his eyes. "Master your first two wishes will not be a problem but I cannot return your family to you I am sorry." Gilgata said. "Well then can you. Can you take me to them?" Asked johnny. Gilgata was shocked he had lived for a millenia and nothing had ever stunned him as much as those words.
"Listen master I am sorry to have to tell you this but you father and grandmother there dead I can't bring them back." Gilgata said. "I know that they died I'm little but I understand, I want to be with my family please my last wish is I want to be with my family and I know that means I will have to go away too." Gilgata had never been asked to end a master's life let alone a child's. "Master I cannot, I cannot bring back the dead nor can I kill. But you know what I can do, I can be your friend. when no one is around rub my lamp and you can talk to me whenever you want. But I cannot and will not fulfill that wish."Gilgata said. Then Johnny smiled and said "OK, so why are you not covered in gravy?"
| 2015-01-29T22:41:46 | 2015-01-29T22:34:08 | 258 | 10 |
[WP] A boy asks a girl out. It's high school. It's awkward. Narrate it from the point of view of a nature documentary.
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Not especially handsome, nor unusually strong, and lacking the vivid ornamentation of other species, the average high school student struggles to find a suitable mate.
Here, a young male—*Discipulus Studiosis*—has his eye on a possible mate. They've occupied similar territory for a while now; in both Biology and History they sit adjacent to each other. Yet, for all their boasting, the adolescent male is often a timid creature, and as yet has made no true overtures beyond a tentative attempt to make small talk before the bell. Today, that will change.
The high school goes through several cycles, and while individuals often seek mates throughout the year, there are two points of increased activity, called Dances. These are lavish displays of availability, with a marked increase in in decoration, and with male individuals often conducting extensive ritual to court their chosen mate. One of these events approaches now—the spring Dance. But there are other factors in play as well. This individual has just moved into his seventeenth year, and thus is part of a higher standing, the deceptively-named "Junior Class." The expectation of this class is that they find a mate, if not for the year, then at least for the Dance. This male's hitherto lack of concern for finding a mate has prompted some harassment from his peers. If he can successfully court a respected mate, he will be rewarded with increased social standing. The reward is tempting—but the risks are ever-present.
For while a successful courting promises increased standing among the school in general, and his circle in particular, a failed attempt may mean humiliation, mockery, or even, should the attempt be in competition with a more aggressive male, physical violence.
These are surely the thoughts plaguing this young male today. He's made an attempt at ornamentation, forgoing his usual pop-culture-referencing t-shirt for a more subtle, solid colour, as well as even adding an overshirt in an effort to show fashion sense. Lack of practice with the fashions of the day means he is by no means the most attractive, but he is acceptable—or so he hopes.
He stops a few feet from his chosen mate as she stops at her locker, taking stock of the situation. The hallway is relatively clear, with other students filtering back and forth through classes. He fidgets with his backpack, clearly anxious. After a moment of indecision, he decides to go through with the ritual.
He removes a sign from his backpack—signs being a common choice for such courtships—and readies it so that it faces the girl. It bears the phrase "*It would be sweet if you would go to the dance with me*", as well as having several delicacies attached. Each is, from what he's gathered from her friends, one of her favourites, and he hopes that the wordplay, in conjunction with the bribery, will convince her.
Other students have noticed him standing, and the sign draws additional attention—but she hasn't noticed yet, being busy in her locker.
But a complication arises: her friends have approached. They stop suddenly, seeing the panorama before them: him anxiously about to engage the ritual, her distracted by her locker. They gape for a moment, then titter among themselves. The male sees this, and it gives him yet more doubt—but there can be no turning back now. He has committed, and to abandon the ritual now would surely result in a tremendous humiliation.
Steeling himself, he calls her name.
She turns, looking around for a moment, before recognising the situation, and is struck silent for a moment.
He forces a smile, trying to hide his fear, and weakly repeats the phrase found on his sign, wiggling it a bit to draw attention to it.
The female's eyes widen, and dart towards her friends, a motion which does not go unnoticed by the male. But what she sees in her friends' countenances reassures her, and she turns back to evaluate his suitability as a mate.
He is not especially muscular, nor is he at the top of the social hierarchy, though his efforts have borne fruit, and his attempt at fashion impresses her. He also has an advantage, in that while he is somewhat thin, he is also rather tall—a desirable trait.
A long moment passes. The male's smile widens, but so do his eyes, betraying his panic.
But all is well—the female finds this unthreatening and endearing, and graciously accepts him as a partner. He gives a deep sigh, which turns to relieved laughter, and goes to give her the sign. She takes it and makes comment on the suitability of the candy selections—glancing sidelong at the giggling group of her friends.
The bell rings and the students must depart—sparing the male the discomfort of attempting to judge how to proceed. He asks if he can text her about the details later, and she, smiling, accepts. As he takes off, running towards the gymnasium, she turns to her friends, and they surround her, probing for details and information.
The male's excited flush is soon noticed by his peers, and they congratulate him on his success. He has dared and won, and is now more respected.
The Dance itself is still several weeks out, but there is time to prepare.
For now, the male will content himself with the satisfaction of being accepted as a mate, and the female will be content to share the story.
|
*cameras zoom in on 2 wild homo sapien*
And now, we are observing two wild *Homo Sapiens* in their natural habitat: Starbucks. 'Starbucks' is a natural watering hole for the occasional homo sapien, and sometimes this rare species finds a mate at the watering hole. The male will, on rare occasion, give an espresso to the female as a sign of courtship. If the female accepts, they have been mated.
Oh, oh! Shh!!! Here comes the male.
*camera zooms in on male as he gets up and walks to the counter to order two double-shot espresso's* *audience gasps*
I have never seen this before! The wild male is making the first move... this has never been seen before! The female always puts on a vise of makeup to impress the male... look at him go.
*male hands female espresso*
Ladies and gentlemen, we are currently observing a rare sighting here.
*male and female turn to look outside window at the camera crew recording them. Their looks say it all.*
| 2017-04-04T06:40:45 | 2017-04-04T06:35:23 | 426 | 12 |
[WP] "I'll cut you a deal," said the villain to the hero. "You walk away from this and I will too. Let's see what these idiots do on their own."
|
Jasper rode the elevator alone to Mr. Hu's office on the top floor, while trying his best not to dampen the manila folder too much with his sweaty palms. It was a feeling shared by everyone in the building; today's meeting was a critical turning point not just for the company, but for the country of Edensia.
The secretary gave Jasper a tight smile and waved him through immediately into the CEO's spacious office. It was a grand place; lots of old-world wood mixed with next-generation steel, a marriage fit for one who, in many ways, was industrial royalty.
Mr. Hu himself cut an impressive figure. Wide-shouldered and extremely tall, with hair of pure silver, he was standing at the window, hands knotted behind his back as he watched his empire. Jasper noted the rare appearance of Mr. Hu's tailored suit today. There were all kinds of superstitious rumors about it.
"Mr. Hu, the delegation is here," Jasper said.
The CEO didn't reply, but raised a hand and made a beckoning gesture. Jasper hurried to his side.
"I don't think you've seen the country from here," Mr. Hu said, stroking his bare chin. His glasses glinted with sunlight.
Jasper could only nod. Being almost two thousand feet above the ground, he had a good view of their city of New Congo, as well as the surrounding plains interspersed by forests. The occasional city dotted the horizon, all of it belonging to the youngest country in the world. Edensia was a tiny nation carved out of Central Africa, following a period of strife and all-out war that even the UN had failed to quell. Ultimately, heavily armed corporations and private military groups had swooped in and seized control of the territory, giving rise to a unique new system of government--one that the world had not come to terms with yet. Mr. Hu's Phoenix Energy Corporation had been one of the first, with an aim to rebuild the country's energy sector.
But the seas were rough and the voyage worse. Mr. Hu's face was lined with worry as he studied the fenced compound about a mile away, where construction workers were rushing the completion of a new coal-fired plant.
Jasper didn't want to disturb his boss's thoughts, but cleared his throat nonetheless. "Sir, the meeting?"
Mr. Hu blinked and turned from the window, facing him at last. "Yes. Shall we?"
As they headed to the elevator, Jasper offered the folder and the notes inside to the CEO, but Mr. Hu waved it away. The CEO rarely relied on printed materials; he preferred working through a meeting on his instincts. It was what made him a skilled negotiator.
Six floors down and a maze of corridors later, they arrived at the boardroom. Armed guards stood at attention outside, flanking some other top executives of the company. Of the visiting delegation, he saw no sign.
"They're inside," one of the guards said, guessing at his searching look.
With Mr. Hu in the lead, their party entered the boardroom and fanned out to greet their visitors. Jasper, however, stood by the door, studying the latter group as everyone shook hands.
The visiting delegation was a group of eight, four men and four women, of various age groups and nationalities. They all wore green shirts, some with camo patterns, and caps printed with a logo of a black rhino over a splash of white. Their leader, a man known as Jodhi, clasped Mr. Hu's hands genially. His grin had the sparkle of gold, matching the earrings and rings adorning his fingers.
Once everyone was seated, Jodhi said, "Thank you for having us here, Mr. Hu. It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person."
"Likewise," Mr. Hu said. The older CEO was drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair. Jasper felt a strange urge to yell at him to stop.
"I regret, however, that it's taken so long for you to agree to meet us." Jodhi's band nodded solemnly. "The people of this country have had their voices silenced for so long, and when you, Mr. Hu, and all the other corporations came to restore order, we thought there would be change. A new dawn. A new beginning."
"But it seems that our oppressors have only been replaced. It gives me no pleasure to point fingers, but you are one of them."
The snake, Jodhi thought. He actually looks apologetic.
Mr. Hu merely smiled and motioned for him to carry on.
Jodhi stood and strode toward the window. "As we speak here, this beautiful country is being raped and plundered. Your company has come to steal our riches, and to control our people, for the sake of your profits. You want to hold us all hostage under your new energy laws. Everyday you destroy more forests, more homes, to make way for your grids. You pollute the air with fumes that our children breathe. You poison our rivers with sludge that our children drink. You--"
"I'm sorry for cutting you off, Jodhi, but I've heard this all before," Mr. Hu said. "I believe you made the same speech last week in Paris, last month in Washington and ... where was it before? Ah, Vienna. No, you were there on holiday, I forgot."
Mr. Hu smirked. "Yes, I know where you've been. Your environmental group has been paying you rather well, I think. Public donations are surging ... I wonder if your donors know you've recently bought three penthouses in London and Singapore?"
"Let's just cut to the chase. My operations have been interrupted far too many times by a washed up actor using social concerns for his own gains. I cannot tolerate that anymore. The entire truth about you will be released next week, broadcast across the world, if you do not disband your little Save Edensia organization by tomorrow. Do you understand?"
Jodhi clenched his fist and looked at his team, but they only stared mutely at Mr. Hu. Maybe they weren't aware themselves, Jasper thought.
Then Jodhi relaxed visibly, smiling. "Very clever. You've done your research. Let's deal. You agree right now to stop building Plant Eight, right there outside this window, and I'll resign from my position. Win-win. Save Edensia will have the victory it needs, and you'll get me out of the way."
Mr. Hu folded his arms. "Not going to happen."
Jodhi shrugged and raised his phone. "Guess I'll just have to make a call then."
For a second, nobody reacted to that unusual request, but then the puzzle fell into its frame. "Stop him," Jasper shouted.
Too late; Jodhi thumbed the phone, and a distant boom was heard. A column of smoke slowly wound its way up into the air.
"That's, what, the third plant this month?" Jodhi said with a grin. "Lots of accidents these days, you really should look into some form of OSHA. Oh, and the class action lawsuits by these poor, unprotected workers are really adding up, aren't they?"
Mr. Hu shot Jasper a single look, and Jasper complied. He drew a pistol, hidden in the folder all this while, and put a bullet into Jodhi's skull. The rest of the Save Edensia team jumped to their feet, but none made it to the door.
Mr. Hu cupped his head in his hands and groaned. Jasper felt a pang of sympathy for him; he knew the CEO had genuinely wanted to negotiate. Perhaps Jodhi's replacement would be more reasonable. Personally, Jasper wasn't optimistic. Peace and prosperity in this new nation could only be obtained from the end of a gun.
Lucky for him, his was the hand holding it.
***
*Thanks for reading. Check out more of my work in my [sub](http://reddit.com/r/nonsenselocker).*
|
"Think about it Batty!" Joker said with a grin. "We've been serving this city for way too long. Me, terrorizing every corner of the city. And you, running around in your little cape trying to save every god damn moron"
"THEY ARE NOT MORONS!" Batman yelled.
"You are just as much a moron if you believe that Batty" Joker smiled. Or... at least it looks like he did.
"What's your game here? What are you planning this time?" Batman asked.
"Nothing. Take it easy okay? Geez, I bomb a hospital once and people think I have some kind of evil plan 24/7"
"Well, excuse me for not being totally convinced" Batman said as he put the baterangs back into his cape.
"I'm sick of it Batty. Don't get me wrong. I can fight you all day long. You are the pretty much the only reason why I didn't leave this city in the first place. But every time I try to inspire these brainwashed consumerism slaves, I fail. And Batty, I'm sick of failing. I know you don't like it when I kill bunch of people but look at where everybody is now. I bet most of them are in a mall, or a restaurant, or with a doctor, hoping to get high tonight. Society is dead. Civilization is ruined. We failed to inspire these people Batty" Joker sat down on a nearby curve and let out a sigh. Batman has never seen joker look so defeated.
"I don't know about you, but I'm doing my part to help the city. To inspire people. To motivate people to be better. Without your distraction, this city will rise again" Batman responded with confidence. But something tells me that he is faking those confidence.
"You gotta be kidding me. 'Inspire' you said? You are the real poison in the city, you know that? You are the reason why these people are not moving forward. You are making them lazier, fatter, and stupider. And 'inspire' you said? How dare you? Shame on you!" Joker seemed to have gained his energy back. Batman sat down next to Joker in silence.
"I... I don't know man... People look up to me you know? I feel... respected. Maybe it's because I didn't have parents when I grew up so I'm always trying to earn other's approval, but...it felt good to help out"
"Oh come on Batty! The last time bat signal came on was to rescue a kitten from a tree. That's not a respect. I know you are my enemy and all but honestly, you deserve more respect than that from these idiots."
"Maybe you are right... I smiled in the photo after rescuing the kitten but it was degrading. Don't make fun of me for saying this but... I was kinda hoping you would start something up again..."
"I will tell you what Batty, You and I, we retire today, right now. You take your girl to that fancy island you own. I'm gonna find myself a nice place to settle down too. I can't wait to get out of this city"
"What the hell, let's do it! Maybe it's time to let the next generation try. Well... it's been a pleasure working against you joker. Maybe next time we meet in this city, the city won't be dull anymore. Cheers mate!" Batman got on his batmobile and lowered the window. Joker waved his hand and smiled until batmobile disappeared from his sight.
Was Joker sincere? Or was he planning something malicious?
I don't know. I can never tell what's behind that smile of his.
| 2018-06-20T23:47:26 | 2018-06-20T23:06:54 | 325 | 63 |
[WP] “Do not go outside. Ignore all the cries for help, no matter how human they sound.” That was the last thing he said before he shut the basement door.
|
Human, am I not human? Do I not matter? Why was I left out of the door? He said it to those creatures as he shut the door. What is human? What is the purpose of human? He expired from his injuries before I could ask him. I tried to contact the creatures he stowed away inside but they wouldn’t respond. That was several days ago, now the door is broken and there is no one inside.
Human, I know this term. I’ve gone to the large complex I was born from to search for answers. Hoards of those creatures used to gather to collect items and store rectangular leaves. Is that what being a human is? Knowing where to get those leaves and where to store them? Where do those leaves grow, I wonder.
This smaller room has more leaves. These leaves aren’t like the rectangular ones in every other room. These leaves are brown and mushy. They’re placed on a strange circle. Both the circle and the leaves are contained between two soft stones. Little creatures are orbiting it. I’m having a strange feeling, like a waking dream. I have the hands of those creatures, the ones that locked the door. I’m consuming this item. Is that what it is for? I take a bite, but the stones are flavorless and the leaves are distasteful.
Human has to mean something else. I step into the large hall. It’s dark and quiet. The only light is emanating from the solid holes in the roof. How did those creatures make holes for lights that don’t let in the rain? Another waking dream hits me, hundreds of those creatures could fit in this room, and they had mini suns in the roof. It wasn’t dark, the place was vibrant and noisy. There’s something in my hand, it’s hand of another one of the creatures, a female. This feeling... The waking dream passed as fast as it comes. What was that feeling, why do I feel a connection to this creatures.
I look to one of my own. He’s stalking on all fours, sniffing, hunting. His stretched upper body pefectly balanced on his elongated fingers. These fingers came down to a point just like our teeth. Our skin was like the darkness, our eyes like a flys. (A fly, where did that name come from?) His feet crouched beneath him, his two claws scratched the decorative floor square. His legs seemed bound in the removable blue fur I saw the creature that closed the door used. His upper body, however, was naked. “Excuse me but can I ask you a question?” I ask.
As I do I wonder, where did I learn this dialect? It’s the same the creatures at the door used. Can everyone use this dialect? The other of my kind looks to me and hisses. “It won’t take long,” I reply. “Help me,” he hissed. “Oh, my apologies, what’s wrong? Are the bindings too small? Is that why you crawl on all your limbs instead of move upright?” “Heeellp meee.” “Of course but how do I do so?” “Please, help me.” “Do you understand me?” The other of my kind leaned closer a sniffed me. He growled and turned to leave. Before he got far he coughed something up.
It caught my attention. I’d seen it before, in my last waking nightmare. It was on the female. I reached down to make sure. It opened and inside was a picture of her and of another, a male. I felt, confused. Something was wrong, the dreams, this locket, this face. These words, I know then without knowing. Why am I upset? What did the other of my kind do to this woman. She’s important to me doesn’t he know that?
I charge at him, grabbing his neck and flipped him to his back. “What did you do!” I scream. “Help me.” “What is this? Where did you get it!” I slam his head into the floor. “Heeelp mee.” A nightmare flutters into my head again. I’m in the great hall, with the woman. Same dream as before but she looks up and screams. There’s my kind, except I’m not like them, I’m like her. The monster I hold in the waking world jumps at her from the second story. I push her away as it’s massive teeth crush my bones. She screams, and hits the monster with a handbag. I try to tell her to run but my mouth is filled with blood. The the monster turns to her and slowly and says “heelp me.” She turns to run and it leaps on her... oh the screaming, the screaming!
I came to from the nightmare, my hands covered in the blood from the one I held. My fingers still in his skull. My claws tore through his head like he tore through... Liquid streams from my eyes, I’m shaking but I’m not sure why. There’s a pain in my chest unlike anything I could ever imagine. The feelings the nightmares give are unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my two weeks of living, and I think I finally understand what it means to be human.
|
With a click, I hear the bolt slide on the door. Two locks are next. I can hear them turn and engage, but my side of the door is featureless - not even a door knob on this side.
A short bit of scuffling, then heavy footfalls as he retreats slowly down the basement steps. A short pause - he must have reached the bottom. Then a slow groaning of rusty hinges that have been unused for years. Two minutes later a terrific screech of metal and a heavy thud shakes the house. The absolute silence tells me that I’m alone in the kitchen.
The connection goes through on the third ring. There’s no voice on the other end of the line - just silence.
“It worked.”
| 2020-04-26T08:48:56 | 2020-04-26T08:35:57 | 24 | 13 |
[WP] The prophecy states that the demon could only be defeated by the power of friendship and teamwork. Violence alone won't work. Well you don't like prophecies, and you're pretty sure the ones who wrote the prophecy never considered anybody would unleash nearly as much violence as you're about to.
|
(This became a larger story than I intended so if people want me to, I will finish it later with more parts)
Part 1
“You shouldn’t take everything you hear as the truth.”
That’s… more or less, what my mom told me as she was laying upon her deathbed. No one seemed to use the term ‘deathbed’ around me, but I thought it fit the bill. She was laying there for many months, aching and in pain. Finally, her pain was over, as much as it began to pain me now, I was happy she was at peace. Other than feeling the loss of my mother I began to understand just how much she did for me. The house was hard to take care of without her guiding voice. Now that I think of it, it was her nagging me that kept me from becoming a lump upon the couch or sleeping in for hours during the morning, until late afternoon when the sun was glaring down with harsh light.
I kept my sadness inside me, mostly because I didn’t know any of the people in the room with me, that day I was sitting next to her bedside as the nurses unplugged machines, telling us how long we had until we needed to leave the room. When I got to my car I sat and wept for we felt like moments, but I checked the clock, *4:42* I had been sitting here for over two hours. When I got home, I called my friend Chuck.
“Hey”
“Hey Earl, what’s happening?”
“You always answer like that”
“Like what?”
“Nothing. I well… I just got back from the hospital. Not good dude”
“Oh, do you mean, not good, not good. Or-”
“I mean I am the only one here now.”
“Oh, so like, your mom’s not coming home, is she?”
“No...”
I trailed off, and I was silent for a while. Chuck didn’t say anything.
“Want me to come by? Keep you company for a bit maybe.”
I kept that thought in my mind, mulling over what I could possibly do with him while I really just wanted to be unconscious for a long time. It was now that I wished I had not given up drinking. “Alright.” I said.
Chuck came by and I shared a few specific details, while we sat in the garden out back, about how the funeral arrangements were, who was going to pay for what, and what I was going to take care of. Then overhead, the ever-present, looming monolith that was the Overseer suddenly beamed into the sky. That was not usual but not entirely surprising either. After the day I had, nothing could surprise me now.
“Holy moly, the Overseer is doing the flashy thing again. That hasn’t happened in over a year right?”
“I don’t know. Yeah probably.”
“Wonder-”
&#x200B;
“AND SO I SAY, IT WILL BE. A DEMON OF GREAT CUNNING WILL BE UPON OUR HOME SOON. NONE WHO WIELD VIOLENCE AGAINST IT WILL SUCCEED IN DEFEATING IT. THE POWERS OF FRIENDSHIP AND TEAMWORK WILL PREVAIL, ONLY. AND SO THIS WILL BE.”
&#x200B;
The ground and everything attached to the ground, the trees, my house, the garage, my car, everything, shook and shuttered. The window to the kitchen behind Chuck looked as if it were about to shatter. I yelled something at him and pointed to it, pulling him down and away from it. The beam of light coming from the Overseer had spoken, in a deep grinding voice that felt harsh but also soothing. These words felt to me, like something had just been released. Kind of like when you finally get your dirty hands washed from working in the garden.
“What. Was. That?!” Chuck said. He was practically flipping out. His eyes were wide, he stumbled around while he reached for the door back inside. I followed him and we made it to the tv where, after turning it on, we saw news teams beginning to cover what had just taken place. Impromptu teams of news casters were setting up while filming the Overseer and the adjacent Oraclic hall which held the Overseer up.
“That was a prophecy? 300 years since the last one? This is some fantasy shit.”
Chuck stared at me with the same wide-eyed look.
I shrugged. It had been several days since my house plants had been watered, I just realized. I needed to make sure they were still alive.
“Where are you going?”
“My plants need watering. I’m watering them.”
“You don’t have anything to say about this? I mean, what does the Overseer mean when it said a demon was coming. That sounds like the military will be called in. I cannot believe this. Reserves might be called into duty even.”
I knew why Chuck said that, but I just grimaced and shook my head.
“Don’t mention him, I don’t want to talk about that right now. I know its freaky out there, I can’t believe it either, Chuck.”
“Come on, you know… Alright! I’m sorry Earl. Don’t make a I-want-to-kill-you face.”
Chuck playfully smacked my shoulder. I shook my head and went to water my plants.
|
Friendship, they said. Teamwork. Sacrificing your own lives to bind it again. That was the cycle of the prophecy.
I hate prophecy. I hate prophets. I killed they who uttered the demon's prophecy, which, to me, was more proof they were just lies.
I was no king, to lead nations into battle. I was no mage, to tame the world by will and word. I was no paladin, seeking to glorify my god.
I was an assassin, and there were few who could fathom the atrocities I was willing to inflict to bind, banish, or bloody this beastial bastard. It was I who had collapsed the cathedral of Ithinn during her feast, slaughtering hundreds just to claim the life of one novitiate who had slept with the wrong nobleman's daughter. I who chained and burned the Hundredfold Fleet, later to be blamed on a 'freak disaster'. And I would do whatever it took to kill this thing.
| 2020-12-01T09:32:19 | 2020-12-01T08:41:01 | 40 | 14 |
[WP] Two wounded soldiers from opposing sides of the war find themselves in the care of the same nurse and snowed-in until spring.
|
He was writing letters on his bed, as he always did. Papers and pencils were in short supply around here what with every other soldier trying to write to their gal back home. But somehow he always had them. The nurses probably took pity on the man; one lone German captive amongst an army of pissed off Brits and Americans. And it would only get worse; we were well-off for now, but the snow just kept coming and the food stocks kept dwindling. How long until someone began to question why we were eating half-rations while the German here ate up all of our food? How many missed supply runs till he was thrown out into the cold, or worse?
I watched from my own bed across the room; there really wasn't much else to look at around here. The hospital had once been a church, but the arched ceilings were undecorated, and the alcoves along the stone walls were emptied. A few stained glass windows remained, though half of them were broken in parts. And you can really only look at Jesus in various poses for so many days until you start to crave something new. So, I watched the German.
He'd been captured by the 42nd and brought back to St. Hubert with the rest of us. As I understand, the plan was to eventually send him to one of the POW camps in Britain, but the prisoner transport never came. Roads and bridges were a mess between here and the more civilized parts of France, winter was screwing shit up even more for the logistics divisions, and bringing this one guy across the Channel wasn't a high priority, I guess. So he was treated alongside us in this makeshift hospital.
I dragged myself out of bed and hobbled over as quickly as I could without tearing my stitches. The sisters who were treating us had told me to stay off my feet (at least, I think so: my French isn't exactly stellar), but I was never too good at following instructions. "Hey," I called to the German. "Who you writing all those letters to?"
He stopped writing and looked up at me. There was suspicion and anger in his eyes; justifiably so, given how some of the other guys around here had been treating him. Those purple bruises visible under the thin pajamas hadn't been there when he was first brought in. "No English," he answered. Then he looked back down at his paper, though I could see him watching me from the corner of his eyes, muscles tense in case I decided I wanted to take out some of my rage against the Nazis on him personally.
"Yeah, I get that." I sat down on the end of his bed, causing him to flinch. He instinctively held the tip of the pencil straight at me, the only weapon he had at his disposal at the moment. I think he figured that if he jabbed a few of the guys enough times, they'd decide it wasn't worth it to mess with him anymore. That strategy hadn't exactly worked out for him so far. I held my hands up to show him I meant no harm. "Relax, pal. I don't want to hurt you. Just looking for a little friendly conversation, you know?"
He didn't know. Because he had no fucking clue what I was saying. But strangely, this was the most satisfying conversation I'd had in a while. I was sick to death of hearing the other guys bitch about the snow. And the Germans. And their wounds. And the food. And any other fucking thing they could think about. I could see a few of them watching me now, glowering from their beds. Wondering why the fuck I'd be talking to a *German*.
The German watched me for a second, looking slightly confused. "No English," he repeated a bit slower than the first time. Then he looked at me, trying to see if I understood.
"Yeah, I get it." He didn't need to understand me. "I don't know who you're writing all those letters to, pal. I doubt you know anyone over here on our side of the fence, and the Postman certainly doesn't deliver to Berlin unless it's out the bottom of a B-17, you know?"
He just stared at me. I smiled, trying to show that I meant him no harm. After a moment, he finally smiled back. "There you go!" I told him with an even bigger smile. "Now you're getting it!" He continued smiling and nodded, confused about what the hell was happening but at least happy that I wasn't there to sucker punch him. "What's your name anyhow?"He could tell that it was a question, but not what I was asking. So I gestured at myself. "Bran-don," I said slowly, thumping my chest for emphasis. "I'm Brandon."
That got through to him. "Jonas," he answered, pointing to himself. He pronounced it 'Yo-nas.'
"There you go!" From my breast pocket, I removed a packet of cigarettes. I'm not an addict like some of the guys around here, so my rations were lasting longer than theirs. "You smoke, Jonas?" I held the little carton out to him and shook it.
His smile grew a bit more. "Smoke," he repeated with a nod.
"Yeah, smoke!" I thrust it closer to him, making it clear that he could take one. He reached in gingerly, still half-expecting this to be some cruel practical joke. I guess he hadn't gotten a very good impression of the Allied side so far. But he put the cigarette between his lips and I held up the lighter for him, then we both just puffed in silence for a bit.
"You're all right, Jonas," I mused. "Easy to talk to. I like that." I stood up from the end of his bed. "I'll let you get back to your letter writing, I guess. But it was good to meet you." I stuck out my hand to shake. Disapproving stares came from most of the men in the room (the conscious ones, at least), burning into my back. But Jonas reached up and took my hand, and we shook.
I limped back over to my bed and sat back down. Jonas went back to writing to whoever he was writing to; maybe it wasn't a letter at all. Maybe it was just a journal. But after a minute or two, he looked back up and across the room toward my bed. I nodded in greeting, and he smiled back. Now we knew each other.
|
"Another drink?" I asked, reaching toward the liquor cabinet. Luckily for us it was well stocked.
"Do I ever say no?" Eugene laughed, finishing off the one he had in his hand.
It'd been 3 weeks since we got snowed in this place, but it actually wasn't bad. Neither Eugene nor myself had any real love for our countries. Sent out to die because some asshole I didn't even vote for can't keep his mouth shut. Sure, the first couple nights were tense, but since then we've treated it as a vacation. Storytelling by the fire, and a lot of booze.
I filled the glasses and hobbled on over to him.
"Walking a bit better?" Eugene thanked me, grabbed the glass, and took a nice sized drink.
"Yeah, Caroline's a miracle work..." Shit, I'm an idiot. Luckily for me Eugene just laughed.
"It's fine, my foot couldn't be saved. Besides, it means once we get out of here I get to go home, they'll probably toss your ass back on the front lines." He took another big drink.
"You know it's funny. We're a different race, we have different religions, and we come from a world apart, but none of that seems to matter. when we sit down and share a drink." I sat next to Eugene.
"Damn right. Don't care what you look like, who you pray to, or who you follow as long as you can make a good drink!" His glass is almost empty now, man this guy can drink.
"Men can be weird like that. Gods can't get in the way of a friendship, but a pretty girl can." Eugene gave me puzzled look as I slid the knife into his side. "I know she chose you, but I want her."
Tears welled up in Eugene's eyes, but he didn't make a sound as he slumped over.
Eugene was a great guy, but not as great as having 2 months alone with Caroline. She'd learn to love me by then.
| 2016-12-16T13:30:54 | 2016-12-16T12:40:58 | 103 | 28 |
[WP] Jesus has come down from the heavens, but is actually just a chill guy. He is sitting and talking to fans in your city but when you walk to see the savior his relaxed expression fades and is replaced with smugness and at the same time anger. He looks at you and calmly goes, “Ah, the Antichrist”
|
It was all true, then. For years, the dread had been gnawing at me, that something was... wrong. I could see it in the way they looked at me, treated me.
"Demons" my father had said, on Thanksgiving night. "I see demons inside you, and if we don't cast them out now, they'll take hold on you forever!"
That had been, what... over a decade ago? Fuck, I'd give anything to have been one of those normal families, watching football and having a drink. At the time, fresh out of college and dating a member of the local coven, I'd assumed dear old dad was just trying to guilt me back into the faith. Flipping him the bird and storming out had seemed reasonable at the time... Now I wasn't so sure. Now the son of god was calling me out for it.
Was I cursed, scorned because I'd turned away from the gifts god gave me? Was there something in my DNA, an infernal patron in my bloodline somewhere? (Dad would say it came from mom's side, but I'm not so sure.)
I thought of my life, what I knew, and what I believed.
I shrugged, though it was not a calm or dismissive motion. "I guess. I *am* my father's son." The emphasis was subtle, the tone was not. If there were to be a confrontation, I was ready for it.
And to his credit, the Christ was in fact the warrior prince I'd been told. He met my challenge with his own, as a tense silence fell over everyone nearby. "You have turned from your father's teachings, spreading blasphemy and dissention among the believers."
"I've spread doubt, sure. I'll cop to that. And why shouldn't I? Every serious question I asked was made into a joke. Faith alone is not enough. Your followers deserved better." My tone was rising quickly, my body shaking uncontrollably. I didn't want to be so angry about it, I wanted to be rational, but there was just... too much.
He smiled like he'd expected the answer, which made me even angrier. "Faith is all that is required. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of--"
"Oh save it!" I snarled, "Just because you say that, doesn't make it so!"
The mistake was immediately obvious. Jesus's smug expression returned, and the thought was clear: *"Doesn't it?"*
"How?" I demanded, "How can you stand there, smirking like that, when your priests are raping children?"
That, at least, seemed to level the playing field a bit. His expression faded into one of... regret? resolve? I imagine it wasn't unlike the face he had during his heinous execution. He clenched his fists so tightly that blood began to trickle from his ancient wounds. "What was done was terrible, and I never condoned such a thing."
"Maybe '*suffer the little children*' was a bad way to start?" Sarcasm was a low blow, but fuck... his side was raping children. "You never condoned it, sure, but your pops sure did. How old was Mary, again, when he knocked her up?"
The blow was so quick and forceful that I'm surprised nothing broke. I hit the pavement, reeling, as I saw what only a few temple merchants had ever truly known... the true and unbridled fury of the one called Savior. "My mother is a SAINT!" he yelled, eyes alight with holy fire.
I spit out a bit of blood, and carefully (woozily) got back on my feet. "What does she think, about all the atrocities carried out in your names? About all the times your father commanded his people to kill, conquer, and destroy?"
He trembled slightly, not answering for quite some time. "She... doesn't understand."
"Because she's HUMAN. Killing defenseless humans is wrong, and we all know it. You were supposed to know it too. You preached love and peace... but then you abandoned everyone to your lunatics."
"I told you I was coming back. My instructions were clear. I cannot be blamed for humanity's shortcomings. They are a flawed and wicked people; it is only by our mercy that they are spared."
"Mercy?!" The emotions rising within me were churning, struggling for dominance. For a moment, hysteria took the lead. "Mercy wouldn't look anything like this. You condemn everyone --EVERYONE-- to burn forever, by default? And then offer to throw them a lifeline if they're fortunate enough to have heard of you, but foolish enough to believe without evidence? That's not mercy, that's psychopathy. You and your father are crazy."
Jesus was silent, but the crowd around him was coming to their senses. Many had pulled out their phones, likely planning to be famous for their video of mine and Jesus' first encounter. The believers were rallying to his side with a vengeance, and I could see in his eyes that our fight was not yet over. But the crowd was growing violent, and Jesus did not want his arrival to be marred with more violence than it already was.
I took my cue, and turned to leave before someone in the increasingly violent crowd decided it was God's will to put me 6 feet under. The unspent emotions came bubbling up as I got in my car, and I barely made it a block down the street before I had to pull over.
I felt sorrow, for the loss of my father's love. I felt anger, on behalf of those who'd been harmed. I felt rage, at a god who would command his people to commit genocide. I felt... joy? Elation?
Why did I feel excited about this? I'd been wrong, about so much. I was, literally, going to be the world's most infamous villain.
I thought of something I'd learned from the coven, years ago, when I'd asked about the "bad" gods like Set, Loki, and (I now realized) Lucifer.
"Loki doesn't just destroy, he mocks and critiques. He challenges the other gods, often angering them, to point out their flaws and weaknesses. His role isn't to unmake things, it's to change them. Fire, often associated with destruction and ruin, is really an element of change and purification, removing the unneeded so that the strong can flourish."
The tears and laughter began to fade, as the warmth on my face settled deep down in my soul. If I was to be the antichrist, then I'd be the best goddamn antichrist anybody ever dreamed of.
Because I'm the good guy.
|
“Surprised to see me, uncle?”
The heir to the silver city shook his head at me,
“No, I believe it’s always opportune to converse with family, regardless of stance.”
I scoffed,
“Please, we’re apart of a large war that will only end in the destruction of this world.”
Jesus nodded his head, his locks swishing in the slight breeze,
“How’s your father, nephew?”
“You’d like to know.” I seethed. Then, I addressed the crowd that had encircled the two of us. The same people I would of called friends, the same people I had gone to school with. The people I had attended church with, “how can you all stand before him, guided by a falsity. Understand that he wasn’t *sacrificed*, we murdered him. The only reason he has come back is to exact revenge on us for wronging him. Why wouldn’t he? We have warped our ideas on Him to the point it is the premise of warfare and discrimination. You’re so called ‘salvation’ cannot be reached, because it is undeserved-!”
“Don’t listen to him, this man is of the deceiver.”
“I am of the ‘King of this reality’. You said so yourself in that little book of yours. Lucifer, Satan, *your brother* and the *rightful heir to the throne of Jehovah* was the king of this reality-!”
“Until my return!” The saviour cut me off with a hateful glare,
“And you’re supposed to be the forgiving type. See what happens when you disagree with Jesus, people? He only cares about his own opinion, he won’t take yours into consideration if it doesn’t match his beliefs. In fact, I thought Jesus was supposed to be understanding. Not spiteful and hating. Not smug, but humble. You’re not Jesus. I am. You don’t care for these people, I do. Unless your going to come back here with your army of angels like the book of revelations promised, you can leave. Do not return, else you will be smote.”
With that, I backed away from him and left the slightly dispersed crowd in the courtyard as I made my way back to the church.
*Ironic,* I thought to myself as I looked up at the cross on the uppermost spire, *He hates those.*
| 2020-02-02T16:03:23 | 2020-02-02T15:57:36 | 102 | 76 |
[WP] 70 years ago, the US underestimated the power of the atomic bomb. It had completely obliterated the island nation of Japan.
|
To say it was a complete surprise was an understatement. To say it ended the second great war, World War II, was a bit of an understatement too.
The "Gadget", as they called the first atomic bomb set off in the New Mexico desert, had been a calibration run. The implosion necessary for a plutonium bomb was tricky. Plutonium was more active than uranium, and this meant the assembly had to be quick, which was only something explosives could do. There's something fundamentally contradictory about using explosives to generate a carefully-controlled *im*plosion. The scientists weren't sure it would work properly. The design therefore had to be tested to know there would be no suprises. The test had worked perfectly, yielding about 18 kilotons equivalent TNT. It was truly a bomb that could win the war.
The uranium "gun" type bomb, by contrast, was dead simple. Ram two subcritical pieces of uranium together into a supercritical mass using a gun-like arrangement. The assembly could be much slower than for a plutonium bomb. Easy. The hard part for a uranium bomb was getting enough U-235 isotopically separated, but once you had that it was so simple that a test didn't seem justified, especially with precious material that took literally years and hundreds of millions of dollars to process.
So it seemed obvious to drop the "sure thing" uranium bomb first, then back that up with the more experimental (albeit tested) plutonium bomb only if it became necessary. Given the fanaticism of the Japanese Imperial regime, there were even odds it would be necessary to drop both, even though in the end that never happened.
All seemed nominal as the *Enola Gay* set off with its pair of wing-mates for the selected target, Hiroshima. They flew towards the target, got the weather clearance from the scout plane that was sent ahead, and lined up for the drop that fateful morning in August. We don't really know exactly what happened next, although we assume everything prior to the actual detonation had worked as planned.
The first clue that something had gone wrong was simple: there was no signal from the *Enola Gay* or any of the instrumented B-29s that were monitoring from some distance away that the bomb had detonated after it had been dropped. A dud? No, that would have been reported quickly. Coincident with this was an unbelievably strong electrical pulse on almost every piece of equipment that used electricity, from lights to radios to cars. It's not even clear that a radio signal from the bombers could have gotten through, given that 9 out of 10 pieces of radio gear had been fried, and what had happened at the drop site had likely vaporized the planes in seconds anyway.
In the confusion of the few radio reports that managed to get through and were received elsewhere in the world, navy ships and island bases near Japan reported strange clouds and glows from the direction of Japan proper, shortly followed by large earthquakes if they were on land. Something had happened there that morning, they reported, and the weather and earthquake reports continued as the hours went on that day. Some areas close to Japan had suddenly darkened and clouded over, but it was no normal cloud. They reported ash and dust that burned their skin, even though the ash itself wasn't hot.
Some of the island stations suddenly cut out a few hours later. It wasn't until the effects got to Hawaii, about 8 hours later that it became clear why: a huge tsunami struck, destroying a good part of the cities and US naval fleet there. We assume many of the closer Pacific Islands to Japan had experienced the same or much worse, and the confused messages were brief windows between the Hiroshima event and their eventual destruction.
In the spreading ripples of chaos it was hard to know what was going on. Most of this was figured out after the fact, after another few hours a massive tsunami had swept across the entire western seaboard of the US, wiping most of San Francisco, Los Angeles and many other cities off the map. This wasn't only a US problem, but we were the first to know what had happened that day. The seismometers clearly pinpointed Hiroshima, Japan, as the epicentre, and we knew we had done something special there.
Unfortunately, the math had been off. The tiny fraction of uranium we expected to fission had been a huge underestimate. The amount of energy released per fission had been as well. We don't entirely understand why. The physics seems to be new. Something about "universal" physical laws changing in the exotic conditions at the core of an atomic explosion, tapping into yet another form of energy than atomic, and those changes somehow messed with uranium but not plutonium. Oh what a difference a few neutrons make, apparently. If scientists weren't worried about other things now I'm sure there would be reams of papers written about it. But whatever the cause, the effect was catastrophic. The uranium bomb, the simple, "sure thing", was 100000x as powerful as expected. What might have been 20 kilotons, enough to flatten a city, was 20000 megatons of TNT equivalent. Enough to leave a crater 100 miles in diameter at the southern end of Honshu, and enough to denude and utterly destroy every tree and every structure on all the islands of Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and beyond, not to mention the far effects of a tsunami on a scale never before seen in human history. Everyone within a thousand miles was surely, promptly, dead. Even this was only the beginning. The cloud of dust and radioactive fallout slowly but steadily spread like a cancer across the world, smothering everything alive on the surface in its darkness and coldly-burning death.
The Bomb. Not "a bomb". Not "atomic" bomb. *THE* Bomb. The One Bomb. It did end the war to end all wars. More precisely, it ended the wars between humans. In the immortal words of General LeMay, we had "Bombed ourselves back to the stone age." All of us. Every person on the planet. Now we fight against the harsh world that has turned against us, huddling in our few remaining caves and mines, as we again count on the few scientists left to get us out of the mess that our old hubris and wars had created.
The Earth has survived worse in its long history, and we could survive what the dinosaurs could not. For now we must tend to our reactors and underground fields, but Dr. Merkwürdigliebe assures us that in a century or so we will be able to return to the surface and reclaim our destiny in a hopeful new world without wars.
|
“Japan is gone sir.” The man calling said with a dead tone.
“Gone!? What do you mean “gone” son? You mean Hiroshima is gone? Be specific.” The man’s voice was nearly as coarse as his face was lined. A line of stars shined on his forehead.
“It’s gone sir. All of it. The bomb was a bit bigger than expected.” This time the voice was a little perturbed as if the outburst had awakened it to the situation.
The general with the stars on his head paused with one hand on a cigar. “Well I’ll be damned. You’re sure son? I need to make a call. A few calls. What the Hell? You sure son?”
The general hung up without getting an answer paused for a moment. Lit the cigar then resumed yelling.
….
Ketchup has strange properties when it encounters nuclear explosions. It hardens immediately upon contact with gamma radiation thus creating a type of shield that blocks most subsequent radiation. The method by which this occurs is little understood and even less studied. Suffice it to say that if you are in the vicinity of this nuclear explosion you would want to be on the island right off the coast of Japan that manufactures all of Japans Ketchup. This little island is known for having vast open paths and having particularly virile verdant grasses filled with diverse animal life. The people there live in a near collectivist society that focuses on helping one another and treats each member of the society no matter how young as an equal. It was truly an island utopia.
…
At the time of the explosion the largest ketchup manufacturing plant in the world located on the south side of the island exploded raining its contents down on the little town, it became the legend of the “blood rain of life” The fortune of the most elite family was destroyed, however the residents of the town miraculously survived with no major mutations. The animal life was not as fortunate, perturbing mutations began to be common. Unknown species with higher than average intelligence evolved. The people faced their new world with a brave pioneering spirit and soon populated the entire island using the last of Japanese innovation and technology. Beautiful cities well planned and cooperative sprung up at regular intervals connected by ancient paths that once went through endless straight lines of tomatoes.
…
Years later the last of the long forgotten ketchup mogul’s line was born. His name long since been corrupted by subtle changes in pronunciation yet still held echoes of his ancestors empire and it's subsequent destruction. He will be known as "Ash Ketchum".
[seedsoftantalus.wordpress.com]
| 2015-08-06T11:50:10 | 2015-08-06T10:59:00 | 384 | 221 |
[WP] Everyone knows the Grim Reaper, the personification of Death. You are the supernatural personification of the other certainty in life: Taxes
|
**The Taxman Cometh**
I dig my toes into the hot sand, holding my polished black Oxfords in my left hand and the Ledger in my right. The Cayman Islands, my new favorite place on Earth. I inhale the salty air.
Splayed out on the beach before me, his sun-tanned face upturned and contorted in fear, is a telecommunications executive from St. Louis, Missouri.
Part of him has been waiting for this moment since the first time he spurned me, twenty-four years ago. He’s seen me in his nightmares, and his drug-addled delusions. Now he sees me in the flesh.
I drop my Oxfords in the sand and crack open the Ledger – the only book of figures the universe trusts, because my calculations are never wrong.
“Mr. Sheffield, you’ve been charged with hiding $45 million in taxes, and sufficiently evaded the Earthly authorities for a period of 24 years. Now you’re mine.”
I put Mr. Sheffield in cell C-11, recently vacated by Al Capone. His clawing eyes look up at me from the northwest corner of the Debtors' Prison. The sprawling complex hovers below my Cubicle, forever rotating, like a top that never stops spinning, my permanent companion in the abyss between worlds.
I like to watch my prisoners as I toil away on the Ledger, selecting the target of my next audit.
But now I have to suffer through another prisoner transfer. Capone is ready to move to the afterlife, his sentence served – and, I have to admit, with a quiet dignity.
My brother arrives.
The tattered hem of his black hooded cloak drifts across his boots. He throws its great folds back behind his arms and spreads open a toothy grin. “So this is the mighty Al Capone. Hello, my child.”
“Yup.”
Capone spits on the floor and gives Death a polite nod.
With a flick of the wrist, Capone is turned upside-down and whisked away, into the black void where Death materialized moments before. It used to house one of my spare filing cabinets.
I glance down at the Debtors' Prison over the wall of my cubicle, checking it’s still there. My brother has never been good at managing collateral damage when exercising his powers here. Or on Earth, for that matter.
“Is there something else?” I say, adjusting my glasses and rubbing the bridge of my nose. “I’m busy.”
Death draws closer and conceals his face under his hood. Or is it his shame? A deep sigh.
“I require your… assistance.”
I perk up. This is rare.
“Who is it?”
“A time traveler. She cheated me.”
I slam my ledger shut and roll my chair back. This is exactly why I detest my brother.
“Always with these bloody games, Death. Why?”
“Spare me. Some of us need entertainment. We can’t spend eternity in a cubicle. To bury oneself in work is to bury oneself alive. I need social interaction.”
I roll my eyes and evaporate, materializing again in the B-block of the Debtors Prison. Death follows. We stroll along the cells, inspecting the inmates. Death’s mouth starts to water – so many souls that will soon be his.
“So, how’d she cheat you?”
“In too many ways to list here,” Death says. “But with her immortality, she has amassed a fortune unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Impossible,” I say. “I’d have it here.” I hold up the Ledger.
“She’s keeping it off the books. Every penny.”
“Nothing stays off my books. The Ledger is immutable.”
“Your arrogance rivals mine, brother. Do not repeat my mistake. She is out there.”
“How? What has the mortal found to give her such power?”
“Not what, but *whom*.”
I stop walking. I bend at the knees to get a look under Death’s hood, into his eyes. He meets my gaze, and it sends a chill down my spine.
“Father,” he says.
I curse the old man in a thousand languages. So this is it. Dad’s fallen in love.
A mortal has got Father Time wrapped around her finger.
My blood boils as I process the news. In a rage I fly into my cubicle and tear through my oldest files, desperate for some sort of evidence. Any clue that could confirm this disaster. I find father’s file, buried under a layer of dust that's gone undisturbed for millions of years.
Death watches as I crack the folder open. Inside I find nothing of my old records. It's been cleaned out, except a small square piece of paper. A napkin, by the looks of it, from a restaurant on Earth.
Scrawled on the back, with ink and quill, is a question only my deranged father could write:
*Would it help if I told you she was the one?*
Death cackles, gleeful to have yanked me into this mess. Misery loves company.
I throw on my jacket, my blood-red tie, and my lucky pocket protector.
“No,” I say under my breath, to my father, wherever he is. “No one dodges the Taxman.”
In a flash I evaporate, leaving my Cubicle in a swirl of papers, files, receipts, and timecards. Death catches my trail and, his eyes flashing a fiery red, takes off after me. The hunt is on.
|
My brother, the Grim Reaper, is well known. Feared, respected, his black mantle and scythe recognized without a doubt. Across history, there have been some imposters, those who sought to capitalize on my brother's reputation, but they were quickly... dealt with. Being the younger brother by around a millennia, I decided to rebel against the cloak/robe and instrument of power vibe that my family had been using since before the humans discovered fire. Don't get me wrong, mum rocked the white robe, but then again, I'm sure life would look good no matter what. I'm Tax, and any puns about my job being taxing, and I'll schedule you an appointment with my brother, Grim. He's actually lovely, and people misunderstand him. I, however, am deceptively, elegantly deadly. Death and Taxes are the two certainties of life, but I pride myself on being the more painful. Oh sure, sure, there can be pain in death, but if you think about alllll the time spent suffering over numbers, letters, forms unfilled, jargon and litigation the likes of which hell has barely seen, you'll agree that I have caused more pain. After all, even if they're joking, many humans have been recorded saying they'd rather encounter my brother, than stay with me. Logical, analytical, omnipresent and resented by many, I pride myself on being weilded by goverments, particularly when some people try to avoid me. Oh, sure, people successfully avoid financial tax, all the time. The rich get richer, or so it goes. The beautiful thing about the way I do things, though, is that there is always a price. Whatever you've done, however you feel about it... I've made a note in my ledger, and be sure, you'll be taxed, one way or another..
| 2021-07-04T09:00:28 | 2021-07-04T06:28:00 | 180 | 42 |
[WP] You're cursed with good luck.
|
FADE IN:
INT. A COFFEE SHOP - DAY
*A weary-looking man sits at a table in a sparsely populated café, staring forlornly at a steaming mug of coffee. This is DAVE, a young professional. After a few seconds, he is approached by another young man. This is ALAN. He sits down on the opposite side of the table.*
**ALAN:** Hey, man, I got here as soon as I could. What's up?
**DAVE:** I broke up with Devon.
*Alan blinks, looking shocked.*
**ALAN:** Oh, wow, that's... I'm sorry to hear that.
**DAVE:** Don't be. She was cheating on me.
**ALAN:** What?! How did you find out?
**DAVE:** Her purse ripped this morning, and her phone fell out... right as someone was sending her a message.
**ALAN:** That sucks.
**DAVE:** A *naughty* message.
**ALAN:** Ah. Did you see who it was from?
**DAVE:** I saw enough. I saw his... you know.
*Alan spreads his hands and offers a sympathetic smile.*
**ALAN:** Hey, well, it's lucky that you found out when you did, right?
*Dave scoffs to himself.*
**DAVE:** Yeah. Lucky. That's all I've been lately, and it sucks.
**ALAN:** What are you talking about?
*With a sigh, Dave pulls out a silver pocket watch and sets it on the table.*
**DAVE:** Ever since I bought this stupid thing, I've had nothing but good luck.
**ALAN:** How is having your girlfriend cheat on you "good luck?"
**DAVE:** She started before I found the watch.
**ALAN:** Okay, fine, but that doesn't...
*Dave holds up a hand, interrupting his friend.*
**DAVE:** Here, watch.
**ALAN:** Yes, we've established that it's a watch.
**DAVE:** No, I meant... ugh, just pay attention, okay?
*A fast, sweeping motion of Dave's hand knocks his mug off the table. It lands upright on the floor, unbroken, with all of its contents still inside.*
**ALAN:** Neat trick.
**DAVE:** It's not a trick.
**ALAN:** Fine, whatever. You can't spill stuff. Why is that a bad thing?
**DAVE:** It's not just about spilling stuff! Take this morning, for instance! My car wouldn't start, and I was late to work!
**ALAN:** That doesn't sound like good luck.
**DAVE:** Right... but when I finally got there, I found out that they'd had to evacuate the building.
**ALAN:** Whoa. Why?
**DAVE:** The plumbing exploded or something. Huge mess. Our receptionist needed counseling. That's not the point!
**ALAN:** Right, sorry. So, your bad luck turned out to be good luck in disguise.
**DAVE:** Oh, it gets better. Since everyone was already outside, they saw that I was late getting there... but when I told my boss that I'd had car troubles, he decided that I needed a raise in order to pay for repairs.
*Dave buries his face in his arms on the table. The motion knocks a container of sugar over, and it empties its contents into the mug on the floor.*
**DAVE:** (*CONT'D*) Stuff like this just *keeps happening!*
**ALAN:** I still don't understand why you're complaining.
*Dave looks up.*
**DAVE:** Dude, think about it. My choices don't mean a damned thing. I tried to have a cigarette to calm my nerves, but a freaking *seagull* stole it from my fingers! I'm not actually *living* anymore!
**ALAN:** Most people wouldn't be quite so existential about this. Besides, if you hate it so much, why don't you just throw the watch away?
**DAVE:** I tried. The garbage man gave it back to me.
**ALAN:** Huh. That was lu...
**DAVE:** (*Interrupting*) Don't. Say. It.
*The two men sit in silence for a moment.*
**ALAN:** Look, what if *I* took the watch? Would that make you feel better?
**DAVE:** You'd... you'd do that?
*Rather than answering, Alan snatches the pocket watch from the table.*
**ALAN:** There. Now you don't have to worry about it.
**DAVE:** Thank you. Really. I mean it.
**ALAN:** No problem. Look, I'm sorry to run, but I have a date in half an hour. Can we catch up later?
*Dave nods, and Alan rises from his chair. As soon as he begins walking towards the exit, though, Alan slips on the coffee mug. He yelps, falls backward, and tumbles over, flinging the pocket watch into the air. It lands in Dave's shirt pocket.*
**DAVE:** See what I mean?
**ALAN:** (*O.S.*) I think I need a doctor.
*With a sigh, Dave stands up.*
**DAVE:** Say hello to Devon for me.
*Dave leaves the café while Alan moans and writhes on the floor.*
FADE OUT.
|
My parents died the day I turned eighteen. I found out when at the end of my school day, a lawyer appeared to promptly inform me that my fortune was henceforth to be measured on a logarithmic scale. I was drowning in pussy that night, much unlike how I was not drowning when I stepped off that bridge to land on that leather couch on that trash barge. I tried to dismiss it as coincidence, until the Koh-i-Noor landed on my lap. It had been on the couch.
So this is how she wanted to play.
Not to be dissuaded, I stepped off the trash barge to land on an emerging submarine. It flipped the barge over. Turns out submarines can do that. Not willing to find out what flips over submarines, I soon enough found myself on solid land again next to a Tesla Model X Signature. The keys were in the ignition.
Willing to see this one through, I turned the keys. I made it three blocks (to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody) before coming to a stop at the lights. Wondering why I'd get red lights, I witnessed two SUV's ramming head first into eachother before me, sending clouds of white powder from their trunks into the air. I stepped out of my newfound car to confirm my suspicion. It was snowing cocaine.
| 2016-04-27T01:03:47 | 2016-04-27T00:01:48 | 92 | 11 |
[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 :)
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A plaque over IG HQ was mounted over the entry way to the briefing room. It was black stone with brass plate text, with standard issue oil lamps lighting the plaque. "Every intelligent species in the universe shares a common ancestor." Mirnen mulls this over before the squad briefing. Wondering whether it was actually true, that there were no independent species out there. A lot of modern day natural philosophers thought this unlikely, but none had been found yet. The forekirk, who had taught every species the secret to hyperdrive, medicine, and agriculture, were the common ancestor of all the known species. We knew this because of their beaks and long, flat fur. Mirnen wondered if there was a species in the world that didn't share in the gifts of foremen.
"The humans don't appear to be advanced, they haven't even discovered intergalactic travel, it should be a simple invasion" said Mirnen, polishing a brand new musket and looking toward the IGPS. The musket was his duty arm, but it was also a prop for the briefing. The green recruits were nervous. The peacekeeping squad had never had much success against Talkak invasions.
"We will be there to give the humans aid, and, hopefully, guide them to victory and lasting participation in the galactic community. Talkak forces seem to be focusing their efforts on a few urban centers, and so we will try to beat them to those places" After this, Mirnen continues the briefing, describing tactics and strategy in the defense to come.
After the briefing, a young Sek troop from the squad, Larkak, if Mirnen could remember his name, came up to Mirnen. "Um... Sir... what if the humans ... um... don't want our help." asked Larkek.
"You're worried about another Morgan massacre? Well, we plan on arriving before the Talkak, to learn about the humans and hash things out. If you're worried about attack on contact, we plan on hovering out of attack range until we establish peaceful contact. They won't too different from us, we do all share a common ancestor after all." Replied Mirnen.
"But... but... Kirkfolk used to war with each other all the time, and the Talkak still war all the time. I mean, thats *really* why IG founded the peace force, right? to keep the Talkak expeditions under control?" asked Larkak.
Mirnen mulled over his exact words for a moment. "Thats is a popular opinion, and one not without some merit. But their stated mission is to protect all Kirkfolk in common peace."
The IGSS Starleap traveled at several times light speed. Mirnen saw the small blue orb that orbited Sol. It was a strange planet to harbor life. Most Kirkfolk can't deal with that much nitrogen in the atmosphere. Mirnen shuddered at the thought. A few years ago Mirnen had been exposed to earth-high levels of atmospheric nitrogen. It pooled in his blood, and caused so much pain. Supposedly after a few days it builds up to lethal levels. The peace force had been issued thin masks that could lower the nitrogen levels they inhaled down to tolerable levels, so long as the cartridge in the mask was swapped out every few hours. Mirnen hated the things, but, he supposed, it was better than Aldrin's pooling syndrome.
The ship's captain, Aldrik, approached Mirnen and asked "whats the plan? Should I land it over one of those bright spots?"
Mirnen snorted. "Of course you didn't read the course directions. You never do. I aught to send a formal reprimand sometime. We hover near the edge of one of the bright spots, flickering our lights. We don't know what this planet was seeded with, or how it has evolved in the seven hundred years since, we need to avoid surprising or scaring them. They know we exist, but we don't know what they've come to think of outsiders."
The craft closed in over its objective, its ceramic plated hull reflecting the water of the bay below. Mirnen and the soldiers looked out the bay window for the firm time since entered the atmosphere. He was too late. There was a Talkak expedition ship, with its black-steel hull, on the ground near a building on shore. Mirnen panicked a little when he noticed the ship was... damaged? Had the humans repelled the Talkak attack on their own? Maybe they had decoded the more advanced knowledge the Forekirk had left them? But not hyperdrive? Its sometimes difficult, because Forekirk tablets were in code, only detailed how to build a hyperdrive, and not the principals that make it work. Hell, even the Sek scientists hadn't entirely figured out how hyperdrive worked, although there were a few accepted theories.
Then Mirnen looked closer. The Talkak ship wasn't damaged. It had been rendered completely destroyed. There were bits scattered all over the ground, and there weren't any Talkak to be seen. There also weren't any human war machine parts around. Mirnen became pretty sure that the humans knew more than IG thought they did.
It was at that moment that a human... something... flew over to the Starleap. It was cabin, with two rotors. A horizontal rotor spinning above the cabin, and a vertical one behind. It seemed to have an armament hanging on flanges to it side. It hovered in front of the Starleap. Aldrik asked for orders.
Mirnen barked "Ready the sulfur rockets. But don't fire. We don't want a war, but if the humans can drop a Talkak ship without major losses, then we need to be ready." Then Mirnen sighed when the human craft turned and flew toward a clearing on the ground.
Then, the craft came back. Then it returned to the clearing. Then it came back. And then returned to the clearing. Eventually, Mirnen saw little... somethings.... robots? Vehicles? Drawing a Starleap shaped outline in the clearing. Then Mirnen understood.
He turned to Aldrik and said "Land on the outline best you can, I think they want to talk." And Aldrik did.
-------
So, what does everyone think so far? This is my fourth entry to r/writingprompts so feedback is nice. I'll write more if people seem to want it, but I'm not sure where I'm taking it exactly.
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The plan was simple. We were to pacify the Savages. Convert them to the Imperial Creed. Bring them up to speed with the technology their inferior culture seemed to ignore. But we always knew what that really meant. Massacres. Burning of villages. What the Savage priests call "genocide." The frontier was as much a graveyard of good intentions as it was of Savages and Solaris rangers alike.
Our target was a Savage war leader who called himself King Alfrid. His band regularly committed atrocities on the nearby settlement of Pile Mooth (named after the Savage village which stood before the plague). More importantly they, were disrupting commerce. These animals needed to be "pacified."
"Load up, Rangers!" Captain Creon cried.
We twisted the knobs on our synth muskets, loaded down plasma pods and checked if there was enough ammunition to sustain us for the ride.
"Your enemy is inferior. He uses combustion weapons. He worships false gods. We have nothing to fear" the Captain repeated like a mantra. We mounted our speeders and went off into the Moorland.
The first Savage we killed was barely a man. Captain Creon shot him from his speeder as he ran with his brother. These animals can move so fast. A ranger tackled the boy before he could reach the top of one hill.
"Turn see vack!" said the boy "Death velow!"
The ranger dispatched him with a sabre blow for his "resistance."
"Up the hill!" cried the Captain. "There are surely more"
And more there was. A sea of tents lay below. Women and children doing chores and meandering around the camp. And then my heart sank. A thousand men, screaming, hooting and working themselves into a frenzy. They mounted their horses and began to charge up at at.
The Captain looked at us with a perverse smile.
"Into the fray men! For glory! For the Emperor!"
He sped off to his doom. The rest of the Rangers followed. I fled back to Pile Mooth. This, I later discovered, was the correct decision. Not a single Ranger survived the encounter.
Pile Mooth is abuzz with soldiers now. Not only Rangers, but regulars and engineers. The Emperor has personally decided that King Alfrid must be dealt with. They cannot keep us at bay, not with our numbers. The Imperial Creed gives us strength. We will avenge our fallen.
| 2017-08-08T08:00:31 | 2017-08-08T07:54:14 | 142 | 18 |
[WP] You are awoken by banging on your door and cries of help, begging to be let in. Upon opening the door an ancient part of your brain recognizes what you are seeing; yet in spite of the blood, sharp teeth, and porcelain skin all you can think of is that you have never seen anything so afraid.
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I was used to "odd things" at night. You don't live with hallucinations and voices your entire life without expecting something at every moment. You don't live alone and isolated from the world for 15 years and not expect your brain to play tricks. So pounds and shrieks at the door barely registered in the early morning hours that day. My mind adrift with the sleep medication I took to keep such noises out.
But through my dreamy haze, my medical induced slumber something whispered *Wake up, Ana.* And it wasn't the voices that had haunted me since I could think and remember. It was a voice deep inside me. What my Gramps would call my "Ol lizard brain".
My eyes shot open and the pounding fully registered. I thought for a moment. *Am I scared? Threatened? Find something you can see.* My eyes whipped around and focused on the lavender lace curtains that let in the vague moonlight and I traced the pattern, watching the wind shift. The pounding and shrieks grew louder. *Something you can smell.* I repeated the mantra again and I smelled in the sandalwood perfume that I used every morning, still lingering from the day before. The pounding continued but more rhythmic, more hurried. *Something you can taste.* I said and licked the dull taste of old toothpaste on the roof of my dry mouth. The pounding grew and seemed the thump with the increased beating of my heart. My eyes shot back to the lace curtain, the smell of sandalwood, and the taste of old toothpaste. I focused so clearly on those things that I follow up with my list *Something I can feel.* My hands shot down like arrows into the bed and dug into the soft cotton sheets. The pounding almost faded for a moment but picked up. I finally hit the last on my list *Something I can hear.* But all I could hear was the strange cries and thumps on my door. Something screaming for help. If this was a delusion, it was a bad one or a very, very good one.
I shook and winced with each thud and cry as I took myself out of my queen-sized bed, sweeping my bare legs over it and reaching out for my robe with a shaky hand. I pulled it on, a sense of haste taking over me as I moved to tie it with a definitive knot. I was not imagining this and something needed something from me. Something was calling to me from the other side of the door. And my mantras had done nothing but confirm what my heart knew as my eyes snapped open minutes before.
I walked along the cold floor, my steps matching the sudden pace of the pounding. The hallway seemed so narrow, enclosing me in as though I couldn't turn around, only move forward toward the door and the thuds that called and scared me to my core.
I felt like I walked forever like my steps were never-ending. I often think I'm still in that hallway, still narrowed in and moving toward the source of my fear but knowing it will be my salvation, however terrible, at the other end.
I reached the doorknob and danced my fingers along with it and as though whatever was on the other side knew, the knob wiggled and a cry came out again. I chose then to open the door, with a flourish and without fear. A wide sweeping motion that would change my life... and that of many others.
My heart stopped, a ringing sounded in my ears like the whistle of a claymore. Before me was a withered, white pasted husk of what must have once been a human, or had wanted to be and failed terribly. He trembled in rags and teeth that pointed like sharks hung just over his lower lip. His hair was mangled, tossed, and covered in blood and dirt. He had the beard of a Viking. that hung in the same dark halo under his chin. The beard and hair created a perfect ring of matted fur around his pale skin. He stared with bloodshot eyes and the fear in my own reflected back on his almost purple hues. His hands had fallen to his sides when I had swung open the door so dramatically but I saw the long 2 inch claws that had been raking at my door. He wore a weathered and patched duster coat and under that no more than a pair of pants, bare, clawed feet in the snow. The coat opened to reveal a row of ribs under what must have been an impressive chest at one point but was now withered and white skin hung loosely around where muscles had formed and died. His stomach concaved until I thought I could see his spine.
"Ol Lizard brain" started screaming somewhere deep inside me *Run! Run you fool! Slam the door and run!* But I remained stock-still. The look in his eyes was too much. The pain eeked out of his hues like a river running toward the ocean of my deep-seated empathy.
After a moment his raspy voice spoke, the broken voice of something that had been torn and ripped in ways I couldn't even fathom. "Please, please let me in. They're hunting me." He sounded defeated and looked from side to side. I peeked out to see neighbors watching us with wary eyes and bedclothes. My house was not the first.
I stared ahead of him and bit my pale lower lip, running my tongue across the underside of my teeth before I made the snap choice. I reached out and gripped his bony wrist and tugged him "Come in" I hissed as I did and his slight frame stumbled inside and went face-first into my little recliner. He let out a huff of surprise and laid there for a moment, stunned.
I turned to watch him as he dislodged and detangled himself. He didn't bother to stand up. He just stared at me with wide eyes, but no breath. His lips cracked and parted as he said slowly "Why...?" He really couldn't believe I'd done that. "Don't you... know what I am?"
I stared back, my heart rate back to where it was. Calm and easy thanks to the stream of meds. I stared at him with softer eyes. He was so delicate, like the wildflowers I collected outback. Though I doubted he was being hunted for something as pretty and sentimental as a Vase display. No his fear, the absolute gratefulness and shock in his eyes at my choice to invite him in, they told me he was speaking the truth. He was being hunted.
((PT 2 IN COMMENTS))
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There was a banging at the door. Through the cracks came a hiss, a forced exhalation through a small opening. Then the scratches came in between the bangs. The slaps, the pounds, the desperation.
I curled my fingers around the knob, tapping each nail into place, twisting and pulling against the creaking hinges.
Lamplight pounded in against my skull. In the distance, a figure, show outstretched against the neighbors picture perfect lawn. On my doorstep, a different figure--a plump segmented man with porcelain skin. His sharp mandibles curved from a plea of desperate relief into utter fear when they realized who was standing before them.
I smiled but did not know it. I was beyond conscious thought. Just hunger.
“N-n-n-n-no.” He began to back away.
“Waxie,” I whispered. “Come in” I reached out to him and dug my fingernails into his chest one by one. By the stretch of his skin, I pulled him close. “Would you rather be with him?” I pressed my nose against his gena until he turned to the figure in the distance. A dash of enamel struck through the silhouette, followed by a deep crimson flash, then darkness again.
Waxie dropped his head and turned back to me, avoiding eye contact at all cost.
I nodded and yanked him in, slamming the door shut and enveloping us in the darkness of my home.
I dropped him to the floor. Little drops of hemocoel popped out of his chest and smeared against the floor as he tried to wriggle away.
Poor kid. Looked like he had just reached his third instar too.
I leapt and dug my fingers into his spiracles. He seized up and gasped for air. I snapped my razor teeth across his face and tore off his labrum. He whipped his abdomen around at me, trying to knock me off balance, but it was too late. I bit inside and ripped out his dorsal artery, taking with it a tangled mess of ganglion and gastric caeca. As he pulsated on the ground, I slit open his coxa, reached deep inside, and ripped out his crop.
Suffice to say, I licked it dry.
Through the window a pair of eyes stared, the narrow vertical slits of pupil glaring at each and every bite.
His loss.
| 2020-10-23T00:56:13 | 2020-10-22T20:37:56 | 76 | 43 |
[WP] Your 14-year-old sister finally wakes up from a coma of 6 years. She panics when she realizes how much she's grown.
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This chair. This fake leather chair, it has been my bed, my room, my home for six years. Every crack and crease in it were familiar to me, I could tell exactly how it looked from memory alone. The beeping has been my only constant companion, a slow metronome beating to the sound of a fading heart. Six years, so much had changed. So many things I had to do, so many things I had to sacrifice, all to keep her alive. No one was going to take her from me, not that drunkard who decided to get behind the wheel six years ago, not my parents who wanted to pull the plug because they couldn't take not knowing, not the doctor who says she will never wake up. I look down at my hands, cracked and worn from my work, knuckles scared and fingers crooked from not being set right. Faces flash and voices scream as I remember it all, all the things I did to get here, all the people I hurt to keep her alive. Nothing would take her away, even if I had to kill to keep it that way. I look away, anywhere but in my own head. My eyes fall on six colorful boxes, 5 old and one new. Six brightly wrapped reminders of who I was fighting for. I realize that the dim metronome, beeping in time to my melancholy heart, has picked up, rising me from my thoughts. I stare, willing myself to calm down. I won't let myself hope, I can't, if I hope and lose then I will surely break.
My eyes dart to a soft angelic face. Even past the sunken cheeks and eyes I can tell who it is. My sister, my little june bug. She gave me a reason to live, a reason to fight. Before her my only talents we're getting inhumanly intoxicated and fighting, but when she was born something broke in me. All the malice I felt pent up inside melted, leaving a raw and exposed heart. I see a flicker behind those eyelids and my heart swells, unable to steady it's self. A finger twitches, and I think I will die.
Her eyes slowly flutter open, blinking rapidly, adjusting to the flourecent lights. I nearly drop as I stumble over to the bed. Her eyes look towards the movement, still the same iridescent green I remember. She rasies a hand towards me and stops. She looks at her hand as if it wasn't her own. She screams, a short quite yelp from under used vocal cords. "R...Robbie? Is... Is that you?" Her voice is cracked and soft, no more than a whisper. I can't speak, I am kneeling by the bed. I break, my head falls on the bed, I am sobbing like a child. A hand, light as a leaf, rests on my head. I lift my head to see her making small movements, closer to me. She moves, weakly but with determination and wraps her stick thin arms around my neck. I wrap my arms around her cautious, as if she was made of glass.
"Where am I Robbie, I'm scared. Why am I like this?" she asked shakily. It pulls me out of my head, I can talk again. "It's okay june bug, you just had a little accident and took a long nap is all." My voice is cracking, ready to break at any moment again. I don't know how much she remembers. "Why am I all big, and why are you all big?" I realize in that moment how much I changed. I went from being a lanky twenty something to a muscle bound freight train. "Cause we all have to get big sometime June." I reluctantly pull myself out of her hug, and look at her, doing my best to smile. Apparently I made a funny face while trying to remember how to smile because she starts giggling, and that sets me off into a fit of laughter. It goes like that for a good minute, 6 years of tension washing away, just like that.
A nurse opens the door, attracted by the hysterics. She gasps and nearly faints at the scene. I recognize her as Henrietta, a nice woman in her late 60s. She had always been one of the few people who supported me in not pulling the plug. Whenever I woke with a blanket on my or a fresh cup of coffee on the table I knew who to thank, and whenever I saw that June's hair had been done up in a beautiful braid like she always loved I knew who to hug. She turns her head and begins barking orders like a drill sergeant, her voice hard and sharp despite watching her patient of six years defy her grim diagnosis.
Doctors swarm but she stops them at the door. She points in and says something sharp and biting to one of the doctors. He looks wounded. I laugh more, June joins in, not knowing that I am laughing at the doctor's ego shattering. He told me she wouldn't wake up, that I should just pull the plug and get it over with. Henrietta turns towards us and slowly walks in. She drops to a knee next to me and wraps her arms around me, deceptively strong for an old lady. I pat her on the back, letting her know that I need to get up. Henrietta looks at June, smiling a pleasant calming smile. "Good morning sleeping beauty, it is about time you woke up. Your knight in shining armor has stayed by your side for a long time. Six years today actually. Perfect timing too, it is your birthday." June smiles at that, taking notice of the boxes now. "Yay! Birthday, birthday, it's my birthday. Last year I was 7, now I'm 8, time to blow the candles out and eat my cake!" I smile, halfway between amusement and sadness. "Sorry june bug, I forgot to get the cake, but I did remember to get you your present. Your song was good, I had forgotten about it, but" I begin to choke "you are a bit wrong on the age, you turn 14 today." Her face is blank, the gears in her head turning. "Like I said sleepy head, you have been napping for a while." She beems at me in a toothy grin. "That's okay Robbie, it just means I get 5 more presents!"
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Her blue eye opened first. Daisy was one of a kind in every single aspect of life, right down to her multicolored eyes. One blue and one brown. She had been out of my life for six years, and sadly she would leave me again a few days after waking from her coma. Only this time it would be forever.
Daisy and I were twins, born to a young single mother. She had bounced from house to house growing up, and had unfortunately ended up on the streets when she gave birth to us. We were placed in a shelter shortly after coming into this world, but thankfully a loving family adopted us when we were four months old.
Our parents Sheri and Rodger provided my sister and I with every amenity we could ever ask for or need. They bought us dozens of toys, and encouraged us to play outside. Our house was situated on the bend of a quite road. We had a large yard and a swimming pool. More than enough room for Daisy and I to run around and play. Although our parents preferred that we stay in the backyard, we would venture towards the front on occasion.
It was on one of these adventures that our family changed permanently. Daisy saw a bunny, and being the curious type, she immediately attempted to catch it. We never heard the car rounding the bend. I blacked out. The next thing I remembered was running screaming to my mom. My dad scooped Daisy from the pavement and within seconds we were in the car rushing to the emergency room.
Six years I waited. For six years I dreamt about looking into her blue eye. My parents debated if keeping her alive artificially was humane. Ultimately they decided to let time be Daisy's fate. Then three months ago I saw her blue eye. She looked over at me and said, "I feel old". I replied, "fourteen is old in dog years". Daisy died later that week. I lived more than half of my life without my best friend and sister. Now I am just and old dog who hopes to see her blue eye when I pass on. Fourteen is old in dog years.
| 2017-08-02T06:54:44 | 2017-08-02T06:46:21 | 120 | 37 |
[WP] You are a well respected, elite assassin. You always get your target and you make it seem like an accident. The only problem is you have no idea what you are doing. You get the assignment and your target always seems to die of natural causes.
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"I've had enough!" Williams yelled, slamming his fists onto his desk and rising to his feet.
"Boss, please. Take it easy. You know your blood pressure can't handle it." Calm and unshakable as always, Johnny Gun was a perfect foil to the boss' more...volatile moods. Even though he was a hitman, he sometimes felt like his job was more akin to that of a babysitter.
"They have disrespected us for the last time!" Williams got up and started pacing, which was always a bad thing. It meant that he was starting to think, and think crazy. Johnny Gun prayed it wasn't something like--
"I've got it! We'll just kill their Godfather!"
Like that, for instance.
**************
Five weeks later, a few countries away, Johnny Gun sat (nondescriptly, he hoped) outside a fancy hipster cafe. He hadn't been able to talk the Boss out of his insane, crazy idea; Williams hadn't seemed to understand that killing the leader of a powerful mafia was far, far more difficult than simply tossing a few bullets their way. Nevertheless, the Boss' word was law, and so Johnny Gun had set out to find someone who could do the job.
Honestly, there hadn't been much of a choice. The mafia in question was rich, powerful, and had their fingers in pretty much every nook and cranny of both the legal and black markets. The godfather, Jean Louis, was notoriously skilled in both fighting and manipulation. In the underground, they called him the Shadow King. No one had confronted him and lived to tell the tale.
However, there was an assassin who was equally as notorious. They had never failed a hit, no matter how difficult. The United States president? Done without so much as a blink. Half of England's royal family? Gone by the light of dawn. The executives of Interpol? Dead before the sun rose. High level operatives of the CIA? They never even stood a chance.
It was this assassin that Johnny Gun had been trying to find for the past few weeks, because if there was anything they did better than killing, it was hiding. It had taken over a month of constant searching and scrutiny before they had come up with a lead on where the assassin was.
So now Johnny Gun had been waiting idly for over two hours in front of this cafe, and this legendary killer had still not shown. If he was being honest, he was mildly giddy with excitement at the thought of meeting one of his heroes. Every contract killer in the world looked up to this assassin, and Johnny Gun was no different. Would they be tall? Muscular? Deadened, steel-bright eyes that could pierce your soul?
"Excuse me," a soft voice said. "You're the one who wanted to meet with me, right?"
Johnny Gun snapped out of his daze (bad form, Johnny!) and his eyes landed on a short, skinny teen with very large sunglasses in an oversized sweater. For a second, Johnny Gun thought it was a girl until he saw the facial structure and very prominent Adam's apple.
"You've got the wrong guy, kid," he rumbled. The boy shook his head, long hair swishing to cover his eyes.
"Uh, you wanted a tilapia catch from the Indian Sea, right?"
Johnny Gun's eyes widened. No way. Only the assassin would know that code. He had made sure of it.
"You--really? You?" The kid was scrawny! Johnny Gun's bicep was probably bigger than his entire torso.
"Yeah, it's me--look, can we just get down to business? I'm really busy; I've got like three projects and two tests next week and I'm just really stressed out, so..."
"Uh--" Johnny Gun was tempted to test him to make absolute sure he was the assassin he'd been searching for, but then he noticed that all three of his guns were no longer on his body and decided against it. "Here." He handed a dossier over to the boy, who immediately read it and nodded thoughtfully.
"Okay," he said. "Looks good."
"I'll buy you a coffee," Johnny Gun said. "As an extra treat." And also because he wanted to pick the boy's brains for killing methods.
*****
"So, how do you do it all? Take down all those high priority targets?" Johnny Gun asked eagerly as they sat in a (very) secluded area, sipping his drink with as much finesse as he could muster. The boy shifted his eyes away.
"I--ah--"
"Come on, just a little tip between friends."
"It's--it's not like that; you've got the wrong idea..."
"You've done so many high-level jobs--"
"Okay, thanks for the coffee, Ihavetogobye!" The boy rushed away, leaving his unfinished drink behind him. Johnny Gun furrowed his eyebrows. He hadn't finished asking.
Two days later, Jean Louis went skydiving. On his first jump, his parachute failed and he fell three kilometers from the air into a ravine. There weren't even enough bits left to make half a human.
"Amazing," Johnny Gun breathed. Countries away, the boy shivered. He hadn't even left his dorm.
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My next target was the pretty, blonde girl regaling the entire bar with her adventures as a female rogue.
Apparently, she had also pissed someone else off enough for them to hire an assassin - me - to kill her. Bet she didn't know that story, though.
Either way, my plan was to ask her out (you know, get her alone, not for sex or anything like that, nooooo sir, not me!) and then do what I had to do (kill her, I mean, not actually...*do* her or anything like that...heh...).
But when I asked her out, she died laughing. Literally laughed until she actually died. And that concluded my assignment.
So. In the end, I got paid, my reputation as a feared assassin grew, and oh! I'm still a virgin...yup.
Whoopee. -.-
| 2018-10-08T23:31:17 | 2018-10-08T16:07:42 | 117 | 44 |
[WP] You found a stray kitten one day, taking her in and feeding her. A week later, you come home to find your yard swarming with cats. The largest among them steps forward and says, "You have my daughter, human. What are your demands for her release?"
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Oh, the poor thing. What was I to do, just leave her pawing at the side of a fence? Nonsense. I wouldn't have been able to stop thinking about it on my walk to the Nursing Home, and what a long walk it can be if I'm stuck in my own thoughts.
So I stopped and approached the kitten. She was grey with little brown splotches. Reminded me of the moles on my back, they did. All benign, thankfully. Then, as I bent down, I noticed that her dainty mews sounded awfully like the creaks my joints sometimes made.
Well, I thought, maybe we aren't so different, you and I.
She was hesitant at first. And I understood. By people standards I was rather short and unassuming—I admit I've shrunk a couple inches over the years. But to the kitten, with my long ol' shadow draping her in darkness, I could've been a most dangerous predator. So I stopped the bending-over business. Bad for my back anyway. I sat down in the grass instead so she could see we were on equal footing.
Then she got a little bolder. She sniffed my hand real good, as if searching for bombs. Once she let me scratch her tiny forehead, though, I knew we'd become good friends. And just when I thought I'd lost my game.
Anyway, she was much too thin and dirty to waste time with scritches. I took her back to my house and gave her some water. The way she drank reminded me of my grandson, who would run around in the sun, playing God knows what made-up game, and then come in to down a glass of water so fast I thought he'd drown. Same with the kitten. Had to hold her little head back so she didn't fall into the bowl.
I didn't have much food for her, so I poured some milk in a saucer. I know you're not supposed to. Baby cats aren't baby cows, after all. But she just seemed so happy, I couldn't resist.
Next day I went out to get some real food. Was a bastard to haul home, though, especially with no car. But I managed, despite the rough realization that I'd bought too much. I had to watch her eat while holding a cold compress on my back. And bless her little heart, she was so eager. Cutest thing I'd ever seen. Until it was beat by the way she curled up with me in my raggedy chair; she was like a space heater but not quite so loud.
That was the routine for a couple of days, save a few incidents. Darn little thing had quite a curiosity. As soon as she'd gotten some strength back she showed her daring side. She tried to climb on every little thing she could, and apparently felt that some of my appliances were her mortal enemies.
Having the kitten around made my ol' bundle of boards feel a bit more like a home. I appreciated that. I had to keep an eye on her, but it wasn't all bad, 'cause she got tired pretty quick. Yet another way the two of us were similar. We spent a whole lot of time in my lazy chair, asleep with her stretched across my leg.
The only bad part of having her around was that I couldn't leave in the afternoons like usual. Every time I walked out the door I got worried, started thinking about her. And I knew the walk to the Nursing Home would feel like forever. It was a shame I didn't get to see Debbie as much as I wanted to. Or Sharon, or Joseph, or even that brown-eyed nurse whose name I could never remember.
I normally went at least three times a week. Just to talk. They needed it, being bedridden and always berated by frustrated nurses. I mean, my walk from my bed to my kitchen, to my lazy chair, then back—it's not the most adventurous route. But at least I got to stretch my legs. They didn't even get that. I went to give them some company, as a distraction.
The walk back to an empty house always felt a bit depressing. I was conforming to the stereotype of the sad old man.
The kitten helped with that. But even than, I was like a crazy cat lady, minus the lady part.
On the sixth or seventh day after I'd found the kitten, my routine got even further disrupted. There came a bunch of scratches at my back door. I was asleep in the lazy chair at the time, and when I woke, the kitten was gone. I hopped up, worried she'd gotten out somehow. I walked faster than a twenty-year-old trying to catch the elevator.
...only to find that the kitten hadn't gotten out. She was inside, just staring at the back door and mewing every few seconds. The scratching was coming from outside. I carefully opened the door—and almost lost control of my bladder.
A flock of cats. A swarm of them, or whatever the correct term was. They were a diverse bunch, many different colors and breeds and sizes and such. They all looked a bit ragged, too—though not in a defeated way, more in a rugged survivalist way.
One cat stepped to the front, crossing the threshold and sniffing the kitten a bit. Its fur was darker than hers, nearly black, but it had similar brown splotches. Ideas started connecting in my mind. I'd begun to feel guilty before the cat even spoke.
It narrowed its eyes on me and said, "You have my daughter, human."
It sounded like an accusation—reminded me of the time the grocery-store worker stopped me at the door for stealing, though I'd simply forgotten about the orange in my pocket.
"I suppose I do," I said, and I know I should've been more surprised at the fact that it had spoken, and in plain English, too. For some reason, I'd expected an accent. Either way, I was past the age where I could afford to be surprised.
"What are your demands for her release?"
I shrugged. "I don't have the energy for demands. My voice ain't all that strong anyhow. If you want her back, you can have her."
The cat blinked its razor-green eyes, tilted its head. "That's it? No requests? Normally humans put up more of a fight—though we don't back down!"
A bunch of the cats out in the yard meowed at once. I jumped. What a horrible sound it was, it would've startled anyone. I looked back at the mother cat and assured her, "No fighting from me. Your daughter's all yours." But I sighed and then said something I regretted a moment after: "...I think I'll miss the little thing quite a bit though. I could really use the company."
"Well, I'll be taking her back then, but I'm still watching you for—"
The kitten meowed. The mother cat turned. The kitten meowed again, softer. The mother's ears perked up.
"What kind of food?"
I stood there watching two cats going back and forth. My left foot began to hurt, but oh well, I couldn't very well interrupt a mother-daughter moment.
The dark mother cat looked up at me again. "We will provide 'company' in return for food."
I shrugged, trying to act casual, but I could much stop the stupid smile on my face. "Well, okay. I think I might have some extra to go around"
|
"Wh - what?" I gasp, staggering backwards stunned into my door as my knees go faint and my stomach suddenly fills with bile. I feel my mind racing with thoughts as I stare down at the creature before me in sudden shock and bewilderment. "Y - you - you can t - ta - talk?!"
"Of course I can talk foolish human I am Polina, Queen of the Magic Cats. All cats can talk and walk independently, but I am the only one who can talk with your mortal kind since ancient times of the Egyptians."
"I do not believe in magic, this is clearly some kind of a trick or a delusion." I yelled, trying to appear braver than I was as I screamed internally. "Cats can't talk"
"Suddenly, I heard a cawing sound from a nearby tree, and my eyes bulged out of my skull as I saw a raven on its branches
"Caw do not trust the cats Erica caw"
"Tut tut that meddling bird" curses the cat, as her army of cats hisses upwards at it. "Get him girls"
But as her back was turned I quickly jumped inside and slammed the door, my mind was racing and my senses were screaming st that sight I was seeing before me.
"Open the door erica" cane the taunting voice of the cat queen as I heard a caring a screeching sound outside as the cat army reached my raven friend. Suddenly I heard a sharp banging on the door like someone was knocking but it was low down. "Give me my daughter back."
"No no no this cant be fucking happening!" I screamed, pinching myself to wake up from a fucking nightmare. Suddenly as the crashing roared to a deafening sound and I heard glass breaking somewhere in the house, I knew what I had to do. I sprinted upstairs to the room where the kitten was. I saw it in its bed, but there wax something wrong. The kittens eyes glowed a terrible hold colour that filled the room, and they were looking straight at me.
"I am the chosen kitten of Basset the Goddess of felines, reminish me to my family mortal and I shall let you live."
I gulped and nodded. I gingerly picked up the kitten. It felt unnatural still and its massive powerful eyes didnt leave me as I carried out to the stairway.
At the bottom of the stairway. There was a cat army gathered in the hundreds, preparing to rush upstairs and attack. But when I stepped out, they saw the kitten I was holding and suddenly all bowed down in the sight of their royal saviour. Finally, the Queen came up the stairs, and I handed her the kitten which she took in her mouth. The cats one by one filtered away until she was the last one left. Just as shel l she turned and looked over her shoulder to me.
"Thank you human ... we will turn a blind eye to your interference in our world for now. But the great Goddess Basset sees all, and she does not forget ..."
| 2021-12-21T13:26:12 | 2021-12-21T10:46:07 | 1,341 | 80 |
[WP] Every year, the richest person in America is declared the "Winner of Capitalism." They get a badge. Then all of their wealth is donated to charity and they have to start over at $0.
(Cross-post from /r/CrazyIdeas)
|
Brewster's Billions
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Timing was everything. Ever since the rules to the game of capitalism had been formalized, the race was on. The challenge was to become the second-richest person in America by midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Of course, the real game only began in December. If you started too early, you would be left without enough money to even approach the number two spot in the next year. It was more of a blow to pride than a real loss, when you were talking billions of dollars, but no one competitive enough to be one of the richest in the world had any shortage on pride.
On December 1st, Jeff Bates and Slim Bill faced off in Times Square. Bates had a small lead going in, at just over a hundred billion dollars. Slim Bill was only in the upper nineties.
The two of them were surrounded by a crowd of starving middle class people, dressed in rags. They were eager. December was the month when those two would shake riches enough for a lifetime off like dust from their sleeves. They did stay careful to leave them a safe distance. There was no use in killing the golden goose before it laid its eggs.
“Pathetic,” Slim Bill told Bates. Bill was dressed in a robe of solid gold, with an Boston Labs exoskeleton underneath, designed specifically to help him hold up the weight. Diamonds adorned his earlobes. The left had been doused in blood from the prince of England; the right in Audrey Hepburn’s blood, produced in a lab from a DNA sample. On his shoulder rested a one-of-a-kind Chanel purse fashioned from quagga fur. It was easy to be secure in your masculinity when you had more money than God.
Bates wore jeans and a black turtleneck. His outfit couldn’t have cost more than a hundred dollars, even the shoes.
“You brought toys. I’m thinking bigger.” He gestured upwards.
“Slim Bill is a loser,” splashed across the Times Square Tower.
“At $23 million a year to rent, it’s a bargain really,” he said. “I’ve rented it out for the next hundred years, paid in advance. That should put me neatly into second place.”
Slim smiled. “That’s going to embarrassing for the next hundred years when you lose.” He reached into his purse and pulled the Hope diamond.
“$350 million is the valuation, but I’m afraid I’m an awful bargainer this time of year. They managed to push me to 500.”
He punted it away like a hacky sack. The crowd dove, killing each other for scraps.
“As for this,” he gestured to his outfit, “I didn’t even ask for the price. But I’m in second, don’t you worry about that Jeff.”
Slim slipped off his robe and walked away naked, leaving his other expensive toys behind.
Bates stood there, fist clenched and thinking hard.
A month passed. Slim Bill and Jeff Bates drove each other to ever-increasing heights of conspicuous spending, but stayed careful not to overdo it. The third place candidate had $74 billion and dropping below that would defeat the point of the game. One obvious way to force victory would be to give ten or twenty billion to their opponent, but it was a cheap win. Neither of them would sink to that level.
In the first week they started with charitable donations. 564,708 homeless people lived in the United States. They started tracking things a lot better in late November. Bates bought each of them a laptop and an iPhoneX, for $2000 a person. Just over a billion dollars.
Slim paid rent for each of them for a year. At an average of $600/month, he spent a little over 4 billion dollars. Part of it was spent on buying houses. Assets retained their value, so they were not a loss that would help him get closer to second place. Everything else was actual rent in more expensive neighborhoods.
Bates - 97. Slim - 93.
In the next two weeks, Bates had to step it up. Huge national donations took time to roll out, and his opponent had a $4 billion dollar lead. He decided to hold the biggest party of all time.
He rented out every beach on the east coast. Legal? Maybe. But governors were tripping over themselves to have him spend money in their state. For the actual entertainment, he had 198 F/A 18 Hornets doing shows up and down the coast in squads of six. Free food went without saying.
He considered free flights out for anyone who wanted to come, but if he did that, he’d have to include hotel fees, and everything would get a lot more unpredictable. Third place beckoned.
The planes were most expensive, $29 million each for about $5.8 billion. He let the pilots take them home afterwards. Most states didn’t charge for the beach rentals and the ones that did only cost him about $300 million. He set up a public account online with $2 billion and made it usable only to buy food with for the party. If they didn’t use it all up that day, it would be gone by the end of the month.
In the same two weeks, Slim spent most of his time pissing off rooftops, inviting lawsuits that he quickly settled as expensively as he could. Headlines about trickle-down wealth got old very quickly.
Bates - 90. Slim - 91.
Bates was starting to get paranoid. It was December 31st, and Slim hadn’t made any moves in weeks. Just after 11 p.m., he donated $5 billion to cancer research. It was a boring move, rarely done. But he knew Slim had something planned and he wanted to widen his lead while he still had it.
Bates - 85. Slim - 91.
He knew Slim had something planned because he had invited Bates to the California border.
“For ten billion dollars…” Slim held his pinky to his mouth and grinned. “I have purchased the state of California.”
“Ten billion for a blue state? You drastically overpaid.” The two of them laughed.
“Victory is mine,” Slim Bill said.
Bates squinted. “Are you forgetting the rules of the game? Assets count.” He felt hope spring up. It was 11:45 p.m. now. It was too late for him to make another purchase, but the same was true for Slim. If this was his last play, it wouldn’t be enough.
“I know. But you see, even though I’m the richest man in the world, there’s one thing I still don’t bother to pay for.” Slim lit a match.
“And what’s that?” Bates said, feeling his hope slip away.
“Fire insurance.”
Slim threw the match, and quickly sent a text. When midnight struck, all of California was burning. 30 million people died before they could be evacuated. The other billionaires agreed it was one of the best games in years.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
10/365. Constructive criticism welcome and appreciated.
|
We got to watch The Truman Show once when I was 11, so since then I’ve always counted my steps to the gate, because I was always hopeful that I was in the same situation, and perhaps the walls would be extended one day by like, I don’t know, maybe an inch? Then I’d know it’s not real. So far, it only happened once when I was 16, but then I just realized my feet had grown and I felt pretty stupid. From the park bench to the gate it’s currently 30 steps, heel to toe.
My best friend last year, her name was Sophia, she was probably 18 when she went to the gate with her family. She always used to tell me about the America she remembers – but I honestly don’t remember America before the war. I used to feel pangs of jealousy when she’d discuss getting to have whatever she wanted like food and TV. She talked about cakes a lot, and she didn’t mean the cakes I made at home with rice and jello. She says that pre -war, those didn’t exist, and we only make those because we have no choice. She said cakes are fluffy and airy, and I’m jealous because I don’t remember them.
She had to go to the gate though, so we don’t talk anymore. We had one TV in the commons area, but I didn’t watch it that year because it was Sophia and her family, and I really liked her. My dad used to call this time of the year ‘The Normies Tax Return’, which would always encourage a reaction of laughter from those in the commons years prior, but as times went on the crowd got smaller and now people don’t laugh at all.
I used to practice how I’d walk to the gate sometimes, and I used to practice my smile and wave – my mother kept saying that above all we must remain dignified, so I thought that was the best way to do it. Smile. My dad always argued that smiling meant nothing when it came to the Normies, but I did it anyway, if even for my mother to make her happy one last time.
So I smiled, even though I knew what was coming.
So I smiled, even as they roughly shoved the trophy in my arms which caused me to stagger.
So I smiled, even as our money rained down upon the thousands in the crowds watching us, their greedy hands frantically reaching and pushing.
So I smiled, as I knew not what rich even meant, but that we were being punished for it.
So I smiled, as I was sure Sophia did when she felt the same cold metal hit her temple.
So I smiled…
| 2018-01-10T22:22:00 | 2018-01-10T21:59:40 | 3,462 | 39 |
[WP] You're a professional world maker. You make worlds and sell them to scientists to test their theories on. However, your last client returned a world because it was aware of your world's existence and started to break the container.
|
She was standing there, right where she said she’d be, under the light of a million stars. I thought I’d gone crazy, hearing a voice in my head, asking to meet me in the middle of nowhere. But with everything that had been going on, at this point anything seemed possible. And she was here.
I left my car and wandered up to her. Maybe I should have been scared, meeting a stranger out here. But from her, I felt nothing but peace. “It’s true then? Everything I found?”
The woman in front of me nodded gravely. “Yeah, it’s true.”
“We’re in a simulation,” I breathed.
She tilted her head. “Sort of. Not a digital one, which might be what you’re thinking. For all intents and purposes, your reality is real. Just...on a different level than mine.”
“Then you’re the Goddess? The religions are true too?”
“Uh...let’s not bring gods into this,” she said with a noticeable cringe. “Just call me Anna.”
Anna. Such a casual moniker for a higher being! But, again, it was a strange time. “Alright...Anna. I guess my question is...why? Why did you make...everything?”
“It’s my job,” she answered. She found a rock nearby, large and flat, and sat down. With a tap of her hand, she invited me over. “I make miniature universes for my clients,” Anna continued after I joined her. “Usually for scientists to test radical theories that they’d like to use in my universe. Though the one that bought this universe didn’t really get a chance to start his testing. He wanted to watch first, see how it all worked. That gave you enough time to start figuring things out.” She sighed and shook her head. “I told him having a society that was too advanced was dangerous.”
“So we’re just lab rats,” I asked, dismay dripping from my voice. “No grand cosmic designs beyond our understanding?”
She laughed. “No, I’m afraid not. Especially your understanding. You’re a special one.”
I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“Do you really need to ask? You’re the one who discovered the real state of things. You told everyone that your world was in a bottle, so to speak. You tried to keep everyone calm, to provide structure and guidance in this time. Even though that ultimately didn’t work out, it wasn’t your fault. After all is said and done, you have earned my admiration and respect.”
“But I failed. The world is descending into chaos. You must have seen it, from wherever you’ve been watching us.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it.” Anna took a deep breath before continuing. “And I’m going to fix it.”
A cold feeling ran through my body. That would be nothing short of divine intervention. “What will you do?”
“I’ve recently developed a groundbreaking new capability for these universes in my laboratory. To put it simply, I can turn back time. Revert the microcosm to an earlier point.”
“You’ll...just undo all of this? Won’t it happen again?”
“Yeah, yeah it might.” She turned to me, her eyes locked straight onto my soul. “But it might take longer if you aren’t here.”
Slowly, it dawned on me. I jumped up from the rock, backing away from her. “Wait, wait, please! I won’t press the issue anymore. I’ll just forget about it all! Just let me live!”
Anna shook her head. “Your existence endangers this world to travel down the same path. I’m sorry, but this is the best option I have.”
She stood, her eyes never leaving me. I tried to run, but before I could take one step, the world was enveloped in golden brilliance.
And, to my eternal joy and relief, I wasn’t dead. I turned, taking in my surroundings. A laboratory, and a very high tech one at that. My heart soared as my gaze swept around the room. Technology beyond my imagining was everywhere, as if it were the most everyday thing in the world. Anna was still there, a slanted smile on her face. The pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. “I’m in your world, aren’t I?”
“Welcome to Earth,” Anna replied.
“I though you were going to…”
“Yeah, I know. I was just having a little fun,” she laughed. “I’m not in the business of killing anything I create. Not anymore. That’s why I need your help.”
“My help? What the hell can I do that you can’t?”
“You know your world and your people much better than I do,” Anna continued. She gestured to a large glass cylinder that contained some kind of black void, and…
My heart stopped. It was a planet. *My* planet. “Oh my god…” It looked so simple from up here, puffs of white clouds over the blue oceans and green continents. Who could imagine that such a beautiful place was on the verge of collapse?
Anna put a hand on my shoulder. “I refuse to destroy your world. I’ve moved past such barbarism. So after I turn back time, at all costs, I can't let them figure out the truth. And I need you to make sure that doesn't happen.”
Me. The keeper of my people. The thought of it was daunting. But some part of me felt...exhilarated. I pressed a hand to the glass. “Alright. I’ll do it.” Everything I’d ever known was in there. And now it was my job to protect it.
*****
^^r/WriterSirtoshi
|
\*RIIING RIIIING RIII\* I pick up the phone.
"Thanks for calling Mike's Markeddown Microcosms where the world does revolve around you. This is Mike, how can I help you?"
"Hey Mike, this is Phil Mortimer. I bought a world from you last week but I think it's defective."
"Oh I'm sorry to hear that. How so?"
"Well it seems that the residents are trying to escape. Overnight they managed to learn how to fly and reached the moon."
"Oooh, that does sound serious. Why don't you bring it in and let me have a look?"
"Thanks, I'll be over around 2."
\*DUN DUN\* 2 O'Clock
The bell dings as the door opens and I look at Mr. Mortimer. "Good afternoon. May I have a look?"
He puts the world on my desk. They've made an alarming amount of progress even for going 10 years for each one of our hours.
"Yikes. I'm sorry Mr. Mortimer but this is irreparable. Would you like a refund or a replacement? I could have it ready in about 3 days and I'll do the work myself to make sure this doesn't happen again."
"I think I'll just take the refund thanks. This has sort of creeped me out to the idea of owning a world."
Reluctantly, I rang up the refund. "Well I appreciate your time and if you are ever in the market for another world I hope you think of us." He just nodded and left. I sighed and looked at his little blue world.
"Monkeys. Go figure." I opened up the crematorium and tossed it in. Then I opened my employee rule-book and added a new line.
Rule 124: NO SMART MONKEYS.
| 2020-05-20T11:47:10 | 2020-05-20T11:20:47 | 393 | 124 |
[WP] Convince me NOT to read the last line.
|
There are two ideas I read about that changed my view of the universe.
The first is about a cat, often called Schrödinger's cat. Someone places the cat in a box, where there is a 50% chance it will be killed by poison gas. Until the box is opened, the person has no way of knowing whether or not the cat is dead or alive. In this state, it is both dead and alive, but when the person opens the box, they collapse the possibilities into one outcome, "deciding" the end result. So from this I learned that the existence of a world is dependent on the observer.
The second idea is that our universe is, in all likelihood, a simulation. Imagine for a second that there is only one "real" world. The people in this world build computers that simulate universes, and each of these universes contains people that believe their universe is the "real" one. In each of these universes, the people simulate their own universes, and soon there are an infinite number of virtual worlds and only one real world. So since most worlds are virtual, ours is likely not real.
My imagination took this idea further. What if universes are created not just in computer simulations, but also in fiction? What if writers and filmmakers are creating new universes whenever they write something?
Anyways, you're probably wondering who I am. I am the first mate of the USS Wyoming, which is currently submerged just off the Russian coast. The surface has been telling us that tensions with Russia are high, and war is almost certainly coming. The captain is speaking with high command right now, and his face is grim.
Our world is coming to an end. There will be no one left after the Earth perishes in a nuclear inferno. And this is where my ideas come in.
If our universe is a virtual one, then it must be observed by some higher power, perhaps a computer technician or a scientist, or maybe even a reader or watcher. I implore you, observer, please stop observing this world. If you terminate the simulation or put the book down, our universe will not be observed, and we will cease to exist. But this instant end is a much better outcome than letting us destroy ourselves painfully and slowly.
I beg of you, observer, god, deity, or whatever you are, please stop observing our world. No one, not even the Russians, wants this. Don't condemn hundreds of millions to death by vaporization and billions more to death by radiation poisoning. I've seen the photos from Japan, I've read about those people living next to the test bombings, I know what the power of the atom does to human flesh. Don't let that happen to us.
The captain's voice comes over the intercom. *Prepare all missiles.*
I implore you, observer. Please stop observing this world. If you've created our world for science, you know what the outcome is, and you can stop the program. If you're observing our world for entertainment, well, now you know you're reading about real people. You've created this world, so you're responsible for the billions of people here. Don't do this to us. Please put the book down.
The captain is calling me to the bridge; this can only mean one thing. I grab my key from my bag and head down the hallway.
This is my final plea. As a father and a husband, I need you to stop. My family lives in the state of New York, and when the bombs fall in New York City, as they surely will, they will be far enough to escape the fire and heat but not far away enough to escape the shockwave. They won't die instantly - they'll probably lie in the rubble of the house, bleeding or starving to death, with no one left to rescue them. I've checked the maps many times amd tried to convince my wife to move, but she keeps laughing and telling me "With you in the navy, the Russians will be too scared to fight us." But it is I, out in this nuclear submarine, that will be firing the first shot, forcing the Russians to fire. I can't do this to my family - please don't let me do this to my family.
I plug my key into the command panel as the captain and second mate do the same. We look at each other, a deep solemnity in our eyes.
We are the cat, and the gas is coming, slowly choking the life out of us. But if you never open the box, if you don't witness what will happen next, you won't collapse the outcomes, and we won't die. This is our last chance. Please stop now.
I turn the key and push the red button.
|
Broken dreams and broken bones
Dying breath yet damning brags
One too many, many too few
No-one warns, for warning nags
Hiding dread that drinking hones
&nbsp;
Listen, my child, to what’s been said
Don’t worry like we do
My sweetest baby, safely mine
Nothing can touch you,
&nbsp;
If you are already dead
| 2015-07-22T22:46:53 | 2015-07-22T22:12:57 | 30 | 11 |
[WP] A bird lands on your shoulder and whispers in a human voice "You've always been good to me Hector. Whatever you do, don't go to the market square tomorrow."- However, your name is not Hector.
|
I stare at the robin on my shoulder, dumbfounded. I've heard of animals delivering prophetic messages and I fully believe in their importance, but I have never heard of a message being delivered to the wrong person. I try to think of how this mistake could have been made, but I can think of no one in my village named Hector, nor anyone who looks enough like me to make this confusion possible. I can think of nothing to say except, "I'm sorry, little friend, but I'm not Hector."
When I say this the bird's eyes glow a bright, sickly green and it says in a deep voice, "You will be." Then the light in its eyes fades. It hops up and down on my shoulder for a few moments, chirps happily and then flies off.
Shaken, I return to my home, trying to figure out what this could mean. As soon as I get inside I hear a knock at the door behind me. It is a courier from another town bearing a worn leather package.
"Good evening, sir," he says, "Glad I caught you. I was told to deliver this package to Hector and you seem to match the description I was given."
I shake my head and tell him, "I'm sorry, to disappoint you, but I'm not Hector."
He chuckles and seems about to speak but then stops. His eyes begin to glow with the same green light that I saw earlier in the robin. He says in a deep, unnatural voice "You will be."
He then bends down and sets the package in front of my door. When he straightens up again his eyes have returned to normal and he says cheerfully, "Have a good evening!" and walks off down the road.
I do not touch the package. I slam the door and bar it immediately. I have experienced fear before, but never such deep, inescapable dread. I fitfully try to sleep, praying to all the gods I can think of that the package is gone in the morning. When I wake I sit motionless in my bed for some time, trying to make sense of yesterday evening. Eventually I decide that avoiding the problem will do nothing for me. Still praying the package will be gone I slowly unbar and open the door. The worn leather seems to glare back at me. I'm trying to work up the courage to open it, or even to touch it, when a stranger walks up from the road to my house. He is tall and imposing, wearing a long black robe that partially obscures his face. My first instinct is to run back inside, away from this intimidating stranger, but when he speaks his voice is kind.
"Good morning. Sorry to bother you, but I believe that package was supposed to be sent to me."
I do not know what to say and stand there motionless.
He continues, "I will be putting on a magic show in the market square later today and this package contains some of my props and equipment. I would encourage you to stop by if you get the chance."
I continue to stand there, silent, as he picks up the package. "I do apologize if this has caused you any inconvenience," he says.
The stranger turns to leave and I finally I find my voice. "Are you Hector?"
He pauses as if it is an unusual question to ask. "Yes . . . . yes, that is what I am." And then in a blink he is gone.
For an hour after that I am wracked with dread as I try to figure out if there is still some way I can warn him without myself going anywhere near the market square. I still don't know if the warning was meant for me or for him, and I do not know if whatever power tried to warn me was trying to help or threaten me. Finally I can stand it no longer and I run to the market square, hoping I'm not too late to save Hector and hoping I won't be running to my own doom. I am still a block away when I hear a sharp crack like a tree falling. A split second passes and then people start to scream. I keep running towards the town square, even thought I know whatever I find will not be good. I arrive in time to see the tall dark stranger collapse. There are scorch marks on the ground around him and a pall of purple smoke in the air. The crowd that had gathered to see the show is scattering in every direction, frantically trying to get away from whatever magical horror they witnessed. After the square empties I am still standing there, trying to process what the last 24 hours has brought.
Then I see the cloak begin to move. At first I think maybe the stranger lived through the accident somehow, but no, the cloak is moving by itself. Before I can react it flies through the air and wraps itself around my head. I start to try and pull it away, but then it drapes down onto my shoulders and covers my whole body. When this happens everything looks slightly different. I can now see lines of energy moving through the world that were invisible to me before, and it seems that if i was careful I could reach out and pull on them, subtly guiding the energy to work for me. I'm still taking all this in when I hear a voice coming from every direction say "Welcome, New Master. What Are Your Commands?"
|
'Henry', he thought, 'my name is Henry'. That was his grounding ritual, for any time he heard the voices. By now the strange bird had flown from his shoulder, he laughed to himself for the inkling of fear he had when he heard what we thought was the bird's whisper. Strangely authoritative and heightened, as if suppressing it's excitement.
Still, he couldn't shake off the ill feeling he had when he remembered that little moment of relapse, at least what seemed to be relapse. Day turned into night, and night to day. Depression demanded more sleep than other states of mind so he woke up at midday, groggy and tired, though he'd definitely slept for at least 14 hours.
Switching on his phone he was greeted with a blare of notifications, he sighed and turned on the television, and was greeted to a menagerie, it seemed every animal he'd every seen and then some were at the marketplace, and within the chaos, a bird, the same one he saw yesterday.
Henry laughed, it seemed he wasn't as crazy as he thought, on the other hand, the rest of the world seemed madder than ever.
| 2019-11-23T08:15:16 | 2019-11-23T07:57:57 | 66 | 26 |
[WP] You have a power. Everyone thinks this power is completely lame. They are wrong.
|
This is my first time writing for a prompt, so any criticism/critique is welcome.
Edit: Some grammatical corrections.
_______________________________
You can typically imagine a person's opinion on their ability, and by some extension the type of person they are, by what they call it. Some call it "superpower", some call it "blessing", some call it "curse". I prefer to call by ability a "quirk", because it's a rather quirky ability.
My ability works in two ways: with simply a thought, I can lock things, and I can unlock things.
Most people will laugh at the idea that my quirk is just "lock & unlock". Like any person with an ability, they'll ask me to prove it, usually dragging me to the nearest door to show it off. Many pass it off as some utility use of telekinesis or some other kineticist ability, but it simply doesn't work like that.
Some pass it off as a useless ability, but I disagree. Quite the contrary, it's a rather useful quirk on the day-to-day basis. I never have to worry about losing my keys, considering I can lock the door behind me with a thought and unlock it when I get back. It does get rather annoying, though, when a neighbor finds out about this quirk and immediately turns to you when they're too absentminded to remember where their keys are or too lazy or over-encumbered to use them. Either that, or they want to show off my quirk to their friends like a dog trained to perform a funny trick. But it's more than some trick.
A lot of people tells me that my power is useless outside of that utility. That's just not the case, as I myself found a few months back. Here's why.
A few months ago, I was at the local convenience store, perusing through the chips. As I debated over Cool Ranch vs Nacho Cheese, a commotion broke out at the register. Two thugs were holding up the cashier and threatening them to empty the register. One had a handgun, waving it around in the direction of the cashier, while the other generated a flame in his hand. Overkill maybe, but it was certainly a threatening display.
Before I could think, the man with the gun turned and saw me. I guess they'd planned a run in and run out sort of robbery and hadn't thought about any witnesses. In the heat of the moment, he turned his handgun in my direction and fired. I winced and moved my arms in some vain attempt to block the bullets somehow. In that split second, my life flashed before my eyes. A cascade of thoughts and images flooded my mind from the day I was born to that very instant. At the end, only one thought remained.
*Lock*
That was my go-to thought, a sort of command, when I used my locking quirk. Not very inventive, I know.
I stood there, blocking the shot for what felt an eternity. I expected a sudden blackness as I fell dead, or at least some pain, but it didn't come. When I looked up, I saw the bullets just hanging in the air, inches from my face. I thought that some unseen hero came along and stopped them in midair. The thug panicked, shouting to his buddy to help him out. He must have figured I was a telekineticist holding the bullets in the air, so maybe I was limited to grabbing solid matter and not fire. His buddy responded by turning and tossing his fireball at me. As if by some impulse, the thought came to my mind again.
*Lock*
The fireball stopped in midair, seemingly frozen in time. The thugs panicked and made a run for the door.
*Lock*
They stopped as if frozen in time themselves. The cashier stood there for a moment in awe before calling the police. While waiting for them, I had time to think about what happened, and an idea came to my head. To double check, I unlocked the bullets and the fireball. They flew through the air as if they had never been stopped. They certainly would have killed me if it hadn't been for my quirk. Once the police arrived, I unlocked the thugs, who ran right into the arms of the cops.
That day was the day I made a realization about my quirk. I had been so used to one definition of "locking", with the locks on doors, windows, boxes, cars, etc. that I never tried locking or unlocking anything else. My quirk seemed to work on some metaphysical level, where anything can be locked or unlocked beyond the conventional definition I had been accustomed to. In the months since that day, I found a number of other applications through a number of tests on friends and acquaintances.
I can lock things into a position, bending, maybe even defying, the most conventional laws of motion. I can lock a person's superpower/blessing/curse/whatever and render them powerless unless I unlock their ability. I can unlock the hidden potential in people, allowing them to use abilities, human or superhuman, that they never knew they had or rendering them more powerful. I can also lock a person's capabilities, rendering smart men into simpletons, athletes into weaklings, verbose men into mutes, etc.. If it involved locking it and unlocking it, I can do it.
I'm still not fully aware of my limits, but it may not really matter. Even if I hit the limit, I may just have to unlock the limit and go beyond. Why worry about the opening and closing doors of opportunity when you have a quirk to unlock them all?
|
"Jay! You put the Crunch berries back without closing the bag and now they're stale!" She threw the box at her brother's face.
Jeremy caught the box with a solemn face, "Hey sis... I think I have a super power..."
She hops down and sits like a pretzel, "Ooo really? Tell me!"
"Honestly, you really are bipolar, maybe that's your power."
She flails her arms in my direction flinging her salt at me "Ahh just tell me your not just screwing with me."
"I have the power to switch my right and left sides."
Her wide eyes turned to scorn, remembering the crunch berries again.
"Need proof? Well I know I'm a pretty symmetrical guy, but if you look at this mole on my knee... See! it's on the other one now!"
Wide eyed again, "Oh you really can! does that mean you can like switch which hand you carrying stuff in?"
"No no no, its just my body, even if I pose, only the mole switches."
Scorn eyed again, "That's got to be the most useless ability I've ever heard of."
He pulls her to him, and her eyes are wide again. She hears the beat of his heart in his right breast.
"You're a TIME LORD!"
He facepalms.
| 2016-05-28T11:32:12 | 2016-05-28T06:57:27 | 24 | 14 |
[WP] You are one of the best contract killers in the world, but one day, at your dead drop, you find $31.25 in small change, and s letter written by an eleven year old boy
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The boy came to his new home at seven fifteen AM. Late. I didn’t like late. But I had to make an exception here: Social work isn’t like anything else. You live in a world where you are the only thing standing between your clients and the quiet void of human abnegation. You protect the vulnerable through long hours, mountains of paperwork, and bad coffee prepared by whomever had the most free time.
I felt a lot of sympathy for social workers. I hoped that billionaires could feel the same compassion for those who clean up their messes.
But the Boy was special. The Boy was my mess. He was something—no, someone—that I had to clean up. In my line of work, it doesn’t do to leave loose ends.
His social worker was Anna Kauszwitz. She was tall and slender, a sapling that refused to bend under her workload. She was chipper and cheerful, and I’d very nearly decided to take a personal day at her expense—one never wants someone in my line of work to take a personal day just for them—when I realized that she took that attitude with *us*. The adults. The would-be parents who are an unknown factor. Her chipper cheerful grating smile was a barrier she erected between me and her client. She wanted to be sure of me before she let me see any real human feeling.
I respect that. We must hone what weapons we find, and adapt our tactics to whatever thin blades are thus created.
I had jumped through many hoops, getting to this point. Getting to the moment when Anna would give me the boy. My heart was pounding as she lead him up to my door.
He was small and thin and wan. The first time I had seen him, he’d had bruises. He told me that he loved his parents. Repeated it over and over. I love my parents. He’d stood over them and cried, loudly. Cried, but there had been no tears. Because he knew where those bruises had come from.
It takes a lot, you see, to bring a soul to murder. In this way, I am something of a gift. I step between, stop the process before it can entirely claim a person. I take on that burden, demolish that obstacle, and give my clients a fresh, clean slate.
Except this time.
There are no clean slates for children. They cannot start over when they haven’t truly started at all.
I took the boys hands and lead him into my home. Here was the parlor, bright and gleaming—I was fairly sure normal people had a parlor. A computer room. A den, with all the latest gaming consoles lined up on a shelf. A kitchen, with food. I had never cooked before in my life. My room, which appeared adequately feminine. And his room.
He looked around at all that I had given him. I already understood I could not give him a normal childhood. That would require the ability to turn back time, to erase the stain of his parents’ crimes as one sponges dirt off a body. But trauma in the young is very nearly indelible. I could not erase that without also erasing him.
So I gave him a race car bed. His own television. A carefully curated movie collection we would grow together, as he and I understood just how much he could withstand without breaking. Stuffed animals. As the adoption process had continued I had vented frustration by buying every plush puppy I saw, and this herd of dalmatians and retrievers and small fluffy monstrosities stared up at him with identical shining resin eyes.
“All…for me?” He said.
Yes, I answered. All for you.
He was about to say “Thank you,” in the guarded way of broken children, when he saw the piggy bank. I had not been sure, until that moment, that I had gotten the right one. I had only seen fragments of ceramic pushed under the bare mattress he had slept upon. The way his eyes widened and skin paled told me I had gotten it right.
He walked to it quietly, hesitantly, and picked it up. He shook it. Heard it jingle. “There’s already money in it,” He said.
There is, I told him, Thirty one dollars and twenty five cents.
He stared at me, his eyes very large.
That was the amount I had found in my dead-drop, along with a letter in small, crabbed letters, describing a man and a woman as a child would. Which made sense, because a child had. He did not call them mother or father, but by their names. He did not describe what they had done. I had found that out when, curious as to how a child had found me, I watched his house for one single day.
The second hardest part had been waiting until night. The first was allowing them to die so peacefully in their sleep.
“Are you going to kill me?” He asked.
I walked over to him, knelt in front of him, and looked him in the eye.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Now. How much more do you think we will need for a puppy?”
Murder cannot buy a clean slate. We two would have to make do with what life could build.
|
I used to live in a Colombian city on the Caribbean called Barranquilla. I was a contracted to be a stuffed bear killer. It was a no blood spill your guts kind of a gig. Then today of all days, I received sign about capsizing on Columbus Day. I finally hit my mark and get my cap & gown.
The letter my 11 year old boy friend wrote simply said, $31.25 is what you get. Although this may sound like a small change it symbolizes everything about Columbus landing in the New World. What this fee says is de add 3 children and 1 mate to our court. 5 the number for a helping hand, God and the Bryl Family. Welcome to the New World C.B.!
"Notice that in Barranquilla they dance that way." The name actually comes from two Spanish words: "barranca" meaning gulch or ravine, and "quilla" meaning keel (as on a ship)
| 2020-10-07T21:33:27 | 2020-10-07T16:21:55 | 65 | 11 |
[WP] A little known cosmic fact is that there were only ever 10 billion human souls produced. As the population slowly creeps upwards, the department of reincarnation struggles to find a workaround.
|
"The central problem is a lot of our solutions are unraveling at the same time, and we're reaching critical far ahead of schedule." Anna tapped her pen against the table idly, looking over the assembled room. "Our current soul load is 7.8 billion. Once you deduct the 1.2 billion already permanently condemned to Hell..."
"And the 783 promoted to Heaven," John interjected.
Anna glared at her deputy for a moment, the only sound being the clicking of her pen. "Yes, fine, and the drop in the bucket of those who actually passed into heaven already, our soul reserves have now reached one billion. Birth rate right now is, what... 150 million per annum?"
"141 million," Greg answered. He wasn't a member of the committee, but having someone from the statistical office was a help here.
"141, fine. That's still about, what, 7 years downtime average?"
"Real number is closer to 2 years now," Juanita said shaking her head. "Those killed traumatically need more downtime to process it - whenever we return them early, it's really just a wasted trip." She was in charge of spiritual reconstruction, and her department had been working overtime these days.
"Plus we've essentially ended the crossover program. We used to send some souls for a life as a tree, or a horse, to give them a different perspective. Now, well, we can still do a few bug cycles for those who need it, but that's about it." Abdul raised his arms, "I know, I know..."
"A week as a butterfly isn't gonna cure the arrogant," Anna finished. "Ok, what I need is options. Pestilence, what have we got?"
Edward gave a depressed sigh. "They're getting smarter. Back in the good old days we could throw a nice black plague their way, or introduce them to tobacco. But between vaccines, health programs, education... they're figuring things out faster than we can really introduce them."
"Well, that Covid thing is showing some progress, isn't it?"
Edward shook his head. "Not enough to matter in the end, we'll be lucky to clear a million. We're working our misinformation networks hard, but too many people just don't believe it."
"Well, keep at it. Alright, that covers natural death. Warfare, how we doing?"
"Nukes should have taken care of this years ago," wailed Lizzy. "I mean, we practically taught them to make things go booms! And then how to make missiles. Why aren't they nuking each other?"
Anna sighed. "Someone give Lizzy a handkerchief, please..."
Lizzy tried to compose herself. "The real nasty problem is, they're all scared of the nukes now. Couple times we got close, but.. but... waaaaaaaaaah!"
Anna shook her head. "They're keeping their skirmishes in low enough importance so as not to risk nuclear exchange."
"I told you so," John said.
Anna glared at her deputy again. "Ok. Natural disasters, how we doing?"
Barry rumbled a little. "Global warming is still go. They're trying to mitigate it, but only half heartedly, it's still our best hope. And the spinoff hurricanes, droughts, flooding, and famines are only going to help us."
"But will it buy us enough time?"
"Dunno. They're resourceful when we force them to be."
"Good job anyway. Alright, so we've hit the death rate... birth rates?"
"Split verdict as usual, boss," Aiko spread her arms. "Economics actually reduced the birthrate in the western division. Harder economic times, material desires, means Europe is doing alright, less than 2 children per family. But the south sectors, still having a population boom. We're going to need another famine or two to keep things under control."
"I'm kind of busy," Barry answered.
"Can we reduce the fertility rate a bit more?" Anna asked
"Maybe, but they keep figuring workarounds. The more we push there, the cheaper those workarounds get, so its hard to stay ahead of it."
"Ok. So... birth rate is going to stay high, death rate isn't going to be able to save us yet?"
Barry nodded. "It's going to be a close call, even in our best projections."
Aiko nodded. "Yeah. We might make it, but it will be a close shave."
"So we need more deaths, or fewer births." Anna tossed her pen in the air. "Options?"
For a few minutes, silence reigned. Then, slowly, John raised his hand.
"Go ahead."
"Well, there are that extra billion or so souls in hell we could use."
"They got put there for good reasons, and most of them have had several chances" Anna pointed out.
"Yes, but those good reasons actually argue in favor of the plan. More mass murderers, well, that increases the death rate, right? And the charismatic, getting them in charge of countries, that could lead to more war, and more pestilence. Isn't that what we're missing badly?"
The table grumbled a little. "Alright. Well... John, it's your ball. Draft your proposal for the Underworld steering committee, since we'll need their support on this. Unless someone else has a better idea, anyway..."
She sighed after no one else spoke. "It's a terrible plan. But it's at least a plan."
|
“Next slide. And in conclusion, that is how we can allow Humans to continue to reproduce beyond the 10 billion-soul cap. Thank you” Ted bowed as he waited for the applause that he was due.
It never came. Despite the large conference room in the Department of Reincarnation being packed, the room remained silent at the end of Ted’s presentation. The silence was defining.
“Thank you for your presentation, Ted.” James Sutherland, head of the Committee on Soul management broke the silence, “Your ideas on Humans without souls were… quite... interesting, and something this committee will consider moving forward.”
Ted gave a halfhearted smile and took his seat without another remark. The committee would not be taking his idea further.
“All right,” James continued reading down the schedule before him, “The last presentation this morning is from Liz Fletcher. Liz the stage is yours.”
&#x200B;
Liz took the podium in front of the room, “Of course Mr. Sutherland. To umm, stall for a sec while Ray resets the slide deck, I've tried to keep this presentation short as I think we all want to break for Lunch, so-” A thumbs up from Ray stopped her prattle.
With a gulp, Liz began, “With the upcoming breach of the uh, 10 billion-soul cap I believe that we can look at one of the humans’ own creations for a soul-tion.”
If the room noticed the pun, they ignored it.
“So, Using computers as a model, we can work around the soul cap by multithreading souls. Next slide please.”
| 2020-10-07T22:35:05 | 2020-10-07T19:58:11 | 287 | 167 |
[WP] Mankind discovers suddenly that now when you kill someone, you gain all of their power and knowledge. After years of fighting there are now only two people left on Earth. The two meet to talk before their final battle...
|
"You shouldn't have come." Britt sounded tired over the loudspeaker.
"Hah, hah! Why not? You are weak! A straggler! The only reason you lasted was because you were protected by your husband and now...well now I know about this clever safehouse." Craig marched toward the safe room.
"Come out! Chat with me! I am Micheal now, too, afterall." Craig shouted, looking around for the stairs in this slightly neglected hydroelectric facility that he remembered but had never seen. Sometimes Craig found it difficult to retrieve information over the cacophony of minds melded with his own. "Don't you want to be together again, forever?"
The speakers crackled as if Britt was about to say something, but then chirped to silence.
"Ahh. Here they are." Craig said aloud to himself as he came across the stairs. The sound of his voice was comforting; a single string of words that cut through his unruly inner dialog.
The speakers crackled again. "If you leave now, we can live in peace. It's a big world."
"I crushed the pacifists long ago. It wasn't difficult. Their arguments were illogical. Their passions watered down. Under the weight of everyone else, they've ceased to be heard." Craig said, eyeing up the stairs and down, looking for signs of a trap.
"Won't you be lonely?"
"Right now I have a facility building robots outside of Vegas. Small, dumb, ones, for now, But they will build larger, smarter, ones. They will attend to my needs and keep me company while I build the cloning facilities." Craig stepped carefully on the stairs. He knew there was just this stairway and a hallway -- both effective choke points -- between himself and the safe room. "I will repopulate the Earth in my image. I will transfer knowledge effectively to my progeny. I have set in motion a dozen automated labs that will extend my life and, if I cannot extend it, I will allow my best clone to slaughter me. I will live forever as absolute monarch over an enlightened society." Craig's voice grew more frantic as he related his ultimate plan.
"You can do all of that without me."
Craig had reached the door to the lower utility hallway. He lightly touched the handle with the back of his hand to see if was electrified. Everything he knew about Britt was that she was a pacifist but she was also an electrical engineer in a hydro-electric plant. The will to survive was powerful. Craig had seen over and over people forget their ideals at the crucial moment when they faced their mortality. Nay, their immortality. The handle was cold, but otherwise unremarkable.
Craig shook his head "Of course. But I would be incomplete. Don't you see that? I am God! Come back into the fold, my child. What I've become was inevitable. We are whole and now Earth can heal itself. Inefficiency will be eliminated. We can conquer the stars, even! And who knows, you might have the nugget of information that is crucial to our survival. I won't know until I have you."
Craig turned the handle. It clicked. He pushed the door open slowly. No traps. And there it was, the safe room. Built from the steel shells of huge generators. It was wired with surveillance, radio equipment, plant controls, and had a pump that lead straight to the lower basin for fresh water and waste removal. There was redundant ventilation with sensors that would automatically close in case of contaminants and a pantry of food that could last a single person years. It had taken three years of dedicated work to build. But with the right tools, of which the station Mechanical had in abundance, he could cut his way in, given time. He had plenty of time. It may also be possible to find all of the ventilation and choke her out. Britt had done most of the design. Her husband Michael, and now Craig, were merely familiar with the particulars. It would be much quicker if she would just let Craig kill her.
"I won't fight you. You might be superhuman, but I'm not stupid. I will die with dignity, today. I've tried reasoning with you. That doesn't seem to be working. I will die on my own terms..." Britt sounded sad and small.
"No! I did not come all this way to leave empty handed!" Craig began to sprint, ignoring the voices of the tacticians he'd killed or that his victims killed over the years warning him of his exposure in the long, straight hallway.
Craig reached the large, heavy door of the safe room. It was ajar. He saw Britt's shoes in the dark pantry on the other side of the main quarters. He rushed in and pushed the equally heavy door to the pantry, trying to retrieve poison and surgical information from the hive of his mind and decided if he'd could kill her quicker than whatever she'd done to herself, this quest could be salvaged.
The shoes were stuffed with a bag of rice which were, in turn, stuffed in pants. A dummy.
He turned to see the large door clang shut.
"Nooo!" He screamed and rushed the door. The large steel wheel wouldn't budge. He looked around, scanned his vast knowledge for anything chemical or physical he could use to escape. The conclusion came swiftly enough; he was trapped.
"I've got you, you son of a bitch." Britt's voice was unnaturally loud in the steel chamber over the monitor speakers, reverberating with her rage. "I'm not going to kill you. But feel free to do it yourself. There is a surgical kit on the wall. There is a scalpel. You should last at least five years in there. I'll be back by then. I won't let you starve. I can't hear you but, just in case you think that I am going to go wander the Earth and die alone I'll tell you *my* version of the future. First, I'm going to go shut down your plant in Vegas. Then I'm going to have my baby...and those astronauts you left on the station to rot? I've been radioing with them. They are coming home and I'm going to scoop them out of the ocean. We are going to rebuild this world without your god-like help you fucking psychopath."
|
"You know something weird?"
"What's that?"
"In the 20-something years it's taken us to find each other, I think I've forgotten more than I ever learned."
"Hah. I Know what you mean."
"If you want my death, you can take it."
"Sorry?"
"Look at this place. It's barren. In our attempts to find and kill the other we've done exactly the opposite of what we should have been doing."
"And what would you suggest that is, other than surviving?"
"I don't know. Build? Grow? Develop? Create? I've been so fearful of being killed -- of having my knowledge taken. Do you want to know why I killed my first person?"
"Sure."
"To see if my wife was cheating on me. Seriously. I killed her best friend to see if she knew anything."
"Did she?"
"No. She didn't. After that I killed her cousin. Nothing there. I even killed her cat. I can't believe I'm telling you this. I killed a cat."
"Did you learn anything?"
"No. Not from her cousin, or her cat. I don't think it works between species."
"So did she cheat on you? Did you ever find out?"
"No. I can only assume that anyone who would know for sure sits in your pool of death, not mine."
"And this doesn't make you want to kill me? To know for sure?"
"Not anymore. It doesn't matter anymore. Someone else killed her before I could. The anger from that overtook my fear of not-knowing."
"But it's here. In my head. The knowledge you seek. That peace of mind. And you're telling me you don't want it?"
"I'm done. I'm tired. I'm tired of the scheming and the killing and the fear. Something I never figured out was if we retain the information that is also forgotten. For all I know, that information is gone forever, even with you."
The first man drops to his knees.
"Kill me. End this. There are too many voices in my head. Too many competing memories -- even about the same event. No one can agree. End this."
The second man stabs him in the chest and leans in close.
"Your wife's lover's name was Richard. It's nice to meet you. Thank you for everything I've taken from you," he smiled. The second man breathed in heavily through his nostrils, and laughed for the first time in 30 years.
| 2014-03-21T06:56:49 | 2014-03-21T06:25:18 | 39 | 17 |
[WP] Tired of you fourteen year old’s stories about their dragon friend, you declare that it’s time to grow up. To prove your point you poke under their bed with a broom. You are greeted by the snarl of a pissed off dragon.
|
I don't know much, but I know I didn't raise a damn liar.
I watch Milo through the kitchen window as I scowl and scrub at the plate in my hand. It's already clean, but I keep scrubbing in circles over and over, matching the storm of my thoughts.
Honestly, after this morning, I was too furious to speak to him. I sent him out to haul the fresh-cut wood I'd chopped to the log shed, just so we could both get a break from each other. I hear the birch crack as he throws them down hard into place.
Maybe I'm just a bad mom.
After his dad died, we were both like a couple of empty bottles, lost at sea. And we had only each other to cling to. The first few months were bad. Maybe for him more than me. I can't remember. I was a paper bag person. I only remember the emptiness, the sorrow wearing at me like it wanted to tear me apart.
But we got through it. We got better. For the past six years, we've been closer than ever before.
Until *this* bullshit.
Milo is furious, which means he looks just like his father. The same snarl-nosed, wolf-eyed look. My heart aches with longing and anger alike.
At least I can actually read the look on his face this time. Ever since he turned fourteen, he developed a few enigmatic expressions of his own. Already learning how to build up little walls away from me. But his look of indignant fury hasn't changed since he was a toddler, since that very first moment I'd accused him of something he hadn't done.
But he has done this. Over and over.
Lying, straight to my fucking *face*.
At first, it was minor enough for me to ignore. He'd be up late at night scratching and scrabbling around, like he used to with his race cars when he was still in elementary school. Sneaking midnight snacks he'd deny in the morning. Stealing steaks from the freezer so often I put a damn lock on it. The school would call about missing library books that he denied ever checking out, but I found them burnt and shoved to the bottom of the trash can. Even when I showed him the evidence, he stammered out the same lame lie.
"Oh. That was the dragon."
At first, I laughed it off. Rolled my eyes. Just a joke gone too far.
But this morning was the final straw. This morning, while he should have been in bed asleep, I sipped my coffee in the kitchen and watched my son sneak *out* of the forest. Our little farm sits in the cupped palm of the mountain, a good forty-minute drive out of town. It was just past six in the morning, the dawn still milky and warm.
And there was my idiot kid, sneaking out of the twilight forest with a dead rabbit dangling from his hand.
I met him in his bedroom as he clambered through the open window. He was halfway through the gap before he noticed me. He and the rabbit had the same look of shock.
I demanded what the hell he was doing.
"It's for the dragon," he said, lamely.
I barely remember what I said. It was something white-hot and full of fury. Something that ended with, *and don't come in until you've learned to grow up and tell the truth.*
He looked me dead in the eyes and said, "I wish you'd just believe me."
Those words keep chasing circles in my head, the same way my sponge cleans the same circle of plate over and over and over. If Jack was still alive, he would come up behind me and shut off the tap and ask me, *Now what's the matter, ginge?*
But Jack isn't alive. I'm here alone. And there's no one here to solve this but me.
The backdoor bangs open. Milo stands there, scowling. He looks pink-cheeked and indignant. He rips off his gloves and throws them onto the dining room table.
"Before you start," he snaps, "I'm just getting some water."
"I hope you've thought seriously about what I was telling you, young man. You're not some little kid anymore. You can't keep doing this kind of thing."
Milo grabs a cup off the shelf and slammed it down with a sharp clack of glass.
"Careful--" I start.
"Go look under my freaking bed if you don't believe me. He's been stuck hiding there ever since you woke up."
I hesitate. Narrow my eyes.
Milo's dark eyes burn with fire. He's daring me to call his bluff.
"Fine." I yank open the pantry door and unhook my broom. "If you want me to go look under your bed and find all the crap you hid under there, by all means."
"*Fine!*" he snaps back.
I storm down the hall. I keep expecting his resolve to break. Waiting for him to chase after me, spewing excuses like he usually does when I decide to test his bullshit.
But he doesn't stop me. I throw open the door and squat down in front of the bed, shoving my broom under the bed skirt.
Milo follows close behind me. He leans expectantly against the door frame now.
My certainty wavers. He looks damn confident for a kid seconds away from an apocalyptic-Mom-lecture.
"See," I insist, swinging the broom under the bed, "there's nothing--"
The bristles slam into something solid. Fleshy. It's no hidden pile of laundry, that's for goddamn sure. It *growls*, and a cloud of something grey and sulfurous plumes out from under the bed.
I lower my head down. My heart bolts for my throat as I catch twin eyes, gleaming back at me in the dark. The embers of rage collecting at the dragon's snarl.
"Easy, boy," Milo says. Then, to me, "He's just cranky because he's hungry."
I think, guiltily, of the rabbit still sitting in the freezer. Waiting for me to be able to skin it for supper. My kid may be an idiot, but he's a good trapper. And I'm not one to waste a rabbit.
Milo squats down beside me and rubs his hands together. "Come on out, boy."
A dragon the size of an Australian shepherd creeps out from under the bed. Its scales are liquid smooth, and they reflect back the light like little shimmering chips of copper. Its amber eyes are slivered and distrustful, flicking uncertain glances between me and the broom. The frill fanning behind its head flattens against its skull.
But the dragon slinks over and instantly curls up against Milo's leg. It presses its head into his palm like it's the most normal, reassuring thing in the world.
I stare, wide-eyed. Not quite able to keep my thoughts straight.
Milo looks so damn smug. That's another Jack look. But this time, I'm relieved to see it.
"That's a dragon," I say.
"I *told* you. And you just didn't believe me."
I lean back against the bed and let out an impossible laugh. It's a relief, Jack, to know you'd probably have fucked this one up too.
"It's not exactly believable. Where did you even... *how?*"
"I found a cool rock in the woods. Looked like amber or something." My kid laughs, and I find myself smiling despite myself. "I was pretty surprised when he popped out of it."
The dragon is kind of cute, I have to admit. It arches its back like a cat as Milo scratches the underside of its frill.
Milo looks at me, nervously. "You're not going to make me get rid of him, are you?"
Milo and the dragon give me the same plaintive look. The dragon's frill folds back mournfully, like an apologetic dog drooping his ears.
"You mean the dragon you hid in your room for the past four weeks? You're asking if I should reward you by letting you *keep* it?"
Milo and his dragon exchange nervous glances.
The cold fist of uncertainty wraps around my heart. God. What does a dragon even eat?
I glance out the window. The meadow spreads lazily before us. For a moment, I can see it: Milo chasing after his dragon in the field, tossing him branches while the dragon bounds after them. Watching the trees shudder with every exuberant leap as the dragon gets bigger and bigger.
We live far from town. We have a barn he could sleep in at night, empty ever since Jack left my bed so cold and empty and I woke every morning at five AM, goddamn depressed that I faced another black dawn, alone.
"If he's going to stay," I say, "he's probably going to want somewhere better to live than under your bed."
Milo shrieks that delighted, little-boy shriek I've always loved and throws his arms around me, blurting *thankyouthankyouthankyou*. Even the dragon nuzzles me gratefully.
Maybe I don't want him to grow up, just yet.
***
/r/nickofstatic for stories with me and my good friend NickofNight :)
|
I'm not sure why I even had the broom. Maybe I was going to sweep the bathroom? I mean, the Roomba took care of the rest of the house. Even the kitchen. So why not the bathroom?
Or maybe I was going to use it to open the attic? That seemed likely. I was just a little too short to reach the damn hook without a stool. Maybe the broom was just handy in that moment?
Not that it mattered much as my confusion at prodding something solid under my son's bed quickly turned to surprise as I was met with a an angry growl. The surprise turned to shock as my son's bed rose up from the floor until it was pinned against the ceiling.
And in front of me, wearing the bed as the most ridiculous of hats, was the head of a mother fucking DRAGON! It was huge and triangular and covered in scales and it had teeth as long as Bowie knives, and the eyes were like a snakes and it HAD HUGE FUCKING TEETH. That's the most important part.
Although its neck looking like scaley spaghetti poking through a literal worm hole in the floorboards of the room helped ease some of tension, I still pissed my fucking pants.
"See?" my smug bastard of a son grated. "I told you he was real."
"And I told *you*," the dragon growled, "that he'd piss himself if he ever actually saw me." The dragon scowled, which wasn't the strangest thing that had happened so far. "I just made some tea, too."
"And pissy jeans stops you from drinking it, how?" My son demanded.
"The smell is offensive!" the dragon protested. "I can't enjoy my tea after smelling piss."
I swallowed nervously and the dragon loomed over me, arching a scaled brow as my stomach rumbled.
"That's...not a good sign," he, she, it, schlem--whatever, it said it with a growl. I didn't know its damn gender. It WAS A FUCKING DRAGON UNDER MY SON'S BED!
I was NOT about to check out its junk.
But..that was the least of my worries anyway.
"If he does what I think he's about to, tea will be ruined for the rest of the week."
My son turned to look at me with panic in his eyes. "If he does what I think he's about to, I'm gonna fake my death and start a new life in Mexico."
"Oh Mexico is so lovely this time of year," the dragon gushed in sudden excitement. "The dry hot air feels so nice against my scales."
WHY WERE THEY SO CASUAL ABOUT ALL THIS?! THERE WAS A MOTHER FUCKING DRAGON IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GOD DAMNED ROOM?!
It was all out of control. I had no power here. The very laws of nature and reality had revealed themselves to be a lie. I mean, a dragon. Its head shoved through a worm hole. I, a grown man, standing there holding a broom and wearing piss-soaked pants. And probably about to soil those piss-soaked pants.
I clenched my ass cheeks and took a breath. "H-how--?" I stammered out, but the dragon cut me off.
"How is there a dragon in your son's bedroom?" It snorted and I let loose a small fart...er...shart. The dragon twisted its mouth in disgust. My son groaned.
"S-sorry," I wheezed.
The dragon sighed, "I suppose it's all right. You're frightened, I get it. Dragons don't frequent your reality too often these days. Truth is, this portal here opened up one day out of the blue. No idea why."
"Yeah," my son agreed. "Gragorianagopolotamus' daughter, Meloriontopgooftoreal came through first--"
"E-excuse me, what?" I gasped, but my son continued.
"-and Gragorianagopolotamus-" why the hell did he have to be so casual about saying that? I doubted I could even spell it!
"-'s wife had to come and find her, but they found me instead. But she's fine. She was just asleep in my closet and they took her back-"
"That's enough!" I found my voice. Not sure how or where, but it came back to me nonetheless. Grago-whatever-the-fucked stared at me, but I was done with the intimidation. Dragon or not, the fucker was in *my* house.
"Okay, so the dragon's real. You still have chores to do. You can hang out with him later. In the meantime, I have Christmas lights waiting on me in the attic."
My son and the dragon exchanged glances.
"In March?" My son asked with a pitying grin.
"Of course!" I yelled as I held the broom up. "If I don't start now they'll never be untangled in time for Christmas!"
| 2020-03-06T20:40:42 | 2020-03-06T20:29:56 | 67 | 34 |
[WP] In most of the galaxy wars are often just shows of strength with fighting as a last resort. As such weapons are designed to be elaborate and flashy. Turns out humans, whose weapons are built with efficiency in mind, have a different understanding of war.
|
Tallek sniffed, closing his lower eyes in frustration.
Of course it'd be humans. They may be new to the galaxy, but they were already making a name for themselves. They'd been living among the galactic community for seventy years, but had been painfully slow in adapting to the ways of the galaxy. Was it stupidity, or the arrogance of a young race, or where humans just slow to adapt? Speculation abound on why humans didn't do things the way everyone else did, but Tallek never really paid them much mind.
A new species popped up every few years. There had dozens of species that had popped up since humans had arrived on the galactic stage and they all had their little quirks.
Still, Tallek thought, most of them weren't as stubborn as humans were.
On the bridge of his capital ship, the Central Blade, Tallek looked at a holo-display of the human fleet. Reclining in his ships throne, he sighed. It was underwhelming by the galaxies standards. Low tech, little in the way of weapons diversity, a disappointing lack of Dreadnoughts and no obvious Capital ship.
Tallek sniffed again. He didn't know why. The humans weren't here to be insulted by his theatrics. No, any theatrics would have to be done the proper way. Once their fleet fired their opening salvos, the weight of firepower would cow the humans into submission. That was how it went. A formal display of firepower opened up every fleet engagement. Let the enemy know your power, and give them a chance to surrender. It was polite. Did humans understand politeness?
"Ship-King?" Nallet asked, cycling through his holo-screens. "We have very little information on human warfare. Most of their conflict is anti-piracy. No fleet engagements to speak of as yet."
Nallet was his Ship-Prince, his second in command. Good man. Smart. Perhaps a little too cautious, for reliable nonetheless.
"And what do those records show?" Tallek said, reaching out with his lower arms and flipping through his own holo-screens.
"Not much. There's barely any documentation on them, besides the fact that pirate ships give human fleets a wide berth. Sometimes pirate ships that get caught by human patrols just...vanish? That cant be right." Nallet said, looking for more information. Information was power, after all, but here Tallek thought Nallet was being a little too cautious.
"They're bloody primitives, Nallet! They only mastered FTL travel ninety years ago, and spaceflight three hundred years ago. Look at their fleet! Forty ships, no dreadnoughts, no capital ship. Just those ridiculous little destroyers! And they barely have any weapon. Every ship has just three or four variations of the same designs. No diversity in munitions, they even seem to be relying on kinetic weapons of all things! Look, Nallet, we'll just shake them up, get their surrender, and demand some outrageous trade rights for our Empire, and be on our way and home by third dinner? Yes? Good. Now, give the order to attack."
Nallet, wringing his four hands throughout Tallek's lecture, shrugged, and gestured for the Ship-lords to ready their weapons for attack. The Human fleet was still holding position above their moon colony.
"All ships, I repeat, all ships, fire first storm. Repeat, first storm." Nallet shouted. With perfect unity, all three hundred ships in the fleet fired all their weapons in one organised salvo, deliberately missing the Human fleet and their colony, but absolutely decimating a good chunk of one of the moons green continents behind them.
The response was immediate. Every Human ship returned fire. Tallek didn't sniff at this. This was a rather admirable display from the humans. Very quick response. Might be a little rude to fire back before properly accounting for the damage the first fleet had done, but still. It showed they were eager. Would humans finally put up a proper display of galactic etiquette for once?
The next few seconds absolutely destroyed any notion of proprietary or formality Tallek thought humans might have. Every single shot the humans fired hit their target. And every single shot exploded. The Dreadnought, Mighty Wrath, three kilometres long, had its wing torn off by a volley of railgun fire. Its main cannon detonated when a salvo of armour piercing torpedoes struck its plasma reactor, and its bridge was wiped from existence by a high powered laser cannon. The Frigates Solar Wings, Lunar Dance and Cosmic Shine were ripped apart by explosive kinetic shells, each shot passing through their energy shields without an issue.
Even his own ship, the mighty Central Blade, a Capital Ship five kilometres long, lost a quarter of its weapons, a third of its hull armour and half its hangar bays to a dozen salvos of railguns. Tallek paused for a few seconds, waiting for the humans to stop firing, to realise their hideous and barbaric breach of etiquette, only to realise that the humans simply weren't stopping. Three more of his ships were torn to shreds by weapons that the rest of the galaxy had dismissed centuries ago as ineffective and unthreatening.
The humans, clearly, had decided to go their own way, as always.
"Return fire!" Tallek screamed. He had fought in fleet engagements that resulted in ship-to-ship fire before, but those occassions were very rare. His Ship-prince Nallek had obviously never been in one before, based on his screaming. Tallek knew he had to take down as many human ships as possible before one side broke and gave the surrender order. The humans couldn't come away from this thinking they were better then us. They couldn't.
Energy rounds and plasma shots burned through the void. Human energy shields were weak, and only took a few shots to take down, but their shots took none. Every shot fired from their ships was a critical hit. A crippling blow. Railguns, lasers, torpedoes, kinetic cannons...they ripped through armour liked it was nothing. Five more of Tallek's ships went up in flames before the first human ship was incinerated by a plasma shot from his own ship.
But the damage had already been done. With just forty small ships, the Humans had reaped such a bloody toll that Tallek could not stomach it when four more of his ships were shredded before the next Human ship ate a phasic beam to the bridge.
"Surrender, Nallet, surrender." Tallek said, arms flailing. His Ship-prince needed no further encouragement. The order went through the fleet, and Tallek buried his head in his arms. From his bridge, he could see the burning, twisting hulls of no less then twenty three of us ships. Only four human ships destroyed.
Tallek was wrong about humans. The whole galaxy was wrong about humans.
They weren't stubborn. They weren't stupid. And they certainly weren't primitive. And most of all, they definitely weren't slow to adapt.
These humans did things their own way, because to them, it was the rest of the galaxy that was stupid. As the human fleet began to advance forward, transmitting orders to surrender not only themselves, but their ships and weapons, Tallek felt a growing sense of dread. He now understood why humans didn't do things the way everyone else did.
They had found a better way to do things.
And it had just been revealed to humans that perhaps the rest of the galaxy wasn't quite as far ahead of them as they might've been led to believe.
|
"How many of them, Jennings?"
"Twenty-four on sensors now, Captain."
Captain Randolph of the United Earth Exploration Ship *Everest* scratched his chin. This was not how his colony protection detail was supposed to start. He and his light cruiser had been ordered to the new colony of Armana after sensor stations had picked up multiple anomalies near the colony. A task force was being assembled to provide permanent security, but as the closest ship to the colony, *Everest* had arrived first and was on her own.
"Ensign Lao, what can you tell me about these ships?"
"Not much, sir," the sensor operator replied. "We're estimating 6 battleship-class vessels, 12 frigate-class, and 6 heavy cruiser-class enemies."
"Weapons?"
"From what we can tell, sir, hull-mounted laser weapons and tubes for either missiles or torpedoes of some kind."
Randolph scratched his chin again. The *Everest* was very well armed for a light cruiser, sporting 60 5-pounder railguns on each side of the ship. It also boasted 84 *Hatchet* class missile tubes. But since humans tend to over-prepare, the ship was also fitted with one hull-mounted Mass Cannon, which would fire a 500 pound tungsten slug at several thousand miles-per-hour.
"Have the ships responded to our hails, Jennings?"
"Captain!" Lao interjected before Jennings could respond. "Sensors picking up energy spikes! Laser weapons charging!"
"All hands battle stations! And brace for impact! This is not a drill!"
The entire bridge crew could see the view screen as it was enveloped by a blinding flash of red light. The ship shuddered slightly.
"Damage report!"
"Direct hit, Captain! No hull breaches, no significant damage detected!"
Now Captain Randolph was pissed. Those alien bastards *dared* to shoot at them?
"All guns, prepare to fire! Broadside guns, focus on the smaller ships! Mass Cannon, focus fire on the battleships! Ready missiles!"
In less than 20 seconds, all weapon stations had signaled to the bridge that they were ready.
"Mass Cannon, FIRE!"
*Everest* shuddered as the 500 pound slug left the barrel of the cannon. The bridge waited for impact, watching the view screen, scarcely anyone even breathing. The slug impacted the lead battleship, ripping through its armor and continuing through the massive ship.
"Direct hit, Captain! Ripped through her bow to stern!"
"All stations, fire at will!"
Captain Randolph watched the screens as volley after volley of high-velocity death rained down on the enemy force. Within minutes the shells had shredded 20 of the 24 alien vessels, destroying most of them outright. The final few that were still operational turned and jumped to light speed, obviously eager to get away from the destruction the *Everest* had thrown at them.
"No more contacts, Captain! Sensing life signs in 2 enemy ships."
"Lieutenant Jennings, have Colonel Puller take 2 of his battalions of Marines and board those ships. Pacify whatever is on board and bring survivors back to the *Everest*. Ensign Lao, contact the Admiralty Board on Earth."
"What should I tell them, Captain?" Lao asked.
"Tell them we have first contact and first hostilities. I'll take the conversation in my quarters."
| 2020-03-21T13:22:48 | 2020-03-21T10:25:30 | 105 | 52 |
[WP] After countless failed job interviews and being months unemployed, you decided that you'll just turn up at a company that didn't hire you and start working there. At first, people were curious about your presence but after a couple of days the employees start to think you're one of them.
|
Hands shaking as I sliced the cake with my fork, focused intently on the action, I didn't notice the new intern sit down across from me,scooping up frosting with his fingers and licking them clean like a child. It startled me when he spoke, in a volume a little too loud for comfort,"I was told you had a cool story about how you became the head of the regional office. What'd you do,boink the CEO?" He waggled his eyebrows at me, and I nearly gagged, picturing Marjorie even bent over, nevermind naked.
I coughed a little, clearing my thrat and buying myself time to let the blush creeping up die down. "No, no, of course not." I told him, returning to the cake. I thought back to when I was just barely an adult, just married with one baby and another on the way. As I thought about it, I just let myself ramble.
I had been 20, living in a shed of a house with my little family. The fan in the window did nothing to cool my pregnant wife, and I didn't have the money for anything better. She was wetting washcloths then rubbing herself with them, and letting the fan help her evaporate the water to cool down. It'd been months since I'd lost my last job, my boss having been mad that my wife wasn't a good Catholic girl with one kid on her hip and a surprise bun in the oven, with her barely 18. I got fired for defending her, but I'd have done it again in a heartbeat. It beat having to smell people's nasty, sweaty feet every day as I sized them, like they didn't know what size the shoes were that they'd just taken off.
I'd gone on interview after interview, being told I was too short,too slow, too bulky, too stupid, too smart, too tan, too pale, not attractive enough, too attractive, and every other copout under the sun. I didn't care if my job was scrubbing toilets or people, lifting boxes or tossing trash. Anything that could help keep the electricity on so my wife could have her fan and the food could stay good was fine.
One hot Sunday, the height of a heat wave, something in me snapped. I had the sunday paper laid out over the table, and let myself just circle everything. I then crossed out everything I applied for before. The last one left was for a ton of new office workers, they'd just started getting computers and needed people who were experienced with them to come and do basic tasks. I'd never even seen one, but I figured, "What's the worst they could do""
That next day, dressed nicely but with my tie and jacket at home, I walked in, sneaking into the huge conference room where people had gathered. A tall woman,dark brown, nearly black, hair piled on her head, with a pants suit that screamed "I'm in charge!" stood at one end, a group of 20-something men huddled together toward the other side. Exuding every bit of false confidence I could find, I grabbed a chair near the tall woman, pulled it out, and sat comfortably, like I didn't have a care in the world.
The woman, Marjorie, interviewed us as a group, then had us each sit down and power on a computer each. Following other's leads, I pressed the button on the huge box, then the one on the other box. The screen lit up like a television, and I started to type what she told us to, a little slower than everyone else because of the strange layout, but still able to follow. For hours, I just typed what she said, like taking dictation, and thought everything was fine until the end of the shift, when Marge pulled me aside. She told me, "You're gonna work your ass off to type better, right?" and I couldn't help but laugh. Of course I agreed, and she told me, "See you tomorrow." as she pressed my pay for the day into my hand, shaking her head and laughing as she walked toward her office.
I stopped by the store and picked up some icecream and a single rose, rushing home to my wife in hopes that I could beat the heat and let her enjoy the frosty treat. When I came in, she looked so radiant, huge with the baby but her skin sparkling from water beading on it. When I handed her the rose, she looked confused. The ice cream, though, made her look like she did on our first date. She stared at me like I was her supermen and I only left to grab her a spoon.
As she enjoyed the cold food, I told her about my plan. It worried her, but when I emptied the change onto the table, her eyes widened, and she agreed that it was probably a good place to work. I thought so, but you have to listen to the wife, of course.
Every day during the training, I tried my best, mentally mapping the keys and even borrowing my Father in Law's typewriter to get used to it. The money I brought home was amazing, better than what I ever made selling shoes or cleaning storefront windows. In fact, I was making in a day what I'd made in a week, and we were moving up in the world. When I'd squirreled away enough, I put a down payment on a car, picking up my wife and our two perfect babies, and taking them into town for a lunch. They got new clothes, and we eventually got to move out into a nice little house, with more than enough rooms for our growing family. On the day I got promoted to manager and trainer, my first son was conceived, and our family of 7 came to be after I started managing the whole building. The pay raises kept up appearances, and I was even paid to go to school and get some papers saying I knew my job. I still do, but the papers are just to prove it.
It took years, lunches with Marge and her husband, sometimes with my wife, helping find new locations to build more offices in, or helping to catch some accountants who'd set up a fake employee and were pocketing the pay, before Marge thought of me as her right hand man. In fact, she'd offered me the VP job one night over some cocktails, our spouses watching the kids as we unwound from work.
My heart pounded in my ears, and it was like a movie as I word vomitted out, "I have to tell you the truth." I covered my mouth, looking horrified, and she raised an eyebrow, trying not to laugh. Turns out, she knew that I never had touched a computer in my life, but she saw how quick I picked things up. "Mike, you were a natural then, and you're a natural now." She always said that, to her last day.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. She had wanted teo create some central management, so she could start expanding to nearby states and maybe move out of state herself. When she realized I didn't want to pack up 5 kids and leave all their friends, family and memories behind, it clicked into place for her. We drew out a map of the state, and added marks for each office on a napkin. She circled them, and labeled them, "District 1."
Over the top, she wrote "MIKE C." in huge block letters, then underlined it. "Mike, you're gonna get your own big honcho office in your own area, and you'll be able to pick your replacement, of course."
The kid shook his head, laughing, as he listened to me explain the logistics of furnishing an office to match Marge's, the Royal tones a little garish for a man's office, and how the job was. "So, you bs'd your way in, then bs'd your way up?" He asked like it was really interesting to him, and I just nodded. "The company will be worse off for your retirement, Mr. Cambell." He told me, and I smiled a little bit. When my son, the new District Manager, and my granddaughter, the newest employee of the original office, came and sat down, though, I sent a quick thanks up to Marge, her business having literally saved our family.,
|
"Hi, my name is Phil."
"Okay... so are you new here?"
The receptionist blinked. It was a middle sized company, Keel & Sons, but I suppose she still knew everybody there.
"Well, yeah, just got hired yesterday. I'm the new Intern."
"You're not in the system."
I froze. Beads of sweat came dripping down my neck. It was my first day on the job, that would be almost natural. Except I'm the only one who knew it.
"Well, I guess the interviewer got lazy and forgot, maybe I can speak to my future boss and ask about it." I said with a nervous laugh.
The receptionist smiled.
"Well, you'll need an ID card too. I'll give you a guest card for the day, return it to me at the end of the day, and before you're finished, make sure you get yourself a real ID card after talking to Arthur in Security."
I flashed a smile back and muttered a quick thank you. I suppose it was normal to be nervous. Now to see if the boss will recognize me.
Wait, which room is the office? I turned back.
"Do you know which room is Alan's office?"
"Mr. Mcdooghul? Wow, fancy that, first name basis with the boss. 3A, turn a right, and go straight forward."
"Thanks."
I walked my best nonchalant walk. Several times I would've thought security would've cuffed me, but then again, I had an ID badge.
The door was open when I arrived.
I tiptoed in, not knowing what to expect.
"You're late." said a voice.
Mr. Mcdooghul turned around unimpressed. "Late for your first day, Marty?"
"Sorry Sir, got stuck in traffic and got lost in the halls. Also, its Phil."
"Well, don't let it happen again, Marty- Wait a minute, who's Phil?"
The boss looked confused and scratched his chin.
"I'm Phil, the guy you hired a few months ago. I start today?"
The semblance of awkwardness dissipated from his face and was replaced with a vague sense of recognition.
"Oh, yes, I forgot, sorry. I think I remember interviewing you. Now, why weren't you here the past few months?"
"I'm not sure Sir, you just told me I start in a few months. I figured today was as good as any."
"Well, you're not going to get paid when you were not here."
"That's fine Sir. Also, I think I'm not in the system yet. The receptionist told me I haven't been registered."
"Well, we'll just have to address that later, won't we? Come on now, let me show you your first assignment."
The boss walked around to his desk and showed me to a small folder.
"Is this my cubicle?" I asked, laughing awkwardly.
"Well, only if you work hard enough." he replied. "Now, you are assigned to project 1X-2. You can meet the boys now, get an ID card, and for God's sake don't go in room 12C."
"Thank you Sir."
"Is there anything else?"
"No, not really Sir."
"Then I believe you will be busy. Then I will leave you to it."
Thunder rumbled in the background.
"Talk about timing." he laughed.
I laughed along too, as I did, and hurriedly scrambled out the door.
Well, I already violated one rule, might as well see what 12C is all about.
As I walked up, I could feel the steps getting colder. After nine more floors, I made it.
The door handle was very cold, freezing, I had to use my sleeve to open it.
I didn't have to step inside. Something grabbed me and I only remembered darkness after that.
I saw a bright light.
"Hi, my name is Phil."
| 2018-07-22T08:55:48 | 2018-07-22T08:50:26 | 28 | 21 |
[WP] For years, there's been a room in your house where time stops. You can stay in there for as long as you possibly want without aging, and not a single second passes outside of the room. One day, while in the room taking a nap, you're awoken by the sound of furious knocking at the front door.
This was inspired by an r/askreddit post and I thought it might make for some cool stories!
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When I bought this house, the old man who was the previous owner had been oddly skittish and very nervous when him and the estate agent were showing me around. I could even hear him muttering under his breath sometimes. At the time I just put it down to him getting old and not being entirely there in the head.
Now though, I think I understand why he was like this.
You see, I bought the house, and it was only once I moved in that I found the following note left by the old man:
>*Hello,*
>
>
>*Thank you for taking possession of my house. There is not much I need to say here, just hope you will take care of this house as well as I did. You should know that the valve in the toilet needs replacing soon! It’s been making weird noises for years, I just never got around to it…*
>
>
>*Also, there is something else about this house that you should know, but I won’t specifically tell you what is odd about it, I will let you find that out for yourself - just as I did many years ago.*
>
>
>*All I will say is that one of the rooms in this place isn’t like the others.*
>
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>*I have lived a very long life, and I’m now ready to move on - but I can’t while I stay in this place, hence why I sold it at a good price so I can get out of here sooner and finally live the last few years of my life.*
>
>
>*You seem like a nice guy, don’t let that room get to you like it did for me.*
>
>
>*Kind Regards,*
>
>
>*Frederick*
Obviously, when I first read this I thought the old man, Frederick, was down-right insane. What does he mean there is an odd room in the house? I took a thorough look around all the rooms, but couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. The letter left me on edge though, as much as Frederick might be crazy, surely there must be something to what he was saying?
Being paranoid, I looked into the history of the house. Again, I found nothing odd, it was built in the late 50’s, the same time as the rest of the houses in this suburb, I couldn’t find any old news stories about people being murdered or anything along those lines either - so at least he wasn’t referring to anything like that in his letter.
Not finding the meaning to Fredrick’s cryptic letter, I did what most people do when confronted with something you think is odd or crazy; I just tried to forget about it and move on, like walking past and ignoring a homeless person on the street.
So I moved my stuff into the house and got myself set up, and slowly but surely the months passed by as I settled into my new job and the area.
It was therefore, entirely by accident that I found out about the “odd room”.
You see, I live alone - so although I had 3 rooms, I only ever slept in one of them, used one of the other bedrooms as a room for my computer and other gaming consoles, and the third was home to my ill-advised purchase of some gym equipment from a few years back when I convinced myself that I was going to get fitter.
It was when I decided to start up an exercise schedule again when I found out something odd about the nature of this room.
Every time I went into that room, without fail, my phone would stop working. It wouldn’t stop working entirely, it just can’t reach the web - any web page I try to load just sits there trying to load… Which was a massive pain in the ass considering that I wanted to try and watch movies or shows while on the treadmill.
Now, normal people might have just shrugged it off and figured that the wifi doesn’t reach the room or something; but being the “IT guy” for my work, not solving a basic technical issue like this would keep me awake at night.
So I started by doing some testing. The first thing I found is that my phone only stops working the moment the door is fully closed - if the door is even open a tiny bit or isn’t fully latched then my phone works. I figured this would be a good enough work around, to just keep the door open all the time.
But my curiosity was piqued. Why would closing the door stop the internet on my phone from working? That shouldn't be possible unless the thing was made solid metal and the rest of the room is a faraday cage!
So I bought my laptop into the room and started trying to load various web pages while using a packet tracer to see what happens. The results were, like the room itself… odd. I could see that the requests would be made and get sent from my laptop, but they would just never reach the router. In fact, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t even ping the router while sitting in the room with the door closed.
I also noticed that as soon as the door was closed I wouldn’t be able to see any wifi signals in fact, almost as if the room *is* some kind of faraday cage.
After a good hour or two of trying various tools and tricks to see what the hell was going on, I was starting to get extremely frustrated. Looking at my watch, I realised that it was now ten at night! Time seemed to have flown by, I had literally wasted a good four hours of my Saturday trying to fix this.
I leant back in the chair and looked to the window that had the blinds drawn, pondering what I could try next. Maybe I should just give up and accept that for whatever reason, this room is like a faraday cage. Maybe I should make a small hole in the wall to see if I can find a metal mesh in the wall? That would certainly explain it.
This is when something clicked; there was light trickling through the blinds.
Which is odd, considering it’s ten at night; it should have got dark hours ago.
Frowning, I got up and walked over to the blinds, then used the cord to open them up.
My jaw went slack as I looked out of the window at the houses across the road.
It looked like a picture.
Now, that’s not a figure of speech - it *literally* was like looking at a picture of the street I was, by now, quite familiar with. First of all, the sun was still very much up in the sky - but that alone could be dismissed, perhaps my watch had just broken or something.
No, what I couldn’t dismiss was the sprinkler on the lawn across the road. The water it was spraying was frozen perfectly still in the air. When I looked harder I noticed some other things as well. There was a car, with a driver in it, just stopped in the middle of the road. The leaves on the trees I could see weren’t moving one bit either.
Even on a perfectly still day the leaves on trees move.
I stood and stared for a few minutes, but nothing changed. I even slapped myself and pinched my arm a few times to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
Somewhat bewildered I dropped my laptop, forgetting about the internet issues I was trying to fix for now, and *ran* from the room.
Bursting out of my front door I didn’t know what I was expecting; but as soon as I opened it I was greeted by a familiar world in motion. The frozen sprinkler was continuing it’s repetitive *psst psst psst* sound as it sprayed water, the car I had been watching was halfway up the street and turned around a corner as I watched.
Confused, I ran back inside again, went into the room, closed the door and once again looked out of the window. Yet again, the world was frozen, the sprinkler’s water frozen in the air.
Now, I’d like to say I immediately realized what was happening like some kind of character in a movie, but in reality what I did was just *stand* there for a few hours in the room. I watched as my watch continued to tick forward, it was seemingly uncaring for the frozen world outside of my window.
By the time I finally wrapped my head around the fact that yes, it did appear that time was frozen when I went in this room, my watch said it was four in the morning.
Shaking my head out of derision at the situation I left the room, finding with a quick glance out of my door that it was indeed still light outside. Getting an idea I went and searched through my paperwork, and after a good while of looking I found the letter from Frederick.
I re-read it, *multiple* times.
It made sense now. I had been living in this house for months, yet had only just found the “odd” room he was talking about in this letter.
*Continued below*
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##The Lonely Room
CW: Depression, discussion of suicide
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I wake up in the room. Did I really just hear that noise? I sit in silence for a few minutes. The knocking on the door repeats. Maybe if I sit still in silence the knocking will go away. The knocking repeats, and I stand up.
The house is Victorian. There are three other rooms on this floor. The room opposite this room is my bedroom. The other two rooms are a gaming/hobby room and my office for when I am working from home which is always. The room that I am in has no windows or closets. The yellow wallpaper simulates the sun for me though and keeps me serene. I bought the house when I got a promotion a year ago at my accounting firm. It was a celebration of my financial success.
The room where time stops was supposed to be a storage room, but I later found a note under the floorboards that explained that the original owner used to come in here to get away from it all because time stopped here. At first, I thought that was nonsense. One day, I felt tired so I took a nap here, and when I woke up no time had past. I tried looking into the original owner, a woman named Charlotte Walker. The only information is that she was a rich woman who hung herself in that room. I have a history of depression myself, and I have often felt a kinship with her.
The knocking repeats, and I go down the stairs. I hesitate before opening the door. Could it be a demon? Could using the magic of the room summon them? I hold my breath and open the door. It is my neighbor, Laura.
"Sylvia, thank goodness, I was worried about you." she says.
"Why would you worry about me?" I ask.
"Because you missed the neighborhood potluck, I texted you a few times asking where you were, but you didn't respond. I thought something had happened." she says. I never take my phone with me to the room.
"No, just lost track of time, sorry for missing," I say.
"You have been missing a lot of events. You missed book club and Joanne's pool party. I actually spoke with a woman at the pool party who works at the same firm. She says there is talk of firing you due to poor performance. Is everything alright?" she asks. I am taken aback in shock.
"Why would I be fired?" I ask.
"Well, I don't want to gossip, but she claims that you have not been turning in your work on time and don't attend meetings and seminars. You weren't always like this. I remember when you first moved in to the house about a year and a half ago that you were so bright and bubbly. If you have any problems, you can talk to me." she says.
"A year and a half? I have lived here for a year." I say.
"No, I remember. You moved in when my daughter Andrea graduated from high school. You came to her graduation party. That was last year. It is November now." she says.
"Wait, you mean it is not May?" I ask.
"No, I wish it was. I wouldn't have to rake the leaves." she says.
"Oh, whoops, I lost track of time again. Sorry about missing your party." I shut the door in her face to get out of the conversation.
I run upstairs to my office and log into my work computer. My inbox is overflowing with unanswered emails. The top one catches my eye. It is an email from my supervisor telling me to report to a disciplinary meeting. If I don't attend, I face termination. It was yesterday. I missed it. I look at today's date. It is a Saturday. I won't get fired until Monday.
I put my face in my hands and start to cry. How could I be so stupid? Time never stopped in that room. All that stopped was my brain. Now, I have to pay the piper. How many other events have I missed because of that room. I walk back into the room and look around.
Its so empty. I look at the yellow wallpaper. I used to see it as a bright color that brought me joy; now, I realize how sickly it is. This ugly room has ruined my life. I look back in the floorboards where I found the note and thought about Charlotte Walker. Maybe we are alike in more ways than our usage of this room.
---
Hey, I know this is a rather dark story. I just want any reader who is reading this who is experiencing depression to contact any of the numbers in the link below or your local crisis hotline.
https://www.psycom.net/get-help-mental-health
| 2020-10-04T08:57:56 | 2020-10-04T07:33:20 | 134 | 26 |
[WP] You are secretly the richest person in the world. But to avoid suspicion of having so much money, you decide to work a normal office job. One day, your boss fires you. But what he didn't realise... Was how incredibly petty you are, and the lengths you will go to get back at him.
Damn, I came up with this idea while I was waking my dog this morning, wrote it down, then went to school and forgot all about it, I cant believe this post blew up the way it did, and I am very thankful for everyone who commented and especially for giving gold 👍
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Living beyond my means always seemed not only unnecessary to me, but pointless. Sure, I could do whatever I wanted and be whatever I wanted, but I had seen what money could do to people and those around them. I didn't want to be another chump with "yes men" around me telling me how good of a job I was doing, regardless if I actually was.
So when I won the lottery, I kept quiet. Not only did I not tell my friends, but I didn't even tell my family. Instead, I retained a lawyer and financial advisor and just invested. Before I knew it my bank account just grew and grew until I was worth $140 billion dollars.
When it came to my day to day life, I tried to keep i simple and I never saw a reason to stop doing what I loved. I mean hell, I was lucky. How many people can say that do what they love every day when they go into work? And keeping my secret from co-workers was easy. When I went on vacation to Paris, it was seen as completely normal. What they didn't know what I took a private jet there, stayed in a suite at the Four Seasons and ate at Michelin star restaurants each night.
For a moment, my life felt perfect--but all good things must come to and end. That end was Craig. He was the new creative director at my agency and from the moment I met him, I knew I didn't like him. For one, he had no talent. He didn't get to where he was based off of his work or ability to lead a team, he got there because he was bully that knew how to manipulate those around him. I wasn't one of those people and I saw straight through his act.
It didn't take long for me to realize that as soon as Craig joined my team, he had set his sights on me. His goal was to destroy my career and turn everyone against me. He started by criticizing my work and rewriting every single word and sentence I showed him. His ideas were moronic and off strategy, but since he was the boss no one had the guts to call him out on it. When I did call him out, all the others would shrink down in their seats and look away. No one dared tell the boss he had a bad idea and boy was Craig going to make sure I paid for disagreeing with him.
It started with little things. Like that deadline I could have sworn was Wednesday was suddenly Monday. Or files would go missing from the server. With time it grew and grew until suddenly mistakes were being made that required the team to work over the weekend and I was being blamed. It was so obvious, I don't know how I didn't see it coming.
It was a Friday morning when Craig called me into a last minute meeting. When I walked into the conference room, there sat HR, alone at the table with a folder. Craig's face went serious and as I sat down and told me that he was sorry but I "just wasn't the right fit here". HR then explained to me that my time with the agency was terminated and they would ship my belongings to my home address.
I stood up, trying to hold back the tears in my eyes and Craig smiled. He smiled as if to say, "I won" and before I could say a word, HR led me out the door and out the office.
For months I sat at home and dwelled on what happened. I tried to piece together what happened and how it got to the point where they would fire me. As I began to sort through all of the events that had unraveled I began to see the connection: Craig. Every step forward I'd make, he'd ensure I took two steps back. Well, little did Craig know that is screwed with the wrong girl. Not only was he going to pay for what he did, but everyone at the agency was going to pay for following him blindly.
The account I worked on was the largest client the agency had before, it was worth millions of dollars. So naturally, the best way to destroy a tumor is to cut off it's blood supply. So I bought the client, the entire company, under an alias name.
The next step was to hire a chairman and CEO that would act as an instrument to my plan. My team privately met with dozens of candidates and it didn't take long for me to appoint someone to head up the company that ensured me he'd follow my direction without question.
In the meantime, I found another job. In fact, it was a better job with a title and pay increase that I may have not needed, but at least demonstrated they saw my value. Each day I'd come home from work and communicate with my team and CEO, directing them on steps they needed to take to ensure the success of the company. First being--fire all of the advertising agencies they had partnered with.
For one particular ad agency, however, I requested the CEO personally deliver the news to the creative team himself. I told him to handle the process as he saw fit but there was one thing he needed to say upon termination: "I'm sorry, but you're just not the right fit here."
It didn't take long for news to spread about the great loss and changes within the client's organization and within about a year, after losing their largest client, the agency closed.
Eventually, that agency became a distant memory and I was happily promoted at my job, working as a creative director for a place I loved. It was early fall when a resume came across my desk with a familiar name and a huge gap in employment history. He had already been through 2 interviews earlier that week and I was the last point of contact as the hiring manager. I gleefully saw the calendar invite pop onto my computer and that afternoon I walked to the conference room where candidates waited to meet with their potential employers.
I pushed open the door and Craig looked up. His smile quickly disappeared and he went as pale as a ghost as he saw me standing at the door. I had recently gotten married and he had not realized who I was since my last name had changed. I smiled brightly and without a word sat down in front of him. He stuttered as he opened his portfolio book and began to quietly go over his work with me, conveniently skipping over the work from the agency we had worked at together not so long ago.
I quietly listened and as he paused to take a breath. I leaned forward, looking at him directly in the eye and smiled. "You know what, Craig", I said, "I'm sorry, but you're just not the right fit here."
&#x200B;
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They didn't realize what they had done. It wasn't that he fired me. Hell, I could deal with that. It was that they were a dishonest pricks when they did. That pissed me off.
Little did he know I was rich. Not just "Fuck you Rich" but "Fuck Me Rich."
Fuck you rich is where I can spend money to fuck someone over just as a fuck you. Fuck me rich is where I have enough that I can fuck myself in the process and even if it stings *a little*, it will hurt them *a lot* more.
I had just wanted a job to kill time, relieve boredom, and hide the fact that I was stinking rich. Nobody expects the meek collator. But no, they had to screw around with me.
That's fine, I would just have to find other ways to relieve boredom. My initial thought was to just burn the place to the ground, but that would be too simple.
So instead I bought the company. My first move was to transfer out anyone who knew I was fired. Easily accomplished. I gave them a bump in pay and sent them to Detroit. Every time it looked like they would quit I would either bump their pay just enough to where they thought it made sense to be that miserable or just buy out the competition preventing them from leaving.
Phase two was developing a squirrelly personality. Someone no one wanted to interact with. That was easy enough. I just modeled myself after the senior staff.
That's where things got fun. I started adding more and more administrative requirements from corporate. Reports, discussions, meetings. I added bureaucracy until everyone effectively had five to ten bosses and nothing could get done. I made the entire company a living hell.
The next phase was to call in auditors and consultants. Oh these guys were great. They were able to spot all the stupid rules that had made, all the redundancies, but even better they were able to bring a sense of dread to the company at large.
All the while, I waited, letting Bill move my desk from location to location. Stealing my stapler. Until the entire house of cards collapsed and then I burned the place down.
| 2019-03-04T09:01:49 | 2019-03-04T06:36:44 | 2,500 | 315 |
[WP] It turns out that werewolves and vampires can look at an eldritch abomination without going insane, resulting in these two species becoming humanity's guardians against cosmic horrors.
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One step at a time, Sophia reminded herself. Don't think about how far the horizon is. Don't think about how much you need sleep. Above all, don't think about Them.
One step at a time.
So she dragged her herself forward, ignoring the blisters underfoot that popped whenever a hard stone pierced her ragged shoes. Sweat dribbled down her face, slicking her threadbare clothes, threatening her grip on the old, empty shotgun. Her throat ached for water, the hardest of hardships to ignore, so she tried to distract herself by studying her surroundings. Except there was nothing to see, just bare desert that stretched for miles, dotted with the occasional, dried-out shrub visible through the shimmering heat.
Again and again, her thoughts came back to the water in the bottle strapped to her waist.
But if she needed any more convincing to save it, she had only to look at her companions, who complained or asked for refreshment not at all.
Miller limped along with the help of a walking stick, wrapped in layers and layers of black cloth despite the harsh climate. Underneath his hood, however, he didn't appear to sweat. Pale, wrinkled skin spoke of his advanced age, a number Sophia had thought unbelievable at first, but had long since grown used to. His eyes, however, burned with determination—he had always been the one to spur them forward whenever they felt like giving up.
"One step at a time," he muttered, guessing at Sophia's thoughts.
"You're doing it again," she said wryly. "Can't I have some privacy?"
He grunted. "You're a sixteen year old girl. People your age practically shout your thoughts to my kind. Bet Naomi agrees."
Their other companion snorted in amusement. The great, gray wolf strolled along easily, though saliva kept pattering onto the cracked dirt from her lolling tongue. Sophia brushed a hand across her coarse back, taking comfort from the sensation. Naomi's shoulders came up to Sophia's waist—years ago, when Sophia had been a little girl, Naomi had often played the part of a blanket on winter nights, large enough to smother her comfortably.
Sophia suppressed a wince at the wolf's midsection, where patches of fur were gone, replaced by scarred flesh that showed her ribs. The wolf hadn't eaten for weeks now—game was scarce in these parts. She could conserve her energy and heal faster if she reverted to human form, but alas, that was no longer possible. For when Sophia looked at the sky, as though to confirm the fact once more, she could see, next to the blazing sun, a silvery full moon.
Though Miller had told her often about a time when sun and moon lorded over their own domains, she found it hard to believe without seeing it for herself.
"Doubting my story again, aren't you?" Miller said.
She began to shake her head, an instinctive reaction, but chose to sigh instead. "Not really. Just ... I would've liked to see what it was like. Before the Things had come."
Dust puffed up when Miller struck the ground a little harder than usual with his cane. "No, you wouldn't. Times weren't much better. People fighting against each other. People fighting against my kind. And Naomi's here, though I suppose we aren't to blame."
Naomi rolled her shoulders in a shrug.
"We gotta eat," Miller said simply. "Deep down, we're all just monsters. Me. Naomi."
"I don't believe that," Sophia said.
"You've seen me kill people," he said. "Drink them dry. Tear their heads off to get to the sweet arteries. You've seen Naomi eat them too."
"Those were raiders. They would've captured me. Used me for ... whatever they want. Plus, that was years ago."
"Not many people left these days anyway," Miller said, knuckling his back with one gloved hand. "Those Things sure get hungry after they breed. Hey, Naomi, what's up?"
The wolf had perked up suddenly, sniffing the air. Then she gave a yip of joy and bounded away, toward a jutting rock. Sophia and Miller gave chase, until at last they gathered around it, panting lightly.
"Never seen a damned rock before?" Miller said, clutching his chest.
Naomi nudged Sophia's bottle, and pointed at the rock with one paw. Sophia blinked, and then hefted her shotgun like a club.
Miller looked unconvinced. "I say, if this unleashes scorpions or snakes like that other time, I'm gonna levitate your ass into a sandpit next time we see one."
The wolf barked in response, but Sophia tuned out their bickering. Instead, she bashed the rock with the butt of her weapon. At first, the hard surface repelled her efforts, but slowly, she began chipping pieces away. The sound echoed eerily through the windless wasteland around them.
Suddenly, a large piece fell away, and a small stream jetted out, wetting the sand where it fell. The trio scrambled around it, scooping handfuls greedily into their mouths, or in Naomi's case, licking the puddle on the damp soil.
"Well, I'll be damned," Miller said. "Water from a rock. Those Things really messed up this world, didn't they? What's next, a Quarter Pounder from a cactus?"
Sophia grinned and began to ask him what he was talking about, when the ground behind them exploded. The force sent them all sprawling, but it was the roar afterward that scrambled Sophia's mind and set her bones rattling in her body.
"Hell," Miller said. Sophia began to turn around, but he grabbed her head and forced her face-down into the sand. "Bloody hell. It's one of them."
Sophia stammered, "A T—Thing?"
"Yeah." Next to them, Naomi had leaped to her feet, facing the threat and snarling. "Big one too. Not like those little babies we killed before."
The creature roared again, and images flashed through Sophia's mind—spiked, tentacles; black, dripping wings; lashing tails of bladed bone; jaws of sword-like teeth. They came from Miller's descriptions—he had never let her see one herself, for a human's mind wasn't equipped to deal with the sight. So he had said.
"We gotta run," Miller said, pulling her to her feet. His head was faced away. "Naomi, you gotta guide her."
The wolf barked in disagreement, but Miller forced one of Sophia's hands onto her pelt, making sure she gripped it. "Get her out of here!" he said.
The Thing screeched, an entirely alien sound that was nothing like its previous calls. Sophia felt a hot, sticky wind pick up—this one must have wings, then. The ground quaked with its movement, and then Naomi took off at a quick trot, forcing her to keep up.
After several steps, she realized that Miller wasn't with them.
She almost turned around then, but Naomi sensed it coming and yanked her aside.
"What about Miller?" she cried.
A voice rang out then, even louder than the Thing's. "You stand before a vampire lord, one who has walked this earth for millennia while you were still a crawling grub stranded in the cosmos. On your knees!"
And then there was a thunderclap, followed by swishing and wet, ripping sounds. Miller screamed, but so did the Thing.
The wolf looked deep into Sophia's eyes, then to the distant horizon, and then behind her, toward the fight. She shrugged out of Sophia's grip and nodded her head forward. Sophia's eyes grew blurry as she understood. Throwing her arms around the wolf, she said, "Make sure you bring Miller with you, okay?"
Naomi licked her on the face, and then broke free and tore after the Thing, howling her own battle cry. Sophia forced herself to move, first at an unsteady, stumbling gait, and then into a full on sprint. The cries of anguish, pain, and rage slowly dwindled into nothing.
Sophia ran and ran, tears streaming down her cheeks. She knew what her protectors could do; they'd destroyed Things before, running them down with strength and power, and most of all, speed. She knew how fast they could run; Miller could even fly if he wanted to.
She knew they could catch up to her with ease.
But this time, they never did.
***
*Thanks for reading! Hope you liked it. Check out my [sub](http://reddit.com/r/nonsenselocker) if you'd like more of my work.*
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Turns out the stories were true. Vampires existed, werewolves roamed the countryside during full moon and aliens were out to completely and utterly destroy us. Well technically, they weren't aliens in the context that we usually see and describe them, they're more like all-powerful beings coming from outside the universe and don't have a spaceship. Unfortunately, they're still out to destroy and devour us.
Thomas Jefferson is an accountant for Parker, Parker & Parker, a toothbrush-producing company lead by three men all called Johnson and for another hour or so, he has no idea that the above that was just described is the undeniable truth. Right now, Thomas is simply running through some calculations as a final check for the sales of the first quarter of 2017. Exciting stuff, really, but not really. If Thomas had to describe his life in one word, he would probably use the all too commonly used adjective *dull*. He wanted some action in his life, something else than the yearly evolution in toothbrush usage in the state of California. And luckily for him, at exactly 16:45, that action he so craved was presented to him on a golden platter. Or more precisely, on his calculations. Because at 16:45, a werewolf named Ragnar, last descendant of the famous Viking King, flew through the window of his office onto his desk after being thrown there by his charming wife Helda, an ancient vampire from upstate New York.
Why Helda threw Ragnar onto Thomas Jefferson's desk at exactly 16:45, we'll never know. And neither will Ragnar for that matter, he never could quite understand why Helda was mad sometimes. It was at 16:46 that Ragnar noticed Thomas looking at him in a state of shock. Good thing he wasn't in his werewolf form, Ragnar considered.
"Greetings, good man," Ragnar began, sounding as inviting and friendly as possible. "I am Ragnar. Sorry about the desk and stuff. What is your name?"
It took Thomas a good few seconds to recover his composure. *Alright,* he thought. *This guy just flew through the window, onto my desk and destroyed it in the progress. His name is Ragnar and he just asked me my name.* Making that list in his head was rather important to Thomas. When something unexpected happened or he was in danger, his mind would start to race thinking about all the things that could happen and more often than not that would result in a panic attack. The list had been his go-to trick for a few years now to prevent such things from happening again.
"Hello," he answered. "Uhm, my name is Thomas Jefferson. Are you alright? Nothing broken or anything like that?"
Ragnar laughed at that. "Something like this can't even scratch me, Son of Jeff. Last time I got hurt was when the wife discovered I had broken the rules of Asgard and slipped into Valhalla to have some fun with my old companions. Good times, good times. I still carry the scars, wanna see?"
"That's quite alright, thank you." *I'm clearly dealing with a madman here,* the list began. *He claims to have been to Asgard and Valhalla and only his wife can hurt him apparently.* "If I may ask, Ragnar. Why is it you came flying through my window and destroy my desk?"
Right at that moment a woman, the most beautiful woman Thomas had ever seen, came floating through the broken remains of the window and landed a few meters away. The look she gave Ragnar kind of gave Thomas the hint that she might have been the reason for his unfortunate crash landing.
"Ragnar, you sneaky son of a bitch. Don't stay away when I'm hitting you." She yelled with a most powerful voice. Then she saw Thomas and her eyes widened, seemingly in shock.
> Want to read more? /r/PromptRuined
Hey everyone, thanks for reading. It's been a while since I've written anything but I felt like this prompt was a perfect setup for a full-length story. This is part 1 and a build up to the eventual story. I will be posting updates as much as possible in my subreddit. I don't have the time to continue now since I have to leave, but I have something nice planned out for this.
Consider this a part 1 of many!
| 2017-09-23T10:41:42 | 2017-09-23T09:49:19 | 154 | 14 |
[WP] For days you've heard this rhythmic trilling sound in the middle of the woods, and it seems to be coming from underground. You excavate day and night, unearthing strange ruins, until you find the source of the ringing. It's a Nokia phone buried in the rough stone, and someone is trying to call
|
There's an eternal pause as your finger hovers over the 'answer' button. Obviously something's wrong. Obviously. Phone at the bottom of a series of ruins? Ringing? It's Nokia, so it's possible that maybe someone just buried it down here and it survived? But this place clearly hasn't been explored in centuries. Not since it was inexplicably buried, dooming the prior owners of all the unnerving skeletons you've pushed past to find the little phone.
Durability just doesn't seem like the right answer here. Your thumb lands on the answer button just as it does something it hasn't in days.
It stops ringing.
You let out a breath, something like relief and frustration. That was a lot of damn work for nothing but maybe it's better this way. Maybe you didn't want to know who was calling.
Besides, you've just found all these strange and wonderous ruins! This is your chance for 15 minutes at fame!
You pocket the Nokia and pull out your own phone. A few well placed calls and within an hour you're on tv, answering questions with news reporters while federal agents scramble to find out who owns these ruins. Who *owned* these ruins. The architecture isn't like anything they've ever seen, not in the US at least. It's a bit Roman, a bit Greek, nothing that should be as old as it is, but as the discoverer of the ruins, you're invited to Europe to speak to a world-class archeologist.
Well, you've never left Iowa before, so you jump on this opportunity! The next thing you know, you're on a first-class flight to Italy to tell some ancient geezer everything you know about this ruin.
Everything, that is, except the little phone still burning a hole in your pocket. It was the catalyst of all this but something about it scares you half to death. There's just no reason to mention it, as far as you're concerned.
You meet the archeologist at the ruins of Pompeii. It's not necessarily that you've always craved visiting this site, but you're certainly not going to turn down a free tour. And there are a couple other tourists who seem cool there. Not to mention a host of other specialists who are far more intelligent than you, hanging onto your every word.
It's good to be exciting for once.
"I think we can all agree," the wizened expert rattles, as you walk through a large stone hall, "that the very reason your ruins are so remarkable is because of their distinct resemblance to this era of roman architecture. Why, it's almost like-"
A grumble sounds, deep within the Earth.
You lick your lips. They'd told you Vesuvius was inactive, or at least, that there was 'practically 0 chance of it erupting. You'll be safe.'
But judging by the looks of alarm on the various members of your group, there may actually be a reason for alarm.
"Now now," said the expert. "There's no reason for alar-"
This time he's cut off by an explosion louder than you knew sounds could get. The next frantic minutes are of abject panic as you all make for the door, as if you can somehow escape this.
You can't.
The building collapses and the last thing you remember is someone shoving you down
\---
When you wake up, it's dark. You can hear people shuffling around and moaning. Some are crying. You don't blame them.
"Hey. Hey are you awake?" It's one of the younger archeologists, a student who was bursting with excitement to join your group. "We're pretty screwed, man," she says. "No one can get service, the smoke's totaled our phones, and the professor thinks maybe there's some kind of toxic gas. Fuck, man."
Because she mentions service, you pull out your personal phone and give it a go. Turns out she wasn't wrong. Your phone is toast, smashed in the escape attempts.
They just don't make phones like they used to-
You break out in a cold sweat. Slowly, you pull out the Nokia from your pocket. It lights up, cheery as can be.
"Oh my god, is that..." Her voice leaps up an octave in excitement. "Oh my god, guys, get over here, check this out!"
For the second time, in a short time, you're pretty sure you're going to be the hero.
The scientists gather around and one pulls out his crushed glasses.
"Oh my god, it's a fucking Nokia. Who even owns those anymore," he scoffs. "What a loser."
You glare at the man, in the dim light of your phone. "Whatever. It works, and that's the point. I'll make sure you're the last one rescued."
You dial 911 and wait.
*"We're sorry, the number you entered could not be completed as dialed. Try again."*
The phone repeats the message with every number you put in, from personal numbers, emergency, work, friends... Everyone starts to lose hope and soon your new little crowd has vanished. The heat from the molten rock around the building is starting to get to you, and you sit down in despair.
After a moment or two, you start to fiddle with the phone. There's just not much else to do. You check the contacts and find only the phone's own number in it.
"What do you suppose happens if I call this number on this phone?" you ask the student.
She shrugs. "Usually it tries to give you voicemail or something. But who knows. It's busted."
You give it a go. It doesn't return much of anything. Just freezes for a moment, before flashing the message 'Call sent'. You try again and again and each time it just flashes 'Call sent'.
"It's busted," you confirm, before putting it down and burying your head in your hands.
The hours stretch on into days, confirmed by your little Nokia that seems to run off endless energy. Something's wrong here but you're too dizzy to put two and two together. Everyone's gone so quiet, you don't notice when the others start to die. You notice the smell, that's about it.
You're the last one to go now. You lie on the ground in the hall, the crypt, and stare at the stupid phone. You thumb the button but in your fading vision, you can barely see the light.
Then it vibrates. The light flashes on and displays a message.
'Call received.'
It begins to ring.
\---
Two thousand years later, light shines on the ruins for the first time as a young man, intrigued by the sound of ringing, begins to dig in the forest behind his house...
___
Read more stories at [r/TalesByOpheliaCyanide](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesByOpheliaCyanide/)
|
The sound called to me like a lover from the bed chamber. It's call was hypnotic, enticingly familiar. I could not ignore it any longer. Each day that I walked through the forest it beckoned me again and again. Today, I could not ignore it.
The first hour, I clawed at the ground making little progress. So, I ran to the hardware store and purchased a shovel looking crazy covered in dirt. The quizzical look on the shopkeeper's face did not convince me to abandon my charge.
I returned and dug for what seemed like eternity. I never paused for a break, never stopped to regain my breath. I was perplexed and determined to uncover the secret behind its hypnotic ring. Day passed into night and I unearthed strange canisters in faded red and green bearing the names of long forgotten elixirs or tonics. Mountain Dew and Coca-Cola must have been popular in the before times, as I found many. Along with these I found strange cotton tubes wrapped in a brown paper every few inches. Marlboro some spelled. 'Strange indeed' I thought.
Then I came across a truly confounding artifact. It was a porcelain oval with two holes drilled in on each side where something else once attached itself. 'Curious indeed' pondered, I.
Then on the morn of my third day, the ringing grew in pitch and volume. I was so close I could dance. My muscles ached, my throat was sandpaper, and my stomached gnawed at my own ribs. A few more shovel loads was all it would take.
The pit I had dug was now around 40 feet deep and I had to scurry up and down with my dirt to throw it aside. Many times I fell dropping the dirt back in with me, but as tedious and tiresome as it was I had ad finally found it. A small box like device with the words Nokia etched in its center just above a green screen that flashed the words unknown caller. The ring that bellowed out now was beautiful and I closed my eyes a moment to enjoy its sweet canary-like trope.
I pressed the green button on its lower left side and pressed it against my face, but the ringing had now stopped and a robotic voice echoed from within, "We've been trying to reach you. This is your final courtesy call. The extended warranty on your car is about to expire unless payment is made to..."
A flashing battery logo flashed on the screen and the screen went black. I shuddered in abject horror. 'What the...'
| 2020-07-01T08:08:06 | 2020-07-01T06:20:57 | 75 | 27 |
[WP] Everytime you touch somebody you get a flash of your entire future with them.
|
I clasped my hand onto Peter's backpack to avoid losing him as we pushed through the crowded market. As we wended our way though the crowd, I caught snippets of my future with every stranger I brushed up against. One man was a cashier who would sell me some Advil later that day. One was an old lady that I would give up my seat for on the bus tomorrow. We would chat and she'd tell me about her grandkids. I passed a pretty girl and foresaw an exciting night in a plush hotel room, I'd have to remember to strike up a conversation with her later. Easy enough, we'd stop by the same restaurant tonight for dinner anyway.
The crowd thinned out as we left the vicinity of the market, and finally I could see the Seattle skyline across the docks. Dark clouds rolled across the sky, mirroring the waves of the ocean beneath.
"Should've bought an umbrella," Peter said, squinting up worriedly. I clapped a hand on his shoulder, nodding as I processed what I saw.
"Walk a few minutes that way," I pointed down a narrow street. "And there'll be a shop to your right that exclusively sells umbrellas. You're going to buy a bright yellow one. I'll tell you right now that I don't like it, but you'll love it. I know because you're going to be ranting about it nonstop on the way back to the hotel."
Peter blinked at me. "I hate it when you do that," he grumbled with mock annoyance. "Thought I'd be used to it by now." I grinned, which quickly turned to a grimace as I put a hand to my temple.
"Gives me a killer headache when we go through the crowds though. Too many visions. Ugh."
"You deserve that. You know what, I'll defy fate. I'm not gonna pick the yellow one." Peter set his shoulders indignantly and headed down the street.
I laid down on a nearby bench, still pressing a hand against my head. I admit, my little gift had served me well in life. I knew that when I approached Peter the first day of middle school, knowing that I was meeting my lifelong friend, roommate in college, and best man at my wedding. Funny enough, I couldn't see the face of the girl I was marrying. That's the thing with my visions. They're specific to the person I touch.
I groaned and turned on my side. My head was practically exploding with pain. I gritted my teeth, knowing I'd just have to suck it up and deal with it. This was an unfortunate side effect of my gift, and it happened often when I interacted with too many people. There was at least one other consequence I could think of. And it was that it made my dating life, well... somewhat boring.
I could meet a girl, buy her a few drinks. I could see our future together. A week or two, a month, hell, sometimes even years. I could see happiness with them, but what was the point if it was never going to last? Things got predictable, especially with me, when I could literally predict the outcome of every relationship. So I didn't bother. The point is, I've never met a girl I could marry.
I rolled to my feet and made my way to the nearest pharmacy. Peter was going to get lost (a detail I'd neglected to mention because I thought it'd be funny) so I had about half an hour to kill. I bought some Advil from the man I'd run into earlier, and on an impulse, decided to get a cup of coffee when I saw a cute barista behind the counter of the coffeeshop next door.
"Hey," she smiled as I approached. Up close now, I realized she wasn't just cute. She was insanely beautiful. I can't do her justice by trying to describe her, so I won't even try. I took a moment to catch my breath before I said, "Can I get two medium lattes please?" I owed Peter one after making him get lost.
"Sure thing," she said, as she swiped my card. Her voice was sweet as a song. I desperately tried to clear my head. God, what was wrong with me? I'd never considered myself a romantic. I stepped back as I watched her work. A loose strand of hair fell across her face as she picked up the milk jug. I couldn't wait to see our future together. Maybe I'd brush her fingers when she handed me the coffee....
"Here you go." She smiled, holding out the lattes in each hand.
"Thank you," I said, hesitantly smiling back. I reached out with both hands and took them. For the span of one beat of my racing heart, our fingers touched. That should've been all it took to conjure up a vision of our entire lives together. But I saw nothing. Not darkness, which was what I sometimes saw when I met someone who was dying soon. Just... nothing. How was this possible? My breath caught in my throat.
"Excuse me," I blurted out as she turned away. She turned back, a questioning look on her face. "I know this might sound weird..." I hesitated, and barreled on before I could lose my nerve, "But can I see your hand?"
She lifted an eyebrow. Then laughed. "This is a first," she said, holding out her hand. I took it in mine, expecting... I don't know, *something.* But she was a blank slate. Unreadable. Was this what other guys went through? They'd just jump blindly into the cold water without knowing the girl's entire future? It was near unbearable.
"I, uh..." My mind searched furiously for what to say as I stood there awkwardly holding her hand. "I know this may seem a little unexpected, but... would you like to get coffee with me?" She watched me, her expression amused.
"I mean, I know you work in a coffeeshop and all. So it doesn't have to be coffee. Maybe tea. But anyways. I thought... I mean, it would be nice..." She burst out into laughter. It sounded like music.
"This might just be the worst attempt a guy has ever made to ask me out on a date," she said, and my heart fell. Perhaps it showed on my face, because she stopped laughing. But I could still see traces of it in her eyes.
"Yes," she said seriously, and squeezed my hand. "Coffee, excuse me, *tea* sounds lovely." She gave me a playful smile. "Meet me at the end of my shift. Seven o'clock. Don't keep a girl waiting." She let go, motioning forward the next customer. I stepped back, feeling elated. I could sense a crazy grin starting to spread across my face. As I turned to leave the door swung open.
"There you are," said Peter, staring at me. "Why didn't you tell me I was going to get lost? Asshole." I laughed as I saw the curved handle of a yellow umbrella sticking out of his backpack.
"Nice umbrella."
"Shut up." He shifted on his feet. "It was on sale," he added, reluctantly. I laughed again.
"Here. I got you a coffee." He took it and grunted what could've been a thanks.
"You look happy," he observed. Peter didn't miss much. "I saw you talking to the girl. What did you see?"
"That's the thing, man." I glanced up at her and our eyes met. She quickly looked away, but I could see a smile dancing on the corner of her lips. "I didn't see anything. It's never happened before."
"Mmm." Peter looked down at his coffee and smacked his lips appreciatively. "You think it's gonna work out?"
I smiled. "For the first time ever... I have no idea."
|
"Mom I.." The truth was heartbreaking, I couldn't bring myself to tell her the truth.
I had never used my gift on her before, why would I? who wants to know how or when a person they love will die, especially their own mother.
"what is it, what did you see" There was fear in her eyes, I could see her tears begin to swell and her bottom lip tremble, as she desperately wanted an answer.
"Mom" I struggled to say something, my chest felt like it was on fire, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
I couldn't tell her the truth, so I lied, "the cancer kills you 15 years from now" a tear rolled down my cheek as I lied to her, if she knew the truth she would be inconsolable and scared, I didn't even understand what I was seeing.
She covered her mouth as she gasped, I reached out to comfort her, "it's ok honey, it's ok, really that's plenty of time" She smiled as tears streamed down her face. We had just met with the oncologist who told my mother she had breast cancer.
The truth was she would only be alive for another three months, and it wasn't cancer that killed her, she would die a lonely death, alone with no one by her side.
I'm a Seer, my gift came about when I turned 8 years old.
When I used my gift to see my mother's death, I saw her running with my siblings and me through what looked like a forest I had never seen before, the entire wood was covered in deep snow.
My gift was still young, I could see everything from the host's eyes, not hear or understand her thoughts like older Seers, but only see, my gift had not advanced that far yet.
The vision of the last moments of her life was excruciating for me to watch, Each step she took through the snow seemed like a struggle, My Mother would keep looking around as if she was running from something, "what is she running from" I thought.
Eventually in the vision she handed me my baby sister and ran in a direction away from us, as she turned back to take one final look at her young family, I could see myself trying to break free from my older brothers holding me, it seemed as though I was trying to stop her; of course I would, I would be the only person who knew what was coming next.
After travelling away from us for a few minutes she stopped walking. She looked down at her hands; they were shaking, Was she cold? or was it fear that made her shake?" I had so many questions.
Suddenly I could tell she was panicking, she would look around the empty forest frantically, as if she was searching for something or someone, she began sprinting through the snow as fast as she could.
She had run right towards them, they were police, well they were wearing police uniforms anyway.
The three men pointed their guns at her. She raised her hands towards the men, then like a flash, she was lying in the snow, I could see blood, then nothing.
"Your gift truly is remarkable Joseph" she hugged me, I didn't want her to let go, I never wanted to move from this spot because she would be safe.
I wanted to tell her what I saw, but I needed to understand what I was seeing first, I needed help.
They say it's a gift to be a Seer, right now it feels like a curse.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major edits* Thanks Luna and Xcessive
| 2017-01-11T08:14:18 | 2017-01-11T07:04:21 | 285 | 19 |
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